Islands of Ecstasy

Signing off...

2010-12-10T07:49:00.003+09:00

Shiffi Le Soy has decided to leave the blogosphere.

Thanks everyone for reading or commenting on my rantings.

Peace,

Shiffi.

Hip Priest

2010-03-18T08:02:00.044+09:00

Live: Bob Dylan and his band

Zepp, Osaka, Japan

Bob Dylan - guitar, keyboard, harp

Tony Garnier - bass
George Recile - drums
Stu Kimball - rhythm guitar
Charlie Sexton - lead guitar
Donnie Herron - banjo, electric mandolin, pedal steel, lap steel

As Dylan tells it, he was born a long ways from where he’s supposed to be and has spent a lifetime finding his way home. His “Never Ending Tour” is the latest episode in an extraordinary tale of becoming, which - as rock's poet laureate continually demonstrates - is the condition of the true artist.

At Zepp, Osaka, the lights go down and a MIGHTY roar goes up as a familiar figure in white bolero hat and natty western suit emerges from the wings.

It’s almost too much to comprehend that this is the hobo ragamuffin who transformed Beat illumination into protest music, blending folk, symbolism and surrealism to infuse a vital literacy into rock 'n' roll.

In his greatest works Dylan created poetry which to this day remains beautiful and startling. His name belongs - it’s no exaggeration to say - with Shakespeare, Mozart, Joyce and Picasso in the pantheon of western cultural touchstones.

I have to blink the tears away. For a fan who has long struggled to comprehend what Dylan means - which is to say, everything - it's a moment of profound reflection.

'Cause if you get Dylan, he goes waay deep. He's the hip priest in the Church of the Cool, and the songs are the scripture and the religiosity is in the music.

Even stranded out here at Zepp, a functional concrete box plonked on the edge of Osaka Bay, it's a rare privilege to bear witness to the most influential songwriter of our times.

The band opens with a loose, loping version of Watching the River Flow. It’s followed by a harmonica-dominated arrangement of Señor. Bob is unexpectedly upbeat, smiling and laughing with band members, emphasizing each lyric with outstretched arms.

But it takes the band four or five tunes to hit their stride. This is mainly due to Dylan’s insistence on contributing his esoteric instrumental flourishes to each number. I'll Be Your Baby Tonight features a truly atrocious Dylan guitar solo which effectively sabotages the best efforts of his excellent band.

But by the time we get to the jumpin' jive of The Levee's Gonna Break, the set starts to cruise along nicely. Dylan’s mood only gets better and by the end of the number he's cracking up as the band struggle to bring the song to a finish.

Stuck Inside Of Mobile is a highlight. Amusingly, Dylan can hardly get the harp away from his mouth in time to splutter the lyrics, so it sounds something like: “Oh Mama (thweek!) can this really be the end (wheep!) / To be stuck inside of Mobile (whaark!) with the Memphis blues again (phaarp!)” Tthe band fashion a rockin', rollin’ version which has the crowd hopping and this is really startin' ta feel like a show.

Guitar maestro Charlie Sexton - looking for all the world like a reincarnation of Robbie Robertson circa 1965 - is on fiery form all night, playing an enviable collection of guitars - vintage Danelectros among them, axe fans - falling to his knees in front of Bob to count the changes and make sure the master is locked in, since Dylan seems to get lost during the instrumental sections.

Man in the Long Black Coat is restrained and beautiful, Dylan singing in the deep growl which has become his latter day trademark. It’s followed by a barnstorming Highway 61 and the cracking roadhouse boogie of Thunder on the Mountain with Bob again making those expansive hand gestures and doing a weird little jig on the spot.

Just before Bob is about to introduce the band there’s a hubub down the front. A handsome Stratocaster is suddenly hoisted toward the stage. It turns out a Japanese luthier has built a guitar which he's valiantly been trying to present to Dylan. Charlie Sexton carries the axe over to his Bobness, who is visibly moved and says, “I like that guitar. Really. I'm gonna keep it right here by my side. I'm gonna take it with me, and all you people, too.”

For a Dylan show it’s quite a moment. I’m touched, and I can’t help feeling proud of my Japanese brethren because the hard core rock fans here are super-knowledgeable, incredibly loyal and affectionate toward their favorite artists.

Dylan’s comparative verbosity will have surprised the enthusiastic salaryman we ran into before the show. Having scored tickets to all four Osaka performances, he cheerily praises Bob’s indifference on the first two nights: “He not say ‘Arigato!’ Very good! He not speak to audience! Perfect!”

The encore is unchanged from those concerts. I’ll take whatever Bob dishes out, though I was secretly hoping for Like a Rolling Stone and I'm stoked when the band crank it up.

Dylan's most celebrated “finger pointing” song not only burst apart the parameters of the pop single. In Bruce Springsteen's words, “it blew open the doors to your mind.” Reflecting the twists and turns of an amazing career, the years have transformed it into something which now sounds elegiac, even compassionate, and it brings a lump to my throat.

To conclude, the band deliver a full-tilt version of All Along the Watchtower. Then, as suddenly as it began, the music stops and I’m walking in the rain with two thousand friends, musing over the meaning of Dylan.

It's been a long, strange trip and we all know it's the journey rather than the destination that counts. So if there’s no direction home, that's fine by me. As for describing Dylan, I'll go with John Ford: "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." However you look at it, it's a hell of a story, and like all the best ones, it only gets better in the telling.

Set list: Watching the River Flow/Señor (Tales Of Yankee Power)/I'll Be Your Baby Tonight/High Water (For Charley Patton)/The Levee's Gonna Break/Tryin' To Get To Heaven/Cold Irons Bound/Desolation Row/Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again/Man In The Long Black Coat/Highway 61 Revisited/Spirit On The Water/Thunder On The Mountain/Ballad Of A Thin Man

Encore: Like A Rolling Stone/Jolene/All Along The Watchtower

Limitless truths

2010-03-17T15:30:00.006+09:00

Live: Wilco

Big Cat, Osaka, Japan

In a stunning performance which effortlessly blended post-rock stylings with the experimental pop and alt.country masterpieces which are their trademark, Chicago’s celebrated alternative rockers last night played one of the greatest shows I’ve seen.

As he takes to the stage, band leader Jeff Tweedy seems relaxed and delighted to be in the company of a fiercely partisan audience.

The band cover the breadth of their impressive discography, including what is arguably their greatest album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. The soulful I Am Trying To Break Your Heart plumbs incredible depths of dissonance and expression, and their rendering of Impossible Germany is nothing short of transcendent.

There’s a quasi-religious atmosphere in the house as throughout the show the adoring crowd urge their heroes on to greater and greater feats of musical brilliance.

On the contemplative Jesus, Etc., Tweedy hands over vocal duties to the audience. Their emotive rendition is moving and heatfelt. I’m standing there thinking to myself, “This is why I love music.”

Even more impressive is the way Wilco take their rootsy rock into unexpected corners through the use of audacious experimentation. Not for nothing was guitarist Nels Cline recently voted one of rock's top players, and his approach to his instrument is unique and inspiring. One moment he's reeling off yearning lap steel solos, the next he’s assaulting our senses with a mesmerizing multiplicity of soaring sound effects.

Drummer Glenn Kotche gets experimental, too. Solid and consistently musical, at one point he applies a delay effect to his high hat while at the same time running a pitch shifter on the tom toms. It adds yet another dizzy ingredient to the intoxicating Wilco brew.

Underpinning this diverse, beautiful playing is Jeff Tweedy’s superb songwriting. Alongside established classics like the hypnotic Handshake Drugs, there are impressive new numbers like Bull Black Nova, switching from edgy paranoia to tranquility before it ends in a psychotic explosion of fear and resignation. Deeper Down goes through some astonishing transitions as its textures evolve and coalesce.

Such music - at once beautiful, ambiguous and disturbing - reminds us there are limitless truths to unveil in the universal language that is music. You don’t need to be a Wilco fan to recognize that, just someone who recognizes the healing power of great art.

Somebody's sins but not mine

2010-03-02T16:58:00.017+09:00

Music and Religion Part 2:
The Omnipotent Sky Wizard

This posting is in reply to Samuel's comment on my recent blog Atheist Manifesto.

Samuel, I'd like to thank you for commenting on my posting, I appreciate the feedback. Music is connected with spirituality in a million ways, so religion is not necessarily outside the purview of this blog. Allow me to respond to the points you raised in your comments.

1. Why have people in all cultures believed in God? If there is no God where do you get your morality?

The concept of God is a wish-fulfuilment fantasy which helps us escape from the unsavoury reality that we're all gonna die. Human societies universally devise creation myths to describe not only where we came from but where we're going. The stories are surprisingly similar across cultures due to the universality of human experience and perhaps as a manifestation of the collective unconscious as described by Jung.

This has been demonstrated convincingly in instances of the collision between technologically advanced cultures and traditional tribal societies - so-called 'cargo cults' - in which less sophisticated cultures ascribe supernatural powers to people and things they don't understand.

When it comes to morality, cultural anthropology suggests that ethical laws are a natural product of society - that as communities grow they need to be able to police and protect themselves and thus codify rules to ensure the continued safety and survival of the group. Anyone who has observed children at play will have seen how they instinctively improvise rules and boundaries in an effort to ensure fairness.

Are we to believe that in 200,000 years of pre-Christian history, no-one came up with "Thou shall not kill" until Moses received illumination from a combustible shrub? Kinda ironic considering all the murder, rape and genocide God sanctions in the Old Testament. Do we really need a homicidal “omnipotent sky wizard” to threaten us with eternal hellfire to prevent us from murdering with abandon?

If you have ever used a razor, enjoyed a bacon sandwich, eaten shellfish, sworn at your parents, worked on a Sunday, partaken in homoeroticism, committed adultery or not been a virgin (if female) on your wedding night, your Bible demands you be executed immediately. How's that for 'morality'?

2. Don't forget that Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot were atheists, and committed the biggest mass murders in history.

This has to be one of the most commonly held myths about atheists.

Not only was Hitler a Catholic, he prayed for 'Almighty God' to bless Nazi Germany and invoked Christian faith and anti-atheistic language to justify his genocidal madness. Nazi followers regularly described Hitler as a 'godlike' figure.

Incidentally, not one Catholic in the Third Reich was excommunicated by the Catholic Church before, during or after the Second World War - not even Hitler himself. Yet Galileo was not absolved of heresy until 1992.

As for Stalin and Pol Pot, while they likely were atheists, they did not commit murder and genocide in the name of atheism. Rather they aimed to found a cult of the state very much resembling religion in its tone.

The problem with fascism and communism was not that they were too critical of religion, but that they were too much like religion in their manipulation of ritual, dogma, and the cult of personality to wage war against the defenseless. As Sam Harris says, an absence of faith or overabundance of skeptical inquiry was not the problem with these societies. They abandoned accepted standards of human decency and compassion largely because of their uncritical attachment to genocidal dogma.

Similarly, a literal belief in Muslim dogma had a lot to do with the tragedy of 9/11. And misguided Christian dogma has everything to do with the fact that stem cell research has been consistently blocked in the United States, that sexual abstinence campaigns have failed miserably, and that the Catholic Church has discouraged condom use in AIDS-ravaged Africa.

When was the last time a war was waged for a scientific aim, or a group of atheists obstructed valuable medical research which could save millions of lives, or secular humanists flew a plane into a skyscraper or exploded a suicide bomb in a busy market place filled with women and children?

3. Even one of the greatest scientists in history Albert Einstein believed in God.

Another misconception. Einstein demonstrably did not believe in a supernatural entity. Rather he used the notion of god as shorthand for the unknown mysteries of the universe or as a personification of the forces of nature.   Here's what Einstein wrote in a letter to philosopher Eric Gutkind on January 3, 1954:

  "The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. “

  4. Look at all the times science has gotten things wrong. The complexity of the universe indicates the existence of a designer. And the elements of this unique setup are perfect for life when they might easily have been wrong. Look at the bacterial flagellum, an example of irreducible complexity and evidence for intelligent design of our universe and which proves the falseness of evolution.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The bacterial flagellum isn't even irreducibly complex. Scientists have shown time and again that parts of the flagella of various bacteria correspond to other structures that have different functions, that intermediate evolutionary stages have their uses and...well, I could go on but if you want to know more check here.

I could also go into the facts of evolution, how vast mountains of evidence from biology, physics, chemistry, botany, zoology, geology, astronomy, archaeology, anthropology, genetics and other disciplines overwhelmingly prove it has taken place on our planet across billions of years. If you insist - as many Christians do - that the earth is 6,000 years old, how do you account for the fact that organized farming began between 8500 and 7000 B.C. and that the Sumerians invented glue 7,000 years ago?

You're right on one thing. Science is not perfect and it has gotten things wrong…thousands of times. But the thing is, it's usually scientists who discover and correct these errors, not religious believers. In this sense science is self-critical and self-monitoring in ways beyond the wildest imagination of the religious believer.

If there’s one thing we've learned from religion, it's that it has been wrong, wrong, wrong and consistently behind the times when it comes to science-based truth. Just ask Copernicus, Galileo and Darwin.

It’s clear that we don't understand the universe, but it’s equally clear that books like the Bible and the Koran do not offer anything like our best understanding of it.

Tell me: why doesn't your god heal amputees who pray? Why does he ignore starving children but give bank executives obscenely large bonuses? Why is your Biblical god such a huge fan of slavery? Why do Christians get divorced at the same rates as everyone else? Why do bad things happen to good people, even to good Christians. Example: the thousands of innocent children abused by Catholic priests with the full complicity of the Church?

While creative thinkers and rationalists consistently push forward the boundaries of human knowledge - demystifying superstition and designing our airplanes, computers, vaccines and life-saving medications - the religious doggedly cling to the same iron age beliefs they unthinkingly absorbed in kindergarten. Those beliefs belong to a different society, a different world, and they represent an entirely different paradigm.

5. Jesus died and was resurrected for the sins of us all, including John Lennon who was a drug user, profaner and adulterer.

Well, as Patti Smith said, Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine.

With regard to the resurrection, given everything that the study of mythology, science and cultural anthropology have taught us in the last 2,000 years, doesn't it make more sense to think of it in symbolic terms?

