Joe's Garage

Frank Zappa is one of those artists whose output is so large as to be almost completely daunting. In my case I was lucky to have been handed Joe’s Garage by a friend and told to listen to it (and not just because I have the same name as the titular protagonist). Having now listened to a great deal more of his music, I now know that the album, as well as being an excellent listen in its own right, is a pretty good Zappa album to start with. Although no album can be truly representative, Joe’s Garage does showcase many of the things that made Frank Zappa such an inspiring and interesting character and musician.

Always extremely prolific, the two volumes of Joe’s Garage (Act I and double album Acts II & III) were released only two months apart in 1979, the year Zappa’s contract with Warner Brothers expired, and thus he was free to release as much music as he liked (Joe’s Garage accounted for three out of the seven LPs worth of material released in that year alone).

The album takes the form of a rock opera, dealing with a world in which music has been made illegal. The Central Scrutinizer, the mysterious law enforcer of this world and the album’s narrator (whose job it is to enforce all laws that haven’t been passed yet), presents a cautionary tale concerning Joe, an aspiring musician whose tragic life seems to be a direct result of this law. This is the basic plot, but along the way many interesting and absurd characters and ideas are introduced, so much so that the album sort of ends up as a comedy musical version of a Philip K. Dick novel – and I mean that in the best possible way.

A serious problem one can have when writing about Zappa is that it’s easy to misrepresent him as a ridiculous sexist, who made a lot of silly sex-obsessed songs and, taken on a surface level, Joe’s Garage certainly seems to fit this interpretation. One may point to the run of ‘Catholic Girls’, ‘Crew Slut’ and ‘Fembot In A Wet T-Shirt’ as evidence of the misogyny and ‘Why Does It Hurt When I Pee?’ as an example of the scatology.

But a side of Zappa that’s not explored often enough for my liking is his wickedly scornful satirical side, and the deeply critical eye he cast over current events. I suppose the best example of this is seen in the liner notes. Here Zappa states that, although the idea of The Central Scrutinizer seems silly, there are many countries in the world where music is severely restricted or, in the case of Iran, completely illegal. One can also read the whole album as a commentary on how laws are passed, and what function they serve. Plus, on top of that, there’s a hilarious piss-take of Scientology (’A Token of My Extreme’), some reflections on human sexuality and a damning criticism of music writing, in the shape of ‘The Packard Goose’ (this coming from the man who likened it to “dancing about architecture” – sorry Frank). Even ‘Crew Slut’ seems to be a morality tale on the dangers of being a groupie, and how bands mistreat them.

So we’ve established it’s not all sex jokes and venereal disease. What of the music? Like all good rock operas Joe’s Garage works just as well as a collection of songs without the need for a detailed reading of the lyric sheet (which, incidentally, does provide some insight into the more intricate details of the plot). Musically, the album is a pretty intoxicating mix of funk, soft rock and soul that typifies Zappa’s more “song-based” output of the 1970s. If that sounds like a terrible mix, you’ve obviously not heard how meticulously crafted Zappa songs can be: the first CD flies past whilst barely putting a note wrong, keeping the intensity constant even during the slower numbers. If that also sounds musically safe then fear not: there are more than a few ridiculous time signatures and extensive use is made of a technique Zappa invented called Xenochrony, whereby an instrumental part from an existing song is added to a completely different song, to create a curious interplay between the two. In other words almost all of the guitar solos on Joe’s Garage are lifted from previous Zappa recordings and plonked in with no regard for key, tempo etc. It’s done well enough to not sound really obvious unless you listen for it, but it makes for an interesting, and musically adventurous, effect.

The second CD is not as instantly listenable as the first, but it does have some wonderful Xenochronic sections, where shifting, liquid guitar solos stretch on indefinitely, drawing the listener into a hypnotic state similar to the one Joe finds himself in by this stage in the story. It also contains ‘Watermelon In Easter Hay’, one the most poignant, beautiful guitar solos Zappa ever committed to tape. If nothing else, the album is worth it for this outstanding piece of playing that really showcases how great a guitarist the man really was. As one of the most interesting, eccentric and brilliant musicians of the 20th Century Frank Zappa really is one of those people one always means to get in to (I know I was). But don’t feel too daunted by his enormous output: give Joe’s Garage a listen, and then we’ll discuss where to go next…

Bob Dylan

No difficult second album here. For my money, this is an album almost without peer in terms of the leap made from first to second album.

It would feature in most people’s lists if they did a top 10 second albums of all time (alongside Fun House, Nevermind, The Bends, This Year’s Model, Chairs Missing, Closer and few others). Not only that but even approaching 50 years on Dylan will likely be playing two songs a night from the first side of this LP, not something that the McCartney would likely to be doing off With The Beatles or The Stones with any version of their second album you want to pick.

