It is the evening of the day (The Rolling Stones)

A recent Uncut magazine special edition concentrated on The Rolling Stones and it took me ages to read it. Mainly because it was packed with great articles and reviews of all The Rolling Stone's albums (studio, live and compilations). Along with old interviews that were a hoot to read. It was great.

I have all of The Rolling Stone albums post Beggars Banquet on vinyl or CD. But I've never had an urge to get the earlier albums. Having read the magazine now, I've been keen to find the early albums on CD. No luck in the UAE though. The closest I could get was a couple of American albums that compiled various Stones tracks. UK's Latest Hitmakers has the awesome Route 66 and Carol and Flowers is a plain weird bunch of songs. I also found a copy of Big Hits and High Tides which is worthwhile.

I was talking about this, for some reason, to my Egyptian translator that we have work in my school. He's a guy in his thirties with a young family. He knows vaguely of the Beatles but, quite incredibly, he has never heard of The Rolling Stones. Nor even of Mick Jagger!!

How is this possible? A band who have been around since the early sixties, you would think that over the decades their story and their music has touched everybody at some point. Well no - not in the arabic world.

A few teachers at school notice my Beatles ties and ask who the figures are on them. When I say 'Beatles' a dim recollection comes into their body language. Something registers but they couldn't name a song or an album or tell me the four names (trust me - I've checked). So if the Beatles are a dim recollection - nothing else has a prayer.

The western pop world goes on unnoticed by the vast majority. Given the spread of interweb gossip and the arabs love of new technology (phones, play station, ipods etc) many of the younger generations will be more familiar with western pop.

Meanwhile, I'll continue to play Get Off Of My Cloud really loud in the car to and from work.

Love and peace - Wozza

One day you will find inexhaustable ecstacy (Amorphous Androgynous)

Mojo turned me on to Amorphous Androgynous and while in London for Christmas I managed to track down a few CDs at Fopp.

AA are actually better known as The Future Sound of London. FSOL is actually two guys -Garry Cobain and Brian Dougans. Their work covers most areas of electronic music, such as ambient techno, house music, trip-hop, ambient dub, acid techno and often involves extreme experimentation.

I know them by one of their aliases: Amorphous Androgynous, a forum for their experiments with psychedelic rock sounds.

Apart from music they also make most of their own videos for their songs.

Here we go:

Guitar? Check! Microphone? Check! (John Mayer)

Wow - he has it all! Including a polarising effect that I've not seen for a while.

He sings like a dream, plays guitar with style, power, feel, and grace, writes terrific songs. He can carry it off solo, in a trio, or leader of a larger band. He has definite stage presence and it doesn't hurt that he has good looks as well.

So what's not to love? Well plenty apparently if you read the gossip mags like my daughters do. They euphemistically call him 'a player'.

I had never heard of him until I caught one of his songs playing on a soundtrack. I remember asking the girls who it was and they set me straight on the name and the reputation.

I don't really care about his private life but I do know that he can play.

I first bought his album Continuum as a punt from The Warehouse in New Plymouth. I loved the songs and the voice but had no idea he could even play guitar until I caught up with his live albums. What a shock! The soulful Hendrix/Stevie Ray guitar style was so at odds with my superficial impression of him as a pretty boy pop star. Nothing could be further from the solid truth - he's talented!

I managed to pick up the last album that was missing from my Mayer collection (ironically - his first one called Room For Squares) from a shop in Dubai. It's in the pile for a listen as soon as possible.

Favourite track of his getting a high rotate in the Purdmobile is Something Missing.

Have you see her, have you heard? The way she plays there are no words. (Stone Roses)

Speaking of Grateful Dead (previous post): I have often wondered why they bothered with two drummers. The Dead's songs are not that wild that they need two drummers surely? I know Hart calls himself a percussionist but that seems disingenuous. It's not like the Allman Brothers Band where one plays drums and t'other plays percussion instruments. Both Hart and Kruetzmann are playing drums in the Dead.

This got me thinking about other bands with two drummers and why they have them. The school of thought on the two drummer thing comes down to: either they exist to gain certain effects (eight limbs playing like eight limbs) or produce meatier drum sounds (eight limbs playing like four).

You either use each player to generate something totally different that comes together in a way that one drummer couldn't possibly achieve, or, you have two or more drummers playing the same thing to get an organic meaty sound that delays/EQ can't replicate. Like in a marching band.

Personally I mostly fail to see the point. Bonzo only needed one set after all. But then I watched Zappa's Roxy band and remembered he had Chester Thompson and Ralph Humphrey on drums. And they were amazing. Trouble every day from the Roxy and Elsewhere album has a HUGE drum sound. Zappa was a percussionist at heart and if it's good enough for him etc.

