Join The Forces Of Sound Against The Darkest Evils Of The X Factor!

The difficulty with running a blog such at this one is the question of TIME, or at least, in my case, a distinct lack of it. As the constant writing of reviews based on my thoughts and passions to this subject gives me great joy and pride, during the last year, it has made me financially nothing. I now start to wonder if it is worth continuing.

The main problem in this situation is the not knowing if you are actually being read or not. One would love the idea of the fact that a blog is getting around a hundred hit’s a day, but is that reality? I doubt it. When if is easier to click onto the next blog and fail to leave a quick comment on the last, we don’t have to prove our existence on a web page, we would like to think that the author of that page dose not need reminding that someone has once passed through…

That’s fine for most writers out there who want to write down their thoughts and feelings or just what their dog has eaten today for just the sheer joy of seeing it on a web page, let alone if someone reads it or not. For me, the desire to find readers somewhat needs to hit home rather more successfully than for my fellow bloggers…

What was just a cloud like idea when my nephew approached me a year ago and asked if I would come and see him play in his band at a working man’s club, I have decided that it would be a real thrill to promote his band at little bit better than they had done themselves already. As I enjoyed playing around with websites and templates, I realised that I could hit a wider audience for my nephew if I just put out a small piece on his band out on a website or a blog.

Because we are all aware that there are some great free website builders and blogs out there, I decided that, because I was on small budget, I could somehow build as many websites and blogs as I could and spread the word around even further.

Well, after a while, I had an even better idea. What if I could promote ALL local (South Of England) bands and artists who play instruments and writer their own songs?! I felt the need to open my plan out to not just a select few but to everybody.

I get this really under way, I had to show that I could write good pieces in the first place, so I chose to write about famous bands and their best albums, this caused a growing audience and I learnt how to review correctly and as professionally as I could. All I needed to do was start up as many sites as I could.

So far I have three websites and three blogs, which is pretty hard going to maintain at the moment, but ever hu8ngry for more, I will not stop there. I hope to have at least twenty websites and an equal number of blogs around the Web as much as I can. I will probably need a heck of a lot of help when I get to that stage, but that is a little far off yet and I have a long way to go but I shall get there.

What I would like from you is your support. If you just like to read my blogs then that’s great, and I thank you very much for that. If you would like to donate then any spare change would be gratefully received. If I can’t back the idea then I will have to throw in the towel and the whole thing will shut down. If you really would like something in return and I don’t blame you, I know I would! Then please visit two of my shops that I have just opened at Café Press. I have launched a couple of simple designs that got together with the idea of the promotion. I would love to see the day when someone wearing one of my tee shirts is walking down the street!

So, the platform is getting bigger. If you have a band, musician or know of one who needs a little help. If they write their own songs and would like to be heard, then I can offer the very stage for them to be read about. If you would like to submit something to me so I can place if on one of my sites or blogs then I would be more than happy to help!

We need to hear great music again or it will die with the best names in the business. We all like to have a good old giggle at the X Factor or Pop Idol, but it is these very programmes that are killing off the hopes and dreams of the people who really o have a talent, and not just a good voice….

Lend a hand, if you can, in any way. If you just want to read, then please say a ‘hello’ on my comment board,
Just so I know someone is there…..


Many thanks….

Websites;

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Lest We Forget How Fragile We are...

From front man of one of the greatest new wave acts to come out of middle class Britain in the Eighties, to world -concerned, Global pioneer, singer songwriter in the Nineties. Sting has managed to launch a thousand careers from one voice in a fairly short space of time. Regarded as one of the most intelligent of pop music’s deep thinkers, this man grew from the moody, adolescent, self obsessed, trio we came to love as The Police.

With absolutely nothing in common with the actual boys in blue driving around in panda cars, this band gave us, not just a few songs to get sullen for, but the shy, blond mop top of Gordon Sumner. Sting himself.

Stretching out his utter most creative wings in 1982 with the dire ‘Spread A Little Happiness,’ it would have appeared to the discerning listener that his solo career was doomed to be short lived, but how wrong could we have been? Sting has made it a life long ambition to disperse his thought provoking melodies across our pop charts for now, over twenty four years. Daring not to rest for only one brief moment, only to perhaps ponder over the plight of the Amazon rain forests, he has never let his audience drift over to another artist for long.

It is perhaps, not totally surprising when on embarking on a more in-depth look at this album, ‘All This Time,’ to find that it was actually recorded on the 11th of September 2001. None of us, naturally, need any reminding as to what this day stood for in the history of the human race. It also goes without saying that in the greatness of respect to those who lost their lives, this album was solely dedicated to them.

Is it then that we see this album in a sobering light? With this dedication on the first page of the inside sleeve, that we change our mood somewhat vigorously, especially when it is only the lyrics to the opening track, ‘Fragile,’ are the only ones included in the sleeve booklet. The rest of the pages are dedicated to the various moody poses of Sting, the God of lyrics.

Age brings an introverted and retrospective influence to the fore when one is an artist of a certain calibre. With Sting, the World in it’s current state became simply a source of defining music around heart felt lyrics. The very essence of the man and his music plays no more of an important part in engaging his audience in this album as it has done in any of the other collections of Sting melodies. What is defiantly significant is fundamentally, the date on which it was recorded, at Il Palagio in Italy.

As a live recording, it flows, especially in the second track, ‘Perfect Love…Gone Wrong.’ as the mood is more Dave Brubeck than up to date Sting. Each musician takes a two minute centre stage in true Gladys Knight style to cool applause. In ‘All This Time,’ the opening flutter with the drum stick across the side puts the listener immediately in thought of Belinda Carlisle’s ‘Circle In The Sand.’ Yet it is with this lighter moods that we discover the idealism of Sting. He had learnt, at some stage in his existence how to master each genre he put his creative abilities into. He is as much at home with a group of stunningly pronounced Ethnic backing singers as he is with the edginess and rawness of ‘Every Breath You Take,’ which you will be pleased to know makes an appearance as the last track of the album. It gives us a familiar wink as it has hardly changed at all to fit in with the rest of the gentle touch of the album.

What we do have here is a mixture of Sting and Police collaborations and some new twists on these old songs will not be appealing to some hardened new wave ears, mine included. If we put aside our own musical up bringing, then life being breathed into these old songs again, isn’t so bad. What is interesting is how the Police tracks sound so strange, slowed down to Sting mode, yet his own tracks sound beautifully drenched in emotion, romance and dream like qualities, that they seem to be quite angelic. Some of us cringed at the new workings of ‘Don’t Stand So Close To Me,’ and ‘Roxanne,’ which, has been unduly slaughtered here. The latter has never once been designed to be a drippy slow folk song. Not ever….

However, some of these reworkings do actually work, dare I day it. Even the ‘Set Them Free,’ sounds predominately better when a few trumpets and some stronger drum beats are added. Even ‘Brand New Day,’ gets The Commitments treatment .There is one track that he could never tamper with and that’s the pasteurised ‘Fields Of Gold.’ Could it be said that actually, anything that Sting turns his hand to, turns into fields of gold. A nice jazz touch is added to ‘If I ever Lose My Faith In You,’ but it is with tracks as strong as this, that their structural impact could never be destroyed, no matter what genre you decided to dip them into.

Despite the sobering dedication at the beginning of the sleeve, the majority of the album can be described better as a visual description rather than musically. Picture a smoky bar with dimmed blue lights. Imagine a cool looking black guy rocking ever so easily while his teases the keys on a shiny piano with his freshly manicured fingers. Think of the singer, half perched on a tall stool, black leather clad shoulders, hanging on to the equally tall microphone stand for all his worth. The music may not actually stir up any emotions other than the usual respectful head swaying at the genius of Sting, but what it will do is appreciate him as an English institution. His music may not be full of boxer like punch anymore, but he has found, that it doesn’t need to be. He has made, certainly more of a statement about himself since embarking on his journey through his mind and the World around him, than he ever did as a young, impressionable singer.



He continues to please with his charming melodies as well as educate us to appreciate the World. We may still long for the days of the monochromed Police but that was only to train Sting for the great outdoors- the World beyond new wave. He has shown us over the years that he has grown, although we all may not have grown with him.





I for one, still dust off the vinyl once in a while for a fix of the old days, but, Sting, in recent years, has taught us to listen.











Tracks include;

Fragile,
A Thousand Years,
Perfect Love,
All This Time,
The Hounds Of Winter,
Mad About You,
Don’t Stand So Close To me,
When We Dance,
Dienda,
Roxanne,
Set Them Free,
Brand New Day,
Fields Of Gold,
Moon Over Bourbon Street,
Shape Of My Heart,
If I Ever Lose My Faith Ion You,
Every Breath You Take.

All songs written and composed by Sting,
(additions by Kipper, Kenny Kirkland and Dominic Miller.
Produced by Kipper and Sting
A+M Records Inc. 2001.
HMV £9.99 (2004)

Who's Gonna Love You When Your Looks Are Gone...?

The intricate workings of a great legendary mind like Paul Simon still remains a mystery when we embark on the journey through his most recent album ‘Surprise.’ This extraordinary album must be first categorized and a myth must be dispelled. Since the incredible impact of the definitive ‘Graceland,’ way back it 1986, we have been left in limbo state, not far from the feeling of floating on a World Music trip so much to the extreme that his next three albums (Concert In The Park Live; November 1991, Songs From The Capeman; November 1997 and You‘re The One, October 2000) have quiet simply passed us by. So why was it that this album, quite ‘surprised’ us in 2006? What on Earth was it that made us sit up so rigidly?

