Are Friends Eclectic?

I would just like to point out that, since the last post, I've finished my 'mix tape' : it includes contributions from people covering Madonna, Thin Lizzy and Leonard Cohen.

Don't say you weren't warned...

I'd say she was his sister but she doesn't have his nose

Since I first heard them on LastFM where they came up as a recommendation, I've been smitten with Frightened Rabbit. Their plaintive vocals and jangly melodies combine in a beautiful bittersweet union which leaves you punching the air and singing along about improbable things... like lepers and being poked in the iris.

Having not yet had a chance to see them live and, having nothing else pressing to do one night last month, I took the chance of a jaunt down to Stereo in Glasgow to catch the Rabbits frontman, Scott Hutchison, play a charity gig.Though slightly shambolic in places, this subterranean sweatfest of a show was an absolute cracker. There's a good review of it here at Spinner Music - though I'd have to question the use of the word 'vitriolic' to describe the crowd's singalong to "Keep Yourself Warm"...the reminder of the segue into Jay-Z's "99 Problems" is a welcome one though, not an encore you expect to hear at an acoustic singer-songwriter's gig.

There were a few real highlights in a night of general excellence, from the singalong stomp of set-opener "Old Old Fashioned" to the mass gathering of "Steves" (below) for the song "Nothing Like You" which, when first played in Ediburgh, apparently, was unnamed, resulting in the audience christening it Steve. Obvious really. Almost as obvious as the fact that some of the "Steves" were women who were almost certainly not called Steve, Steven, Stevie or even Stevo. Steph(anie) at a push....


Jaw-dropping-unable-to-concentrate-on-anything-else-long-enough-to-hold-the-camera moment of the evening went to the gorgeous signed performance of "Poke" (from which the title of this post comes) from the band's second album. A member of the audience, near the front, announced to Scott that she was an interpreted for the deaf and would like to sign her favourite Rabbits song for the audience. And that's just what she did. It was lovely to watch - I'm fairly sure sign-language isn't usually so expansive but her exaggerated, flowing gestures meshed perfectly with the tempo of the song and gave the whole experience a floaty, balletic feel.

Those familiar with the song's lyrics would undoubtedly have been intrigued, as Mr. Hutchison proclaimed himself to be, to see how the young lady handled a particular slang term in the third verse...

Since I went to this, now almost eight weeks ago, I've had the Rabbits on near-constant repeat in the car. The live album, "Quietly Now!" and debut long-player "Sing The Greys" are particular favourites. I'm really, really looking forward to seeing them at the Barrowlands in December; more perhaps than I've looked forward to a gig in a long time, which is saying something.

When a band, or in the case of the charity gig, a musician gets things this right, this charming, this lovely, it's really hard to see how people could fail to be won over by them. Frightened Rabbit - catch them before they're bigger than Jesus...which, as Scott and the boys know, is "just a Spanish boy's name"





GraveMaurice's Flickr set from the gig.

The Song Remains Inane (sic)

Funny how the human brain works, isn't it? Well, mine at any rate...

My wee boy, who shall be eight in just over a week, was asking tonight about Napoleon...my knowledge, I must ashamedly confess, of the man is limited. My brain, however, did its usual Rorschach's/mind map thing and - as I suspect most people's would - told him that "at Waterloo, Napoleon did surrender."

Childish I know, and I've promised to help him find out a bit more but it got me thinking. What on earth were Agnetha and Anni-Frid (albeit directed by Benny and Bjorn) playing at with those lyrics? Not only, it transpires, did Napoleon in fact surrender at Rochefort some four weeks after the battle of Waterloo, but how does a lovestruck female "meet her (sic) destiny in quite a similar way"? At what point does a Swedish maiden give in to the combined might of an Anglo-Allied army...or should we not ask?

Silly, poor or just plain stupid lyrics have always been present in music: see Joe Dolce's "Shaddap You Face" or anything by Black Lace for evidence of this; but I wondered just how much 'pop' music contains such inaccuracies?