Chester Thompson also features on the Genesis track Home by the sea. It ends with an extended orgy of drums that puts the case for two drummers most succinctly. But the Dead?

P.S. Just heard from my son that Captain Beefheart died recently. He (my son) and I remain big fans. A sad day - the planet needs more courageous musicians like Frank and Don. Where is the like in today's crop?? Sho nuff there's no one!

It's a buck dancers choice my friend (Grateful Dead)

Two purchases from Kings' Recordings were live Grateful Dead albums: Europe '72 I have in a variety of formats; I first taped a version of it way, way back in the day. I also have a fairly scratched triple vinyl copy and now a double CD set with loads of bonus tracks (including a stupendous version of Truckin').

It was one of the first things I ever heard by the Dead and it made an impression. All those long druggy noodling versions of songs on Live Dead never did it for me - instead I loved the relatively shorter, more coherent, noodling versions of songs on Europe '72.

I love the space in these versions. I'm not sure how they achieved that but it is there - a lightness of touch that is absent from Live Dead.

The second set from Kings' was Nightfall of Diamonds and picks up a set from 1989.

I love this one even more and it may well be my favourite live Dead experience (Workingman's Dead and American Beauty are the best studio sets by some distance but I also love Terrapin Station). There must be well over 50 live sets of the band that have been released over the years, and I've certainly not heard them all (who has?) but this one stands out for me from what I've heard.

On Nightfall... the band is tight as a drum (haha, and what else would you expect - they can play these songs in their sleep) and they are battle scarred (Garcia's voice on Dark Star is about shot), yet it's a magnificent collection of songs. Gotta say I love their version of Dylan's Stuck inside of Mobile with those Memphis blues again too. I turn this one up really loud in the car on the way home from work!!

Wild Horses couldn't drag me away (Rolling Stones)

King's Recording is a CD/DVD shop in Abu Dhabi. On the second floor of the Hamdan Center to be exact. And so far it's the best CD store I've come across in the UAE/Qatar middle eastern region. If there's a better place - tell me!

It's got a great front display window (like the old Marbecks shops used to have) and it's got a great Fives style layout - a long centre aisle. Fantastic for browsing! I know I'll be back - it's a great reason for visiting Abu Dhabi.

They know their product too - as in they know what moves and I'm not talking about top 40 crap. This is a music shop, it's no Virgin Mega-store like in Doha or the Abu Dhabi mall. There they are keen to sell you t-shirts, kid's toys, phones, hi-fi equipment, books, computer games as well as DVDs and music. None of that at King's Recordings.

I stocked up!

Jacky got me a Christmas pressie there too - the newly boxed Beatles collection. I've considered getting it in NZ and Doha but the cheapest was King's. I also found some weirdos like Clapton's Reptiles. Reading a Haruki Murakami memoir put me in touch with this overlooked Clapton album. Haruki explains what a good album it is to exercise to and if it's good enough for him, I guess it's gonna be worth exploring.

Got lots of other weird things too that I've never seen before - some Jefferson Airplane/Starship DVDs, a Camel compilation, Embrace's If You've Never Been, Nena by Nena, and so on. I also snaffled the Who's BBC sessions, Ringo's latest, another Deep Purple live album (from an old Aussie tour) and others. Like I say - I stocked up while the going was good [and cheap - some albums were only 15aed (about $7)].

I'll be drip feeding my impressions of this stuff over the next few weeks so stay tuned.

Love and peace - Wozza

Here I go - playing star again (Bob Seger)

Nearly finished the trawl through my greatest hits collections - into the Ss and Bob Seger is delivering.

Time to celebrate a semi-forgotten hero.

The set was put out in 1994 and includes: 8 songs from the 70s; 4 songs from the 80s; and 2 specially done in 1994 for this set. If it was updated in 2010 it would include nothing from the last 16 years!!

What the hell happened to Bob? Maybe he retired into family life (I didn't think musicians did that)? Maybe he had nothing left to say? Maybe he put out more product with ever diminishing returns? Is he still alive?

Well yes - he is, and doing pretty well it seems. The reason for the disappearance from the music radar was a ten year absence to spend time with the family (well and truly beats Lennon's five years). He still releases albums but the market has changed. Classic hit radio formats (and this Greatest Hits collection) prolong the image of Seger as a performer anchored in a heyday.

The general vibe around Bob was that (like the J Geils Band) he'd been performing for years without any mass success - then in the seventies he could do no wrong and his brilliant live album Live Bullet displays his power with some killer songs. No live footage but here are the soundtracks to my two fav tracks. Must be played LOUD and you MUST dance and play air guitar!!!