Glastonbury!

Ok I am yet again giving Glastonbury a miss instead my weekend will consist attending the Bowie exhibition at the V&A and the Springsteen Concert at Olypic Park as part of Hard Rock Calling. I think the sound will be poor but I am looking forwrad to the show:


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and this:

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Big Country-Fields of Fire

Just a gentle reminder of how good Big Country were following my suggestion this be played on Off the Ball today!

Forgotten Album Friday #24 - The Waterboys - A Pagan Place

If you are suffering from overload of prime time karaoke from The Voice and the like this is the place to restore your faith in quality music.




In looking up the information on this album I came across the following great Rolling Stone Reviews from 1984:

The Waterboys’ chunk of British big-guitar rock has a very familiar ring. There are resonant echoes of the Bunnymen in singer Mike Scott’s tremulous wail and the martial slice of his massed acoustic guitars, along with hints of fellow Scotsmen Big Country’s Highland swirl and enough studio reverb to swallow U2. What distinguishes ‘A Pagan Place’ - the Waterboys’ first full-length U.S. release - is the unique, exhilarating force of its rock & roll heart. Like a punk bursting into Van Morrison’s mystic with six strings blazing, Scott (head Waterboy and the album’s producer) has made a kind of black-leather-jacket version of ‘Astral Weeks’. The raging guitars of “Rags” and eager gallop of “Church Not Made with Hands,” with its bursts of Gabriel like trumpet, explode the folkie purity of his melodies and frank introspection of his lyrics into epic blasts of what he aptly calls, in another song, “The Big Music”.




Often, that sound is composed of a lot of little things that add up brilliantly. In ‘All the Things She Gave Me,’ Scott heightens the funeral-pyre image of a failed love affair with a pained, questioning vocal, brooding acoustic guitars and a rousing chorus glowing with an R&B flame. The title song, powered by guitars in locomotive drive and hopeful trumpet flourishes, sounds like an impatient prayer. Even the ambitious naiveté of ‘Red Army Blues,’ in which the rites of passage of a young Russian soldier in World War 2 are detoured by Stalinist cruelty, is effectively dramatised by the band, whose sad, gray march evokes a tired legion crossing the bleak Siberian steppes.

The gripping quality of Scott’s expansive big-music gestures is wondrous enough. That he pulls it off with a defiant acoustic purity - no synthesizers, by God! - is reason to cheer. Contrary to their name, the Waterboys already qualify for a spot on the new-rock A team. 

New Justin Currie lp due August

Good news that Justin Currie is back with a new lp and hitting the road later in the year.

Here is the lead track, sounds great to me if not particularly ground breaking for him.

http://youtu.be/4u_Z1_3i2K4

The new album Lower Reaches. Released 19th August.

New Jackson Browne Live DVD

Jackson Browne has a new live DVD / Blue Ray coming out. Great tracklisiting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=YNMEnd9rA_Y

Jackson Browne-I’ll Do Anything: Live In Concert DVD track listing:
1. Black And White - 7:14
2. I'm Alive - 5:40
3. Farther On - 5:18
4. The Naked Ride Home - 8:06
5. Live Nude Cabaret - 4:34
6. Sleep's Dark And Silent Gate - 2:35
7. The Pretender - 7:01
8. A Child In These Hills - 6:02
9. Tokyo Girl - 4:54
10. These Days - 6:29
11. In The Shape Of A Heart - 6:32
12. The Late Show - 6:26
13. I'll Do Anything - 6:18
14. Running On Empty - 6:15
15. Take It Easy - 5:28
16. Rock Me On The Water - 6:01
17. Before The Deluge - 10:00

Total Running Time: 1 hour, 45 mins

Springsteens greatest ever gig?

What do you think?

Trevor Bolder

Like many people sad to hear of the passing of Trevor Bolder. Most well known of course being one of the "Spiders From Mars".

Clash New Releases

Some interesting news on the Clash website and I copy this from the Guardian for ease. I am not at all sure that this will be a worthwhile addition to the Clash output. Certainly the £120 pricetack for the box set will raise some eyebrows! Clash hits back is a waste of money I would suggest.