Resurrection, rebirth and reincarnation are strong components of many religions, including Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam, since what could seem more godlike and supernatural to a credulous iron age laity than the ability to transcend death?

Many Biblical scholars feel that the Gospel stories of the resurrection are fictions devised long after Jesus’ death to justify claims of his divinity, and if any truth is to be found in their myths and stories, it’s surely at the metaphorical level. Even today we speak of 'born again' Christians to denote those who have had a religious conversion. But they’ve been 'reborn' to themselves, right here, right now.

As I've said elsewhere on my blog, when it comes to religion, literalism is the enemy of truth and the father of ignorance. And a little critical thinking will bring you closer to reality and further from religion. That's why St. Augustine had an overwhelming fear of "the disease of curiosity."

But as T.S. Eliot wrote in The Four Quartets, "human kind cannot bear very much reality." Nowhere is this more effectively demonstrated than in the nonsensical superstitions parroted by ossified religious cults.

When it comes to John Lennon, what can I say, you're dead right. He was a drug user, profaner and adulterer who by his own admission wasn't much of a father to his first child. In other words a real person with faults and imperfections. But he'll be remembered as the greatest rock 'n' roller of them all, a charismatic force for peace, equality and social change whose music illuminated the lives of millions.

Like the man said, Samuel: "Imagine no religion."

Amen to that.

The Greatest

2010-03-01T19:21:00.003+09:00

The John Lennon Museum

Saitama, Japan

As an artist and rebel John Lennon has exerted a huge influence on my life. So there was no way I was going to miss an opportunity to visit the museum devoted to his life and work which is rather curiously located in Saitama near Tokyo.

The exhibition’s introductory film offers a rather perfunctory overview of Lennon’s life and work which is aimed at the casual observer rather than the devotee. It's followed by displays which divide Lennon’s life into anodyne though not unworkable categories such as “Childhood Memories," "Love and Peace" and "Household Husband".

Dyed in the wool Lennon fans will learn little that's new about their hero from this predictable assortment of costumes, films, song lyrics and other memorabilia. But it's cool just to see this stuff and realize how legends are not only born but magnified.

The displays do provide some fascinating glimpses into the star's early life through school reports and exercise books, including the original ‘Daily Howl’ comic he drew as a schoolboy containing a priceless weather report: "Tomorrow will be Muggy, followed by Tuggy, Wuggy and Thuggy." It provides early evidence not only of Lennon's acute visual sense but also his affinity for the distinctly anarchic style of post-war British humor which became a defining feature of The Beatles' collective persona.

I was delighted to have the chance to see Lennon’s first guitar, a battered Gallotone Champion acoustic, doubtless one of those, in Paul McCartney’s words, “guaranteed not to crack.”

Rickenbacker guitars were a key ingredient of The Beatles’ early sound and Lennon’s first 'Rick' - surprisingly small in scale - is also on display. I became quite giddy when I started to imagine how many pop classics must have been forged on this instrument.

Other highlights include the ancient two-track desk used for The Beatles' final mixes at Abbey Road Studios, and all-too-brief video interviews with Arthur "Primal Scream" Janov and Lennon-Ono insider Elliot Mintz. And who knew Brian Epstein once presented Lennon with a motorcycle? I didn't.

Though I'm very much a Yoko Ono fan, her presence determines the overall tone here, for instance in the pointless mock-up of the Indica Yes installation which marked the beginning of Lennon's infatuation with his Japanese earth mother.

Having said that, her influence on Lennon has if anything been understated, for instance in the minimalist style of the "War is Over' campaign, the white pianos and clothing which briefly became the couple's trade mark, Lennon's feminist awakening and the conceptual underpinnings of Imagine.

The John Lennon Museum’s ten-year lease expires on September 30th 2010. The collection could easily be expanded - since it's far from exhaustive - and should be moved to a more sensible location such as New York or even better Liverpool, the place where the legend of Britain’s greatest rocker began.

Atheist Manifesto

2010-02-27T14:27:00.005+09:00

Music and Religion Part 1:
John Lennon and 'God'

The success of the recent wave of atheistic books by writers like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens suggests that a vast number of non-believers are mighty tired of having religion stuffed down their throats.

Though the United States remains a Christian nation, it’s estimated that 12% of the American electorate - or 15 million voters - identify themselves as nonbelievers. As a potential lobby group atheists thus outnumber Latinos (9%), Gays (4%), Jews (2%), and also match the number of African Americans (13%).

I wonder how John Lennon would have reacted to this development. It's more than forty years since he predicted, “Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink,” igniting uproar among American fundamentalists which led to the burning of Beatles records and death threats which influenced the group’s decision to stop touring.

Throughout the Beatle years Lennon took a keen interest in religion. His fascination with Tibetan Buddhism and esoteric texts inspired fab classics such as Tomorrow Never Knows and - combined with his prodigious intake of LSD and canonization by fans - led to some bewildering episodes such as the famous occasion in 1968 when he called an emergency Apple board meeting to announce to his inner circle that he was Jesus Christ.

Luckily by the end of the sixties Lennon had kicked acid and got his philosophical act together. His new-found clarity inspired him to demolish sacred cows such as religion, celebrity and societal control on his remarkable first solo LP, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band.

Far and away the best album recorded by any ex-Beatle, it's a complete artistic statement, a self-defining existentialist manifesto which strips away all attachment to leaders, heroes and to god as a coping mechanism.

The centerpiece of the album is the cataclysmic masterpiece God in which Lennon emphatically refutes mysticism and superstition. Partly inspired by the shocking experience of Primal Scream therapy which confronted Lennon with the pain of his own childhood and fame, it shows the star in the process of dissolving what Arthur Janov terms the “God-trip or father figure trip.”

The song's opening declaration, “God is a concept by which we measure our pain,” describes Lennon's personal revelation and recalls Marx’s assertion that “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature.” It’s followed by a stunning disavowal of personal, political and religious icons: “I don't believe in Jesus, Buddha, Kennedy, Zimmerman...”

God had a huge impact on me when I first heard it at the tender age of 14. Indeed, the roots of my own journey toward secular humanism lie in this amazing song. Its presentation of the deity as a concept rather than an entity immediately made sense and contextualized the religious doubts I had been experiencing as a teenager.

Interestingly, just as Lennon was coming out as an atheist, George Harrison was doing the exact opposite, topping the charts worldwide with his devotional ditty My Sweet Lord and donating a fortune to the “elementary penguin” Hare Krishnas.

Though Harrison’s Hinduism was generous and compassionate, he saw the actual world as an illusion and believed in reincarnation as a fact. His literal belief in such matters recalls James Lett’s assertion in his Anthropology of Religion: A Handbook (1977), that “Irrationality is...the defining element in religion.”

I can testify to this since in my daily life I’m constantly meeting individuals - many of them well-educated - who maintain a belief in paranormal phenomena even though such propositions have been convincingly falsified by more than a century of intensive research which is thoroughly documented and freely available to inquiring minds.

Paranormal propositions such as the Judeo-Christian assertion that “God” exists are nonfalsifiable therefore propositionally meaningless. Others - such as the Judeo-Christian proposition that the earth is 6,000 years old or that half a million Israelites wandered the desert for 40 years without leaving any archaeological trace - are falsifiable and indeed have been disproved by objective study.

But believers don’t want to know. In order to maintain their trust in an inherited set of illogical wish-fulfillment fantasies, they must ignore the mountain of contradictory evidence which stands before them.

To my considerable bemusement, grown men and women believe implicitly in the talking snake, the burning bush and the virgin birth. They pray to an imaginary friend and refuse point blank to accept that creation stories, angels and resurrections are mythological symbols with their roots in the collective unconscious.

The fact that the Bible's anthology of myths and ethnocentrism offers nothing which could not have been written by a patriarchal collective of superstitious Iron Age tribal elders doesn't bother them in the least.

It’s interesting and rather disappointing that, a mere seven years after the release of his atheist manifesto, John Lennon had relapsed into a superstitious mindset.

In 1977 Lennon briefly flirted with born-again Christianity through a series of contacts with televangelist Oral Roberts, who claimed to have had a vision of a 900-foot-tall Jesus telling him to build a research center. He also announced during a TV fundraising drive that unless he raised $8 million, God would "call him home.” Scandals persisted through the 1980s as fraudulent healing practices were exposed in Roberts’ medical centers.

During 'the Dakota years' preceding his assassination in 1980, Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono developed a credulous attachment to witches, astrology and numerology which helped them hire domestic staff - including the assistant who stole Lennon's personal diaries - yet failed to predict the murderous insanity of born-again Christian Mark David Chapman.

Such irrationality demonstrates how the rich and talented are as susceptible to kooky nonsense as anyone, but also that we must constantly be on our guard against self-deception and delusional thinking. Our sanity - even our lives - might depend on it.

Listen: John Ono Lennon: 'God'

Inspirational Everyman

2010-02-12T07:25:00.009+09:00

Live: Goldie (Drum and bass)

Triangle, Osaka, Japan

During its twenty-year history, no artist has done more to spread the gospel of drum and bass than Goldie. From his beginnings as a talented breakdancer and graffiti artist to his groundbreaking productions - including a drum and bass symphony inspired by Polish modernist composer Gorecki - he is constantly evolving and never less than intriguing.

Among many collaborations, Goldie has worked with David Bowie, Noel Gallagher and KRS-One. He has even found success as an actor and TV presenter, including one of my favorite Goldie moments - his hilarious documentary about bacon and eggs!

But tonight we are here for the music, and Osaka’s Triangle Club is packed with the friendly party animals who are typical of the drum and bass crowd, and who respond to its edgy message of emotional release and community.

Goldie comes on at 2.30 and delivers a superbly paced set which blends the usual frenetic beats - perfect for a chaotic melee down the front - with blissfully chilled out interludes. The audience is appropriately outta control, bouncing and careering all over the place. This is as close to techno nirvana as you are gonna get.

When his set is over Goldie steps into the crowd to receive homage from his groove posse. Famously good-natured, he has endeared himself to his fans through his indomitability, rootsy optimism and enthusiasm. Squealing with excitement, cute Japanese girls kiss and embrace him and even we two grown-up kids get to hug and chat with the great man.

When he finds out we are from Kyoto, he tells us he’ll be dj-ing there tomorrow. In fact he’s been misinformed and he’ll be in Tottori before heading to Tokyo. As we’re talking I’m thinking “Whoah, this guy has dated Bjork and Naomi Campbell.” Nevertheless he’s one of the most likeable, genuine ‘celebrities’ I’ve met and a truly inspirational everyman.

Video: Goldie Interview

Sonic Architecture

2010-01-28T13:02:00.023+09:00

Movie: It Might Get Loud (2009)
Directed by: David Guggenheim
Starring: Jimmy Page, The Edge, Jack White

It Might Get Loud is a love letter to the electric guitar which describes a 'summit' between three exceptional musicians who are generations apart: Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page, U2's The Edge and Jack White of The White Stripes. Each in his own way reacted with his social and artistic environment to redefine rock guitar playing.

During the opening shot the camera almost indecently caresses the contours of a Fender Stratocaster. It's only a piece of wood with strings, but to aficionados the electric guitar has more sex appeal than an Aston Martin. For the following ninety minutes an enviable collection of classic instruments is paraded before the cameras for axe freaks like me to salivate over.

On the creative side, It Might Get Loud tries to explain how a guitarist discovers his inner and outer space. Thus we discover how Page abandoned session work to forge the heavy rock archetype with Led Zeppelin, how The Edge crossed a creative rubicon which led to his spiritual fusion of Celtic soul with digital technology, and how White recontextualized the blues for the White Stripes' alternative rock crowd.

There's an abundance of fascinating archival footage which only leaves one hankering for more and serves to underline that each of these stars really deserves his own documentary. For instance the movie affords a fascinating glimpse into the armory of effects which facilitates Edge's sonic architecture - interestingly White is the polar opposite, seeing technology as a destroyer of truth. I for one would have loved to see more of this.

As a guitar player I was transfixed throughout, and anyone interested in the magic of electric guitar should see this movie. It's also pretty cool to get a peek at the stars' record collections.

But in truth It Might Get Loud's rock star summit shows precious little chemistry between the participants. If anything it illustrates the characteristics which separate these icons and which perhaps explain their creative uniqueness, a fact which becomes all too clear in the final scene as the trio run through an embarrassingly naff version of The Band's quintessential classic The Weight.

Trailer: It Might Get Loud

Sublime

2009-12-22T17:19:00.063+09:00

Album of the Year

Jon Hassell: Last night the moon came dropping its clothes in the street (ECM Records)

Jon Hassell's dreamy, meditative “Fourth World“ music has long been admired by discriminating listeners.

Understated and ethereal, his influence and importance may be on a par with that of Miles Davis. Indeed, leading experimental/ambient icons like Brian Eno, Arve Henriksen, and David Sylvian acknowledge the huge debt they owe to his innovations in musical theory, live sampling and soundscaping.

Last night the moon came dropping its clothes In the street is Hassell's first recording for ECM since 1985, and is merely the latest in a long series of jaw-dropping experiments - including the astounding Power Spot and the sublime acoustic masterpiece Fascinoma.

Seamlessly blending theory with practice, Hassell celebrates all music, all cultures and all worlds as he fuses the beauty and sophistication of Indian, Arabic, African and Asian forms with the cool strivings of post-modern jazz and the possibilities of new musical technology. Cerebral yet sensual, the universe he creates is lush and profound.

As he disdains fear, judgement or prejudice, Hassell presents a stunning cultural credo. He reminds us that if there are boundaries to musical, philosophical or emotional expression, they exist only in our minds, demanding to be shaken and redefined by our most gifted pioneers - among whom Hassell himself is surely pre-eminent.

VIDEO: Jon Hassell: Last Night the Moon Came Dropping its Clothes in the Stree

Ancient Ways

2009-12-02T15:16:00.017+09:00

Music and Nationalism
Part Two: Uyoku Dantai

If you live in Japan you soon become aware of the ominous black trucks ["gaisensha (街宣車)"] which prowl the streets blaring propaganda slogans, outdated military marches and the national anthem Kimigayo.

