Tom Waits has a song called “The Fall of Troy”, and a post-hardcore band called The Fall of Troy (not sure if they are named after the Tom Waits song) have a song called “Tom Waits.”
Tom Waits has a song called “The Fall of Troy”, and a post-hardcore band called The Fall of Troy (not sure if they are named after the Tom Waits song) have a song called “Tom Waits.”
Having really loved Hurray For The Riff Raff‘s album ‘The Navigator’ on first hearing it earlier this year I was hoping to get the chance to see them live. Well that chance came around at a fabulous little venue, the Crescent, in my adopted home city of York. Were Hurray For The Riff Raff good? Well you will just have to read on to find out, but first let me tell you about the rather splendid support act, Alex Golisti. He played a great acoustic set including some of his own songs, one of which was an old banjo tune that he played on the guitar and had written his own lyrics for. He has a voice that at times shows similarities with both Tom Waits and George Ezra. He plays a style that evokes bluegrass and roots music with a modern twist. On top of all that he has a great self-deprecating sense of humour.
I was accompanied by my beautiful wife Catherine a.k.a. Catwoman this evening as she enjoyed ‘The navigator’ too. We were both very excited to be here and from the opening salvo of “Life To Save” and “Nothing’s Gonna Change That Girl” we were not disappointed. The energy shown by Alynda Lee Segarra and indeed the whole band never let up for the whole night. There were plenty of highlights notably for me the haunting rendition of “Fourteen Floors” with Alynda on keyboard. Then just when you think it couldn’t get better the band hit us with one of Segarra’s excellent protest songs, “Pa’ lante”. It has vision, power, heart, soul, deep emotion and an uplifting message. I understand that it is Spanish slang and that it means to “go ahead” or “go for it”. Alynda is very proud of her Puerto Rican roots and that shows on the current album and in her stage performance. The encore included a rousing cover of Springsteen’s “Dancing In The Dark” which had absolutely everyone on their feet. This is a band on top form and one who were really enjoying themselves. I will definitely be seeing them again! This was another great show from Please Please You, thank you Joe Coates.
Those splendid folk at Subba Cultcha recently gave me the opportunity to review the new album from an artist that I must confess I had not heard of before, but I am glad I found him. His name is Allan Rayman and the album is called ‘Roadhouse 01’. Click here to read my review.
The other day I decided to take a quick count of all the artists in my album collection where I have at least 10 albums by a single artist. I included CDs, LPs and cassettes (although the only non compilation cassettes that I have are David Bowie bootlegs). Oh and while I’m on bootleg recordings obviously I have included them whether they are live, studio outtakes or simply unreleased stuff. I have not included digital recordings. I was surprised to find that there are 4o artists where I have at least ten releases by them. The list is below, (artist followed by the number of albums) there are no real surprises for me, are you surprised at any on this list? Have you ever done anything similar? I have also added a song from each of the top ten artists 🙂
David Bowie 141
Bob Dylan 30
Johnny Nash 26
Bruce Springsteen 26
Beatles 25
Neil Young 25
Elton John 19
Bob Marley 19
U2 19
Rod Stewart 18
Pink Floyd 17
REM 17
Elvis Costello 15
The Eels 15
Prince 15
Paul Weller 15
Ryan Adams 14
Led Zeppelin 14
Madonna 14
The Clash 13
Elvis Presley 13
Radiohead 13
Kate Bush 12
Oasis 12
Lou Reed 12
Stevie Wonder 12
Morrissey 11
Tom Waits 11
ZZ Top 11
Jeff Buckley 10
Julian Cope 10
Johnny Cash 10
Michael Jackson 10
John Lennon 10
Manic Street Preachers 10
Kylie Minogue 10
Iggy Pop 10
Rolling Stones 10
Frank Turner 10
The Who 10
I have been buying Mojo Magazine for many issues now, in fact since issue number one and I am so middle-aged that I now subscribe. The writing is excellent and challenges many preconceptions you may have about some artists or music. Anyway enough of that, I was reading the new issue (edited by Tom Waits no less) when I chanced upon a brief obituary for the great Jimmy Helms. If that is correct then it completely passed me by. I have also Googled him only to find no information about his demise. Wikipedia certainly has no mention of it, but then that doesn’t really mean much. So if anyone out there knows whether or not this is true then please let me know. If it is then I for one will be quite sad for a number of reasons. Jimmy had (or hopefully still has) a great voice and also if he is no longer with us why was that not in the news anywhere apart from Mojo? Clearly I’m not the only one who is perplexed, click here for more.
