This is amusing. Hipper-than-thou music journalist goes to see Rush at Wembley Arena, presumably with the intention of sneering at 70s prog-rock dinosaurs, and is reluctantly forced to admit that they were actually really, really good.
I’m going to see the final date of the tour tomorrow night. Should be good; everyone is saying they’re on cracking form.
Blender’s The 40 Worst Lyricists In Rock may have hit some worthy targets with Paul Stanley, Noel Gallagher and Jim Morrison, but their dismissal of Neal Peart is music journalist boilerplate sneering at it’s worst.
Drummers are good at many things: exploding, drowning in their own vomit, drumming. But the Rush skinsman proved they should never write lyrics—or read books. Peart opuses like “Cygnus X-1†are richly awful tapestries of fantasy and science fiction, steeped in an eighth-grade understanding of Western philosophy. 2112, Rush’s 1976 concept album based on individualist thinker Ayn Rand’s novella Anthem, remains an awe-inspiring low point in the sordid relationship between rock and ideas. Worst lyric: “I stand atop a spiral stair/An oracle confronts me there/He leads me on light years away/Through astral nights, galactic days†(“Oracle: The Dreamâ€)
Nothing like damning someone’s entire work by quoting a few lines out of context, is there? The same list also includes Gabriel-era Genesis, and naturally, Jon Anderson’s lyrics with Yes.
The only people that think the lyrics actually matter more than the music are professional rock critics, and fans of those bands that are/were all lyrics and no music.
So Jon Anderson’s 70s Yes lyrics were all stream-of-consciousness gibberish, and weren’t deeply symbolic of man’s struggle against his socio-political envionment. So bloody what? Perhaps I should point out that post-punk sacred cows The Fall have no tunes, their singer can’t sing, and musicians can barely play?
The Grauniad’s Dave Simpson searches for the least musical city in the UK and doesn’t seem to get it.
I’m struggling with York. Ex-Seahorse Chris Helme still treads the boards, there was a tipped but flop band called the Ya Ya’s a while back (I think managed by the same guy that brought us the Stone Roses) and at least one of Nine Black Alps hails from the town. But otherwise, it’s full of former Zoot and the Roots types.
If York really is such a cultural desert, why have I travelled to or will be travelling to that city no less than five times during 2007 purely to go to gigs? Presumably he doesn’t acknowledge the existance of anything other than NME-approved four chord indie rock.
On the other hand, perhaps Steve Jones can tell me if this description of his home town is remotely accurate:
Nothing can beat Telford in Shropshire for being a cultural desert, It’s not a city yet, but it’s already the been voted the Chav capital of the U.K.
The only good thing to ever come out of this place is the road out of it.
Only thing in its favour (besides the road out) is that people here avoid going to Church and the C.o.E have had to draft in a Vicar to try and get the locals along to worship.
It’s main features are industrial estates, council estates and a population of binge drinking drug addicts.
I was once told that if the U.K. was to be given an enema they would stick the pipe in Telford.
It even has the lowest rate of lottery winners in the U.K.
Avoid !
I had serious mixed feelings about this gig. I’d bought my ticket back in May, when both the circumstances and the lineup of the band were very different.
A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then. I’ve expressed my opinions about events in several forums, and won’t repeat it all again. Let’s just say it was a very deliberate choice to go to the gig wearing an Odin Dragonfly T-shirt.
I wasn’t expecting to bump into the man himself on the steps of the venue. But since you’re reading this, you can tell that I did live to tell the tale. He even made a point of shaking hands with me at the end of the gig.
As for the show itself, Fish was on fine form both in humour and in voice throughout. By by the end of the first song, he dispelled any lingering doubts about the shape of his voice following from his bout of laryngitis that caused the postponment of the original gig two weeks earlier, and the energy levels didn’t drop for the next two hours.
The setlist included most of Marillion’s 1988 album “Clutching at Straws” along with four songs from the new album 13th Star, with a few other favourites from Fish’s near 20-year solo career thrown in for good measure. I can’t remember the complete setlist from the last time he played Manchester, but I don’t think there was a single song common to both nights. I think that says something about the strength of the body of work he’s produced over the past quarter century.
