Dermot: Music

The List As it Stands. As If Any One Gives a Ding Dong Dang!

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 09:24:54 GMT

20. REM. Automatic For the People (1992).

19. Simple Minds. New Gold Dream (1982)

18. Levellers. Levelling the Land (1991)

17. Muse. Black Holes and Revelations (2006).

16. Stereophonics. Language, Sex, Violence, Other. (2005).

15. Neil Young and Crazy Horse. Ragged Glory (1990)

14. George Michael. Listen Without Prejudice (1990).

13. Oasis. (What’s the Story?) Morning Glory (1995).

12. Bob Dylan. Blood on the Tracks (1975).

11. Echo and the Bunnymen. Ocean Rain (1984).

10. Johnny Cash. The Man Comes Around (2002)

9. The The Mind Bomb (1989)

Top Twenty Albums: Nine; The The "Mind Bomb" (1989)

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 14:02:04 GMT

The sobriquet “Genius” is oft bandied about, and is de valued for it but when referring to this collision of the ideas and lyrics of Matt Johnson, and the musicianship of Johnny Marr that occurred in the Autumn of 1988, it seems genuinely appropriate, and flows naturally into the thoughts of the listener of this, The The’s fourth studio record Mind Bomb.

The true genius of "Mind Bomb" isn't just that phrase or just that one song; it's the overall context into which the album descends. "Mind Bomb" reaches into God, Religion, Politics and Love with a frankness that is almost mind numbing.

These songs are not for the uninvolved, and I have always used The The as an example of how my generation "got it" with respect to the direction our society was taking.

Well, how could we not? The Cold War, the Miners Strike and going into the second decade of the most wretched and cruel Government even by Tory standards defined my life at the time, freshly graduated when it really meant something, just married and about to embark on a career in teaching. It was clear to me, even it wasn’t to Ruth Kelly, which way things were going and we could either be ambivalent or fight back whichever way possible through the Labour Party and groups such as Youth Against Racism in Europe and the Stephen Lawrence campaign.

It easy to be cynical and say we were wasting our time. But I disagree and believe the agenda for so called New Labour was set in those times as we woke up to the fact that we would have to box clever regarding the Tory Press, and if that meant taking into regard the Middle Class Daily Mail demographic then it was a good thing, as Socialism is about delivering for the many and not just the few be it the elite for the Tories or the urban working class poor for the Labour Party.

But it often felt like we never get the Tories out again, and successive defeats in 1987 and especially 1992 were a real kick in balls as I just could never understand how anyone, let alone 14 million people could ever vote Tory.

The The encapsulate those times and Infected (1986) with the sweeping post industrial cityscape that is evoked by Heartland, where “the heart is being cut from the Welfare State” and “It ain’t written in the papers but it’s written on the walls, the way this country’s divided to fall” made a particular impact on me, but in Mind Bomb Johnson’s true skill is to blend geo political issues with the depth and intensity of human relationships in a collage of sweaty sexual desire and poignancy, against the backdrop world upheaval.

This from The Violence of Truth,

What is evil? What is love?
What is the force that possesses us?
Where is the beauty? Where is the truth?
Where is the force that watches over you?

And while the niggers of this world are starving
with their mouths wide open
What is it that turns the coins we throw at them
into worthless little tokens?

But it is the stunning prescience of Johnson’s vision of the clash of Islam with the West that takes the breath away. Whilst the USA and Britain were busy doing dodgy deals with Saddam and funding Bin Laden and his fanatics is Afghanistan due to the obsession with Communism, Matt was looking to East and not liking what was on the horizon, whilst at the same time recognising the culpability of the West for creating the economic situation that allows extremism to take root.

Islam is rising
The Christians mobilising
The world is on its elbows and knees
It's forgotten the message and worships the creeds

The lyrics however, are set to Marr’s quintessential upbeat jangly sound to produce commentary laced with hope.

If the real Jesus Christ were to stand up today
He'd be gunned down cold by the C.I.A.
Oh, the lights that now burn brightest behind stained glass
Will cast the darkest shadows upon the human heart
But God didn't build himself that throne
God doesn't live in Israel or Rome
God doesn’t belong to the Yankee dollar
God doesn't plant the bombs for Hezbollah
God doesn't even go to church
And God won't send us down to Allah to burn
No, God will remind us what we already know
That the human race is about to reap what it's sown

This record, bare in mind was penned in 1988. TWENTY YEARS AGO! Matt Johnson must be George Orwell re incarnated as this song may as well have been about the Israel’s squalid and murderous butchery during the ill-fated 2006 Lebanon War.

But the “Beat(en) Generation” is the icing on the cake regarding prophecy.

And our youth, oh youth, are being seduced

By the greedy hands of politics and half truths

We're being sedated by the gasoline fumes

And hypnotised by the satellites

Into believing what is good and what is right"

Watch status quo election campaigning, a failed foreign policy and our staggering dependence on oil and explain how this album is still not relevant almost 20 years later.

The The have been infuriatingly inactive and I assume the band is now dead, having only released a very limited amount of material since 1992 and the Dusk album.

Please come back again, Matt Johnson, you still have a lot more to share.

