Christmas and the Rite of Disco

There comes a time in most people’s lives when life catches up with them and they are willingly or otherwise, exposed to the social event that is the disco and more specifically, the Christmas Disco.  Generally this occurs around the teenage years and beyond where a large number of participants are squeezed into a very small space for the purpose of dancing or shouting at each other over the din.  Schools, higher education establishments and nightclubs are all responsible for this rite of passage and whether you are the life-and-soul or wallflower, the experience does tend to alter your perception of humanity, but for better or worse?

But it is not the outcome that interests me here, but the din.  Dependent on your age, and I shan’t ask, there are always a few tunes that seem to haunt you through the years – those hits that were so prevalent at discos that the very thought of them now makes you shudder with long suppressed memories.  Of course there is always ‘Hi Ho Silver Lining’ but this doesn’t count as it has been a juvenile disco staple for so long that nobody bothers about it anymore.

No, it is the ones like the Eagles’ ‘Lyin’ Eyes’ that are one of my bêtes noirs.  It was EVERYWHERE during my non-dancing years and didn’t I just hate it.  It put me off The Eagles for several decades.  Another season ticket holder was Steve Harley’s ‘Make Me Smile’ which even today brings back that slight eye twitch that I’d thought I’d finally got rid of.  What is it about these tunes – and I’m sure you can supply your own list - that provokes such a reaction, years after the event?  Is it the thought of your younger, gaucher and generally less assured self trying to grapple with life after one too many vodkas or is it something deeper?

For me it was certainly the above but also it was because I loved music and somehow the environment of the disco always seemed to degrade it and make it nothing more than background noise or worse, the soundtrack to someone else’s mating ritual.  Nothing will erase the memory of the isolation of the partner-less last dance and for this, 10cc has much to answer for.  I realise that this is a very esoteric stance to take as all through history, music has been specifically composed for the express purpose of dancing (Minuet anyone?) and to complain about it now is a bit churlish but nevertheless that is still how I feel about it.

Which is why you will always find me at a concert rather than a nightclub.  It became clear to me very early on that discos are for those who enjoy dancing and who need not be music lovers at all.  In fact, they were frauds.  ‘Make me Smile’ indeed.


Merry Christmas, everyone!

The End of Abba

Like most people, I do like the odd Abba song.  ‘SOS’ was the one that did it for me and I was hooked: my collection of 70s vinyl singles is the proof.  You see, even at the time, I judged that Abba were really a singles band and never bought an LP of theirs except for the singles compilation double LP ‘The First Ten Years’, released when they had thrown in the towel (probably of Ikea design).  And I think I was right.  Madness was another such band.  Great singles band but name me a killer Madness album? (On second thoughts, don’t bother – it’s probably ‘Rise and Fall’)

But unlike most people - and yet again I find myself a little off kilter with the great general public – I have two distinct Abba quirks.  First, I can’t stand ‘Dancing Queen’, by general consensus most people’s favourite.  Never have, never will.  It would not be on any Abba ‘Best Of’ that had me as a compiler and I would be more than glad if I never heard it again.  The fact that my most hated person on the planet, Bono, attempted a version of it has nothing to do with it.  When that dreadful leaden intro starts up my heart sinks, after all there are so many other decent tunes to pick, so why that one?

Second, despite the undoubted fact that they served up some corking stuff from ‘Waterloo’ onwards (although actually ‘Waterloo’ is also on my Very Iffy list…along with ‘Ring Ring’ but let’s not dwell on this), my real preference is for the material they were writing just at the very end, around the time of ‘The Visitors’.  ‘One of Us’, ‘Head Over Heels’, ‘Under Attack’ and the sublime ‘Day Before You Came’ are the songs that really get to me.  Magnificent slabs of Scandinavian melancholy without the over-extrovert backing tracks.  It’s obvious that I’m swimming against the tide here as these were the singles that sold in fewer and fewer quantities as the public deserted them and must have played a big part in the decision to pack it in.

Which is a shame.  There is something about their song writing at this point that was just coming to the boil.  Bjorn’s lyrics were darker and more literate as he mastered the obtuse English language and Benny’s music, whilst still veering towards the whimsical, had an edge to it.  The bleak Swedish railway station in the film-noir video for ‘Day Before You Came’ just about sums up where they were at that point but it is a fascinating place, artistically.  The final single, ‘Under Attack’ is one of their finest yet it sold very poorly (peaked at 26!) and suddenly they were gone.  But what a note to end on!

George Gently and The Cream

I’ve mentioned this before but I’ve found watching the last two episodes of TV cop drama ‘Inspector George Gently’ a profoundly unsettling experience.  Now set in 1966, at which time I was a lad of 10 summers, it is a bit like watching your own childhood pass before your eyes.  Whilst the stories and acting are well up to the usual BBC standards for this type of drama, it is the period detail that really gets to me.

