One more cup of coffee for the road

I'm still thinking about that live Ry Cooder record. It's a real pity the single album live album has now gone the way of all flesh. CDs are wonderful - they hold a lot of information on them - too much when it comes to live albums. Less is definitely more in this case. The single live album is the succinct record that the triple live and double live can never be. And vinyl is special! I do like the occasional triple and double - more on them in later posts, but this post is honouring the single live.

My top 5:

Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart - 'Bongo Fury'. A great live record that would have been even better if Zappa had included the version of 'The Torture Never Stops' (can be found on 'You can't do that on stage anymore Vol 1') from this concert and deleted the two studio lightweight songs about America's bicentennial celebrations. Beefheart is in great form and the band are tight. A single live album should leave you wanting more and Bongo Fury does exactly that. The next selection bares out the paradox - wanting more but glad there isn't.

Bob Dylan - 'Hard Rain' Compare this to the fuller Rolling Thunder Revue concert found on the Bootleg series Vol 5 ( Live 1975) and you get what I mean - the single version is raw power that gets dissipated over a double CD. The versions here are well chosen - there's a snarl, snap, crackle about 'Idiot Wind' that is largely kept in check on the studio version from 'Blood on the Tracks'. Each song has been deconstructed, rearranged and then punk'd up into a rolling thunder menace. This is the Dylan album I want! It sits alongside 'John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band', Neil Young's 'Tonight's the Night' in the honest emotion charts.

U2 - 'Under a Blood Red Sky'. Not perfect ('Party Girl' hasn't aged well as a song) but a great summary of their early power and passion. In many ways the time around 'War',their third album, is for me their best. I can remember buying and listening to that album on wet miserable days in New Plymouth in 1983/84. I'd started with the single 'Gloria' and a great video of the band playing on a barge on a canal by a housing estate. An amazing clip. The live album captures them at an early peak - lots of great blustery guitar from the Edge and Bono's vocals fit the music superbly.

The Rolling Stones - 'Get Yer Ya-Yas Out'. This is a great list isn't it?! My Stones collection isn't complete but this was one of the first things I bought to catch up when I was working at Marbecks (at that time the best damn record store in New Zealand). Roger Marbeck loved this album and we'd play it often on Friday nights to keep the energy levels high. When we made our crazy eclectic tapes Greg and I used the Jagger 'button...trousers' stuff and Keef's guitar intros a lot. A single live album (their 1980's tour document 'Still Life' is also recommended) is perfect for the Stones.

Jimi Hendrix - 'Live at the Isle of Wight'. Again the single version is far superior to the expanded CD/DVD sets. Like the Dylan this is rough!! The microphone picks up all sorts of radio transmitted traffic, sounds fade in and out, feedback squalls, Jimi is dazed and confused!! But when I heard this in 1972 I was shaken and stirred, rocked and rolled into submission. The opening introductions - "bit more volume on his one Charlie - it's gonna need it" set the scene. And it doesn't matter that the songs are out of order and the editing between songs is terrible. Somehow the whole thing has it's own structure and it makes sense where the expanded version doesn't.

Single live albums - I love 'em (a few more notable ones - John Lennon's 'Live Peace in Toronto' - well side one anyway; Jefferson Airplane's 'Bless its pointed little head' and don't forget that live album by Ry!)

Ten stops and home

Christine recently asked me to make a list of albums/new sounds for her to check out. When we were in the late 70s she'd send me cassette tapes of her current listening (Clash, Pistols, Steely Dan, Zappa were all in there) so this is my similar 2009 report back via the blog. So here goes - a very subjective list that I need to introduce with an explanation of my taste (Jacky would laugh about now and say what taste).

Here's a sweeping generalisation for you - it is my belief that everyone's dominant musical taste can be traced back to two different sources (just as apparently my personal DNA can be traced back to one of 7 women). These two sources are The Beatles (the sunny pop side of the musical street)and The Velvet Underground (the darker alternative). It's easy to test - which of the two do you like best? Go to your collection right now - how many Beatle albums to VU? There's your answer. Thereby you can then take your favourite band or singer of all time - let's say it's...oh I don't know - Jim Croce for example and see that your taste traces back to the Beatles. If it's Captain Beefheart your taste traces to The VU. Simple huh.

