There's only one Jimbarino...

It was supposed to be the big one today - the long-promised 'What is Classical Music?' post...but, sometimes, things happen that change our plans... What did John Lennon sing on his last album? "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."

Today I lost one of the best friends I never met! I have been a fan of the American singer/songwriter Harry Nilsson since 1976 (the story of how this Harry met THE Harry is told on my website at www.marcharry.com/harrymetharry.htm ). Harry was the sort of artist who doesn't get books written about him...although he won Grammys and had number one singles and albums - and counted 'The Beatles' themselves amongst his closest friends and biggest fans. Harry was not the sort of star who gets biographies written about him...in fact there was not even a documentary until David Leaf's company made one a couple of years ago ( www.whoisharrynilsson.com ) - and for which I'm proud to boast an IMDb credit - but have still not seen!

I only started to learn more about Harry's life and music, having adored it for years, when I 'joined' the internet towards the end of the 1990's. I discovered a wonderful site run by Roger Smith (another big Nilsson fan from Florida) and found that there were actually a couple of hundred kindred spirits with me 'on-line'. Friends of Harry's, including his official discographer Andrea T Sheridan, long-time admirer and everyone's favourite 'Booger', actor Curtis Armstrong (Nerds/Moonlighting) and even Harry's eldest son, Zak were members of Roger's 'Jadebox Nilsson Fellowship'. We learned together some of the long-sought biographical details, gained a wonderful, ongoing insight into some of his recordings, contributed to a great fanzine and even got to meet each other at yearly fan conventions - or International Harryfests - one of which I was privileged to help organise at the luxurious Hotel Russell, London in May 2001.

One Nilsson pal I never got to meet in person - but in some ways felt I knew better than most others - was a very funny and talented man from New Jersey - Jim Painton. Jim contributed to Nilssonweb (and also to Beatles and Beach Boys lists I also 'inhabited') in a unique, and not always appreciated, way!

For Jim had what I now term a 'British' sense of humour, learned and honed at the feet of Monty Python...and, like mine, his was a pretty warped one...the kind that no doubt has got us both in a bit of trouble over the years! It is a humour many in the USA completely fail to understand. Let me give you an example: my sister made a lovely, supportive American friend on Facebook recently...around the same time as her cat Bobbisox was shot by a neighbour's rifle. After much prayer, 3 hours of surgery and copious amounts of antibiotics, Bobbisox survived. An English friend posted on Ruth's wall that he was rather tired of hearing about the troubles of the said cat..and joked that 'it ought to be shot!' Our lovely, American friend was utterly disgusted and horrified - totally failing to get the 'joke' and posted to that effect! It's all sorted now and that lady is now a good friend to my whole family! Jim would have got the joke...this was the guy who, after having had his cancerous bowel removed a few years ago joked about bringing it home to drape around the family Christmas tree as a decoration!

He was the guy who wrote songs about the tapeworm that lived (allegedly!) in Thomas Edison's intestines...another one about a newspaper reported accident that befell a giant 'Cat in the Hat' in an American parade ('The Cat in the Hat went Splat'). But, amongst this 'bizzaro' sat some fantastic pop tunes: 'The Moon is You', 'Last Night I Saw Lennon' and 'The Girls From High School' to name just three.

Jim and I swapped music files via email and snail mail in those early days: he sent me a copy of his 1st CD 'Painton A Picture' to love and cherish, introduced me to The Barenaked Ladies..and then I got some wonderful demos for his 2nd album which was eventually to be 'Painton Place'. Amongst them was a still unissued response from 'John Lennon's ghost' on the news that the 3 surviving Fabs were releasing 'Free As A Bird'...it's title was 'Please Don't Put Out This Turd'!

Jim encouraged me to finish and issue my own CD - and he championed it tirelessly in the States (where it was far more successful than here at home!) He got a track played by Dr Demento...and all this NOT JUST because he wrote the liner note/salutation and made the artwork at his 'day job' Painton Studios - but he genuinely loved the songs.

It was more than an honour when he asked me in return to write the liner notes for 'Painton Place' and it was such a thrill to see my little cartoon self on the CD artwork reviewing, sat on the floor, complete with headphones!

Jim's music never made him a fortune - though it deserved to! There is more good music on his two discs than in this weeks Billboard chart...or I'll eat the Cat in the Hat's hat!!! The world is full of unsung musical heroes - people who strive day by day to write and record beautiful, inventive, challenging, inspiring and, yes, at times even funny music and lyrics that all deserve a FAR wider audience than they will ever receive in these over-hyped, celebrity-dominated days full of disposable, forgettable songs and artists.

Sir George Martin once claimed that, had he not 'discovered' The Beatles in 1962, someone else UNDOUBTEDLY would have...for cream always rises to the top. Well, Sir George, that may indeed have been the case in 1962 - I hope so anyway...but it certainly wasn't the case in 2002...and, sadly, I doubt it ever will be again. Stars these days are MADE...invented by awful, fake TV 'talent' shows - and the cream today is almost always ignored...cream is bad for you, after all!

Another unsung musical hero of mine, John Young would agree: he astutely announced in a concert once (a small pub in a country village in front of about thirty people) that the wonderful Eva Cassidy would have never have been heard by any of us...had she not died so tragically and, of all people, Terry Wogan gave her a posthumous and incredible lift from obscurity to international superstardom.

My friend Jim died today.

I will be playing his CDs tonight...and all week probably. Unless Terry Wogan also hears them over the coming months I guess the only place you will be able to hear them will remain at www.cdbaby.com/Artist/JimPainton - go on...do it - there are even some free samples!

Do your ears a favour, smile and raise a silent one to my pal Jimbarino!

Only One Leonard Bernstein!

If ever a word was over-used in the musical world then it has to be 'genius'. I've lost count of the number of 'Joe Average' strummers, pluckers, blowers and mike-lickers who have been tagged with this precious word over the years. I'm not going to name and shame anyone...after all, they probably have never crowned themselves with that particular epitaph...and it would probably be very unfair for me to crown anyone myself...wouldn't it?

Well, what a boring blog that would make for you all to read! OK....I could stick to the 'no surprises' genius list: Mozart (was he the greatest natural musician ever?), JS Bach (I wouldn't nominate him 'cos I'm yet to become a fan!), John Lennon (a biased choice, of course!)...in fact the only choice I could make that might possibly be unarguable would be Brian Wilson...if I had a quarter of his musical brain I know I would be a far greater musician today than I am!

In case you're wondering, (ha-ha!) the word has even been applied to me on several occasions. In the words of Victor Meldrew, "I don't believe it!" Not even for a minute! But being a recipient still instils a very nice feeling of self-worth - especially when I have it in writing from no less than John Gowans, retired General of the Salvation Army!

So...who am I going to officially crown with the genius hat tonight?

Someone whose knowledge of music, understanding of it and ability to share his own love with countless millions of others has made him a part of almost all our lives, whether we know it or not: I speak of the great, late Leonard Bernstein!

Bernstein was not only a great composer - if 'West Side Story' was all he'd ever composed it would be enough, I guess, to earn him an place in 'Composer's Heaven'. Without doubt one of the best musicals ever written WSS deserves (even in the opinion of the snobbiest critic) equal footing with any opera of the 20th Century. Tunes like 'Tonight', 'Maria' and 'Somewhere' have earned their place in public consciousness and rightly so. What has always surprised me is that music lovers have not necessarily gone out of their way to discover Bernstein's other work...'Candide', the glorious 'Chichester Psalms' and his most unusual and innovative 'Mass' come straight to mind...it just seems that the public only want to remember WSS in association with Bernstein. So be it...

Even so, composing was, ultimately, a small part of the Bernstein legacy - he was a massively respected conductor - his interpretations of Mahler's Symphonies are the be all and end all for Mahler afficionados. He was never afraid to go against the accepted 'norm' in terms of interpretation of a piece...sometimes deviating so far from that norm that he managed to alienate even his own supporters...remonding us that no-one is infallible! I remember a disastrous interpretation of Elgar's 'Nimrod' (from the Enigma Variations) on live UK TV...it was so slow I swear the next day's scheduling had already begun by the time the piece ended!

