TO WHERE I AM NOW

Evolution of the soul in music through the eras and the styles of disparate artists. Cynicism, magnanimity, ego, compassion, love, hate, nastiness and kindness. It’s all out there, I’ve met them. I’ve bought their records and then found records I liked hard to listen to after meeting some of them. (No, I’m not saying who or why.) I’ve avoided meeting certain musicians so as not to be disillusioned and found myself unavoidably face to face with other musicians who were the nicest people, the smartest and the coolest people you could ever meet. There’s skillful singers that can’t write songs, skillful writers that can’t sing. But why should we care what other people think or do and how well or how badly or how differently they do it? Can’t we just do it our way and be happy with that?

I wonder what we are actually hearing in the music as individuals that’s driving some to ecstasy and others to despair? Why are people so critical of other styles? Is it the fashion, the image, the level of melody versus the depth of the lyrics? I love Hip Hop except for the talking, the essence of Hip Hop. Attitude, is it the attitude that bothers me or is it the lack of melody? I hear the beginning of the track, great sounds, great ideas, great production and then the talking starts. It’s not even the subject matter, I can hear other people’s stories even if they don’t relate to me. I’m still human, I can hear the pain. Image and attitude reigns supreme in Punk, in Metal, in Hip Hop, in all the different genres. So why do people like one rhythm over another, one style but not another? And should we care to hear why? I know people that hate Reggae and others that listen to nothing else. I know a guy that hates The Beatles but loves Metal. Do The Beatles sound like wimps to him? Does it matter? Does he enjoy telling us that a band that so many people love doesn’t do it for him? Does it make him special? Or does John Lennon look like nothing compared to Rob Halford in his world? Is it not his people? Who are my people?

I saw a bit of Nick Cave live at Glastonbury yesterday all out of tune with silly hair and those moves, but the people love the attitude. I have so many Nick Cave records, I’ve seen him live twice in Stockholm, once in Grinderman and once at a mostly empty show in Sydney years ago, that I have mentioned before. I also saw him and Mick Harvey in the trendy Belgian mussels and fries restaurant in Ladbroke Grove once. It was opposite my flat where I lived for three years. You didn’t get the feeling you could walk up and say Hi. The impenetrable aura of Nick and his soldiers, you get the feeling they don’t talk about football. The tragedy of the loss of his son must make his deep artistic soul ache like hell, as if he needed this pain to create. I love a lot of his work I just wonder why so many other people do. He’s a captivating performer in an ironic Las Vegas cabaret kind of way. As if direct love to the world would come across as insincere, over-sentimental, shallow, cloying. Why do we trust him more than we trusted John Denver?

Strangely enough last year I saw Kylie Minogue live at Glastonbury (YouTube) and that was also all out of tune with silly hair and moves. Hey I had silly hair, too. I used to put sugar in my hair to stop it being flat. We have all done silly things for fashion, but in the end it’s the essence of the music that matters. BUT, the idea is that the music you like reflects who you are. That makes me a very confused person. The Carpenters have some magic moments as do The Monkees. Their image, their apparent lack of depth is overpowered by their presence, their producer’s skills, the era, just the fantastic songs. Pleasant Valley Sunday, I’m A Believer, The Porpoise Song, Last Train To Clarksville or Goodbye To Love, Superstar, Rainy Days And Mondays, Close To You and who could even imagine that The Carpenters could cover Klaatu’s weirdo classic, Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft. Also bear in mind, this apparent girl next door, this straight middle class woman with the beautiful voice, was troubled. Karen Carpenter died of complications from anorexia at the age of 33.

Look at ABBA, how many serious Swedes couldn’t take ABBA as they conquered the world? But what about their skills? How can you ignore their exquisite songwriting craftsmanship? I once said one of the problems of being in a Progressive band in Sweden is that it’s hard to find a critic that doesn’t like The Clash. I suppose The Clash shook the society up, got some anger and truth into the illusion of success and happiness. But nobody there outside the mainstream really talks about ABBA’s songwriting craftsmanship. Can’t you appreciate both? How can you ignore what both these bands had to offer? A large Progressive and Metal scene now exists in Scandinavia generally. Black Metal thrived in Norway and Sweden gave you Opeth, Katatonia, Amon Amarth, Entombed, Meshuggah, Ghost, Bathory, Candlemass and more. Where do these bands fit between ABBA and The Clash? Who cares what each other’s fans think? What about Stina Nordenstam and The Cardigans? Do we really have to choose or die?

