and finally...

While I'm on the subject of New York (and I promise to move on soon), I can't really pass up the opportunity to include a musical offering by these two grouchy old New Yorkers. This comes from their first album Can't Buy A Thrill, before Donald Fagen took over lead vocal duties. David Palmer gets the gig here.

This is a great clip I think. Enjoy...

small beer

High Llamas @ The Luminaire, 12th February

Last night I went to see the High Llamas, for something like the eighth time. I sometimes wonder what it says about me that while other people follow million-selling acts like U2, R.E.M. or Radiohead, I go along every year to see a band who's YouTube hits number no more than eight (I've just counted them) and wouldn't know a top twenty album placing if it was brought up to them on a plate by Brian Wilson himself.

Although we heard were a couple of songs which they hadn't played for a while, there weren't really any big surprises (which is good). I did discover a good new young band and a groovy new venue though:

• Soy Un Caballo are Belgian apparently. Gentle, wistful, and sounding a bit like a French language cross between Fleet Foxes and the Kings Of Convenience. Nice.


• The Luminaire, in swinging downtown Kilburn, is an "intimate" venue with a crowd capacity of a whopping 300. Bands play on a small stage in front of a red velvet curtain which put me slighltly in mind of Twin Peaks. As an indication of where they're coming from, there's also a seating area out of sight of the stage where a notice wards off noisy punters: "We're a live venue, not a pub. If you've come to chat with your friends while the bands are on, you're in the wrong place". My sentiments entirely...

One of YouTube's top eight High Llamas songs of all time then:



Mary Hansen, former member of Stereolab, sang on this track. It was recorded two or three years before her untimely death. I think she does a good job. R.I.P.

single of the week

Finally, some new music: "I Love My Baby (But If Anyone Touches Her I'll Kill Them)" by Napoleon. Heard it on Radcliffe and Maconie tonight. Reminds me a bit of the Blow Monkeys. Probably not breaking any new ground then, but a good song nonetheless?



They're Swedish apparently...

signed, sealed, delivered

It seems that almost every time I put Radio 2 on at the moment, there's a documentary to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Motown.

Some great music of course, but it wasn't all sweetness and light in Hitsville USA, as this article from last week's Independent testifies. Last night, for example, there was an hour-long programme dedicated to the Funk Brothers who played as backing musicians on most of the label's output from 1959 to 1972. And that's a lot of songs. It wasn't until Marvin Gaye released What's Going On in 1971 that these musicians were even credited in liner notes and it was only with the appearance in 2002 of the film "Standing In The Shadows of Motown" that they were accorded any real credit.

I did start to compile a list of my top ten Motown tracks but frankly I'm going to have to get back to you on that. Particular favourites though are Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell's fantastic Greatest Hits album and almost everything by Stevie Wonder from his Greatest Hits Volume 2--which covers his singles from 1968 to '71--to the slightly over-egged Songs In The Key of Life which saw the light of day in 1976.

By way of a less frequently played track, how about this 1975 Stevie Wonder-penned minor hit from the Supremes?

Diana Ross? Who she?

reasons to feel guilty, part 3

Having extolled the virtues of the Carpenters and the Style Council in recent posts, I now stride fearlessly on in the quest for a hat-trick of Guilty Pleasures (TM). This week BBC4 brought to our homes its five-night Prog Britannia season in an appreciation of the 1970s musical behemoth that was progressive rock.

Like the music itself, the season had its ups and downs. The hour-and-a-half historical documentary which opened the season seemed to claim that it was at the very time when punk appeared to drag popular music out of the Court of the Crimson King and into a sweaty, pogo-ing crowd at the Manchester Lesser Free Trade Hall, that the music of the main prog acts (Yes, ELP, King Crimson) had begun to cross an ill-defined line into overblown self-indulgence. In reality, you only have to look at Rick Wakeman's spangly cape and huge bank of keyboards and listen to the cod mysticality in, say, Jon Anderson's largely nonsensical lyrics to know that self-restraint was never the prog way.

It's a fair enough assessment though that prog was a logical development of some of the psychedelic meanderings which had begun to appear, for example, in later Beatles albums, and for musicians involved--Steve Howe (Yes), Carl Palmer (ELP), Bill Bruford (Yes/King Crimson)--to claim that they were attempting to combine the complex structures of classical music, the irregular rhythmic metres of jazz and world musics and their own extreme instrumental dexterity, and so create something genuinely original.

