26 February 2013 (Day 57) – Solo Albums

I can just hear Troy McClure now - “The solo album: is there any phrase more thrilling to the human soul?” 

 

I’m not entirely sure where I stand on my adaption of Troy’s statement about TV spin off series.  I’m not sure whether to take it on face value as a legitimate statement or as an ironic comment as the writers of The Simpsons clearly intended.  After all the solo album does have a checked history with numerous examples of musicians, confined by their sidemen status within a band dominated by others, or forced to fend for themselves after a break up, seeking to stretch out and prove they can write songs.  In some cases they also try to prove they can sing.

 

This doesn’t include acts whose solo careers effectively continued the agenda set by the bands they originally dominated.  But when you think about it, there hasn’t been that many who have been able to sustain a lengthy solo career apart from John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Neil Young, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Sting, Eric Clapton, Paul Simon, and a small number of others.  (And even then, all of these acts have recorded more than the odd below par effort.) Whilst some lower profile acts have established completely satisfying solo careers – Richard Thompson, Mark Lanegan, Robert Plant, David Byrne, Ed Kuepper, Bob Mould, Peter Gabriel, Paul Weller, Brian Eno among them – almost all suffer the same terrible fate accorded to those who generally haven’t succeeded such as Chris Cornell, David Gilmour, Roger Waters, Jimmy Page and many others by having fans who secretly wish that they all return to their original bands.  A lot of this wishing is in vain for those like Gilmour and Waters from bands that appear to be irretrievably broken but it doesn’t stop them trading on their former glories.  Ultimately there are a tremendous number of others such as Cornell, Perry Farrell, Mick Jagger and Shane MacGowan who have reactivated or returned to their bands.  There are even those who now have it their way by having a solo career and version 2.0 of the band such as Bryan Ferry (& Roxy Music), Donald Fagen (& Steely Dan), John Lydon via Public Image Limited (& The Sex Pistols), Frank Black/Francis (& the Pixies) and many others.  Just about the only act I can think of whose fans don’t want to see re-established in their former band is Bjork and even The Sugarcubes reformed for a gig last year.

The emphasis here is on the phrase “sideman status” and the strike rate here is not great.  Sure, there’s George Harrison’s spectacular initial success with All Things Must Pass and Dave Grohl’s first Foo Fighters record (essentially a solo album until morphing into a legitimate band with subsequent releases). There have also been some unexpected delights; Izzy Stradlin’s first couple of post Guns n’ Roses albums are fine rockin’ affairs, the first Tom Tom Club album from the Talking Heads rhythm section, some of the albums by former members of The Replacements who aren’t Paul Westerberg and Ringo Starr’s Ringo but there aren’t many others that hit me off the top of my head.    All I can recall are acts that didn’t work – Keith Moon (I have his Two Sides Of The Moon and I’m still too scared to play it), most of the remaining albums issued by the former members of Talking Heads or Guns n’ Roses, a number of the solo Pearl Jam albums, Dave Navarro’s album, some from members of the Wu-Tang Clan collective and a great many more that fortunately haven’t made their way into my collection.

 

What seems to have bound today’s limited listening was that the albums concerned are from artists who have made their name within a much broader context;

 

(152) Steve Cropper – Dedicated. A Tribute To The 5 Royales

Cropper has made his name and immense reputation by being part of the in house team that providing a lot of the musical backing for many of the hits that emerged from the Stax soul label in Memphis in the 1960s.  On many of those hits he played with Donald “Duck” Dunn with whom he also played in the legendary instrumental combo Booker T And The MGs as well as in The Blues Brothers Band.  This is one of a small number of albums released under his name and the most recent.  It is a wonderful tribute to the 5 Royales, one of the very first “soul” groups in the 1950s.  For the album Cropper was assisted by 5 star talent on most tracks, usually through the provision of vocals.  Highlights include Thirty Second Lover (with magnificent support from Steve Winwood), Dedicated To The One I love (with Winwood and Lucinda Williams – what a combination!) and Come On And Save Me (with Dylan LeBlanc and Sharon Jones).  Other guests include Bettye LaVette, B.B.King, Buddy Miller, Dan Penn and Brian May.  Cropper’s guitar playing is as sharp and incisive as ever and is best heard on his instrumental version of Think.

 

(153) The Nightwatchman – One Man Revolution

 

The Nightwatchman is Tom Morello, guitarist with Rage Against The Machine, Audioslave and so to be temporary member of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band.  This was his first album under this guise and it is a largely acoustic collection of socially and politically aware tunes.  Song titles such as Let Freedom Ring, Battle Hymns and No One Left are highly reminiscent of “Little” Steve Van Zandt’s solo albums and are married to a musical attack not to dissimilar to Springsteen’s solo albums.  On Flesh Shapes The Day, Morello lets out howls that are straight off the Nebraska album.  (Little wonder that he’ll be Van Zandt’s temporary stand in during the next couple of months.) The Road I Must Travel sounds like a homage to Billy Bragg.  None of this is to imply that Morello is simply ripping off these influences.  See it more as a comment on the relative scarcity of socially aware acoustic based sing songwriters in today’s scene.

25 February 2013 (Day 56) – Movie Music

It’s Academy Awards Day and the organisers must have discovered my blog.  How else to explain their Music In The Movies theme for this year’s telecast? 

Seriously, I’m in two minds about the use of music in today’s movies.  At its best, a great soundtrack is totally subservient to the demands of the movie and is barely noticed.  In other words it is one of a number of elements used by a director in setting the mood of a particular scene along with camera placement and movement, shot selection, editing, the script, sound (and visual) effects and the skills of the actors.  Sometimes the music can be so thoroughly integrated into the movie that you’ll barely notice it.  I think it was only on my third viewing of the French Connection, for example, when it dawned on me that it even had one.  In other instances, it can become something else entirely.  In the celebrated opening sequence of Jaws, Steven Spielberg effectively turned John Williams’ theme into a character, using it to represent the otherwise invisible shark that stalks, attacks and kills the skinny dipper.

But what can really irk me with some movies today are instances when the equivalent of a music video appears during a film.  Think of all those montage scenes where filmmakers seek to explain away something that is occurring, like arriving in Australia, set against a song containing the most obvious lyrical content imaginable (say for the purposes of this example, Men At Work’s Down Under).  When I see scenes like that I wonder whether a) the screenwriter was unable to write any meaningful dialogue for the scene, b) the studio had a tie in deal with a record company (probably from the same multi-national) to push either a soundtrack album or the artist or c) the director came from a music video background and is trying something with which they’re most comfortable. No doubt there are other reasons but the effect is the same with either the competence of the film maker or the studio’s motives called into question.

I’ve excluded the music played during the opening and end credit sequences because this is where it might pay to be obvious.  Some work absolutely brilliantly.  The action film xXx with Vin Diesel thoroughly integrated Rammstein’s Fire Frei! into its opening scene even to the extent of letting the song commence with the studio’s logo through to the band’s performance of the track in the scene.  In this respect, band and movie – both over the top and containing healthy lashes of knowing humour – made for a perfect fit.  Ditto David Fincher’s use of Bowie’s superb The Heart’s Filthy Lesson during the closing credits of se7en, ensuring that the unsettling, paranoid nature of the film carried through to its very end.  There are also examples where a track is commissioned for one purpose but persuades the film maker into another use.  I read somewhere recently that Jonathan Demme commissioned Bruce Springsteen to write an aids song to be placed during the closing credits of Philadelphia.  When Springsteen delivered The Streets Of Philadelphia, Demme realised this perfectly fitted the way he envisaged it to commence. 

And so today’s listening is an attempt to fit some notable Oscar listening into my busy day:

(149) Prince and the Revolution – Music From Purple Rain

The winner of the Oscar for the Best Original Song Score in 1985, these songs have become so imprinted in the world’s consciousness that it is almost critic proof.  This is not to say that the album is without flaws; there are some now fairly undesirable 80s production sounds on it and The Beautiful Ones and Computer Blue are just so-so.  But the rest, notably When Doves Cry (as unlikely a #1 as there’s ever been) and the epic title track, has stood the test of time as a classic.

