Author Archives: Tim Hall

Why is the Coldplay tour delayed?

Posted on June 11, 2008 by Tim Hall

Coldplay have postponed their world tour for two weeks, citing “production delays”. The Guardian wonders why:

Chris Martin can’t remember the new lyrics? The dancers can’t fit into their leotards? The band are struggling with a new carbon-offsetting mango forest project?

Or perhaps one of the band is pregnant? Or Chris Martin has viral laryngitis, and he knew there were some people out there who would have rejoiced in his fall and who would bury him under the “his voice is permanently shot”? Or maybe a key venue has been double-booked with a Lynyrd Skynyrd tribute band…

Or maybe it’s more sinister. Perhaps the final date of the tour was rearranged to a date when The Stars Are Right? The last encore of the final date of the tour completes the blasphemous ritual that causes the sunken city of R’lyeh to rise, and releases the tentacled Elder Gods into our dimension. It all makes sense now…

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Mostly Autumn – Lincoln Drill Hall, 7th June 2008

Posted on June 9, 2008 by Tim Hall

Fifth gig of the tour I’ve attended, and another new venue for me, the Drill Hall in Lincoln. It’s a old Victorian building which has been very extensively refurbished a couple of years ago; standing down the front, and tiered seating down them back.

This gig marked the welcome return of Jon Spence on the mixing desk, and it showed; this was probably the best sound mix I’ve heard so far on this tour; despite being directly in front of Bryan Josh, his guitar didn’t drown out the rest of the band, Anne-Marie Helder’s flute and Livvy Sparnenn’s backing vocals were noticeably more prominent in the mix, which is a good thing.

With the tour nearing the end, the lineup has well and truly gelled now; new drummer Henry Bourne is possibly the best man behind the drums they’ve had while I’ve been following them, and Anne-Marie has really fitted in well on multiple instuments; seeing her really going for it on the tambourine during ‘Never the Rainbow’ is proof she’s a very different personality than Angie Gordon. And as for Liam Davidson and Iain Jennings, it’s great to see both of them back. Iain’s Hammond organ pyrotechnics on ‘Never the Rainbow’ reminded us of what was missing last year. And Heather Findlay, now six months pregnant, just gets better and better on lead vocals.

The two-hour setlist is the same as the last few shows, with four songs from the new album “Glass Shadows”, and also drawing heavily from “Passengers”. Of the new songs, ‘Unoriginal Sin’ is turning into a incredibly powerful live number, Heather channelling all that anger and bitterness from the middle of last year, and is made all the stronger by mixing Anne Marie’s and Livvy’s harmony vocals much higher; very much the high spot of the first half of the set. ‘Tearing at the Faerytale’ is equally powerful and emotional live. And ‘Flowers For Guns’ has just got to be a single.

The oldies were equally good; I’ve never heard them play a bad version of ‘Evergreen’ and tonight’s was no exception; ‘Carpe Diem’, one of those songs that relies heavily on the sound man getting the balance between Bryan’s guitar and the vocals right, was magnificent, and ‘Heroes Never Die’ is finally making the hairs on back of my neck stand up again; Anne-Marie may have struggled with that flute part on the intro earlier on the tour, but tonight she nailed it.

Just two dates left on this tour now; at Leamington Spa on Thursday 12th, and Stocksbridge the following night. Catch them if you can, they’re worth it. After a couple of festival dates, the band take an extended break while their lead singer is on maternity leave.

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Are photographers really a threat?

Posted on June 8, 2008 by Tim Hall

Bruce Schneier in The Guardian comes up with one explaination as to why photographers seem to be hassled more and more when trying to take pictures in public places out of misplaced fear of ‘terrorists’

Given that real terrorists, and even wannabe terrorists, don’t seem to photograph anything, why is it such pervasive conventional wisdom that terrorists photograph their targets? Why are our fears so great that we have no choice but to be suspicious of any photographer?

Because it’s a movie-plot threat.

A movie-plot threat is a specific threat, vivid in our minds like the plot of a movie. You remember them from the months after the 9/11 attacks: anthrax spread from crop dusters, a contaminated milk supply, terrorist scuba divers armed with almanacs. Our imaginations run wild with detailed and specific threats, from the news, and from actual movies and television shows. These movie plots resonate in our minds and in the minds of others we talk to. And many of us get scared.

