So far I have spectacularly failed to fulfil my intended investigation into Westlife. To make up for it, last week I took my Mum to see The Feeling play at Somerset House (Mum had wanted to see Duffy, but that had sold out months earlier). The Feeling were my suggestion; Mum wasn’t familiar with their output apart from the odd mention on Radio 2. I’ve listened to both their albums (at least twice through each!) and generally approve of them as a Positive Thing on life’s tally. Mum caught my enthusiasm and declared she was ‘very excited to be seeing live music again’, but would there be anywhere to sit down or should she bring a folding chair? … read on …
Even a dilettante like me is aware that the late 70s were a storied age for Jamaican music. The flow of talent and money between Kingston and London was starting to open up world markets to reggae, with Marley a superstar and punk drawing social (and increasingly musical) inspiration from roots and dub. In London, the sweeter sound of Lovers Rock was scoring occasional, deathless pop hits. In Jamaica, a fresh generation of MCs and singjays were starting to make waves, men who would become the stars of early dancehall. And in New York, techniques imported by reggae DJs were setting trends in motion that would transform pop’s vocabulary.
So far, so historical. And then sneaking past the Kintyre titan for a week in the wintry sun was this, the most wondrous of one-hit wonders. If you want proof of the appeal of “Uptown Top Ranking”, try this: I have never once, that I can remember, seen anyone decry it as inauthentic, or sold-out, or frivolous or unrepresentative of Jamaican music. Nobody resents it, in other words. How could they? … read on …
Apologies that this is a month late, I only learnt of Nick’s death from cancer earlier this week, although obits did appear in the guardian, independant and mojo as well as on Quietus (although there seems to be something up with the main article).
The first time I saw Earl Brutus was at Glastonbury in 1998. MyPete had been raving about them for months having seen them in Amsterdam. After four days of torrential rain, spirits were low and, to be honest with you, I didn’t get it. Lots of shouting, sampled glam drums and a funny Japanese bloke who didn’t really seem to do anything. Everyone else was buzzing but I was just a bit confused. It was only when I saw them a second time, at the Attic in Cheltenham a few months later (and then every three or four months after that, well, MyPete booked the bands you see), that it clicked into place. There was lots of shouting, sampled glam drums, and a Japanese bloke who didn’t seem to do anything and it was ASTONISHING. A bunch of grizzled, rather scary-looking blokes making an almighty racket and central to it all, Nick screaming lyrics about army boys, suicides with stars in their eyes and asking us to show him our minds. The one thing that brutus gigs never were was boring, shambolic often yes, but visceral and communal. Watching non-believers faces as we punched the air, joining in with the terrace chant choruses, trying to keep up with Sun-Yu’s drinking speed (the main thing he did, i soon realised, was drink lager). Given that the post-britpop landscape was such a graveyard of plodding sub-travises and ska-punk it was only Earl Brutus and Arab Strap (more grizzled old men getting pissed) that seemed to do anything for me.
The last time i saw Earl Brutus was the weekend of the jubilee in 2002, at the ICA. As we sat in the bar we saw the huge crowds of people being marshalled away from the palace as a fire alert or bomb threat or something had caused the whole area to be evacuated. Safe inside the 10 foot thick walls, we were left alone to continue with the gig. I never quite worked out why they’d been booked for this gig, they were supporting the Parkinsons and hardly anyone else seemed that botherd about them, but, down the front, the hardcore had come out of the woodwork and the band didn’t disappoint they were the same drunken, shouty, visceral, idiot genius they always were.
I missed the “re-elect ken” gig they did in 2004, but always had half an eye out for them when looking through the guardian gig guide. Surely, i thought, one day they’ll be back, nearly every other chancer from the era has reformed, but now, I guess not.
Here are some shamefully underwatch youtube clips. Thank you Nick. … read on …
I give a mark out of 10 to every single featured on Popular. This is your chance to indicate which YOU would have given 6 or more to, by whatever standard you wish to impose. And if you have any ‘closing remarks’ on the year to make, the comments box is your place!