To think that Dylan was still only 21 when he was writing these lyrics is a mind blowing concept to behold. When you even consider that the performances and song writing in songs left off this album, recorded in the first session, like ‘The Death of Emmett Till’, ‘Rambling, Gambling Willie’, and ‘Talkin’ John Birch Society Blues’, showing us our first glimpses of Dylan the protest singer. Opening the record is ‘Blowin’ In The Wind’ one of the most well known Dylan songs from the opening of his career mainly in part to Peter, Paul and Mary’s cover of the song which reached #2 in the USA. It is thought to be Dylan’s most covered song. Unlike many of his other protest songs, it doesn’t reference any particular event or injustice and it’s for that reason that this is the one that people latch on to the most. It deals with the general not the case of one particular person that may fade into history and is still being used as an anti-war and anti-oppression song to this day. It is said that Dylan wrote the first and last verses within minutes one night after a lengthy discussion on politics were it was concluded that remaining silent on an issue was tantamount to condoning it and it was a civic responsibility to stand up for other people’s rights. Borrowing the tune from Negro spiritual song ‘No More Auction Block’ (performed in 1962 by Dylan in Greenwich a number of times and to be found on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991). The song was published in folk sheet music publication Sing Out! making it a popular song to be covered and parodied even before Dylan himself had recorded it, this was key to winning round the likes of Van Ronk on the song who couldn’t understand the meaning of the title phrase. Now of course the phrase has entered the lexicon and the opening line even sees itself put forward as the question to the ultimate answer in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy. How a scruffy 21 year old Jewish kid could have come up with a song like this that speaks for and to so many people across age, race and country is so impressive I can barely find the words to capture it. John Baez summed it up when she remarked that had Dylan never recorded another note after this song he would have still done enough for one lifetime.

‘Masters of War’ is a more direct song, not an anti-war song per se but more aimed at the confluence of Government and the Military in the US at the time. Dylan himself has said it’s more of a pacifist song then anything. Again the melody is borrowed, (from ‘Nottamun Town’ for what it’s worth) but the power of the song is in the sheer viciousness attacking those who profit from what was, and largely continues to be, American foreign policy (“Even Jesus would never forgive what you do” he spits.) ‘Bob Dylan’s Blues’ was the original title of the record and along with ‘Bob Dylan’s Dream’ (Based on ‘Lady Franklin’s Lament’) sees Dylan in a more wistful, nostalgic mode and could have musically fit on to his debut album with the strong presence of Guthrie hanging over them, as well as nodding to social ills. He was also experimenting with metre and phrasing of more absurdest songs and even funny lyrics on ‘Talkin’ World War III Blues’ and closer ‘I Shall be Free’ For example check out that final couplet at the end of the record as well as his witty reply to JFK or in the rambling tale of ‘Talkin’ World War III Blues’ he’s left on hold by the talking clock and the doctor remarking that he had had the same dream about surviving a nuclear holocaust but hadn’t seen Dylan there.

The first recipient of a 10 mark goes to ‘A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall’, written at first in a long poem style and set to music in late 1962. Not directly influenced by (It was performed live in September) but in the the shadow of the Cuban Missile Crisis and fearing that he may not have many more opportunities to write a song the six and a half minute stream of consciousness was recorded in a single take. Dylan has said that each line in the song could have warranted a song of it’s own and it’s hard to disagree. From the imagery of the black branch dripping with blood, the thousand talkers with their tongues all broken and the young child beside a dead pony it’s a song that contains seemingly nonsensical and yet profound statements that on other, later songs it could be argued are used merely for the way they sound not what they mean (more on this duly, of course). It’s often assumed that the hard rain is fall out from a nuclear holocaust but it is actually, as Dylan clarified at the time, referring to the poison that permeates the media and the lies that they sow. Although the line “Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world” is likely to refer to the aftermath of a nuclear explosion. A crushing end to the first side of the record.

The other side to Dylan’s bow at this stage in his career were long songs inspired by the album’s cover star Suze Rotolo, who of course can probably take some claim for helping Dylan to become aware of the subject matter of many of his protest songs. The first one on here is not just about her though. ‘Girl From The North Country’ with it’s simple strummed nostalgia was written whilst Dylan was in England in early 1963 and hoping that he would be seeing Rotolo, who had been sent to university in Italy the September before by her parents to get her away from Dylan amongst other things, in Rome later on the tour (ironically, she was actually already back in New York at this point and would be living with Dylan again within weeks) and channelling this in with nostalgic remembrance of former girlfriends from Minnesota (Echo Helstrom and Bonnie Beecher). Despite the homesickness and lack of Suze the song does incorporate part of the melody to ‘Scarborough Fayre’ the English folk song as well as the ‘Remember me to one who lives there, she once was a true love of mine’ outro showing that influences were still seeping into him.