It could be the fact that this small proportioned, geeky guy resembling an English teacher is turning sixty five in October this year? It could well be. Simon has yet again, enchanted us with his commitment to modern music. He could, let’s face it, have quite easily tripped out on stage every so many years and enlightened us with renditions of ‘50 Ways To Leave Your Lover’ and possibly ‘Mother And Child,’ both unique records in their own right, but it can be a smoother path to tread at a certain age in an artists’ life than embark on the cold, unfriendly route of dipping old toes into the sea of youthful culture.

Therefore, we should embrace this man who has allowed us to participate in his life long campaign to awaken us both politically and culturally, as well as bathe us in his spiritual knack of producing such music to let us dream and expand our sometimes, narrow minds.

This title, perhaps, says it all. What does it mean to us, to hear someone say ‘Surprise!’ We are alarmed, astonished and completely taken aback. Well, in that case, I have summed up this whole album in just those few words. ‘Graceland’ it is not. A ‘bolt from the blue,’ it most definitely is.

The perfection and simplicity of a baby’s face stands out at us, staring hard into us, from this pure album cover. Just this picture, automatically conjures up questions in the listener’s head; is the child surprised? Is it the surprise of a birth of a child? To me, the idea of re-birth springs to mind and it is this thoughts that stays with me throughout the album.

It would suggest that the impression we get on hearing this album is just that. The feeling of re-birth. Simon is certainly finding new feet on his journey through these songs. Or perhaps, it is just the easy feeling of slipping into comfortable, new shoes. Staying faithfully with Warner Bros yet again and producing the album himself, he gives us a small collection of songs; eleven in total, and therefore, it is down to us to make up our own minds as to whether these shoes look good enough on him.




Go on. Be a devil....

http://www.paperback-writer29.tripod.com

http://newfunkorder.com

An Explosive Day Of Insanity...

Wailing, wild and dipped in compelling mania, this latest single from DreamFirstBorn is to be released to kick start the launch of his second album; Gutter Trash: The Last Days of Vanity. Released through the independent empire of New Funk Order, this track, about a kidnapper of a young female artist, is perfectly titled, ‘My Psyko Song.’ Like an electrified zombie, the energy of this artist’s performance is disturbingly creative to the point of bowing down gracefully to the Gods Of Punk.

By resurrecting the wildness of the obliterating Punk scene, this style maybe nearly thirty years old, yet it still holds some great significance to the way artists’ compose today. This track is aggressively appealing complete with all the ‘oo’s’ and ‘arh’s’ of a Mowtown backing group. It’s hyper hysterical performer is ready to pull out his hair with angst at any given moment.

It’s a stunning piece of new age Punk that still produces the same rawness and edge of the Malcolm MacLaren, The Damned and The Buzzcocks era, but without the pink and blue hair and safety pins. Punk Funk it could be classed, even so, it’s energised, basic and stripped of all that it neurotically mass produced and commercial.


=========


If you’re passionate, like the rest of us about keeping the bareness of pure artist composition alive, then I strong suggest checking out http://www.newfunkorder.com/ for that very reason. It is littered with artists on the cutting edge of a new generation of retrospective punk, rock and funk. The downloads are free as well as numerous pages on the mission of the site and it’s members. The idea is to ‘ensure the continual freedom of music and the arts.’ Thus performing the following actions;

‘Providing original music and other art works freely to the public.’

‘The artists duly reap in personal recognition..’

‘Ensure the artists continually have complete control over their music and their rights….’

It is an organisation that needs your support. If you’re an artist with dreams and need a stage to perform and get noticed then they need you to!

Musicians with hearts, compositions and with instruments in their hands are very welcome!

View the video of Gutter Trash the NFO site and click on NFO T.V

High Powered Rocket Boots

Thrown forward as one of the greatest self made singer/songwriters of the twentieth century, Elton John was, to most, that geeky, yet overly flamboyant looking guy in ’larger than life’ sized spectacles jumping wildly at a piano. Forever set in ebony and ivory along side the likes of Billy Joel and Stevie Wonder, these men were the innovators of the legendary MOR, or as we lesser mortals know it, ‘middle-of-the-road’ music.

After tripping over the writer, Bernie Taupin in 1967, the two were soon to become almost as household as the Lennon and McCartney machine. Shelling out bluesy rock, to prog, to slow, wrist slashing ballads was easy for the song writing duo and the uncontrollable mixture of the 1973 album, ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,’ was no exception.

By the time of it’s release in October that year, Elton John had already enjoyed the splendour of having achieved one previous number one album, the undisputedly exceptional ’Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player,’ in February 1973 and five top ten singles. ’Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,’ was just another number one album it would have seemed, both over her and ’over there,’ where, in the U.S, it held the number one slot for an impressive eight weeks.

Presenting to us a Lowry tinged illustration on the front cover, Ian Beck provides, in my mind, the perfect setting for the musical content within. Showing us young ‘Elt’ stepping through a torn poster to another world, not unlike Dick Van Dyke in ‘Mary Poppins,’ it features a dazzling pair or red platform boots and a small wind up piano. Faded, deliberately, this album showed, even on first release, all the makings of what a classic album should look like. It is, a known thing that all the greatest albums ever recorded had such uniquely presented album covers. I can’t think of an album where this has not been the case.

This colourful album, in more ways than one, certainly can justify it’s proud place as being one of those great albums of all time. Lavish in it’s content, it glides through every possible genre worth trying. It proves to us that his music, only actually found in those early years, could be just as outrageous as his growing wardrobe. Mismatched and inconsistent it may be to the expertly trained ear, yet these little epics of genius observations over ride this potentially disastrous point and allow the album to stand a distinguished place in any diverse record collection.

However, on the flat side, it is dated and this is always a tough concept for a classic album to shake off. Many a listener under the age of thirty will happily dismiss this perfectly formed album as one of those records best left to Dad’s reflective moments, but even still, there is a lot to be learned from this dangerously arrogant legend in his young, free spirited youth. Let us not forget either, that this was Elton in his expressive, ‘couldn’t-give-a-monkeys’ era and long, long before the dreaded cartoon sound tracks…. Anything pre that first fateful collaboration with Sir Tim Rice, is worth listening to.

The first double album to have been produced by the artist, and agonisingly, not the last opens with the depressingly titled, ‘Funeral For A Friend.’ Introducing us to the very depressing bells, wind noises and organs that one would expect at a truly sad occasion, what we eventually hear is something, somewhat along the lines of Rick ‘The Rock Wizard’ Wakeman. It is Elton’s attempt at prog rock, ‘Yes’ style. Entwining swirls of screeching synths and whining guitars, it is a classic example of prog rock at it’s probable worst. Not everyone’s cup of tea, yet if The Alan Parsons Project lurks unintentionally within your record collection, then you should be pleasantly surprised.

‘Love Lies Bleeding,’ opens up the show which we will familiarise as the glam rock’ spirit of John in the glitter boot seventies. Other tracks on this same tinsel wrapped theme will present themselves as ‘Grey Seal,’ the tongue in cheek lesbian themed, ‘All The Young Girls Love Alice,’ the uncomfortably fast ‘Your Sister Can’t Twist,’ and the ever impressive, ‘Saturday’s Alright For Fighting.’ Yes, but not in those platforms, you don’t….
The reflective bug, that not just waves over Father’s across the world, also gave Elton John a quick slap on the back when we hear a strong throw back to the mellow, melodic 1972 album ‘Honky Chateau,’ in the tracks titled ‘Harmony,’ ‘Social Disease,’ and the biographical Monroe theme, ‘Candle In The Wind.’ These tunes, laced heavily with piano backing and lazy lyrics are probably the best of Elton John’s ballad work. Somehow, in those early years, he could create a soothing, yet dangerously meaningful song with very little around him.

The only difference here, in the album as opposed to ‘Honky Chateau,’ is the featured element of strings. Given to these ballads in ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,’ they result in a fullness and polished sound, thus pounding out the future path for famous John ballads and we came to love and hate. I personally enjoyed the slightly raw approach to the songs from ‘Honky Chateau,’ but it is, down to personal preference.

Reggae (I can see you cringing!) also makes a guest appearance on this eclectic album, although we are relieved when Elton decided not to take up the calypso way of life permanently. Strangled beyond recognition, the reggae, as we would know it, is trying it’s best to break out of the John piano mould.
Intended as a pun about a certain incident whilst recording the album from a Jamaican studio refusing to co operate, the track doesn’t work for me. Having said that, we must appreciate that this was as experimental that this songwriter was ever going to get after this moment, so we forgive him, just this once. ‘Jamaican Jerk Off,’ being the title, perhaps says it all about the general feeling of hardship being stuck in a hotel room writing, instead of being in a studio that simply would not play ball.

We can enjoy this musical roller coaster ride with great enthusiasm when noting it’s time and it’s artist. Surprisingly un commercial, it was complete breathing space for the artist at the most creative time of his life. Swamped in his later years by too much money and a regimental industry, artists over a certain age are simply not allowed to be free thinkers, well, not today anyway. Perhaps what we have here in this album is a big, oozing slice of music history. When we also remember who was around at the time with exceptional albums; Mike Oldfield, Genesis and the irrepressible Pink Floyd, it is then that we can slot ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ with placid ease.

It marks a certain point in experimental time. It’s just a shame that the music world today cowers at the sight of such expressiveness for there is no room for it anymore. Money and the proven fast making of the green stuff has pushed out the talent once and for all.

For this album, don a Caftan, light a joss stick and if you are a certain age, enjoy the trip back to a time when music was actually….well… music.






Music by Elton John and words by Bernie Taupin.
Elton John - piano
Davey Jonstone - Electric guitar/acoustic and backing vocals
Dee Murray - Bass and backing vocals
Nigel Olsen - drums and congas
DJM records 1973.
Recorded (eventually) at Strawberry Studios somewhere in France.
Bought on vinyl for four pounds, record collectors fair, South Coast.

© sam1942 2006.

