Purple and blue... part 1

Purple and blue... part 1

I put this together this morning whilst waiting to hear if eldest daughter had arrived safely in Corfu.. the song is for her, the pictures are all taken by me on our allotment this year... I like this concept, better than just a bland shot and an mp3...

Music - it's effect on me

 music just gets into my head, rattles around and sits there until it's thrust into the limelight, then it's a wonderous thing of ravishing beauty, a harsh mistress that demands all your attention  NOW , then sooths your brow, whispers sorry in your ear and runs off with your heart...

Vintage Trouble - Live at The Stronghold

saw these on Jools Holland ... a worthy support band Mr Nelson!

today, I want to introduce... Daniel Martin Moore

another random purchase.. on sub pop, home of Iron & Wine, one of my fave new bands..
What did I have to lose? Guaranteed exchange if not to my taste, beautiful packaging, good price.
So I took it, opened the packaging ( like an envelope containing the CD and booklet)
placed it in my CD player and waited..
Would it be like old sub pop - Noisy , brutal 3rd rate Zeppelin played by speed freaks ? or new style as demonstrated by the aforementioned Iron & Wine?

New Music - number 5 in a random series - "Aloe Blacc"

over on entropy   this was / is a series of posts showing You Tube clips of new artists I've discovered via promo Cd or random purchasing due to liking covers or label or it being a Monday...
So this time I thought I'd start over here and introduce you, dear reader(s) to a new soul artist  that   is occupying my CD player  at the moment.

Aloe Blacc 

was someone I'd never heard of until my daughter pushed me away from the keyboard, mid blog , to type his name into "You Tube" and decry that I'd like him..

She'd heard this track on the radio and clocked it as something I'd appreciate..

She was right, I did. 

Mr Amazon did too as I promptly ordered both his CD's

and I was not disappointed!

"Good Things" is the latest , it's a more polished effort as "Shine Through" is more hip hop influenced, but both a re terrrific examples of someone apearing from nowhere and stacking out a large proportion of my listening time

Here's a clip of the track that started it all, "I need a Dollar", live in the studio...

Rivers Gonna Rise - Warren Haynes Band @ 2010 X-Mas Jam

this CD is gonna be an awesome release... have heard a pre release mp3 copy and it's funky as a trunk of funk.. can't wait for May 10.. :)

Warren Haynes - "Man In Motion" EPK

Revisiting old pieces #1 MJ vs Prince - Would the Real "King Of Pop" please stand up..

read an interesting blog from Mike Scott of the Waterboys in which he argues that Michael Jackson's status as "King Of Pop" was a fleeting one, that the mantle was confered on him for "Thriller, but it then passed to a purple type person for that period of time from "Purple Rain" to Love sexy....
And I quote "
"But then Prince trumped him in 1984, releasing Purple Rain – album, single and movie – and displaying equally outrageous dance moves and singing. He boasted a prodigious armoury of musical and arrangement skills – not least the most soulful lead-guitar playing since Hendrix – and a sly, sexy, mischievous humour that made Jackson, by contrast, look tense and two-dimensional.Prince 's name replaced Jackson's as that most synonymous with brilliance and sharpness, and he occupied the throne till 1988, when Lovesexy failed to maintain the standard of his previous four albums."
So, was the title merely a PR contractual obligation as Scott alleges?
It's an interesting arguement and certainly more interesting than the deification of Jackson that most of the media succumbed to.
Don't get me wrong, yes , he made some excellent music, sold a shed load of albums, but a sense of perspective is needed.
A lot of the journalists that are now writing that Jackson is the nearest thing to a latter day saint are trying to equate their youthful passions to the media monster that Jackson allowed himself to be portrayed as.. It is easier to celebrate the good than attempt to put the less good into context, and the easiest route is the road most travelled - "A true entertainer etc" but this is from the same pen that formulated "whacko Jacko" and all the negative connotations that this moniker brought with it.