When Rotolo first travelled to Europe leaving a lovesick Dylan behind it inspired him to write his first great love song, earning a second 10.0 on this album from me. Unlike many of his other love songs there’s little in the way of spite or malice here (bar the line about wasting his precious time) just a guy tenderly coming to terms with the absence of the girl he loved with a richness of language ,set to another borrowed, lilting melody (Paul Clayton and Dylan’s people agreed a settlement and the two remained threads) with a slightly touchy and self-pitying manner running though it. We’ve all been there guys though right? If Rotolo felt uncomfortable about Peter, Paul and Mary signing a song that was so obviously about her that was nothing compared to John Baez introducing the song at the Newport Folk Festival in 1963 as being “about a love affair that had gone on too long” confirming for her the whispers about Baez’s relationship with Dylan. She would shortly move out soon after and they split for good by March of 1964; Dylan covers this elsewhere.

The record tapers off slightly on the second half, the pleasant reworking of ‘Corrina, Corrina’ and the cover of ‘Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance’ don’t add that much to the record but with the wealth of fantastic material here it seems churlish to criticise it for that, especially as ‘Talkin’ World War III Blues’ and ‘Bob Dylan’s Dream’ were two of the late additions when the four songs, including ‘Talkin’ John Birch Society Blues’ were pulled. There’s also along with the Cold War commentary of ‘Talkin’ World War III Blues’ the underrated ‘Oxford Town’ which tells the tale of the first black student to be enrolled in University of Mississippi, James Meredith that September. Typical of the pace Dylan was working he had the song released by November as sheet music and recorded in early December.

A second album almost unrivalled for growth and maturity by any act in popular music, Dylan would go on to make other albums with songs as good as the best ones here but it’s arguable that despite all he would do in the next three and a bit years, four of his greatest ever songs appear here. It also help to revolutionise the concept of the album containing mainly original work by the artist; The Beatles would be doing the same within a year.

All this by a guy described as (manager) “Hammond’s Folly” at CBS in the lead up to this record.

Andrew WK - I Get Wet

Sometimes, I forget what music is supposed to be about. It’s supposed to be about fun. It’s supposed to be about making you feel good, about making damn sure that you feel like the king of your very own hill, even if it’s just a hill of beans.

So let’s be clear from the start that my appreciation of I Get Wet isn’t ironic. Submitting it as a classic album review isn’t my way of sticking it to the man, the floppy haired scenesters or the slack-jawed musicophiles, though if it does so, that’ll be a bonus. My appreciation for the white clad madman Andrew WK is based on one solid, unquestionably objective truth: I Get Wet rocks hard, and it rocks fast.

Put yourself in Andrew WK’s position: you’re a musical genius by all accounts, a virtuoso on piano, and a multi talented instrumentalist who has lent his hand to Current 93 and Boredoms, amongst others. You’re the son of a well-respected lawyer and author of several acclaimed legal textbooks. And when you sit down to write a solo record, you throw that all away and make something bigger, better, harder and more aggro than any of your biography should permit. Big drums and great slabs of dumb, unrefined guitar are the meat and potatoes of this album, finished off with a those roaring vocals and frenetic synth work.

In some ways, it’s no surprise that Andrew’s current gig is as a motivational speaker. That there’s a bludgeoning nature to his ‘message’ should be obvious, hearing what he does to a pair of speakers with ‘She Is Beautiful’. If the title suggests a whimsical love song about sunset beaches and that special girl, you obviously don’t know your WK. Take a love song, cut it into pieces with a meat cleaver and then smear the bloody remnants all over your face, screaming out “SHE. IS. BEAUTIFUL.” at the very top of your voice. This is love, WK style. Direct, to the point and taking no prisoners.

‘Party Hard’ is an opening salvo which doesn’t need much introduction. To call it a shot of adrenalin to the face would be a disservice. It can literally destroy dancefloors, if used correctly. Give me six wiry young men, six bottles of tequila and a PA playing ‘Party Hard’ and stand well back to watch devolution in action. ‘Girls Own Love’ falls somewhere between the swagger of ZZ Top and being better than every power ballad you’ve ever heard. ‘Take It Off’ is the theme tune to a thousand men pumping their fists in a still functioning steelworks, while ‘Party Till You Puke’ forgoes any pretences at musicality and degenerates into a two note juggernaut and a chorus that would never be anything but anthemic. ‘I Get Wet’ is a petulant finger raised to anyone still not dancing, and ‘Don’t Stop Living In The Red’ is a final warning to anyone thinking of defying the one man party manifesto.

So with bloodshot eyes, trembling limbs and a grin that could only be described as ’shit eating’ smeared all over my face, I’d like to submit I Get Wet as a classic album on the following criterion: it’s really stupendously enjoyable to listen to.

A Tale Of Two Cities

Ahead of the forthcoming hype that there will be regarding Mr Ben Hudson’s second album, Straight No Chaser, executively produced by a certain Kanye West, I thought that I would take some time to recall the first Mr Hudson album.

