Music Blog

All the music-related posts gathered together in one place.

Poll on Musicals

Posted on October 7, 2006 by Tim Hall

Norm has a new Normblog Poll.

The poll is for favourite musicals. I’m inviting you to send me your top five. You can rank them one to five, and I’ll award points (5 through 1) accordingly. If you don’t want to rank, no worries – I’ll distribute the points across your five choices (3 apiece).

Loose definition of the field: operas not included; but your musicals can be either stage or screen (so Singin’ in the Rain is allowed); where the musical exists in both categories (My Fair Lady, Guys and Dolls), it counts as just a single entity for voting purposes.

Being a rock fan I’m haven’t voted for any traditional-style “Show Tune” musicals; they represent a style of popular music that belongs to the generation before mine, I’m afraid.

This Is Spinal Tap. “Stonehenge! Where the Demons dwell!”. It’s the same sort of rock-band-on-tour genre as “Still Crazy” or “Almost Famous”, with the songs appearing in context. Ironically, it’s the spoof about a has-been band that was never supposed to have been any good that has the memorable songs, even if those songs themselves are wickedly accurate parodies of rock clichés.

Tommy. Although classed as a ‘rock opera’, I think this is closer to a musical in form than anything else. Certainly the late 1990s West End stage production looks and sounds like a musical, as does Ken Russell’s rather incoherent 1970s film version.

The Wall. If you can count Tommy, you can count this; both the stage production with all those polystyrene bricks (which I saw at Earls Court in 1981), and Alan Parker’s film starring Bob Geldof. It’s reputation has suffered because it came out just at the wrong time; at the height of New Wave when the three-minute three-chord pop song was the ultimate in musical expression.

The Return of Captain Invincible. You have to wonder what they were thinking. “Let’s make a spoof of Superman. And let’s make it a musical!”. And it’s got Christopher Lee in it! Perhaps Australians are just weird…

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Porcupine Tree, Manchester Academy, 30 Sep 2006

Posted on October 1, 2006 by Tim Hall

Having sold out the smaller Academy 2 twice last year, Porcupine Tree moved up to the larger Academy 1. They didn’t manage to sell out, but still attracted a bigger audience than would have fitted into the smaller venue.

This was a rather different gig to those last two, in that PT started by playing an entire hour of completely new material. Evidently they’ve decided to road-test the songs for the next album in a live setting before going into the studio to record them.

So what did the new material sound like? Well, it looks as though there’s another change in musical direction. It’s not Deadwing part II. If anything, it’s a bit more ‘prog’, less guitar-driven with a lot more keyboards. Wilson himself played quite a bit of keys, leaving John Wesley to play the lead guitar parts. (Wes sang lead vocals in places too!) It was quite a way into the set before we heard Steve play a guitar solo himself. A couple of heavier moments reminded me of parts of Dream Theater circa “Awake“; there was also one song with a soaring vocal line remiscent of Steve Wilson’s side project Blackfield. Steve Wilson thanked us for patiently listening to so much unfamiliar music before the short interval.

The audience energy level picked up during the second half of the show when the band played songs people already knew. The second set was drawn entirely from the two most recent albums, “In Absentia” and “Deadwing“, which might have disappointed those wanting to hear anything from “Lightbulb Sun” or the recently re-released “Stupid Dream“. The kaleidoscopic epic “Arriving Somewhere” was greeted with the most applause, only a year old and already an audience favourite. High spots for me were “Sound of Muzak” and the final encore “Blackest Eyes” with that massive Zeppelinesque intro.

Despite a few quibbles over the setlist in the second half, this was still a very enjoyable show. Hearing so much unfamiliar music in a show often challenging for an audience, especially for a band who’s work tends to need multiple listenings to be fully appreciated. On first hearing, though, these new songs came over as very strong, and I look forward to hearing the album when it comes out next year.

Update: The Ministry of Information has another review.

Posted in Live Reviews, Music | Tagged | 3 Comments

Anathema, Manchester Academy 3, 13-Sep-06

Posted on September 15, 2006 by Tim Hall

Anathema are a difficult band to pidgeonhole. They’re often classified as “doom metal”, although that label only really applies to their very early albums. Later on they moved towards the mix of goth rock and Floydian atmospherics on albums like “Alternative 4″ and “Judgement”, or the Radiohead-lite of “A Fine Day to Exit”. Their zigzagging musical trajectory might account for their failure to really break through into the big time; after eight varied albums they now find themselves without a record deal. Record deal or not, they still managed to draw a healthy crowd for a midweek gig.

First support was a short set from Danny Cavanagh’s new acoustic project “Leafblade”, just three guys on acoustic guitars, no bass or drums. Danny’s acoustic playing was quite impressive; I’ve always thought the mark of a good guitarist is the ability to play a decent solo shorn of effects or distortion.

Second support was Sweden’s prog-metallers Wolverine. They opened with the one song of theirs I recognised, “House of Plague”, which appeared on the cover disk of this month’s “Classic Rock” magazine. While musically competant, their set suffered from a muddy sound mix, and came over as a bit of a poor man’s Dream Theater; it’s possible that their music improves on repeated listenings, but with mostly unfamiliar material they seemed to lack strong hooks or riffs.