Like the cars.  A blue Ford Corsair similar to the one used in the series, used to sit on a neighbouring drive during those long ago childhood years and most of the other makes and models pressed into ‘Gently’ service would drive up and down our road regularly.  Then there are the boxes of Subbuteo left carelessly in a child’s room and the Airfix planes and…ooh, all sorts of other bits and pieces that are immediately recognisable.  It’s all a bit spooky.

And, of course, there is the music.  1960s music is so recognisable.  It has an aura all to itself and it proclaims a time when the UK music business was booming.  The programme is littered with fragments of English beat boom and American soul classics that threaten to divert your attention from the plot.  There was a moment towards the end of the second episode, ‘China’ where it did just that.  In the background was a strange wailing sound appended to a mildly oriental sounding backing and for an instant I couldn’t place it - but then a burst of fuzzy Clapton electric guitar put me right.  It was ‘We’re Going Wrong’ from the amusingly titled Cream LP, ‘Disraeli Gears’ from late 1967.  OK, so it was a little out of the correct period but somehow its haunting quality complemented the scene perfectly.

It made me think a bit about Cream, who as the first supergroup, bestrode the earth in the mid to late sixties like the most evolved dinosaur of their time and reconsider their place in the scheme of things.  Whilst their music was undoubtedly rooted in the Blues, there was a strange experimental side to them.  As a band very much of their time, they took Indian, African and oriental influences and fused them with the western attributes of harmonic progression and odd melodies.

‘We’re Going Wrong’ is a prime example of this side of their nature – a rather disconcerting keening vocal from Jack Bruce swoops over an atmospheric backing from Messrs Baker and Clapton.  In fact, you might almost say that Cream are the band most representative of the second half of the sixties, more so that the Beatles who tended to have a more scatter gun approach to musical styles.  A fusion of the past (Blues) and the future (Prog) was at the core of Baker’s primal, mystical percussion, Clapton’s wah-wah drenched rhythm playing and Bruce’s melodic bass and experimental writing.

Somehow, when I listen to them now, and especially if it is the 1968  ‘Wheels of Fire’ album, the music just screams ‘1960s!’ and you cannot help but be transported to that era.  As period pieces go, they were the Cream.

Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds

So finally the Brothers Grimm have gone head to head.  Ever since Noel flounced out of Oasis we have been waiting for this moment.  Liam got his shot in first with Beady Eye’s ‘Different Gear, Still Speeding’ released earlier this year and now we have brother Noel’s offering, ‘Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds’.  So now we have both to compare and contrast, how do they fair?

First up, let me say how respectful Liam has been in gathering together the remnants of Oasis and rising from the ashes in a different guise, that of Beady Eye.  It would have been all too easy to carry on using the Oasis brand with all the global goodwill that entailed.  Lesser persons would have done just that but a clean break, at least in name, has opened a new chapter and avoided a whole heap of prolonged legal grief.  Unfortunately, it hasn’t quite worked out to plan as DGSS is dangerously close to being just what they were trying to avoid, the reheated leftovers of a once-great band (at least for a couple of albums, anyway).

I’m afraid that despite one or two decent moments, I can’t really get on with DGSS and find it rather insipid.  Overall, it all sounds a bit tired and a tad dated.  Whilst the songs are entering new territory, the sound of the band is, well, a bit Oasis-like and not being a huge fan, I’ve had enough of them now.  I need something different.  Perhaps Liam would’ve been better off gathering some fresh talent around him?

Which, of course, is what Noel has done.  OK, so most of them are old friends, but at least they are not Oasis.  Noel has the opposite problem in that although his band doesn’t sound too much like Oasis, his songs still do.  I suppose he can’t really help that but then when Paul Weller left The Jam, his next project, the Style Council sounded nothing like his old band, so it can be done.

Nevertheless, NGHFB does have a bit more verve about it.  There are the classic Gallagher trademarks – the ‘on the one’ up-tempo numbers and the epic ballads but there is a grandeur about it that sets it aside from Liam’s more down to earth rock ‘n’ roll.  It’s as if he was straining to create something worthy to get back at his irksome brother.  In a way, this album reminds me of The Teardrop Explodes’ ‘Wilder’.  It too was Julian Cope’s attempt to broaden his horizon with brass and string arrangements yet still retaining the epic nature of his own song writing.  Cope also was a big believer in the ‘on the one’ backbeat (exhibit A ‘World shut Your Mouth’, m’lud).

