The Sinuous 1990s – The many-headed stylistic beast

DECADE BY DECADE – THE LIVE CONCERT EXPERIENCE / OVERVIEW

Episode 3: 1990s

Garbage

The 1990s spawned a wonderfully diverse and interesting selection of musical acts ranging from the heavier music of Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, Jane’s Addiction, Dinosaur Jr, Foo Fighters, and Nirvana to the more intellectual (perhaps) music of bands such as R.E.M., Soundgarden, The Lemonheads, The Smashing Pumpkins, Stone Temple Pilots, and the wonderful Garbage.

 

 

 

The Foo Fighters

This in almost stark contrast to the music of the early 1980s, which began with a whimper rather than a bang with all of those synthy / poppy bands from the UK – sees a real return to harder rock music, to heavy guitar music, in a much more powerful and possibly closer to the 1970s in lineage way – the 90s rocked hard.

 

 

 

Motörhead

One of the main examples of a band that really, really rocked hard, perhaps the hardest, is the redoubtable Motörhead. led by the late, great Lemmy.  This type of extremely heavy, extremely fast rock became one of the hallmarks of 1990s hard rock – and Motörhead – with Lemmy at the helm – definitely led the way.

 

 

 

Faith No More

Alternative Metal also sprang forth in great numbers during the 1990s, which saw many very popular bands such as Tool, Helmet, the very underrated Faith No More, Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Rage Against the Machine to name but a few – representing a thriving alternative music scene with some powerful new sounds emerging.

Industrial Metal also gained popularity during the 1990s, in the form of Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, Ministry, and the amazing German band, Rammstein.

 

Nine Inch Nails

In the main, this was a fairly new form of music for the 1990s; although 1980s antecedents such as Killing Joke might lend credence to the notion of a fusion of metal and punk as the ingredients of this new genre – with the additional third element of electronica added in – and one of the best examples of that holy trinity of styles would be the oft-overlooked Prodigy.

Bjork

The 90s also brought us trip-hop, another new genre explored by artists such as Portishead, and Björk,slow-moving beat-based electronic music.

 

Meanwhile, Indie Rock proponents such as Sonic Youth and Pixies rose up in the underground scene, with bands such as Pavement,  Yo La Tengo, The Breeders, Superchunk, Dinosaur Jr., Guided by Voices, Liz Phair, and The Flaming Lips quickly following in their footsteps.

Oasis

But for many, what kept real rock alive in the 1990s was the resurgence of rock in the United Kingdom otherwise known as Britpop – a massive phenomena in early 90s Britain – featuring a number of popular, chart-topping bands such as  Blur, Suede, Pulp, Manic Street Preachers, Elastica, Supergrass, The Verve and of course, the remarkable Oasis.

 

These in turn provided the impetus for the success of the more provincial “Madchester” bands hailing from Manchester in the U.K., such as Happy Mondays, and The Stone Roses.

 

Radiohead

What happened after Oasis, then? – well, post-Britpop – a new batch of musical acts appeared with the likes of the Verve, Travis, Stereophonics. Feeder, with the extremely popular band Radiohead leading the way towards the latter half of the decade.

 

Britney Spears

I haven’t really got the space to add in all of the other genres of music that had famous 1990s practitioners, for example – over in the pop universe, such remarkable phenomena as Britney Spears, or even farther outside my own mostly progressive rock world – artists such as  Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey, TLC, or Robert Fripp‘s favourite singer, the redoubtable Whitney Houston.

 

 

The Spice Girls

I am obliged legally to mention the rise “manufactured pop” which had existed for a long, long time in one form or another, but reached a new zenith with the “creation” or rather, “fabrication” of huge stars such as the incredibly popular Spice Girls.  Manufactured boy bands and girl bands proliferated to the point of total oversaturation and have lead to the kind of “X-Factor” or “Britain’s Got Talent” environment we are forced to live in now.

 

I blame the Spice Girls for that.  And the Monkees, the Jackson 5 and the Osmonds before them.  Shudder.

But enough of this very incomplete list (above) of bands popular in the 1990s, which while not complete, at least gives you an idea of what kind of music was in the air during this most curious of decades – and onto my own concert experience in this new world of industrial metal and slow moving trip hop – and of course for me, eternally stuck in the music of the 60s and 70s – my “1990s Concert Experience” will be mostly comprised of the music I know and love, along with a sprinkling of newer artists to try and expand my limited range of musical interests – in every decade, I tried to attend a few “atypical” shows – shows that I wouldn’t normally think about attending (such as, as noted below, “Earthworks” – or later on, “The Innocence Mission”) – just to experience something new.

 

DAVE STAFFORD CONCERT ATTENDANCES – THE 1990s:

1990

This year was like any other year full of exciting live concerts that I might attend, and I started out with a fairly small number of shows, mainly from artists I already favoured and had seen in previous years – but not, possibly, in their newest 1990s incarnations.

A young Todd Rundgren

These 1990s performances I witnessed included Todd Rundgren, Peter Hammill (as always, meaning a trip up to Los Angeles to see him at the famous Roxy Theatre), and the incredibly capable guitarist Robert Fripp, this time performing acoustically with the remarkable League Of Crafty Guitarists.

Also, there was at least one new excursion into a completely different kind of music than I was accustomed to – I went to see Bill Bruford’s “Earthworks” live at the Royal Festival Hall in London – since I had to be there then anyway – and that was a very, very different  experience musically speaking.

A young Peter Hammill

Being what I guess can only be described as “modern jazz” – I did enjoy it on a musical level, but it also confirmed for me that I am firmly rooted in the clutches of rock, pop, and progressive rock – and I don’t really stray outside of that very often.

But I am glad I saw them, and it was a great venue too – always nice to attend a concert on what was then foreign soil but is now, home.  Bruford and his band of stalwart jazzers put on a very respectable show – and for what it was, I did enjoy it – but – King Crimson live it was not!

1991

Crowded House – circa 1991

1991 was a somewhat different year – which began, again, with the ever-touring Todd Rundgren (whose music, if I am honest, I was enjoying a bit less each time I went to see him) but this time, I took in Crowded House (this incarnation, with Tim Finn, band leader Neil’s older brother – both alumni of the remarkable New Zealand band Split Enz – joining the band, so I got to hear the Finn Brother’s amazing vocal harmonies in person) – this was and is, my favourite incarnation of this band, the “Woodface” tour and album – a fantastic show.

 

 

Tin Machine

Another real highlight of ’91 was that I finally, after many, many years of constantly missing him, finally got to see David Bowie performing live – and what a performance – with his new band Tin Machine – with the astonishingly brilliant and talented Reeves Gabrels on lead guitar – this band rocked my socks off – they were fantastic live – just plain two guitars bass and drums rock and roll.

 

I was kinda glad I didn’t go to a “normal” Bowie concert, which would probably have been a bit like listening to a Greatest Hits compilation – seeing him play with Tin Machine was very real, very vibrant and you could see in his eyes and in the infectious grin he had on stage – that he was having the time of his life with his little rock band!  It was most excellent – and, I gained a new guitar hero in Reeves Gabrels, whose career I have followed ever since – an absolutely fabulous and uniquely intriguing lead guitarist with a very personal and unmistakable style – an awesome guitarist!

 

1992

1992 was an unusual “quiet year” for live shows, starting out with a very small, intimate performance by the very talented California Guitar Trio at a small bookshop – the Better World Galleria – in San Diego, California.  This was at a time when I was still very involved in Guitar Craft so I am actually acquainted with the guys in the band and I think that they invited me personally to attend – so I did – and as they always do, the Trio put on an excellent performance.

The rest of the year was dominated by two very important and significant events, the first of which was seeing my third and final Beatle – Ringo Starr.  In 1974, I had managed to see George Harrison at the LA Forum with Ravi Shankar, and Paul McCartney in ’76 during his Wings Over America tour, but to date I had never managed to see John Lennon (I never did) or Ringo Starr – from my favourite band of all time –

Ringo Starr – White Album Sessions 1968

The Beatles.  So when I had the chance to see Ringo with his All-Starr Band – who, in 1992, included the aforementioned Todd Rundgren on lead guitar – how could I say no?

Seeing Ringo live was a far, far more musical and brilliant experience than you might have thought, and with all of the other musical guests in the band it became more of a star-studded walk down several different memory lanes – the Beatles one being of course one of the most important ones. Ringo‘s son Zak Starkey was incredibly capable as the band’s main drummer – with Ringo joining in when he wasn’t busy singing or being the MC of the show.

Rundgren performed a version of his song “Black Maria” which Ringo had apparently requested as his favourite Rundgren track – while the band supported Ringo through the expected Beatle hits – including a very moving “With A Little Help From My Friends” where the crowd totally got behind Ringo when he hits the high note at the end – the crowd just went wild – and it was really, really a much better experience than I thought it might have been – thoroughly enjoyable.

So in 1992 – I got to experience the third and final Beatle I would manage to see perform live, despite that band breaking up way, way back in 1970 when I was still very young (but already a huge fan of the Beatles – even then).

The second and final concert event for 1992 was another one on “foreign” soil, I once again found myself in London, this time at the Town and Country, for the 20th Anniversary Camel Tour.

This was the first time I got to see Camel  after several missed opportunities in the previous decades – so I was overjoyed as they have always been one of my top favourite bands – and I was not in any way disappointed.  Andy Latimer is surely one of the most talented of all progressive rock guitarists, and seeing him play those remarkable tunes at long last was absolutely fantastic.

Camel – circa 1972

A great show, and a great start to my experiences seeing Camel live – I was fortunately enough to live in California at the same time as Andy Latimer, so I saw the band a number of times then from Dust & Dreams on through Harbour of Tears – and then again more recently – really recently – I went to see the band performing “Moonmadness” in its entirety at the Tyne Theatre in Newcastle just last month (September 9, 2018)  – and they were as absolutely brilliant as ever.  The very best of prog.

 

1993

1993 was a very, very unique year for me in that I saw certain groups that had such a lasting and enormous impact on me both as a listener and as a musician – it’s a year like no other, when at least two of the bands I saw that year – only really EXISTED during that year – and it meant that this was a very special year indeed for live music.

The first of two concerts I attended featuring the Robert Fripp String Quintet – at the fantastic Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach, California – this band was absolutely unique and only existed I believe, as a live performance project  – their one album is a live album.

A rare photo of the Robert Fripp String Quintet performing live in 1995

This band was really a combination of Robert Fripp on lead guitar and soundscapes, Trey Gunn (of King Crimson) on Stick, and the California Guitar Trio on acoustic guitars – an unusual musical marriage of the acoustic and electric sides of Robert Fripp.

 

The music that this group played was so unique and so exquisitely beautiful that I’ve never forgotten the beauty and heartbreak of hearing pieces like the incredible “Hope” performed live – and then, the climax of each concert was one of the most dissonant, out-there Fripp Soundscape performances ever created – the “Threnody For Souls In Torment” – I think the title says it all.

So from great beauty to great dissonance – this band could do it all, and in the space of one performance you would experience an almost bewildering array of ever changing musical beauty and emotion – as well as technical prowess so powerful as to leave you breathless – a band that you just had to see if you could – and one of Robert’s best spin-off projects – perhaps the best.

My next concert for 1993 was something very, very different indeed – again, at the remarkable Belly Up Tavern – this time, it was Soukous music from the Congo (Zaire) in the person of Kanda Bongo Man – whose band is the only modern band that plays Congolese-inspired music like the music I heard growing up in East Africa.

Kanda Bongo Man – Live

I had recently been listening to quite a lot of music by this group, so when I saw they were playing live, I hastened to get tickets – and it turned out to be an absolutely awesome evening of live African music from a very, very capable band with a truly great lead singer and performer – the Kanda Bongo Man himself.

This one definitely falls under the category of “shows I would never normally attend” but as I grew up in East Africa, I have a huge soft spot for this kind of twin lead guitar based music – and the guitar playing I witnessed that evening was absolutely fascinating and very faithfully recreated the music I remembered – interlocking lead guitars not a million miles away from the sound of Fripp and Belew’s interlocking lead guitars on the 1981 King Crimson masterpiece “Discipline”!!

I’m very glad indeed, that I attended this most unusual show – and I think it’s definitely a good idea to occasionally go outside your comfort zone and go see a concert that you would never ever think to go see – and for me, in 1993, this was the one.

Next on my agenda was a trip up the coast to San Juan Capistrano to the renowned Coach House, to see a second, even better performance by the Robert Fripp String Quintet – and the fact that I got to see this truly magical group play not once, but twice is something for which I am eternally grateful.

As if Fripp’s amazing Quintet was not enough – a unique and unusual live performance – the next thing that happened in 1993 was yet another one of a kind, limited edition short-lived musical projects – and I

Robert Fripp & David Sylvian circa 1993

am talking now about the absolutely stunning “Sylvian–Fripp” – the somewhat unlikely musical meeting of the minds of the former leader of art-rockers Japan with the Guitarist of the Crimson King.

 

I drove up to Los Angeles to see this one, and I remember something unusual – I went with my then bandmate Bryan Helm of The Dozey Lumps and Bindlestiff – and I don’t recall that we ever went to many concerts together, but it was unusual to have another musician to discuss the music with afterwards – and we both thoroughly enjoyed this most amazing performance – the official “Sylvian-Fripp” album, which had been released some months previous to this concert – did pale justice to the monstrous force of the live performance unit – the studio album lacks quite a bit of the punch of the live outfit – and it wasn’t until the live album “Damage” came out, that you could hear on record just how powerful this band was.

The songs are some of Sylvian‘s best, and in the live setting, they also did surprising numbers from the Gone To Earth album (that Fripp had played lead guitar on previously) or even Fripp‘s own tune “Exposure” – the oft-recorded Exposure that has been sung by various singers over time – and Sylvian the latest in a long line of Exposure vocalists.  But the main events were some of the extended tracks where Fripp went full-frontal Hendrix Assault Guitar on us – and I will never forget the screaming, shredding blasts of amazing moving chords that Fripp unleashed on an unsuspecting audience at the Wiltern Theatre that night on tracks such as “Darshan” – that was absolutely a mind-blowing performance.

Seeing both the Robert Fripp String Quintet, and then, just a few months later, seeing the Sylvian-Fripp live concert, all in the same year, was very nearly unbelievable and the sheer virtuosity and musicianship of both of these projects involving Robert Fripp was absolutely undeniable – it changed me as a guitarist forever.

 

1994

Every decade has it’s truly quiet year, and this year – for the 1990s – for whatever reason – was my quietest.  According to my research so far – I only attended one concert this year – but it was a most unusual one – I had been listening to a CD called “Pieces of Africa” by

Kronos Quartet

Kronos Quartet so I decided to go and see them play live – a third entrant, perhaps, to the “atypical” concerts that I like to add into my schedule from time to time – one of those concerts I would not normally think about attending.

 

But I remember a very intriguing and very different musical experience – this group are known for their almost chameleon-like ability to move between musical styles from strictly classical to works such as the aforementioned “Pieces Of Africa” to interesting string quartet interpretations of rock music.

One standout moment for me – a real surprise – when the band suddenly kicked into an all-strings version of Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” – and it sounded incredible! – it doesn’t get more rock and roll than that – of course, in a strictly classical music setting!  Fascinating show.

 

1995

Well – the Decade Of The Fripp continues in full swing…

Soundscapes – Rack Configuration

…and 1995 started out with two shows in a row from Mr. Fripp – this time, performing his live guitar magic – the magic known now as “Soundscapes” (formerly: “Frippertronics“) – I attended two identically-configured shows, one on January 27th and again on January 28th, which featured the remarkably talented and capable California Guitar Trio as the opening act, and then Fripp‘s Soundscape performance followed.

What is a Soundscape?, you may ask – well, Fripp states on the Discipline Global Mobile web site that Soundscapes “has the aim of finding ways in which intelligence and music, definition and discovery, courtesy and reciprocation may enter into the act of music for both musician and audience”.

Soundscapes really have to be experienced live to fully appreciate their amazing sonic qualities – the recordings, which are generally speaking all live anyway – don’t quite do them justice without the visual aspect of seeing Robert sending notes to different loopers

Frippertronics – The Original System Using Two Revox A77 Reel-To-Reel Tape Recorders

to do different things, playing melodies with different effects or guitar synth voices to provide musical textural variety, and also, the sound of a brilliantly-conceived stereo electric guitar system live in the room – it’s an amazing immersive experience, and whether you like Soundscapes or not – they are really something to experience live.

 

I was lucky enough to see this remarkable show at least twice, because I’d also seen a rehearsal that year that Robert did, when I was on a Guitar Craft course, where he used the assembled Crafties (those of us on the course that year) as guinea pigs – did we mind if he tested his system?  No – we did not mind.  So I’d seen a similar show to these, done in the big room at Ojai, California – during a Guitar Craft course – so my own experience of Soundscapes is a bit more varied than most – and I feel very fortunate indeed to have had the additional amazing experience of seeing and hearing Robert do an entire Soundscape performance in a room in an Ojai facility.

Of course, I was also able, on that course, to get a decent look at Robert’s pedal board, so when I finished the Course, I went straight to Guitar Centre and bought the same pitch shifter that RF was using – and I used that for years – it was fantastic, because of course with a little work, I could pretty much get exactly the same live two octaves up sound that he did – it sounded great.  (Note:  the pedal in question was the Digitech Whammy II – a great pitch pedal at the time).

 

Soundscapes

 

After starting the year out on the high of getting to see the Trio twice followed by Robert Fripp twice, a few months passed and then, not to my surprise, I found myself sitting at Copley Symphony Hall on June 28, 1995 – waiting for the new “double trio” version of King Crimson to take the stage – so my third Robert Fripp concert of the year and my third concert containing Robert Fripp that year – 1995 was definitely the Year Of The Fripp for me!

 

King Crimson – Double Trio Configuration – circa 1995

King Crimson were very, very accomplished and very, very powerful, and this was the first time I had seen this “new” incarnation – which meant it was the first concert experience of tracks such as “Dinosaur” which I thought was absolutely astonishing – and also, the beautiful side of the double trio, as represented by the very gorgeous “Walking On Air” – sung beautifully by Belew, with both Fripp and Belew playing clean, reverse guitars – a plethora of stunningly gorgeous reverse guitar sound – fantastic!

 

The final part of my wonderful 1995 concert experience was dedicated to a new interest I had developed in the 1990s – in a band from the East Coast of the United States called “The Innocence Mission” – I’d heard (or seen, rather?) an MTV video late one night by this band, and on a whim, I bought their first album – which I very much enjoyed.   I began to follow them, and continued to buy their albums and then, logically, when I heard they were to be playing live – I went to see them.

The Innocence Mission

The band consists of a husband and wife team, who play guitars and keyboards / guitars respectively, although wife Karen Peris sings most of the lead vocals, they both sing – and the band has had various supporting members over the years – to the point where I believe they are now down to just a duo at the present time.  When I saw them in 1995 – they still had a full band of drums, bass, lead guitar, and piano or acoustic guitar played by Karen Peris.

 

 

So my final concert experience of 1995 was seeing this remarkable new group playing live – and it was a revelation – the songs, some seemingly so fragile that you thought they might break while being sung – others more upbeat, but all with a lovely positive light about them.  I absolutely loved their second and third albums (Umbrella and Glow, respectively) and I continued on following them for many, many years after those albums, too.

 

The Innocence Mission – Full Band

I am so glad I took the chance to just buy the first Innocence Mission CD sound-unheard – and I really liked it – and that really brought me years and years of enjoyment, allowing me to see this band more than once live in a concert setting, and enjoying their records throughout the 90s and beyond.  A really nice way to end the year, with a tight, organised show featuring some of the most beautiful, delicate and fantastic songs – really gorgeous music – and Don Peris is a very accomplished guitarist too whose playing I also very much enjoy.

Another happy accident – and I can now proudly add this band to the list of bands that I admire and enjoy listening to…the Innocence Mission.

 

1996

Although no ticket stubs survive from this year, I am aware of at least a couple of shows I attended – the first – being a second concert by The Innocence Mission – I believe this would be for their third album “Glow” which meant new songs, and new chances to

Karen Peris

see the remarkable Karen Peris sit at the piano and sing the most beautiful songs in the universe – and it was another incredible night – which ended with the chance for a brief conversation with the Peris couple – they were both really accommodating and very kind – so I had a fantastic experience at this second really quality performance by this then-up-and-coming indie band.  Really enjoyable.

 

I should note here that both times I saw The Innocence Mission, they were accompanied by another band, called 16 Horsepower, that opened for The Innocence Mission on both occasions.  They were not really to my taste, but it was interesting music – the lead singer was a kind of tortured soul (??) and his vocal approach and lyrics were provocative and interesting – so it lent some interesting contrast to the more straightforward beauty of the songs of Karen and Don Peris.

 

The final big musical event of 1996 for me, was a second visit from King Crimson, again, in Double Trio mode – this time, at a strange outdoor gig in San Diego at a new venue called “Hospitality Point” (i kid you not) and I was roped in – thanks to my involvement with Guitar Craft – into the job of handing out flyers to the punters as they entered the performance area.

This particular King Crimson performance was very significant to me, first of all – the band had improved and moved on since the first time I’d seen them at Copley Symphony Hall in San Diego, the year before – and they had expanded their repertoire somewhat too – and that was why I particularly did not want to miss this particular show – because I had heard that they were now performing the classic King Crimson song “21st Century Schizoid Man” – so after being a fan of the band for many, many years, and seeing them play four or five times by this point – I finally got to hear them play Schizoid Man – and it was immaculate – when they got to the famous “precision” section near the end of the song – the whole band dropped down, and they played those famous precision riffs – perfectly in time, six bodies united in sound – and it really was impressive – they got the HARDEST part of one of the band’s most difficult songs – exactly right – the way it should be.

I was impressed to say the least.  Also had been rewarded with a back stage pass, but really didn’t do much except watch Tony Levin walk past – everyone was in hiding after what was probably an exhausting show.  Another great King Crimson experience – the Double Trio was loud, they were incredibly talented musicians – and for me – it really worked – I loved that version of the band – and I’m very happy not only that I got to see them play twice, but also that I finally, finally got to see the band – any version of the band – play “21st Century Schizoid Man” – live.  An experience, in my opinion, well worth waiting for – after all, I’d been waiting since 1981, really – when the band first re-emerged – so just the 15 years had passed – until one version of the band finally learned the song!

 

1997

This was an interesting year – and it started out with a very unusual an interesting show in a somewhat unusual venue – a guitar shop in Santa Monica, California called “McCabe’s Music”.  “McCabe’s” was well-known for their very small, intimate acoustic performances – they had a small concert space upstairs – that seated perhaps 70 or 80 people (?) and I can remember being very excited about going to a concert at this famous guitar shop – I remember I went early, so I could look at the guitars and so on – and browsed around in there for perhaps an hour – before they threw us all out so we could all come back in again for the show – or, maybe they let us stay in – I can’t recall.

The artist we were all waiting to see is the very famous British musician – guitarist and songwriter Roy Harper, doing a rare appearance in California playing live upstairs at McCabe’s – news of the show was just out of the blue – but I wasn’t about to miss this – my first chance to see Roy Harper live.

Roy Harper in more recent times

I was not disappointed – two very good sets of amazing music later, I was stunned by the man’s ability to perform these utterly unique and very specifically his songs – he writes songs like no other – many of them hard-hitting, others, the most tender love songs you might imagine – any cross-section of any dozen songs from any Roy Harper album will give you a set of songs that covers a massive range of emotion and colour and humanism and beauty.

 

He is a poet, writer, activist – outraged and angry peacenik – and I loved this crazy, nutty Englishman and his eccentric music – and his voice – his voice is an instrument in itself, and clever use of delay and reverb live lends itself to some stunning vocal performances along with his lone acoustic guitar – he often managed to sound like a lot more than one man with a guitar.

Those two shows are among my most prized memories – and when Roy came back after the intermission – he was noticeably relaxed, I think that the McCabe’s staff had possibly supplied him with some high quality California cannabis-derived product of some kind – so the second set started out with Roy just laughing for about five minutes – and the audience laughing with him and at him – it was hilarious – and then, he turned in a performance that was even better than the stunningly good first set!

A remarkable experience indeed, and while I was able to see Roy on other occasions later on – this first time was definitely the best time – an intimate venue, and a great performance from someone who is a National treasure – there is only one Roy Harper – friend of Jimmy Page – 1960s minstrel – stoned hippie free love advocate – poet and singer extraordinaire.

Next on the agenda then, for 1997, was the first of a number of shows by Camel – the first time I’d seen them in five years – Andy Latimer was now living somewhere in Northern California, and had his new version of Camel playing up and down the California coast for quite a few years.

I think that this year would probably have been the concert for Dust & Dreams, which is a fantastic album in it’s own right, and I absolutely love the music of Camel but in particular, I love the flute and guitar playing of leader/lead singer/lead guitarist Andy Latimer, and it did my heart good to see Andy doing so well, with a FANTASTIC new band – the first time I saw new bassist Colin Bass in the band – and playing fantastic new

Andy Latimer – Camel’s Guitar Genius

material too – I’ve seen Camel four or five times now, across the years – and the performances have all been uniformly immaculate and of the highest musical quality – Andy knows how to arrange a proggy tune!  So this latest new incarnation of Camel – was OK by me – and I went to see them more than once.

 

To this day, I would say that Camel in a way, represent what “Progressive Rock” is and what it should be – more than almost any other band.  And the performance I witnessed just last month – where the band played the entire “Moonmadness” album without stopping – then, took a break, and then came out and played a LONG set of classic Camel music – and they were stupendous.

Only Colin Bass remained now in 2018, from the 1997 lineup – so they had a new drummer (Denis Clement) and keyboard player (Pete Jones) for the Moonmadness 2018 tour – and the new keyboard player Pete Jones has an amazing voice – so this new Camel, the 2018 Camel – has the best live vocal approach I have ever heard the band have!

They even attempted – and easily pulled off – a live three part harmony – and the two part harmony singing between Latimer and the very,  very accomplished new keyboard player Pete Jones was absolutely spot on throughout – raising their game as a live performance act even further.  And Latimer has battled on despite ill health – the man is an absolute legend!

Fish – Marillion’s Original (And Best) Singer

1997 continues with another legendary concert – the final tour of Marillion where their lead singer was still named Fish.  The tour for then-new album “Clutching At Straws” – remarkably, Marillion had done the impossible by making a followup album, to their hugely successful mid 1980s album “Misplaced Childhood” that was just as good if not better – I actually prefer it – and so had upped their game musically – and I was excited to hear the band playing this new album – I’d seen them playing “Misplaced Childhood” previously when I’d seen them live in San Diego; this time, I traveled up to the old reliable Coach House, to see Fish‘s last stand with Marillion – of course, we didn’t know it was his last tour with the band – but the writing was on the wall.

 

The show at the Coach House that night was absolutely amazing and I had a fantastic time – the band were so precise, and this was a great new bunch of songs – and I think their performance this year, on this tour – was miles beyond what I’d seen previously when I saw them live – and to my mind – still never exceeded by the “new Marillion” – the one with the singer NOT named Fish.  That Marillion – has never quite come up with another album that thrills me as much as the brutally honest and self-examining “Clutching At Straws” does.

At one point during the performance Fish was supposed to do a costume change – but he told the audience instead – “I’m supposed to do a costume change now but I will be damned if I am going to go up and down those BLOODY stairs one more time” – to which the audience ROARED in pleased approval and Fish just got on with the next song – wearing the wrong costume – the music was all that mattered – and that was his way of reminding us of that fact.

It was a great show and I think an example of Marillion at their very best!

Finally to round out a very exciting and concert-filled year, another show by Todd Rundgren – this time, played at the smaller, more intimate Belly Up Tavern, and if memory serves me correctly, this was the year that he finally played “No. 1 Lowest Common Denominator” live – which was a song that I dearly loved from the 1974 “Todd” double LP – that despite seeing Todd several times since first seeing him with Utopia in 1977 – it wasn’t until 20 years later – here in 1997 – that I actually got to see and hear him play this remarkable song.

Todd Rundgren in recent years

It was a concert for me, of mixed emotions – with highs like that, but also with lows in that some of the newer songs that Todd was performing, just didn’t sit too well with me – I was losing interest in a lot of his newer music – while still very much liking and appreciating his back catalogue.

 

 

Each year, it seemed, Todd’s shows more and more favoured the newer, less interesting and creative songs, and every year, the number of older, interesting, and very creative songs from his best albums, dwindled and dwindled until they became almost non-existent. There also seemed to be less and less emphasis on his substantial abilities as a lead guitarist, and more emphasis on acoustic, piano or other non-virtuoso performance material – in other words – he stopped playing guitar – or at least –  cut it way back.

Later on in his career, he did somewhat remedy this by playing a lot of the older material again – and playing more guitar again – but he had long before that kinda “lost” me.  This may well have been the very last time (to coin a phrase lol) I went to see Todd play – I am not sure.

 

1998

At this point, the haze of time and memory, has drawn a curtain over the decade – and only a couple of glimpses of that clouded memory remain – I have only one entry for 1998, and that was for a new band – a band I had recently discovered by a most unusual method for me – I had heard their new single on the radio, and felt like I had to have that record.  I never hear records on the radio.  But in this case – that’s actually how it happened.

K’s Choice – Sarah & Gert Bettens

That record, turned out to be “Everything For Free” – a wonderful (and also somewhat bittersweet) tale of how everything is free and paid for when you live in a lunatic asylum – from the point of view of someone – an inmate – called “Billy” – as sung by Sarah Bettens – who is showing a visitor around their gilded psychologically-demanded prison and explaining how he gets “everything for free” – it’s a chilling and beautiful tune with a biting, socially aware lyric – by the remarkable Dutch – or perhaps Dutch/American band “K’s Choice“.

 

I bought their brand new 1998 album – “Cocoon Crash”  on the strength of hearing that one song one time driving home – and fell in love.  This was to me, a fantastic find – a new band, a new sound, and a remarkable lead female singer in Sarah Bettens – with a unique and unforgettable voice – or rather, a unique brother (on guitar – Gert Bettens) and sister (guitar and vocals – Sarah Bettens) team that harmonised beautifully together.

I’ve never had another chance to see them perform, but I have continued to buy their albums and follow their career – this band, and in particular the string of albums they made from 1998 probably into the first part of the next decade – really resonate with me.  “Cocoon Crash” is probably my personal favourite, but they have made a number of albums of equal quality – this is a talented and capable band.

The performance took place in tiny, tiny beach front club in a suburb of San Diego called “Mission Beach” – a place I lived when I was a teenager.  The club was very, very small but the band rocked hard and loud, and sounded absolutely amazing – I was blown away by all of the instrumentalists, they were all Dutch except for their bass player who was American – and they played their socks off that night in that tiny place.  Sarah Betten’s voice – and attitude – was unique, infectious and fantastic – and when she came in on third electric guitar the additional noise and din was absolutely amazing – what a great live performance – and, from a band that was brand new for me.

 

1999

The records here completely disappear for a period of time – and it remains unknown if I attended any concerts in the last year of the century or not – I simply do not know – I have so far, not found any ticket stubs or other evidence to show that I did; but should such information become available, I would of course do an update on this blog – so – with K’s Choice and their amazing performance at Cane’s in Mission Beach, California – this decade of concert attendances comes to a somewhat premature end – 1999’s activities remain a complete mystery.

 

 

THE ATYPICALS – A QUICK LOOK

While this concludes the Performances Attended section of the blog, I want to take just a moment to list here, the “new” bands or at least – new to me – i.e. bands that were outside of my experience when I first encountered them in the 1990s – as a contrast to the many bands that I had already been following during the previous two decades.

So while it’s obvious that I have a propensity for bands and artists such as King Crimson, Robert Fripp, Todd Rundgren, Camel, Peter Hammill, and any other classic Prog Rock outfits – the 1990s were, for me, also – a time of new musical awakenings – and while I have provided details of all of these artists in the section above, I thought it was worthwhile compiling a quick list of the “atypical” Dave Stafford concert attendances – those concerts that I would not normally have gone to, or, artists and bands that were either new to me or new in general – which I was encountering and having my first or nearly-first experiences with – through the auspices of seeing them perform live in the 1990s:

The Atypical Bands And Artists List for the 1990s – Dave Stafford’s Concert Attendances:

• Bill Bruford’s “Earthworks” (representing jazz)
• Kronos Quartet (representing classical + rock + ??)
• Kanda Bongo Man (representing African music and Soukous in particular)
• Innocence Mission (representing new music for the 1990s)
• K’s Choice (representing new music for the 1990s)

 

Awesome Guitarists – one motivator for attending so many concerts

I was a guitarist then, and I am still a guitarist now;  so it’s only natural that I would follow and enjoy music by the world’s most talented and capable guitarists – and the list of guitarists that I was lucky enough to see in the 1990s is a pretty staggering list of remarkable, talented musicians.

THE 1990s GUITARIST’S HALL OF FAME:

For each decade, I have created a list of the remarkably diverse and talented batch of lead guitarists I have witnessed within the bands or artists I had seen during that decade (see my blogs for the 1970s and the 1980s respectively – and near the bottom of each, you should find a list of guitarists similar to this one following).

• Todd Rundgren (Solo)
• Peter Hammill (Solo)
• Robert Fripp (Robert Fripp String Quintet, Robert Fripp Soundscapes, Robert Fripp & The League Of Crafty Guitarists, King Crimson, Sylvian-Fripp)
• Neil Finn (Crowded House)
• Reeves Gabrels (Tin Machine)
• Bert Lams (California Guitar Trio)
• Paul Richards (California Guitar Trio)
• Hideyo Moriya (California Guitar Trio)
• Andy Latimer (Camel)
• Rigo Star (Kanda Bongo Man)
• Michael Brook (Sylvian-Fripp)
• Adrian Belew (King Crimson)
• Don Peris (The Innocence Mission)
• Steve Rothery (Marillion)
• Gert Bettens (K’s Choice)
• Sarah Bettens (K’s Choice)

 

 

Forward still…on into the distant future!

So in conclusion – for me, the 90s were packed with many, many performances from many of my very favourite musicians – you will see the names of two in particular, cropping up again and again and again in the account above – Todd Rundgren and Robert Fripp – and in the case of Robert Fripp, during this most interesting decade, I managed to see him perform in, actually, five different groups – which is an astonishing feat in itself if you think about it.  I feel very, very fortunate to have been following his career very closely at the time, and that gave me the opportunity to see him play guitar in so many different performance modes – it was simply amazing!

As well as seeing Robert Fripp play many, many times in five different bands, I managed to see a Beatle – my third and final live Beatle experience with the great Ringo Starr – and also managed to see Todd play guitar a few times, and Camel – who I dearly love – twice – once in 1992 and again in 1997 – a very interesting contrasting experience.  On top of so many Prog-based highlights, including seeing the amazing Peter Hammill performing live at the Roxy in Los Angeles at the start of 1990 – I also became familiar with a handful of new or newer groups – and three of those groups became huge favourites of mine over the years.

It was, for me, a really nice mix of shows – heavy on the things I love, and an enormous number of performances by one Robert Fripp – possibly my favourite guitarist of all time – as well as two master classes in Prog Guitar from Mr. Andy Latimer – not to mention the guitar work of Peter Hammill, Todd Rundgren and young Steve Rothery – none of those guys are exactly slouches when it comes to playing electric guitar – and then a light sprinkling of some very diverse new music – covering jazz, classical, African and new kinds folk rock or rock with just a handful of bands – the perfect mix of live concerts of both the “old familiar” and the “new exciting” shows – making for another nearly perfect decade of truly enjoyable concert attendances.

Until next time then – once again my friends ~

 

Dave Stafford
October 5, 2018

 

Next time on Decade By Decade – The Live Concert Experience / Overview:

The 2000s – The Naughtiest Decade

 

1990s Concert Ticket Stub Collection (courtesy Dave Stafford)

Concert Ticket Stubs – 1990s

 

The Dreaded 1980s: Not So Bad After All

DECADE BY DECADE – THE LIVE CONCERT EXPERIENCE / OVERVIEW

Episode 2: 1980s

Most of the musicians I know, share with me, a general sense of … horror is really the only word that suits, although it’s not exactly the right word…at the memory of the music of the 1980s – which included but was not limited to – everything bad about the emerging synthesizer, synths badly played and not sounding very good at all – and all of the other early musical crimes of the early and middle 80s.

A lot of bad, bad music was made in the name of quickly producing a hit MTV Video – trying to cash in on the video craze – and things were decidedly NOT about the music, as they definitely HAD been in the 1960s and 1970s.

 

I try not to remember some – or even most – of those songs and bands, and when I hear them – they make me uncomfortable at best, and downright unable to listen in others – they are just not the best songs nor are they, for me, the best musical memories – those will always belong to the late 60s / early 70s when Prog ruled the land – and I looked out at the 70s Music Scene – my own “70s Scenario” – and saw that it was good.

Meanwhile, over on the hard rock scene, another disturbing trend was emerging, again, fuelled by MTV videos – albeit part of a different demographic – one populated mainly by teenage boys – within that demographic “MTV Video enthusiasts” –  and with a clear desire to cash in on the video craze – Hair Metal (later known as “Glam Metal” – fair enough) had arrived, and it looked like it was trying to stay (thankfully – it did not) – or at least – it did not stay for long.

Bands that I literally could not understand the appeal of, whose music was made so cheaply and nastily (and that was, unfortunately, reflected in the SOUND of that music, too!), just so another air-brushed group of four hooligans with MASSIVE HAIR could make a few million dollars at our expense – and the punishment for us, was having not only to hear this vapid form of “metal”, but to SEE these ridiculous “hair” bands, who were all clearly about the size and curliness of their perm, and definitely NOT all about their skill as writers or musicians – let’s face it, a lot of those bands – could not write a song to save their life, and their musicianship ranged from barely adequate to definitely sub-par.

With the emergence of a whole new breed of Hair Metal bands on the one hand, and the pop / synth / Revolution Of The Synthesizer that was coming to our TV screens and to our ears mostly from Great Britain – there was a lot to answer for “musically” during the 1980s.   Across the pond (where I live now) in this Synth Revolution – a similar and parallel activity was apparent – pop songs written just so a synth or synths could be used in the video, but which probably had no other good reason for existing.

Back in the 1970s (which suddenly looked pretty darn good to me) synths were used in the arena of Progressive Rock, but they were wielded by men and women of skill and talent, and used on songs that were finely crafted and worked on for often, many weeks or even months – until perfected.  Music created for the sake of music, of pure musicianship made by real artists – craftsmen – people who had studied their instruments and knew how to use them – finely crafted songs, that were challenging and often quite difficult to perform – but rewarding in every sense – there is nothing on earth quite as satisfying as a musical composition that works on every level – including, exciting to perform and hear, in live performance.  I missed that, especially within the recorded music of the 80s, I didn’t at first, feel there was much around of any real quality.

I got the feeling that with the whole Synth Pop Revolution (which, while it did have it’s roots in the late 1970s, to my mind, is mostly, a 1980s phenomenon) coming from Britain and the Hair Band revolution emerging from LA – that they would have spent just a few days on each piece, and no more – clock is ticking, time is money – and meanwhile, again mostly in LA “…and I have to go and get a new perm, so please let’s wrap this up”.  I can just about picture any session by one of these bands – where a lot of time is spent pouting into mirrors, and gazing adoringly at your own magnificent curly blond locks – or whatever it was.

But – as the 1980s wore on – there was a quiet musical revolution going on in the background.  It didn’t belong to any one group or any particular type of group, but rather, was a combination of a number of interesting events and occurrences in the 1980s, that were probably not brought to the fore in the news coverage (or, the MTV News Coverage) of the day.  This was not, however – a revolution of recorded music – but instead – of live performance.

I am thinking in particular of two cases or scenarios – or “types” if you wish – one, where established artists who had worked very hard in the 1970s or even 1960s, to establish themselves and their musical credentials – some of these artists, after being vilified and ridiculed by the punk movement – waited out the last few dismal years of the 1970s (as progressive rock was nearly wiped from the map by first, punk, in Britain, and then New Wave in the U.S) waiting for an opportune moment to put their head above the parapet to find out if they were still as resoundly resented as they had been…

But I think that those established artists, whether ordinary rock artists or progressive rock “musos”, it didn’t matter, they were all realising that they could not only survive in the unfriendly 1980s – but in some cases, in many instances – they could thrive.  In particular – on the live concert circuit.  And live performance is exactly what that first of two groups of musicians I am thinking of has in common with the second group – new emerging bands, who, while their music may have been “born” in a calendar year that indicated that it was in fact, still the 1980s – while that was undeniable, what was also very apparent, was that there was a kind of “backlash” – there was a hankering for the recently-departed 1960s and 1970s.

Some bands were not afraid to boldly embark on brand new careers, in the 1980s, playing music that on paper, did not and would not “work” in the wonderful “look ma I’ve got a synthesizer” world of MTV, or “look ma, I got me a perm and now the Record Company has given us a $500,000.00 advance on our album” heady days of the early Eighties – that was still going on, although perhaps to a lesser degree in the latter half of the 1980s – but at the same time, my two Secret Musical Forces – were also at work, working hard to bring out music of quality in the Decade That Quality Forgot.

And to their credit, they did it.  What tipped me off to it, was a strange but undeniable fact – OK, I had been fortunate enough to have seven years in the 1970s, when I was witness to some of the most amazing live music ever performed anywhere at any time in history – I was lucky enough to be alive and be old enough, to attend shows by now-legendary Progressive Rock and Rock acts – and there will never be a time like the 1970s again.  What I had noticed – was that, the quality and availability of good live music, seemed to be on the rise in the 1980s – NOT declining as you might have thought.

Punk gave us the good shake up we needed (in hindsight, that is undeniable), and as much as I resented the damage that punk and to a lesser degree, New Wave, did to Prog – I needn’t have worried, because not only was Prog alive and well in the 1980s, but there was also an entire parallel music scene, that you could choose to attend, so for every Eurhythmics show that I didn’t attend, there was a show built on the basis of quality music – whether that be Prog Bands from the 1970s, or other 70s act, adapting, surviving and even flourishing, during the musically-depressing 1980s.

 

I could, in the space of a few weeks, attend shows by Crowded House (the remnants of New Zealand progressive rock heroes “Split Enz”) – who I also happened to see play live in 1981 – one of the first shows I attended in the 1980s – and in a way, you could not really get more prog than that in 1981…

 

 

…despite the band making a very poppy record – 1980’s “True Colours” – they had a still-beating prog heart – and their natural successor, Crowded House, who later went on to even more dizzying heights of success – but – as a pop band – not a prog band – or – stalwart live performers like ex-Fairport Convention guitarist Richard Thompson; or new bands like Marillion, whose music sounded like it was straight out of 1974 – and yet – strangely – it was 1985 – now that was a surprise!

A diverse and exciting mix of live performers then – all out touring, all bringing in large audiences, all being quietly successful while MTV continued to trumpet the “news” that the world was now ruled by Synthesizers, and informing us that “Don’t You Want Me (Baby)” (or whatever it’s called) was a really, really good song (it isn’t).

Brian Eno himself, the once-flamboyant feather-adorned synthesizer-player of the legendary art-rock outfit Roxy Music, stated that punk was “a breath of fresh air” and over time, while at first unsure – I did come to totally agree with that sentiment.  Prog was in need of a shake up – but the media portrayed it more like a death in the family, so for a couple of very depressing years – we were left with an apparent void, which was being filled by the practitioners of punk and new wave from say, 1978-1980.

 

But – once the air had been cleared, there was no reason in the world for the rock or prog bands that had been swept up in the Great Cleansing – to lay down their instruments and quit – and in fact – most of them did not give up – they may have taken time off during a period in which it might have been difficult to fare well, but…

…eventually – sometimes sooner, sometimes, much, much later – they would in fact, return – and, join a growing number of newly emerging 80s artists who were neither Synth-playing robots nor Hair Metallists – but in fact, were just playing different kinds of rock music – from an only slightly-disguised version of progressive rock (Marillion channelling early Genesis) to a band like Crowded House, who took their prog Split-Enz roots (see what I did there!) and mutated into one of the finest pop bands the world has ever known.

For me – I was even fortunate enough to see one example of these two “groups” of mine – the two Secret Warriors Of Quality Music – on the same bill at the same show – as I was fortunate enough one year, during the 80s, to see Crowded House playing – with the great Richard Thompson as “support act” (!!).  On paper – that just seemed all wrong to me – but as a concert – it was actually brilliant – Thompson is a guitarist extraordinaire, a consummate master, and to have someone of his skill and experience opening for the less-experienced but really, no less talented Finn Brothers (of Crowded House and Split Enz fame) was strange but wonderful – and actually, an inspired idea.

Even more remarkable was the fact that during Crowded House’s set, Richard Thompson came out with his guitar to play on one of their songs – so here we had a standard-bearer from the long-ago 1960s, an ex-member and founding member of the great Fairport Convention – on stage with a bunch of musical upstarts from New Zealand.

 

 

I got a genuine laugh at the time, from hearing young Neil Finn taunting Thompson verbally, calling him a “guitar hero” and so on – it was hilarious.

Some combinations of musicians, you think to yourself – “that could never happen” – and there I was, hearing Richard Thompson improvising a solo to “Italian Plastic” by Crowded House.  Very strange times indeed – but, at that moment – and during countless other 1980s concert moments – the quality of this live music – drove all thoughts of big hair and synth robots right out of my head – and I could live in the moment again, and experience quality live music again.

