march 24th extract-nirvana

Nirvana-Floyd the Barber-Community World Theater, Tacoma, Washington 19.3.88

I suppose that the longer that this writing carries on through the year I will end up with more and more connections between each piece. This, like the Mogwai references above, is a live recording and is I guess, of historical interest, as it was Nirvana’s first ever gig under that name. It’s a soundboard recording and also has three tracks recorded at the soundcheck. The gig itself was their second ever show with Dave Foster on drums. Admittance for the show cost a mere $5.00. There is a copy of the handbill for the gig on the internet, referring to Nirvana being also known as Bliss, Pen Cap Chew, Ted Ed Fred and Skid Row. So, as I say, of some interest- and especially if you like Nirvana. Which I particularly don’t. 

It’s not as if actively I dislike Nirvana-as a band they’re alright, I suppose. The only Nirvana album I’ve got is the Unplugged one-and that was one of the last recordings I bought as a tape rather than vinyl or CD, it was so long ago. I remember watching the Unplugged show on MTV and I think it was just before, or just after, Kurt Cobain killed himself.  I can’t recall if I watched it and thought that he was heading only in one direction or that it was a shame but it was only going to turn out one way. Whichever it was, again I thought it was ok but it didn’t wholly convince me. I just never bought all the whole Nirvana/Seattle thing that the music press ran with when they (Nirvana) were  hitting it big. I’d been more into Husker Du/Sonic  Youth/Pixies artiness side and thought (and still do) that Nirvana were just too much on the side of parochial U.S. heavy metalness. Some years later I read Charles Cross’ “Heavier Than Heaven” book about Cobain and if truth be told, enjoyed reading about Nirvana more than listening to them. The ironic side is that, having read the book, it is clear that Cobain liked a lot of  the same sort of music that I do (Young Marble Giants, Leadbelly) but maybe it didn’t quite translate into what they did. Maybe if he’d lived Cobain would have got into The Fall and Coldplay.

Whilst I never appreciated Nirvana when Cobain was alive-and still don’t of course, the thing that really gets me is the milking of it all afterwards. I thought that it was bad with Joy Division but it was ten times worse with Nirvana. As expected, the record company has issued and reissued every scrap possible. Legacy editions of “Nevermind” are a prime example-I’ll bet they’re keeping some unreleased fragments back for the 50^th anniversary. It’ll be just in time for the first generation (X) of Nirvana fans to pick up a copy (on heavyweight vinyl) whilst they’re on their way to the Post Office to cash their pension and pick up their winter fuel allowance. If you see yet another 14 year-old with a smiley face Nirvana t-shirt hanging around trying to look cool, pinch yourself and try to remember that Nirvana were a very successful group but only for a very short period of time. They didn’t reinvent anything musically and only really warrant a footnote in the history of popular music. Can’t wait for those “In Utero” t-towels though.

perfect weather for a festival?

 let's hope this weather carries on until june 2013...in the meantime sit back & dream on..

glastonbury 2011...unreleased excerpt

(Not included in the "Turn Left at The Womble" was what happened to me at Glastonbury in 2011 when I couldn't get tickets but got a job there working a bar.This may be worked up into a bigger piece somehere along the line though for now its's just a working draft....apologies for the language but it is an accurate account)

Saturday.

After hitting the sleeping bag at 5.30 I was rudely woken at 6 ish by some arsehole falling over the guy ropes and them half falling right on top of the tent, obviously pissed. As he fell & knocked the tent all the condensation from the inside dropped onto my sleeping bag and all over my face. It was if someone had thrown a jug of water over you just as you were dropping off. I must admit though by bellowing “FUCK OFF DICKHEAD!!” at the top of my voice was quite funny. I could hear his little spindly student legs peg it –he must’ve thought some crazed scouser was going to emerge half- naked from the tent with a baseball bat and break his legs. That is not really my style as I am a natural born coward. Brushing the water off the sleeping bag I turned over and fell back fast asleep.