As for "The King Of Pop" , it was interesting that this title was self proclaimed ( or via a PR dept) for MJ in the mid 90's - story is that , in order to get an interview, you had to refer to him by that moniker.... no credit, no story.....
And I too am deeply sceptical about these big bold general labels.
Labels are there to make it easy for people to put things in places - the simpler the label, the less thought needed. once something is named, it becomes manageable and the verbal shorthand takes over...
The colour Red is what it is because the consensus of reality has agreed it, the same as the building that you are educated in is a school, whether it's a wooden building in a forest that holds 10 or a stone edifice in the middle of a city where 1000's pass through the doors each day.
At the end of the day, fans will proclaim the merits of their champions, lazy journalism will launch cheap shots at whoever it needs to sell papers, the media is a multi limbed polymorphous beast that will feed on itself when there is nothing new to say.
And, remember the Fisher King- The King is dead, but long live the king.
King of Pop.... apt title - dynastic title foisted upon one due to an accident of birth, that being all that separates him from the common The KoP is a manufactured label for someone who was, as the article succinctly stated , air brushed, polished and honed to the point of androgynous perfection.
Whereas Prince was a low down n dirty one man funk machine.
He might not have shifted the units, but the units he shifted opened people's eyes to what true talent could achieve.

and, remember, a King is there by an accident of birth, "The Hardest Working Man in Show Business" got that title by... well, working. so , I say long live the memories of a true "king, Mr James Brown...
It's not that I don't like MJ's music, it was the soundtrack to my youth too, but you can only choose to take so many books on your journey through life, and his particular genre is now back in the distance, lost behind the hills of fondly remembered exuberance, in the valley of innocence, consigned to the vault of college and dodgy haircuts, marlboro red top, CND and politically correct missives on why soul was good but Rock was bad ( NME , 1980 to today....)
a nice place to revisit, the past, but I wouldn't want to live there...
too much good stuff here in the present!

Exclusive! Jakabo Video!

well, exclusive to any one that can search you tube and is reading this...

My friend Ian has been managing this band for the last year or so, they are developing into a tight little unit, with Jamie ( guitar) and Maria (vocals) growing in leaps and bounds.

Last month they rocked our JLP bonus party and did this track especially for me.... cool eh?

anyway, this was recorded last year and is well worth a listen. 

and if you like what you hear, get in touch with the band and go see them!

I've just discovered .....Fink

Picked up a Ninja tunes promo Cd of Fink pieces offering " Acoustic Soul".
What a treat. Think Jose Gonzales on acid.
OR Damien rice with a funky vibe..
seriously chilled songs with splashes of dub, funk, a lot of soul and a solid backbone of rhythm.
I enjoyed it so much that I spoke to that nice Mr Amazon , he sent me "Biscuits for Breakfast" CD for a ridiculously low price,

This is a live version of track 1.....

There I was, checking You tube for some videos to offer up my recent CD purchases as a taster  when I found this.
Somehow the You Tube 10 minute rules are not in place, this is the whole experience, in HD!! and it's pretty mind boggling...
So get over to You tube and take a dive!

Thanks to the original up loader

Blackfield - Waving (taken from Welcome to my DNA)

Stirring up controversy with Blackfield fans used to the lush acid washed visuals from their usual collaboraator, Lasse Hoile this video parodies contemporary video culture... But what do you think?

Napster Founder - Ultimate Poacher turned game keeper

with the news that the founder of Napster ( old illegal file sharing site closed by US legal action aided and abetted by Lars Ulrich from Metallica) is in discussions to purchase Warner Music Group ( home of Metallica)
I think Spongebob sums up the irony nicely......

Noah and the Whale - L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N.

It's a sunny morning, so a nice slice of sunny folk to wake up with, a melody to hum whilst we gird our loins for the daily joust with the forces of darkness...

Back to the Blues

I've collected some amazing you tube clips, and will post them here in the hope that people will check out the artists and explore their musical worlds .
I hope that people will enjoy them as much as I have..
Anyway, enough of the waffle, here's the first... Mr Warren Haynes and friends...

Whilst racking my brains for a subject to write about, I stumbled into an old man with straggly long hair, a wispy beard , a crazed look in his eye and a strange creature clasped in his arms.

"Good day sir, and a pleasant day it would be to, If it weren't for the dragon.” he was in mid flow when I coughed and spluttered "Dragon?" what are you on?'