It was almost as if,  the 1960s and 1970s had just carried on without interruption. almost as if punk and new wave had never happened – and by the mid 1980s, I felt that the old bands were definitely on the way back “in” (I mean, just look at the massive resurgence of interest and huge popularity of both Jethro Tull and of ZZ Top – two bands definitely of the previous decade – yet, in 1987, 1988 – enjoying an immense and very real popularity that required no hype from MTV to propel it) – if anything, these bands began to turn the tables on MTV, and by 1987 – you were far more likely to see an awesome video by ZZ Top or Jethro Tull, than you were to see the dread “Don’t You Want Me (Baby)” video.

But what groups am I talking about here, in my two imagined groups?  Well, the easiest way for me to document that, is to turn first to my setlist.fm entries for the period of time, to get a sense of the shows I was attending – and once I have refreshed my failing memory there, I will be able to jot those down as I hope, valid examples of the two types:

Type Uno

– (Existing) Prog Rock or Rock bands and artists returning to music in the 1980s – at first, possibly more represented by concert appearances than by records, but by the end of the 1980s, they were producing smash hit albums that sold very, very well and were often award-winning and more popular than anything that we now consider to be “Classic 80s Rock” or “Classic 80s Dance” or whatever.  It was Jethro Tull, not Billy Idol or Gary Numan, scooping up awards for best album – and if that isn’t a shock result, I don’t know what is!

But what a brilliant result – I was very, very happy for Ian Anderson and co – to have survived punk, then, to have survived – and then, defeated the 1980s – that is testament to the commitment and vision of Ian Anderson – he managed, somehow, to keep Jethro Tull afloat through all that tribulation – and then, emerge successfully. at the end of their ordeal – with an award-winning hit record – I have to heartily congratulate him on that feat of persistent vision.  Brilliant work!

 

 

The great ZZ Top carved an equally impressive path through the myriad labyrinth of late 1980s music, and even did so with an only very-slightly updated sound – I remember seeing them in 1975, a raw, powerful blues band with real talent and skill – and here it was now, some 12, 13 years later, near the end of the 1980s – and they were back with…guess what – powerful, bluesy music – with several massive hit records included in their late-1980s successes.  Another brilliant success story almost exactly parallel to the story of Jethro Tull in the late 1980s.

But Jethro Tull and ZZ Top are highly visible, very popular groups – there were a surprising number of other bands in this category – and now I am referring to my setlist.fm listing for the 1980s – one of those bands, is the remarkable Queen.  1980 saw Queen produce an arguably very unique record in their canon, the much-overlooked “Jazz” album – and I was lucky enough to get a ticket to see them, very last-minute – and I am so, so glad that I did – again, it was in live performance where these rock and prog bands of the 1970s excelled, and Queen always put on an impressive performance.

Brian May to me, is one of the most interesting guitarists that Britain ever produced, with a very, very different and very, very unique guitar sound that no one else has ever really successfully replicated.  Queen built a whole new reputation during the 1980s – moving from the dramatic, prog-inspired heavy rock of their early and mid-70s albums, to much more sonically challenging records such as 1980s “Jazz” – and a host of other brilliant records – so again, very popular band in the 1970s – somehow managed to catapult themselves into massive popularity and success during the 1980s.

A First Time For Everyone

Split Enz – the precursor to the above mentioned Crowded House, Split Enz was New Zealand’s premiere progressive rock band in the 1970s, with a huge underground following and some of the most interesting and quirky music ever created in any country – by 1980, they had gradually been leaving the trappings of prog rock almost entirely behind, and by the time I saw them in in early 1981 – their “True Colours” album was riding high in the charts, a huge pop success thanks mostly to the tune “I Got You” – sung, incidentally, by Neil Finn, the future leader of Crowded House – rather than by Tim Finn – the actual (original) lead singer of Split Enz.  Well – one of two lead singers in the original band is perhaps, more accurate.

I will never forget being at that show, sitting there in the audience – I could clearly see the muscles in the then-very young Neil’s throat moving, moving as in a panic response – in pure fear, as he opened his mouth to sing this huge hit song – I believe this was the band’s first trip to America, and very possibly, their first show of the first tour of America – and the poor guy was scared half to death.  He needn’t have worried – the song, and the band, were received rapturously by the audience – I was absolutely blown away by the quality of musicianship (and, it was the first time I got to see the amazing Eddie Rayner on keyboards – the man is a genius) and seeing Split Enz – even in their later, “pop” persona – was a wonderful and utterly unforgettable experience – one of my favourite bands of all time.

(Note: Split Enz / Crowded House is the only band to appear in both the Type Uno and the Type Dos categories – because Split Enz was an existing Progressive Rock Band from the early 1970s, while Crowded House was a New, Emerging Band in the early 1980s that just happened to be made up of ex-members of Split Enz – so they get entered once – very early 1980s – as “Existing Prog band” and once again – early 1980s), as “New Emerging Pop band”.  A remarkable feat – being the only band that managed to straddle two very dissimilar groupings!).

A man who needs no introduction, the late, great Frank Zappa – I honestly don’t think that any change in musical styles ever affected the forward velocity of this man – one of our greatest modern composers, and a genius at getting bands to play impossible music with impossible chops – there is nothing on earth like a Frank Zappa led and directed live performance.

I place him in the “existing Prog” category although Prog isn’t exactly the right way to describe the sheer genius of Zappa – I really think he remained unaffected by punk, unaffected by MTV – unless there was some aspect of it that he could manipulate to further his own aims – in which case – he would.  I think of all of the “existing artists” out there – that Frank just sailed through the 1960s. 70s and 80s without batting an eye – all just water flowing under a large musical bridge – while Frank was busy composing, arranging, or playing the most amazing lead guitar the planet has ever experienced – only Fripp and Hendrix are in the same league – and he could have taught those two a thing or two I feel certain lol.

So while I include FZ in this category – he was gloriously unaffected by the basic stupidities of (most) 1980s music.  Lucky guy, I would say.

This list of Existing Prog bands that came back in the 1980s (that is, if they were ever really “gone” in the first place) would not be complete without both the redoubtable and resilient Yes, who continued to make music in the 1980s, undergoing a radical musical transformation that I personally, in the main, do not enjoy (I was left cold by the Drama album and tour – a 70s-meets-80s experiment that in my opinion, simply did not work) but I have to acknowledge, it gave them a new lease on life that carried them far into the future, while Genesis, the Hardest Working Band In Prog (maybe) were being led by their undeniably charismatic “new” lead singer, one “Phil Collins” – and the success that Collins and co enjoyed during this decade where Prog was NOT King – is undeniable – and must have been so, so galling to the various departed members of the band who had only been with the band during the years of debt – among those, being original lead singer Peter Gabriel and renowned but long departed original guitarist Ant Phillips.

Gabriel is another one on this list, who fits right into this category very comfortably – an ex-progressive rock lead vocalist, revered for his seminal early and mid-70s progressive output on classic Genesis albums such as “Selling England By The Pound” and “The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway” – leaving Genesis at the height of their then-success in early 1975 to pursue a solo career.  Said career definitely took some interesting musical twists and turns, sometimes veering sharply away from prog (the first “Peter Gabriel” album for example), other times, returning to embrace it once again (the second, Robert Fripp-produced, “Peter Gabriel” album) – but, by the time of the 1980s – Gabriel‘s solo career was in full swing.

He became a star in his own right, without  Genesis, and was extremely popular with prog rock fans plus a whole new generation of fans that came to his music first, through his now-famous series of eponymously-titled albums – the first three (or four – see below) albums all being entitled “Peter Gabriel” – the fourth, finally getting an “actual” title – “Security” – although according to Wiki – it’s actually called…”Peter Gabriel”.  So there are four – not three !

Note: the fact that the first four Peter Gabriel albums had no title beyond “Peter Gabriel” (with the exception of the final one, which was ‘sometimes also known as “Security” ‘), was apparently really just too difficult for some people to understand or relate to – so interestingly, to make it easier for those who found this concept (which was Gabriel‘s idea – he wanted it to be like a newspaper – the same paper, with the same headline – but coming out at different times with different stories in them) too difficult – so people invented “names” for the albums based solely on the cover art – so strangely, many people “know” these three classic records as “Car” (Peter Gabriel I”);  “Scratches” (Peter Gabriel II) and “Face” or “Melting Face” (Peter Gabriel 3).   For the fourth – well, it somehow acquired the “name” “Security”.

Personally – I like the original titles and the idea of it having the same title every time – that was unique – but – apparently this was too much of a stretch for some possibly less-pliant minds – so they invented these somewhat lame cover-art related “names” – for three albums that already had perfectly good names – or, rather, a perfectly good name.  It’s funny what lengths people will go to, to “force” something unusual or out-of-the-ordinary into terms that they are comfortable with – great lengths, it would seem, sometimes.

So along with Yes, Genesis, and Peter Gabriel, the 1980s was also an amazing time for one of the most underappreciated and hugely talented individuals that early 70s (or in this case, actually, late 1960s) progressive rock ever produced – and of course I am talking about the remarkable Peter Hammill, of the band Van Der Graaf Generator (which, incidentally, is still going strong after re-forming in 2005) – the 1980s saw Hammill evolving his solo performances, which were originally, just himself sat at the piano or sat with an acoustic guitar, singing “solo versions” of Van Der Graaf Generator songs (the bulk of which, were written by Hammill – the main writer and only lyricist in the band) as well as, singing songs from his rapidly-expanded selection of solo albums.

I was lucky enough to see Peter Hammill on several occasions, in differing musical settings, during the 1980s, and while I truly wish I had been able to see Van Der Graaf Generator play live “back in the day” – seeing these solo performances was actually, in a way, a far more powerful and intimate experience.  I have had the good fortune, for example, to witness Hammill, on his own at the piano, playing his remarkable suite of songs which make up the second side of his 1980 solo album “A Black Box” – a song called “Flight” – which is so difficult to play, that I was only able to work out, myself – on the piano – the first part of the song.

By far the simplest part of “Flight”- “Flying Blind” is the first of the several shorter songs that make up “Flight” in it’s entirety – whereas, Hammill reeled off the thousands and thousands of notes and chords of the entire 20 plus minutes long piece – as if it were nothing, all the while singing in that incredibly powerful, moving voice of his – seeing him play and sing “Flight” – live – by himself – as the encore of a remarkable live show – was an absolutely unforgettable experience for me.

A few years later, I was fortunate again, to see Hammill bring one of his small “ensembles” to Los Angeles, back to the Roxy which was where he always seemed to play when he was here in the US – this small group included just two other members, former Van Der Graaf bassist Nic Potter, and “pub musician” Stuart Gordon on violin.

But these two musicians – were no ordinary musicians, and I had no idea what an amazing musical experience we were all about to have – with Potter anticipating every phrase, every pause, in Hammill‘s incredibly strange vocal arrangements – and coming in on time, unfailingly – to Stuart Gordon’s “square wave violin” (my mental term for it – his violin run through guitar effects to achieve some unbelievably beautiful and/or dissonant effects) and the renditions that this band did of tracks such as “Cat’s Eye / Yellow Fever” – with it’s throbbing bass line, power chord guitar (provided by Hammill, of course!) and wild super-effected/treated violin gyrations.

I had never heard just three people sounding like a full on prog outfit on a tiny stage like the stage at the Roxy was.  What a show (you can hear a version of that show, on the Hammill album “Room Temperature” – Live – and well worth the investment I would say) it was – absolutely unforgettable – a brilliant experience.

In some ways, then, the 1980s portion of Peter Hammill’s career, moving through the amazing solo records of the early 1980s – starting with “A Black Box” (which, to give you some perspective, in 1980, this was Hammill’s TENTH solo album!) and then moving on to his very popular and quite hard rocking 1981 offering “Sitting Targets” – and then as the decade progressed, I saw tours for albums such as 1986’s “Skin” which was at yet a whole ‘nother level – the man is incredibly prolific, and each time, has a larger and larger back catalogue of songs to draw on – so that towards the end of that time, the range and power of songs that he could pull from that remarkable inventory of sensitive, emotional, moving songs became extraordinary in the extreme.

Each concert became the showcase for such a broad range of emotions and such an incredibly diverse and remarkable selection of songs, that it was just almost too much to take. What an extraordinary range and depth of feeling this man commands from the stage, with this intense and wonderful body of work that is “the Peter Hammill solo catalogue”…and it is still growing today (as of June 6, 2018 the count of his solo albums is 37 in Wikipedia), as he continues to produce albums regularly despite now being in his 70s.  What a remarkable character!

My 1980s was inhabited by all of these kinds of musical heroes – so my interest in, and my time spent listening to, what was supposedly currently popular “music” – began at a wane and pretty much disappeared completely as more and more of these amazing bands and artists from the 1960s and 70s, arrived in town in the 1980s to remind me that they were far from gone – that they were, in fact “alive and well and living in….” to phrase a coin (thanks, Ian!).

But the list is far from complete – Todd Rundgren, and, Todd Rundgren’s Utopia – the popular 1970s comedic band “The Tubes” (they of “White Punks On Dope” fame) – so many bands from the 70s, were doing so surprisingly well in the 1980s – and, were out there on the road – proving that their music was truly alive and was far, far more real than what MTV was presenting to us as purportedly, the music of the times – that was not MY experience of the 1980s.

 

It was only starting in 1981 that even more significant groups began to return, still working in Type Uno here – and this was a real surprise entrant – the return of the mighty King Crimson – after a seven year hiatus – Robert Fripp had returned, with only one former member of any former version of the band (Bill Bruford, on drums and electronic percussion) in tow – having created a totally re-imagined version of the band, and the success of their debut album (1981s total return to form, “Discipline”) and tour cannot be underestimated.

 

 

I can remember myself and the guys in my band, we were FLABBERGASTED at the idea that King Crimson was on tour, and was going to be playing in San Diego – at the UCSD gymnasium, of all places – but hey – we didn’t care – it was KING CRIMSON – alive and well.  This new version of King Crimson, featured bassist and Chapman stick expert Tony Levin, and the unstoppable Adrian Belew on lead guitar and lead vocals.

 

This “new” band, the utterly revitalised and recharged King Crimson – was nothing short of extraordinary.

To see a concert, in 1981, by what was supposedly at this time, a “dinosaur” band like “King Crimson” – a concert that had more musical quality in it’s worst moment, than some 1980’s “bands” could produce in an entire show – this concert was really, in comparison to most concerts – an experience of almost high art – rock music, progressive, intelligent music – elevated to a new plane of existence, with the interlocking musical gamelan of the Fripp & Belew Lead Guitar Axes Of Power – over one of the most powerful and unique rhythm sections ever envisioned – this was four of the best musicians on the planet, getting together to play a dozen or so of the most amazing songs that you had never heard.

 

The band did also include one or two “old” King Crimson songs, thrown in – probably more for the sake of nostalgia – or, more likely, because the new members of the band wanted to PLAY those songs lol – this concert was a sublime musical experience, that absolutely blew my mind – I could think of nothing else, for weeks, but that amazing, beautiful music I had witnessed – and I listened to the album constantly, trying (and failing, dismally) to unlock it’s musical secrets – what an extraordinary musical document.

I think for me – that was the turning point – seeing King Crimson play for the first time ever; and seeing Peter Hammill and Bill Nelson and Steve Hackett and Peter Gabriel and Genesis and Yes – all playing music in the early 1980s – when television might have you believing that something called “Billy Idol” was ruling the video-waves – the air-waves having now been superseded by the medium of Music Television.

Or – by someone called “Gary Numan” who apparently, was the next big thing – and I am not in any way disrespectful towards these artists – I very much respect their achievements and enjoy their music, too – and yes, they did make records in the 1980s, and sell records, and become “very popular” and so on.

But behind the scenes, in the background – were truly great (often very under-appreciated) musicians, with far more experience (and skill, I am afraid, too) who were out on the road, proving that their music was very real indeed,  given concerts displaying consummate skill and musical vision – and perhaps – at least slightly more real, than the perceived vision of what music was as presented by “MTV” and “MTV News”.

But sometimes, you have to judge by a different yardstick, and increasingly for me, it was a very, very musical yardstick – i.e. did this concert move me to tears?  Was the guitar playing such remarkable work of impassioned quality, that it will haunt my memories for years to come?  Those were the kinds of questions that I was walking away from concerts asking myself – concerts mainly by the supposedly long-dead “dinosaurs” of music – the progressive rock musicians of the 1960s and 1970s.  It was no longer really about what was supposedly popular – for me, it was becoming just about music, quality music – and nothing much else mattered.

And that is how I have really remained, to this day – I am not interested in what band sells the most records.  I am interested in what band or artists or guitarist or other instrumentalist – can do something never done before, or something unique, or something truly beautiful or skillful or ingenious.  Or – in some rare cases – all of the above.

That is what I was already evolving into in the 1980s, because I was seeing all of these amazing bands, behind the scenes – behind the very false, fabricated MTV Video World of “Music” and the MTV “Video Music Awards” and so on – none of that was what was real – what was real, were the opening notes of the title track of “Discipline” – the first piece played by the new King Crimson at their concert here held at UCSD gymnasium.

To start a concert, with the final piece and the title track of your first album in over seven years – that is very probably the single most difficult to perform out of an entire album of truly difficult to perform songs – coming out and playing that song FIRST, makes a statement – that says “we can do THIS” – and “THIS” – is simply the part you had to hear, you had to be there – to believe – perfectly interlocking guitars over a sinuous and sliterhing bass part with an insistent, cymbal-less beat throbbing behind it – modern music taken to a whole new level, in a time-signature that I still can’t count to this day.

 

What a way to START a concert!

So it was truly musical experiences like this, that really take you out of yourself, and really make you consider the nature of what is beautiful, what is dissonant, how and when dissonance can be in itself, beautiful, and so on – music that MAKES you think – and think, and think.  That is how the music of “Discipline” made me feel at the time.  What a great way to celebrate the return of the much-missed King Crimson – we were SO glad they were back, and this career was to be short lived, but, would lead to ever-evolving versions of the band – this particular version, what has become to be known, curiously enough, as “the 80’s Crimson” did the bulk of it’s work, first as the band “Discipline” in 1980, and then, as “King Crimson” in 1981 – lasting just four years and producing three fine albums.

But there is still more to this story – still more former prog or former rock musicians, coming out of the woodwork now, re-inventing themselves in startling and remarkable ways.  Bill Nelson, former leader, lead singer, and lead guitarist of the 1970s prog/rock band “Be-Bop Deluxe” was out and about in the 1980s, fronting various versions of his 1979 creation “Bill Nelson’s Red Noise” and I saw one of these post-Red Noise concoctions play live at the Whisky in Los Angeles – and because it was the Whisky, and, Bill Nelson was one of my favourite English guitarists at the time – I took the opportunity to situate myself just in front of his pedalboard (which absolutely fascinated me, it was very, very long and thin and had about a dozen pedals on it, most of which, I was utterly unfamiliar with) and once again, I proceeded to have my musical thought processes melted away and re-formed several times during the evening’s proceedings.

Nelson is just one of those people that is ridiculously talented, and can make music with anything he turns his hand to.  Tonight though – it was all about the guitar, and actually seeing him play, at such close range, was a rare privilege indeed for me – to be able to watch how he created the chord shapes and guitar parts that made up these songs that I so, so loved – “A Kind Of Loving” or “Do You Dream In Colour” or even the bizarre “Youth Of Nation On Fire”.

 

 

He played an outrageously cool selection of songs from his first couple of solo records – and it was again, an absolutely unique and totally unforgettable musical experience.  What a show!

This show also included a real moment of drama, as Bill‘s beautiful pedalboard FAILED after one song, so, philosophically, he watched the technician hauling away his entire bank of effects – and saying something about how it may be difficult later on, when he gets into some of the more complex changes of sound… he then turned around, with a determined look on his face – plugged his guitar lead directly into his Music Man combo amp – tested a nice, chunky, distorted power chord – and launched into the next song – sans all effects.

Hearing that song played with raw, straight, unaffected guitar – was an absolute revelation for me – an amazing experience – of a true artist’s grace under pressure –  he handled it like a pro – no problem – just got on with the song, sang and played it beautifully, and then happily, took delivery of his now-repaired pedalboard just in time for the next song to begin.

They never really missed a beat – the whole “incident” only slowed the show by literally, two minutes – and what a unique and unusual thing to witness – that made it particularly unforgettable – getting to hear the absolutely raw – guitar-straight-into-amp Bill Nelson style – and it ROCKED.  He didn’t lean on his pedals for support to hide weak playing, as some players (myself included – I hasten to add) do – he used them to enhance and improve the sound of his guitar.   But – I could have happily watched and listened to the whole show with the guitar-directly-into-amp scenario, too – with – or without a big pedalboard full of exotic gutiar effects – either way is absolutely fine by me.

 

I would say that during the first few years of the 1980s, that Bill Nelson re-invented himself and his music, on a par and very much in parallel, with the way Robert Fripp re-invented and re-imagined his own role in the new King Crimson.  Gone were the trappings of “rock star” / Be-Bop Deluxe frontman Nelson – no more costumes or make-up or TV appearances were needed – no more limousines – just – music – music as experiment, and I can remember buying his first solo single, the aforementioned “Do You Dream In Colour?” on 7 inch vinyl which included two B-sides that I liked even better than the A side – and that was the start of a truly remarkable series of records – that moved through areas of music that I can scarcely describe using just words – those words would be “GO now, and listen, ye, to these two albums”:

1. Quit Dreaming And Get On The Beam by Bill Nelson
2. The Love That Whirls (Diary Of A Thinking Heart) by Bill Nelson

See – now I don’t need to try and describe how incredibly diverse and musically amazing those two early solo records are – not to mention – some of the most astonishing lead guitar work I had ever heard Nelson play – even on the opening track of “Quit Dreaming…” a song called “Banal”, ironically enough – there is a solo so dramatic, so silken smooth and flowing – so, NOT “banal” in any way – and I think that is the point – you have this hard-edged, almost frightening riff playing throughout this song  – but when it finally bursts into this solo – you get a few moments of the old 1970s Be-Bop Deluxe sweet sweet flowing lead guitar on 1980s steroids – simply amazing guitar work on this record – other pieces of note include one of my personal favourites of Bill’s – another strange one, “U.H.F.” which has a beautifully-flanged lead vocal, and again, absolutely amazing, dissonant / unique lead guitar throughout – this one is another that is just astonishing in terms of the quality and passion of guitar playing – it’s off the scale, it really is.

So Bill Nelson – in the early 1980s – was in every way, an ever-exploring pioneer of new kinds of musics, and his bands were hand-picked to deliver that music with the greatest impact.  I was so, so fortunate that I was able to drive up to Los Angeles to see that gig – what an absolutely unforgettable night that was!!  Standing there, just a few feet away from someone with such consummate skill with the guitar – it seemed effortless to him – autopilot on, and now – play.  sing.  perform.

 

But – it was a faultless, unbelievably professional, polished performance – Bill took his bands and his music very seriously indeed, and this outfit was more than road-worthy – they played his music – the way it was meant to be played.

 

I have now, I believe, spent more than enough time talking about Type Uno artists – however – believe it or not, I didn’t even make it past about 1983 in assembling the examples above.  If I were to continue on in this vein for the rest of the 1980s, I would add in another dozen or so examples of Type Uno artists – those ex-rock or ex-prog musicians who, for the most part – trod a very different path in the 1980s, from what their previous careers back in the 1970s had been.

And sometimes, as in the case of both King Crimson and Bill Nelson – that led to some absolutely extraordinary music and, live concerts that represented that recorded music.  I felt so, so fortunate to have been there to witness that – especially the re-birth of King Crimson  – that was almost miraculous.

Crimson was one of several bands, that I literally thought I would never, ever get to see – because from my perspective – they had suddenly disbanded in 1974 – never to return as far as we knew.

So that was a welcome return to form – along with, experiencing the new musical directions of Bill Nelson, Peter Hammill or any number of existing, surviving rock and prog people – all of them, doing so incredibly well (who knew???) in the supposedly-musically-“dead” 1980s!  The more I thought about it – the more I realised, that in some ways, the 80s were almost MORE musically rich for me than the 1970s were – for one thing, I got in a FULL 10 years of concert-going, versus the seven I had managed in the 1970s (and that was only due to my age – not through choice) – so I had an “extra” three years in which to have even more incredible 1980s concert experiences.

For another thing – these artists – who were AMAZING during the 1970s – had come back, bringing new ideas; new technologies; new ways of thinking about music; new recordings; and most importantly to me – concert tours where their faithful, loyal fans could still go and see and hear them play – and as often as not, I was totally surprised by how much these artists had grown and evolved – always, in such a positive way – that I now view the 1980s as a really, really positive decade – in terms of my overall, over-time concert experiences.

Who else, then – would I place into the Type Uno category – before I delve into Type Dos – well, a quick further check of setlist.fm’s listing for user “pureambient” (that’s me, by the way) reveals that the illustrious company noted above would also be joined by jazz guitarist Pat Metheny, populists Hall & Oates (who I only became interested in, after hearing Daryl Hall’s remarkable collaboration with Robert Fripp, “Sacred Songs” from 1980 – another overlooked Fripp-produced masterpiece – and Fripp was so insistent that Hall was so good – that I had to go and see for myself.  He was.  He was an amazing singer).

Then, there was the early-80s version of Roxy Music which, by 1983 when I saw them for the second time, had mutated so far away from their original Prog roots, that they seemed to be a completely different band – one that very well might have been better named “The Bryan Ferry Orchestra” and be done with it – with Phil Manzanera and Andy MacKay physically present at the concert, but, reduced to the roles of glorified sidemen by the rather large ego of one Bryan Ferry…

 

The only redemption, for me, was that Phil Manzanera was permitted to perform ONE of his songs – and chose to play “Impossible Guitar” which I absolutely love – so I was fortunate to get to see that rarely-performed-live piece of brilliant guitar work – made an otherwise difficult to stomach Roxy concert, much more bearable.  By way of contrast,  when I saw Roxy in 1979, four years earlier – they were then already on their way towards this not-so-good musical place, but – there was still some prog left in them, and they played a few good versions of a few older tunes back in 79.  Not so at the 1983 concert that I saw – which was pretty disappointing to say the least.

Adrian Belew – well, he was around in the 70s, although more in the role of very talented sideman to either Frank Zappa or later, David Bowie – and I felt very, very fortunate to get to see him with his original band, “Gaga” – at the wonderfully tiny San Diego State venue of The Back Door (a music venue so small, that even ***I*** have performed there in the past – lol).

Belew and his band were absolutely unbelievably talented, funny and skilled – and it was a truly memorable evening for fans of the eccentric electric guitarist – the only true successor to the performance spaces that Jimi Hendrix used to inhabit – Belew fills that void to some degree.

More gigs for guitarists – now this was another aspect of the remarkable, the impossible things that happened in the 1980s – that you would have thought, would either be impossible, or only could have happened in the 70s – but – not so – I am talking about now, one of the most incredible performances I have ever seen – Paco De Lucia, Al DiMeola, and John McLaughlin – what a line-up.  Three legends of the guitar – each with their own style – and the combination of the three together, performing a variety of impossible pieces – was like nothing I had ever seen before and I am not likely to ever see again – everyone I know who went to this – will know what I am talking about – this was about skill, passion and grace – and these three gentlemen had lots of all of those things.  It was…amazing.

A year later, the trio returned – and this time, joining them on steel string acoustic guitar – was none other than future Deep Purple lead guitarist and Dixie Dregs alumnus Steve Morse – a guitarist I have seen many times – with the Dixie Dregs (another group that is in this category, that I was lucky enough to see during the 1980s)

Later, Morse created the “Steve Morse Band” (yet ANOTHER group that is in this category, that I was lucky enough to see during the 1980s), I even got to see Morse performing at a guitar clinic in a local music store – an immensely skilled and talented player. Adding Morse to that trio (DeLucia, DiMeola, and McLaughlin) – created the single most remarkable mini-orchestra of guitarists that the mind could imagine – the Impossible Quartet – and that show was even better than the standard trio show that I saw the previous year.  What an experience!

And then – I went to see Allan Holdsworth.  I was beginning to get into jazz, a little bit – I’ve never really played it, but, I do have huge respect for those that play it well – the “Pat Metheny”s and so on in this world – but – Allan Holdsworth – who, again, was around in the 1970s, so he definitely falls into the Type Uno category – is a guitarist on an entirely different Guitar Planet.  To this day, I have never before or since seen a modern jazz guitarist, or in fact, any guitarist outside of the classical tradition, with the kind of a) encyclopedic knowledge of scales, modes, chords and….everything there is to know about a guitar fretboard and b) incredible, incredible, speed – I’ve never found another like Allan Holdsworth.

I can remember sitting on the edge of the stage, just watching his left hand, trying so hard to figure out what on earth chords he was playing – as he played through one of my very favourite of his pieces – “The Things You See (When You Haven’t Got Your Gun)” – and there is this beautiful beautiful chord progression, that he “swells” into a big delay and reverb setting – and it’s just sublimely beautiful,

And as I watched, I realised, that even with my twenty some odd years of guitar playing experience at that time – that I literally, had absolutely NO idea what those shapes indicated – I could not understand WHAT CHORDS the man was playing.  I knew one thing though – they are beautiful.  Still are.

Later, I found out why – when I got ahold of an Allan Holdsworth music book – and the title of the book pretty much explains why a guitarist of 20 years plus experience, had no idea what it was that he was seeing and hearing when watching Allan Holdsworth play – the book is called “Reaching For The Uncommon Chord”.  THAT is why.  Because he uses inversions that most people can’t even FORM with their fingers.  “Uncommon” is exactly the right word – and seeing him play, hearing him do this – live – opened my eyes to whole new UNIVERSE of sounds and ideas that I think, I am still absorbing today – almost thirty years later.

What a remarkable guitarist – and a really nice person too, very approachable. Sadly, Allan passed away very recently – and it was a huge, huge loss to the guitar-playing, and listening, community.  An absolute Hendrix-Order, Zappa-Order, Higher-Order guitarist unique in so very many ways.  Not, however…for the faint of heart – Holdsworth is possible a musician best appreciated by other musicians as his playing style may be too intense for the public to absorb or appreciate.  If there ever was a “guitarist’s guitarist” – it was Allan Holdsworth.

Every time I think I have exhausted the list of possibly Type Unos – I find still more to add to the list – the aforementioned Richard Thompson whose career soared during the 1980s – including a lot of excellent performances both on acoustic guitar and with full “electric” band – I was lucky enough to see both types – and also, the aforementioned band Richard used to be in, Fairport Convention, who also enjoyed a resurgence of their own during the late 1980s, possibly thanks to their close touring association with the unstoppable Jethro Tull.

At the end of the 1980s, re-emerged one of the first of the many, many, many different re-configurations of the band Yes – which featured the classic five man lineup of Yes without bassist Chris Squire.  I went to see this strange band in 1989, whose first and only album was pretty underwhelming, largely because of the possibility of seeing these four ex-members of Yes, playing older Yes material live in concert.

It was – interesting.  Originally, they had Tony Levin as their stand-in replacement for the very difficult to replace Chris Squire – and that was what I had been looking forward to – only to find out, that Levin had dropped out early on, and had been hastily replaced by Jeff Berlin.  Now – Jeff Berlin is one of the most amazing bass guitarists on the planet.  I’ve seen Berlin play in a tiny club with Allan Holdsworth and Chad Wackerman, and Berlin was actually, clearly, the bass-playing equivalent of Allan Holdsworth – they were a match.  How Wackerman ever kept up with those too, will always be a mystery – stunning musicianship.

But Jeff Berlin is more of an improviser’s improviser, so the idea of him playing Chris Squire’s very inventive but, very structured bass parts – well, to my mind, it just seemed like a WEIRD idea.  And in concert – well, Jeff was fine.  Jeff played all the right notes – but the feel, was all wrong – he played with a jazz, loose feel, which did not suit Squire’s intended style – so it just sounded so odd to my ears.  Not entirely successful – four experienced prog guys – with a super jazzy improvising loose bass player – no.  I wished I’d seen the Levin version…but alas.  ABWH were short-lived, and I think that is possibly a good thing.  Yes is just not Yes without Chris Squire – let’s face it.  It’s just not quite right without him.

Finally, again near the end of the 1980s, we had some glimpses of the future – Adrian Belew’s pop project, “The Bears” started making records and went out on tour, and I for one was very much enamoured of their approach – I loved the idea of two lead guitars, bass and drums, where often, both of the guitarists were playing “backwards guitar” as they sang and played live – I loved that.  I have always been a huge fan of reverse guitar, and seeing the huge grins on the faces of Rob Fetters and Adrian Belew while they were both playing backwards – it’s as much fun to do, as it is to hear!  I saw The Bears a number of times, and they are an extremely quality pop group as you would expect – excellent music.

And then – Robert Fripp and the League of Crafty Guitarists – not a “band” in the traditional sense, this latest Fripp invention – was simply Fripp performing in public on acoustic guitar, with a group of the then-best Guitar Craft students.  The repertoire was written in part by Fripp, and in part by members of “the League” and it’s a most interesting presentation – playing in Fripp’s “new standard tuning” for guitar – this was a most inspirational group to witness playing live – but in one sense, it’s also one of the most radical of re-imagining’s possible – to get from King Crimson in the 1960s and 1970s, to the League of Gentlemen in 1980, to the League of Crafty Guitarists in the late 80s and also, on into the future – that was Robert Fripp – always moving forward on so many different musical planes.

Type Uno groups that I did NOT see – the list is just staggeringly long, I am sure, but while I am on the subject – Robert Fripp’s “dance combo” the aforementioned League of Gentlemen” were one of the hottest musical properties of the year 1980.  A four piece led by Fripp and ex-XTC keyboard wizard Barry Andrews – that is one band I really, really wish I had the opportunity to see play live.  Ach well as they say…

 

Type Dos

– New, emerging bands, or, complete rebuilds of older bands that mutated into new bands – so in this category the most obvious is the one I have already mentioned, Marillion, and, the other one I have already mentioned, Crowded House.

This category does include a few bands that may well have existed in the very last part of the 1970s, but I would still class them as new not so much in that they are brand new in the 1980s, but they were not necessarily full-established or very experienced when compared to most of the Type Uno bands – many of whose roots went all the way back to the beginning of the 1970s or even into the 1960s.

There is a huge difference in an artist who formed a band in 1968, coming back to perform live and make records in the 1980s, and a band formed in 1979 that then continues on into the 1980s as part of their natural evolution – those to my mind, are “new emerging bands” – I have just taken slight poet license on when they emerged – and if I were to just adjust the time period, this silly concept of two types would work a bit better – but for now, it’s what I am working with.

The first half of the 1980s, for me – according again to my setlist.fm list of concerts attended – was a pretty sparse time for new bands with new music.

I did see a few of the most important bands of the 1980s, most notably, the great XTC, but there were far far more bands that I never did see – because mainly, to be totally honest – I was spending my time and my money, attending concerts by Type Uno artists – artists I knew and loved, and, who I knew would not let me down by giving a poor concert.

So I continued to attend concerts with a definite 1970s mindset – and that worked for me – and if you look at the list above compared to this listing of Type Dos shows attended – it’s absolutely pathetic in comparison.  I was only making an almost-token effort to include Type Dos bands in my concert-going – but if truth be told – that was mainly because – there were not that many Type Dos bands that I really enjoyed the sound of.

In some cases, I wonder exactly why I went – for example, I attended an outdoor summer extravaganza, three bands playing live, beginning with Madness, then, Oingo Boingo, then, headliners The Police.  Now this was a competently-performed set, all three bands had something to offer – but, in hindsight – I believe I enjoyed Madness far more than I enjoyed The Police.  I was never that huge of a fan of The Police, and I think it was more about peer pressure – everyone at the place I was working was going to the show – so would I go?  Sure – why not?

I have never, ever been a fan of the music of Danny Elfman, leader and creator of Oingo Boingo, and I just think it’s absolutely silly music – not for me, at all – meant to be “funny” – but – it isn’t.  Madness were terrific – great energy, good chops – a lot of fun, and a lot of musical credibility.  Then I suffered through Oingo Boingo.  Then, I did enjoy the set by The Police but it was more about wow look at that drum kit or, wow, Sting really can play the bass AND sing at the same time – look – he’s doing it.

Or rather – doing part of it – they did have three background singers, which makes the whole idea of being “just a trio” a bit silly – and I felt it was really unnecessary.  It seemed to me, that it would have been much, much better if we could have heard what JUST the three of them could do, live – now that might have been interesting. They played a competent set, with songs from every album including the then-new “Synchronicity” which for them, was ultra-complex.  They did a credible job – but that’s what it seemed like, more of a chore, a task, a job to be done – they didn’t seem like they were having any fun at all – and their lack of enjoyment was contagious.

I hope that others will remember that concert more happily than I do, but my overall impression was of being underwhelmed by The Police, and not liking Oingo Boingo one bit (I still don’t).  But – every cloud has a silver lining – at least I got to see Madness – they were great – awesome performance.

Still sticking with the mainstream, again, not really sure WHY I went – outdoor show in summer time?  nice weather?  for some inexplicable reason, I went to see Men At Work.  It was not particularly memorable.  I still do not know why I went.  In this same category, I would place The Motels, a group I barely remember – and I don’t remember a particular song I like or anything – no idea.  Those two shows – which I did attend – just flew past almost unnoticed.

I did also, however, see some very real and very powerful live performances – the aforementioned XTC among them – but I would say one other of those, was Gang Of Four.  Now – this was a band I knew absolutely nothing about, I had not heard them play – and the other guitarist in my then-band, Slipstream absolutely INSISTED that I should go to this concert – so, we went – it was a long, long drive up to LA I remember – and I was absolutely transfixed and shocked by the band once they started playing.  I have never before or since seen a band quite like this one – dark, powerful, with a lot on their minds – and deadly serious about what they were playing, and what they were saying.

With tunes like “(Love Like) Anthrax” or “Armalite Rifle” and heavily politically inspired lyrics, I found it to be a very powerful and musical experience.  The music was  – jarring.  But – this “post punk” outfit – really stuck in my memory, and I am grateful to my pal in the band for being so insistent that I attend – because I am glad that I did.  I hadn’t seen much or many bands that had a political agenda (unless you count U2 – which come on, you can’t seriously count U2???) so it was a breath of fresh air in that sense – not you ordinary love songs here – but songs that meant something.  It was a really different musical experience too, and one that was thought-provoking at the very least.

Most important to me, was seeing XTC play live in what turned out to be, their last ever live performance – they played in San Diego where I saw them – and then, in LA the next night – they did not show up, because Andy Partridge was on his way home to escape a world of nightmares from touring and over use of prescription medications.

They never did really return to the stage – but – it also ushered in their “XTC’s Golden Age of Studio Recordings” – where, much like the Beatles – their music really, really changed once they left the stage behind for good.

XTC’s performance itself ,was absolutely amazing:  Andy was filled with so much incredible energy, and the band were animated and lively – Dave Gregory was especially amazing – bouncing back and forth between lead guitar and lead synthesizer – and the band’s vocals were also great – Colin and Andy sounded so, so good together.  I am so, so glad I went to this – I had been getting more and more into their music, and I thought why not – that should be a good show.  I never dreamed for a moment, that I would witness the last live concert by the band – wow.  What a shock to find out after the fact, that Andy had fallen very ill and returned to the UK – swearing that he would never perform live again.  Sadly – he kept that promise – mostly.

After seeing Gang Of Four first, and then, XTC, in the first part of the 1980s – was unfortunately, for me, the highlight – the rest of my Type Dos experience wasn’t quite so memorable – but I will have a go anyway:

Starting with Asia – now, in one sense, you could almost class Asia as a Type Uno band – except – what band would that have been back in the 1970s?  King Crimson?  Yes?  ELP?  Because they were not a direct descendant of one particular band – I have to class them as Type Dos – but the music they brought to the mid-80s, definitely had more of the feel of a Type Uno band.

Asia then – as a new “prog” band – with ex-Family, ex-King Crimson bassist and vocalist John Wetton on bass and lead vocals, with Steve Howe. ex-Yes on lead guitar, and with Carl Palmer, ex-Emerson, Lake & Palmer on drums – and, some guy called Geoff Downes on keyboards – this was a “new” band, playing “new” music.  Oh – I so, so wanted this band to be good…

 

Their debut album was a bit confusing – slightly proggy, but overlaid with a sort of sickly sheen of popiness that felt forced at best.  It was just – weird.  But I went to the show, to see the PLAYERS – not so much for the band, and certainly not for the album.  And – the players were good – again, Wetton is more than competent he played and sang well – it was fine.  Steve Howe did his usual high quality lead guitar work, nothing disappointing there – and Carl was a fine drummer for the outfit.

Perhaps it’s better if I just leave it at that – rather than try to analyse it any further – this SHOULD have been a great band, but I remember being so disappointed by everything – the album, the show – that I never bought (or heard) their second album, or anything they ever did after that.  I just lost interest immediately.  A missed opportunity.  A failed attempt at commercial success?  Something funny going on there – I don’t really know what.  But somehow – it just did not work.

On a couple of occasions during the 1980s, I went to see Elvis Costello play, usually with the Attractions in tow – and this was one of those weirdly unsatisfying things – it should have been excellent – but it was just OK.  They played well – very well.  The songs are good – but something about it – it just did not have the excitement, nothing urgent, in a lot of ways, it did not seem like “live” music – but more, an accurate re-creation of studio music.  I know that must sound weird – but I hope you can get what I am meaning.

On the surface – Elvis Costello and the Attractions put on a really good concert. But below the surface, there was something dissatisfying about the whole experience, that one could not put one’s finger on – I don’t know WHAT it was – but I felt let down, I felt disappointed – I think I thought that he would be amazing – and when he turned out to be just some guy with a guitar – well, I ended up feeling a sense of disappointment.

Then, things took a slightly upward turn, and the quality of the Type Dos bands I was going to see play, started to improve again – and that began with a gig by the revitalised Pretenders.  I am so, so glad that I got to see this band play in 1984, and I think that Chrissie Hynde is absolutely a musical genius – to write these songs, to go to Britain and put this band together – and then to succeed so well – I am so so happy that she did this.

It didn’t last long – my personal favourite record of theirs being the astonishing Pretenders II – I think after those first two remarkable records – that things began to go downhill a bit – but when I saw them – they were at the height of their powers – and those were not insignificant.  Chrissie herself, is a powerful performer, and her approach to her vocals and her guitar playing – stick in the brain, and she definitely left a good impression on me.  I am very glad that I  chose to go see this band play live – an awesome experience.

 

The Pretenders’ opening / support act, however, the much hyped The Alarm – left me pretty cold.  I felt like they were competing for musical space with U2 – and to be honest – no one was, or is, competing for that space (!) – it’s not really a desirable musical space to inhabit !!!  But they seemed to me, like a third-rate impersonation of U2 – and while that may be overly-cruel on my part – I cannot think of a kinder way to express what for me, is a true assessment of how The Alarm sounded – “68 Guns” – maybe – but none of them were loaded.  Or they only brought 49 of those guns with them on this night – I am not sure.

Another double bill of new, emerging bands was Big Country with support from the forgettable Wire Train – and I think that my interest in Big Country was probably almost entirely derived from the fact that Stuart Adamson had been a huge fan of Bill Nelson = something he held in common with me.  The band were fine, nothing wrong with them – but nothing hugely memorable, either.  I can’t really remember Wire Train at all – much as I would like to say something about them – I cannot – I have absolutely no idea.  So this was another one that just flew past me, almost unnoticed…

I have to mention (by contract I am afraid) that I did see the band Berlin, or at least, I saw part of their set – but I hasten to add this disclaimer – going to see Berlin was never my intention – I was going for one reason, and one reason alone – not to see Terri Nunn or hear her telling us about all the roles she could play – but to hear the opening act – Bill Nelson – with a full band, on the very short “Mountains Of The Heart” tour.  And Nelson was amazing – he was not happy that night, as Berlin had used up all of the sound check time, leaving Nelson NO time to sound check his own band.

So, as retaliation (which, while juvenile in the extreme. was actually, appropriate under the circumstances) Bill decided to extend his set by an extra six or seven minutes – making Berlin wait, making Berlin late to get on stage – and he did this, much to MY good fortune, by taking a super-extended, in the spotlight, energy bow guitar solo – which was extraordinary – I’ve never heard of Bill Nelson doing this before or since – the last song had ended – but he continued playing his beautiful, powerful sustained e-bow sound – and he played and played and played – I was absolutely overjoyed.  Eventually, he relented, thanking the audience and apologising for the short set – MADE short by the thoughtlessness of the people in the band Berlin.

So while I went to a Berlin concert – it was not to see Berlin, and I actually left during one of the first few songs of their unremarkable set.  Going home was preferable to seeing Berlin play live.  Seeing and hearing Bill Nelson play an amazing short set of fantastic songs, followed by a really long “spite” guitar solo – was absolutely astonishing.  A fantastic experience!

Perhaps the single most significant of all of the Type Dos bands – would be Marillion.  Bursting onto the scene in the early 1980s, but apparently believing that it was actually, still 1974 – this remarkable band of Englishmen led by one slightly mad Scotsman – became quite successful despite the fact that their music was a direct throwback to the 1970s – people didn’t seem to mind, because Fish and Marillion were brilliant on stage, Fish was incredibly friendly and personal both on and off stage, and the time that they flourished – up until 1987, when singer Fish left the band after the classic album “Clutching At Straws”.  This was a great time in music.

