Phlogiston

Visiting my parents, I was saddened to learn of the death of old family friend Wally Ridley in January of this year. Wally was a record producer, songwriter and A&R man for HMV, and he was a dear friend and neighbour. He was always a friendly face whether waving from across the road or swapping gardening notes and tips with my father. But it was when he learnt—or, I suppose, heard—that I was learning to play the drums that he became a figure in my life. He was generous in the extreme with his time, inviting me over to his house to listen to his incredible collection of recordings of the great big bands, and regaling me with stories of Louie Bellson and Buddy Rich drum battles. Later he took me under his wing and taught me piano, although I must emphasize that the fact that I’m an atrocious pianist is all my fault and none his. I was greatly honoured when he took me (in what I’m guessing must have been 1983) to Abbey Road to sit in on the recording of José Carreras’s Love Is album. Seeing him at work was an education in musical sensibility in itself.

Thank you for all your kindness, patience and encouragement, Wally.

Obituaries in The Independent, The Guardian, Times Online, and The Stage.

While messing around on YouTube I stumbled upon this fabulous video for one of my favourite New Order songs, “Temptation”—indeed one of my favourite songs full stop.

Directed by Michael Shamberg who made several videos for New Order it was made recently for a retrospective. It was filmed in Paris and stars Victoria Bergsman, lead singer of the Swedish band The Concretes, and was based on an idea of hers. Apparently the director and the singer met in Paris after a The Concretes gig. She’s not conventionally beautiful, but there’s just something about her. I think I’m a little bit in love with her.

Victoria Bergsman can also be heard singing on this Peter Bjorn and John song, “Young Folks”:

I’m normally allergic to jazz-rock fusion, finding it irredeemably naff, but this song “Streetcrawler” by The Jimmy Chamberlin Complex is really beautiful. Jimmy Chamberlin is the genius drummer from Smashing Pumpkins, and I freely admit that my judgement might be being swayed by the awesomeness of his playing, but there’s something haunting about that ringing guitar line repeating over the surging rhythm.

Anyone interested in how I like to start my day each day may be interested in this little home movie: in iPod/iTunes format, in Quicktime format, or in Windows Media format.

Okay, that’s actually Boards of Canada’s video for their single Dayvan Cowboy. The first part of the video features archive footage of Joseph Kittinger’s record-breaking 1960 skydive from an altitude of 31,300m (outer space, basically). Apparently the footage I sent them of my skydive from the Moon was considered just showing off. In a feat that makes Chuck Yeager’s antics in The Right Stuff seem tame, Kittinger donned a pressure suit, took a helium balloon virtually into orbit, and then did what any right-thinking man would do: leapt off. He was in droguefall for four and a half minutes and reached a speed of 714mph.

Boards of Canada, so named for their love of documentaries by the National Film Board of Canada (each to their own, I guess), are actually an Edinburgh outfit and have been going since 1987. I’m slightly surprised to have only just heard of them.

Thanks to Chris for sending me the link to the video in the first place.

I just saw for the second time the video to Massive Attack’s gorgeous new single Live With Me, featuring the sublime voice of soul legend Terry Callier, and I had to share. Not only is the song amazing, but the video, directed by Jonathan Glazer, just completely blew me away. It’s uncomfortable viewing, but I found it really haunting. It features a young (mid twenties) professional-looking woman drinking herself into oblivion on her own in her flat. I can’t really put my finger on what it is about it that I find so arresting, but I thought it was an incredibly powerful four minute film. There is a quicktime stream of the video availalble here (requires Quicktime, obviously, although on Linux the MPlayer plugin played it in Firefox for me without problem).

I’m a day late with this: yesterday was the 25th anniversary of Ian Curtis’ suicide. When musicians and film stars die tragically young, there is a tendency to create a distasteful hagiography about them, as if their death was some great romantic gesture which seals their place in the annals of genius. I don’t want any part of that. But I do want to signal the fact that I still listen to those two Joy Division albums today, Unknown Pleasures and Closer, often over and over again, and they still sound just as fresh and magnificent as they did when I first heard them when I was still at school. They are masterpieces, and there can be little doubt that Ian Curits’ haunting voice and the sheer poetry and beauty of his lyrics are a major factor in that. Cold, austere, tragic.

The BBC have a short piece about him: Remembering Joy Division singer Curtis.

Tonight, or last night, or Monday night if you prefer, I went to see The Go! Team in concert. I’ve blogged about them before. What a fabulous band, and what a fabulous live act. Bill, who came along at the last minute because James couldn’t make it had never heard them before and was duly impressed that there wasn’t a single weak song in the whole set. Perhaps a compare and contrast is in order: the support acts were abysmal, but for quite different reasons. The Reasearch had a highly developed sense of melody and harmony, and all three were accomplished singers. But they were just lousy musicians. They kney how to craft a song but just didn’t know how to play one. Dungen on the other hand, were highly accomplished musicians who apparently knew nothing about singing, melody, harmony, or even the vaguaries of constructing a song. As Adam remarked, they sounded like The Muppets doing King Crimson cover versions. The Go! Team had none of their failings, all of their accomplishments, and more: frankly dazzling muti-instrumentalism was on display by most members of the band, and all of the songs managed to have the musical simplicity of great songs combined with their adeptness in a multitude of musical genres all seemingly impossibly played at once (Sonic Youth meets The Jackson 5 as one reviewer put it). On top of that they manage to be remarkable showmen. And, least imporantly of all, their drummer is not only good (which is surprisingly difficult if you have the unfortunate disadvantage of being a girl) but a total cutie. Bang bang chicken.

The Go! Teams’s Thunder, Lightning, Strike is a fabulous album.

The Go! Team: Thunder, Lightning, Strike

They’re a wonderful blend of De La Soul, Belle and Sebastian, Saint Etienne, Air, old funk, and Northern Soul, with a few 70s TV theme songs thrown in (I swear I keep catching the theme from The Rockford Files, but then it’s gone again before I can really be sure). Just like The Polyphonic Spree, whose single Soldier Girl The Go! Team re-mixed, it’s just impossible to listen to this album without ending up with a huge grin on your face. Joyous!

Their website has tracks you can listen to, and the video of the current single, Ladyflash, my favourite track from the album, is available from their record company (requires Quicktime).