These are the Uyoku Dantai (右翼団体; lit. "right wing groups"), reactionaries who seek to - ho-hum - return Japan to the ancient ways. They remind me of loony Christian fundamentalists who crave a return to the old time religion, never wanting to move humanity on to a more enlightened future.

It's hard to say exactly how many Uyoku Dantai there are in Japan, although in 1996 it was estimated the country was home to more than 1000 right wing groups comprising about 100,000 members. But that only works out to a piddly 1.2% of the population.

Political beliefs differ between groups of Uyoku Dantai but generally they espouse a flatulent philosophy of anti-leftism and hostility toward the Japan Teachers Union. Since I'm a liberal-leaning university teacher you can imagine I don't exactly see eye to eye with these baka.

Most are revisionists who endeavor to justify Japan's calamitous role in the Second World War, denying war crimes such as the Nanjing massacre and attempting to rewrite history in school textbooks.

Strangely Uyoku Dantai often contain many foreign members, especially those dominated by Yakuza groups - Japanese 'mafia' - which include Zainichi Koreans. Thus many Yakuza groups use Uyoku Dantai as cover for their nefarious activities.

Although the extremists maintain a high public presence throughout the country, I doubt they obtain many converts. And not only because they insist on forcing stuffy military matches down the collective throat of a public which would rather listen to SMAP.

The vast majority of Japanese seem indifferent to politics and sensiby ignore the tedious anthems which irritate their lugholes. I saw this on a recent visit to Tokyo, where Sunday shoppers hardly noticed the hysterical ranting of a right-winger who screamed at them as they scampered from one designer store to another.

One opinion poll after another confirms that the Japanese are politically apathetic. In fact among Asian nations nihonjin are the least willing to die for their country.

So just because people wave the Hinamaru flag and warble Kimigayo, there's probably no reason to fear a return to 1930's-style nationalism. Japanese may not be as individualistic as westerners, but their jones for J-Pop and craving for consumption is of more concern to them than any hankering for a nationalist revival.

Watch. "You're a loony."

Japanese fascists display impeccable musical taste

Clunkers

2009-12-02T15:02:00.013+09:00

Music and Nationalism
Part One: Cultural/Liberal/Triumphal

Smetana

Is having lousy musical taste a necessary precondition for being a nationalist?

I guess it depends on what kind of nationalism you are referring to.

Historically speaking, the development of nationalist-flavored music has tended to follow the same lines in different countries. Generally a "cultural nationalism" gives way to a more politicised "liberal nationalism," before leading in many cases to an exclusivist "triumphal nationalism."

Some of the greatest music of the Romantic period grew out of romantic exaltations of national "feeling" and "identity" and the liberal notion that statehood be based on "the people" rather than religion or imperialism. This nationalism was the most successful political force of the 19th century.

Since early nationalists shared the assumption that their nation existed in some "natural" sense, composers understandably created a national identity through the evocation of landscape. Sibelius' Finlandia suite or Smetana's Ma Vlast (My Fatherland) are beautiful examples.

My favorite piece in this vein is probably Borodin's In the Steppes of Central Asia. It evokes the quiet majesty of landscape in the most moving musical language you can imagine.

I can easily appreciate that kind of cultural nationalism. But things start to get dodgy when the politicisation of nationalism leads to a triumphalist tone. Oftentimes such musical reaction becomes formalized or state-sanctioned. The Nazis' Reichsmusikkammer promoted music approved by Hitler's regime, while suppressing any music which conflicted with it, including jazz and anything else which gave a nod to modernism. Japan's militarist leaders also outlawed western music and dance in the 1930s.

We British certainly haven't been immune to such reactionary impulses, as shown in works like Elgar's Land of Hope and Glory or Thomas Arne's Rule Britannia – both still wheeled out every year at The Proms concert series for an audience singalong.

Context is everything, and Elgar and Arne made more sense in the days of empire than in these politically correct days of multicultural awareness. Though undeniably rousing, their militaristic flavor sounds hokey to me and ignites my natural distrust of patriotism and dogma.

Don't get me wrong; to a large degree I am proud to be British. After all, we gave the world Shakespeare, The Sex Pistols and Yorkshire Pudding. But were I ever to attend The Proms, I'd need to be completely off my trolley to join in with clunkers like Rule Britannia.

Borodin: In the Steppes of Central Asia:

Fiery Jacks

2009-11-25T09:03:00.015+09:00

Happy Birthday to Me

Click painting to enlarge

Islands of Ecstasy occupies a decidedly modest position in cyber-space. Blissfully ignored by the majority of web users, it enjoys what the French-Algerian writer Albert Camus termed “the benign indifference of the universe.”

So on my recent birthday I was touched and surprised to have my ramblings immortalized in a rather splendid illustration by Kyoto artist Oliver Kinghorn. Such recognition!

Not only is Oliver a talented painter, he’s a man after my own heart: a bon vivant, aesthete and party animal whose idea of a good time is to dissect the secrets of the universe while seeing off several bottles of the finest wine he can procure.

Mr. Kinghorn’s masterpiece pays tribute to assorted beats, gurus and rockers. Those who, in Kerouac’s memorable words, are “mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn.” Fiery Jacks, one and all.

As Oli’s drawing demonstrates, they number a good few of my main men, including Van Morrison, Henry Miller, John Lennon, Ray Charles and my chief spiritual influence - that great sex symbol Kermit the Frog.

LINK: THE ART OF OLIVER KINGHORN

Sayonara Screamathon!

2009-11-13T16:33:00.043+09:00

ONLY ONES CELEBRATION: PART FOUR
Live: The Only Ones
King Cobra Club, Osaka, Japan

Now this is strange. Surveying the darkest corners of King Cobra, I preceive I am the only westerner among the fifty-odd Japanese fans who have made it to Osaka on this chilly November evening. But then I spy an enigmatic looking lady whom I later discover is Peter Perrett’s charming wife Xena.

I’m amazed to run into a few Kyoto friends stage front. Who knew they were into this band? Look out, there might be some secret Only Ones fans in your neighborhood, too.

The DJ is playing a decent selection of new wave tunes, the kind of singles you might have heard at any Only Ones show back in ’78: A Certain Ratio, Durutti Column, The Undertones and - most fittingly - the late, great Johnny Thunders.

No sooner has she started spinning Joy Division’s Isolation than here come The Only Ones and, as in Tokyo, they begin with a full tilt version of The Immortal Story. It's a brilliant start and I’m astonished when a Japanese guy immediately in front of me starts to pogo! Time Warp City!

The guys continue with Programme and Perrett looks chuffed at the warm reception. By the time they get to Black Operations the crowd is going bananas and starts shrieking and whooping up a storm. Maybe they think it’s The Beatstalkers up there. The show quickly turns into an hilarious screamathon as the band join in with the fans.

I hate to say it, but this does conform to the stereotype of Osaka people as the loosest, loudest, most in your face of all Japanese. Certainly last Saturday’s Tokyo crowd - enthusiastic as they were - didn’t get nearly as rowdy.

The sound isn't great but the music rocks. When they hit Another Girl, Another Planet the place predictably goes nuts and the guy in front starts pogoing again. A good portion of the crowd sing along not only to the band’s most celebrated song but with most of the other numbers too.

I must say that after 8 years in this country I have the utmost respect for Japanese music fans. On the surface reserved and taciturn, they are a committed, knowledgeable bunch who support their favorite artists with a passion. There’s inevitably a relaxed, welcoming vibe at Japanese shows, and this newly chilled-out bunch of Only Ones seem to dig it too.

For the second time in a week I find myself coming over all emotional at an Only Ones show. Two teary Japanese guys fling their arms around me in a gesture which goes beyond words. I think it means, “Awopbopaloobop alopbamboom,” or, “I'm on another planet with you.”

Then we are treated to a song few fans have heard of, let alone witnessed live. In Hamamatsu they played a chorus of Watch You Drown for the first time in thirty years. Tonight Peter manages to remember two verses and there’s a gorgeously expressive solo from Mr. Perry.

The version of Miles from Nowhere the band conjure tonight is, quite simply, immense, Perry’s guitar soars. Then the guitar man introduces Why Don’t You Kill Yourself? as “a bit of hari-kiri for ya.”

There are two encores. From Here to Eternity features more gritty guitar from Perry, maybe the best he’s played tonight. Finally The Beast builds and builds until it ends in a maelstrom of feedback, an appropriately dramatic finale to the Only Ones’ whirlwind 2009 tour of Japan.

And that's yer lot.

Phew. Four shows in six days and a hell of a week for Only Ones fans in the land of the falling yen. Peter, John, Mike and Alan, "Sayonara,” and “Arigato gozaimashita!” Don't be strangers and come back soon. Y'hear?

Set list: The Immortal Story/Programme/In Betweens/Transfixed/It’s the Truth/Black Operations/Till it Hurts/Flaming Torch/Louder than Words/As My Wife Says/ 'C' Voyeurger/ The Big Sleep/Another Girl, Another Planet/Me and My Shadow/Watch You Drown/Is This How Much/Lovers of Today/Miles from Nowhere/Why Don’t You kill Yourself?/From Here to Eternity/Trouble in the World/The Beast

Photo Set HERE

Video: The Only Ones, "Is This How Much?"

Another Planet

2009-11-07T23:59:00.010+09:00

ONLY ONES CELEBRATION: PART THREE
The Fan

Miki Says...

I feel that The Only Ones can say many things to young Japanese today. For example their song Another Girl, Another Planet.

Sometimes I feel I am a girl on another planet. That's this crazy planet called Japan where life is so strange. I wonder if The Only Ones can feel they are on another planet here in Tokyo tonight. Actually, one of my friends is an alien.

The Only Ones are an older band but I guess they are kinda timeless with cool, edgy but gentle image. I love many UK bands but for me The Only Ones are the best.

Their songs can teach us many things, like there are many kinds of love and love has many sides. We shouldn't judge others too harshly. You know, that's the whole of the law.

They've had many trials and tribulations, so I want to tell Peter, Mike, Alan and John please "kiotsukete" (take care). Oh and come back to Japan soon.

Seventh Heaven

2009-11-07T23:58:00.005+09:00

ONLY ONES CELEBRATION: PART TWO
Live: The Only Ones
AntiKnock Club, Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan

This is the Big One. My friend and I are both celebrating our 50th (ulp!) birthdays and there's no place we would rather be than Tokyo's punky AntiKnock Club.

That's because our all-time faves The Only Ones are on their second visit to Japan since they gave their fans the shock of their lives by reforming two years ago.

The guys get a delirious reception from the crowd and kick off with a rocking version of The Immortal Story. Front man Peter Perrett looks every inch a star in black suit and red shirt. Guitar hero John Perry - judging by the expression on his face - is already in seventh heaven. Mike Kellie can't wait to bang the bejasus out of his kit and Alan Mair rapidly puts his mark on the proceedings with a tasty bass solo.

After that we get exactly what we came for: one timeless classic after another reminding us why we love this band...and why we've been missing them like hell for the last twenty-odd years.

Those familiar faces may be more lined, the waistlines a tad wider, but the music hasn't aged a day. The band storm through Programme, In Betweens, Transfixed, It's the Truth, Flaming Torch, As My Wife Says, Miles from Nowhere and they sound as fresh and vital as the day they were released.

But this was no exercise in mushy nostalgia. If the oldies sound great, the newies sound bleeding AWESOME. Black Operations, Till it Hurts (?), Louder than Words are bona-fide Perrett classics. If the band can do justice to them in the studio (and why wouldn't they, the four of them seem to be on such a high right now) I predict the forthcoming LP is gonna be FUCKIN' MEGA.

The lads proceed to bring the house down with a barnstorming Me and My Shadow which features Perry's milky slide guitar and a sweeet drum solo just to underline the fact that Mike Kellie – he of the permanently upturned white collar - is one of Britain's most rock solid rhythm gods.

Naturally they play Another Girl Another Planet – if they didn't I'm sure a riot would swiftly ensue. Even if you've never heard of The Only Ones you probably know this one, and the fresh-faced Japanese fans who form the majority of the audience – most of them young enough to be my kids - whoop with appreciation.

Perrett has a recurring tuning problem with his rented Les Paul Junior which only adds to the loose, celebratory air and gives the crowd a chance to banter with their heroes. He asks for requests and a collective cry comes up for Why Don't You Kill Yourself? which seems to be everyone's favorite track from Baby's Got a Gun. There's one amusing moment when Mr. Kellie counts in before Mr. Perry is quite ready and is playfully rebuked, causing laughs all round.

By now a touching bond between band and audience has developed, and the room is filled with good vibes. Long-time fans - grown men for chrissakes - are yelling “We love you, guys!” and Peter graciously replies “We love you too! We wouldn't be up here if it weren't for you.“

It doesn't feel the least bit corny or fake. In fact it's as real as it gets, this connection between an all-too human band of outlaws which has returned from the edge of oblivion and an audience which never really went away and ecstatically receives its heroes with open arms.

It's like each of us – musician and fan alike – is having the same realization: "We made it, didn't we? After all these years we're still standing. Christ, who'd-a thought it?"

There are tears of joy in my eyes and I'm telling my mate this is the best gig of my life. Well, maybe it is and maybe it isn't and who the hell cares? All that counts is that this is what life is about: art and love and friendship and survival and singing along with your favorite band. Right?

The Only Ones perform two encores and leave us with the triple whammy of The Beast, The Whole of the Law and Lovers of Today. It's been a superb show and I have a huge smile on my face as I leave AntiKnock and breathe in the balmy Tokyo air. The Only Ones. Blimey. I wish they'd never gone away, but it sure is good to have 'em back.

Set List: The Immortal Story/Programme/Inbetweens/Transfixed/It's The Truth/Black Operations/Till It Hurts/Flaming Torch/Louder Than Words/As My Wife Says /C Voyeurger /The Big Sleep /Another Girl,Another Planet /Me and My Shadow/Smokescreen/Miles From Nowhere/Is This How Much You Care /Why Don't You Kill Yourself?/The Beast/The Whole Of The Law/Lovers Of Today

Photo Set HERE

Shine On

2009-10-30T15:02:00.045+09:00

ONLY ONES CELEBRATION: PART ONE

The Only Ones (Rock)

LP: The Only Ones (1978)

When The Only Ones emerged in 1978 with one of the great debut LPs in British rock - and a name which showed they had cojones in spades - stardom seemed a foregone conclusion.