But, for me, Bernstein's ultimate genius was his ability to share music with the masses through his wonderful lectures to young people. I've seen far too few of them (so far...I do hope more surface on TV/DVD) but they are an amazing insight into both a great musician's mind and also some wonderful music - opening doors to us lesser mortals in terms of musical understanding and interpretation.

The first one I ever saw concerned his own 'magnum opus', 'West Side Story' and Leonard described how he had built so much of that entire score on just three notes....(alarm!!! Muso alert!) He described them as C, F and B (natural...but sometimes flat!). If you play one after the other you will hear the opening (whistled) motif from the score (go on...make the C short, the F very long and the B short). Next, try C, F, B, C1, B, F, C, F, B, C1, B - getting there? The overture continues with C, C1, A, F, B0....

Maria starts...yes you guessed it: F, B, C (then FBCDBCDBC). Tunes based around C, F and B flat include 'I Feel Pretty', 'America' and 'Somewhere'...but they all do follow the rule!*

And the more you listen to the wonderful music of WSS the more you will acknowledge Bernstein's genius to do all this without making the whole thing sound contrived!

So check out some Bernstein...maybe stick the VHS or DVD in and have a good watch...enjoy his genius - I just checked, you can get it on DVD new for a fiver on Amazon (or £2.03 'as new' from marketplace)...so no excuses!

And I'll be using another of Bernstein's ideas to finally answer that question 'What is Classical Music?' tomorrow...so please come back...and keep the encouraging feedback flowing. I'm enjoying this, I hope you are too!


*allowing, of course, for transposition - it is the intervals that are common rather than the actual notes, of course - a whole musical in one key would be very irksome indeed!

The Curate's Egg is Out of Fashion!

I'm sure some readers will remember the quaint English tale of a young curate invited to tea with the vicar and his good lady wife. Given a boiled egg for tea he cracked open the top only to discover that the egg inside it had gone bad. Nevertheless, it being his prime duty that teatime to impress the vicar's wife and come over as the epitome of good manners, he somehow managed to eat the offending ovum and, when asked, "How was your tea?" he drew upon all the resources of grace God had given him by smiling and replying politely, "It was good...in parts!"

'Good in parts' is an opinion rarely experienced in the musical world today. I have found that most people are fiercely loyal to their musical favourites...with the possible exception of Genesis fans! Genesis fans fall into three very distinct groupings: the Gabriel-era fans, the Phil Collins-era fans...and the Gabriel-era fans who are brave enough to claim that the first three or four albums after he left are still worthy of the band's name! I think I fall into the latter group (probably the least inhabited group of the three I have found!) While I love the early pure-prog of 'Foxtrot', 'Selling England' and 'The Lamb...' I am persuaded to admit that 'A Trick of the Tail', 'Wind & Wuthering' and ''Duke' contain, at least some of, my favourite Genesis music.

However, 'Abacab' and 'Genesis' (ugh...'Mama') have not been heard in their entirety by me for at least two decades! That, as a Gabriel-era sympathiser, I am somewhat compelled to add!

And I digress again...Genesis not being the intended subject for tonight's outpourings! If I am honest there is something from almost all my musical heroes that leaves me a bit cold: For 'Yes' it would include 'Relayer', 'Talk', and 'Open Your Eyes', for Rachmaninov it's the 3rd Piano Concerto...love the 2nd more than almost any other single piece, enjoy the first...I KNOW some perfectly sound opinion rates the 3rd as the best of all...but it just won't do it for me!

I love the Mahler symphonies...but the 7th leaves me, for the main part, cold - and it's not just the Castrol GTX association! John Wetton = Jack Knife. Beethoven = Fidelio. Mozart = La Clemenza Di Tito. Pink Floyd = Animals. I could go on all night...all my personal opinion, of course!

Yet, when I enter a conversation with some people it seems I am defied to argue against opinions like, "Eminem has never made a bad song," or "I adore every note James Blunt has ever sung" or even "Wagner never had an off-day - it is all sublime!"

These are the music fans who have never tasted "The Curate's Egg". Of course, it may be that our eponymous curate is, in himself, a thing of the past...gone are the days when his whole perception of acceptance into a local community might depend on a spotless reference from the vicar's wife!!! For crying out loud, in half the parishes up and down the country the vicar himself is probably as gay as rainbow socks and, from my experience of twenty years working with vicars associated with a C of E school, it would probably more the case today that, should he be given a 'bad egg' to eat at teatime, a modern curate would stand up, put on his coat and exhort the vicar to come out for a pint, a smoke and a take-away!

It is 'the curate's egg' that allows us to clearly differentiate between the good and the mundane. I am a massive fan of Rick Wakeman - and in recent years have been privileged enough to even be able to count him a friend...but even I could never try to convince anyone that all Rick's output is wonderful...maybe I'd struggle even to say it's all good...in fact I hope even Rick could admit now that some of the stuff he has released (amongst the 100+ albums released in his name) are pretty darned awful!

So...a challenge for you all! In the comments box below I want you to show your good taste and balanced opinion by 'outing' a song or album by one of your own favourites that leaves you less in awe of their genius that most of the rest of their oeuvre! I look forward to seeing your choices and, maybe, I will even disagree...oooh, debate!

The Critic!

It was mum reminded me! Having started reading my blog she wondered if I might find a new career as a writer/reviewer/critic...and the word 'critic' opened up another dark and dusty corner of my memory!

When I was but a kid my crazy memory had already started to develop its retention skills...and one particular poem...or recitation....had a defining part to play in my upbringing...

I stood up, throughout my childhood, to participate in a great many Salvation Army festivals...sometimes as a singer, most often as a euphonium soloist...but I also got asked, from time to time, to recite poems! One about two frogs in danger of drowning in a milk churn comes to mind (but they kept on paddling and eventually turned it to butter and climbed out - the moral, never give up!), another about a lady in church who sat amongst the 'bad boys' on the back row...and one poem, in particular, came to mind this evening. Called 'The Critic' I must have recited it dozens of times...I even recall once singing it to the tune of 'Paddy McGinty's Goat'!

I'd guess it's out of copyright by now so here it is:

"He was sitting in the gallery, a-listening to the band

He thought himself a crictic and was feeling mighty grand,

As he loudly made his comments, so that all around could hear,

He made himself a 'perfect pest' to people sitting near:

"The cornets, they were terrible, their tone was really rough.

The basses couldn't do a thing, there wasn't half enough!

The trombones and euphoniums were ragged as can be,
The drums were poor, the flugel worse -

The horns played horribly!

The baritones were dreadful; the BM didn't seem

To get the men to follow like a good and balanced team."

Well, he counted up the errors and he didn't miss a fault

And so he carried on until a small boy called a halt.

"Excuse me, guv," the boy remarked, "You seem to 'ave it wrong!

This meeting ain't a contest - that ain't why they've come along.

These men 'ave got a message - it's an old 'un but it's true -

There ain't a band wot's playin' that could please the likes of you!

"That man what plays the monstre*, he's me father, do you 'ear?

He used to come 'ome sozzled and would sell me boots for beer

But 'The Army' went and found 'im, 'e got saved! I'm proud to say

'E's now the finest father - and I likes to 'ear 'im play!

"Now others in the band are 'toffs' and never 'ave been poor,

They love to play the music and they no what bands are for!

So don't sit criticising the good old Army band -

Just fink of all the good they do - My! Ain't that playin' grand?"

It's the difference between an 'Army' band existing for the reasons it does and the raison d'etre of an 'outside' band (as they are still referred today by Salvationists) that perhaps is highlighted most in the poem. 'Outside' - or contesting - bands compete frequently against each other...you only have to watch 'Brassed Off' to experience some of the competitive nature! I don't know if they still do this but the adjudicators used to sit behind a curtain and listen to each band's rendition of the 'test piece', making their comments - their critical appraisals - and, ultimately, deciding the order in which the bands would finish in the contest.

I only ever went to the Royal Albert Hall once for a contest - the testpiece was the 'easy listening' favourite 'Blitz' by Derek Bourgeois. I sat and listened to this atonal piece of programme music some twenty-odd times and vowed never to do it again! (I quite like the piece now but it was not my cup of tea as a teenager and it took a long time for me to forgive it!)