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Oh My God! The Metal Gods Are Upon Us...!

Probably the most unlikely successful heavy metal band ever to come out of an unassuming Birmingham was the unbeatable, unstoppable Judas Priest. Named, surprisingly after an early Bob Dylan track (and it is here where the connect between Judas Priest and folk music starts and stops,) this motley bunch of guys looking like scaffold workers in 1980, appeared to us, as rather what Def Leppard would have looked like if they hadn’t discovered setting lotion seven years later.

By 1980, they were already causing madness and complete mayhem across the airwaves since their humble beginnings way back in 1969. In famous rock band style, they went through the usual mixture of line up changes practically every day of the week. Through their haze of sweaty gigs, a new dirty haired miserable face would appear in front of a drunken teenage sea of metal victims. It became common place for the spine of any rock band to under go abrupt ‘surgery’ every once in a while and Judas Priest were certainly no exception.

‘British Steel,’ released in 1980, is still regarded today as JP’s highest acclaimed album. Perfectly polished and beautifully cleaned, despite it’s raw, gritty content, this album still stands firm in the rock album hall of fame twenty six years after it’s release. With five albums already under their hard leather belts, (the first two, were released but didn’t chart) they, unwittingly embarked on the peak of the band’s career. It was to be ‘British Steel,’ that gave the band their yard stick. Notably, due to the charisma of this extraordinary album, it quickly became the same yard stick for every one else…

Perhaps it had been the unmistakeable line up of this band at the time of recording the album that was the key to it’s incredible success. Rob Halford lead the vocals throughout the set with Glenn Tipton on lead guitar, Dave Holland (who left in 1988) on drums, all recruited by the ‘masters of metal,’ the creators, K.K Downing (guitar) and Ian Hill (bass.) This line up lasted another eight years, that’s some record in the hard, cruel world of heavy metal.

Collaborating with Hill and Downing on all the tracks, the mighty, mop haired, studded Halford seemed to give the band it’s urging driving force that was so desperately needed to put the finishing touches to the powerful album. Presenting us with only nine tracks (the usual set of a vinyl L.P in those days) it still only just enough to make us, the listeners, want more. Like a intimidating angry dog, this album shows off quite a bite and to an old rocker like me, it was still just as captivating and exciting to listen to it again. Even the pain of all those head banging headaches seem to fill my head once again.

We can sufficiently lose ourselves in this ocean of thunderous, thrusting rock without feeling threatened by a beast that is unfamiliar. For those of us who perhaps didn’t take Judas Priest into our hearts until the end of the bands’ career, this early mastered album is still appealing to the numbers amongst us who hung up the leather a long time ago. Even the teeny boppers who sit surrounding us will still blush at the shock of actually recognising the odd track here and there within this album. The fast, Motorhead themed, ‘Breaking The Law,’ was used as ‘the’ Beavis and Butthead track and could forget the steadiness of ‘Living After Midnight,’ which always reminds me of The Eagles in forceful mode, will trigger off some foot tapping if not the odd spark of air guitar among us. Even the union moving ‘United,’ will have us standing with pride in an Arthur Scargill kind of way….

‘The Rage,’ perhaps will not appeal to the masses on a reflective note. This dirty, hill climbing track is dipped generously in molten lava with such metal grace that one can almost smell the band from here. Yet if we sit back and let the maturity of this band flow over us, we will no doubt stand at the end of ‘Steeler,’ and sing whole heartedly, ‘God Save The Queen.’ If only those hyper paced drum solos could be tinned, then we would not ever feel an empty feeling ‘metal starvation’ ever again. It is embarking on one of these rock journey’s that I find myself aching, longingly for the music industry toady, to run incredibly hard into a brick wall. There must be a corner to turn eventually, surely we cannot go on churning out such spirit crushing, conveyer belt rubbish for all eternity? This is why I think it is important as well as inspiring to dig up such gems as Judas Priest and give them a damn good airing, whether they want us to or not.

We are so spoilt in this album to be allowed to witness a hard working, beer swigging band create a piece of British rock history. The first track, ‘Rapid Fire,’ virtually says it all, if this isn’t rock’s interpretation of a dozen machine guns firing then I don’t know what is. The speed of this band really is quite worrying. The pace is unimaginable, and I also don’t agree that it is a good idea to visualize the band playing this track, you’ll only make yourself sick. Complete with it’s grinding factory like sound effects like an advert for ‘Terminator,’ the second track, ’Metal Gods,’ is a title that you couldn’t possibly argue with. It was tracks like these that put JP high up on the pedestal of British rock. The only other true fore runner of the sound they pigeon holed between punk and progressive rock, was Iron Maiden. Both bands, it was true had us hypnotised by their leads, high pitched wails, unlike rivals, AC/DC who, had yet to hand over the microphone to an equally high creaming Young. Places like Donnington would not have ever been the same without them…

So, if the album title and the cover (picturing a razor blade, an example of British steel) wasn’t enough to stir up any patriotic thoughts in your head, then perhaps never mind. There are not enough things in this country today that make you proud to be British. What we do have is too many things that make us ashamed rather than proud.

Things were a great deal different in those days. Particularly for bands like Judas Priest. The hard rock members of this outfit, today are fast approaching their sixties. If there is one thing that this album will do and that’s stir up emotion in any Union Jack hugging Brit. There is something very patriotic about this album and about the feeling of it. It’s steady, forth right and dependable like a faithful pet, it will never let you down, and it will always be there in a crisis.


For old rockers, new ones and even those who have never dared to taste the delights of British rock, this album should NOT be in a record collection by any means….



It should be sitting on the mantle piece….



Tracks include;
Rapid Fire
Metal Gods
Breaking The Law
Grinder
United
You Don’t Have To Be Old To Be Wise
Living After Midnight
The Rage
Steeler



All songs written by Halford/Tipton/Downing
CBS records 1980
Bought at a record fair 2005 for three pounds.
© sam1942 2006
Ciao/dooyoo and across the world...

Vanity And Insanity.....

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On a sunny day in June, 1958, Minneapolis saw the birth of just another black kid amongst a struggling community. Prince Rogers Nelson , in adult life, became a singer, songwriter, producer, record label owner, multi talented instrumentalist and a studio owner, not to mention one of the most exuberant, exciting and outstanding performers of the twentieth century.

His first UK release came in the form of a single called ‘I wanna be your lover.’ It entered the charts in January 1980 and failed to even make the top 40. This didn’t deter the young singer and dreamt of greater heights. In all honesty, this didn’t come along for another 4 years. Not until July 1984.

‘Purple Rain’, a film written as a semi autobiographical account of a young, talented boy growing up in a tough and poor neighbourhood failed to attract any form of positive recognition. The critics jumped all over it calling it pretentious and a waste of money. The soundtrack, on the other hand had earned Prince World fame. His first real taste of British acclaim came with the single, ‘Little Red Corvette,’ in April 1983. Prince had needed to maintain is pride by keeping on the same high cloud. ‘Purple Rain’ arguably became the greatest achievement of his career. A moment in his time, that the artist hasn’t really topped since. Even though ‘Parade - the soundtrack from ‘Under The Cherry Moon’ (1986) actually reached a higher position in the album chart , (‘Parade’ claimed number 4 where as ‘Purple Rain’ only claimed number 7) it is ‘Purple Rain’ that stands alone in the corridor of excellence.

His royal purpleness, encaged by an ever growing entourage of purpalies had created an atmosphere of total stardom. Of his own making, he had now reached the summit of God dom and hasn’t been able to come down from it since.

His recent performance at the Brits was received with the same exuberance and excitement as if he had donned a Louis XIV wig, purple frills, straddling a purple motorbike and rode it as his entrance on stage. We could forget for one moment that it has been over two years since any releases from him. Hard to believe he is soon to be 48.

‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life….’ like a James Brown sermon in The Blues Brothers, we open this album with Prince the Preacher dictating to us his understanding of life and the after world. He is about to give us his greatest lesson like Sammy Davis Jr telling us to take a dive and swim to Daddy…our eyes are opened as well as our ears. We get ready for a lesson in throwing away care, kicking troubles in the groin and tweaking the nose hairs of strife, yes, its Prince giving us a taste of the album complete with ecstatic keyboards and low guitar riffs. We hear the artist’s adaptation of rock, pop and anything gloriously arrogant.

‘Lets Go Crazy’ should speak for itself. A mad rush of energy pours out of our speakers and into our brains. We will emerge from this experience fully cleansed and enlightened. I believe that any sudden burst of frighteningly fast drum machines and hysterical guitars good for the soul. It would not be Prince without some yells and screams. This might be the only album where listening is just as good as the visual. We don’t need to see Prince having it off with a microphone stand or running his tongue up and down a fret board (ouch), we can experience the whole live thing straight through our speakers. One thing is for sure, this album aims to please, excite, and begs for applause. Prince wormed his way into our hearts and our record collections with this enchanting piece of theatrical performance. There is not much left out of this irrational piece of basically going wild with no sense of direction. One will either love it or hate and skip the rest of the album.. If you keep going with it, listen with an open mind.
‘
Take Me With You’ seems to be a bit of a come down after all the excitement of this first track. A ‘duet’ with unknown female artist, ‘Apollonia.’ Prince has always been famed for using good female backing singers with good , strong voices and bringing them to the fore. There are one or two names from the past who owe the start of their careers to Prince. One tends to get the feeling that Prince is very pro women in the industry. As well as constructing his own talent, he sought after creating the same from others. An introduction with hap hazard drums we find ourselves in amongst tambourines and cymbals and enjoying a pretty song that’s catchy, inoffensive and perhaps a little childish in its form. Prince went through a stage of using violins to enhance a record. ‘Raspberry Beret’ was a classic example of using this method. They give femininity to a song and allow the track a fair chunk of jollity and optimism. One to skip along holding hands to….if your twelve….