Rush: Snakes and Arrows (2007). In Praise of a Maligned Band.

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 18:55:35 GMT

It’s amazing how the mind works, how something banal can produce a fleeting thought, which then develops by a series of associations to lead you to re discover something precious, or find out something new.

Example….

Vaughan resigns as England Skipper.

I wonder what Phil Barlow would think.

I am at my computer loading iTunes.

Phil and I were both aficionados of legendary and oft derided Canadian rock band Rush.

I haven’t listened to them for ages, so I flick them on iTunes.

Whilst listening to Power Windows I decide to peruse Wikipedia and an hour or so later I am on the bus to Town in order to see if the Library have any of the band’s output I don’t have, and make the delightful and unexpected discovery that Snakes and Arrows is there and available to rent, along with an album of covers that Rush released in 2004 called Feedback and 1993’s offering, Counterparts.

Some context…

Rush are without a shadow of a doubt, the worst band I’ve ever seen live. Period. Absolutely abysmal.

It was 1991 and the band had decided to go back to their form of basics which is dreadful pretentious “progressive rock” with 10 minute long guitar solos, and even worse a 20, yes 20 minute long drum solo by which time I had lost the will to live and left before the encore. In addition “going through the motions” would be a generous description of giving the fans value for money.

I was devastated as I had become a big fan of the Canadian rockers due to their mid eighties output which was outstanding on all levels for the musicality and fantastic existential lyrics from drummer Neal Peart.

But their seventies output had been largely based around sword and sorcery literature and included such gems as Bartor the Snow Dog. Or something.

Music for teenage boys with pallid, spotty skin and an aversion to sunlight and other people. I could just about get why people liked some of the later seventies stuff such as Xanadu and The Trees, but you only have to read the track listing for Hemispheres to see what direction they were taking. Apollo: Bringer of Wisdom, I mean what is that all about?

Whilst 1980’s Permanent Waves still contained some of these tendencies, it also contained the US/UK Top Ten single The Spirit of Radio and led to a much more commercial sound on Moving Pictures (Tom Sawyer, Red Barchetta, Vital signs) and a move to the mainstream.

Signals (1982) saw the introduction of keyboards and in so doing alienated much of their fan base whilst being my way in to the band.

Rather like Depeche Mode, Rush have often fallen foul of the Music Press which included such MNE gems as “Geddy Lee sings like Donald Duck on helium” and more bafflingly; “Protect your kids, Rush are fascists” (1978).

I suppose this is due to the ideas that Tolkein and that ilk of writers are meant to be closet race supremacists and although this stuff may only appeal to a certain demographic, I see no evidence myself. Still it makes good copy and is a great example of the politics of denunciation.

In fact Signals contains a classic Marxist idea of alienation through the brilliant and thought provoking Sub Divisions and Neil Peart is particularly scathing of Globalisation and Nationalism on the Power Windows record.

Big money got a heavy hand
Big money take control
Big money got a mean streak
Big money got no soul...

And in Territories;

Better the pride that resides
In a citizen of the world
Than the pride that divides
When a colourful rag is unfurled

And a couplet for Gordon Brown to ruminate on;

So much poison in power
The principles get left out
So much mind on the matter
The spirit gets forgotten about

My favourite Rush record is the Grace Under Pressure Album (which takes it’s name from Hemmingway’s description of guts), which was to have brought in Steve Lilywhite to the control room, the band having been impressed with his work on U2’s War album, and looking for a more radio friendly sound.

But the Englishman had a better offer from Simple Minds and he spent 1984 ruining their ethereal sound and turning them into chanting Stadium Rockers, so Rush had a narrow escape.

Instead Paul McCartney and Supertramp producer Peter Henderson was drafted in to give Rush the commercial sound they craved.

And how it worked. This album is tuneful, rocky and musically creative and with stunning lyrics in which Peart takes us on a dark journey into the human soul.

The opening track, Distant Early warning reminds us of the real fears that our generation had about the threat of nuclear annihilation and the fact that in the eighties, the old certainties were being thrown into the air;

Left and rights of passage
Black and whites of youth
Who can face the knowledge
That the truth is not the truth?
Obsolete
Absolute

After Image using a more guitar sound, tells of Peart’s grief at the death of his close friend from school complemented by Lee’s soaring voice at his best;

I learned your love for life
I feel the way that you would
- I feel your presence
I remember-
I feel the way you would
This just can't be understood...

Keeping it real and honest.

We get to the album’s chilling core with Red Sector A in which the lyricist takes us on the journey to hell and back that Lee’s parents experienced at Auschwitz. Peart interviewed them at length and produced this stunning work. The sound is vaguely optimistic and this offsets the dark words, making them stand out;

Sickness to insanity
Prayer to profanity
Days and weeks and months go by
Don't feel the hunger-too weak to cry

A brave effort and a fitting description of what the Nazis did to the spirit.

Lee’s father said that when they were liberated they assumed that virtually everyone in Europe had perished otherwise how would it have been allowed to happen?

Are we the last ones left alive?
Are we the only human beings
To survive?...

'The whole album,' Lee said, 'is about being on the brink and having the courage and strength to survive.'