Take, for example, the undoubted song-writing genius that is Paul Simon. His 1973 hit "Kodachrome" (1973, eh? The same year Waterloo was written...hmm) contains the line "everything looks worse in black and white." Really Paul? Can I just ask you for your thoughts on, say, the zebra?

Then of course there's the late, great Sam Cooke. A favourite of mine, for sure but even Sam wasn't averse to the odd idiosynchrasy in his lyrics; 1960's Chain Gang springing quickly to mind. This, let's not forget, is a song about a prison gang out working on, presumably, the railroad or enduring some equally arduous task. "All day long they're singing hooh! ahh!" Are they now? Really? That sounds a tad on the jolly side to me, Sammy. "Hooh ahh!" is Al Pacino's excited battle cry in Scent of A Woman - hardly indicative of hard labour...

Lastly - for now - it's the turn of Starship. 1985 saw the release of the (admittedly Bernie Taupin-penned) single "We Built This City". Here we get examples of both inaccuracy and inanity: witness "Marconi plays the mamba" or "Knee deep in the hoopla sinking in your fight" for the silly side of things. It's not until the chorus, though, that the band start to really test our patience: "We built this city on Rock and Roll" they gleefully proclaim.

Oh, really? Did you learn nothing from the tale of the Three Little Pigs Mister Bernie Taupin? We all know the dangers of building with not only straw but sticks as well! Are we really to believe that your 80's hair rock proteges thought double-four time would be a more suitable construction material for a whole city, never mind a house for a pig? Somehow I doubt it...

I'll remove my tongue from my cheek now...night night.

And be a model pupil tonight babe, I wanna get ten out of ten...

Image via Wikipedia

I've written before about the joys of discussing music and musical tastes and it's a topic that never fails to arouse my interest. It can, at times, give vent to one's inner totalitarian as you question how someone could possibly have all the Coldplay albums yet have no time for The Reindeer Section or how anyone, anyone could find anything positive to say about James Blunt (other than the fact that he seems to have been quiet for a fair old while now).

The oft-mentioned (on this blog at any rate) Tom Morton has, in traditional end-of-year-reflective-stylee produced a couple of "best of" lists over the last few days on his Beatcroft blog, Top Ten Live Albums and an End Of The Decade inventory. Both contain albums I think I'd enjoy, both contain artists I've never listened to before (Elvis Perkins - great name! - and Leo Kottke, though I have always meant to follow up old Leo having had him recommended to me by a colleague around 13 years ago now!) and both have got me thinking.

Certainly in terms of live albums I've never been a fan - I used to buy bootleg tapes at the Barras of gigs in and around Glasgow that I'd been to. The sound quality was generally awful but because I'd actually been to and enjoyed the gigs I was buying recordings of, I could forgive that and relive the event. In terms of live stuff now, it's fairly easy to find mp3s online and you can often acquire great live cover versions - King Creosote and The Bluebells doing "Cath" together, Ray La Montagne and Damien Rice with the Bee Gees "To Love Somebody" spring to mind as great examples but otherwise I tend to avoid live stuff unless I'm hunting down something I've actually heard (KC as mentioned above having seen him do the song at Oran Mor as part of the Homecoming after show party being the most recent example).

As for just general "best of" lists, well Nick Hornby has long recorded the male obsession with lists, best ofs, top tens and so on and, as he so often does, has hit the nail right on the head. It's not done for competition - though the Barry character brilliantly played by Jack Black in the movie version of 'High Fidelity' certainly uses his lists as a "look how much I know" musical obscurist snob exercise - which can sometimes be no bad thing; I particularly love the exchange in High Fidelity between the outrageously opinionated Barry and the mild mannered Dick around "Little Latin Lupe Lu". If you've neither read nor seen High Fidelity, Barry namechecks the song and Dick says "Mitch Ryder and The Detroit Wheels?" to which Barry snaps "No, the Righteous Brothers!" "Oh" says Dick with a look you can even picture in the book which just seems to say "oh, you poor soul, you've never even heard what I regard as the definitive version and your life is undoubtedly the poorer for it" - I get that feeling a lot...

