Author Archives: Tim Hall

So the British Eurovision Entry is to be written by Andrew Lloyd-Webber

It will be warbled by some wannabe chosen by a cheesy talent show. Previously the British public has been forced to choose the least bad from a list of mediocre entries, and still the voters get it wrong.  This time there is no option to choose something not written by cheesemeister Andrew Lloyd Webber

My feelings are summed up by the greatest composer of the late 20th Century, Roger Waters.

We cower in our bunkers
With our fingers in our ears
Lloyd-Webber’s awful stuff
Runs for years, and years, and years

An earthquake hits the theatre
But the operetta lingers
The piano lid comes down
And breaks his f***ing fingers

It’s a miracle

I hope Finland come up with something good next year.  They’d get my vote.

Guardian columnist Will Byers wrote a piece praising Pink Floyd which also contained a lot of ill-informed and clichéd dismissals of ‘prog’

Not only did a large proportion of the Guardian commentariat take a dim view of this rather than agree with him, but the piece got widely linked from various prog forums, attracting visitors who came and took his poorly-argued piece apart.

I added that what really disappointed me was that his previous posts had been well-argued and thought-provoking, and seemed to show a respect for a much broader range of genres than many of the ex-NME types that write for that site. So to see him descend into parrotting punk-era journalistic clichés was rather sad. I suggested that his piece pissed away a lot of the respect he’d built up in previous postings.

Given the blatantly trollish natures of far too many recent Guardian Music Blog posts from the likes of Stephen Wells, Alan McGee, Caroline Sullivan etc., I have to wonder whether there’s been an edict from on high to ‘be controversial’ in order to provoke more comments and thus generate more advertising hits.

In the comments, he posted what can only be described as a grovelling apology.

I accept that I am guilty of judging a whole load of bands by the small amount of music I have heard by them. For that I apologise.

To end, if anyone is still paying attention, I tried to write a love letter with spite in my heart. Never again will I try to celebrate something I love by belittling the things that other people love.

We never managed to get an apology out of Tony Naylor.

In his weekly column for The Grauniad, the increasingly ridiculous Alan McGee manages to exceed his own standard in breathless hyperbole

I understand that openly admitting to liking Oasis is inviting confrontation, but you know what? Being an Oasis fan is never having to say I’m sorry. And I’m not. Leave saying sorry to the Coldplay imitators as their era of bedwetter music is over. It’s only Glasvegas and Oasis for competition in this country. If you are in a band and are not artistically competing with the creative rock’n'roll genius of Oasis or Glasvegas, it’s time to just stop and get off the treadmill. This is how rock’n'roll should be done in the United Kingdom today.

Apparently this new album is on a par with The Beatles’ “Revolver” and The Stones’ “Beggars Banquet”. Believe that, and I’ve got a bridge for sale.

A comment of mine has so far got 30 recommendations for saying that the coming of Oasis marked the point where mainstream British rock music took a major wrong turning, and tediously retro lumpen four-chord pub-rock became the only game in town.

Actually, I thought the first couple of Oasis albums were tolerably listenable, about as good as The Darkness a decade later. But their sound came to dominate the music scene to the extent that their ultimate legacy is the current glut of so-called ‘landfill indie’, band after band who all draw from the same desperately limited musical palette. It’s not pretty.

Naturally a band like The Reasoning blows the musically limited Oasis right out out of the water. Perhaps that’s what McGee is inadvertently saying: if you’re even more tiresomely conservative than Oasis, you might as well give up now.

As posted today on the Mostly Autumn site:

We are so very happy to pass on some wonderful news from Heather – she says: -

“By my side happily sleeps Harlan Findlay-Loftus, 7lb 8oz baby boy to ecstatically happy and thoroughly exhausted (in equal measure) parents Heather and Ian. Born this morning at 02.34 after a 3 hour natural labour! ”.

Congratulations to Heather and Ian, and a welcome to the world to little Harlan. As I said last year about Scarlett Gordon, Harlan has already been on stage a great many times, and doesn’t really have the option of not growing up musical

I’ve updated my last.fm profile, so that it lists the sort of music I like and dislike. I couldn’t fit in the “Everything from Odin Dragonfly to Opeth” line, unfortunately.

Under “I love” I’ve listed the sort of genres where I’m far more likely to like something in that genre that dislike it. I know there are some contemporary prog bands who are a bit rubbish (The Flower Kings?)

• Modern progressive rock
• Symphonic Metal
• Classic 70s and 80s hard rock and metal
• Classic 70s prog-rock
• Anything with great lead guitar
• Male and female vocalists who can actually sing in tune without the aid of pro-tools
• 12-minute songs about Hobbits
• Mellotrons

Under “I cannot stand” I turned the sarcasm meter up to 11. Yes, there are whole genres that leave me cold (Rap and contemporary R’n'B do nothing for me, I’m afraid), but I decided to for the things that really irritate me.

• Corporate landfill indie
• Tuneless scratchy post-punk
• Sausage factory manufactured pop
• Music which is more interesting for pseudo-intellectuals to talk about than to actually listen to
• Tabloid celebrity drug addicts who can’t get their act together
• Bands who put more effort into their haircuts than their actual music
• 3-chord songs about fights outside chip shops sung in fake working-class accents.
• Accordions

So, does anyone know me well enough to say whether or not this sums up my musical taste or not.

We’ll probably never know the real reason why Mostly Autumn’s set got cut short at the Cambridge Rock Festival. But I’m wondering if we can blame Guardian hack scribbler Caroline Sullivan, who genuinely seems to believe that all bands should be limited to 45 minute sets.

No band – not Razorlight, not anyone – needs to be onstage for longer than 45 minutes. In most cases, half an hour would suffice. An exception might be made for Madonna and others who stage big, theatrical spectaculars – they’d be allowed an hour, but not a minute longer.

…

I know what you’re thinking. I’m a rock critic who receives free tickets, so getting my money’s worth isn’t an issue. Well, before I did this job I paid for gigs, and even then, I felt exactly the same. I wanted to hear the best bits an artist had to offer, period. Anything more was extraneous, and once past a certain point – say 90 minutes – I’d be bored, because by then we’d be deep into the grim territory of unloved tracks and new material.

So, did anyone see Ms Sullivan lurking around backstage at Cambridge? Enquiring minds want to know…

My pre-order limited edition version of The Reasoning’s new album has arrived.  On first listen, this is a good one.  But The Reasoning are hardly the sort of band that does ‘difficult second albums’.

Full review when I’ve given it a few more listens.