Then working with his band The Library, A Tale Of Two Cities was informed by Mr Hudson’s experiences living in both London and Birmingham and opens with a familiar sound from any city, the sound of a starting engine and car horns. What follows next would be a surprise for those who knew of Mr Hudson’s work in the UK Urban music scene, where he worked with the likes of Dizzee Rascal and Sway. The sparse drums and soulful vocal, eulogising about “…the street where she lives…” are joined by a plinking piano to form a gorgeous, life-affirming end product.

‘Brave The Cold’’s tale of going out in the cold city night having had “…triple brandies glaze the cold from my soul…” and the self pitying paeon ‘Everything Happens To Me’ is frankly beautiful. My personal favourite is ‘Two By Two’. Again arrestingly simple of construction, the chorus of “…the music’s loud/the party’s hot/people are the kind I’d like/to sit and talk to a while…’ resonates, reminding me of good times.

The instrumentation does not really change from the standard piano, drums guitar and bass, nor do the arrangements ever get overly complex, but the album does not ever sound repetitive.  This, I think, can be credited to the everyday scenes and emotions so strikingly portrayed in such an unassuming way.

‘Picture Of You’ uses sentimentality to perfect effect, minor chords play as Hudson misses the person that makes it all worthwhile – “…should time bring me fame/or a touch of bling/imagine that/getting paid to sing/keep your cars/cigars and frosted rings/without you here/they just wont mean a thing”.

It all ends with the piano and hand claps led ‘Upon The Heath’, where stock is taken “…there’s nothing in our way/and no one’s dying here/there’s nothing in our way/we’ve nothing left to fear…”. In fact, all that is left to do is press play again.

The Maccabees - Wall Of Arms

The Maccabees’ debut album Colour It In, released in 2007, featured some sterling tunes but was perhaps a bit too derivative for its own good: drawing on influences like XTC and Gang of Four, the Brighton-based  five-piece were late contributors to the then-fading post-punk revival that had been instigated by bands like Franz Ferdinand, The Futureheads, Dogs Die In Hot Cars and Bloc Party. Still, there was plenty of potential evident in their jerky, energetic compositions and singer Orlando Weeks’ trembling  vocals had a distinctive charm of their own.

The release of ‘No Kind Words’ a few weeks back indicated a change of direction: the vocals sounded meaner, the guitars more menacing, the atmosphere more charged and tense, while the similarly dark lyrics alluded to infidelity (“Dear friend of mine is testing his body/Tempting disaster/Testing water with another’s daughter”). It seemed that slightly twee ditties about toothpaste kisses were firmly a thing of the past.

Wall Of Arms’ opening track, ‘Love You Better’ doesn’t dispel the notion, but it’s not quite in the same vein as ‘No Kind Words’ (included here) either: it’s an earnest, impassioned, ‘big’ sounding composition; steadily and deliberately paced, its echoing guitars and reverbed vocals build a sense of anticipation as the song swells into a brass-propelled crescendo. It also proves to be more representative of the album as a whole. On paper, that sounds like the kind of thing that’s going to have many people running back to their Animal Collective records: the world certainly doesn’t lack for fervent, well-meaning guitar bands at this point in time, and being subjected to ‘soul-stirring’ music from the likes of Editors, Snow Patrol or Razorlight over the last few years is enough to make Metal Machine Music sound like a merciful alternative. Nevertheless, the Maccabees bring a pleasing lightness of touch to the formula, avoiding the overblown pompousness that sunk An End Has a Start or the insufferable mawkishness that did for Snow Patrol’s last two records.

Many reviewers have already made copious references to Arcade Fire, and it’s not hard to see why: Weeks’ tremulous, impassioned warbling is highly reminiscent of Win Butler’s style, and the wordless choral vocals on songs like ‘Dinosaurs’ and the title track have the stamp of Funeral all over them. It’s probably no coincidence that the album is produced by Markus Dravs, who also worked on Neon Bible: the intro to ‘Young Lions’, indeed, is a dead ringer for that album’s title track.

Musically, however, it’s less complex and ambitious than all the Arcade Fire comparisons might suggest. ‘One Hand Holding’ is driven along by a limber bassline and a guitar riff almost as catchy as the “Why would you kill it before it dies?” chorus, the exuberant ‘Can You Give It’ will probably prove a live favourite with its bouncy rhythm and handclap-friendly outro, while ‘Wall of Arms’ has enough off-kilter charm about it to overcome its painfully obvious influences.

Overall, it’s enjoyable stuff, if hardly in danger of pushing any envelopes. It might be a stretch to call it essential, but we’d be quite happy to hear this blaring out of car windows come the hot summer days.

Kill It Kid

Recently signed to the ever brilliant One Little Indian, Bath-based five-piece Kill It Kid are, well, how do we put it, er, STONKING? Stonking is the word, yes. To utilise a standard music journo cliché, they are like a feverous Antony Hegarty gone on holiday to New Orleans. That’s actually pretty accurate.

