Category Archives: Records

Prog Rock (and more) from Italy
10
Jun

Italy’s footballers have the daunting task of stopping the Spanish juggernaut this evening, against a backdrop of yet another match-fixing scandal engulfing the Italian domestic game.

However, last time such a scandal erupted was in 2006, and that was the year that a dishevelled, unfancied Italian team got off their collective backsides and actually won the World Cup, in a final match that was less famous for the result than for Zinedine Zidaine’s headbutt on Marco Materazzi.

Musically, Italy has a rich history dating back to medieval times. Most people know Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” – this is “Winter” by I Musici, which has an unexpectedly great video.

The first Italian band I remember being aware of was PFM (Premiata Forneria Marconi – which is apparently Italian for “Award-winning Marconi bakery”.

They were the first Italian band to use a Moog synth in the seventies and can be said to have invented Italian prog rock.

As you can hear from the videos embedded below, their music was very much influenced by their British contemporaries like Yes and especially Genesis. Two things set them apart – first, the vocals. The band never rated their vocals and later in their career took on a specialist lead vocalist, but I quite like the gentler, more pastoral feel to the vocals on their earler stuff. And the keyboard lines are so much more melodic than anything produced by Rick Wakeman or Tony Banks.

For every PFM fan on facebook there are 5.65 fans of Yes, which seems unfair to me.

Impressioni Di Settembre – this 1972 clip is a bit grainy and the sound quality is not great but you can hear what they’re about.

Greg Lake of the prog giants ELP signed them to Manticore records and they released a few English-language albums, notably “The World Became The World”.

River Of Life – a pastoral, folky feel to this one at the beginning. Definitely a bit like King Crimson. Lyrics by “Mr pretentious” Pete Sinfield (“a vale of tears for the virgin birth”. Right on, Pete!)

This album also included a re-recording of “Impressioni di settembre” as the title track. This was their last collaboration with Pete Sinfield, as the group were not entirely pleased with the content of his English lyrics. (I reckon that prior to 1975 their English was not good enough to recognise bad poetry)

Which brings me to an interesting point – I love PFM, but I like their Italian stuff far better. I suspect this may be because I don’t understand Italian, so I remain in blissful ignorance of the lyrics.

May do a Top Ten worst prog rock lyrics one day. Watch this space.

Moving more up to date, Koine are a good indie-rock band. The big beautiful Italian vocals work really well with the jangly guitars. This one hits a classic rock groove towards the end and is none the worse for it. (The song actually finishes around 3.23, I wouldn’t bother with the two minutes of credits after that)

And finally, “La Cacada” by Checcio Zalone is currently number one in the Italian dance charts. I like this, its got a good beat. And still with the lovely voice. He’d have been singing opera back in the days of Vivaldi. But with worse teeth.

Ukraine tomorrow, a country which, I think it is fair to say, has not made a huge splash on the international music scene for one reason or another. Is this justified? Find out tomorrow, unless you’re Ukranian in which case I guess you already know the answer.

The Sound Of Portugal
9
Jun

Portugal open their Euro 2012 campaign this evening against Germany. Six, eight, ten years ago this would have been a fine contest but its fair to say the team of Cristiano Ronaldo and ten lesser players is not expected to trouble the German machine too much this evening.

Portugal is famous for fado music, which, unusually for folk music, has its roots in cities, notably the port city of Lisbon where many cultures met and merged over the centuries. Fado combines elements of traditional Portugese folk with Moorish and African influences.

Now, the Portugese have a word “saudade”, which has no exact translation in English. Roughly, it means “nostalgia” or “homesickness” but it also implies a bittersweet longing. Strange that English doesn’t include a word for this, as its something the English feel very deeply, especially at times of great national feeling such as – oh, I dunno, the Diamond Jubilee. Or a big football tournament.

“Saudade” pretty much nails the lyrical content of fado music. Songs are often about lost or unrequited love, death and general sadness. The sad, bittersweet lyrics are sung over beautiful plaintive melodies, sung in a wistful, yearning manner.