People love Oasis. They sound so bland to me, the guitars and the basic rhythms, but I do have their records (CDs only) and can listen to them (rarely). Some songs are great, others drive me nuts. Good singer, bad attitude. Live Forever, great, Wonderwall, Don’t Look Back In Anger, no, please no. There was recently an English magazine cover, Mojo or Uncut, with Gallagher saying “People are too nice”. Do we need him to be provocative or to continue to be a good singer? How rude is he when he’s in the room with McCartney and Ringo or Klaus Voormann? How nice would he have been to John Lennon? I bought a CD by the other Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, the first track had the lyric ‘There’s something in the way she moves me to distraction’. Was he joking? Antagonizing the fake Beatles critics? The album was so well produced, what a sound. Expensive, but you’d think he’d avoid that as the opening line of his latest album or was he aping what George Harrison did to James Taylor?

Through it all, whatever anyone tells you is good music or bad music, somehow the soul of music hasn’t evolved, the reason, it never needed to. It’s always been there in both the audiences’ and the artists’ taste, in people’s expressions, in their hearts, in their genius, their craftsmanship. What people say is just a meaningless distraction. At the 1996 Brit Awards Michael Hutchence was presenting prizes, Noel Gallagher said “Has-beens shouldn’t present awards to gonna-be’s”. What would he have said to Frank Sinatra or Burt Bacharach or Ian Curtis or Scott Walker? As if he was in their league. I knew Michael a little bit, hung out with him all night once, he was going out with Kylie at the time (or was it Belinda Carlisle)? Ha ha. He was the coolest and one of the smartest musicians I ever met.

I just wonder must we hate something to love something else? In life, in politics, in music, in football. Can’t we stop judging other people’s personal decisions about things if it doesn’t affect us? Or does other people’s bad taste ruin everything? Ha ha. Can we not feel sad that people got a bad education or are misinformed and can’t someone out there do a better job of training the humans to be civil, respect each other (despite past differences), develop an understanding. There is no universal right, I just get the feeling that if you hate another football team so much that it drives you to violence or you hate gay people or people of another race then that’s a universal wrong, you are actually sick, need help and one hopes that one day you will see the light and the evolution of the soul.

Music today has reflected the idea that there’s different visions. I started off with the first 10cc album from 1973. I was thinking I’d listen to their first four albums, but then didn’t feel like it. These talented individuals pushing and pulling against each other’s ideas, two traditionalist in Stewart and Gouldman, Groovy Kind Of Love to No Milk Today, playing guitar and bass and Godley and Creme, more experimental, playing drums and guitar. What a mixture, making albums both complicated and melodic, pastiche and irony, straightforward, Pop or complex. Four strong voices in their own studio (in Stockport, where I was born).

Following up on Peter from Stockholm’s reminder that Mirkwood’s theft of Child In Time went back beyond Deep Purple In Rock and 1970. If you listen to San Francisco’s It’s A Beautiful Day’s debut from 1969, Bombay Calling is credited to band leader David LaFlamme and the mysterious Vince Wallace. Ian Gillan tells that they rewrote it after the It’s A Beautiful Day version, but they didn’t give credit for the original and key riff. But then they say It’s A Beautiful Day borrowed their Wring That Neck on their second album Marrying Maiden (1970), calling the song Don And Dewey. Check it out.

Then there’s The Carpenters’ third self-titled album from 1971. I always love hearing Superstar (written by Bonnie Bramlett and Leon Russell). I see the twee songs on the album akin to listening to a musical. Perhaps Julie Andrews could have been in The Carpenters and Karen Carpenter in The Sound Of Music?

The Carpenters clearly took me to Nick Cave and his first solo album From Her To Eternity, released in 1984. I bought this album when it came out. It starred Mick Harvey, Blixa Bargeld, Anita Lane, Barry Adamson and Hugo Race (who I met years ago). He had a band called The Wreckery in the eighties and if you like Nick Cave you would like The Wreckery so check them out, too.

Song Of The Day is See Your Lights from Forget Yourself, the strangest song, a jam with words. The confusion out there, the inability to understand, the feeling that something hasn’t been thought through. The idea that I love because I hate seems primitive and ridiculous.

 

See Your Lights

Come down
Come down, come to me
She’s somewhere sliding through me
Even though I can’t believe it
If I look can the Earth receive you
How come I see you

I’m never coming down
From the ceiling sister, losing life
We’re spinning down and down
Watch the medium, sister

Come floatin’ on through yourself
I hate to love you now baby on my own I see you
You have to haunt yourself

How come I see your lights
They keep paralyzing me
Try a little light on me
Everything’s so bright

How come you see your lights in me

Winding your way through this room full of flesh
Science, sexuality, the heat of your breath
Each bead of sweat, the message is sent
An army of hips, and trenches to defend
You can call your name again and again
Wear out your welcome, and escape on a train
Slither on up to a shining star
Concern yourself with the weird and bizarre
Disappear like smoke in a cold black sky
With a warm soft throb and a flash of light

How come I see your lights
They keep paralyzing me
Hey, try a little light on me
Everything’s so bright

How come you see your lights in me
Come away, come away
Come away, come away

(How come you see your lights)
(Come away)

(Kilbey/Koppes/Powles/Willson-Piper)