He was born in Florida in 1944 but had his biggest early successes in the UK. His first big break came with the UK top ten single “Gonna Make You An Offer You Can’t Refuse” in 1973. He had a significant resurgence in the late 80s and 90s as part of Londonbeat even reaching the top of the US charts with “I’ve Been Thinking About You” in 1990. Jimmy if you are gone you will be sadly missed and either way Mojo or Q or someone should publish a piece on you very soon. In the meantime enjoy a few more of Jimmy’s highlights.
Hello once again dear readers, I’m back with another brief post and one which celebrates yet another birthday. Today is January 10th and it is the day that Roderick David Stewart becomes a pensioner, the old fella is 65 today.
My Dad was a bit of a Rod Stewart fan, especially at News Years Eve owing to Rod’s Scottish roots. In fact my Dad insisted that Rod was indeed Scottish and I argued that one with him for years. Actually Rod was born in London although his Dad was a Scot. We also had Rod’s version of “Sailing” played at my Dad’s funeral back in 2001.
Rod has always been a keen footballer and played at Centre Half for Middlesex School Boys in the 50s. He also famously spent a short time with Brentford FC. He was once quoted as saying that the only two things he could do were to play football and sing. Along with dating and/ or marrying a string of leggy blonde beauties presumably.
During the 60s he played in a number of bands whose personnel included; Ray Davies (later of the Kinks), Long John Baldry, Mick Fleetwood and Peter Green (the latter two went on to form Fleetwood Mac) among others. He began to really make a name for himself when he became lead vocalist with the Jeff Beck Group. It was in Jeff’s group that he first met Ronnie Wood. They both left the Jeff Beck Group in 1969 and went on to join Ian MacLagan, Ronnie Lane and Kenny Jones, the three remaining members of the Small Faces to form the Faces. The rest, as they say, is history.
So let me finish this brief post to wish Rod a very happy birthday and let’s listen to a few of his greatest moments (in my opinion anyway, so that means definitely no room for “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” or “Baby Jane”)
“The Killing Of Georgie” – Rod Stewart (a live version from 1977). In the original video for this song Rod wore quite a bit of eye shadow and seemed to come across as quite camp. Apparently his Dad made it very clear he didn’t like that look!
“Downtown Train” – Rod Stewart. For me Rod is a great songwriter and a great vocalist, but he is also a great interpreter of other peoples songs. This is his excellent version of the great Tom Waits song
“You Can Make Me Dance, Sing Or Anything” – Rod Stewart and the Faces. This was the final Faces single and remains my favourite. It signalled the end of a great band way back in 1974 when even I was young. Incidentally the full title for the single is “You Can make Me Dance, Sing Or Anything (Even Take the Dog For a Walk, Mend a Fuse, Fold Away the Ironing Board, or Any Other Domestic Shortcomings)”
“You Wear It Well” – Rod Stewart – Definitely my favourite of all of Rod’s UK number one singles
“Mandolin Wind” – Rod Stewart – A song that always helps me get mellow
Me and my helmet 🙂
Here we go again folks and I have some brilliant news, well it was brilliant for me anyway. On Saturday I spent the day at the Riders Edge Harley Davidson centre in Wales. This was a gift experience which was given to me as a birthday present by the wonderful and beautiful Catwoman for my 50th birthday back in January. You have to bear in mind that I have never been on a motorbike in my life. So to say I was a little apprehensive at first would be a major understatement. Let’s just say that I made sure I packed a clean pair of under crackers…….just in case!
