Category: music

Paris#6 – The Tomb of the Lizard King

Posted on Posted in music, travelTagged , , , , 2 Comments

We all go through periods of fixations… perhaps ‘fads’ is the right word.  Whether it be karate, surfing or playing the drums – a parent has got to be ready for the 5 minute attention span that these ‘hobbies’ nearly always entail.

Then we have our musical fads.  Periods of time in our lives where we are consumed by a band that seems so monstrously ahead of its time, or game changing that all others fall by the wayside.  After the passing of the fad these bands will often slip from view, occasionally pulsing like a beacon on the mini screen of that motion-detection gadget from Aliens.  Punk, Zeppelin, Brit-Pop… I’ve been totally absorbed and then I’ve ended up slowly backing away… right up to the wall.  I now admire from a distance… and some of the fads actually mature, in this way, over time.  I can certainly appreciate Zeppelin now more than ever for the great blues rock band they were.  I no longer need to hold aloft Jimmy Page as some kind of guru.  In fact he’s quite a messy guitar player.  And Robert Plant screeched too much… and used too many cliched lyrics.  There… I’ve said it.  Ha ha!  For you see… the fad consumes you to the point of not quite seeing the horizon.  But with your back against the wall you can survey the scene of the crime for what it really is.

I really loved the Doors as a teenager.  I bit hard on the hook of the Oliver Stone film and was drawn into the story of Jim Morrison.  Now… Morrison is one of those historical musical personalities that really divides opinion.  If you google him you’ll find a whole army of people ready to tell you that he was a good for nothing, alcoholic, drug-addled, narcissistic lay-about with no talent and a modicum of luck.  Then you get the fervently Morrison-religious faction who declare ol’ Jim as the second coming of Christ.  And never the twain of opinions shall meet.

I think the reality is somewhere in the middle.  For me, Jim Morrison was an important rock and roll character.  Even now, he epitomises the archetypal rock frontman.  In ‘that’ series of photos he was the very definition of the ‘lead singer’.  Naked torso, beads and straggly hair.  The man every girl wants to screw and every guy wants to be.  A triumph of image over content?  That’s what I hear all the time.  Hmmm.

Listening to the Doors brings back youthful memories.  Like the way a smell takes you immediately back somewhere in your past.  These songs take me back to being a teenager.  And so I listen, aware that for many, the Doors‘ music is considered a joke.  Let me just make my stance clear… I think the negative viewpoint of the band’s output is wrong.  This is a band that has  in its repertoire songs such as Break on Through (To the Other Side), Light My Fire, The End, Love Street, Touch Me… the list goes on.  I suggest you dig out the final album, LA Woman, now…  stick it on and listen to some authentic rock and roll.  The majesty of the title track… and the serenity of perhaps the defining Doors‘ song, Riders on the Storm.  Truly epic, beautiful music.

Morrison’s lyrics have faced accusations of being no more than adolescent, naive claptrap.  Well… for me… I feel there is definitely some justification for calling Morrison’s lyrics poetry.  Morrison certainly believed he was a poet.    And when you tie the words to the music they assume a new level.  It’s easy to criticise the naked word on the page.  Banal… meaningless… nursery rhyme-esque.  Yet in the context of the music I believe Jim Morrison was indeed a poet.  Hell… shoot me.  There are lines in those songs that any lyricist would kill to have written.  They may not admit as much… but I guarantee that there are a lot of envious  eyes and ears out there.