There then come a further three tracks that I don’t fully understand. Experimental is probably the name of the game here. The first of these three is ‘The Beautiful Ones.’ A ballad of sorts, Prince has the most diverse vocal range. With the power to adapt to low, tension filled drama within the lines of ‘When Doves Cry’, to the trill, untuneful, feminine to the extreme weirdness of ‘The Beautiful Ones.’ Using keyboards practically playing a different tune, we experience, probably, the epitome of a naff eighties ballad. There were greats such as ‘Broken Wings’ by Mister Mister, then you had off the planet, space themed, where’s Blake 7 numbers such as this from Prince. A rock theme drifts in towards the end and Prince does what he does the best, screams like a banshee with a few electric guitar riffs thrown in for good measure. By the end, and Prince loves his extended to the hilt endings, the listener has had enough.
‘
Wendy? Yes Lisa? Is the water warm enough? Yes Lisa? Shall we begin? Yes Lisa…’

‘Computer Blue’ voices, Wendy and Lisa who had a few unofficial hits of their own back in the early eighties that didn’t really amount to much, they had been Prince’s two main backing singers. We hear them here reciting some lines in which they sound thoroughly bored. Stranger than strange, this was actually Prince’s attempt at a country themed song. Probably the one song that couldn’t be any further away from country if it tried. Listenable to its length, it seems to me, like Miami Vice incidental music, probably used in a car chase, with its funkiness and ostentatious ness, it takes a peculiar slant mid way into something so slow that it cries out for the record player to receive a good kick. A raw bass and riff takes hold where ‘’Computer Blue’ left off.
What we are now hearing is ‘Darling Nikki.’ Known for its explicit lyrics, ‘I met her in a hotel lobby, masturbating with a magazine.’ A story about a one night fling. It has a disturbing energy and a riff that Hendrix would be proud of. It appears too metal for Prince and his voice must have been in tatters at the end of recording. He wails and screams as if in terrible pain. A tremendous performance but all too short lived as the very end of this track is something played backwards. A kind of accapella verse. Thankfully, due to age and a previously local Woolworths, I have this on vinyl. After several attempts to play it backwards, which certainly didn’t do my record player any good what so ever, I believe that the lyrics are, ‘hello, how are you’ and then something about something coming up….if there is anyone out there with this on vinyl, please help as there is someone here who will not sleep til I find out what that says! Prince’s little teaser. Well, we always thought he was a teaser any way…..

The Laurence Llewellyn Bowen of pop dom teases us with the second half of this circus piece from the purple big top…..

‘When The Doves Cry’ was number one in the U.S and number four in the U.K when it was released in June 1984. The first track from this album it cuts to the chase with its hard hitting lyrics with equally cold blooded drum machine. Starting with a riff that would sound at home on a Jimi Hendrix track, the track consists at first of just a voice lowered to sound hard and cold hearted and a steady drum machine. A powerful track, it is simple and very entrancing. The mix of his voice used in the backing track gives the feel of a continuous thought in the singers head repeating ever word. It is not short of the odd yelp and cry which has always suited Prince far better than Michael Jackson. It is an atmospheric track that enlists the help of a strangled guitar riff as the break. A record ahead of its time, listening to it now, over twenty years on, it is hard to think that its actually been that long since its release. A monumental piece in rock history. It feels just as much apt today for young kids as it was then for the film.

‘I Would Die For You’ is another creative piece of writing using a drum machine in a different form yet unheard by listeners. The drum machine seems to flicker uncontrollably in the backing track. The lyrics are almost mumbled, as if not to take away the limelight focused upon the unusual usage of the machine. A short number, it allows a simple handful of repeated notes to flow gracefully over the backing track. An inspired piece, again, unheard of until this album.

Straight, and almost without knowing and taking the listener by surprise, we hear the electrifying and glitzy performance of ‘Baby I’m A Star,’ This track couldn’t have had a better title. It full of pretentious arrogance. So much so, that its uplifting for the listeners as one cannot help but feel as if the lyrics could be directed to them. It cries out to be strutted to, wrapped up in sparkly gift wrap with a dirty great bow on the top screaming look at me!!! It has a fantastic fast drum beat throughout, a true stadium piece of work. Some clever backing tracks using keyboards and singers giving it their all. It pours over Prince like it was meant to be his personal theme. Even hints at an audience in the dying seconds to give it that real live theme.

The lights fade, the glitter cast aside and the arms above our heads start to sway hypnotically. ‘Purple Rain’ is not just a track for the ears but an epic for the soul. One of the finest, still most used ballads, it gives a quality that Meatloaf, I’m afraid just hasn’t come close to. It yearns out to us in desperation., that I feel it should be renamed ‘Purple Pain.’ Prince must have been on the floor in the studio after creating this masterpiece of a broken heart. At a staggering 8 minutes, 45 seconds long, he increasingly becomes more and more distraught towards the end. Unlike James Brown when his guards would come on and throw the cloak over him to drag him off stage, this piece, perhaps too long, equals the complete showmanship of anything ever done by such an artist of this calibre. We are literally crying buckets, it pulls at the strings and has you reaching for the kitchen blades. With incredible clashing of cymbals and strained riffs, and whining violins creeping up the scales, it hardly feels that the track is going to end, we almost feel exhausted when it finally does.


Putting cryptic aside, the downfall of The Revolution is a rather sad tale. Prince disburse his fantastic looking army of beautiful people shining blue lights under their chins to make them even more gorgeous after a tour in 1986. His explicit lyrics and over all performance were sensational products of his making yet Prince wanted to reach out to more fans. Knowing that the act had to be ‘cleaned’ up somewhat, he re emerged the following year with hair cut, more conservative clothes and a not so startling entourage who competed to out show him.


I personally was devoted to the purple, glitzy ear when it was all about super stardom. That I feel, was the best of the eighties. This type of class act, we just don’t get anymore. As much as we are two minds over Michael Jackson, we fail to remember that it was twenty years ago when he wowed us with his incredible, precisely choreographed dance routines. Madonna still wasn’t a household name and still laughed at to a point, wondering how long she was going to last, when Prince with his gaiety and stupendous cabaret of a travelling circus delighted us and enchanted us where we liked it or not. A professional at his craft, he produced his masterpiece with this album. The very one that we will eventually remember him by.

At The Brits this year, attending the after show party. He sat down with his now non purple brigade of guards and babes around him like a human fence. He ordered a DVD player and sat and watched films and didn’t flutter an eye lash at the surrounding scene of hundreds of drunken, rowdy stars once.



Now, that’s Rock and Roll.



Take a bow, your Purpleness.



© sam1942 2006.
www.generationsounds.co.uk

Picture This...The Best And The Worst And The Curse Of Blondie...

The sultry, well defined cheek boned face of a young Miss Deborah Harry is probably not difficult to imagine as once the pretty face of a playboy bunny girl. The low but cheeky voice of the female lead of Blondie formed the band with her boyfriend way back in 1974 in New York. After a mixed line up change every so often and a couple of uninteresting singles, they finally hit Britain with ‘Heart Of Glass’ taken from the album ‘Parallel Lines.’

Frank Infante, a guitarist, later rhythm guitarist joined the band in Autumn 1977 after the release of the first Blondie album at Christmas 1976, simply titled, ‘Blondie.’ It was this album that failed to make the charts although a new song featured was ‘Ripe Her To Shreds,’ a song that was later made known to growing fans in other albums as well as live sets. Nigel Harrison joined very shortly after Frank in November 1977. It was then that Frank switched to rhythm guitar and Nigel took bass. With Chris Stein, Debbie’s boyfriend on guitar, Clem Burke on drums and Jimmy Destri on keyboards, the line up was complete and there, they stayed until the bands first split in 1982.

A punk outfit at first with a splash of sixties fizzy pink girlie pop, Miss Harry, a severely bleached throw back to the later years of Marilyn Monroe, she was the perfect punk goddess to stand amongst the moppy haired, young suited and booted boys. Surprisingly American, they had always come across severely British. The cover for Parallel Lines, a design thought from their manager, Peter Leeds and photographed by Edo was to Miss Harry’s disgust. She hated the shot and immediately said that it looked flat. It was, however, to become an iconic view of the band. The sharpness of the black and white, bold stripes behind the black suited band and Debbie in a white dress and shoes denoted the new wave feel that the music held within. For 1978, it was design ahead of its time and a style that was soon adapted to the up and coming Ska movement of that time. Blondie, were very much the fore runners for a new type of sound. It is within this album, that the listener can generate the music tastes that were going to happen in the near future. Very much a Blondie album, it experimented with different music genres that were big in the late seventies. The examples of this are, ‘Heart Of Glass’, a fusion of disco and glam to suit the diverse vocals of Harry. ‘Hanging On The Telephone’ is pure Blondie punk, although not their own song, it was originally the product of a band called The Nerves, even so this very immature, sweaty sound of hard thumping, microphone stand shaking new wave might as well have been natural to Blondie as throughout this album, they adapt gracefully to each and every style.
This entirely, timeless classic album is still admired by fellow musicians to day as being one of the most influential and inspiring of the era. Along with its striking sleeve, it contains a small piece about the making of the album and the first meeting with Blondie by album producer Mike Chapman. He recalls in the appraisable and touching account his incredible nervousness on his first encounter with Stein and Harry. Being called in to produce, he had only become a big name from producing glam and glitter rock albums and was not prepared for a futuristic punk rock band with an attitude. He tells of the tensions with the recording, how arguments would occur and yet the genius of the creative writing capabilities between Harrison, Harry and Stein.