This theme is explored though The Enemy Within where we hear Peart battle with is own inner demons as the constant treadmill of touring and recording began to eat at the wordsmith’s grasp of what was real or imaginary;

Things crawl in the darkness
That imagination spins
Needles at your nerve ends
Crawl like spiders on your skin

leading the drummer to seek therapy for answers.

The album concludes with the best synthesis of keyboards and guitar to produce the ethereal sounding Between the Wheels, which produces a surprisingly uplifting end to a deep and challenging record.

The band went on to record the superb Power Windows record in 1985, but Hold Your Fire (1988) and 1990’s Presto were disappointing and the final nail in the coffin for me was the woeful 1991 effort Roll the Bones.

However some research led me to discover the awful twists and turns that Neal Peart’s life had taken in recent times as his daughter lost her life in a car crash at the age of just 18, followed by his wife’s death from cancer less than a year later; “Suicide by apathy” as Neal terms it.

The result was a lengthy hiatus for the band lasting ten years, but in 2004 Feedback saw Rush attempt to get back on the bike and last year the band released Snakes and Arrows.

As Rush records go it nods to Permanent Waves with it’s stripped down sound based on guitars, but it’s the dark reflective nature of the lyrics that stand out for me as unsurprisingly the theme of loss and it’s aftermath come to the fore.

Having said that, the three instrumentals are reminders that Rush can kick ass with the best of them and I look forward to a visit from the Band to the UK and Ireland with anticipation as the set list draws heavily from their ‘Eighties best.

Here is a live version of the classic Grace Under Pressure track Between the Wheels that closes the contemporary live set.

Songbook. Sky Three. Sunday's 11am. Gary Kemp and Ian McCulloch

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:53:29 GMT

“I confess to Almighty God, and to you my Brothers and Sisters that I did purchase gratuitously, and with malfeant intent the following vinyl records in the mid ‘Eighties. Duran “Notorious”, A-Ha “Hunting High and Low”, Spandau Ballet “To Cut a Long Story Short” (12” format), and most shamefully and without any mitigation being offered by this defendant; Roger Daltrey “Under a Raging Moon””.

Actually as Crimes Against Music go it’s not a really bad charge sheet. I have a weakness for pop. It’s longstanding. But I defy anyone to argue that the Cathy Dennis penned hit for Kylie Minogue “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” isn't three minutes of pure, unadulterated genius. Musical gold. And Hanson’s “Um Bop” which Phil Jupitas said was the sound of the little one’s balls dropping, a joke I repeated to my 1996 vintage Year 9 Class, an indiscretion only bettered by an off the cuff quip about Monica Lewinsky and some tippex.

The reason for this confession aired on Sky Three last Sunday morning. “Songbook” is a show where Will Hodgkinson, a likable budding muso with an endearing awe of his subjects, interviews a singer songwriter who explains with a guitar how particular songs came to be written, and then performs them acoustically.

Gary Kemp was first up, and whilst I absolutely loath “True”, and find it as guilty as Chris de Burgh’s abysmal “Lady in Red” in the realms of crimes against music and general human decency, I always had a sneaking appreciation for some of Spandau Ballet’s output and admired Kemp’s musicianship.

This was sealed by the London wide boy’s full and unequivocal support for the Miners, putting his principles into practice by taking the band to Sheffield for a benefit gig in aid of the strikers.

It turns out that Kemp’s politics were shaped by non other than Trevor Huddleston who gave the then 10 year old a guitar and tape recorder on the condition that he write his own songs and play them to him.

This resulted from the Bishop being a governor at Kemp’s school and spotting his talent and commitment to music.

Top man, and what the Church of England should be doing, getting stuck in and being involved in working class communities instead of obsessing about people’s bedroom habits.

Kemp spoke honestly about his upbringing, and what inspired him performing some of the old hits, which sounded very interesting in this context. But he proved why Tony Hadley was a very necessary member of the band. Kemp can’t sing a note.

The next show was just amazing telly. Captivating and spellbinding as Ian McCulloch told us the secrets behind some of the best music made by an Englishman in the ‘Eighties, performing “Rescue”, “The Killing Moon” and their brilliant 1995 comeback record, the amazingly evocative and haunting melody of “Nothing Ever Lasts Forever”.

McCulloch, like me, is technically blind and it was fascinating to hear him relate how this affected his musical development.

But he never let it hold him back and this show provided a reminder of why this band meant so much to me, and to countless others of our age group.

McCulloch rates “Ocean Rain” as the best album ever made. It’s good to have self-belief. I had it at 11…

Lou Reed. "Berlin" Live at Nottingham Royal Court Theatre

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 14:21:20 GMT

When you analyse the development of rock over the last forty years or so, all roads lead inexorably back to one man.

Lou Reed.

How so? Without the Velvet Underground and Lou Reed there would be no New York punk deriving from the Ramones, Patti Smith, Blondie and Television. Therefore no exportation to the white British Working Class of this art school generated sound. Vis no Sex Pistols, Joy Division or the Clash. Moving it on you have the Smiths, Springsteen, REM, the Stone Roses and then Nirvana and Radiohead following into the Libertines and the bands inspired by them.