Until 8 o’clock when the heat of the sun through the tent became too much to bear and claustrophobic. Unzipping the muddied zip for the front and poking my head out like a bleary-eyed dormouse I could see that nearly all the clouds had burnt away and there were blue blue skies overhead! Needing a wee and a coffee I pulled on my muddy jeans and made a quick trip out with every intention of going back to bed as I really had had only two hours kip. And having to do another late one Saturday night. But, intentions being merely that, once I was up it seemed a bit daft to waste time at Glasto on a beautiful day being asleep. (I could always nip back in the afternoon for a cheeky little nap?)So one coffee down I was wide awake and raring to go. Queued for the showers in the mud which was still there but not getting any worse, full breakfast and back to the tent to tidy up.          

In my generally knackered state the night before had not checked or realised that the flipping tent had leaked with all the rain and my rucksack with all my dry clothes in was soaking. I therefore had to take everything out, unbag all of the clothes which were ok but all the little things in the pockets of the rucksack were ruined-packets of paracetmol, jelly babies, spare lighters etc. Can you imagine how messy a full packet of rain sodden ginger nuts can get? However, major disaster was averted and by 11 ish was ready to go.

Although the forecast was good with no rain and the glasto veterans assured me that with a day without rain all the mud would dry up it had been so bad that it was still difficult to get around. It was now the consistency of glue actually. I decided to head off for the Pyramid and saw in turn Tame Impala (sunny psychedelica perfectly fitting after the rain-sun-kissed tunes and all that), Gaslight Anthem(clash-y) and Rumer (ace 60s pop Bacharachy).Sitting with a 99 and a coffee in the sun at 3 o’clock thought that things, well, actually are turning out pretty damn fine. It doesn’t get much better than this etc. Best get back to the tent for a couple of hours sleep though.

By the time I got back I ended up chatting with a couple of people and it hardly seemed worth it. So after evening meal and packing up banana for mid evening break went back to the bar for my 7 pm -3 m shift. On arrival I was informed that there would be a special secret (oooh!) guest  playing 1am-3 am-DJ Yoda.I don’t know if you are as hip as the kid who told me that but it didn’t mean anything to me. I asked if he was a little green bloke with pointy ears but either the tragically hip student could deadpan like no-one else or had an oxbridge sense of humour (ie none). Again the night went in a blur –it was packed all night though I was counting the hours down before I finished.

During my half hour break I legged it (as much as anyone can wearing wellies) to see Coldplay and managed to catch two songs. Although they are an easy target one of the best live bands I have ever seen. So in 30 minutes I caught Chris Martin and the boys, smoked three ciggies, had two cups of tea, two bananas and a Mars Bar. Who needs drugs? I was as wired as fuck and ready for the little Jedi Knight.

Surprisingly, DJ Yoda was ace, and what could be called a master of the genre. Mixing hip hop, 30’s blues, kids cartoon songs and bits of the Doors (I am stoned, immaculate etc) he never put a foot wrong. Any more of that and I would be using glo-sticks. Possibly. Not. Too old.

Well, by 3.30 all my working shifts were done! With the weary bones of someone who hadn’t slept more than three hours in the last 24 I slowly slowly made my way back to the site with one of the crew who was in his late thirties who was as knackered as me.(The rest of the crew were young enough to want to go on and party).Literally crawled into the tent. Tomorrow would be another day.   

  

march 15th extract-voodoo ceremony in haiti

Voodoo Ceremony in Haiti-Olympic LP, 1974

First off-just so there is a flavour of what this is all about- here is the track listing of this record:

1. Voodoo Drums (5:26)
2. Nibo Rhythms (1:19)
3. Prayer to Shango (1:56)
4. Petro Rhythms (0:47)
5. Nago Rhythms (2:40)

Side Two

1. Invocation to Papa Legba (5:59)
2. Dahomey Rhythms “The Paul’L” - Maize Rhythm - Diouba Rhythm “Cousin Zaca” (6:06)

It doesn’t really help much. Maybe the titles of the tracks should assist-but as I have no idea who Papa Legba is or who or what a Shango is I’m stumped. It does give an indication, a feeling. You get a sense that it was recorded in a slightly threatening atmosphere. Maybe it’s just my imagination and I’m falling into a stereotypical cultural trap but there’s a definite impression of chickens being slaughtered, bones being rattled and shrunken skulls used for percussion. I’m sure that there are goats in the mix as well. It’s a generally disquieting record and leaves a sense of unease.