Fish, having his remarkable, very, very prog-sounding outfit out on tour, making retro-prog albums, playing retro-prog live and everyone loving it – what a fantastic and probably impossible thing to happen.

I really enjoyed the music of Fish and Marillion during the 1980s, and even though they SOUNDED like a Type Uno band – they are definitely the archetype of a Type Dos band – a new emerging band with a unique presence and quality music, too.

On a short trip to Britain, by complete accident, I happened to go to see a Japanese heavy metal band, Vow Wow, playing at the Marquee in London.  I wasn’t really meant to be there, I went almost by accident, but it was an enjoyable-enough experience – the band were OK, not great, but not bad – but for me, just being in the room where all of my Type Uno heroes had played – from the Move to King Crimson – was enough – at least I can say I’ve seen a show at the Marquee – OK, I wish it had been by a band that I knew, or that I liked – but – it was better than nothing lol.

Meanwhile, back in the U.S. was another attempt at a sort of Asia-style supergroup, the ill-fated GTR.  Now – I never did get the first GTR album – because after I saw them play – I would not have, and did not, want to have it.  Again – this was touted as an amazing new group, led by two of the best guitarists in progressive rock – Steve Howe and Steve Hackett.  To me – that was an irresistible combination of talent and skill – it HAD to be good !!  It wasn’t.

There was nothing good about it – singer Max Bacon was so unremarkable, that all I remember is his name.  I also do not know who else, apart from the two famous guitarists – was in the band.  None of that mattered – because they just were not very good.  I don’t remember or know a single song by them.  It’s almost as if history, ashamed of itself, has erased most of the memories of this band – to hide it’s shame.  And I am part of that – eager to believe in these two superhero guitarists – in practice – it was nothing but a huge let down – a real disappointment.  Not recommended – at all.

Towards the end of the 1980s, I ended up seeing a truly mixed bag of new, emerging artists – Type Dos artists – which included the then-very-popular Suzanne Vega, a lesser-known but far more talented singer called Maria McKee, as well as, on the complete opposite end of the spectrum of female singers – the band X from LA.  I won free tickets to see X – which I enjoyed far more than I thought I might – I particularly enjoy John Doe’s singing.

Then came what I might term as the Unavoidable Event – part of you, really did not want to go – but – you felt like you were obliged to – everyone you knew – was going – so I held out for a long time – and then ended up getting really, really horrible seats for – at the back of the Sports Arena, in literally, the VERY top row – so far up, I am surprised I did not get nosebleed – and that didn’t help my enjoyment of the show.

Having a point of view from behind the stage did have advantages, I could see what The Edge was doing really well, and his confidence and obvious skill, along with his basic humility – well, his was an impressive performance.  But sadly, U2 is not really about The Edge – it’s about one man, who I shall call, for the sake of humour – Knucklehead Smith.  That guy – the leader of said band – was just as over the top, as loud, as not funny – as we all expected him to be.  For me – he was the low point of the show.  The band could play.  But could he sing?  Sort of.

It was OK.  I wasn’t bad.  Some of the songs were pretty exciting, and the guitar work could not be faulted.  I suppose I am glad in a way, to give me a more well-rounded view of what the 1980s were all about – that I saw U2 live.  But I could have done without Knucklehead Smith – he is one crazy dude.

The last concert I remember from the 1980s, was held in a tiny club, a concert given by a new guitarist on the scene, who was just releasing his very first album, which he called “Surfing With The Alien” .  Once again, not quite sure why I was there – but I am very glad that I was – because I got to see the original, the most humble, the most basic Joe Satriani – before he became a “big star” – and it was a good, good concert – very modern, the guitar sounds were great, it was clear he was a really good player – and I left quite impressed with this young man and his guitar.  The fact that he went on to such incredible heights of fame – and that it all began with that one album – and I was lucky enough to have been there, to see the birth – to see the very beginning of Joe’s very successful career as a guitarist – more power to him.

That – my friends – was my 1980s concert experience!

 

Never Thought I Would See The Day When…

I simply love live music, and really, there can never be enough good concerts each year – or each decade for that matter – there is always someone that I missed out seeing “back in the day” or newer artists that I want to check out live – there is always something going on.  I feel very fortunate indeed that I have been able to see so many great concerts.  Moving to Britain was also a hugely fortunate thing in terms of me being able to see bands performing live that did not regularly play in far-off San Diego, California (where I lived for the first half of my life) and so many bands that I never got the chance to see when I lived in California, I have not only seen but in some cases, I have been able to see performing live several times.

This includes bands or artists – and mind you, these are bands or artists that I firmly believed I would never, ever get to see play live –  such as:

• Caravan 
• Gong       
• Muse  
• Neil Young     

 

 

To my ever-lasting astonishment, I did eventually get to see these four bands – and it was difficult to believe it was happening until the actual moment – came – and for example, with Neil Young, whose music I had loved since I was a teenager – at age 13, two of his songs were among the songs that the very first band I was ever in’s repertoire, so I basically grew up with Neil Young as the soundtrack to my life – but everytime he played in San Diego, I couldn’t go, or I didn’t find out until too late, or it sold out or any number of things – and I ended up never seeing him play.

Little did I imagine that I would see him years and years and years later, in Glasgow, Scotland, playing one of the most amazing sets of original music I have ever seen, with his new band “Promise of the Real”.  It was an extraordinary night, and a long-held dream come true – and, he played so many of the songs that I truly, truly loved, including “Alabama” and “Words (Between The Lines Of Age)” from the 1972 classic album “Harvest”.  I just could not believe it was happening…I was seeing Neil play in this surreal situation, thousands of miles away from California where I would have thought and expected that I would see him play.  It’s funny how things work out.

I can’t remember feeling so happy, so very satisfied with a concert – the songs were all good, the band was extremely good and Neil was just Neil – a remarkable man full of the most remarkable songs but also, a world-class lead guitarist with a style that is as unique in it’s own way, as a Zappa or a Hendrix might be – there is only one Neil Young, unmistakable, as he takes “old black” through it’s paces – and I was lucky enough to hear and see him soloing quite a bit that night.  Really fortunate.

So in cases like these four, and others I mentioned in my previous blog – it seems that dreams really, really can come true.

 

Awesome Guitarists – one motivator for attending so many concerts

I was a guitarist then, and I am still a guitarist now;  so it’s only natural that I would follow and enjoy music by the world’s most talented and capable guitarists – and the list of guitarists that I was lucky enough to see in the 1980s is a pretty staggering list of remarkable, talented musicians:

 

• Frank Zappa
• Todd Rundgren
• Steve Hackett
• Brian May
• Steve Howe
• Neil Finn
• Andy Gill
• Roger Steen
• Bill Spooner
• Peter Hammill
• Adrian Belew
• Robert Fripp
• Andy Partridge
• Dave Gregory
• Elvis Costello
• Pat Metheny
• Bill Nelson
• David Rhodes
• G. E. Smith
• Phil Manzanera
• Andy Summers
• Paco De Lucia
• Al DiMeola
• John McLaughlin
• Allan Holdsworth
• Chrissie Hynde
• Stuart Adamson
• Steve Morse
• Carlos Santana
• Steve Rothery
• Bruce Cockburn
• Martin Lancelot Barre
• Richard Thompson

 

Forward…into the future!

So in conclusion – for me, the 80s were a far, far more exciting time musically, for me, than I actually had expected it to be – because I largely ignored what the media would have had me believe was “my experience of music” in the 1980s – and instead, I spent my time and money on going to live music concerts put on by both Type Uno and Type Dos artists – which gave me a great mixture of very, very experienced musicians from the 1960s and 1970s, updating and renewing their sound for the tech of the 1980s, while the Type Dos shows gave me an idea of what new bands were around, what they sounded like, and how they compared to the more familiar Type Unos that I knew so very well.

Starting my decade with the musics of Frank Zappa, Todd Rundgren’s Utopia, Queen, Genesis, and Yes – and that was just in the FIRST 10 months of 1980 – on up to and including Peter Hammill, King Crimson, XTC, Bill Nelson, Allan Holdsworth, and Peter Gabriel – and finally, up towards the end of the decade, the Dixie Dreg’s, Adrian Belew’s “The Bears”,  Richard Thompson (electric band this time!) and Robert Fripp with his League of Crafty Guitarists  – and many, many more – once again, I had an enormous amount of fun – and I realise now that for me, that my idea of “fun” is quite different from that of most people – I have a lot more fun when I am watching and listening to an incredibly talented lead guitarist (or in some cases, a pair of amazing guitarists – like Robert Fripp & Adrian Belew of King Crimson – or Adrian Belew & Rob Fetters of The Bears), playing as part of an incredibly talented band that has worked out an amazing repertoire of impossibly beautiful, and possibly technically demanding songs – now – that’s MY idea of fun!

Until next time then again–

 

Dave Stafford
June 6, 2018

 

Next time on Decade By Decade – The Live Concert Experience / Overview:

The Sinuous 1990s – The many-headed stylistic beast

 

1980s Concert Ticket Stub Collection (courtesy Dave Stafford)

Concert Ticket Stubs – 1980s

It was 45 years ago today…

DECADE BY DECADE – THE LIVE CONCERT EXPERIENCE / OVERVIEW

EPISODE 1:  The 1970s

 

It actually was – 45 years ago TODAY, literally – today – May 28, 2018 – or for me. in this first of a number of upcoming concert reminiscences – it was actually, May 28, 1973 – and as my first blog of 2018 (finally!) and the first in a series of blogs about live music, concerts, tickets stubs, setlist.fm, and associated items – this one kicks off with a doozy:

The mighty Led Zeppelin – performing live at the San Diego Sports Arena !

San Diego Sports Arena

The first real ROCK CONCERT I ever went to – I was 15 years old, a sophomore at Grossmont High School, in La Mesa, California – an incredibly gawky, awkward teenage boy with long, straight hair half-way down my back, six foot six of far-too-skinny raging metabolism…and there I was.  Standing up there in the CRUSH at the foot of the stage of the San Diego Sports Arena, waiting for Led Zeppelin, my favourite band – to walk onto the stage.

It was all new to me.  I’d never been in a crowd that large before – never.  I’d never smelled that much…herbal scented smoke before.  I’d never seen the sight that became commonplace for me over the next several years – at the Sports Arena in particular – the sight of dozens of Frisbees flying back and forth, criss-crossing across the length and breadth of the place – and the wonderful haze created by that same scented smoke that cast a mysterious fog over the entire proceedings.   And quite possibly, over my state of mind.

San Diego Sports Arena – Seating Chart

People playing, talking excitedly, yelling – cheering – bouncing giant beach balls back and forth, mixed in with the endless frisbees…and all the other fun stuff that people do to pass the time while they wait for their favourite band to come on.  This is one of those experiences that you look back on, and you can quite clearly recall the real sense of excitement that was in that place on that day – this wasn’t just any concert – it was Led Zeppelin – all the way from Britain – to play for San Diego!

 

During the show, I saw a few MORE things I had never seen before – like an attractive girl sat on her boyfriend’s shoulders, proudly displaying both of her bare breasts so that Led Zeppelin, presumably, could have a look at them – along with the other 35,000 people in the audience, of course.  This was a girl – who was NOT shy.  Another first for me.

 

For a 15 year old boy, a boy who was already a guitarist, already trying to be the “NEXT Jimmy Page“, already learning Zeppelin songs and riffs – many of which, I still play to this date – 45 years later – I kept trying to “be” Jimmy Page for a number of years, when I finally decided it might be better to try to be myself on the guitar rather than copy someone else – even someone as talented as Jimmy Page.

 

But as a formative influence – along with Eric Clapton, Robert Fripp, and others – you can’t beat a bit of Mr. Page – a very interesting and very capable guitarist, musician and writer.  If you think too, about the development of Led Zeppelin, just as one example, from the relatively simple chord patterns of  the songs from Led Zeppelin I, say, something like “Communication Breakdown” to the incredibly complex guitar parts that make up the opening track on the band’s fifth album “Houses of the Holy” – the truly remarkable “The Song Remains The Same” – still a personal favourite of mine even after all of those years.

Meanwhile…back in 1973 – there was the long build-up to the show, the endless waiting outside which, eventually and suddenly, became a mad sprint to try to get as close to the stage as possible before everyone else did – once let into the Arena (reserved seating at rock concerts being more a thing of the future, back in 1973) – and then, finally settled in your “spot” inside, the noise and the tension, the sound of the crowd mounting with each passing moment…

 

It was all incredibly exciting…and finally, when the band did hit the stage – it was another first for me – the first time I had ever heard a real rock band, a PROPER rock band, mind you – the mighty Led Zeppelin no less, in their prime, in the year 1973, touring behind their just-in-the-shops fifth album “Houses Of The Holy” – I’d never heard a proper rock band play rock music AT VOLUME.  And it was…LOUD.  To this day, 45 years later exactly…I am not sure I’ve heard a louder band.

 

Except perhaps – for Led Zeppelin themselves when I saw them again – twice – in 1975!!

Each year, the PA stacks at the Sports Arena seemed to grow ever larger. the number of and the size and power of the speakers increasing each time, the power behind the systems getting to be more and more each year – so it seemed to me, that if anything, that bands got LOUDER as the 70s went on – until the PA systems sort of began to plateau as Super Huge Size – where they all pretty much sound the same – from a distance, anyway.

 

But – intense volume aside – I was hooked.  Seeing this show – set me up for a lifetime of concert going – and what a way to start!  Seeing my favourite band, playing amazing live versions of the songs that I loved – was such a positive experience for me – and after seeing Zep, I embarked on a journey that now, when I look back on it over the long, long span of time – 45 years ago today – when it all began – I just feel so, so thankful, fortunate – even lucky – to have had those concert experiences.

 

 

This series of blogs then, of which this is the first – will attempt to document my concert-going experiences decade by decade, until such time as I reach the present day.  Having the analytical and basic set list / concert listing tools available via setlist.fm has been so incredibly useful when it comes to bringing these memories alive, I would encourage you to go and have a look at the list of my attended concerts at setlist.fm to see the full list of concerts attended not only in the 1970s, but from 1973 to the present day – an invaluable resource to me throughout the process of preparing and formulating this series of music blogs.

Earlier this year, I had my 60th birthday, and for some unknown reason, during that week, I started looking into just what concerts I HAD been to, and what they were, when they were and where they were.  I had no idea that this vague thought I had had – “I wonder how many concerts I’ve actually been to over the years…” would lead to the experience that it has – which has been extremely eye-opening for me in so many ways.  This “thought” eventually culminated in the completion of my list of my attended concerts at setlist.fm as well as the completion of cataloguing and photographing my quite substantial collection of concert ticket stubs, which will be presented photographically along with these live concert experience blogs.

So while it started in 1973 – it still hasn’t ended, and later this year (2018), it will be more shows from the incredibly powerful King Crimson live, one of the most remarkable progressive rock groups spawned originally during the 1960s – when Led Zeppelin was also born (1968 was a good year to start a band).   I am very much looking forward to seeing and hearing Crimson again – each year, they come up with more and more “unlikely early repertoire”,  not to mention some pretty credible new repertoire – to absolutely amaze and delight me and the other long time fans of the band.

So – the act of listening has moved forward through time with me, I continue to engage with artists old and new whose music I respect or revere even, and I am all the richer for it – there is nothing on earth, for me, as exhilarating as a quality live performance by musicians who are committed fully to their craft.

I simply love live music, and really, there can never be enough good concerts each year – there is always someone that I missed out seeing “back in the day” or newer artists that I want to check out live – there is always something going on.  I feel very fortunate indeed that I have been able to see so many great concerts.  Moving to Britain was also a hugely fortunate thing in terms of me being able to see bands performing live that did not regularly play in far-off San Diego, California (where I lived for the first half of my life) and so many bands that I never got the chance to see when I lived in California, I have not only seen but in some cases, I have been able to see performing live several times.

This includes bands or artists such as:

• Van Der Graaf Generator            

• Focus                                             

• Living Colour                                

• Roy Wood                                     

…and the like – all bands or artists that I never did see when I lived in the United States – and I spent the majority of my adult live, utterly convinced that I would never, ever get the chance to see some of these remarkable musicians and performers – and yet, somehow – it has happened!  Much to my ever-lasting astonishment and delight.  So I’ve managed to make up for a lot of gaps in my musical education just by merit of living in Central Scotland!

Building Up The List Of Concerts Attended

Thanks to some modern / technological innovations, even the act of “figuring out” what shows I have attended over the years, is supported and made possible – in the main instance, I began, that same week of my 60th birthday, to use a tool with which many of you may be familiar – the website known as “setlist.fm”.

setlist.fm is, simply put, a remarkable web site dedicated to preserving the memory of musical performances, but doing so in such a way that each user – that’s you and me – anyone – everyone – can easily find the concerts they attended, and “add them” to the list of shows that they have personally attended.  It also allows for setlists to be built, too, so that the songs that were played at each gig, if they are known – can be input, stored, and then viewed by subsequent users.

It also gives us the opportunity to rectify errors that have been made historically, or clarify points about a performance or performances or artists or any number of details about an event.  So with this kind of capability, I find that setlist.fm is really the ideal tool for building up your own personal history of concert-going, which is also then of course. possible to share with others, too – since each profile is public.

It also gives you a lot of insight into your own experiences of concert-going, that you would not have been aware of.  For example – this blog, is focusing on the 1970s – when I first began attending live concerts – and in the seven years of the 1970s that I was actively going to concerts (1973 – 1979), I am able to determine from setlist.fm that I attended at least 55 concerts in that first seven year period (I only began going to live concerts in 1973, so of course I have zero concerts for the years 1970, 71, and 72).  You can also view programmed statistics that can tell you a lot about your own experiences – and, the experiences of others, too.

The featured image (see below) for this blog is a photograph of the surviving concert ticket stubs – my own personal collection – of at least some of the ticket stubs that I managed to save out of the approximately 55 shows I attended during the 1970s.   I wish now that I had kept all 55, but if you think about it – it’s a small miracle that even the handful of survivors DID make it across 45 years, a continent, and an ocean – to be then collected and photographed as part of the preparation of this series of blogs.  Each decade brings a different set of bands, and a different set of ticket stubs from my own personal collection to accompany the blog for each specific decade.

As one example of how that can turn out to be interesting – when I was busy working on my own list of attended concerts at setlist.fm I began to notice something – that a certain other user, with an initially unfamiliar username – seemed to always be shown as someone who had attended many, many – an unnaturally large number of – the exact same San Diego and surrounding area concerts that I had attended.  I mean – this person was ALWAYS in the list.

I began to wonder if this was someone I knew, perhaps someone who I had gone to school with or even had been in a band with, perhaps – or any number of possibilities. After about a week or so of continually seeing this person’s username, every single time I entered another concert I had attended in or near San Diego, California – that I sent them a message, explaining who I was and asking them whether I knew them, since they had so obviously been at so very many of the same live shows that I had been to.  Curiously, a day or so after I wrote to them, I found that they had actually written to me a day or two before I contacted them – but I had not noticed the email for some unknown reason.

As it turned out, I didn’t previously know this person, but as we corresponded, and started talking about some of our shared concert experiences via email – including some truly and memorable events, such as the day we were both at Licorice Pizza records in San Diego, where we met the band U.K. – on one of those “in-store” appearances, on the day of their concert that night – where they were actually opening for the mighty Jethro Tull.

 

For people like my new friend (who still lives in the San Diego area to this day) and myself – it was a rare chance to meet and interact with some of the musicians who we admired.  And it did seem strange to me, to have shared so many extraordinary experiences with someone that I have never “met” – but in fact, I pretty much feel like we’ve been friends for years – possibly because of those vintage, shared memories – who can say?

For me personally, getting the chance to meet a former member of King Crimson, the late John Wetton – certainly one of the most innovative and remarkable musicians of our time,  an amazing bass player with a unique and very beautiful voice – speaking with John Wetton was a very interesting and enlightening experience for a young, hopeful musician such as myself.

 

 

So one of the stranger “side-effects” of the setlist.fm experience, in my case was the strange but rather interesting fact that I had spent time with my new pal, in the same room, talking to the same people – even, in the same conversations – and yet, we did not know each other!  And to meet someone now, anyone, who attended some of these same unique gigs that I had been to, after a forty-five year period where there was no such person with whom I shared these experiences to speak to about them – it’s truly remarkable.

 

Unique Musical Events In The 1970s – and at no other time

We have gone on to discuss the long-forgotten details of events such as Robert Fripp‘s amazing appearance at a small Tower Records store (on El Cajon Blvd – now long gone – but – another strange memory – it was right next to the North Star Motel – which is not in itself remarkable, but, “North Star” is one of the standout songs from Fripp’s album of that time, “Exposure” – and that amazing live introduction to Frippertronics, is what set me on a long journey to become a looper, and later, a looping ambient guitarist – I fell in love with the process of looping electric guitar that day – a truly memorable event – and now, I have a new friend with whom I can share the detailed memories of these very special events.

So from a list of concerts on a special web page – you can learn and experience a lot more than what you would think a list of concerts might do.  It was an immensely satisfying task, and I probably did the bulk of the list over a three to four week period, after that, I continued to add just the odd show here or there – ones newly remembered, or ones where I had been missing details – until I finally reached my current total – and it has stayed somewhere around that total (currently as of May 28, 2018 – 209 concerts by 129 different artists!).  That in itself was a surprisingly large number – I had really not expected it to be that large.

 

In this blog, I want to touch briefly then, on some of the highlights of the 54 or 55 shows that I attended during the 1970s, which were mostly a mix of rock and progressive rock – I was heavily into and heavily influenced by prog, as it is known, and I was so, so fortunate to live in the times that I have lived – I was born at the end of the 50s, and grew up in the 1960s with the music of the Beatles as the soundtrack to both my childhood and my adolescence.  As the 1970s approached, I broadened my previously-held view that the Beatles were the only band worth listening to, and I began to hear other kinds of music being made, by a whole new kind of musicians – many of whom, were extremely was too young to go and see the Beatles live,influenced by the Beatles themselves !!!

 

 

 

I was too young to go and see the Beatles live,and just a bit too young to go and see Jimi Hendrix, both of whom played San Diego back in the day, those two bands being my very favourite two bands of the 1960s/70s – a real shame, but – I could NOT have been more perfectly placed on the timeline of my life, to experience fully and enjoy thoroughly, the music of the next generation of rock – the Led Zeppelins, the earliest and best of the proggers, Yes and Genesis, Jethro Tull, Gentle Giant and the like.

 

 

That unique gathering of incredibly diverse and powerful progressive rock titans, was a once in a century event, and I was the perfect age (15) to begin enjoying these amazing rock and progressive rock as they made their way around the world, stopping at San Diego often, and therefore entertaining me with often, repeat performances year after year.  Starting out with Yes, then moving rapidly upwards and onwards through Genesis (with and later, without Peter Gabriel), Peter Gabriel, Gentle Giant, Jethro Tull, Strawbs, Roxy Music, E.L.P., U.K. , and Utopia.

What an incredible time to be young and to be able to go and see these amazing progressive rock acts performing – all in the same seven year period – and then, also, onwards through time in the 80s and 90s, too – adding King Crimson to the mix in 1981 – 1984, and again, in the 1990s; and then finally, fast forward to the present day where I was able to see Van Der Graaf Generator multiple times (in both quartet, and in trio format) as well as the absolutely astonishing Thijs Van Leer performing with his band Focus – a band I loved dearly in the 1970s, but did not get to see until much, much later.

I did in fact, manage to almost make up for not seeing the Beatles, by embarking on a side plan of trying to see all four Beatles playing solo concerts – so at least I could hear my biggest musical heroes of all time, singing and playing their instruments live.  I was not disappointed, starting out with my first ever trip to Los Angeles (first time I drove to LA myself) to see the great George Harrison, who put on an absolutely amazing show, that began with the Ravi Shankar Orchestra (my introduction to live Indian music – another great love of mine that I have continued to pursue whenever it was possible) and continued with getting to see and hear George playing a fantastic selection of both his own solo records and songs previously played by the Beatles.

Then, next up, in 1976, I was able to catch Mr. McCartney, on the famed “Wings Over America” tour – which was another totally memorable experience, and the selection of solo numbers and Beatles songs that Paul chose to play, were unique; quite different to George’s choices, and wonderful to experience.

Then followed a long, long gap until I did eventually manage to see my third and final Beatle – the remarkable Ringo Starr.  Again – a performance of solo songs and selected Beatles songs – but truly enjoyable, and the concept of the “All-Starr Band” worked brilliantly – Zak Starkey was the main drummer, with Ringo sometimes joining him on double-drums when the singing duties allowed him to – and with a guitarist of the calibre of Todd Rundgren on hand, no less – well, it was a great night of fun, exciting Ringo and Beatle music.  I will cover these events more specifically when I reach their performing decades (which turns out to be from 1989 thru 2018 – as the “All Starr band”) – but with the sad, sad exception of John Lennon – when in 1980, events took away everyone’s chance of seeing John play live – forever – I did, in time, get to experience first hand, the music of three fourths of the greatest rock band of all time – the boys from Liverpool – the amazing Beatles!

 

The Journey Continues…

However – returning to my journey through the featured decade of the 1970s – I truly feel now that I was indeed, very, very fortunate, the whole decade was so perfectly timed for me – in hindsight, I would not change a thing about it – and although I have always regretted not seeing the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix on the live stage – in another sense, I don’t regret it – because by being too young to go and see those bands – that made me land at the perfect age for that absolutely unique and wonderful decade of true Progressive Rock – from 1967 to 1976.  That was the golden era, the sweet spot, where the impossible-to-exist thing that Prog was, existed in spite of that truth – and I landed nicely near the tail end of that era – beginning my own “concert journey” in May 1973 – exactly 45 years ago today.

Now – at the beginning of this episode, I spoke a bit about my experience at my very first concert, the Led Zeppelin show at the San Diego Sports Arena held on May 28, 1973.  That was however, only the first in a long, long string of shows that I went to – all of them in San Diego I think with one exception which was the George Harrison concert I mentioned earlier – held at the Forum in Los Angeles.

But it was not just limited to Rock bands like Led Zeppelin or Prog bands like Yes and Genesis – there were other experiences, and right off the mark, I went to see one of the finest “southern rock” bands that ever existed – the absolutely brilliant “Allman Brothers“.  Little did I realise, that just a few years later, I would be performing one of their best songs, the lovely “In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed” with my own band, Slipstream – and that was one of the songs that the Allmans played that night at the Sports Arena.

 

Diversity In 70s Rock:

Actually, when I look at the full list of concerts attended, I actually started out with an incredibly diverse set of bands – they were NOT all of the same genre at all – and I think that is a contributing factor to me liking so many different kinds of music over time.  Those first few shows looked like this:

May 73 – Led Zeppelin (what can I say – it ROCKED!)

September 73 – Boz Scaggs / The Allman Brothers (white soul followed by the precision jamming of the remarkable Allmans – sadly, sans Duane – but they were still incredibly powerful live at this point in time)

March 74 – Yes (Tales From Topographic Oceans tour – quadraphonic sound – classic line up Rick Wakeman still in the band)

June 74 – Steely Dan (with, weirdly, Kiki Dee opening – what a strange combination) – this remains, to date, one of the most astonishing musical performances I have ever seen or am ever likely to see – the sheer musicality of this gig was absolutely mind boggling – including two amazing guitarists in Denny Dias and Jeff Skunk Baxter – not to mention the insanely talented Donald Fagen on grand piano and – gasp – a synthesizer!

November 74 – Ravi Shankar / George Harrison – please see my comments above.  A mind blowing introduction to live Indian music, followed by my favourite Beatle on lead guitar, slide guitar, and beautifully hoarse vocals – which did not bother me a bit – because I was hearing my favourite Beatle playing slide guitar – and I feel that in some ways – George was the master of the slide – in his own style and in his own way – not in the “Duane Allman” super technical slide playing way – but in a beautiful, careful, lovely way that set George apart from all other slide players.  I loved seeing George and I loved seeing Ravi – a brilliant day!)

January 75 – Genesis (The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway Tour with Peter Gabriel) – Part of me still can hardly believe that I got to witness this unique musical event – a full four album sides performed without a break – and this then-brand new work was stunning both musically and visually – I had thought that Yes were amazing live, but Genesis were very diverse in their approach to songwriting and quite different – Yes does not have any tunes quite like “Broadway Melody of 1974” or “The Waiting Room” or “Anyway” or “The Light Dies Down On Broadway” – and it was an eye-opening experience for me – realising that there was more to Prog than just the music of the mighty Yes – much, much more, I found out later on…

So from this half-dozen standout shows that I saw in the first couple years of concert going, when I was 15, 16, maybe 17 years old – absorbing musical ideas like a giant sponge – I learned an awful lot from watching rock and prog guitarists play – and solo extensively sometimes – and it was the best possible “music school” I could have gone to – of these half dozen first shows, the diversity of type of music is nothing short of remarkable:

Heavy Rock (Zeppelin)

White Soul (Scaggs) / Southern Rock (Allmans)

Progressive Rock (Yes)

Intelligent Pop (Steely Dan)

Classic Rock (George Harrison)

Progressive Rock / Unusual (Genesis with Peter Gabriel)

Then, if you continue on looking at how my 1970s concert experiences progressed, the musical diversity just goes off scale – taking in many different and unique artists; witnessing live concerts by the amazing Frank Zappa (with Captain Beefheart opening)  or the amazing German electronic music pioneers Kraftwerk (with British folk-rock legends Strawbs opening – and that was actually, who I was there to see!) or progressive rock giant Todd Rundgren‘s Utopia (the RA tour) or from Britain, Be-Bop Deluxe (featuring guitarist Bill Nelson) or 10cc (featuring guitarist Eric Stewart) or Peter Gabriel (formerly of Genesis) or 60s classic rock greats The Kinks or new wave artists Blondie or the art-rock genius of Roxy Music (featuring guitarist Phil Manzanera) and onto the truly unique musical events such as the aforementioned Robert Fripp at Tower Records “Frippertronics” demonstration – Robert Fripp of King Crimson, playing his guitar through a pedalboard, into two Revox reel-to-reel tape decks, and demonstrating the tape-loop technique introduced to him by Brian Eno back in the UK.

You want diversity – musical diversity – genre diversity – then the experience of those seven years, from 1973 through 1979 – included enough eye-opening musical, technical and performance diversity that for me, well, I do not believe that I could have HAD a better musical education, and as you may notice, the single recurring theme in the artists mentioned in this blog, in particular, in the set of bullet points just above, and in the previous paragraph – and that is – bands with amazing, technically and musically proficient guitarists.

 

Awesome Guitarists – one motivator for attending so many concerts

I was a guitarist then, and I am still a guitarist now;  so it’s only natural that I would follow and enjoy music by the world’s most talented and capable guitarists – and the list of guitarists, contained just in the bullets above and that paragraph of diverse artists – is staggering in itself:

• Jimmy Page
• Dickie Betts
• Steve Howe
• Jeff Skunk Baxter
• Denny Dias
• George Harrison
• Steve Hackett
• Frank Zappa
• Dave Lambert
• Todd Rundgren
• Bill Nelson
• Eric Stewart
• David Rhodes
• Dave Davies
• Chris Stein
• Phil Manzanera
• Robert Fripp

It’s interesting to consider what an effect seeing that many astonishingly talented and brilliant musicians, witnessing the different musical approaches and technical prowess of these amazing players – had on me, as a guitarist – I think that I absorbed a lot, and it was only years later that the eventual effect of this was felt – I became an amalgam of my own influences, when I listen to myself play guitar now, I can hear the influence of many of the guitarists in the list above – and those influences will stay with me forever, because I absorbed them, mostly, during my teenage years (I turned 20 in 1978 – near the end of my 7-year 1970s concert experiences) when my brain was still pliable enough to do so.

But even years later, I will recall things that I witnessed certain guitarists doing back in the 70s or really, at any time I’ve seen a great guitarist – and I will bring back whatever I can from that memory, into my current performance.  It’s extremely beneficial to have these particular experiences – because seeing these guitarists, in these intensely creative bands – has had a profound effect on both me personally (in terms of the awe and respect in which I hold many of these artists) as well as on my guitar playing – I aspired for many years, to learn and adapt and modify these incredibly diverse guitar influences, into my own playing – and eventually – my own style began to emerge – but, it’s still based on those early experiences.

If I had not spent many, many hours wearing out the vinyl of my copy of Led Zeppelin III, or any other classic 70s album that I loved, studied and tried to learn to play – including songs from “Larks’ Tongues In Aspic” by King Crimson – and over on the piano, too, I was learning and absorbing music by Van Der Graaf Generator, Peter Hammill, Todd Rundgren, Peter Gabriel – so there was an entire second side of influence, through piano-based songs – I even learned Tony Banks songs (such as “Anyway” for example) – with the help of my best friend Ted Holding, may he rest in peace – songs and bits of Keith Emerson and so on – anything to enrich the pool of musical ideas that I could then draw from for the rest of my life.  Mostly on the guitar, but – a significant amount of time was invested in learning piano and keyboard based songs – which I think helps to round me out as a musician – I am not “just” a guitarist (thankfully!!).

I had an absolute blast in the 70s, and if there is anything to regret, it would simply be that I did not go to MORE concerts during the 70s (and 80s and 90s for that matter) – my experiences would then just be all the richer for it.   I am not complaining by any means – I could not ask for a richer experience than this one – I am just greedy, I loved seeing these bands and artists playing their music, and I simply want more – there can never be enough good music in one’s life.  Never!

 

Forward…into the future!

So in conclusion – for me, the 70s were an absolutely unique and utterly amazing time, when I got to see some of my very, very favourite players and bands – from the mighty Led Zeppelin to the amazing Steve Howe of Yes (the man who could jump from guitar-to-guitar-to-pedal-steel-guitar-and-back-to-guitar-again mid-song, mind you – mid-song!) to having my mind permanently opened by the power and mystery of Steve Hackett‘s amazing guitar parts for Genesis‘ “The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway” to seeing Frank Zappa play in his unique, groundbreaking guitar style – there is nothing on earth like Frank Zappa, there was only one, they absolutely broke the mould that time.

Moving from the classic rock of Led Zeppelin, on up eventually, to the end of the 70s with Blondie and the emergence of New Wave, it was an amazing musical journey – I learned a lot, but I also had an enormous amount of fun – and I realise now that for me, that my idea of “fun” is quite different from that of most people – I have a lot more fun when I am watching and listening to an incredibly talented lead guitarist, playing as part of an incredibly talented band that has worked out an amazing repertoire of impossibly beautiful, and possibly technically demanding songs – now – that’s MY idea of fun!

Until next time then –

 

 

Dave Stafford

May 28, 2018 – 45 years to the day from the day of my very first concert experience of seeing Led Zeppelin live at the San Diego Sports Arena – it now seems, that in some ways, that it all just happened yesterday…

 

 

Next time on Decade By Decade – The Live Concert Experience / Overview:

The Dreaded 80s – Not as bad as we remember

 

1970s Concert Ticket Stub Collection (courtesy Dave Stafford)

Concert Ticket Stubs – 1970s

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Having A Friend Like Michael Dawson…

I met my friend Michael, in a thing called a “record store” called “off the record” which was located on El Cajon Boulevard in San Diego, California, when I was about 20 years old – I am guessing – it was a long time ago, I can tell you that!

I don’t know what year it was, I really don’t – perhaps Michael knows.  But it was a long, long time ago, and Michael is one of the very, very few people that I have known continuously during that entire timespan.  For the record then, (not, off the record lol) that’s at least 35 years, probably a bit more.

I was buying, or re-buying rather, a few records that I was hoping would have less surface noise, and fewer clicks and pops, than the copies of them that I already had at home – I was trying to get a better sounding version by re-buying LPs that I already owned – sometimes, had owned more than once already.  This was one of the problems with vinyl – it was scratchy!  Surface noise, clicks and pops and other soul-destroying sounds damaging the precious music, which should be pure and pristine – it was still a long way to the age of compact discs.

Anyway, among other newer releases, I was holding prog rock classics by Genesis and I am not sure who else – and this tall, very skinny person, with a short, tidy beard and distinctly reddish hair, who was standing nearby as I was checking out, who spoke with an unforgettable, deep voice full of character “those (he said, nodding towards the albums that I was holding) “are  three of my favourite albums of all time”.

So that started a conversation, that has been going on, off and on, on and off, ever since – and a friendship that just grew organically out of that first meeting.  I’d seen Michael in the store before, it was a favourite haunt of both of ours, but this was the first time he’d ever spoken to me, and it turned out, we did share a lot of artists in common that we both really, really loved – and he just couldn’t help himself saying so when he saw some of HIS favourite records in my sweaty grip 🙂

It started out then, first by sharing our love of music, I can remember many a trip over to Michael’s, to listen to records (and he had a LOT of records back then, I mean – a lot of records!) and he introduced me to a lot of things with which I was then unfamiliar – for example, Marillion, who I had never heard of, who were actually playing prog in the middle of the very un-prog-friendly 1980s – so that must have been in about 1985 that he played me parts of “Script For A Jester’s Tear” and “Fugazi” – which I found to be quite remarkable, and of course, I started collecting Marillion albums myself then.

The story gets a bit blurry here, but since I’d found out that Michael was a fellow musician, it only followed that we should at some point, sit down and play some music together.  Michael was (at that time) primarily a bassist, which suited me perfectly as I was, as always, a lead guitarist; but he also played a lot of other instruments, including flute and saxophone, to name but two.  I can remember inviting Michael over to my place, and also, visiting him where he lived, and we did start a band, whose name I cannot recall – it was a trio, of myself on guitar, Michael on bass, and a friend of Michael’s whose name I do not remember (I am definitely getting old lol!!), on drums.

What did we play?  I can remember a couple of the titles:

Roxy Music “Love Is The Drug”

Talking Heads “Psycho Killer”

and an original piece in 5 that I couldn’t really master (composed by Michael, I believe).

At that time, pre-Fripp, I was strictly a 4/4 kind of rock and roll wannabe prog guitarist, and playing in anything but 4 was mostly, beyond me.  It wasn’t until I started going to Guitar Craft, starting just a few years later, that I actually was able to play in the odd meters – 5, 7, 9, 11, 13 etc.

I think we also wanted to learn “Crying Wolf” by Peter Hammill, but we didn’t get far with that one.  We were trying to play music that we loved, rather than resort to playing the popular music of the day – we wanted to play GOOD music, hence the selections we made.  I don’t really know why, but this band never really amounted to anything – we rehearsed, and then I think the drummer lost interest and left, and we couldn’t replace him – so I moved on, and that was the end of our attempt at being in a band together.  We never played even one gig, which always makes me a bit sad – a lot of good rehearsals, a huge potential – and then, for whatever  the reasons – it just never comes to fruition.

But – I am proud to say, to this day, that I was in a band with Michael Dawson !  It was great fun, because it was one of the first times that I got to play music I really loved in a band, instead of the dreaded “covers” – so that was fantastic.  I can remember really enjoying playing Phil Manzanera‘s chord sequence on “Love Is The Drug” – it’s a really nice piece of guitaring.

Michael is a very good bassist, and he had a quality bass, a Rickenbacker, which I wasn’t used to – most of the bassists I had played with up till then, had played Fenders or other basses like Music Man or whatever – but he had a real Rickenbacker, and it sounded amazing. That was really a great selling point for me, having a truly prog “bass” in the band – that’s the way it should be.  There wasn’t much else “prog” about us, we didn’t have a lead singer or a keyboard player, although I seem to remember that I did sing the songs off mike just as a reference (not the first time, or the last time, I was called upon to become the de facto lead vocalist in a band – I will say that!).  But that is another story for another time…

After that band broke up, life went on – I still saw Michael down at Off The Record, and we remained friends – to this day.  Not too many years after this, Michael moved up north, to Northern California, where he got the day job that I believe, he still works at to this day.

I remained in Southern California, but, we still occasionally got together – most often, to go see live concerts together, I can remember giving him a lift to some concert in the back of my pickup truck, which was not a good experience for Michael – but at least we got to the concert.  Not sure who we were going to see – it could have been just about anyone.

One of the nicest things about Michael is his incredible kindness and his infallible generosity, of which I will speak in a moment.  He is a remarkably kind and gentle person, and I was glad to have such an intelligent and well-read friend – he had, and has, far more culture and education than I ever did!  He was also an artist, I remember he was always painting, which was something I did not even approach until I was much, much older.

He has often “turned me on” to new artists that I knew little or nothing about; one of those would be the indomitable Richard Thompson – I remember that Michael was the one who first played Richard Thompson albums for me, and got me hooked on his amazing guitar playing – to the point where, alongside collecting his many solo albums, I then went to see him play multiple times at multiple gigs, including one very, very small, intimate acoustic gig (in a restaurant, no less) and once, I managed to see him with full electric band – and that was amazing.    I became a big, big fan for quite a number of years, and I still love and respect his music to this day.

I would have done none of those things – if it weren’t for Michael P. Dawson.  I would have no Marillion, and no Richard Thompson in my musical life.   He also introduced me to Gryphon, based on our shared love of Gentle Giant – so that added yet another brilliant branch of prog to my ever-expanding experience of progressive rock music.  He also introduced me to the music of Bi Kyo Ran, remarkable King-Crimson-cover-band-turned-professional-prog-band from Japan.

So even for adding those four amazing musicians / groups to my musical repertoire and experience (and it was many, many more than just those four!), just for that, I am forever in Michael’s debt.  He always knew the kind of thing that I would like, and he was always, forever saying “listen to THIS, listen to this guitar solo, here…” and I would be hooked once again, on a new musician that up until I’d met Michael, I knew nothing about.  He was a great friend in that way, he genuinely did not want me to miss out on these incredible listening experiences that he was having, he wanted to share the music, not keep it to himself – and for that, I am very grateful indeed – indebted!

I mentioned that Michael was generous.  One day, about 20 years ago, I was sitting at my day job, when a VERY large cardboard box arrived for me – and I was not expecting anything that I had ordered, so it was completely out of the blue – and upon opening it, I discovered that is was a Washburn Bass guitar – that Michael had just SENT to me, gratis – he was going to get rid of it, and rather than sell it; he’d remembered me saying that I wished I owned a bass – so he thought of me, and he very, very generously gave me his old bass!  I could not BELIEVE that – I had never had a friend, or known anyone as generous as that – he could have made money off of it, he could have sold it for cash – but instead, he remembered his old friend Dave – and Dave not ever having a bass guitar of any kind – and he just mailed it to me one day.

I didn’t expect it, and I had no way to reciprocate, all I could do was send an astonished THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU note to Michael, and try to express what it meant to me to have a real bass to record with and play.  Many years later, when I was recording multi-track progressive rock tracks, I actually used “Michael’s Old Bass” as I call it, in the recording of several tracks – one of which is “Wettonizer” (a tribute to the late, great John Wetton) which was recorded back in about 2008 or 2009).  It’s actually, a really nice bass to play, and it’s short scale and easy to play neck really inspired me when it came to do the distorted bass solos in”Wettonizer” – and really, that song and the others that included the bass, possibly would not have been made, if it weren’t for the fact that Michael provided me with a bass to use and play. when he knew I did not have one.

That was such an incredibly surprising and generous act, which I never, ever forgot, and to this day, I have to smile when I look at that bass sitting in the corner of my studio – I do tend to use sampled basses now just for the speed and convenience, and also so I can get classic Fender or Rickenbacker tones – but if I wanted to do any real bass tracks – I would still absolutely, happily record them on “Michael’s Old Bass” – I mean, can you believe it – he just put it in a box, and sent it to me, from San Jose, California, to San Diego, where I lived back then.  And it then traveled with me, all the way to Scotland – where it lives now.

How often in your life, do you get a Bass Guitar in the mail?  If you have a friend like Michael Dawson, then the answer is, surprisingly – once.

[Meanwhile, back in the present day for a moment:]  Imagine my total surprise then, when, just a few days ago, a parcel arrived for me at home – and I recognised the handwriting on it immediately, and said to my wife – “that’s from Michael Dawson” and wondered aloud, what on earth has he sent me?? (even while, my brain was telling me “effects pedal, effects pedal…”) and in fact, what it was, indeed, was and is, an effects pedal – a lovely, mint condition, Earthquaker Devices Organizer pedal.

A week previously, on a Sunday, I had published my recent blog about watching guitar effect pedal demonstration videos.  In California, Michael read that blog of mine on a Sunday, and on the following Monday, packed up and shipped this effect pedal to me, and on the following Saturday, five days later – it arrived with the mail here in Scotland.

Now, I was utterly blown away when he gave me the Washburn bass, and no one else has ever just given me a musical instrument before.  But to receive what is basically, a brand new effects pedal (which when queried, he said he wasn’t using it, and he wanted someone to own it who would make good use of it – me) which is just the nicest thing – but it absolutely blows me away, that he would read an article about me lusting after these effects, and just to make me happy, just so I could then own an Earthquaker Devices-manufactured pedal – he pulls one out of thin air and ships it half-way around the world to me!!  That is so thoughtful, so good – I wish I were that generous and that thoughtful!

