Five Things I Saw & Heard This Week

Five Things: Wednesday 10th April

April 11, 2013 by martin colyer 1 Comment

Willy Moon, I Wanna Be Your Man
Short. Stylish. Funky. Great guitar. His new album is 28 minutes long. That’s the way to do it.

Buying Cords from Eric Clapton
Well, not actually from Eric. Going to the wonderful Cordings on Piccadilly to peruse the trousers only to discover that EC liked the shop so much, he bought it. Shops that you feel will be forbidding and aloof usually turn out to be the opposite. Davidoffs’ cigar store on Jermyn Street and uber liquor-emporium Hedonism in Mayfair spring to mind—great, knowledgeable staff and no pressure…

The Art of Listening to Records
I listened to two great stereo systems this week, Alex’s and George’s. The same day we’d been in Cordings Alex put, by total coincidence, Eric Clapton’s “The Core” from Slowhand on his Technics deck… After listening to George’s – driven by a Garrard deck set in concrete – it seemed like Taj Mahal and the Pointer Sisters were actually in the room as we listened to “Sweet Home Chicago,” a great performance which I had forgotten all about. I always appreciate amazing stereos when I hear them, and am in awe of the lengths people go to – steam cleaning records, adding AC/DC converters, setting decks in concrete and the like. (see below for George’s response!)

Part of George’s extraordinary stereo

Then I saw this on London Jazz Collector’s blog: “I read something recently on the subject of record and hi-fi reviews which struck a chord. It was this. No-one really knows what anyone else hears. Thinking about it, it’s true. I only really know what I hear, and sometimes I’m not even sure of that. Sometimes I am only remembering what I thought about what I heard, which is not the same thing. I am remembering an opinion, not a sound. Every now and then I put on a record I haven’t played for a while, but remember thinking at the time was one of the best pressings I had ever heard, only to find it rather ordinary. It hasn’t changed, I have. Or the system has. Or something I am not aware of has. Worse, I recently upgraded a copy of a record I can remember really liking. Only to find, on playing, I no longer like it at all…”

Actually, worse is my admission that my favourite place of all to listen to music is one that any self-respecting audiophile absolutely scorns: the car.

Spring arrives, time for Calypso
As if to prove my point, no sooner has the sun come out (after what seems like an eternity) when “Lorraine” by Explainer bursts into life on the iPhone as I’m driving around town. Truly, one of the great intros: a bouncing bass, a chattering guitar, tss-tss hi-hat and The Explainer shouting: “Taxi! Taxi! Airport Kennedy!” And it sounds fantastic in the car…

Rock ’n’ Roll. Phew!
My friend Pal Hansen had this to say about photographing people whose work you know: “Sometimes you get that commission to photograph someone whose work you admire and whom you think is genuinely interesting. Many times, you walk away disappointed and with a distaste for whatever you did admire them for in the first place.”* It’s a little like that with most rock biographies, I find. And, my God, books written by musicians are seriously depressing, no? I’ve barely recovered from the ghastly sleazefest that was Warren Zevon’s I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead when I pick up Dallas Taylor’s Prisoner of Woodstock. Taylor, Crosby Stills, Nash & Young’s drummer in the late sixties, is a favourite of mine, but this terrible tale of abuse, insecurity, drugs, surgery and ego was almost too awful to read.

* Pal then went on to say: “However, once in a while, someone who comes across as truly talented and nice is actually just that. One of my favourite actors, Forest Whitaker, is as nice as they come.”

From George
Just to set the record straight, so to speak, my turntable is a 50-year-old Garrard 301 from the days of British precision engineering. It is set into a plinth made of layers of lead sheet and MDF bolted together. The whole is supported on a slate slab which in turn is floated on 2 layers of air-filled BMX inner tubes for complete isolation from vibration. (The turntable in the Dobell’s exhibition was also a Garrard but made 25 years later when the company had been sold to new owners who took it downmarket).

The converter you refer to is a DAC (Digital to Analogue Converter) which is usually incorporated into CD players. Digital players only produce a series of signals which are either “on” or “off”, expressed as 1 or 0. They produce these at very high speeds, and the DAC decodes them and turns them into waveforms which amplifiers understand. At these ultra high speeds accuracy can be a problem. The more accurate the decoding, the better the music will sound. Mine is built for much higher levels of accurate conversion than are usually available from mass-market CD players.

AC/DC conversion is converting the current from the mains (in the UK 230V AC) to the voltages and type of electricity that will power audio circuits (typically DC, like from a battery, and in valve equipment circuits ranging from 3V DC to 500V DC).