I wasn’t sure quite what to expect from Anathema’s headline set. Four years ago I saw them perform a superb show in the same venue. But last year’s support set for Porcupine Tree in the larger Academy 2 was a bit of a disappointment, in which they didn’t play nearly enough of what I considered to be their strongest material.

This time Anathema soon dispelled any lingering doubts I had as they launched into a powerful and enthusiastic set, buoyed up by an an appreciative crowd. They still played a lot from their most recent release, 2003′s A Natural Disaster, including a very impressive rendition of the title track, with Lee Douglas’ vocals far more impassioned than the studio version. This time the setlist also drew heavily from one of my favourite albums, 1998′s Alternative 4, with strong versions of ‘Empty’ (introduced as ‘a drinking song’) and ‘Lost Control’. The main set ended with Danny’s beautiful cascading solo at the end of ‘Flying’, merging seamlessly into a tape loop as he walked off stage with the guitar seemingly still playing.

They came back for no fewer than four encores including an excellent ‘Shroud of False/Fragile Dreams’ also from “Alternative 4″, ‘Sleepless’ right back from their 1993 debut, and finally a cover of Nine Inch Nails ‘Hurt’.

Good show, even though they overran the curfew which meant I had to get a taxi home. A band this good don’t deserve to languish without a record deal.

Posted in Live Reviews, Music | Tagged | 4 Comments

Circulus – Clocks are Like People

Posted on September 7, 2006 by Tim Hall

“In a castle far away
A band beins to play
The medieval disco lights are shining”

Circulus are one of those bands who are almost impossible to categorise. Their music includes both ancient moogs, and really ancient instruments like crumhorns and rausch pfiffers. With their charity shop medieval garb they can’t avoid comparisons with Blackmores Night, but unlike BN, Americanised renfaire cheese is thankfully absent from their sound. Circulus certainly don’t do cheap pop records. What we get is instead is flute-driven psychedelic folk-prog, with some loopily surreal lyrics in places, featuring dragons, south London skip hire companies, and Trumpton. Songs like ‘To The Fields’ recall early Mostly Autumn at their most pastoral, and I hear faint echoes of Caravan in some of the moog wig-outs, but overall they’ve got a very distinctive musical identify of their own.

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Meaningless Genre Labels?

Posted on September 6, 2006 by Tim Hall

Temple Stark thinks musical genre labels make no sense.

People get quite, quite stupid about trying to define genres of music. Certainly there are time references and bracketing of music, but gritty, heavy, middle of the road, prog-rock, emo, alternative (the ultimate useless label)?

Ah yes, “Alternative”. Alternative has now completely lost it’s original meaning, because it’s represents a style that’s now become the mainstream, while the music it was originally supposed to be an alternative to is now called “classic rock”. The British “Indie” is equally stupid when it’s used to refer to present-day corporate rock acts like Coldplay and Franz Ferdinand.

I’d admit there is a difference between “heavy metal” and “hard rock”, but I can’t think of any specific genre markers that separate one from the other. It’s just something you know when you hear it. Black Sabbath are heavy metal. Thin Lizzy are hard rock. And I’m not even going to try and explain why. What ends up endless causing arguments between musical anoraks is that most genre boundaries are fuzzy, and many truly great bands are too varied to sit neatly into any single genre, let alone a sub-genre. When you get into ‘Progressive Doom” or “Zinc Alloy Metal” (OK, so I made that last one up!), I’m lost. I think most bands that fit too neatly into a specific sub-genre are likely to be rather unoriginal and derivative. It’s not just metal that subdivides into narrow genres; dance music is even worse.

My biggest pet hate is the way some people claim to love “progressive rock” and hate “prog rock”, and then go on to define those two genres on some totally arbitrary basis purely in order to fit whatever bands they do or don’t like in the right one.

Posted in Music | 8 Comments

Mew – And the Glass Handed Kites/Riverside – Second Life Syndrome

Posted on September 2, 2006 by Tim Hall

Mew: And the Glass Handed Kites

Mew have been tipped as one of the ‘new progressive’ bands who take influences from 70s progressive rock and make them relevant to the 21st century. Unfortunately the only ‘prog’ thing about this record are the wierd song titles and incomprehensible lyrics. Musically the progressive influences are so diluted they might as well not be there. What we do get is a whole load of generic indie-style jangling guitar (I hate that style of guitar playing) leavened by very occasional prog-style keyboard flourishes. A couple of beautiful soaring vocal lines rise above the jangly morass, but it’s not enough to save the album. For my tastes at any rate, this one’s something of a dud. Serves me right for trusting the judgement of the rock critics of The Guardian. I’m half convinced that they just read the lyrics booklets and never bother to listen to the actual records.