(150) Rodriquez – Cold Fact

Waiting For Sugar Man today won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.  To just about anyone in the world, it is the story of how a couple of South Africans set out to find the hitherto unknown singer songwriter Rodriquez after he became a megastar in their country.  What the documentary, apparently (I’ve yet to see it), doesn’t mention was that Rodriquez’s two albums (especially this, his debut) were hits in Australia to the extent that he toured here during the70s before he slipping into obscurity.  Cold Fact explains the reasons for both scenarios.  He has a vocal style not unlike Dylan’s and wrote tracks synonymous with the realities of urban life in the late 60s/early 70s.   The songs, Sugar Man, Only Good For Conversations and Crucify Your Mind in particular, are tremendous and would have appealed to 70s audiences, however, it is a style of music has such a time bound feel to it that it is understandable why it’s since been overlooked which makes his rediscovery all the more remarkable.  

(151) Randy Newman – Trouble In Paradise

Randy Newman is one of the few popular music icons to have carved out a successful career in Hollywood.  Actually successful is a bit of an understatement here given his record of 20 nominations and 2 wins (incorporating a record first 16 nominations without a single win).  This is one of his regular albums recorded in the early 80s after his brush with fame following the release of the Short People hit had well and truly died off.  This is about as close to a mainstream commercial album that he’s ever likely to record with slow ballads such as Same Girl and Real Emotional Girl, a send up of Paul Simon called The Blues (in which he gets Simon to sing) and some heavy handed attempts at pointed social comment with Christmas In Cape Town and Song For The Dead.  It also contains the  hilarious My Life Is Good in which a big shot attempts to impress someone by claiming to have met Springsteen who tells him “You know Rand I’m tired/How would like to be The Boss for a while?”, followed by the cry “Blow Big Man Blow” and a Clarence Clemons type sax solo.  But the major reason for playing this is its opening cut – I Love L.A. – a song I loved on its initial release but a prime example of a song that’s been misused in a number of non Newman scored films. 

23 & 24 February 2013 (Days 54 & 55) – My definition of music

It has been a very full weekend with no time set aside for any serious listening.

“Serious listening”, now there’s a phrase.  This is when I’m able to devote all of my energy to the act of listening.  Elements - a comfortable position and either headphones or the stereo very loud.  During such sessions I can pick out lyrics (and occasionally understand them) and hear details I might not necessarily catch.  My body relaxes , tension subsides and I feel as though I’ve dissolved into the atmosphere along with the music.  At this point, I’m usually oblivious to everything around me; if “M” needs me for anything, she knows she’ll have to come to wherever I’m located and disturb my state.

It’s one of the strange aspects of my own existence.  Unlike many people in the world, I need noise to relax.  Silence is a state to be avoided at all costs; to me it means death and I know I’m going to dead for a long time.  Noise provides evidence of human existence, especially at night.  Music, is a form of harmonious, rhythmic or expressive noise and is for me the most desired evidence of human existence.  If the music is really good, I find myself wanting to join in and add to it; this is why I think I tap, stomp, clap or singing along to favourite pieces of music.

But there is an incredibly fine line between noise and music.  We don’t all regard the same harmonies, rhythms or expressions as music.  What I might consider music, you might think of as noise and vice versa.  Personally, I find it extremely difficult to listen to arias and most falsetto singing; it doesn’t appeal to me and as such I regard it as noise.  I’d rather hear a combination of sounds that has come from man made instruments that can be manipulated in innumerable ways and which a musician has personalised through combinations of their own playing style, lyrics, the sound of their actual voice and any other naturally occurring sounds.  This is probably why I’d rather not hear arias and falsettos; they’re striving to produce a homogeneous sound, a form of aural commodity.  Yes, there are tenors, sopranos, etc, but they’re all instructed to sing the same songs in exactly the same manner, the only real difference being the sound of their voice.  But individuality is generally not prized here, it is the expectation that the musicians involved faithfully reproduces something that has been set out almost like following a dress pattern.   This is where the commodity analogy comes in.  Take your humble cardboard box as an example.  They come in different  shapes, sizes, materials, patterns, lids, colours, etc but ultimately my opinion about any one box will be shaped by whether it is able to do what it is supposed to do and not whether it has a distinctive personality.   In other words, music is a man made noise that, in my view, requires the individual who created it to put a distinctive stamp on it that appeals to me. 

I have no idea from where the preceding paragraphs emanated.  They just flowed off the keyboard as I wrote.  The weekend’s listening focused on some Australian acts that have never really hit any form of mass popularity.

(146) Magic Dirt – Snow White

This was the last Magic Dirt album to have been released on an Australian major label.  The sound is a little more scuffled up that its predecessor Tough Love and is all the better for it.   They’ve since stayed true to this vision but have dropped from the scene following the death of their bassist Dean Turner.  Adalita’s solo success will probably ensure that it will be a while longer before they return, if at all.

(147) The Mess Hall – For The Birds

It’s amazing how sometimes bands from different parts of the world can arrive at the same point simultaneously.  The Mess Hall are a Sydney based two piece drum and guitar combo who formed in 2001, the same year as The Black Keys.  (Of course bands were probably inspired by The White Stripes.)  This is about their 5^th or 6^th  and most recent album and it sees them consolidating their sound.

(148 ) Died Pretty – Free Dirt (extended version)

Easily one of the finest bands to emerge from Sydney during the 1980’s, Died Pretty became a firm favourite with Melbourne punters.  With their sense of melody marrying the epic guitar heroics of Brett Myers, a deep keyboard sound and the distinctive vocals from the charismatic Ron Peno, it wasn’t all that difficult to see why.  Free Dirt was their first album and has been expanded by Aztec records to include period singles and EPs some demos and 6 live tracks.  The only problem I’ve had with the album is its track listing.  The original vinyl Side 1 comprised 4 epic numbers only one of which is less than 5 and a half minutes.  It includes some of the highlights of the live set from their gigs during this time especially Just Skin and Next To Night.  (An example of the former is included in the live tracks.)  Side 2 comprises shorter, more commercial type numbers which can be heard as a letdown.  I always played the vinyl in reverse order and imported the tracks the same way onto my iPod.  Among the highlights of the bonus material, are the Stoneage Cinderella single, a demo version of Dylan’s From A Buick 6 and a live version of their classic single Everybody Moves.

22 February 2013 (Day 53) - Archive.org

One of the great things about the internet is how we can now access so many live performances by acts from an incredibly wide period of time.  For example, I was looking at the SugarMegs site the other day and was staggered to find a number of shows from Melbourne including The Rolling Stones at Kooyong 40 years and a few days ago and the monumental Neil Young with Crazy Horse/ The International Harvesters shows at Festival Hall from 1985.  This is something that some  bands have well and truly commercialised, enabling fans of acts such as Pearl Jam, The Who, Metallica and The Pixies to obtain recordings of shows that they’ve attended as a form of audio souvenir.

But the forerunner to all of this is probably the Archive.org site.  This is an American non-profit internet archive that seeks to preserve many forms of audio visual material online for free distribution and downloading.  Included in the site is a live music archive where recordings of performances for many acts have been preserved.  Nothing is permitted to be played on the site without the permission of the act and recordings can be uploaded by anyone.  As such quality can be variable because the source material could have come from someone’s recordable Walkman, a cassette recording of a radio broadcast or from the act’s soundboard.

Provided permission has been granted any act can have their performances uploaded leading to the site being dominated by acts I know nothing about.  But there is an impressive range of name acts available if you’re prepared to browse the list including Warren Zevon, The Dream Syndicate, Ween, Ryan Adams, Little Feat, the Smashing Pumpkins and the John Butler Trio.  It is also the home to the Grateful Dead archive of a staggering 9,106 shows.  Here are three performances I was given copies of and decided to play over the course of the day:

(143) Camper Van Beethoven – 9.30 Club Washington D.C 12 October 2004

This is an excellent sounding audience recording for a show around the time of the release of their slightly disappointing New Roman Times album.  Fortunately the better tracks from that album got into the set along with plenty of CVB classics to keep up my interest including Tania, Take The Skinheads Bowling, their cover of Status Quo’s Pictures Of Matchstick Men and rounding things off, Pink Floyd’s Interstellar Overdrive.  

(144) Fugazi – Electric Factory Philadelphia 5 March 1997

One of the finest bands, if not THE finest, to have emerged from the Washington DC punk scene, Fugazi were a legendary band live.  This would have been one of the last gigs performed prior to the end of the tour supporting the Red Medicine album and provides a fine representation of their catalogue and the power of their live performance.   The only drawback for me is that this show lacks many of my favourite Fugazi numbers.   There are only 18 Fugazi gigs on Archive.org because the band is systematically live recordings they made of 800 of the approx. 1000 gigs they recorded in their career.  The ones released to date are available for download for a suggested fee of $5.