Yet the pretence of the curtain I found the most ridiculous thing...could the experienced adjudicator really not tell it was Black Dyke playing when the cornet solo was played by the familiar tone of Philip McCann? Even I could tell his sound a mile off! I remember the first time we watched the wonderful Patricia Routledge detective series 'Hetty Wainthropp Investigates' on TV for the first time - the theme music started and my dad and I both said 'That's Philip McCann' within a couple of notes. Surely the 'professional' could recognise all the bands without seeing them!

That's where criticism has its place, of course - and very much rightly so. 'Army' bands don't compete (and, as mentioned above) exist for an entirely different reason..but we like to do the best we can. Having played in a Salvation Army band now for some 37 years (man and boy) I like to think that the best of SA bands could hold their own with the best of the contesting bands - but I have no desire to ever see them have that opportunity...and neither would they!

So sit up in the gallery a-listening to the band...but enjoy the music - thank God for it if that's your 'thing' - but criticise at your peril! That young boy might be in the row in front...and you wouldn't want his sozzled dad to still be selling his boots, would you?


*the 'monstre' is the monster-bass - a BBb tuba some 5' or more high

Back to Reality

Back to Reality...is the title of my favourite episode of (one of) my favourite TV Series of all time! I speak of the wonderful 'Red Dwarf', of course - a true rarity in TV history being a science-fiction comedy series. I would find it an impossible choice to make if asked to narrow my preference down to just one series (or one album, or one song even...impossible!) yet I admit that most of my TV favourites, at least, have a link...

...The other two contenders would be 'Inspector Morse' and 'Auf Wiedersehen, Pet'...and the most eagle-eyed reader might have already spotted that link...a link of 'well-loved' that extends as far wide as the films 'Still Crazy' 'Sweeny Todd', and 'Lucky Break', as well as the Harry Potter films and the 1989 'Batman', Morse spin-off 'Lewis', and other TV drama series including 'Spender', 'Heartbreak Hotel' and 'Waterloo Road'...yes...all roads lead back to 'Auf Wiedersehen Pet'!

The 'Red Dwarf' episode I mentioned (featuring AWP's Tim Spall - aka Peter Pettigrew/Wormtail) sees the crew of the spaceship coming back down to Earth with a bang when they (mistakenly) come to realise they have only been playing a 'communal video game' for the entire duration of series one to five! In a similar way I have come 'back to reality' today after a week or so of such hectic musical activity it seems like Iwas caught in a (most enjoyable) whirlwind!

First, we had the much-hyped and previously discussed Beatles remasters and a 'Beatley' week par none - interrupted only by 'Last Night Of The Proms' - and this week has been a kind of personal Prog Heaven for me! 'Genesis' on the radio, 'IQ' in the car and both 'It Bites' AND 'Touchstone' live in concert! I don't manage to get to as many gigs as I'd like to these days (can't afford it!!!) but these two were very reasonably priced and with the added bonus of each band being the favourite of one of my 2 older sons (Lewis is the 'It Bites' maniac and Morgan loves 'Touchstone') - so they got a night out each...and I got two (har har!)

What a privilege I have as a dad to share so many musical tastes with my teenage sons! Neither of them are remotely interested in 'RnB' or 'DnB' or 'RaP'...if they were they might be invited to 'RiP'!!! When they 'discover' something I might like they are keen to share with me too...I struggle a little to appreciate 'Muse' as much as Morgan does, or 'McFly' as Lewis did but I do try - and we all listen happily together for the majority of the time!

'Touchstone' ( http://www.touchstonemusic.co.uk/ ) played last night at 'The Peel' in Kingston, Surrey (we arrived early, despite my playing organ for a wedding at 4pm back in Portsmouth) so spent a nice hour with my aunt and 93 year old Nana who still looks a picture of health!). I first encountered 'Touchstone' as a support band...Now, I've seen and heard some BAD support bands/acts in my time - some have been completely the wrong type of music for the audience, some have been so cocky they thought they were there to 'blow the main act offstage'...forgetting it was the main act we'd paid to see and not them! Others have been miles out of tune, boring or FAR TOO LOUD (I was deafened for the night in Brighton before 'Meat Loaf' even got on stage!)

So impressed was I with 'Touchstone' as a support slot that I felt I had to go seek them out by the merchandise stall and tell them/thank them...and a very friendly bunch they are too! Last night I saw them as 'headliners' for the first time in Kingston and a good time was had by all! The five-piece produce a very 'big' sound which would justify their performing in a far larger arena than 'The Peel' but the grandeur lost by playing a small venue is more than made up for by the real intamacy one is able to feel with the performers in venues like last night's!

Like the best of Rick Wakeman-era 'Yes', 'Touchstone's music is dominated by a vast keyboard back-drop courtesy of Rob Cottingham and his trusty Kurzweil (and expansion boards - hey! - the same 3 I use!). The rhythm section of Al (drums) and Moo (bass) are as tight as you could wish to hear; Moo's innovative work on a 5-string fretless bass is, I think, quite unique - and, at times, lightning quick - while Al, complete with new cymbals thanks to a well-deserved Sabian sponsorship, lends plenty of energy as well as thundering fills to the ensemble (though the less said about his flying underpants the better!)

Adam's guitar 'solo-swaps' effectively with Rob's keyboards while his general song playing ranges from power-chords through melodious counter-melody and numerous other styles...and over all this soar the lead vocals of Kim 'Elkie' Seviour. 24 year old Kim joined Touchstone in 2006 having answered an advertisement. In her early days with the band she shared the lead vocal duties with Rob but the latter's share quickly diminished as both the power of Kim's voice was recognised and also as her powerful stage-presence began to exert its sway over a legion of red-blooded proggers! And she's not shy...happy to describe herself as 'pen pusher by day - rock goddess by night!'

Even in these days of 'equal-ops' it is rare for a rock band to be fronted by a female - but as groups like 'Magenta' discovered...and as Touchstone now aver...the idea works...especially in the prog-rock genre - the higher pitch of the natural vocal sits very comfortably in an inevitably 'crowded' arrangement without further clouding that sub-middle C octave, giving the instruments more room to breathe and express themselves. (This is, in reality, also a secret of 'Yes' - Jon Anderson's counter-tenor occupies a similar space in the soundscape.)

Last night we heard most of the band's 2nd full CD 'Wintercoast': highlights, for me, being the title track, 'Voices' and 'Solace', Kim's emotional tour de force. The enthusiastic and noisy audience loved the 'audience participation' number 'Strange Days' while the surprise inclusion of 'Thriller' (yes, THAT 'Thriller'!) as an encore went down well.

There is no pretention with 'Touchstone' - barely going off-stage at all pre-encore (any pretence was merely to give Kim an excuse to tell herself off for succumbing to the tiniest ego-trip) - then, after the 2nd encore, it was straight off the stage and into the audience to thank and chat with their fan-friends! That's not rock and roll...but Touchstone are!

So...I'm a bit of the 'deflated Dwarfer'...'back to reality' today. Tonight, as I type, it's musical edification provided once more by an enjoyable but more mundane family life (watching 'Alvin and the Chipmunks' with youngest son, Ieuan - at just 5 not - yet - weaned onto prog!). When he goes to bed I might watch one of the new series of 'Lewis' that have been waiting patiently in their DVD cases for me...all roads lead to AWP, after all!

Mr Richland...I Know What You Meant!

Prog Rock, Beatles, Brass Bands, Brian Wilson? Just what is my favourite music? Who is my all-time favourite artist? If I had to choose just one???

I could beg (literally!) not to have to make that choice..but you readers won't let me out of it that easily, will you?

Ok...this will come as no surprise to my closest friends and family but that place of particular honour would go to an artist most music-lovers would claim not to know...yet you sing them one line and they say 'Oh! HIM!'

I speak of the great, late Harry Nilsson...and that's where the title of this blog entry finds its author. Nilsson (for those of you who still might say 'who?' I sing 'Can't live...if living is without you...' - and that's enough for now - you know at least one of his recordings*) wrote a song for his 2nd LP, 'Aerial Ballet' with the title 'Mr Richland's Favorite Song'. It told of a singer, once an 'untouchable hero'...up there on a stage, seemingly a million miles from his fans but, ultimately, a one-hit wonder! As the years passed by his loyal fans stayed for the third show, the second show and, many years later, he became 'the fallen star who works in a bar where yesterday is king' and where he 'calls his fans by name'.

