Peter Gabriel - New Blood

By Stuart Anderson

Although seen recently more as a music industry innovator rather than as an artist and performer, New Blood finds Peter Gabriel following in the footsteps of fellow ’80s eccentric and collaborator Kate Bush and revisiting, recalibrating and re-releasing highlights from his considerable back catalogue.

However, rather than merely patching up production deficiencies, unearthing previously unreleased songs or reinterpreting tracks that never really satisfied, Gabriel has rerecorded a sizeable chunk of material without guitars or drums but with a full orchestra. Conceptually then, New Blood is not a record seeking to rewrite history or redress lost opportunities; rather it signifies Gabriel’s exploration of the sound palette that an exclusively orchestral arrangement affords. In his own words, Gabriel is excited to “work with the dynamics and extremes…still and stark at one point, fat, fleshy and emotional at another”.

If one wonders why Gabriel chose not to write an album of wholly new material rather than reworking past glories, it seems he drew inspiration from his earlier Scratch My Back project, a song exchange concept album on which he covered songs by artists such as David Bowie, Paul Simon, Elbow and Radiohead and invited them to cover a song of his for the second part. (It seems Radiohead were particularly unhappy with Gabriel’s version of ‘Street Spirit (Fade Out)’ and have declined the offer to partake in the follow-up record, which is a shame as a Radiohead version of ‘Exposure’ really would be quite wonderful.) Whilst preparing songs for the associated tour, Gabriel and arranger John Metcalfe decided to expand on the half-dozen songs that made up the set and release an album proper.

And although Gabriel states that the tracks were chosen in an effort to “make the most interesting journey”, rather than just cherry picking the hits, the record is comprised of a more than fair proportion of his most popular cuts – ‘Sledgehammer’, ‘Steam’ and ‘Biko’ excepted. Thankfully, and as a special bonus, ‘Solsbury Hill’ makes it, but only because of the volume of requests received for its inclusion.

But the oft-asked questions that greet the release of any Gabriel project remain: what does it mean and does it work? Time for oft-spouted answers: I’m not completely sure and yes and no.

The coruscating and see-sawing strings that punctuate ‘The Rhythm of the Heat’ and ‘Darkness’ are reminiscent of Hans Zimmer’s “Soviet-Bloc chords”, those huge, fat orchestral riffs that coarse through the recent Batman movie soundtracks (particularly The Dark Knight), though the former is shorn of their palpable malice. However, the unsettling power of the songs is bolstered by a stripped-down vocal performance from Gabriel in the former and wondrous brass and woodwind notes in the latter.

Indeed, the vocals play a role as least equal in importance to the orchestral arrangements. At 61 years old, Gabriel’s voice has mellowed somewhat, and the often sharp, nasal edge it once had has been blunted and oxidised by time. In some cases, it is hypnotic; the soft, almost spoken vocal that opens ‘Intruder’ is beguiling but soon breaks and gives way to dense and potent strings, hyperbolic and pounding percussive notes and nightmarish scratches, whilst the emphatic and forceful instructions in the chorus of the of ‘Digging in the Dirt’ are as potent and as downright scary as ever.

Stripped of its electronic shackles, ‘Wallflower’ becomes a hauntingly beautiful lullaby; the delicate piano and violin harmonise as wonderfully as the poignant vocals, but elsewhere, and it might seem an obvious criticism, ‘Don’t Give Up’ really does suffer due to the absence of Kate Bush. Instead, the female part is provided by Norwegian Ane Brun and it lacks the warm, smoky and burned sugar flavour that Bush’s timbre bestows.

The John-Cusack-ghettoblaster-held-aloft classic ‘In Your Eyes’ is lovingly treated; in fact, it’s exquisite. The exuberant, undulating strings at first seem to jar with the memory of the material, but as soon as Gabriel kicks into the verse, the orchestration is stripped back and only gentle bass notes support the vocal. And, right on cue, those pulsating strings come right back at you when the middle eight and the skin tingling chorus return; only now they’re representative of a celebration, a glorious and gleeful rendering of joy, of love and of completion; it gels wonderfully.

The twinkling percussion and sweeping strings transform ‘Mercy Street’ almost into a hymn, whilst ‘Red Rain’ is glossy and brassy, with Gabriel’s harmonised vocal still packing a powerful punch. Yet, as good as the orchestration is here, the driving and shuddering programming and bass notes of the original are missed and the track lacks a little verve.

Indeed, whilst the orchestration is wonderfully stereophonic with the arrangements neatly observed and separated, Gabriel’s voice often sounds lifeless and flat; more often than not, it is mixed bang in the middle of the channels and, on occasion, is overwhelmed by the pulsating sonic landscape that envelops it.

‘Solsbury Hill’ is a fantastic closer and a highlight of the album. The single violin that skips high over the resonant piano part is joyous and provides an almost fairytale ending, despite the occasional melancholy of the lyric.

New Blood is only the ninth studio album that Peter Gabriel has released since walking out on Genesis and setting out his own stall in 1977 and, on this evidence, there’s no doubt that Gabriel remains as innovative, as passionate and as inspired as he ever has. However, as much as one might enjoy New Blood (and enjoyable it is) the overwhelming desire of any Peter Gabriel fan is for him to complete and release I/O, rather than tinkering with past glories. However, as a stopgap to that event, this’ll do very nicely indeed.

Mastodon - The Hunter

By Stuart Anderson

Given the monumental success of Mastodon‘s melancholic, unabashedly progressive and indefatigably conceptual Crack the Skye back in 2009, you’d be forgiven for expecting The Hunter (their fifth album to date) to raise their brand of musical abstraction to such dizzying heights that even Alain Robert would think twice about attempting to conquer it.

Instead, our Atlanta metal heroes draw sonic inspiration from their previous and, arguably, more accessible swampy and doom-inflected masterpieces Leviathan and Blood Mountain, (released in 2002 and 2004 respectively) and they succeed far more admirably than Iron Maiden did when they followed the majestic folklore of Seventh Son of a Seventh Son with the pedestrian anthology of turgid execrable twaddle that remains No Prayer for the Dying.

Brann Dailor’s frenetic, yet perfectly judged drumming dominates The Hunter – and deservedly so. Imagine the heaviest, sludgiest and swampiest metal album rammed full only of cuts as complex, as technically demanding and as downright awe-inspiring as Nicko McBrain’s performance on Iron Maiden’s ‘Where Eagles Dare’ (the opener of their 1984 album Piece of Mind) and you’re pretty close to just how good this guy is at attempting to smash his drumheads to pieces with every stroke.

From Dave Lombardo-influenced double kick drum passages, jazzy rolling snares and savage left-channel-to-right-channel tom fills, Dailor’s talent is as prodigious as his inventiveness and matched only by his flat-out ballsy attitude.

And that’s not the only evidence of the influence of The Irons on The Hunter. Guitarists Brent Hinds and Bill Kelliher seem to have developed the ability to channel the considered yet ornately melodic and bluesy solos of Adrian Smith (especially on the title track), rather than employing the vacuous and flashy guitar techniques of most modern metal bands.

But this is mere introductory hyperbole. Let’s get to it.

‘Black Tongue’ and ‘Curl of the Burl’ kick off the set in grand style with their layers of signature fuzz-drenched riffs, liberal doses of scattergun snares and a smattering of double kick drums, all of which combine to form a sound that’s a little simpler by Mastodon standards, but that still has a kick heavy enough to effortlessly knock you squarely on your arse. And whilst the lyrical theme of the latter might well be concerned with meth addicts with chainsaws scampering around the backwoods of the US and hacking down tree growths to sell for more meth (the opening verse is great fun), musically it’s a pop-metal blast and sounds akin to something the now-defunct Do Me Bad Things would put out if they hadn’t overdosed on R&B and Steely Dan (not that that’s a bad thing of course…is there a pun in there somewhere…?).

And ultimately, that’s the groove that runs throughout the first half of The Hunter; it’s the sound of a band playing hard and having a hell of a lot of fun doing it, like they needed to let off steam after the ethereal and devastating personal themes tackled in Crack The Skye.

The following two cuts don’t disappoint either. ‘Blasteroid’ is a frenetically paced major key belter with delightful screamed vocal payoffs and a couple of off-kilter time changes, whilst the proggy metallic chimes that open the ghostly ‘Stargasm’ soon give way to a mass of chugging riffs and wailing synths. And since you’ve asked, the answer is yes – as the title suggests, it is about sex in space – no kidding.

Of the next three tracks, ‘All the Heavy Lifting’ and ‘The Hunter’ are most worthy of note and for different reasons. Although these songs are two of the three most emotional cuts on the album (more on the third later), their approaches are entirely different.

The former not only features Dailor’s single best performance on the album, but the crushing, thick-as-treacle riffs, the impassioned vocals with their screams of emotional denial (“Just close your eyes / And pretend that everything’s fine”) and the wider lyrical theme of running away and avoiding reality are as affecting as they are hypnotic.

