In September 2010, when Pope Benedict made his historic and transformative visit to the United Kingdom, his first stop was Glasgow, Scotland. There, as he inaugurated the first-ever official state visit by the pope to the UK, he celebrated the opening Mass to the sounds of newly commissioned liturgical music. The music was thoughtful, joyful, singable, yet richly musical. It was the premiere of a work by a man well known in the contemporary classical music community but less known to those outside it: Scottish composer James MacMillan… continue

Ah! We can see this for what it is: a masterful searching for rhythms and melodies, rooted in heritage, clothed in artistic progress, presented as gritty authenticity.  Heritage. Progress. Authenticity.  Three weeks ago, when I saw Gilberto Gil perform at Memorial Hall on the campus of UNC Chapel Hill, there WAS a master at work.  Over 50 years a professional musician, Gil shows no sign of slowing down.  Credited, with fellow Brazilian Caetano Veloso, for creating from a bewitching hybrid of bossa nova and rock’n’roll what became known as tropicalia, Gil is a living legend.  And he should be, for at age 70 he boogied and strutted with his audience and band for two hours, electric guitar casually over his shoulder, a set of musicianly masters in their own right, clearly in love with him, backing him up.

The only point of comparison I have for this is seeing Carlos Santana circa 1987 at the Dallas Fair Park Bandshell, where 5,000 Texicans and 4 white people shook their asses for a couple of hours while Carlos played hardly a hit and barely anything I recognized.  Revelatory.  Fast forward 25 years and the experience is nearly duplicated.  I do not discount the Latin commonality of these two experiences.  As with the Mexican roots of Santana’s music, in Brazil’s music fusions are perhaps most likely to occur.  African, Portugese, Spanish, and Asian musics have mixed with each other for decades if not centuries, and with rock thrown in I defy anyone not to call it progressive.  So much so, in fact, that Velosa and Gil were forced into political exile in the late 60s/early 70s, biding their time in London while things cooled down in the home country.  Music that matters, like your life depended on it.

Continue reading “Gilberto Gil Loves Us” →

This is not a review, so please don’t expect a review.

Rather it is mind-meander, a jumble of thoughts, a mind-fart if you like 🙂

 

As I settled in to the sumptuous Swedish leather of my up-market estate car, cocooned in blue-backlit luxury, ready to drive home to my lovely modern detached, warm, comfy house,  listening to Big Big Train, I began to ponder ……   where did it all go wrong ??!!

You see, although I’ve been a good Dad and a loyal husband and I have certain talents (if you consider running up muddy hills a talent), there is one thing nagging away at me that I suggest nags away at a lot of people (men, mainly) who are into music and are of a certain age. 

You see, I really really wanted to be good at playing the guitar.

It all started out so well.

 At 16 I got my first guitar. An Angus Young look-a-like Gibson SG copy.

In front of the mirror I was a God.  Long hair, denim, attitude.

I was into Rush, AC/DC, Motorhead.  All I had to do was look like them and I would be them – easy ! 

Then the problems started. 

First problem : the strings were so far from the fret board you could drive a bus between them. Rubbish. 

Second problem : I’m small, very small and my hands weren’t big enough to form chords or even press hard enough to get the strings down to touch the fret board. 

Third problem : I couldn’t, and still can’t, read music so had to do everything by ear.

 Fourth problem : I couldn’t hear very well because my hair was so long it covered my ears. At least it covered my eyes as well so I couldn’t see, or hear, my mum screaming at me to ‘Turn that bloody rubbish down !’

Fifth and last problem : LOFT.  Lack Of F… Talent.

 

Anyway, persistence and a touch of youthful arrogance saw an epic battle against all odds and eventually a semblance of music was made and a burgeoning career as a talented rock-god lay round the corner.

A group was duly formed with school mates with the usual mix of who’s Dad had the most money, who had the best girlfriends and who had got the most pocket money for the pints after practice.

It somehow worked and we ended up doing gigs, yes, gigs, concerts.

We were called 4-Wheel Drive and we specialised in hard rocking and cutting edge post-rock.   Actually, we thought this but the reality was we played Eagles and country and western !!

Our gigs were local pubs, Working Mens Clubs and the occasional heady heights of the local school fete.

Usually we were on before the pub disco started (so as to not get attacked by bottles and drunken women) or squeezed between sets of Bingo “Now then ladies, we’ll have a break from t’bingo whilst we listen to these lovely lads from Manchester playing some music for you all”.

One memorable New Years Eve we played at Collyhurst Working Mens Club, a bleak and post-industrial suburb of Manchester.  After setting our gear up we waited for the crowds.  We waited.  And waited.

