A Walk and a Song

Yesterday, prior to the game between Manchester United (my team) and Spurs, I took part in an organised protest march against the current owners of the the club.

The last time I took part in anything of this ilk was over seven years ago, when I happened to be in London and so joined the anti-War in Iraq rally that was widely publicised at the time.

The end result of that was a cause of some disillusionment as to the actual point of such events. A lot of people (and I can be one of them) look enviously towards the French, who tend to kick off at the slightest thing they're not happy about. But of course, different nation, different people.

Part of me suspects that the results of the poll tax riots and the miner's strike have penetrated into the national conscious, in a way, as in "why bother, when we end up doing what we're told anyways".

One of the reasons I decided to go on the march yesterday was purely just to express some kind of disillusionment with the situation at United. I've been a supporter for most of my life, and I can remember seeing the club grow from constant also-rans to top team in the country thanks to the expert management of Alex Ferguson. In turn, this allowed the club to become one of the richest in the world.

All of which is being undone due to the scourge of the Glazer family, the club have the concrete boots of debt threatening to drag them into the murky depths. Fergie, despite his sad backing of the owners, deserves some credit for keeping things looking good to the casual observer: the signing of Javier Hernandez is looking to be a top piece of management and his handling of the Rooney saga was superb - emerging as the broken hearted father figure, let down by his favourite son.

But a lot of United fans (including me) are of the mind that the team needs major investment, which wouldn't have been so much of a problem ten years ago. True intentions aside, a lot of us had to smile when Rooney stated he wanted to leave United because nobody could assure him of future signings of good enough quality to bring success. That he has been apparently appeased somehow should make for an interesting summer, one way or another.

I'm realistic enough to know the protest yesterday won't change much. The Glazer family don't give two hoots what we think of them, as long as enough people spend enough money to keep the whole thing going. For now, maybe it's enough to say we were there, that maybe something will grow from it, if we're lucky, and that it's warming to see that a few thousand people felt strongly enough about an issue to get up and make some noise about it.

On The Wall

As mentioned a few weeks ago, I'd decided to check out Suzanne Vega when her current tour made it to Manchester, hence finding myself at the Hard Rock cafe last Friday.

It being my first time at the venue, I couldn't help but chuckle at the Oasis lyrics painted on the balcony. Little bit sad that somebody thought that Wonderwall somehow symbolised all that's good about Manchester music.

Such is my insistence on getting anywhere for the time displayed on the ticket, a stupid habit I know, but I'm always worried of missing something, that it meant standing around for the best part of an hour or so when we could have been over the road at Sinclair's enjoying cheapo pints of Samuel Smith's Best Bitter. Getting there early did mean seeing the support act, a local called Sarah Dixon, who has apparently only been playing guitar for a year. She showed off some impressive finger-picking techniques and vocal skills, but perhaps could do with a songwriting partner to hone down lyrical ideas that often drift into cliche.

Following an auction of stuff signed by the main act (this being a gig in support of a breast cancer research charity), on came the woman herself. When I saw her back in 1997, she was armed with a full band - this time it was just her and a guitarist armed with a selection of effects units. Setting the tone for the night with Marlene On The Wall, the room got just about all the most well-known numbers from Ms Vega's back catalogue. Perhaps two reasons for this: first of all, it was a charity gig, so it's natural to stick to the classics. Secondly, she's recently put out two albums of acoustic re-recordings of older songs, so it makes sense to play them in such a style here.

To my recollection, we got songs from all albums bar Days of Open Hand, with half of Solitude Standing getting an airing, presumably it's her best seller over here. Having the best part of 30 years doing this singer/songwriter lark behind her, Vega's a pro at the between song banter game, telling us that Gypsy was inspired by a boyfriend from Liverpool she met while teaching folk singing and disco dancing (!) at a summer camp in the late 1970s.

One lark, preceding a song about her hometown of New York, sees Vega asking the audience what kind of person their own home would be. Manchester, it would see, is a miserable old man...