Some of the programmes in the season were quite painful to watch. Nothing to do with the music though. Two words. Phil. Collins. Now, I have to admit a certain affection for the early Collins-era Genesis albums, Trick of the Tail, And Then There Were Three, Duke. Lord knows though, it's difficult to warm to him as a man... We'll leave it at that.

Anyway, that's not to generally denigrate the music. I reckon there are some good tunes buried in there among all those 27/8 time signatures and all that instrumental noodling. How about this YouTube gem for example, from the 1971 Genesis album Nursery Cryme? At least Collins could hack it as a drummer...

council debate

During the lazy period between Christmas and the January return to work, I'm often inclined to wallow in wall-to-wall BBC 6Music. Listening to Gary Crowley's show this evening I came across some live tracks from the Style Council in 1984.

Now it's generally considered by those who pontificate on such things in the music press that the eighties were something of a blight on Paul Weller's career, typified as they were in his case by foppish outfits and haircuts, pretentious record sleevenotes (courtesy of the Cappucino Kid), ill-advised party political campaigning (on the Red Wedge tour bus) and watery blue-eye soul.

Well that's their view and their entitled to it. In support of the case for the defence however, I humbly submit two examples from the beginning and end of the band's career, and modestly enquire if, in the opinion of the court, these are not two great examples of feel-good pop music?

Exhibit A: Headstart for Happiness (released 1983 though this live clip is from later)



Exhibit B: Wanted (released 1987)



Also recommended:

• You're The Best Thing
• The Paris Match (starring Tracey Thorn)
• The Paris Match (Weller version)
• Changing of the Guard

christmas is coming...

...and with it come musical advent calendars. A new one on me, but suddenly they're all at it - well, at least The Guardian and Word Magazine are at it - and so you don't have to trawl the web the good ole Guardian has put together a list of the best.

Entering into the spirit, here's the first of my Christmas musical selection box:



Just like Christmas: Low

kicked into the blue grass

The Coalporters @ Half Moon, Herne Hill, 5th December

This style of music isn't really my thing but the Coalporters, the "world's first alt-bluegrass band", are such great performers that you can't fail to warm to them. They have some brilliant players--particularly Dick Smith, apparently the only full-time professional banjo player in the UK, and Hana Loftus on fiddle--and Sid Griffin (mandolin) and Neil Robert Herd (guitar) are slick and enthusiastic front men.

Griffin, it says here, "displays many chapeaux in his career as a multi-faceted musician", first surfacing in the early eighties as a member of the Long Ryders, purveyors of musical fare more reliant on the sound of the electric guitar.

Tonight they sing a mix of compositions by Hern and Griffin (including this Long Ryders oldie) as well as renderings of "Teenage Kicks" and Ronnie Lane's "Ooh La La" in a bluegrass stylee. Very enjoyable they are too.

The behatted Henry Brothers--Stephen Merchant look-alike on guitar and a psychotically grinning Charlie Chaplin on what I discover is referred to as "doghouse bass"--offer support with their gruesome murder ballads.

Check out the 'Porters on that there youtube:

so much jazz, so little time *

Alan Barnes Octet, Esbjorn Svensson Memorial, Tommy Smith Youth Jazz Orchestra @ Southbank Centre, this week

The London Jazz Festival is, in my view, a fine and noble thing: ten days of gigs all over London--many of them free--featuring top class jazz musicians of many creeds and various hues (Scandinavians in particular seem to feature heavily this year).

I'm not done with it yet, but already I've managed to fit in a) an authoritative and sensitively presented appreciation of the work of Swedish groundbreakers E.S.T. whose pianist and main composer, Esbjorn Svensson, so tragically died last year, and b) one of the best gigs I've been to in the last twelve months courtesy of saxophonist, bandleader and part-time stand-up comedian, Alan Barnes.

E.S.T. has been a name I've known for a couple of years although I never got to hear their music and sadly will never now see them live. Better late than never I'm sure but my Amazon shopping list gets another hammering as a result. This is what they're good at...



On Monday I went on something of a crash course on the music of Duke Ellington. Firstly an interesting talk presented by Radio 3's Alyn Shipton featuring Alan Barnes and Tony Faulkner. Faulkner has taken various tunes from Ellington's huge repertoire--mainly scored for big band--and arranged them for octet. Performing approximately three hours' worth of them this evening were Barnes and some of the greatest jazz players I have ever heard. Step forward in particular Tony Coe and Andy Panayi, masters respectively of the clarinet and flute.