In October 1982 I sat in a full to bursting Wembley Arena to watch the 'supergroup' Asia perform their first ever UK gig. What anticipation! What a thrill! There, tiny figures on the stage in front of me and my friends stood John Wetton (King Crimson, Family, Uriah Heep, Roxy Music UK etc.), Steve Howe and Geoff Downes (once of the great 'Yes'...and 'The Buggles'!) and Carl Palmer (exactly one third of the mighty ELP). They were untouchable, unreachable...like musicians from another realm, another planet even...a lifetime away from mere mortals like us in the audience! They sang and strummed their way through 'Heat of the Moment', 'Only Time Will Tell', 'Sole Survivor' and more of the songs I had already grown to love on the first 'prog' LP I ever bought. The night is as fresh in my memory tonight as it was then. I even recall the support act, a juggler of all things, called Chris Bliss - and he juggled with fluorescent balls and white gloves under an ultra-violet light. Bliss had a particularly blunt and effective way of dealing with hecklers (no doubt well-practised if you juggle habitually as support to rock legends!)...I dare not repeat his 'put down' on here (my mum reads this!) but, suffice to say, the same heckler did not transgess twice!

So, where is this going? Tonight I went with my 2nd son, Lewis, to see one of our favourite bands, 'It Bites' play a gig at Mr Kyps, Poole. I had never visited the venue before but it is a nice, intimate venue for a medium-sized gig (no doubt infinitely better these days as a result of the smoking ban!)

'It Bites' formed in Egremont, Cumbria in 1984. Four boys who went to school with each other, made a name for themselves then earned a record contract with Richard Branson's 'Virgin' Empire - and made the most of it by getting the early career 'hit' so eagerly sought by all new bands (see last night's blog for more info).

I saw 'It Bites' in 1990 in Portsmouth, I'd been a fan from their earliest days...but becoming a member of the band one day never even crossed my mind... Yet it must have been a dream for John Mitchell! John was a fan too...he recalls sneaking out of the house to go to gigs having raided a liquor cabinet to lubricate his enjoyment cells...and, no doubt, he honed his budding guitar skills by sitting - hour after hour, night after night - trying to emulate his hero, Francis Dunnery - lead guitarist and singer with his favourite band!

Tonight, John stood on stage as the front man of 'It Bites' - what a dream come true! John shared with some friends and I a year ago about the surreal situation he now finds himself in! When Dunnery quit the embryo reunion Mitchell took his place...what boots to fill!! Tonight he dominated the stage like 'Asia' did for me in 1982! A fairly small, though vociferous, audience lent him their support as they sang their hearts out through old faves like 'All In Red' and 'Still Too Young To Remember' - but the first half of tonight's show was dominated by a towering tour de force in 'The Wind That Shakes the Barley' - a new anthem to stand alongside the old favourites (and from the latest album).

When they retook the stage after a short interval 'It Bites' played the whole of what was almost universally acclaimed as their best album, 'Once Around the World'. Four stonking rockers launched the set in 'Midnight', 'Kiss Like Judas' (what a great track that is!),'Yellow Christian' (anyone out there tried playing in 14/8 time?) and 'Rose Marie'....and, later, the album ends with the band's 'magnum opus' - the epic title track of the CD which has elements of pop, rock, jazz, vaudeville and much, much more! 'Once Around the World', A Day In A Life...A cornucopia of genres that takes you from Caesar to Willie Carson in a quarter of an hour!

We sang our hearts out! We watched wide-eyed as John Mitchell's fingers flew like lightning over his frets, we marvelled at the solid and steady (and oft-times spectacular) drumming of Bob Dalton and wowed in appreciation at how the nimble fingers of keyboard genius John Beck held the sound together with his own personal orchestra of samples and patches...and, perhaps more than all, we wondered how bassist Lee Pomeroy was able to switch with such seemingly effortless ease from the steady 4/4 simplicity of being bassist for 'Take That' to nailing this music of infintely more complexity in his 'day job'!

I came away thrilled and entertained...my son, Lewis, came away inspired to practice and improve!

And what of Mr Richland?

Well, before the gig started tonight, I had the privilege to stand and chat once more with John Wetton...in 1982 that dot on a stage - tonight a friend and fellow 'fan'! Harry Nilsson's song personified...especially for me! If ever I could have wished for a bonus to make my evening this had to be it. This man has sold more records than anyone in this month's pop charts - quite possibly all of them added together!...and I have most of them in my collection! Recordings with 'Mogul Thrash', 'Family', 'Uriah Heep', 'Roxy Music', 'King Crimson', 'UK', 'Asia' as well as his fabulous solo albums have all given me endless hours of joy...and he stoood chatting with me again tonight! John is in better health now than last time we chatted socially! On my web pages at http://www.marcharry.com/ you will find a review of the night we met first of all...a night when John was in the grip of a serious and life-threatening alcohol addiction. That is now behind him...as he told me tonight 'but for the grace of God' he could have gone the way of Keith Floyd..but John still has much more music to make!

What a gift to us all music is! 'Johns' Mitchell and Wetton...I thank you from the depths of my heart! May it continue to flow for a long time to come!


*Note I say 'recordings' NOT compositions! Harry wrote the vast majority of the songs he recorded yet, strangely, his two biggest hits 'Everybody's Talkin' (Fred Neil) and 'Without You' (Pete Ham/Tom Evans) were composed by others. Ham & Evans were from British Beatles acolyte band 'Badfinger' and their sad, story (partly revolving around their battle for recognition as authors of the song) may well be told another day...

Once More Around the World...my proggy friends!

I have to concentrate!!! Seriously, I do! One of my very rare 'prog free' listening periods must come to an end tomorrow...Lewis and I drive to Poole for the 1st night of the wonderful 'It Bites' latest tour...the tour on which they will perform the entire 'Once Around the World' album - including the epic 14 minute and 48 second title track!

Not enough people even know It Bites exist(ed). My son Lewis started college today and his Music tutor was delighted to discover that he had a 'prog' fan in his group. As he briefly shared with Lewis about his love for Yes, Genesis and ELP Lewis mentioned that we were seeing It Bites tomorrow! The prog loving tutor had never heard of them!! Aaaaaaaargh!

It Bites were formed in Cumbria in 1984 and and their Warhol-ian 'five minutes of fame' came when their 2nd single 'Calling All The Heroes' reached number 6 in the UK singles charts. On the back of this success the group attracted many TV appearances and built a strong and loyal audience. Whilst, unashamedly, in those days It Bites were a pop/rock band I saw enough in a Saturday Morning kids TV appearance (in which they also played debut single 'All In Red') to catch my attention in a BIG way. Next time I met my musical 'oppo' Alvin, with whom I had shared 4 years membership of our own band 'Blood and Fire' and the man who first introduced me to prog I HAD to tell him about the band I'd 'discovered'...but, of course, he had also found them and had already bought the album!

This band was no Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet or Culture Club...here was a group of very fine musicians, led by the wonderful Francis Dunnery (who not only coped with being front man and lead vocalist but is amongst the best 2 or 3 guitarists I have ever heard!).

It Bites never repeated the success of their 2nd single. However, their 2nd album - the afore-mentioned 'Once Around the World' would still today head my personal list of 'best prog-rock albums EVER'...and with 'Close to the Edge', 'Foxtrot', and 'Brain Salad Surgery' amongst the opposition that is no faint praise indeed from this particular prog-head!

Picking up Lewis from college today I got my escape route from the ******** dominated listening of the last week (for stars substitute that group from Liverpool whom Kate seems to think I can't write a blog WITHOUT MENTIONING!)

Simon Mayo was interviewing Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks from Genesis as I drove...and my ears became attuned to a live version of 'I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)' from the box-set of live albums about to be released by the biblically-named proggers. Whilst the interview was highlighted by the live excerpt played (rare music on Radio 5!) and a funny debate about Pan's People's literal interpretation of the song on Top Of The Pops (including a real wardrobe!) at least my mind was turned towards prog at last!

What is prog, I hear some of you ask?

Hmmmmmm....I guess I see prog as a sort of middle-ground between the pop world and the classical/orchestral world (that blog on 'what is classical music' bubbles ever closer I feel...). It is rock music played by musicians who were probably good enough at their instruments to have 'made it' in any field...but chose rock! Prog 'songs' tend to be of 'epic' length...7, 10, 15 minutes rather than the usual 2.5 to 3 minutes that account for 99% of all hits in all pop charts. These songs probably do not limit themselves to one (or even 4) keys, change time signature more often than their composers change socks and have extended instrumental passages that allow the virtuosity of the players to come very much to the fore.