The Beatles and U2, although mighty and deservedly massive sellers, really just reflected and stylised what was going on in music at the time, whereas Reed was genuinely innovative and what he produced spawned countless other artists, the old cliché being that the Velvet Underground album shifted only 2,000 or so copies at the time, but each person went on to form a band.

Our Sixth Form was universally mainstream as far as music went, the most experimental we got was Bob Dylan and you would have attracted derision for anything more offbeat.

It was only at University and coming into contact with Belfast Grammar School boys who had smoked pot, and listened to more ethereal music such as Lou Reed, Nick Drake and early Pink Floyd (Mike Fisher please stand up. He’s gonna kill me for this!) that I became exposed to stuff out of the conventional 18 year old standards.

Mike played me Transformer and the Velvet’s album, which I got. Eventually.

But Berlin… I just never understood it, and I think you need much more life experience than I had at the age of twenty or so, as the themes are pretty full on and something that I got a handle on from my teaching career and more recent work at the sharp end of people’s personal misery.

But anyone with an ounce of empathy, and more maturity than I possessed as a privileged (and it was a privilege in the mid ‘eighties) University student couldn’t be fail to be moved by the story of love, hurt and rejection narrated in this very special record which has the feeling of Cathy Come Home about it.

Reed released it in the direct wake of Transformer, and clearly the world wasn’t ready for it. But now, revised and revisited some thirty years on, it feels really fresh, and above all relevant for our times.

The show was stunning, and it helped that Rich somehow obtained second row tickets, so it felt incredibly intimate, but still with the innate power to move.

Reed is clearly passionate about the record and put his heart and soul into an incredibly intense performance, ably supported by his band, choir and wind section. But I was relived that the children crying section from “Kids” wasn’t present, as I can’t cope with it.

This event was possibly in the top five gigs I have ever been at. A total privilege. The Boy Robinson Dun Good.

The Fall Live. The Welly Club Hull

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 13:09:31 GMT

Ten minutes into the Fall’s set. We have been exposed to what can only be described as ear bleeding nihilism via a bizarre video featuring various iconic artists, and a soundtrack that the CIA should appropriate, as another ten minutes or so of that would have made anyone swear John Major was their bastard offspring. Andy says; “is Mark E. Smith indisposed and this is Plan B?”

Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of the Fall.

I saw Smith interviewed on telly sometime in the mid ‘Eighties and just thought, “What a ninny”, thus denying myself twenty odd years of pleasure.

Annoying, infuriating but ultimately challenging, interesting and in a bizarre way uplifting, positive and well, just darn funny is my take on Mark E. Smith and his merry band.

My starting point for the Fall was the Totally Wired compilation, charting the band’s best work from the late seventies until the late nineties when it appeared to be finally all over for a very volatile outfit.

Smith is the only permanent member and the group is prone to wholesale personnel changes such as what happened in 2007 just before the Reformation Post TLC record.

The studio in Phoenix, Arizona was booked but, depending on who you believe an incident that may or may not have involved a banana-skin, a corkscrew, a guitar-amp, and some whiskey resulted in Smith coming down to breakfast only to be informed by the Hotel Manager that all the band had checked out, no contact details available, only 48 hours shy of starting to cut this record. Ooops.

The Fall’s musical style is pretty free form. Repetition is deployed and on the records this is used as a backdrop for Smith’s idiosyncratic “vocals” which are almost more like poetry reading than conventional singing.

In a live setting this style produces a hypnotic almost ambient effect, and I certainly learnt a lot more about the Fall’s music through this context.

It doesn’t matter if you aren’t familiar with the specific songs because the gig is almost like a live art happening, rather than the audience singing back a band’s greatest hits to them.

Thus I would confidently say that along with Julian Cope and Morrissey, I would automatically say a big Yes to seeing the Fall again.

There can’t be a bigger endorsement for an artist in my book.

Top Twenty Albums: Ten. "The Man Comes Around", Johnny Cash

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 20:31:19 GMT

“Dream up the kind of World that you want to live in, and fucking well make it happen”.

I heard Bono say those words in June 1987 at Croke Park, Dublin and they had an enormous impact on me. They are my credo, my raison d’etre. They way I have always wanted to lead my life.

Johnny Cash did change the World. He was the greatest American singer/ songwriter ever to enter a recording studio.

Elvis is seen as the man who invented rock and roll, and if Presley was the brash, commercial, sexy and edgy front man, then Johnny was it’s soul and conscience.

He did things on his own terms, never forgot his roots and acted for the dispossessed, not just in the studio but by going out and taking his show to places ignored by the mainstream acts.

He played for the troops in Vietnam despite being an outspoken critic of the war as early as 1965. He believed that this conscript army should not be shunned but supported emotionally.

In addition John controversially took his show to the real outcasts of American Society when he played in the US Prison System, most famously at the High Security San Quentin Jail.

“John, your Christian fans don’t want to hear you playing to a bunch of rapists and murderers”, said Cash’s Manager.

“Well”, drawled Cash, “they ain’t Christians at all”.

The Bible says; “By your actions others shall know ye”, and this was epitomised by Johnny Cash.