* with apologies to John Fordham

what tracey did next

There was an interesting feature on Stuart Maconie's Freak Zone this evening about Cherry Red Records. They've just released a box set of their singles to celebrate thirty years of the label. One of the songs which got played was "Plain Sailing" from Tracey Thorn's superb 1981 album "A Distant Shore". It went on to become the label's best selling album at the time despite costing only £120 to make!

Thorn met labelmate Ben Watt, they went off to Hull University together, and were inspired by the name of a second-hand furniture shop to form a band.

This was Everything But The Girl's first hit single, from the "jazz-tinged" "Eden" album of 1984...

single of the week

Something a bit more recent...



Soha - Tourbillon (Serre-Moi Fort Si Tu M'aimes). More on myspace.

Thanks to Songlines and World on 3 for plugging this.

gratuitous oldie

I'm not a massive fan of the Pet Shop Boys but this is a great tune...



I'm generally not big on music videos either but I really like this one. It's produced by Bruce Weber, who made "Let's Get Lost"--another monocrome masterpiece--about jazz trumpeter Chet Baker.

freeloading

Folk Day at the Proms, Royal Albert Hall, 20th July

I sometimes forget what great value the Proms are--you get a concert every night for two months at a fiver a go. I think it's just that these days so-called "classical" music is at the bottom of my pecking order of musical "genres" (I hate that word). Pop/rock, world, jazz and folk take precedence so classical doesn't get much of a look-in anymore.

In recent years the Proms have been casting their net a bit more widely genre-wise, and the (free) gig this afternoon is a case in point: a selection of songs firstly presented in their "folk" setting--courtesy of Bella Hardy and veteran Hungarian-Gypsy foursome Muzsikas--then as orchestral appropriations courtesy of Vaughan Williams, Percy Grainger, Bartok...

It all raises some interesting questions (humour me):

• should composers pass off as their own tunes which have been written and developed over a long period of time by a number of different singers?
• are their arrangements even based on the same tunes, bearing in mind the conventions of "classical" orchestral music with regard to form and harmonic and instrumental embellishment?
• do folk musicians see the virtue of songs being revived by classical composers, given that they present them in such a different way?

Oh I don't know...

P.S. There's a selection of clips on youtube from the evening "Proms Folk Day" concert featuring Bella Hardy (again), Martin Simpson and the fantastic Bellowhead.

strangers in the night

Blue Nile @ Somerset House, 13th July

Almost everything you hear or read about the Blue Nile refers to their legendary low profile (four albums in, what is it now, twenty-four years?) so it seems sensible not to pass up the opportunity to catch them out in public for a change. It's strange that they play live so rarely because Paul Buchanan--songwriter, singer, and all round good guy--seems to be having such a great time. He's determined that the band will play on until the venue organisers blow the curfew whistle. Problem is they haven't practised that many songs, so the third encore is a repeat of "Tinseltown in the Rain". No-one has a big problem with that though.

There's probably not a venue more suited to Blue Nile's wistful music than Somerset House as the sun goes down and the floodlights fire up (thanks to sbisson for his/her photo) and we get selections from all four of those albums, a new song--"Runaround Girl"--and an old one--"Strangers in the Night", "shoo-be-doo-be-doo"'s and all.

See you in five years then lads...

A couple of youtube curiosities:
- 2006 interview with PB on Ireland's TV3 channel
- Chris Botti and Paul Buchanan sing (a rather pixelated) version of "Are You Lonesome Tonight?"

but this is what we came for...

no nonsense pop (contd)

Another dead easy ten-second blog entry. This is great:



"Paris Is Burning" by Ladyhawke, in case you're wondering. She's from New-Zealand apparently...

(Bit of a dull video though, eh?)

where's hoops?

High Llamas at Whitechapel Art Gallery, 4th July

I think the High Llamas are my favourite band currently recording/performing. (Thankfully rumours of their live demise appear to have be exaggerated.) As far as I'm concerned I'm not sure that anyone can match Sean O'Hagan's gift for quirky melody and harmony. And he's a great arranger too. (Although maybe those lyrics could be a little less obscure eh Sean? What's that again about the House of Leaf and Lime?)