Although this probably isn’t it, I feel it in my bones that Noel has one great solo album in him.  There is a sense of development in his song writing that implies different things to come.  Let’s hope he can break a few of his own self-imposed barriers and pull it together in the not too distant future.

In conclusion, neither DGSS nor NGHFB is a classic but I’m hovering in the Noel camp for the time being.

Imelda May and the Curse of Rockabilly

For someone who has spent a lifetime in the grip of rock ‘n’ pop, you’d think that I would know something about its origins, wouldn’t you?  But shamefully the answer is more a ‘sort of’ than a ‘yes’.  I suppose the problem has been that my assimilation of knowledge has been via first hand experience rather than vicarious study and that I have basically winged it by living through its twists and turns.

So when it comes to a subject such as Rockabilly, I still find it hard to know whether it is angel or devil.  What I do know is that it is the earliest form of rock ‘n’ roll, emerging in the early 1950s from a primeval stew of Blues and Hillbilly (Country) and carried into the public ear by the likes of Carl Perkins and Elvis but as a style I’ve never really had much truck with it.

I can almost pin down exactly when it swung into the ‘devil’ category and that was in the early 1980s when the Rockabilly Revival stormed the charts in the form of The Stray Cats and numerous imitators and evolved into the dreaded Shakin’ Stevens.  Need I say more?  I hated both of them with a vengeance and vowed that Rockabilly or anything even vaguely resembling it would be banished from my collection for all eternity.

However, the door was edged open again in 1992 when Morrissey’s ‘Your Arsenal’ was released.  Subsequent to The Smiths’ breakup, Morrissey had offered up 2 solo efforts in ‘Viva Hate’ and ‘Kill Uncle’ but the quality was on the wane and the critics were circling.  Luckily for him, ex-Bowie guitarist Mick Ronson took on production duties for ‘Your Arsenal’ and pushed Morrissey’s style into Glam and *gulp*…Rockabilly.  And blow me down, it worked and it worked well.  Somehow, Morrissey’s ultra-modern muse was enhanced by the muscle of the oldest form of rock known to man and the Devil-Angel-ometer began to waver alarmingly.

Fastforward to 2008 and Dublin born Imelda May and her suitably be-quiffed band releases ‘Love Tattoo’ followed in 2010 by ‘Mayhem’ and the meter is registering ‘Angel’ for the first time.  There is something about her take on the form that is irresistible, especially her version of the Northern soul classic, ‘Tainted Love’.  So am I a convert?  Well…up to a point.  Whilst I like much of what Imelda does, there is a limit and I still find myself cherry-picking tracks from her albums.  It goes without saying that I’d still barricade the door if Shaky or The Stray Cats came a-calling.  Everything in moderation, I say.

Reflections

I have made an amazing discovery.  It is something that pertains to a song that I have known since its release in 1967 yet has only just revealed itself to me via the almost inevitable service of YouTube.  When I tell you what it is, you’re probably going to say, ‘Oh, that old thing…didn’t you know?’ but then I’m always the last to pick up on most things.

Anyway, the year of release - 1967 - will give you a clue as to what sort of song it is.  The Summer of Love was the height of Psychedelia and anyone who was anyone was experimenting with studio weirdness following The Beatles’ lead.  Most of the experimenters were taken from the growing ‘albums-only’ underground which would reveal itself as progressive rock in the 1968/69 period so it was a bit of a shock to find that the voice of Young America, Tamla Motown, a label carefully geared towards the commercial singles market, was also a willing participant.  There were several ‘experimental’ singles released by Motown during this period, mainly by the more progressive elements such as The Temptations, but the one I am referring to here is ‘Reflections’ by Diana Ross and the Supremes.

Written and produced, as always, by the Holland-Dozier-Holland team, ‘Reflections’ is one of my favourite Supremes hits.  It has all the usual hallmarks of a great H-D-H song with Ross’s breathy vocal carrying a compelling melody over a classic Funk Brothers backing track (with, unless I am mistaken, a signature slithery bass line from James Jameson).  But it is the psychedelic extras that are most interesting – the signal oscillators over the intro and verses and the strangely reverberated tambourine being just two devices on show.

And now we get to it, the bit that has surprised me over 40 years later and it is this: the main rhythm is carried by, of all things, an accordion!  I mean, who knew?  I didn’t expect to find an accordion in pop music at all let alone in a Motown single.  But then the Summer of Love opened the door to all sorts of exotic instruments, many from India, so I suppose it was inevitable that that most Victorian of instruments would turn up eventually.  Just not in Detroit.

Well damn me, if the video I based this post on hasn't been blocked over at YouTube.  You'll just have to listen to Reflections and try to pick out that accordian for yourself!