Totally Shuffled extract -The Smiths

I thought long and hard about putting this extract from the book on the blog; mostly, because as can be seen from below, I am not hugely over-enamoured with The Smiths. On the other hand, I did write about them this way and although it was just how I felt about them when I wrote it in July 2012, my views haven't changed much since then. 

Back when "The Queen Is Dead" was released I did quite enjoy them; but like many things in life, tastes change. I did not write this piece with the sole intention of upsetting anyone who likes the Smiths-if I have, then I apologise. 

You may love The Smiths; I love The Fall. 

After all, it is only music and it would be boring if everyone liked (or disliked) the same things! If it makes for an interesting and friendly discusssion, then it's all worth it. Anyway-here it is..(enjoy?)

July 21^st

The Smiths-How Soon is Now-Hatfull of Hollow

I was a bit of a latecomer to The Smiths and only started listening to them properly when “The Queen is Dead” was released. It did prompt me to get their earlier albums and I sort of was still into them when “Ask” came out. 

Maybe it was a bit of a relief when they split up because it was all wearing a bit thin with me by then anyway. The Smiths were an odd sort of band. I’m generally wary of artists who have obsessed fans. 

Obsessed to the point that only “their” artist knows the true way and they elevate them to quasi-Godlike proportions. Like Morrissey and Smiths fans. ( I may be ever-so slightly obsessed with Dylan and The Fall for example, but I can recognise when they bring out some real clunkers- Dylan’s 1973 album and The Fall’s Interim are prime examples of where it went badly wrong for them. 
They’ve also played some atrocious live shows. I’ve heard more than one CD of Dylan live where he sounds like he couldn’t be arsed at all and where it would have been more interesting if he’d jumped on stage and demonstrated how to fry an egg. I’ve seen The Fall many times and although they are generally spectacular, there have been occasions when it’s degenerated into a total mess. And not in a good-so-bad-that-is interesting-way but in a-that’s-just-shit-way). 

However, to hear some fans of Morrissey and The Smiths you’d never think that they released anything that was below par or ever played a gig that was ever so slightly off. In fact, they’d have you believe that every single one of The Smiths and Morrissey’s records stands head and shoulders above any popular music that’s ever been recorded, and actually is the greatest art of all time. 

You can forget about Bach, Beethoven, Stravinsky, Da Vinci, Picasso, Joyce, Shakespeare and the rest, Steven Patrick Morrissey is your man. The words of genius that have dribbled from his mouth are worth much more than all the above combined. It’s easy to see how personality cults arise. How many misguided fools given up the pleasure of a bacon sarnie to follow in the vegetarian footsteps of Their Glorious Leader?

From all of this you’d think that I don’t actually like The Smiths that much. Well, not that much, but they were alright. I think I could come up with enough songs of theirs to just about fill up one CD. This one would be on there as well as “Death of A Disco Dancer” and a few others. I like The Smiths for the music rather than the lyrics. If I could have an album comprised of Smiths instrumentals then that would do me fine-Johnny Marr, to me, was always by far the best thing about the band. 

There is a common assumption that the Smiths lyrics were what made them special. That wit, that dark humour, that word play. This is something that Morrissey has traded on for years and has propped up his increasingly desperate solo career, like rotting beams in a flooded mine. It’s the Emperor’s New Clothes. He’s become more and more bitter, grumpy and irrelevant as time has progressed, and any faint vestiges of humour evaporated well before the Smiths split up.

(By the way, I’d still rather be stuck in a lift listening to Dylan’s 1973 album on a constant loop than sitting on a tropical beach, sipping a long cool drink and  listening to any single track off Morrissey’s solo albums). 