I find nothing more antagonising than people who are all talk, but no action, what ever the scenario and certain Christians I have encountered over the years display that smugness and certainty, borne of pious observation but come the crunch....... They don’t want to know. Looking down on those who display weakness and give in to their demons.

Johnny Cash could never be accused of that. He believed in what he said, and went out and did it.

And the title song of this 2003 album contain Johnny’s core beliefs and when you think that he was dying when he penned the lyrics, it’s quite a statement of intent. And a darn good tune from a master craftsman.

Undoubtedly, Cash had a dark side often fuelled by drugs, but he readily acknowledged this, took responsibility, and sorted himself out and his 35-year marriage to his beloved June Carter, and his bond with his kids is a testament to how people can redeem themselves.

Cash was best by chronic ill health but just got on with it. An inspiration and my role model for this issue. The cover of the Nine Inch Nails song “Hurt” (below) is searing and emotional, but with no hint of self pity or the maudlin.

Similarly, Cash brings a whole new meaning to Depeche Mode’s tour de Force “Personal Jesus”, and the Beatles classic “In My Life”.

I always imagined that “Bridge Over Troubled Water” contains one of the best vocal performances of all time, but Cash rips Paul Simon’s song and comes at the thing from a totally different angle and it works in a way I never thought could be possible.

The version of “Danny Boy”, should be glossed over, but is more than made up for by blinding version of the Ewan McColl penned “The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face”, and a re working of the self written ‘Fifties hit, “Give My Love to Rose”.

Nick Cave guests on the Hank Williams hit “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”, and the album concludes with “We’ll Meet Again”, which just oozes optimism and a belief in his fellow members of humanity.

This was the last Johnny Cash album to be released in the Great Man’s lifetime, forming number four of the six record collection produced by Rick Rubin, “American Recordings”.

The world of music owes a great debt to Rubin for getting Cash back into the studio to record his legacy.

But not even a smidgeon of the debt owed to a man that strides across the history of 20^th Century America as a colossus.

Without Johnny Cash the music scene would be mighty different, and I return to my contention that Cash is the soul and conscience of the genre.

Albums of 2007.

Fri, 28 Dec 2007 15:12:46 GMT

The advent of iTunes and the iPod means that I don’t listen to music radio on a regular basis anymore. What’s the point when you have the shuffle option, and, as there are 5,859 tracks to choose from repetition isn’t an issue, so it’s like having you own music radio without all the annoying twaddle from a DJ.

The result is that I haven’t really discovered any new music this year and, Amy Whitehouse excepted, all my purchases have been by acts already established in my collection.

Mark E. Smith joined forces this year with a German techno house duo and the result is Von Sudenfed with a disc called Trommatic Reflexxions. It is completely off the wall but it works. How, I don’t know but it does. Trance techno with a drum and bass beat, with the Lad Himself doing his shouty poetry over the top.

This year’s Fall offering, Reformation TLC had all the usual trademarks but with a new band (the old one walked out on the eve of recording, due to an incident that may or may not have involved a banana-skin, a corkscrew, a guitar-amp, and some whiskey) those being clunking, driving bass lines with Smith’s idiosyncratic “vocals” meandering around on top.

Mark’s performance is more poetry reading than singing although the Band are capable of melodic introspection as well as infuriating oddballism, but as ever with the Fall, you won’t get bored and I have played this album over and over, to savour all the unusual twists and turns that aren’t always apparent straight away.

Stereophonics released their new long player Pull the Pin in October, and for me it was going to be almost impossible for it to live up to it predecessor the magnificent Sex, Language, Violence. Other… which I consider to be their finest record and the best British out and out rock album of this decade and which I have played to death since it’s release in 2005.

But I was not to be disappointed. Kelly Jones is back into a rich vein of song writing form after a two-album dip in the wake of 1999’s Performance and Cocktails, and this record displays a heavy, punky sound allied with Dylanesque lyrical subtlety which Jones has made his trademark.

Bank Holiday Monday displays the get down and dirty rock side of things, and Daisy Lane showcases Kelly’s observational side as he reflects on the mindless stabbing of a boy for his mobile phone.

The live show, which we caught when it came to Hull, was a typically raw and visceral experience and was a fitting climax to the year having also checked out the Killers in Sheffield, and the Who at a rain sodden Circle in May.

I missed the Kaiser Chiefs show at Hull Arena earlier this month due to developing meningitis during my last cycle of treatment, but the boys said it was every bit as good as last years.

Whilst it was always going to be a tough task to follow 2005’s Employment long player, Ricky Wilson and the his Leeds crew’s 2007 effort Yours Truly, the Angry Mob displayed a growing song writing maturity without losing the nascent energy of it’s predecessor. They are masters of the pop song hook, and Ruby especially just sucks you in with its upbeat repetition.

Bruce Springsteen continues to confirm why he fully deserves the sobriquet The Boss with a stomping live version of the Seeger Sessions recorded in Dublin. The record contains different arrangements and interpretations from the original 2006 disc, plus a new version of Atlantic City, so charges of cashing in on the brand are not appropriate in this case.

His second release of the year reunited Bruce with the E Street Band for the first time in five years. Yet another soulful, reflective and rocking album to add to his considerable wealth and breadth of work, Magic contains traditional Bruce fare in Radio Nowhere plus his ruminations on middle age with Girls in Their Summer Clothes.

