23 April 2013 (Day 113) – Chrissy Amphlett

I wake up this morning and find every major media outlet is reporting on the death of Chrissy Amphlett.  Every report I see or hear is overwhelmingly positive about her talent and overall contribution to the Australian music industry.  "M" had only known her through the I Touch Myself single, which was a hit in her homeland, and I spent breakfast explaining to her why this is a great loss.  

Make no mistake Amphlett is the only female rock singer of any consequence this country has produced.  As the lead vocalist of the Divinyls she was, with just a couple of exceptions, almost the only female of any consequence during the great pub band explosion of the 1980s.  None of that era’s major acts – Midnight Oil, Cold Chisel, INXS, Hunters & Collectors, The Hoodoo Gurus, Split Enz, The Church, The Sports, Mental As Anything, Died Pretty, The Beasts Of Bourbon, Mondo Rock, Men At Work, Paul Kelly & The Coloured Girls/Messengers, Dragon, Mi-Sex among many others – had women in their bands.  (Moreover, only INXS used female backing singers, and even then on occasion, in live performance.)  Bands with female members – The Go-Betweens, The Triffids and The Moodists/Dave Graney and The White Buffaloes – spent the great bulk of the decade in London where mixed gender, or indeed all female bands were more plentiful.  Back home, the Divinyls and Chrissy basically had only Do Re Mi (led by Deborah Conway), The Eurogliders (with Grace Knight) and I’m Talking (with Kate Ceberano) for company.  Every other mixed gender band – The Clouds, The Hummingbirds, The Baby Animals, Magic Dirt, even the version of The Black Sorrows with Linda and Vika Bull, and many, many others – were formed in the wake of these bands. 

But with the greatest respect to Do Re Mi, whose Conway penned songs were then too confrontationally feminist to attract sustained mainstream success, The Eurogliders, a more traditional pop band that lasted only for a few years in its original incarnation and I’m Talking, a pioneering funk/dance band in era when Australians wanted to rock, it was the Divinyls and Amphlett in particular that was able to win over and sustain a mass audience.  Chrissy did this by constructing a persona, the wild rock chick dressed in a school uniform which punters immediately associated with another wildman, AC/DC’s Angus Young.  But this would not have succeeded without her voice –strong and breathy and reminiscent in some ways of Renee Geyer, just about her only available local role model – which suggested a confident and assertive yet, at times, vulnerable woman.  The liberal deployment of a sneering tone and “oy’s” simultaneously suggested that she could be accepted on equal terms as one of the boys.

This might partially explain why she never made a solo album.  The Divinyls were less a band but more a duo between Chrissy and Mark McEntee on lead guitar.   They made for an intriguing combination on stage – Chrissy usually projecting far more menace than her on stage foil – and as such they were a phenomenal live act who could more than hold their own against any other act.  I never missed an opportunity to see them live with the exception of their final reunion tour and never saw a dud show.  They were one of the few – if not the only – local band I ever saw who never shared a double bill with another major local act from the era.  Perhaps other bands realised the futility of doing do.  Joan Jett And The Blackhearts gamely gave it a try for one Australian tour but, at the show I saw, were comprehensively blown off the stage by the main act.

And yet, despite the overwhelming positive nature of the reportage about her legacy, it would appear that the merit of The Divinyls catalogue is not so clear.  The compilers of The 100 Best Australian Albums a couple of years ago, for example, could not find a spot for any of their albums, an extraordinary decision considering Amphlett’s status in Australia’s music history and McEntee’s brilliance as a guitarist.  In some respects I can understand this as their albums weren’t always sequenced all that well;  the first three albums are all frontloaded by the successful singles from it making them sound a bit like singles compilations plus filler.  Even more incredibly has been the failure of the industry to release a live recording that comes even close to documenting their live work.  Divinyls Live is a slipshod affair marred by an appalling sequencing of tracks which in no way reflects a typical gig.

But the day demanded I pay my respects and whilst I would have preferred to listened to a primo live performance, settled for their first three albums;

(# 304) Divinyls – Desperate (US edition) (1983)

The first Divinyls release was the Music From Monkey Grip mini album.  The original Australian relase of Desperate did not include these tracks.  The US version which I have currently brings together some tracks from both releases.  Whoever did this deserves to be shot.  Elsie – a superb vehicle for McEntee’s guitar playing – does not contain the instrumental reprise from Monkey Grip and Desperate’s original – and wholly appropriate – opener, a cover of The Easybeats’s I’ll Make You Happy, is inexplicably relegated to the final track at the expense of explosive Don’t You Go Walking.  The frontloading of singles began here with the albeit magnificent combination of Boys In Town, Only Lonely (both from Monkey Grip), Science Fiction and Siren (Never Let You Go).  Hopefully, there will be a reissue one day that places Monkey Grip and Desperate on the one disc which would automatically become the definitive Divinyls studio release.