Conversely, the title track is haunting and epic, and one personal to Brent Hinds as it addresses the death of his brother, whom last year suffered from a heart attack while hunting. The eerie intro of shimmering picked notes, (both electric and acoustic), synth organs and hypnotic vocals are bolstered by Dailor’s drums, which play their own supporting melody and create a rich and affecting soundscape. The lyrics are heartfelt and poignant too -”Through fire embers glow / Haunted I lift the stone / Letting go your spirit flies” – and are echoed quite beautifully by the emotive guitar solos.

From then on, the album slows into more progressive territory. The Vangelis-inspired ‘Blade Runner’-esque scuzzy guitar notes of ‘Dry Bone Valley’ transmogrify into a thick sludge of solid riffage, punctuated with a coruscating, almost nasal solo, and ‘Thickening’ is the albums ballad; a remarkably sensual delight.

The madcap giggles of ‘Creature Lives’ provokes memories of Pink Floyd’s ‘Brain Damage’, though the synth pitch rolls also conjure echoes of the annoying THX Deep Note that never fails to bug the shit out of any self-regarding devotee of mainstream blockbuster cinema. Happily, ‘Spectrelight’ (with vocals contributed by Neurosis’s’ Scott Kelly) blows the cobwebs of George Lucas’s beard into oblivion with its fuzz-heavy harmonised riffs and fat bass foundations.

Closer ‘The Sparrow’ is the closest Mastodon has come to sounding like an Enya covers band, albeit one steeped in metal, but the delicate echoes of Iron Maiden’s ‘Strange World’ and Metallica’s ‘Nothing Else Matters’ contained therein, and the poignancy of the tracks sentiment – the song is dedicated to the wife of the band’s accountant, recently deceased due to stomach cancer – make for a beautiful and beguiling finishing note; its theme elegantly encapsulated by the repeated chant of her motto “Pursue happiness, with diligence”.

When all is said and done, The Hunter isn’t the most progressive, complex, challenging, genre-busting or provocative album that Mastodon has recorded, but it might just be the most fun. The first half steamrollers along with an inherent sense of cheek and guile, whilst the more sedate, emotional and personal material resonates deeply enough to reinforce that the band is about more than just creating a boogie-woogie party album. Its scattergun stylistic approach works brilliantly and even the more demure moments are real growers.

However, if there is one major criticism to be levied at The Hunter, it is a purely technical one – and one that can equally be thrown squarely in the face of most rock, heavy rock and metal releases of recent memory; the mastering is atrocious.

Audiophiles and music nerds (myself included) have been banging on about the loudness war for what seems like an eternity and with little success. It would appear that the record industry remains deaf (oh, the irony) to the repeated pleas of fans to minimise compression, preserve dynamic ranges, put an end to brickwalling and generally just stop releasing records that make the listeners ears bleed twenty minutes in.

Whilst not sounding quite as bad as the 2008 Metallica album Death Magnetic or any RHCP album released after 1993, The Hunter just doesn’t sound quite as good as it should. It’s loud, sure, but I’ve got a volume control for that. I guess Brann Dailor’s snares and kick drums are tolerable, just, but his crash cymbals and hi-hats are a clanging, distorted metallic mess that will give you brain ache unless you have a Coke and smile between tracks. However, I do love the way that his ride cymbal sounds more like a cowbell, but that’s not so much a silver lining as a tin veneer.

The rest of the band suffers too. Troy Sanders’s bass is virtually impossible to distinguish and although they’ve got their reputation for fuzzy, overclocked axes to maintain, it’s doubtful that Brent Hinds and Bill Kelliher want to sound like they’re playing in a shed. A shed submerged in a swamp. A shed submerged in a swamp that’s been buttered with ectoplasm and baked in a meringue.

Judging by the views of the altogether awesome members of the Steve Hoffman Forums (engage your inner geek and click here to view the topic) if you’ve still got a record player (remember those?), there is a chance, however slim, that The Hunter will be mastered much better. So if you’re one of the last and lucky few that prefer to drop a needle to the groove rather than stick rusty pins in their ears, you’d be well advised to pick up the big and shiny black disc of polyvinyl chloride instead.

But even if you have shunned the shellac in favour of the CD and MP3, The Hunter deserves its place in your playlist; purely and simply because it rocks…it rocks like thirteen hurricanes.

eyeseesound

Here at the majestic Musos Towers, we love it when people just go out and DO stuff. DIY equals FAB in our book. Therefore, we think you should visit www.eyeseesound.tv.

In the words of the authors “the website is a celebration of and promotion of independent music, film and art. Remember when you were younger and the thrill you’d get from making mix tapes for friends or telling them about something culturally wonderful you’d discovered? Well, fundamentally that’s what we’re doing on a larger, and slightly more finessed scale.”

It’s all the work of just two passionate beings too. Yowser. They’ve just released episode two of their magazine-style TV show thing as well. And it’s good. You should go watch it. No, really, you should.

So in the end, www.eyeseesound.tv is all about finding and loving great music, film and art and putting it into a nice show. This sounds ace to us.

In fact, it sounds skill – lush even. Maybe even a little bit bonzer. (Somebody switch him off now please – Ed).

The Leisure Society - The Sleeper

It would seem that the history of The Leisure Society has now entered pop-folklore – or should that be folk-pop-folklore?

After primordial stints first in a band featuring film director Shane Meadows and actor Paddy Considine, and then Burton-on-Trent’s The Telescopes, Nick Hemming began contributing music to the aforementioned film-maker movies under the moniker of The Leisure Society. 2005 was the year for everything to fall into place proper when he hooked up with fellow wayward musical journeyman Christian Hardy (he of Christian Silva). After a heady period of messing about with ukuleles, glockenspiels and flutes, the managed to pull together The Sleeper, their first release. And it was worth the wait too, containing as it does a fine collection of seductive chocolate box folk-pop.

Reductively lauded by critics as “the British Fleet Foxes”, The Sleeper is perhaps this year’s first perfect spring-time record; sure it’s a little blowy, bedraggled and misty in places, but it’s buoyed by the realisation that sunnier times are just around the corner and soon to gently kiss the apple blossom dry.

As part of Brighton’s Willkommen Collective (alongside Sons of Noel & Adrian and Shoreline, MoonshineMoonshine to name but a few), The Leisure Society’s influences are appropriately wide and uninhibited. There’s a heavy dose of Belle & Sebastian to be sure, but the injection of banjos and ukuleles adds fuzzy shades of shambolic Americana too; a sound that begs comparison to that of a LSD-fuelled primary school orchestra playing Johnny Cash covers.

The shimmering guitar and finely brushed drums of opener ‘ Give Yourself a Fighting Chance’ set the record up nicely and the final quietly upbeat chorus (“I’m going to change my circumstance/To give myself a fighting chance”) adds layers of gorgeous vocal harmonies that combine to produce a lush and fluffy wall of sonic cotton wool.

A deep, resonant piano might have driven things into irrevocably sullen territory on lead single ‘The Last of the Melting Snow’, but the guitar chimes and sugar sweet violin halt a descent into darkness, aided no end by the charming sound of Hemmings’s hand sliding around on the guitar neck

That violin soars to gloriously melancholic heights once more on ‘A Short Weekend Begins with Longing ‘, whilst ‘We Were Wasted’ is a haunting yet refreshingly down-to-earth narrative that recounts a drunken trip from nightclub to home.

Often, Hemmings’s dark lyrical sojourns are muddied by the jaunty, sweet feistiness of the instrumentation, a piquant subterfuge that serves only to charm you into actively deconstructing every strum, breath and chord in an effort to reveal every tiny nuance of the track.

‘Save It For Someone Who Cares’ is more playful, lackadaisical almost, with bracing traces of flute and a fantastic over-the-top speedy ending, and this is complemented perfectly by the handclaps, and glockenspiel chimes of ‘The Darkest Place I Know’.

Second single ‘A Matter of Time’ is full-blown folk-pop of the highest quality; an understated epic that draws together all the sonic strands that have preceded it and twists them together into an attractive yet muscular knot that’s virtually unpickable. “She lacks in desire what I lack in direction” stands as one of the album’s finest lyrics also; so simple, yet so stirring.

‘The Sleeper’ is a complex yet accessible record that stands up to multiple repeat listens. Each spin reveals something new and fresh and there’s a real joy to be had in catching the one detail you didn’t get last time around. There’s also a solid lyrical maturity here that is delightfully offset by a cheeky sense of humour and a playfulness that suggests a huge lack of ego. The musicianship is never less than excellent and the production bang on the money, all of which make it a sure bet that The Leisure Society is one act to keep a beady eye on.

Quantum of Solace

CERT: 12A

UK RELEASE DATE: 31 October 2008

DIRECTOR: Marc Forster

STARRING: Daniel Craig, Mathieu Amalric, Olga Kurylenko

In Daniel Craig’s second outing as the indestructible British Agent, we’re immediately zeroed in on Bond a mere ten minutes after we left him at the conclusion of ‘Casino Royale’ – in all his Saville-Row-three-piece-suit-with-coordinated-assault-rifle splendour; and from the insanely adrenaline busting opening car chase right through to the extraordinarily explosive finale, there’s barely time to sharpen a pencil, let alone attempt to draw a breath.

