Three Albums

For my latest blog I thought I'd pick three albums that have made a significant impression on me.  Two in particular were albums that I didn't get, or simply didn't like when I first heard them, but had "grower" stamped all over them.  You may hate them, you may love them, you may have never heard of them, it doesn't really matter, what's important is that you'll read this and think yeah, I've had that relationship with an album.

The Drum - Diskin

For those who don't know, The Drum used to be China Drum, and released two albums of adrenalised pop-punk, typified by their breakneck version of Wuthering Heights. Then they took one of those musical right-turns that sends a band occasionally in such a different direction that not only the fans but the band themselves didn't seem able to deal with it, and it proved to be the band's downfall.

The change of name from China Drum to The Drum coincided with a change of emphasis to a studio wizardry approach, involving loops, cut-ups, drop-outs and a host of other techniques more suited to the world of DJ mixing than a traditional rock production. Apparently they had recorded the album initially as a more coventional rock album, but then decided they didn't like it and decided to essentialy remix the whole thing. Part of their ultimate downfall was that the resultant album was almost impossible to play live.

Having become a massive fan of CD's second album Self Made Maniac - which was a more polished rock beast than the punkier debut Goosefair - I bought the new album with great anticipation, having read that they'd taken an "interesting" new approach. The first time I listened to it, in bed with the lights off and through my headphones (the best way to listen to all music, of course), I was quite frankly baffled. On first listening there was absolutely nothing to suggest this was even the same band. I even went as far as to think I'd been given the wrong CD in the shop - it was in truth like nothing I'd ever listened to before, it was so far away from my expectations I literally did not know what to make of it.

In place of the punky riffs and wordy vocals of old, there was a melange of looped guitar figures, pitch shifting, weird synthy sounds, vocal samples, sparse lyrics and heavily distorted shouting. It was an album that sounded fractured to the point of insanity. There weren't even any clues to link the lyrics to the inscrutable song titles - which fuelled my initial suspicion that I had the wrong disc. Did I hate it? I don't know - at first I didn't even know if I would stomach trying it again. But as is my wont, I persevered and slowly it began to worm its way in.

What attracted me was that the album seemed to be a completely self-contained world, having seemingly no connection to any other music, including the band's previous work. It stood as a definite musical statement, in spite of the lyrics being mostly ambiguous and often impenetrable.  This is part of its pull - to this day there are lyrics I still can't work out and I hear new things in it every time I hear it.

But the bottom line, and what keeps me coming back to it, is the thrill of hearing the first kick-ass drum beat and spidery guitar figure, before all Hell breaks loose. From then on it's a 40 minute rollercoaster ride of outrageous and relentless strangeness, right up until the final scratchy minor seventh chord and faint drumroll. That's the point at which I want to hit play again. This album is like a drug you don't know how on earth you could have got hooked on. It would walk into my all time top 10 with ease.

The Dismemberment Plan - Emergency & I

Sometimes the albums you grow to adore are ones you're not always that keen on when you first hear it. As it was with Diskin, so it was with the Dismemberment Plan. A mate lent it to me for a month - first impressions from the cover were that it was going to be some kind of 80s electro pop throwback - New Musik sprang to mind, or something Wire forgot to release. He had played me the pivotal track, You Are Invited, which was bizarrely sparse. A deadpan vocal over a simple electronic drumbeat, but with the occasional stab of guitar. Interesting, but not exceptional.

I played the whole album and was similarly non-plussed. It sounded to me as if they were trying as hard as possible to be as difficult as possible. With time signatures all over the place, many of the songs were, on first listen, pretty hard to follow. Plus there were some creepily industrial keyboard sounds which lent the album an eerie feel.