Two things spring to mind throughout the night, those being that Suzanne Vega is a fantastic songwriter and that she's an equally talented guitarist. On this instance, her backing fellow had a few tricks of his own, using loop, delay and other effects to very good effect. On Tom's Diner, he managed to create a rhythm track of sorts that put it more on the footing of the DNA remix than the acapella original. By the end of the night, I was insanely jealous of Suzanne Vega for having such a guy to play music with, when I could do with somebody like that myself.

An entertaining night, then, despite the venue not being to my liking all that much. To round it off, I found out that the Comsat Angels are playing more shows after their top gigs from last year. Superb!

Nothing But The Hits

Yesterday, while driving over to Rochdale, the radio threw up a catchy ditty that sound familiar. Turned out it was Let's Go by the Cars, which I remembered I owned as I'd picked up the Greatest Hits albums for next to nothing a few years ago.

This got me to thinking about the compilation albums I have in my collection by bands where I have no real intention of picking up anything else by them. Here's the five that sprang to mind.

The Cars - Greatest Hits (1985)
A band that never really meant too much over here, except for two moments: My Best Friend's Girl being a big hit apparently on the basis on it being released on picture disc and Drive being used to soundtrack famine footage during Live Aid, songwriter Ric Ocasek generously donating royalties from the song to the charity.

The Cars were basically journeymen musicians (bassist Ben Orr had his first mainstream pop exposure in the 1960s) who found their niche when 'New Wave' became the fashionable sound. Ocasek did have a knack for writing a canny hook, though, and their first compilation album is a concise 13 song affair which doesn't outstay it's welcome. There's a song or two were the synths grate a little, but in the main it's fun stuff.

At their high points, as with Just What I Needed or Since You're Gone, it's extremely good power pop, but there's still not just enough to make me want to investigate further. I somehow have the feeling it'd just be more of the same, except not as good as the singles.

All this said, I just remembered that the Cars' Moving in Stereo (which is a track from their first album, and not anywhere else) was used to soundtrack the famous Phoebe Cates bikini scene in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which kind of makes me want the album now. And also makes me want to be excused for a few minutes. (ahem)

Pixies - Wave of Mutilation: Best Of... (2004)
Possibly a kind of heresy to some of my friends, but I've never really bought into the Pixies that much. I can't explain why, but I suspect Frank Black's (or Black Francis, or whatever the hell he calls himself these days) bark had a lot to do with it.

On the other hand, Kim Deal is obviously a bass goddess. Luckily, she also grew a bit stroppy about not getting enough of her songs on the albums and decided to form her own band, the Breeders, whose albums I do enjoy. Not that the Pixies didn't have some fantastic moments, it's just that they're all collected on the one compilation I have. People can, and have, played me their actual albums and I just feel "well... it's OK, but I'd rather listen to Last Splash".

I did catch the band at a festival in 2004, and they were pretty good despite all being a lot older, fatter and balder than they were first time round (Kim excepted on the last two, natch). But then again, aren't we all these days?

The Rolling Stones - Rolled Gold (1975)
I'm one of those who subscribe to the idea that if the Stones had jacked it in at some point in the 70s, maybe when Mick Taylor handed his cards in, then they'd be remembered in much better terms then they are now. Which is a bunch of geriatrics performing for the masses who are willing to pay stupid money in the mindset that "surely Keith is going to die soon - this could be the last tour!"

My dad told me you tended to fall into either the Beatles or the Stones if you were young in the 60s. He was into the scouse quartet, and I've concurred in my own tastes. After all, Lennon and McCartney wrote one of the Stones' first hits and you never saw the Beatles hanging around with the southern lot to try and pick up cool points.

Some may go on to me about Exile On Main Street or Let It Bleed, but this is all the Stones I need. To give them dues, there's plenty of classics on here to ensure Mick Jagger always has at least one "Get Out of Jail" card if I finds himself in Judge D.C. Harrison's court.

The Stranglers - Greatest Hits 1977-1990 (1990)
Like the Cars, the Stranglers were essentially a bunch of older guys who jumped on a passing fashion: punk, in this instance. But perhaps more so than the Americans - Hugh Cornwall was a schoolfriend of Richard Thompson and drummer Jet Black was born in the 1930s. Credit to the guy, he's still drumming away.