(145) Sleater-Kinney - 9.30 Club Washington D.C 3 August 2006

This is a radio broadcast but I suspect this was never on the Archive.org page but rather from the npr (National Public Radio) site.  Nonetheless this is a powerful performance from the all girl punk three piece with songs from their entire history.  This wasn’t altogether surprising as this turned out to be one of their final shows.

21 February 2013 (Day 52) - Recent Purchase Update # 2

I’ve ditched the idea of a weekly purchase update because it dawned on me that I don’t necessarily listen to my purchases as soon as I obtain them.  My purchasing has never been dependent upon record company release schedules.  I’ve found that if you’re able to supress the impulse purchase urge they rely upon, you can buy albums at a much cheaper price later on, or when the band inevitably tours Australia, a “special tour edition” with bonus tracks or a DVD. 

(A digression – Tip 1: Beware of whenever the catalogue of a major artist or a highly popular or influential album suddenly becomes available at a bargain price.  In many cases this is usually advance warning that the act’s catalogue is about to be rereleased in a remastered form with bonus tracks and discs or that a Collector’s Edition of the popular/influential album is coming.)

In adding to my collection, I’m unconcerned about when an album was released.  These days my additions are driven by a need to hear something new or different.  Whilst this results in my adding to the catalogue of albums by favourite artists, I’m just as likely to dig into music’s past as well as its present.  By adopting such a mindset, I’ve found that my collection is akin to a never ending jig saw puzzle with me continually finding specific pieces of my picture without ever knowing what that picture is ever going to look like or indeed whether it is complete.

Some of the pieces I’ve recently obtained and played today were:

(140) Burial – Truant/Rough Sleeper

Burial is the performing name for William Bevan, am electronic musician with seemingly a dark, almost malevolent musical vision, sort of like a tuneful version of the sounds that filled the soundtrack to David Lynch’s Eraserhead.   Like that movie, the music evokes black and white imagery in my mind.  His first, self titled, album is awesome, however, this release from last year comprising two tracks lasting a combined 25 minutes is less so.  Both tracks place a greater emphasis on drums and bass and this alone appears to lessen the music’s intensity.

(141) Yoko Ono – Yes, I’m A Witch

So many people appear to hate Yoko’s music and it is sometimes difficult to assess just how much of this is due to her perceived role in the breakup of The Beatles and her influence over John Lennon.  I find her singing hard to take at times but I think it’s fair to say that she was making music that was ahead of its time.  This particular album provides some evidence that the world is catching up.  It consists of a number of Yoko songs that were mostly rerecorded by other acts but with her vocals retained.  The results are marvellous, the new backings providing for the most part sympathetic backing to that most maligned of voices.  Highlights include tracks with Blow Up (Everyman Everywoman), Le Tigre (Sisters O Sisters), The Flaming Lips (Cambridge 1969/2007) and a monumental version of her best known song, Walking On Thin Ice with Jason Pierce of Spiritualized.

(142.1) The Byrds – (Untitled)*

This album was originally a double vinyl half live half studio release by the version of The Byrds comprising Roger McGuinn, Gram Parsons, Clarence White and Skip Battin.  The gatefold cover image shows the band members on steps with either the country (front) or the sky (back) in the background and is a brilliant representation of the mix of psychedelica and country evident in these tracks.  The studio tracks contain Chestnut Mare, one of Parsons’ best known songs and some other really interesting material.  Well Come Back Home appears to address the indifferent attitudes being expressed to Vietnam veterans and the humorous You All Look Alike records the same attitudes expressed towards hippies.  But it is the live material that is the main reason to hear this.  Side 1 of  the original album is a series of classic tracks plus a cover of Dylan’s Positively 4^th Street recorded in this new style but the absolute highlight is the 16 minute version of Eight Miles High that took up the entire original Side 2.  This version features an extremely lengthy music introduction which gave all of the musicians room to shine before the song itself is handled fairly economically.  It’s a measure of The Byrd’s place in American music that this same approach was adopted lock, stock and barrel nearly two decades later when no less a band than Husker Du ran their own lengthy instrumental Recurring Dreams into their mighty cover of the song.  (You’ll find it on the Live From The Camden Palace DVD.)

*My copy is the expanded version with a bonus disc of additional music called (unissued).  I couldn’t get round to playing it but will do so at some point in the future, hence the .1.

20 February 2013 (Day 51) – Reasons to be Grateful

There are all sorts of reasons why I’ve latched on to a particular act over the years.  And then are reasons why I’ve prized certain albums by these acts. Sometimes I value a particular album because it was the reason I latched on to an act.  Today’s listening provides some examples.

(137) Los Lobos – By The Light Of The Moon

With their potent mix of rock, rockabilly, Mexican and many other sounds, Los Lobos are one of America’s true living musical treasures.  They’ve been together in one form or another since 1973 and their line up has not changed other than to absob Steve Berlin.  In that time they’ve released a string of incredible albums with nary a duff one in the lot.  Even the albums released by their side projects – Los Super Seven and The Latin Playboys – make for compelling listening as was Soul Disguise the solo album by guitarist Cesar Rosas.  They’re frequently sought after for soundtrack appearances – they hit number 1 with their version of La Bamba a couple of decades ago – and for their collaborative abilities, their work with Paul Simon on a track on his Graceland album the best known.

By The Light Of The Moon is my favourite Los Lobos album over other worthy candidates such as How Will The Wolf Survive?, The Neighbourhood, Kiko and The Ride.  It is bookended by the wonderful One Time Last Night and the sublime Tears Of God.  It’s got the joyous Set Me Free (Rosa Lee), the rocking Shakin’ Shakin’ Shakes and pointed Is This All There Is?  Try as I might to make a case for some of their other albums what I can’t escape is that this is album they toured behind the one and only time I’ve managed to see them.  Each time I play this I’m immediately transported to that night at The Palace and it seems like yesterday.   26 years later I’m still waiting, but each time they’ve subsequently played here, I’ve purchased tickets only to fall ill. Perhaps this curse is really a fate designed to preserve a perfect memory of both gig and album.

(138) Frank Zappa – Hot Rats

I am a Frank Zappa fan and have almost every one of the albums released during his life time to prove it.  A Zappa fan has to put up with a lot.  There’s the wilful changes of musical direction, some dodgy albums (I defy anyone to sit through Thing Fish) or tracks (ditto The Adventures Of Gregory Pecory), some classical music albums (although The Yellow Shark is absolutely brilliant), bouts of misogyny and other lyrics so juvenile that 10 year olds would blush.  Yet I’m willing to wade through all of that because Zappa at his best is better than just about anyone.

Hot Rats was my introduction to the weird and wonderful world of everything Zappa.  A largely instrumental album except for a Captain Beefheart vocal cameo on Willie The Pimp, it is an awesome showcase for his mastery of the electric guitar.  This contains some of his best known instrumental work outs and concert mainstays notably Willie, Peaches En Regalia and The Gumbo Variations.  It is also the best entry point into the Zappa catalogue….if you dare.

(139) R.E.M – Reckoning

The first time I heard of R.E.M was when Rolling Stone magazine hailed Murmur as the best album released in 1983.  Somehow I managed to miss hearing it and so its follow up Reckoning was the first album of theirs I heard.  I was hooked straight away by the sound of Peter Buck’s guitars, Michael Stipe’s mysterious vocals and the unbelievably catchy songs, not particularly caring what they actually meant.  I was happy enough to sing for example, “She’s got pretty persuasions” to myself and make up lyrics for the remainder. (Even today I believe this was Stipe’s intention.)  I took the same approach (and obviously different lyrics) to songs such as So. Central Rain, Harborcoat, (Don’t Go Back To) Rockville and Little America.

Put another way, R.E.M were able to infuse a sense of wonder in the listener about their songs and were able to sustain that sense for a very long time and an extraordinary run of albums.  They also had the grace and common sense to call it a day when the realised this had finally worn away.  This started the process for me and for that I’m eternally grateful.

19 February 2013 (Day 50) – 5 Albums With Absolutely Nothing In Common

I knew I would be able to get through a few albums today so I set myself the task of playing albums that I could not link in any way whatsoever.  This is one of the things that I normally pride myself on in selecting listening matter but this project, and the need to find something to comment on each day, has influenced my thinking in ways I hadn’t anticipated. 

