I am a new day rising
I’m a brand new sky
To hang the stars upon tonight
I am a little divided
Do I stay or run away
And leave it all behind?
- "Times Like These"
I recently had a chance to briefly meet a hero of mine. There is always trepidation about something like this. Sometimes you don't want your heroes to be real - afraid perhaps that pulling them from the poster on your wall, to a real live person might shatter the mythology.
The other thing you don't want to be is a pest. A celebrity's life can be a grueling one, and everyone wants a piece of you. I've discovered this more recently through a friend of mine, a senior marketer for a big music label in New York. As a lover of music, I find the behind-the-scenes stuff she tells me fascinating. Especially when she's talking about artists that I listen to.
There goes my hero
Watch him as he goes
There goes my hero
He's ordinary
- "My Hero"
The hero status of Dave Grohl (pictured) started when he was the drummer in Nirvana, the Seattle "slacker" band I first discovered at 18, and whose album Nevermind persuaded me that rock could be raw and immediate, rather than the bleach-blonde meathead music I had been used to until then.
Grohl was a linchpin to the Nirvana sound, and in the space of just two albums he became a member of the biggest rock band in the world - only to have that band destroyed by the suicide of its singer, Kurt Cobain. Initially, for many fans of Cobain and Nirvana, Grohl's new band, the Foo Fighters, seemed at first a poor imitation of Nirvana. At least that's how it seemed to me.
I was finally got turned on to the Foo Fighters' music by accident in 2002, when the music label friend visited from New York, bringing a stack of CDs of her artists for us, including the new Foo album, One By One.
In the wake of 9-11, just as U2's "Beautiful Day" had done, the Foo Fighters song "Times Like These" soon hit a chord with me and many other people, for the bittersweet optimism inherent in its lyrics. I read somewhere that Lance Armstrong used the song for inspiration during his road cycling training.
"Its times like these you learn to live again
Times like these, time and time again..
For someone who had witnessed the highs and lows of life, Grohl seemed well qualified for the role of the angry yet defiant survivor, and his reflections on tragedy seemed heart felt. As a listener, I began to take more notice.
The next time the Foo Fighters came into the frame was on a big day for me, the day I asked someone to marry me. I suppose for anyone who lives through this somewhat harrowing experience, this is always going to be a momentous day. Assuming of course you end up with a yes. I vividly recall a lot of the details of that day. The New York weather, the books I purchased, and one I looked at for a moment (Catcher in the Rye), and a poster that I got that day from my friend, of the Foo Fighters.
It was a tour poster, written in Spanish - which in rock tour poster terms made it all the more cool. Strangely enough, that day I also bought a book by the other surviving member of Nirvana.
So here I was in Singapore in June this year, dragging my well-traveled poster along to an Album Preview Event, which promised an audience with two of the Foo Fighters, including Dave Grohl. Of course it was packed - and they came out late. Such is the privilege of fame.
Amidst the free drinks, introductions to the album, and the chance to hear "Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace" in full, there was a brief unplanned window at the end - a few minutes where the two rock stars "mingled" with the 50-odd people gathered. What it ended up being was a bit of a chaotic mess. But it was my chance.
It was clear that Dave and Foo guitarist Nate weren't going to be mingling too long - fresh (maybe fresh isn't the word) from finishing the album, they had flown that day from Tokyo. It was now late in the day, and the lads were showing signs of wear and tear. Sporting a black jersey, a full beard and swollen-looking face, Grohl looked a little like French rugby giant Chagal might after a night staying up eating pizza. Yet there was something liberatingly non-airbrushed about him. Still grunge after all these years.
So I bustled in true reporter style to the front of the scrum, knowing that at best, I'd have one sentence with each of them. Rather than the throw-away lines "what was Kurt really like?" or "you guys are great, can I get a photo", I thought I'd use my poster story angle.
"Dave, would you sign my poster for me? I got it on the day my wife and I got engaged."
Truly corny indeed, but I figured it was the sort of thing that I'd be happy to entertain, if I were famous. Something with a dose of real in it. True enough, both of them were very obliging and humble, wishing the two of us congratulations in the process. And still today, my poster duly reads, "Good luck, Dave Grohl," along with a similar epithet from Nate. The rest of the words are still in Spanish.
In a recent interview I heard on Radio One, Dave (I somewhat rashly figure that we're on first-name basis now) got pretty choked up when speaking about a song on his new album, the final track called "Home". He said the song had offered him a rare chance to focus less on the fun-and-fury of the rockstar lifestyle, and more on his new family. And you could hear his voice catch even as he talked about it.
People I've loved, I have no regrets
Some I remember some I forget
Some of them living some of them dead
And all I want is to be home.
- "Home"
From a very brief encounter and a music collection which now numbers all of their albums, I'm increasingly impressed by the Foo Fighters, essentially because despite their rock royalty status they've also maintained their uncompromising normalness, their passion for living a life that appears mostly to be pretty similar to ours, and their determination not to dwell on things, but instead pick it all up, face forwards - and rock on.