And we were lucky enough to have them answer a series of questions for us. Here’s what happened…

Do you get excited if you hear your song on the radio/someone talking about you?

It really is a thrill to hear praise coming from someone you admire, to some extent it’s a relief to know the effort and hope you’ve put into a band and the songs is being appreciated and accepted! Also it is pretty strange, it’s a personal thing and hearing peoples first impressions. A lot of people say my voice sounds “whiskey-soaked ” for example. I hate whiskey. I’m not very good at eavesdropping but it seems a lot of people are glad we are doing something against the grain. Something separate from the indie bands that seem to have a monopoly over young music fans right now.

Who would be your dream person to work with?

There are so many. I guess Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Jack White… pretty big dream!

What did you grow up listening to? Do you think it would’ve been different if you were growing up now, what with unlimited access to all sorts of music?

I mainly grew up to my ad’s stereo. That mean’t JJ Cale, Led Zeppelin, Peter Green, The Beatles. On the other hand my Mmum being a chorister and piano teacher meant that the rock ‘n’ roll was weighted with a healthy dollop of choral music and piano music played by students from 3pm to 6pm EVERY DAY.

I’m not sure it’d be that different growing up now; I still think kids will still take lead from their parents, friends and what looks good scratched in a pencil case. I do think I’d probably have listened to more music. These days (christ i’m only 20!) it’s all about sourcing out a new band that you’ve never heard before and discovering you love them – such a fantastic thing.

If you could transport yourself to any year, when would it be?

The 1920s in Georgia, Mississippi and Arkansas. Being able to play bottle neck with the guys who first tracked songs like ‘My Black Mamma’,’ High Water Everywhere’, ‘Shake Em’ On Down’ and ‘Poor Boy’ would be where I would want to be.

What records are you looking forward to this year?

Definitely Mumford and Sons, whatever they choose to release… thats about it! I should keep more up-to-date.

What made you sign to One Little Indian?

One Little Indian are a label unlike so many today, being one the biggest and longest running Indie labels in the country and signing music they are passionate about, regardless of its immediate implications on the bank account. We just felt as a label they could provide everything we wanted and needed, and they’re all lovely chaps which makes the artist/label relationship really productive, one big happy family [Ed-aaah].

Album-wise, what can we expect?

Well, we had about five months to put the album together. We were picked up by our label at such an early point that what people will hear on the record is literally what we had at the birth of the band. We had no opportunity to overthink it, it’s what the five of us were doing at that point in time. It’s quite liberating but also absolutely terrifying!

We wanted to pull a new sound out of the old country blues and jazz records from the 1920s to the ’40s, trying to build on this anthology of music but approaching it with an aim of making it our own. A lot of our songs, just like the blues or country ballads, focus on love and loss. However I wanted the protagonist to take an assertive, almost aggressive tone placing them in a position of power.  It lifts the songs out of the typical ‘I’ve been hard done by, but I still love her’ mindset that dogs people coming out of relationships..and It sounds pretty scary.

How did you end up involved in the John Parish guinea pig experiment and what did you get out of it?

Well, each year our course gets in a guest producer to work with a band and run a sort of workshop with those going into production. We were lucky enough to be the band chosen by him to work with. It was a really valuable experience for us all; having literally only formed weeks before, it gave the band a chance to record together for the first time and work in a studio enviroment. One thing I left with after the session was a sore throat as you can tell from the recordings, 12 hour days singing the tracks over and over.

Do you think your influences are immediately obvious in your music?

I think to people who listen to a similar sort of music to us, yes. I mean we wanted to follow on from bands like The Black Keys, The Raconteurs, Tom Waits. If you haven’t heard those bands i guess it isn’t so obvious.

The End.

You Am I - Hourly, Daily

Quite possibly the best kept secret in Australian music since The Saints had to leave down under and break London to get noticed, this album should by rights be part of the collection of anyone who has even a passing interest in guitar-based electric music – following on from the proto-grunge of debut Sound As Ever and the poppier Hi-Fi Way this is pure mod-pop heaven.

The (at that time) trio, You Am I, set out to both ape and update the sounds of the likes of The Creation and The Small Faces and with George Drakoulias (producer of a couple of Black Crowes albums and a number of film soundtracks) at the control board for two tracks and producing the rest themselves, they succeeded in releasing a disc at once both instantly accessible and consistently playable. An undercurrent of melancholia runs through the entire 15 tracks lending the whole product a pseudo-concept album feel but that’s not to say that it lacks cheer – to my mind it’s one of the most uplifting discs I own.