Unbelievable generosity, and an unbelievable kindness in the thought that “Dave would like this pedal – he could do something good with this” – that just blows me away, and, it’s not like we have been close of recent years, we exchange emails only occasionally, and as happens, we have led pretty separate lives – although we have always remained friends, and we have never fallen out – we’ve always been friends.  I would say, it had probably been a year or more since we had emailed, when this EQD pedal appeared again, totally out of the blue – which absolutely shocked me to the core – what a nice thing to do, what an amazing friend – what a great and kind act – to indulge my desire for endless effects pedals – wow, that is truly amazing.

But I don’t have any other friends that are that astonishingly generous, Michael is the only one who has consistently blown me away with his kindness, thoughtfulness, and his good, good heart – he’s just a good man, a nice chap, and I am proud to know him, proud to call him my friend, proud of him as a fellow musician – he’s a brilliant player – and I would also say, you should absolutely check out some of his music – he’s been sharing his own albums with me from early on, and he makes the most incredible music you have ever heard – you really must try it – it’s amazingly cool.  It’s mostly beyond my comprehension, Michael is a serious composer when compared to me, I just mess about with songs, and improvs, but Michael writes real music, serious music, and I have a huge respect for that.

A few years back, I released a live improv on the internet, which I believe featured energy bow guitar and music created with Brian Eno’s “Scape” application for the ipad. A few days after I released it, Michael released a video of himself, overdubbing a live flute solo and flute part, onto, on top of, my improv !!!

I was then able to share this with people as a collaborative effort (our first, since that attempt at a band – way, way back when) and I was and am, incredibly proud of that little improvised number – and to be honest, I absolutely prefer Michael’s version – to my own. The flute parts and solos that he plays, are just perfect for the improv, and I was so surprised and really pleased that Michael had done this.

That was yet another very kind thing, that he has done – the ultimate compliment, he must have liked the piece quite well if it inspired him to play the flute along with it, so by adding his live flute overdub, he was taking a decent piece of mine, and elevating it to a much, much higher level – I think it succeeds far better with his parts added, than it ever did by itself.  That is the power of Michael Dawson – adaptable, and very adept with a multitude of instruments – I wish I could play half as many different instruments as he does.

I would say that like so many musicians, that Michael is a “musician’s musician” – and I would encourage any of you that are musicians (or not, artists, or anyone, really!), to have a listen to any of Michael’s existing published works – he is a brilliant and intelligent composer, and he creates albums celebrating creatures and features of the natural world that have to be heard to be believed – he excels when it comes to synthesizers, which he often employs in his compositions, but he plays all manner of instruments, bass, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, flute, saxophone (in at least two different flavours) and a multitude of others too numerous to mention.

He is a remarkable and talented musician – and I believe, you can also hear him play live on the sort of “jam night” scene near where he lives – I believe he now sits in on saxophone or flute at these live, impromptu musical events.  I envy him that – I am currently not performing – so he is really fortunate to have that musical outlet available to him.

He is also a very creative person, I remember he played one of his new songs (and by that, I mean, what was a “new song”, thirty years ago 🙂 ) for me, and it had a most unusual sounding lead instrument, it sounded slightly Indian or eastern in some way, but I just could not place it, so I said “Michael, what is that instrument that you are playing the main melody with?” and he then revealed what it was – it was his flute – but played through extreme distortion – he’d played it through a fuzz box and it sounded truly out of this world.  So there is really no limit to the creativity that he employs when he creates his solo works, they are full of surprises and I don’t think you can find a more original, progressive, modern composer around – and if that isn’t enough, his love of the music of the late, great Frank Zappa is more than apparent when you hear many of Michael’s pieces – Zappa being the only artist that I could really comfortably compare Michael’s work too – he sounds like he listens to a lot of Zappa.

And that is probably, because he does.  I have always loved the music of Frank Zappa, but I have only ever put my toe into the water, whereas Michael jumped headfirst into the Zappa pool many, many years ago.  And that has paid off, and rubbed off, on the styles of music that he has created over the years – and you couldn’t really ask for a better influence – I’d love to be compared to, or even audibly / heavily influenced by,  Frank Zappa !

Michael turned me on to a whole world of new music, and that changed my life in a good way, and we shared a lot of musical experiences together, everything from just chilling and listening to records, or later, compact discs, to going to the occasional concert together.  His influence on me musically, over the last 35 years or so, has been immense, and I am grateful to him for enriching my musical life by sharing so openly from his vast library of recorded music.  In so very many ways, Michael is a really, really good friend to have – and good friends, they say, are hard to find, and I would imagine – even harder to keep, which is why I feel so blessed and fortunate to have a friend like Michael Dawson – he is one of a kind, a true gentleman, and I am proud to be able to say once again, “my good friend Michael Dawson” as I so often seem to find myself saying whenever I sit down to write about music.

I felt it was high time that he got the recognition he deserves, and this blog is a very public “thank you” to a true gentleman and musical scholar, Mr. Michael P. Dawson. Long may he reign over the flute solo in “Girl From Ipanema”; and any other pieces that he attempts, live or studio, on any instrument – just keep on jamming, Michael !!!

effects pedals videos: the ultimate addiction

I think it’s a good thing, from time to time, to indulge your obsessions, and what musicians often refer to as “gear lust” has certainly affected me from time to time.

but these days, that very general lust for guitars, keyboards, amps, and all kinds of music gear, is also now joined by a very specific new affliction; the endless watching and listening to of, effects pedal demo videos.  On You Tube, of course.

as with all new phases (if you will pardon the expression) of internet development and the progress of content, it started out small, as the occasional demo of a pedal to show us what the pedal looked like, what it sounded like, in case we might then wish to buy it for our own pedalboards at home.

from professionally produced by the established old world pedal manufacturers – your Boss, your MXR, your Electro-Harmonix, your Digitech, and so on – to videos by the boutique crews – your Earthquaker Devices, your Chase Bliss, your Catalinbread, your Z. Vex, your Robert Keeley – first came videos that were mostly about sales, but with generous helping of sounds, too – but ultimately, were on the whole, made with sales in mind.

finally, now, another type of pedal demo has arrived – the artistic, creative demo – and these seem to be non-commercial, not sales-oriented – but instead, they focus solely on the sounds that each device can make, and what a creative musician might do with those sounds.

A good example of one of these creative style effects video makerscreative style effects video makers, would be You Tube artist ‘Knobs‘, who tends towards more in-depth analyses of effects units, but using a unique artistic style – found objects, arranged around the device in a very careful way – combined with a fantastic, verbose, humorous set of titles (a veritable barrage of typed information, instead of verbal narration) and explanations, interspersed with jokes and bizarre video snippets, anything goes, but “Knobs” has a brilliant and consistent artistic style – and I NEVER ever feel like he wants me to buy any particular pedal.  He just wants me, and the rest of the effects pedal world, to HEAR how brilliant each pedal is, in exquisite detail, providing both highly useful technical information alongside humorous vignettes of all types – you never know WHAT might happen in one of his videos.

I have been through a lot of these videos, all types, and I seem to have settled on a few favourites from both camps.  For the ‘quick overview” type of video, which might run between 4 and 8 minutes in extreme cases, my very favourite vendor is “Andy” from Pro Guitar Shop (and Tone Report weekly magazine – the most brilliant magazine ever dedicated solely to effects pedals – and it’s free, every week!) – Andy is an extremely proficient guitarist of some experience, and his skill at showing each pedal he demos off in it’s best light, is undeniable – but, it is usually a quick demo only, just to get an idea of what the device in question sounds like.

Generally speaking, they don’t get into a lot of detail, or do in-depth videos, except in a few extreme cases.  So for the quick overview – I always turn to Andy first, and his videos are always in heavy rotation at my house – plus, over time, I’ve watched him grow from a good guitarist into a great guitarist, and I really enjoy his playing, regardless of the subject songs or snippets, or what pedal he is demoing – he is just a good, good player.

My other (new) favourite has to be “Knobs” whoever he might be – his videos are always well in-depth, and he tries very hard to describe clearly and in great detail, what each control does, exactly, and, how the controls interact, and what combinations of controls you need to set to achieve certain musical goals – all typed out in his inimitable style.  But – be prepared to keep your eyes glued to the screen – the titles go by quickly.  Having the no-nonsense explanations of how an effect’s controls affect what sound you acquire, is extremely useful (to me) and I really appreciate both his attention to musical detail, a well as his remarkable sense of humour which has to be read to be appreciated!

Some videos favour verbal narration along with guitar sound, others, use titles as “Knobs” does, to explain what the pedal is doing (which allows the music and therefore, the sound of the pedal, to go undisturbed by narration, others, such as our friend Andy from Pro Guitar Shop, intersperses narrated sections with undisturbed musical sections to demo the sounds he has just discussed, and I’ve even seen videos where there are no titles and no narration – and the pedal, and where it’s knobs are turned to, has to tell the entire story without any supporting titles or narration.  Those kinds of videos, while interesting, are probably a bit less informative than the other types, but really, no matter what the content, no matter whether they are short form, long form, or no form – I enjoy them all.

I would say that during the last two weeks, I’ve easily spent six or seven hours watching (and listening to) guitar effects videos, usually on YouTube on my television, but often, on YouTube on my tablet – either way works for me.  It is becoming an addiction, and for example, today, a lazy Sunday, I started watching Earthquaker Devices videos from the moment I got up, and now, a few hours later, I have to admit – the videos are still running while I am typing this blog.

And I was watching them yesterday, too.  Hmmm.  I am sensing a pattern here.  It started out, with a few Pro Guitar Shop quick overview with Andy videos, at night at bedtime – and then it started to move onto the real TV during the day, and today, I was even watching them during my lunch.

Another aspect of this that is good, is the musical ideas presented by the various musician-presenters, and you get some extraordinary guitarists demonstrating pedals, from Pete Thorn who has a massive collection of effects and pedalboard related videos, and onto other ridiculously talented guitarists hired by the big guns to demo their products, like the amazing Alex Hutchings who does demos of very complex Roland effects units.  So becoming addicted to effects pedal videos does have some very positive side effects – one of which is learning about some of the amazing professional players out there, as well as learning about a whole new group of home or small business musicians, who are equally talented and are often extremely interesting to listen to.

I’ve even learned guitar techniques, riffs and other guitar content, just from watching these demos, they are often quite inspirational, and often, after I’ve viewed a set of guitar effects demos, my tendency is to then go into the studio and play some guitar, and use the pedals that I do have, to try and create some new ideas and uses for them.  So watching these demos, and hearing how other guitarists put these very musical tools to use, is also very inspirational for my own development not just as a player, but also, in how I use the effects I have, to create unique and hopefully, amazing-sounding guitar sounds.

Mixing and matching different effects pedals (often called “stacking”) is yet another kind of pedal demo video, and there are endless demos where one or many devices are “stacked” to hear what the sound outputs of various interesting pedal combinations are, what is possible when you plug pedal a into pedal b, and then into pedal c?  These are some of the most amazing videos, because the sounds that can be achieved via stacking, even if it’s just stacking two pedals, are often astonishing in themselves – from incredibly powerful, distortion based stacks, to eerie, spacey, ambient wonders – amazing combinations with endless musical possiblity.

Finally, there are the “versus” (or “vs.” or “v.”) effects pedal videos, which range from comparisons of different manufacturers’ pedals that perform similar functions, or, between reissues or clones, to the “original” pedals from the 60s, 70s, 80s and so on.  Does the new version sound as good (or better) or not?  The “versus” videos answer all of these questions and more –  which fuzz tone sounds the best, which overdrive is the most transparent, which reverb has the most ambient possibilities, which ring modulator gives you the most insanely distorted and warped sounds?? – I am a big fan of the “versus’ style of effects pedal videos.

As time has gone on, I’ve become very interested in certain pedal manufacturers, and this is probably the last category of video I will mention today: the “about the manufacturer” video.  For the lines I’ve become interested in, after exhausting the majority of their videos for their actual pedals, I recently branched out still further, and started learning about some of the people behind the products – beginning with a pedal manufacturer that I really admire, Earthquaker Devices, and while I so far, so not own any of their pedals, I am very interested in some of them, because – well for two reasons, really, they are all hand-made in Akron, Ohio, and, they often explore sonic territory that other manufacturers’ pedals do not.  So I wanted to learn more – and boy, was there ever a lot of content available about Earthquaker – their history, the bands that their employees are in, and so on – absolutely fascinating to watch, and after doing so – it just makes me want to go out and buy my top ten EQD-wanted pedals – which would set me back a few thousand pounds that I do not have.

 

But – these videos do allow for one thing – I can dream.  I have a want list, that changes almost every week, one week, I am wanting EQD pedals, the next, I am looking at Strymon pedals with my lustful effects desiring eyes – and so on.  I dream of building special pedalboards, using all of the strangest sounding Earthquaker Devices pedals, in a special all-EQD board – probably containing an Arpanoid, a Space Spiral, an Afterneath, a Transmisser, and an Avalanche Run for starters (as the imaginary pound notes start to fly out the imaginary window…) which is huge fun – and while I probably won’t ever be able to build that imaginary EQD board, what I can do, is go into the sound libraries of my Eventide H9s, and see if I can emulate the strange and wonderful sounds that EQD pedals make, with the Eventide Algorithms and settings for individual voices.

That is then, giving me ideas for my own guitar sounds, which happen to be Eventide-based, but that is not what is important – getting new ideas for new sounds is always inspirational, so I think that this new addiction to effects pedal videos, is absolutely one of the healthiest addictions I’ve ever had the joy to experience, and I recommend it highly to both musicians and non-musicians like, and in particular, I think that visual artists and anyone who appreciates art, would enjoy some of the content in the more creative series of effects pedal videos.

I cannot recommend the experience of tuning in to You Tube for a morning of video enjoyment, preferably with your theatre speaker engaged so you can experience the subtelty of tones that the guitarists bring to us in these amazing, informative, inspirational videos – I think they are brilliant – please check them out on a tablet or a TV set near you.

 

And now, I am off to turn on my own pedalboards and see what new sounds I can coax from it, after a day of being very inspired indeed, by hearing what modern sound technology can do to the sound of a guitar or a keyboard or even a voice – these effects pedals have come so incredibly far from the early days, when if you had a pedal board at all, you were unusual, and it would normally have two devices on it – a Vox wah-wah pedal, and an Arbiter Fuzz Face.

A few players might have a third device – a primitive Octaver like the one Jimi Hendrix used to use – but for most, it was a wah-wah pedal, a fuzz tone of some sort, or if you were really lucky, both – no matter what, you learned to use those primitive devices make your guitar sound better…and nowadays, you have not hundreds, but thousands of different effect pedal designs to choose from – a mind-boggling assortment of sound-creating machines, designed by musicians for musicians – with making amazing sounds the goal – and so often, these manufacturers not only hit that goal, but they exceed it, producing devices capable of a stunning diversity of incredibly musical sound…it’s amazing how far these devices have come over the relatively short period of time from let’s say, 1963, to today.  Simply astonishing technology.

I started out with just a Vox Wah-Wah, and that was my main pedal for a long, long time. Then gradually, I ended up with things like an original Echoplex, which I absolutely loved, primitive, monstrous, tape-driven delay – I also used my two-track Sony reel-to-reel as a delay, with a reel running in record mode so I could then switch on the delay whilst playing live.  It wasn’t easy to do, but it sounded great!

Over time, I went through many Stompboxes, then onto rack mount devices (controlled by MIDI and switches and expression pedals – and then back again. I can tell you – it’s all good.  I managed to make good music with every pedalboard I ever built, and I am glad to have been able to experience a wide range of musical products over time, and it’s made for the creation of a lot of very interesting music – from very loud and distorted, to as ambient and quiet as I could get – I am interested in it all.  I think maybe it’s more of an addiction to amazing sounds, than the actual videos – I just love the sound of guitar effects!

 

It all sounds good to me 🙂

 

have fun!!!

 

peace,

dave

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the stupidest policy in the universe

 

RECOGNISING STUPIDITY WHEN I COME ACROSS IT

like my late father before me, I find that there are certain aspects of life that are just so stupid, that you can’t help but become agitated and very outspoken when one of these “stupidities” comes to light.

I actually have a real knack for recognising stupid issues, and that realisation came home to me in a quite surreal experience I had at a Guitar Craft course held in Ojai, California back in the 1990s. It was a very good course, with mostly good weather, and we got to listen to Robert Fripp rehearse his Soundscapes, not to mention hearing an early DAT of the then non-existent King Crimson album “Vrooom”, which of course preceeded the album “proper” which is the even more awesome “THRAK”.

but i digress, the incident that confirmed to me that I do have a real knack or propensity, if you will, for seeing stupidity for what it is, and usually, confronting it head on….started like this:

A GUITAR CRAFT STORY

The course was in a lovely, big house on a lovely big green hilltop, a grassy hilltop lawn that of couse, being in California, was fully equipped with sprinklers, which went off automatically at pre-set intervals, to keep that hilltop lawn watered and healthy and looking good.  That is absolutely standard practice in southern California, because, if you don’t water…your lawn, and / or your plants, turn brown and then die.  California, after all, is basically, an artificially-irrigated desert, with water piped in from other states! – from many hundreds of miles away.

part way through the course, on a rare rainy day, where it was raining pretty hard, but in that warm kind of unconvincing California way…   I believe it was just before lunch, and the whole group, including Robert were sitting in silence (as you do quite often at Guitar Craft) and of course, if you are not quiet inwardly (as I often wasn’t) your attention may start to wander, and I confess that at this point, where a long, uneasy silence was waiting to hopefully, become a proper silence…I was looking out the window, watching the rain and looking  at the plants and the lawn.

the silence went on and on, and after an uncomfortably long time, suddenly, Robert spoke: “can anyone” (he said, addressing the entire course) “give me an example of real stupidity that is going on here, right now” and he sort of, gazed up and around the room.

confused silence was the first response, while people tried to think if perhaps, THEY had done something stupid earlier on, and now here was Robert Fripp calling them out?  You could sense some rising panic in some of the faces…but no one answered.

then, the answer smacked me right in the brain, that Stafford tradition (my Dad would have been so proud of me!!!!) came back and I blurted out “the sprinklers”.  “The sprinklers are on, watering, while its pouring with rain”. I added.

“Thats right, the sprinklers” Robert agreed.

And of course, thats pretty much the only time that I had the answer when the gathered elders of Guitar Craft did not, so I was pleased that I’d seen it so quickly.  And no one except Robert had a clue, it is just one of those things that people born in California, are used to seeing, all the time, all of your life.

And, it IS a pretty stupid thing, to have your sprinklers busily overwatering your lawn, and indeed, the combination of a substantial rainfall and the powerful large radius-coverage sprinklers running at the same time, could and often did turn your lawn into a green soaking wet sludge –  serious over watering can occur.

I have told this story before, in a more abbreviated form, and I apologise if you have heard it before – but it was necessary for me to restate my “credentials” as a more than “averagely aware of stupidity” kind of person.  I see stupidity in many designs, processes, and even in well establish practices, where people are doing activities in a particularly stupid way, when a much better way is or at least, might be available.

for example – sprinkler systems that can be overridden and can be programmed NOT to turn on, in the case of rain.

clearly, the owner of that nice house on the hill in Ojai, was unaware of this possibility, and because of that, would be always overwatering his lawn and plants when the sprinklers regularly came on while it was raining!

Stupidity at work, in the universe…a perfect example, and both Robert Fripp and I, while looking out the window at the garden in the pouring rain, had realised what was going on just outside the room, while the other fifty five people were only thinking inside the room, or, hadn’t noticed  or, hadn’t realised – that a really stupid thing was going on, right then and there – but outside, not inside!

It’s a day I’ve never forgotten, not only because I knew the answer when RF was the only other person who did, but because it was a great course, and my “Stupidity Detector” was clearly working better than it ever had done before.  A very useful tool, being able to recognise stupidity when you see it – and, if you look around, you will often find that its … EVERYWHERE!!

So what does this long and somewhat tedious Guitar Craft story have to do with today’s blog?  Not a lot, really, except perhaps, to establish that I have this knack, this ability to spot stupid practices, and that, coupled with some forty years in the business world, makes me the Customer From Hell, when companies have to deal with me.

THE ISSUE IN QUESTION

Today’s blog, however, is not about a gentle, somewhat forgivable stupidity such as watering your lawn while its raining…no, today’s blog is about something much, much stupider than that – and therefore, a hundred times more irritating because the stupidity actually has a real, negative effect on you.

I am writing today about a very specific “policy” that a particular music store has, which is, in short:  supplying the wrong type of power supply with almost every guitar effects unit they sell: a European power supply with round pins that cannot be plugged into the wall in the UK! (where we use flat pin power supplies only). To me, this “policy”…is right up there on my “stupidity radar” – supplying a useless power supply that could only work in Europe…in the UK.

a) it is a policy that makes NO logical sense – and the stream of useless Euro power supplies arriving every few months – utterly useless

b) I am sick and tired of ARGUING about it each time I make a purchase – and, an important point here – having to ask in the first place is bang out of order – when it SHOULD HAVE BEEN in the box when it arrived!!

Life is literally too short for me to waste my time railing against such a stupid thing – and they, unwilling to do as I, the customer politely asks again and again – well, the most recent sale they made to me – will be the last bit of business they get from me…I need vendors that will work with me on this.

Not, fight me tooth and nail when I try to get a useable power supply for my effects unit – that I have already paid for (it is part of the effect units’ purchase price)

Meanwhile, I have grown so frustrated with this “policy” over the past six or seven years (!!!!!!!) that I have recently reached the point where I told them that, if they were unwilling to continue to make the situation right, each time I make a purchase of an effects pedal from them (containing a European supply), that they will no longer get my repeat business or any of my business, because I refuse to participate in this specific power supply stupidity any more!

ANALOGY

I’d like now, to ask you a few simple rhetorical questions:

Note: today’s “stupidity” only occurs in the United Kingdom to my knowledge.  It does not occur in Europe or elsewhere that I know of.  This is important to remember.

 

So – UK residents only, then – when you buy a new toaster (or any small appliance) do you expect it to have a UK style plug (flat blades, three pronged) attached, so you can plug it in the moment you get home, and have some nice toast with your cuppa tea?

when you buy a new iron, do you expect it to have a UK style plug attached, the correct flat-bladed UK style plug, so that when you get home, you can plug that iron in right awaty, and get your three week backlog of ironing done in a jiffy?

when you buy a new hair dryer, do you expect to be able to plug it into the wall, and dry your soaking wet hair right away, without waiting?

when you buy a new alarm clock, do you expect a UK style plug attached right to it, so you can plug it in straight away, set the alarm, and then get woken up ever so gently to the quiet strains of Rammstein’s “Zwitters” blasting out at 6:05 a.m., at volume 10…?

when you buy a new Hoover, you expect it to have its UK style flat bladed plug already attached, so when you get home, you can plug it in straight away, and hoover your dirty ole carpets to yer heart’s content?

If you got a new set of hair straighteners, you would definitely want to go hone and plug them straight into your UK 230 volt wall outlet, so you can then wait for them to heat up, and straighten your hair to PERFECTION??

Let’s go large now, you finally bought that brand new washing machine you wanted, and I just know you will expect that it will come with a UK style plug already attached, so you can plug it straight into the wall outlet, hook up the water, and wash all those dirty clothes that have piled up everywhere??

I think you can see the everyday truth in the above statements.  Nothing tricky about them – just ordinary appliance purchases and expectations.

 

You may have gathered that I am making a point, and I am, and yes, OK I have rather belaboured that point (apologies)…but there is a reason for the many, many examples of ordinary electrical appliances both small and large – so that we can establish that for any electrical item that you buy in the United Kingdom, you have developed the perfectly reasonable expectation that the moment you get it home, whatever it is – you can plug it in, and start using it immediately.

however.

What if that were NOT the case? What if, you brought that toaster home, and it didn’t have a UK plug on it, or with it, so you couldn’t plug it into your common, ordinary, garden UK 230v outlet – in fact – you couldn’t plug it in anywhere in the UK.

First of all – that would make you feel very frustrated, because, you couldn’t feed that horde of screaming children waiting for their morning toast.  You would all starve, or at least you’d be eating untoasted bread which is almost as bad – when you want toast. and it goes on for days and days and days – no toast, and a useless, cold toaster.

That scenario is pretty unpleasant, but let me take this story one step further.  Let’s say that on that same day, the day you got home, took that toaster out of the box, and THEN realised that you couldn’t plug it in…that you rang up the store you bought it from, and asked them to please provide a proper UK plug, and they said, yeah, OK we’ll do that, you will get it in a couple of days.

Three days go by, with no toast made, that toaster not lighting up at all.  The toaster is dead.  The promised UK plug does NOT arrive.  You ring the store again, they say they will send the plug…so now three weeks have gone by and you still have no working toaster and no plug from the store…

After many calls, much argument with the store, pleading, cajoling…You reach the three month mark…THREE MONTHS WITHOUT TOAST…and finally, you get a UK style plug for your toaster delivered, finally sent by the store at long, long last.

And if the children haven’t all starved by now, they finally get some toast – but you’ve been through three months of hell trying to get the store to make things right for you, and you really begin to question your sanity.  You have argued calmly that it should have had a UK plug all along, but, the store seem unconcerned, and they also seem bent on supplying the NEXT item you buy from them…with ANOTHER useless Euro style plug.  Repeat of same scenario above.

Now, I could build a similar scenario for each and every item above, but it would take far too long, and I think the toaster example is a good enough example.

Three months without being able to plug in your new toaster?  Can you imagine?

 

Now – with the above everyday analogies, I’ve set up the background here, I’ve created practical examples of how it would feel if you got home to find that you could not plug your new toaster in, and then, the store you got this rather useless appliance from, took over three months to make it possible for you to plug it in and finally have some toast.

How would that make you feel?

 

IT’S BEEN MY EXPERIENCE…THAT WHEN THE ROW GETS SERIOUS…

A CERTAIN SILENCE WILL FALL.

 

How would that make you feel??

 

Now – that is a question.

Unfortunately, I can answer that question. I can provide in fact, a first hand account of exactly this “toaster experience” but with something else in the way of “small electrics” that I regularly purchase: effects pedals for guitar.

For the past several years, I’ve been purchasing the odd guitar pedal or two, and often from one of my favourite stores, DV24/7.  They were, and are, a good store – they delivered quickly, they always had the lowest price, and eventually, they got all of my business.

Until a few days ago, when I reached such a point of impatience and sheer frustration with their attitude regarding the power supplies for said guitar effects – that I’ve told them that I will be taking my business, my REPEAT business, to another guitar store.  ANY OTHER STORE. One that will truly want AND truly appreciate (not just say that they appreciate, but ACTUALLY appreciate) my repeat business. GAK, Dolphin, I really do not care. Just – no more Euro power supplies.  Please.

 

I must have at least six of these useless Lumps Of Plastic with round pins sticking out of them, cluttering up my storage area at home. They are worthless in the UK, sadly, they would be quite handy for any number of young guitarists in Europe.  I have enough for a whole Euro power pedalboard.  In Europe.  Where I don’t live.

They are doing me not one whit of good unless you think it’s perhaps, a good reminder from myself to myself to say NEVER AGAIN to accepting a Euro style power supply for any UK-purchase / UK-use electrical appliance or guitar effect pedal.  Ever.

 

DV24/7 refused to listen to the pure logic I presented to them regarding this very, very stupid “policy” of theirs – which is this:

Each effects unit they sell IN THE UNITED KINGDOM, comes supplied with a power supply (as intended by the manufacturers – who meant for the correct-country power supply to come with each pedal, it is included in the PURCHASE PRICE!) but with a twist; its a EUROPEAN power supply that DV24/7 regularly send to their UK CUSTOMERS.  That cannot be plugged into ANY power outlet IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.  Now – where, exactly, is the logic or sense in THAT?

Answer?  There is no logic present in this odd policy of supplying useless / wrong power supplies with each effects pedal sale.  If I just shelled out £400.00 for a really nifty pedal, it had darn well come with the CORRECT, USEFUL POWER SUPPLY.  That will plug into one of the many UK OUTLETS that I have in my UK HOUSE.

TALK ABOUT SPOILING YOUR ENJOYMENT!

So,  you’ve finally decided to buy your first Eventide H9, a truly powerful and exciting new guitar effects device – you order it from DV24/7; it arrives in a day or two..

but…BUT…it comes supplied with a EUROPEAN power supply.  So all that anticipation, all the excitement – dies, because you cannot PLUG IT IN.  So you then get to LOOK at it, but not use it, or hear it, for several days or even weeks, while you impatiently wait for the store to send you the right, usable power supply. After the fact, after the purchase….”oh please, kind sir, may I have a UK power supply so I csn actually USE my guitar effect??”.

 

Now, the first few times this happened, I would just ring or email them , and say “can you please send me a UK power supply for this REALLY EXPENSIVE pedal i just bought from you?”.  And – generally, they would.  I just had to ask.  (Not my job, really, but, whatever).

And I would then have to wait, a few days, a week, whatever, and the power supply arrives – so I can FINALLY plug in my brand new effects pedal.  Finally use it, finally hear it – at last. But it is just not the same, as being able to plug it in the moment it arrives…nope.  A third-rate experience at best.  Sheer frustration and mounting anger at the worst end of the “DV experience” 🙂

After this had gone on for some five years, let’s say, they started resisting me when I would insist on the proper UK power supply, and then finally, just a couple of weeks ago now,  their salesperson told me, in an email, no less “you will have to accept that some of these effects (read: all of these effects) will come with a Euro adapter, and we may then provide a UK plug adapter with the Euro power supply”.

And, that, dear reader, was the wrong thing to say to me.  my reply was “Salesperson’s Name Here, I must certainly do not “have to ACCEPT” anything – “I am the customer, and, you’ve set a precedent with me, i.e, you have been supplying me with the proper UK adapter, AFTER each effects sale, with NO ARGUMENT, and at no charge for several YEARS NOW – and now, you are reneging on that, and saying that I MUST ACCEPT Euro plugs, and a crappy plastic ‘plug adapter’ to go with it ! – no thank you, and furthermore,  I refuse to trust my really expensive device to a £1.79 plastic UK plug adapter”.

So because they instigated this new “policy”, where they no LONGER supply the proper UK power supply at request or at no charge…which they had done for about five years out of the six OR seven years (or more) I’ve been buying from them, I’ve had enough – more than enough of their attitude – and if it costs them money, to supply what should have been in the box all along – well, that is NOT my problem.

I was a good, repeat business customer, a good one – but over the past two years, I’ve had to argue, argue, argue, and eventually they would reluctantly send me a UK power supply for the device I had just bought.

I got really tired of the whole subject.  I even called the UK store manager in Romford, and had a long talk with him about..about just how incredibly STUPID (THERE IT IS….THE ‘S’ WORD) the policy of sending Euro plugs (aka, something that in the UK, MAY AS WELL BE A LUMP OF USELESS PLASTIC WITH SOME ROUND PINS STICKING OUT OF IT) – and he agreed it wasn’t the most brilliant policy, but I thought we had reached an agreement, that they would continue to supply them to me when I ask for them…but I was wrong.

not so.  In fact, after the last conversation with the boss, it was then that I waited THREE MONTHS for a UK adapter to arrive for my Ground Control Pro. Almost as if he had told them to drag their feet…

 

But not long after that, the real arguments started, and the salesman started telling me what I “MUST ACCEPT”.

That was the signal for me to end my relationship with DV24/7 (except of course, in the event of me needing to use one of my many, many, three year warranties that I have with them for a number of my effects devices).

So the income and the profit from sales to me have how stopped, permanently, they claimed, in an email that they “valued my repeat business” but basically, I would have to accept Euro plugs with UK plug adapters…so from that threat, I could tell that clearly, they do NOT value my repeat business at all.

If they did, the precedent set six or seven years ago, would still be in place, and I would still get a proper UK power supply for each device I purchased.  But – no more

All the other stores, I will be completely honest with them going forward:  I will EXPECT a UK adapter with each pedal I purchase – or, I will give the business to the vendor who will happily say “yes” to that humble, simple request.

 

WHAT THE MANUFACTURERS MEANT TO HAPPEN

(and what they supply to MAKE it happen in the different markets)

 

As if the all of the above wasn’t enough, now, please consider this:

Each manufacturer, for example, Eventide (USA based) or Electro-Harmonix (USA based) has included in the price of their effects pedal, a working power supply for that device, which should be different for each non-USA country it is sold in.

So let’s imagine that you bought a pedal from a well known online store in the USA, and you LIVE in the USA.

Let’s say it’s that Eventide H9 I mentioned earlier.  You would receive that H9 in a box, with a US style two-flat-bladed-plugs-bearing power supply.  You open the box; you plug that two prong flat bladed US style plug directly into the nearest 110v US outlet in your US home – And you are instantly delighting in the beauty of the H9 experience.

So let’s now imagine that you bought a pedal from a well known online store in Germany, and, YOU live in Germany…or anywhere in Europe except the UK.

Let’s say it’s that Eventide H9 I mentioned earlier. You would receive that H9 in a box, with a Euro style two-round-pins-plug bearing power supply. You open the box; you plug that two round pin style plug  directly into the nearest 220v German outlet in your German home – And, you are instantly delighting in the beauty of the H9 experience.

Repeat above  paragraph for Japanese market.

Repeat above paragraph for South American market.

Repeat above paragraph for any non-UK market.

 

Finally – let’s now imagine that you bought a pedal from a well known online store in the UK, and, YOU live in the UK.

Let’s say it’s that Eventide H9 I mentioned earlier. You would receive that H9 in a box, BUT, much to your everlasting astonishment – instead of the 3-flat-bladed UK style power supply you expected (just as with your toaster, your hair dryer, your washing machine, your hoover…) but instead, to your ultimate dismay – you find, inexplicably, that you have instead been sent – a Euro style two-round-pins-plug bearing power supply.

You open the box; you remove the wrongly supplied Euro power supply in disbelief, which you cannot plug in anywhere in the country you live in – And, you now have no idea what the H9 SOUNDS like, because you cannot plug it INTO THE WALL as you can in every OTHER COUNTRY ON THE PLANET.  And – you DO NOT GET TO DELIGHT in the beauty of the H9 experience.  Not for days or weeks or latterly, apparently – ever.

Eventide MEANT for you to get that box, open it, plug the RIGHT power supply into the proper outlet, and play your guitar through their pedal. Immediately.  You PAID for that, you paid for the good experience, the one where you get to actually use the pedal you just bought.

No..not here in the UK.  Instead…you get argument.  You spend literally hours, emailing, calling the DV24/7 boss AGAIN to complain.

THE LAST STRAW

There is one remaining wee story to tell.  And that story is about a device that I bought from DV24/7 … LAST YEAR.

I bought a new Voodoo Labs Ground Control Plus MIDI controller from DV24/7 in late October or early November – the actual date isnt really important.

 

you’ll never guess, to my amazement…it TOO, like the Eventides and the Electro-Harmonix pedals before it, the Ground Control Pro arrived…with a Euro style round pin power supply – with a twist, it was an AC adapter (rather than the much more common DC adapter), with a higher current requirement than most pedals have.   Still useless though…I did say “Euro” and “round pins”.

So standard procedure, I rang up or emailed DV24/7 and said “please send me the correct voltage Voodoo Labs UK power supply for my Ground Control Pro”.  I got argument and stalling.  I rang the boss yet again, applied pressure verbally…he promised they would send the adapter.

still no adapter.  Christmas passed.  I cajoled, I asked nicely, I became irritated…no result.

New Year passed.  I wrote again, this time simply saying “appalling customer service, making a good, repeat customer wait OVER THREE MONTHS for a lousy power supply that costs £2.00 to produce in Asia…you ought to be ashamed”.

Nothing.. No response to my emails anymore.

 

then, tonight, on January 20th, having waited thru November, thru December and thru most of January with no power supply – when I got home, a small box from DV24/7 had been delivered to my neighbour.  I went to retrieve it.  Finally – and, by the way, NOT a Voodoo Labs supply at all, but the cheapest of the cheap generic type adapter, BUT the right voltage 9 volts AC at 500 ma – so theoretically usable with the Ground Control.

The adapter was promised over and over, the salesman promied, then his BOSS promised it, and it didn’t arrive.

I doubt it was my “you ought to be ashamed” message that finally caused it to ship to me – but it should have been.

They still owe me a power supply for an EHX pedal I bought recently. But we shall see what happens with that one.  But, I won’t expend the least bit of effort on DV24/7 any more, no more chasing down a power supply EVERY SINGLE TIME I BOUGHT SOMETHING.  For SEVEN YEARS.

 

A SIMPLE, SIMPLE SOLUTION EXISTS

DV24/7 have some internal “problem” where some their stock that is to be sold in the UK, comes from Europe, and it has Euro plugs in it.  But guess what – the manufacturers make at least four different adapters, that are supposed to be sold in the US, the UK, Europe, and Japan.  So – you, as the distributor of these products, are supposed to be SMART ENOUGH to order the right boxes with the right adapters for each country you are selling them in.

A quick example of a smart policy:

You are a big music store with stores in Europe and in the UK.  Sales are roughly equivalent in both areas, so, instead of buying 1000 boxes of EURO Eventude H9s, you order instead, 500 boxes of Euro H9s (which you sell in EUROPE) and 500 boxes of UK BOXES, (which you sell IN THE UNITED KINGDOM). Simple.

Under my clever scheme (see above) the customers in BOTH Europe AND the UK END UP WITH THE CORRECT POWER SUPPLY when they receive their order. Rejoicing. No more phone calls.  No more emails. No more arguing with customers.  No more customers so traumatised by their never-ending NEGATIVE EXPERIENCE AT DV24/7 that they finally just say NO MORE.

NO MORE.

 

Now – clearly, their purchasing department wasn’t smart, and all their pedals are in EURO boxes.  So this won’t ever end, with DV.

BUT INSTEAD of them making their problem by MY problem, and pawning off their unwanted garbage/Euro Lumps Of Plastic onto UK customers who DO NOT WANT THEM…instead of you making your problem be my problem…why don’t you just SOLVE the problem, and buy the boxes with effects with UK power supplies in them, to SELL IN THE UNITED KINGDOM???

by the way:  I ***HATE*** it, when companies, or people, make THEIR PROBLEM be MY PROBLEM.  I refuse to allow that.  My time is too valuable, too precious to waste on the “Euro round pin power supply game”.  It is a game that sucks, I can tell you that much for free.

THE REAL INTENTIONS OF THE EFFECTS’ MANUFACTURERS

Remember, the manufacturers, WANT YOU not only to get a power supply with your device, but, they WANTED for it to have a power supply with it, that meets the following  criteria (you PAID for all this – it is included in the effect’s price!!!!):

a) fits the outlets in your country

b) supplies the right voltage and has the correct current handling requirements for your device and your country’s power outlets

c) you PAID FOR THAT privilege, to be able to plug right in and enjoy your purchase – whereas, I got to LOOK at how nice my new effects looked, for many days, while I waited for the “afterthought” correct UK adapter to arrive – and, looking is not HEARING or ENJOYING, is it?? and

d) they did NOT intend for you to receive the WRONG PLUG type, that does NOT plug in, in your country, and is, to a UK customer anyway, a useless LUMP OF PLASTIC with two round pins sticking our of it.

 

CONCLUSION (?)

 

i rest my case.  As Bryan Ferry once said “don’t let this happen to you!!”

I told you I could find the STUPID stuff.

 

 

 

peace and love and UK POWER SUPPLIES FOR ALL!!!!

 

Dave 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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“islands” and other extraordinary albums…

I came to the music of King Crimson in a fairly random way, I simply started buying their albums, without any knowledge of their running order, the players on the discs, or anything.

I think the first one I bought was “Red”, which I liked very, very much.  Then, it was “Larks Tongues In Aspic” which had a huge, huge impact on me…and then, I bought “Islands” – which I thought was absolutely terrific, but clearly, cut from a different cloth than my first two acquisitions.  After that, I have no idea what I bought, perhaps “USA” – because it was live – and that was another amazing disc – my gut feeling was, I like everything this band does (but everything this band does, is SO different) – from the remarkable and incredibly jazzy “Lizard” to the heavy prog of “Larks’ Tongues” and on up till the end – the live “USA” disk – strangely, with re-dubbed violins – we never really understood why that was.

Getting these remarkable discs out of order, willy-nilly, was probably as good a way as any to get into the band.  Because it arrived very early in the rotation, “Islands” got played a lot, and I took a huge liking to it’s very honest song craft, with that AMAZING saxophonist (Mel Collins, of course!) as a guitarist, I was allegedly getting into King Crimson because of their remarkable guitarist (Robert Fripp, of course!) but I found myself really liking the bands that played behind Fripp, and not knowing what was going on at all, I could recognise the funky combo that performed on “Islands” as a remarkable working unit – a real band, which was clearly, very, very different to the african percussion and ambient percussion present on “Larks’ Tongues” – I could tell that “Larks’ Tongues” was indeed, by a very different King Crimson than “Islands”.

 

Of course, as time went by, I began to read the history of the band, and began to understand who it was I was listening to, was it the original “King Crimson”; the Crimson of the Big Red Face, that only existed for a mere 11 months, or one of the strange hybrids that followed on “In The Wake of Poseidon” and “Lizard”, finally settling down to a working combo for “Islands”.

And I think like many Crimson fans, I did, in the main, favour the triumvirate of “Larks’ Tongues in Aspic”, “Starless & Bible Black” and “Red”, all with the well-known four piece of Bruford-Cross-Fripp-Wetton, and for “Lark’s Tongues”, it was slightly unique in that it featured a remarkable percussionist who left the band in the middle of their first tour, Jamie Muir.

Once you understand the chronology, it all starts to make some kind of sense, although it’s quite difficult to assimilate the “first four” or the “first five” if you add in the live, and very rare and “Import Only” “Earthbound” which I had to special order from a specialist shop to get.  By then, I had everything else – so “Earthbound” with it’s absolutely searing sax from Mel Collins on “21st Century Schizoid Man”, was the missing link between “the first four” the “last three”, if you will.

It’s interesting, I think, I always call it “the first ten” because that’s the classic package, of the band that existed roughly ftom 1969 thru 1974 and then called it quits.  But if you think about it, Fripp did an unusual thing – he book-ended the two different eras with a live album.

So you get the “first four”:

In The Court of the Crimson King

In The Wake of Poseidon

Lizard

Islands

followed by, with some difficulty, the live album

Earthbound

 

Then you get the “last three”:

Larks’ Tongues In Aspic

Starless & Bible Black

Red

followed by, with some difficulty, the live album

USA

It’s an odd pattern, to say the least. Four studio albums, one very rare and hard to obtain live album, three more studio albums, followed by a brilliant live album.

 

That’s my classic “first 10” and for many years, that was all we had – the only other live material available was on expensive and shoddy bootlegs, and you were never quite sure about the information on such records, was it really at that venue?  Was it really on that day?

Then, Fripp introduced the beautifully-covered “A Young Person’s Guide To King Crimson” which gave us a lot of answers, it had an amazing booklet in it, where every gig the band ever did was listed by city and date – so that became our Bible, the only reliable, Fripp-produced list of gigs – and it was a really nice compilation, too, containing a rare demo version of one of their earliest tracks, “I Talk To The Wind” that featured Fairport Convention vocalist Judy Dyble on vocals – who was at that time, the girlfriend of one Ian McDonald.

It was a lovely compilation otherwise, a beautiful piece of artwork, but musically it didn’t present anything much that was new – it was definitely a look back.

So I guess that is the eleventh disk of my “original ten” if you will.

Once King Crimson reformed a few times, and Fripp started releasing better-quality bootlegs of the band, the full picture of King Crimson came sharply into focus.  I could revel in any number of remarkable “Islands” bands shows, including one where they actually play the title track, something they very, very rarely ever did.  I could hear this very funky quintet (the firth member being lyricist Peter Sinfield, who operated the VCS3 from the soundboard) and Ian Wallace’s mighty VCS3-altered drum solo became a huge highlight of the tours.

The “Islands” band was literally a group that could play from a whisper to a scream, Mel would put away his saxes, and play the flute, ever so beautifully and gently, and vocalist Boz would sing lovely Crimson ballads from the first four albums with real intent – I love his live performances of these classics such as “Lady of the Dancing Water” or “Cadence and Cascade” – Fripp disavows them, he felt that Boz was not a good singer for the quiet pieces; but that he excelled on the rocking ones – my own opinion was the exact opposite, I’m afraid.  Sure, I love to hear this band roar through “Schizoid Man” or “Pictures Of A City” as much as the next guy, but when they turned down, and Fripp consulted his personal dictionary of tasty jazz guitar chords – Boz could do no wrong, if you ask me.

So after only having “Earthbound” to represent the music of the “Islands” band, for many, many years, it was a huge deal to suddenly be able to either buy CDs of their live shows, and / or downloads – a huge deal, because the limited view of what they were capable of “live” given to us by “Earthbound” could finally be laid to rest, and we learned very quickly that this band was a stomping, kicking beast of a rocker, but it was also capable of incredible, gentle beauty, as found in the two quiet tracks I mention above, along with rarities like the live version of “Islands” itself, which is an incredibly brilliant rendition of a truly beautiful song, and features even better guitar than on the studio version.  Why they removed it from the running order so quickly, I will never understand, because it was so incredibly beautiful.

I would, at a guess, think that it might have been an issue with having just two mellotrons to try and recreate the orchestral mood of the studio track, but I think they do a splendid job, with an improved guitar part, and a great vocal from Boz, too.  Again – RF has said that Boz “did not convince” on the ballads – but I do disagree, I think he had a beautiful voice for both rock and ballads alike, and that his voice was a godsend – he was the perfect lead singer for that band.