(# 305) Divinyls – Temperamental (1988)

This was their third full length album, and probably their best album, front loaded this time with the title track, Back To The Wall, Hey Little Boy (a cover of a 60’s American hit called Little Boy) and the tough ballad Punxsie.   There are some gems buried in the remaining tracks, including Fight which has a feel not unlike that found on Keith Richards’ solo albums, Better Days, the sleazy Dirty Love and Runaway Train on which McEntee gets his guitar to sound like bagpipes.

(# 306) Divinyls – What A Life! (1985)

Although this was their second full length album, I kept it till last.  It’s led off by the wonderful Pleasure And Pain (the title of Amphlett’s 2005 autobiography), Sleeping Beauty, Good Die Young and the magnificent Guillotine Day, a reliable highlight of their shows from this point onwards. My Diary ends the album today on a poignant note but it’s In My Life that is the standout.  In my view the absolute high water mark of their career, it contains the perfect match of a never better Amphlett vocal over a careening McEntee guitar what is practically a solo from most of the last two minutes of the tune.  Remember them this way.

After that I tried to think of artists directly inspired by them and, completely forgetting about The Baby Animals until I started writing this posting, landed on:

(# 307) Magic Dirt – Friends In Danger (1996)

In my mind, Magic Dirt’s Adalita Srsen is the modern version of Chrissy Amphlett.  Like Chrissy, Adalita was born in Geelong, formed Magic Dirt with a male (bass) guitarist Dean Turner with whom she was romantically involved for a while and whose first release was also a mini album.  Also a dominant presence on state to the exclusion of her band mates, Adalita exudes the same type of confidence and vulnerability but without needing to go to the extremes that Amphlett probably needed to go.  The similarities end there.  Their first full length album, Friends In Danger, is an uncompromising alternative album featuring a number of tracks with slow and loud guitars and songs like that summed up on the aptly titled Heavy Business.  The highlight is the 8 minute dirge Bodysnatcher which appears to deal with child abuse allow with the much more accessible Sparrow. 

(# 308) The Go-Betweens – Spring Hill Fair (1984)

I played this largely in tribute to the band’s Lindy Morrison who was the drummer on all of their key albums in their first stint up to their first break up in 1989.  This was their third album and the one which immediately foreshadowed the magnificent albums that were to follow – Liberty Belle And The Black Diamond Express, Tallulah and 16 Lovers Lane.   More, importantly, this was the first Go-Between album I purchased having been taken largely on the strength of its singles Bachelor Kisses, and Man O’Sand To Girl O’Sea as well as You Never Lived and the beautiful Draining The Pool For You.

22 April 2013 (Day 112) –Black and White

With my one day weekend over, I returned to work in need of a pep up. Making things worse, today marks the start of a work walking challenge where we all try to walk a minimum of 10,000 steps a day.  I had intended to start in a blaze of glory and arrive armed with a significant figure on the pedometers with which we’ve been supplied.  Instead, I arrive bleary eyed and wanting more sleep. 

I look to my iPod for solace and scroll through my options and settle on:

(# 300) Long Beach Dub Allstars – Right Back (1999)

This band was formed by the remaining members of Sublime after the death of their frontman Bradley Nowell.  Considering that band’s brilliant mix of punk, ska, reggae and dub, few would have predicted much for this offshoot.  And yet this is a far more accessible and musical album than anything Sublime ever produced.  The same mix of styles is present but the key ingredient was in inviting a number of guest artists to perform vocal duties including reggae stars Barrington Levy and Tippa Irie and Bad Brains’ H.R.  Levy’s two tracks Righteous Dub and Saw Red (She’s Mine) bookend the album which is further consolidated by the clever deployment of non musical samples throughout.