To make things interesting, I brought in the rule that all of the albums had to be rock albums. Otherwise, it would have been too easy to follow a rock album with, say a delta blues album, then a jazz album, then a reggae one.  (Of course I could have nixed that anyway by stating that these are all examples of black music, but I hadn’t thought of that at the time.)  In any case with that, supposedly difficult limitation, I think I did pretty well; you be the judge.

(132) Cowboy Junkies – The Trinity Session

By now everybody knows of the circumstances of the recording of this album by this Canadian band.  (Recorded on a single microphone in a Toronto church presumably for a pittance for those who don’t.)  Lo fi doesn’t even begin to describe the vibe early but it suits the material and the exquisite whispered vocals of Margo Timmins incredibly well.  For some reason the highlights come in the second half of the album, 200 More Miles, Dreaming My Dreams (trying playing that in front of a roaring fireplace) and of course their magnificent cover of Sweet Jane.

(133) Tool – Lateralus

Tool is seemingly where prog rock meets metal without sounding like either.  “I know where the pieces fit”, sings Maynard on this album.  Good. Now you can tell me but unfortunately the track concerned is called Schism.  Adding to the wilful confusion are enigmatic lyrics that are too angst ridden to be associated with either musical camp, traces of world music (such as the into to Reflection) and in Maynard the most withdrawn lead singer in music.  Unbelievably the whole thing works wonderfully particularly on intricate, epic tracks such as Ticks & Leeches and Triad.

(134) Bad Company – Straight Shooter

From the ashes of Free comes this no frills, straight ahead, blues/rock beauty, a particular favourite of mine in the mid too late 70s.  This neatly encapsulates the era – the songs about making love (Feel Like Makin’ Love), love gone bad (Good Lovin’ Gone Band), women (Anna and Wild Fire Woman), a cautionary tale (Shooting Star) and a tender ballad to round things up (Call On Me)  All this and the great voice of Paul Rodgers too.

(135) The B-52’s – Self Titled

Their debut album and the one that has Planet Claire, 52 Girls and the immortal Rock Lobster on it.  Need I say more? Err, yes.  For me the highlights are the final two tracks on the album.  First is the hilarious 6060-842 which probably contains the definitive Fred Schneider vocal performance, especially his answering the phone bit.  But even this is topped by the cover of Petula Clark’s Downtown, an act of supreme demented genius.

(136) Rancid - …..And Out Come The Wolves

For the most part this is an exemplary set of rousing 90’s American punk tunes which should have been much bigger that it was.  Just one listen to hook heavy tracks such as Ruby Soho, As Wicked, Disorder And Disarray, Junkie Man and the Oi Oi Oi chorus in Avenues & Alleyways and you’ll be hard pressed to stop joining in.  It is as exciting as this form of music gets and their live shows in the era were even better.

18 February 2013 (Day 49) – Did Richard Wilkins Say Mudhoney?

So far in this endeavour I’ve only been able to establish any subconscious selections of listening matter as a reaction against or complementing something I’ve just played.  Today I’ve been able to trace a selection back to something that occurred earlier in the day and that something is Channel 9’s Entertainment Editor Richard Wilkins. 

For the most part Wilkins’ music reports are right from smack in the middle of the road, not surprising really given that they’re made for morning television in the guise of the Today show.  I’d imagine his brief would be to highlight acts fitting the show’s target demographic.  Judging from the majority of musical acts profiled, I’d image that would be either elderly or musically conservative viewer.  Pink would be about as radical an act as can be envisaged.

This morning’s story was a pleasant enough conversation with jazz singer Norah Jones who is currently on an Australian tour.  At the end of the piece he held up the cover of her latest album and stated for anyone interested that it was based on a Mudhoney poster she saw on the walls of the studio where it was recorded.

My ears pricked up.  Did I just hear the word “Mudhoney” escape from the lips of the mighty sage? Did he mean Mudhoney the Seattle masters one writer referred to as the grunge connoisseur’s band of choice?  You mean he’s heard of them and – gulp – their music?  Then darker thoughts started to circulate.  What’s his motive?  Is he trying to impress someone out there?  To win a bet? Earn credibility points the next time he hosts the ARIA’s?  The mind boggled.

Anyway, I had a meeting first thing up this morning so by the time I had a chance to play something, I’d forgotten all about it.  But then I selected:

(130) Mudhoney – Under A Billion Suns

This is one of Mudhoney’s most recent albums and one of their most satisfying.  It neatly encapsulates everything that makes this band great; grungey rockers like It Is Us, and Empty Shells, slower dirges such as Where Is The Future? And Hard-On For War and tracks incorporating horns into the mix.  But the big difference here, as demonstrated by the song titles cited here, is in marrying their sonic template to lyrics of real substance.  These really suit Mark Arm’s voice, one of the best in all of rock.

Now I’m not sure whether I can extend the Wilkins memory further but the only other album I played was:

(131) Talking Heads – Fear Of Music

This is my favourite Talking Heads album although I really can’t determine how much of the credit resides with its producer Brian Eno.  Side 1 of the original vinyl release was absolutely flawless and practically a record in its own right.  It started with I Zimbra, its African rhythms anticipating the next album Remain In Light.  Then came Mind, Paper, Cities, the brilliant Life During Wartime before finishing up with Memories Can’t Wait, a side of such brilliance that I frequently played it twice before going onto Side 2 (if it all).  Although it contains such staples as Air and Heaven, Side 2 pales into comparison but that is testament to the brilliance that preceded it rather than any shortcomings. 

17 February 2013 (Day 48) – Synch Or Swim

Damn this hot weather.  I was going to journey today to a wedding reception place and bingo hall in Altona (again!!) for the second day of the All Tomorrow’s Parties Festival.  Yesterday was headlined by Swans, Godspeed You Black Emperor! and My Bloody Valentine.  Today features curators The Drones, plus The Beasts Of Bourbon, Pere Ubu (playing The Modern Dance), Crime And The City Solution, Einstürzende Neubauten and many others.  But I was worried about the heat and today is something like the fifth day in a row over 31 degrees Celsius.  So my priorities today were to keep cool and import a stack of CDs into the iPod.

The latter task involves having to work with iTunes.  This involves a great deal more work that the good people at Apple originally probably envisaged.  Once I’ve imported my disc, I immediately bring up the tracks in my library to edit all of the data provided that I simply don’t want.  These include songwriters, music genres, those annoying details at the end of tracks such as (album version) or (2007 remaster) and basically anything that could affect a true random shuffle other than album titles, song titles and track lengths.  What puzzles me here is that I can remove these items from my music library so that it doesn’t show on my iPod but I can’t delete other things I don’t want on my iPod such as the installed Games and all the other features I never use and never will use such as provision to store Contacts, Photos, Video, etc.  I repeat something I wrote last month; anyone who buys a 160GB iPod does so because they want as close to 160GB of music as possible.  Nothing else matters.

Then I’ve got to edit artists and album titles.  Editing artists is an absolute must because even the most minuscule difference will result in a new artist appearing on the iPod.  For example, I don’t want my Neil Young albums appearing in two separate artist lists, one for Neil Young and another for Neil Young And Crazy Horse; all get attributed to Neil Young.  I then need to make sure that artists are sorted so that they appear in an alphabetical sequence by artist surname or group name.  Occasionally I’ll need to sort or edit an album title especially when there are many albums released with the same title such as Greatest Hits, Live, The Very Best Of, The Essential, or Gold. And finally there are things that I feel I should correct.  For example, today I imported The Jeffery Lee Pierce Sessions Project album I played last month.  This is actually the second album released by this amalgamation of acts and so I think it should be listed as an artist.  This means taking the individuals created to each artist on the album into the song title.  (iTunes really doesn’t handle compilations all that well.) After this, I will uncheck any tracks I don’t want, almost always to avoid unnecessary duplication of tracks.

Next up is a task that I really think is really unnecessary.  When you import your CD, iTunes gives you all of this data but not the album artwork.  You then have to specifically take action to retrieve it.  Why not give the artwork along with everything else and let the consumer decide whether to keep or delete it?  Finally, it’s time for the synching process, something that Apple has considerably approved and it goes smoothly.

And so there you have it, a posting to disguise the fact that today, I’ve played only one album and it was whilst writing this post.