Great songs, superb musicianship, a brilliant live act uniformly adored by the music press. What could possibly go wrong?

But only three years later it was all over. Mired in drug addiction and with a lead singer bizarrely on the run from an attempted murder rap on their final US tour, The Only Ones imploded.

I was a rabid fan from the very start, buying every release and following their live act around the UK. One highlight was the legendary Leeds Futurama festival, where they shared a star-studded bill with Joy Division, The Fall, Public Image Ltd and other post-punk luminaries. The Only Ones were supposed to come on before Hawkwind (!) that night, but they got held up on the way to the gig and ended up topping the bill.

Though they were lumped in with the new wave vanguard, the band were too musically literate - not to mention long in the tooth - to be punks. Rather they were sophisticated guitar rockers whose sound embraced all flavors of 50s and 60s rock.

In Peter Perrett they possessed a gifted, idiosyncratic songwriter who seemed destined to become a leading figure in British rock. An androgynous Dylan obsessive with a quasi-hippy fashion sense, Perrett sang in a narcotic drawl which perfectly matched his tales of tragic dissociation.

In John Perry they boasted one of the great unsung guitar heroes. A portly, cricket-loving axe genius who wore an expression of semi-stoned indifference, Perry was a guitarist's guitarist, effortlessly unleashing one awesome lick after another on his trademark white Stratocaster.

Drummer Mike Kellie and bassist Alan Mair were 60s renegades who had seen it all with progressive rockers Spooky Tooth (Kellie) and “The Scottish Beatles” The Beatstalkers (Mair). Kellie was a commanding and musical drummer, Mair a solid and inventive bassist. He was also, as it happened, no slouch behind a mixing desk.

So how could a band so obviously steeped in talent fail to attain the success which seemed their birthright?

It was partly because they signed with corporate monsters CBS, Perrett reportedly being keen to share a label with his idol Bob Dylan. But The Only Ones were far too wayward to accommodate the demands of a major. Their constant stylistic variation, anti-image, aloof stage persona and Perrett's unusually fey vocal style didn't exactly make them obvious chart toppers. Tragically they spurned the advances of Island Records, whose maverick style would have suited them better.

And then there was the dope.

Three-quarters of the band were unapologetic drug fiends whose interviews were loaded with references to smack and marijuana. Their eponymous debut stands as one of the great substance-driven albums in rock, packed with drug-inspired ballads of elegantly-wasted dissolution.

It kicks off with the aching love song The Whole of the Law. Taking its title from dark magus Aleister Crowley's thelemic dictum “Do what thou wilt, that shall be the whole of the law,” the opener sets the tone for the album's romantic fatalism. With superbly restrained guitar flourishes from Perry, it's a stunning beginning and a worthy curtain-raiser to...

"The hit single that never was.”
Perrett's stupendous Another Girl Another Planet - the band's most celebrated creation - seems to equate love with addiction until you realize the “girl” is actually heroin itself: “Space travel's in my blood/There ain't nothing I can do about it.” The parting line, “Another planet is holding you down” suggests escape is futile.

The greatness of Another Girl demanded nothing less than superlative musicianship, and as usual the band rise to the occasion, especially John Perry, whose legendary guitar solo is only one of his many impressive moments on this record.

If an obbligato should be part and parcel of a song, emerging organically from its spiritual center, Perry's effort is a case in point as he comments on the lyric's general sense of elevation and transcendence. Admirably tasteful and accomplished, it's a jaw-dropping effort.

Throughout The Only Ones, love is always on the verge of collapse, threatened by dissolution, addiction, departure. The protagonist of Breaking Down describes mental anguish and the hand of fate closing in: “People keep away from me/Guess there's something wrong with me/I can't do you no good/I always thought I could.”

The song's jazzy break illustrates how The Only Ones were musically miles ahead of their punky peers. Here as on every other song, Mike Kellie's drums are fluid and articulate, his tom-toms characteristically punctuating the stereo spectrum in effective style.

After that the carousing City of Fun celebrates city madness with “people drowning in a sea of life,” from which there's “only one way out.” And what do you think that might be? A haze of narcotic escapism? Perry's frantic guitar adds to the general sense of life on the edge.

Creature of Doom begins with a comparative feeling of optimism: “I know something that you don't know/It's our destiny /You and me could conquer the world.” But with its talk of epitaphs and final straws there's always the feeling that romantic debilitation is around the corner, redeemable only through some kind of unholy co-dependency.

So it is that It's the Truth describes the stunted communication between a pair of heroin-addicted lovers. “Something's been going wrong/I'm all fixed up and I don't know what's going on/I gotta talk to you...," but then “It's the last time I'm ever going to.” Again the romanticism of the junkie aesthete: maybe I never appreciated you and we're both fucked-up, but this whole stupid thing means everything to me.

Language Problem contains some of Perrett's most twisted lines: “My parents told me that love don't exist just for pleasure/So I guess I'll throw in some pain for good measure.” If there's a moral lesson, it's that drugs lead to a debilitating codependency. Having said that, in typical Perret style there's always a healthy dose of black humor in evidence: “Taking drugs is one thing we got in common/It helps to overcome the language problem/And we really enjoy the damage.”

If I have a favorite track on The Only Ones it just might be No Peace for the Wicked. With its sense of weary isolation and its self-mocking lyric, after all these years it remains one of my personal theme songs.

I don't know how Perrett manages to fit lines like “Why do I go through these deep emotional traumas/Why can't I be like I always wanted to be, carefree?” into a pop song, but he does so in a way that would make Syd Barrett proud. The track features a heartbreaking guitar solo from Perry before Perrett confides: “I'm in love with extreme mental torture,” a declaration of lovelorn masochism which will appeal to beautiful losers the world over even as it alienates those of a more pragmatic disposition.

With its opening declaration: “I used to dream of this/I'd lay awake at night imagining this," the album's closing track, The Immortal Story deals with the scary prospect of finally possessing the object of one's affections: “When dreams become reality that's living death can't you see?“ In its recognition that the best laid plans sometimes go awry, the song unconsciously foreshadows the demise of The Only Ones' quest for fame and glory. Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.

Scandalously ignored by the record-buying pubic - it only reached number 56 in the UK album charts - after 30 odd years this bona fide classic remains one of my very favorite LPs. That's probably because I can still detect echoes of my past - my aspirations, friendships and romantic tragedies - in each exquisite moment. Moreover it takes me back to a time when each musical experience mattered and seemed loaded with meaning and discovery.

Fans and admirers have long lamented the fact that a band blessed with an abundance of musical and songwriting talent never achieved the success that seemed theirs for the taking. But it's clear now that the seeds of The Only Ones' demise were evident in their earliest recordings. The band's downfall serves as a cautionary reminder to those who would confuse druggy excess with artistic expression.

For one brief moment, The Only Ones' debut shone brightly and gave us 35 minutes of perfect, twisted pop. Describing the search for love and meaning in a nether world of narcotic romanticism, it's an album of intelligence, wit and emotional honesty which also happens to rock like a mutha.

And thirty years later it continues to shine on, a timeless jewel which only improves with age. Not to put too fine a point on it, it's a fucking masterpiece. And you know there's a million frustrated rockers who would give their right arm to leave behind a legacy like that, me included.

Eco-Mystics

2009-10-10T11:36:00.042+09:00

Flaming Lips (Existential Pop)
LP: Embryonic (Warner Bros, 2009)

At this stage in their career Flaming Lips have little to prove to anyone. Though not a huge commercial success, their off-the-wall psychedelia-tinged rock has justifiably earned them critical praise and The Soft Bulletin stands as perhaps the last truly great experimental pop record of the twentieth century.

It can't have been easy following that masterstroke. So after Bulletin we got the flawed genius of Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002) and the meandering cul-de-sac of At War With the Mystics (2008).  

The band have heralded their new double album Embryonic as their White Album. Like that fab landmark it's a great single LP padded with self-indulgent – though not necessarily unlistenable - filler. And like their own Yoshimi it's a half-realized concept album stuffed with free-form prog-rock jams and wig-out fantasies.

It's also packed with empathy, love of life and a philosophy which is decidedly 21st century in its naturalistic world view. A psychedelic jam session for hippies, brights and eco-warriors, if you will.

Best of all, Embryonic is a head-spinning return to form, which will come as a mighty relief to those of us who were beginning to fear that the steady decline of the band's recorded output since the astral heights of Bulletin and the better bits of Yoshimi was irreversible.

Like life itself, where chaos and uncertainty periodically give way to moments of clarity, Embryonic's random sense impressions somehow organize themselves into a compelling philosophy. This feeling is reflected track-by-track throughout an infuriatingly uneven and brilliant album.

Opener Convinced of the Hex is a case in point as the band throw caution to the wind and dump anything and everything into the mix. Nothing seems too far out to make the final cut, yet Hex sets out the central thesis of the album in no uncertain terms: "That's the difference between us / I believe in nothing / And you're convinced of the hex."

Just as the best science fiction leads to the big questions, The Sparrow Looks Up At The Machine grapples with the meaning of experience. A dead ringer for Yoshimi's sublime Are You a Hypnotist, the song presses home Wayne Coyne's obtuse secularism: "What does it mean/To dream what you dream / To believe what you've seen? / Why do we feel  / To try to find real / Underneath a machine?"

Then there's the eco-grunge of See the Leaves, one of the record's key statements. Bereft of hope and love, the song's conflicted protagonist refuses to believe life has no end as she sees the natural world decomposing and re-emerging around her.

The title of Embryonic reflects the infancy of humankind and makes perfect sense since tracks seem barely developed from their rudimentary beginnings. The magical faux-naivete of If - multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd invoking the ghost of Skip Spence – feels like an audio verite moment that went wonderfully right:

"People are evil, it's true
But on the other side, they can be gentle too
If they decide
But they don't always decide
We live on the impulses

Love is powerful
But not as powerful as evil."

But while inspired improvisation preserves the freshness of the moment, it occasionally leads to throwaway ditties like Scorpio Sword, which sounds like Syd Barrett on a bad day. And half-realized jams like Powerless recall the Lips' origins as a spaced-out head band.

Having said that, this is the Flaming Lips, so hope is never far off. Post-Nietzschean popsters par excellence, the fearless freaks continue to ask the big questions, attempting to reconcile the unimaginable vastness of our inner and outer worlds with the miracle of existence.

Embryonic is filled with references to planets, nature, technology and philosophical riddles. Its theme will be familiar to Lips fans: the struggle of the modern human to negotiate the impasse between magic and math in order to overcome evil and approach a transcendent reality. Sagittarius Silver Announcement spookily exhumes the ghost of Ian Curtis to announce "We can be free / We can be like they are / We can be one with the silver machine."

In typical Wayne Coyne style, The Ego's Last Stand celebrates the mystery of a sunbeam, while Worm Mountain invokes the wonder of creation in its litany of frogs, bears and mountains.

Insisting that our cosmic solitude be seen as a source of wonder, Flaming Lips stand up to the challenge facing a post-religious world: to find meaning in a godless universe while avoiding the pitfalls of ennui and nihilism.

We can do this, they suggest, by immersing ourselves in a kind of serene eco-mysticism, good old-fashioned love and peace, and a healthy dose of shit-kicking rock 'n' roll. They're all part of the same thing, and if you've ever held a flower in your hand, cried over a sunrise, or heard a Flaming Lips record, I have a feeling you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.

Listen: See The Leaves

Watch: I Can Be a Frog

Spanish Bum

2009-10-08T10:23:00.016+09:00

Flamenco performers
El Arenal
Sevilla, Spain

I'm on a quest for flamenco in Sevilla, the nominal home of Spain's earthy, self-defining art form.

Settling into my seat with a bottle of rioja, I fear I might be letting myself in for a touristy version of the flamenco experience. But to my relief most of the crowd seem to be Spanish. Hopefully that's a good sign.

There are two guitarists, three singers and four dancers who over the next two hours offer up a concentrated exposition of flamencology. If it feels a tad diluted, it's an experience unlike any you'll encounter anyplace else.

As the musicians ignite a roaring cantando of sadness and resilience, we are immediately plunged into the never-ending romantic struggle between man and woman, the human drama which elates, frustrates and gives meaning to our existence.

Though life contains suffering, it is indeed better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. The beauty and the ecstasy make it all worthwhile and enable us to bear anything.

A handsome and rather intimidating woman takes to the stage and proceeds to offer a dance filled with desperate passion. She brings the crowd to its feet. As she takes her bow, the perspiration oozing between her impressive breasts is one of the most erotic sights I've ever seen.

The following male dancer is sensational. Astonishingly, he is a dead ringer for footballer David Beckham, and I notice that the ladies in the audience can't take their eyes off his tight Spanish bum. As he stamps and flexes like a coiled spring, the passionate tension he communicates is almost too much for them.

Pleasantly Woozy

2009-10-08T09:25:00.011+09:00

Cante Flamenco
El Cairo,
Sevilla, Spain

I'm propping up the bar at El Cairo, a Sevillan pub I've taken a liking to. It's frequented mainly by older types and serves up delicious fish soup, tortillas sevillianas and a house rioja which goes down mighty easy. Ahem...rather too easy, truth be told.

I'm starting to feel pleasantly woozy when a couple of Spanish geezers down the way suddenly break into song.

You're never far away from music in Sevilla and its bar culture is the perfect environment for a bunch of old codgers to let fly. Their spontaneous crescendo of cante flamenco libre leaves the two viejas who have been tolerating my pidgin Spanish beaming with delight.

The barman seizes the moment to erupt into a Spanish rendition of Herb Alpert's This Guy's in Love with You, proving that cheese is universal and goes as well with rioja and tapas as it does with ale and pickled onions.

Uno tinto mas por favor!

Dance of Death

2009-09-24T16:08:00.019+09:00

The Music of the Bulls
Sevilla, Spain

As I take my seat in the arena I notice I am situated directly opposite the bandstand.

An excited international crowd is eating snacks, drinking beer and chattering in Spanish, Italian and German. A chorus of trumpets plays popular tunes and heady Sevillan fanfares.

But this is no concerto, opera or pantomime.

It's the music of the bulls. A dance of death.