Anyway being a complete novice I spent the morning, around three hours riding a 500cc machine around the private roads within the Royal Welsh Showground at Builth Wells. Whilst I never fell off once I came close a couple of times! I guess I pictured in my head having to lean right over when taking corners, but that’s for the speed freaks, at the speeds I was doing taking a corner upright was easy. Incidentally while it felt much, much faster I don’t think I got above 40 mph. For me the coordination required to change gear with your left foot while not looking down at all was very difficult. But when you think about it it really shouldn’t be. I mean I don’t look down when I change gear in the car so why should I need to when riding a motorbike? Well perhaps because I’m not using a gear stick with my hand but trying to change it with my foot. But by the end of the morning session I had reached the dizzy heights of 5th gear twice and stalled less than ten times in total and as I said earlier, I never fell off or crashed once! The last part was a great result for me as I fully expected to take a few spills.
Me on a Harley
So after just three hours on the saddle they sadly weren’t going to let me loose on a fabulous Harley on my own. However I did get a pillion ride on a gorgeous Harley Davidson machine under the control of one of the Rider’s Edge expert instructors, Ian. Having never even ridden pillion before that too was also a great experience for me. Cruising around some wonderful Welsh countryside. Great weather, great views and remarkably attractive sheep, well at least I would imagine they are attractive if you’re perhaps Welsh or a Kiwi.
Uneasy Rider perhaps?
I would like to take this opportunity to say a big, big thank you to all the folks at Riders Edge. Especially Clive, who was my instructor in the morning and also Ian with whom I rode pillion in the afternoon.
In the meantime and as this is really a music related blog let’s steer it back in that direction! Can you guess what today’s theme might be? Well it’s a bit obvious really isn’t it? Today’s theme is Motorbikes! Here are a few motorbike or motorbike related songs with a morsel of trivia about each of the artists or songs
“Motorcycle Emptiness” – Manic Street Preachers. This was the fifth single to be taken from the band’s Generation Terrorists album in 1992. The lyrics are inspired by a book about biker gang culture called Rumble Fish which was written by S E Hinton
“Motorbikin’”– Chris Spedding. This 1975 Top 20 hit was Spedding’s biggest and he is perhaps best known as a sought after session guitarist. He has played with many artists including; Bryan Ferry, Roxy Music, Elton John, Brian Eno, Jack Bruce, Nick Mason, John Cale, Katie Melua, Harry Nilsson, Tom Waits, Paul McCartney, Jeff Wayne and even the Wombles! He also famously played on and produced three demos for the Sex Pistols in 1976. The three songs were “No Feelings”, “Problems” and “Pretty Vacant”
“Funky Moped” – Jasper Carrot. This was a surprise hit for Mr Carrot in 1975. The single was backed with a risque monologue based around the 60s TV series the “Magic Roundabout“, which at the time I thought was bloody hilarious! he also has a thespian daughter; Lucy Davis who played Dawn in the Office. She was excellent in that series don’t you think?
“Silver Dream Machine”– David Essex. At the age of 23 in 1971 David took the lead role in the musical Godspell on the London Stage. I actually went to see that show as part of a school trip in 1972 when he was still in it. Our coach was delayed because all the girls on the trip had gathered outside the stage door to scream and get his autograph. It was around the time he released his first major single “Rock On”. My first serious girlfriend; Gay Topsom, was a big David Essex fan and I remember buying her each of his singles as soon as they were released. I never had enough money to stretch to an album. But we were together for two years from 1975 to 1977 so I guess that’s a fair amount of singles. She left me for a guy who was slightly older and more importantly had a car! But you know what I’m over that now and if you’re reading this Gay, I forgive you 🙂
“Bat Out Of Hell”– Meatloaf. Meat was born Marvin Lee Aday on 27th September 1947 so he will turn 62 in a couple of weeks. get your cards written and sent now folks. Jim Steinman the producer and I suppose you could say creator of Meat’s landmark Bat Out Of Hell album was apparently trying to get something that sounded like a cross between Wagner, Phil Spector and Bruce Springsteen. Well I for one reckon he succeeded. What do you think?
“Born To Be Wild”– Steppenwolf. This band hailed from Toronto and many credit their recording of the iconic “Born To Be Wild” as the first Heavy Metal record, although just as many disagree. It has had a long association with motorbikes, very likely due to its inclusion on the soundtrack to the movie Easy Rider which starred Peter Fonda
I used to have this poster on my wall as a teenager 🙂
I am sure that you can think of plenty more so fire away folks!
This is the poster I really wanted on my wall as a teenager 😉