That melancholic air makes itself known from the off with the title track sharply focusing the listener on a semi-acoustic pre-dawn musing on the state of play in the world. Positive times arrive though when the alarm clock goes and our muser says ‘Good Mornin” and ‘Mr Milk’ rowdily voices his thoughts on how to win his love’s hand whilst on his rounds. ‘Soldiers’ ventures into the rose-tinted martial territory of Sgt. Pepper and ‘Pleasant Valley Sunday’ complete with band-on-the-green brass fills. Youthful swagger and the desire to sweep your would-be sweetheart off her feet are expertly portrayed on ‘Trike’ and can you really get enough of that organ and those handclaps?

‘Tuesday’ brings with it a return of the blacker mood (akin in tone to much of Blur’s Modern Life Is Rubbish) but the brass is still there trilling away to show all’s not as bad as it may seem. To drive that point home ‘Opportunities’ bursts on to the scene and brings with it the album’s first eminently singalongable moments. Next up is the three minute soap opera of ‘If We Can’t Get It Together’. Pass the hankies Bruce… Taking our minds once more off of the negatives in relationships we get ‘Flag Fall $1.80′, which owes a fair debt to both Lonnie Donegan & Pete Townsend. Stomping along in tenth place comes ‘Wally Raffles’ with yet more feedback drenched near mayhem.

Calming down and benefiting from the introduction of a string quartet things take a more serious turn on ‘Heavy Comfort’ as brief hope in a dying relationship is recounted. ‘Dead Letter Chorus’ recaptures some bombast before the best feel good track of the lot arrives in the shape of ‘Baby Clothes’ – you can well picture a young Jagger stalking around the stage sneering this one out. Reflection time on the penultimate track, ‘Please Don’t Ask Me To Smile’, that clearly foreshadows singer Tim Rogers’ solo Americana career that now runs concurrently with that of YAI. Completing the trip is ‘Who Takes Who Home’, an emotionally charged end of the party suburban love song. There’s a hidden track about five minutes after the end of this one but I can’t put a name to it.

In the 12 years since this album was released the band have become a four-piece following the addition of Davey Lane (also of The Pictures) to the ranks and have released the nearly as good (as in 9.5 out of 10) You Am I’s Number 4 Record and Dress Me Slowly, the less good Deliverance (a slightly mis-judged foray into alt. country), the near return to form Convicts and last year’s Dilettantes, as well as the enjoyable live album Saturday Night, ‘Round 10. Transcopic Records released No After You Sir… An Introduction to You Am I six years ago at which time I was lucky enough to see them live (for the first time since doing so when they toured this album) and even luckier to avoid The Vines who they were unfortunately supporting (good too on that bill were Rocket Science) but as a starting point Hourly, Daily is definitely the prime place to begin discovering these guys. Excuse me whilst I press “play” again…

The Beach Boys

There are probably a few people reading this that have the following timeline in their head about The Beach Boys; early songs about girls and surfing, Brian Wilson hears Rubber Soul and replies with Pet Sounds, Brian Wilson hears Sgt Pepper which drives him to attempt to better that and he goes so far off the rails he ends up with a sand-pit in his living room trying to perfect an album that until 2004 was the most famous lost masterpiece in rock history, Smile!. He then descends into mental illness and drug addiction. In the mean time the other Beach Boys tour without him and release ‘Kokomo’.

The gap between the abandoning of Smile! and that awful 1988 single is littered with false starts and under-appreciated cult albums. 1971’s Surf’s Up is the pick of the bunch. After the relative commercial failure of Sunflower the band were divided between the more artistic and experimental Wilson brothers Brian, Carl and Dennis and the more straight laced Mike Love, Al Jardine and Bruce Johnston who were more concerned with the band reclaiming their mid-Sixties popularity. New manager Jack Riley knew that the latter’s wishes were not possible without the Wilson brothers applying themselves. So he asked firstly the band try to engage a hipper audience with more politically and socially aware songs as well as finishing the mythical ‘Surf’s Up’ from the aborted Smile! sessions. What Riley ended up with was half an hour of the most fantastically produced, melodic and soulful music you ever likely to hear. It details the depression and fragile state of both the band and its leader as he faced the pressures of being required to write material and be dictated to on the direction of it in a fragile, drug-addled state of mind.

The record opens with the first example of Love and Jardine embracing Riley’s request on the shimmering ‘Don’t Go Near The Water’, certainly not a song title that would have featured in the group’s earlier work. After years of sun, sea and surf it advises us to be both sad and wary that human chemical waste “will make the ocean a bubble-bath”. Love’s other song on the album Student Demonstration Time’ is a howling, rattling update of Lieber and Stoller’s ‘Riot in Cell Block Nine’ tackling the contemporary issue of student protests and the shootings at Jackson and Kent State. It’s terrible; you’d be better served listening to Neil Young’s ‘Ohio’ on the same subject.