Beneath me, somewhere in the bowels of the arena, I hear the bulls bellowing. Their hoarse, brutish roar betokens a bloody, inescapable fate, and a lump rises in my throat.

The orchestra's farty noodlings lend an inappropriately comical air to the grisly proceedings which are about to unfold.

As the music builds to a crescendo, I recognize the tune: Another Day in Paradise.

A bejeweled matador parades around the ring then stops directly in front of me. Unspeakably handsome, he seems to belong to a different time. Proudly addressing himself to family members seated behind me, he announces, "I will kill this bull in tribute to the mother I recently lost."

With the heady combination of the music, crowd and vino tinto, it's a surreal, startling moment straight out of Hemingway.

Suddenly a mighty roar goes up as a black mass explodes into the ring.

It's a fearsome, majestic sight, a primal force totally in accord with its nature. In its animal purity the bull is the moral superior of those who would despatch it on this balmy Spanish evening.

I am conflicted about my presence. My vegetarian friends would choke on their tofu burgers and disown me forthwith if they could see me now.

But nothing on earth can alter the fact that six bulls will meet their end in the ring tonight.

The trumpets play a few staccato bursts which signal the entrance of the picadors. They harry and prick the bull to weaken it. Again the flatulent horns before two bandilleros pirourette around the giant beast before spearing him with arrows.

Finally it's man against beast as toro and toreador perform an appalling ballet. The bull is tiring and heaving as dark rivulets of blood course over its huge shoulders and down its flanks. I feel shocked yet transfixed, removed yet somehow culpable.

As the matador makes his final assault - brave, audacious, narcissistic - he grievously mistimes. Not once, not twice, but thrice must he deal the final blow. A chorus of boos and whistles go up from the crowd until finally the animal is slaughtered. The effect is one of undignified bathos.

The bull takes it final bow as its carcass is unceremoniously hauled out of the arena by a team of horses, leaving blood and dust in its wake. Once more the sound of trumpets fills the air as the matador takes his bows and receives the acclaim of the crowd.

The bullring is meticulously raked and manicured. Then the orchestra strikes up a noble fanfare in honor of the next victim.

Acolyte

2009-08-20T10:31:00.017+09:00

Kenny Garrett

Billboard Club

Osaka, Japan

Jazz has by now become a catch-all term for a broad range of musical forms. They run the gamut from straight ahead trad to ambient exploration and everything in-between.

This was amply demonstrated last night as Kenny Garrett - acolyte of Duke Ellington, Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock - offered an intriguing sample of items to be found on the menu of contemporary jazz.

The opening song's deconstructed jazz-funk features a syncopated groove over which organist Johnny Mercier lays down some irresistibly funky lines. Garrett's abstract sax is processed with pitch effects a la Jon Hassell.

Garrett's tone combines the lusty depth of Lester Young with the spiritual yearning of his hero John Coltrane, while Mercier's gospel-tinged organ playing is sublime. Drummer Justin Brown effortlessly mixes a post-bop vocabulary with rock and hip-hop while Kona Khasu on bass is solid and inventive.

Garrett opts to play keyboard at certain moments during the set, including a one-minute keyboard interlude - childlike and off-kilter - featuring himself on Rhodes and Mercier on Hammond B3.

Then come's a bewildering MOR instrumental which would be the perfect soundtrack if movie director David Lynch ever hosted a daytime chat show.

The set starts to depart from the hard-hitting post-bop which commenced the proceedings and at times comes dangerously close to easy-listening. The band is cruising and you get the feeling they can reel off this stuff in their sleep.

But events take a dramatic turn on the next two numbers when Justin Brown introduces some furious cross-rhythmic patterns into the mix. This guy is one of the most excitingly musical drummers I've heard since Billy Higgins and the mighty crescendo of noise he unleashes is astonishing.

The band then proceed to grandstand with the singalong Happy People. The purist in me cringes at Garrett's populist calls for the audience to rise to their feet, and considering his stunning post-bop CV it seems a tad cheesy.

But what do I know? The crowd are literally on their seats and there's no doubt everyone's having a roaring good time.

Fittingly the band end their set with a three-song tribute to Japan in the form of national favorites Akatonbo (Dragonfly), Tsubasa wo kudasai (Give Me Wings) and Kojiyou no Tsuki (Moon of the Old Castle). Each is restrained and beautiful.

For an encore Garrett and Mercier offer a glorious, soulful interpretation of the Japanese national song Kimigayo. The nationalist overtones of the tune are stripped away as Garrett transforms it into a tribute to his Japanese hosts. Notwithstanding my reservations about national anthems, it's a truly affecting rendition which sends a wave of emotion around the room.

Thought Control

2009-08-14T07:51:00.026+09:00

The Japanese National Anthem

"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth."

Albert Einstein

Japan's long-running debate over the enforced singing of the Kimigayo national anthem at school ceremonies has taken yet another turn as a Japanese court recently rejected a lawsuit filed by a group of 135 public school teachers.

The educators rightly insist that being forced to sing the national anthem infringes upon their human rights and violates constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of thought and conscience.

Bizarrely the Yokohama District Court has ruled that requiring staff and students to stand and sing the national anthem counts as a ritual and does not enforce a specific kind of thought.

But if there's no intent or meaning behind the ritual, why implement it in the first place?

The Japanese authorities' thinking on this issue has been typically muddled.

Since 2006 the Kanagawa educational board has required school principals to report the names of teachers who refuse to sing Kimigayo despite the fact that a prefectural panel has deemed the board's action inappropriate.

Not only that, the Tokyo District Court ruled in September 2006 that teachers are not obliged to sing Kimigayo. However, only five months later Japan's Supreme Court ruled that when a Tokyo school principal ordered a music teacher to accompanying the singing of the anthem on piano, the act was constitutional.

And just one year ago Japan's education ministry published a revised education curriculum for elementary and junior high schools. It calls for promoting patriotism and requiring children between the first and sixth grades to sing the national anthem.

The new guidelines - to be implemented in elementary schools in 2011 and in junior high schools in 2012 - state: "Moral education shall be aimed at nurturing respect for (Japan's) tradition and culture . . . and at cultivating morality."

This hypocrisy from a governmental system rife with corruption and which regularly tramples over human rights. Examples include the use of forced confessions by police officers, misuse of the laws on capital crime and turning a blind eye to rape and female sex trafficking.

It's worth recalling the convulsive period of Japanese history which began in 1930 and culminated in the nation's calamitous defeat in World War II.

In an effort to impose thought control on the Japanese people, ultra-nationalists embarked upon a successful culture war in which the manipulation of musical taste played a major role. Dance halls were closed, western pop was actively discouraged and militaristic music blared across the nation's airwaves.

Since teachers played a crucial role in establishing Japan's war mobilization in the 1930s - martial drills were practiced in all Japanese schools - it's clear that the resistance of educators to reactionary nonsense will continue to be a major obstacle to the re-emergence of Japanese nationalism.

Japan has a much-admired pacifist constitution and is a largely peaceful society, but its citizens have an unhealthy respect for authority which tends toward blind obedience.

Though the nation seems to have taken on board the harsh lessons of recent history, who's to say that future economic hardship and political turmoil might not cause nationalism to rear its ugly head once more?

Therefore it's essential that peace and human rights continue to be actively promoted in the nation's classrooms and the arts used as a tool for enlightenment rather than reactionary manipulation. As long as this is done, the use of music and education to further the goals of nationalist maniacs will remain a nightmare rather than a reality.

Y-fronts

2009-07-28T17:36:00.040+09:00

Fuji Rock 2009

Oasis (Rock)

So we drove nine hours for this.

To stand in the middle of a field getting soaked to our y-fronts. And all for a bunch of scallies from Manchester.

Oasis are headlining Fuji tonight as part of an ultramassive world tour which underlines their recent renewed success.

A huge - and I mean HUGE - roar erupts from the crowd...and here come the saviors of rock 'n' roll.

Yep, it's Noel, Liam and, er, the other guys.

The logistics of what it took to get the band here tonight are mind-boggling. How much technology must it take - airplanes, freight, generators and the rest of it - to plonk Oasis on a stage in the middle of a Japanese alpine valley?

But it seems the most natural thing in the world when their faces - familiar from a thousand TV shows and YouTube clips - appear from the wings.

The place goes absolutely mental.

Last year Underworld received a thunderous reception from the Fuji hordes, but the welcome given Oasis is absolutely deafening. The atmosphere is electric and there's a mad rush as 50,000 Japanese fans head pell-mell toward the stage.

Ouch! Look out, wontcha!?

Anyroad Noel looks pretty cool in a leather bomber jacket even though temperatures are well into the 30s. Liam's wearing one of those long green raincoat thingies from his much-ridiculed (by Noel) fashion collection.

He's gonna need it if the weather keeps on like this.

They start with Fuckin' in the Bushes, then Rock 'n' Roll Star and Lyla. It's a familiar but effective set of no-frills Oasis rock 'n' roll. Sure it's predictable, but loud and in person ya gotta admit it's quite a show.

The innate conservatism of Oasis' which has always turned me off is the main reason for their success.

Their obsession with The Beatles, Stooges and Stone Roses - as well as the occasional plagiarized riff or lyric - has enabled them to sound like a classic rock band without ever actually becoming one, that rollicking first album aside.

I may not be Oasis' number one fan, but they've won me over - or worn me down - over the years. Noel has proven himself to be a genuinely amusing social commentator and chat show staple and his melodic gifts have turned his band into a national institution.

But glancing at my friend I notice a cavernous yawn spreading over his face. We're in a bemused minority of two among 50,000 believers. He gestures for us to leave and we head to catch the end of System 7.

When we stagger past the main stage one hour later, Oasis are still going strong. We catch the dying strains of Champagne Supernova and a cracking version of I Am The Walrus which trumps the recorded version.

Liam thanks his fans most sincerely for enduring the torrential rain - "Nice one for stickin' around in this" - but delivered in a Mancunian drawl he might as well be speaking Serbo-Croat and his appreciation goes completely over the soaking heads of his adoring Japanese public.

Good night, Fuji Rock.

Freak Scene

2009-07-28T16:05:00.023+09:00

Fuji Rock 2009

Dinosaur Jr (Rock)

Jeez is it really twenty-odd years since I used to drive out to Isla Vista to pick up the latest Dinosaur Jr releases? Since I first saw them live when they played the tiny pizza parlor next to Morninglory Records?

Twenty years since I was working construction in Southern Cali and rocking out to Husker Du, Soul Asylum, Big Black and other avatars of the pre-grunge scene?

It is, you know. And before Fuji Rock, I'd almost forgotten how heavily I was into hardcore in those days.

As I drove around in my beat-up Ford Granada, Dinosaur Jr's early classics - Little Fury Things, The Lung, Tarpit, Freak Scene - kept me rocking through Cali.

The band were a fantastic, unlikely combination of Crazy Horse, Black Sabbath and The Replacements and they invented a new musical genre: ear-bleeding country music. Totally revamping the power-trio format, the band introduced unusual song structures, melody and extreme volume and distortion.

On the negative side they did come up with that irritating LOUD quiet LOUD technique which was done to death by every grunge groaner, from Pixies to Nirvana.

But Dinosaur Jr did it best.

J. Mascis' detached drawl communicated a bemused savant aesthetic and was an antidote to the tiresome post-punk scream.

Though his distorted, melodic guitar playing had its roots in classic rock and country it also communicated a literate punk fury. The crucial ingredient was that Mascis was a superlative player, a guitar hero for post-punks like me.

After an ugly breakup and years of separation the original band have returned - and how! - with two superb albums in Beyond (2007) and Farm (2009). Artistically - every which way, in fact - this has got to be one of the most successful comebacks in rock history.

So here they are at Fuji Rock's Red Marquee and it's a total gas to see my old heroes unleashing a familiar aural assault upon thousands of unsuspecting Japanese kids. All of the classics are there - Let it Ride, Just like Heaven (best Cure cover, bar none), and most ecstatically, Repulsion - and the place is going mad.

So this is all about rose-tinted nostalgia and a bunch of tired has-beens yearning for former glories...Right?

No way, man. This amazing turnaround is something completely different. As ten thousand Japanese kids will tell ya, this is fresh, vital and totally cool. What they got here is a whole new ear-splitting FREAK SCENE going on.

Instrument of War

2009-07-27T14:13:00.060+09:00

Fuji Rock 2009

Patti Smith (Rock)

Bob Dylan says the artist is always in the process of becoming.

That's certainly true of Patti Smith. In 1977 she was a raw performance artist and journalist who channelled bohemian feminism and rock lore into a killer combination of quasi-religious street poetry and punk rock.

Since then she has continued to produce inspiring music in the face of considerable personal challenges. Now aged 62, looking wise and embattled, she's better than ever.

Every festival needs a conscience, and this year Patti was Fuji Rock's voice of inspiration She offered a powerful message of empowerment, eco-awareness and political action. I think a lot of younger Japanese women who may not have been aware of Patti were blown away by her incredible energy.

Patti takes to the stage smiling and waving at the crowd, raising everyone's spirits in the face of insufferable weather conditions. It's been pouring continuously since the night before but now here's Patti to rain love on us all - her humanity and empathy weave a magical spell over a damp but enthusiastic audience.

Her performance starts with Dancing Barefoot, a personal favorite of mine. It's one of many highlights in a dynamic, spiritual performance including Smith classics Because the Night, People Have the Power and others.

Apparently today is Haile Selassie's birthday, so Ghost Dance is dedicated to him. Then an amazing Rock 'n' Roll Nigger is dedicated to Michael Jackson.

The Patti Smith Group is excellent, featuring long-time mainstay Lenny Kaye on guitar and also the excellent Tony Shannahan on bass and keyboards. They spur Patti on as she urges the crowd to political and personal action, shouting, "The electric guitar is the only instrument of war we need!"

For a moment, even I believe it.

We briefly ran into Patti at the after-show interview booth, where she was charming and amiable and still urging her fans to challenge their governments and systems of power - a pretty tall order in Japan. Nevertheless there she was shouting, "We are alone and we are free! The people have the power!"

Easily the highlight of Fuji Rock, Patti brought joy and awareness to those who were willing to listen. What more could you ask from any performer?