Alvin says: One of the most successful and multi-talented dance acts in the UK, Groove Armada return with an eagerly awaited new studio album.
"Soundboy Rock features a wealth of collaborators across the musical spectrum and is easily Groove Armada's most diverse record to date. Contributions from Mutya (ex-Sugababes), Candi Staton, Alan Donohoe (The Rakes), Simian Mobile Disco, Richard Hard-Fi, Jeb Loy Nichol, Jack Splash (Plant Life), Tony Allen, Rhymfest, Stush, Angie Stone, and MAD complete the record in fine style.
"A wonderfully uplifting album and a celebration of dance music's vibrant versatility. Soundboy Rock is a major return for the British duo who celebrates the 10th Anniversary of Groove Armada in 2007."
"Rock & Roll is more about rebellion than guitars. N.W.A's Straight Outta Compton officially took that baton away from rock: It's the album that made hip-hop the new rock & roll."
- ?uestlove, The Roots, Rollingstone.com
Those who travel there a lot, or who remember the wild west days of clubbing in Asia may enjoy this NY Times article about clubbing in Dubai... to get into the story, maybe start at the last paragraph. Wild.
It's all gone rock again. With a twist of lemon.
Lester Bangs hated New Years. Each one was a litany to disintegration and lost dreams. In Your Ears quite likes them. Here's why.
I Like New Years because of the chance to clear psychic clutter.
I like the idea of beginning something, not finishing it.
I appreciate the fact that people may forget last year's mistakes that I made.
It's good to have an excuse to see friends again... and to have a whole year before worrying about Christmas.
New Year means another year closer to President Bush leaving office.
I love "Best Ofs" from the previous year. They make much more sense of the world than watching the news as it happens.
I love Summer Festivals. If Singapore actually had a Summer.
Three different public holidays in one month. What's not to love?
Summer has come and passed
The innocent can never last
Wake me up when September ends
Ring out the bells again
Like we did when Spring began
Wake me up when September ends
Here comes the rain again
Falling from the stars
Drenched in my pain again
Becoming who we are
As my memory rests
But never forgets what I lost
Wake me up when September ends.
It always surprises me the impact music can have during a painful time. It was sobering last night to hear a song that I hadn't especially liked previously, suddenly ring true in a way I didn't expect. Such was the case with the Green Day song above.
I guess this defines the promise of art – the way it can rise at the right time and stick to a situation with such precision. Articulating what words alone cannot.
I recall it was the same immediately after September 11 2001, when so many people felt compelled to pump up U2's "Beautiful Day" on their car stereo, simply because they needed a purging blast of "ride-the-rails" music to give them a lift.
Amid all the America-bashing that many of us may have done over the last few years, it pays to remind ourselves too of the rough times ordinary Americans – those not dripping with diamonds or running oil corporations – have seen in this decade.
I'm no great fan of America's current government. But as someone who spent a happy three years as a child in the US, I do know that there is a vast difference between "America" as a symbol and ordinary Americans.
September 11, the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars and now Hurricane Katrina have torn into the confidence of middle America. For the nation's biggest-ever terrorist attack to be followed by its biggest natural disaster in less than five years is soul-destroying for a lot of people. And in between, for so many young soldiers to be sent off to a war, about which most Americans are at best uncertain, makes the going even tougher.
We should remember that individual people are not super-powers. And for many of us in Asia who have lived through our own tumultuous times, we should feel empathy right now, rather than a wrongly placed sense of justice – which I've overheard from a few, and admittedly felt a few times myself.
Human nature isn't always pretty or well considered. But then, that's what makes us so interesting.
What has occured to me over the past two weeks is the way in which New Orleans shaped the cultural psyche of many Americans, despite their present day differences. The New Orleans of writers from Mark Twain to Jack Kerouac – and musicians from Leadbelly and Charlie Parker to Wynton Marsalis, Credence and Paul Simon – infused the country with its rich vein of cultural diversity and creative expression.
For those of us who love to travel to beautiful and vibrant places, the loss of the Mississippi Delta region, for however long, is a tragedy. Politics comes and goes like the rain – but soulful places stay with you forever.
As my memory rests
But never forgets what I lost
Wake me up when September ends.
Lights, camera, jungle drums!
The World of Music and Dance phenomenon known as WOMAD is something of a musical freak, and a loveable freak at that.
It's a hybrid catch-all semi-corporate organisation based almost entirely on "vibe". I mean, how many other concerts do you go to every year, despite the fact you've never heard of any of the artists and none of the music is in your language?
It's a very odd phenomenon, and it seems to work extremely well. And to me, what it shows is that if you work hard enough at it, people will come, and keep coming back.
What saddens me a little in a place like Singapore is the same feeling I get following a great Film Festival. Where is this sort of content year-round?
