Let's have a game of 'Random Ten'........ please?

Be happy people, if you can. And remember to spell 'happy' with a Little H.

Here we go with a little more of my blog and it's time for a game of ‘Random 10’ – its easy to play. All you need is a collection of music on a pc or portable device and a random or shuffle button. So as not to appear in any way technically prejudiced, you can play this with a stack of CDs, tapes, or vinyl, but in that case you would also benefit from a blindfold, a willing accomplice and a vivid imagination (suggested instructions and rules could be supplied on request. Yes, I do need to get out more) Whether or not this makes for quality blogging material who knows, but I propose to hit ‘shuffle songs’ play through the first ten songs it throws at me and write just a little about each. One very strict rule – no skipping, ignoring or starting again – if it decides to throw a 40 minute Brian Eno ambient experiment into the mix then…… well it will be a long evening I suppose. OK then, here goes….

1. King Crimson – Lady Of The Dancing Water. ‘Uh-oh’ - King Crimson – could be in for a long night after all – no, wait, its under three minutes. Yes, very nice little acoustic number with some very pleasant flute and (what?) trumpet added in. The sound of a misty and mystical medieval glade, without the bad smells and murderous marauding pillagers. From Lizard (1970)

2. Sapphire Thinkers – Please Understand – Ah, this is good. Sun drenched, harmony filled US psych-pop that’s just edgy enough to avoid being too twee. Yet another excellent discovery thanks to the marvellous Psychedelic Lion website / blogspot (http://psychedeliclion.blogspot.com/ ) Taken from From Within (1969)

3. Echo And The Bunnymen – Monkeys – Suitably dramatic stuff from their 1980 debut Crocodiles – all echoey guitars and trademark Ian McCulloch histrionics. I was a few years late jumping on this particular bandwagon, after spending a fortnight in Ibiza in the summer or 1984, where ‘The Killing Moon’ was played nightly at the local disco. Crocodiles was given to me later that same year as a pressie for my 20th Birthday. What wouldn’t I give to go back and have 1984 all over again? Certainly not my ipod that’s for sure.......

4. Tears For Fears – Watch Me Bleed – One of the great pop bands of the 1980s, although I would never have admitted that at the time of course. This is a fairly likeable, but hardly classic track from their debut album The Hurting (1983). Hints at greatness on their debut would be fully realised on the excellent follow up ‘Songs From The Big Chair’ then overdone to the point of bloated excess on their third and final album of the decade ‘The Seeds Of Love’ The older I get the more I am willing to concede that the 1980s was a great decade for British pop music. Right on.

5. Kings Of Leon – Camaro – I’m still not completely sure about Kings of Leon. Certainly one of the better bands to emerge in the last decade and this is one of their better songs. Good rocking pace, incredible bass and top notch idioosyncratic lyrics about hot chicks in cool cars. From ‘Because of The Times’ their third album released in 2007

6. Elliott Smith – Christian Brothers. Starts with the line ‘No bad dream fucker’s gonna boss me around’ – excellent. I got into the music of the late Elliott Smith a few years ago when I heard his superb album ‘Figure 8’ from 2000. This song is taken from his eponymous second album released in 1995 and is fairly standard Smith – intense, breathy vocals over acoustic guitar and lo-fi backing. I’m still getting to know the rest of his back catalogue and I’m sure there will be much of a similar calibre to ‘Figure 8’ to be found.

7. Oasis – (As Long As They’ve Got) Cigarettes In Hell – I often forget how great Oasis were. And they recorded some cracking b-sides too. This is typically Beatle-ish, complete with a plodding Hey Jude / I Am The Walrus rhythm, Strawberry Fields mellotron and an excellent vocal from Noel, who usually sang at least one b-side per single. This was one of the b-sides on the ‘Go Let It Out’ CD single and to me is yet another heady reminder of the complete insanity that was the fine summer of 2000.