In any case, they may have stopped playing “Islands” live after just a few attempts at it, but they did continue to play ballads at almost every show, and some of those recordings are incredibly beautiful – because Fripp carries the tracks with his incredible, concise guitar arrangements, while Mel just plays really beautiful flute solos and the rhythm section plays quietly and accurately – it’s really about Fripp’s guitar and Boz’s vocal (and bass playing too, I should add).

So if you do get a chance to pick up some of the live CDs by this band, I highly recommend that you find ones that include a ballad.

Back in 1978, or whenever it was – out of an entirely random series of purchases, I would buy a new Crimson record each week, I somehow fell in love with “Islands” because, perhaps, it was so, so strange, with the incredibly jet-lagged guitar solo from “Ladies of the Road” to Fripp’s vibrant harmonium playing on the title track.  This album also includes one song that the band never did perform live, because it was an orchestral piece written by Fripp to serve as an instrumental introduction to the final piece on the album, the title track – so what you hear is first, “The Song of the Gulls” which is orchestral/instrumental, followed by the vocal piece “Islands” which, I should add, contains one of Peter Sinfield’s most beautiful lyrics ever – I love all of his lyrics on “the first four” – but I have a special place in my heart for the lyrics to the “Islands” album in general, and the song “Islands” in particular – it’s truly beautiful imagery, and Boz’ gentle, quiet delivery makes the lyrics hit home so hard, just really gently and beautifully sung – there’s no other song quite like it in the Crimson canon.

It is, after all, the end of an era, because Earthbound, while it does have an outrageous version of “21st Century Schizoid Man” on it, is somewhat of a disappointment – it’s not in my top ten concerts by the “Islands” band.

I think it must have been an almost random selection, let’s just pick an “average” show, one of those ones where Mel is really kicking ass – and that’s what they did.

But – there is a lot more depth and beauty to be found, if you explore the world of live shows now available from this band – in particular, I recommend the earliest shows, where they have literally just come from the studio, and the songs much more, resemble the album versions, whilst over time, they began to stray wildly from the original forms, so if you want to experience the truest approximation of a perfect Islands band live show – stick with the earliest shows – the double CD at Brighton springs to mind as a good one, but you really can’t go wrong.

Even “Earthbound” has it’s positive moments.

For me, it was really, really nice to see King Crimson not once, but three times on their most recent tour of Britain and Europe, and to see that thanks no doubt to the ministrations of young Jakko Jakszyk, that Robert has indeed, made his peace with this record that at one point, he didn’t want to think about or look at every again.

So much so, that they now play two tracks from the record live, which is an astonishing and almost impossible feat – I couldn’t believe my own luck, I was not only going to see King Crimson play repertoire from across their career(s) but I was going to hear them play two songs from Islands as well – “Sailor’s Tale” and “The Letters” – and for me, that really felt like full closure – both Ian Wallace and Boz Burell have passed away, but Fripp in this way remembers them – and brings their amazing music to King Crimson fans via the 2015 incarnation of the band.  I think that is absolutely brilliant!  And the other player from the Islands band – is IN the new band, and it’s so, so lovely to hear Robert and Mel playing together again – Mel is an incredibly gifted player, and having him in the band has been absolutely brilliant.

I think that everyone knows and loves “In The Court Of The Crimson King” but then after that, doesn’t really know how to form an opinion of the band that made those next three records – “In The Wake”, “Lizard” and “Island” – each with different singers, different musicians, where only Fripp is the constant.

If we set aside the legendary first incarnation of King Crimson, and look at what happened afterwards – how the band changed in the studio – but that last incarnation, with Boz being taught how to play bass bv rote by Robert – he was originally just their singer – they couldn’t find a bass player – so he became the bass player! – they got it right, and the album they made, in 1971, still stands up today as an odd masterpiece of jazzy, blowing prog like no other.  if you are not familiar with “Islands” – I cannot recommend it more highly – in some ways, it’s my favourite King Crimson album.

It moves between so many moods, the lyrics are outstanding, there are great guitar parts and guitar solos, there are great sax and flute solos – the combination of Robert Fripp and Mel Collins, both of them mellotron-playing soloists – was a very dangerous one, and one that created a remarkable record with an incredible edge – “Islands”.  The record then travels through chaos until you reach the last two tracks on side two, when peace and beauty are restored in an incredible way – a truly gorgeous way.

 

 

 

“Islands hold hands, ‘neath heaven’s seas…..”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beatle George – the influence of a leg end

I grew up in the Beatle Era. The Beatles invaded America when I was four, five years old. One of my earliest memories is of, standing on the lawn of the family home at 6728 Mineral Drive, in what is now San Carlos, California and hearing the sparkling guitars and soaring vocal harmonies of a new Beatles track called “Nowhere Man”. I’ve never been able to forget that moment, because from then on, the Beatles were “my band”.

I wanted to be George Harrison; I wanted a guitar for my ninth birthday, and, I got one. But I didn’t end up learning to play one properly until a bit later, when I was 12, 13 years old, and there were all these amazing new groups and albums like “Led Zeppelin II” or “No Time” by “The Guess Who”, so much amazing music to explore…

But I never ever got over my initial love for the music of the Beatles,and it really was, for me, the sound of the guitars that reeled me in, that caught my ears and my attention…in particular, the sound of George Harrison, who played a really magical role that was called “lead guitar”. The guy who had to be serious, had to play the most difficult parts live.  For several years, I only had albums by The Beatles…I mean, you don’t really need anything else, do you?
I wanted to be that guy, I really did want to be George – and later on, as George grew as a songwriter, turning out amazing tunes like his trio of songs from the “revolver” album:

Taxman

Love You To

I Want To Tell You

…surely, three of the most amazing “pop songs” ever written or recorded, sheer Harrison genius – nobody saw it coming, we all figured, Lennon and McCartney, those are the two guys to watch in this band, those are the writers….well, yes, but really, all four of the Beatles were the writers, and even Ringo wrote some great tunes…but for me, it’s always been all about George, those odd B-sides like the astonishing “Old Brown Shoe” or the seriously beautiful “The Inner Light”…where do songs that unique, that incredible, COME from?

The imagination of one man, Beatle George. The mind that brought us the wit of “Piggies” and the warning of “Savoy Truffle” but then there was his lead guitar playing too, not just on his own songs, but on many of those Lennon andMcCartney songs, too. A new kind of lead guitar, razor sharp fuzz tones, detuned guitars (think of the lead solo in “Fixing A Hole” from Sgt. Pepper) when you heard it, you knew it was George. A simply brilliant guitar tone, and a beautiful, concise style.

As the years progressed, George got into playing slide guitar, and very very quickly, developed a trademark slide guitar “tone” (think of the slide guitars on John Lennon’s “How Do You Sleep?” from the “Imagine” album) some of George’s finest slide work…you should hear the out takes from that session, too, on the Lennon box set…amazing slide guitar. But the special tone George got for his slide parts, which really only reached full maturity by the time of his second solo studio album, “Living In The Material World”, which, by the way, is an amazing collection of truly beautiful songs…you owe it to yourself to hear this record if you haven’t done so, so far…its quietly brilliant.

George was always economical with his guitar playing, he never over played, and it was that economy, which at first, was an enforced economy, it was Beatle-driven, here’s your eight bars George, go for it – so George learned to play well in a very small piece of allotted “solo” time. As time progressed, George did play some nice, longer solos, but that economy was always present, he always reigned himself in and never got boring or predictable.

You never knew what you were going to get with George, and his own songs were a mystery even to the other Beatles, who would bemusedly play on, say, 102 takes of a song like “Not Guilty” without complaint, as George continued the search for that elusive ‘perfect take’, and if it took 102 takes then that’s what it takes.

In some cases, no Beatles version was considered “good enough”, so we simply waited, and eventually we did get to hear the properly recorded version of the song “All Things Must Pass” – on a George Harrison record, not on a Beatles album. The same held true for “Not Guilty” where we had to wait even longer for George’s “perfected” version – again, on a George Harrison album, not on a Beatles album.
If you happened to own or know where to borrow the right Beatle bootlegs, then you might have at least heard the Beatles’ versions of “All Things Must Pass” and “Not Guilty” but most people had to wait until George put out the definitive editions of those songs.

 

I never minded waiting, although I do remember being very impatient to get George’s first solo album, the three LP “All Things Must Pass” and I first heard it in Uganda, in the home of some Peace Corp workers who had the brand new pre-recorded cassette version of the album, so that was very exciting, and then I got to hear it in Amsterdam, too, in a massive record store, complete with 60s erotic posters (“wow” was all I could say) – where I had to motion to the bored Dutch girl to turn the record over again, please…five times, because I didn’t know a single word of Dutch.

I finally purchased my own copy, in the Netherlands, and took it back to the USA with me, where I played it endlessly. The only record that excited me more than ATMP was the forthcoming “Concert For Bangladesh” which was another one I just couldn’t wait for, the idea was fantastic, half the Beatles plus Clapton and even the reclusive Bob Dylan…here were another six sides of amazing music, but amazingly, over time, it is Side One that stands the test of time the best, with Ravi Shankar on sitar, and the amazing Ali Akbar Khan on sarod, Alla Rakah on tabla…their piece of Bangladeshi folk music, “Bangla Dhun” just absolutely blows me away. These performers are at the top of their skill level, and are playing with speed, accuracy, and sheer musical joy….its amazing to see it in the film version, it truly is the best part of the concert!

That performance opened up my fourteen year old eyes to the sheer beauty of Indian melody and music, and I followed the careers of Shankar and Khan until the present day. Each the master of their instrument, I had George Harrison to thank for bringing that music into my life. And years later, that led me to a house concert at Ravi Shankar’s house in Encinitas, California, where I sat on the floor and listened to Ravi’s daughter play with the remarkable Bikram Ghosh on tabla…a remarkable “house concert” that I will never forget.

I was lucky enough too, to see Ravi and Anoushka performing live in more standard music venues, too and their music has always blessed my ears with its beauty.

So the influence of George Harrison changed me as a person, so much, that I went from being a fan of pop and rock, to being one who also loves the sarod, and loves listening to the master of the sarod, Ali Akbar Khan, play the sarod. Sure, it started on TV, watching the famous Ed Sullivan show where the Beatles performed, and seeing how serious George was, playing his lead guitar lines so carefully and so perfectly, and taking his concise eight bar solo so carefully, too…

Then it was the movie “A Hard Day’s Night” watching George playing his intensely cool guitar parts on film, trying to analyse what he was playing, on something like “You’re Going To Lose That Girl” trying to understand what he was doing with his guitar parts and then, that mad solo…amazing stuff. All the while, singing his harmony vocal parts as if they were easy, as if the guitar part was easy, he made it look easy!

And then there was that tender rendition of “And I Love Her” the first great Beatle love song, and that was my first exposure to nylon string classical guitar, and George worked it out and played the lead parts beautifully in that tune…really simple, yes, but really effective and quite beautiful when you are a young George-guitarist-wannabe like I was…I thought that performance was incredible, and really beautiful…and a lot of that is down to how George handles the nylon guitar part.

That inspired me directly, seeing George play on TV and in films, and hearing him on record, too, on vinyl, was a true inspiration for a budding teenage guitarist such as myself. But later,by presenting the music of Ravi Shankar and friends to the Western world, that opened me up to an entire new universe of music. Thousands of years old oral traditions, of the sitar and the ragas, or rags, that Shankar learned from his teacher, that stretched.back in time, an amazing musical heritage and proud tradition…brought to me by Beatle George.

He really was The Quiet Renaissance Man of the Beatles, later, he brought an entire Indian orchestra into the studio to record “Within You Without You” in 1967…and in 1974, at the Los Angeles Forum, I saw a different Indian orchestra perform, led by Ravi Shankar, the opening act for the first of just two solo tours undertaken by George, live in 1974, playing brilliantly but with a hoarse voice…and again, in less stressful times, 1991 in Japan with his old friend Eric Clapton.

I feel so privileged that I got to see George play, and his guitar playing was awesome, including some of that amazing slide (in the first song, no less) and it was a night I’ve never forgotten. In fact, over time, I managed to see three of the four Beatles perform live…so I am very fortunate indeed. Only Lennon eluded me, but three out of four is not bad at all. At that 1974 Forum gig, George even played his specially modified version of Lennon’s “In My Life” and that was really cool.

George Harrison, the guitarist, was a huge inspiration to me as a kid, and I absolutely took up the guitar because of him, and the rest of the Beatles too. When I was a kid growing up, the Beatles were our heroes, and they raised the bar so high, that soon they became the benchmark to judge new groups by: “they’re OK, but they are not as good as the Beatles” – I don’t know how many times I said that about groups, or if a group was good, you’d say they were “almost as good as the Beatles”…it was the benchmark by which all other groups were measured, for years after the Beatles themselves broke up…we still judged new bends against their music….

Sure, in time, as I grew older, there came guitarists with more technical skill than George, but most of those players, probably looked up to the Beatles in the same way I did. OK, George was no Steve Howe or Robert Fripp, but, George did write “Something” and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and “Taxman” and “If I Needed Someone” and “The Inner Light” and “My Sweet Lord” and “Within You Without You” and “Here Comes The Sun” and…

I could go on, but you get it, I’m sure. George didn’t need to play like the proggers, because the proggers built their music on the back of the Beatles and atop the pop music from the end of the 60s, and George’s guitar playing was what it needed to be to realise those songs.

And that includes the whole of “All Things Must Pass” including the remarkable “Apple Jam” where we do get a hint of George’s guitar prowess, holding his own even against Clapton, and sounding amazing across the entire Beatles catalogue, from the very beginning, and on through his 1970 masterpiece, “All Things Must Pass” as well and also on  “Living In The Material World” – and occasionally on his later records.

Some of his best guitar work can be found on his 1971 solo album, “Living In The Material World” – especially “that slide” sound; but it cropped up whenever it was needed…on Lennon’s “How Do You Sleep?”, on the 74 and 91 tours…not to mention his standard soloing, on “Apple Jam”, on “Something”, where he famously asked to record the solo along with the live strings overdub, to get a more “live” feel for the solo – and of course, that was the take – the keeper. And what a beauty it is, too.

There are so many specific examples of great Harrison guitars, that I could just keep listing them, but instead, you should just listen…and you will hear them. I certainly did.

What I would give to be able to write a song like “The inner Life”. Or “Something”.  Or maybe one that is half as good :-).

Yes, I’d settle for that, thanks.

We miss you, George.

 

King Crimson – Tivoli Vredenburg, Utrecht, Holland – 20150924

For the third and final of our “three of a perfect pair” (see how I did that – effortlessly!) we went slightly further afield, and for me, seeing King Crimson playing on European soil, in Holland, in 2015 – was not only very, very surreal, but it brings a nice sense of closure for me over time. Three gigs, in three countries, and for us, in many ways, the Tivoli show was the best.

I never saw the 1969, 1971 or 1972-1974 King Crimson line-ups, for me, I started out with another “three of a perfect pair”, all which took place in San Diego, California (where I lived at the time) during the first half of the 1980s:

November 22, 1981 – UCSD Gymnasium, University Of San Diego Campus

August 10, 1982 – Fox Theatre, San Diego

June 8, 1984 – SDSU Ampitheatre, San Diego State University

(eleven years pass)

then, as a sort of strange Crimson interlude, I saw a pair of live performance by the redoubtable “double trio” during the mid-90s:

June 28 1995 – Symphony Hall, San Diego, CA

July 30, 1996 – Summer Pops Bowl Park (where finally, I got to hear “Schizoid Man” live at last!!).

(a non-descript outdoor venue where I handed out flyers to the concert-goers for Mark – and in return, got a DGM T -shirt!).

(nineteen years pass)

which then brings us to the three current 2015 shows we’ve just completed, with the September 24th, 2015 performance in Utrecht still ringing in my ears…

this show was different in a number of very significant ways, from the two UK shows we’d seen on September 14th and 17th, and we found it very enjoyable because we were much farther back in the venue, this time, up pretty high in the stalls, but it’s a beautifully-built , steep-seated theatre – so no matter how high up you are, you aren’t really that far away from the stage.

but, that actually meant that we could hear the band better, and. hear the bass a bit better, and the overall sound mix was “best” for us, out of the three shows:

September 14, 2015 – Symphony Hall,  Birmingham, England

September 17, 2015 – Usher Hall, Edinburgh, Scotland

September 24, 2015 – Tivoli Vredenburg, Utrecht, Holland

but I am getting ahead of myself…

the Utrecht show began as all shows did, with the eiree, dissonant Robert Fripp Soundscape playing for perhaps fifteen minutes prior to show time; people were slowly finding their seats in the lovely, intimate theatre which was apparently bereft of any staff whatsoever, since there were no ushers of any kind in sight. we found our seats well ahead of time, but as we approached the later European start time of 20:00, a curious thing happened.

the Soundscape faded down briefly.  Then, a lone spotlight picked out RF’s “Lunar Module” rack mount rig and empty guitar stool, the theatre dark save for the strangely lit “Fripp” area.  Then the Soundscape returned, up to full volume again…and another wait of perhaps ten minutes this time (all the while, with that oddly lit Fripp guitar stool and guitar kit still bathed in that bright, bright spotlight), ending when the band finally emerged onto the stage.  This strange combination of Soundscape and the spotlight on the work area of the band’s leader, seemed to be saying something, but I wasn’t quite sure what.  Perhaps “this is where Soundscapes come from”, I don’t know.

so this was a bit of a different start to the show, the UK shows started earlier (at 19:30) and were a bit more on time, here in Utrecht, we started at a more Continental hour, and the band were a bit fashionably late. From our bird’s eye viewpoint this time, we could see well and hear the band really well indeed, and sonically, this show was the clear winner of the three shows we attended – they sounded fantastic.

the set opener remains unchanged, and as I never dreamed I would ever, ever, in a million years, see King Crimson playing “Larks’ Tongues In Aspic, Part I” live, hearing it for the third and final time for this year (this MONTH!!) was something that I really enjoyed, the new arrangement is fantastic and I particularly like the drum parts and the way the two guitars divided up the work, a fantastic song and it just keeps getting better each time.  to a lesser extent than previously, we still had some difficulty at some times, in hearing Tony’s bass or stick, but apparently this is a fairly common issue at all of the shows (or so I have heard, anyway).

it could simply be the placement of the two lines, front and back, and the front line is quite loud….so that may well make things difficult for poor Tony, located as he is with four fairly loud objects encircling him: Mel, Pat, Bill and Jakko.

that may be part of the problem, or it could just be that Pat’s drum kit simply overpowers the bass from time to time, I am not really certain why the level of the bass does seem to be an ongoing issue – we noted it at all three venues we saw shows at, but it had definitely improved by he time we reached Utrecht. From high up, and this time, we were on Fripp’s side of the stage – things sounded good.

at Birmingham (Sept 14th), we were on the left side, sort of in front of Mel and Pat but off to the left; in Edinburgh (Sept. 17th), we were in the fourth row directly in front of Pat, so being both on the far opposite side, and being both “back” and “up”, meant that the Utrecht (Sept. 24th) show sounded different.  There was noticeably more Gavin Harrison in our mix. And we could hear Robert more clearly, being on his side of the stage. And Jakko, too.  The “guitars” mix was better, too.

so it was actually a blessing, getting “bad seats” (actually, it was such a nice theatre, there really was no such thing) – we’d been too close to the band at the other two shows – well, not “too close”, it still sounded amazing, but, we did get a clarity at Utrecht that we didn’t experience during the other two shows.

when “LTIA Part I” came to an end, we got our first surprise: a changed-up set list, so here, in second position, came the very powerful “Level 5” – in the section of the concert where new material normally appeared. this change made me really happy as it meant that this set would not be the same as the two shows we’d previously seen.

then things really took a new turn, in the form of the title track of “a scarcity of miracles” – which I enjoyed immensely, it was totally unexpected; Jakko was in fine voice, and it was nice to see Robert playing quite a bit of keyboard, taking his keyboard duties as seriously as his most difficult lead guitar solo.  the last time I saw Robert Fripp playing a keyboard was in 1981, where he did a bit of keyboard for “Sartori In Tangiers” or some such 80s tune in a live setting.

I really didn’t expect to hear any tracks from the “Scarcity Of Miracles” album, and of course it’s also a great showcase for Mel, too, who sounded great on the track.

once that surprising song choice ended, the “new music” section could finally begin, so we got “Meltdown” and what I think was “Hellhounds Of Krim” – I still don’t have a handle on what the percussion-based pieces are called – but I do prefer “Meltdown” now, to the now-absent “Suitable Grounds For The Blues”, so of those two non-percussion based new songs, we got the one I prefer – so more good luck for me.

then the set returned to something that more resembled the sets we’d seen, with a lively “Pictures Of A City” (featuring more amazing work from Mel of course) which was then followed by the fantastic new arrangement of “The Construction Of Light” – which I love, especially the final flute solo from Mel – I don’t know why, but I really like that part.

I should note here the remarkable talent of Jakko, who learned the interlocking “Fripp and Belew” guitar parts flawlessly, and this is especially notable on “The Construction Of Light” (and on “Level 5”,  etc.) – it’s concise, precise, correct and beautiful, too…Jakko is a natural, and the incredible range of guitar parts he is required to play, from picked mock-acoustic guitar on the 1969 tracks, to the precision interlocking parts of something like “The Construction Of Light” from 2000, or to the uproarious and wonderful guitar parts on the two tracks from 1971’s “Islands”…Jakko nails them all. He makes it look easy!!

speaking of the 1969 tracks, next up comes the first of the three (from the first album) that they often do now in 2015, “Epitaph” and this is yet another piece where Jakko truly stands out; a good vocal, carefully picked mock acoustic guitar while singing lead vocal…he knows these songs so, so well, and sings them as if the spirit of Greg Lake was inhabiting him.

I think that the first ten King Crimson albums are some of Jakko’s favourite music, much of which he learned some years back for the 21st Century Schizoid Band (who performed much of the same early repertoire as the 2015 KC does), he takes the twin tasks of singing the vocal, and playing the guitar parts note-perfect and tone-perfect too (I couldn’t believe the lengths he went to, in the 21st Century Schizoid Band, to play every Fripp note, chord or even special effect, as accuraviewedtely as humanly possible) – an astonishing performance then, and even more amazing now he is in the “real” King Crimson.

I think that Jakko does really well on all of the material, but he really seems to live and breathe the songs from the first four albums (except Lizard, from which they don’t seem to perform any tracks currently) so when he sings something like “Pictures Of A City” or “21st Century Schizoid Man”, or, indeed, “Epitaph” or “The Court Of The Crimson King” – I think he really feels it from the heart. It’s clear to me that he truly, truly loves this music.

the very solemn “Epitaph” then gives way to Gavin Harrison’s lovely little ditty “Banshee Legs Bell Hassle” which makes for a wonderful, cheerful bridging piece to the next Musical Great Leap Forward – “Easy Money” , which is always a high point in these concerts. It’s a chance for the whole band to shine, Mel has invented some great sax parts for it, Jakko sings the original lyric rather than the “USA” or “naughty” version, and Pat turns up with some of the original sounds from the original recording, such as the laugh box that he “plays” at the end. they really do a great job of re-creating the unique sonic atmosphere of this classic 1973 track…I love hearing “Easy Money” live, I can’t get enough of it really, it’s always over far too quickly.

Fripp does take a remarkable solo during “Easy Money”, using a great vintage Fripp tone dialled in on his trusty Axe-FX II effects unit, and I was privileged to see and hear him approach that solo on three different occasions, and this one was fantastic as always, a wonderful, nostalgic 1973 style lead guitar solo with cracked Wah and distortion to the fore.

from here on out, the show just hits highlight after highlight, this is really my favourite part of the show, and the next two tracks are probably my favourites, the melodramatic “The Letters” which features Fripp playing an ungainly but wonderful guitar part, a solo atop Mel‘s rollicking saxes, followed by the absolutely sublime live performance of “Sailor’s Tale”, a great instrumental featuring Mel Collins on screaming impossible sax solo, with Jakko and Robert locked in on their long, sustained notes in perfect twinned guitar harmonies.

oddly, both Pat and Gavin fall completely silent during most of this track, leave Bill Rieflin (ex-Ministry) to handle the drum part on his own; only rejoining him when he has to switch to mellotron for the ending section. Somehow, having just Bill playing drums on this, made it sound right – it just worked best with one kit – and they realised that – and I really admire that decision.  I admired Pat and Gavin for being absolutely silent and motionless during most of this piece. Two fantastic vintage “Islands”-era Crimson songs played in incredibly accurate detail, with an absolutely swinging drum and cymbal part from Bill – he really nails (the late) Ian Wallace’s drum part.

did I mention Jakko’s impassioned reading of the lyrics for “The Letters”, he really sings “The Letters” so, so beautifully, it’s such a tragic tale, beautifully sung right up to the fantastic lyric “impaled on nails of ice…and wait for emerald fire”…which eventually leads him to the final, utterly a capella stanzas.  A roar of applause greets him when his lone voice finally falls silent with “…I take my leave of mortal flesh”.  Shivers.

I often think that Jakko gets a bit short-changed here; he is alternately viewed as, usurping Adrian Belew’s “rightful place” in King Crimson (is there such a thing, for anyone except Robert himself?? I don’t think so!) or not doing justice to a certain vocalist, or whatever – but, if you think about it, the expectation that rides on this young man’s shoulders is considerable:  he has to sing like Greg Lake, he has to sing like Boz, he has to sing like John Wetton, and he has to play guitar like Robert Fripp. All four things, of which he does, without issue, without fuss – he just does it – and I think he is a remarkable, under-appreciated part of the band.  Huge expectations – and Jakko delivers, night after night after night.  He is a brilliant guitarist, too – he’s the “other Fripp” in the band 🙂

with the two amazing songs from “Islands” now done, at this juncture in the concert, I had no idea what to expect.  Would they just do the typical “last three” and be away, or what?  I didn’t have long to wait to find out, as the crashing riff and insanely-clever triple drum threat arrangements of “One More Red Nightmare” began. What a treat, too, to finally “see” just exactly how Gavin worked out the drum parts, and to see the amazing co-ordination between the three drummers on this song from 1974’s “Red” album.

this song holds fond memories for me,as I used to play and sing it, in one of my bands (Pyramid) when I was about 21 or so. the slow sections that modulate between either an E Minor To D motif, or, move up to a G minor based section, were brilliantly executed, with Mel’s snarling saxes over the two guitars…and finally, the whole band hits that opening riff hard, the triple drummers out do themselves once again, and one of the most amazing tracks of the night is over.

I was personally ecstatic that they included this song in Utrecht, it really made the set so special for me…I got my cake and ate it too, I got a different set from Birmingham or Edinburgh; I got “One More Red Nightmare” without giving up my two precious “Islands” songs.  Perfection – an inspired variation of set list.

and thence, following immediately, the beautiful “Starless”, with Mel Collins and Robert Fripp sharing that thick, liquid melodic line so perfectly, Mel in particular has clearly studied the recording incredibly well, but together they just sound so excellent on this track.  Fripp bends those notes so, so precisely this time, a great vocal from Jakko, this song works so well, too, with the triple drummers.  Tony gets a real workout, as well, playing the lead bass part for the last two-thirds of the song, until the fast bit at the end, which resolves at last into that amazing Fripp / Collins melodic conclusion – so, so beautiful!!

the Dutch crowd were very responsive indeed, I’d say they even gave the Scottish crowd in Edinburgh a run for their money, but both Scottish and Dutch were much louder and more demonstrative than the audience at Birmingham was.

A long, long, loud round of applause erupted at the conclusion of “Starless”, followed by rhythmic clapping eventually brought the band back for the two final numbers, another finger-picking exercise for Jakko in the form of “The Court Of The Crimson King” which also features the Michael Giles-channelling Pat doing his very damnedest to break his drum heads with the ferocity and speed of his drum rolling – such a powerhouse of a performer, Pat absolutely propels the final section of this song into a kind of drummer’s stratosphere.

meanwhile, Robert’s subtle, reverbed lead guitar, was so so lovely, working perfectly with Jakko’s mock acoustic guitar, and the vocal, too: “the yellow jester does not play, but gently pulls the strings…” Cue RF, gently bending between one half step and another, as if in answer to the lyric’s meaning, his guitar on this was just perfectly done, sounding very, very much like the original.

finally, it’s the end, which means it’s time for “21st Century Schizoid Man” 2015-style. Jakko sings the lyric like a man possessed, even dragging a little bit of actual melody out at the end of each spat-out line…an almost-melodic “….century schizoid man….” For me, this is one of the most altered arrangements, and it took me awhile to realise that actually, there is no real lead guitar “solo” at any point. RF does play a wonderfully convoluted descending guitar lead that walks right down to Mel’s solo (which doesn’t last long enough to become a solo) – and Mel just owns the song from there on out.

the band of course, all join together for the “precision part” which goes without incident, and then, the final verse, the final chorus…the wild ending that suddenly stops in dead silence…and the show is over.

the Dutch crowd is on their feet cheering and once again, the applause is long and loud, as the band take their final bows and are away down the stairs…and out into the cool night of Holland.

my first ever concert in Holland, but, the last of three King Crimson shows for September, 2015 – this is a month that I will not forget any time soon!!! The quality of musicianship on display, from all seven gentlemen in the band, is simply extraordinary; the selection of songs, mind-boggling in their quality and diversity; the overall effect is simple one of wonder, you are left wondering where else music could possibly go, from what you just heard…

the melodies stay with you for days.  you find yourself singing “Easy Money” or “Starless”, all the time, or you hear the choppy chords and mellotrons from “The Court Of The Crimson King” in your head – this music stays with you, for days and days, you find yourself playing your “Red” and “Larks’ Tongues In Aspic” albums over and over again.

its now been five days since the concert, and I can still hear huge chunks of the show in my head when I think about it.

and…I’m still singing “starless and…bible black…” and then I close my eyes and wait for Robert and Mel to come in with that unforgettable melody.  sigh.

King Crimson – Usher Hall, Edinburgh, Scotland – 20150917

This then, is the second of three King Crimson gigs we are attending, the first of two shows at Edinburgh’s lovely old Usher Hall, on September 17th, three days after the first show we attended in Birmingham on 20150914; while boasting a similar set list to the show from the fourteenth, the Usher Hall Edinburgh show had a number of significant differences that are well worth noting.

First of all, is perspective; in Birmingham, we were off to the left side of Symphony Hall, slightly elevated, and back some distance from the stage, whereas in Edinburgh, we were in the stalls in the fourth row – directly in front of Pat’s drum kit with Mel just behind him…not bad at all.  So this time, still to the left but way up close in the stalls – we noticed quite a bit more detail – simply because we were so much nearer.

But first things first, the set list, which was pretty much unchanged from the show three days previous:

Taped Introduction (including the “Islands Rehearsal” snippet from the outro of the “Islands” album – in other words – the standard 2014/2015 Elements Tours taped intros – the “no photos please” vocal montage, followed by “Islands” rehearsal, and finally, the 1971 Voice Of Robert Fripp intoning the count of “1 2 3, 2 2 3″…) – which becomes the count in for:

Larks’ Tongues In Aspic, Part I

Red

Suitable Grounds For The Blues

Meltdown

The Construction Of Light

Level 5

Hellhounds Of Krim (??)

Pictures Of A City

Epitaph

Easy Money

Banshee Legs Bell Hassle

The Letters

Sailor’s Tale

Interlude (Taped audience sounds)

Starless

(Encore – after a well-deserved standing ovation for “Starless”:)

Devil Dogs Of Tesselation Row (??)

The Court Of The Crimson King

21st Century Schizoid Man

 

Since the set list is essentially identical to the Monday night Birmingham show, I will focus in on differences and details that I observed this time, that I might have overlooked with the excitement of that first show on Monday night; plus, sitting so close at the Edinburgh show, I was able to see the players in incredible detail. My new 10x binoculars helped significantly with this – if I wanted to see in close-up, what notes Robert or Jakko or Tony were playing – the binoculars allowed me to get in really close on the action, and observe chord patterns, note patterns, and playing styles in intense detail. Being in the fourth row gave us a great view of the band, but having the binoculars on top of being so close, gave me super-close up HD Guitar Vision – it was brilliant.

They all played well in Birmingham on Monday, but in Edinburgh last night…they played even better.

There were a couple of mishaps, so I shall get those out of the way, some mysterious mid to low frequency feedback was plaguing the band during “Pictures Of A City”, it was quite persistent and it ran for perhaps 40 or 50 seconds, a low, irritating non-musical tone; the band forged on as if it wasn’t happening, until eventually, the sound man (presumably) quenched it.  It returned again later, I think during Epitaph, for a shorter period of time, but that was the last of it, thankfully.
The beginning of “Easy Money” was slightly marred by an out of tune guitar (Jakko’s, I think) but then turned out fine, in fact for me, it’s a huge highlight because it’s one of the only instances where RF really tries to play a 70’s style Fripp sustained guitar solo, and that solo was a cracker, really beautiful, liquid distortion and cracked Wah pedal action…gorgeous guitar tone from Robert’s Axe FXII.

 

One of the other instances of that beautiful sustained guitar tone is Robert playing the exquisitely beautiful melody of “Starless”, however, at the end of one of those solos, his final bend ended up in a truly bum note – a rarity for Fripp.  Ever the professional, he simply looked at Jakko, and carried on as if nothing had happened.

Possibly because we were sat so close to Pat and Mel, I really noticed their playing this time, and I would say that Mel played even more spectacularly amazing sax and flute in Edinburgh, than in Birmingham, where he was awesome.  So better than perfect, really – the solos were so tight, so intense, and he absolutely steals the show with his soloing in “Pictures Of A City”, “The Letters”, “Sailor’s Tale” and “21st Century Schizoid Man” – his playing was absolutely stellar on those tracks in particular, he was consistent and excellent throughout.

Pat – well, what can I say, Pat is the master, and is my personal favourite of the three extraordinary drummers.  His intense, powerful playing on “Epitaph” and “In The Court Of The Crimson King” once again, channelling the great Michael Giles…was simply astonishing to witness at close quarters. Pat was amazing throughout the show, and I could really appreciate his contributions to the drumming really well indeed at this particular gig.

And, impressively, this time, we could hear the bass and the Stick, much, much better, so bring able to hear what Tony was playing, better than on Monday night, was great – I particularly love the verve with which he attacks the lolloping bass line of “Sailor’s Tale” – he sounds great at all times, really in tune and doing very musical, very good work on the electric string bass, the Stick, or the bass guitar, Tony always sounded really good.

But then, this is a band where everyone sounds good, all the time, and the amount of care and detail that goes into the band’s sound is truly overwhelming. Just watching the percussion section during the opening number, the incredible 2015 rendition of the 1973 classic “Larks’ Tongues In Aspic, Part I” is a lesson in musical co-ordination; all three drummers are playing many different percussion instruments to add atmosphere and ambience during the quieter sections, then sitting down simultaneously to come charging in for the heavy metal section.

Watching Pat was a revelation during this, he had clearly studied the original track well, and he picked up a myriad of strange percussion devices, and operated them at certain points in time during the “lulls” in the song – with military precision.  Then that heavy metal section would come up again, with Jakko wailing away on the high, bendy lead guitar notes, Robert, playing the chords (and often, during this concert, that was the case) and the three drummers all come in on the downbeat, and also, end each bar with a cymbal smack – and hearing the three of them, playing their hearts out underneath that ominous set of power chords – just sounded amazing.

“Red” followed immediately, and again, the band was confident, Jakko playing the long, ascending sustained lead guitar line, while Robert handled the chords; Robert played the flanged “stand-alone” chords on the “middle section”, leaving Tony and Jakko, with some assistance from Mel, to handle the beautiful melody that plays over the flanged guitar chords – and then, back into that wonderful E to F# progression, which then finally leads back to the wonderful ascending guitar from Jakko – and Mel joins in for the last few notes, so they both end up on a stretched high note that is held for just the right amount of time…perfection.

I can’t really add a lot to my previous blog’s comments on the “new” songs that appear at this point in the set, although I did find myself liking “Suitable Grounds For The Blues” a bit more than the first time I’d heard it, way back on Monday night – it, and it’s companion, “Meltdown” – are just not as convincing to me as the earlier material is.  And therein lay the difficulty – the repertoire they are playing, spans 1969 – 2003, and includes some of the most incredible of Fripp compositions and other writers’ contributions – the lyrics of Peter Sinfield are a huge part of the tracks that they perform from 1969’s “In The Court Of ‘The Crimson King”, 1970’s “In The Wake Of Poseidon”, and 1971’s “Islands” (sadly, no live versions of anything from 1970’s “Lizard”, the third album) and other contributors such as Adrian Belew, whose guitar parts on “The Construction Of Light” are absolutely brilliant – but, fair dues – Jakko played them just as perfectly and just as beautifully as Adrian ever did – and to be honest, as much as I love the music of Adrian Belew, and I liked his role in King Crimson – I am actually of the belief that Jakko is a better choice, because of his knowledge of the early catalogue, and he’s a fine, serious singer, too.

So I like the fact that Jakko is there, for example, his acoustic guitar emulations on the two quieter tracks from “In The Court Of The Crimson King” are just so spot on, he does the finger picking perfectly WHILE he sings the beautiful Greg Lake vocal melody with beautiful lyrics from Peter Sinfield!  A very beautiful example of multi-tasking – Jakko gives us the acoustic guitar, and the lead vocal, leaving Robert free to play the beautiful lead guitar parts on both “Epitaph” and “The Court Of The Crimson King” – beautiful work from both guitarists.

I am still astonished by the unexpected presence of “Easy Money” in this band’s set list, but there it is, and after a shaky beginning with an out of tune guitar, it quickly turned into one of the best songs of the night, because of Robert‘s amazing 1970s style lead guitar playing, not to mention Jakko’s brilliant vocal, and Tony doing his best to play like John Wetton – and mostly, succeeding at it.  A great rendition of a great song – complete with laughing machine at the end from Pat – just like on the album.

My favourite part of the concert then arrives – the two songs from “Islands”, and again, a delicate, beautiful rendition of “The Letters” with Fripp playing super high octave chords with a beautiful guitar sound, and Jakko playing the other picked part in time, and singing the beautiful, beautiful vocal – one of Boz’s best vocals, I believe – and then, there is an incredibly powerful part, where Robert plays some amazing, super sustained “Frippy” guitar lines, before the song begins to go…a bit mad courtesy of the amazing saxophone skills of Mel Collins, who blows his way through both “The Letters” and the second of the two tracks, which follows immediately, the instrumental “Sailor’s Tale” in astonishing form, with powerful, melody, and grace.

Mel is so amazing on both of these tracks, the accuracy with which he’s tried to re-create the original parts, while at the same time, improving and updating them – it’s just an astonishing effort on his part, and his playing breathes new life into these two songs.  Jakko’s vocal on “The Letters” is possibly my favourite vocal of the night, I love the way he sings this song, right up to the a cappella ending –  which he does just perfectly – a brilliant performance.

Once the band have played “The Letters” and “Sailor’s Tale”, two tracks from my personal favourite of the early King Crimson records, I could die happy, but, things progress, and we end up in the beauty of “Starless”, where I must mention the remarkably talented Bill Rieflin, who plays mellotron on so many of these tracks, the accurate arrangements he uses are a testament to how much he cares about getting it right, and the mellotron sounds are perfect, and the playing is perfect – and on “Starless”, it’s so, so beautiful – with Robert‘s amazing, thick sustained lead guitar line, and Mel’s sinuous horn parts snaking in between, it’s a huge highlight of the night, and the excitement of the final section, after the long instrumental build up, is undeniable.

Despite Robert’s unfortunate note in the middle of the verses, this version of “Starless” brought the band to standing position, and, brought the audience to it’s feet as well – and the applause was truly thunderous as we’d just been assaulted by a dozen of some of the most amazing progressive music ever written.  And when the band walk off, the crowd is clapping in rhythm for their return – until they do return, to play us out with the last two offerings, both from that famous debut 1969 album, “In The Court Of The Crimson King” – the title track, as the penultimate offering, followed by “21st Century Schizoid Man” complete with recorded intro (the “Wind” sessions result) – and this was another great rendition of “Schizoid Man”, with one slight disappointment – I hadn’t really noticed this at Birmingham, but I am definitely sure about it at Edinburgh – there is no guitar solo!

Robert plays the beginning of the original solo, and then does a short descending lead guitar, which is an intentional bridge to Mel, who picks up the notes from Robert, and then takes the solo proper – and Mel is great at this, he always had a solo on “Schizoid Man” back in the day, so he is the perfect player for the job, and this was no exception – he played a blinder.  But then, as the song progressed, there was a drum solo, and then, they came back in to play the “precision section” – which went flawlessly – and then to the last verse and the ending – which was dead silence at the climax of sustained rock-burn-out noise – brilliant!!  The crowd loved it, and it was a great version – but, strangely – no guitar solo.  It worked, it’s great with Mel handling the solo, but I would have loved it if Robert and Mel had each had a solo (as they used to, back in 1972) – but, this is the 2015 arrangement, so I guess that’s how it goes now 🙂

Overall, despite some annoying feedback and the very, very rare issues with the music, this was a really well-played show, and it just makes me look forward to our next and final of three shows, in Utrecht, Holland, on September 24th – I can’t wait !!

One of the things I’ve noticed about previous versions of King Crimson is that, if you listen to a series of concerts over time, you generally speaking, find improvement – parts are played better, arrangements are tweaked and re-saved, and musicians find better and more perfected ways to do things – so, over time, they tend to get better – and I realise I haven’t so far heard much of a series, but I can say, that over the three day period between Monday and Thursday. that there is improvement.

One thing that was easy to observe, was the difference in audience reception. In Birmingham, the applause was not nearly as loud or persistent after the main set, there was no rhythmic clapping to call the band back to the stage, while in Edinburgh, the Scottish crowd were on their feet and shouting for more, applauding really loudly, then, clapping rhythmically – a much much better audience response, which in turn, made the players respond positively – so while in some ways, the Birmingham show might have been more technically “polished”, here in Edinburgh, there was more emotion, more audience interaction, and in the case of one Mr. Mel Collins, some incredibly passionate horn soloing – really beautiful work, just out of this world solos on every track – the man is impossibly talented.  And when Robert Fripp and Mel Collins join forces to solo, one at a time, or together / trading / overlapping solos – it just rocks.

Both concerts had high points and low points, but I felt that the Edinburgh show was more relaxed, with a much more receptive audience, so at least in that sense, it was a “better” show – but in my mind – both of these concerts were absolutely remarkable musical experiences, once- in-a-lifetime – except, I get to see it three times in a life time 🙂

 

 

See you at Utrecht on the 24th !!!!

Happy Krimsoning !!

 

 

Dave

 

 

 

 

more app magic… and there’s a last time for everything

well, I am here again to talk about ios applications, which have become such a part of my life, that I can hardly recall the fact that four years ago, I knew absolutely nothing of them.

 

one of the first and most lasting of ios applications, has been the subject of a quiet revival over the past few months for me, and that would be, the remarkable scape, by brian eno and peter chilvers.

scape was one of the first applications of any kind that I downloaded (at some point in late November 2012!!), and I proceeded to work with it, following it’s “hints”, watching my tools and palettes grow organically, and recording scape after scape after scape after scape.  every time a new tool arrived – I would record new scapes.  a new “background” arrives – and I must records scapes, including, a scape with just that background, nothing else, in it.  and – some of the most incredibly minimal and amazing scapes were created that way.

in fact, I was so incredibly excited about the app, that back in the day,  the I authored no less than three blogs in a row that were mostly about…scape; scape week one, scape week two and scape week three…followed by a fast forward to week five of scape!  during scape week two, I noted that in the short time of just two weeks, that I had created something like 146 scapes.  most of which did not see the light of day until very recently, in early to mid 2015.

in 2012, and during early 2013, though, still feeling my way through the scape processes; I would take a new tool, and mix it up with the familiar, to see what kinds of crazy combinations of instrumentation I could come up with, mixing bells with synths with basses with just plain strange sounding samples.  some times, I would work in a very, very minimal space, one or two objects, very quiet, super ambient – on other days, I would load the scapes to capacity, hmmm, let’s see, what happens if I insert 20 or 30 bass guitars into one scape?  interesting!

so this went on, for a number of months, perhaps, six months – until, one day, abruptly, I stopped.  I had made around 1100 scapes by then, and at the time, I did take the time to record the first 30 or so, so that the world could hear how beautiful this app truly is.  I published those 30, I think I added a few more later on, and there they sat – until 2015.  for some unknown reason, I got the idea into my head, sometime near the beginning of this year, that I should capture ALL 1100 scapes, record every single one of them, capture each and every scape image (and, of course, it’s that “image” that “is” the music – the shapes, generate the music)…I would record them all.

this became then, the great project in the background.  I would work on my progressive rock song – still unfinished – and then, record a few dozen more scapes.   I would spend a Saturday working on my data, or cleaning up my music data – and, the whole time, I would be capturing dozens more scapes.  I developed tools, in SONAR, a special scape “template”, or actually, two of them – one that covered the first 50 numbers of a hundred, and the second, which covered the second 50 numbers in a hundred – which then meant, you only had to choose the appropriate template, and change the prefix from 101, to 401, or whatever you were “up to”.  soon enough, my prefixes started looking like “801”, or “901” and eventually, “1001” – and I then knew the end was in sight.  a few more weeks, and finally – they were all recorded.

of course – the work doesn’t stop there.  each file, has to be lovingly trimmed, removing the header and the tail, and then normalised to -3 db to match all of the previously released scapes – all of which have been normalised to -3.  basically, it’s the simplest mastering job in the universe, because I don’t add EQ, I don’t add reverb (tempting though THAT might be!) – I leave them untouched, exactly the way they come out when the app generates them.  they sound good enough, without me tinkering with them.  however, even though that’s a simple job, I still work on them file by file, one file by one file, to make sure there are no problems (a few stray “pops” have had to be removed from one or two captures – and occasionally, I may have to go and re-capture scapes if they have significant problems – try again – although thankfully, I’ve not had to do that yet…) and that they sound as perfect and as pristine as they can.

the best part of it though, exceeding all, has been HEARING them again.  and looking at the images used to create them, and remembering my thought processes – for example, one thing I loved to do, was, create a “basic scape” – a scape with certain elements, and then, simply copy it over and over again, each time, just changing one aspect of it – which was almost always, the “effects” – the coloured icons on the right side of the GUI, which add flangers or tremelo or chorus or whatever.  originally, that was maybe four or five different “treatments” of the same scape – but towards the end, some new effects – bright orange, and a pale blue, if I recall correctly – arrived, so towards the end, if I did a full sweep, you might get seven or eight “versions” of the same scape.

and – if it was a particularly lovely scape in it’s initial incarnation – then – you ended up with eight absolutely outstanding scapes.  so it was a good technique – take something that is proven sounding good, and then “treat” it seven different ways – and then, pick your favourite of the eight, too.  often, for me, that would either be the deep pink effect, or, the dark, mysterious green – and the green effect, whatever it is, is definitely my favourite.