When you go seeking funds, corporate stiffs with their tight collars and power suits invariably tell you that "this sort of thing is just too niche". Yet the evidence shows that this sort of thing repeatedly sells out when its on. Go figure.
Whatever the case, all credit to WOMAD. The sight on Sunday of 71-year old maestro drummer Bill Cobham banging the drums with ferocity and exactness, as he backed young Cuban new-breeds, Asere, was fantastic to behold.
Aside from dance music, world music is very well served in Singapore thanks to WOMAD – we see artists and DJs at the peak of their powers – not sad greying rockers like The Eagles, dragging you down yet yet another dark desert highway.... cool wind in whatever hair they still have left.
Long live the bands I've never heard of, in the languages I can't speak. I'm missing them already.
What's the new saviour of music? Playing it live and loud.
The news has it that rock is definitely back in the black. According to the Guardian, rock concerts over summer in Britain have been hitting the roof in terms of attendance, and everyone who once proclaimed rock as dead has been forced to eat humble meat pie.
I'm quite glad, but for the fact that no matter how much their newest record sounds like the last, every young spotty teenager deserves to come of age at an Oasis concert.
People may rightfully point out that the summer lineup is heavy with hip hop acts as well, but the truth is that rap rarely works as well live, simply due to the need for MCs to shout rather than speak when they're on stage. With festivals like Reading and Glastonbury in particular, the ones who get the turnstyles pumping are usually the guitar bands – rock is a dish best serves to thousands.
Where does the recent reprise of the live guitar sound fit in? In many ways, rock only "went away" because the dance revolution dwarfed it briefly. No matter how many producers from the dance scene there were crossing over at the time, there really isn't a time in recent history that British rock hasn't been vital and banging forth. The real movement, the lack of cutting edge dance music for the masses, only highlights the fact that rock is, well, dead good.
Thanks ironically in part to dance artists. The biggest dance smash of the past 12 months was that Deep Dish slab of niceness, FlashDance, which boasted one of the juiciest rock riffs this side of Norway. Deep Dish goes on and pays homage to rock on its latest album, with a fantastic mash-up of Flashdance with Money for Nothing by Dire Straits. You can bet the Dire boys were not unhappy about that one. And neither the White Stripes nor Coldplay are strangers to using a dance-friedly beat on their tracks – making their songs infinitely remixable.
And two of the most enduring dance acts, the Chemical Brothers and UNKLE, were always pulling up guitar heroes including the likes of Noel Gallagher and The Verve's Richard Ashcroft to appear on tracks. To these people, the recent talk of a "merging of sounds" or "death of dance" is not only old news, it's irrelevant. 'We was always on the same bus and still are' they may well say. Speaking well is seldom their strongest point.
The truth is, putting rock back on stage may well expose many of the more sheister-ish DJs out there, the ones who it appeared had a monopoly on style so big they didn't need to smile, let alone add any innovations to their stage act. Sasha, shake with fear, I hope you do.
And to all the kids? Rock on. As you know you must.
So many forums, so little time...
"You're at a party. There's someone there who is just like you. Yet they are the last ones in the room you really want to talk to. Yet somehow you feel duty-bound. Now explain that!"
"Beck once said, "I was always into the Delta blues and playing slide guitar, and I had always heard that Delta-blues rhythm in hip-hop. I remember early on playing slide guitar, and thinking that slide guitar on a hip-hop beat would always sound real good. I had that in mind for years, long before I did 'Loser.'" This I assume was the origins of "Loser."" – From Loser lyrics
Loser by Beck
In the time of chimpanzees, I was a monkey
Butane in my veins and I'm out to cut the junkie
With the plastic eyeballs, spray-paint the vegetables
Dog food skulls with the beefcake pantyhose
Kill the headlights and put it in neutral
Stock car flaming with a loser in the cruise control
Baby's in Reno with the vitamin-D
Got a couple of couches, sleep on the loveseat
Someone keeps sayin' I'm insane to complain about
A shotgun wedding and a stain on my shirt
Don't believe everything that you breathe
You get a parking violation and a maggot on your sleeve
So shave your face with some mace in the dark
Saving all your food stamps and burnin' down the trailer park
Yo cut it!
Soy un perdidor, I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
Double-barrel buckshot. . .
Soy un perdidor, I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
The forces of evil on a bozo nightmare
Ban all the music with a phony gas chamber
'Cause one's got a weasel and other's got a flag
One's on the pole, shove the other in a bag
With the re-run shows and the cocaine nosejob
The daytime crap of a folksinger slob
He hung himself with a guitar string
A slab of turkey neck and it's hanging from a pigeon wing
And you can't write if you can't relate
Trade the cash for the beat and body for the hate
And my time is a piece of wax falling on a termite
And it's choking on the splinters
Soy un perdidor, I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
Get crazy with the Cheez-Whiz. . .
Soy un perdidor, I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
Drive-by body pierce. . .yo bring it on down
I'm a driver, I'm a winner . . . things are gonna change, I can feel it
Soy un perdidor, I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
I can't believe you!