Patti Smith "Dream of Life" Movie Trailer

21st Century Pop

2009-07-27T13:00:00.006+09:00

Fuji Rock 2009

M83 (Electro-pop)

What's that incredible sound coming from the Red Marquee?

It's French band M83 - named after a distant galaxy - and I'm glad I caught up with them because I've been a fan of these electro-shoegazers for several years now.

M83's sublime electro-pop is an uplifting and inspiring start to this year's Fuji Rock festival and each song takes me - and about ten thousand other Fujirockers - higher and higher.

There's an intriguing blend of ambient, dance and experimental sounds in evidence, but M83 have recently veered away from their earlier psychedelic sound to head in a poppier direction.

Their version of Don't Save Us from the Flames is absolutely rousing. It truly sounds like pop for the twenty-first century.

Gear

2009-07-19T16:07:00.027+09:00

Shirokuma Company (Beatles tribute band)

The Cavern Club

Roppongi

Tokyo

I wouldn't mind betting that Japan has more Beatle tribute bands than any other country. The Japanese love the Fab Four and, with their incredible eye for detail, nihonjin Beatle bands are usually note-perfect.

One of the best is Kyoto's Beatrips, who wowed the crowds at Liverpool's Beatles festival two years ago. I've seen those guys three times and they are fab.

But I'm in Tokyo now at Roppongi's Cavern Club where I catch the superb Shirokuma Company in action.

It's a pleasant venue which thankfully doesn't look anything like the real Cavern. There's an impressive collection of Fab Four photos on display, most of which I have never seen before.

If I understand their Japanese flyer correctly, Shirokuma Company is a collective of 15 musicians with a revolving door policy regarding who plays on any given night. It's an interesting approach which I guess keeps things fresh for the players.

What I like about Shirokuma Company is that, even though they are wearing the standard Beatle suits, they're also a tad unkempt and rough looking. They're also sporting Beatle boots with Cuban heels. Gear.

The first song I hear - this is their third set of the night - is Lovely Rita. They don't quite get the coda right - one of the Fabs' most deliriously spaced out musical endings - but their version of Something is pretty astonishing.

It's fine - and to my ears a strength - that they don't worry too much about getting each song note perfect. After all, if this was the real Beatles they wouldn't sound exactly like the records either.

Mind you, next comes Across the Universe - one of my least favorite Lennon songs - and it's just as soporific and weedy as the original. Can't blame them for that, though, they didn't write it.

But then they let loose a rip-roaring blitzkreig of I Saw Her Standing There. It's one of the best versions I've ever heard.

Shirokuma Company are a great band with a loose, rocky feel. I wouldn't mind seeing them play their own material or some other rock standards, and I'd certainly get back to check 'em out if I were on their patch again. Much recommended.

Emerge

2009-07-19T15:25:00.009+09:00

Karen Aoki and The Club Jazz Allstars (Jazz)
Billboard Club
Tokyo

Tonight is my first exposure to live Japanese jazz and I'm wondering what's in store. Some of the essential elements of jazz - improvisation, spontaneity, letting your hair down - seem a tad antithetical to the Japanese national character. Therefore I'm expecting an entertaining though somewhat polite evening of jazz.

Karen Aoki is a Japanese jazz diva with an intercultural background, having grown up in Hong Kong and Detroit. She and her band start their set with the Billie Holiday/Cole Porter standard Love For Sale and they give it an ethereal, otherworldly flavor. The musicians - piano, bass, drums, trumpet and sax - rip through it with aplomb.

A predictable but enjoyable version of It Don't Mean a Thing (If it Ain't Got That Swing) comes next. It's followed by an interminable speech by Aoki which immediately destroys any sense of continuity or tension the set has built up. This by the way is a regular feature of Japanese live acts

The next song choice is truly bizarre as the band try out a jazzy interpretation of We Will Rock You. Yes, that We Will Rock You, Queen's pumping stadium anthem. After an impressive piano intro, the band transform the song into a nice, smoochy groove. Then there's another speech from Karen.

A cliched selection follows. However My Favorite Things starts out like a sublime Prefab Sprout outtake. Too bad they then proceed to murder it. The horn section in particular sounds pedestrian, though the pianist, whoever he is, is excellent.

As for Aoki, she has a pleasingly husky contralto. I have the feeling that if she really let loose we might see some fireworks. I also have the feeling she isn't going to do that tonight.

Since I'm an Englishman in Tokyo, I'm curious to see how the band will treat Sting's An Englishman in New York. It's a decent version but seems a tad over-rehearsed and everything's just so.

Life's not like that and neither should jazz be. These guys need to let go and get more abstract because when they do they cook up some exciting stuff. There's precious little momentum, no sense of the unexpected or anything uplifting. Instead it's a watered down collection of predictably safe jazz standards.

However, shortly thereafter comes a marvellous surprise when the stage curtain is raised to reveal a huge window behind the musicians framing the Tokyo cityscape below. It's a truly breathtaking moment.

For the encore Karen comes out with her pianist for a nicely stripped down version of The Carpenters' chestnut Close to You, Once again I get the impression that this is where her talent lies - in a more abstract, minimalist vein akin to the Scandinavian 'cool' approach to jazz.

This was a pleasant evening, but I'd love to see famed ECM producer Manfred Eicher get his hands on these guys and have them push the envelope. Then we might see something transcendent emerge.

Ubiquitous

2009-07-14T14:22:00.044+09:00

The Music of Gion Matsuri

Kyoto, Japan

Gion Matsuri, one of Japan's most famous festivals, is upon us again.

Originating as an ancient purification ritual, the matsuri features street fairs, parades and spectacular floats and is attended by a quarter million visitors from Japan and abroad every year.

Curiously the festival is held during some of the most oppressive weather imaginable - temperatures are well into the 30s and are accompanied by debilitating levels of humidity.

Not only that. Since it's the tail end of the rainy season there's a fair chance festival goers will get drenched in one of Japan's legendary downpours.

Then there's the music.

The jangling bells, woozy flutes and ominous drums of Gion Matsuri are ubiquitous in Kyoto at this time of year. They are piped continuously through shopping arcades, main streets and, worst of all on underground train platforms where commuters are held hostage to their charmless drone.

Escape is all but impossible, the relentless boom of the drums only adds to the sense of ennui and depression as office workers endure their daily commute.

Removed from its ritualistic context, it's probably the least festive music you can imagine, a far cry from the rapturous sambas of Rio de Janeiro or the high energy excitement of San Francisco's Gay Parade.

Despite the faddish, hyper-modernity of Japan, the Matsuri music underlines how deeply the Japanese soul is rooted in tradition.

I can't help feeling ambivalent about this obsessive relationship with the past. Respect for the ancient ways can be an admirable trait, for example in the traditions which have created Japan's superlative cuisine. But one's best quality is often one's worst quality.

We love Japan partly because it has clung to its traditions longer than we have. But the ritualized conventions of Japanese society can also hinder spontaneity and social progress, or have the effect of shutting out the foreigner.

Most gaijin will probably never find themselves in Japan. Indeed, they are more likely to lose themselves.

Though Japan is crammed with experiences, sense impressions, and bizarre, unforgettable sights which baffle and charm, we don't belong to Japan and it will never belong to us.

As I become older, I realize that fitting in - just a bit - is what I crave; at least enough to somehow see myself reflected in the landscapes and soundscapes around me. Thus I suspect that one day I will leave Japan and head for a place where I can read the signs.

That's because getting a hold on Japan is like trying to grasp the elusive mountain mist. You spend an eternity attempting to track it down, then, just when you think you have it, it's gone.

Up There

2009-07-08T14:04:00.024+09:00

Movie: Anvil! The Story of Anvil, (2009)

Directed by: Sacha Gervasi

When San Francisco band Handsome Poets broke up in 2000 it was a crushing experience for leader Stephen Duffy and his partner.

I should know. That partner was me.

As any musician will tell you, you invest every ounce of your being in the experience.

You live, breathe and sleep music- writing it, playing it, recording it, arguing and worrying about it.

You lay everything on the line: your time, money, relationships, artistry and dreams.

Then there's the external bullshit. Indifferent club owners, moody soundmen, crappy changing rooms and soundchecks, backbiting with other bands over money and who plays first.

You hustle management and call radio stations, imploring them to play your record, endure humiliation and self-doubt as you nervously prostrate yourself on the carpets of record company A & R men.

But the rewards, when they come, are worth all the indignity and degradation.

Like winning a major song competition. Or hearing your record on the radio. Or playing for thousands of people, feeling the incredible rush that comes from creativity and a bloated ego. The pats on the back from strangers who want to touch you simply because they saw you on stage.

Because, as my partner Stephen used to say: when you're up there you really know you're alive.

It all came back to me as I watched the marvelous Anvil! The Story of Anvil, the tale of the Canadian prototype thrash-metal band who after near-success endured thirty years of failure and ennui as they choked on their faded dreams.

Amazingly they survived, held together by the self-belief and talent of leader Steve 'Lips' Kudlow and his drummer and sidekick Robb Reiner.

The Story of Anvil is by turns hilarious, heart-breaking and inspiring. Each moment rang true with me, as it will with every rock musician, especially the superb denouement set in Japan.

It's one of the best rock documentaries I've seen. If you really want to know what it's like to be in a band, including the highs, lows and everything in between, you should check it out.

Superstar

2009-06-27T14:57:00.050+09:00

Michael Jackson
1958 - 2009

That Michael Jackson's fame penetrated the most remote corners of the planet is testament to an astounding, precocious talent.

Like all great performers he made the impossible seem effortless. His success was due to a preternatural gift for song and dance but also because he surrounded himself with visionary collaborators - producer Quincy Jones and British songwriter Rod Temperton among them.

It's true that Jackson brought soul into the mainstream and later masterminded a business-savvy amalgamation of black music and rock. But artists like Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, Sly Stone, Ike and Tina Turner, Earth, Wind & Fire and Funkadelic had paved the way before the explosion of Off the Wall's jazz-soul-rock fusion.

Jackson's late 70s/early 80s peak probably represents the last time black pop was truly exciting. He was the first African-American artist to appear on MTV and took the pop video into new areas, though the triumph ultimately became one of marketing over culture.

Jackson's supposed popularization of soul ironically came about at the expense of his own blackness. His bizarre quest for physical transformation represented a blurring of his racial identity and pointed to troubling dysfunction in his family background.

His age and gender also seemed open to interpretation. Even as he grabbed his crotch and breathed "Don't stop till you get enough," he seemed curiously asexual.

As Jackson's stardom ran away from his control, his performances descended into megalomania and hollow self-mythology. They showed a personality shut off from reality, surrounded by sycophants and 'enablers.'

That these issues ever assumed a philosophical importance to Jackson's adoring fanbase seems unlikely when one observes the self-indulgent, Diana-like dimension of their grief. It leaves one wondering exactly what message - if any - Jackson communicated to his fans.

Beyond the platitudes of We Are the World and Black or White, to them Jackson was above all an entertainer and a desexualized superhero who never grew up. His neuroses reflected the identity crises of American society and the mutually predatory love/hate relationship we share with our stars.

In the mid-eighties stories abounded of Jackson's kindness toward underprivileged children. But even then his obsession with Disney, Peter Pan and his own lost childhood seemed plain weird and hinted there might be a shadow side to his philanthropy. The cynically cultivated image of innocent messiah was creepy and distasteful.

When the curtain finally came down on the freak show, the story sounded depressingly familiar: a major talent in free fall, drugs, hangers-on, litigation, seclusion, a Greek tragedy hurtling unstoppably toward a predictable, bathetic finale.

So that we might well ask: what does it profit a man if he gain the world yet lose his soul?

If it weren't for the music.

Because that's how we'll remember Michael Jackson. For the dazzling artistry of I Want You Back, The Love You Save, I'll Be There, Shake Your Body, Rock With You, Don't Stop Till You Get Enough, I Just Can't Stop Loving You.

Because stars are stars, and sometimes a superstar becomes a falling star. And the universe is never-ending, and our vampiric lust for heroes and tarnished angels knows no bounds.

Hiding behind our 'normalcy', we'll continue to live through them and have them feel for us as we pretend to know them. We'll love them, hate them, pity them, demand they be stars today, tomorrow, all the way.

Even to the final, bitter end.

Iddy Pop

2009-06-20T11:01:00.024+09:00

Freud and Rock Music

Unassailable

Sigmund Freud's position as the father of psychoanalysis remains largely unassailable. But what does he have to say about music?

Curiously for someone living in late nineteenth century Vienna, Freud never wrote specifically about music. He hardly refers to it in his work and seems to have been less interested in music than any of the arts.

Naturally this hasn't prevented his ubiquitous theories from permeating musical culture, just as they have influenced film, fine art and literature.

Among classical composers, Mahler underwent analysis with Freud and Rachmaninov famously used therapy to overcome a crippling three-year writer's block.

Then there's the mission of jazz - to confer freedom from inhibition through communication and improvisation. Couldn't it be described as a direct corollary to the free association of psychoanalysis?

And in the pop world, Eddie Cochran, The Count Five, Neil Young, Kevin Coyne and John Lennon are just a few of the artists who have undergone or sung about therapy.

Far-fetched Freudian fancies

Though he became marginalized as the twentieth century drew to a close, Freud's ideas have enjoyed something of a resurgence. Looking at pop music through a Freudian lens can be quite an illuminating experience.

The main criticism of Freudian theories is that they are untested and supported by unsubstantiated beliefs. Social scientists have not exactly been falling over themselves to carry out empirical studies of the more far-fetched Freudian fancies, mainly because there's not the faintest reason to think they might hold water.

As cognitive guru Stephen Pinker points out, they include the hilarious notion that toilet training and breast feeding can affect your personality in deep and disturbing ways for the rest of your life.

Then there's the 'Freudian slip', with its barmy insistence that no slips of the tongue come from random processes. Surely it's more sensible to imagine these so-called 'slips' as grammar or syntactical errors to which we disproportionally assign meaning.

Chief among Freud's untested theories is the neurotic cultural myth of The Oedipus Complex. It's dominated by the dubious assertion that Oedipal impulses represent the "nuclear complex" of every neurosis. Thus boys fear castration then conspire to kill their fathers and have sex with their mothers.