Filed Under: Weekly Roundup Tagged With: Claude9777, Cordings, Dallas Taylor, Eric Clapton, I Wanna Be Your Man, Lorraine, Pal Hansen, Taj Mahal, The Explainer, Willy Moon

Five Things: Wednesday 3rd April

April 4, 2013 by martin colyer 1 Comment

‘January 26, 1962: Passed Dylan on the street, he said to me that he “didn’t know why so many things are happening to me.” I said that he did.’
Michael Gray writes a very nice piece on Izzy Young on the occasion of his 85th birthday. A couple of years ago in Stockholm we sat with Izzy outside his office, the Folklore Centrum, having tea with Sarah Blasko (Izzy is a magnet for any musician of a certain bent who happens to be in town). Here’s a photo of some of Izzy’s files. I’m guessing Irene relates to ‘Goodnight, Irene.’

After we leave, Sam (Charters) tells me that the last time Bob Dylan played in Stockholm, Bob’s people arranged for Izzy to meet him, and he ended up having a chat to Bob by the side of the bus. As they said goodbye, Izzy grabbed Dylan’s cheeks and waggled them, like a Jewish grandfather would do to his grandson. Security! Nobody touches Bob! Bob, however, burst out laughing… Sam said that Bob’s road manager told him it was the only time he saw Bob laugh on the whole tour…

BP Garage, Clapham Common Northside, Thursday
A man in front of me is slowly paying for petrol and weird “garage” shopping: A bottle of wine, Jelly Babies, Screen Wash, Iced Buns… so I idly pick up the new Bowie CD. He looks at me and says “Dreadful cover,” about Jonathan Barnbrooke’s white square over Heroes. I disagree and say that the fact that it created thousands of memes proves that it worked as one part of Bowie’s brilliant stealth marketing for The Next Day’s release. Who’s been that excited about an album launch in years? He smiles, says fair point, and Exits Garage Left.

We Love Site-Specific Street Signs & Slang!
“Artist Jay Shells channeled his love of hip hop music and his uncanny sign-making skills towards a brand new project: Rap Quotes. For this ongoing project, Shells created official-looking street signs quoting famous rap lyrics that shout out specific street corners and locations. He then installed them at those specific street corners and locations.” More here.

emusic Find of the Month
Marnie Stern, downloaded because of its title: The Chronicles Of Marnia. She’s a really talented “shredding” (ask the kids) guitarist who seems to have made an album that references Battles and Braids. It’s manic & great & slightly odd—fretboard squalling, swooping vocal whoops and wild drumming… Somehow I was disappointed that the cover wasn’t more like this…

The Voyage of the Dawn Shredder

Reading The Guardian Magazine two weeks after publication, and finding Stephen Collins being brilliant. Again.

Filed Under: Weekly Roundup Tagged With: David Bowie, Izzy Young, Jay Shells, Jonathan Barnbrook, Marnie Stern, Michael Gray, Rap Quotes, Stephen Collins, The Chronicles Of Marnia, The Next Day

Five Things: Wednesday 27th March

March 27, 2013 by martin colyer Leave a Comment

Poliça
If Rooney Mara was the lead singer of a band, it would be Minnesota’s Poliça. With her alt-Dusty Springfield arm gestures Channy Leaneagh seems – in the words of Daughter – to be the flamboyant conductor of this little orchestra that consists of a bassist and two drummers (the Independent’s critic thought the same). Joe Cocker’s Mad Dogs and Englishman tour had two drummers, as did Steely Dan’s ’73 roadtrip and there’s something wonderful and thrilling about the thump and paradiddle of synchro’d drumsets, especially when they control the beat as much as Ben Ivascu and Drew Christopherson. Chris Bierdan’s bass half holds the bottom end, half dances around the ghostly, swooning melodies of Leaneagh’s auto-tuned, layered and reverb-ed vocals. Even though she seems out of sorts for the first half of the set, the sounds coming off the stage are monstrous. The third number’s juxtaposition of solo vocals and pulverising drum breaks is nothing short of astonishing. Their set is a perfect length – 60 minutes – and for an encore there’s a ghostly solo version of the old folk song ‘When I Was a Young Girl’ followed by a new rollercoaster thumper. Fabulous!