Jim Morrison, a man who seemed to have accomplished so much and caused such ‘incident’ in such a short amount of time.  His antics rivaled Axl Rose and yet Morrison was dead at 27.  Did he die a boy or a man?  Spoilt, molly-coddled rock star or boozy, extravagant genius?  Again… the truth is somewhere in the middle.  I don’t think I would have liked Jim Morrison as a person.  I would probably have crossed the road to avoid him.  A drunk, nasty, self-absorbed egotist.  And yet I’ve heard tapes of some of his drunken rambling and he actually sounded pretty coherent.  Probably just a product of the flower power generation – even if he was trying to be the antidote to peace and love!  A young man, given a lot of money and thrust into the lime light.  Having viewed many documentaries on Morrison I feel that he is not quite the character as portrayed in the Oliver Stone film.  In reality Jim Morrison seemed a little less charismatic, quieter… hard to reconcile with the footage of the ‘incidents’.  I think the mix of alcohol and fame brought Morrison to his knees… and many others to their knees around him. 😉

So… where do the Doors, and Jim Morrison feature in the pantheon of great rock bands?  Well… I think they reckon a lot higher than many a list you’ll see.  And for a ‘fad’ of many an alienated youth this is a rock icon who deserves to live forever.  I visited his grave… and if I have absorbed a fragment of his balls, of his attitude, of his artistry then I will be a happy man!

https://confessionofthewholeschool.com/2011/04/02/when-youre-strange/

Paris#1 – A Study of the Eiffel Tower

Posted on Posted in music, song discussion, Songwriting documentary, travelTagged , , Leave a comment

When I was working on my debut album, All Monsters and Dust, I took a break from the grind and ventured to Africa.  I took a lot of photographs (one of which became the cover of the album), and drew a huge amount of inspiration.  That album was, all in all, a hard slog… many years in the making.  It’s funny how the African adventure set off a new energy in me.  A new vigor.   The sights, the sounds, the smells.  I enjoy photography.  I feel sight and sound are intrinsically linked.  Africa set me on course for the completion of All Monsters and Dust, and the creation of the Eleventh Hour Initiative project with Bill Ryan.  From a decade of procrastination to a year of frenzied writing and recording.  I am proud of the resulting albums.

Then I had a rest and wrote the second COTWS album, the Galton Detail.  An introspective, quiet piece.

Now… I am ready for business again.  I have travelled to Paris to get some fresh scope and zest… and it is indeed an inspiring city.  In the build up to my latest song I would like to post a series of impressions of Paris.  Believe me, it will all make sense when you hear the song!  So… to kick things off, I present my photographs of the Eiffel Tower.

I’ve got to say… the tower is still a striking feature on the landscape.  Decades of over-saturation have not diminished its presence and even though it is one of the most famous ‘sights’ in the world it still manages to surprise and impress.  For a glorified piece of scaffold it ain’t half beautiful!

More raw meat please waiter.

Posted on Posted in musicLeave a comment

I’ve fallen over at the front of my house and bashed my shin in.  Highly embarrassing… therefore I will hide indoors until the neighbours forget who I am!  Hmmm… topic for discussion?  Well… I think I’ve only ever had one true out of body experience.  It was an eternity ago but I thought I’d reminisce.

I was playing a gig at a local pub.  This was back when we had bars in my city that had stages and actually allowed live music – a definite dying art in these days of gastro pubs.  I was in a band that had built a kind of local following… although we were also a band that had literally played to one man and his dog.  (That was a peculiar gig… in hindsight it might have been more productive to have simply chucked a raw steak onto the dancefloor and have been done with it.  Oh… the exuberance of youth!).

We had played a series of gigs and were feeling a little cocksure of ourselves.  So much so that we hired a lighting rig for this particular night.  So, here we were, professional sound, professional lights, …(incompetent musicians)… and we played… to a handful of people.  And this was when I had my out of body experience.  I remember it to this day.  We were playing the songs… and I started to hear them as if I wasn’t in the band.  As if I was in the audience.  I didn’t have to think of the words.  I didn’t have to play the guitar or sing.  I didn’t have to do anything.  I just stood back and listened.  I could hear the band as I’d never heard them before.  And we sounded awesome.  The whole experience was genuinely like listening to a CD.  The audio was crystal clear…. the lighting was like a dream.  I could finally hear my own band like I had never before imagined.  The sound enveloped me and became a singular nerve impulse in my brain.  My ears were filled with my own sound.  Crystal clear.  Totally in tune.  Pure sparkling song.  This whole episode only lasted a moment… and then I was snapped back into my body.  That’s the only time it has ever happened.  I’d pay to recapture that moment… but it’s gone… like tears in rain.