(#301) Wingless Angels – Volume 1 (1997)

I had never heard of this band until I read about them in Keith Richards’ autobiography.  Basically, he met reggae musician Justin Hinds who introduced to a number of other musicians resulting in this very relaxed album.  Most of the tracks appear to be Rastafari songs/chants with a couple of additional well known tracks (an almost unrecognisable We Shall Overcome and the best version I’ve ever heard of that Jamaican standard, Rivers Of Babylon) thrown in.  All of the musicians involved contribute to the vocal work creating a sort of Rastafarian choir.  Keith’s voice is recognisable in the midst of this along with the crickets chirping in the background on some of the quieter cuts.

(#302) Damien Marley – Welcome To Jamrock (2005)

Damien is the son of Bob Marley and his girlfriend Cindy Breaksphere, a former Miss World.  This album, his third, is the one which put him on the map musically and is generally regarded as one of the finest reggae albums released since the death of Damien’s father.  Seemingly aware of this, Damien samples Bob’s Exodus to great effect on Move!  He also keeps things within the (step)family with a number of telling contributions by Stephen Marley and a spoken word intro by Bunny Wailer on opening cut Confrontation.  The title track, which addresses his crime riddled home country, is a powerful political statement.

(#303) Sly & The Family Stone – The Woodstock Experience (recorded 1969/released 2009)

It took 40 years for the band’s finest 45 minutes – their performance at Woodstock – to be finally granted a complete release.  (My version is a two disc affair with the second disc being the Stand! Album.) Actually, make that their finest 30 minutes; the show takes a couple of tracks to really get going although this might be due to the poor sound that Sly complains about at one point.  By the time they get to Everyday People, they’ve hit top gear.  Dance To The Music, Music Lover/Higher, I Want To Take You Higher and Love City create an momentum which simply never lets up and has the audience eating out of their hand.  An encore of Stand! – great though it is – seems scarcely appropriate.

This selection certainly did the trick and kept me going through the day.  After I got home, I wrote up my post and after publishing it decided to catch up on the news.  It was then I heard about the death of Chrissy Amphlett, undoubtedly the greatest female rocker this country has ever produced. 

I go to bed knowing, for once, what I’ll be listening to tomorrow.

20 & 21 April 2013 (Days 110-1) – Work and Charro!

It was the weekend that wasn’t.  I worked on Saturday in circumstances that made listening to music impossible.  By the end of the day all I wanted to do was curl up in bed but “M” and I headed off for dinner at her sister’s.  I didn’t have much of an agenda for Sunday other than to spend it with “M”.  Fortunately, the AFL came to the party and scheduled The Bulldogs to play interstate.  So I took “M” off to town for church and an equally heavenly seafood platter for lunch.

Eventually we made our way home and I settled in to watch the game.  It became fairly obvious, fairly early that we were going to cop a hiding.  With “M” dozing off, I flicked stations and came across the last 30 minutes of the Elvis Presley flick Charro!

Ah! Entertainment at last!  My father’s love of the big E had ensured that I’d seen just about every Presley film in my youth.  I hadn’t seen Charro! probably because it was just about the only film of his in which he didn’t sing during his performance.  (He apparently sings the song that played over the opening credits.)  I watched the film through to its conclusion and felt none the wiser as to what I’d just seen.  The plot went something like this:

Elvis appears to be a Sheriff who has a dude locked up. The dude’s brother has a canon which his mates are firing on the town in a bid to have him released. I know this because the dude's brother is also in town making the same demand.  The townsfolk are also making the same demand unhappy their homes and businesses are being blown to smithereens. But Elvis doesn’t release the dude.  He also doesn’t arrest the brother who leaves town without being attacked by the townsfolk.  Elvis then takes the dude to the gang and cannon and, under the cover of darkness with only a split rock for cover, manages to kill off the rest of the gang except for the brother.  The dude, who Elvis had handcuffed to a bush, is killed by the runaway cannon, as you do.  The following morning, Elvis, the canon and the brother leave town together, waved off by grateful townsfolk and, it would appear, the town’s madame for whom Elvis will send. 

Afterwards I hit the net and found the plot of the movie.  Apart from being a deputised Sheriff, I find that my description holds up pretty well.  But I did discover the role Elvis played was originally meant for Clint Eastwood and was supposed to be an American version of a spaghetti western.  Armed with his chiselled good looks and block of wood acting style, Elvis would have been the perfect choice.  Unfortunately the script changed dramatically between signing up and the start of production with lots of violence and sex cut out.  It’s a pity.  Given that the movie was made around the same time as his 69 comeback special, I suspect he thought this was going to reclaim his image.  I think it was Peter Guralnick in his two volume bio who made the claim that the 69 Special was all Elvis' idea and had to fight his manager Colonel Tom Parker tooth and nail to get his way.   I wonder whether The Colonel was at work behind the scenes and used his influence to neuter the film.