‘Quantum of Solace”s principal villain is Dominic Greene, a wealthy property developer with a nice sideline in regime change. Obviously he’s an expert in micromanagement and possesses an enviable aptitude for multitasking, because when he’s not overthrowing dictators, he’s stockpiling a lot of water for “Quantum”, a mysterious, international organisation that might or might not have been behind the blackmail of Bond’s beloved Vesper Lynd, the very thing that drove her to suicide. Our man is out for blood from the get-go, and ploughs through the ranks of Greene’s similarly nefarious cohorts with all the sucrose-infused gusto of a toddler let loose in Hamleys. He finally earns a showdown with the main man himself and rounds things off nicely by blowing up half of the Bolivian desert.

And that, in essence, is pretty much it. It all sounds like standard Bond material. But ‘Quantum of Solace’ is anything but a standard Bond film. ‘Quantum of Solace’ is a cinematic quandary. Some of the things it does work brilliantly. Some of the things it does fail miserably.

Firstly: the major failure. Although it’s the shortest Bond film to date, it’s also the one with the most action: loads of it. In fact, when the OED is next updated, the phrase “Quantum of Solace” should stand as the definition of the phrase “action-packed”. Unfortunately, this means that there’s little room for a comprehensible narrative, so ‘Quantum of Solace’ also ends up being the Bond movie with the flimsiest plot to date – which is saying rather a lot given the existence of ‘A View to a Kill’. This failure can rather obviously be traced to another JB, and another franchise.

On paper, Jason Bourne’s influence seems positive enough. Action sequences have become fast, physical and hyper-realistic affairs; the stunts are executed by performers in camera and on set, rather than against a green screen which later gets a CGI makeover or a character that’s wholly computer-generated. Major villains have become predominately cerebral and believable characters that love delegation, rather than demonstrably maniacal thugs – though their aspirations remain as diabolically nefarious as ever. Heroes have become psychologically three-dimensional; s/he has foibles, strengths, idiosyncrasies and a back-story: they are now human beings and not robotic hitmen.

Unfortunately, due to the “mine-is-bigger-than-yours” arena of the action film, the filmmakers believe that with each movie, they have to raise the spectacular quotient just to keep our attention…and raise it and raise it and raise it. ‘Quantum of Solace”s sensational spectacular action bar is therefore so damn high, it’s pushed the plot into cloud cuckoo land. Apparently storytelling isn’t as important as free-running stunt work and “look-no-non-diegetic-music” hand-to-hand scraps. The film feels like a carefully orchestrated sequence of set-pieces, and while these set-pieces truly are technically astounding, the film itself is therefore as hollow as a chocolate Easter bunny.

Of course it just might be that Marc Forster chose to employ an insanely thrilling visual style and chose to crank up the pacing to F1 speed to stylistically reinforce and elucidate Bond’s fractured psychological state (more on that later), but if he did, it’s really backfired.

The film is SO bombastic and SO visually overwhelming and SO spectacular that it’s impossible to follow what’s going on. And about twenty minutes in, you subconsciously realise you’ve got absolutely no idea where you are, why Bond is wearing someone else’s dinner jacket, why he’s messing about with a big plane and you instinctively engage “Popcorn-Movie” mode.

And that’s a real shame because Daniel Craig continues to impress as the indefatigable super spy. His immense physicality supersedes that of even Connery, and his wonderful, psychologically-nuanced work in the film’s very few contemplative moments, represents all of the heart that is to be found in the picture. The scene in which his friend Mathis is shot and Bond cradles his head while he dies is particularly touching. Of course, Bond then dispassionately slings the body into a skip with the quip, “He wouldn’t mind”, but that glimpse still remains one of the film’s better scenes.

And this duopoly in Craig’s Bond is easy to pin down. It’s a distillation of both Connery’s and Dalton’s take on the character; he’s physically formidable, emotionally frazzled, psychologically fragile, dark, brooding, bitter but can throw out a wisecrack when he needs to. And that’s pretty much how Fleming wrote him after all. If Craig keeps the standard this high, and indeed continues to evolve the character as majestically as he does here, he’s a contender to get tagged as “Best Bond Ever” – seriously.

On the other performances, Olga Kurylenko struggles with the underwritten Camille Montes and we have to endure her frantic tussles with a second and rather dull revenge plot. Gemma Arterton‘s straight-laced Agent Fields is barely worth mentioning at all; she has zero chemistry with Craig and zero percent more acting ability than a tree, while Mathieu Amalric is actually a particularly effective Dominic Greene. Many will complain that he’s nothing but a wimpish estate agent that does nothing more sinister than put up someone’s water rates, but as the methodical philanthropist, Amalric is suitably slimy and reprehensible. And let’s face facts here: Greene’s existence and master plan (so, y’know the whole movie really) is nothing more than an elaborate MacGuffin in the ongoing saga of (one) who the members of Quantum are (two) what Quantum wants and (three) how big an arse-kicking the members of Quantum are going to get when Bond catches up with them all in the threequel.

The film does get some things completely right though. Some fans will complain that ‘Quantum of Solace’ doesn’t feel like a proper Bond film. After all, where are the franchise staples of Q, the innuendos, the gadgets, the multiple sexual conquests etc? But as the film is a direct sequel to ‘Casino Royale’, certain elements have been quite rightly omitted.

Bond is, to all intents and purposes, a rogue agent, so why would the British government allow Q to hand over a load of fancy gizmos? Character-wise, Connery, Moore et al, inherited Bond as a seasoned 00 operative, whereas this is only Craig’s second mission: his Bond is still grieving for Vesper, and although the principal consequence of her betrayal and death is his development (actually disintegration) into the bitter, twisted, hard-drinking, wise-cracking and emotionless bastard that we all know and love, he’s obviously not feeling particularly cheery right now.

And of course you do get a few essentials thrown in: silly opening titles, a maniacal villain, an Aston Martin driven very fast, Felix Leiter, vodka martinis (seven of them in a row by my reckoning), and Bond taking his shirt off. There’s also the usual smattering of product placement (Virgin, Sony etc) which raises a wry smile, even if it doesn’t quite scale the dizzying heights that ‘Casino Royale’ did: Vesper: “Nice watch, Rolex?” Bond: “No, Omega”. I mean, Jesus…

Other plus points are the excellent handling of Bond / M’s frosty relationship, (he likens her to his Mother at one point), his penchant for killing suspects rather than incarcerating them, his nonchalant utilisation of his expense account (the hotel upgrade scene is laugh-out loud funny) and the fact that we get the proper recipe for that vodka martini.

There are also minor quibbles. Forster’s attempt to authenticate location titles by using regional fonts is both baffling and irritating. The forays into the M’s private life (and beauty regime) are particularly frivolous, and quite how Daniel Craig can beat up everyone in sight throughout the entire movie but is then subjected to a real whipping by a short, weedy property developer with boggling eyes and greasy hair is anyone’s guess.

So ‘Quantum of Solace’ really is a mixed bag. There probably is a decent plot in there somewhere, but it’s all but completely obscured by the explosions, the jumps, the fights, and the car chases. That said, it is popcorn entertainment of the highest quality and there’s no way you’ll ever get bored.

‘Casino Royale’ was just what the Bond franchise needed; to paraphrase Eva Green, a majestic kick up its not so perfectly formed arse, because it managed to combine an intelligent, realistic and enthralling plot with exceptionally well-executed action scenes, and it had a fantastic ensemble cast. It’s a shame that ‘Quantum of Solace’ has literally lost the plot a little.

But one shouldn’t lose all faith. With the elements of a majestic third-part conclusion to the Vesper Lynd revenge storyline now all present and correct and with Daniel Craig continuing to electrify as 007, there’s every chance the next instalment will be bigger and better than ever. We can only hope that the plot gets as much attention as the car chases do.

Episode 07: Back in Black

As you can tell by the new-fangled swanky logo and stuff, www.musosguide.com is reborn; reborn, rebooted, reinvigorated, re-energised and recharged. Over the coming days, weeks, months and years, a gaggle of writers old and new will strive to serve you up a heady cocktail of news, reviews, comment, opinion , analysis, fun, topicality and frolic; all wrapped up with a pink ribbon and squashed between two greasy yeasty buns. Sounds good, eh? You betcha.

Oh hang on – there is one exception – ‘ol muggins here. Although it’s been almost four years since my last column and I may well be four belt notches wider and four foreheads taller, I’m really still the same guy underneath. Darn. Yes, I am still a miserable bastard. Yes, I am still violently intent on dragging all and sundry (i.e. YOU) into my private hell. Yes, I still love pickled eggs. And yes, I still fancy Shirley Manson a little bit. You betcha.