What the Stranglers did have going for them was Jean-Jacques Burnel's bass sound and Cornwell managing to sound suitably sleazy enough to appeal to the younger crowd. Plus, they obviously had a stronger melodic sense than many of the others doing the rounds at the time, mainly through Dave Greenfield's Door-copying keyboard runs that are best seen on their pretty great version of Bacharach/David's Walk On By.

As time went on, the Stranglers were able to show that, actually, they were pretty good musicians, which led to them taking Golden Brown, a song in waltz time and also about smack, to #2 in the charts. The later stuff holds up as well as the rawer songs, with Always The Sun and Nice in Nice being particular highlights though their version of the Kinks' All Day And All Of The Night doesn't embarrass anyone, and it ends when Cornwell sacks off the band in 1990, when they move into the nostalgia circuit from which they've stayed for the last 20 years. Kind of admirable, really.

Ramones - Hey! Ho! Let's Go: The Anthology (1999)
Probably the most obvious band to put in this article. A double compilation album covering their whole career - does anybody really need more Ramones in their life?

This one covers their whole career, though misses out Baby I Love You, as produced by Phil Spector and their biggest hit over here in the UK. But nevermind, everything else is here: Blitzkrieg Bop, Sheena Is a Punk Rocker and I Wanna Be Sedated etc etc.

What's tragic about thinking about the band is that, if you've seen the documentary film End of the Century, you'd know what a tragically bunch of dysfunctional types they were (Tommy excepted, it seems). While The KKK Took My Baby Away is amusing enough by title alone, it takes on a darker tone when you hear that the liberal Joey Ramone penned it after his girlfriend dumped him for the famously conservative Johnny Ramone.

Yet as a testament to their genius-of-kinds, it's worth that saying that a friend of mine who generally listens to nothing but hip-hop absolutely loves Somebody Put Something In My Drink, and has ever performed a version in his favoured style. I'm sure Dee Dee would have been proud.

Extended Play

Quite how eight tracks clocking in at over 40 minutes qualifies as an EP is beyond my ken, but that is what British Sea Power are labelling Zeus, and given it's priced at a few quid less than a usual CD album, who am I to complain?

Following on from the success of Do You Like Rock Music?, they released the Man of Aran, a soundtrack to a 1934 documentary-of-sorts of the same name: a typically commercially perverse move from a band that doesn't seem to give much consideration to issues such as chart placement or sales.

The title track and opener is classic British Sea Power: surging guitars, killer hooks and non-conventional lyrics that namecheck Rick Stein and Nikita Khrushchev in their first verse. Though clocking in at around seven minutes, it never overstays it's welcome and builds up to a tremendous climatic guitar riff.

Cleaning Out The Rooms shows off the new expanded line-up, with violinist Abi Fry and keys player Phil Sumner showing off their chops. It's a wonderful epic swirl of the song, much in contrast to Can We Do It?, which is almost caveman rock.

Bear, like Zeus, drops in some contemporary culture with the lyric "I saw you reading the Daily Star/saw you watching the X Factor/And I was wondering/how could you fall so far?", sang with sadness rather than contempt. The song rolls along languidly before kicking up a gear in the coda, driven by an pretty killer bassline.

The second half of the EP is generally given to the band's more experimental impulses that were generally housed on b-sides to singles. Pardon My Friends is a tinkling piano number that doesn't really go anywhere, Mongk rocks along pretty well but the EP is raised back by kW-h, which bounces in jolly fashion with warped vocals and siren sounds that recall glam rock.

Those of us who bought the CD/12" versions (as opposed to download, presumably) get an extra track, Retreat, which continues the aural themes of Cleaning Out The Rooms in a more sedate fashion.

Quite what these eight tracks mean for the forthcoming 'proper' album I can't say. There are no instant pop songs here - three of the tracks clock in over seven minutes - and newcomers would be best advised to check out their previous work than jump in here. Anyone who's followed their progression with interest, however, will find plenty to enjoy.