But as is the way, repeated listens began to establish a grip. While in some ways the first half of the album still doesn't totally grab me, there are enough good moments in there to keep you listening, and anyway it's only the starter - the main course begins with You Are Invited. A strange tale about a fantastical invite which would get the holder into any party anywhere, but ultimately proves nothing other than that most parties are ultimately unsatisfying - he ends up giving it away - the song brilliantly builds real drums on top of the synth rhythms until suddenly the whole band bangs in with 45 seconds of riffage that most bands would be happy to build an entire song around. Then as soon as it arrives it is gone, and the simplistic beat is back.

From there the album grows in its scope and sense of ambition, with vocals ranging from heart-rending via crazily stuttering to desperate wailing, with the music become increasingly frenetic and fractious. In the final track, Back and Forth, it feels like the world is tumbling towards an inevitable and terrible climax, the singer spewing out apocalyptic poetry at breakneck speed, as if there isn't enough time left in the world to say them all. And when it comes, the ending is as abrupt and sudden as any I've heard.

Their other albums are often more awkwardly angular, not to mention witty, but nowhere else did they capture the pre-millennial sense of fear and desperation than the last twenty minutes of this album. But then again, neither has anyone else.

Electrasy - In Here We Fall

I love it when you're listening to the radio and a song comes on that stops you in your tracks. BYOB by System of a Down and Creeping Up The Back Stairs by the Fratellis spring to mind, but I cast myself further back to one Sunday afternoon many moons ago, when I was stuck in traffic on the M40. I was listening to the chart show and, in the lower reaches of the hit parade came a song called Morning Afterglow by Electrasy. I was stunned by the beauty and simplicity of this song (one verse and one chorus, repeated) and knew instantly that it would be an all-time favourite.

So spin forward to a couple of years. Electrasy had released one album, Beautiful Insane, which was an often very good but patchy affair, swinging wildly from one musical style to another and not really knowing which way it wanted to go. So the band decide they want to try and crack the US market and streamline their sound into an expansive, melodic and often noisy rock style with an occasional hint of hip-hop. Melding into this was the best of their earlier material, including Morning Afterglow and two other re-worked songs, plus a pretty brave, left-field version of Dazed and Confused.

This album for me sees the band fulfilling their musical potential with some of their most beautiful ballads nestling comfortably among the sturm und drang of attention-seeking rap-rock. Sadly the gamble never paid off, the band were dropped by their label and promptly turned their back on the industry. One of the great lost bands of the 90's.  Shame really, because Morning Afterglow remains one of my all-time favourite songs, and has a cracking video too.

Classic Gig Reviews #1: Whole Lotta Crap

Now that I've got a blog, I should keep adding things to it. Though very often I don't have the inspiration to pick up on a subject, it's important to keep the traffic flowing as it were. So on occasion I will be putting on here things I've written elsewhere, elsewhen. The first of these is a review of probably the most annoying gig I've ever been to. It happened in April 2010, and it still smarts now. Most of my gig reviews aren't like this, they're generally (a) quite positive about the band, as they're usually acts I actively want to see, and (b) shorter. So here goes...

They say if you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do a job, wait until you’ve hired an amateur. Whole Lotta Led are, allegedly, the only professional Led Zeppelin tribute band on the circuit. If this is the case, then I’m willing to pay way over the odds to watch the amateurs.

I came to this gig at Tamworth Assembly Rooms with few preconceptions about the band, but having already seen three Zeppelin tribute bands. So I was quite prepared for an enjoyable evening of being transported to the mid 1970s and being given a taste of what listening to Zep in full live flow would have been like. After all, their blurb promised much – no wigs, no gimmicks, just the music. Excellent – no silly posturing or half-hearted attempts to actually BE Zeppelin (US4/U2 please take note), I was expecting something along the lines of Gaga, who do Queen as if they were a three-piece from the accounts department, as opposed to the admittedly brilliant soundalike frontman of Mercury.