When It Bites split after their third album 'Eat Me In St Louis' I was devastated. Another fan in a similar catatonic state at that time must have been John Mitchell. John is younger than me but he had been to the gigs, been captivated by the music and, no doubt, longed for the day he might get to see his heroes take the stage one more time. Frank Dunnery went on to launch a successful solo career and hopes were raised after a solo concert at the Union Chapel in 2003 when the 4 members of It Bites took the stage together once more...talk on the forums later confirmed that a reunion was finally being attempted.

The biggest hurdle to the reunion was always going to be a Continental one. With Francis living in the USA and the other three still 'at home' in the UK rehearsal and writing time was always an impossible dream...and after several abortive attempts at getting the new project off the ground defeat was admitted to understanding but realistic fans...and that's the point at which all John Mitchell's dreams came true!

Sitting in front of amplifiers at home, fingers ever-growing in skill and dexterity, mastering intricate Dunnery riffs and solos...there must have been dozens or more who attempted it! Mitchell's effort seemed rewarded when he found success himself with his own band 'The Urbane', who produced two fine albums 'Neon' and 'Glitter', 1990's prog greats 'Arena' in which he was 'merely' guitarist...and then his next band 'Kino' arrived on the scene...

Kino's keyboard-player was John Beck...keyboard wizard with his own heroes, It Bites! The Kino debut album 'Picture' is a masterpiece in many ways and Mitchell richly deserved the plaudits the album attracted amongst prog-fans! Then, when Kino needed a new drummer for live dates, who should step in but Bob Dalton...yes, you guessed it, ex-drummer of It Bites! With Mitchell's fandom coming evermore to the fore it was natural indeed that It Bites songs like 'Plastic Dreamer' and 'Kiss Like Judas' made it to Kino's live set...

...and when It Bites' reunion hit the rocks - who better to bail the others out than a fan who could stand on stage and admit that years of Latin education at school meant nothing until he could translate the lyrics of 'Old Man and the Angel'? Mitchell became the new lead singer/guitarist of the reformed It Bites! Talk about childhood dreams coming true!!!!

Mitchell and Beck found that they wrote the same way as Dunnery/Beck once had done - the majority/main idea coming from Dunnery/Mitchell and the middle by Beck! A new album followed a successful re-debut tour...unfortunately (in some respects) they lost original bassist Dick Malone along the way...and WHAT an album it is!

I was privileged to attend a private listening party for 'The Tall Ships' with John and some friends last summer...what a wonderful night for Andre, Alvin and I - gaining insight at first hand to an album we all saw as the 'true' successor to 'Once Around the World'.

Tomorrow night we hear 'Once Around the World' again...live! I missed it first time around...it starts at 8pm in Poole...but I'll be driving away from Portsmouth soon after lunch! No Ringwood traffic jam is going to deprive me of this pleasure twice!

Ey Oop!!...It's a Brass Band!!!

Glamorgan and Yorkshire! What have they got in common?

Surely not much, must be the answer! Both parts of the UK, though in separate countries, the inhabitants of both would undoubtedly tell you! One is epitomised by the windswept moors of 'Wuthering Heights', the other by the tight, ever-loyal communities of 'How Green Was My Valley'.

The antipathy between the two is, at times legendary! Ask a proud Glamorgan man and a Yorkshireman to debate which is the better comestible delicacy between Yorkshire Pudding and Laverbread and a British civil war may erupt! Professional Yorkshireman 'Sir' Geoffrey Boycott, that legend of England's cricketing heritage, once famously refused to tour with the England winter team...because a 'Welshman' was captain! Yet there are links between the two areas that make them indisputable cousins...and bind the two proud heritages together as clearly as Cheddar is linked to cheese: coal mines and brass bands!

Even as recently as this past weekend the rivalry between the Cory Band of Wales and Black Dyke of Yorkshire was bitter and keen...the Brass Band Contest went to Cory...but many (even from other bands) went home to Yorkshire disappointed in the adjudication result! Such is the brass band world! If you ever need to know what brass bands mean to the people of Wales or Yorkshire one has only to watch the marvellous film 'Brassed Off'. If the great footballing philosopher Bill Shankley (the legendary manager of the great Liverpool team of the mid 1970s) was once quoted as saying that "football was not a matter of life and death...it's far more important than that!" - then, certainly in Glamorgan and Yorkshire, the same is as true - if not more so - of brass bands!

Yet where do brass bands 'fit' in the musical realm? They are not really taken seriously by the 'orchestral/classical' realm. And, although the Brighouse & Rastrick Band reached number two in the British pop charts with 'The Floral Dance' in 1977 they hardly belong in the world of 'popular music' either! In fact, outside of the mining communities, where their presence was so steeped in folk-lore and community spirit that they have outlasted the pits by far, there is only really one other bastion of brass banding that still thrives today - and that is, undoubtedly, The Salvation Army!

This branch of social protestantism, founded in Whitechapel, London by William Booth in 1865 is now a multinational church with activity in well over 100 countries. The 'Army' or the 'Salvos' are intrinsicly linked with lassies in bonnets with tambourines, amazing social work (in the UK today the SA is still the largest provider of social help apart from the governement itself)...and BRASS BANDS!

I have been a Salvation Army bandsman for 33 years this Autumn - but if you include service given while still in short pants - you can make that over 40! I started to play aged 5 when living in Bargoed - one of those coal pit villages in the Rhymney Valley, South Wales. My dad wrote out 'Onward Christian Soldiers' on staves ruled on the back of a cornflake packet and I marched around the front room learning, then playing it until he regretted it!

Tonight I shared with 32 others in a Salvation Army band rehearsal here in Portsmouth. There are not many rehearsals remaining now until the recording sessions for the band's next CD - their 3rd and the 11th album in total since 1968, which marked the band's first excursion onto vinyl. (There is a very rare recording of a 1956 radio braodcast which exists on coated metal discs that predates these but I only know of one copy that still exists...quite amazingly, Alex Manning, who played on that recording, is still the band's flugel-horn player today! He also owns the discs!)

Brass banding and coal-mining both instil into its participants an unbreakable bond of cameraderie...a deep friendship that transcends Yorkshire v Glamorgan or Cory v Black Dyke. At the end of a concert or contest the bandsmen will put sweaty arms around each others' shoulders and share a pint (or in the Salvation Army's case a steaming hot cup of tea!) and life will go on!

Bill Shankley's football could learn something from brass bands, I think!

What's your favourite???

I don't think there'll be a lot today...but we'll see...

I LOVE being a dad! I've had three sons who have all filled my life with much more joy than stress and hassle for the last 18 years! Today, my youngest son, Ieuan (pronounced Y-eye-un for those who've never even heard of a country called Wales!), came home from school singing a song he'd been enjoying in class today...and which brought back some very fond memories from a long time ago (doesn't music do that to us all the time?)

My parents moved to Bedlington in 1979 to be the ministers of the Salvation Army Corps in that lovely, Northumberland town. I was just 16 so, naturally, went with them and lived there for 2 years before leaving home for college, going back for holidays until they moved on themselves in 1982. One of the great joys I know my father had in that time was meeting a lovely-natured, little, red-haired girl who came to the Sunday School there.

I remember dad lined up quite a number of the youngsters on the platform one Sunday and went along the line asking them what their favourite Sunday School song was. Little Joanne not only told him - but offered to sing it for us as well - so she did:

"If I Were a Butterfly" lists all the things a child might do if they were that creature - thanking God for butterfly wings, elephant's trunks, fishes wiggling tails and giggling with glee, jumping like a kangaroo, etc. Joanne punctuated her solo by making each movement she could - especially the kangaroo hop - and this was so memorable because she was born severely disabled. She was able to stand with calipers as a child but has subsequently spent the rest of her life in a wheelchair - yet she has maintained that happy disposition ever since and still 'thanks God for making me me!"

She finished her song, then asked my father, quite spontaneously, what his own favourite Sunday School song was, Unprepared for the question he thought as quickly as he could and replied "I'd Rather Be A Little Thing Climbing Up Than A Big Thing Tumbling Down!" As my dad spent the vast majority of his adult life - like me - at well over 20 stones (300lbs) you might imagine the laughter his 'favourite' brought to the congregation!