Soy un perdidor, I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
Sprechen sie deutsche, baby... know what I'm saying?
"The only currency that matters are the things we say to each other when we're uncool."
On New Year's Eve 1998 at Bondi Pavilion, a skinny kid wearing a zebra head rocked my world.
If people one day ask me who the most important artist of my generation was, I'd give pause. Names like Kurt Cobain, Prince and David Byrne might creep through my head. In terms of talent and impact, I might stick for some time on a person like Chuck D – perhaps the only artist to display equal measures of cold gutted-power and eloquance, while still sounding damn funky.
But for me, I'd have to settle on a guy like Beck. Few statements to burst onto and define a scene worked for me in the way that Beck's immortal chorus line of 1994 did...
Soy un perdidor, I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
A white guy who thinks he's black, a folk singer with hip hop beats, a versatile performer who's never bothered changing his hair style. Beck is the Tarantino of music, the kid in raggy jeans and Chuck Taylor sneakers who lingered so long in his youth in dusty record stores that he somehow breathed in every emotion from each slab of vinyl.
Beck sings sad like he's been dumped each year for a decade. He steps into genre-bending as though he were stepping into his favourite bar.
There is an ease with Beck that must give other musicians the heebees. For some reason, like Jack White, this kid somehow just has The Knowledge. No marketing spin required, thank you.
Like every Beck record, Guero has started sinking in with me. It will become a favourite of my year. When Beck sounds optimistic, you believe him. In fact, considering how down he can sound too, you're actually relieved for him.
Dylanesque? Defininately, but only in the way Dylan was Elvis-esque or Little Richard-esque or Mozart-esque. Stealing with sincerity is an art form, and those masters of it make their results sound like nobody else's.
Viva Beck. Rock on, dude.
See Loser lyrics
I like Linkin Park. I've seen them play, and they look like cool guys. They rock out hard, and have changed their genre of music along the way. They were arguably the first to bring Asian American band members into either rock or hip hop's mainstream in the US (James Iha aside), and had to fight a big battle to gain acceptance from the highly conservative music industry that there was even a market for they type of music they were doing.
"A rock band with a DJ? Who are you kidding."
With their recent "mashed" collaborations with Jay Z, LP gained not only a stamp of credibility from Hop Hop royalty but a page of music history in a book highlighted by the likes of David Bowie, Run DMC and Beck.
Now they've taken on the mouth that feeds them. Viva LP.
A Band Makes its Case Against Record Label
By JEFF LEEDS
New York Times
Published: May 9, 2005
LOS ANGELES, May 8 - In six years together, the musicians in the rap-rock band Linkin Park have written song after song about angst, rage and self-reliance. So perhaps it is not hard to imagine their shock at being asked by the Warner Music Group, their record company, to play a gig at the New York Stock Exchange to celebrate Warner's planned $750 million initial public stock offering.
The request, members of the band say, galvanized their anger at the corporation, which has cut roughly $250 million in costs as part of a reorganization before its offering, mainly with layoffs and consolidation. The group says concerns that the public offering would reward investors while shortchanging the company and its artists led the band to ask to be released from its record contract last week.
The invitation to play at the stock exchange "just exemplifies how out of touch the ownership of the Warner Music Group is with our band," said Brad Delson, the group's guitarist and primary spokesman, in his first interview since the Grammy-winning band issued its demand in a written statement that criticized the company. "It doesn't make any sense to us why we would play a show at the New York Stock Exchange. I don't know what was going through their minds."
Linkin Park, which Edgar Bronfman Jr., the chairman of Warner Music, has described as "the biggest rock band in the world," says it is researching how it might legally sever its contract with Warner, which calls for the band to deliver four more albums. The band has released two full-length albums and three additional recordings through Warner, selling an estimated 17.9 million copies in the United States alone, according to Nielsen SoundScan. But the musicians say cutbacks at Warner have hurt the company's ability to market future Linkin Park recordings.
Confessions of a space addict.
"This first trilogy is really about the father, the struggles of a father, or a man, basically, to find himself, and at the same time fall into a trap of wanting certain powers, making a pact with the devil and basically spending the rest of his life regretting it." – George Lucas, April 2005.
The year was 1977, I was five. It was 28 years ago, in a galaxy far, far away.
Actually, the place was America. Fort Collins, Colorado. Not that unlike Tatooine. Times were different – Jimmy Carter was president, George Lucas still had a neck. It was the year that I saw Star Wars, a film that would completely screw up my life.
I thought I was already an experienced movie-goer by this time. That I was hip, ready for anything. This after all was my third-ever film, and Casey's Shadow and Pete's Dragon had surely prepared me for the highs and lows of the big screen. I was wrong. I wasn't prepared for this.