With an insight into the stresses of a recording band hard at work and the dramatic force of the cover, we are eager to sample the strengths of the album, and hope not to encounter any weaknesses. We discover there are nine tracks on the album that have been written collaborations between band members. It was an up and fast moving idea to be a songwriter as well as a singer. Since the decade of serial covers that was the sixties, the seventies stole the show by almost everything being original. Having to keep up with the likes of Deep Purple, Led Zep and Clapton who were imaginative to the extreme, a band without the sensitively, multi talented musicians that these other bands had, was a hard job.

Track one, our opening and already mentioned track, ’Hanging On The Telephone,’ starts with a phone ringing and Harry’s vocal quickly enters before the band has a chance to start playing. Mixing sixties style keyboards, it also uses a bridge of Mersey beat drum and cymbal tapping to give a fundamental British edge. A track that was very of the punk generation. Full bodied and mostly untuneful, it involves a lot of fast lyrics. All in all, I feel the need to dig out my winkle pickers and drain pipes rather than don a pink Mohican. This was in itself, the very idea of new wave. For those of you unfamiliar with this fairly dead genre, it literally was a amalgamation of punk and pop It did take on a different form after the age of Blondie and took hold of The Police, but they became so big that they became a music genre all on their own. For this track, it was a definitive introduction to new wave. It had meaningless lyrics, that could never be so deep they could be analysed to any great length. A noise rush of guitars, none actually playing a tune and a lot of lighter than light drums with very little bass. A track that on the whole, could only have any meaning to the listeners who remembered it the first time around. The new wave sound was short lived and eventually breathed it last fast and frantic puff of life around the early to mid eighties by the likes of Duran Duran, but by this time, it had been so commercially watered down, it had become practically unrecognisable. For ’Hanging On The Telephone,’ it took only around five years for this track to sound incredibly dated. Released in mid November 1978, it managed a sturdy number five and stayed around for 12 weeks.

‘One Way Or Another,’ and only recently brought to life again by a slimming advert where we are subjected to a handful of girls trying desperately to get into tight jeans puts me in mind to when this track came out anyway. The advert, it would seem was very close the truth. There were millions of girls and guys fighting and sweating hard to get into the tightest jeans possible without causing internal damage. With its grungy guitar riff and basic drum accompliment, its gives a steady background to the catchy, yet simple lyrics of the song, ’one way or another, I’m gonna get ya, I’m gonna get ya, get, ya, get ya, get ya….’ not too hard to pick up, in fact I think it took only two plays of this record to get the lyrics from beginning to end. Again, a pointless new wave lyric and dull, dirty sound of a repeated riff. Totally devoured of meaning and thought, it was the right kind of sound to keep us twiddling our thumbs whilst the punk era drew to a close and the eighties new romanticism began. It was, if you like the perfect bridge, and with snappy, plain records like this to keep us going, there were very few that were likely to complain.

‘Picture This,’ was a slower, more tuneful track that calmed the pace down on the track and comes as a little light relief. It enlightened us with backing vocals to give it some thought, and speaking of thought, some had actually gone into the lyrics this time. It has a bubble gum theme, all Cindy dolls and seven inch record players on the floor with a stack of records dropping at the end of each. It’s dreamy as far as Blondie could ever dare to be so, but today, it seems flat and un adventurous. Harry’s vocal sounds tired, almost as if she can’t wait to get the track over and done with. Strangely it reached number twelve over here and hang around for eleven weeks. It was Tracey Ullman before Tracey Ullman started making records…

‘Fade Away And Radiate’ was written by Harry’s other half, Chris Stein. We wonder what on Earth had been on television or put in his tea when he wrote this. With its opening more morgues and depressing than a Celine Dion B side, it reminds me of ‘Stereotype’ by The Specials, which had not been their finest moment. Like Joan Of Arc being led to the stake, it punctures our ear drums with military drums before we feel the urge to turn it off, Harry’s voice sounds like it has had surgery, it comes across as soft and unconvincing. Stein, possibly has a crack at a guitar solo, but thankfully that fades away very quickly. With misbeated drums and wobbly backing, we really rather hope that this track would fade away soon. Robert Fripp guests on this track playing guitar.

We wonder, actually what this genre this was aiming for at the time of writing. It is quite depressing, and even the touch of early UB40 reggae doesn’t do enough to lift this track from bad to reasonably better.
The up-tempo and barely optimistic jangle of the guitars at the beginning of ‘Pretty Baby’ is welcomed after the previous. Again, it struggles to fit into a them when the first two tracks were so strong and able of creating their own cult. This album falls by the way side somewhat. Harry tries her hand at the old style of all girl, sixties Motown where the lead talks a lyric and the backing singers sing it back rather like a Supremes style. This feature is warmly received by the listener, but all we crave for now is the same sit up and listen anthems of the beginning of the album.

‘I Know But I Don’t Know,’ Is a vocal collaboration between Harry and one of the guys. It is limp to say the least. Both voices, one singing, one talking each verse, it is pure, authentic new wave, I can bet you that, but I feel that this style of boy/girl pop punk lyric was better done by the one hit wonders of the time. There doesn’t seem much to be said about this track. Perhaps the title should say it better than me, for the style and the content of music from within, I should just say, ‘I know, but I don’t know…’ Perhaps it’s the howling dog moment by Harry plus another that probably knocked it off the turntable for me..

‘11.59,’ is the one and only title for this next track, albeit, numerical. Very rocky and nearer to punk in its opening that the rest of the album. It is dominated in verse by keyboards. The lyrics are clear and reminding me of that timeless classic…’you’ll always find me in the kitchen at parties….’ Blondie, it has to be said, brought us legends of new wave. They were gods (and a goddess) in their own right for a handful of classic pieces of music that will follow one generation to the next, but I feel that the majority, and I will include this highly acclaimed album, was pretty much flat. For a piece of new wave history in our British music industry, it was uneventful, thankfully this is something else we can blame the Americans for…

‘Will Anything Happen,’ perhaps starts to pick the album and attempt to put it back on its feet again. With a guitar riff not sounding unlike a ripping machine gun, it has punch where the other tracks appeared less than average. Once more we are back to straining our ears for lyrics. It was seem that we have to for go something for the appearance of something else. We lose the lyrics and the music sounds better. This feels although the band have been asleep for the duration so far and suddenly someone has given them a punch (I think I’ve said that about another album before!) It finishes before we have had a any time to get into it…

‘Sunday Girl,’ is one of those tracks that we know and love. Remember me mentioning that Blondie had a handful of classics? Well, this is one of them. It was this track that went straight to number one over here and stayed thirteen weeks in the chart. Jolly, with a pretty drum beat, this is hardly fault able. It has a touch of hand clapping at a off count beat. It is still flat, but tuneful and pleasant to listen to. Harry had such a versatile voice, she sings with a soft, interesting, pink fluffy voice. A track that would probably get on ones nerves after too many plays, but the whole point of new wave was that it didn’t require any real musicians of any intelligence. Because punk had been generated by the media for kids to get into easily, in the same vein, new wave had done the same thing, except tone punk down a little and make it sound more acceptable. As with this track, the acceptance is there only the irritation of your mother turning this up on the radio was this tracks only down fall.

‘Heart Of Glass.’ Was and still is a disco favourite and will be played somewhere, somehow at a middle aged, drunken party where bank managers dance with their thumbs in the air and wear streamers around their necks anywhere in the world at any time of the day. With is indication of Rod ‘Do you think I’m Sexy’ drums and twinkle of Donna Summer’s ‘I Feel Love.’ Harry was at her sultry, new age Monroe best. On Top Of The Tops, she looked drugged up (and probably was) her eyes sat heavily on those fantastic cheekbones and the whole band came alive with this track. It epitomised the rock glam, glitzy, disco and anything you like mix of everything that could get you up on your feet. Perhaps my only grip is that the ‘nah nah nah’s’ went on too long at the end…This record went straight to number one in the UK charts in Jan 1979. It was re issued in July 1995, but failed to go any higher than number 15.

Those of a certain age, will recognise this next track and be surprised at this track actually working for a band like Blondie. Originally a song written for Buddy Holly and also recorded by him (it wasn’t a hit, but a track that would crop up from time to time on compilation albums), ‘I’m Gonna Love You Too,’ includes the Hollyisms usually found in his records. The first feature of this is the group ‘ha, ha, ha, ha ,ha, ha, ha, ha’s’ which is probably a touching tribute from Blondie to the man himself. She tries a little to style the short, quipped lyrics that was Holly. It’s a fun track, not to be taken too seriously. Lots of jumping up and down on the spot very quickly wouldn’t go a miss when listening to this record. A fairly passable new wave twist to a B side rock and roll song.

‘Just Go Away,’ written by Harry alone, its rather middle of the road. Lacking in all that is Blondie, it features the most appalling backing vocals echoing the lead in the chorus. The guys play at being an imitation of The Young Ones backing Cliff, on ‘Living Doll.’ it’s a pretty flat song that probably didn’t deserve a place on this album. What must be remembered here, that despite the fair pieces of rubbish on this album, this had been marked down in history as a cult album. Simply because it was the epitome of new wave music. Albeit, a very quick wave…perhaps a microwave? Bad joke…

The digitally remastered album on compact disc features four bonus tracks, (my heart sank.) The first is titled ‘Once I Had A Love (aka The Disco Song)’ 1978 version, but those with half a brain cell will recognise it as ‘Heart Of Glass.’ Recorded, according the sleeve note, on the 6th of March 1978 at The Record Plant in New York. Unfortunately, the main thing that listening to this track does is hurl towards the listener that Blondie were lousy at performing life. Particularly a track as this which requires the keyboards, the backing vocals and all the other trimmings to create the full, in your face disco record that it was supposed to be. This terrible live recording is a basic, jingly guitar and drum version without the sparkle. Skip it, its not a version of a classic discotheque track, its something less than that.