Anyway, onwards to the lists! Now, I reckon that if you're going to be going for the whole "of all time" thing, then, very much like Desert Island Discs, it needs to be something you'll not tire of; the kind of thing where if you only had those records and nothing else to listen to, you'd still be happy. My (and as Tom says "It'll change tomorrow"!) top ten albums of all time just right at this very minute and in no particular order...

King Creosote - KC Rules OK - Faultless genius

Roddy Woomble - My Secret Is My Silence - Haunting, beautiful, very Highland without being twee

The Kevin McDermott Orchestra - Mother Nature's Kitchen - lyrically wonderful, in live format the songs are incredible, Kevin's a lovely guy, what else need I say?

The Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am That's What I'm Not - has there ever been a better debut album? I came to this late but by jings it's a belter

David Kitt - The Big Romance - under-rated Irish genius

Foo Fighters - Foo Fighters - brilliant first album and the perfect snowboarding accompaniment

Frank Black - Teenager Of The Year - ex-Pixie with an eclectic 20 track masterpiece

Son Volt - Straightaways - Alt country cracker from ex-Uncle Tupelo man

Elvis Costello - My Aim Is True - This would probably get in just for Alison to be honest

The Lemonheads - It's A Shame About Ray - With or without 'Mrs. Robinson' on the reissue, it's just brilliant. 'Frank Mills' and 'Alison's Starting To Happen' would grace any album

Elvis Costello via last.fm

Close but no cigar (today at any rate): Stone Roses - Stone Roses - It may be sacrilege to say this but though I love the Roses (once trekked round the country to see them four times in twelve days) the whole album's not perfect, I can't be doing with 'Elizabeth My Dear' or 'Don't Stop'; Guns N Roses - Appetite For Destruction - One of the first albums I played to death (I've owned 3 copies now!) but I don't think it's a Desert Island job; Kate Nash - Made Of Bricks - Not my usual bag but I've played this to death too and it's great, 'Foundations' and 'Mouthwash' are already pop classics and 'Mariella' is magnificently eccentric; Kris Drever - Blackwater - I never tire of listening to this but if I'm taking Roddy to my island this is a wee bit similar; Idlewild - anything by them, impossible to choose between their albums, not a duff track amongst them.

Top ten for 09? That's tricky too and I can only think of five...but off the top of my head (and, again, just for today) Airborne Toxic Event - a majestic, soaring record calling to mind early U2, The Smiths and The Jam. Enough said. Ian Brown - My Way - A great album, thumping basslines and that legendary swaggering delivery; Idlewild - Post Electric Blues - superb fan-financed rock monster; Paolo Nutini - Sunny Side Up - A great feelgood album, standout tracks all the way and 'Comin' Up Easy' could easily be vintage Al Green; Vetiver - Tight Knit - Lo-fi acoustic chill out is a dreadfully lazy way to describe an album, the sort of thing The Observer Music Monthly might do but there you go: Vetiver, Tight Knit, Lo-fi acoustic chill out.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Favorite Music of 2009 (gatheringinlight.com)
• Five Albums You Should Have Bought in 2009 (popdose.com)

Why last.fm could replace your friends...

As something of a musical purist, nay occassional ranter I've been something of a latecomer to the digital music revolution. I still love the crackle of vinyl and the look and feel of a proper bit of packaging...

My current phone was purchased with the express intention of being used for in car entertainment to save lugging dozens of CDs around - though in practice this hasn't quite worked as all of the Megane's many nooks and crannies are crammed with everything from Phil Campbell to The Very Best of Northern Soul via Kate Nash and The Who. I digress. The point is that I've kind of accepted that music's available digitally and I'm trying to use that to my advantage by compressing it on the phone's software and using it to carry thousands of tracks about with me so that if I feel, as I did recently, like listening to Wreckless Eric's ode to funerals then I can, literally at the press of a button. Or touch screen.