At to this that many of the sorts of people employed as security guards are not exactly the sharpest tools of the box, are poorly-paid, poorly-trained, and recruited through a process that fails to weed out small-minded bullies, it’s not surprising that some photographers get hassled.

And I’m not willing to listen to the sheeple who bleat “it’s better to be safe than sorry” when authority figures overreact to largely imaginary terrorist threats.  If we do nothing, our freedoms will be slowly salami-sliced away.  If when they came for the railway enthusiasts with cameras and you did nothing, what will happen when they come for you?

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50 Years of Independent Music

Posted on June 5, 2008 by Tim Hall

The infamous Guardian Music Blog has a posting which starts with “let’s celebrate fifty years of independent music”.

Unfortunately the sub-editor insisted on giving it a title with the word “indie”. So naturally the majority of commenters aren’t thinking beyond scratchy 1980s post-punk or jangly guitar pop. Only a brave few thought of 70s labels like Island or Charisma; apparently the majority opinion was that there was nothing ‘independent’ until punk came along. OK, so the 1980s may have been the heyday of the independent label; but nowadays, ‘independent’ means not bothering with a record company at all.

When you come to ‘independant’ rather than ‘indie’, nothing epitomises the DIY ethic more strongly to me than underground second and third generation prog bands. Here we have a genre ignored or derided by mainstream critics, and sneeringly dismissed by hipper-than-thou self appointed guardians of musical taste. Yet on small prog-orientated labels, sometimes owned by the bands themselves, the genre is not only alive, but thriving.

These are five of the best from the 90s and 00s:

  • Marillion – Anoraknophobia (Racket Records)
  • Karnataka – Delicate Flame of Desire (Immramma)
  • Mostly Autumn – The Last Bright Light (Cyclops)
  • Porcupine Tree – Lightbulb Sun (Snapper)
  • IQ – Subterrania (Giant Electric Pea)

Marillion may have started their career on EMI, but it was the fan-financed release of “Anoraknophobia” that marked a significant milestone in the way non-mainstream music is created and released. Nowadays getting fans to pre-order in lieu of a record company advance is quite common practice, but Marillion did it first, a fact often ignored by mainstream scribblers.

I think it’s artists like these that represent the future of the music business. Not that everybody is going sound remotely like them, of course. But they represent the growing legions of underground bands, building long-term relationships with their fanbases, controlling their own destinies and completely immune to short-term fads and fashions. Free from having to fund the overheads of a big record company, they’ve proved that recording and touring on a smaller scale can be economically viable.

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Planet Rock Sold

Posted on June 4, 2008 by Tim Hall

It looks like the future of Planet Rock is secure

At long last I’m delighted to be able to announce that Planet Rock’s future is now secure. We have been purchased by life long rock and radio fan Malcolm Bluemel and his consortium supported by our very own Tony Iommi, Ian Anderson , Gary Moore, and Fish, saving Planet Rock from certain closure.

In a deal finalised earlier today Malcolm takes control of the station with immediate effect, there will be no break in transmission or changes in programming

I’ve got the station on at the moment, and they do seem to be playing a slightly more eclectic selection of material rather than the same old rock standards.

I would suggest that seeing the last name in the consortium ought to imply that not to play a certain York-based band on the station because their lead singer is his ex should be considered an act of gross unprofessionalism :)

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OMS

Posted on June 3, 2008 by Tim Hall

What’s been on the CD player the last few days:

Pure Reason Revolution, The Dark Third.
This is one of these albums I keep forgetting how good it is until I play it again. Pure Reason Revolution may have been a bit of a pastiche, a sort of prog-rock version of The Darkness, but unlike the Lowestoft bunch, their album seems to have lasted. I’ve has random bits of ‘Dark Third’ have been stuck in my head all morning at work. It is a bit repetitive in places, but I find it just works as one continuous of music with recurring themes and motifs; very ‘prog’.

Led Zeppelin, In Through the Out Door
Recently picked this one up for a fiver on CD, as the only Led Zep album I still only had on vinyl, and therefore hadn’t heard for years. Conventional wisdom suggests LZ ended with a whimper rather than a bang, with Jimmy Page AWOL at least in spirit half the time, but while it’s clearly no “Physical Graffiti” it’s actually not a bad album. Songs like ‘Hot Dog’ might be throwaway fluff, but I’d forgotten that ‘Carouselambra’ is actually a little bit more than just a poor man’s ‘Achilles Last Stand’. And ‘In the Evening’, ‘All My Love’ and ‘I’m gonna crawl’ are pure class.