Having confirmed that The Doggies had been embarrassed with Adelaide winning by 52 points and keeping us to a very small score, there was time to play a couple of albums by acts I’ll be seeing at the ATP gig in October:

(# 298) Sleep – Holy Mountain (1992)

Apparently this album is regarded as a landmark album in the development of the stoner rock movement.  It contains the mighty rhythm section of Al Cisneros and Chris Haikus who would go on to form acclaimed doom rockers Om augmented by the guitar work of Matt Pike.  Together they make an unholy racket underpinned by strong thick audible bass lines.  This is heard to great effect on the opener Dragonaut, the epic Evil Gypsy/Solomon’s Theme and the 10 minute From Beyond.  My version also contains a suitably heavy and respectful cover of Black Sabbath’s Snowblind.

(# 299) The Jesus Lizard – Show (1994)

Noise + rhythm + crazed frontman = The Jesus Lizard, a band from Texas that has produced some of the most enjoyable confrontational music ever produced.  The key is charismatic frontman David Yow whose unhinged stage persona is the perfect match for their similarly demented tunes.  The best way to experience and appreciate the band is live and Show, recorded at legendary CBGBs in New York, is an adequate document.  Essentially a best of set drawn from their first four albums, it commences with the memorable one-two punch of Glamorous and Deaf As A Bat delivered with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.  Later on, the crazed country number Nub gives way to Elegy – the closest thing they have to a tender moment on record – which Yow dedicates to his parents in the audience which is inappropriately followed up with a nice ol’ditty called Killer McHann.  The run home, Fly On The Wall with its sleazy bass line, Puss, Gladatior, Wheelchair Epidemic and Monkey Trask  is a white knuckle ride.  It’s just a shame they couldn’t fit in Destroy Before Reading.

By the end I get an idea.  David Yow as Elvis Presley in Charro!.  Now THAT's entertainment!

19 April 2013 (Day 109) – Waiting For All Tomorrow’s Parties

So there was I having my morning coffee and going through The Age’s Entertainment section thinking about nothing in particular.  Then my eyes caught the headline -  Television To Play Marquee Moon At ATP.  I stopped in tracks as I read it again.  Television To Play Marquee Moon At ATP.

My pulse quickened.  “Hold on .Youth” I said to myself, “It might not be here.”  Gripping the paper so tightly that I nearly tear it, I read on.  It will be in Melbourne.  In October.  At the Grand Star Reception Centre (and Bingo Hall) in North Altona, no less.  I start to smooth out the paper whilst my paroxysms of joy almost cause me to choke on my coffee.  A colleague asks me what’s happening.  I say, almost in tears,  scarcely believing the words coming out of my mouth.  “Television are coming to play the Marquee Moon album in its entirety”.  My colleague’s response – “Who?” - couldn’t have bought me down to earth faster if I’d tried. 

I didn’t know how to respond.  How to explain that the seminal influence of the New York Punk scene of the late 70s, a legendary live act and the creators of one of the single greatest albums in my collection (i.e Marquee Moon), tracks (i.e Marquee Moon, the title track) and live album (take your pick from The Blow Up or Live At The Old Waldorf) is coming to my humble city  FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER.  Finally a chance to hear the strangled vocals of Tom Verlaine and his spiralling, dizzying guitarscrapes as it duels against that of Richard Lloyd’s or anyone else that Verlaine deigns to be In the band. (I subsequently checked Wikipedia which confirmed that Jimmy Rip has replaced Lloyd in the band.)  But I know that such an explanation wouldn’t clarify matters and so I did the only thing I could do.  I finished my coffee went to my office and, although a busy day awaited, cued up the only album I wanted to hear;

(# 296) Television – Marquee Moon (extended) (1977)

This is the single greatest album of the New York Punk scene.  Today, this is not regarded as an opinion, but accepted wisdom.  Although the great strength of the early releases of the Ramones, Blondie, Richard Hell’s Blank Generation and even Talking Heads ’77 was that anybody could reproduce them, no one even 36 years later has come even close to recreating the intricate magic that resides within the grooves of this album. A simple uncluttered production places the emphasis firmly on the guitar interplay between Verlaine and Lloyd and at the heart of just about every number is illuminated by playing so fiery that it obliterates everything in its path.   The centrepiece is the awesome 10 minute title track with magnificent support from See No Evil, Friction, Elevation, Prove It and Torn Curtain.  My extended version of the album contains alternate versions of a number of tracks but, more importantly, the Little Johnny Jewel single.