Our encore of ‘The Crystal Chandelier’ was performed in front of an 80 year old woman with no teeth who had got lost and a 75 year old drunken ex miner who thought he had come to see strippers …..  my guitar broke, an amplifier broke down …..  it was not a good night.

Our highlight was playing at Piccaddilly Railway Workers Club, in a magnificent club under the arches in Manchester. The steward welcomed us and took us down a swanky corridor to a changing room !  A bloody changing room, with one of those mirrors surrounded by lightbulbs.  Well,  we thought we had made it but then when another guy came in and said ‘Fred’s drumming for you tonight” we were made up.  Changing rooms ? A house drummer ?  Wow.

On we went and were confronted with hundreds of folk all looking happy and settled in a huge club.

By this time I had given up with the guitar and was sent to the bastion where ex-guitarists go – bass guitar.  In other words,  there are fewer strings, you don’t have to play chords, you don’t have to do solos – any idiot can play bass – that was me.

As I moved to my position I looked at Fred the drummer and saw what can only be described as a very, very old man.  Well into his 80’s, thin as his drum sticks, no teeth, whippet at his feet and a pint of stout to one side.

‘Do you know Hotel California ?” I asked

‘No lad’, he replied ‘ but I’ll join in !’

Fearing the worst we played the moody, atmospheric intro as the dry ice swirled around our feet and the gorgeous girls on the front row gazed longingly at the rock gods in front of them (reality check : wizened old hags who’s bingo had been interrupted sulkily looked on whilst their husbands dutifully sat there nursing their pints…)

Just as we get to the part where the drums come in – BANG !

 

Little old Fred absolutely nails it. 

 

Neil Peart eat your heart out. Gavin Harrison (had I known him them) couldn’t shake a stick to old Fred – he was fantastic, knew every trick and never missed a beat.

It turned out to be a great concert – the best we ever did !

We never went far from there, we all went separate ways into families, careers, wandering round the world.  I recently found out our guitarist, who was talented now works as a Doctor in Australia and saved several lives in the Bali bombing.  That makes my hill running look a bit feeble but then one of the other guys ended up as a dustman in Droitwich so that makes me feel better.

When I see the likes of Matt Stevens up close and Bruce Soord from no more than two feet away,  I can only stand and gaze in awe at their talent and skill and think …

‘ … where did it all go wrong ?’

 

 

 

Okay, I remembered another one of my “generic” 8-tracks from the early 70’s (see my prior post).  In Search of the Lost Chord by the Moody Blues (1968).  (Yes, I’ve owned at least two legitimate copies since.)  My experience with it was in many ways comparable to that with King Crimson’s Islands (discovered at nearly the same time, if not the same day).

My entrée into a high orbit around the notion of “prog” had not been through radio airplay, and I was only beginning to discover the wonders of WMMS in Cleveland (in its Golden Age).  As with King Crimson, I was not yet familiar with the Moody Blues’ first two albums, so Chord was my point of entrance, and has remained a sort of fulcrum in my perception of the band.  I heard the music first without the impact of cover art.  And to be quite honest, the art didn’t do that much for me when I eventually saw it.

I love the whole album, partly because of its place in my early listening life.  But this “mini-review” is really about one song, the one that has most profoundly stuck with me from then to now:  “The Best Way to Travel” (credited to Mike Pinder).

In the early 7o’s, I was rather blissfully naive regarding drugs, so I didn’t hear that I could “fly high as a kite” as others might have heard it.  Oh, I knew vaguely who Timothy Leary was, but my general intake of the album’s search-and-discovery motif was uncluttered with chemical enhancement experience.  Others were often more aware than I was of my apparent destiny as an academic and an intellectual (in 7th grade, several other kids at school called me “Professor”).  Nonetheless, what I heard was that thinking…  THINKING…   is the best way to travel.

Texture in music is almost always uppermost to my ears, as if it were a surface to caress or to palpate.  This is one of those songs with a texture that carries its lyric with an ease or a naturalness that approaches perfection.  (Other examples of this:  “Jerusalem” by ELP, “Earn Enough for Us” by XTC, and several Genesis songs, including “The Colony of Slippermen” and “Squonk.”)  The texture conveys precisely the sort of “travel” to which the lyric alludes.  Bold, dense, percussive acoustic guitars that propel whatever is the vessel (seesaw?) on which we ride.  Yet they hesitate dramatically to allow us to regain a fix on the ethereal “beep,” reminiscent of radar, which may or may not be some sort of guide.  We may need to follow a bit in order to find out.

Four decades later, I still believe every strum and every word.  Thinking is the best way to travel.