Yes, Fragile
Nothing quite like some classic 70s prog. “Sharp! Distance! How can the wind with so many around me, I feel lost in the city“. I’m sure this song is about Jon Anderson’s former day job as a milkman. It’s a pity this band are judged by the mainstream on what everyone but their fanboys accept is one of their worst albums, the overblown “Tales from Topographic Oceans”, rather than albums like this one.

Panic Room, Visionary Position
At the Breathing Space+Mermaid Kiss show a week and a bit ago, Jon Edwards (who was playing keys for MK) personally thanked me for my review of the album. I should have thought to thank him for recording it. It really is that good.

Porcupine Tree – Lightbulb Sun
Every time I dig out a PT album, I immediately think “This is their best one”.  I think that’s one of the great things about Porcupine Tree – all their albums are quite different, but all have their strengths.  This one catches them as their moved away from ambient soundscape prog towards psychedelic pop, but before they went metal.  I love the sarcastic Britpop pastiche “Four Chords That Made a Million”.

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Robert Donoghue on Amber

Posted on May 31, 2008 by Tim Hall

Quite a few gamer friends of mine are fanatical cultists of Amber, the diceless RPG based on Roger Zelazny’s dimension-hopping setting. Robert Donoghue has some Amberish thoughts, and manages to put his finger on precisely what’s always bugged me about the setting.

For those unfamiliar with it, Amber basically posits an infinite number of universes, each one only fractionally different than the ones next to it, and the princes of Amber travel through these realities (‘shadows’) by making progressive changes in their environment. This means that no place but Amber (Where you can’t do this stuff) is really unique. If you find a place you like, but accidentally blow it up or something, you just move to an otherwise identical universe where your bartender is left handed.

Now, this model works fantastically if you heartily want to buy into the idea that only Amber and its princes matter* but if you step away from that at all it gets a bit dodgy. For example, it’s hard to say any given place matters in some unique way, or to say any _person_ matters, since a replacement is just a quick shift away.

Now, my exposure to the setting is limited to reading the books, and one convention-style one-shot game several years ago which probably didn’t expose me to the game’s strengths. But I’ve always found it’s played bait-and-switch on me; it purports to be about parallel universes, but what you really get is a dynastic soap opera where all those potentially fascinating parallel universes are just insubstantial background.

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Breathing Space + Mermaid Kiss, Mansfield, 24-May-08

Posted on May 26, 2008 by Tim Hall

I’ve been to some funny places for gigs this year. Last time I saw Mermaid Kiss was supporting Panic Room in a village hall in Gloucestershire. This time it was a working mens club in Nottinghamshire, walls covered in posters for dodgy tribute bands.

Seeing the low ceiling I feared the worst for the sound quality, but once Mermaid Kiss took the stage my fears proved unfounded; the sound was pretty-near perfect. They had the same semi-acoustic lineup as at Lydney, acoustic guitar and no drums, which means they can’t play some of the rockier material from the albums, but a lot of the more atmospheric came over well. Much of the set was similar to April’s gig, with several new songs from their as-yet unrecorded next album. High spot was an absolutely mesmerising “Seattle”, sung totally solo by Evelyn Downing.

And then Breathing Space came on and played an absolute blinder, certainly the best headline set I’ve ever seen them play, helped by the same crystal-clear sound. Something like a two-hour set, playing practically all of their superb “Coming Up for Air”, several songs from the first album, and three Iain Jennings-penned Mostly Autumn favourites. I have to say it was strange hearing Breathing Space playing “Distant Train” the night after hearing the Mostlies playing the same song at Bury Met (And I’m not going to get into arguments over which version was the best!). “Hollow” was lovely; Olivia Sparnenn has made that song her own now. So was the encore “The Gap is Too Wide”; in both cases they had to be the best live versions of those songs I’ve heard. Their own songs came over at wonderfully well too; with some interesting takes on arrangements in places, such as John Hart’s wind synth replacing the slide guitar on “Don’t Turn a Blind Eye” and the extended jazzy instrumental section in “Head Above The Water”. It’s difficult to find anything to say about Livvy Sparnenn and Iain Jennings I haven’t said before, they were both on great form. But I do have to say I’m finding myself liking Mark Rowan’s guitar playing more and more. He’s not flash, but his playing is always exactly what the songs require, never playing a note more than is needed, whether it’s the fluid soloing on the title song of “Coming Up for Air” or his really simple but amazingly effective solos on the big soaring ballads.