My own personal digital revolution has even seen me embracing Spotify. About which Roddy Woomble has written in typical articulate and erudite fashion, here. As yet I've not embraced Spotify's radio function, though I may well do so. What I have done as a result of Tuesday's post about Sam Cooke is to sign up for last.fm. This may well prove to be a huge mistake.


My friend Kevin - I've had to interrupt myself, as if to prove the point I'm coming to The River Detectives have just popped up with a brilliant song I'd never heard before - tried, unsuccessfully, to point me in the direction of last.fm a good while back now but I must confess that I couldn't really see the point. I mean, what kind of word is "scrobbling" anyway? However, when I searched for the aforementioned Mr. Cooke's "Another Saturday Night" and played it three or four times in a row, I could't help but enter a few details - isn't it incredible how easy it can be to sign your life away online? - and get myself an account. Before I knew it I'd entered the names of a few artists I rather like just off the top of my head and in no particular order at the prompting of the last.fm registration software.

For no reason other than I'd either been listening to them lately or that they popped into my mind, I typed: The Rolling Stones, Kevin McDermott, Otis Redding, Paolo Nutini, Idlewild, King Creosote, Sam Cooke, Kings of Leon and The Black Keys. I don't know that it's particularly eclectic - it's certainly very male focused and leans heavily towards a folk/blues songwriting ethic, but there you have it.

What, you may well ask, has all this to do with last.fm replacing one's friends? Well I'll tell you...word of mouth, for so many things, is always a winner. Restaurant recommendations, plumbers, holiday destinations, films and, of course, music. When I switched secondary schools I brought with me some under-developed musical appreciation genes: Johnny Cash, Alice Cooper and Guns N Roses being about the limit of it. Though it could be argued that you don't really need much more that The Man In Black to keep you right.

Anyway, mention of Alice and GNR (somehow even back then I knew that the world wasn't ready for me to unleash my penchant for Mr Cash on them, though given his posthumous resurgence it's clear I was ahead of the game...) led classmates to point me in the direction of The Almighty and Love/Hate - excellent hard rock acts in a similar vein to my own already trumpeted choices but who, it's arguable, I might never have come across. One particularly left-field classmate (thanks Scott) insisted I should be listening to The Charlatans, The Stone Roses, Primal Scream and The Happy Mondays. So I did. And he was right. To this day I'd be far more likely to stick on I Am The Resurrection than Welcome To The Jungle.

This system of recommendation based (very much as Amazon does now) on "well you liked that so I reckon you'll like this..." continued in the car on the way to five a side football on a Saturday morning with my next door neighbour. Gerry (for it was he) would always have a new mix-tape ready for the trip from Kelvindale to Whitehill. Allowing for the inevitable backlog of traffic on Great Western Road on the return journey, this would give us around 80-90 minutes of listening time. Ideal for a TDK-extravaganza!

Image by Erica_Marshall via Flickr

I never asked Gerry if he made a conscious effort to include the four passengers' tastes in the compiling of his tapes (I'm sure he didn't, there was always a Prince track on there - I can't be doing with him, Gerry was a huge fan of the diminutive purple one) but perhaps there was just some kind of meeting of musical minds. Around this time I was listening to The Kevin McDermott Orchestra and Del Amitri on heavy rotation - very parochial of me I know - and as well as the odd KMO and Dels track on the Saturday Fives Tapes (as I have just christened them) there would inevitably be at least a dozen people I'd either never heard of or never bothered with: The Four of Us, The Pale, House of Pain, The Trash Can Sinatras, Aztec Camera, The Jesus and Mary Chain; or people that I'd forgotten I liked or had dismissed after a brief listen: The Pixies and Superchunk (forgotten), Teenage Fanclub (criminally dismissed after dubious recording of a Peel Session given to me by John Wood - sorry Fannies, I love you now if that helps...)