(129) Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers – Hard Promises

For a long time, Damn The Torpedoes was my favourite Petty album.  However, every time I play this album the gap continues to narrow to the point where I’d say it’s now at level pegging.  This is strange because I can remember being underwhelmed when this first came out.  Anyway this has a cracking start with the two singles The Waiting and A woman In Love (It’s Not Me).  This is followed by Nightwatchman, one of the few Petty tracks that could be described as approaching funky. Kings Road and A Thing About you are first rate rockers, Insider is another good duet with Stevie Nicks and You Can Still Change Your Mind is a fine ballad to close proceedings.  

16 February 2013 (Day 47) – Tis Was The Thrill Of The Hunt *

Actually, there was some good news yesterday but I didn’t want to trivialise the event in our lives from overseas.  After all the receipt of my first internet order for the year is very unimportant in the scheme of life. 

I’ve been forced into having to buy my music from the web for a number of reasons.  First, there are few stores around the stock a lot of the music I want to purchase.  There are the JB HiFi’s and some independent stores such as Greville’s, Missing Link and Polyester but all of these are a distance from my place.   Moreover, there is no guarantee that they’ll have what I want and even if they did I might have to pay significantly more for the privilege.  That prices over the web can be quite reasonable is simply the cherry on the cake.  Whilst I’d prefer to keep Australians in a job and would be willing to pay a modest mark up, I simply refuse to pay the outrageous mark ups that many of the chain stores used to charge.  JB HiFi exposed them and they’ve all paid the price, so to speak, at least in Melbourne.

My copy of The Fall’s Complete Peel Sessions is a case in point.  When I decided to buy it, I did the rounds of about 6 JB’s, plus Grevilles and Missing Link only to discover that no one stocked it although Missing Link claimed they had sold their only copy a few weeks prior.  Everyone offered to order it for me at a price ranging from $60 – 120 and a delivery estimate of 2-4 weeks.  I eventually got it over the web via an English site and it cost me approximately $40 including postage and I received it in 5 working days.  How can any bricks and mortar shop compete against that?

This doesn’t mean that I’m happy with having to purchase my music this way.  Previously one of my favourite pastimes was the hunt.  I had a network of chain stores, independent stores, second hand places, record fairs and others in which to fossick. Usually I set out with no real intention of buying a specific album. I let their stock surprise me preferring the thrill of finding something unexpectedly that I’ve desperately wanted. 

But as we all know, time marches on and the world and my life changed and I’ve had to embrace the brave new worlds of the internet and marriage. If the shops hadn’t started to close, I would have needed to abandon my expeditions anyway due to marriage. This is not coincidental.  As the movie adaption of Nick Hornby’s great book High Fidelity makes perfectly clear, the art of record shopping is an existence pursued almost exclusively by single men as a substitute for absent female company.  I know that it applied to me; let’s face it I never managed to pick up anyone as I flicked through a CD or vinyl rack.  No woman ever came to me saying, “Oh, I really want that extra rare album that you’re about to buy for a steal.  Can you make a copy for me?  Maybe we could meet for coffee?”  Don’t get me wrong here.  I wasn’t like one of those anonymous geeks in the comic book store in The Big Bang Theory staring whenever a woman entered the store. I wouldn’t have noticed because I was focused on the search attempting to uncover that gem before anybody else.  (Well, it’s either that or comic book fans really are different.)

So onto today’s listening brought to you by a warehouse somewhere in Europe and Australia Post.

(127) La Dusseldorf – Individuellos

This is the third and last La Dusseldorf album, at least with Klaus Dinger as a member.   This is about as close an album to anything resembling mainstream sounds (Kraftwerk included) that any of the German experimental bands of the 70s got.  There were even moments on this which appear to foreshadow the New Romantic movement.  Is this why Dinger left the band?

(128) Howlin’ Rain – Magnificent Fiend

Howlin’ Rain was formed by Ethan Miller as his previous band Comets On Fire came to the end of it life.  Both bands played modern versions of psychedelic rock crossed with blues, folk and other influences.  The difference is that Comets On Fire played a more ragged and primitive form and Howlin’ Rain favours a more melodic and cleaner sound.  Yet when Howlin’ Rain truly rocks out as they do on the glorious Lord Have Mercy, such differences are moot.

(* I’ll be damned if I’ll title any post after a line in Eye Of The Tiger, hence the otherwise unnecessary “Tis”.)  

15 February 2013 (46) – Music and Me

Not only was this a day without music, it was also infused with a great deal of sadness.  As I was about to leave my office for my first meeting, “M” rang me to advise that a former colleague of hers from her homeland had finally succumbed to cancer after a two year fight.  I had met Tess a number of times on our various trips back to visit “M”’s family and friends.

Ordinarily, I would have absorbed the shock by playing something.  On this occasion, it would certainly have been Gary Moore’s Still Got The Blues because she played the album as background music the last time she hosted us.  But just by remembering the Moore album, which I then thought an odd choice for a dinner party hosted by a woman well into her 60’s, was sufficient to think about her funky apartment, the wonderful food and the laughs we shared.

A series of lengthy meetings, later it was time to catch up with “M” as she was having drinks with her work colleagues.  I’d given her the option of opting out of our dinner but she was determined to go ahead as her way of coping with the news and so we went dining at a favourite restaurant in the City. Normally, we have a great time but it wasn’t fun.  The news was undoubtedly a factor but for me there was another factor, the background music.

I’ll explain.  To me having music in my life is akin to having food, drink, love, family, good friends and work. Miss out on all of these and you cannot be born, nurtured or sustained.  Music fits into the last category. It is something you seek and find that you think will enrich your life, give expression to how you feel or validate your view on life.   Good music nourishes me.  I don’t mean here that it influences my beliefs or attitudes; this is a figment of the imagination of fanatics or the deeply bereaved who desperately (and in the latter case, understandably) want to believe that music, like violent media, holds some form of power that prevails over inevitably weak minds, breaks down non existent rational thought processes and causes previously unimaginable thoughts and deeds in otherwise sane individuals .  Whilst some rock stars will write songs about issues and publicly endorse them, they are seeking to influence you thought process not ccast a demonic spell you cannot break if you tried.

Instead I see things like this.  There’s a hell of a lot of music out there.  By this, I’m not speaking in terms of genres or labels but rather its role and context in life.  There are forms of music out there that attempt to influence how you think in a given context.  Just off the top of my head there are political forms (think national anthems and the like) and business forms (e.g commercials, jingles, muzak in elevators, anonymous “calming” music on complaint phone lines etc) among many others.  You cannot escape from these.  On the other hand you can choose whether you want to engage and the degree of engagement in the various genres of music as a form of enjoyment, relaxation or validation. In other words, I believe that people gravitate towards the form of music with which they fell comfortable or which expresses how they feel.  If they don’t feel an attachment at all, they’ll leave it alone.  This is what those who want to set controls on certain forms of music fall to appreciate.  A teenage who has, say committed suicide while listening to song like Suicide Solution has not been driven to kill themselves by the song.  More likely they found something which, irrespective of whether they have correctly interpreted its true meaning or not, they think will best communicate to anyone why they have taken the action.

I need to hear music on a daily basis.  But more importantly it is music that I want to hear.  I don’t know about you but for me one of life’s little pleasures is hearing something you really love cropping up in a place you never expect to hear it.  Think about favourite tracks you may have that pop up on a movie soundtrack, in a commercial, over a shop PA, on a radio station overseas, etc and you get the general idea.  And ultimately that’s what got to me last night.  I’d had the busy day and the sad news and ultimately when I needed something to help me make sense of the world, I was left at the mercy of playlist.  Hearing Roxette’s Greatest Hits was never going to help.