It’s one of the few compilation albums I have where I’ve no idea who the artists are. What else do I know about this record? It was recorded in Haiti, sometime before 1974, on less than sparkling equipment. Like many of these types of recordings, it wasn’t made in a studio but is termed as a field recording. I don’t think it was made in gentle rolling green hills though but in the backstreets of Port-Au-Prince, probably in the middle of the night. (The back of the sleeve states “Recorded on location”). I have a feeling that it was recorded by some bloke cowering behind a wall, holding a microphone and crapping himself. It sounds as if the tracks are being played a fair old distance way and every so often you can hear a woman’s voice, speaking French and sounding very scary. No wonder the album is relatively short-I’ll bet that he hightailed it out of there as soon as he could.

The album was released in 1974 on Olympic, which was a French record label and although it’s now probably available as mp3’s this was ripped from the original album as the references to side one and side two attest.

I did think that this was the only record I have of actual voodoo music. It is the only one on the iPod but somewhere in the house I do have a compilation of field recordings made by Alan Lomax in the 50’s which has a whole CD of voodoo music from Haiti. I think I’ve only listened to it once and I remember it being even more scary than this record.

I’d like to have a massive sound system in my little car. The next time some scally stops next to me at the traffic lights  in his Subaru blasting out some generic r & b, I’d slap on this album, turn the volume as high as it would go, and put the fear of God into him. Unless of course, I was driving round Port-Au Prince where this stuff is probably the equivalent of listening to Songs of Praise.   

march 2nd extract-karen cooper complex

Karen Cooper Complex-Ruckus Upstairs-Shinjuku Boardwalk

I think this album is from Japan; it at least has some aspect of Japan in there, some connection with Japan. Not sure why I think that-I have a vague recollection that the sleeve had some Japanese characters on it. (By Japanese characters I mean writing/typography rather than two blokes from Tokyo.) Come what may, it’s a strange thing. The singer, and I use that term cautiously, actually doesn’t sound Japanese-there’s an odd American twang to her performance. I cannot remember where I got this from, or even when it was released. I’ve a feeling that it was recent but it’s hard to tell.

What does it sound like? Nothing you’ve ever heard before probably.

Imagine if you will.

Imagine that there are a group of people. I am assuming that it is a group of people rather than one lone artistic visionary but I may be wrong. This assumption is made on the basis that numerous musical instruments are played on this album. (Played is too strong a word-hit/struck would be more apt.) Imagine that this group of people have very rarely heard music. Actually imagine that they have never heard music and only know of it as a concept. They may have heard of it, or read about it. They know that music exists but only as “music”. Furthermore, they understand or just have a faint understanding, that music is made by manipulating objects called “instruments”. That’s a start.

Imagine therefore that they have gained access to a recording studio somewhere in the back of Japan. Additionally, some crazed person has allowed them free reign in a music shop where they have been allowed to borrow as many instruments as possible. Maybe they’ve not borrowed them, but conducted a smash and grab raid under some complex guise. That makes a lot more sense. Whichever way it was done, the instruments will have been chosen at random, largely on the basis that they are noisy, shiny, look complicated and are big. Once inside the studio with their instruments they are allowed access to a bored, stoned, studio engineer who isn’t bothered what racket they make as long as he gets paid. You may think he should be bemused but he really just isn’t arsed-he’s seen it all before, from big-hair heavy metal bands to colliery brass bands (in Japan?) to x- factor wannabes. In any event they’ve only booked the engineer for 45 minutes and therefore everything has to be recorded in one take. The thing is, they are intensely curious about this music thing and when shown a cd they assume it’s another instrument. They are desperate to make music. When they can hear themselves played back over the studio monitors they are startled, even frightened.  Nevertheless, they overcome their fear, with a mixture of exotic drugs, bravado and willingness to hit every single instrument as hard as possible all at the same time. Microphone technique leaves a bit to be desired as well, but they give it a go. Their hour of studio time used up they head off into the night-didn’t I say they recorded this at 3 a.m.?-with a master tape that they have no idea of what it’s for.

Imagine that. Doesn’t it sound like the best album you’ve never heard yet?