Despite that description, it doesn’t sound anything like The Smiths. This is Aldina Duarte, quite up-tempo.

Ana Moura, one of Portugal’s best-loved fadistas, with a more wistful song, more typical of the genre:

You can download Ana’s music here:

http://www.emusic.com/listen/#/artist/ana-moura/11640335/:

Other sites are available but iDon’t like them much so iDon’t see why iShould mention them. (you see what iDid there?)

Ana is also on twitter here:

https://twitter.com/#!/ana_moura

For every person who follows @AnaMoura on twitter, there are 3 who follow @AnnaCalvi (below)

Moving away from Fado, here are a few random links to Portugese bands you may find interesting.

Classic prog rock band Petrus Castrus :

And another one – Tantra. Bit like early (aka “good”) Genesis. The guy on the far-right makes Peter Gabriel look like Peter Noone.

The Skalibans! This starts off quite promising with a huge brassy punk intro, slips into a respectable ska beat (not too sure about the vocals though). Somebody’s dad had a Dexys album by the sound of it.

Finally, coming full circle in a way, a song called “Saudade” (see above) by Portugal’s biggest rock act of the seventies and eighties, Herois do Mar (Heroes Of The Sea)! Synth pop! With mandolins! – almost a prototype British Sea Power, at least to these ears.

So, a random selection but some excellent sounds there. I’d be interested if you know of any other Portugese music I should be aware of?

That’s all until tomorrow, when I will be “doing” Italy.

Waving Flags
7
Jun

I do love the old Queen. Still just as classy as ever as you can see from this video clip here

If you caught any of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee concert last week, you will have seen an array of popular British music acts from down the years. It all seemed very pleasant in the middle of an extended Bank Holiday weekend, with everyone in such a good mood.

There was Cliff Richard, Paul McCartney and Tom Jones (and of course Elton John!)  representing the old guard, Madness on top of Buck House and Jessie J and JLS among the current acts. Grace Jones and her amazing hula-hoop stole the show for me but that could be because deep down I suspect I am a gay man trapped in a straight man’s body.

And all I’ve heard since then is either “That was fantastic, what a great selection of bands” or “What a load of rubbish, we’ve got way better bands than that they could have had”. Polar opposite views, but they share a common assumption – we do pop music better than the rest of the world combined. You’ve only got to look at their charts – they’re all full of British music.

Erm – newsflash. The reason we, as English speaking people, think our music is better than the rest of the world’s is that we can’t speak French, Russian, Swahili, Punjabi, Dutch, Chinese or Swedish.

And the reason the charts in so many other countries have so many English speaking records is that a large percentage of the world’s population learns English from the cradle.

And you know why they speak English? That’s right. Its because the most powerful nation of the past 100 years is English speaking. And it ain’t England, or Britain, its the USA.

I listen to a lot of music. A lot. Because I’ve lived my whole life in England most of it is British or American. Its easy to get parochial on this point, but its also incorrect.

You only have to spend a short time abroad (and by that I mean mixing with the locals, not just staying in the Brit bars) to realise that there is a hell of a lot of music out there – some good, some bad, some great, but all of it worthy of a listen, and worthy of consideration in exactly the same way “our own” music is. And in the cases where different countries’ music has fused, its interesting to see the different takes on a familiar beat.

There’s a huge project to be done by somebody  on the music of the world (NOT “World Music” which in this country simply means another bunch of obsessives with another exclusive musical club – the arrogance of lumping the entire non-English speaking world into one category is so damn English)

Unfortunately, this is not that project. I don’t have the time as I have a day job and a relationship to hold down.

But over the next few weeks, to coincide with the 2012 European Football Championships, I will be featuring a random sample of music from each of the sixteen countries taking part. There is absolutely no plan or rhyme or reason for the selections, other than I love them all, and they won’t be bands everyone knows (so if you guessed Abba for Sweden, Demis Roussos for Greece and James Last for Germany, then guess again)

All are well worthy of your attention although it has to be said it isn’t always for purely musical reasons (you’re gonna LOVE Russia!)