But something didn’t ring true about this lot. For a start, the guitarist and bassist were at least ten years older than the singer and drummer. It turns out the older pair were in a covers band who got such a good reception when doing Zep numbers in pubs that they decided to go all-out and jump on the burgeoning tribute bandwagon. The guitarist, surprisingly for a band keen to claim it’s not about the look, bore a passing resemblance to Page, wore his Les Paul and Gibson double-necks in the same low-slung manner and lifted his guitar skywards, Magus- like, whenever there were a few easy hammer-ons to toss off. His playing was competent but rarely did he stray far into full-on Pagular frottage. He clearly wasn’t comfortable playing slide in In My Time of Dying – his solo was basic to say the least, and he got the diminished chords in the fast bit wrong, making it sound completely flat. In fact that song, which had been whipped off with consummate ease and flair by the Rubber Plants, was stuffy, lacking in dynamism and frankly was slowing down so much toward the end I thought it, or maybe I, was going to die.

The singer was chosen at an audition, and all I can say is he must have put in a career performance that day, or the rest of auditionees were banshees. Coming across as the unfortunate lovechild of Roger Daltrey and a hamster, he seemed to have an inflated sense of his own adequacy. Even from the first number, his flat delivery and gratingly rounded vowel sounds which would have given Liam Gallagher a run for his money, at the very least irritated. Combine this with an unceasing procession of hand gestures more reminiscent of Will Young than Percy, an annoying tendency to provide intense discographical detail about every song (which had similarly spoiled my experience of the otherwise fine John Coughlan’s Quo) and that unwavering overtoothed grin that spoke of extreme self-satisfaction meant it was virtually impossible to warm to the man. One review says they don’t indulge in the sort of drinking and drugging that Zep were famed for, as it would impair their performance. I disagree. I think it might improve it. Or maybe I should.

Oh yeah, the bassist. There was one. He played bass.

A previous review of a WLL gig had said that the lack of violin bow in Dazed and Confused was “disappointing.” I would call it unforgivable. Apart from the fact that this song (like so many) was essentially a retread of the studio version, the omission of one of Page’s centrepiece elements was laughable. Perhaps it was just too difficult for the guitarist to attempt, but it leaves you feeling short-changed when watching a band that claims to be all about Zep’s music. If you want to see how Page used to entertain the crowds with his violin bow bit, Fred Zeppelin are the band to see.

They make a big thing about doing 2½ hour sets – which is fair enough, they did that at Tamworth, but when you do straight retreads of In My Time, Achilles Last Stand, Stairway and When The Levee Breaks, that’s probably about 45 minutes done and dusted straight off. They covered a lot of Zep’s repertoire, but somehow that’s not really the point. The overall impresion was of Zep By Numbers, a CD jukebox playing the album tracks in random order. One reviewer, who shall remain shameless, referred to them as “hits”, and also referred to a song called “Days Of My Youth”, so their opinion of the WLL experience cannot be that of an informed Zep fan.

The point with Zep is that the album versions were never meant to be the definitive versions. They were always the foundations – tracks like Dazed and Confused and Whole Lotta Love were pretty rapidly extended from those recorded versions, to become different beasts altogether. As with the lack of violin bow, there was no attempt to cover any of the extended bits of Whole Lotta Love – no Let That Boy Boogie section for example. There was some theremin work which was ok, and he did use his teeth on it – but this will always pale next to the Rubber Plants lasciviously licking theirs.

I’ve deliberately left the drummer till last, mainly because I did want to try and end on a high note (which is more than the singer managed). Moby Dick was probably my highlight of the evening, (a) because it meant the rest of the band left the stage for ten minutes and (b) he’s actually a good drummer, probably the only really talented member of the band, all that might elevate them above being merely a decent pub band.

The acid test for any tribute band is how the original act reacts to you. Robert Plant can often be spotted at Fred Zeppelin gigs. WLL have a quote from Jimmy Page saying “you’re getting great reviews, I wish you all the best”. Don’t hold back with the gushing praise there, Jim. Would it be terribly cynical of me to suggest that the band got involved with the ABC charity (set up by Page’s wife) in order to get in with him and obtain a soundbite quote? If this is the case then they got the quote they deserve.