I'm certain that I'd have turned out to become something safe and steady like an accounts director or policy analyst, had I not stepped into that darkened movie theatre on that fateful day – and been utterly petrified by the sight of an enormous steel creature in black, choking a man to death by merely raising his hand.
The trouble was, the fear was addictive.
With his menacing metallic breathing and haunting baratone drawl, Darth Vader defined for me there and then what the archetypal scary bastard would look like. Who could forget that terrfying statement the Dark Lord later made, ushering in an age of gloom to the galaxy, and a death-knell to all things good and rebellious:
"This... is CNN."
No, but really. Back in 1977, nobody could have told me that I'd spend nearly three decades locked in the hold of this double-trilogy monster, like an X-Wing fighter pulled hopelessly into the Death Star's tractor beam.
My father's generation had the Vietnam War. Mine had Star Wars. Our torment has lasted so much longer.
So, come May 19 or thereabouts, as I step out of that darkened theatre for the sixth time – this time a little more certain than I was the first time that Vader wouldn't soon jump out at me from behind the toilet door – spare a thought for me and many like me.
Our Wars may be over, but our years of therapy are just beginning.
Step up and watch corporate beat-making in action
Heineken impressed last night at Zouk Nightclub with the Thirst Singapore Finals, a night that saw some impressive new local talent emerge, and was capped off by slick sets by two veterans of the repetitive beat.
DJ Koflow was the early star of a night which eventually saw Zouk packed to the rafters. Replete with a posse of five, the young hip hop star of Singapore was able to produce a set that boasted deep, layered hip hop mixing, and some new tricks of turn-tableism usually reserved for international competitions. Highlighted by a 16-year old baby-faced beat-boxer with the vocal tricks of a seasoned assasin, Koflow's set destroyed the meagre reply of rival DJ Funk and team, and left a star-studded judging panel led by Zouk's head of music Aldrin with an easy decision. Koflow and team will wave Singapore's flag at the regional finals in Kuala Lumpur.
A night which started promisingly was stepped up a gear next, with the arrival of Steve Lawler, hailed as one of the world's top three DJs. His set of grinding bass lines warmed up the now heaving crowd, as hundreds of punters shuffled throughout the club, eager to claim what little space was left.
Heinekin's investment in the evening was on display, with impressive light and sound talent on hand, plus an array of CD giveaways, foxy photo-takers and drink specials. The beer's close association with dance music has been well developed and maintained during the last three years, and Singapore has benefitted from some impressive events as a result.
Crowd-pleaser Roger Sanchez was on next, and those who found Lawler somewhat repetitive were gratified by the arrival of two impressively soulful singers in front of the DJ console, and a rich and funky set which had the capacity crowd rocking out in unison.
When it's done well, dance music events remain on top for multi-media fun and games. Thirst Singapore raised the roof on a house that's clearly in good spirits.
Amazon.com's list of Editor's Picks for Best Albums of 2004 makes for interesting reading. It goes to show how deliciously fucked-up good music has become... and how little of it you'll hear on your average radio station.
A list including Lynn, Air, Brian Wilson, Tom Waits, Madvillain, Paul Westerberg, Björk and Kanye West is certainly a list spanning every mood-swing possible. Buy all twenty, lock yourself in your flat with them this weekend, then record the results.
My highlight has to be their pick for number 1. Picture the White Stripes getting free licence to mess with Loretta Lynn. Ah the sweet heresy! I'm off to the stores...
Read Amazon's words here, then click below for their top 20.
********************************************************
1. Van Lear Rose by Loretta Lynn
"Garage-rock hero Jack White producing honky-tonk legend Loretta Lynn? And Lynn comparing him to renowned Nashville producer Owen Bradley? Yes, we all know the world is rapidly shrinking, but now we've seen everything. Most stunning of all - they nailed it."
The voice missing from Hip Hop's last few years is rumoured to be coming back, and not before time.
Hill, whose last album project, The Miseducation of Lauren Hill back in 1998 was a landmark for soul-infused hip hop, is reportedly considering a follow-up.
It will be great news for those tired of the over-sexed candy-coated R&B dominating music charts now. Hill, who was previously lead singer for The Fugees, sings and MCs in a raw, street-level style that helped usher other enigmatic voices into the forefront, most noteably Macy Gray.
Those fearing that Hill's production might be either outdated or over-slicked should be cheered by the news that Kanye West is said to be interested in producing. Definitely a hot prospect.
Will technology change what we now understand as the underground? Or has it already?
Why did an industry like music get into the trouble it's in now? Simply put, I believe that it happened when the industry lost sight of its biggest supporters.
Never adandon your ambassadors. I'm sure it's one of the basic principles of diplomacy, just as it should be in business.
The music industry in the 1980s discovered a new cash cow and decided to milk it. It was the CD, a new no-scratch (lie), last-forever (lie), yet more expensive (lie) format... which made your existing music collection instantly out-dated.
The truth was, CDs were much cheaper to produce than vinyl. Yet they sold in stores more expensively. Suddenly an entire generation had to spend up large on new stereos and the new format.