To kick off, then, here are a couple of vids from great European bands whose countries unfortunately didn’t make it to Euro 2012 :

Its a mystery to me how Belgium, with Vincent Kompany and Eden Hazard, managed to avoid qualifying. They would have graced the tournament. It is also a mystery to me why this band are not huge. They even sing in English fer Chrissakes.

This lot are brilliant – saw them at the Thekla in Bristol a few weeks ago. They will go further than the Norn Iron football team ever will, with or without Neil Lennon.

And finally, ending on an “up”, Norway didn’t quite sneak in but Katzenjammer are the best band I’ve seen in a very long time. Dig this cheesy madcap trumpet ride!


Okay, back tomorrow with the first of the sixteen countries, ahead of the first day’s matches.

One last thing about Elton. I was so relieved when he didn’t do Candle In The Wind with the Diana words. That would have been awkward turtle and no mistake.

Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here Far Too Dear
12
Nov

“And did we tell you the name of the game, boy?  We call it ‘riding the gravy train’”

That line is from “Have A Cigar”, the track that opens Side Two of Pink Floyd’s 1975 masterpiece “Wish You Were Here”.

Welcome to the machine. The nostalgia machine. In time for the Christmas market, Pink Floyd are releasing re-mastered versions of all their albums, including five-disc “Immersion Editions” of the two best, and best-loved, “Dark Side Of The Moon” and “Wish You Were Here”

There’s some great music here, but I’d hazard a guess that ninety percent of the people who are going to buy these overpriced reissues already have the albums.

You do not, emphatically  not need the new remixed, remastered editions. You especially do not need the new Immersion edition of Wish You Were Here.

You’ve already GOT Wish You Were Here.

The new immersion edition of Wish You Were Here costs £84.99. Let’s just put that out there. Thats fifteen notes short of a hundred pounds. For this you get three versions of the album – the original stereo mix, the Quadraphonic Mix, and the 5.1 Surround Mix.

No extra tracks, jams or outtakes from the sessions…

Plus you get two versions of a 1975 concert performance of the album, plus a selection of tacky collectibles that bear listing in full.

Two photo books. A scarf. Some marbles. Postcards. A replica gig ticket and backstage pass. And some cardboard drinks coasters.

Look, I know you love Pink Floyd.

You’re fifty, male and middle class. You were at school in the mid-seventies, when it was compulsory for middle-class boys to be into Pink Floyd.  And Yes. And King Crimson. And Genesis. Soul and reggae music was for the rough boys. Glam rock was for girls.

You love Pink Floyd, of course you do.

So do I. Wish You Were Here in particular. Its a lovely, warm, wistful album.

But you already have this music.

You  bought Wish You Were Here on the day it came out in 1975, in that black shrink-wrapped bag.

You had of course heard the album on Alan Freeman’s Radio One show the week before, and recorded it onto a C-60 cassette, which you played a lot

Later, when you got your first CD player, the first four CDs you bought (at sixteen pounds each) purchased in 1985 were – Dark Side Of The Moon, Wish you Were Here, Dare by the Human League (the wife likes them) and Brothers In Arms by Dire Straits.

DO NOT SPEND MORE MONEY ON BUYING THE SAME STUFF AGAIN !

If you have eighty-five quid to spare and you love Pink Floyd, there is a lot of music out there, in the same genre as Pink Floyd, that you may learn to love just as much:

Download Trojan Horse’s excellent album:

Trojan Horse are an up-and-coming band who describe their sound as “Prog Nouveau”. You can download their debut album here for £6.00:

Take your pick from the many records by The Pineapple Thief.

Basically the brainchild and project of Bruce Soord, these guys have been making prog-indie albums since 1999, building up a devoted following. Their latest album is “Someone Here Is Missing” and you can listen to bits of it  here.  In particular, check out the Storm Thorgerson album artwork. Admit it, Floydians, you’re interested!

Buy A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding In Your Mind

Amorphous Androgynous – formerly called the Future Sound Of London – these guys do killer mixes and compilations of old psychedelic gems mixed with some current stuff. This is the latest volume

“X And Y” – Coldplay

Yeah, I know you know all about Coldplay. But plenty of tracks on this album sound more like Pink Floyd than Pink Floyd did, at least after Roger Waters left. Its currently yours for less than four quid on Amazon.