If you've enjoyed this (or would like to read more from the book, wherein other artists are written about, sometimes postively, sometimes not so much), then here's some links: 

Kindle:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00CJYZ3CA 

Paperback:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Totally-Shuffled-Listening-Broken-iPod-The/dp/149495687X 

"Totally Shuffled" extract Gong etc

extracted from "Totally Shuffled - A Year of Listening to Music on  A Broken iPod"

February 18^th

Gong-You Can’t Kill Me- Live Etc

I think I may have written earlier that the only prog albums I have ever had were by Genesis and ELP? I suppose that Gong may just fall into that bracket, but looking on Wikipedia (which is always correct,) they are also termed as psychedelic and /or space rock. So that’s ok then-I’m off the prog hook.

This album was released in 1977 and I think that I got it a couple of years later i.e. on the cusp of punk and post-punk. It was seemingly therefore a strange record for me to get at that time, being preoccupied by the likes of Gang of Four, The Fall, Swell Maps and the like. I’d heard tangentially of Gong by one of my friends who made me listen to a split live LP recorded by Alternative TV (Mark Perry’s punk band) and Here & Now (a sort of Gong offshoot).That album (“What You See...Is What You Are”), I tried to get for ages and ages with no success, until I came across a copy only 18 months ago. It’s not on the iPod, so I won’t be writing about it directly, but it certainly is a curious mix of ATV’s punk thrash and Here & Now’s hippy trippy ramblings. Especially on the last track when both bands play ATV’s “Splitting in Two” together. 

As I couldn’t get hold of the live Here & Now album, then the next best thing was a live Gong album. They’d issued another live album in 1977 called “Floating Anarchy Live”, but I couldn’t get hold of that either-that had been released on Charly and was a complete live concert recorded in Toulouse. 

I was left with getting this “Live Etc” album released on Virgin (probably as a spoiler to affect any success for the Charly release as Gong had previously been signed to Virgin). As spoiler albums go, it’s pretty good. It’s a mixture of various live tracks recorded between 1973 and 1975, as well as some tracks that I think may have been recorded by the BBC for John Peel’s show. 

For a long time I’d mistakenly assumed it was all from one concert and not patched together from old tapes in the vaults. It was well packaged though. A double LP (but not gatefold-that would tip it into the prog side of the equation). It had a silver sleeve with the Gong logo and was cut out around the logo itself, so you could see the inner sleeves of the records which were brightly coloured collages made up of numerous photos of the band.  

For some odd reason I ordered this album from a mail order company advertised in the back of Sounds and it turned up in the post-after I‘d sent a cheque-in a 12” cardboard package. (How old-fashioned and quaint. Cheques and mail order. Music in the post).   

Gong always had a reputation of being a bunch of stoned hippies rambling on about pothead pixies and flying teapots. Go figure-it sounds quite justified. However, they can’t have been stoned all the time if this album is anything to go by. It’s more jazz fusion than prog, and all the playing is so tight and hard that they were either extremely brilliant musicians who could still play well through a haze of class A,B and C drugs, or were having nothing much stronger than a cup of PG Tips when this was recorded.         

Get/see/read the rest of "Totally Shuffled" here;

Kindle e book

 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Totally-Shuffled-Listening-Music-Broken-ebook/dp/B00CJYZ3CA

Paperback  

  http://www.amazon.co.uk/Totally-Shuffled-Listening-Broken-iPod-The/dp/149495687X

K T Tunstall & the beauty of music

random excerpt from "Totally Shuffled - A Year of Listening to Music on a Broken iPod "

K T Tunstall-Suddenly I See-Eye to the Telescope

I detest all those “guilty pleasures” type compilations that came out a couple of years ago-what on earth is there anything to feel guilty about?

I’ve only got one K T Tunstall record -and maybe it’s the only one I ever really need to hear. 

I have no real interest in getting any more of her records. I don’t think that she could ever top this tune anyway. Sometimes you just know that an artist will bring out one amazingly good song, just one great song, and that’s all they ever really need to do. It doesn’t matter whether a song (or an artist) is fashionable or cool or hip or too disposable or too popular. It’s just about the music really. 