Ieuan and I sat after school today and sang the song together and these memories came flooding back! Now he's on the floor playing with his pirate ships and singing again, "a bottle of rum to warm my tum and that's the life for me!" What DO they teach 5 year olds in school these days???

Within You and Without Understanding

I woke up today to tend a pukey son...and (both things are, I assure you, completely unrelated!) to Dauber's Facebook status about The Beatles song 'Baby You're a Rich Man'...surely one of their least known (and therefore amongst the least 'loved') songs. In fact I had to play it to remember exactly how it went (I can internalise most of the group's work without actually playing it).

Like 'Hey Bulldog' (prior to the reissue of Yellow Submarine a few years ago when it was restored to the movie), 'Bad Boy', 'Old Brown Shoe' and a few other B-sides it is one of the tracks that just don't get played too often by most fans...

...But they are still not the LEAST played, nor the least understood...those honours go, undoubtedly, to George's 'Indian' tracks. I know that many 'fans' skip those whenever they encounter them! There's 'Love You To' from Revolver, 'The Inner Light' (B-side of Lady Madonna) and, of course 'Within You, Without You' now track 8 of 'Pepper' but, for so long, the first song on side two and easy to skip even on LP!

When I first discovered The Beatles I thought these were 'funny' songs...I used to listen to them all together after dressing up in robes, wearing a wig and beads, lighting joss-sticks and sometimes even cooking a curry! But there is a serious parallel here with a problem I encountered many times later in life when I became a teacher...most people (and it is especially true for young ones) LIKE what they UNDERSTAND and tend to shun or mock what they don't!

My ambivalence towards these songs (I neither particularly liked them nor dislliked them...they just were...) was not helped by the reference book I trusted in those days to teach me about The Beatles: I had (on almost permanent loan from the library, then my own copy) a rather useful LP sized tome called 'An Illustrated Record' by Roy Carr and Tony Tyler. This book told the group's story in chronlogical order, listed the recordings (including who sang what - useful until I was able to tell by myself every time!) and it reviewed the albums song by song. Carr and Tyler's bias against George Harrison was evident to me even when I was a lad...but, in retrospect, it truly is appalling! Having given half a page to A-side 'Lady Madoona' they dismiss George's flip-side with a single line - the highlight of which is made up of three words: 'feeble, trancendental tune'. Their treatment of George throughout the rest of the book is rarely much better!

I had to teach Indian Music as part of the National Curriculum (the proscribed set of orders given by the British Parliament to its schoolteachers) and, of course, it was only when I studied it myself in order to teach it that I began to UNDERSTAND it...and George's three songs began to make musical sense to me!

In brief (and this is a very simplified precis, so don't jump down my throat!) Indian music consists of four elements:

• a drone - much the same as in bagpipes or hurdy-gurdy. The drone is played on an instrument called the tambura (or tanpura, depending on which book you read). The tambura is very similar to a sitar (the main melodic instrument in much Indian music). The main difference between the two is that, because the tambura only plays the drone, it is not decorated and made an ornate object of beauty as its more illustrious sister is! The drone usually consists of three alternating notes - in our parlance the key-note (tonic), the fifth above it and the next tonic a fourth above that...back to the fifth and then the first note again to repeat the pattern (so, in C it would be C-G-C1-G-C-G-C1-G etc). Well, that's a rough idea anyway!

(TRY IT - if you have an instrument handy try playing that pattern - letting the notes 'ring' so they overlap works best)

• a raga - this roughly equates to our scale but, in reality, is so much more. Whereas we have major, harmonic minor and melodic minor (and modes from a bygone era) there are some 350 different ragas in Indian Music - each related to a time of day, mood, colour or feeling. You would not play a morning raga in the evening, for instance - it just wouldn't happen traditionally! Indian melodies are made up of the notes in the chosen raga, usually beginning with a straght series (scale) up and down and getting more and more complex as the peice develops.

(TRY IT - if you have that instrument handy try playing an afternoon raga - marwa:

C Db E F# A B C then down C B A F# E Db C (put it with the drone!)

• a tala (or tal) - tala is made up from 2 Indian words meaning clap and dance...and there are some 280 or so talas you can choose from. Each is a rhythm pattern (or cycle) of different lengths and with accented 'beats' and 'silent' ones. The most cmmonly used tala by far is Tintal - a 16 beat tala with accents on 1st, 5th and 13th beats and a 'wave' or silent beat on the 9th. Although the tala traditionally stays the same throughout a single piece the music does get faster and faster!
• improvisation - yes, all Indian music is traditionally improvised! You choose an appropriate raga, choose a rhythm cycle, add a drone and...off you go (within 'form advising' guidelines). So, no two performances should ever be identical! (In these days of worldwide recording it is hard for artists to adhere to this tradition - if an audience wants to hear something they are familiar with through previous listening then 'the audience knows best' is the oft-followed maxim!)

Listen for these elements not just in the next Indian Music you hear (probably over a Lamb Bhoona in the local Tandoori House) but also in George's songs - they are there to some extent! We had 'Pepper' on in the car today and 'Within You, Without You' is a good example in which to hear some, if not all, of these elements.

(If you still have that instrument handy use the same drone as before while improvising with a 'scale' of E F G A Bb C D Eb. I have no idea if this is a 'real' raga...but most of our 'modes' are also ragas and there are 350 of them so it's 'quite likely' it is! Oh look...you're playing 'Within You, Without You'!!!)

I sincerely hope I haven't gone over the heads of 'non-muso' readers today, that was not my intention. My original aim in writing this blog is not just to entertain and edify but also to educate - something my general health now prevents me from doing as I once did. So, if I lost you somewhere above, please forgive me...and do come back again! If you had that instrument handy I hope you had fun - bet you never thought you'd be improvising authentic Indian music in about 5 minutes! But there you are.

Maybe Roy Carr and Tony Tyler should have tried it - they may understood poor George a bit better - or maybe they could have created something a little better than his 'feeble, trancendental tune'!

Friday Night May Be Music Night...but Saturday?

Saturdays are for sport! Today we've had a one-day cricket international (or - another chance for England to show how inept they are), a full football programme plus golf and US Open tennis! I didn't even get to catch a minute of the last two...so where the opportunities for music?

It just happens to be that there always is time! A day without music at all would be unthinkable! Lewis and I (still on the inevitable Beatles kick) found the time to watch an old 1965 Tv special I've had on DVD for a while... The Music of Lennon & McCartney. Essentially, this was a showcase for the group's new double A-side single, Day Tripper/We Can Work It Out - and that such a pristine condition copy still exists nearly half a century later is somewhat amazing (especially coming from an era in which tapes were routinely wiped for re-use).

An unusual and very diverse set of artists appeared to perform their own cover versions of Beatles songs - some good, some not so...and one or two were nauseatingly toe-curling! The execrable Flamenco annihilation of 'She Loves You' really had to be heard to be...suffered - and the dual manual jazz electric organist with St Vitas' dance may have sounded interesting...but to watch his twisted gyrations almost made me laugh uncontrollably...and reminded me that I suppose a donation to SCOPE is probably overdue! Peter Sellers, as Richard III, was very funny, of course!

Now it's time for a great British tradition - The Last Night of the Proms...so more music! The first item in the finale was an overture for orchestra and...hoovers! Composed by Sir Malcolm Arnold in 1956 the 'Grand, Grand Overture' is surely one of the great musical jokes! Lewis reckoned is was meant to depict someone trying to listen to music while another (maybe his wife?) did the cleaning...it ends with the errant vacuumers being shot by four handily-placed riflemen! I was reminded at once of that awful 'anti-programme-music' quote by Stravinsky that music does not have the quality in it to be able to speak for itself...I thought it was nonsense when I first read it and still do! Igor wrote some extraordinary music...but should have left philosophy to his betters in that field!

'In A Monestary Garden' came next...I haven't heard that 'nightingale-soaked piece of cheese' for decades. I was playing it at college back in 1982 when dear Eric Stanley (an elderly professor from Dagenham who regaled us week by week with wonderful tales from the days when he taught Dudley Moore at Trinity College) came in and shouted me down. "What are you doing with THAT old chestnut?" he demanded before advising me that it might make a better piece of music if I turned the sheet music upside down! I did...and won a prize for my piano piece in the next composer's competition! Thanks Eric!