Davidoff’s Cigar Shop, Jermyn Street

Youth In Revolt. The last sentence is not made up.
“British rap star Professor Green refused to let sub-zero temperatures freeze his secret gig at a bus depot on Saturday night. “I have got a lot of powers, but unfortunately controlling the weather isn’t one of them,” the ‘Read All About It’ singer joked to fans at the Kings Cross garage in London. Instead the star raised the temperature by ordering fans to thrash around to his tracks in order to beat the big chill. Meanwhile Pro’s stunning girlfriend, Made In Chelsea star Millie Mackintosh, was also in attendance to see her beau on stage. Millie proved she’s just like the rest of us as she was also seen enjoying a greasy pizza and bottle of beer to help keep warm at the exclusive gig. Professor Green was performing in celebration of Barclaycard Contactless now being accepted on buses.”

Arthur Rothstein, dust storm in Cimarron County, Oklahoma, 1936
Snowbound at my friend Kwok’s. We’re talking about Elliot Erwitt and his photos of Yukio Mishima, when he pulls this beautiful print out to show me.

I know it as the cover to Folkways’ Dust Bowl Ballads Sung By Woody Guthrie. Arthur had wanted Kwok to have it – he was given it by Eve Rothstein, Arthur’s daughter on November 11, 1985, the day that Arthur passed away.

Philip Larkin, Garrison Keillor and Bob Dylan go antiquing
I loved this drawing when John Cuneo did it in 2011, and this week it gets blown up and put over a whole wall at the Delaware Art Museum. Roll On, John!

Filed Under: Weekly Roundup Tagged With: Arthur Rothstein, Channy Leaneagh, Davidoff's Jermyn Street, Delaware Art Museum, Dust Bowl Ballads Sung By Woody Guthrie, John Cuneo, Poliça

FTIS&HTW: Wednesday 20th March

March 20, 2013 by martin colyer Leave a Comment

Southland
The fever dream that was Beasts of The Southern Wild led me back to Kate Campbell’s “When Panthers Roamed In Arkansas” – first heard on a CD accompanying the wonderful Oxford American magazine’s Music Issue, maybe ten years ago. The small girl at the centre of the film sees giant aurochs – ancestors of domestic cattle – astride the landscape, a result of the ecological disaster that’s befalling them. Kate Campbell, with a Nashville twang but a Memphis musical sensibility, kicks off the song with a fast “Ode To Billy Joe” vamp, before the horns storm in:
“I miss Elvis in the movies,
With his dyed black hair…
Wish that I could find an ice-cold
Double Cola somewhere,
If I had a time machine
I’d go back when panthers roamed in Arkansas
And buffalo made their home in Tennessee”

The great last verse tips its hat to ecological disaster, too:
“Frogs are disappearing
Through the ozone hole,
I can’t find one song I like
On the radio…
They didn’t have these problems
Way back when panthers roamed…”

From Mick Brown’s great piece about the Discreet Charm of Nando’s in the Sunday Telegraph Magazine
“The most tireless contributor to Rate Your Nando’s [a website for devoted fans of the Chicken chain] is Ryan Wilson, who has eaten more than 1,000 meals in 139 branches across the country. Wilson lost his Nando’s virginity, so to speak (‘Actually it was more enjoyable than losing my virginity. There was some conversation at least’), about 11 years ago at the Birmingham Broad Street branch… He had been taken there by a friend from work named Dylan Wesleyharding. ‘I think,’ Wilson said, ‘his dad got a bit carried away in the 1960s.’ ”

At One Point, Five Cowbells

He’s waited over twenty years for this… a happy, happy fan

Trouble Funk, Islington Assembly Rooms. The DJ plays go-go. As Mark says, we’re about to see ninety minutes of go-go, PLAY SOMETHING ELSE! Big Tony on Earthquake Bass. A beat so relentless it shakes the beer in your glass into a flat, flavourless liquid. “Uptown, Downtown, Around Town, All Aboard!” They do, indeed, Drop The Bomb. And it was great to see the legend that is Bill Brewster, after all these years.

Whatever Happened To Shea Seger?
Watching Cameron Crowe’s We Bought a Zoo (yes, yes, I knew it wouldn’t be up to much) I noticed a familiar name in the credits. The name was Shea Seger, a Texan who – transplanted to London – made a great album, May Street Project, in 2001 featuring a great single, “The Last Time.” I went online to see if anyone else had spotted it. And of course someone had. Kristian Lin in the Fort Worth Weekly, last April: “Even though I didn’t care for the movie when it hit theaters last December, I was intrigued by a minor mystery about it involving Fort Worth singer-songwriter and recent Weekly cover subject Shea Seger. [Early] in the movie a woman hits on Matt Damon. [She’s played by] an actress named Desi Lydic. This character is never named in the film (and indeed never appears on screen again), but in the closing credits, she’s identified as “Shea Seger (Lasagna Mom)”. Given how knowledgeable Cameron Crowe is about music, it seemed inconceivable that this could have been a coincidence. I sent inquiries about this to 20th Century Fox, but nobody there seemed to know [anything]. This week, we got an answer from the filmmaker himself. The writer-director of Say Anything… and Almost Famous tweeted us: “may street project… truly great album. there was an outtake from our elton john doc where he was raving about her too.” No word yet from Shea Seger herself about Crowe associating her with sex-hungry moms, crushes on Matt Damon, or lasagna, but if she gets back to me, I’ll let you all know.”