This has the slightly dubious distinction of being the first record I ever disliked. I barely knew about records at all, I was four and three quarters: so my cynicism started early, if you like. This one was inescapable - number one for nine weeks, two million sold, flattening the opposition through Christmas ‘77 and then on into ‘78. I didn’t know what number ones were but I guess I just got bored of “Mull” being around, its comforting lullaby sway pushing into even our pop-free household*. I remember not being able to figure out what a Mull was, or a Kintyre: I’d been reading the Hobbit, and the Narnia books, so I reckoned it was an honorific, like King, or Tarkaan. And this dark haired guy singing it, he’d be the Mull, then? … read on …
A young - or maybe not so young - woman, settled in her own mind to unhappy but unruffled spinsterhood, finds her hopes unexpectedly awakened. Can she trust her instincts? Can she even read them? Can this really be happening? “The Name Of The Game”’s scenario is romance-novel standard, and its emotional territory is ABBA heartland, the twilit world as a relationship shifts between ‘on’ and ‘off’. ABBA regularly find unease where most pop strides boldly forward: “Name”, in its ambition as well as its mood, anticipates “The Day Before You Came” (which could be its narrative prequel). … read on …
And perhaps more importantly - who cares? If the impending closure of the obnoxiously “Web 2.0″ BBC Sound Index this Friday is any guide, the answer is pretty clear.
Oh sure, the site boasts more than 22 million “comments, posts, plays and views”, but those comments and posts are all from OTHER sites like YouTube, last.fm, iTunes, myspace, and the like. Sound Index sent automated “robot” scripts to these sites looking for the names of bands, fed what it found into some kind of magic algorithm, and produced a constantly updated list of the 1000 buzziest bands on the planet. Or well, the English-speaking planet. Probably. Slap some shiny, gumdrop-like buttons on the results, organise things with a direct rip-off of the iTunes “Coverflow” feature and hey presto.. well, what exactly? … read on …
WATCH THIS VIDEO. It’s a LOVE STORY. It’s like REMAINS OF THE DAY 2.0. The greatest love story ever blogged. erm, set against an epic backdrop of the deep south and the american civil war CSS standards compliancy and web-browser wars.
When Jeff Wayne was hunting for a musical way to express the horror and chaos of a Martian invasion, it was to Led Zeppelin he turned. The synthesiser riff on “Horsell Common And The Heat Ray”, so evocative of war-blasted Wokingham and Chobham, is nothing more than the wordless chorus howl of “Immogrant Song”, slowed down a bit. To the Angles huddled in their sheepfolds on the North Sea coast, the attacking Norsemen must have seemed as terrifyingly other as the Martians, sharing their blind death-lust and effortless tech superiority. … read on …
“Already told you in the first werse…”: I’m not sure whether “Yes Sir” is deceptively dumb or deceptively clever. On the one hand you can see why Goldfrapp, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and a generation of raised-eyebrow indie fans have been drawn to it. The arch and chilly fourth-wall breaking which inverts the song, recasting it as the hustle it always was, is smart stuff. On the other hand it’s not just pretending to be a low-rent “Love To Love You Baby”. … read on …
Even a dilettante like me is aware that the late 70s were a storied age for Jamaican music. The flow of talent and money between Kingston and London was starting to open up world markets to reggae, with Marley a superstar and punk drawing social (and increasingly musical) inspiration from roots and dub. In London, the sweeter sound of Lovers Rock was scoring occasional, deathless pop hits. In Jamaica, a fresh generation of MCs and singjays were starting to make waves, men who would become the stars of early dancehall. And in New York, techniques imported by reggae DJs were setting trends in motion that would transform pop’s vocabulary.
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This has the slightly dubious distinction of being the first record I ever disliked. I barely knew about records at all, I was four and three quarters: so my cynicism started early, if you like. This one was inescapable - number one for nine weeks, two million sold, flattening the opposition through Christmas ‘77 and then on into ‘78. I didn’t know what number ones were but I guess I just got bored of “Mull” being around, its comforting lullaby sway pushing into even our pop-free household*. I remember not being able to figure out what a Mull was, or a Kintyre: I’d been reading the Hobbit, and the Narnia books, so I reckoned it was an honorific, like King, or Tarkaan. And this dark haired guy singing it, he’d be the Mull, then? 
A young - or maybe not so young - woman, settled in her own mind to unhappy but unruffled spinsterhood, finds her hopes unexpectedly awakened. Can she trust her instincts? Can she even read them? Can this really be happening? “The Name Of The Game”’s scenario is romance-novel standard, and its emotional territory is ABBA heartland, the twilit world as a relationship shifts between ‘on’ and ‘off’. ABBA regularly find unease where most pop strides boldly forward: “Name”, in its ambition as well as its mood, anticipates “The Day Before You Came” (which could be its narrative prequel). 
“Already told you in the first werse…”: I’m not sure whether “Yes Sir” is deceptively dumb or deceptively clever. On the one hand you can see why Goldfrapp, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and a generation of raised-eyebrow indie fans have been drawn to it. The arch and chilly fourth-wall breaking which inverts the song, recasting it as the hustle it always was, is smart stuff. On the other hand it’s not just pretending to be a low-rent “Love To Love You Baby”. 
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