Whilst I was playing this, it dawned on me that I hadn’t read the rest of the original album.  On doing so I discovered that not only was this to be Television’s only Victorian show but that admission was  limited to  just 5000 tickets.  Then I noticed who else was on the bill.  The Breeders playing the Last Splash album (only Victorian show), the reformed Jesus Lizard (ditto), Australian alt legends The Scientists, stoner rock originators Sleep, The FXXk Buttons, Lightning Bolt, a tribute of Rowland S Howard curated by Mick Harvey among others with more to be added.  Not bad. 

Within the havoc of the rest of the day, I managed to buy a ticket and play just one more album:

(# 297) The Breeders – Last Splash (1993)

The Breeders was originally a vehicle for the Pixies’ Kim Deal and Throwing Muses’ Tanya Donnelly.  The latter had left to form Belly by the time this album was released and a couple of tracks betray her influence even though Deal wrote all the tracks.  Opener “New Year” is a track full of Pixies lie wonder which segues into the wonderful Cannonball.  With its memorable guitar and bass lines, percussive attack and Deal’s vocals, it was a well deserved global hit.  Divine Hammer was a more than worthy follow up.  The latter tracks on the album are reminiscent of the relatively sparse sound of their debut album Pod. 

18 April 2013 (Day 108) – Artists Only

I’ve never been one for pigeon holing music into genres.  Mainly its because I don’t understand what is meant by most of them.  Sure I’ve used the word “genre” in this blog but only in its broadest application to the basic 20^th century popular music forms.  In plain English, I’m happy for the word “genre” to include: rock, pop, blues, jazz, punk, post-punk, reggae, ska, dub, hard rock, heavy metal, thrash, rap, electronic[a], trance, dance, disco, funk, soul, folk, Americana, country, bluegrass, goth, industrial, prog[ressive], Krautrock (although I despise the term), world and a handful of others. 

These are all genres where I can articulate a difference between them.  If I can’t articulate a difference, I don’t use the term.  Take, for example, hip hop.  Can anyone really explain to me the difference between it and rap?  As I understand it, rap is the musical expression of hip hop culture so why do some parties tag acts as hip hop?  

I also appreciate that there are sub genres but very few are meaningful to me.  Take for example heavy metal.  From what I can understand, thrash is a sub-genre of heavy metal as is death metal, hair metal and the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal.  I use the term thrash because it is basically heavy metal played at a faster tempo with a greater emphasis (or at least it seems to me) on twin guitar attacks and drums.  The other sub-genres mean nothing more connecting acts with something meaningless to me they have in common whether they are Scandinavians preoccupied with death (death metal), British bands that emerged in the late 1970s/early 80’s (the NWoBHM) or crap bands from the American West Coast (hair metal).  Let’s face, irrespective of where they come from or how good they are, they’re still playing metal.

It was against this background that I selected my first album to play today and I noticed a sticker on the cover which read “The 1979 Art-Punk Classic”.  Art-punk? What the hell was that?  It was bad enough that I’d never understood the term Art-Rock.  (I mean what did these acts do to attract such a label? Sculpture while they play? Use cans of paint for drums?  Record the sound of chalk scratching on footpaths whilst reproducing the works of Michelangelo?)  And now there’s a punk version of it. What, did the sculptor bands smash the statues after the gig and sell the limbless remains to the Louvre? Did the chalk artists on Swanston Street or Southgate spit on anyone donating coins for their works of art?  What have I missed?

