Author Archives: Tim Hall

They all say life begins at 40…

Here’s to the next 40 years of great music

I’m getting worried about HippyDave. He used to be a reliable prog rock fan, full of praise for bands like Marillion and Karnataka. But disturbing things are appearing in his Livejournal.

First, he posts this

Another dark secret is my unalloyed but seldom expressed love of Gilbert & Sullivan.

And then even worse, this.

Or, indeed, the local news, where there may be a report that a long-haired hippy type went on a Hungerford-style rampage after the tragically mentally retarded staff of a local store were unable to provide him with a copy of the new Katie Melua single.

Graeme Thomson thinks musical taste is hardwired. While it’s true that our brains are wired to respond to certain musical stimuli, I’m wonder how much is down to early musical experiences.

I was exposed to a lot of classical music before discovering rock and roll, and I think it’s that which has left me both with a love of the much-maligned genre of prog-rock, and an inability to appreciate the vast majority of post-punk or indie, most of which sounds too musically shallow to hold much interest.

So nowadays I end up liking things from Odin Dragonfly, an acoustic duo with a lot of flute, to Opeth, who play prog-tinged death metal with Cookie Monster vocals. On the surface, those two acts don’t appear to have that much in common. But both bands are really into harmonies (in Opeth’s case it’s the twin lead guitars rather than vocals), along with a lot of songs in minor keys.

In terms of sounds, I love Hammond organs, Mellotrons, and the magical combination of Fender Stratocaster and a Marshall stack, combined with male or female vocalists that concentrate on staying in tune rather than expressing fake angst.

Put all that together and you end up with something like the closing section of Mostly Autumn’s Carpe Diem, which takes me to heaven every time I hear it.

What I cannot stand is indie-style jingly-jangly guitar, and ridiculously affected vocal stylings. Bob Dylan, Bryan Ferry, Morrissey and Damon Alburn’s mockney are like fingernails scraping on a blackboard to me. Opeth’s Cookie Monster is a possible exception to this.

I still think the inability to appreciate a good guitar solo is probably caused by a faulty gene. Sadly it’s so prevalent that the accountants that make all the important decisions in the mainstream music industry have all but banned guitar solos as a result because it might reduce sales to people like Graeme Thomson

Every Friday, the Guardian Arts blog has a feature Readers recommend. This week’s subject is Instrumentals

As an antidote to RR’s bias towards lyrics and lyricists would like you to consider instrumentals. Although he also tells me that preference will be given to artists usually better known for their vocals, so maybe it’s not that much of an antidote. Anyway, some rules: when he says instrumentals, he means no vocals whatsoever. No wordless wailing, no whispering, no ululating, no yodelling. And no sampled voices. Also, no classical music: the field is too big, the list too small.

It’s a good one for an unrepentant prog-rock fan like me. Here’s the ten I came up with:

• Mostly Autumn – ‘Out of the Inn’ and ‘Distant Trains’. The former starts out as a flute-driven folk-rock jig, then turns into a headbanging guitar rocker half way through. Always been a live favourite; it rips up the place whenever they play it. The latter is a moody atmospheric piece based around a drum loop, but too much rock guitar to be filed under ‘ambient’. Was another live favourite when they used to play it back when Iain Jennings was still in the band; still appears in the live set from time to time from Iain’s new band Breathing Space. (There’s a live version on Breathing Space’s myspace page)
• Edgar Winter – ‘Frankenstein’. Featuring a young Ronnie Montrose on guitar with that killer opening riff. Alan Freeman used to use bits of this as jingles in his evening rock shows.
• Rainbow – ‘Weiss Heim’ and ‘Snowman’. The former is a the superbly atmospheric B-side to the single ‘All Night Long’. And yes, the latter is a cover of that Christmas song, only with Fender Stratocaster instead of Aled Jones, which I rate as a considerable improvement.
• Frank Zappa – ‘Peaches en Regalia’. He’s recorded a lot of jazz-rock instrumentals over the years; this is one of his best-known, and most accessible.
• Genesis – ‘Hairless Heart’. The better of the two instrumentals from “The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway”. Due to it’s resemblance to some of his later solo material, I’m guessing it’s a Steve Hackett composition.
• Rush – ‘La Villa Strangiato’ and ‘YYZ’. The former, subtitled ‘An exercise in self-indulgence’, does what it says on the tin, but it’s just brilliant. It may be little more than an extended jam, but it works. The latter, with the rhythm based on the morse code for the call sign of Toronto airport, is just as good. These two are ideal for people that can’t listen to Rush because they can’t stand Geddy Lee’s voice.
• Jon Lord – ‘Bach onto This’. A rock version of J.S.Bach’s toccata and fugue in A minor, played on the mighty Hammond.

Now, where did I put all those Shrapnel Records instrumental shred-metal albums from the mid-80s?