Two great bands, nearly three hours of great music. It’s a crying shame that they played to such a tiny audience, something like fifty people. Surely this beats watching the Eurovision Song Contest on the telly?

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A Weekend of Live Music

Posted on May 22, 2008 by Tim Hall

Coming up – Mostly Autumn at Bury Met tomorrow night, followed by Breathing Space supported by Mermaid Kiss in Mansfield the following night. There’s an outside chance of a third gig on Sunday, in which case I’ll need the bank holiday Monday to recover.

There won’t be any pictures (at least none of mine), because my camera died at MA’s gig in Leicester, which looks like CCD failure. At the moment I don’t know if the camera is worth repairing, or whether I’ll need to shell out for a new one

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Time for another one of those “meme” things, I suppose…

Posted on May 21, 2008 by Tim Hall

Another meme, from The Ministry of Information

1. Last film you saw in a cinema?
It’s so long since I last went to the cinema that I can’t actually remember

2. What book are you [re]reading?
Currently halfway through Charlie Stross’s “The Atrocity Archives”.

3. Favourite board game?
Can’t single out just one – I can name Railway Rivals, Illuminati (which isn’t technically a board game, but plays like one) and Arkham Horror, which is always fun, but takes ages.

4. Favourite magazine?
I don’t think there are any I now buy religiously every month, they all seem to have gone downhill lately – “Continental Modeller” has become “Obscure Bolivian kettle monthly” and “Classic Rock” seems to have turned into a Guns’N'Roses fanzine.

5. Favourite smells?
Bacon. Vegetarianism, cured!

6. Favourite sounds?
Fender Stratocaster played through a Marshall amp by someone that knows what he’s doing
A real Mellotron (Yes, I know the response to that is “have you ever tried to lift a real Mellotron”)
English Electric 12CSVT diesel engine on full power – such as a class 37 climbing that grade out of Weymouth.

7. Worst feeling in the world?
I don’t really feel like answering this one.

8. What is the first thing you think of when you wake up?
“I suppose this means I have to get up”

9. Favourite fast food place?
Murray’s sandwich bar in Alderley Edge

10. Future child’s name?
Hessian for a boy, Rafia for a girl. That is not a very serious answer.

11. Finish this statement. “If I had lot of money I’d..”
Buy a house with a basement big enough for a big US-Style model railway layout.

12. Do you sleep with a stuffed animal?
No! There is a teddy bear named “Isambard” in the house, but he sits on the sofa.

13. Storms – cool or scary?
Cool, provided you’re under cover.

14. Favourite drink?
Coffee (white, one suger)
Old Specked Hen
Leffe Blond

15. Finish this statement, “If I had the time I would”
Build that US-style basement buster with the money from question 11

16. Do you eat the stems on broccoli?
No. The stems don’t get as far as the saucepan

17. If you could dye your hair any color, what would be your choice?
I like it the colour it is now, thank you.

18. Name all the different cities/towns you’ve lived in?
Slough, Reading, Sale, Cheadle Hulme

19. Favourite sports to watch?
Cricket

20. One nice thing about the person who sent this to you?
He didn’t exactly ‘send’ this to me, but he does appear to like Marillion, giving him better taste in music than 99% of the population.

21. What’s under your bed?
Dust.

22. Would you like to be born as yourself again?
That’s just a fundamentally silly question.

23. Morning person, or night owl?
Night Owl.

24. Over easy, or sunny side up?
Eggs, ugh.

25. Favourite place to relax?
Horse Cove, south Devon (between Dawlish and Teighmouth). Unfortunately they’ve put up some of those horrid pallisade fences ruining the view.

26. Favourite pie?
Shepherd’s pie

27. Favourite ice cream flavour?
Vanilla

28. Of all the people you tagged this to, who’s most likely to respond first?
I’m supposed to tag people?

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