A trumpet tango and some Gershwin followed and, as I type, we're on the first of 5 newly-composed fanfares...if the other 4 are as bad as the first I might go have a bath before the real fun starts! Really...it's horrible!

LNOTP is the one night of the year, it seems, when it's OK to 'like' classical music (don't get me started on what 'classical music' is...that's another blog topic waiting its chance to burst from my fingers!). Tens of thousands of stable-minded Brits who spend the other 364 days of the year making sure that Lady Gaga and Pixie Lott clog up the charts suddenly acquire temporary taste-chips and crowd into parks, castles and City Squares to listen to Handel, Beethoven ("didn't he go blind?") and the rest without losing their 'cool'. The reason? Well, LNOTP ends with some good old-fashioned jingoism! 'Rule Britannia', 'Fantasy on British Sea Songs' and Elgar's 'Pomp & Circumstance' are being joined tonight by 'Jerusalem', fresh from its Ashes series overkill* and, surely the best English patriotic tune ever to have been composed by a WELSHMAN!

So there we have it...plenty of music on Sporturday and still finished in time for Match of the Day! Life is good!


*Jerusalem was played and sung loudly before the start of play on all 25 days of the test series between England and Australia this summer...we were actually quite good for some of that and won the series...its just the one-day stuff we're so bad at, obviously!

A Day In The Life

Despite the title...I've had a day off from The Beatles today!

Lewis didn't...he ripped the new remasters to 320kbps and filled up his iPod - but I have been listening to and talking about other music today...I thought it might paint a picture of the part music plays in my life wherever I am and whatever I do if I shared it...so here goes!

I have my phone alarm set to the opening bars of a nice and mellow Francis Dunnery song at the moment...so it's Frank who wakes me up each morning...and, therefore, Frank who gets rudely shut up a few notes later by the 'snooze' button! However, he tries again 10 minutes or so later and usually succeeds in waking me this time...and I rise from the pit to raise the boys! It's cartoon music for the next half hour or so - recently Ben 10 or Chowder or...if I can persuade...the more tolerable iCarly - until the 8.30 shut-off when Breakfast News goes on and so do shoes and school uniforms!

Later this morning I received the tickets for next weekend's Touchstone gig, so it was an obvious choice to put their newest album, 'Wintercoast' on in the car. Introduced by a spoken prologue from the dungeon-voiced Jeremy Irons (is he the only actor with a deeper voice than James Earl-Jones and Alan Rickman?) this CD fuses just about all I love about prog-rock: multi-layered, rich keyboard textures (and enough twiddly bits to keep me smiling!), solid rhythm section with melodic bass lines and inventive, contributive guitar work...and the whole thing is topped off by the exquisite voice of Kim who...as an added bonus for live shows, looks as good as she sounds (I mean...a Genesis gig is still good today...but do you REALLY want to look at Phil Collins for 3 hours?). When listening to Touchstone I find that one minute I'm reminded of Peter Gabriel, the next early Marillion, then the best of Rick Wakeman...and so on through my entire library of proggy faves. I was also reminded, while listening, today to drag out my copy of the first Esquire album - it was recorded when Nikki was still married to Chris Squire and his influence and voice elevate this good debut album to an excellent one!

I've been to Petersfield Hospital this afternoon to visit an elderly friend who plays in the Salvation Army brass band with me. Of course we share a love for old SA music (a legacy of all those old Regal Zonophone 78s I wrote about on Day 1, I guess!) A couple of years ago I transferred the whole set from 78 onto CD/mp3 and gave a set of discs to Bill which I know he played through his DVD. We talked about them today - and about my frustration that I now have a much better deck with a proper, dedicated, deep groove 78 stylus...so I really ought to do them all again (aaaaaaargh!)!! He's got a selection of CDs in hospital with him, fortunately, so won't get too bored as he recovers...and his tastes appear as varied as mine: today we discussed both SA and non-SA brass (although my expertise on the latter is a little limited), jazz greats like Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa and Glenn Miller before venturing into orchestral music and some modern 'oddities'.

Bill has been enjoying 'The Armed Man' by Karl Jenkins recently and recommended it to me before the summer. I picked up a copy on eBay for 99p the next week but, sadly, I had to admit to Bill today that it remained unlistened to so far...I promised him I'd remedy that shortly so...watch this space...and THEN...we ended up talking about minimalism of all things!

I used to describe minimalism to my students as a composing technique in which the composer takes a simple idea and develops it...then develops it some more...and then takes it "to infinity and beyond"! My first minimalist favourite was the American composer Philip Glass. Most of his music is underpinned by his minimalist signaure of alternating, undulating quavers (8th notes)...but today we discussed Gavin Bryars and his wonderful 'Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet'. Released (in its completed form) in 1993 this 'love it or hate it' work consists entirely of a 27 second soundbite recorded when Bryars was a young technician working on a TV documentary about London's homeless. A tramp who wandered around Elephant & Castle in the late 1960's apparently sang this excerpt from an old Sunday School chorus all day as he walked aimlessly around the vicinity.

Bryars kept the recording and developed this extremely minimalist album over the next 25 years. I believe it is recorded in the liner notes (although I don't have them at hand to check as I write) that Bryars eventually made a loop of the tramp's singing and played it while working at a university, trying to improvise on a keyboard beneath (or over) it. Having been called away for a time he returned to find students nearby both stunned into silence and moved to tears by the irony of the tramp's endless repetition - he had inadvertently left the door to his study open when he left!

On the recording the voice remains the same throughout*...it is the accompaniment that changes minimally, almost infinitessimally, with each repeat - so that when you listen you suddenly realise that the string quartet that began as the accompaniment has now disappeared completely and been replaced by winds and percussions you had barely even noticed arriving! 72 minutes it lasts altogether...and I'm definitely a 'love it' person!

So...from Dunnery to cartoon music, Touchstone to brass bands, jazz to minimalism - and I came home to the dulcet tones of Carl Wilson...not a bad mix of music for what could have been a pretty mundane Friday! GOD!...I LOVE music...and thank Him for it!



*OK...to be completely honest it fades in a bit at the start then fades out near the end to be replaced by Tom Waits...I believe this is meant to imply that the original 'tramp' has gone to heaven!

Through a Glass Darkly (part 2)

Now, where was I? Oh yes...please don't think for one minute while reading this that I'm a musical perfectionist! I will always want musicians to be heard performing to their potential but sheer, clinical perfection leaves me a little cold.

I recall as a young boy being astonished by how fast a cornet soloist with a band moved his valves up and down, in seemingly perfect synchronisation with his breathing, tongueing and blowing - THAT much inspired me! At the end, when the audience's prolonged applause had died down and the soloist, having politely acknowledged the reception with neither a flushed cheek nor a hair out of place, had returned to his seat - the compere spoke:

"Wow! Didn't he make it look easy?"

My thoughts exactly! The compere meant it as a compliment, of course, yet I wanted to know how much better the performance might have been had the solost given a bit more of himself in the performance! I vowed secretly to myself that, if I were ever in a similar position I would not want to retake my seat unless I were a sweating, drippy heap...and both mentally and emotionally exhausted! Anyone who has seen me play in the 34 years I've now been a euphonium soloist would smile, realising why their applause at the end of my efforts was warmed by their relief I hadn't actually dropped dead in front of them mid-variation!

But, I digress...and realise (even at this early point in my blogging career) that typing my thoughts is going to a like a Ronnie Corbett monologue...we WILL get to the point eventually! What I guess I was trying to say above is that while clinical perfection is something to be aspired to it is rarely attained and, if so, surely at the price of a little 'soul'? Maybe that's why, when I first bought a vinyl copy of the 'Beatles Live in Hamburg' (my bizarre mind reminds me that it was bought in Newcastle with birthday money from Grandad Hedges circa October 1981!) I was intrigued by the liner comment that 'bum notes flew like beer bottles'. They did indeed...and the hissy, imperfect recording - made on a cheap reel-to-reel tape recorder with, no doubt, even cheaper microphone and NEVER intended for commercial release - was hard to listen to at all, to be honest. Yet, buried beneath the vinyl noise, recording imperfections and audience interference it was THE BEATLES - as I'd never heard them before...which made it all worthwhile. The skill, energy and enthusiasm they put into their, surely, routine work showed why the had become the superstars I'd grown to love within a couple of years of the show in a dingy, German nightclub.