And so I went on to play the aforesaid classic art-punk album:

(# 292) Tin Huey – Contents Dislodged After Shipment (1979)

Tin Heuy came out of the same Cleveland & region scene that spawned acts such as Pere Ubu, The Dead Boys, etc.  To these ears they sound like a classic punk/new wave act from the 1970s.  Opening track, I’m A Believer is a good piss take of The Monkees original.  Second track, The Revelations Of Dr. Modesto reminded me very much of early Roxy Music.  Third track, I Could Rule The World If I Could Only Get The Parts, reminds me of Devo or Oingo Boingo.  I could go on but you get the idea – a good album of experimental music with humor that appears to be much in the same mould as another contemporary act from that era…

(# 293) Devo – Devo’s Greatest Hits (1990)

For a brief moment in circa 1983/4, Devo became the most popular act in Australia mainly due to their inspired videos for Whip It, Beautiful World and Freedom Of Choice, all great tunes and all accounted for on this compilation.  Even better are the earlier experimental numbers – their awesome reconstruction of The Rolling Stones’ (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, Jocko Homo, Smart Patrol/Mr DNA  and Gut Feeling.  Add this to other relatively more well known material such as Gates Of Steeel, Girl U Want, Through Being Cool and their reworking of Working In A  Coalmine and you have one unbeatable package.  Keyboards and odd instrumentation are very much to the fore which spurred me on to:

(# 294) Roxy Music – Roxy Music (1972)

Their debut album contained songs by fine arts university graduate Bryan Ferry and unusual instrumentation courtesy of Andy Mackay’s oboe and synthesiser that Brian Eno worked out how to play. This album seems to fit a definition of art rock at least (at least in Devo terms) but, despite the at times unusual instrumentation, the songs have stood the true test of time.  Re-make/Re-model, Ladytron, Viginia Plain and Sea Breezes are all bone fide classics with the band eventually maturing in time to receive mass success in much the same way as:

(# 295) Talking Heads – More Songs About Buildings And Food (1978)

Now we’re getting somewhere.  Three of the four members of the band (leader David Byrne, his nemesis Tina Weymouth and her husband Chris Franz) are graduates from the Rhode Island School Of Design and on this, their second album, they roped in as producer one Brian Eno.  But aren’t they a punk/new wave band?  Anyway, this was the album that really set them on their way to the big time, including their first substantial hit, a marvellous version of Al Green’s Take Me To The River.  The opener, Thank You For Sending Me An Angel was still good enough years later to make it into the Stop Making Sense tour and movie.  The criminally underrated I’m Not In Love was to provide the first hint of the rhythmic structures that were to be unleashed on Remain In Light and other great tracks abound such as The Girls Want To Be With The Girls, The Big Country and Artists Only.

And so am I any wiser?  Not really.  All I can say is that Art-Rock appears to be experimental music played by musicians with a background in art which, therefore, must mean that Art-Punk is Art-Rock played by punks…………

……and which also goes some way to explaining why I hate anything other than the broadest of genre titles.

17 April 2013 (Day 107) – Born With A Tail

I appreciate that the title of today’s posting is a reference to the dark lord Satan.  I am also aware that as I write this post the funeral of Margaret Thatcher has begun in London.  These two statements are not related.

My choice of listening matter today was determined by a package I received in the mail yesterday containing my most recent internet purchase.  It is a double CD set, the first of which I played last night;

(# 290) The Supersuckers – Live At The Hammersmith Apollo & Indigo2, London 2011 (err, 2011)

It is the proud boast of frontman Eddie Spaghetti that The Supersuckers are “The Greatest Rock ‘n’ Roll Band in the World”.  If you ever seen them on a good night with all guns blazing you wouldn’t dispute it.  This is a classic 4 piece straight ahead rock ‘n roll band (with nods to punk, rockabilly and country) that performs songs almost exclusively about the things true R.O.C.K bands care about – sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, drinkin’, gamblin’ and drivin’, all preferably indulged in the course of a one night stand in your home town when you least expect it.  And it if you don’t like, they don’t care.

But this package doesn’t find them on home turf.  Instead, it finds them on successive nights in London third on the bill behind headliners Thin Lizzy.  If the band is unhappy with this turn of events, they don’t show it; given they cover Lizzy’s Jailbreak live, they probably regarded the gigs as a great honour.  (The set is released by a label called Concert Live which appears to have gained the rights to release a rather eclectic selection of live performances in the UK over the last few years.)

On both discs the band gives it full throttle with little let up in tight 45 minute sets of 11 tracks.  Both shows are constructed – like gigs by most artists these days– around a core of tracks.  These include the kick ass triple threat of Rock & Roll Records (Ain’t Selling This Year), Rock Your Ass and Luck, a newer track called Go!, and set closers Pretty F**ed Up and Born With A Tail.  The remaining tracks varied each night providing other great tunes including The Evil Powers Of Rock ‘N’ Roll, Coattail Rider, How To Maximise Your Kill Count and Creepy Jackalope Eye.   It’s all deceptively simple in its brilliance.