And that’s just a glib throwaway cliché anyway. Saying it’s all about the music disregards the obvious fact that it’s very difficult to get over the fact that some of these songs that I really do like actually are made by artists who are not, and never will be, or never were, at the cutting edge. As bad as the “guilty pleasures” crap can be, the reverse side of this coin are those people who come out with all that guff about it being just about the music. It can’t be that. It’s impossible to wholly separate yourself from what any particular artist signifies. 

We are all too adept at reading, and too well-versed in meaning, to just hear music in total isolation. It can never just be about the music, and for that reason it’s sometimes much more difficult to appreciate a pure pop song. It’s another final hurdle that has to be overcome if you want to honestly love a song like this K T Tunstall record.   

And the thing that really gets me is all that knowingness. All that kitsch value approach. You should either like a song or not. 

Just say no to all that “well, I know its rubbish and that x or y is a complete arse, but that’s what’s good about it.” 

No, it’s not. If it’s a load of old bollocks and the singer is a total dickhead, then call it what it is.  But this song isn’t rubbish, and from what little I know of K T Tunstall she seems alright. 

I do have a feeling though that this was a bit of a flash in the pan for her and for some reason-maybe because I didn’t want this song to be diminished by hearing much of her other work that could never be as good as this-I’ve never made an effort  to hear anything else she’s done.

There are a few other songs that for me fall distinctly into this sort of category. It would be misplaced and incorrect to say these were by one hit wonders. Some of them were very popular or very successful or indeed, very “cool” artists. There may be more than one song by them I like, but what links them is that I only need a couple of songs to know, instinctively, that they are very great and exceptional songs. 

Try these-and this is just off the top of my head; “Never Ever” by All Saints, “Tempted”, “Black Coffee in Bed”, “Labelled with Love” by Squeeze, “You’re So Vain” by Carly Simon, “Pinball” by Brian Protheroe, “Teardrops” by Womack and Womack, “Desperado” by the Eagles, “Brass in Pocket” by the Pretenders, “Last Night a DJ Saved My Life” by Indeep. 

The list is endless. And that’s the beauty of music. 

see/get Totally Shuffled here as a Kindle e book

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Totally-Shuffled-Listening-Music-Broken-ebook/dp/B00CJYZ3CA 

 or in paperback here!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Totally-Shuffled-Listening-Broken-iPod-The/dp/149495687X 

P.S. Thanks for the wings! It's A Wonderful Life...

Sometimes, not always, but sometimes, it's not all about music. 

Here's a little piece about film.


P.S. Thanks for the wings! It's A Wonderful Life...

It was a typical Christmas Eve as we all headed to watch the film. Typical not in the Christmas card sense of robins, reindeers and snow; but in a freezing and blowy miserable way. We rushed through the door to get out of the cold and get a hot drink. We were there to watch an old film, a film that’s nearly 60 years old, a black and white film that wasn’t even a success at the time it came out, but now, after all this time, has become a part of Christmas just as much as robins, reindeers and snowy scenes.

We were at the Phil to watch Frank Capra’s “It’s A Wonderful Life.” Of course we had all seen it many times before on TV and DVD, but this was the first time we had seen it at the cinema, on a big screen with a lot of other people. Additionally this was the first time that we’d seen it with an old-style cinema organ playing before the film started. This would make a change from half an hour’s worth of trailers and adverts. Not only were we going to see a film that was older than any of us, but we were going to experience filmgoing in a way that was from a distant age. It was going to be different.

I rather not give too much away regarding the plot of the film; in fact, I’d rather not give anything away just in case you haven’t seen it. I wouldn’t want to spoil it. It is such a magical film, such a special film which tells a story that has sadness, humour, darkness, light, love, death and joy running through its core, that saying too much about could ruin it. Needless to say it’s perfectly directed by Capra, perfectly paced and with a cast that includes James Stewart (being totally James Stewart-ish), Donna Reed (truly captivating) and Lionel Barrymore (evil personified) you can’t go wrong.