Pink Floyd’s Soundtracks

The rest of Pink Floyd’s back catalogue. If you don’t already have all of this then why not fill in the gaps – for instance, the soundtrack albums. More? Obscured By Clouds? Roger Waters’ “Music From The Body”? Tonite Lets All Make Love In London? All worth your time. Except the last one, mind.

British Sea Power

British Sea Power’s “Man Of Aran” – British Sea Power are primarily an indie band. You may not like everything they do, but they wrote this new soundtrack to a 1934 film about islanders on Aran ekeing out a pre-modern lifestyle from the unforgiving land. Some of the long pieces in particular are very Floydian.

Go see a Pink Floyd Tribute Band

With half the original band no longer with us, and two of the three survivors no longer on speaking terms, a Floyd live reunion ain’t gonna happen – and if it does, it isn’t going to be any good. I mean, I watched the Live 8 performance on the telly and it was a bit ropey.

Think Floyd were one of the earliest and best Floyd tribute bands. Fourteen quid will get you in to see them playing at St Pauls Church in West London next week:

There are others, notably The Australian Pink Floyd. My personal favourite is a band called Interstellar Overdrive who I saw in Germany many years ago. They limit their selection to the Barrett / Waters led period – nothing after “Animals” except “Comfortably Numb”, which is just fine by me! You have to respect a semi-pro band who include a massive gong in their stage rig solely for “Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun”.

Just say “Yes” !

And finally, Floyd’s seventies prog contemporaries Yes are playing at Hammersmith Apollo next week, The difference is that Yes have been a working, breathing band ever since they began, barring the odd hiatus and many personnel changes, and they continue to produce new music to this day.

Tickets are £37.50 plus booking fee. Don’t even get me started on booking fees…

Now you may say that’s an outrageous price for a gig by a bunch of ageing prog-rockers. And you’d be right.

But it compares well with paying £84.99 for five versions of an album you already own several times over.

And… breathe. Breathe in the air.

Five great songs for Hallowe’en that you’ve never heard
31
Oct

For a podcast version of this click Hallowe’en Songs Podcast

Just quickly …

Trying to get away from the usual Thriller, Monster Mash, Rocky Horror stuff, here’s five great records to celebrate the slaughter of millions of innocent pumpkins. Enjoy.

Waltzinblack – The Stranglers

When My kids were small their horrible parents wouldn’t let them go trick or treating on principle. Instead, we used to switch off all the lights in the house and play this extremely loud. Happy times. Although the neighbours did call social services a couple of times.

Bikini Girls With Machine Guns – The Cramps

There are two kinds of people. On the one hand there are those who see a link to a song called “Bikini Girls With Machine Guns” and OTOH there are the extremely boring. The Cramps did more horror-y type songs than this but none of them have bikini girls with machine guns in the vid. And this begins with the line “Well I been drag racing on LSD”.

Look Out There’s A Monster Coming – Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band

From the sixties TV show “The Viv And Neil Minstrel Show” which was on ITV so I never got to watch it despite being old enough to remember it being on. No idea why all the band except Neil Innes were blacked up. May ask him on Twitter, so watch this space just in case.

Zombie Jamboree – Harry Belafonte

Several versions of this around but I guess Harry was the most famous so there’s a vid clip of him. They had some weird stuff that passed for light entertainment in the early sixties.

Dr Frankenstein’s Disco Party

In 1977 my wife went to her local record shop (for younger readers, these were shops where you could go to buy bits of plastic which had downloads imprinted on them by scientific means). She purchased the big Abba hit “Knowing Me Knowing You” ( a phrase later made famous by drag act Steve Coogan) and when she got it home, she found an extra record in the bag which was this. She played it once, disliked it intensely and threw it away. That was when her run of bad luck began …

Happy Hallowe’en – if you haven’t done so already, check out today’s Google Doodle. It made me 8=)