Specialist Subject

I was hoping to write about the new British Sea Power EP Zeus earlier this week, but the Royal Mail decreed I would have to wait a week to receive it. Thoughts on that over the weekend, but initial listening shows it is fab.

Only minutes ago, I was quite disturbed by an advert for Cliff Richard's new album, which appears to take a big band/swing theme. Alright, not my bag, but whatever. But one of the songs he's covered is Willie Dixon's I Just Want To Make Love To You, best known for versions by Muddy Waters and Etta James.

As the title might suggest, it's a song about shagging. Nothing subtle, no subtexts. It's a song about not wanting anything else from someone except that one thing. And I have watched and heard with my own eyes and ears it being sung by Cliff Richard, a man who knows as much about sex as I did circa 1993. Truly, some things are beyond parody.

Talk Talk Talk

Mark Hollis' disappearing act has interested me for some time. As frontman of the pioneering Talk Talk, he went from synth-pop to post-rock before recording a solo album in the mid 90s and staying quiet ever since.

Which isn't too surprising, given his attitude to the pop game. A quick glance on youtube will reveal many awkward interviews from the mid 80s, when Talk Talk were at the height of their popularity.

Despite the elaborate music he would later make, Hollis was kick-started by punk. His elder brother Ed managed Essex outfit Eddie and the Hot Rods and helped out when young Mark formed his own band. Though it came to nothing, a song entitled Talk Talk that the brothers wrote would later name his next band, and provide a hit.

By the mid 80s, with synth-pop all the rage, Hollis needed musicians to record some demos to get a publishing deal: bassist Paul Webb, drummer Lee Harris and keyboard player Simon Bremner were recruited. A record deal was secured and the quintet recorded The Party's Over - a minor hit dismissed by many critics for jumping on the bandwagon. Notably, it featured artwork by James Marsh, who would design all the band's striking album covers.

Though featuring some fine pop songs (Talk Talk, Today and Mirror Man), it did suffer from very dated production. Subsequently, after the single My Foolish Friend, Bremner was replaced by Tim Friese-Greene. Though never appearing on promotional photos, and very rarely on stage, he would prove to be the crucial collaborator and producer needed to help Hollis reach his musical goals.

It's My Life, released in 1984, was a vast improvement on the debut. Though still synth heavy, the songs were a massive step forward. The title song and Such a Shame (apparently inspired by the book The Dice Man) remain classics of their style and time. While the album sunk without trace in the UK, it proved a big hit throughout Europe and It's My Life made the US top 40, where the band toured as support to New Wave heroes the Psychedelic Furs.

The Colour of Spring was an even bigger hit than It's My Life. Lead single Life's What You Make It, built entirely around a four note piano riff, hit the UK top 20, helped by a wonderful Tim Pope video. With extra money to spare due to the worldwide success of It's My Life, the band abandoned synths, bringing in the likes of Steve Winwood to provide Hammond organ and Danny Thompson on acoustic bass.

On the back of this profitable success, their label (EMI) were keen for more and granted an open budget for a follow-up. Locked away in the studio for the best part of a year, legend has it that the A&R man burst into tears when he first heard Spirit of Eden. 40 minutes long, it contained only six songs, none of which were even slightly suitable for daytime radio or MTV.

What is important, and time has proven so, is that Spirit of Eden is a timeless work of art. Subdued, crafted and beautifully played, I can't believe it sounds like anything else that made the album charts in 1988. The anti-heroin I Believe In You was somewhat pointlessly released as a single but any commercial ground gained by The Colour of Spring was lost by Hollis' insistence that the album would be impossible to replicate live (parts of it were improvised) and so therefore there would be no live shows.

Somewhat miffed, EMI released a compilation Natural History to claw some dollar back, which proved to be a decent plan when it sold a million. A further compilation of remixes was a step too far, and court action from the band ensured it was soon withdrawn.