The voice of Blue Collar America, Bruce Springsteen really does have the Midas touch when it comes to making music.

April saw Richard Thompson release his first rock album for four years, and Sweet Warrior was well worth the wait.

Richard does a mean line on relationships, and sexual infidelity in particular and Johnny’s Far Away follows in that tradition, along with the anger ridden I’ll Never Give it Up in which he invites all comers outside in the car park for a good old tear up, shades of a ‘Nineties Thompson classic I Feel So Good.

The outstanding track for me is the truly shocking "Dad’s Gonna Kill Me", which tells the story of a terrified soldier serving in Iraq as he observes death and destruction up close and personal via a road side bomb. None of this matters to his US General who proclaims; "at least we're winning on the Fox Evening News".

Richard’s under rated guitar playing comes to the fore and is given more prominence on this record, and as ever he makes excellent use of a limited vocal range.

But it’s the songs that typically make this a very good set and a reminder that Richard is an un appreciated national treasure, right up there with Morrissey, Elvis Costello, Billy Bragg and Ray Davies as one of England’s greatest working song writers.

The Arctic Monkeys. My dog has no nose....

And so to my Album of the Year which is by Amy Winehouse and carries the unfortunate, but prescient title Back to Black.

Her travails are well documented, and people seem to have plenty to say on the matter but all I can say is that I have nothing but admiration for her brutal honesty about herself and everything that ails her through the songs on this record, and the lyrics to Tears Dry On Their Own should not have to be written by a 23 year old with such a stunningly beautiful voice.

Winehouse, a Working Class London girl, is the epitome of how we as a society oppress women and expect them to look and behave in a certain manner, and the fact that she describes herself as “ugly”, “fat” and “no good”, shows that the Islamic Fascists condoned by George Galloway, insisting on the burka and veil certainly do not have sole monopoly on putting women down.

The voice of an angel, and a tortured genius. Sounds familiar to me, but please God Billie Holliday is only referred to regarding Amy for the voice and not the lifestyle.

Stereophonics Live: Hull Arena. Pull the Pin Tour

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 11:08:07 GMT

Being a bloke by definition makes you a nerd when it comes to music, and because men can’t express our emotions in the mature and civilised way that women can, music becomes the conduit for how we feel about whom we are, and why I have nearly 6,000 songs on my iPod.

And as a result, like Nick Hornby does in his book “Hi Fidelity”, us men use music as a narrative background to our lives.

Thus going to see Sterophonics at Hull Arena last night isn’t just about going to a gig, having a great time and going home.

Oh no. As a bloke I feel it is incumbent upon me to raise the thing up to faux spiritual levels, and regard the event as a staging post in my life.

This was the first concert I have been to since I left my wheelchair behind, and it felt good for it to be a reasonably “normal” experience, although when we saw the queue to get in, it seemed expedient that we made sure the stewards saw the white stick and the dark glasses. We walked straight in. Well there was a naughty, nithering easterly wind blowing of the Humber after all.

My first wheelchair gig was U2 in Cardiff, and it seemed entirely appropriate that I spotted Sarah, one of my most favourite ex pupils and magnificent arranger of the Millennium Stadium event which the kids gave to me on my retirement, as she made her way out of what had been a brilliant concert.

A nice symmetry, and it felt like the U2 and this ‘Phonics gig were kind of bookends to the whole CA thing.

U2 felt great, but I was kind of thinking this will be the last time, and reflecting back over my life, whereas last night seemed to be all about new beginnings and optimistic probabilities, especially as I spied a bloke with his kid and imagined Conor and me at a gig in the future…. Although I expect it would be cringingly embarrassing for him, and I would have to be very certain and leave it to him to suggest as there is nothing worse than parents or adults trying (and always singularly failing) to be down with the kidz.

The boys new long player, Pull the Pin was released last week and for me, it was going to be almost impossible for it to live up to it predecessor the magnificent Sex, Language, Violence. Other…, which I consider to be their finest record and the best British out and out rock album of this decade and which I have played to death since it’s release in 2005.

Bank Holiday Monday displays the get down and dirty rock side of things, and Daisy Lane showcases Kelly’s observational side as he reflects on the mindless stabbing of a boy for his mobile phone.

I am hoarse today. Mainly the result of Superman, which is my absolute favourite Stereophonics track. I let it all go and it was a visceral experience, as if I was exorcising the hurt and bitter distress of the last three years.

There we go. Typical man, anally retentive and uptight using an outside entity to express his feelings.

It was a great show. Loud, well paced with a good acoustic section from Kelly on his own, and enormous fun with a man who refuses to lose touch with his audience.