High spots were too many to mention; of the new songs ‘Machmal’ packs a very powerful punch, ‘Circle Line’ and ‘Square Go’ rock hard, and ‘Dark Star’ is even more intense live than on record. I have to say that him singing some of the angriest lines straight in my face was just a little intimidating. That T shirt may have something to do with it. I’d have loved to have heard more of the new album played, but the Clutching at Straws songs came over fantastically well live too. (I still love that album, even though it’s two decades old).
The band were tight and well-drilled. Frank Usher may look old, but he reeled off some superbly fluid solos from that battered guitar. I’ve got into trouble for criticising his playing on Marillion oldies before; after all, there’s only one Steve Rothery. Probably wisely, he didn’t try impersonate Rothers and play the original solos note-for-note, but creatively reinterpreted them in his own style. And his playing on Cliché was mesmerising. Chris Johnson seems to have fitted in well; although it was wierd hearing him singing all the female backing vocal parts.
One of the most memorable gigs of the year, for all the right reasons. If it didn’t quite top Marillion at The Forum or Mostly Autumn at Bury, it came very, very close.
They all say life begins at 40…
Here’s to the next 40 years of great music
If you watched the Eurovision Song Contest, you might remember the bunch of hairy heavy metal cellists whose performance during the interval was by far the best music of the evening. You might also remember it being totally ruined by that moron Wogan prattling inanely over the top of them.
Despite the almost complete absence of guitars, they’re just released one of the most metal albums of the year. All those piledriving riffs are actually distorted cellos; it’s only when one of them plays a solo that they actually sound like a cellos. This is not a traditional string quartet.
With the exception of a cover of Bowie’s “Helden”, all the songs are originals. The album is a mix of instrumentals and songs featuring various guest vocalists, including Rammstein’s Til Linderman, and Lacuna Coil’s Christina Scabbia.If anything, I find I prefer the instrumentals; the title track and “Burn” being particular standouts.
Now, where did I put my air cello?
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:
Now, where did I put all those Shrapnel Records instrumental shred-metal albums from the mid-80s?
Whatever I feel about his recent behaviour, I’m still a fan of the former Marillion frontman’s music. And Fish has just come up with an absolute blinder of an album.
He finished recording his 13th album, 13th Star, in the aftermath of his very acrimonious split with Heather Findlay. He tends to produce his best work when he’s angry and bitter over something, so I was expecting him to deliver a strong album. Which he has.
Fish is primarily a singer and lyricist, and not much of a composer; therefore the quality of his albums depends very heavily on whoever he’s got as his songwriting partner. This time round, much of the music is written by bassist Steve Vantsis, who’s been with Fish’s band for years, but hasn’t had much in the way of writing credits before now.
Musically, parts of this album are very heavy, approaching metal in several places. Some songs have an industrial feel, with drum loops, heavily processed guitars, and groove-orientated basslines. The opening pair, ‘Circle Line‘ and ‘Square Go‘, are typical of this approach, In contrast, ‘Miles de Besos‘ and ‘Zoe 25‘ are more reflective keyboard-led numbers that wouldn’t have sounded out of place around the time of “Sunsets on Empire”.
‘Arc of the Curve‘ begins with the same opening line as his 1985 hit with Marillion, ‘Kayleigh‘, and the similarities, both musical and lyrical, don’t end there. From then on the album builds in intensity with the angry and emotionally charged ‘Machmal‘, the powerful driving rocker ‘Openwater‘ and ‘Dark Star‘, before winding down with the ballads ‘Where in the World‘ and the title track.
As for the lyrics, more than half the songs are directly about the breakup. With all the very unpleasant washing of dirty linen in the media at the time of the split, I had feared the worst. Had a large part of the album been an attack on Heather, I would have found it unlistenable, no matter how good it might have been musically. (As regular readers of this blog should know, I’m a huge fan of her music, and have met her several times) But while it does get uncomfortably personal on some lines of ‘Dark Star‘, most of the lyrics are concerned with his own feelings.
Fish isn’t the world’s best singer by any means. And nowadays he lacks the range he had in his younger years. He makes up for this with his impassioned and emotional delivery; frustration, anger, sadness and ultimately hope.
This is very much an album that stands as a whole rather than a random collection of songs. Every song works in the context of the album, and There’s no filler at all. It’s certainly Fish’s best work since at least “Sunsets on Empire”, and is a very strong candidate for album of the year.
This album will not be available by retail until early 2008, it’s currently only sold online from The Fish Shop, or at gigs.
Ricky Carvel and The Ministry of Information have also reviewed this album.