Bang A Gong (Get It On) was enough for me to turn off the CD and forget the whole thing. I am a passionate follower of Marc Bolan. I was that generation and we looked up to Bolan as some sort of glitter God. However, Blondie’s messy version of this Bolan classic is criminal. I was shocked, actually to hear this on the album. ‘Parallel Lines’ was a historic moment, we understand that. What I don’t understand is the want and the need to sling on a handful of dire tracks on the tail end of it to justify its remastering. This track was recorded on the 11th of April 1978 in Boston. Blondie gave this song a grunge theme and far too much thrash that I feel the song never deserved in the first place. The track goes on for too long and the vocals of Harry that don’t sound sober come across as amateur and un rehearsed.

Yet another live track follows. Recorded at the Walnut Theatre, PA. This time we hear, ‘I Know But I Don’t Know,’ which, even a little credit here, doesn’t sound too bad. I feel the mark of a good track and a good band is to see if they can produce a record live, that is the perfect copy of the studio version. This track, that sounded durgy in the studio, has been given some extra guitar thrashing here and from what I can pick out, Rick Wakeman has sneaked some keyboards in at the back….but I guess he probably had better things to do that day. A track inexcusably thrown against the wall to see if it would bounce off the audience, it sounds just as bad as the studio version…

‘Hanging On The Telephone,’ sounds even better. I feel that with these last four tracks, they are a journey through the life of Blondie live and that the last track is when they got it right. The vocals, it has to be said re fairly easy, in pitch and note, to be repeated perfectly on stage. New wave lyrics never needed a good strong singing voice, a lot of it was shouted anyhow, so this track is passable without surgery.

That was new wave, a musical stage that passed a lot of us by. Actually what was happening to music after new wave was far more intriguing. It is surprising to learn that Blondie were one of a handful of bands in the world who created so many number ones in such a short space of time. Between Jan 1979 and November 1980, they racked up five in total. Their last number one was with ‘Maria’ in February 1999 after reforming the band in 1998. A long string of compilation albums were churned out every so often between 1982 and 2003 with also ‘No Exit’ and ‘The Curse Of Blondie.

Although we’ve yet to see anything from the band in the 21st century, we can be safe in the knowledge that we will always have the late seventies new wave movement to fall back on. It is ironic actually, that the historic Blondie and leader of all that came after them, have grown both musically and performance wise in recent years.


Perhaps the very curse of Blondie was new wave….


Bought at Music Zone around five pounds Feb 2006.
© sam1942 2006


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The Art Of Noise....

Geldof's creation of sound and image came in the new wave form of The Boomtown Rats....


Selected reading for today....'A Tonic For The Troops.....'



Moody, miserable and sneering like Billy Idol, the front man of The Boomtown Rats was the vastly opinionated and occasionally angry Bob Geldof. After forming his band in a small, sleepy town near Dublin, Ireland in 1975, he led the way for the era of meaningless new wave. With Johnny Fingers on keyboards, Simon Crowe on drums, Pete Briquette on bass, they were joined by Gerry Cott and Garry Roberts on guitars, they originally called themselves The Nightlife Thugs. Thankfully after reading Woody Guthrie’s ‘Bound For Glory,’ they changed their title to the name of a gang mentioned in the story.
The highlight of their relatively short career was with the release of this 1979 album, ‘The Fine Art Of Surfing,’ heralding the number one single, ‘I Don’t Like Mondays.’ The late seventies saw the fusion of punk and something resembling senseless pop. Guitars were juddery and lacking in talent and the songs were fast and jumping with little tune and virtually no bass. The lyrics were meaningless and superficial but yet catchy enough for this strange genre to take off, albeit, rather briefly. New wave was a loosely based term for anyone who had a hit after the mid seventies other than disco or glam rock. Guys in suits and mop hair cuts, the image visualised new wave in television characters such as Mickey Pearce in Only Fools And Horse. The branch off new wave eventually was Ska which, fundamentally was the fusion of beat and reggae. It was new wave that was the fore runner of Ska but using Mersey beat’s shallow themes and American pop rock. Bands rarely survived from this genre to thrive into anything else that followed. The best example of success was probably with bands like U2. Vocals were strained and tuneless and most leads sounded as thought they were suffering from a cold. Short lived, it actually was quickly dated and many bands faded out just as quickly. It was Ska that seemed more survivable.
Geldof took the right course of action. Perhaps realising immediately that the band were going to be short lived, he extended his morose identity into a political stance thus making him the ultimate missionary for all of humanity when the music failed. This album marked the end of their career although other albums followed in moderate fashion, they featured more middle of the road pop rock. The band split in 1984 and Geldof slipped quietly into the shadows of the music industry and into his obsessive involvement of saving the world from poverty.
Since moving the entire band to a rented council house in Chessington, Surrey in 1976, they released four mediocre singles before having their fist number one hit with ‘Rat Trap’ in October 1978. It was to be the very first introduction the listening public had to new wave. It was their only other number one. Geldof, already an ex MNE journalist, had enough to say about the state of the music industry, thus fuelling his ability to write hardy, strong minded songs. ‘I Don’t Like Mondays,’ was based on the true story of a U.S girl, Brenda Spencer who went on a shooting spree killing two people and wounding another nine; a sort of Hungerford style rampage years before the British maniac. The day she embarked on her ‘day out’ was a Monday and in her pathetic defence, she gave the reason behind her mindless killing as ‘I don’t like Mondays..’
Written by Geldof, the first track of the album is ‘Someone’s Looking At You,’ and the gentle beginning has us thinking about another band entirely. Released as a single in January 1980, it reached number 4. It was an introduction to the great forces that were new wave. Geldof’s vocals are squeaky and twisted in a Toyah Wilcox style. It is understandable when listening to the opening of this album that their influence was felt by Blondie, amongst others. Perhaps I am surprised as to how enjoyable this track is. With the same equalled quality to either of their number ones, we shouldn’t be thinking any differently that any band lead by Geldof is going to be less than average. The same opening line also ends the track, a solitary, ‘On a night like this, I deserve to get kissed at least once or twice…’ It has an immediate dance floor situation of an awkward teenage party. It was about getting ratted on Party Seven and smoking a fag between ten of you. All greasy hair and chequered jackets with shoulder pads that no one actually needed. The songs were about pretty girls in piggy tails and frilly dresses looking all sweet and innocent. We only have to remember how Debbie Harry used to dress, so the less said the better… Lovely thumping drums and stuttering ‘S’s, there’s also a fairly rocked up guitar solo at the break and keyboards that sound more at home in a sermon. Very energetic and sets the theme for the rest of this punk induced album. Truly stomping stuff… if anyone out there can remember The Stomp….(perhaps just me, then…)
‘Diamond Smiles’ is a track based on keyboard, ‘fun fair’ chords. Get ready to clap on occasions in a Mick Jagger pose. Geldof uses his voice as an instrument in this track, he gives it an element of base and forever a feeling of force behind it. We wonder if he ever gave himself a headache after each recording. We can imagine him twisted and contorting his lanky body towards the microphone stand with fists clenched in a pleading pose. Personally I feel, Geldof was one of the last great characters of pop, and it was probably the last intrusive genre of music that allowed such characters to feel welcomed. Released as a single in November 1979, it failed to gain anything higher than a number 13 slot.
‘Wind Chill Factor (Minus Zero)’ is a strange opening to this diverse and exciting track. The intro reminds me of a Bowie/Ziggy track followed by ‘Toni Basil’ lyrics were she would squeal her vocals so they sounded irritating. There is something very Madness about this track, and it is easy to see the connection from new wave to Ska. Wind howls around our heads and the riff of a guitar comes in like a machine gun. Silly high pitched sounds from the band give it its punk theme, straight into a Ska B side, the backing vocals are distorted by the band taking on different voices. Electronic Max Headroom lyrics and OMD drum machine effects make this track hard to categorise. It changes every second up and down with its tempo. It’s a shame that as this track excels in its musical content, the inspiring lyrics are lost in a sea of creative art. We strain our ears for something recognisable. I can hear the electronic sounds of New Order, or at least Joy Division. There is so much happening in this track, that it is literally a delight to listen to over and over again, ever discovering new sounds and noises. Records don’t have this amount of personality anymore. Tracks became characters of their own, each so individual. We experience in this album, different versions of the same theme. Unlike any other new wave around at the time, we can listen to the unusualness and sheer uniqueness of each track. It is all new wave, but with so many angles, it is almost hard to keep up. In this track we hear not just music as how it should be; a fusion and collaboration of numerous instruments but interesting and fun lyrics. ‘I took the tube train through the subway systems, I rode those tunnels like a six foot mole…’ one doesn’t get to smile of chuckle at the words of a song anymore. The records of today have become depressing… this was the last time music was fun and enjoyable…