Nigel Kennedy interview, The Guardian
I wonder why Linda Nylind’s picture looks strange. When I catch it on the Guardian website I realise. Someone’s said, he’s upside down, we can’t have that!

Do you care about fame?
It’s useful: it’s given me choice about what music I play. And of course it’s more heartwarming to play to a full concert hall. I remember one concert in Dublin, when I was 19 and completely unknown. About 50 people turned up to a hall that could hold 5,000. I said, “Look, come round the pub, I’ll do it there.” So that’s where we all went.

Is there anything about your career you regret?
Not getting a band of my own together earlier. When I started playing my own stuff, people in the classical world would say: “Who does he think he is, writing his own music when he could be playing Beethoven?” I should have realised sooner that that’s not the point. No one has to be Beethoven: he’s been dead a fair amount of time now.

Filed Under: Weekly Roundup Tagged With: Beasts of The Southern Wild, Fort Worth Weekly, Islington Assembly Rooms, Kate Campbell, Kristian Lin, Mick Brown. Nando's, Nigel Kennedy, Oxford American, Shea Seger, The Guardian, Trouble Funk, We Bought A Zoo

FTIS&HTW: Wednesday 13th March

March 13, 2013 by martin colyer Leave a Comment

Alabama Shakes, Always Alright
Best moment in the very ho-hum Silver Linings Playbook (a film fatally scuppered by having Robert de Niro play the father, so the whole thing just reminds you of Meet The Whatevers, but with a less likeable male lead). Jennifer Lawrence is great – the Juliette Lewis du nos jours, but the film less than the sum of its parts. Always Alright, however, is a keeper. Great lyrics, great vocal, a driving Stax-like beat topped with a bendy guitar riff, and I think that it’s still a free download at the Shakes site.

Bill Frisell: Two Hands, A Guitar, Minimal Amplification, Just Like A Woman
Don’t you wish that you could play guitar like Bill Frisell? I know I do, every time I see him. There’s just something so human about his playing. I always think of him halfway along a scale from Joe Pass to Derek Bailey. Here he is, on a small platform, could be an arts centre. There’s the door to the toilets just behind him. The crowd sounds small, maybe fifty people. Cars go by outside on rainy streets. He plays the song, taking his time, taking the melody through a series of thoughtful stages. There’s always a little Reggie Young in his playing, rooting him in the Southern musics – here there’s a little Wayne Moss or Joe South, too, whichever of the two Blond On Blonde guitarists it was that invented the lovely filagree’d guitar figure that breaks the verses of the Nashville original of Just Like A Woman.

One Night In Nashville (Just Off Carnaby Street)
…or, two hours in the company of some great folks from Nashville, promoting the Opry and the Country Music Hall Of Fame (one of my most favourite museums). Steve and I learn that there are few country songs about – or references to – cats (unless you count Nashville Cats and Kitty Wells, of course), that the glorious Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue was inspired by songwriter Richard Leigh’s dog, and that Vince Gill is officially the nicest man in Nashville, as well as a killer musician and singer.

Reich & Glass Removals
Alexis Petridis on Steve Reich, The Guardian: “Well, I take the Chuck Berry approach,” he smiles. “Any old way you use it. In other words, music has to have legs. You could walk into a coffee shop and hear the Fifth Brandenburg Concerto. Well, it’s perfect for just sitting down and having your coffee and making the atmosphere more pleasant. But you could take that same music home and play it on your headphones and take out your score and say: ‘My God, this is the most unbelievable counterpoint I’ve ever seen in my life.’ Anywhere you put it, any way you orchestrate it –Wendy Carlos, Glenn Gould, you name it – if the notes are right, the rhythms are right, it works.’ After completing his studies in composition at Julliard in his native New York and then at California’s Mills College, Reich famously declined to continue in academia, preferring to support himself via a series of blue-collar jobs: at one point, he and Philip Glass started their own furniture removal business, which these days sounds less like something that might actually have happened than the basis of a particularly weird Vic Reeves sketch.