Top Twenty Albums... It's All Gone a Bit Pete Tong

Sat, 01 Sep 2007 19:22:00 GMT

The ol’ Top Twenty Albums of All Time lark seemed a good idea at the time (April 2006), but I have got myself into a right royal mess and have received a considerable amount slagging from various quarters (all men by the way), most of it deserved…
I’m a bit of a music junkie and my collection stands at 5,508 tracks which, so iTunes reliably informs me would take a monumental 147.4 days to listen to, back to back.
So when weighing things up at the start twenty albums seemed like a piece of the proverbial. Not so.
Major ruminations have ensued, (help me!) and whilst I’m satisfied with most of the list, a cull has been required so out go the following;
20. Bronski Beat, The Age of Consent. Brilliant but I was feeling sentimental. There are better works from this era (1984) but you would be hard pressed to find a superior song to sum up the evils of Thatcher’s Britain than Smalltown Boy.
19. Robbie Williams… What was I on? A great performer and some cracking songs, but come on man. Get a grip.
18. Rush, Grace Under Pressure. Good but I must have reverted to 17 year old nerd mode.
17. Cactus World News, Urban Beaches. Sentimentality for my Limerick youth, still a great record though.
15. Arctic Monkeys. I thought it was brilliant at the time, and still do but was seduced by it’s newness.
The Revised List.
No artist more than once, otherwise U2, the Manics and the Smiths would hog the lot.
20. REM. Automatic For the People (1992).
REM are an extremely important band, and whilst I was never a fan of their early stuff until Document, this album is so bloody honest and heartfelt it just stands out. I used to love playing it at night in the bath with the lights out. Yow! Too much information! This record helped me get my head together and make sense of a whirlwind young life.
19. Simple Minds. New Gold Dream (1982)
I stand by this choice, although lower down.
18. Levellers. Levelling the Land (1991)
Ditto New Gold Dream.
17. Muse. Black Holes and Revelations (2006).
Checked my play stats and it’s over the hills and far away. I think it has longevity, and is a musical masterpiece from a Band at the height of it’s powers. They are in addition, one of the best live bands I’ve ever seen.
16. Stereophonics. Language, Sex, Violence, Other. (2005). Still in the list
15. Neil Young and Crazy Horse. Ragged Glory (1990)
Ditto ‘Phonics record.
14. George Michael. Listen Without Prejudice (1990).
Previously at ten, and for some reason this provoked the most negative reactions. Ian Angus and Rich especially reproached me for this one.
13. Oasis. (What’s the Story?) Morning Glory (1995).
Maybe it should be higher?
12. Bob Dylan. Blood on the Tracks (1975).
Desire could easily live with it in the greatness stakes.
11. Echo and the Bunnymen. Ocean Rain (1984).
I had to take myself outside in the Pub Car Park at closing time for a drunken fight on realising this record’s initial omission from the list. It’s that good. Talking Heads meets Dylan Thomas.
The Manic Street Preachers Holy Bible (1994) is still there, but higher up.
Is all this really worth the effort? Probably not.

Top Twenty Albums: Seven Manic Street Preachers; The Holy Bible (1994)

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 20:11:25 GMT

The music is always the thing, but there are many, many reasons why the Manic Street Preachers hold a special place in my life.

This piece cover their career until the demise of Ritchie James Edwards.

White Collar Working Class in background, the same age and this is the key for me…. Educationally, politically, and intellectually aspirational.

“Libraries gave us power…”.

Too bloody right. Books have always played a massive part in my life. There isn’t a time I can remember NOT being in the middle of a book. I read War and Peace when I was 14. Dostoyevsky, Russian history, Irish writers such as Frank O’Connor and James Joyce (yes, really) were the staple diet of my teenage year, followed by the discovery of Jean Paul Sartre and other French Existential writers at the age of sixteen. Along with reams and reams of sports books.

As long as it’s coupled with, and not a barrier to social interaction kids have got to read, read some more and just carry on. How can you NOT be curious and passionate about the world, and it’s people when you read.

We three lads were driving home last night and discussing (quite heatedly actually) the philosophy of atomic physics, and the recent book the God Delusion. Non of us are “privileged” boys. We are (hopefully) well adjusted people but because we are all gluttonous for books, we can argue our case and learn from each other. (“I want to know more about the pre Cambrian Wipe-out!)

And literature is the spark. The thing that makes you feel. Really empathise and get angry. I could barely speak when I read, at 15 Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country with it’s descriptions of Apartheid South Africa. But it was the book’s opening, it’s description of the sun coming up over the Veldt that took my heart when I was asked to read my favourite passage of literature for Book Week at the school where I worked. The power of Paton’s art seems unimaginable, how the guy can literally paint with words still blows my mind.

And recently GB84 by David Peace took me back to that horrible era when Thatcher declared War on one section and Class. Visceral and evocative. Just brilliant and a reminder of why the Labour Party is just so important in a myriad of different ways.

Books made, and still make me want to change the world. They gave me vision, energy, passion and a will to get out there and just do it. So when my History teacher made me apply for University I thought; why not?

Books taught me about people, why and who we are, our motivations, lusts, evil side, what we can achieve when we get it right. But you have to get out there and live it as well. Mix it with people and put into action what you’ve learnt. You can have 1sts, Degrees and what not coming out of your arse, but if you don’t apply it it’s jack I’m afraid.

Take Nausea by Sartre…. If you don’t want to change the world and the way you think after reading that, you must be clinically dead.

Ditto La Plague by Camus, or Down and Out in Paris and London, plus the Road to Wigan Pier by Orwell

And that’s exactly what James Dean Bradfield, Sean Moore, Nicky Wire and the late Ritchie James Edwards did.