So what’s happened in four years then – apart from the world going a bit mental? Not much really, agreed? The music scene swingometer (I am contractually obliged to state that this term is trademarked and Peter Snow gets 50p every time it’s printed) has whipped over to rock and indie, leaving poor pop starlets Britney and Ronan crying into their royalty cheques but bestowing upon metal Gods Slayer and Metallica, amongst others, a well deserved return to the limelight. (I mean the awesome Fucked Up were on the cover of NME for Christ’s sake.) But then music scenes are swings and roundabouts in any case, and as sure as the stubbled midget that hurls your waltzer about the place like Geoff Capes on smack is wearing stonewashed Pepe jeans and reeking of mince, you can rest easy in the knowledge that rave is due a triumphant return over the next couple of years and the world will once again embrace the Global Hypercolour t-shirt and wear its sweat with all the discernable pride of a Coldplay fan at an ‘I Love Cabbage’ convention. Rock and roll.

But enough with the hyperbolic preambles – let’s get right to the meat and two veg of this: What about me? What have I been up to? I mean it’s all about me after all – this is my bloody column. Let’s not get confused though; I’m in complete agreement with you if you’re one of those disillusioned musos that thinks journalistic values amongst music press hacks have been not just wholly lost, but buried in a muddy field in the middle of nowhere by a blindfolded goldfish who was then killed by The Musical Firm “just in case he squealed”.

It’s true that music criticism, nay criticism, nay journalism is in a sorry state. The current generation of writers seems to believe that their witterings should be about themselves rather than the subject they’re being paid to write about. The current generation of writers seems to believe that we all care whether they had red or brown sauce on their chips when they listened to the new Oasis album. The current generation of writers seems to believe that it’s crucial for them to impart details of the night that they spent rooting through the toolbox so they could tighten their skinny jeans to such a ridiculous degree that they now have to be wheeled around Hoxton because they can’t walk properly. This stuff is not important; it’s the subject matter that’s important, not the meaningless little fuckfests of existences that these jokers harp on about day in and day out. They need to do themselves a favour and either get some proper psychological therapy or get some really dark glasses and try playing Frogger for real on the Old Kent Road.

However, as ‘Ramblings from South London’ is a column rather than a review, I can do whatever the hell I like. So there…(puts hands in pockets, whistles a nothing tune and looks shifty hoping that he’s got away with a really stupid argument).

Actually, hang on a second. To be fair, I’ve been doing some research into this subject and it seems that most people are sick of interchangeable writers that sound off on institutional context and writing for the audience and all this kind of nonsense. And I wholeheartedly agree. Personality is what counts guys, not institution. I want to hear passion, nous, intellectualised opinion and well-grounded argument. I don’t want to hear someone try to argue that Girls Aloud is a great band because they all wear Jimmy Choo boots, okay? I don’t want to hear it if it’s been written in the oh-so-trendy style of being a little bit postmodern, throwing in a joke about He-Man (or some other Eighties cultural benchmark), dropping in a line about regional accents before wrapping it up by saying that it’s really, really catchy and “it’ll get your pointy shoes a-twitchin’”.

Where was I? Ah yes, what have I been up to? I mean I literally can hear you screaming the question with a palpable orgasmic glee and then wiping yourself down with a stale sock. It seems only fair that I should therefore endeavour to give satisfaction. Well…er…nowt. I’m still working for a living, still spending vast amounts of money on long deleted metal albums, still living in rooms in shared houses with people I don’t know, still ignoring my doctor’s advice and drinking far too much booze, still mastering the art of trying to stop myself from punching every shop keeper that says “You can take your card now” BECAUSE I CAN READ THE TEENY-TINY SCREEN MYSELF and still trying to come to terms with the fact that some people in this world actually like U2 and The Beatles: BUSINESS AS USUAL. Oh yeah, and ‘Quantum of Solace’ is a bit rubbish: FACT.

But let’s knock that shit on the head ’cause it’s depressing. Shit, the world is depressing – CREDIT CRUNCH – sounds like a cereal bar, stings like a bee, no? What the hell is wrong with the world? I mean look around – it’s all finally happening; the Devil is winning and he’s grinding the spiritual shamrock into the pavement as violently as Mickey Rourke kills a Marlboro with a Cuban-heeled boot. It’s all kicking off and it’s got me spooked. Oil prices are up, banks are busting, renewable energy is going nowhere (dimmable energy saving light bulbs aside), coal and gas are almost out, bread costs more than cocaine, kids are stabbing each other over the demise of Fruit Salads and Blackjacks, Justin Lee Collins can’t shut his bearded yokel mouth, Lance Armstrong can’t give up cheating for a living, London’s got Barmy Phungy Phipps for a Mayor, Paul Newman has died and Lewis Hamilton is a cheat: Life sucks huh? Yes, life fucking sucks – for all of us.

But don’t fear the reaper: I am here, here to soothe your furrowed brow. Think of me as a serene, calming, relaxing presence. Believe me, I can help you. I should be prescribed on the NHS. I can do good work. Why? Because my life is so awful that you can’t help but be invigorated by your own miserable existence, that’s why. You’ll believe your life to be akin to that of a king by the time I’m through with you. So sit down, take a deep breath, have a cup of tea and relax. Ready? Sure? Then let’s hit the road Jack…

Music-memory is what I’m here to talk about today. Or maybe I mean auditory-ocular emotional remembrance. Or maybe I mean self-reflexive synaptic imbibition. I mean I could go on all night, but I’m afraid I’d bore you to crocodile tears and you’d think that necking a bottle of gin and setting light to the toilet pan would be a good way to avoid my convoluted meandering. So in the end I guess I’ll just have to come clean and admit that all I’m really spouting about is how the digestion of aural and visual stimuli is affected by involuntary idiosyncratic emotive recall. Y’all follow? No?! Let me explain…

Every time, and I mean EVERY GODDAMN TIME I hear ‘Dancing in the Moonlight’ by Toploader blast out of the radio, my “brain” will process the following thoughts, in the following order, WITHOUT FAIL:

1. Oh man, this song is so shit and the lead singer has got some crazy-ass mop of bloody hair an’ all. In that video when he’s sat down thrashing the ivories, he looks like David Gray dressed up in a Sideshow Bob costume suffering multiple epileptic fits because he mixed ketamine with speed and poppers and then shoved a flesh-eating hamster up his arse.
2. It’s a shame this song is called ‘Dancing in the Moonlight’ though, ’cause that’s the title of a wicked Thin Lizzy record and that tune has got an absolutely sublime mid-section guitar solo in it as well. You wouldn’t get Jamie Oliver putting THAT on some poxy cooking music album would you?
3. And why in the name of God would I want to go into a supermarket and get a loaf of bread cut lengthways anyway? Just to make poncy breakfast sandwiches for friends I’ve paid to come round to a flat I don’t own to make me look popular, cool and trendy even though I’m doing a girl’s job? That’d make me look like a right idiot.
4. And what’s wrong with eating chips? Generations of Englishmen lived and died on chips. Wars were fought on chips. Wars were fought over chips. Didn’t Napoleon like chips or was that only in ‘Bill and Ted’? Chips are great. I love chips. And I rate fish fingers an’ all. Jamie-bloody-Oliver…
5. Yup, he’s a right dick.
6. Toploader are right bunch of dicks.
7. The DJ responsible for putting on this bloody record is the biggest dick of all.
8. (PAUSE)
9. I wish Nigella Lawson was sucking my dick right now.

I am not kidding.

So what am I saying – apart from that one of my greatest desires is to receive fellatio from a plump middle-aged cook with a man’s name? Well, I’m saying that the way we respond to particular songs, films, books, drinks, foods, sights, and smells is affected by private emotional recollections. Believe me, I KNOW this ain’t rocket science; it happens to us all. But it is a really interesting phenomenon, no? (It better be or this column is doomed…)

Sometimes it is undeniably great. My favourite movie, for example, is ‘Back to the Future’ (don’t quibble with me, you know it’s a frickin’ belter) and whenever I watch it (far too many times for the populace to ever believe me to be have a firm grasp on the kite trails of sanity), I’m always involuntarily transported, ‘Quantum Leap’-style to the first time I ever saw it.

It was Christmas Day (oh, and just in case you’re wondering I’m now sitting you on my knee and retrieving a crumpled bag of Werther’s Originals from my cocoa-stained pocket in an effort to keep you quiet…metaphorically speaking of course) and I was at my grandparent’s house, stretched out on the living room rug – the one right next to the gas fire that burns at precisely twelve thousand degrees centigrade and is used by NASA to test heat shield tiles. My arms and hands were acting as a makeshift facial tripod (and fireguard) and I was squinting at a very fuzzy wooden Hitachi television; one equipped with a cathode ray tube of such dubious quality that experiencing anything approaching accurate colour reproduction was as likely as browsing through my grandparent’s record collection and discovering a well worn copy of Slayer’s majestic ‘Reign in Blood’. Honestly, for years I thought that snooker was played by malformed giants armed with pole vaults whom ran amok on an ice hockey rink whilst speaking Esperanto incredibly fast.

And so then that little BBC globe thing slowly materialised into view and then that voice, you know the one that was so rich and so deep and so velvety that you believed that if you pushed a strawberry into the television screen it would come back half-covered in Belgian chocolate and smelling of champagne, announced that the Christmas film was about to start; probably something along the lines of “And now on BBC1, it’s the Christmas Day film. Michael J Fox stars as the modern high school kid stuck in Hill Valley 1955 and literally running out of time to make sure his parents get it together – just so he can get…back to the future”.