14 February 2013 (Day 45) – Door bell, cuckoo clock, soccer crowd, mosquito, chicken and telephone sounds

Oops! I did it again - another day where I’m able to play a few albums and again I’ve found myself unconsciously then deliberately choosing my selections based on what I’d just heard.  The starting point was two of the finest dub albums ever released;

(121 & 122) Joe Gibbs And The Professionals – African Dub All-Mighty Chapters 3 and 4

Joe Gibbs was one of the major producers of reggae in Jamaica during its golden era of the 1970’s and the early 1980’s.  The Professionals was his crack studio band comprising rhythm section Sly & Robbie (Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare) and guitarist [Earl] Chinna Smith.  Together the released a total of six albums (i.e Chapters) of the African Dub series which are available as individual albums or, if you still able to find them, as “twofers” (i.e two complete albums on the one disc). General critical opinion appears to regard Chapters 3 & 4 as the pick of the bunch; I certainly prefer them to Chapters 1 & 2 (and then Chapter 3 to 4) but haven’t yet heard the final two.  These are definitively two of the finest examples of dub, the reggae practice of taking usually existing tracks, emphasising the drums and bass and adding echo and effects and removing or selectively retaining the remaining elements. I love these albums because, Gibbs allows some vocal elements to remain, occasionally gives as much emphasis to the horns on the records as to the rhythm section and also because of the range of sound effects added to the mix.  It’s these effects that really stay in the mind afterwards especially as ythey appear without warning.  On Chapter 3 alone, I heard running water, ringing telephones, gongs, door bells and the hoots from a cuckoo clock.  Wanting to keep the largely instrumental vibe going I next turned to:

(123) Pink Floyd – Meddle

…or as it is fated to be known for the rest of time, “The One Pink Floyd Released Before The Dark Side Of The Moon”.  I don’t think it deserves such a fate as it is a very strong album in its own right.  The opening instrumental One Of These Days is justly celebrated, one of those pieces that starts slowly but continually builds tempo throughout. The remainder of the former Side 1 is a combination of largely acoustic tunes with all of the original Side 2 given over to a single track.  Echoes is arguably Pink Floyd’s finest post Syd/pre Dark Side (now I’m doing it!) moment.  Most of the lyrical comment, some form of hippie I’m-one-with-the-earth-man-so-let’s-get-it-on-girl babbling is disposed of relatively early on.  The rest is a wondrous exploration as David Gilmour’s guitars fight to the death against Richard Wright’s keyboards. 

Whilst this album was on, I was distracted by some of the effects added to some of the tracks (the wind and the soccer crowd during Fearless and the howling dog during Seamus) like on the dub albums. Determined to break this, I decided on making an ironic comment by next selecting:

(124) The Jam – Sound Affects

I don’t care what anyone says but this is their best album.  Although admittedly it was the first Jam album I’d ever heard, Sound Affects is the most balanced of their records.  The early up tempo mod tunes of the early album are tempered here by some light and shade, especially the ballad like That’s Entertainment, the whistles on Set The House Ablaze (a particular favourite of mine) and the increased use of horns.   And then – to my horror – was the track I’d completely forgotten about.  About mid way through The Last Couple, the track breaks down so that we could all listen to the sound of a mosquito buzzing!  Throwing my hands up in the air, I’d thought I’d go to an album that was bound to include many effects:

(125) Easy Star All-Stars – Easy Star’s Lonely Hearts Dub Band

This is a reggae band that specialises in producing reggae versions of entire classic albums such as Dark Side Of The Moon, Thriller and OK Computer.  Their take on The Beatles Sgt Pepper’s, an album many people would have you think is the best album ever made when it doesn’t even make my Beatles top three, is a pretty good one even though it falls short of the heights reached on Pink Floyd’s opus.  Some of the tunes here lend themselves well to reggae, especially Getting Better, Lovely Rita and the McCartney mid-section of A Day In The Life.  Having a female voice sing She’s Leaving Home is a sensible one as the sentiments expressed in the song are more likely to be expressed by a mother.  The expected sound effects from the original were present; the alarm clock in A Day In The Life and the chicken, dogs, horses and birds Good Morning Good Morning with a lion added.  If you listen carefully, the latter also incorporates a number of chickens sampled from their own Dub Side Of The Moon.

(126) The Electric Light Orchestra – A New World Record

A great example of how the memory can play tricks.  This was a real favourite of mine when it was originally released.  Yet for some reason I thought it was loaded with effects.  As it turns out there are only the telephone sounds that occur throughout Telephone Line and a police siren in Mission.  None of this detracts from the album which also contains the wonderful Rockaria! and Do Ya where Jeff Lynne covers his own song that was originally recorded when he was in The Move.   It is still a good album after all this time and, unlike some of the latter ELO material, one that doesn’t feel dated.

Tomorrow is looking grim music wise.  Some lengthy commitments at work and a delayed Valentine’s Day dinner with “M” raises the distinct possibility that I’ll have nothing to write about.

13 February 2013 (Day 44) – Two Ambient Gems

I had quite a few commitments today, so had time only for a couple of albums in the early hours at work. Knowing that a frantic day was before me, I chose just about my favourite chill out album.

(118) Aphex Twin – Selected Ambient Works 85 – 92

Aphex Twin is an English electronic composer by the name of Richard D James.  This was his debut album which is now regarded as a masterpiece of electronica, ambient music and dance music.  Basically, James’ idea was to merge all three together and it is surprising how seamless it sounds.  Picking out individual tracks is next to useless; despite the fact that all tracks are separated by silence it takes quite a few listens before this fact even registers.  I’m also reasonably sure that segments from these tracks have been used in commercials and movies ; if I’m wrong this can only be taken as evidence of just how influential this album has become. 

(119) David Byrne – The Complete Score From The Broadway Production Of The Catherine Wheel

One of the reasons Talking Heads broke up was Bryne’s determination to make music on his own without the compromise of the band. I find it quite ironic that my favourite solo Byrne album is this, made whilst he was still in that band.  It was composed to accompany a Twyla Tharp dance production and is mostly instrumental with about five songs with Byrne vocals.  The instrumentals are intriguing. Some of these, especially Two Soldiers and Poison, sound like unfinished Talking Head tracks whilst others such as The Red House sound like outtakes from his collaboration with Brian Eno, My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts. All of the vocal tracks are terrific;  a version of What A Day That Was included in the subsequent Talking Heads Stop Making Sense soundtrack album and it’s not even the best of these.

Needing only a short album to accompany my writing at home I chose:

(120) Marshall Crenshaw – Self Titled

The bespectacled Crenshaw created quite a stir in the United States (or at least in Rolling Stone) when he released this, his debut album.  It comprises 12 power pop lite gems, all extremely likeable and without an ounce of fat.  Only the thin sounding 80s production hurts the album today.  Just how he didn’t progress to become a major star is simply a mystery to me but at least it’s nice to know he’s appreciated in music circles.  The only time I saw him on stage was when he got up to join the remnants of the MC5 during their encores when they played at the Palace around 6 or 7 years ago. 

12 February 2013 (Day 43) – From Jimmy Webb to AC/DC in Five Albums

It was another long day in the Office.  I started with a typically low key album, little knowing that my day would morph into a musical form of 6 Degrees Of Kevin Bacon.

(113) Jimmy Webb – Ten Easy Pieces

On this album Webb sings his best known songs, originally recorded by others with elaborate arrangements and productions, with just his piano for company. The monster hits are all present; Highwayman, Wichita Lineman, By The Time I Get To Phoenix and McArthur Park.   But the highlight is the opener, a slowed down version of Galveston which is more effective than the Glen Campbell original.  Webb usually has an interesting voice.  On Galveston he sounds uncannily like Warren Zevon, which led me to my next selection:

(114) Warren Zevon – Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School

Zevon has rightly been celebrated for a string of great West Coast singer/songwriter albums delivered with a caustic wit.  This is not one of his more admired albums but it remains close to my favourite. It has a tremendous opening trio of tracks; the title track, A Certain Girl and Jungle Work and the classic Jeannie Needs A Shooter.  Even the short instrumentals dotted throughout the album provide effective support.  Most of all, it contains just about my favourite Zevon song, Play It All Night Long.  This has just about the best opening of any song – "Grandpa pissed his pants again/He don’t give a damn" – as the song’s narrator describes a seemingly dysfunctional family.  It makes him seek out a bar to drown his sorrows whilst imploring that “dead man’s song”, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Sweet Home Alabama, be played all night long.  As I result, I next played:

(115) Lynyrd Skynyrd – One More From The Road

This was the first Skynyrd live album and, I think, the only one featuring Ronnie Van Zandt on lead vocals.  (Certainly it was the only one released during his life time.)  It is one of the great live albums which presented the band in its natural element playing its greatest hits. It also possesses the sort of big finish to a live album that you rarely get to hear these days with Call Me The Breeze, The Needle And The Spoon, the obligatory cover (in this case, Crossroads) and the epic closer, Skynyrd signature piece and air guitarists’ wet dream, Freebird.  Of course, it features the other track people associate with this band, Sweet Home Alabama.  As probably everybody knows by now, Van Zandt wrote this song in response to anti US southern sentiments he discerned in Neil Young’s Southern Man. 