Clearly from the title of this blog alone it's obvious where my taste lies, therefore my Christine list is influenced this way. Now I know she has a bit of a thing for Nick Cave (VU) and The Killers (Beatles) so she (and anyone else reading) needs to keep my propensity for Beatles inspired pop in mind.

Here are ten of the best I've heard recently (some of these date back 5 or so years but you may have missed them). These are all UK bands too - I'll get to the best of the rest in other posts.

1 and 2 One of the best bands I've heard in recent years is Hard Fi - either of their first two albums is a great place to start - 'Stars of CCTV' or 'Once Upon a Time in the West'. On my recent trip to the UK I picked up a DVD/CD of remixes called 'In Operation' (3 pound from Fopp) but that's not the best place to start. If you are unmoved by 'Cash Machine' - the first song on 'Stars..' - then you can stop reading now.

3 A lot has been made of Artic Monkeys and I admit to being a late comer. I really like the second album 'Favourite Worst Nightmare'. The first one is fine but the second is like their twenty-second if you know what I mean.





4 My children laugh at my enjoyment of Coldplay but I'm sticking by them (the last one was patchy). Possibly overlooked in their canon is 'X & Y' but of the four albums I downloaded as the soundtrack of my recent plane trip to the Uk - this was one (Hard Fi and the next album were the others).






5 and 6 I love later period David Gray. The first four albums are patchy - and not in the style of the last four. So I'd recommend 'Greatest Hits' as a place to start - and his last album 'Life in Slow Motion'. His songs always make me very nostalgic for life in the UK.

7 For more slightly quirky pop try The Coral. Their most accessible album for me is 'The Invisible Invasion'.








8 A future guilty pleasure will be The Feeling. Their first album is better than the second - 'Twelve Stops And Home' is chockablock with fabulous pop songs, catchy hooks all over the show.







9 and 10 - I've listened to the two Kooks albums a lot and recommended them to friends before - the first one is called 'Inside in/Inside Out' and the second is 'Konk'. Both great British pop music. They remind my of + Special Guests.

I'm only scratching the surface here I know - more in future goo goo j'goobs.

Expert texpert

My last post hinted at a long history of reading about music. I think it started with a great NZ music paper from the 1970s - 'Groove'. I have clippings from the time - Black Sabbath, Led Zep, Beach Boys, Beatles, Jethro Tull, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep (sadly yes - I had a thing for the Heep - Very 'Eavy/Very 'Umble and Demons and Wizards were early acquisitions). During the 70's I also collected the UK's 'Sounds' weekly. Lots of great articles and posters - Pink Floyd, Yes, and others were diligently clipped and put into scrapbooks. The 80s were a bit barren - the occasional 'Rolling Stone', 'Circus' and 'Crawdaddy' but there wasn't any weekly or monthly that I actually collected. It was more a case of whatever was on the cover drew my attention. This was until I went into a bookshop in St Lukes in the mid 1990s and saw 'Mojo' magazine The first cover I saw was of Howling Wolf. Um...eh??? Howling Wolf!!!!! This was a monthly that captured my heart and I've collected every copy since. I am the demographic - guys in their late 40s, early 50s who collected 'Sounds' and 'Groove' in their teenage years. And yes it is mainly guys. Go into Real Groovy and count the ratio of grey haired men to women of any age. Particularly if you just concentrate on the vinyl bins.

The latest Mojo had that feature on Ry Cooder I mentioned in the previous post. My top five Cooder albums:
5 Chicken Skin Music - Ry does Tex Mex and it's brill.
4 Boomer's Story - Another fantastic collection of songs. Stand outs - 'Dark end of the street' and 'Rally 'round the flag'.
3 The Border - 'Across the borderline' is one of Ry's best - it appears on at least 2 different albums with different lead singers. This one with Freddy Fender (yes that Freddy Fender) is sublime.
2 Into The Purple Valley - Every song is great and where else will you hear 'FDR in Trinidad'?
1 Showtime - one of the greatest live albums ever - deduct a point for the first song being a studio recording (even tho 'School is out' is a great song).

Looking at the showtime cover I realise that I particularly love vinyl covers that have no title attached of the artist or album title. Showtime has Ry on stage in what looks like a club setting with a weak spotlight on him. He's smiling (make no mistake - this is feelgood music - even when he's playing depression era songs like 'How can a poor man stand such times and live' and 'Dark end of the street'). A poster stuck to the wall is the only hint this is Ry's album and even then Flaco Jiminez's name is equally readable.