8. Frank Sinatra - The Gal That Got Away / It Never Entered My Head – From The Reprise Collection box set. Sounds like a live medley from later in his career. I’m still getting my head round Sinatra and hoping that it’s not too much longer before I am able to listen to and enjoy his stuff at other times of the day than 2am when I’m feeling sorry for myself and can’t sleep, but for now that will do nicely.

9. The Beatles – Mr Moonlight (Live At The Star Club, Hamburg 1960) – Somewhat inevitable that something by this lot would turn up in a random 10 – shame it had to be this one really. Archive Beatle recordings are priceless historical artefacts of course, but in truth they usually sound like a big old heap of turd. I think I have played the Hamburg Live album only once all the way through and this is a reminder of why. I’m sure the all-night, amphetamine fuelled marathon gigs played to pissed up German sailors were incredible if you were there of course. Let’s hope we get a decent finale.......

10. Blur – Till The Cows Come Home – Oh yes – that will do nicely. Blur’s brilliant 1993 single ‘For Tomorrow’ was the first CD single I bought, having left it quite late to get hold of something to play them on. Remember when you bought ‘Part 1’ of the CD single in a funky package with space to put ‘Part 2’ in that would be released the following week? So I got the box with the aeroplane on and both parts of the single to fit in it. This is one of the b-sides from ‘Part 2’ and is a fair indication of the Union Jack, Knees Up Muvva Brown, Best Of British path that Blur were to tread with their next few albums, which saw them enjoy the peak of their commercial and critical success.

So there you have it. Not such a bad bunch at all. If you feel inclined to play this at home, why not send me your ‘Random 10’ lists along with your comments, get a guest spot in the blog and save me all the hard work! Otherwise, I will return soon and there will most definitely be.......... more to follow.

Hats Off To Led Zep 3............

It’s taken quite a few years to come to this conclusion, but ‘Led Zep 3’ is probably my favourite Led Zeppelin album and therefore deserves the questionable immortality an entry in the blog.
Up until the Summer of 1979, when a friend at school lent me his copy of Led Zep 4 (the one with ‘Stairway’ on it of course) in order to try and broaden my horizons beyond The Beatles, Bowie and The Jam, Led Zep (in my opinion at the time) belonged to an older generation altogether, namely the greatcoat and granny specs wearing prefects of the Sixth Form at the all boys Catholic school I was attending at the time - basically 17 year old oiks given some degree of authority by teachers who preferred to spend cold break times in the staff room drinking coffee and chain smoking their Embassy Regal. Said prefects would admonish The Jam, Clash, Pistols and Stranglers in favour of the ‘real music’ they listened to; Led Zep, Deep Purple, Genesis, Floyd, Mike Oldfield, hell, probably even a bit of Gentle Giant and Van Der Graaf Generator too. Although this did lead to some puerile but still vaguely amusing playground urban myths being created by us ‘punk’ kids concerning these so called figures of authority indulging in meticulously choreographed and impeccably timed acts of self abuse to the accompaniment of the whole of ‘Supper’s Ready’ by Genesis, somewhere between finishing their physics homework and supper being, indeed, ready.
But Led Zep 4 weaved its magic nonetheless – specifically I recall over the weekend of the 1979 FA Cup Final (as a Spurs fan I will still begrudgingly admit it was a thriller of a final) In fact ‘When The Levee Breaks’ is as inextricably linked to Arsenal’s admirable comeback against Man Utd in my head as REM’s ‘Murmur’ album is to the 1986 all Merseyside final. Strange. But True.
This opened my eyes and ears to this so called ‘older boys’ music – although I would never have admitted this to the ‘prefects’ of course and I was to be converted to Led Zep instantly (with Floyd, Genesis, King Crimson etc etc etc to follow), slowly acquiring their back catalogue over the next few years. I finally got around to buying a copy of ‘3’ on one of the many trips to the record stall at the indoor market in Watford sometime in the early 1980s – a nice original pressing too with the revolving wheel in the front of the sleeve, from the £1.00 box. I suppose my initial reaction was much the same as that of a lot of contemporary critics when the album was first released in 1970, ie a bit of a let down, way too acoustic and folky, but with perseverance it grew and grew over the years until my £1.00 second hand album became a CD and ultimately an intangible computer file stored on a small and extremely precious little gadget I take with me everywhere I go.
One of the most endearing qualities of ‘3’ is the variety within. For those who like their Zeppelin super heavy (and who doesn’t after all) there is the rampant Nordic plunder and pillage of ‘The Immigrant Song’ the jubilant ‘Celebration Day’ and the more ‘traditional’ Led Zep sound of ‘Out On The Tiles’. You also have the beautiful and melodic ‘Tangerine’ the plaintive ‘That’s The Way’ and of course the incredible ‘Since I’ve Been Loving You’ – I’m a bit wary of the lengthy slow blues work out, but this is just incredible in its performance and delivery and possibly my favourite Zeppelin track of them all. But perhaps most of all it is the acoustic / folky stuff that initially met with, well, if not sneers and derision then at least some scepticism, that ultimately makes the album so special. There are the sinister eastern flavoured strings on ‘Friends’, the urgent, mandolin driven gallop of ‘Gallows Pole’ and the foot tapping hoedown of ‘Bron Y Awr Stomp’. Wrap this all up with the sheer insanity of ‘Hats Off To Roy Harper’ that concludes the proceedings and the package is complete.
As tranquil as it is intense, Led Zeppelin 3 is a perfect accompaniment to the (hopefully) warmer, sunnier days to come. Well worth revisiting if you haven’t heard it in ages, equally well worth investigating if you have never heard it at all. After all, why should the prefects have all the fun.
More to follow………..