He paused for breath, looked me square in the eye, then offered to tell me a tale of daring, avarice and greed across the seas of time and space, a tale of mythical creatures, lost love, long misplaced childhoods , bards and magicians locked in mortal combat, treachery felled the heroes, fortune favoured the brave and the pure of heart wandered through the vale of misery looking around with mortified hopes and clutching at straws

"Where are the prophets, where are the visionaries?" I asked,

All in good time, dear knave, all in good time.

He rearranged his posture ( not a pleasant sight, I can tell you)and as the last syllable leaped for freedom out of that brown stained tooth guarded chasm, my body jerked into stillness. I could not move, my whole being was focused on the ancient mouth as it formed words that were at once both terrible and yet full of beauty

He spoke to me of ages past, when man and nature were in harmony, he told tales of  girls with faraway eyes and he told of the boy with the thorn in his side, the man who sought the light in the black, and more, much more.

Then he shimmered, shook himself, jumped up, apologised for wasting my time and was grateful that I'd let him ramble on until he no longer knew what is and what should never be.

As he spoke, he faded like a reflection in glass fades as the light from behind you fades

I blinked; he was gone, leaving only a smell of damp wool and a library card. I picked up the card with a pair of tweezers that were waiting around, and exited, stage left...

To the Library of Prog, for that was the name embossed on the card.

I approached the library cautiously, it was easy to find as it was situated on the road to nowhere, which was the first left off the boulevard of broken dreams, It sat on top of Solsbury Hill, basking in the warm summer sun of memories

In the library were many books, the first I picked , or rather , it picked me , was a tome entitled " Prog for Dummies".

It coyly opened its cover and inside I heard a sound, getting louder and louder... acoustic guitars, mellotron, drums, electric guitars, all tumbled out in a heap, then rearranged themselves into a strange engine shape and began to play.

This is what they played....

1 Porcupine Tree – BornLiveDie

2 Pink Floyd – One Of These Days

3 Honeyroot - Sound Echo Location

4 Marillion – Market Square Heroes

5 IQ – Subterrania

6 Riverside – The Same River

7 Satellite – Fight

8 Unitopia – This Time We Got It Right

9 Transatlantic – Mystery Train

10 Spock’s Beard – Stranger in a Strange Land

11 Marillion – Easter

12 The Flower Kings – Different People

13 Eloy – On The Verge Of Darkening Lights

14 It Bites – The Ice Melts Into Water

15 Twelfth Night – Art And Illusion.

A Translation:

We are gently escorted into the Purpleblues Prog room by the exhortations of “Bornlivedie” from “Signify “ by Porcupine Tree, which sets up “One Of These Days” from “Meddle” by the Grand Masters of Prog, Pink Floyd. Not the most obvious of PF tracks, but this classic of lyrical minimalism drives us on, the insistent driving bass line and honky tonk piano serve to mislead the uninitiated, but he faithful are rewarded with the slicing slide guitar and SFX.

The mix then sublimely changes to “Sound, Echo, Location” from Honeyroot. Nowhere in any dictionary of Prog will you find a chapter or even a footnote for them, but in my world, the fractured keyboards entwined with the treated voices and the SFX make this a Prog track…

So we are now deep in he suburbs of Prog City and we have the first of our “Prog Classics”, Marillion. Their debut single ( or 12” EP as these things were back in the start of the 80’s). The influence of punk’s nihilism is evident , yet the accusation of “Genesis “ clones dogged the Fish era band, totally without substance unless you were to witness the live event, during which the tall garrulous scot would regale the audiences with rambling introductions  that owed much to one Peter Gabriel 

The Resurgence of Prog in the 80’s is now labelled as the “Neo” Prog movement in the anorak toting world of progfans, so we move to a band still touring, still stretching the boundary of what “Prog” should be. IQ, here represented by the title track from “subterranean, that most Prog of things, a concept album / tour/ DVD.

Then we are off on a quick global jaunt, over the rusting Iron Curtain to the People’s Republic of Prog , or Poland as the rest of the EC know it.

For a little country, it excels in the emerging scene with terrific bands like Riverside and Satellite that mould Prog with Metal and Post-industrial gothic sentiments into a coherent soundscape that appeals to young and old Progfans alike.