So, the fourth Zep tribute act I’ve seen, and I would rank them fifth. Maybe I’m being unfair. Maybe I should end with a few positive statements, so here’s three:

1. They have a good drummer;
2. Some songs they did quite well – Stairway was ok, Achilles was decent, and some of the acoustic set sounded good from the bar;
3. They didn’t do my favourite song of all time – if they had then I would have been going home from Tamworth in the back of a police car. Babel I’m Gonna Leave You, if you will.

I Like Birds

I've become a bit of a birdwatcher. How did this happen? I mean I've always liked observing birds, the little sparrows and blue tits buzzing around the garden, and I've been to Birdworld with its crazy prehistoric-looking hornbills and the penguin feeding sessions, but taking an active interest? Not me, guv. Waste of time. Couldn't grow the beard for it anyway.

I blame Chile. Spending three weeks touring South America in the company of people who can point at something and say what it is, meant you either got into the groove with it or rapidly lost interest. Interestingly we had the full spectrum, from

what Simon Barnes would term a bad birdwatcher (this is a good thing), someone who knows their stuff but is pretty laid back about it, to the all-out twitcher who rapidly gets bored with what they've just seen and is already looking for the next rarity. This wasn't even a bird watching holiday - why would I ever go on one of those? - it just happened to be a small group thrown together, most of whom happened to have an interest in birds. Of course it helped that there were, to the untrained eye at least, exotic birds aplenty - from the ubiquitous ibis to oystercatchers, flocks of flamingos and the mighty condor. And of course penguins. Funny, cute, waddling penguins en masse in their natural habitat.

So from that holiday, the seed of a new interest was sown. Bolstered by getting an RSPB pocket book for Christmas and the prospect of adding an extra dimension to country walks, a new adventure was embarked upon. One thing I like about taking an interest in birds is that my entry level knowledge is pretty poor - I didn't even know what a chaffinch looked like, and they're common as muck - so almost everything is a new discovery at this stage. I've learned quick, aided and abetted by having feeders in the garden, and by having an excellent nature reserve up the road, which was already our favourite local walk. So we joined the conservation group and

now have access to their hides, which have already proved bountiful. I love the fact that, just the other week, somebody pointed out a snipe, which apparently is quite an unusual site round these parts, but not knowing this meant I was just as interested in seeing a brace of more common redshanks. In fact I was probably just as excited at seeing a jay in the garden yesterday. I'm at what might be termed the "int everything brilliant" phase (Paul Whitehouse, Fast Show, natch). I hope I never lose the excitement of seeing something commonplace. If you ever hear me saying "oh, that's just a hoopoe", have a quiet word in my shell-like.

There's something satisfying about taking on a new interest at this time in my life. It would be easy to just bowl along, paying little attention to anything outside of music and football, but these interests - while still strong - place few new challenges in my path. Birds, on the other hand, as well as being worth two in the bush before you say it, provide a gateway to a whole new area of knowledge about nature as a whole, and have opened up my eyes and ears a lot more to my surroundings. I don't listen to my iPod while out in the open now - I'm listening out for bird song. Now that's a difficult area. Distinguishing one call from another at the moment is like trying to discern the playing style of an individual Boredoms guitarist. Unless he was a blackbird or a great tit, they're easy. But I'll get there.

There is obviously a frustration as with any area in which you're a novice - coupled with the desire not to embarrass yourself by not knowing what a dunnock looks like - but that's part of the joy, part of the challenge of learning.

I feel like I've learned loads already in the last three months or so, and already have a fairly impressive list of spots. Of course I have a list, I'm a geek. But there's so much yet to learn. Not only song, but all the other dimensions like the differences between male and female, juvenile and adult, where and when you might expect to see them, there's a lot to take in. I'll never master the subject, but then I wouldn't want to as there'd be nothing new to learn. But I'll have a go. Though I still wouldn't go on a birdwatching holiday. And I still couldn't grow the beard.