By this time I had become conscious of where my choices were leading me and so the next album I selected was:

(116) Neil Young – Decade

This was the first Neil Young compilation spanning the first decade of his solo career.  A triple vinyl album on its original release, it serves as the definitive primer for anyone wanting a comprehensive overview of the period.  The epics are here: Cowgirl In The Sand, Down By The River, Cortez The Killer and Like A Hurricane.  So are his hits including Helpless, Old Man, Harvest, Heart Of Gold and The Needle And The Damage Done.  Then there’s Ohio, Mr Soul, Long May You Run and the brilliant hitherto unreleased Campaigner with its “Even Richard Nixon has got soul” hook.  And yes, it also has Southern Man.  After that, I had no alternative than to next play:

(117) Drive-By Truckers – Southern Rock Opera

Unquestionably the Truckers’ finest album, this is one of the finest rock opera’s ever recorded.  No wonder given that it tells the story of Lynyrd Skynyrd and their place in Southern USA mythology. Beginning with a Neil-esque squall of feedback, it doesn’t take long before Southern Man is invoked.  The second track, Ronnie And Neil, is all about the Southern Man/Sweet Home Alabama “controversy” with Patterson Hood claiming that Van Zandt and Young were actually good friends.  But this is not the only reason to listen to this as it continues to tell the remainder of the story, ultimately incorporating the bands recruitment of Steve Gaines  (Cassie’s Brother) and the plane crash that claimed him and Van Zandt (Shut Up And Get On The Plane and Greenville To Baton Rouge).  But the highlight to me is Let There Be Rock, where the narrator bemoans the fact that while he never got to see the original band, at least got to see AC/DC with Bon Scott……

……and I promise not to start tomorrow’s listening with Highway To Hell.

11 February 2013 (Day 42) – Magical Melbourne Music Tour # 2

Got to work today and it turned out to be exactly what I had planned for Friday.  Needless to say, I was able to play the final 48 tracks of The Fall Peel Sessions box.  And so the remaining elements of the Melbourne tour.

Prahran

Today’s journey starts at St. Kilda Junction as we proceed along Dandenong Road turning right into  the inner suburb of Prahran centred on its Chapel Street shopping strip.  At the intersection of Dandenong Road and Chapel Street is the Astor Theatre, now an art house/cult/revival cinema.  It was here on 15 January 1982 that the Birthday Party performed their final show prior to their departure for Britain and released on the live album It’s Still Living.  Chapel Street itself was apparently the home to a number of discos and night clubs in the 1960s and 1970’s although hardly any remain.  A left turn just after the former Prahran Town Hall takes you into Greville Street, home to the legendary Greville’s Records, just about the last surviving independent record/CD shop of any note.  A few doors down is a restaurant that was home to the greatly missed Continental Night Club.  This was a great intimate cabaret type venue that managed to book a great range of acts over its life time including Chris Whitley, R.L Burnside, spoken word Henry Rollins, Alex Chilton and Jonathon Richman among many others.  Previously it had a shorter incarnation as ID’s, notable as the venue for Lucinda Williams’ first Melbourne shows.  A few doors further down is the now closed Railway Hotel, a roots venue largely remembered for its incorporation of a real train engine seemingly crashing through the front wall. 

The Domain and The Sporting Precinct

Continue along Greville Street to its end, make a few more turns, ultimately turning right into St. Kilda Road and proceed along it.  Once you’ve passed the Shrine Of Remembrance, turn right across St Kilda Road into Domain Road and then turn left.  Eventually you should be able to park your car and climb a hill to view The Sidney Myer Music Bowl.  This is arguably the most prestigious of Melbourne’s regular outdoor music venues. (Note to any overseas writers: it’s the Sidney Myer Music Bowl, Melbourne NOT the Sydney Myer Music Bowl.) A massive permanent half tent type structure built on the base of a sloping hill 54 years ago, it has been the backdrop to a number of memorable gigs including Bob Dylan, Neil Young (two separate tours), R.E.M’s Monster tour, Nick Cave, Metallica, Tool and many others. The Bowl, as it is affectionately known, has provided generations of free musical experiences.  Just about everyone in Melbourne has spent at least one gig stretched out on blankets outside for a free listen.  Until a recent redevelopment of the site, people also climbed the surrounding trees for a free view.  (I myself did this to watch the Stop The Drop gig featuring Midnight Oil and INXS on13 February 1983.)   It was the site for Abba’s only Melbourne shows (glimpsed in Abba. The Movie), AC/DC’s Back In Black tour and Pearl Jam’s debut tour; on the latter two occasions ticketless crowds outside the venue tore down the outer chain fence for free entry.  TV filmed gigs by the Beach Boys and ELO during the 1970’s captured performances of dubious quality;; management of the former apparently begged for it not to be broadcast. Although its original capacity was 35,000 people, an estimated 150,000 – 250,000 people turned out for a free gig by The Seekers in 1967.  The recent works has reduced the capacity to around 25,000 people but this would make a tight fit.

Return to your car and continue along Domain Road to its end, and turn right into Alexander Avenue.  Across the avenue is the Alexander Gardens and alongside it, the Yarra River.  During the 1970’s and early 1980’s Top 40 station 3XY used to put on free end of school year gigs from a floating stage on the river that were attended by huge crowds.  Turn left and cross the Swan Street Bridge, enter the Melbourne Sporting Precinct and proceed along Olympic Boulevard. On your left is the National Tennis Centre, home of the Australian Open tennis tournament.  Centre Court is Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne’s premier indoors concert venue.  Home to many gigs each year, this 15,000 person venue would be a permanent member of the world’s top 10 concert venues if it wasn’t for its unavailability for about 5-6 weeks each year due to the tournament.  Apart from a couple of after show gigs, it has been the venue for every Melbourne Prince gig over 3 tours.  The Eagles Farwell 1 DVD was filmed here as is, apparently, a forthcoming Dolly Parton DVD recorded in December 2011.  Other big names that have played here include R.E.M, Pearl Jam, Eminem, The Rolling Stones, Santana, Roger Waters performing Dark Side Of The Moon and The Wall, Pink Floyd on the Momentary Lapse Of Reason Tour, Neil Young, U2, and the Jimmy Page/Robert Plant Unledded tour.  Pink holds the record for the most number of sold out shows at the venue.  On the other side of the Olympic Boulevard oval is Hinsense Arena, a velodrome, Australian Open No. 2 Court and concert venue. 

Directly opposite Rod Laver Arena is the Westpac Centre, now the training home for the Collingwood Football Club but originally constructed as the swimming venue for the 1956 Olympics.  In between these uses, it functioned as the Melbourne Sports And Entertainment Centre, also known as The Glasshouse, owing to the glass outer shell that was added.  Despite appalling acoustics, this venue had developed a reasonable musical pedigree.  Talking Heads performed their Stop Making Sense show here during 1982 supported by the Learning To Crawl era Pretenders.  It was the location for U2’s first Melbourne show, Van Morrison’s only performances and Cold Chisel’s final shows before their first break up.  Dire Straits performed here 10 times during their Brothers In Arms tour, on one occasion joined by Bob Dylan for what were probably the only spontaneous notes played on their entire tour. 

Alongside the Westpac Centre is another oval which, until recently, was an arena known as Olympic.  Built as a soccer and training venue for the Games, it too hosted some huge shows.  It was the venue for Michael Jackson’s Dangerous tour, the Australian Made caravan led by INXS, the first Skyhooks reunion and the Alternative Nation Festival.  The last named was an unsuccessful attempt to hold a Big Day Out type event later in the year which also utilised The Glasshouse as an indoor stage.  Alongside this is AAMI Stadium a new arena for rugby and soccer which has hosted only a couple of gigs by The Foo Fighters.