This. Was. Amazing.

From that moment on I just got thrill after thrill after thrill: the huge amplifier exploding, the skateboarding-whilst-hanging-onto-the-back-of-a-4X4, Huey Lewis & The News, the girlfriend (Jennifer for the uninitiated (read: stupid)), the prom band try-outs, the Delorean; I mean by the time those fire trails blazed across the screen, my ears and eyes had literally melted off…and I don’t mean because of the gas fire. It truly was a childhood-defining experience.

And so whenever I watch that movie, a little piece of me meanders (gently stroking the autumnal leaves) back to that weird old house; the ridiculous paisley carpet, the thick green rug that smells of a wet coat, the Genoa fruitcake that I couldn’t eat until I’d picked all the cherries out, the lukewarm cans of Shandy Bass, dog-eared Mills & Boon novels and the two pounds of pocket money that sat on the dresser shelf; the shelf above the biscuit tin that was stuffed with gigantic bars of Dairy Milk and Galaxy chocolate but teased me like a rapidly melting Pyramint because due to my grandfather’s predilection for stupidly tight elastic bands, it was as impregnable as Fort Knox at Bikini alert.

I’m sure you’ve got your own happy memories of movies, books and songs too. Perhaps when you bumped into your (now) long-time partner, you were shuffling down the street listening to ‘You Shook Me All Night Long’ by AC/DC and now that is ‘Your Song’, (Simon Bates gets naff all every time that’s printed by the way). Perhaps you were sat in a cinema next to a stranger and half-way through the movie, you both went for the armrest at the same time, and before you knew what was happening, your eyes had locked, your mouth was doing that embarrassingly weird half-smile thing that makes you look like a nutter and your cheeks had turned the colour of China’s political system – AND as a consequence ‘Funny Games’ is now ‘Your Film’. Maybe you had an argument that raged like a hurricane for an age before finally blowing itself out, and as you gently kissed away the tears, Dale Winton’s ‘Pick of the Pops’ threw up ELO’s ‘Livin’ Thing’ and the world suddenly kicked back onto its axis and life returned to some sort of normality. Perhaps…maybe…whatever…

It’s a damn shame to have to say it, but in the words of Bobby De Niro, there’s a flipside to that coin. And guess what? It ain’t a real happy one.

One of my most favourite songs in the world was (past tense you’ll notice) ‘A Sorta Fairytale’ by Tori Amos, from the album ‘Scarlet’s Walk’. Let’s not get into a critical debate about Amos right now; suffice to say that she is generally pretty great, though she lost her edge a little when she settled down, got all happy and made babies and stuff. Why can’t exceptional singer-songwriters just stay cynical, wretched singletons for all eternity? Anyhow, let’s just focus on the fact that I cannot listen to that song ever again. I just can’t. It is forever tainted.

There are break-up songs and there are BREAK-UP SONGS. Some songs have been written with those specific ‘break-up’ emotions in mind; ‘You’re Not Drinking Enough’ by Don Henley for example; ‘Against All Odds’ by Phil Collins; ‘Life Goes On’ by Poison; ‘Last Goodbye’ by Jeff Buckley or ‘Always’ by Bon Jovi – these are songs that are about pain, emptiness, yearning, wanting, needing, loving and all that heinous stuff – even if at least one of those I’ve mentioned is absolutely frightful (it’s up to you to guess – answers on an e-postcard – or, y’know – just wait until the end of this article). But at least they have a purpose, a raison d’être.

‘A Sorta Fairytale’ however was mine own fault entire, even if lyrically it’s kinda (sorta) in the right ballpark. Here’s a tip: If you are ever going to break up with someone or if someone breaks up with you, or if you have to say a painful goodbye to someone forever – or anything remotely like this occurs – please ensure that the first song you play afterwards is (a) not romantic in any way, shape or form and (b) something that you really, really despise. My suggestion stems from the conclusion that forever more you will associate that song with that experience.

God/Fate/Kenny Loggins must’ve been feeling particularly saucy that day. After a…hmm…how shall I say…swift yet awkward settling of affairs (all of my own doing because, y’know, I’m an idiot), I decided to get the fuck out of dodge and head swiftly back to the quagmire of beer, pickles, deleted REO Speedwagon albums and Eighties TV DVD boxsets that epitomises my existence. Unfortunately I didn’t plan ahead, and when embarking on the return journey, I made the monumental mistake of not flipping the old iPod to something either mind-bendingly awful (Christopher Rea), almost spiritually heinous (U2), or just plain bloody rubbish (Arcade Fire); y’know, something that might have made me laugh in disbelief or snigger or hit walls with my bare fists or roll my eyes in despair and kick concrete bollards. It just would have better than happening upon a belter of a tune – and one that’s a bit romantic – and walking down the road almost dumbstruck in desperation.

That song now has the power to reduce me to a jibbering, jabbering wreck of a man whom permanently looks as if he’s accidentally dropped his last Munchie into a dirty puddle and then watched a traffic warden defecate on it, laugh manically, spark a Monte Cristo Number Two and blow smoke into the face of midget tramp with no legs. No, it just didn’t work out for me. I just hit the “Play” button without thinking about it, popped the headphones on and took Tori full fucking bore.

And so ‘A Sorta Fairytale’ is now criminally reduced to the same status as that of Crowded House’s ‘Distant Sun’, the song that was playing when I broke up with that chick at school over the telephone (I know, I know, I was desperately cruel – I mean Crowded House really are unspeakably awful – WHAT WAS I THINKING?!), and that is bloody unacceptable. But, I only have myself to blame.

I could have switched it off when I was halfway up the road of course (damage limitation mode), or maybe as soon as it snuck on and I realised what was going to happen (damage removal mode) but I couldn’t – I was addicted (damaged like an arse-head mode). It was an aural-emotional smack in the chops and I couldn’t help myself. I guess it was also an undeniably sadomasochistic act (I’m paging the guys in white coats as I type), but then that’s just how my mind works.

And it’s a sad, sad fact that if you play that song to me now, a thousand yard stare will creep across my baby blues, my hands will begin to gently tremble and I’ll do that thing that actors playing villains in movies do and bite down on my own teeth really hard so it looks like I’ve got an evil face. On particularly desperate occasions, you might see a tear roll down my cheek – right on that final minor lift chorus, the one that really just slays me every goddamn time. Pretty miserable, huh? You betcha.

But would I change this wretched state of affairs if I could? Not a chance. Losing that one song is gonna be worth it in the long run, because as the chord changes, cadences, bass lines, keyboard licks and Tori’s beautifully cracked vocals dribble gently through the half-blocked holes of the colander of time, so the memories of that day – and of that girl go with them. And I think that this can be only a good thing. Life is short – or, if you’re me, life IS a short, and there are many bottles of Jack Daniels left to conquer. All I’ve really lost is one song. And, y’know, it wasn’t even ‘Meals on Wheels’ by Vic Reeves.

However, even though I’ve now come to accept this situation, I have taken steps to ensure that it won’t ever happen again. I’ve only got a limited number of favourite songs after all, and there’s only so much one heart can take. So what have I done? I’ve uploaded Chris Rea’s ‘The Road to Hell’ AND Norah Jones’s ‘Come Away with Me’. I’m all set, and I advise you to go and do likewise, ladies and gentlemen. BE PREPARED.

And that’s it. I’m off to pan the record shops of Soho for gold. I thank you for your patience and hope that you enjoy your new Musos Guide.

POP QUIZ ANSWER

‘Last Goodbye’ by Jeff Buckley is quite obviously the odd one out because it’s whining melancholic twaddle. I mean that guitar solo in Poison’s ‘Life Goes On’? That there is poetry my friends…heartbreakin’ fucking poetry…

Bruce Springsteen: The Boss. Too often (and wrongly) identified with overtly Reagan-esque allegiances after the release of 1984’s patriotic ‘Born In The U.S.A.’, 2004’s Springsteen occupies the enviable position as charity benefactor, political spokesman, philosopher and damn him I’ll say it – icon.

His two most recent albums of new material, 1995’s The Ghost of Tom Joad and 2002’s The Rising received glittering accolades across the board and as they followed a relatively quiet and contemplative decade, were seen as a superb return to form. Moreover, the recent release of a hits package, The Essential Bruce Springsteen and reunion concerts with The E Street Band have further fuelled the Springsteen renaissance (and reappraisal).

Often (and again wrongly) associated with the Meatloaf/Steinman school of sweaty operatic rock ‘n’ roll, Springsteen’s 1970’s and early 1980’s records remain simple, succinct and awe-inspiringly good. Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. and The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle are beautifully raw albums full of fiery enthusiasm and mischievous fun.

And great as they are to listen to as complete works, it’s also easy to spot Springsteen’s burgeoning talent and maturity as a songwriter. Tracks such as ’4th Of July Asbury Park (Sandy)’, ‘Growin’ Up’, ‘For You’ and ‘Spirit In The Night’ are fantastic and timely documents.