Inspired by the Clash, Arthur Scargill, Morrissey, Albert Camus, and Gramsci amongst others, the Manic Street Preachers grab you by the throat and shout Wake Up! Look Around You! Change it!

I saw the Levellers in the early ‘Nineties and the support band were a right royal shambles. They looked awful, sounded even worse, and the bass player rambled on incoherently between songs…. My introduction to the Manic Street Preachers and I thought they sucked Big Time.

This was around the time of the release of their debut record Generation Terrorists, and it’s amazing looking back at it now what a great collection it is, taking the ethos of the Clash and mixing it with a hard, difficult sound reminiscent of Nirvana.

You Love Us reminds the listener of how the Band meant every word and note they played, and who it was for. The audience is everything to these boys.

Motorcycle Emptiness

Life lies a slow suicide
Orthodox dreams and symbolic myths
From feudal serf to spender
This wonderful world of purchase power

Just like lungs sucking on air
Survival's natural as sorrow

Under neon loneliness motorcycle emptiness

All we want from you are the kicks you've given us

and Little Baby Nothing

No one likes looking at you
Your lack of ego offends male mentality
They need your innocence
To steal vacant love and to destroy
Your beauty and virginity used like toys

You are pure, you are snow
We are the useless sluts that they mould
Rock 'n' roll is our epiphany
Culture, alienation, boredom and despair

These are the outstanding tracks, the former inspired by the film Rumblefish, and is overtly political dealing with teen alienation in a consumer driven society, but the hard core dysfunctional vision of the band is exposed via Slash and Burn (referring to US policy towards civilians in Vietnam) and the everlasting Motown Junk

Motown junk a lifetime of slavery
Songs of love echo underclass betrayal,

All you slut heroes offer is a fear of the future
We live in urban hell
We destroy rock and roll

Some statement of intent from a band in their early twenties.

The lyrics are what made the Manics great at the start, but they also write a mighty fine tune to go with them. This is masked (like Nirvana) by the heavy musical approach, but when you pare it down they are pop pure and simple.

Their career consolidated with Gold Against the Soul which is driven mainly by politics, but Edwards was starting to implode via drugs, alcohol and a terrible sense of self loathing and this is what produced the Holy Bible in 1994.

Looking at the lyrics on their own made me feel a bit voyeuristic. There is suffering for your art, but this is like reading the diary of a severely ill mentally ill patient. And that’s what he was.

This is how I would describe it.

This album doesn't like you.

This album does not want to be your friend.

This album doesn't want to put you at ease, this is an album that wants to let you know about all the evils of the world, and that you are responsible for them.

Themes such as prostitution, anorexia, mass-murderers and the Holocaust are portrayed throughout the album, with the bleak soundtrack throughout.

If White America Told The Truth For Just One Day It’s World Would Fall Apart is the best deconstruction of US Neo Con Foreign Policy that exists, written ten years BEFORE Iraq.

Images of perfection, suntan and napalm
Grenada - Haiti - Poland - Nicaragua
who shall we choose for out morality
I'm thinking right now of Hollywood tragedy
big mac: smack: phoenix r: please smile y'all
Cuba, Mexico can't cauterize our discipline
your idols speak so much of the abyss
yet your morals only run as deep as the surface

I love a free country
the stars and stripes and an apple for mommy
conservative say there ain't no black in the union jack
democrat say there ain't enough white in the stars and stripes

God made man they say
Sam Colt made him equal

And it’s the intro to Archives of Pain that absolutely shocked me to the core, as a parent of one of Peter Sutcliffe’s victims describes her feelings towards what we only knew as the Yorkshire Ripper.

Edwards goes on to unravel his feelings thus;

If hospitals cure
then prisons must bring their pain
do not be ashamed to slaughter
the centre of humanity is cruelty
there is never redemption
any fool can regret yesterday
pain not penance, forget martyrs, remember victims
the weak die young and right now we crouch to make them strong

Just incredible.

And then in She is Suffering and 4st 7lbs (see video) goes on to see Edwards describe the absolute misery of his life long anorexia…

Days since I last pissed
cheeks sunken and despaired
so gorgeous sunk to six stone
lose my only remaining home
see my third rib appear
a week later all my flesh disappear
stretching taut, cling-film on bone

I wanna be so skinny that I rot from view
I want to walk in the snow
and not leave a footprint
I want to walk in the snow
and not soil its purity

Brave? Stupid? But undoubtedly shocking. This is how it feels, to be so unbelievably and inexorably fucked up to the point of such self abuse, and ultimately suicide.

This song helped ME understand so much. But was it worth it. Should Bradfield, Moore, and Wire have said; Enough. You can’t sacrifice yourself like this in public?

But they didn’t, Edwards did, and the rest as they say is history.

Ritchie James Edwards took his own life on 1st February 1995.

Is this masterpiece his legacy? Should it be? I have no idea but I hope that no one ever NEEDS to make a record like this ever again. But the insights into the human soul provide a stark warning that we must look after each other.

Power produces desire, the weak have none.

The Manic Street Preachers message is DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.