‘Having My Picture Taken,’ is a classic example of such past records that if the subject was on something abstract, then it was accompanied by sound affects. This track is complete with photo booth sounds with clicks and musical flashes of a standard SLR We now start to see a pattern in Boomtown records in the sense that they are themed from start to finish. Every second is there to be listened to, even the click and wise crack at the very end. A concept that is also lost in records of today as no one listens to a song from beginning to very end. We can appreciate The Boomtown Rats for such touching effects. It is these things that we probably remember when Geldof is stamping his political mark on the news, but the question is, does he?…
With a subject the opposite as The Beatles, ‘I’m Only Sleeping,’ this next track is a comfort to any one who suffers from insomnia. The weird lines of ’Sleep (Fingers Lullaby)’ contain such sinister words as ‘If I took enough of these red things, get some permanent sleep, blue things, what lullabies would you sing, white things…’ a giggle under the breath at lyrics such as these, and all of a sudden the world doesn’t seem so much of a nasty place… even a member is counting sheep at the close of this track. It is completed with spiralling piano and mesmerising, zombie lyrics, we wonder if anything they did was ever taken seriously. Perhaps, the slightly disturbing piece of the album is a mind shifting chant at the close of the first half of this album where someone is saying..’that’s not funny’ a few times over and a Punch and Judy sounding laugh happily plays away in the background..
I wonder if The Boomtown Rats were something further into the depths of new wave. Riding on a high plane, they amused themselves and the sales of their records was just a by product. With Madness, there seemed to be a strong sense of level headedness about them, like that nice boy who comes round and visits his Gran once a week. The idea of The Boomtown Rats coming round is that of making Gran a cup of tea before reaching for her purse…
It can be said that ‘I Don’t Like Mondays,’ is about as sane as this album gets, bearing in mind, we now know the story behind this masterpiece of creative writing. The opening is a thunderous piece of piano that sets the scene of this hopeless tale of a ‘little girl’ who loses her grasp of normality. In my naivety, after all these years I firmly believed that this was just another teen song depicting the grey thoughts that drift through your mind when your young and that going to school is the worst thing that can happen to you and especially on a Monday morning that comes round too quickly. I was expecting the same amount of depth as ‘Our House’ by Madness, but with these theatrical opening bars with violin accompliment, I guess that my original thoughts had been grossly mislead.
We what we hear is an abstract around of the story from a narrators point of view. The calls back and forth from lead to backing vocal become forceful while Geldof becomes fearful. With such lines as the opening, ..’the silicone chip inside her head gets switched to overload, and nobody’s gonna go to school today, she‘s gonna make them stay at home…’ You can see where I was coming from in my original synopsis. . When remembering the video that went with the single, It featured Geldof on his knees expressing such desperate emotion in his vocals and his twisting body whilst being surrounded by the other members depicting the cold manner of the authorities, not even making visual contact with the man on the floor. Now in our minds, we can see this track for what it is. We can appreciate the quality of the song writing that has gone into producing such a piece of history. The very unfortunate story behind this song was the lawsuit thrown at the band from the Spencer family for damages as they felt that the song was only opening up wounds and was not helping their daughters case..mmm, no comment….It was also re released in July 1984, but only reached number 38, not surprising with anything with a strong element of current affair controversy can get easily forgotten over the years and with this second re issue, it was clear to see that the idea of some kid not wanting to get up because it’s Monday had regained its place as theme.
With ‘Nothing Happened Today,’ we are probably not that shocked after the previous track and even less surprised when we are catapulted right back into mindless new wave again. At least we now know what The Boomtown Rats were capable of…This track wastes no time in delivering its mind numbing theme…nothing happened today, okay, so its lines such as ..’I’ll do some washing, I might go shopping…’ that introduce us to the very primary ingredients to making the perfect new wave record. All you need is to surround yourself with a handful of students who can just about play their instruments and open up a copy of some local rag or switch on some daytime TV (be grateful, there was no such thing in the seventies!) and off you go… One thing is amusing, around the middle of the track is a ‘over the back fence’ conversation between two old dears, well actually it sounds more like Terry Jones and Graham Chapman (Monty Python) ironically dressed as women. ‘…It looks very natural’ everybody said, but then his wife said Toupee, isn’t that a French word? And Harry said, Ole! That’s a Spanish verb..’ and the chatter continues but thankfully not for much longer, an amusing piece of ultra nothingness! The early musical equivalent of improvisation…
‘Keep It Up,’ throws me straight back to the days of Blondie, and if for a second, Debbie had stepped up to the mic in this track, I would not have questioned my purchase of this album….Blondie made use of the ‘fun fair’ keyboard sound that was adopted by virtually all new wave bands, that’s if they could afford a keyboard that could give them that same sound…let’s face it, nearly all bands were flat broke in those that’s, and even when they did hit the big time, they still sounded as though they were rehearsing from one of their mum’s front room. Ah the beauty of new wave! It was a fascinating thing as it made kids buying these records the notion that they could grab a few mediocre instruments and give it ago themselves. In that respect, this genre inspired a lot of bands, some who we still have around today. Because it was tracks like these that sounded so simple, many bands when starting out, covered the big names as it was a sound that was so easy to copy. Geldof didn’t have a voice as such but he did have opinions and it was this identity that spread over the whole band giving the band the character they needed to be listened to. Unfortunately, it is in these fairly dire tracks that we lose the words as we are too busy trying to concentrate on the mess we hear to be music….’in her £2.00 coat she really thinks she’s cloaked in mystery, she’s acting like some character from Agatha Christie…’ or such lines as ..’I can remember the carefully sharpened eyeballs…’ These lyrics are intelligently written and we feel disappointed with the music of today, where the majority is so awfully uninspiring that we yearn to hear colourful lyrics like the ones Geldof gave us so it could marginally make up for the lack of musical talent…. Written by Geldof and Gerry Cott, I feel that Bob was probably better off writing alone.
‘Nice n’ Neat’ is one of those examples of Bob writing alone. I feel that he allows his lyrics not to be cloaked too much in gyrating musical noise. With an acompliment in the most important places of just a drum solo, his words stand out practically on stilts. A fast and furious track with heavy punk themes, it is far from the Sex Pistols, (please don’t be put off here, not all punk was the Sex Pistols, it came in many forms..) It is very mainstream, watered down punk which was far more listenable and likable. It was the diversity of punk that gave us, eventually, new wave.
Again, in this delightful piece of intricate acoustic playing at the opening to give it a Mediterranean feel, we hear Geldof writing alone. This wonderful Spanish guitar takes us away gently and not against out will to another style of music that was sometimes adapted by other new wave artists. We remember Blondie using a strong reggae theme for ‘The Tide Is High.’ This is a pleasing track for Rat fans and new ones alike, it stands out against the rest on this album as it shows us that the Rats could actually play proper music. Occasional piano allows the track to swing. It is most danceable and reminds me a little of the B. A Robertson records that followed shortly. An unusual piece of a music genre that at the other end of the scale we have the very forgettable , ‘Je suis un rock star..’ By the ever bewildering Bill Wyman….mmm, okay….
Today, we know Bob Geldof for shouting a lot and slamming his fists on desks and generally making a political nonsense of himself, I guess, after listening to this album, you would say that nothing has changed. We do however, yawn when we see him now but yet he still needs to be admired for his courage, determination, steadfastness and superiority over politicians and other established members of society. ‘Do They Know Its Christmas?’ sold two million copies in the first two days of its release. A feat, that I’m afraid to say, the Rats would never have accomplished. So what would we prefer? The Rats still caught in the Rat Trap or Sir Bob forcing his Dublin accent down our throats and into out wallets? I have to admit, I loved one of his sides, but only marginally respected the other. He is though, the very example of the saying,…’squeaky doors get oiled…’
He will also be remembered for marrying Paula Yates, and then getting dumped by her…He might even be remembered for his ghostly solo career where he jumped into rock folk music in his ventures as an aging new wavist. ‘This Is The World Calling’ in October 1986 (Number 25) and ‘The Great Song Of Indifference,’ in June 1990 (Number 15.)
For the exceptional songwriter, what do we remember him for? Two hits and Johnny Fingers known for wearing pyjamas.