I could “see myself” thinking up these processes, I could “see myself”, just by looking at the icons, the paintings that I did, that powered the scapes, what I was thinking – here was a section, where everything was COMPLETELY about minimalism.  a single effect, with nothing else.  a single background, with nothing but an effect.  two backgrounds, mixed together.  a single “E” yellow “note”, playing atop a single “mountain” or pyramid.  I could see, that often, I was stuck in “minimalist mode” for days at a time, and then, I would go back to much louder, much crazier scape designs, especially those that contain far too many bass guitars, and yet, still, somehow, work, others, where I intentionally used the most dissonant “elements” possible, to try to create a more “index of metals” vibe, and in fact, I have made a note somewhere, that one of my scapes does sound a bit like “an index of metals” sans Fripp.

as I recorded them, I would occasionally note down the names (of course, I mean the “numbers” of the scapes, since none of them have names!!) of certain scapes that I particularly liked.  then, when I moved into the mastering stage, I would do the same – so I now have a document that I’ve officially started, that is my “scapes of note” document, and once I have completed the mastering (at the rate I am going right now, that will be sometime in 2017 but who knows?) I will publish that list on the music for apps: scape eternal album on the bandcamp site – because believe you me, if you sit and listen to those “chosen” scapes in one sitting, it will blow your mind – it will be like hearing a lost, super excellent super ambient eno album that you never knew about.

for me, in the real world, it’s the equivalent of getting the remastered “neroli”, so that I could get the previously unreleased second disc – a “new”, long form eno ambient piece called “new space music” – which is right up there with “neroli” and “thursday morning” and “music for airports” in terms of being supremely beautiful and supremely ambient.  hearing those chosen scapes, will be not unlike, the first time I heard “new space music” – 50 minutes of previously unheard long-form eno ambient music – it does not really get a lot better than that.

if you had a LOT of time, my recommendation would be – listen to them ALL, from the beginning.  basically, I’ve just done that….listened to over a thousand scapes, and it was the most relaxing, beautiful experience…really relaxing.  with the odd moment of dissonance.

why?  because in my innocent, quiet way, I followed their rules – I did not jump ahead like so many scape users did – and in fact, when I found out there was a hack that allows you to expose all of the instruments, sounds and treatments in one fell swoop – I deliberately didn’t take note of it, and I have never ever done that with any scape install – I would NEVER spoil the journey of discovery that eno and chilvers worked so hard to create.  that’s just me…some want to get to all the toys right away…I was happy to wait.

the advice that the app gives you, and the way you keep receiving more and more amazing sounds, all the time, and the excitement you would feel, when you realised you had just got a truly beautiful eno fretless bass line, or, an amazing floating eno synthesizer riff – every other day, every 20 or 30 scapes – you would get another “present” – it is an amazing way to grow with the application, instead of “cheating” and going to the end…OK, for some, that’s the way, I get it – but, I can tell you – if you listen to these 1100 scapes – what you will hear, is first, a limited palette of sounds.  that directly affects the sound of the resulting scapes, and for a while, it was almost impossible to create a loud or annoying scape.  as you got more voices, and you had more ability to mix voices – then the chances of cacophony or dissonance, or both, increased significantly.

in the middle period, in the 400s and 500s, you get a medium to large compliment of instruments, and, the scapes get more complex, denser – although, I still go on self-imposed minimalist streaks, using the newer tools to create new minimalist scapes even right up to the very end.  and of course, during the last few hundred, I am finally, using ALL of the instruments, and I was receiving no more new updates – I had at last, revealed all of the instruments, backgrounds, and treatments – and then, I kept going…until one day, I just…stopped.

and then, three or four years passed, and I thought – hmmm, I really, really wish I had recorded all of those scapes.  and then that other voice, the one that thinks big, says “well, why don’t you…” and that was that.

four, five months down the road from that internal conversation – and I have them all captured and recorded.

I have, as of a few days ago, mastered 187 of them (which took me up to scape 200 – the numbers don’t match because several scapes were lost, i.e. when you erase a scape, you lose it’s auto-generated “number” – so the track number no longer matches the scape number), and as time permits, I master more and more and more and more.

Until I finish.  And then, once mastered, I upload.  Actually, as I master, I try to upload, because the more I upload, the clearer the decks are for more scapes, to upload later…to date, about 118 of them have been uploaded.

So the sound of scape, and the musical DNA of brian eno and peter chilvers, has been filling the studio monitors for many, many months, weeks and days, and it’s so strange, I’ve listened to well over 1000 scapes this year, all recorded in late 2012 / early 2013.  and just hearing them – it was so mesmerising, it was so, so incredibly relaxing – I would have scapes playing all day long, all weekend long – as I captured them – and after a day or two of listening to scapes being captured, I would be so chilled, so relaxed – they really are like a tonic, I swear – there is something about them, they are ALL so incredibly reminiscent of brian eno’s music, no matter what weird things happen in the scape – it just sounds like eno…they ALL sound like eno.  even the really strange ones – eno.

normally, it’s the ambient eno, but occasionally, you get the really strange, really dissonant eno – or other eno’s – not always pleasant.  but most of the time – you get real ambient beauty – with the very occasional journey into slightly more alternative types of ambient.  it’s a trip worth taking, and if you don’t mind waiting – well, the first hundred and some are up there, free to listen to, on bandcamp – so go have a listen – those top secret never-before-heard brian eno ambient albums are just there waiting – it’s uncanny, how after you hear 20 or 30 0f these scapes, that you get the uncanny feeling that you were just privy to a top secret performance of an unreleased eno ambient masterwork – they just sound great, to me, it will always be the best of the best generative music apps, and it’s difficult to believe sometimes that it IS generative – that the songs are literally created, by creating a visual input, of shapes, colours, backgrounds and effects that are colour-based.  but – that is how it works – you paint a picture, or, you randomly throw shapes onto a canvas – either way, it works if you spend hours meticulously building something very visually appealing, or, if you very randomly add different shapes together, or even on top of each other – or whatever, no matter what the input – it ALWAYS sounds good.

often, I would spend time working on carefully composing and arranging the shapes, more often than not, there would be a plan, a purpose, a desire to make a beautiful visual piece of art…that also happens to generate really beautiful music.

Only very occasionally would I work randomly, when I did, I’d still get good results, but I always preferred creating something beautiful and intentional, trying to make a good piece of art.  scape always rewarded me with interesting, challenging ambient music no matter what the input; I do like to think that taking time to create more meticulous art resulted in better scapes, but I can’t prove it.

 

and now for something completely different.

I told you last time about my frustrations with Notion.  It seems to be working again now, and I have managed to salvage and finish my interrupted recording, but, I am still not going to publish it yet – as I want to move it from the iPad to the desktop, to see if I can get some better instrument sounds for it – I am just not happy with some of the sounds in Notion for IPad, and I am hoping that via some process, I will be able to create a new mix of the track, using BETTER sounding instruments – so the song is on hold, I won’t release it until I’ve had time to research this.  it’s complete, it’s alternative / jazz, it’s about 8:00 long, and I’m really really happy with it – working title “abstraction distraction retraction”.  though it will be delayed, I hope to have it finished one way or the other and published this year – it’s a good track.

I have started a new track in Notion, another guitar quartet, but this time, steel string guitars rather than nylon strings, as the last guitar piece I did (“fantasy no.1 in d major for four guitars”) was. it’s only a few bars long, but it’s off to a good start, it’s in 7/4 time to start, so that makes it unusual.  working title (likely to be changed) is “relentless refraction of light”.

now that I think of it, I have a number of new tracks in various stages, from embryonic to complete; besides one complete Notion track and one just started, there is also a new proggy piece in Gadget, which is coming along nicely, and a very interesting piece, featuring vocoder vocals recorded in Attack, my new favourite drum machine, I love it!

so there is a lot of music in progress, but given my commitments over the next two months, most of these tracks wont appear until November or December – but, they will all get done, and they will all come out…

and of course there is my song made with real instruments, “the complete unknown” which is probably about 85% complete, that one may need more time, because I am in the middle of real guitar overdubs, which do take time.

I’m very happy though, that one of my very best works in a long time, “abstraction distraction retraction” is done, I do want to see if I can improve the instrumentation, but if I can’t better it, then I will just do the best I can with the existing tools.

in fact, I would dearly love to re-record ALL of my non-classical Notion tracks, with better instruments – I really would.  But – we shall see, time will tell…and all that kind of stuff…

 

so setting the problem of improving the instrument sounds in Notion for a while, I want to talk about two newer apps that I’ve been playing with, that are both in their own way, quite exciting.

 

the first one is a free app (well, it was temporarily free anyway) called “YouCompose” and at first, I scoffed – when I realised what it’s premise was – this is it:

you record a melody using a keyboard to input it, and there are various templates you can use, I used a stock quartet of horns, so my solo instrument was a saxophone – so, I played a sax melody to the best of my ability – and then, I pushed the “harmonise” button – and, in just a second or two, literally – it produced three horn harmonies – and damned if they didn’t sound half bad !!

I tried again, with a longer, more complex melody – and again, the almost instant four part harmony – well, three part harmony to your input melody – came out quite well – almost palatable.  With some difficulty, you are able to edit the  parts, you can erase bad notes, change notes with the wrong durations, and so on – it’s not too bad, although it’s no Notion when it comes to editing !

today then, I had a second session with it, and I did a session with guitar harmonics, bass guitar, clean electric guitar, and distorted guitar 2.  I did the harmonics part first, and let the rest be created by the master of harmony, YouCompose.  this time, it was quite a flop – it couldn’t seem to really figure out what to do with just harmonics for input.

so – to give it a better chance – I took command of Distorted Guitar 2 – and recorded a fake “lead solo” with no accompaniment.  pushed the magic “harmonize” button again – and this time, it produced the goods – bass, guitar and harmonics, that accompanied the lead solo really quite well.

it’s fine for free, but it does leave a lot to be desired – I tried to copy my harmonics clip into the bass slot, and it refused to paste it where I placed the cursor – it would only paste it AFTER the two existing clips of harmonics – not alongside or on top of them, as I was wanting to do (I wanted to create some counterpoint, by having the bass “follow” the harmonics – but the app simply would not let me.

so until it’s a bit more flexible with editing, moving, copying, and manipulating clips, I will continue to view it as a fascinating toy – sometimes, it does an AMAZING job of harmonising, but, there is an equal or better chance, that it will produce something quite plodding, or quite inappropriate, that does NOT sound good – and I found that I tended to delete more of it’s harmonisations than I ever saved – I only saved a few, where it had worked particularly well.  And even then – I would probably go into every clip, and make changes, to make it a bit more…human?

It is, however, an amazing experience – to play a series of notes, a melody, on your own, and then, literally two or three seconds later, you have a fully notated set of complex harmonies.  The rules for this thing must have been an absolute bastard to write, and it does operate in different keys and time signatures, as well as having some basic tempo controls (I kept selecting “lethargic” – the slowest tempo – which resulted in some dire and terrible four part harmonies, going by at dirge pace – yuick!) but I do admire the sheer bravado of it – it is hit or miss, but for me, it’s just fun, it’s kinda like spinning the wheel of fortune – will it come out beautiful, plain, or awful?  will it be OK, but flawed in places?  will it, and this is very rare – will it be achingly beautiful?  maybe, once every 100th attempt.

I don’t think that ANY computer can make up harmonies as well as a human computer, but – it can sure do it FASTER.  And if you don’t like the “detail” work of having to write out harmonies for your melodies – well then, this may be the tool for you.

I do find myself gravitating towards it when I don’t feel like working on serious music – hoping, I guess, that the magic three second harmony creator button, might create something truly amazing…and very occasionally – it does.

 

now, to my final recent discovery, I ran across this last night on the old app ticker – it’s called, I kid you not, “play the golden gate bridge” – and again, at first, I thought – this must be a joke – but it’s not, it’s actually a project by the San Francisco Synthesizer Ensemble (which you can buy on CD) where they have literally, sampled the bridge (and, the app has a special page with nine of the original samples, which are simply amazing) and then there is the actual app, which allows you to play the cables of the golden gate bridge in the manner of a harp – but, using a selection of more than a dozen possible sounds, including “fog horn” (my personal favourite), “waves”. “railing”, “lamp post”, “cable thock”, “cable click”, “south tower”, and another favourite “reverse hit” – you can select any of these amazing voices, which are developed from the original samples – and that sound becomes the sound you play on the “harp” – which is of course, the golden gate bridge, set against a cloudy sunset sky – a lovely image, and it makes beautiful, beautiful sounds.

it also allows for recording, and in fact, it has a little second page where you can record up to four different parts – so it’s like having a four channel TEAC tape deck or something, right there in your app, to overdub parts with – I think that is really excellent, and I can see myself writing pieces for this odd “instrument”, and doing videos of performances with it, too, because it is an absolutely unique way of performing (the only other app I have that is anything like this, is “VOSIS”, where you “play” a marble statue) and it’s actually a lot of fun to play.

also, some of the sounds are so beautiful, really ambient, really natural, strangely – even the metallics, all of them have a wonderful, organic feeling to them – and to me, this is such a beautifully made app – you can just about feel the love that went into it’s making – and, it’s apparently a long-standing tradition with this ensemble – their CD, celebrates the 50th anniversary of playing the bridge, while the app, celebrates the 75th anniversary – so these samples are clearly, in their blood, but also as clearly – in their minds and hearts.  there is also a beautiful art film of the bridge featuring the Ensemble’s music.

this app gets my vote, beautiful, useful sounds coupled with excellent design and playability, I can see myself performing and recording with this app for many years to come – it will especially be great for live performances.

 

what a wonderful sounding app, and so much fun to play, too!

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had a notion…

on August 3rd this year, I went from having Notion for IPad as my main compositional tool and constant companion, to sitting here once again, rebuilding the instrument database yet again,  and after a full ELEVEN DAYS of having no working Notion, and the score I was working on, which was truncated and horribly damaged, has now been “repaired” three times by Presonus themselves…I’m now walking muttering to myself “well, I had a Notion…”.

I hadn’t realised how very under my skin this handy little app had gotten, I was locked into a happy routine of working on a score almost every day (for something like two years now!) and truly looking forward to that time, too.  To suddenly be without it, and, to have a two month old score ripped into pieces by the app that gave birth to it…I was nearly traumatised by that, to be honest.

Why did this happen?

I can answer that with just two words:
Untested Update.

Presonus rolled out a massive, sweeping update to Notion for IPad, at a point in time that for me, was and still is, utterly disastrous.  A two month old score, more than 90 percent complete…

Woke up one day, turned on Notion…and 90 percent of my score just disappeared.  Like magic, but not the good kind of magic.  The bad kind.  The kind where you push “play”, and the first eight bars roll by as usual, you hear the familiar glockenspiel and timpani introduction with the crashing, distorted guitar chord…and then, while the music is still playing…

the screen goes blank.  Bars 9 thru 200 and something, are now just a big, white, empty, probably scrolling sheet of nothing.

Panic.  I never made a single audio mix of the track.  Not one.  Why would I? … When it wasn’t finished.
Right now, I am really wishing I had,  because I will consider it to be a minor miracle if I do fully recover this piece of alternative jazz-rock-something genre music…which still remains unknown.

Several very unhappy email exchanges with Presonus later, I just received the “fixed” file from their support guy.  I just played it back now.
There’s good news and other news.   The good news is, they did manage to rebuild the score’s notation, the frightening empty white pages are gone, and the piece is complete again.  Huge relief there, the piece may survive…

However…almost all of the sounds, have defaulted back to pianos.  Both guitars, became pianos.  The jazz trumpet part…became a piano.  Both of the Jazz trumpets, I should say, 1 and 2…now pianos.  The solo trumpet,whose unmistakably voice was critical to one part of the song…is now a piano.   The really good news?  Hmmm.  The English Horn still works, and, it even still sounds good.  Unlike the rest.  

The drums seem ok.  The bass guitar is absent, so I guess that it, too, is now…a piano

I re-installed the app a couple days ago, while the guy was “fixing” my score.

I had tried to re-download or restore / re-load the instruments a couple times, you have to leave your iPad on and open until it completes, which, when you have the “all” bundle…takes a few hours.  I left it on all night as usual…

Then the fun part comes.  You get a message saying: “All your sounds have successfully downloaded”.  Ha ha ha ha ha!!! VERY funny.  Not even true, either, usually.  Not reliable.

So you try your broken score again…but the glockenspiel is missing.  And you then find that in reality, NOT all your sounds have downloaded.  So you have to restart the process…again.  And sometimes, again.  Before you can even try to save your piece.
Why is the glockenspiel missing? Why because, it’s not part of the “all” package, it’s a separate download, because it’s “free”.  Only in this case, “free” means, you can have this instrument, but you need to “register” with your full name and email address.  So that’s a cost, you have to give up your personal info, if you want the “free’ glockenspiel.  That’s actually, more like mild extortion.

Truth be told, right now, the way I feel…I’d rather I’d just paid too much for it, than get it for “free”.  Jumping through Presonus’ hoops once, mildly annoying.  Twice, quite annoying.  Thrice, very, very effing annoying.  And when you have to enter your details that fourth or fifth time….you’d rather eat your own hair by then.

They don’t think about that,about what an annoyance and what a waste of precious time, it is, to type in your email address over and over and over and over and OVER again.  When you are already, maybe, the most unhappy customer a vendor could really possibly have.  Why would you put a good customer through that?

Haste makes waste.  It’s not like I am using one of my old IPad 2s, here.  I’m running this app on state of the art hardware.  It should be perfect in this clean environment.  Instead, it’s not just messed up, it’s majorly messed up.

They’ve done one update…the one that wiped out my score, and they are doing another one “soon” to fix these issues.  In my humble, unsolicited opinion…that app was FAR FROM READY to see the light of day.   Not even close!! Clearly, it cannot have been tested properly? I expect better from my vendors, and I am feeling mightily disappointed right now.

To their credit, they are trying to make it right.  But the disruption it’s caused me, the trauma of my nearly complete breakthrough-new-genre-defying piece of music being so damaged, but worst of all, my daily compositional time is taken away, for almost two weeks.

And now, I am waiting for instruments to download…waiting.  Still waiting…

I had a Notion.

Yet…I love this product.  It enabled me to (re)learn notation, which I did understand, but had never written.  My first half a year with it, I wrote notation, and in that first full year, I learned that I could write classical music, I could write jazz, I could write alternative music…with notation, much was possible than was not possible in my pre-Notion pre-IPad days.

I’ve gained skill as a serious composer of serious work, I am now on my fifth piece of classical music, thanks to Notion, so until they broke it, it had been a real game-changer for me…a brilliant piece of kit.

The beauty of the IPad version, was that portability.  Work on your pieces anywhere, anytime, thru headphones, thru Bluetooth speaker…fantastic.  Hear your changes instantly.  Compose on the fly…truly brilliant.  I am really missing that, and I hope I can go back to it, soon,

However. I have not been idle during the unfolding of this great Notional drama.
Some good things have been happening, too.  Believe it or not.

A new song in Gadget, which utilises the new Korg iM1, their beautiful emulation of the classic M1 synthesiser, heavily.  It’s only perhaps, a minute or so in length so far, but it’s really coming along nicely.  I can’t really describe it, except to say it has a quasi classical / jazzy fender Rhodes intro, and from there, breaks into M1 drum kits, mellotron emulation and nothing quite sure what else is happening, but it’s definitely going to be a song,,,I can just tell!  Watch for that eventually, “from hero to zero” it’s called,  on the Gadget eternal album.

Work continues apace on “the complete unknown”, my first long form piece of progressive rock, made with mostly real instruments.  It’s currently at stereo reduction version 8; which means in lay terms, that the acoustic guitar duo-then-trio, has been built (including a final eight hour acoustic recording session last Saturday, ouch), and, along with an extemporaneous live iPad improv using the remarkable TC-11 touch controlled synth, those two pieces have bridged the second intentionally silent section, meaning that this is the first version to play continuously (i.e. no silences) ; the first version featuring the acoustic guitar / TC-11 synth bridging piece; and the first version to be at the extended current running time of 15:57.   The previously tested mix, Version 5, was a minute or so shorter.

What does it sound like…well, it’s still early days in some respects, but there are Rickenbacker basses (dedicated to the late, great Chris Squire, who was a huge inspiration to me as a guitarist, I thought of him constantly whilst composing the bass guitar parts of this song) – so maybe, at a stretch, you could say, “Yes-like basses”…at a stretch,

Powerful drum parts, in the Dave Stafford style, with two silent sections that were back filled later on…and lots and lots of vintage keyboards…Hammond organ, mellotrons, and featuring a keyboard quartet of vintage keys, a one minute-14 second “intro” to the piece proper…but, no electric guitars yet, or guitar synths.

That’s next; wish me luck!!

Best of all, as of a few days ago, Phase One of a Very Large Ambient Music Project is now complete.

Because of that, I’ve now increased the number of scapes available on the scape eternal album, to a nice round 100 !!    So please, go and have a listen…always free to listen.

So until I can change “I had a Notion” back into “I have a Notion”, and my composing ritual can be safely re-established, you will have to make do with reports of other projects, of which, as always, there are many, and, a rather large number of new Brian Eno and Peter Chilvers samples to delight in, contained with the last 30 or 40 scapes uploaded…happy ambient Eno/DNA/ambient dreaming…

Dave

“you wake up one morning…w”

strangely, today, I find myself working on audio mixes, not that that in itself is strange, but in this case, it’s audio mixes of live performances of a song that I never, ever dreamed that I would perform in any context, anywhere – but there it is:  my second attempt, too – I’d tried it out originally, during the recording session of 20150222, but couldn’t get a take that I was happy with, so I let it go for a while – until april 19th, to be exact – when I sat down specifically to record a little-known, rare Van Der Graaf Generator b-side entitled “W”.

I had only just re-discovered this track, when I was working on other acoustic Hammill songs, it suddenly struck me during the February sessions, I should see if I can capture one of my strange renderings of this song – so I did try.  And while some of the takes were close, none were good enough to properly do justice to this rather unusual song.

hence – trying again later, which in this case, is a dedicated session to “W” – twelve takes in all, about an hour and ten minutes of session time, doing live take after take, working out the arrangement, working on the vocal – and just trying to get to a version that would indeed, do justice to the song, at least, as well as I can with my strangely gentle, twangy California accent – hardly the accent to tackle the Peter Hammill canon, but – that’s what I do – I spent many years, learning many, many Hammill and Van Der Graaf songs, and now, I find, I’d like to record them – all of them, although the amount of relearning needed my be prohibitive in some cases, while age lowering my voice might make others impossible…who knows??

but for whatever reason – I found myself trying to do this song, live, with one acoustic guitar – or rather, with  an acoustic guitar substitute, which is my roland gr-55 guitar synth.  because my real acoustic guitar is unhappy, I had to use the synth instead, which, admittedly, does look a bit odd, in the video, but it had to be – and it does a reasonable job, I have to say – not bad.  It certainly sounds acoustic on playback, and of course, I can’t resist giving it a bit of “sparkly”, by using the Waves Reel ADT plug in on it – give it some Beatles chorus or flanging – which is about the right era, “W” might have been written in the late 60s, I don’t really know, in fact, I only have two versions of it – one is the live version (from 1971) that I “grew up with”, which, oddly enough, has only just recently been released officially, on the new Van Der Graaf Generator CD “After The Flood” – At The BBC 1968 – 1977 – that live version,which is to me, an absolute Van Der Graaf rarity, coming from a rare 1971 John Peel concert, which had only previously been available on bootleg – which is where I had heard it.

years later, I also acquired the “studio” version, which again, isn’t that easy to find, but it’s out there, and of course, I had to have it – beyond that, I don’t know if there are a lot of other live versions out there, I doubt that they played it much after 1971, I am not sure about the song’s history, but I am sure of one thing:  the effect it had on me, as a young Peter Hammill fan, I just think it is an amazing performance, led initially by Dave Jackson’s amazing horn playing, and it’s odd and wonderful to hear Hammill singing and playing live on acoustic guitar – with the rest of the band, playing in a subtle and wonderful way, Hugh Banton coaxing some of the oddest and most wonderful harmonics from his Hammond drawbars – I love the organ playing on that live version, I love everything about it – it’s just one of those odd tracks that sticks in your head for some reason- I really loved that particular bootleg – it had the first three Van Der Graaf songs I ever heard on it, in this order:

1) Killer

2) W

3) Man-Erg

Which is actually reverse order from the real session, but that’s just bootlegs for you (in this case, “Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace” – what a title!).

And while all three tracks were absolutely mind-blowing to this young man, who was just discovering this remarkable band, over time, it’s “W” that has stuck with me the most – although “Man-Erg” is a close second – I just love these performances, it’s a great session, and it’s really great to have it officially released at LAST – thank you.  That is not to downplay “Killer”, but I can’t perform “Killer”, although I can play the main riff – the connection is, over the years, I have learned, practised, and performed both “Man-Erg” and “W“ – while with “Killer”, I can only sit and listen in astonishment – especially when David Jackson takes THAT solo – wow.  Amazing stuff.

So – at a session meant to capture “acoustic guitar songs” by Peter Hammill, where I’d performed both “Shingle Song” and “Again” – it suddenly struck me – hey, you could play “W” !!! Or – could I?

My first attempts were spirited, but flawed, mostly, it’s the guitar playing that got me, although the vocal does present certain challenges….so I abandoned the 20150222 takes (reluctantly) and am now currently embracing the 20150419 takes – which give us a completely different story – more of an embarrassment of riches, than anything else.

By this time, after about three warm-up takes, both the guitar arrangement, and the carefully designed vocal part (where I have to omit at least one high note that I can ALMOST hit, but I don’t want to risk – so I have made a slight change to the melody in one place, so as not to embarrass myself every time) have come together pretty well, they are both reasonably well developed – and starting with take four, and going on through take 12 – the takes are all good!!  With tiny variances, very difficult to note, and making it very, very difficult to “choose” between takes, when they are mostly all, so very good.  Basically, there are 8 good takes out of 12, with five of those being near perfect or with only very slight faults, and the other three, only slightly less perfect.

Every take has something of merit, so I have really had my work cut out for me here:  how do you, when you have eight out of twelve good takes, make any decisions at all – how to know which one is “the” take.  The answer:  listening.  Of course…once you start really listening, all of the tiniest errors find their way to the surface – which, allows you to cast out more and more takes for more and more small reasons – until you are left with what is, truly, “best”.

You have to listen and listen, perhaps focusing in on one aspect of the performance each time – for example, it was important to me that the guitar take contain a clean four bars of introduction, and that the same four bars, when repeated later as an instrumental “solo” of sorts, that those are also as flawless as possible – and also, the ending is important, I’d added on this crazy “Fripp”-chord as the final ending, and the quality of it varied on every track – with a few most excellent, others, just OK, and then, of course, I wanted a take with a really good vocal…luckily for me, there isn’t as much variation between the vocal takes – so in the end, it was really about where the best, most consistent, guitar playing was, and it had to be a whole take, obviously – with one exception – I could, potentially, since there is a silence while I sing the last line of the song – I could potentially “swap out” the ending chord, if for example, I had a great take (like Take 11, for example) but the ending chord was a bit better, a bit cleaner, on Take 12 – then, maybe, I might take a slight liberty and improve the audio, by having a better, cleaner chord – which of course, I would tell my listeners (if I decide not to use an entirely live take, then I would say “live performance of take 11 – except for the final chord – which was borrowed from take 12” – or whatever I had done) – or maybe, I would just decide to keep whatever ending the “best” over all take had – it depended on what sounded best.

I wanted what sounds best, so I really have to trust my ears, and say ” this take, this one is it” – and then stick by that decision – then, do everything in my power as both producer, and as engineer, to make this take sound as humanly good as possible – or as humanly possible.  At this point in time, during my second or third re-assessment of the 12 takes, I believe that Take 11 is the master – I can’t find much fault with it, but, I do tend to like the end chord of Take 12, very much indeed – and, Take 11 itself is not bad – so I need to decide between these two, I think.

I get to this point, and then I think – yes, but, what about those early takes, where I was a bit unprepared, but maybe there is a bit more spontaneity, maybe…so I find myself back again, listening to take four, take five, and so on – trying to rule these “earlier” takes out for one reason or another – but it’s difficult, because they are good.  I begin to wonder if I shouldn’t produce two or three of these – and that is a distinct possibility, it’s definitely do-able, because these takes are so uniformly good – it’s strange, because I had such a struggle playing the song on February 22, 2015, but on April 19th, I had no such issues, and every take from take four onwards, has a life and a feel of it’s own.  Heck – maybe I should produce ALL of them, warts and all…it’s such a temptation, it really is.  But I really want to pick just one, and I really need to narrow it down – so I just keep doing the only thing a good producer can do – listen, listen, and then, listen again.

After a long afternoon of listening, and then listening again, I was forced to exclude the majority of the earliest takes – 4 through 9, basically – because the guitar intros and solo sections were too imperfect.  Even take 11, which is closer to perfect, is still imperfect, but, it’s so much better than takes 4 through 9, that it makes enough of a difference – it’s a good take!  So now, it’s pretty much going to be a race between Take 11 and Take 12…

Finally then, some full on tests, with levels properly set, limiter on, and the final, finishing touch – my beautiful Waves Reel ADT Plug-Ins – a stereo one for the vocal, and another stereo one for the guitar – and just adding those on, makes such a huge difference to the sound – it’s just remarkable.

And what this meant was, that, the imperfections in Take 11, seemed worse, while the relative perfection of Take 12 – seemed apparent, so adding the Reel ADT plug in, made it possible finally, to choose between the two “best” takes – and 12 – the very last take of the session – has it all, at least, to the extent that anyone can “cover” such an unusual song with one guitar synth, set to “acoustic guitar”, and a shure sm-58 vocal mike !!

Not that it’s particularly difficult to play, the chords are easy enough – but the lyrics certainly are not.  “double you” – seeing yourself from another perspective, as other things occur to the other “you” – is a strange point of view for a song; you wake up one morning, and there are two of you, which makes you twice as unhappy (as it would, if you were unhappy) a strange tale told of this man, immobilised, almost, only able to look out the window, and see the smoke “billowing across the lawn” or only able to drag himself downstairs, to specifically find out that “you are gone…!”.

At the end of the song, you wake up (again) – look to your left, but you see no reassuring head – you then stayed in bed all day, when, at six o’clock, you realised – that you’re dead.  A short, unhappy tale, with a strange atmosphere, strange lyrics – definitely one of the oddest of all Peter Hammill-penned songs.  But at the same time – a strangely compelling one.

A very strange perspective, the classic sort of “seeing yourself laid out on the table”, and realising that it’s you, it’s YOU that are dead – that’s very odd, and it’s no wonder the band didn’t perform this often, what with it’s somewhat cheerless lyrics – not the most cheerful tune ever written by the sometimes-unusually-morbid Hammill (as he could be, back then) – who, while known for tackling difficult, or uncomfortable subjects, rarely tackles a subject like this one, in such an inflammatory way, too – practically a primer for how to leave your body, which some might view as the ultimate “suicide” song – I don’t, I view it as a man having the odd experience of seeing his own body, suspended in space, whilst realising that the body is dead – not having realised it earlier in the day.  more metaphysical than death wish, if you know what I mean. but I think each listener has to decide for himself or herself, what the song means – because even though I am singing it here – I absolutely do not know.

So the sort of day-long purgatory of trudging around the house, knowing something is wrong, dragging yourself downstairs – and finding that you are gone…that longest day finally ends in the sudden realisation that there is a very specific reason that there are two of you, that you have woken up and it’s a “double you” situation – “W” – because, you have passed away, of course!

The rate that our hero realises at, well it take a few minutes, which gives the song time enough to get through it’s purgatory phase – and then, it’s all over, in a blinding flash of  – well, in the real live version, it’s a wonderful, sonically crushing organ chord and bass note, accompanied by a crashing horn note from David Jackson – which I have chosen, for unknown reasons only known to the other half of me, to represent in this version with a very long, loud, dissonant “Fripp” chord – that was the only thing I could do, safely, on an acoustic guitar, that might work as a facsimile organ/sax ending – and I suppose, sonically, it could be worse – it’s a decent choice.  originally, back in February, I wasn’t returning on the guitar at the end, after the final two words – I was just letting the last two words, be the last thing you heard in the song – but I think the frantic, crazy guitar chord is just the ticket, and it was an absolute joy to try to play – even though, I only got it “right” about once in every 12 attempts 🙂

I was as happy as I could be with the guitar arrangement, and the vocal arrangement, and then, it was just down to the playing – and luck – and in the end, “practice made perfect” or at least, practice made it bearable…and I finally stayed with Take 12, and started working with the track – until I got a sound I liked, and was happy enough with – I mean, it is live, and it’s only as good as it’s two simple components, so there is not much you can do to improve the performance itself – it is what it is.

I think you can tell that I love this song, that I love to sing it – I hope that comes across in the video, it was an incredible surprise to me, that I could actually play it, and I so much enjoyed singing and playing it, it was a real pleasure – and I am really glad that I did learn this song so many years ago, because at least it came back pretty quickly – which is great.  What a nice surprise, to have an old friend like this turn up out of nowhere – and still be unchanged, as familiar as when I first knew them – a good, good surprise!

In the end, it took me almost two full days of work, and four attempts at getting the right sound, before I could produce an audio track of “W“, completely live (I decided, in the end, that the completely live take 12 was the best bet, no messing about – warts and all – not quite perfect – but, not too bad!) that I am happy enough with, and now, I am assembling not just the video for “W” live, but also, a strange special bonus video – what happened directly AFTER the end of the successful take.

so I’ve produced two audio tracks, and am working on two videos, one for the live version of “W“, using the whole of take 12 as it’s master, and the second, which I am calling “improv on a theme – stone free (james marshall hendrix) – live – post take 12” which is approximately one minute worth of digital recording time directly following the final “Fripp” chord that ends take 12 of “W” – for the first time ever, I’ve decided to release some “non-song” footage, featuring a spontaneous jam on “stone free” by jimi hendrix – notably, a song that I have never played, never learned, and have no idea how it goes!!

it’s only really “on theme” for about the first 17 seconds, and it then wanders off into random imaginary hendrix octave playing – and then dissolves completely into a fatigue-driven crazy, climbing riff of uncertain description – remember, I’d just spent an hour and ten minutes filming, and recording, no less than 12 complete or near complete takes of “W” by peter hammill – so I was pretty tired.  but the hendrix tune just sounds so good with that odd, acoustic guitar tone, and having the whammy available on the “acoustic” sound is so strange, too – so I just thought – why not?

so for the very first time anywhere, about 54 seconds of “what happened after the last take” has been included, which, I should warn you, some pretty lame guitar playing at the end – I plead fatigue, and I wasn’t really trying to play anything – this Hendrix thing appeared – and then just as quickly – disappeared – leaving me with nowhere to go but out.  I just thought it was OK, an interesting glimpse, an epilogue if you will, to the best live take of “W“, and it shows a little bit about how my mind works – or maybe – doesn’t work – I am working on a serious Peter Hammill song, and yet, during the break – I jump into “Stone Free” by Jimi Hendrix.

I begin to think that it’s been far, far too long since I was in a band.

🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the apple years vol. 1- 1968 – 1975 – george harrison

…being for the benefit, being rather, a review of a beautiful box set, one of two, of the remastered and expanded works of the man who started it all for “Dave from pureambient”, before Fripp & Eno, before Led Zeppelin, before Jimi Hendrix, before King Crimson – there was George Harrison – and his career after he left the Beatles was in some ways, his best work – as this beautiful new six CD set demonstrates.  George was my favourite Beatle, George was the serious one, the one who played the most magical of the guitar parts, the one who brought Indian Music to the world – George really rocked my world, from the time I was nine years old, in 1967 to the present, a long time – one of the very best slide players who ever lived, with the sweetest slide guitar tone – and, a tone that was instantly, recognisably “George” – and these first few solos albums really let George soar musically – from his amazing Beatlesque vocal arrangements on the third and fourth solo albums, which also introduced us to his increased skill with the bottleneck slide; to his live performances in 1974 and 1992…to the man who created the first ever benefit concert in the form of 1971’s “The Concert For Bangladesh” – strangely, not included in this box set.

George was often mis-nicknamed as “the quiet Beatle” – but in 1970, as he started his career away from The Beatles – he was anything but quiet:

1970 – releases first ever triple album set (by any solo artist) – “All Things Must Pass” – sells millions worldwide, spending 7 weeks as the number 1 album – however, as of 2011, it has outsold both Lennon’s “Imagine” (which George also played slide guitar on in 1971) and McCartney & Wings “Band On The Run” combined – and is the most successful album ever released by an ex-Beatle – and, is the 36th best-selling album of the 1970s !!

1970-1971 – “My Sweet Lord” tops the charts – sells millions worldwide biggest selling single of 1971 in the UK, it was the first No. 1 single by an ex-Beatle – 5 million copies sold by 1978, by 2010, over 10 million copies sold!  That is simply astonishing.

1971 -1972 “The Concert For Bangladesh” – the prototype of the modern-day “benefit concert” is released on another triple album, this time, the live music soundtrack and accompanying film that enjoyed a long theatrical release as well.

1973 – releases the remarkable, acoustic guitar and slide guitar-heavy “Living In The Material World” – and this was when we realised just how good George was getting on slide – a remarkable fourth studio album, and, along with “All Things Must Pass”, of course, it was the record that made me sit up and say, “I thought George was good when he was in the Beatles…but just listen to him NOW!”. Shiver-inducing slide guitar – sheer beauty…not to mention that voice…

But this is where it all started, in India, with an unusual soundtrack album…

 

Disc 1 – Wonderwall Music (November 1968) – re-mastered version

This under-rated, under-reported album, has the distinction of being the first Beatles solo album, by George, released in 1968, made while the Beatles were still ongoing.  George had been approached about doing a soundtrack for this rather odd film “Wonderwall”, starring Jane Birkin, Jack MacGowran and Iain Quarrier, and he agreed – a lot of it was recorded in India, because this was at the time that George was exploring Indian music heavily, so, since that was what he was listening to, and the film was vaguely psychedelic in nature, too – he used a lot of Indian music, with a few remarkable “western” songs thrown in for good measure.  George is said to have wanted it to be an introduction to Indian music, and to that end, the first recordings for the album were a series of ragas recorded at EMI Bombay in early 1968.  The “ordinary” western songs, were recorded later in London, and one track, which featured vocals, was unearthed when George was hunting down the master tapes to give to producer Joe Massot, for the remastering of the film in 1998, the track was “In The First Place” by the “Remo Four”.  It is believed that Harrison actually sang and played on the track, but insisted that he only wanted a credit for production – Massot was happy to include the track, which George had originally held back because he believed that Massot only wanted instrumental music.  So this lost vocal track, “In The First Place”, finally saw it’s release in 1999, some thirty one years after it probably originally should have!

“Ski-ing” remains my favourite of the non-Indian music tracks; it features some wonderful reverse sounds, and an amazing but simple guitar riff that I love to play, with fabulous harmonies, over a wonderful raga / drone – and, one of my beloved reverse guitar solos at the end – it’s fantastic!  it’s just one of those riffs that gets stuck in your head – and the album is worth the price of admission for that song alone.  There are one or two Indian songs that I truly love, like the track immediately following “Ski-ing”, which is called “Gat Kirwani” – a fast gat that is 1:15 of pure sitar magic…and one or two tracks, of either variety – that are irritating to the point of – irritation.  But I never skip tracks, I enjoy the whole record, and I love to listen to this whenever the mood strikes me – it’s a great little record, given that it’s a soundtrack, given that George wouldn’t have had much time to make it – I think he did a great job.

But it’s a journey everyone should take – you have to remember, that George was still a very young man, and writing film music was a new process for him – and this is very much, music for a film, rather than a collection of “songs” from a solo Beatle – there are really no “songs” of any description, the album is basically instrumental, and it’s just about as strange as the film that it’s the soundtrack for – quite odd – but, over time, it has really grown on me, and in some ways, it’s one of my favourite records of the late sixties, because it’s George, sure, but just because it captures a mood and a time in a perfect snapshot, this album screams “it is 1968” and it’s heavy Indian influence is undeniable – and very trendy at the time, perfect for a trendy, oddball film.

I recommend this album highly, and of course, I never, ever expected to own a re-mastered version of it, so that is a huge, huge bonus, and it’s a wonderful addition to the box set and to the collection of any George Harrison fan.

 

Disc 2 – Electronic Sound (May 1969) – re-mastered version

From the quickly-defunct “Zapple” label, which was meant to house experimental music – well, that’s what this is.  George was one of the earliest adopters of the Giant Moog Synthesizer, which can be heard on [later] Beatles’ tracks such as “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”, and “Here Comes The Sun” – the instrument was very new, this was one of the first “production” synths that ordinary people could actually buy – so George got one.  Two long improvs. “Under The Mersey Wall”, and “No Time Or Space”, of not-unpleasant synth noise, again, nothing spectacular, but you should absolutely hear it once – a strange curiosity from the short-lived Zapple label – and, I believe, the second Beatle solo album – George absolutely had cornered the market on solo albums well before any of the other Beatles caught on. Even stranger, the presence of these two early records, means that the classic “first” George solo album, “All Things Must Pass” – is actually his third solo album !

That said, of all of George’s earliest works, this is probably the least accessible – but, if you are not faint of heart, you really should give it a go – I was pleasantly surprised.  It’s not a million miles away from some of the synth warblings that we got later on by bands like Tangerine Dream or Kraftwerk – it mostly sounds like sound effects, like someone showing off what a “synthesizer” is capable of.   I’ve heard other synth records that are far more annoying than this one, and some of it is quite pleasant given how new synth technology was at the time it was made – not unpleasant at all.  Certainly worth a listen when the mood strikes you…

 

 

Disc 3 – All Things Must Pass (November 1970) – re-mastered, expanded version

The first ever triple record set, this album sold in the millions, and it did better than both McCartney & Wings’ “Band On The Run” and Lennon’s “Imagine” combined – in retrospect – it outsold them both!  People WANTED to hear what George wanted to sing about.  I first heard it in the home of two Peace Corps volunteers at their home in Eastern Uganda, in 1970, they had just been to visit the States, and they had brought back the cassette version of “All Things Must Pass” with them – hot off the press.  Since I hadn’t heard it yet (I knew it was out, but I didn’t own it – you couldn’t buy it in Uganda) I spent almost my entire time there, one day and one night, listening to this amazing, magical record – on cassette, no less – and I have never forgotten that day.  I then had to wait many months, until we were travelling home from Uganda (where I lived at the time, with my parents) to the States, to purchase my own copy, from a very cool record store in Amsterdam.  So I did eventually get my copy, at long last…and at long last, I could enjoy it any time I wanted to, and luxuriate in these amazing, personal, heartfelt songs from the mind of George Harrison.

From that gorgeous, soft-guitars opening on the Dylan ballad “I’d Have You Anytime” to the power of Eric Clapton’s solo on the amazing “Wah-Wah” – a song with one of the best riffs of all time, a classic E major riff, that is not particularly easy to play – what an amazing riff to base a song around!  To the beautiful, multi-layered first version of “Isn’t It A Pity” – the opening side of “All Things Must Pass” (I mean vinyl album side, of course) is one of the most familiar pieces of music in the universe to me.  As the newly-re-mastered album rolls along, I am hearing my old friends, with new sounds – and it’s a revelatory experience, and one I highly recommend – as the “main meal” of the box set, having yet another version of “All Things Must Pass” does not bother me in the slightest!  It’s fast becoming my favourite version…

Also on that first vinyl side, was a little song that took the world by storm, the thinly veiled religious anthem “My Sweet Lord” which was a huge-selling single for George, and an incredibly popular song, with its “all religions together” approach to finding God – moving serenely from singing “Hallelujah” to “Hare Krishna” as the background vocals began to name all sorts of deities that mostly, you had never heard of, this song was a truly inspired and truly inspiring acoustic guitar-led ballad of the day – featuring gorgeous “twin” harmony slide guitars (that “trademark” George Harrison slide sound – unforgettable) and fantastic ever-changing background vocals, “My Sweet Lord” – whether you like it or not – you probably know it anyway 🙂  A real beauty…

But there are many, many other less-well known musical gems, hidden in different corners of this record…who knew, for example, what a complex, multi-layered, and beautiful musical construction, a song like “What Is Life?”, actually is??  The re-mastering brings out a lot of small touches in both performance and production that I’ve not noticed before, and this is the album I have probably played more times than any other in my entire collection – and, hearing this new, re-mastered “What Is Life?” is a sonic revelation, for example, while I had heard the strummed acoustic guitars clearly, I did not realise that there were ALSO picked acoustic guitars playing along quietly – I’d NEVER heard them before!