It’s the ultimate “what if?” plot. While you’re watching it and enjoying it, it makes you wonder yourself about the choices, the simple and seemingly meaningless trivial choices that we all make every day of our lives. Some of the choices that Stewart has to face within the film are difficult ones and they are ones he struggles with to the point that he seems to really have no choice at all. Whichever way he turns, all he can see is disaster and heartbreak awaiting him and his loved ones. He bitterly regrets some of the choices he has made, yet in the end, thanks to divine intervention, all works out for the best.               

Last Christmas Eve, we walked out of the Phil, having laughed and smiled, wiped away tears and knew that we’d seen the best film ever at somewhere that wasn’t a soulless multiplex. It was still cold and freezing, but the world seemed so much better. It was Christmas Day in the morning. It is a wonderful life.  

"Totally Shuffled" extract- Elf Power (& naming bands)

extracted from "Totally Shuffled -A Year of Listening to Music on a Broken iPod"

September 17^th

Elf Power-Needle In The Camel’s Eye-When The Red King Comes

           

I’m sure I mentioned this before but any band with the word “fuck” (or derivation thereof) in their name has a bit of a head start. It would be like giving an athlete a 10m start in a race with Usain Bolt. Bolt may still reach the finish line first, but that 10m would make them look a bit more competitive.

(See Holy Fuck (Bolt would win), Fuck Buttons (a closer thing but still Bolt), The Fucking Ocean (a photofinish)).

Of course, I’ve bought and got hold of many records based entirely on the name of the band. 

This is working on the principle that if it sounds good then it must sound good. There are many records (much more so in the vinyl years) that I bought just because the sleeve art looked good; but that’s another piece altogether. Applying a principle that a good name for a band results in music of a certain quality is a bit hit and miss. So much miss in fact that there isn’t really a principle. I’ve got a lot of music-usually by American bands-with such good names that I felt it was a bit of a given the music would be equally as challenging and exciting. Sadly, for the majority of cases this has proved to not the best starting point. 

Actually, most of the time it seems as if the band have spent more time, effort and creativity in deciding what they would be called rather than the music they would make. It’s as if they had a finite amount of artistic thinking to use and most of it was used up in dreaming of a cool name that they could be called. 

When it came to producing the music itself , then everything was gone and it would suffice to put out any old generic rubbish.(Examples of this include tracks that have already shuffled up this year; Chin Up Chin Up and You. May. Die. In.The. Desert etc). Whilst I can’t recall if I wrote that they were particularly special or even competent at the time, it would be considerably difficult for anyone to come up with music which is as good as what they called themselves.

As we all love lists here are a few bands with cool names that make cool music; Sonic Youth, Sun O))), Die! You Bastard, Big Star, American TV Cops. Some bands with crap names who make good music; The Fall, Vampire Weekend, The National.

As for bands who have both crap names and make crap music you can’t go wrong with the rule of thumb that any band with a four letter name is inherently shite; Blur, Ride, Lush… and Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the absolute paragons of this rule…Muse.

Where do you think that Elf Power falls into this all of this? 

Part of the Elephant 6 collective from Athens, Georgia, Elf Power have been around since 1994 and this track is taken from one of their early albums. They’re kind of lo-fi, indie, concept-albumish. 

Kind of. 

But there’s something a lot more under that surface. They’ve ploughed their own furrow and even though lo-fi and indie are now terms of ridicule and abuse, I do like their ramshackle approach. The thing is, I am unsure if I’d like them as much if they had a four letter name rather than Elf Power. 

Branding; that what it all boils down to.

Get "Totally Shuffled" as  Kindle book here :

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Totally-Shuffled-Listening-Music-Broken-ebook/dp/B00CJYZ3CA 

or as paperback! here: 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Totally-Shuffled-Listening-Broken-iPod-/dp/149495687X