All Beatles fans will know the official releases like the backs of our hands. When I would play Beatles to classes full of seemingly uninterested schoolchildren for 20 years they were always surprised how many of the 'sample tunes' I carefully chose they already knew! "Oh, THAT's The Beatles! I know that song...didn't know it was them though!" came back at me class after class, year after year (as I smiled, knowingly, back at them!) I bought the whole lot on vinyl back in the 1980s (plus bootlegs in Portobello Road), made copies onto cassette, assembled my own compilations, got the Red and Blue sets and the Rarities LP (wow, what a thrill it was to have THAT!). I got some official cassettes as well if they were going cheap in a sale or 2nd hand shop...and then, in 1987, 'the Holy Grail'...The Beatles arrived on CD.

I took it as gospel that these were definitive. It was, after all, the 3rd time I'd bought the same songs...but now without surface crackle and scratches or cassette tape hiss (or even worse - the beheaded abomination your ears suffered with a Dolby circuit switched on!!) I had no real reason to question whether what I heard on my decent home hi-fi was as close as one could get to 'what it sounded like in the studio'. The 'industry' had, after all, sold us the concept of 'CD' under that premise! Only in hindsight, and with 22 years of reading, listening and (in recent years) internet fan-groups and mailing-lists, do I know the truth: when dear George Martin made the new masters in 1987 his once pristine ears were not what they once were! Nor could he (or, to be fair, we) have envisaged the advances in remastering techniques that would later evolve during the 1990's and 2000's. As more and more 'classic' albums received the 'digitally remastered' re-release ('Dark Side of the Moon' and 'Pet Sounds' come to mind...HOW MANY TIMES???) I began to wonder if The Beatles oeuvre was being 'left behind'.

Then, I heard on the internet about Dr Ebbett! Here was a Beatles fan, so disturbed by the poor quality perceived to be the group's legacy on CD that he developed his own technique to drop stylus onto pristine vinyl and produce CDs that (it was claimed) sounded much better than the official releases? Of course I was sceptical! If they were that good, why hadn't EMI done something about it...after all they had the original tapes?

So, I still listened to my CDs...even mp3's ripped from them! I used to persuade myself I couldn't hear a difference between the CDs and an mp3...even when ripped as low as 128kbps...then someone demonstrated to me how I was wrong! I still rip mp3's but now never lower than 192kbps (and my favourite music at 320) and it is to my regret that I admit that I only acquired a set of Dr Ebbett's needledrops earlier this year...

Bluntly, I was ASTONISHED by what I heard! I was hearing things I'd never heard before: clarity between instruments - almost a defined 'space' between the musicians and elements of the sound. The bass punched and the high-frequencies rang out without jarring my ears and setting off my tinnitus! I took the set with me into a professional studio when recording keyboard overdubs for a CD and asked the engineer (another Beatles fan) if we could listen to a bit on the studio equipment: half-way through the 2nd song he took my discs into his office and copied the lot before we finished the session!!!

So, when I read recently that Dr Ebbett had 'thrown in the towel' after hearing the new, official Beatles remasters I had to expect great things. He always maintained that he had not worked tirelessly (as he undoubtedly had over the last few years) to make money out of The Beatles but to provide fans with recordings the group's legacy deserved. He now acknowledges that there is no need for him to continue - EMI have done the right thing at last!

When I did an A-B-C test yesterday with my son (and fellow-Beatlemaniac) Lewis between the 1987 CDs, Dr Ebbetts and the new stereo releases the reslults were everything I could have expected...and more! Like I said yesterday it was "as if someone had removed several layers of curtain from in front of my speakers". (The differences between 1987 and 2009 especially I would defy anyone to not hear!) We Beatles fans have entered a new world...and with games and iTunes to follow I guess we'll be picking up a few new members too!

'Through a glass darkly' is, of course, taken from Paul's letter to the Corinthians, chapter 13. To quote Wikipedia, "the phrase is interpreted to mean that humans have an imperfect perception of reality." In that case, and to continue the allegory, yesterday I met the music "Face to Face".

...And they tell me the 'Monos' are even better...........

Through a Glass Darkly...

Well here it is...my first post on my very first blog!

It's about music, of course...it would have to be...music has been, is today and will continue to be my life! Beethoven to Beatles, Palestrina to Prog-Rock and Schoenberg to Shankar they are all present in my extensive listening library.

I began buying records at the age of 12 but collecting them much earlier...my mother regales me with tales of my tears as my sister sat on my 78 of 'The Harry Lime Theme' and how I would sit for countless hours , aged 3 and above, with my trusty wind-up gramophone. Some of those tunes are deeply engrained into my musical memory even though 40 years or more have passed since those halcyon days of early childhood under the skies of Gwent and Glamorgan: Cocktails For Two (Spike Jones), Marche Lorraine, Blow the Wind Southerly (Kathleen Ferrier), By The Wishing Well (The Singing Cowboy) and many others (including various 'doubles' from my dad's extensive collection of Salvation Army 'Regal Zonophone' recordings!)

A visit back to Clapham (where I, apparently, lived from 7 months old to age 2) with dad in 1970 saw me offered my first 'single' - 45rpm, vinyl not shellac, and NOT for playing on the wind-up! With dad thinking I'd be bound to go for 'Back Home' by the England World Cup Squad I surprised him with the more eclectic choice of Lee Marvin singing 'Wanderin' Star' from Paint Your Wagon. I like to think I had an eye for a bargain even then for, on the said single's B-side sat a track called 'I Talk to the Trees', to my knowledge still the only recording ever to feature the singing of one Clint Eastwood - then a barely known, young, American actor. I laughed again a few months later when I was given a free copy of 'Back Home' by a friend in Cardiff.

I began to develop my memory for minutiae...that's why I know the afore-mentioned England song was written by Bill Martin & Phil Coulter (a Scotsman and an Irishman who wrote no less than three Eurovision Song-Contest winning songs!*) and even that its B-side was 'Cinnamon Stick' featuring West Brom's hard-heading Centre Forward Jeff Astle on lead vocals.**

Anyway, I'm sure I'll come back to some of those musical nuggets again as this blog develops...PLEASE feel free to message me and agree or disagree with my opinions...I cannot promise much use of IMHO around here - I DO have opinions but I offer them from MY heart and MY (big?) head...so there's not so much of the 'H' for humble on offer, I'm afraid. I mean...just look at the web address: I've been teaching music now for 30 years both privately and in Secondary Schools - my teaching heroes being Bertram Capey, my old music master from my own school days in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent and Mr Benjamin Shorofsky, erstwhile and displaced German-Jew music-meister in New York from the film and (especially) the TV series 'Fame'.

Why this particular article's title? Well, it's a taster for the next instalment really...today is 09/09/09 - BEATLES day in our house...we don't have much money right now or else I'd have spent at least £600 on Beatle-product today: the day has seen the release of box-sets of both Mono and Stereo albums as well as the 'Beatles Rock Band' game...not to mention the latter's accompanying replica Gretsch and Rickenbacker guitars at £90 or so a piece! Because of my contacts in the music world I have been privileged to be able to hear some of the stereo remasters today - and that's where the title comes in...listening to 'Rubber Soul' this morning was truly amazing - as if someone had removed several layers of curtain from in front of my speakers. A quick A-B test (even using Dr Ebbett's as the B-sample) sounded like a wall had been torn down between me and the music...

MUCH more on that to come!

Thanks for reading this, I hope I've either made you smile or shake your head - inspired you to go listen to some long-forgotten tune I mentioned, search on eBay for a Clint Eastwood single or...maybe, in my wildest dreams, you might even post a reply, an encouragement to continue or even subscribe to this blog.

Marc


* 'Puppet on a String' (Sandie Shaw), 'Congratulations' (Cliff Richard) and 'All Kinds Of Everything' (Dana)...see I told you my head was full of c**p!
** Jeff, of course, found fame again after his playing career by resurrecting his singing talent on the TV Show 'Fantasy Football' with Frank Skinner and David Baddiel before, sadly, dying from brain damage caused, allegedly, by too much 'hard-heading' footballs.