I’d heard the string arrangement, but never realised the hard left panning to some of it before, by Phil Spector, and that “wall of sound” was not so heavily applied to this song, and really – I mean, you can really, really hear everything in this new, excellent mix; including so many multiple harmony vocals from George, I don’t know if anyone else has realised this, but George was drawing directly on his experience of being “voice 3” in the Lennon-McCartney-Harrison Harmony Machine, so when it came time to lay down the vocals on tracks for “All Things Must Pass”, when it was for a big chorus like the one in this song – the layers of harmony, are built up just like tracks from “Abbey Road” and every other Beatles track prior to it – and don’t forget, in 1970, “Abbey Road” was only a year in the near past, so the experience of laying down melody and harmony vocal tracks, in the style of the Beatles, for God’s sake – was fresh in his mind.

So if you listen to something like “The Making Of All Things Must Pass”, you can actually hear this layering process – for example, that record contains several different reductions and partial mixes of “Apple Scruffs”, and you can hear George adding in his lead vocal, his “George” harmony, his “John” harmony, and his “Paul” harmony – and sometimes, there are multiples, double tracks for every part, so instead of three-part, it becomes six-part harmony or more – and if you do listen carefully to this re-master, you can hear the fully developed, finished products, mixed by the remarkable Phil Spector – the vocals of “Apple Scruffs” absolutely shine here, but that is literally because, George was just following the Beatles vocal process, but using his own voice for all of the parts – and that is absolutely amazing to think about – he was literally, besides George Martin, the only person in the entire WORLD who totally knew and understood this vocal “process” – but why not – he had paid his dues, he had started out poor and unloved, in Hamburg, the youngest and most teased of the Beatles, and worked his way up into the biggest band in the world – and he took what he learned, and applied it in his own life – on his first, and best, solo album – “best”, not because what followed was not as good, but because never again, did he amass such an amazing group of players, to play such an amazing group of songs, nor did he ever take the time again, to layer the Beatles-style vocals – sometimes, but never to the degree, never to the quality of what he accomplished on “All Things Must Pass” – which in some ways, is more “Beatle-y” than some Beatles albums – I’d much rather hear “All Things Must Pass” than “Let It Be” for example!

And Phil Spector, for all of his giant reverbs and overwrought string parts, and strident horn parts, did a great job of capturing those layered Beatle harmonies – maybe not quite to the spec that George Martin, and the Lennon-McCartney-Harrison Harmony Machine did – there will never, ever be another “Because” – but, a close second, and there are other example of amazing, multi-layered vocals a la Beatles – “Apples Scruffs” being one of my absolute favourites, where the harmonies really make the chorus, and George, in that case, and to a lesser extent in “What Is Life?” is hitting those high notes, doing the “Paul” part of the vocal – with no problem – it’s flawless, it’s perfect, and what could be better than the dreamy, note-drifting harmonies in the chorus of “Apple Scruffs”?  Not much, if you ask me.  What a fantastic song, and a song for the fans, for the fans that George saw every day at Apple Studios.

It’s a “famous fact” that the songs on “All Things Must Pass” were borne of George’s frustration at never getting his songs released on Beatles albums, he would get one, or two tracks at most, three in one rare case (on Revolver) and the rest, would go back onto the reject pile, in some cases, as in the title track of this album, “All Things Must Pass”, multiple times – it’s still odd for me to realise that the Beatles ran through, rehearsed, and learned this song – and then rejected it.  George’s gain, the Beatles’ loss, I reckon. [Famously, one George Harrison song, “Not Guilty”, was recorded over 100 times by the Beatles – and was STILL never released – it was finally released years later on a Harrison solo album].

But regarding this “famous fact” of this alleged “musical constipation”; OK, there is perhaps, some truth to that, in any event – this is George, saying to the whole world “I wrote a LOT of songs, and HERE THEY ARE” – but also, these songs are George still at the height of his writing powers, coming off the back of tracks like “Something”, “I Me Mine”, “Piggies”, “Long, Long, Long”, “Love You To”, “I Want To Tell You”, and “Taxman”, to name but a few – to me, the songs on “All Things Must Pass” are basically, an extension of that line of song writing, and the quality of the songs on “All Things Must Pass”, is undeniably, close if not equal to that revered catalogue of Beatles tracks penned by our Mr. Harrison.

I mean, whether this album is the result of “artistic constipation” (as some have claimed) or not – it’s still an amazing record – and if you consider some of the deep tracks – like the amazing “Let It Down” – one of the most incredibly beautiful songs George ever wrote, with that deep organ chord laying across his beautiful, loving lyric – and then the power of that chorus, when the horns come in – it’s just an awesome experience musically, and then it’s followed by the twelve-string driven, shiver-inducing beauty of “Run Of The Mill” with it’s odd, Spanish sounding horn parts, funky piano, and earnest, beautiful vocal – and now, you can hear the vocal doubling in the verses properly, for the first time, too – thanks to that fabulous re-master – wonderful!  Or if we move to what was on the original vinyl side four, another hidden gem of a deep album cut, “The Art Of Dying” with its driven, wah-wah guitars, I don’t know it that’s Clapton or Harrison on lead guitar (very probably, both!), but whoever it is, they are ON FIRE.  That song just gives me the shivers, from the opening slide-down wah chord to the last of the dying fade out, with those amazing triplets C – A – E or whatever it is, going at Robert Fripp-like speed and with a similar precision delivery – that little song simply rocks.

Everywhere you turn, are songs that are just…good songs.  In some cases, brilliantly good songs.  And the one that got away, the gorgeous “I Live For You” featuring an amazing Pete Drake pedal steel guitar riff – George’s voice, on the unfinished demo, is just perfect, and the rough harmonies are absolutely perfect – I love that little track, and I am so glad it’s been re-incorporated into the album – it should have always been there, but I am really glad it’s there now – and Drake’s pedal steel solo in the middle of it is a master-class in the instrument, one thing George was always able to do, was to coax world-class performances out of his guest musicians – and on this album, that roster of guest musicians reads like a Who’s Who of 60 British rock royalty, with his old friend Eric Clapton as the main guitar slinger, there are a host of other guitarists present, and it must have been an amazing feeling, in that room, running through tracks with the giant live band, with two drummers and piano and organ and God only knows how many guitars – starting with that, and then, another layer of performance from Phil Spector, horns, strings, reverb – and, just for good measure – some more reverb.

George remarked on camera, in later years, that he wished that the album didn’t “suffer” from a cloud of reverb, from the “production values of the day” – but I disagree, what Spector did, as with what he “did”, to “Let It Be” – was what was right for that moment, for that time, and while I would like to “hear” a reverb-less version of the album, I would never consider it to be the real master – the master is this master, with its huge amounts of reverb – and I am sure that’s where I get my own propensity for drowning whole tracks in massive reverbs – it sounds fecking amazing!  Try it sometime – record a song, play it back dry – then, trial some large reverb rooms on it.  When you find the right one, you will know…then, turn up the “wet” control to at least 50 percent, and close your eyes.  There – that’s the Phil Spector method, which I am strangely, proud to say, I often use in my ambient music – treating entire completed tracks with reverb – and it just changes everything, it makes an already-ambient track, super ambient, it just brings out some amazing reverberations, literally, and I am still fascinated with that sound – so the supposedly “over-produced” “All Things Must Pass” does not bother me in the slightest, and I think that Spector got a bad rap for it – he was hearing a sound in his head, and George trusted him, so this is the album that got made – and it’s an amazing album, syrupy strings, strident horns, waves of untrammelled reverb – it’s perfect, a perfect time capsule of 1970, and absolutely, the highlight of the box set – this album is why you buy “The Apple Years Vol. I – 1968-1975”.

If you take a track like “Awaiting On You All”, with its irresistible descending riff, OK, sure, it dissolves into a mass of reverb, but it still rocks – nothing Phil Spector did, really detracted from that fact – the songs, the performances – rock.  I love that song, and if you took away the reverb, it just wouldn’t be the same – but, having said that, if you listen to this re-master, in headphones – you can hear EVERYTHING, it’s a quality mix, Spector was no dummy, you can hear everything, clearly, every tiny part – every vocal harmony – it’s simply quality.  The reverb is really over-exaggerated by the press, especially now in this nice, clean re-master – you can hear that it’s only on a few tracks where he may have over-egged the musical pudding a tiny bit – but it simply does not matter! Because it’s such a great bunch of performances from a truly great band led by a truly great musician, our George.

Speaking of great performances, “All Things Must Pass” featured something I’d never seen before, and rarely if ever, have seen since – an alternate version of a track, right there on the main album.  So on side one, you got the first of the versions of “Isn’t It A Pity”, and then later, on the second record, you get “Isn’t It A Pity, Version 2” – and the differences are substantial, wonderful flutes float up through this second version, and different, bluesy guitar leads appear out of nowhere, with the most subtle, beautiful note-bending I’ve ever heard – delicate, emotive – shiver-inducing again – a lovely alternate version of a great song – and that experience, prompted me to create alternate versions of my own songs much later on in life – inspired by this simple idea.  As far as “Isn’t It A Pity” goes, I almost like the second version better than the “real” version, but they are both great, both have a lot to offer to the discerning listener.

“Hear Me Lord” closes out the four “song” sides, and this is a song that I played on the piano a lot, we accepted this heavy song about God as just another song, and I loved to play it and sing it, George was ever-evolving in his beliefs, and we may never know which “lord” he is referring to at any given moment, but what we did know was, just how serious he was about it – and this is a great song, with some surprising fuzz guitar layered in there, that you don’t really notice – beautiful work – and the stellar piano part is absolutely spot-on, too – a great piece of music, and a great, uplifting “anthemic” song to end the album proper with – brilliant!  A giant chorus, complete with those trademark George Harrison slide guitars that we know so well, takes us out on the long fade.  But it also – rocks “above and below us… out and in, there’s no place that you’re not in – won’t you hear me lord?.”  The rhythm guitar part is surprisingly fierce, and again, we have carefully layered vocal work, and that astonishingly improv-like piano, just jamming throughout the track – inspirational indeed!  Proving that in the right hands – even songs about God can rock.  Sigh.

 

A word now about “Apple Jam” – originally, the “main” vinyl album had four sides, the first four sides / two LPs, were of “songs”, and a third record, sides five and six, were called “Apple Jam” – jam sessions recorded in between tracks.  Growing up, this being one of very few albums I had at all, and learning to play guitar, it was “Apple Jam” that I started out with, in terms of listening to improvised guitar playing for the first time, it was the first time I’d ever head guitarists “jam” – and it was a real revelation.  I still play many, many of the riffs I learned from this record, and it’s not a bad place to start – you can jam along to it pretty easily, and I grew up playing guitar much in the style of a modified Harrison/Clapton clone, and later, it was “Live Cream” and other live tracks featuring long improvs, so I really got into learning the Clapton oeuvre…closely followed by Jimi Hendrix, and that’s where I, and pretty much everyone else, lost the plot – impossible to imitate, but it sure is fun trying, Hendrix blew us all away, and Clapton and Harrison were his contemporaries, and were aware of him – so I don’t think having a load of George Harrison and Eric Clapton riffs in my head, from playing “Apple Jam” over and over and over and over when I was 12, 13 years old – is such a bad thing.

It certainly gave me a great start at improvising, and if you are going to jam with others, and they are playing some kind of I-IV-V or other modified blues – knowing Clapton’s lead lines from “Apple Jam” is an absolute boon.  The whole thing is in the key of C, or C Minor for “Out Of The Blue” – and to this day, it’s a great record to put on and jam along to.  It totally rocks – live, instrumental rock tracks from the best rock musicians of the 1960s, assembled in one room to make a George Harrison album – the excitement is palpable!

Sure, later on, my influences changed, and I became as much about Fripp & Eno as I did about Clapton & Harrison, but all of it is my musical DNA, I would not be the guitarist I am, if it were not for those influences, if it were not for the experience of “Apple Jam” being the first, and for a long time, only, album of improvised guitar playing I ever owned, and therefore, it became the template for all jams that I played probably from age 15 to 20 – it was what I knew, what I played – what I loved.  So having the…slightly rearranged, albeit, tracks from “Apple Jam” in this newly re-mastered package, is just the icing on the cake, and I can barely contain myself, I can hardly wait until I get there, so I can rock out once again to “Out Of The Blue” or “Thanks For The Pepperoni” – amazing jams from the most amazing, giant “rock band” ever assembled – George Harrison And His Famous Friends.

Not to be missed, do not, do not, I repeat – miss this record.  It’s a hugely important part of the Beatles story, and to me, it’s almost like a final Beatles record made by a different version of the band, led by and directed by George, to play George’s songs – which was NOT the avowed purpose of the Beatles – that was, to play Lennon-McCartney songs :-).

So “All Things Must Pass” is a very important part of history, and it’s now taken it’s rightful place in this amazing box of the “Apple Masters Vol. 1” – a brilliant collection showcasing the talents of the “quiet” Beatle, who in 1970, was not quiet in the slightest!

 

Disc 4 – Living In The Material World (June 1973) – remastered, expanded version

Then came the somewhat lower-key “Living In The Material World”, with it’s absolutely astonishing Hare Krishna artwork – one of the brightest, boldest album covers of the day – simply striking!  And a visual, and auditory, declaration, from George, of his new-found love for Sri Krishna – we’d had some broad hints before this, such as the mega-worldwide hit “My Sweet Lord” from the previous record, the afore-described “All Things Must Pass” but it wasn’t until “Living In The Material” hit the record stores in 1971, that we knew, without a doubt, that George had “gone” completely Hare Krishna – and we mean, completely.

The songs – reflected this, OK, there are still a few normal “love songs” such as the very catchy, acoustic-guitar led “Don’t Let Me Wait Too Long” but the majority of the songs seemed to be about…Krishna.  Or – how people’s perceptions of George had changed for the worse, because of his love of Krishna – as exemplified by “Who Can See It” – a song about those who can, and can’t, see the truth right in front of their noses, about Krishna being God, that is.

This very, very strong religious bent of George’s, actually, never bothered me in the least.  The press had a field day with it, and I don’t think George was too pleased with some of the reactions to his new found religion.  But for me – this was just a new batch of songs by George Harrison – and, it was startling in other ways – a lot of acoustic songs, but also, a LOT, and I mean a LOT, of that brilliant slide guitar, with that special George Harrison “tone”, that we’d heard hints of before, but now we were getting the real thing – and some of the songs, like “The Lord Loves Him (Who Loves The Lord)” and the acerbic “Sue Me, Sue You Blues” are almost entirely based around slide guitar riffs – and that was something new for George.  Dobros and acoustic slide were appearing, too, so really, for guitarists, this is a hugely important record, because it showed us the next evolution of George Harrison, the guitarist – and this is still a great record to study if you want to learn the best slide guitar technique ever known to man, or, just how to play guitar with style, class and skill.

The album opener, “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth)” was a substantial hit for George, a very catchy acoustic riff opens the song, and some amazing slide guitar cements it’s musical credentials, this is a quality piece of work with a beautiful, universal message – and this is the kind of thing that all Beatles seem to be able to pull off – from “All You Need Is Love” to “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth)” various Beatles at various times, seem to be able to talk openly about universal truth and beauty, and make it palatable to the masses – well, “Give Me Love” is just that, a song about love and peace – and in 1971, as now, the world needs more love, the world needs more peace – this message is eternal, and what a great way to start the record, too.

The acoustic feel of most of the album is, I believe, very intentional, and for me, some of those “quieter” songs are some of the most important, and most beautiful, one of which, “The Day The World Gets Round” uses guitar harmonics in a brilliant way, and I really, really love the whole feel of that track – again, and actually, I believe, for the last time, George is really paying attention to the vocal approach, and in this track, he is hitting some of the highest notes I’d ever heard him sing – and pulling it off.  He really pushed himself vocally here, and there is once again, evidence of the modified “Beatles” vocal harmonies technique – what I might dub the “Wall Of Georges” – not to the extent as it’s used on All Things Must Pass, but it’s still there – whereas in all of the records after this one – I don’t personally feel that George ever matched the vocal work he did on those two records – “All Things Must Pass” and “Living In The Material World” – that’s his highest point as both vocalist and, more importantly, vocal arranger – and I think this is just a work of genius in that regard.

Not all of the songs are acoustic in nature, to appease the record company, the did do one “big production number” which is the title track of the album, which contains THE most gorgeous middle eight break, where the rock music shifts effortlessly and beautifully over to tablas and tanpuras, while George sings in a voice of heaven “from the spiritual sky, how I pray, how I pray, that I won’t get lost or go astray…” – and when you hear those tablas kick in, it’s just magic – and this is one of those amazing examples of the integration of Indian music into Western music that should not work, but somehow – it works amazingly well.  And when that beautiful Indian music section ends, it just melts right back into the “western rock band” sound as if NOTHING had happened – and the song continues as a normal piece of rock – Ringo on the drums, Klaus Voorman on bass, George on electric guitars – horns, etc. – the big band sound – for “Living In The Material World” – the one “production” track on the album.  That track appeared at what was the last position on the vinyl album’s “side one”, so you got four or five acoustic tracks, then this big, loud, piece of showy rock music (with, gorgeous Indian middle section, don’t forget) and then back to vinyl album “side two” another batch of mostly acoustic songs.

The album ends on a very quiet song indeed, one of my personal favourites, with some of the most moving and gorgeous slide guitar anywhere – and that song is the beautiful “That Is All” – a lovely love song of some significance.  When it reaches the moment for the slide guitar solo, I just collapse in a heap, it’s so incredibly beautiful – words cannot describe it, you just have to hear it – and then it just quietly wanders off to its inevitable sleepy ending…low key, no big exit, no big statement – just, this is me, now, George-who-loves-Krishna – and you have to hand it to him – to come out like that, showing what you love on your sleeve in that incredibly public way – that must have taken some big cahones – really, it takes nerves of steel to publish a cover like that, knowing that it will probably alienate a lot of people, including a lot of your fans.

George was always a man of his convictions, and his love for Krishna to me, was very real, I knew, and I still know now, from listening to the absolutely honest and absolutely heartfelt lyrics of this record, that George truly believed in Krishna, and in the love he’d found there – and while he may have wavered later on, at this point, his faith was so strong, that he was willing to face millions of people and say “I’ve found peace and fulfilment in the Lord Sri Krishna” and being dead serious about it – not a publicity stunt, not like an early equivalent of announcing “I like, so many others, am a Scientologist” – that just makes me laugh, but nothing about “Living In The Material World” makes me want to laugh – it’s a truly important album, which is often overshadowed by it’s much, much more famous predecessor, “All Things Must Pass”, but now, I think people should really listen to this record, because it, to me, is just a logical next step, it makes sense to me – this is what you do to follow “All Things Must Pass”.

That album was a very public record, made with a large group of “famous” musician friends, while “Living In The Material World” – despite also being very public (it would be many years before every move a Beatle made, was not in the public eye) – it’s also incredibly personal and private, almost – and I think George must have thought to himself, well, if they “get it”, they will “get it” – if they don’t – they don’t – and he was willing to lose a few million fans if he had to – he was going to tell the truth (as he saw it) about his beliefs, and let people know that he now loves the Lord Krishna, and he is proud and happy about that – and he wants to let the world know about the happiness he has found there, about the personal fulfilment and joy of being a believer in Krishna.

At the same time, there is still George the man, and, George the man who writes ordinary songs about love, such as “Don’t Let Me Wait Too Long” or “That Is All” as well as songs that describe his new-found closeness to his new God, the Lord Krishna: “The Light That Has Lighted The World”, “The Day The World Gets Round”, “Who Can See It” and “The Lord Loves The One (Who Loves The Lord” and the beautiful, mystical “Be Here Now”, surely one of the most beautiful acoustic George Harrison songs since the brilliant “The Inner Light” – a Beatles B-side – and “Be Here Now” has a beautiful, quiet appeal that really resonates with me, it’s just a lovely little tune.

While the “ordinary” songs are seriously outnumbered by the “religious” songs, it makes no difference to me, I love all of these songs, there is wry humour as in the very litigious “Sue Me, Sue You Blues” (another fantastic example of some of the greatest slide guitar playing on the planet – give this one a listen!) as well as deep, personal love songs “That Is All”.

One real curiosity is the presence of a song that was originally intended for Ronnie Spector, the cautionary tale “Try Some, Buy Some” which is very odd, it somehow works within the context of the album, but it’s strange because it doesn’t really fit the mostly acoustic mould of the record – George took the track, and recorded new vocals and I think, guitars on it – maybe this was just to flesh out what is otherwise a fairly short record, I do not know, but even this odd song has its place here, a bit of “overblown” Phil Spector string arranging for anyone hankering back to that previous record again, the Spector-produced “All Things Must Pass”.  The difference in this record is simple: it’s produced by Harrison throughout – with one exception – Phil Spector on “Try Some, Buy Some”.  So it does sound a bit out of place, here you have these very clear, very clean, definitely not clouded by reverb acoustic-led tracks, beautifully produced by George – and then comes the massive of reverb-y strings that is “Try Some, Buy Some” – so it does stick out, like the proverbial Spector-sore-thumb.  But at the same time – it belongs here, there is no other place it would belong, and I think George does a good performance of the tune – I like this track – despite its production values being totally at odds with every other song on the record J.

The two bonus tracks that have long been associated with this record are the lovely “Deep Blue”, and the somewhat silly, somewhat…frivolous “Miss O’Dell” – a strange, unfinished sounding demo-like song where George periodically breaks down into hilarious laughter during the vocals as he attempts to sing the chorus – so in that sense, I do welcome this song, as it does provide one “light moment” in what is essentially, some very heavy, very serious musical proceedings – not to say there isn’t joy present in some of the songs, in the love songs in particular, but there is certainly nothing nearly as light-hearted (or as slight as) “Miss O’Dell” – it’s definitely unique in George’s not insubstantial canon.

It’s difficult for me to believe this, but this is only George’s fourth studio album, from the period from 1968 – 1973 – although 1971 is not represented here because it produced a live album, which you do not get in this set – the Concert For Bangladesh – which of course, doesn’t “count” as a studio album – so it’s odd to me that this fairly “late” record is already the fourth studio solo album – but there it is.  No matter though, it’s a fantastic way to end the set, and despite the final track, “That Is All”, going out on a serious, quiet note – “Living In The Material World” itself is a great high point to leave the box set at, a positive record made by a man who was finding himself, finding his true beliefs, and making his way in the world – one song at a time.

I love this record, I have always loved this record, and I think I love it almost as much as I love “All Things Must Pass” – which, on recent reflection, may actually be my favourite record of all time!  Because it was so important to me as a child, I really believed in George, and I felt that the Lennon-McCartney Axis Of Power gave George short shrift – that George and his songs were constantly being side-lined in favour of adding just one more “Lennon-McCartney original” to the next Beatle album…I was so, so happy then, with the appearance of these two records, both of which are crafted with so much heart – that’s one thing you can’t deny – George Harrison had heart, and on these two records – you don’t have to look far to find it.

 

 

Disc 5 – Dark Horse (December 1974) – remastered, expanded version

 

This was an album that I didn’t own at the time, there were a lot of records I didn’t buy, simply because I didn’t have the money.  So when I went to see George Harrison and Friends, at the LA Forum, in 1974, I had no idea what to expect.

It starts out very, very promising, with a bright little instrumental called “Hari’s On Tour” which I have learned to love, despite the somewhat dated sound of Tom Scott and the LA Express’s approach to horn playing, Harrison himself is actually jamming pretty well on his slide here, and it’s worth it just for the slide playing.

Unusual, too – a Beatle starting a solo album with an instrumental?  I think that “Hari’s On Tour” is an bit of an underrated gem, and if I am not mistaken, this was the piece that the band started with when I saw them – which was a complete surprise, and of course, at the time, I had NO IDEA what it was.

After this most unusual opening salvo, George moves us into “Simply Shady”, which is the first indication that something is amiss, George’s beautiful high voice is a bit lower now, there are still nice harmonies, but they are simpler – there are still really nice lead guitars, as one would expect, some nice bluesy riffs in this tune, along with bits of pedal steel guitar – again, probably a better tune than I thought.

I don’t know now, how to really react to the tracks from Dark Horse, and all of the albums that followed – I mean, it’s George, so I a part of is loyal, but another part of me longs for the deep spirituality of “Living In The Material World” or the just-freed pop/rock genius of “All Things Must Pass” – and you can tell, two songs in, that yes, it’s George – there’s a nice little blues guitar solo on the outro of “Simply Shady” – it’s pleasant, it’s well done, but some of the spark is gone.

Continuing the alliteration, probably unconsciously, we then get “So Sad” which starts out with some very Beatle-y chorused / leslied guitars, but then it sort of dissolves into standard pop fare – sure, there is a small fanfare of slide guitar in between each chorus – that’s something that seems to crop up in many of George’s songs on every album, but there is just something about the vocal delivery, it’s just not what it was, and for me – well, I feel a slight sense of loss.

George worked himself far, far too hard in 1974, to the point of exhaustion, and his voice suffered – and maybe, you can hear the beginnings of that here on the album, I don’t know – but by the time of the tour, his voice was well and truly shot, so we got to hear super-hoarse renditions of Harrison classics and newer material, which was a bit of shame – but I didn’t care – it was flippin’ GEORGE HARRISON, playing live – and I got to see it.  It was an amazing concert, with Ravi Shankar and his Orchestra opening the show – and that was the experience of a life time – seeing Ravi Shankar followed by George Harrison – brilliant.

The musical excesses of the times are already starting to catch up with George, “Bye Bye Love” – a strange cover of the Everly Brothers song that all of the Beatles adored, starts with, of all things – a fretless bass.  To my mind – that is just about the most inappropriate instrument you could choose – but there it is – It is a very, very, VERY strange cover, to say the least. George’s voice is more animated, he definitely sounds better on this track than on the preceding tracks, but beyond that – the fretless just ruins this for me – not my thing I guess – sure, there is a time and a place for fretless bass – but NOT when you are covering classic 50s pop.

A funky electric piano now enters about half-way through, which just further dates this to 1974, but a bit of a clichéd 1974, and there are guitars a plenty, a strange Rhodes/guitar/vocal break appears, with that inappropriate fretless getting funkier and funkier…and retrospectively, I personally would question George’s choices of musicians for this project – it was a very funky band, and sure, they were all great players – but for me, George needed a pop band, a rock band – not a funky band with Billy Preston and Willie Weeks to the fore.   Like the band he had for the 1991 tour.  But – it was 1974, and these were the choices he made.

It had a huge influence on the sound of the record, which then of course alters the feel of the songs, so – it’s all change, this album does not, to my ears, sound like an album made by the same musician who made the third and fourth solo albums.

“Maya Love” starts to bring things back a bit, although there is an incredibly funky electric piano and bass line to deal with, at least there is a ton of great slide playing once again – and for me, I can ALWAYS enjoy George’s slide playing, in any context, in any song – so for me, even an album like Dark Horse, I can listen to, because if I am not maybe so wild about the songs, or the vocals – I can listen to the guitars.

“Ding Dong” is another one that is up tempo and quite cheery, with the Tom Scott Overdone Horns still at it, the predictable bell sounds, but the vocals are a bit better again – although the massed vocal chorus is just plain silly.  I just have trouble with this song – “ring out the old, ring in the new…” – I wish he had rung in some different “kind” of new – this new George was not really the George for me.

But – the concert was fantastic, the “Dark Horse” tour was an amazing event, even with George’s damaged voice – there was no stopping him, on with the show – until Ravi had his heart attack, at which point George moved him and his family to Encinitas, California, very near to where I lived – so he could have the best heart care available at the time.  Years later – I was fortunate enough to be able to attend a private concert at Ravi’s home – and that was an amazing experience – and since he now lived in the San Diego area, this enabled me to see him perform many times, and also, to see Anoushka, his daughter, perform – and that was a real stroke of luck for me!

And I feel a million times lucky – because I got to see Ravi’s band play at that 1974 concert – before his heart attack side-lined him.  Of course, he recovered fully, and eventually lived to the hearty old age of 93 – an incredible person, and as George’s mentor, one of the most amazing musicians to have walked the planet – I know, I’ve seen him play.

By the time we get to the title track, “Dark Horse” – well, you’ve now become somewhat acclimated, and actually, I find this to be one of the best songs on the album – the acoustic guitars make a welcome FIRST APPEARANCE, so that make it nice, and flutes instead of horns is a nice change, too – a very pleasant little tune, and one of the tracks I actually recall from the concert.

Then things go from bad to worse, suddenly, I feel like I’m in some seamy B-movie, as “Far East Man” assaults my ears – strange, strange, strange – funky chord progression that owes more to 70s soul than to George Harrison, rock guitarist – and it’s just so seamy, with its smooth jazz sound, it’s slithering saxophone riffs – ugh.  A strained vocal, with Tom Scott on sax, answering the phrases – doesn’t help – and trying to hit the high notes, and not quite doing so – oh God, I just want it to stop – and of course, the solo is a horn solo, not a slide solo – so there is nothing redeeming here – “Dark Horse” (the song) was clearly a high point, followed immediately by this low point – OK – there is some slide guitar eventually, but even it’s not worth struggling through this terrifically dated and disturbing funky soul diva nightmare.  I don’t like it, George – I’m sorry.  It’s not for me.

“It Is “He” (Jai Sri Krishna)” is repetitive but anything is an improvement on “Far East Man”, at least this is more like a normal song, but I feel nothing of the devotion and love that I get when I listen to “Living In The Material World” – and the silly “gubba-dub” instrument that George plays takes any possible serious religious message and makes it seem quite silly – it’s just a stupid sound, and why George thought it appropriate for this song, or for any song – I simply cannot imagine.

And then, a “jew’s harp” – yet another cheap gimmick, appears in the very next song, the first of two bonus tracks the short and sweet “I Don’t Care Anymore” – which is, blessedly, acoustic guitar and voice mostly…a real song, tacked onto the end of an album of songs, that to me, are mostly, not real.

The final piece, and the second of two bonus tracks, is an early version / different mix of the title track – and it shows what a good song it was even early on – I do like this song, it’s the best on the album – and here, it’s just acoustic guitar, lead vocal, and a lot of nicely overdubbed vocals.  So this, and the real version of the title track – are my two favourite tracks on the album!

Disappointing in many ways, I think this album had some potential, but I feel like it was rushed (and it was, they were rushing to finish it in time for the tour…so, haste makes waste, was never more true than in this case!) and that is a real shame.  A couple of the songs, I find unlistenable, and one or two, are worth it – otherwise, I suggest you look elsewhere in the Harrison catalogue, and leave Dark Horse alone except for the two fine versions of the title track – which are undeniably pleasant, and show such promise…sigh.

 

Disc 6 – Extra Texture (October 1975) – remastered, expanded version

 

A rocking pace, an upbeat, up tempo track, “You”, starts us out on the 1975 George Harrison solo album, “Extra Texture” (Read All About It) – another one that I did not buy at the time, but have only heard much, much later on – and while I can’t call it a “return to form” (after the very disappointing “Dark Horse”) it certainly sounds better – except unfortunately, that damnable Tom Scott is there again, with his incessant sax riffs, and I just don’t know why George is so fond of the saxophone – but he seems to want it EVERYWHERE – and for me, well, I would probably like “You” if it weren’t for that damn sax!

Nice guitar riff, a clean Telecaster-y sounding riff, vocals back on form, hits the very high note at the end, sounding relaxed and confident – this is more the George I want to hear, but the band, the arrangements – well, they are just not up my street, and we are still uncomfortably, many light-years away from the pure genius of “All Things Must Pass” or the beautiful, quiet introspection of “Living In The Material World”…too far away for my liking.

“The Answer’s At The End” is slow, slower, almost dirge-like in comparison to the snappy opener, so the mood of the album takes a down swing right away, and that earnest, strained-voice sound starts to return, not quite as disappointing as the vocal sound on “Dark Horse”, but still, a bit troubling.  This is a ballad, seventies style, full on, with cheap sounding strings, pianos, and plenty of drama…it’s OK, but I don’t really feel a huge amount of love for it – a slinky, descending piano riff suddenly moves it into cocktail lounge territory, until thank you God, a slide guitar appears, briefly, to make the rest of the song worthwhile.  Even that four second solo is worth it, it sounds great, and I just wish he would play, play, play – but, he feels that he has to do these “songs” – and that’s what he does – until the end of his career.  He is so earnest, it’s difficult to feel upset with him, he means so well, he wants these songs to work so badly – but as with “Dark Horse” – they have dated considerably.

More tinkling pianos take us at last, to the end of this long, somewhat tedious ballad – and then…then, we get “This Guitar (Can’t Keep From Crying)” and indeed, the opening guitar figure, has a beautiful, beautiful tone – and we do get a lot of guitar in this tune, another serious one (with another earnest, heartfelt, vocal) interspersed with the most incredibly beautiful guitars imaginable – really lovely, and for me, this track is a highlight, even though as a song, it doesn’t thrill me – the slide techniques, the tone – it’s just unbelievable – wah slide, slide harmonies – all beautifully done – really nice work – and I love it.  But that’s the big deal here – the slide guitars are ALWAYS good, even when they appear in the worst possible arrangements, even when they appear in bad songs – they are really good.

“Ooh Baby” (You Know That I Love You) starts to move us into that 70s soul again, but this time, it’s so tastefully done, that I don’t actually mind it – a very serious love song, with a sort of Smoky Robinson style vocal and approach to it – George takes this stuff so seriously – and for a sappy love song, done in a very soul style, it’s really pretty well done, and a pleasant vocal – I actually don’t mind this, oddly – because it’s really not my kind of song, but I admire the quality of it anyway.

Piano and organ introduce the next piece, yet another earnest, modified ballad – with a terrible title, “World Of Stone” – very serious stuff here, featuring some strange sounds from the guitar, wah sounds – but then, we get a very nice Stratocaster/clean guitar solo, followed by an odd chorus vocal – this is just kinda strange, but it’s OK, harmless, it doesn’t bother me, and some of the chord progressions are fairly interesting and fairly advanced, so I can admire it’s structure, even if I don’t really get it as a tune…more beautiful clean guitar soloing on the outro, with that strange, mixed-low chorus in the background – nice, nice guitar playing – I love it when he takes a longer solo like this, it’s a real beauty – and I will remember this – if I want to hear some nice, nice guitar – the last part of “World Of Stone” is the place to go – surprising, and beautiful.

Next comes “A Bit More Of You”, which is upbeat, up tempo – and you guessed it, full of sax riffs – but, surprise – it’s a musical joke, obviously, the end of the vinyl side one, it’s 45 seconds “more” of “You” – get it?  So, a faded in and then faded out, reprise of that first track (to remind you of back when this album was still good?) – I don’t quite know why, but it’s more of George’s wry humour, I suppose.  Good joke – “A Bit More Of You” J.

“I Can’t Stop Thinking About You” features that phrase, repeated four times, before some other lyrics appear, followed immediately by a fifth iteration.  More serious, serious balladry, very very strange background vocals here, too – almost weird – and some strange chord progressions, too – but still, not a lot to recommend it – a sort of nauseating chorale sound on the chorus, which once again, features those same words, over and over and over again… not much of a lyric, if you ask me.  Forgettable, but at this point, inevitable.  George seems locked into this “I am a serious soul singer” thing, he has to write these super serious ballads – I don’t get it – what happened to pop music, what happened to rock and roll?  It’s just not here, on these albums – it’s not on “Dark Horse”, with the possible exception of parts of “Hari’s On Tour” – otherwise – no – and it’s not here on “Extra Texture” either.

I don’t know what happened, it’s almost as if the 80s started early for George, and he went straight from 1972, to 1980 – his middle 70s, was like our 80s – bereft of most musical value J.

“Tired Of Midnight Blue” is the next aural assault on our ears, this one is a bit funky, piano led, with high pitched background vocals at first – but then, it gets better, it’s sort of like modified spy music, and it has some nice guitar work, maybe a bit “Steely Dan” if you know what I mean, interesting because it’s a bit odd.  I don’t mind this one, and so far, the songs have been overall, better, and much more palatable than the songs from the last album, “Dark Horse”.  Nice vocal harmonies, beautiful slide guitars – it is here, if you are patient and you know which tracks to listen to – this is one I will listen to again – it’s quite good, imagine that!  Strange – but good.

“Grey Cloudy Lies” with it’s strange piano, Leslie’d (rotating speaker) guitars, and moog synth arrangement – is just odd, another ballad, another downbeat, serious track, with a serious vocal – and it just sort of drifts by it’s not unpleasant, but it’s also not terrifically memorable for any reason.

“His Name Is Legs (Ladies And Gentlemen)” is the first of two obligatory bonus tracks, funky bass, piano, funky horns, trite lyrics, forgettable tune – funky Rhodes piano – I don’t really see the point, unless this is an attempt at “rocking” – if it is, it’s a pretty lame one – I suppose I should be thankful that there is something else besides the album opener that is actually upbeat, but I don’t get a lot out of this track – it’s just OK, but I just don’t really engage with it, and the horns are too funky for my liking, and any song with a bad horn arrangement – and, in this case, a really weird vocal break, that I can’t even explain – it’s just goofy – really, really silly voice-over “comedy” I think this is supposed to be quite funny, but it’s really not, and the spoken sections do not travel well.  Very silly stuff, and with such an otherwise downbeat, subdued record, its perkiness seems false and just kinda unnecessary.  It’s not helping!   However – his name is Legs, in case you were wondering – ladies and gentlemen.  Not recommended. Not particularly funny, or particularly good – it’s just plain odd.

Our second of two and final bonus track is “This Guitar Can’t Keep From Crying (Platinum Weird Version)” – and I suppose that is as good an explanation as any.  It’s sparser than the original version, much less “produced” – and, much more powerful too – much more – the original version is one of the stronger tracks on the record – which, by the way, is said to be so downbeat and low key, because George was depressed over the panning he’d received over his 1974 projects – the “Dark Horse” album and tour.  If so – well, it’s not that bad – I think overall, it’s substantially better than “Dark Horse” – and this version of this song, has one of the best solos George has played in a long time – it just rocks, it has a wicked, wicked guitar sound – and I will tell you what, I would happily sit through this entire album again just to hear this rocking version of this little song.  Said to be a “follow up” to the 1968 classic George Harrison song “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and also, an indictment of the responses to the “Dark Horse” album and tour – but my God, the guitar playing is just amazing – when the main solo arrives, (guitarists, you do NOT want to miss this one – check it out at 1:53 – far, far better than the one on the “finished version” – far better!!) – just about knocks you out of your seat – a really nice surprise.

 

DISC 6 – The Apple Years DVD

 

The DVD is just what you would expect, it contains an “Apple Years” feature, an “All Things Must Pass” feature, some live video clips from the 1992 “Live In Japan” CD, a making-of “Living In The Material World” piece, and additional videos and features for Dark Horse and The Concert For Bangladesh – which of course, isn’t in either of the boxes!

So it’s a bit odd – the Live In Japan video clips are VERY welcome (PLEASE PLEASE GIVE US THE WHOLE CONCERT FFS!) but they actually relate to Vol. 2 of the box set – and the Concert For Bangladesh feature is in the right place chronologically, but – that album, for whatever reason, is not included in the set (because it’s live? because they didn’t have the rights?) I don’t know why – because the second box contains the live 1992 concert CD – so it can’t be that.  I don’t understand the omission of the Bangladesh CD – but there it is.

Short but sweet, enjoyable, but nothing earth-shaking, and as always, you will have seen some or all of this material elsewhere – but, still, a nice addition to the box.  I very much enjoyed it.

 

 

IN CONCLUSION – THOUGHTS AND WISHES, HOPES AND DREAMS…

The fact that George’s career took a bit of a hit in 1974 / 1975 does not in any way detract from what a brilliant set of music “The Apple Years Vol. 1 – 1968 – 1975” is – it’s just what happened, and I think that any lack of inspiration present on “Dark Horse” and “Extra Texture” are more than made up by the amazing music on the four albums that precede them, and you would really need them to understand the full story of George’s music.

It’s also important to hear the next phase, as represented by “The Dark Horse Years Vol. 2 – 1976 – 1992” because George did produce some better music, later on, once the bad experiences of 1974 receded into the background.

I actually felt quite sorry for George – after those first few amazing years of the 1970s, and his absolutely runaway successes – one after the other – “All Things Must Pass” selling beyond his wildest dreams – “The Concert For Bangladesh” being a huge success – two triple albums in a row…and then the beautiful, understated “Living In The Material World” – at the end of 1973, he could look back at three solid years of massive success, with his “My Sweet Lord” single eventually selling in excess of TEN MILLION copies…and “All Things Must Pass” itself, over time, outselling McCartney and Lennon’s most famous albums combined…in a way, at this point in George’s life, really, the only way he COULD go was down…and it’s was, sadly, “Dark Horse” – album and tour – that took him there.

It could have been anything – any record – any time, but, for George, 1974 was truly disastrous, and I think too, that the madness of his first three years as an ex-Beatle were probably quite wearing, quite tiring – a lot of expectation, a lot was expected of George – and he delivered, over and over and over again, how he managed to pull of the Bangladesh benefit is still a miracle to me, he managed to convince Dylan to play at literally the last minute – he just made things happen.

So I was not surprised by “Dark Horse” being not quite as good – well, to be frank – not nearly as good, as what came before.  But I don’ t know if ANY songwriter could keep up with the output and the quality that George produced between 1970 and 1973 – and don’t forget, in 1969, he’d written “Something” – so you can really add that last year or two as a Beatle to this same time line, he was really on an incredibly musical high from 1963 to 1973 – a non-stop musical high, that started with his 1963 rendition of “Roll Over Beethoven” (taken from the Beatles’ second album “With The Beatles”), with his somewhat famous pals “The Beatles” and ended with “That Is All” which sits nicely at the end of 1973’s fourth solo album “Living In The Material World”.

If you think about it – from the first songs that George sang lead vocals on:

“Chains”

“Do You Want To Know A Secret”

“Devil In Her Heart”

“Roll Over Beethoven”

“Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby”

“I’m Happy Just To Dance With You”

 

…and, from the first songs that George wrote AND sang lead vocals on, too:

“Don’t Bother Me”

“Cry For A Shadow” (Co-written with John Lennon)

“I Need You”

“You Like Me Too Much”

“Think For Yourself”

“If I Needed Someone”

“Taxman”

“Love You To”

“I Want To Tell You”

“Within You, Without You” (compare this 1967 track to 1963’s “Don’t Bother Me” – quite a change there!)

“Blue Jay Way”

“Flying” (Co-written with Lennon, McCartney, Starkey)

“Christmas Time (Is Here Again)” (Co-written with Lennon, McCartney, Starkey)

“The Inner Light”

“Sour Milk Sea” (Jackie Lomax)

 

At this point, this is where we join the “Apple Years Vol. 1 1968 – 1975” box set, where George is credited with writing all of the songs on the first solo album, the soundtrack for “Wonderwall” the film.

Then – all the songs from “The Beatles” – aka “The White Album”:

“While My Guitar Gently Weeps”

“Piggies”

“Long, Long, Long”

“Savoy Truffle”

 

And then…

“Only A Northern Song”

“It’s All Too Much”

“Badge” (as performed by “Cream” co-written with Eric Clapton)

 

Followed by the two songs from 1969’s “Electronic Sound”

Then…

“Old Brown Shoe”

“Something”

“Here Comes The Sun”

“I Me Mine”

“For You Blue”

 

Not to mention or forget…

 

“Dig It” (Co-written with Lennon, McCartney, Starkey)

“Maggie May” (a traditional folk song covered by the Beatles on “Let It Be”)

Songs from the Doris Troy solo album of 1970

Songs from the Billy Preston solo album of 1970…

 

And off the back of that – off the back of this massive list of George Harrison penned songs – most of them, written and performed to an amazingly high standard – he went on, having JUST WRITTEN both “Something” and the amazing “Here Comes The Sun” months previously – to build the tracks that became “All Things Must Pass” – and when you look at that legacy, the whole thing (or most of it, anyway) it’s an amazing career, of amazing songs – culminating in the triple-whammy of “All Things Must Pass” followed by “The Concert For Bangladesh” followed by “Living In The Material World” – amazing, and built on a foundation of songs, the list above – that are frankly, absolutely incredible!

What a list of truly remarkable songs, and Dhani Harrison, as compiler, must be complimented for the very thorough and very high quality job he has done compiling these re-mastered, expanded albums included in the two box sets, “Apple Years” and “Dark Horse Years” – both, highly recommended!