Perhaps it is better to be remembered as the sole spokesperson for the human race…





Another recommended album;
‘A Tonic For The Troops.’ 1978, (re issued December 1983)



All songs written by The Boomtown Rats.
Produced by Mutt Lange
Recorded at Phonogram Studios, Hilversum, Holland.
© sam1942 2006..

A Ramble Through The Cobwebs Of Time...

What could be defind as a truly brilliant album?

Is it the fact that it has been replaced so many times over the years due to over playing? It is cuddle more than your teddy bear? Does it go on holiday with you (but not to the point that you book it it's very own flight seat)? I will take this opportunity to ramble, (as I must) through that rough pile holding up the wonky side board that I laughing refer to as my record collection....

Ladies and Gentlemen, today I give you....


'The Times' Are A Changin'' by the legendary Mr Bob Dylan....




Born into the world as Robert Allen Zimmerman on the 24th day of May 1941, to his parents, the world could not have been a lesser welcoming place. Their new son, despite the World War situation he started his life in, became the most influential songwriter of his generation and beyond. He has produced the most originally political anthems studying the thoughts and social issues predominately throughout the sixties. Embarking on a mission, he became a voice in the mist of social change.
Using folk and country genres of music. He adapted this style and used it as the fundamental basis of his astute and unique lyrics.
Sturdy, yet sometimes challenged by his contempories, he a remained steadfast in his beliefs and has maintained his ability to surprise and shock his audience from the flower movement to politicians and heads of state, not just in America but around the world.
Legally changing his name in tribute to the obscure writer, Dylan Thomas in 1962, he created his persona in first, the small clubs, folk gatherings and coffee houses downtown. He released a single in March 1962, ‘Mixed Up Confusion,’ and an album quickly followed in June the same year. Both failed to enter either chart on any score. Not enough for the young artist who continued to work towards the next accomplishment.
With the release of the cult, free thinking, full spirited ‘Freewheelin’’ in 1963, he made his mark instantly and by the following year, he had become the firm Bohemian voice then playing over two hundred concerts in his first year. Forever in demand, his followers adopted not just a belief in his lyrics but was touched by his plain, simple and unaffected way of life. Armed with just a guitar and a harmonica, he was a unique picture of everything free and peaceful.
‘The Times They Are A Changin’’ was a mixed album of both personal and political speaking out, and set the pace off for a generation to question political strategies and their future. Dylan had ignited a flame that burnt heavily within the minds of the American youth.
Within this album, he found his first U,K single in the release in March 1965 of the title track. Reaching number 9. A fairly reputable position for a singer treading new ground. It was a mark of personal history, a couple of years before the hippie movement and the infamous Summer Of Love, he was primarily ahead of his time. With his tuneful ear to the ground, he had connected immediately with the new born feeling of a soon to be changing world. With his finger on the pulse of the youngsters of that time. He had stepped up on a social platform, a position that was never challenged and always respected., no matter how much of a protest singer he was temporarily labelled.
Engaging in his career of anti establishment values, he was never to be a ‘singles’ artist. Finding a flowing, creative voice through albums rather than 45’s, he gathered the more serious and intelligent listener around him. With the release of this album in July 1964,he was not at all in a rush produce a single from it. The album has to be listened to as a whole product. Dylan’s mind, the restless public speaker.
Although not reached the chart topping standards as ‘Freewheelin,’’ the previous year, it still comfortably sat at number 4. In the 2005 edition of ‘The Times They Are A Changin’’, it is complete with the original recordings of the 1964 album. Thankfully, there are no signs of tampering here. No extended remixes or bonus tracks (actually should be bogus tracks..). Dylan, isn’t someone who can be brought into the twenty first century with a few funky beats and a kettle whistling in the background. It just couldn’t be done, so gladly, what we hear is what was already there, and nothing else…
The inside sleeve denotes the ‘11 Outlined Epitaphs By Bob Dylan.’ Don’t be fooled into thinking that these are the controversial lyrics. What they appear to be, is an elongated prose of Dylan’s life. His thoughts on the world around him including conversations in passing that have stuck in his mind and influenced him. They are, I suppose, wishes, hopes and dreams of a man whose fears have haunted his mind. What we read here is the world viewed through eyes opened where other eyes have been blinkered.
‘Gather around people, where ever you roam…’ opens this album in a rolling folk piece accompanied by a harmonica. A short piece in running length, it drifts and allows his voice to roam free over the flowing lyrics. A timeless piece very much a part of the world we live in today as much as it was a track picturing the times of then. Musically he knew how to adapt his untrained voice to his style and left his unique song writing abilities and wonderful collaboration of notes to others who had the vocal range to compliment it. A song that casts the mind back to a time of uncertainty and illusion. The world was seen as a different place and ‘the bomb’ still a sobering thought. Idealism wasn’t an issue. What Dylan speaks of is a cold reality, not perhaps bringing hope but presenting war as a tool to fix matters, speech limited and minds closeted. 1984, depicted the way in which George Orwell saw the future of mankind. In this album, we look at the way in which Dylan saw the world through his music.
‘The Ballad Of Hollis Brown,’ puts in mind a scene of a road rolling wagon train crossing the wide open baron south of the deep American country. A backdrop of southern life in the sixties. One can feel the heat of the burning sun pounding down hard on the lifeless country. The hard life, dirty and bleak is enhanced through his throw away voice; cold and defined, this track fills our ears with no emotion. His words denote a life with a shot gum in one hand and a single life or death thought in the mind. The flitting of his hand dropping to a low note and the quickly up again across the strings gives the song a flippancy about it, like this life he talks of, holds no importance. It fades with the same speed as a tossed apple core out of a moving car. No thought from its disillusioned theme.
The religious context of ‘With God On Our Side,’ is a tribute to the history of American civilisation.
Musically, it is a track that slows at points and picks up in moments like a freewheeling bicycle up and down a hilly path. He tells of the native American people and how they had been treated. An ironic track lyrically, it speaks of civil war and the people treading the new land with a gun and God on their side. It makes a mockery of this American history by saying, ’well, we did round up the Indians like cattle and we did take away their land and we have started wars with other races and other countries and we do kill each other, but its okay as because God says it is…’ A statement like this, made by a folk singer, was an incredibly bold one and such freedom of speech would have led to all sorts of trouble if matched today. Dylan seemed to capture a certain power to sing such lyrics about his own country. I would suspect that, the Americans perhaps didn’t actually get the full meaning of this track when it was first heard. I do believe that they had seen this song, initially as a defiant anthem to the greatness of the USA, but a tale of American fighting history, he picks out the poor and the meaningless political reasons behind it. A widely critical and controversial piece, it sparked the analysis of Dylan’s work from then and the rest of his life. Slowing graciously to a defiant end, it is solemn like a prayer. He adds a hint of disgust to his voice and by this, he is painting a picture of his dislike of the human race. In this piece, it could be easily said that it was this song that marked the beginning of the ‘rebellion’ of the youth culture. Perhaps the generation of the peace movement would not have happened if it wasn’t for Dylan?
The personal account of an over worked mind fills the theme of ‘One Too Many Mornings.’ Perhaps a reflective and sobering thoughts of a man increasingly questioning himself as a person as opposed to his references to the American government that appears to be the anthem of most of his songs around that time. Perhaps many of us can retrospectively find a kin to the lyrics of this soft, mellowing track (another song on the same theme that springs to mind is the very well titled, ‘Mellow,’ By Elton John from his 1972 album, Honky Tonk Chateaux.) There has been many a time for many people who’ve experienced too many mornings! Musically, a peaceful song to calm any hangover.
‘North Country Blues,’ reflects the same musical mood as ‘Ballad Of Hollis Brown.’ One can start to imagine one man on a swamping stage with a single spot light and a silent crowd. With a guitar strap around his neck and a harmonica to his lip, his acoustic complement seems quite incidental as Dylan would have had just the same impact if he had stood and recited his lyrics in a normal voice.
It has to be said that Dylan, single handedly and profoundly changed the world with his powerful and poignant songs. It appears that the voice of Dylan, (if you didn’t see him as the very young man that he was,) the listener would think that this was a voice of an old, wise and well travelled man. He held an incredibly old head on his shoulders. Not just his voice; gravely and droning as it was, his wise, observant words were strangely unreal from such a tender aged young man.
‘Only The Pawn In Their Game.’ reminds the listener of a Don MacLean track lyrically. It tells an abstract story of ‘Alice In Wonderland’ themes. He seems obsessed with rhyming a word several times or at least, as many times as he can. Anything rhyming with the word; game, name, same etc.. Dylan, here, feels a drive to explain to the world what it feels like to be caught between a decision of life and death. Cold lyrics are spat out like a bad taste. Dylan’s music was rather dull in sound, but it was lyrics alone that carried his finest work to millions of attentive ears.
‘Boots Of Spanish Leather,’ is a wonderful play on words title that pleases the listener. His rolling guitar looping the same handful for notes, reminds the listener of a Simon and Garfunkel track, years before Simon and Garfunkel came to the fore. With Dylan’s vocals cascading in and around and back to complete a full circle with each note, his words are fundamentally depressing and probably not an album to listen to when the listener is sorrowful. Although this is an album that presents the early, more widely known work of Dylan as a non conventional political songwriter, it is still categorised as folk. For those who can’t stand folk music, then I would suggest that Dylan’s later work when electrical influences took hold and his sound became blues based. His lyrics, in the latter, where not so engaging or shocking. With this in mind, folk music had been the perfect genre for Dylan to speak and be heard clearly. Such lyrics can be found in this song, ’..take heed of the western wind…’ and its with these in our ears, that the longing forces us to pack the bags and travel and be free (well, some of us anyway…). To clear the head of all material woes and angst. This album will cleanse the soul and if it doesn’t, it will leave you feeling more depressed than ever.
Moving on, we are delighted to hear an optimistic and future thinking song with its welcomed up tempo feel. We are entering the track titled, ’When The Ship Comes In.’ (sounds hopeful) The hand flickers fast across the strings and the re introduction of the piercing harmonica is heard (we hadn’t missed it). This track is welcomed relief to this simple, but sometimes morbid folk album. This track will please the ears.
‘The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll,’ probably won’t fill you with much happiness from the sound of the title. Fortunately it is written on a higher octave and requires Dylan to attempt to sing. Not a successful feat, but at this point in the album, we are now engrossed so much in the lyrics, we actually don’t care any more about his untrained voice.
‘Restless Farewell,’ is the final track of an album that will leave you either wanting to don a caftan and opened toed sandals or shelving it for good to collect dust. Perhaps an album for the camp fire (no, not the bonfire) and appreciated by Scouts…but a starry sky and the Australian outback are a necessity for the listener. It would certainly have more impact in such an atmospheric setting rather than perched over the coffee table with the six o’clock news on mute. The powerfulness of this album will take you back to a time of home made banners on nuclear war and protest marches with fellow students. This last track is a closing note to this collection of songs. A slow ’farewell,’ by the singer, almost reflecting on his own life in his ’dying’ moments. A solemn presence in the album as it draws the curtain on a remarkable piece of political and social history as seen through the eyes of a great songwriter.
Bob Dylan. Famously enigmatic, his career faltered during the seventies when after the controversial Vietnam War, there seemed little left for Dylan to say. He returned to studio work after failing to have the major impact of his earlier recordings. Dated and mildly middle of the road, it appeared that Dylan had lost his touch. From once being a powerful presence when rowdy audiences suddenly listened intently as soon as he walked on stage, his voice became weak and unmentionable than in his thought provoking songs.
Indulging in a career of writing for other admired artists, he guested on other peoples albums, almost reluctantly wanting to record his own (he did still continue to release throughout the seventies) Perhaps it could be said that this had been a wise career move. Residing to a back seat place in the ever changing music industry, he still remained on sleeve notes and credits on a great number of inspiring albums. His influence still felt through a whole range of other music genres other than his own. Over all, Dylan has continued to work tireless from decade to decade, refusing to retire and rest on his laurels, he still grows from acclaim to acclaim.
So what was the concept of this album? Was it a ordinary folk album? A moment in political history? Or the ramblings of a outspoken young man?
However you see this album from beginning to end, it will still strike a chord in your mind and set off a train of thought. Either way, it is just as prominent today as it was then…





Bought music zone 2006, nine pounds bobdylan.com
© sam1942 2006.