Riverside have moved into the darker, sparsely illuminated side streets of Metal and grunge, whilst Satellite have been seduced by the bright lights and false promises of a more radio friendly approach. The tracks here are taken from their respective debut albums, and fine pieces of Prog they are too.

Then it’s off to the other side of the world. Australia. Not a country renowned for its Progginess, but  

Unitopia are attempting to change that view with deceptively tuneful and adventurous lyrical songs., The fact hat they have some great on line video’s to promote their music is not harming them either. I posted their “Pigeon impossible “ you tube clip a while back, go check it out for proof that Prog can be funny ! in a good way.

Then we reach the heart of the matter. Modern Prog is a small world, everyone seems to know each other and “guest appearances” are the rule rather than the exception.

The masters of this cross pollinated village are Transatlantic.

Take a renowned Prog metal drummer,  a multi-instrumentalist lyricist with strong spiritual values  who can out sing 99% of the field, add a Scandinavian guitar legend and finish the quartet with a quietly understated English bass player and you get a bona fide “supergroup”. “Mystery Train “is from their debut CD, SMPTe, released back in 2000.Since then they released a follow up epic, toured, gave us the obligatory 2CD/”DVD deluxe live set, broke up, then reformed last year, released the quintessential Prog Album, a single track 80 minute conceptual piece, Headlined the High Voltage Festival in Hyde Park and then vanished into the fog.

Then we have examples of ¾ of the sum that makes the whole. Spock’s Beard never toured “Snow”, their masterpiece: A double album concept about an albino psychic and his life and suffering. Sounds dreadful, yet contains moments of beauty and real emotional force, one of which is presented here.

Then a further offering from Marillion, “Easter”, a great track featuring the “new” vocalist ,Steve Hogarth, who’s now bee nin the band much longer than that lanky Scotsman..

Then onto the Scandinavian element, the guitar toting Swede, Mr Roine Stolt… and his day job, The Flower Kings. A nice vibe floating through the ether here, leading us nicely to Germany’s finest Prog export of the 70’s and 80’s, Eloy. They crashed into the Prog world from krautrockland and brought a pile of synthesisers with them, and cosmic prog never sounded so celestial!

And now we are approaching the halfway point on our journey, and who better to guide us there than Cumbria’s finest, It Bites, captured here live and in full dry ice and spot lit guitar solo mode.

They then pass the baton to Reading’s contribution to 80’s Prog, Twelfth Night. Now I must confess to being a little biased as they were old drinking buddies, and I still keep in contact with Brian , the drummer today. Well of the line-up that blazed a trail through the M4 to headlining the Marquee, only he and Clive the bass player remain, but the reformed and expanded 2010 version are a potent force as witnessed by Mrs PB and me earlier this year….

And in part 2 , we will discuss how one tiny Scandinavian town can produce not 1 but 2 world class Prog rock behemoths – Black Bonzo and Moon Safari, we will dive into the strange world of Galahad, play spot the riff with the masters of Progressive Metal, Dream Theatre and explore the moons of Genesis  and untangle the complex web of musical threads that all lead to one Arjen Lucasson….

Oh and throw in a few choice tracks from the PB library too

further details

Inside The Power by UNITOPIA (concept video)

A Climax Blues Band Sampler

This is a compilation  I Put together for another Blogger who was inviting people to share their favourite bands in the form of "alternative" best of CD's.
Sadly it never appeared...
so here I present 2 CD's of Gold Plated, Funky Blues for you to slather over.
One Cd is Live, the other a compilation of my favourites fro ma career stretching from the start to their last recordings.
I first saw them back in 1979 at Reading Festival, they strutted their funky stuff and earned a well deserved encore.

http://www.mediafire.com/?3m78ow5ulavav

I've also provided links to their website and Wikipedia entries for them so if you like what you hear, then buy one of their CD's! 

band website :-  climaxbluesband.com

 Wikipedia :- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climax_Blues_Band

why Wilbur DryFrog?

Wilbur was a tree frog I found many years ago when I worked in a Fruit and Veg shop.
He was trapped inside a hand of Bananas, and inspired on e of my first tape compilations.
I remember it had Rory Gallagher with " I wonder Who" , Led Zeppelin's " Tangerine" and many more and started the slide down the slippery slope that's ended here