Richmond and Collingwood

Olympic Boulevard ends at an intersection with Punt Road marking the start of Richmond.  If you continue in a straight line, it becomes Swan Street.  Just after the railway bridge at Richmond rail station is the Corner Hotel, currently Melbourne’s dominant pub venue. Normally it specialises in alternative bands and occasional blues acts too numerous to mention.  Mick Jagger played a “secret” gig on his mid 80’s solo tour of Australia coming on after a scheduled Charlie Musslewhite performance.  David Hasslehoff plays a “rock show” here on Valentine’s Day.  About a kilometre away is The Central Club Hotel which does not appear to schedule many bands these days.  Its biggest claim to fame was the annual run of Christmas shows of Melbourne’s own Weddings, Parties, Anything. A short distance away off into Swan Street is the former Channel 9 studios.  No major music shows of note were produced there but it was where Tom Waits wound up Don Lane during an appearance on his variety show.

If you turn left from Olympic Boulevard into Punt Road and proceed underneath another rail bridge, two landmarks reveal themselves.  On your right is the Cricketers Arms Hotel, the tiny pub where Men At Work were discovered prior to their short lived world domination in the 80’s.  As you go past that, the massive structure that is the Melbourne Cricket Club emerges on your left.  The MCG (or “The G”) is Australia’s largest sporting arena with a capacity for 100,000 people and is part of the sporting precinct but I’ve placed it here.  As it is used during summer for the cricket season and winter for the Australian Rules Football season, gigs only occur in small pockets of time in between.  Only the very biggest acts at the height of their fame get to play here.  These have included David Bowie, Linda Ronstadt and David Cassidy during the 1970s, The Rolling Stones on their Bridges To Babylon Tour (their first shows since 1973), U2 on the ZooTV Tour, Paul McCartney, The Three Tenors, the Elton John/Billy Joel joint tour and The Police on their recent reunion tour.  A couple of benefits have also taken place, notably the Sound Relief Show for bushfire relief.  Finally, proceed along Punt Road, turn right into Bridge Road.  A few blocks along on your left is a group of shops that have been constructed from an old cinema that specialised in showing Greek films. Inbetween these two developments, the cinema had been converted into a music venue called The Old Greek Cinema.  This was a brilliant venue that existed in the late 80’s and early 90’s specialising in alternative music.  Lower level chairs were removed but the sloping floor retained giving everyone a great view and the plush seating was retained in the former dress circle. The Sonic Youth and Faith No More (I think) both debuted in Melbourne here.  Unfortunately, the venue went bust on the eve of Ride’s first Melbourne gig.

Adjoining Richmond is the suburb of Collingwood notable only for alternative music institution, The Tote (Hotel) in Johnstone Street.  A small venue, its closure in 2010 owing to changes in liquor laws sparked a massive protest at which 2000 people descended on the venue.  This directly led to the formation of the Fair Go 4 Live Music movement and an estimated 10,000 attended another rally in the City.  Public pressure was such that the liquor laws were changed allowing the venue to reopen.  All this is documented in the documentary Persecution Blues.

Fitzroy, Carlton, Brunswick and North Melbourne

Proceed along Johnstone Street from The Tote towards the City and eventually turn right into Brunswick Street Fitzroy. This is Melbourne’s home of alternative lifestyles, eating and Polyester Records, Greville’s only real competitor.  It was also the location for a venue known as The Punters Club, a small venue in the mould of The Tote that has since been converted into a restrauant. At the top end of Brunswick Street is the Royal Derby Hotel, notable as the birthplace of Abba tribute band (and Kurt Cobain favourite) Bjorn Again.  Continue from there into Brunswick.  Brunswick sits at the start of Sydney Road marking the end of the great migration for bands travelling by road from Sydney to Melbourne.  At the foot of Sydney Road is an Irish Pub called Bridie O’Reilly’s.  It was previously known as The Sarah Sands Hotel, another music venue.  Swiss band The Young Gods recorded their Live Sky Tour album there on 30 May 1992.   

Sydney Road becomes Royal Parade marking the start of Carlton. On the right hand side, past the Carlton Football Ground is the portion of Princess Park that was a temporary Big Day Out venue for two years.  Carlton’s greatest claim to fame, however, lies past that.  It is the University Of Melbourne where a number of bands have been formed, notably Hunters And Collectors.  Close to the University is the Old Melbourne Motor Inn, now a student hostel, but during the 70’s the base for many overseas bands.

Adjoining Carlton is North Melbourne whose sole claim to music immortality is Festival Hall.  Located in Dudley Street, this was originally a boxing stadium. The present structure was built following a fire in time for the Olympics.  From that time until the opening of The Glasshouse as a concert venue, it was Melbourne’s major concert venue.  Just about every major touring act  in the 1960s that visited Melbourne played this venue, the most famous of which were The Beatles.  Their shows marked the first time all four Beatles played in Australia, Ringo having missed the first few dates of the tour. One of these shows was filmed and featured prominently at the end of one of the episodes of The Beatles Anthology TV shows.  But before that came the Hall’s greatest claim to fame.  It was supposedly here that Little Richard saw the Russian satellite Sputnik in the sky causing him a day or two later to throw his jewellery into Sydney Harbour and renounce rock ‘n’ roll.  Festival Hall’s acoustics are dreadful but this hasn’t stopped a mass of acts performing there.   It was where Neil Young, Talking Heads and Roxy Music all made their Melbourne debuts and both The Clash and Bob Marley And The Wailers played their only Melbourne shows here.  At least one live album – Play by Magazine – has even been recorded at this venue.

Finally, two suburbs from North Melbourne is Flemington home to the famous racecourse and the Royal Melbourne Showgrounds.  The racecourse carpark is the current home to the Melbourne Big Day Out as well as other festivals.  The Showgrounds was the original home of the Big Day Out and today also hosts the Soundwave Festival.  It is also famous as the venue for Bruce Springsteen’s first Melbourne shows.  His two gigs in 1985 as part of the Born In The USA tour were among the very first mega gigs he had performed anywhere.  The showgrounds was also the venue for the last show of The Police’s Synchronicity World Tour which effectively marked the end of the band except for the reunion shows.

Central Melbourne

Start at the Arts Centre complex at the end of St Kilda Road.  Very few gigs have occurred in the theatres there although Randy Newman performed at the State Theatre a few years ago.  Next to that is Hamer Hall a plush 2500 seat venue.  This has seen its share of memorable shows including the Melbourne debuts for Newman, Stevie Ray Vaughn, solo Brian Wilson and Miles Davis. It is also the home of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra which has recorded live albums with Elton John and Kiss as well as accompanying a number of other acts.

Cross the Yarra River and St Kilda Road becomes Swanston Street.  This street was immortalised by AC/DC which filmed a video travelling down it whilst playing It’s a Long Way To The Top.  The Melbourne City Council has since responded by immortalising AC/DC, naming a lane after them.  (AC/DC Lane is located off Flinders Lane between Russell and Exhibition Streets.  The street sign is placed uncommonly high to prevent theft.) A few blocks up Swanston Street is the Melbourne Town Hall where Abba was given the keys to the City in 1977.  Across the street is the HiFi Bar, a venue established in what was a basement cinema but lacks the character which made the Old Greek Theatre so great.

Turn right from Swanston Street into Bourke Street and at the intersection with Exhibition Street is a large modern office tower.  This was the former site for the Southern Cross Hotel which was Melbourne’s finest hotel when it opened in August 1962.  As such it was where The Beatles stayed during their tour which resulted in a massive crowd outside.  Towards the end of Bourke Street is the Palace Theatre now run by the former owners of The Palace in St Kilda.  Previously known as The Metro and prior to that a Christian revival centre, it has also seen some great gigs over the years including the Melbourne debuts for George Clinton, Blur, The Stone Roses and Jane’s Addiction.    

Flinders Street is home to The National Theatre, more commonly known as The Forum.  This is arguably the best venue to watch a band in Melbourne.  It is also a former cinema; large sofa type seats are at the rear and the sloped floor exists for the punters up front.  The space still has its original decorative motif which is of an outdoor Roman theatre.  The ceiling represents the night sky with tiny lights representing stars. Nick Cave, Steve Earle, The Black Keys, Primal Scream, Pavement, The Beastie Boys and many other acts have played here.

Finally in the new part of Melbourne known as Docklands is Etihad Stadium, a 54,000 seater with a retractable roof, easily Australia’s largest indoor concert venue.  Like the MCG only the world’s biggest acts play here and only during the summer months.  The inaugural act to play the venue was Barbara Streisand and others have included U2, AC/DC, Bruce Springsteen, Coldplay, Bon Jovi, Eminem, George Michael and Robbie Williams.  Kiss recorded Kiss Alive 4 here with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.