Typical me really. My New Years resolution for 2010 was to write and maintain a daily blog. It started brightly in January and had dried up by the middle of February, barring the odd return; the last being my ecstatic retrospective review of Paul Weller's 'Heliocentric' written during my enthusiastic catch up on his back catalogue early last summer. All the old entries are still there as I log on this evening for the first time since last summer; some are interesting snapshots of where my mind was at just over a year ago, there are some interesting reviews and a few things I will still stand by, but much of it reeks of desperation, when I began to realise that it is not easy to even try to be interesting, amusing and thought provoking on a daily basis and also began to run out of ideas (my tirade against my ineptitude at online fantasy football games and my detailed tour round my 'fittie folder' are particularly awful) In the end the best advice I received was from one of the two (yes, two) followers of the blog, my beloved brother Brian, who suggested I was at my best when reviewing or just rambling on about music, movies, TV shows or books. If Brian was politely saying 'this is because the rest of the stuff is pure shite' (which I'm sure he was, without trying to in any way offend) then it was advice well received and well heeded - apart from what I'm writing now of course.

So, a little over a year down the line I suddenly have a thought. 'Why not kick a bit of life back into old Arthur and get the blog going again?' I'm hardly in a good place to be starting to blog again really; I need to keep the momentum going on my search for permanent employment that will go some way towards paying the bills and I am two hefty assignments and a full on exam away from completing the latest module of my degree course (Open University, English Literature and Language) - so many excuses really. I wouldn't have dared to so much as open the blog page during the first ten miserable weeks of this year when I was completely out of work (something those close to me will be painfully aware of from my constant griping) but at least for now I have some temping work which I am enjoying, so purely as a means to relax of an evening and share a few thoughts with anyone who cares to read, then why not - I'll give it another go.

I'll leave it at that for now (sorry Brian - I will heed your advice from now on) except to say that if you do read this, or any future blog posts, please do get in touch with ideas; music, movies, books, TV or (day I say it) anything that you think might benefit from, or be totally destroyed by The Thoughts of Chairman Arthur. You have been warned.

Coming soon I strongly suspect; Led Zep III, Wolf Creek and Stephen King's 'Full Dark No Stars'.

So having got all that off my chest I'm quite looking forward to getting this going again and with some allowance for excitement I can say for the first time in a long time....... more to follow.