Though I don't entirely hold with Oedipal theory, its dramatic possibilities are realized to remarkable effect in Jim Morrison and The Doors' celebrated opus The End. The singer enacts a drama straight out of Sophocles and there's that famous "Father?" "Yes, son?" "I want to kill you" exchange.

Morrison's second-hand Oedipal rant shouldn't be taken literally. It's partly a diatribe against his authoritarian dad, but more accurately a cry for the destruction of repressive hierarchy and restriction in one's inner and outer life.

Cigars and Guitars

But Freud believed that society could only function if man repressed his base instincts. He illustrated this by devising the Pleasure Principle and the Reality Principle. The former describes our wish to satisfy our animal desires, whereas the latter - preferred by Freud - opposes immediate gratification and calls for us to satisfy our needs in more socially 'appropriate' ways.

Rock ‘n’ roll stood in direct opposition to that. To paraphrase Jim Morrison, it wanted the world and it wanted it NOW.

Thus hedonistic wild men like Jerry Lee Lewis and Iggy Pop seek the self-gratification of the id and satisfaction through the Pleasure Principle.

I doubt they'd agree with Freud that the repression of man's base instincts is essential to civilization. They're more likely to embrace Reich's call for greater sexual freedom as a way of dealing with neurosis.

Icons like The Beatles, Mick Jagger and David Bowie represent a feminized male alternative to dominant or hostile father figures. But the sexual licence they indulge reveals they are also partial to the Power Principle.

After all, everyone knows that guys join bands to get girls, and at its extremes rock is custom-designed to unleash dionysian impulses. A cigar is usually just a cigar, but since pop is always about context, oftentimes a guitar is definitely a phallus.

Inner lives

I must admit that as a confirmed Jungian I've acquired a new respect for Freud. Though some of of his theories remain unsubstantiated, when it comes to libido, drives, and the unconscious, Uncle Sigmund seems to have anticipated the inner lives of the rockers he never knew.

His theories foreshadowed their erotic obsessions, psychedelic explorations, and even - since Freud was a user of cocaine - their experimentation with drugs.

Clearly rock and psychoanalysis share far more than a preoccupation with sex.

At their worst they are capable of encouraging self-indulgence and preening self-obsession.

But at their best both represent attempts to liberate our desires and impulses from the cultural and psychological chains which threaten to imprison us and at any moment deny our authentic self-realization.

Magnetic

2009-06-10T18:27:00.030+09:00

Fever Ray (Electro)
LP: Fever Ray (Mute, 2009)

It's 3 AM. You're exhausted. Sleep evades you. You toss and turn, cursing the darkness. Finally you decide to take a walk.

There's no one around. Everything is quiet and perfect. The world belongs to you.

On this sublime recording Fever Ray's Karin Dreijer Andersson transforms such isolation into art of the highest order.

Fever Ray sets a different tone to Dreijer Andersson's previous outing - as half of The Knife, the best Swedish band since ABBA. Silent Shout (2006 ) , their meditation on evil dread, is an electro-pop milestone.

This time around, with a muted palette and fewer rhythmic gradations, they again breathe life into the genre by means of an artful pop minimalism.

It's a perfect example - like landmark recordings by Boards of Canada and Burial - of how electro-based music can communicate a haunting sense of isolation and claustrophobia.

Opener If I Had a Heart - a tale of obsession - has a compelling, churning riff and a spooky whispered vocal - Dreijer Andersson's pitchshifted downward - which will appeal to doom-laden romantics everywhere.

The sublime Now's the Only Time I Know celebrates the perfection of the moment, the sad reality of that which is forsaken and proclaims that all the gods and all the devils exist within us.

At first I wasn't entirely sure what Concrete Wall was about - a serial killer or life in a tower block? - but it scared the hell out of me with it's plunging keyboard lines and ominous lyric: "I live between concrete walls/When I took her up she was so warm/Eyes are open and mouth cries/Haven't slept since summer/Oh how I try/I leave the TV on/And the radio."

It turns out the song refers to Dreijer Andersson's relationship with her new born baby. The velvety S&M tone is actually the sound of a woman coming to terms with the private terror of new parenthood.

In Keep the Streets Empty For Me there is further isolation, but it's never complete and the agony gives way to hope: "I will never disappear/Forever, I'll be here."

It's somnambulistic, to be sure, but I dig it.

The ghost of Japan stalks this record sonically and subject-wise as Dreijer Andersson explores similar terrain to David Sylvian's art-pop: connection, disconnection, recollection. Again that dreamlike feeling as the world sleeps and the poets dream of angels.

In the superb Seven the profound is to be discovered as we sleep, as we speak, in the remains of the day. Seen in cold black and white, the words - "We talk about love, we talk about dishwasher tablets, illness/And we dream about heaven" - come over as trite, but in the context of this amazing album they seem revelatory.

Fever Ray is one of those records which seems so perfect, so definitive and pure, that it effortlessly sweeps away the mundane, canceling out time and dissolving whatever boundaries exist between truth and art.

Unique and emotionally true, it's magnetic, ambitious and often profound.

Video: When I Grow Up

Wacky Wiccans

2009-06-05T12:44:00.028+09:00

Movie: Mamma Mia (2008)
Director: Phyllida Lloyd

If Jean Francois Lyotard was right in asserting that the 'grand narratives' of history - reason, progress, socialism - are finished, and semiotics has dissolved into purely libidinal 'energetics', then the nostalgic, uninvolving kitsch of Mamma Mia is a case in point.

The movie confirms what pseuds like me have long known - that ABBA have now truly crossed over from the modern to the postmodern.

More accurately Mamma Mia is unintentionally postmodern, since it's the structure rather than the 'work' which fascinates. The movie cobbles together its creaky 'narrative' by kookily recontextualizing ABBA's legendary oeuvre.

Describing a universe parallel to the one described in the group's deceptively complex late-70s divorce epics, the main plot - a bride-to-be unsure which of her mother's former lovers is her real father - would not long ago have been considered taboo.

But it's been morphed here into a wonky relativist fable acceptable to a knowing, postmodern audience. Wacky wiccans will lap up its farcical female bonding while the rest of us gape at the barf-inducing romance and baffling homoerotic twists.

The movie delights in presenting established stars waaay out of their comfort zone. Pierce Brosnan is brilliantly wooden, Colin Firth perplexingly epicene. You've never seen Meryl Streep like this before - she is truly sensational.

Mamma Mia manages to have its cake and eat it not only by simultaneously celebrating and taking the piss out of cheesy Hollywood musicals, but by doing so both consciously and unconsciously.

True to the postmodern creed, the movie offers no answers, denies the existence of absolute truths and leads the viewer toward a vaguely relativistic concept of 'tolerance'.

For the most part it's corny, embarrassing, tasteless trash.

And I loved every minute of it.

"What's wrong with being naked?"

2009-04-27T15:18:00.045+09:00

Media Hypocrisy and the Crucifixion of Tsuyoshi Kusanagi

"Fancy a drink?"

1. Sloshed and Senseless

If anyone had told me two weeks ago that I'd soon be sympathizing with a member of SMAP - the terminally uncool darlings of Japan's mediocre light-entertainment scene - I'd have told them they could kiss my shiri.

But I must admit to feeling a twinge of commiseration for SMAP's Tsuyoshi Kusanagi. Following his recent display of drunken nudity in a Tokyo park he's been the victim of a predictable frenzy of media condemnation.

Come on, guys. Give the boy a break.

I mean, who hasn't at some time come staggering out of their luxury apartment at 3AM, sloshed and senseless, flashing their willy to all and sundry?

I know I have.

At any rate, this whole affair might encourage Japanese fans to question the darker side of their country's pop industry.

For Kusanagi's self-destructive binge can best be interpreted as a reaction against the creepy manipulation of showbiz bully Johnny Kitagawa and his insidious management empire Johnny's Jimusho.

Kitagawa has been churning out sub-par plastic pop since the sixties. And though females are the target audience for his stable of emasculated girlie-boys, Johnny has long boasted he prefers to work with lithesome lads because they are "easier to handle," if you know what I mean.

SMAP are the stars in Johnny's crown. The fact that they are as vocally gifted as five salary men in a karaoke box hasn't prevented them from achieving a depressing level of media saturation in their home country.

Their fame reflects the low expectations of the Japanese public as well as the fact that 'talento' and commodification go hand in hand in the land of the falling yen.

2. Purty Vacant

If there's one thing SMAP aren't about, it's music.

The band will whore themselves - at Johnny's insistence, I'm sure - for any company that will throw money at them.

Samsung, Toyota, Nintendo, Nike, Pocari Sweat, Sky Perfect TV, Canon, ECC, Proctor and Gamble, BOSS Coffee and Nudy cosmetics are just some of the advertisers who have forked out for their purty (vacant) visages.

The group have even released a soft drink called Drink! SMAP!, simultaneously installing themselves in the dual role of product and pusher as they creepily urge fans to swallow their celebrity juice.

If there's an upside to this corporate scam it may be that Kusanagi has unwittingly brought to light certain hypocritical attitudes in Japanese society.

During his arrest the star demanded, "What's wrong with being naked?"

And he might well ask, in this sex-obsessed country where pictures of nude girls are plastered over phone boxes and stuffed into the mailboxes of a million apartments.

Where nerdy TV hosts giggle cluelessly as they poke the breasts of pneumatic babelicious airheads.

Where grown men openly read comics celebrating rape fantasies and frequent porn sites promoting male sexual domination.

And Kusanagi is in good company if he enjoys getting juiced on a Saturday night. Over-indulgence in alcohol is not only acceptable, but practically a requirement in Japan. There's even a term for bosses who force their subordinates to get drunk: Alcoru-hara (alcohol harassment.)

3. Takes one to know one

Verily Kusanagi hath offended his country's vast political and marketing machine. Japan's institutions have come down hard on the poor guy in a torrent of fake outrage.

Displaying the tact and sensitivity we've come to expect from Japanese politicians, the internal affairs minister Kunio Hatoyama labelled Kusanagi "a bastard."

Well, it takes one to know one, I guess.

Because that's the same Hatoyama who suggested that execution of death row inmates didn't require him to sign the final execution order, a procedure demanded by Japanese law. Amnesty International Japan condemned his disregard for human rights.

And it's the same Hatoyama who signed into law the recent measure requiring all foreign visitors to be fingerprinted and photographed upon entry to Japan - as an anti-terrorism measure, dontcha know.

Never mind that the only terror acts visited upon Japan's citizens have been perpetrated by Japanese themselves.

Oh, and Hatoyama reportedly owns a chunk of shares in the company which is overseeing the government's campaign to promote Japan's switch from analogue to digital television broadcasting by 2011.

The same campaign whose public face was - until very recently - SMAP's Tsuyoshi Kusanagi.

Bluesy Abstractions

2009-04-19T07:02:00.021+09:00

Live: Kelly Joe Phelps (Country Blues)
Taku Taku Club, Kyoto, Japan

A. Kelly Joe Phelps

These days too few world class singer-songwriters bother to step off the bullet train to ply their trade in Japan's cultural capital.

So last night a grateful crowd gathered to bear witness as Kelly Joe Phelps brought his impressionist-modernist-fantabulist country blues to Kyoto.

Phelps takes to the stage quietly and proceeds to play without a set list for ninety minutes. For the crowd - who knew there were this many Kelly Joe fans in Kyoto? - it's a spellbinding, almost ethereal experience.

Phelps has a famously physical playing style, dipping and weaving in his chair as he communes with the spheres. His eyes roll back as he mutters and whispers to himself, unleashing cascades of bluesy abstractions from his fretboard, vagrant semitones which shouldn't fit together but somehow make perfect sense.

His voice is hushed and deeply soulful, bizarrely connecting the dots between Fred McDowell, Pete Williams, Nick Drake and the recently-departed John Martyn.

We weren't treated to Kelly Joe's unique slide technique last night, and he didn't play my favorite composition Taylor John, but he performed fabulous versions of other Phelps classics including The Anvil and a truly spellbinding version of Woody Guthrie's Pastures Of Plenty.

We need more of this kind of alchemy in Kyoto. So Kelly Joe, and all you other bluesy dreamweavers... don't be strangers, alright?

B. Some Minor Beefs

It was a great performance last night which I thoroughly enjoyed.

But I have a couple of minor beefs.

Firstly, the show started at 7PM, which in my view is way too early, especially for a Saturday night. The Japanese - probably more than most nationalities - need a few drinks to loosen up a bit, and the atmosphere in the club was almost unbearably stiff before Kelly Joe took to the stage. The club was emptied by 9PM, no sense of occasion having been established.

This is a common occurrence at Japanese shows, but it's become no less irritating in the seven years I've been living here.

Indeed, things don't seem to have changed that much since the sixties. The Beatles enjoyed a successful 1966 tour of Japan, but were turned off by the obsessive punctuality and clinical over-organization.

I mean, it's rock 'n' roll, innit?

Most performers would, I'm sure, prefer to play for a crowd which has had an opportunity to settle in, enjoy a couple of drinks and unwind before the performance begins. I'm willing to bet Mr. Phelps rarely, if ever, plays so early on his travels.

My second gripe is the fact that there was no support act last night. Entrance was 6,000 yen on the door. At present exchange rates that's a hefty US$60.00 or UK£41.00 for a ninety-minute set.

My complaint isn't with the performer. Kelly Joe Phelps is a world-class musician who traveled a long way to play here, and Kyoto rarely sees such outstanding western talent. One expects to pay a bit more for top-notch live music in Japan.

But surely the club could have found a support act to warm up the crowd, create a sense of expectation for the headliner, stretch the night out and increase bar profits!

There are many talented local blues musicians who would, I'm sure, have jumped at the chance of such a high-profile slot for little or no financial reward.

On my recent visit to the UK, I saw the fantastic Martin Simpson. The support act was a local folkie whose twenty minute-warm-up really put the audience in the mood for the main attraction.

The show cost ten quid. A tenner, to watch one of the world's top folk acts.

So come on, club owners. Let's make a night of it.

There is a recession on, you know.

Concerto for Bacon and Eggs

2009-03-27T08:13:00.010+09:00

Beethoven's Violin Concerto
Farewell Fry-up
Regency Cafe, Pimlico, London

On the last morning of my recent visit to London I decided the ideal finale would be to head down to the world famous Regency Cafe for a farewell fry-up.