Al Jardine provides an apt metaphor for the state of the band with ‘Lookin’ at Tomorrow (A Welfare Song)’ that compares the position of a welfare recipient to a “freight train off the tracks” and ready to run and run once back on them. He also contributes the daft knockabout ‘Take a Load off Your Feet’ which I’ve always connected to Paul McCartney’s ‘Miles Away’ (from the same year’s Ram) in my head for their inherent throwaway silliness. It also kept Denis Wilson from having a writing credit on the album as he was starting to stockpile his own material. His creative dam would burst at the end of the decade on Pacific Ocean Blue however.

The Beach Boy who never gets any credit, Bruce Johnston, came up trumps with the sublime ‘Disney Girls (1957)’ with its gorgeous harmonies making it as an integral part of their back catalogue as anything else from the seventies. Carl Wilson provides his first two significant efforts for the band with the jazz-flecked ‘Feel Flows’ collaboration with Riley and ‘Long Promised Road’ which contains one of the most appropriate and timely uses of the word ’soar’ in song.

All the Beach Boys albums that followed this one for the rest of the decade included the same traits as the songs that are mentioned above, executed almost as well. What sets this one apart is the final third, Brian’s third. The section that most captures the mood of the sagged rider and deflated horse on the cover. The only new song in it, ‘A Day in the Life of a Tree’ has manager Riley awkwardly singing, backed by a mournful pump-organ and at the end by Smile! collaborator Van Dyke Parks, an affecting, achingly beautiful, emotionally bruised yet utterly bizarre song about the perilous state of Brian’s mind as if he were a tree. No, you did read that right; this really does feature the band’s manager signing about being a tree.

Brian revisits ‘Till I Die’ that Mike Love had vetoed from appearing on earlier albums for being “too depressing”. It was written after a walk by the ocean allowed Brian to contemplate the vastness of the body of water and the inconsequential nature of his own life in the grand scheme of things. It opens with the line “I’m a cork on the ocean”. It’s often cited as the author’s last great song as he finally got down in writing what he wanted to say and fittingly it was recorded it in a similar manner to the lush instrumentation on Pet Sounds.

The record comes to a sumptuous close with Carl’s heroic melding together of the five-year-old demo of ‘Surf’s Up’ sung by Brian at the piano (It can be found, in full, on a 1993 box set and is worth the price of the entire package) with Carl’s new vocal on the first section and a meeting of the two versions for the final minute aided by an choral refrain of the rest of the band, a Moog and returning to the studio, Brian himself.

Kenickie - At The Club

So it’s early 1997. Oasis are a matter of months away from strapping Britpop to their motorbike and heaving its tired carcass over the metaphorical shark. Blur have already evolved their way out of the scene by indulging their Pavement fantasies on their eponymous classic. And Kenickie, with characteristically disastrous timing are about to unleash their debut album At The Club.

But we’ll disregard the inopportune timing of Lauren Laverne’s merry gang for now and concentrate on one of the best guitar pop records of the ’90s. Like 1977, which was released a year previously, At The Club is an album that could only have been made by teenagers. From start to finish, it’s a blast of pure youthful energy. It kicks off with ‘In Your Car’, an explosive precursor of things to come. What follows is a mix of shouty harmonies, playful pop fun, and smart-arsed soundbites.

The album calls to mind a lot of the best bands of the ’90s. For example, the squelchy synths on ‘Robot Song’ are reminiscent of the first Mansun record. What’s kept At The Club fresh in the 12 years since it’s release is the fact that Kenickie weren’t just magpies; they took the classics and put their unique Northern punk stamp on them. I mean, look at ‘PVC’. It’s Nirvana’s ‘Lithium’ in pigtails (which kind of explains why Courtney Love had a soft spot for Kenickie).

And then there’s Lauren Laverne’s lyrics, which aren’t a million miles away from Suede’s romanticising of trash life: “We dress cheap, we dress tacky”, “We’re on our backs looking up at the stars”. All this, and we haven’t even mentioned ‘Punka’, Kenickie’s undoubted high point. In fact, screw it, it’s most bands’ high point. A joyous, glitzy three minutes of complete ecstasy on the subject of punk puritanism, it satirises and glamorises all at once.

The album finishes off on a downbeat note. The stripped down ‘Acetone’ dispenses with the power chords and attitude for a surprisingly gorgeous tale of trying to “dodge the sick stains on the street”. Well, I say the album finishes there, but it doesn’t quite. Where Ash chose to end their debut album with a revolting recording of them throwing up, Kenickie show they are clearly a far more demure bunch. They finish matters with the comic japery of ‘Montrose Gimps it up for Charity’. The song is basically just a load of kids larking about in the studio having a right old laugh at each other, and is about the most appropriate conclusion to the album really.

With At The Club, Kenickie gave us one of indie’s great under-rated albums. Predictably, they ended up burning out within 18 months of its release. They managed just one more record, Get In, which was a far more laid-back affair which sold far fewer copies than it deserved. In reality though, there probably was anything they could do to save them from an unsympathetic record-buying public which, lest we forget, was just about to embrace the horrors of nu-metal.