Image by Phil Gyford via Flickr

As well as putting a strain on the finances (I needed a lot of C-90s to bootleg Gerry's albums and EPs..."rip" what kind of a word is that for copying, sorry, "sharing" music?) the tapes stimulated discussion and provided a topic of conversation amongst the rest of the players when we got there - music fanatics to a man. I can still recall Karl's tirade against Blur's Parklife single as a poor man's Lazy Sunday as he danced around the dressing room chanting "rooty-dooty-doo-rooty-dooty-dido." And do you know what, he was right.

I'm not saying that without friends' recommendations I'd never have come across certain acts but it's easy to dismiss something after one radio hearing, it's a different matter entirely when someone you know and whose opinion you respect thrusts a cassette into your hands and entreats you to listen to it with the phrase, "honestly, you'll love it..." it's hard to resist. I can think, from tapes given to me by my good friend Stef alone, of bands from Compulsion to The Bluetones and Therapy? that, as someone who'd stopped buying the NME and didn't listen to Radio1, I might never have encountered. Now I'd quite gladly cite the Bluetones as one of my favourite bands. Yes I know I didn't include them on my last.fm list.

It's not, of course, guaranteed that you'll like something a friend has recommended but this in itself presents an excuse to either (a) chat a bit more about music to explain your reasons, (b) get a pint in as you sit down to hear them explain why you really will like it if you give it another listen or (c) make a tape for them with something you think is even better (honestly, the Vaselines beat Nirvana every time, no question); three excellent things to do at any rate.

Perhaps that's why last.fm could but ultimately won't replace your friends. Sure, you can argue your point and champion your favourites virtually via emails and, as last.fm rather naffly calls them "shouts", you can debate and engage in badinage and all manner of repartee, you could even make up virtual playlists and suggest things people in the last.fm community might like. But you can't mix them up a Maxell, thrust it into their grubby mitts, order a Guinness and sit them down and say, "this lot, really, I know I've said it before, but this lot really are amazing..."

Image by Sara in Montréal via Flickr

Related articles by Zemanta

• Emma: The magic of the 45rpm vinyl single (via FriendFeed) (guardian.co.uk)
• Britpop survivors (guardian.co.uk)

Nostalgic pavements...

Right. Music. Again.

I love music, me. Without going into huge, detailed and undoubtedly boring explanations of the whys and hows, I bought loads of the stuff last weekend at the excellent Europa Music in Stirling and some at the not quite so excellent (but they had what I was after) HMV, also in Stirling. I mean, it's not as if I'd travel somewhere different just to visit a chain store.

For the princely sum of £19, I left Europa with Through The Past Darkly and Jump Back by the Stones, The Singles by the criminally neglected Bluetones and lastly the magnificent Whatever People Say I Am That's What I'm Not by The Arctic Monkeys. All excellent. All cheap. Bob is indeed my uncle.

HMV (for 98pence more) supplied me with the latest offerings from King Creosote and Dan Auerbach. KC's is a bit of a grower but good nonetheless whilst Dan does a kind of pared down version of his Black Keys incarnation. Really nice, almost acoustic blues.

I digress. In Inverness the other week I heard a song in a cafe. I immediately recognised the voice as belonging to a certain female artiste that I thought I didn't like. I don't know why I thought I disliked her. No sound reasoning, no rationale. This arbitrary opinion forming is, is it not, what makes talking about musical tastes so interesting.

Anyway, the song sounded great and was very - and here I'm going to sound very middle-aged - catchy. Sorry, but it was. And is.

With a free Amazon voucher burning a hole in my inbox, I bought the album. Almost "on spec" and do you know what? It's one of the best things I've ever heard. Lyrically it's something of a masterpiece - the idea of nostalgic pavements and the magnificent line "you said I must eat so many lemons, 'cos I am so bitter, I said I'd rather be with your friends mate 'cos they are much fitter" being just two from a whole CD-full.

The artiste in question? Here she is, enjoy this great song and brilliant video...