Just As We Move Our Office from Edgware Road…
An interesting-looking exhibition about to open around the corner at Lisson Grove. Pedro Reyes. Musical instruments made from illegal weaponry.

Filed Under: Weekly Roundup Tagged With: Alabama Shakes, Always Alright, Bill Frisell, Country Music Hall Of Fame And Museum, Grand Ole Opry, Just Like A Woman, Lisson Gallery, Nashville, Pedro Reyes, Philip Glass, Reggie Young, Steve Reich

FTIS&HTW: Wednesday 6th March

March 6, 2013 by martin colyer Leave a Comment

Bruno Mars, Jonathan Ross Show, ITV
I started this blog because I watched Bruno Mars at the Brits a year ago, and loved the performance of his bass player so much that I wanted to write about it. It was these non-headline moments that I found interesting, and no one seemed to be writing about them. This week Bruno does the promo round for his next tour and turns up at Jonathan’s with a piano player, an organist and a pretty good gospel/r&b song. He’s very slick and can really sing, but what’s great is the interplay between his voice and the stripped-back accompaniment, and it makes a change from the usual banal “just like the record” performance.

Almost Finishing Michael Gray’s fine Hand Me My Travelin’ Shoes: In Search of Blind Willie McTell
“… McTell comes storming through here, fusing great feeling with an intimate looseness of delivery that he has never captured on record before. It is thrilling to hear—and this is what he keeps up as he moves on to the marvelous Savannah Mama, where, right from the magnificent opening moments, his guitar work is so concentrated and precise, so felt and so assertive (this is what inspired the Allman Brothers’ slide style), while his vocal lines flow across all this precision with the grace of heartfelt risk-taking. He sings with an experimental mannered fluidity somehow freed from artifice by open ardor.”

Noma Bar’s Time Out London Rock ’n’ Roll Cover
As always, brilliant.

West Of Eden?
Kanye West to Paris’ Le Zenith crowd: “There’s no motherfucking awards or sponsorships or none of that shit that can stop the dedication to bringing y’all that real shit.” He continued: “No matter how they try to control you, or the motherfucker next to you tries to peer pressure you, you can do what you motherfucking want. I am Picasso. I’m Walt Disney, I’m Steve Jobs.”

There’s Something about Kodachrome and New York Summer Evening Light in the Seventies
From Robin Aitken in Scotland: “I am in the process of writing an article about the Dobell trip to the first Newport Jazz Festival in New York which was attended by ten of us—Myself, Rick Antill, Micky Brocking, Jack Armitage, Ray Bolden, John Kendall. Doug Dobell, Ginger (can’t remember his name), Lou Watkins and Jimmy Reid with occasional appearances by Albert McCarthy… I took some photos in New York using Bill Colyer’s Konica 35mm camera which he had just bought and lent me for the trip—a typically generous gesture. I have attached one of my favourite photographs, which I took outside Jim & Andy’s at West 55th Street in late June 1972—the last incarnation of that famous musicians’ bar.”
Doug’s in proto-Tom Wolfe mode, and how cool is Ray Bolden? I loved working for the legend that was Ray—the man who ran the Blues side of Dobell’s— and friend to BB, Muddy, Wolf and the whisky makers of Scotland and Kentucky.

Left to right: Richie Goldberg (jazz drummer), John Kendall, Ray Bolden, Scoville Brown (clarinet and alto, who recorded with Louis in 1932 and played with many bands thereafter—check the Buck Clayton Quartet sides recorded for HRS in 1946) and, of course, Doug Dobell.

Filed Under: Weekly Roundup Tagged With: Bruno Mars, Dobell's Jazz and Blues Record Shop, Hand Me My Travelin’ Shoes: In Search of Blind Willie McTell, Jonathan Ross, Kanye West, Michael Gray, Noma Bar

FTIS&HTW: Wednesday 27th February

February 27, 2013 by martin colyer Leave a Comment

Psychic City by Yacht
I can’t even remember what this song was used for this week, tracking an advert, or a programme segment, or something. All I knew was that it hit all those Blondie/Ze Records/Waitresses buttons. Great—almost dumb, possibly smart—pop.
“I used to live in a voodoo city,
Where every little thing had its own secret life.
I might be washing up the dishes
And the kitchen might say,
“Hang around baby baby, hang around baby baby,
Hang around baby we’ll be baking a cake for you…”