The profit margin was suddenly so in the industry's favour that you had to wonder... would the consumers strike back?
Eventually they did, of course. Witness Napster, and the new culture of musical "sharing".
What rich irony, when the one thing that could most threaten this industry was exactly what your parents had always urged you to do when you were a child. Share.
Four letters you should remember... MASH.
"Freedom's just another word for broke."
- Luke Clark.
All the hours that I've wasted on this stupid US Election, all the hardship and lower back pain, not to mention all the complaints of my poor girlfriend as I've poured over another election website.... is almost over.
And since I am self-employed and addicted, tune into and update this blog tomorrow (election result day) Singapore time to get an off-the-cuff, no holds barred, and hopefully more-often-funny reading of this election as it unrolls. I also plan to suggest some good tracks to listen along the way.
The recent UK Esquire Music Issue recommends 20 Alternative Acts, and the buzz track you should check out. Note, of course you should buy the album and not burn it.
1. Joy Zipper - "Dosed and Became Invisible.
2. Ian Brown - "Time is my Everything"
3. King Creosote - "Turps"
4. Laura Cantrell - "Two Seconds"
5. Beanie Seagal - "The Truth"
6. Detroit Cobras - "Shout Bama Lama"
7. The Breeders - "Forced to Drive"
8. Neko Case - "Wish I Was The Moon"
9. British Sea Power - "Fear of Drowing"
10. Evan Dando - "Hard Drive"
11. Yo La Tengo - "Cherry Chapstick"
12. Joanna Newsom - "Bridges and Balloons"
13. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - "Easy Money"
14. Arab Strap - "Packs of Three"
15. The Walkmen - "The Rat"
16. RZA - "Ode to Oren Ishi"
17. Aberfeldy - "Tie One On"
18. Giant Sand - "Yer Ropes"
19. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - "Break of Day"
20. Tweet - "Oops (Oh My)"
Move yourself to a Florida beach and pitch a tent. Now that hurricane season has lost its sting, it's time once again for that spectator event without equal: the collosal bun-fight that the rest of the country calls an election. While the parties trade molitov cocktails in the final two weeks, the rest of the world watches with dread. Oh yes, boys and girls, this one could get ugly.
Last week 48 Nobel laureates backed Democratic nominee John Kerry in Election 2004. Earlier this week, The New York Times said Kerry was the man. Yesterday came the news that every major newspaper in Florida has suppported Kerry too. That is, except for the one that has traditionally always gone with the Republican nominee.... and it declared itself neutral.
It is election season again in the US, and this time around, it really matters.
I have a Malaysian-born friend who says she gets knots in her stomach every time she thinks of Bush getting another four years. Since August, I seldom go online without checking state by state polling. I think most of us who realise the impact of what we're watching feel pretty much the same about November 2. George W Bush makes Doctor Evil appear mild.
The president has messed up the world pretty comprehensively. But sadly it's really only us living in "the world" that seem to realise it. Sitting on his ranch in Texas, I'm sure geopolitical nuances in South-east Asia appear rather a long way away for Mr Bush. That is, unless a little voice eminating from the rocket pack strapped strategically between his shoulder blades tells him he should be thinking about it. After he thinks about doing up his fly.
The fact that "Furious George" has a little assistance with his thoughts and words should not be seen as a bad thing. I say thank God for technology. There's no way America's President will be able to sneak in nine more minutes reading that literary classic The Hungry Goat next time America is attacked. No way. The instructions in his ear would be something like:
"Close the book, George. Stand. Look grave, nod to the audience. Now turn right towards the door. No, no, the other right..."
One of the best ever music reviews is reprinted here.
I can't believe I found this. Many of my favourite records have been discovered first through amazing music reviews. This leaves everything else for dust.
Nobody got me more into the idea of writing about music than Lester Bangs, bless his twisted soul.
In writerly terms, Lesterly should have been a romantic poet, such was the ernestness of some of the rants he put together. For him, these slabs of vinyl were very serious stuff. He produced edge-of-the-wire writing that evoked the powerful role that music was playing in an often painful life.
Bangs was one of the few rock writers that didn't give in to the vagaries of being cool. Over time, this meant his writing lasted the distance far better than much of the music he reviewed.
For me, it also helps when an album being reviewed is as achingly brilliant as Astral Weeks.
In January of 1999, nights after someone extremely close to me had inhaled her last breaths of air, I sat down on a monsoonal Bali night, a friend at my side. The house was dark, my focus was the window and the spot-lit garden outside, as the rain threw down the sky.
Astral Weeks played long and loud:
And I will walk and talk in gardens misty wet with rain
And I will never, ever grow so old again.
So, while I've ripped this review off from a website dedicated to Van Morrison, I'm also letting anyone interested in music or writing in on the discovery that is and was Lester Bangs.