Signed to the Verve label and now minus bassist Paul Webb, 1991 brought Laughing Stock, was continued in the vein of it's predecessor, though it seems even more stripped down and far away. Along with Spirit of Eden, it's one of my favourite albums to listen to at 3am with a bottle of Scotch. It's not chill out music by any stretch, but requires the kind of open listening you can sustain in the late hours.

And that was it, for Talk Talk. Drummer Paul Harris would work with Paul Webb as O.Rang and drum on Bark Psychosis' second album Codename: Dustsucker. Webb would collaborate as Rustin Man on an album with Portishead singer Beth Gibbons and Friese-Greene would continue to work as a producer with Lush and Catherine Wheel (huge Talk Talk fans) amongst others.

Hollis himself briefly reappeared in 1998 with a self-titled solo album that continued his musical trends from Talk Talk. Since then, he appears to have retired from music, mentioned as an example of someone for whom artistic purpose was far more important than the whims of record company or public. The move from easily-dismissed angsty pop group for experimental critical darlings is one Radiohead may have paid some attention to.

Anti-Social Networking

Two questions I would like to never hear again in my existence:

"Why aren't you on Facebook?"

and

"When are you getting an Iphone?"

The second is easier to answer: because I don't need one. I've had the same mobile for about five years now and have no intention of replacing it. I don't see the point in having a new one that does loads of fancy things that will bring zero benefits to my life. The magazine Private Eye has an excellent cartoon called "Ibores" that hits the target bang on.

As for the first question: I never have nor will see the point in those social networking sites, unless you're looking for someone to cop off with. Yet some people seem to see being on this site (or Twitter) as some kind of essential aspect of modern life. I'm baffled as to why the footballer Rio Ferdinand feels the need to constantly update thousands of strangers as to the most trivial aspects of his day, or why anyone wants to know.

A work colleague told me "it's useful for finding people you used to go to school with", which translated to me as that old game of finding people you didn't like back then, and laughing if it turns out they're flipping burgers for a living. The other line is "it's good for letting everyone you know what you're doing" - which seems odd, as I never realised sending an email to more than one person at a time was that tricky.

I'm not covering new ground on this topic, of course, but what I do wonder whether a so-called 'surveillance' society that the likes of the Daily Mail get in a tizz about won't come as too much of a trouble to people who already tell the world what they're doing at any given moment. I'm not a Luddite, but I like new technology to enrich and improve our lives, not trivialise it (and yes, I'm aware of the irony of saying that on a blog, of all things).

If you allow me to be a paranoid nut for a moment (and why not?), I can at times envisage a future where anyone who doesn't have their own Facebook/Twitter pages is banished from society like the 'savages' in Brave New World, ostracised for not knowing the correct context to say "OMG!" or letting everyone know what bar we'll be in that Friday night.

For now, though, I'll remain quite happy in the knowledge that nobody from my past can find out any personal information about me online because, after all, if I wanted them to know, I would fucking tell them.

Not a Protest Singer

Horizontal on the sofa last Friday night, nursing another bottle of beer, I noticed that Songwriter's Circle was back on BBC4. I remembered it from years ago, when they had the likes of Neil Finn, John Cale and Graham Gouldman on. That was enough to engage a flicker of enthusiasm, which burned a little brighter when I saw Suzanne Vega was on.

Ms Vega was my first gig, at Northampton way back in 1997 when I was visiting relatives down that way. Bands never came to my town, and I'd recently picked up the album Suzanne Vega after seeing Marlene On The Wall on VH-1 (or something) and been impressed. On seeing she was playing a gig close to where I would be at that time, I got my cousin to, reluctantly, at the time, come along. It was a brilliant show, and I often wonder if my thing for red haired women began at that point.

The next day, I went out and bought the rest of her back catalogue. Except the fairly average third album, Days of Open Hand, all were brilliant. I wasn't, and still aren't, into folk music in any big way, perhaps because traditional themes found in English folk bear little relevance to me in any way. Though Vega is often classed as a folkie, her topics tended to stick with the contemporary, and when she didn't (such as The Queen and the Soldier on her debut), it still managed to keep my interest.