"The Clash are to release two new compilations in September – including a box set designed by bassist Paul Simonon to replicate an 80s boombox. Sound System will contain remasters of the band's first five albums, from The Clash to Combat Rock, plus three CDs of singles, rarities and demos, and a DVD containing previously unseen footage, plus reprints and a new edition of the band's Armagideon Time fanzine.

"The concept of the whole thing is: best box set ever," Clash guitarist Mick Jones – who oversaw the remastering – told the Guardian. "Remastering's a really amazing thing. That was the musical point of it all, because there's so much there that you wouldn't have heard before. It was like discovering stuff, because the advances in mastering are so immense since the last time [the Clash catalogue] was remastered in the 90s."

All the music has been remastered from the original tapes, Jones said. "We had to bake the tapes beforehand – the oxide on them is where the music is, so if you don't put them in the oven and bake them, that all falls off, because they're so old."

Bassist Simonon highlighted a guitar line on Safe European Home, from the band's second album Give 'Em Enough Rope, saying he'd never even heard it before. "It's probably some session musician, while I was asleep," Jones joked.

Sound System is accompanied by The Clash Hits Back, a 33-track, two-CD best-of sequenced to copy the set played by the band at the Brixton Fair Deal – now the Academy – on 19 July 1982, rounded out with big numbers that failed to make the set that night.

The Fair Deal was a special venue for the Clash, Simonon told the Guardian, because of the memories the venue held as the cinema he and Jones went to as children. "It's actually where I saw my first ever pop show," Simonon said. "We all turned up as 10-year-olds, and they said: 'Right, boys and girls, we've got a special surprise for you - we're not going to show you a film!' So everyone was: 'Booooo.' 'No. we've got a special surprise – we have Sandie Shaw!' And Sandie Shaw came on, and she was going on about not having any shoes. So we had an hour set from her, and that was my first pop concert."

Ray manzarek RIP

Ray Manzarek, founding member of The Doors, has died at the age of 74, according to a post on the band’s Facebook page.
Manzarek was the keyboard player whose work drove much of the band’s work, with perhaps his most well-known piece being the center of hit “Light My Fire.”
Manzarek was suffering from a long battle with bile duct cancer and the report said he passed away today surrounded by family, including his wife and two brothers.

The Bowie fleecing continues!

Sigh...if you have £120 roll up and buy the Next day on Red Vinyl colour designed by Paul Smith......only available now on eBay.

I klnow I will buy it but honestly I feel i am being turned inside out these days..

Boo Hewerdine

Saw an interesting post today...name your 3 favourite Boo Hewerdine Songs. Pretty tricky. I came up with:




Boo Hewrdine - Slow learner

The Bible - Graceland

k D Lang - Last Gigarette.

Any thoughts?

New Bowie Album to be Released, Single Out!

Very suprising and welcome news:

Here is the press release:

New York, NY--January 8, 2013--In the early morning hours of Tuesday the 8th January, Iso/Columbia Records released a new single by David Bowie titled 'Where Are We Now?' exclusively launching in the iTunes Store in 119 countries. David Bowie's first new album in ten years and his 30th studio recording, THE NEXT DAY is also available as a pre-order on iTunes with a wide release scheduled for March. January the 8th is of course David Bowie's birthday, a timely moment for such a treasure to appear as if out of nowhere.




Throwing shadows and avoiding the industry treadmill is very David Bowie despite his extraordinary track record that includes album sales in excess of 130 million not to mention his massive contributions in the area of art, fashion, style, sexual exploration and social commentary. It goes without saying that he has sold out stadiums and broken ticket records throughout the world during this most influential of careers.



In recent years radio silence has been broken only by endless speculation, rumor and wishful thinking ....a new record...who would have ever thought it, who'd have ever dreamed it! After all David is the kind of artist who writes and performs what he wants when he wants...when he has something to say as opposed to something to sell. Today he definitely has something to say.



Produced by long term collaborator Tony Visconti, 'Where Are We Now?' was written by Bowie, and was recorded in New York. The single is accompanied by a haunting video directed by Tony Oursler which harks back to David's time in Berlin. He is seen looking in on footage of the auto repair shop beneath the apartment he lived in along with stark images of the city at the time and a lyric constantly raising the question Where Are We Now?



"The moment you know, you know you know" resonates from the new single's lyric. Now we all know...David Bowie has been in the recording studio...just when we least expected it!!