And for when you have a few minutes to spare…
says Steve Caplin, and directs me to http://www.facebook.com/AwkwardBandAndMusicianPhotos. The first two are my favourites from a quick browse. The third? In the week that Heino releases a new album and it shoots to the top of the German charts here’s one he made earlier. As The Guardian reports: “The album contains cover versions of punk, hip-hop and hard-rock hits—to the disgust of many of the bands who originally performed them [this in reference to Heino’s alleged far-right views].” Heinous, no?
But Made Parole, Will Travel! may just be the finest album title ever…

Johnny Marr, Shortlist interview
Can you remember the moment you fell in love with the guitar?
“Yeah, I was four or five and there was a little wooden toy hanging in the window of a shop that sold mops and buckets and brooms around the corner from my house in Ardwick. Whenever we walked past it I’d be doing that thing that you see dogs on a lead do, where they just dig into the pavement and don’t move. My mother got so sick of it that she bought it for me. I painted it white and stuck on beer bottle tops to make it look like an electric guitar, and I carried that thing around everywhere. I couldn’t believe it when I discovered there were shops that sold real ones…”

Jack&Natty

On the left: Natty Bo. Marcel’s Nephew Jack. Not in that order
Note to self: definitely catch the next Yiddish Twist Orchestra gig.

“And the sun don’t shine anymore/And the rains fall down on my door ”
From Rolling Stone via Dave Ashmore: “The Band’s Garth Hudson saw some of his belongings sold off this weekend by his landlord in a Kingston, New York, garage sale after failing to pay rent on his loft space for about seven years. The multi-instrumentalist, most-known for his organ and keyboard playing, kept the space for storage. He stored everything from personal possessions and household items to handwritten sheet music, and among the goodies are uncashed checks, including one issued from EMI in 1979 for $26,000. Hudson’s Facebook page had a note to fans encouraging them to attend the garage sale and purchase items to allow Hudson to buy them back. “We were told everything there was sold,” read the note. “We were not seeking funds, but were asking purchasers to allow us to reimburse them for what they bought as we were not on premises ourselves.” The owner of the space has already made an agreement with an online auction company to sell off the music-related items on April 1st. As for the fans, they’re already on it: one woman bought Hudson’s household items and personal belongings for a few thousand dollars with the apparent intention to return them to him.”

Filed Under: Weekly Roundup Tagged With: Awkward Band And Musician Photos, Garth Hudson, Johnny Marr, Natty Bo, Psychic City, Shortlist, Yacht, Yiddish Twist Orchestra

FTIS&HTW: Wednesday 20th February

February 20, 2013 by martin colyer 6 Comments

What I’ve Learned, Thom Yorke, US Esquire
“My grandfather would come to our house in the countryside, borrow one of our bikes, and disappear. He’d come back after dark and we had no idea where he’d been. If he ran into anybody, he’d just ask them where the good nightclub was. He did that right up until his nineties.”

The Disarray Of Staff Benda Bilili

Sad news that SBB are no more. Last year, Marcel and I went to see a preview of the film telling their story, followed by the band in concert, and both were wonderful. The film’s an uplifting piece of work full of great scenes (my favourite being when teen genius Roger—player of self-invented tin-can and wire instrument, having just been found downriver and asked to join the band—is given a stern talking-to by his mother and sister). The show was as riotous as a concert in a chapel can be, and finished with some of the finest dancing I’ve ever seen, especially as most of it was done by men on crutches and in wheelchairs.

Mr Hyde Mailout, extolling virtues of “Birmingham Scene”
IS THIS THE NEXT BIG MUSIC SCENE? shouts the headline. “What do you know about Digbeth? We do have one useful thing you should know about it: it’s been lazily dubbed the “Shoreditch of Birmingham” thanks to three young bands who are rising to prominence after spending their formative years hanging out there. Is “B-Town” 2013’s version of Madchester? Meet the major players and decide…”

So I do. I Soundcloud them all. Three bands from the, uh, West Midz. First up is Swim Deep: According to Mr Hyde, “producing ethereal, synth-heavy music that’s unashamedly poppy, yet also soulful and endearingly rough around the edges.” The band’s vocalist says “[Birmingham bands] are making the UK’s best music. It’s not all the same like in other scenes–it’s a really varied sound.” Mmmm. I say: Ordinary boy vocals. Ordinary melodies. Tinny beats.