Astral Weeks
by Lester Bangs
From Stranded (1979)
Van Morrison's Astral Weeks was released ten years, almost to the day, before this was written. It was particularly important to me because the fall of 1968 was such a terrible time: I was a physical and mental wreck, nerves shredded and ghosts and spiders looming and squatting across the mind. My social contacts had dwindled to almost none; the presence of other people made me nervous and paranoid. I spent endless days and nights sunk in an armchair in my bedroom, reading magazines, watching TV, listening to records, staring into space. I had no idea how to improve the situation and probably wouldn't have done anything about it if I had.
Astral Weeks would be the subject of this piece - i.e., the rock record with the most significance in my life so far - no matter how I'd been feeling when it came out. But in the condition I was in, it assumed at the time the quality of a beacon, a light on the far shores of the murk; what's more, it was proof that there was something left to express artistically besides nihilism and destruction. (My other big record of the day was White Light/White Heat.) It sounded like the man who made Astral Weeks was in terrible pain, pain most of Van Morrison's previous works had only suggested; but like the later albums by the Velvet Underground, there was a redemptive element in the blackness, ultimate compassion for the suffering of others, and a swath of pure beauty and mystical awe that cut right through the heart of the work
The time is now, and we have nothing to lose.
It is time.
Don't think that you can get away without doing it.
You knew we'd be asking eventually. So don't go wondering how you can somehow get out of this one. Because you simply can't. This is it.
Tell me (below) five things I should rush out to Alvin's CD store tomorrow and beg on bleeding hands and knees to listen to. And then tell me why.
And we'll all feel a whole lot better.
Warmest,
-LC
Tom Waits on why we are like crows (First appeared in Black Book, Sept 2002) Need you know more to click below?
Oh, crows. Well crows are like the teenagers of the bird world.
And they say the trouble with crows is that by nine o'clock they've done all their work and they've got too much time on their hands. And they will spend the rest of the day playing a primitive form of rugby. Or playing keep off the nest.
Eleven head-turning albums for 2004 so far:
The Tipping Point – The Roots
Journeys By DJ Special Release – Gilles Peterson
Theme And Variation Vol 1&2 – Various
Afrobeat Sessions – Various
Madvillainy – Madvillain
Overgound House VI – Various
No Roots – Faithless
Remixes, Rarities & Classics – De La Soul
Talkie Walkie – Air
The Clarence Greenwood Recordings – Citizen Cope
The Outernational Sound – Thievery Corporation [mix]
This song just kicks, and is well worth a read just as a perfect set of ideas. Not a single word is wasted, all the intensity is in the consonants, and the visual imagery is insane in its power. But even if all the blood and queens isn't to your taste, you can't help but be impressed by the menace of "They're gonna rip it off, Taking their time right behind my back".
The White Stripes come from an understanding of the importance of lyrics that drive a song forward. Musically, they lean back in time, sonically they use the timing of perfect dance music. The immediacy of this track lyrically is remarkable.
- LC
Seven Nation Army
Im gonna fight em off
A seven nation army couldnt hold me back
They're gonna rip it off
Taking their time right behind my back
And I'm talking to myself at night
Because I can't forget
Back and forth through my mind
Behind a cigarette
And the message coming from my eyes
Says leave it alone
A strange but potentially effective mix of artists for this year's Zoukout. Two titans from Germany and two from the US, some guaranteed cheesy trance on the beach, but enough tasty hip hop and loved-up house to please. Will be interesting to see what else comes up closer to the day though.... it's not a risk-taking line-up. Although Jazzy Jeff on the beach... that's gotta work!
Thirteen weeks ago, we began playing a DJ set from 8pm til 11.30pm Thursday nights in Singapore, at a new bar-cum-club called Attica.
Our House has proven to be a lot of fun, and particularly bad for my liver. Thanks to the lead of partner-in-crime DJ Samurai, we took up the theme of "eclectic", producing what we bill as a "ferrago of freaky funk, booming beats and affro ammo."
Whatever it is, it's different every time, and it certainly keeps us hopping about. Here's a description of where the set began from.
Week by week, I'll talk about some of the tracks I'm having the most fun with. I've always thought anyone who plays music should have a set-list available from time to time, just to further the cause of discovery.
Maybe the idea came from the mad protagonist of Nick Hornby's fabulous High Fidelity and his crazy "Top Five's". Who can live without "Top Five Songs for The Day of a Funeral?"
Anyhow, happy hunting, and see you down at the bar.
First written 21.7.2004
1. Sausalito - Grover Washington
Just because it’s beautiful. A mood setter, a nice breezy, summertime track that could cure even the most miserable.
2. Lady Don't Tek No - Latryx
A nice rare track, with its break-dance clap, and smoothly delivered vocal, this steps out of categories, which is the Our House style. A good early toe-tapper.
3. Mohammed Is Jesus - Deep Dish
What can you say about Deep Dish? Super smooth and soulful, this is a track you ease comfortably into, with an open message that defies the age of the track.