Anyway, the Llamas' "annual London gig" didn't disappoint. Talk about intimate venues though. I calculate that the six band members and their instruments/gear (Sean himself had three guitars and a banjo) took up approximately 1/3 of the room at the Whitechapel Art Gallery. The Albert Hall this ain't.

And great to hear old favourites "Nomads" and "Checking In and Checking Out" for the first time in ages. No sign of Hoops Hooley though...

Stuff:

junkmedia interview with Sean

vallejonocturno interview with Sean

"The Musical Painting" (collaboration between Sean O'Hagan and Jean-Pierre Muller)

There's not much on youtube from the Llamas. But here are a couple of interesting curiosities:

- "My First Motion Picture" by Padraig Trehy with music by Sean

- a High Llamas cover of the Smiths' "Frankly Mr Shankly", and

- "Bach Ze" is a good illustration of those unpredictable melodies and harmonies. Great stuff:

no nonsense pop music

Been listening to some great bubblegum pop this week. Since they took "Top Of The Pops" off the telly
(yes, I know that was ages ago) this kind of stuff has gone off my radar. Should I start listening to daytime Radio 1 again?

Check out Alphabeat...



...and The Ting Tings.

slaves to the rhythm

50 Years of Bossa Nova @ the Barbican, 26th May
with Vinicius Cantuária, Dori Caymmi, João Donato, Celso Fonseca, Joyce, Carlos Lyra, Roberto Menescal, Clara Moreno, Wanda Sa and Marcos Valle

It's probably a bit churlish to complain that this gig was a bit samey and I can't really say it didn't do what it said on the tin. Certainly there was no shortage of soothing baritone voices over lilting guitar figures--and the majority of the singers, male and female alike, accompanied themselves on the guitar (it's as if forty or fifty years ago Brazilian children learned these guitar parts as they started to walk and talk). More of a keyboard-based sound was provided by the contributions of Joyce, João Donato and particularly the funkier sound of Marcos Valle's electric piano but I actually found the more "traditional" approach of Vinicius Cantuária's performance the most affecting. Singing in little more than a whisper and quietly accompanied only on his own gently plucked acoustic guitar, he managed--impressively--to bring the enthusiastic (mainly Brazilian) sell-out Barbican crowd to an appreciative hush.

A couple of press reviews:
- The Independent
- The Times

Other stuff:
- Video material from BBC's recent "Brasil Brasil" series
- Wikipedia tells it like it is

- If you type "bossa nova" into youtube, you get some real rubbish: here are some good bits though by the important bossa nova people:

Águas de Março by Tom Jobim & Elis Regina:



Chega de saudade by Joao (and presumably Astrud) Gilberto:



Desafinado by Joao Gilberto:

why we love modern stuff: 1

Episode 1: youtube



This video of "I Don't Know What It Is" by Rufus Wainwright is just brilliant.

I'll tell you why:

• It really captures the atmosphere at Glastonbury. Look at that clear blue sky at the beginning (well it can happen) and there are some choice cutaway crowd shots later on.
• You can hear lots of backing parts which don't come through on the proper recording like the wah-wah guitar when the drums kick in at 0:38 (Is that a hot-air balloon fading off into the distance?)
• 1:03. The backing vocals are sublime (is that too strong a word?) all through. Again, you can't hear them on the CD. (I think that's Sister Martha hiding behind the sunglassed guitarist.)
• 1:31. Hear that new guitar part?
• 1:39. The bloke in the straw hat is having such a good time.
• 1:44. "Is there anyone else?" Those backing vocals really take off now. Sing it (mainly) girls, but also boys...
• 2:36. You can hardly hear the trumpets (and they're normally really loud right?) but it doesn't matter cos Martha and her mate are still going for it.
• 3:10. Caught up in the emotion of the moment, paralysis sets in in Rufus's left hand but it's OK cos you can hear the trumpets now.
• 3:40. No! What's that member of the stage crew doing with those tangled leads? He's totally spoiling the mood.
• 3:47. OK this is the big moment. Three backing vocal phrases over "I don't know what it is to get me over" x2, "I don't know what it is..."
• 3:58. ...puts the tin lid on it for me.
• 4:02. The music just takes off... (bit like that balloon just now)
• 4:27. Not the most musical of endings maybe, but it's about a train, see, and it's pulling into the station.

..and Old Rufus can really belt it out.

Did I mention that this is a great song too?

Well I think so.