My top 5 album covers without title look like this:

5 Wings - Wild Life - Paul in the water with his best innocent pose. Band perched on a tree branch - great picture.
4 Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy - wow - I still remember the thrill of buying this in Sydney. The cover is better than the music inside!
3 The Beatles - Hey Jude - a collection of singles for the US market in 1970 was one of my Christmas presents in 1970. The cover is taken from the last publicity shots taken of the fabs - at John's place - Tittenhurst. They look terrific!
2 John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band - the one with Yoko and John under a tree at Tittenhurst. A fantastic picture - restful and at peace - nothing like the music inside. The Yoko picture reverses the position of the two under the tree.
1 Beatles - Abbey Road - an iconic portrait that needs no words.

Finally - sad news about Phil Spector. I like his mix of Let it Be (rather than Macca's naked attempt) and he deserves credit for the awesome simple sound he got on John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. He's always been weird I guess and the various stories over the years don't paint him as a rational genius I'm afraid. On the news clips he looks like he hasn't got a clue what's going on! Very sad.

Music is love

So we (Jacky me and Samantha) were sitting in our favourite lunch place - Lush in New Plymouth's centre city - and Samantha was asking about my blogging for family/friends and why I didn't put more music posts on it and I said because a lot of wozza's place people don't read that stuff so I was limiting that from now on and Jacky (God bless her) said, "Why don't you just do a music blog and..." (I had drifted off into a distant realm). I think I said in a dreamy far away voice, "Of course - a blog just for my rants on music. But where do I start". Samantha helpfully suggested I start from the beginning!

The beginning - The beginning for me is watching the Ed Sullivan Show on New Zealand TV in maybe 1965 or 1966 (whenever NZBC got around to showing it. I was about 8 or 9) and wozza's place readers will know what effect that had on me. No surprise then that this blog is named after Lennon's walrus sound. The hooks were sharp and deep!

Since then it's been a life of collecting, reading about music, watching music, visiting music stores. I'll tackle each of those four areas in this blog in a very selfish indulgent way. Sounds like you? Welcome aboard!

I don't think the good people at Mojo magazine will ever contact me for my - All back to mine - questions so here they are by way of introduction to my musical adventures:

WARREN PURDY (Love Warren Peace)

What music are you currently grooving to?
I'm constantly buying and listening to music - right now as I type I'm listening to Interpol's 'Our Love to Admire'. I like it and Bon Iver's 'For Emily' albums a lot. I read a recent Mojo feature on Ry Cooder so I dug out my vinyl collection (which stops at 'Get Rhythm' and 'The Border' soundtrack).

Also liking the Greg Johnson collection 'The Best Yet' and I'm in a Dream Theater/Porcupine Tree frame of mind of late. I also have a pile of new purchases to work through - Feeder, The Supremes, Travis, Van Morrison, and Gnarls Barkley among them (the pile at present is pictured).


What, if push came to shove, is your all-time favourite album?
In all my various best of lists two albums have always vied for best ever - The Beatles white album (really called 'the Beatles'), and John Lennon's 1970 solo album - 'John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band'. The shock of the invention and honesty in each makes them my favs by some distance.

What was the first record you ever bought? And where did you buy it?
I've an unreliable memory on this. I've always thought it was The Hollies single 'Hey Willie' that I bought from the record bar in 246 (a large mall in Queen St, Auckland). However this was in 1971 and I'd already got some albums before that for Christmas 1970 The Beatles 'Hey Jude' - from a record shop in Otahuhu and I also had a clutch of albums including a best of The Cowsills, a Monkees album and a Hollies album around this same time.

Which musician, other than yourself, have you ever wanted to be?
The Mojo questions are often given to musicians of course and I'm not one. However for a while there after seeing Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee in concert (I was about 10 feet away at Nambassa) I bought a blues harp and wailled along with Sonny - desperate to be as cool as he was.

What do you sing in the shower?
Tonight was a bath and it was Oye Como Va (Tito Puente was playing in the next room).

What is your favourite Saturday night song?
I twitch around and air guitar immediately to Deep Purple's 'Made in Japan' album and 'Highway Star' in particular.

And your Sunday morning record?
I keep going back to the well with Van Morrison - anything really by Van gets me in that mood. And The Durutti Column - his guitar sound always reminds me Sunday morning sleep ins at Lorna Street, New Plymouth.