4. 4000 Miles - Blackalicious
From the start this is a hip hop slow-burner that moves along strong and funky, with such a sharp, low-toned delivery that the voice becomes an instrument in itself.
5. Salsa Vibes - FTL presents The Latin All Star
This is where I go Brazilian. A rich house-infused latin dancer that moves you straight onto those summer-time Rio beaches. Aye Curumba!
5. Play On - Rae & Christian Featuring The Jungle Brothers
An easy, jazzy track from Rae and Christian. A beauty straight from these British hip hop maestros. Grand Central is one of my favourite hip hop lables, British or otherwise.
What do DJs do it for, and would you trust one with your sister?
"In November 1987, Danny Rampling and his wife-to-be Jenni threw a party in the Fitness Centre gym near Southwark Bridge, just south of the Thames. "Sensation seekers, let the music take you to the top," declared the invitation... (Rampling recalls) "The first night was quite nerve-racking. Carl Cox played with me, and another guy that played funk, so it was a real mish-mash really."
"There was a funk crowd and a house crowd and it just didn't work. It was shaky but it was fun, hence the enthusiasm to do it again."" – From Altered State, by Matthew Collin, published by Serpent's Tail, 1997.
Matthew Collin's insightful Altered State entertainingly detailed the British experience of "DJs and disco biscuits" from its roots in the clubs of Chicago, the beaches of Ibiza and the degenerate warehouses of South London, all the way up to the commercial empire we see today.
It's nice to remember that the likes of Danny Rampling and Carl Cox were once just pimply kids spinning tunes in disused old buildings, rather than the cashed-up style leaders we see today.
DJ culture is an odd hybrid of musical culture. Indeed, while many may rightly claim that the British were just responsible for adding hype and a price-tag to what had its roots in Philly disco nights, San Fransisco gay clubs and Harlem street corners, the truth is that London in the late 1980s wrote the rule book for the modern-day cult of DJ-dom, for better or for worse.
What's the X Factor that drives people like Quentin Tarantino, and why do we care?
What did we all do before DVDs?? I just watched the second instalment of "Making of Kill Bill", the part two version. As ever, it was visually amazing, and well worth the price of the disc just to see the King of Movie Geeks, talking about his day-job.
Tarantino is the man, in my opinion. Not because he's always great, nor because his opinions "matter" necessarily. And not because of his obsessive-compulsive habits of referring to his all-time favourite movies in virtually every sequence of his film. Tarantino is cool simply because he lives and breathes his craft, and he's clearly having an incredibly good time doing it.
Fatboy Slim
Live on Brighton Beach
Southern Fried Records (2002)
First written 6.3.2002
Put your hands up in the air, Put your hands up, In the air.
Brighton's favourite son returned to play to 40,000 people at a free gig which he later described as "the best gig of my life". And young Norman does indeed go off.
If you have ever seen a Fatboy gig, you won't need to hear any more from me..... if you haven't then you've got to check this out. It's real deal live too, complete with crowd noise, and one break to tell drunken punters to get out of the surf. Nice.
Tricky
Maxinquaye
First written 6.3.2002
I'd been meaning to pick this CD up for ages, and wasn’t disappointed when I did. This was a landmark from Tricky (ex-Massive Attack), and it’s still a classic.
You know that moment of eery calm immediately before an electrical storm? The time when the air goes cooler, and the breeze comes up? Maxinquaye lives in such a world – a dangerous, menacing, sexy maelstrom of deep, slow industrial beats and interesting lyrics.
This could have come out yesterday, it still sounds so fresh. And it's fair to say that few artists did more to bring a viable face to British hip hop (what become penned "triphop") than Tricky.
A black downtown aristocrat of edginess, to me this album made Tricky so big as a figure in his own right that he never really had to be so good again. But buy this and enjoy.
Different levels of the devil's company… you see scars / Results of my rage Underneath the weeping willow / Lies a weeping wine-oh
Faithless
Outrospective
Cheeky Records
First written 6.3.2002
Modern British music is notable for its strength in a number of key areas. Trip hop and new soul from those like Massive Attack or Craig David. Women singers with strong presence and individual style like Beth Orton or PJ Harvey. And of course, dance music, where London DJs have pioneered house and trance, both now global industries.
Spearhead & Michael Franti
Stay Human
Liberation Music
First written 6.3.2002
I've been a Michael Franti fan since his days in Disposable Heroes of Hipoprocy, and after three Spearhead records he's still the absolute business when it comes to hip hop with a fresh acoustic soul groove - and for that turn of phrase which is as once kooky and thought-provoking.
Beatless
Life Mirrors
Ubiquity Records
First written 6.3.2002
This has been in my ears all morning, and is really just incredible. Tribal, soulful, African tinged, it's a superbly gathered, smooth, funky, spiritual and uplifting collection. This is much cleaner and more special than your average compilation, and could also be a lot harder to find. I got mine from Rhapsody.