His breakthrough album Born To Run (with it’s great title track and fan favourite Thunderoad) brought world-wide success to the all-American blue-collar hero, originally touted as a successor to Bob Dylan but now the irrepressible face of rock ‘n’ roll.

While Born To Run and even Born In The U.S.A. are regularly touted by critics as his most accomplished works, Springsteen is never better than when recording material at his most disillusioned and melancholy. One such album, Darkness On The Edge Of Town remains the glittering jewel in Springsteen’s crown.

Released two years after Born To Run, Darkness On The Edge Of Town represents Springsteen’s first move from predominantly upbeat and at its worst, bittersweet material to that of genuine sorrow, depression and anger. It’s his first album as a grown-up.

Badlands sets up an unfamiliar tone. It’s an upbeat tune, a classic Springsteen rocker in fact, but its lyrics immediately reveal the journey Springsteen has taken and how much he has aged since Born To Run and ‘Thunderoad’. There’s no immediate running away or steaming down the highway in a Chevy to solve all his problems – he’s stuck in the badlands, “caught in a crossfire that I don’t understand”.

This reconsidered escapological theme is recapitulated in ‘The Promised Land’ and ‘Racing In The Street’. Their focus on the mundane day-to-day life of blue-collar America, rather than the imagined utopia lying in wait mark them as progressive contemplations – Springsteen’s attention is now firmly concentrated on deconstructing the environment he once wrote about escaping from. It’s as if he’s decided that it’s time to re-examine the man and artist that he is by investigating his roots and imagining the lives of those he left behind, (perhaps including the one he himself might have had).

Springsteen’s greatest strength remains his blue-collar background and the accessibility that it carries. If traditional blues represented a means of expression for black slaves working in the fields of the deep south, Springsteen’s brand of rock ‘n’ roll does the same for the blue-collar American – at least in a lyrical sense. His music, conversely, is massively influenced by R&B, Motown and early rock n’ roll (just as Elvis Presley’s) and the fusion with familiar working class tales of craved hegira, monotonous hard labour and industrial town life creates a heady mixture – great music and lyrical integrity

Factory is a prime example of Springsteen’s ability to tap into the psyche of his audience and of the lyrical themes mentioned above. A literal commentary on his father’s working life, it’s not only a tale of monotonous survival but also the derogatory effects it produces.

Both physical side effects – “Factory takes his hearing, factory gives him life/the working, the working, just the working life” and psychological – “Men walk through these gates with death in their eyes/And you just better believe boy/Somebody’s gonna get hurt tonight” are tackled in a delicate Country flavoured ballad that remains the most beautiful tune on the album.

Adam Raised a Cain tosses the listener straight into a quagmire of paternal angst, a subject Springsteen knew much about after his own troubled childhood. As with the rest of the album it’s guitar heavy from the opening two-note strum to the stinging middle section solo. Though there’s little room for the jangly piano solos and jazzy saxophones of Born To Run, both instruments remain prominent but restrained both by Springsteen’s voice and guitar. This polished but bare arrangement coupled with Springsteen’s pained and visceral voice screaming “Lost but not forgotten/From the dark heart of a dream/Adam raised a Cain,” emphasises the depth of Springsteen’s bottled up anger – which comes spewing out almost uncontrollably.

Something In The Night and Streets Of Fire find Springsteen at his most reflective and desolate. He is without hope in both: crushed by others in the former and by himself in the latter – and can’t find resolution or hope in either, with flight giving way to resignation and acceptance.
Prove It All Night is a great toe-tapper, featuring one of Springsteen’s best guitar solos. Although the album features more guitar-based tracks than his previous three, Prove It All Night proves Springsteen’s talent as a great musician beyond doubt. Don’t get me wrong, he’s no Rory Gallagher or Jimmy Hendrix but his thin and delicate solo fits perfectly, teetering on the brink of collapse after a typically robust sax solo from Clarence Clemons. Max Weinberg’s drumming is excellent too – full of inventive fills and rolls that propel the song forward at a brisk pace. Lyrically it’s an evocative, escapist ramble and perhaps the closest Springsteen comes to optimism on the album.

The title track endures as one of Springsteen’s best tunes and vocal performances – it remains a highlight of his live act too and judging by his own on-stage response, he obviously still gets a kick out of performing it. It closes this album magnificently and on a strangely euphoric note, which is unsettling in view of the resolutely dispirited and broken relationship it depicts. It’s also a great track for highlighting Roy Bittan’s skill on the piano, which supports Springsteen’s gravelly voice, but never threatens to overpower it or get too fiddly.

While Springsteen’s next album The River would hit big with audiences, Darkness On The Edge Of Town remains the one that first revealed the darker side of The Boss. Springsteen would revisit the themes tackled in Darkness with the raw and irredeemably cold-hearted Nebraska and the folk and Country inflected The Ghost Of Tom Joad. For me however, Darkness On The Edge Of Town remains the most piquant of the three. While the latter albums musically reflect the subjects tackled, Darkness retains Springsteen’s basic rock ‘n’ roll sound, while bolting hard-wedged lyrics onto the frame, personifying the passion magnificently.

Darkness On The Edge Of Town remains an essential purchase for any burgeoning Springsteen fan. It sounds remarkably fresh for a record over twenty-five years old and as with traditional American blues, the issues it endeavours to dissect matter as much today as they ever did.

If you’re a newcomer to Bruce Springsteen, do yourself a favour; after you’ve bought the Best Of… album – put Darkness On The Edge Of Town next on your list. Get to know your Boss.

The Clash inspired countless articles within the realm of music journalism during the punk period and due to the tragic death of frontman Joe Strummer, the contemporary mainstream press deemed it necessary to pay tribute to both him and their musical legacy.

The impetus behind the writing of this article is not merely to lament the death of Strummer but rather appraise the enduring influence and relevance of The Clash in this contemporary age of vacuum-packed sing-along pop stars and mass consumerism.

Quite simply, The Clash remains the last band to have mattered. Or perhaps, if that is too hard to swallow, the last band to have mattered so much. Their combination of musical progressiveness, lyrical integrity, the eschewing of the studio suits, the loyalty to their fans and continual refusal to sell-out even after Strummer’s death (so far) make them the most important band England has ever produced. After such a pretentious sentence, you might be wondering how qualified I am to argue their case. Well, it seems I’ve rumbled myself: I’m only 24, and merely a twinkle in my father’s eye when Strummer and co. were tearing up London clubs. But why should this matter? Do we refute the opinion of classical music journalists just because they weren’t around to hear Mozart conduct The Marriage of Figaro? Not a bit of it, so let’s not proceed down this murky and inconsequential path as to be honest, I’ll beat ya.

Perhaps music’s greatest assets are longevity and accessibility – music surrounds us, it shouts from the radio, television, movie theatre, stereo and the games console. Whether it’s played on a knackered out of tune guitar on the dirtiest street corner or bellowed by a fat Italian on stage at the Royal Opera House, music deeply affects us all. It can compound or change how you feel, it saddens or excites, deconstructs or mythologises and in some cases all of these within a few short minutes. The Clash are one of the few bands that have come to encapsulate these feelings and more for me. Although their music is was recorded in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the beauty of it is that I can relate my life to it in 2003. You can choose to believe this or not and I’m certainly not going to wrestle your head to The Clash’s or my own grindstone, but if you’ve read this much you can do me a favour and read the rest and let me try and convince you.

Upon Joe Strummer’s death, critics and associates unanimously adulated a band that came to define the punk epoch of the late 1970s and influence generations of groups to come. Strummer’s unfortunately pallid exit (he died of a genetic heart condition after walking his dogs) contradicted the urgent and energetic presence of The Clash, though seemed a melancholy parody of the band’s own whimpering demise in the mid 1980s.

Many people unfamiliar with The Clash began to question Strummer’s unprecedented but justifiable mourning in print, on radio and on television. Why were The Clash and Strummer so important? Weren’t they just playing second fiddle to the foul-mouthed Sex Pistols? Wasn’t punk merely a short-lived, angry rebellion against capitalist culture? Just what was their influence, if any?

Punk was rooted in the U.S. before Britain, specifically England made it its own. Counter-culture bands including The Velvet Underground, Iggy Pop, The Ramones, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, MC5 and The New York Dolls promoted the sybaritic and rebellious punk scene as a potent reaction to the stale musical masturbation inherent in 70s progressive rock and indeed 70s disco culture. It was only a matter of time before the movement travelled East to the wastelands of London, at the time cruelly infested with Yes, Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Peter Frampton. (Please note that Led Zeppelin is not to be included here – well, the first five albums anyway).

Malcolm McLaren‘s Sex Pistols became a primordial but ephemeral focal point of England’s punk scene, specialising in brutal sonic assaults with abundant snarling attitude. Although they would violently introduce punk to the masses through their appearance on The Grundy Show in 1977, their lyrics were simplistic, rebellious diatribes designed not to actively comment on or deconstruct 1970s society but merely attack it and antagonise the populous. This was punk in its purest and most disorganised form and the Pistols gave the genre the necessary kick-start it needed. Their emphasis on confrontational insurrection made the papers but didn’t attempt to purposefully reappraise the capitalist interests the tabloids represented. The lyrics of ‘Anarchy In The UK’ and ‘God Save The Queen’, although undeniably passionate now seem to be evanescent and unfocussed.