Not that the crowd at The Hammersmith Apollo appear to appreciate it given they are practically silent on the disc.  The Indigo2 crowd, on the other hand, appeared to get it and you get a sense of their reaction improving over the gig.  It really seems to affect the band’s performance; you get a slight sense of the band’s enthusiasm sagging during the first set and gaining strength during the latter.   But, if you want the true Supersuckers live experience get your hands on Live At The Magic Bag Ferndale, Michigan.  I played the first few numbers of this on a rare solo drive home tonight.  I had to switch it off after about 5 tracks because I know I’ll want to play it in full at some point later in the year.   

After I heard the last version of Born With A Tail at work, I decided that my next album should be:

(# 291) Danzig – Danzig (1988)

Danzig’s debut album appears to have been unfairly laboured with associations with the dark side, seemingly based on the cover image and the biblical inspiration accorded to some of the tracks.  A parental advisory sticker on my copy says “STRONG IMPACT coarse language and/or themes” although I do not remember hearing any swearing and didn’t find anything in the lyrical content that would be that confronting.  It only serves to obscure that this is a damn fine album marrying early AC/DC and Metallica sensibilities (the latter’s James Hetfield apparently contributed backing vocals to a couple of tracks) to Glen Danzig’s rough Jim Morrisonesque vocals and Rick Rubin’s sterling production.  In an album without a duff track, Not Of This World, Possession and The Hunter stand out.

And with that, I’m now off to ignore the Thatcher funeral.

16 April 2013 (Day 106) – Uno, Dos, Tre ……..

We woke up this morning to the news of the explosions at the Boston Marathon.  “M” and I barely touched our breakfasts as we took in the news.  But we had to go to work, speculating about the likelihood of terrorism as we went.  The prospect of another frantic day at work basically banished all thoughts of the attack.  I needed shortish albums to accompany my endeavours and I'd taken Green Day’s recent trilogy with me.

I’ve been an on/off Green Day fan over the years.  I was impressed by the youthful brand of punk on Dookie which led me back to a couple of their predecessors.  Whilst they hadn’t attempted anything particularly new, they did so with a verve and style that was admirable.  I then lost track until the release of American Idiot which is a truly great album and one which has possibly not reaped the full range of critical plaudits it deserved.  But, once again, I lost track with subsequent albums until now. 

I have “M”’s teenage niece to thank for reconnecting me to the band.  She had bought the recent albums and, in a moment of bravado whilst listening to her lament a likely inability to see them in concert, I promised to take her to their next gig here.  This will almost certainly be towards the end of this year but dates have yet to be announced. 

And I have a bit to catch up on.   Three albums in a few months by the same act is a reasonably rare occurrence although there have been a number of acts – Guns ‘n’ Roses, Bruce Springsteen, Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds and Lamchop among others – that have released two albums on the same day.  Personally, I’m not sure why the acts simply didn’t release double albums  - I could discern a justifiable musical distinction between the two Springsteen and Cave discs but not the others -  but I’m pretty sure record company “logic” has something to do with this.  And so to Green Day starting, naturally, with;

(# 287) Green Day – Uno! (2012)

If this album had been released immediately after Dookie, critics would have complained that this was the sound of a band repeating a successful formula.  Since it’s come out more than 15 years later, it can be safely regarded as welcome throwback to less carefree days.  Nuclear Family, Let Yourself Go and Troublemaker are all classic Dookie era sounding Green Day tunes, the band simply thrashing out for the sheer enjoyment of it.  Great pop/punk hybrids like Stay The Night and Oh Love complete the package.

(# 288) Green Day – Dos! (2012)

The best and most ambitious of the tree albums, Dos employs a wide variety of styles.  Wild One and Makeout Party are great straight ahead punk numbers; Baby Eyes contains echoes of The Stray Cats buried just beneath the surface and Wow! That’s Loud contains psychedelic touches of the type that adorns The Hoodoo Gurus best work.  Amy is a nice pop tune to end matters.

(# 289) Green Day – Tre! (2012)

The final album sounds like an outtakes album of the tracks not considered for inclusion in the first two.  Walkaway and Dirty Rotten Bastards are OK.  On the whole it feels slighter in tone and sounds slightly tinnier to the others, suggesting either that it wasn’t fussed over that much.

Now that I’ve finished this posting, I’m going to switch on the television and reconnect with Boston.