This was the way Kenickie was always going to end, and was a far more fitting way to finish that limping to an insipid third, fourth and fifth record like a lot of their contemporaries did.

Jeff Buckley - Grace

I find it difficult to listen to Nick Drake’s Pink Moon, and Elliott Smith’s Figure 8 without bringing to mind the tragic events that they foreshadowed. The softer part of my consciousness is prone to rewarding the music with more credit than is warranted, perhaps out of sympathy. With Jeff Buckley’s Grace however, I have no such afflictions.

Having said this, it’s not as if Grace doesn’t try to lure its listeners into that trap on more than one occasion. From the outset, the echoing guitar harmonics of ‘Mojo Pin’ work alongside Buckley’s eerie, wordless vocals to create a soundscape evoking images of the supernatural, the uncontrollable and the inevitable. The proceeding title track goes one further. “Have a little wine, we both might go tomorrow”, Buckley murmurs over a relentless picked guitar pattern, unknowingly poignant in his instruction.

But as I’ve said, Grace is an incredible feat – regardless of the unfortunate circumstances that we now know it in. The next three tracks -’Last Goodbye’, ‘Lilac Wine’ (written by composer James Shelton), and ‘So Real’ – are a chance to evaluate the album from an unbiased standpoint. ‘Last Goodbye’ is perhaps as close as Grace gets to a standard pop song, with Buckley howling “kiss me, please kiss me, kiss me out of desire, baby no consolation” over a background of jangly strumming and wonderfully orchestrated strings. Then enters the slow-burning ‘Lilac Wine’, an altogether more refined affair sure to send any listener into the persona of a dreamy recluse. Following that is ‘So Real’, hiding just around the corner. It’s the heaviest song of the record so far, complete with a startlingly feedback-drenched bridge.

A criticism is that Grace isn’t as concise as it could have been. The idea of Buckley as a small child often crosses my mind, a child unable to remain concentrated on any given thing for a prolonged amount of time. Even within these last three songs, we’ve seen him swing through chart-topper, almost operatic crooner and impassioned rocker.

On the flip side, this range in genre and style also presents itself as a talent; if you’re not convinced by the original ten tracks alone, have a listen to the bonus disc of the Legacy Edition of Grace. It sees Buckley cover influences ranging from country blues on ‘Parchman Farm Blues’ to soul and gospel on ‘I Want Someone Badly’. The disc is a totally separate achievement.

And what follows is this record’s Iron Lung. ‘Hallelujah’ is to Buckley what ‘Creep’ is to Radiohead. Whilst in itself a incredible song, ‘Hallelujah’ goes some way to overshadowing the rest of the record. This is not an attack on Grace, just a frustration that only one tenth of Buckley’s genius will ever make it to number two off the back of some X Factor tyrant. No worries, the heartfelt ‘Lover You Should’ve Come Over’ follows to relieve me of my trauma.

‘Corpus Christi Carol’ is next, acting most prominently as a showcase for Buckley’s unrivalled voice.  Where most artists probably suffer from a lack of formal vocal training, it seems that the only repercussion of this with Jeff is that nobody was around to inform him that a voice should in fact have an upper limit. Where most could only hope to muster a frail falsetto at such heights, he manages a full-blown head voice and a performance to shatter glass and mind alike. Like his father before him, Buckley often used his jaw-dropping gift more as an instrument rather than a voice, and again, like his father, did this to devastating effect.

But after a mere three minutes of calm, ‘Eternal Life’ welcomes in badass Buckley-form once more – guitar slung low and overdrive edging maximum. Where his silky vocal performance stunned on the previous track, Buckley now turns on the growl, giving the straight rock epic exactly what it begs for. The album’s production is highlighted once again, returning focus to the underlying string parts, a touch of class set against the otherwise wild and untamed proceedings.

The final piece of the album comes in the form of ‘Dream Brother’. It opens with a sitar-esque slide guitar introduction, highlighting yet another of Buckley’s musical influences – Qawwali, the devotional music of Pakistan, (see: his take on Ali Kahn’s Yeh Jo Halka Saroor Hai on Live at Sin – it fantastically baffles his audience). This soon dissolves into a spooky plucked guitar part reminiscent of the opener we heard all but fifty minutes ago. It’s a warning, apparently written to Chris Dowd, an L.A. friend of Buckley’s about to walk out on his pregnant girlfriend. “Don’t be like the one that made me so old” mumbles Buckley, referencing his father in this fittingly unsettling goodbye.

It is easy to look at this album and only think of what might have been if events had unfolded differently; to wonder whether further accomplishments may have followed down the road, or if this would have remained Buckley’s magnum opus. But the sad truth is we shall never know (even if we do have the promises of Sketches for My Sweetheart The Drunk to go by). If you’re asking my opinion, I think a record as good as Grace could’ve only been setting us up for a fall: right?