The Clash appeared soon after the Pistols in 1976. Joe Strummer had watched Rotten & co support his own R & B group, The 101ers and, appropriately invigorated wanted to follow their lead. Manager Bernie Rhodes, a rival of Malcolm McLaren was seeking to usurp the Pistols’ enviable position as the nuclei of UK punk and invited Strummer to join his new outfit after he, guitarist Mick Jones and bassist Paul Simonon had seen him play with The 101ers. After Strummer accepted the offer, he, Jones, Simonon, third guitarist Keith Levine and an ever-changing rota of drummers were unleashed on the punk fraternity.

The impact of The Clash on the punk scene was immediate. Songs like ‘Career Opportunities’, (written about the lack of meaningful employment) and ‘White Riot’ (an often misunderstood deconstruction of the Notting Hill Carnival riots), combined Jones’ fast, loud and angry guitar sound with Strummer’s recondite social commentary. The Clash introduced specific politics to punk, from daily gripes about squatting and having to sign on the dole to their use of amphetamines and the complex social issues in regard to getting condoms out of machines in pub toilets.

Detractors, in particular Johnny Rotten, viewed Strummer with malicious scorn. He was depicted by many as an utterly erroneous and constructed character, due in part to the fake cockney accent Strummer was liable to engage and the public knowledge of his public school upbringing. But in retrospect, who was better placed to impugn the system than a disillusioned alumnus? Although during interviews, the band were prone to contradict previous statements and bend the truth a little, (Strummer lied about his age until 1979), the ferocious passion in their attacks on the government, social issues and mainstream culture overshadowed their posturing and previous backgrounds. As Lester Bangs surmised after accompanying them on the Get Out Of Control tour in 1977, “Joe Strummer is a fake…The Clash are authentic because their music carries such a brutal conviction, not because they’re Noble Savages.”

After extensive touring, the band signed to CBS in January 1977 to the initial dismay of the fans. Mark Perry, editor of the punk fanzine Sniffin’ Glue was famously apocalyptic. His line, “Punk died the day The Clash signed to CBS” epitomised the betrayal felt within the scene. Until this point, The Clash had remained their beloved private property. Relevant social issues were tackled like no other group, the fans were treated as equals and the band remained true to the values of the counter-culture, (Strummer and Simonon squatted, while Jones remained living in his grandmother’s tower block flat). While The Clash saw the chance signing to a major label as an opportunity to reach a larger audience, the fans felt cheated and fearful that the band would relinquish its ideals in pursuit of financial reward. Thankfully their fears were unfounded as the arrival of their first album proved, recorded after the departure of Levine and entrance of drummer Terry Chimes.

A ferocious musical and lyrical attack on the social establishment, it remains the essential document of the era. From the thudding bass and scratchy guitar of ‘Janie Jones’, the rebel rousing ‘London’s Burning’ and the band’s aforementioned live anthem, ‘White Riot’, the album’s musical and lyrical vitriol is matched only by its consistency. Each track is an astounding vignette of disillusioned underclass life set against the urban decay of the 1970s. While not all the songs are as outwardly political as ‘London’s Burning’ or ‘White Riot’, songs like ‘Protex Blue’ and ‘Cheat’ are often humorous snapshots of the day-to-day concerns of the residents of the deprived suburbs.

Mark Perry summed up the fan’s response to the album in his review for Sniffin’ Glue. “IT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ALBUM EVER RELEASED. IT’S AS IF I’M LOOKING AT MY LIFE IN A FILM.”

Due to the success of the album within the fraternity and the flawlessly timed disintegration of the Sex Pistols, The Clash were propelled to their rightful place at the forefront of the punk scene. Bands including Stiff Little Fingers and the Undertones had followed their political lead transforming the clique into one of relatively organised and contemplative rebellion. Two of The Clash’s most adventurous songs from the period were written just after the release of the album and one as a direct result of its treatment by CBS.

‘Complete Control’ remains the band’s most lyrically audacious song, a scathing verbal attack on CBS for defying the band’s wish to release ‘Janie Jones’ as their first single. Mick Jones, (who wrote both the music and lyrics) sums up the relationship in one angry couple: “They said we’d be artistically free when we signed the bit of paper/They meant let’s make a lotta money and worry about it later.” With Jones’ vitriolic sentiments bolted to a pounding rock anthem, the song remains the best song ever written about a band’s betrayal by corporate bosses.

Strummer’s magnificent ‘White Man in Hammersmith Palais’, (still my favourite Clash song) was written about visiting the venue to watch a night of reggae acts and finding himself to be the only white member of the audience. It features an impassioned vocal by Strummer and his trademark second beat guitar strum.

The Clash toured extensively after the release of the album. Terry Chimes, unpersuaded by the band’s political stance made his apologies and Nicky ‘Topper’ Headon became the permanent drummer. The fans eagerly awaited the follow-up but were disappointed with the resulting Give ‘Em Enough Rope, released in November 1978.

Most critics attack Blue Oyster Cult producer Sandy Pearlman for his uninspired knob twiddling efforts, but the blame should be equally laid at the song writing duo. The album starts promisingly enough with booming rock tracks ‘Safe European Home’, ‘Tommy Gun’ and ‘English Civil War’, the latter being a reworking of a popular folk melody.

However, ‘Julie’s In The Drug Squad’, ‘Stay Free’ and ‘Last Gang In Town’ are incongruous inclusions. Jones’ penchant for more mainstream compositions and affectionate lyrics are often at odds with Strummer’s die-hard political sensibilities and overall, Give ‘Em Enough Rope never feels coherent or comfortable. Strummer also, is far from his best. ‘Safe European Home’ is a nostalgic evocation of his and Jones’ experiences in Jamaica at best, while ‘English Civil War’ is a loosely politicised contemporary harangue. There is an absence of the energetic condemnation of contemporary society that was the core of the previous album.

Unsurprisingly, Give ‘Em Enough Rope received distinctly lukewarm reviews. The Clash were now sounding more like a polished and refined rock outfit where they were once abrasive and piquant. Pearlman’s bombastic production buries Strummer’s wails beneath Jones’ multi-layered guitars and it remains unknown exactly how much of Simonon’s bass playing was replaced. While The Clash still remained a powerful live act, (as recordings of ‘Tommy Gun’ and ‘Safe European Home’ testify) the album as a whole is a lacklustre chapter in their story.

The Clash did tour successfully after the release of Give ‘Em Enough Rope. 1979 would see a U.S. tour (the Pearl Harbour ’79 tour) and they remain one of the few British acts to have seduced the American audience. Their next album (with which the band would remain synonymous) incorporated their love of all things Yankee and transported them miles from their West London roots.

London Calling, released in late 1979 was a triumphant congregation of The Clash’s musical diversity. Acknowledging Strummer’s R & B affiliation, Simonon’s reggae influences, Jones’ rock n’ roll upbringing and Headon’s soul ‘chops’ (as Strummer would have it), the album sparkles with inventiveness and passion. Their fusion with Strummer’s politicised speeches, a heavy dose of self-mythologising attitude and the successful collaboration with producer Guy Stevens, culminate in the album for which The Clash would always been remembered. Furthermore, The Clash remained true to their value for money ethic, forcing CBS to release the double album for the standard price of a single, taking a huge cut in royalties.

The title track is, of course the best known on the album. Many critics focus on Strummer’s apocalyptic lyrics of the Thames bursting it banks and flooding the capital, while ignoring Mick Jones’ contribution as arranger. His multi-layered guitars create a rich tapestry, abrasive yet, in unison, they are undeniably burnished. It is also impossible to listen to the track without visualising the accompanying video of the band playing in the pouring rain on the Thames.

The rest of the 19-track album remains an astonishing mix of musical and lyrical adventurousness. From ‘Jimmy Jazz”s laid-back skiffle rock to the majestic ska of ‘Rudie Can’t Fail’ and the dub-reggae of ‘The Guns of Brixton’, the album travels further away from the generic tenets of punk and into unchartered territory.

As musicians, the members of The Clash were undeniably at the top of their game. Headon’s intuitive drumming and Simonon’s much improved bass playing intensify Jones’ elegant guitar. Simonon’s ‘Guns of Brixton’, although not as lyrically astute as Strummer’s mélanges, is undeniably evocative and his bass line is just too damn catchy for words. Jones remained the romantic of the band and the undisclosed ‘Train in Vain’ was his most blatant love song yet. It was a hit in the States but is notable only for highlighting Jones’s thin, reedy voice and leaving you yearning for Strummer’s gravel filtered yowl. Jones is, however, perfectly suited to singing Strummer’s beautiful ‘Lost in the Supermarket’, a song he wrote for Jones, imagining his life growing up in a West London tower block.

Elsewhere, the tracks become more eclectic but remain exceptional. Stevens apparently hypnotised Strummer into writing ‘The Right Profile’, a song about movie star Montgomery Clift, while ‘Death or Glory’, ‘The Four Horsemen’ and ‘I’m Not Down’ are as humorous and self-obsessed as The Clash could be.