Riverside: Second Life Syndrome

Poland’s Riverside most likely aren’t even on radar screen of the indie-obsessed Guardian scribblers, but unlike Mew, they’re the real thing. I’m writing this on a wet and miserable morning in Manchester, and the music seems to be a perfect fit to the weather. Some of the cold and bleak soundscapes evoke what I imagine Poland must be like in the depths of winter. The guitar-driven music is reminiscent of some recent Porcupine Tree, although they’ve enough of their own identity to avoid becoming a simple pastiche. I can also hear echoes of a stripped-down Dream Theater in places. Piotr Grunzinski’s masterful guitar playing defines their sound, all angular riffs and fluid soloing; no indie-style jangling to be heard. It’s a perfect match for Maruisz Duda’s somewhat angst-ridden lyrics. We could probably have done without the rather clichéd ‘Shine on You Crazy Diamond’ intro to the 15 minute title track, but that’s a minor quibble, it’s only a minute and a half of their whole album.

Posted in Music, Record Reviews | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Lordi – The Arockalypse

Posted on September 2, 2006 by Tim Hall

People who accuse Finland’s national heroes Lordi of ripping off Gwar miss one important difference. With Lordi, underneath all that latex and and B-Movie horror imagery there’s a great rock and roll band who are capable of coming up with a whole album of decent songs. I’ve previously described their winning Eurovision entry ‘Hard Rock Hallelujah” as a cross between Rammstein and The Darkness, and the album is much in the same vein. It’s pure pop-metal, huge guitar riffs and massive singalong choruses. Bottom line, if you liked the Eurovision entry, you’ll like this album. Whether they’ll have as long and successful career as ABBA, or whether they’ll be the metal equivalent of Bucks Fizz remains to be seen.

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Nine Clues

Posted on August 27, 2006 by Tim Hall

Past the halfway point in Son of 20 First Lines Rides Again. Here are some clues for the nine which nobody has yet guessed.

2. From the current album by Scandianvian band who have recently become national heroes in their home country; there’s even a set of stamps in their honour.

4. By the current kings of widdly prog-metal, from their last but one album,

6. A song by a ‘Cod Irishman’ allegedly inspired by an Arthur Machen short story

7. By a short-lived turn of the century goth-prog band (I think they did one other album) with a viola as a major element of their sound.

8. Current Scandinavian band who allegedly have some prog-rock influences.

10. Yet another bunch of Scandinavians, from the same nation as (2), but this song is in their native language. Currently on hiatus while they find themselves a new singer.

11. Even more Scandinavians, featuring one member of the neo-prog supergroup Transatlantic.

18. From the recent live album by an American bluegrass/prog/jam band.

19. Recent song by a bunch of Welshmen that wear their nationality on their sleeve.

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Stupid music quote of the day

Posted on August 27, 2006 by Tim Hall

The only person enjoying that guitar solo is the guitarist

- Alex Kapranos, lead poseur of media darlings Franz Ferdinand, on how to make an utterly formulaic sausage factory record.

What’s cool ever given us? A whole generation of musicians who haven’t got the imagination to embrace anything but the most obvious and one-dimensional

- Gaz Cobain of Amorphous Androgynous, clearly talking about people like Alex Kapranos.

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Son of 20 First Lines Rides Again

Posted on August 20, 2006 by Tim Hall

Another one. Same rules as before, if you think you recognise any, put your answers in the comments, and no cheating by searching in Google. This lot has a lot of classic 70s prog-rock.

1. A well-known Bognor restraunt owner disappeared early this morning
– Harold the Barrel, Genesis (Steve Jones)
2. Attention class, here we come, we kick your ass, that’s lesson one.
3. Cat’s foot, iron claw, neurosurgeons scream for more
– 21st Century Schizoid Man, King Crimson (Rob)
4. Hello Mirror – so glad to see you my friend
5. I had a mother chasing planets, shopping doctors for her Vicodin
– Surfing down the avalanche, Spocks Beard (Steve Jones)
6. I stood upon the balcony with my brandy glass.
7. I’d like to visit Kashmir and shout over this land.
8. In nolan time sign what does the mind cover
– Mew, Apocalypso (fds)
9. It would appear that male pattern baldness has set in
– Bald, The Darkness (Rob)
10. Kerran vain haaveeni nähdä sain
11. Mother, what’s it all about
12. She was the keeper of all my reason
– Queen of Hearts, David Coverdale (Steve Jones)
13. Somewhere in your eyes that very special glow
– Salisbury, Uriah Heep (Steve Jones)
14. Standing in the space that holds the silent lace of night
– The Emperor in his War Room, Van der Graaf Generator (Steve Jones)
15. The clock strikes twelve, and moondrops burst
– Astronomy, Blue Öyster Cult (Murray Ewing)
16. The sky is red, I don’t understand
– Burn, Deep Purple (Steve Jones)
17. Train arriving, sixteen coaches long
– Mystery Train, UFO or Elvis (Chris)
18. When I was a boy, at the cold blue lake
– Hunting Song, Railroad Earth (Scott)
19. When did life get so, get so complicated
20. Yesterday as morning came a smile upon your face
– Yours is no disgrace, Yes (Fred Webb)

Posted in Music | 17 Comments