For a brief time, she was a pop star. Luka, taken from her second album Solitude Standing, was a huge hit in the US and a dance mix of the acapella Tom's Diner (from the same album) did equally well. However, writing radio friendly pop songs was never her style,

99.9F°, her fourth album and my personal favourite, excellently crossed styles and was produced by Mitchell Froom, who she'd later marry and have a daughter with. Despite the new styles, In Liverpool should still have been a big hit. The album featured help from Pete and Bruce Thomas, formerly the rhythm section in the Attractions, both of whom returned on 1996's Nine Objects of Desire, the last of her studio works I've heard.

In the present, she was brilliant on the TV show - and she still looks fab - giving me the urge to check out her more recent works. By coincidence, I quick check of her website showed she was playing a single date in the UK in a couple of weeks - in Manchester. Naturally, I picked up a couple of tickets on the quick.

Lost Weekends

Personally, I find the weekend begins at 4pm on Friday, when I get out of work, and ends at the same time on Sunday, when the day becomes like any other, waiting for the next day rolls around. It's the 48 hours the Clash sang about on their first album: "Short space of time and a heavy scene/Monday is coming like a jail on wheels".

A friend of mine made a perceptive observation last week, when the topic of weekends came up. She said that having spent most of Monday to Friday looking forward to it, it can never live up to the expectation. Certainly true in my case, having spent many a time feeling I should be doing something with the freedom I have, but usually end up staying in bed till noon on Saturday and Sunday.

Of course, there's always the football to get me out of the flat for a few hours but even that is starting to lose it's ability to get me through the week. The obvious conclusion is that I, as with everyone I would imagine, need some kind of purpose and motivation.

It seems to be a modern problem, this. Someone at work was banging on about a "course" she attended a few weeks ago and was urging others to go to some forum they hold. I won't mention the name (you never know who's reading) but some investigation led me to the conclusion it's one of those quasi-cults that essentially take hundreds of pounds off you under the guise of "helping you achieve your goals and ambitions".

Not my scene at all, especially as part of the whole course seems to be when the leader hurls abuse at you in some vague form of reverse psychology that would be more likely to lead me to smack them round the chops. Yet I imagine that in the modern world, where concepts of god and church no longer mean much to a large part of the population, people are looking elsewhere for their spiritual fulfillment.

Having never been one to follow anyone, or be a leader myself, I can't help but feel I'm at a very important junction in my life. I try to tell myself it's a big world, and that there's something out there. Then I worry I'm too cynical/lazy/easily bored to actually get up off my arse and start looking. Ah, the troubles of 21st century man.

Stains on the Heartland

It's interesting, for want of a better word, to actually be living through a recession as an adult. Though I can just about remember the 80s and early 90s and the effects on my hometown, I was one of the lucky ones in that my dad was never out of work.

Not so lucky were two of my mother's elder brothers, who worked at the last coal mine in West Cumbria until that was shut down in 1986. Some 15 years later, I went to the place, now operating as a mining museum, and the anger in the voice of my guide (an ex-miner) was still strong. My mother to this day refers to Thatcher as "that woman", which isn't that surprising considering she comes from a family where mining was the family profession over many generations.

That was then, though. The 80s were pretty much all about Matchbox toy cars, my Sinclair +2 computer and Bryan Robson for me. This time round, it's personal. The last week, I've been hearing constant talk about "restructuring" and "corporate visions" in the place I work. Euphemistic bollocks, of course - may as well call fucking you over by it's correct term.

For a brief moment, I considered asking about voluntary redundancy, even if any offer would be around £1.50 and a bag of chips. Then I remembered my own two years on the dole and watching Alan Bleasdale's brilliant Boys From The Blackstuff to know that signing on is never a good option when it comes to maintaining some sense of pride in self.

More worrying was a conversation with my landlord the other week (on being told he had to put the rent up a few quid a week). A chap in his early 60s, he informed me this was looking like the worst recession he could remember. Worrying times indeed. The point of me writing this? I think it's in setting down a marker in terms of my own life, and on a bigger scale, of when things either started getting better, or a whole lot worse.