There are, of course weaker tracks on the album. ‘Koka Kola’, ‘The Card Cheat’ and ‘Lover’s Rock’, are of a similar quality as the worst tracks on Give ‘Em Enough Rope but the magnificence of the rest of the album, including the cover of Vince Taylor’s ‘Brand New Cadillac’ more than recompenses the listener.

Significantly, Strummer began to focus (minimally) on international political issues, as well as domestic ones. ‘Spanish Bombs’ tackles the Spanish Civil War and sets the scene for successive albums. London Calling was released on the U.S.A. in January of 1980 and became Rolling Stone‘s Album of the 80s. America had tapped into The Clash’s working class mentality and most importantly their deep appreciation and re-evaluation of American music. Strummer always maintained that only in America did the audience get what The Clash was about. With London Calling, The Clash’s love of Americana, reggae and of course punk was never more evident and their influences were thrown into the cauldron. The Clash’s pop sensibilities had been sharpened by the success of Train In Vain and the album also reiterated their affection for soul, jazz and R&B. Their awesome stage presence, self-mythology and rock n’ roll attitude enamoured them to the more hard-line rockers too.

It seemed that The Clash had come to accept who they were, what they did and why they did it. However, the constant pressure from their record company, particularly the interference and tendency to exploit the fans was beginning to show. The need to extricate themselves from the oppressive CBS contract (they had signed a disguised multi-album deal) persuaded them to make the truly epic Sandinista! in 1980. A triple album for the price of a single was always going to interesting, especially on the back of London Calling. This time though, it was probably about two discs too many.

There are (as always) moments of brilliance on the album. ‘The Magnificent Seven’, (Strummer’s venture into rap) is a hilarious swipe at the typical working day, although quite what The Clash knew about normality and the typical remains elusive. ‘The Call Up’ is a melodic, thumping beast of a song tackling military service, while the frankly hilarious ‘Charlie Don’t Surf’ was obviously inspired by the band’s favourite film at the time, ‘Apocalypse Now’. This is strangely ironic, as the film became known as Apocalypse When? as Francis Ford Coppola struggled to finish his epic masterpiece. Sandinista! should have been called Apocalypse When…Will It Stop? There are truly awful songs on the album. ‘The Sound of the Sinners’, ‘Broadway’ and ‘Junkie Slip’ are obvious examples and one does wish that when The Clash were recording ‘Let’s Go Crazy’, they had simply said ‘Let’s Go Home’.

Similarly, the entirety of side 6 is uniformly terrible. However, as Strummer has recounted in interviews, the audacity of project itself is what is important here. The Clash recorded so much material in so little time was bound to contravene quality control and it is possible to assemble a truly great single disc album from this gargantuan beast. Also, the best tracks are usually included on the many compilation albums that have appeared over the years so you don’t have to listen to it if you don’t want to. After this critical and commercial setback, The Clash were to hit back in style with their biggest album to date, particularly in the U.S.A. – Combat Rock.

While the album lacks the quality that permeates London Calling and the first album, Combat Rock is at least consistent and sustained in terms of tone. In terms of quality, however, it’s anything but. The Clash had gone back to basics with political songs such as ‘Know Your Rights’, which tackled the government’s scant regard for personal liberties, while ‘Ghetto Defendant’ confronted heroin addiction and tower block isolation, (a Clash whipping boy). Elsewhere, the album contains humorous and upbeat material that reminds one of those capricious moments on both London Calling and Sandinista! ‘Rock the Casbah’ is a witty commentary on the ban of Western music by the Ayatollah Khomeini – with a funky bassline and jangly piano.

‘Should I Stay Or Should I Go?’ is a typical Jones rocker (later used in a Levi’s advertisement) and ‘Car Jamming’ is at least a fun track even if its about nothing in particular. The truly wonderful ‘Straight To Hell’ is by far the album’s best song. Written about the illegitimate offspring of an American G.I. and a Vietnamese mother, this is by far one of Strummer’s overtly political songs and also one of his most brutal. Set to a bossa nova drum, he doesn’t flinch away from the topic for a second – “let me tell you about your blood, bamboo kid/it ain’t Coca-Cola, it’s rice”.

Following on from London Calling and Sandinista!, Strummer was now vehemently grinding the global political axe, as well as the domestic one. ‘Know Your Rights’ still feels as if it could have appeared on their first album (if it were roughed-up a little), such are the references to police service corruption, benefits and free speech. ‘Straight To Hell’ could not have appeared anywhere but Combat Rock – Strummer’s lethargic delivery echoing the band’s spirit at the time. As Strummer himself has admitted, the band was exhausted from their tour of the U.S.A. and should have rested. As it was, they were tired of the road, the rock-n-roll life and most importantly, of each other. After Headon’s heroin addiction became undeniably intrusive and Jones had morphed into the archetypal rock-n-roll prima donna, Strummer and Simonon called time on both of them.

Although Strummer and Simonon recruited new members and released Cut The Crap (only one song was decent – ‘This Is England’ and who knows just what Bernie Rhodes did on the album) without Headon and particularly Jones, the Clash were gone and were never to return. The new line-up was disbanded soon after. In the post-Clash years, Jones started Big Audio Dynamite, Strummer started acting, Simonon started painting and Headon started a prison sentence. Still pretty rock-n-roll, if you ask me.

More seriously, the influence of The Clash is evident in much of the rock music from the late 1980s to the present day. Rage Against the Machine acknowledge Strummer in their sleeve notes, and upon his death, politically active contemporaries such as Billy Bragg, Bob Geldof and (loathe as I am to mention his name, Bono) acknowledged his importance and enduring moralistic stance. Their musical power is manifest in the music of not only the current crop of nu-punk/metal bands, such as Rancid, Green Day, The Offspring, No Doubt and Sum 41 but has also infiltrated most other guitar based sounds.

While many other bands freely acknowledge The Clash’s influence, none has had the courage to follow the overt and particularly domestic political stance. While Chumbawamba (who inexplicably are seen as a political group) threw water in the face of John Prescott, you know they’re secretly loving the fact that a shit record such as ‘Tubthumping’ has bolstered their pension plans very-nicely-indeed-thank-you-very-much.

Rancid, in particular, may sound a bit like The Clash and at the same time nothing like them at all. The Clash, in particular Strummer, followed their political ideals to the end, refusing to relinquish the very thing that had made them such an important group. If you want to argue that Strummer was an ex-public schoolboy who adopted a working class mentality, you are missing the point of The Clash. Listen to Lester Bangs and not me when he says whatever their background, it’s the material that counts – what they say, feel and proclaim. This is what makes a difference, not telling tales on the singer just because his dad was a diplomat. Listen to what he says about politics, the system and the world – then tell me he’s wrong.

In terms of the nu-metal and quasi-punk bands (don’t even get me f***ing started on Busted, as they are quite blatantly neither of these), these imbeciles forget that Strummer’s lyrics were just as important as Jones’ chords. Modern nu-punk/metal bands have taken the 3-minute punk musical formula, specifically Jones’ abrasive and clipped guitars and pasted facile lyrics about trips to the Circle K to get munchies or beautiful honeys over the top. This is not what punk bands and especially The Clash were about. You can argue that it’s irony and post modernist opinion, impugning today’s transient society but frankly you’d be talking such rubbish, it wouldn’t even be out of your own arse, it would be out of Tony Blackburn’s.

The Clash stood for free speech, human rights and personal freedom. Detractors will argue that they lost sight of their resolute political stance after the first album, but Strummer’s lyrics follow a palpable and progressive pattern. Domestic issues (‘London’s Burning’) gave rise to global ones, (‘Spanish Bombs’) and he later mastered irony and self-depreciation while maintaining political verve, (‘The Magnificent Seven’). For example, the lyrics from The Clash are far more earnest, simplistic and angry than on London Calling or Combat Rock. However, the latter two albums demonstrate an appreciation and understanding of the problems rather than focussed, raw aggression, (although this is not a criticism). To use ‘Straight to Hell’ as an example again, this could not have been written by the 1977 Strummer. He had to grow into his role as commentator and political antagonist. Jones’ music is at once beautiful and seductive but pierced by Strummer’s lyrical attacks.

And so to a conclusion. I can’t merely call The Clash the only band that mattered, as many have mattered over the years. However, The Clash is the band that has mattered most – both to me and hopefully to everyone. They had the balls, the bravery and the brains to know what punk was all about – not an ephemeral movement but one of longevity through evolution and one that might possibly make a difference. The Clash certainly made a difference. F*** off and listen to Busted if you don’t think so.

ESSENTIAL SOURCES:

As the title suggests, this has only been a brief history of The Clash. Obviously, I’ve left stuff out, concentrated on particular topics (I didn’t even mention Rude Boy, for example) and maybe been too brief in places. If you want more information on the band, get your hands on these excellent books – they helped me out enormously in the writing of this article:

The Clash – David Quantick
Return Of The Last Gang In Town – Marcus Gray