I am so glad they appeared, and in particular, having pristine re-masters of “Wonderwall” (a personal favourite of mine), “All Things Must Pass” (George’s finest hour), “Living In The Material World” (from the Apple Box), and “Live In Japan 1992” (from the Dark Horse box – not reviewed here) – is a huge, huge deal to me – I love those records, not to mention “Cloud Nine” (also included in the “Dark Horse” box) which while a bit dated, sound pretty good still.

Of course, there was also the “Travelling Wilburys”…George’s “other” band of famous folk, which are omitted here entirely, and, the “Concert For Bangladesh”, only mentioned in passing on one of the DVDs…and not included in either of the boxes.  But even without those, the six discs here, represent a fine legacy, of my favourite Beatle, and preserved in a brilliant way by his son Dhani (a talented producer, musician, singer, and writer in his own right).

A remarkable man, a very talented man, a great musician, an astonishingly innovative and unique slide guitarist – George Harrison is a musical force to be reckoned with, a songwriter beyond compare – and you could not start in a better place than his output for Apple Records from 1968 – 1975 – this was when it was all happening for George – not to be missed!!

 

 

 

“And that is all I want to say…

Our love could save the day…

And that is all I’m living for…

Your love and nothing more

 

That is all…”

 

 

 

Peace, love and harrisongs forever !

 

 

Dave

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve got this notion…

After recently completing a couple of new tracks in the “music for apps” series, one piece done in korg’s  remarkable gadget app, entitled “fair play (advanced version)”, and the other, a very new piece made in my old friend nanostudio , entitled “treeclimber” – my most recent application-based work to be uploaded – I was thinking about what I should work on next.

I always have in my mind, a massive backlog of ideas for work with apps, and there are still a number of apps that I have not had the chance to record with – and in some cases it’s almost criminal, because they hold so much promise.  And I promise that I will get to them – borderlands granular being but one of them – an amazing ambient music application.

This is my current, “off-the-top-of-my-heid” list of apps that I own, but have simply not had an opportunity to record with yet:

borderlands granular

sector

moog’s animoog  – (note – I have quite a lot of material recorded using animoog, which dates back to the earliest times, almost three years back – that I have yet to publish any of – and it’s an incredibly beautiful application, one of the absolute best)

nave

thor

arturia family: imini and isem and iprophet

not to mention…

synergy

addictive synth

nlog pro

sliver

alchemy

arctic pro

and, no doubt, a host of others 🙂

 

And maybe what this list is…is the list of my next half dozen or so “eternal albums” series for 2015 – possibly.  I need to look at this carefully, and recently, I have been working with my app data (i.e., a mass of audio recordings made over the past few years, involving applications – and lots of them!!), of which there was such an overwhelming amount, created so quickly, over the first couple of years using apps, that I am just now sorting out the data (this is the curse of being prolific and incredibly inspired all at once, I dove head first into apps, recording so much video and audio, that my backlog has at times stretched out to about two years – and it’s only very slowly being worked through now, very slowly indeed! – it will take a long, long time to “catch up” – if I ever do!), and seeing what I have to present to you – and there is quite a lot sitting here, just waiting for me to find time – and I am constantly torn between the need to present this backlog of interesting application-based music, and playing new app-based music which will then also need to be presented – it’s always a choice, a choice I don’t want to make – I truly wish I had time to do both, but as it is, I am constantly bouncing back and forth between… – music of the past, music of the present, music of the past…music of the present.

 

Before I could sort through my mental files and choose one of these neglected apps to work on, another thought appeared in my head, which I kept trying to push away, I kept resisting it – until I realised, that I am much happier if I always have a project going in notion. So – without any remorse or hesitation whatsoever, I dived in, and began a new piece in notion, with a temporary title of “quartet in d major for four guitars” – it is another work in the classical genre, but this time, I am [temporarily, I assure you] moving away from the concerto form, and I am trying something new.

 

I have worked with notion and guitars before, in fact, my very first notion piece, “notionally acoustic”, was scored for two acoustic steel stringed guitars, as was the later “once more (into the fray)”, but to date, never really in the Classical genre, so I loaded up four nylon-stringed, classical guitars into notion – and began writing.

 

Very soon, I realised, that this is an amazing opportunity to apply some of my very limited Guitar Craft knowledge, in a writing situation, being very aware of the place that Guitar Craft already has within classical performance – i.e. where groups such as the Orchestra Of Crafty Guitarists (and their predecessors, the League Of Crafty Guitarists) and the California Guitar Trio, have used the new standard tuning, and, techniques such as “planned circulations” when performing classical works from Bach to Beethoven to Bartok.

 

With that strong history – and I was there, when the California Guitar Trio started doing a lot of classical repertoire, arranged by the remarkable Bert Lams, a musician that I respect more than most, and those early performances were the first time I had seen circulations used to play the very trickiest portions of some of these compositions – which might just about be “impossible” for three guitarists to play without using the circulation to share out the workload.  So any passage that is too incredibly quick or complex for a single guitar to play – can be shared across the three guitars, which makes the piece performable.

 

Or – it might also be, that in some cases, it’s not because it’s a tricky section of the piece, it’s rather that, Bert takes real joy in breaking up these melodies and harmonies into their component notes, and sharing them out between himself, Hideyo and Paul – and I was astonished the first time I saw this – it’s truly impressive, a remarkable way to perform classical music, and one of the most innovative I’ve ever seen.

 

Bert’s “planned circulations” truly inspired me, and now, while I cannot, unfortunately, work in new standard tuning (NST) in notion (I really, really wish they would add this capability to the application; then my life would be absolutely complete!! But it would involve new samples for all of the missing notes, that would have to be matched to the existing notes…not an easy ask, I am afraid), I can work with circulations.  I learned how to notate a circulation when I was working on my alternative track “once more (into the fray)”, so I already know how to do it – so I realised, when I set up this piece, that this is an opportunity to really expand this experience, and I plan to use “planned circulations” whenever and wherever I can within this new piece.

 

Of course, there is already a small one (a circulation, of course!) in place (!!) in the first section of the piece, the earliest melodies and ideas arrived very quickly and sorted themselves out very easily, so I am perhaps into minute two by now – a brand new composition, but, one that is already using circulations – I think it’s very exciting.

 

A chance to blend what I learned in Guitar Craft, actually, one of the single most important and beautiful things I learned in Guitar Craft, the “circulation” (where a single note is passed around a circle of guitarist, improvised or planned) – with classical music – something which, at the time, I did not have the skill, inspiration or tools to write – but now, fast forward to 2015 – and I have all three – amazingly.

 

Which means – at last – I can integrate the beauty and delight of the circulation form, into any classical composition I do involving guitars – so, four guitars, and of course, since I am notating sampled guitars in notion, rather than notating for real guitars in the real world, I use another tool to simulate the presence of four real players, an old, old piece of technology that I think is often criminally overlooked:  panning, or stereo placement.

 

OK, I am not able to do this in 5.1 (yet) or build up a 3D model a la Dolby Atmos, but – I can begin with what I’ve learned from the world of recording – if you want to simulate the physical position of different players, especially in a classical piece, you have to give careful thought to their stereo placement.  Now, in this case, it happens to be wonderfully simple, I set the four guitarists up like this:

 

Guitarist 1           Hard Left

Guitarist 2           30 degrees left of centre

Guitarist 3          30 degrees right of centre

Guitarist 4           Hard Right

 

Incredibly simple, but also, incredibly important – and I think, that this very simple technique, sounds wonderful – if you have a nice reverb room for all four players, and you put on the headphones and close your eyes…the stereo is simply amazing, and you really start to be able to pick out each player, and hear each distinct contribution to the piece.

 

It means too, that I can work in pairs – but not just the obvious, but in every possible configuration.

 

The most obvious two pairs would be Guitarist 1 and Guitarist 4, which gives you a very wide separation, and when Guitarists 2 and 3 fall silent, you get a particular ambience with just 1 and 4 playing.  At the same time, the second most obvious pair, Guitarists 2 and 3, sound almost as if they are in mono, wonderfully blended, being closer to the centre, and when 1 and 4 fall silent, this pairing have a completely different ambience, which provides a wonderful contrast to the wide separation of 1 and 4.  (Note, obviously, if you had a fifth instrument in this scenario, it would, of course, be set to dead centre).

 

Of course then, I am able to do any of the other remaining possible pairings, 1 and 3, 1 and 2, and 2 and 4 – so that’s five basic pairings…but for me, the most satisfying thing of all, personally, musically, and aurally – is when I run a planned circulation using all four players.  That means, if I score the notes starting with Guitarist 1, and then moving through the other three players in order, that you get the notes moving right across the stereo image from Hard Left to Hard Right (or, moving across your speaker system, or, moving across and through your head, in your stereo headphones) which just sounds wonderful to my ears!

 

If it is a particularly quick series, this almost then becomes a wonderful blur of musical motion, as the notes splay across your headphones, first, from left to right, then, back, but there is also the possibility of changing direction at any point in time, and sending the notes into almost any sequence – the most obvious being 1, 2, 3, 4, then the reverse of that, 4, 3, 2, 1 but there is no reason at all that I might not use other more unusual “orders” such as 2, 1, 4, 3 or 3, 1, 2, 4 and so on.  It’s also interesting the way these circulations “resolve”, when you are working on them, and you get to the end of the four bars or whatever, and you hear the way the circulation “works” within the large composition – it’s fascinating.

 

The possibilities are many, and I am very, very excited to see what works, what sounds good, what doesn’t work, what makes the most musical sense – what also pleases the aural senses the most.  I think it’s amazing that I am able to create this unusual sense of space, where you can distinctly hear each of the four players, and when they begin to “circulate”, you can follow the notes in “stereo space” which lends interest to the performance, while it adds sparkle to the music itself – do I play it straight, where the guitarist just “play” the notes, or do I put in the extra effort, and get them to work out quality “circulations” that do the most aural, and musical, justice to the piece?  I have the options, and I love it – these possibilities are truly exciting for a composer, which is what I’ve become, and I believe that because of this, I will probably begin to use circulations much, much more in my compositions, because I can, mostly!

 

There are a number of ways to accomplish this in notation.  Probably the simplest, and this is the way I do it, is, I write out a section of music, let’s say its four bars, in regular notation.  I then copy that across all four instruments, and then I simply decide who will play the first note – and I turn the other three guitarist’s corresponding notes into the equivalent rest.  Then I figure out who plays the second note, and I then turn the other three into rests.  Continue to the end – and you have a circulation.  Then – play it back.  If it doesn’t work – start over.  Or – make adjustments.  Sometimes you need to work on these a bit, because they don’t sound right – I’ve even decided to change notes in one or two of the copies to provide some alternate notes – so the circulation will then be subtly different from the original four bars of “straight” music that I had written.

 

That is just one way to do it, you can also decide what your notes will look like, by creating entire sequences of dummy bars, containing all rests, i.e., if you are in 4/4 time, then you would have four quarter rests per measure, or 8 8^th rests, etc.  Then, you can go in and add notes manually, overwriting the rests, with the notes.

 

I’ve done it both ways, and both work fine, although I tend to use the “notes to rests” version rather than the “rests to notes” – it’s just my personal preference.

 

Another possibility, is to run two paired circulations – so, get Guitarists 1 and 4 playing one series of notes, while Guitarists 2 and 3, play a different one, perhaps in counterpoint or as a round – I haven’t really tried that, yet, so that might be interesting.

 

I just think that circulations and classical music were almost made for each other, and I love the idea of combining classical composition, with one of Robert Fripp’s best ideas ever.  It just works for me, and I believe that this new piece is going to really shine because of it – I am already very pleased with the first several bars, and their little “mini-circulation”, and my mind is racing ahead to imagining massive four-part guitar solo sections, no chords, just the four guitarists all soloing like mad – and then, cut it up into a circulation.

 

Imagine streams of 32^nd notes or 64^th notes, descending across four guitars, moving back and forth like a jagged triangle across the page, from guitarist 1 to 2 to 3 to 4 then back through them all to 1 again – like a wave of music, shared by these four players – I can’t wait to get to this imagined “solo section” – wherever it will be.

 

I am having to restrain myself a bit here, and make sure that I also have the piece centred and still based in the classical tradition, where I do have long stretches of music that are played “normally” – in fact, I want “normal” playing to dominate the piece, not the circulations – they need to be the exception rather than the rule.  They need to remain special, and I think that whenever they do appear, even if it’s fairly regularly – that they ARE special – and I am pleased and proud to have them available to me as an interesting tool that will hopefully, make my classical works more interesting and more unique – of course, any other “Crafty” that writes notation and is aware of circulations, might well also be crafting classical music including circulations, and frankly, I hope they are.

 

I really feel that the beauty of the circulation, is something that should be much more widely heard, and much more widely understood – the first time I was involved with one, in my very first live Guitar Craft circle – it absolutely blew my mind, I realised that I was a human being, being used by Robert Fripp in a live experiment in looping – and it was basically, a massive circulation involving 30 people, with Fripp directing and deciding what each player should play. Incredible, and, unforgettable – once you’ve been a part of such a unique thing.

 

That was in 1988, a long, long time ago now, but, I’ve carried that with me all this time, and now, the excitement I felt, that feeling of discovery – and later, at other Guitar Craft courses, I was fortunate enough to participate in many, many “unplanned” circulations, and planned ones, too – and sometimes, the absolute beauty of what happened in the “unplanned” ones especially, was just almost too much to bear, I would go to bed literally shaking my head at what a beautiful piece I had had the great fortune to be a part of.  A good circulation is a tonic, it literally heals me, it feels amazing, and it’s one of the most satisfying musical forms I have ever encountered.

 

The unplanned ones, where you have 20 or 30 players – or sometimes, in more intimate circumstances, with 7 or 8 players, as in some of the kitchen teams I have worked with (I made Kitchen Craft part of my Guitar Craft experience at almost every course I ever attended) where amazing things happen that you just can’t forget – “you remember that circulation we did that night, after we did the breakfast prep – that was astonishing?!!…” – all I can remember is that amazing circulation magic, and shaking my head in astonished disbelief – what an experience.

 

It does stick in your brain, and of course, there were those amazing early performances by Bert and the trio, and hearing Bert’s remarkable, unique arrangements of standard classical works, was a huge inspiration to me too, because I could then see the power of the “planned circulation” within all music – especially, in classical music.  It was interesting too, to watch and listen as the California Guitar Trio developed, more and more circulations crept into their work, so some of their later CDs and live performances still feature Bert’s special circulation-filled arrangements of classical, and other styles of performance, too.  To my mind, the trio are the best of the “Crafty spin-off groups”, because of the incredible variety of styles and pieces they perform, but also, because of the amazing arranging skills of Bert Lams.

 

I couldn’t write notation back then, in fact, I finally learned how thanks to the remarkable notion application, and I am still very much a beginner, but, I can now write it well enough – and it’s pretty easy to “hear” too, I do have “an ear” for music, so having Notion is such a blessing – I can write it, and instantly, I can HEAR it – get a good preview, and then I can “hear” if it is right or wrong – and make the appropriate adjustments – and try again.

 

It works.  It’s a good process, and I am so glad that I worked it out – it will definitely mean that I will want to create more repertoire for Guitar Craft, both classical and non-classical, I also plan to use circulations in some of my “alternative” works featuring steel-stringed acoustic guitars rather than nylon-stringed classical guitars – and in fact, one of my recent compositions, “once more (into the fray)” was done in this way – in that case, featuring two acoustic steel-stringed guitars.

 

In any case, the new piece is well under way, and I am hopeful that I can feature circulations in it in a fairly substantial way, without going over the top, and produce a pleasant, intriguing composition that will be enjoyed by all.  That would be a good thing.

 

notion was in constant use for the first year or so that I had it, so much so that I had to take a break from it, I did not want to, and it’s been a struggle keeping away from it all this time, many months, because I wanted to give the other apps a look in – which, to some extent, I have managed to do – except for the ones that I have yet to work with – but at least, I am keeping my hand in by working on existing eternal albums such as music for apps: “music for apps: gadget” and music for apps: nanostudio.

 

During my self-imposed “break” from notion, I did have a chance to sort out my data of stored music for applications, which allowed me to clean up, prep and upload the music for apps:  thesys eternal album, I also have set up sector as the next catalogue of recorded music to look at – sector is a remarkable application – and also during that time, I completed the two songs I mentioned earlier, “fair play (advanced version)” in gadget and “treeclimber” in nanostudio – and then, I lost my will power, I felt it calling to me, and suddenly, I am back in the world of notion once more (ahhh-bliss!…) – and feeling extremely happy about it, too, I truly enjoy working with this app, and writing notation, and having the instant feedback of being able to play back your music instantly, seconds after you put note to page – and that is hugely invaluable to a composer.

I’ve now already made significant progress with my new “four guitars”-driven quartet, and I am very excited about the possibilities for this piece – it’s sounding pretty good already, which is unusual – often, embryonic music refuses to take shape, or you struggle mightily to bring it into the shape you see in your head – but not this piece, it flows, it doesn’t require much tweaking, or at least, not so far – I am perhaps, two or three minutes in now – just working through the details :-).

 

I missed you, notion, I feel “normal” now – because for so many months, I always had at least one notion piece “on the go”, sometimes, two or even three, and I feel that music for apps: notion is one of my strongest works.  I am busy working on the next piece that will form a part of this ongoing eternal album and I am very excited indeed, about the musical possibilities inherent in a piece like this, when using classical notation mixed with the very potent Guitar Craft / Robert Fripp “circulation” – to my mind, that is quite a combination!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

studio diary 20150214

I had thought that “fair play”, my new “korg gadget” piece, was finished, I did make the odd adjustment here and there, but I thought it had reached its final form, until I sat down to listen to it a few days ago.

 

the listening session was fine, I am happy enough with the song, “fair play”, as it stands – but, I felt like I wanted to hear more of the “middle section”, which, as it happens, is a key change up to C major, there were only a few bars, so I copied those three bars, inserted them before the existing three bars, and then set about modifying just the Chicago bass / synth (which I am mainly using as a lead synth, not a bass – the hammond has taken the role of the bass for the majority of this track) part so that I had, effectively, three “new” lead lines, and the third, was sort of a very monotonous, circular sort of riff, so I instructed the device to play that bar twice, which gave us this:

Chicago 1 Modified Chicago 4 X 1
Chicago 2 Modified Chicago 5 X 1
Chicago 3 Modified Chicago 6 X 2
Chicago 4 Originally Chicago 1 X 1
Chicago 5 Originally Chicago 2 X 1
Chicago 6 Originally Chicago 3 X 1

so, wonderfully, that means that the “middle eight”, which is a whole tone above the basic song (which appears to be in F or Bb, I am not exactly sure!) is…seven measures long ! I love stuff like that – it makes it odd – but musically, you would probably never notice, it just sounds like a synth “solo”, which is in a different key to the bulk of the song – and it brings musical relief because it jumps up a whole tone – it’s very exciting, it builds tension beautifully…and hopefully, no one is counting bars, and the fact that my middle eight is not, in fact, a middle eight, but a middle seven – will go unnoticed by everyone except; everyone who just read this paragraph. 🙂

we have then, a whole piece of music, at last, that begins (and continues for most of the song, to be honest) in the staggered, drum-driven rhythmic world of gentle giant, moves to some beautiful acoustic v electric piano sections, with a solid and wonderful hammond bass underpinning everything – it then, finally mutates to a seven measure long “middle eight” – (perhaps, I have invented the world’s first “middle seven” – who knows? I’d love to take that credit) and then, via a reprise of the opening segment, moves onto a spectacular ending featuring a four-measure version of the “middle seven” – why not?
So at no point does the “middle eight” ever equal eight bars, it’s seven in the middle of the song (and four when I re-use it at the end) – and I think that is just fine.

 

“fair play” to me, is a proof positive that the newly-enhanced “korg gadget”, which to be fair, they only added a few instruments, but, the instruments they added are so awesome, that it makes creation with them easy, in fact, with the 15 original synths, you could do a lot, already, but having the core electronic keyboards – well, one is acoustic, I suppose, so having one acoustic and the rest of the core electronic keyboards, to hand – gives us CONTROL…it means you can build songs using those more familiar, more comforting keyboards, and then bring in the 15 original korg synths – the “gadget” originals – to add colour and shade and light and dark…

 

I basically started this piece out with organ, acoustic piano, drums and electric piano – and that IS the core of the song, and all of those are instruments that are made available in “korg gadget” from “korg module” – which, right away, shows us the real value of “korg gadget” – and that’s just the start – what will it be like when you can access ANY instrument via “korg module”, in high quality samples??

I vote for mellotron, sitar, and anything else they fancy sampling…go for it. I want to see “korg module” become the premier sample based app on ios – unless native instruments jumps in – then, I would have to wait and see what THEY come up with 🙂

I was eager to try “korg gadget” now that it’s been “upgraded” – simply by the existence of “korg module”, that gives “korg gadget” a whole new face, and transforms it into a player of high quality instrument samples – directly parallel (in its basic function, anyway) to kontakt in komplete – we have our world class sample player now – the ubiquitous “korg gadget”.
this is a really clever idea from korg (they seem to be having a lot of really good ideas lately – witness the Ibanez RGKP6 guitar and bass, which feature a korg kaoss pad 2S built right into the guitar’s body – a fantastic idea whose time has finally come – a very clever idea). korg makes really interesting synths and other products, too, and the more I get into their stuff, the more I enjoy it – they have been around the block, they obviously listen to their customers, and, their stuff is well built and long lasting – korg is a name that says “quality” to me.

 

they seem too, to be able to compete in the world of ios, in the app world, at the same level and with the same commitment to quality that they show in the virtual world, the bricks and mortar world. I like that about a company, and I think that they are handling themselves well in both arenas – not something a lot of companies can probably boast about.

 

I have listened again now, to the playback of “fair play”, and I am now fairly certain, that it is indeed, complete. I hope I will not change my mind about that again! It’s ended up just about four minutes in length, which for this type of piece, is ideal. I hope to master it and upload it as soon as possible….(update: now done! “fair play” can be found here).

 

and then…well, things happen 🙂

I was and am totally happy with the completed track, “fair play”…but, while I was doing some final tweaks to levels and stereo placement, it struck me that I’d really like to do two things: I already have finished and mastered “fair play” as it stands, in it’s complete form, but also, I’d like to take it from the point it is at, and do some further work on it, make it an alternate version of itself – so I did a “save as” of the completed “gadget” track, and named it “fair play – advanced version” – and immediately began work on transforming the by-now familiar “fair play” towards new musical areas, I have removed some of the sparser parts, I’ve added more drums, there is far less “space” in this new version, it just rocks straight through rather than having dynamic sections as the original does, and so on.

I’ve also been doing some serious “randomisation” – this is a process that I tend to get into in “korg gadget” especially – where I will lift one melodic pattern, and randomly copy it over a different pattern in a different instrument, so, organ bass part becomes electric piano riff, or acoustic piano now doubles with electric, synth solo becomes hammond solo, and so on…taking existing themes, melodies, and solos and moving them to different places within the composition – it’s huge fun.

I might also decide to just remove four bars of music here, and then, copy two others into their place, remove five bars here, and not replace them, add some of my favourite bars from the first half into the second half, and so on – endless possibility, and it’s very quick, very easy, to edit in korg gadget, too – add extra snare drum hits, add extra bass drum hits, change single hits into double hits – it can all be done so, so quickly – and probably, within the first fifteen minutes of editing, I had radically altered the basic DNA of “fair play” into a completely oddball variation of itself – “fair play – advanced version” – which I plan to work on for a few weeks, to give it roughly as much gestation time as the original got – and then master and upload it as well.

I am very, very glad that korg has jumped into the area of high quality samples for ios, with the beautiful “korg module” app, and I am extremely glad that by chance, they made those samples available to the “korg gadget” app – that, prompted me to re-visit “korg gadget”, and create a song that utilised some of those amazing samples – and I find that it makes a HUGE difference to me, to have hammond organ, acoustic piano, and electric piano as three of the most important samples in my new piece(s) “fair play” and “fair play – advanced version” – which might get re-titled “unfair play” or “fair work” or some such – I don’t know.  or…it might just stay as “advanced version” – this remains to be seen.

I have a lot of work to get on with now, I’ve recently recorded a lot of guitar sessions which should hopefully yield some new videos (down the road a piece, probably, but, maybe some interesting takes in this last batch of videos…) as well as a lot of audio mixing to do before I even think about the video side of things – this is always the challenge for me – I am now able to record a lot of material very quickly, but with only myself to handle post-processing, it takes me weeks, or in some cases, years, or in some case, never, to create video content – or sometimes, even process the audio and create master audio mixes.

the backlog is not getting any smaller at the moment, which is actually OK, and what I’ve finally decided is that I will abandon utterly my original intention of trying to present my video work chronologically, I will master and upload what videos I feel are the most important, what videos are the most interesting or unusual, and then, as time permits, I will go back and continue work on the “old” video backlog.  controlling this, will be playlists.  I’ve already created video playlists, by date, for many of my legacy video sessions so I would suggest that whenever you visit the pureambientHD channel or indeed, any of my video channels on youtube, that you always go to the Playlists section, rather than the Uploads – because as of 2015, uploads will no longer be chronological, but completely random – so you will find instead, that in the Playlists section, you will find “dated” dave stafford live music video session in chronological order – and this then frees me to pick and choose between the now, and the historical-that-haven’t-yet-been-processed – so I am recommending that you stick to the chronology as imposed by my “dated” session Playlists – or else, complete and utter confusion may be the main result 🙂  as for me – well, I am chronically chronologically challenged anyway – and confusion, well, it might be my epitaph 🙂   but playlists will get you the unconfused view of dave stafford live music videos.

I really enjoy creating these music videos, and trying out new instruments and techniques, I have never gone in for the “here is my demo of the roland gr-55 guitar synth” and then sit there, and play you ten seconds of each of it’s voices – instead, when I acquired the synth – I just started making videos with it, I just started using it, so you can learn along with me – and I hope that this can, will and might inspire others to pick up some of these interesting instruments, and have a go yourselves – I reckon that it’s easier to learn about something just by trying it – so, for my first ever video, “st. alia of the knife”, I selected the “oboe” voice, set up a nice reverb, ran an existing reverse loop – and did a live oboe solo / improv on video.  from there – I just kept working with the synth, until I eventually used it to create my first classical composition, my “concerto no. 1 in em for oboe and guitar” and also, I’ve continued to use it on improvs, as well as part of multi-track recordings such as “this is a test”, as well as the title track, from the “gone native” album, and in fact, I used it on several of the tracks on “gone native” – I really think that the roland gr-55 guitar synth is a great instrument – and I find that all of us who use the device can compare notes and share what we’ve learned via video, audio, and other modes of communication – indeed, why not?

but I digress, this is mainly a report of the now split-into-two “fair play” – and I hope you enjoy the original version while I continue to develop the second version, “fair play – advanced version” 🙂

 

until then I remain

your faithful servant

yours truly, etc.

 

 

dave

pureambient HQ – 20150214

 

 

 

 

The Return Of The Dinosaurs (but then…were they ever really gone?)

The beginning of 2015 has been a real treasure-trove of live releases from the inarguably, the two most influential, powerful and long-lasting of the progressive rock bands: the mighty King Crimson (whose current ranks, in the 2014/2015 incarnation of the band, have swelled to seven thanks to a front line of three drummers) and the stripped-down-to-a-trio but just as powerful, just as dark, and just as technically proficient, Van Der Graaf Generator.

January saw the release of a sort of “taster” live King Crimson album, entitled “Live At The Orpheum” recorded at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles, California, on September 30 and October 1 during the band’s 2014 US tour – their first tour in this seven-man configuration.

While the album is almost frustratingly brief, clocking in at about 41 minutes, it may be an intentional Fripp-ploy, or Fripp-plot as my keyboard seemed to prefer, so I will allow it to say that, to leave us tantalised and wanting more.  And that – it does.  I recently read a full set list of a 2014 King Crimson show (see “HollywoodReporter.com” to view this setlist), and it was about double or more in length (at least) to what this live album contains.  But – what the album contains – is surely one of the most extraordinary and most unexpected things in the universe – King Crimson, with their “front line” of three drummers (Pat Mastelotto, Gavin Harrison, Bill Rieflin – who also plays a bit of mellotron), and a “back line” of four musicians including founder Robert Fripp, is delving deep into…it’s back catalogue.

And that – well, we had hopes – we knew that Mel Collins was back in the band, and we also knew that his fellow 21st Century Schizoid Band alumnus Jakko Jakszyk, over time, had mastered most of the classic King Crimson repertoire from the “first four” albums – “In The Court Of The Crimson King”, “In The Wake Of Poseidon”, “Lizard”, and the less well known and under-appreciated “Islands” on guitar, and on lead vocals (plus, other tracks from “Red” too) – quite a feat in itself, but, also making him the perfect new lead vocalist / spare Fripp-type guitarist, too, for this new King Crimson.  Much to my personal astonishment, we get not one, but two tracks from the much-derided and often undervalued “Islands” (1971), which over time, has actually become my personal favourite out of the “first four” classic King Crimson albums.

The two tracks they cover from “Islands” (“The Letters” and “Sailor’s Tale”), are at the same time, perfect re-creations musically and yet, edgy, new and sparkling from having “re-invented” drum parts, in three perfectly-arranged sections (Gavin Harrison, drum arranger), from the three drummers; who take these songs as seriously as any of the classic tracks on offer here, as well as what is probably Jakko’s best vocal on the album, on the wonderfully melodramatic “The Letters” – an absolutely beautiful vocal rendition.  Perfect – and chillingly accurate – “impaled on nails of ice…and raked with emerald fire…” – Peter Sinfield‘s lyrics still forming a huge part of the ethos of King Crimson, some forty plus years since they were penned in 1971 – and that was Sinfield’s last King Crimson album as lyricist – “Islands”.  For me, the lyrics from “Islands” are probably my favourite of all of Sinfield‘s lyrics on any album by any band, including the remarkable debut from King Crimson, 1969’s “In The Court Of The Crimson King” – there is something about “Islands” that just resonates with me, and much of it is in the beautiful words that the departing Sinfield graced the record with.

The back catalogue represented here on this short, but amazing live album, also extends to two tracks from the “Red” album, fast forward now from 1971, to 1974, where the second major incarnation of King Crimson, that started out in 1973 as a quintet, quickly became a quartet when percussionist Jamie Muir, left the band, leaving poor Bill Bruford on drums to handle all of the drums and percussion from there on out.  David Cross was the next to go, driven out by the world’s loudest (and best) rhythm section – John Wetton and Bill Bruford, and it was Wetton, Bruford and Fripp that remained long enough, after the extensive touring just prior to the making of their last studio album, as a trio now – so in two years, from a quintet to a trio; the ninth of the “first ten” – (counting Earthbound as no. 5 and USA as no. 10) – two songs were included: the never-before performed “One More Red Nightmare” (this time, sporting the drummers having a go at bettering one of original drummer Bill Bruford’s most difficult and well known drum parts – and doing a GREAT job of it, by the way) and as the album closer, the beautiful, extended “Starless” – with Fripp playing that signature thick, distorted lead guitar melody (the one that breaks your heart all over again when you hear it), as Mel Collins reprises both his own and Ian McDonald‘s horn parts – McDonald was a guest on the 1974 “Red” sessions – as was Collins.

Forty four years has elapsed since Robert Fripp and Mel Collins toured together in 1971, and worked on the difficult fourth Crimson album, “Islands” together with then drummer Ian Wallace, and singer/Fripp-trained bassist Boz Burrell (both of who have by now, passed on), and some 41 years have elapsed since the “Red” album – the final studio album from the “first ten” which was completed in 1974 – so it’s more than a lot of water under a lot of different bridges – but, for me, for this reviewer, it’s absolutely fantastic to hear Mel Collins and Robert Fripp playing these songs again, and showing us anew how powerful, unique, and in many cases, under-appreciated they were at the time – especially the wonderful “The Letters” with it’s incredible story of unfaithfulness and purity, and the awesome , powerful instrumental track, “Sailor’s Tale” where Jakko and Fripp re-create the double fuzz tone attack solos that underpin one of Mel Collins’s most well-known and insanely wonderful sax solos – and we now have TWO perfectly-aligned, fuzz guitars duetting with Collins now on this unbelievably cool piece of music, driven now by three drummers plus the as-ever-note-perfect Tony Levin on bass – it is simply astonishing – a great version of a great song – really powerful stuff.

In fact, besides the obvious brilliance of Tony Levin on bass / stick, the multitasking Jakko’ on vocals, guitars and possibly keyboards, and Robert Fripp himself playing what can only be called “regular guitar” (as these older pieces demanded) instead of soundscapes and, “regular guitar” from Fripp, is both a surprise and a revelation – he is as competent as ever, a stellar player – and not to be trivialised;  however, it’s really the presence of the remarkable Mel Collins that makes this live outing astonishing, beautiful, shiver-inducing and reminiscent all at once – he is able to either re-create his original parts, or, create improved, modernised versions of them, that still capture the beauty of the originals – effortlessly, and there are some very innovative uses of Mel’s abilities on this record – my favourite being during “The ConstucKtion Of Light” (the sole track from the 2000s represented on this record) when it comes time in the song where Adrian Belew is meant to sing – instead of a Jakko vocal to replace the missing Belew…we get a beautifully understated jazz flute solo from Mel Collins!

So that just knocks my socks off – a word-perfect rendition of the track, with Jakko and Fripp playing the interlocking guitar parts with precision and grace – and then here comes Mel, replacing the now-departed Adrian Belew with an amazing piece of live jazz flute – simply brilliant!

The only place where the album maybe lets us down a tiny bit, is in the almost-complete absence of any new music – it contains a short introductory piece, and an equally short percussion showcase written by Harrison – teasers, tiny bits of new Crimson.  But that tiny point does not bother me in the slightest, because the quality of the takes, the amazing versions of classic tracks on this truly astonishing mini-live album, captured from just two random nights on the tour – are of such a high quality that I can wait a bit longer to hear new King Crimson songs in 2015.

The track list is as follows:

1. Walk On: Monk Morph Chamber Music

2. One More Red Nightmare

3. Banshee Legs Bell Hassle

4. The ConstruKction of Light

5. The Letters

6. Sailor’s Tale

7. Starless

If you enjoy the music of King Crimson, you cannot go wrong with this incredibly well-played, beautiful-sounding live record – which now joins a remarkable collection of live King Crimson recordings that begins with “Epitaph”, which documents the eleven months of the original 1969 band – remarkable performanecs! – then, moves through “The Great Deceiver”, “The Road To Red”, “Starless” (covering 1973-1974 and all points in between) and many, many more – and at the moment, ends here – in 2015, to commemorate the 46th anniversary of the band’s formation back in January, 1969 – this live release, released in January, 2015 – 46 years later.

More shows are planned for Great Britain and Europe in September 2015, and I am happy to report that we’ll be travelling to both Birmingham (September 14th) and Edinburgh (September 17th) in the UK, to see the band, something we’ve never, ever done before, as well as, one date in Utrecht, Holland (September 24th)  – just for the sheer fun of it – a week later – so, I am actually ecstatic because we are going to see the new King Crimson not once, not twice – but THREE times!!  – well, maybe, once before, in 1975, when I saw Led Zeppelin twice in one week – but that was because a second show was added at the last minute – this is a deliberate tracking of the band from one city to another and then to another continent…how very exciting!!!  I’ve seen King Crimson before – a few times (1981, 1982, 1984, and in 1995) but this is King Crimson with MEL COLLINS – come on, and that is why we’re going to see them three times in one year!!! ☺.

 

Then – February arrived, and the special two-disc version of “Merlin Atmos – 2013 Live Performances” by Van Der Graaf Generator, arrived along with it.  Now, I had been lucky enough to read about and pre-order this record, because, for those that pre-ordered, a limited edition of 5000 would contain a second disc of live material, which is called “Bonus Atmos”…and I would always rather have a double-live Van Der Graaf Generator CD instead of a single-disc Van Der Graaf Generator CD – any day of the week, month or year!!

On the day the discs were due to arrive, the vendor wrote to explain that they had been short-shipped, and that there had been a serious shortage of the two disc version of the CD – and that some unfortunate customers might have to wait for more to be pressed.

I was not one of those unfortunate souls, two days after that email, my copy of the double CD arrived – and I have to say, for my money, it’s the best live Van Der Graaf Generator album YET – even if you just count the first disc. If you consider both discs – then it’s absolutely the best – the range of tracks on offer, from classic to modern, is astonishing, and of course, it contains not one but BOTH of the “behemoths” – the two “giant” live tracks that this dedicated trio have re-learned: “Flight”, taken from the tenth Peter Hammill solo album, “A Black Box” (my personal favourite), as well as a classic Van Der Graaf Generator track reworked for the 2010s – “A Plague Of Lighthouse-Keepers” originally from the VDGG “Pawn Hearts” album of 1974.  We were fortunate enough to see the band at this time, in 2013, and the setlist did include both of these tracks – and, they also both appear on disc one of the new CD, “Merlin Atmos – 2013 Live Performances” – so for those two tracks alone, it’s worth the price of admission.  You cannot go wrong!

Most people know the story of the reformation of Van Der Graaf Generator, when the “classic” line-up got back together for a show, in 2005, and then a tour, and then another tour…and originally, this included fourth member David Jackson, on saxes and flute, along with founding member Peter Hammill, organist/bassist Hugh Banton, and the remarkable Guy Evans on drums – this quartet made a new studio album, went out and played it – and then at some point, David Jackson had had enough – and much to the horror of the fans, who were loving this re-united band – he quit after the 2005 tour.

We all held our collective breaths, wondering what on earth would happen next – how could this band go on without the very distinctive flute and sax contributions of the remarkable soloist David Jackson?? – the man who plays two saxophones at once, and was a huge, huge part of some of the songs – an integral part, you would think.  An irreplaceable part…

Think again – the remaining trio of Hammill, Banton and Evans voted to go on as a trio – and produced an even more remarkable album, called “Trisector” in 2008, followed by tours and another wonderful studio album called “A Grounding In Numbers” in 2011, plus an experimental record called “ALT” in 2012 – so this gave the this well-rehearsed trio of veteran musicians a huge and diverse back catalogue – or two – drawing upon the classic tracks from the 1970s, or, the tracks from the current four studio albums, starting with “Present” (which was a double – so it’s really five studio albums) made with Jackson, three, beginning with Trisector – without.

One other live album, the most excellent double “real time” (with David Jackson) was also released in 2007, so this band has been very, very busy in its new incarnation(s), “Merlin Atmos” (without David Jackson) being the second full length live document of the band in the last decade – and I don’t really care how many Van Der Graaf Generator live discs get made – they are always good, and always welcome – because this is a band that actually just gets better and better as time goes on, and has become astonishingly able on the stage – almost telepathic in their ability to support the wonderful songs of Peter Hammill, as well as other tracks written by various band members over time – “Hammill, Banton and Evans” compositions probably to the fore, and why not?

Many of we fans have actually come to feel that the trio is somehow – better – purer, and able to improvise more freely, and it has in particular really allowed Hugh Banton to come forward, and take every single Jackson solo or part, and make it his own – beautifully.  It’s strange to vocalise this, but – I like the trio better, than I like the reformed classic quartet!  Sacrilege to some, truth to me.  I think a lot of VDGG fans will know exactly what I mean by this – especially if you have been fortunate to see the trio version play live, as I’ve been lucky enough to witness a few times.

And – this band, this oddest of power trios – drums, organ/bass pedals, and piano/guitar/vox from Peter Hammill – has dared to take on repertoire that the reformed quartet, with Jackson, would not have DREAMED of attempting.  Like the final track on CD one – the amazing “Gog” – an obscure Peter Hammill track from 1974’s “In Camera” album, that this trio plays as if on fire – a terrifying lyric and vocal, accompanied by church / nightmare / drum solo lead guitar music such as you have never heard – an extremely strange track, but – played with a wonderful, overwhelming sense of the now.  Truly powerful, unbelievably strange music – but, also truly wonderful, and I was lucky enough on one occasion to see the trio version of VDGG play “Gog”, and it pretty much frosted my socks, to coin a phrase.  I will never forget the power of that performance “will you not come to me? – and love me for one more night?” – the roar of Peter Hammill‘s voice is undiminished by time, and the anguish in the lyrics of a song like “Gog” does not lessen with time.

I did see the quartet version of the band early on; they were great, really, really good, and seeing David Jackson reprise his original solos was amazing and unforgettable, but, seeing the trio perhaps three times since then, I’ve come to absolutely love the stripped down, “can-we-really-pull-this-track-off-with-just- the-three-of-us?” (answer: yes, always) version of the band.

This 2013 double live CD is absolutely a must have, as far as I am concerned, first, so you can own the “official” live versions of both “Flight”, with it’s wonderful new intro and outro, and the re-worked, modernised but absolutely fantastical “A Plague Of Lighthouse-Keepers” (upon which one “Robert Fripp” played a bit of electric guitar, back in 1974, on the original studio version thereof) – those two tracks are astonishing, but – the rest of the tracks are of equal lineage, and the “new” tracks taken from the last few albums, sit perfectly with the older material – it no longer, in fact, “matters” from whence a song comes – it’s the Voice of Van Der Graaf Generator – and that voice is undoubtedly the voice of Peter Hammill – back healthy and hale from a heart attack scare several years back – and the music just flows from track to track and you find yourself not caring when a song was first recorded, but just listening in the moment, to a band of consummate musicians, playing a large quantity of some of the best highlights of one of the best progressive rock catalogues ever built – an amazing band.

The set list is as follows:

Disc One – Merlin Atmos

1. Flight
2. Lifetime
3. All That Before
4. Bunsho
5. A Plague Of Lighthouse-Keepers
6. Gog

 

Disc Two – Bonus Atmos

 

1. Interference Patterns
2. Over The Hill
3. Your Time Starts Now
4. Scorched Earth
5. Meurglys III, The Songwriter’s Guild
6. Man-Erg
7. Childlike Faith In Childhood’s End

 

The band took an interesting tactic when it came to preparing this disc, that I found very refreshing – the three of them, split up the work like this:

 

• When you lift up Disc One, it says underneath it “mixed by HB at the Organ Workshop”.
• When you lift up Disc One, it says underneath it “balanced and arranged by PH at Terra Incognita”
• Guy Evans wrote the liner notes, which talk about the two long pieces they learned and how that came about.

 

I thought that was really, really fair and “meet”, and when you listen to the whole disc, both discs, I mean, in order, they sound like one cohesive concert, so the way that “HB” and “PH” “hear” the band in terms of the live mix, are clearly quite similar – it’s as if they were one person, but each mixing half of the show – very odd, but – effective.  In fact, I’ve just re-listened to the transition from “Gog” to “Interference Patterns” in the play list containing all 13 tracks – and it’s just like the next track begins, there is no audible change that would indicate the hand of PH at the mixing desk, or any way to denote the handing off of the mixing task from Hugh to Peter at this point – it just flows…brilliant!

 

For me – a deeply satisfying concert, and hearing these familiar songs once again, now that the trio has been playing for a number of years, hearing the small changes and improvements – it’s just fantastic, they are growing, and, the quality of equipment, the quality of current technology, actually means that they sound better now, than they originally did in concert – back in the 1970s, underpowered and distorted PA systems, and generally bad stage sound plagued the band (as various bootlegs will attest) while all of the live material from the reunion onwards is of such a great quality – it’s fantastic, and I am so pleased for them, because it’s as if they are getting a second chance to be Van Der Graaf Generator, but, with the advantage of age, wisdom, experience, skill – and they can apply those in equal measure, on a stage that is MIDI compliant, and where microphones are not feeding back, and everything sounds really, really good – so it’s win, win, win for the new Van Der Graaf Generator – I hope they continue as long as possible, I love this band, and I can’t believe that I’ve now managed to see them four times – when I really thought I would never, ever see them play live.

I was fortunate enough to see some solo Peter Hammill shows in the 1980s, but at that time, Van Der Graaf Generator was a distant memory, and no one dreamed that they would eventually reform – and thank God that they did!  What a great band, and another great live record with another great, no, amazing set list – 2013 was a good year for this band.

 

 

So here are two bands that were instrumental in starting out what became “progressive rock” – King Crimson in January 1969, and Van Der Graaf Generator originally in 1968 – both, now, alive and well in the 2010s, and making extraordinary music live on stage – still – and long may they play.  Robert Fripp and Peter Hammill are two very different people, two very different “bandleaders” (Fripp would possibly deny being the bandleader, but never mind) but, what they do share is determination, determination that…the music shall be heard.  Fripp endured legal battles that kept him away from music and the stage, Hammill had a heart attack and overcame his health issues, to go on to start making amazing albums like “Trisector”” – and one of the tracks from that album, “Interference Patterns”, starts Disc Two of the new set, and it’s an amazing, amazing performance – a really, really tricky song – and they play it amazingly well – a fantastic version of a now-classic song from a now classic album – “Trisector”.

And rumours are abounding that King Crimson is working on new material, so it may be that they are at the start of a new run of compositions that will rival the post-reunion output of Van Der Graaf Generator – I certainly hope so, that would be fantastic, and I remain hopeful that during the September tour, that King Crimson might reveal some new works from an upcoming album – who knows?

Meanwhile, you could do worse than to start your year with either or both of these extremely high quality live releases – I highly recommend them both to progressive rock fans, and the curious, everywhere.

 

 

 

all the very best

 

dave 🙂 🙂