I’ve had plenty of the opposite experience.  The moment you realise you’re standing on stage singing in a band.  The awakening of awareness that you’re playing in real time in the here and now.  That the words people are hearing are coming from your mouth… now.  Not in the past or in the future… but now.  And that if you were to forget the words it would be a disaster.  Oh yes… I’ve had that experience.  Interestingly, never in the ‘exuberance of youth’ – era.  Oh no, this kind of situation only arises when you’re past all that.  When you’re feeling like an old hand.  An invincible beast!  You’re playing a song you’ve written.  You’re playing a song you’ve sung a thousand times.  You’re playing a song which you couldn’t possibly forget the… the… er… words?  Hmmm.  You sing… and you start to think about what the next line is before you’ve sung the current line.  You’re a line ahead of the audience in your mind and the here and now is becoming a blur.  Ha ha!  And these moments only happen in packed clubs!

So, I had my experience of hearing my band as an audience member.  No effort on my part.  My hands floating over the guitar fretboard and the person on stage who looks like me singing the words without me having to flex any muscle memory.  A beautiful moment.  A moment I never again recaptured.  I don’t think I told anyone about it at the time. I don’t even know if this is a common experience among musicians?

We lost money that night.  The lighting rig cost a hundred times the ticket sales.  Still… there wasn’t a canine in attendance so there’s always a positive.

A splendid time is guaranteed for all

Posted on Posted in music, reviewTagged , , , , Leave a comment

So, I was dressing up to go to a heavy metal gig.  I thought… you know, what should I wear?  So I went with a t-shirt with a skull on it and my favourite leather jacket.  A leather jacket that is extremely rock!  It has a skull with a snake slithering through it on the back, and snakes down the arms.  (on a side note… the only problem with this jacket is that the skull and snakes are actually made up of a series of holes.  Which means that when it rains the skull and snakes perform the function of making you (…me) get wet… not an entirely useful ‘app’ for a jacket!  But… in any case, it looks good… and in today’s society what else could be as important as ‘looking good’???).

I come down the stairs wearing the t-shirt and the jacket.  The girls are clustered in the hallway around the mirror getting ready.  You can picture the scene – all glasses of champagne and hair straighteners.  One of the ladies says “What’s with the pirate get-up?”… and this flummoxes me for a moment.  But then I realise it’s the whole ‘skull and crossbones’ thing.  “Hmmm” I say…  “I see what you mean”.  And that sets me thinking.  Is heavy metal particularly ‘pirate-y’?  “Why do you have to dress as a pirate to go to a heavy metal gig?” she asks.  “Hmmmm…” /again.  I just say that I don’t think metal is particularly pirate-y and that it’s more to do with the ‘death’ and the ‘danger’.  But it was certainly food for thought.

So… I go to the gig. It was at a kind of underground basement place – the kind of venue where the sweat drips from the ceiling.  Funnily enough the place is called “The Underground”… spooky that!  I walk down the stairs into the darkness to be met by my friend.  Fine.  Good stuff.  So I turn to go to the bar and what do I see?  A life-size pirate.  A life-size model pirate.  Not only that… but this is a life-size model skeleton pirate.  “Hmmmm…” I think /again/again.  Hmmm… you know what… perhaps metal is actually a little too pirate-y?

The band plays.  A band called Meansteed.  They play a pretty good approximation of ACDC.  In fact… the whole evening had a feel of NWOBHM.  The singer has something of the Bruce Dickinson about him and the guitarist a little of the Joan Jett.  I bought the CD and they all signed it.  I have now placed the CD in a secure vault just in case any one of them goes on to be the next Bruno Mars or Ed Sheeran (unlikely).  But a good night was had by all.  Jolly good in fact.  Jolly Roger.  Hmmmm… /again/again/again.