I try number two. Jaws. Mr Hyde again: “their fuzzed-out shoegaze-indebted sound can’t remain in the shadows for long in any era that sees a new My Bloody Valentine album so warmly received. The vocalist says: “I heard someone describe us as Ian Curtis In LA, which is pretty cool.” Right. Ordinary boy vocals. Ordinary melodies. Tinny beats.

Sensing a pattern I move to number three, Peace. My Jekyll (sorry, I mean Mr Hyde): “Their gift is writing complex, Foals-esque tracks but with huge, sing-along choruses. The vocalist says: “Our music should make you want to shake and make you want to cry at the same time. And sometimes it should make you want to party.” Ordinary boy vocals, more guitars than the others, slightly less tinny beats.

I’ve got to say, five minutes in the company of each of these bands only made me think Where’s the new here? Why are they all so satisfied with replicating what’s gone before? Why are all the vocals so… dull? And how desperate are journalists to discover a new “scene”?

Lately, A Ken Colyer State Of Mind

Before filming an interview with John Williamson and his charming crew for a BBC 4 documentary, I had looked out some hopefully useful material. Among my favourite finds was this picture, taken by the Brighton Evening Argus, of Doug Dobell’s first shop, shopfitted by my dad, in 1956. The programme, to be shown in late May, focuses on the British Jazz Revival of the late Forties and early Fifties. My job was to help illuminate the extraordinary trip that Ken made to New Orleans in 1952, jumping ship in Mobile to play with some of his heroes, breaking the law in several ways to do so. I also recently compiled this piece for The Stansbury Forum about Ken’s pilgrimage, based on reminiscences and letters from Goin’ Home: The Uncompromising Life and Music of Ken Colyer.

The Mad Opening Number of A Chorus Line
My mother’s birthday. A show. The pre-opening night, the last of the previews, where the audience seems packed with the cast’s relations, which gives a peculiarly heightened air to the whole performance. It’s actually pretty great—in some ways a weirdly prescient view of Reality TV’s audition process—but my favourite musical moment comes right at the beginning. The opening number I Hope I Get It pits frenzied Seventies Lalo Schifrin wah-wah disco, all tom rolls and rim shots, against the Tin Pan Alley tune of the refrain, “I really need this job/Please, God I need this job/I’ve got to ge—t this jo—b.” Cue massed jazz hands and that particularly Michael Bennett-style of angular shock dancing. Magic!

Filed Under: Weekly Roundup Tagged With: A Chorus Line, “I Hope I Get It”, Birmingham Scene, Jaws, Ken Colyer, Lalo Schifrin, Mr Hyde, Peace, Staff Benda Bilili. Thom Yorke, Swim Deep

FTIS&HTW: Wednesday 13th February

February 13, 2013 by martin colyer Leave a Comment

Down Terrace
An in-your-face saga of the spiralling disintegration of a Brighton criminal clan, the music track for Ben Wheatley’s first film (from 2009) is a fascinating mix of transatlantic rural music. The none-more-English folk music of The Copper Family sits happily next to Robert Johnson’s Little Queen of Spades. Sea Shanties segue into acts of appalling violence while the plaintive, pain-wracked Are You Leaving for the Country? by Karen Dalton soundtracks the disposal of a body. And as terrible as that sounds, the music acts as a kind of “life goes on” comfort, especially in the scenes where the father, played by Robert Hill, sits playing guitar with his band of friends in the living room at the house in Down Terrace.

B Kliban: Lady Gaga’s Stylist, About 30 Years Early
Talking to Adam about the genius of the Canadian cartoonist, and—looking out one of his books—finding this great cartoon.

Thoughts While Running with Kid Charlemagne by Steely Dan in the Headphones
I’m struck by how this Seventies classic would work as Breaking Bad’s theme tune:

“On the hill the stuff was laced with kerosene
But yours was kitchen clean
Everyone stopped to stare
at your Technicolor motor home…”

“…Now your patrons have all left you in the red
Your low rent friends are dead
This life can be very strange…”

“…Clean this mess up else we’ll all end up in jail
Those test tubes and the scale
Just get them all out of here
Is there gas in the car
Yes, there’s gas in the car
I think the people down the hall
Know who you are…”

I don’t listen to Larry Carlton’s fantastic shape-shifting guitar solo, I don’t listen to Bernard Purdie’s lickety-split drumming, I don’t even listen to Paul Griffin’s funky Clavinet. I just listen to Chuck Rainey’s sublime bass, pumping and prodding and pushing and powering the song along.

From My Friend Bill in the States
ps: you’ll be amused to know that I’m performing in a Grateful Dead cover band called Feels Like The Stranger, playing our first gig in a Stamford CT bar on March 7th! I’m playing all the Bob Weir rhythm parts on an 18 song set list… sounds easier than done! That dude was all over the place re: chord shaping!! My left hand is a cramped, gnarled and numb mess… thus the name of the band… : ) C’mon on over, I’ll put you on the comp list : ))

Flight (Cassette) Deck
With The Cowboy Junkies’ version of Sweet Jane, Bill Withers’ Ain’t No Sunshine, The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Under The Bridge, and Marvin’s What’s Goin’ On, Flight is a film about alcoholism and addiction masquerading as a legal/action thriller—with a terrific soundtrack, and a nicely indie feel for a mainstream Hollywood production.

Look out for an FTISHTW Extra! on Bob ’n’ Bette’s Buckets Of Rain Session coming soon…

Filed Under: Weekly Roundup Tagged With: Are You Leaving For The Country?, “Flight”, B Kliban, Ben Wheatley, Breaking Bad, Chuck Rainey, Down Terrace, Feels Like The Stranger, Grateful Dead Cover Band, Karen Dalton, Kid Charlemagne, Little Queen Of Spades, Robert Johnson, Steely Dan

Five Things I Saw & Heard This Week: Wednesday 6th February

February 6, 2013 by martin colyer Leave a Comment

From The Blog Of Photographer Heather Harris
“The first four words of vocabulary we learned in Synthesizer 101 class at UCLA (circa 1972, so we’re talking monophonic ARP 2600s) were the descriptions of all musical sound notes: attack, sustain, decay, release. How fitting to the lifeworks of creative types.” Wow. Attack. Sustain. Decay. Release. That’s a manifesto right there, and a great title for a project…

Martin Carthy on Bob Dylan on Desert Island Discs
“The influence of British folk music shows in his later work—he started writing these really anthemic tunes… he was a great performer, a wonderful performer. I don’t believe that anybody who saw his first performance at the King and Queen down in Foley Street would be able to say he gave a bad performance. He stood up, did three songs, absolutely knocked everybody flat. People loved him.”

Is it right that you used to share a flat together?

“No [exasperated exhale]. This story started going round that he stayed with me when he came to London—no, he didn’t. But we did actually chop up a piano. The piano was a wreck, half the keys were missing and it was a very, very cold winter and my wife and I decided to chop up the piano so we took it bit by bit. And by the time Bob came along we were down to the frame. And I’d been given, for my birthday, a Samurai sword and Bob came round to have a cup of tea, and Dorothy—my then wife—said, “Make a fire, Mart,” so I got the sword, and he stood between me and the piano and said, “You can’t do that, it’s a musical instrument!” I said It’s a piece of junk and went to swing at it and before I could swing at it he was whispering in my ear, Can I have a go?”

The London Jazz Collector Thinks (A Regular Feature On His Wonderful Site)
“A bent piece of metal pipe with holes called the saxophone transforms human breath into a voice, drums extend the pulse of the heart beat, a piano exchanges ten for eighty-eight fingers, while the bass is the feet on which music walks. Instruments are physical extensions of human form and function that transform man into musician, the ultimate analogue source. Whilst the vocal singing voice can be beautiful, (though often, not) how does it compare with a stream of triplets and sixteenths soaring from Charlie Parker’s alto? It strikes me that not only are records the new antiques, they are works of art, the equal of art framed on gallery walls. You are not just a mere record collector, a figure of fun and pity, poking around in dusty crates. You are, in that immortal expression of Charles Saatchi, an artaholic, in need of a life-sustaining drink.”

This Fabulous Photograph Of John Lee Hooker Explaining It All

“I’m not getting any younger, but I’m not feeling very old, Not shoutin’ for my cemetery tomb soon, I’m gonna wait ’til John Lee Hooker makes room…”
Garland Jeffreys, ’Til John Lee Hooker Calls Me, from his latest album (can we still say that?) The King Of Inbetween, where, with the help of the great Larry Campbell, he continues to plow a furrow of his own making, never beaten down, a streetwise NYC poet, part Lou Reed, part Doo-Wop, part John Lee, still a ghost writer with 35mm dreams.

And From Next Week…
For you loyal seventeen followers—or Seventeen Spurious Widows, as an unreleased Bob Dylan song would have it—after one year or 52 posts, and prompted by a great time spent helping out Richard Williams on his new blog (thebluemoment.com, go there now!), a redesign—and to kick it off, a special issue devoted to Bob Dylan and Bette Midler’s hilarious and fascinating Buckets Of Rain session.