Apart from having featured in the fair to middling gangster movie Layer Cake (featuring Bond star Daniel Craig), the Regency is famous for being one of the capital's premier 'greasy spoon' cafes.

It serves up yer classic British fried breakfast as well as delicious pies, pasties and fish 'n' chips.

Low cholesterol it ain't.

But if it's good enough for James Bond, it's good enough for me.

I opt for the classic combo: bacon, eggs, sausages, tomatoes, toast and tea - with dark sauce, of course - though the huge menu hanging over the counter offers a bewildering number of variations on a theme:

"You want that with beans or tomatoes? How about mushrooms? Sausage or black pudding?"

"You want yer eggs fried or scrambled?"

" POACHED!!? What are you, a ponce!?"

I must say the Regency's high-fat feast is nearly as good as my mum's, and for a fiver it's a deal. Crucially the tea comes in huge navvy-type mugs. None of yer airy-fairy china cups here, mate.

After the rarefied continental cuisine I'd scarfed in Barcelona last week, the Regency provided a welcome touch of earthiness. Patrons included workmen on their extended tea breaks - resplendent in reflective orange jackets - office workers and a few curiosity-seekers like me.

The hearty atmosphere is delightfully offset by the classical music which comes wafting over the cafe's hi-fi. As I was expertly fashioning a bacon, egg and tomato sarnie, Beethoven's violin concerto provided a relaxing, almost transcendent accompaniment.

Although we Brits like our breakfast lip-smackingly greasy with lashings of hot char to wash it down, we're a cultured lot, too. To us there's nothing the least bit incongruous about fried eggs and Faure or sausages and Salieri.

In fact I have it on excellent authority that the great classicists were mighty partial to a fry-up. Beethoven couldn't play a note until he'd scoffed his bacon and eggs, while Brahms banqueted on baked beans and Mozart was mad about mushrooms on toast.

With dark sauce, of course.

Beatlemaniacs

2009-03-24T14:12:00.014+09:00

The Beatles' London:
Abbey Road Studios and 3 Savile Row

Today I decided to play tourist and fulfil a long-time ambition by visiting two Beatles landmarks: Abbey Road Studios and 3 Saville Row.

Abbey Road Studios

Finding Abbey Road is easy. Leave the London Underground at St. John`s Wood Station. You'll find Grove End Road directly in front of you.

Walk for about seven minutes and you come to a war monument in the middle of an intersection. Turn sharp right and gasp! there you are! face to face with the most famous road crossing in the world.

You have be either insane or a confirmed Beatlemaniac - not that there's any difference - to be excited by a road crossing. But I must admit I was quite overcome with emotion for a minute. In fact tears streamed down my face as I stood on this spot.

It's no exaggeration to say that - musically and culturally - The Beatles have meant everything to me and changed my life in ways I cannot begin to describe. They represent the premier cultural experience of my life and have given me more pure joy than any other performer or artist.

There are those who will scoff at that, but there it is.

Thus it was that - trying to pretend I wasn't silly - I walked across the famous crosswalk a few times to convince myself I was really there.

Just a few yards past the crossing is the legendary Abbey Road Studios where The Beatles cut most of their classic songs. This was the crucible which produced There's a Place, I Wanna Hold Your Hand, She Said, She Said, Day in the Life, and Hey Jude. Those songs are almost holy writ to a fan like me, as they are to millions of others.

Together with a few other Beatlemaniacs I stood and gaped at the nondescript white building. Seeing it is something like visiting Picasso's studio or Shakespeare's birthplace. I recognized the steps leading up to the studios from old interviews I'd seen with Lennon and McCartney.

Unfortunately there are no organized tours of the studios and entry is forbidden. Too bad. What I would have given for ten minutes in Studio One, where the band recorded.

As I left Abbey Road I had a lump in my throat and I gave thanks for the huge effect The Beatles had on my life. When I was five years old their debut album made a cataclysmic impact on me. Now I'm pushing fifty and perhaps the last music I ever hear will be a Beatles song. The circle will be complete and that'll be fine by me.

Savile Row

There isn't much to see at 3 Savile Row, but this was the original headquarters of Apple Records, background to Allen Klein's hostile take over of the Beatles in 1969 and the point where the split between McCartney and Lennon/Harrison/Starr became final. If you want to know all the grisly details, read Peter McCabe and Robert D. Sconfeld's superb Apple to the Core.

The building's frontage is familiar to viewers of The Beatles Anthology series since it features prominently in the episode dealing with the group's breakup. Assorted 'Apple Scruffs' can invariably be seen hanging around outside Number 3 in the hope of catching a glimpse of their heroes.

On a more positive note 3 Savile Row is the location of the famous rooftop concert which is the band's final live performance and the highlight of the depressing Let it Be movie. The Beatles, Mary Hopkin, Badfinger, James Taylor and others all recorded in the building's basement studio.

Naturally you can't mention Savile Row without referring to tailoring. This is where The Beatles had all their famous suits fashioned by Nutters, the first shop to pioneer 'open' windows. John, Paul and Ringo are all wearing Nutters' suits on the cover of Abbey Road.

a

Catalan Meditation

2009-03-19T12:31:00.004+09:00

Unknown Guitar Player
Reco de la Calma, Sitges, Catalonia

The picturesque cultural oasis of Sitges lies 35km south-west of Barcelona. It' enjoys a stunning location, between the Parc Natural del Garraf and the shimmering waters of the Mediterranean.

Sitges is a modern resort with a sizable foreign and gay contingent, and also has a a fascinating history. To wander its ancient streets is to be transported to a time when Spain and England wrestled for dominance of the seas. In the 1900s Sitges became a center of Spanish painting and during the Franco dictatorship was the only counter cultural center on the mainland.

Sitges was the perfect place for my friend and I to downshift after two hectic days of overindulgence in Barcelona. On a gloriously sunny day we wandered its streets and soaked up its historic atmosphere.

As we entered Reco de la Calma we were greeted by the gorgeous sound of acoustic guitar reverberating off the stone walls. A local guitar player had installed himself on the steps of a local church and was entertaining day trippers with exquisite Spanish-inflected versions of familiar tunes.

As a boy I would have sold my soul to be a Spanish guitar player. Thrilling to the marvellous Manitas de Plata, I felt there was no higher calling than to be a flamenco prodigy. Nothing seemed more romantic or life affirming.

As I've become older this feeling has remained. Through the years I've continued to admire flamenco geniuses like the traditionalist master Paco Pena and the iconoclastic Paco de Lucia.

As the unknown artist performed his Catalan meditations, I closed my eyes and felt the sun kiss my face. The fantasist in me came to the fore, and I imagined myself as a flamenco master, entertaining the drunken punters of a boozy Spanish bodega, quaffing vino tinto and tearing off one dizzying rasgueado after another.

Guitar Great

2009-03-17T10:47:00.004+09:00

Live: Martin Simpson
Taylor John's House, Coventry, UK

It's a long while since I visited my home town of Coventry, famous for Lady Godiva, The Special AKA and The Willie Carr Donkey Kick. But my return last night was made memorable thanks to a fabulous performance by Martin Simpson, one of the world’s leading folk guitarists.

Taylor John's House is a small, friendly venue and we were lucky to see Martin in such an intimate space. Some hilarity and confusion ensued as my friend - Jon Taylor - asked the door woman for our tickets.

Although he is a guitar wizard, effortlessly unleashing torrents of notes from his fretboard, Simpson's technical accomplishment never distracts from the soulfulness of his renditions of blues, traditional folk, and his own highly individualistic compositions. A particular highlight was a fabulous version of Dylan's Buckets of Rain.

It's not for nothing that readers of Acoustic Guitar magazine voted Martin Simpson number 12 in the world in 2005, nor that his superb Prodigal Son was consistently voted one of the best albums of 2007.

Martin is a charming and entertaining raconteur, delighting the crowd with amusing anecdotes between songs. I can also testify - following a brief chat with the great man - that he's an incredibly likable and approachable chap.

I normally avoid meeting my musical heroes for fear of disappointment, but in this case I was mighty glad to make the acquaintance of one of Britain's guitar greats.

My Favorite Aunt

2009-03-15T19:53:00.002+09:00

Line Dancing
Camarthen, Wales

From ice skating to Olympic floor exercises, from Jazzercise to synchronized swimming, music and fitness are inextricably linked.

Another example is the worldwide phenomenon of Line Dancing. With its roots in country and western line-dance, it's a communal activity which involves groups of all ages and sizes who gather to learn steps of varying complexity. These are performed to the accompaniment of different musical styles - country, pop, techno and others.

The most popular routines become enshrined as line-dancing standards, and are then performed by different groups across the globe.

Naturally this kind of activity requires a leader and choreographer, and my favorite aunt teaches several line dance classes near her home in the beautiful rolling countryside of West Wales.

My aunt has always been the positive, active type and she's carved out quite a niche for herself as Wales' line-dancing answer to Bob Fosse.

I doubt you'll ever see me in a line dance - I've never been much of a joiner - but there's no doubt it's a great way to socialize and stay in shape.

Proof of this lies in the fact that, at 66, my aunt looks sensational, with a figure most women half her age would die for!

Mystery

2009-03-08T20:27:00.005+09:00

The Choir
Ely Cathedral
Cambridgeshire, England

On today's rainy spring afternoon my mother and I headed to rural Cambridgeshire to visit Ely cathedral, the Romanesque/Gothic masterpiece which is one of the architectural wonders of medieval England.

The great church sits imposingly atop the gentle slopes which lead away from the surrounding flatlands. As one approaches the monument, one feels - both literally and figuratively - that one is ascending to a higher plane, an effect no doubt intended by the builders of Ely.

It's a scene which I suppose has changed little in 1100 years, from the time when the cathedral first dominated the surrounding fens and the lives of the peasants who tilled the fields.

I doubt there was anything idyllic about rural existence in those far-off days. It must have been a hard life, subject to the whims of church, nature and political machinations.

Indeed, as I stood dwarfed by the magnificence of Ely, I pondered the bitter irony which lies encased in its ancient stone and mortar.

Although a sophisticated grasp of mathematics and engineering allowed cathedrals to be built, the purpose of these great buildings was not to open the minds of the populace to the revelations of science. It was rather to enslave them through a crippling fear of god and feudal dictate.

Few doubted the literal truth of a vengeful god, devils, angels and other man-made myths. Ignorance of the facts of the universe allowed superstition and blind obedience to hold sway.

And if I'd been a medieval peasant I'm sure I'd have thought no differently.

But if we're not careful, it's rather too easy to scorn the ways of the past, and the church did offer a guiding philosophy to its flock.

This is revealed with startling clarity when you immerse yourself in the sacred music of the period, as my mother and I discovered to our deep joy.

We were lucky enough to enter Ely as the cathedral choir was practicing for the approaching Evensong service. The works they performed - compositions by Byrd and Tallis - soared into the heavens, and American tourists and British weekenders alike stood entranced by their incantations.

There is surely no sound as heavenly as that of the human voice, reverberating around the walls of a great cathedral in praise of the mystery of creation.

As a boy, I sang male soprano with my school choir, performing hymns, madrigals and oratorios by Wesley and Handel. To participate in such music, whether as a listener or performer, is a holy, uplifting experience.

Though I'm not a religious believer, during my time at Ely I was overcome with wonder for the very fact of existence. I gave thanks for the charitable and communal impulses which Anglicanism has long engendered in Britain's national character.

It was this tenuous continuity between past, present and future which the cathedral choir expressed in its moving rendering of the liturgy, and I remembered - a little to my surprise - how glad I am to be an Englishman, to possess by accident of birth a connection with a long and colorful history.

As the choir ended its practice, my mother and I left the great church. It was then that the rain clouds suddenly parted, and we laughed and smiled at one another with joy and gratitude.

Spinal Cracker

2009-03-03T09:34:00.021+09:00

The Beatles (Rock)
iPod choice: Come Together (Apple, 1969)

Part 1: Manifesto

If it now seems rather dangerous - or even quaint - to imagine that getting stoned and screwing your brains out could free your mind, relatively few hippie intellectuals doubted the fact in 1969.

Rejection of the traditional mores underpinning western culture was a prerequisite for membership of the counter-cultural elite. And though the victories of feminism and social egalitarianism were necessary and crucial, the downside of bohemian radicalism was the relativistic "me first" attitude which continues to permeate western society.

The Beatles, above all other artists, reflected and signposted such changes, and John Lennon's spacey, stoned Come Together - the killer opener on The Fabs' swansong, Abbey Road - marks the point where the druggy idealism of the sixties gave way to the radicalism of the following decade.

The sound palette of Come Together is one of the most fantastic in The Beatles canon - the hypnotic, almost analgesic rhythm of Ringo's drums, McCartney's brilliantly evocative bass and piano, Lennon's urgent vocal and narcotic double-tracked guitar solo.

All in all, it's a stupefying concoction.

The apparent nonsense of the song's free association lyric is anything but. Rather it's an oblique, ambivalent ode to sexual politics, hipsterism and self-mythology.

The song isn't entirely successful in challenging its audience to unchain their imaginations through the liberation of language. Lennon had already achieved this to more stunning effect in his classic I Am the Walrus.

The clincher comes when Lennon concludes: "One thing I can tell you is you got to be free."

A summation of sixties pop libertarianism, that's the only manifesto you're ever gonna need.

Part 2: Pain and Pleasure
Dynasty Barber Shop and Massage, Taipei, Taiwan

One of the most intriguing lines in Come Together is its famous "spinal cracker" lyric. It supposedly refers to the traditional practice of Japanese women walking on their husbands' backs to loosen their spines.

I had the opportunity to experience this technique on a recent visit to Taipei. As I lay prone I was pummelled and stretched by a gifted and by no means diminutive Taiwanese masseuse.

Over the next 60 minutes I discovered muscles I didn't know I had and my friends were greatly amused by the groans emanating from my direction. If you ever find yourself in Taipei, allow me to recommend Dynasty Barber Shop and Massage for a heady combination of pain and pleasure.

No Dice

2009-02-27T12:44:00.017+09:00

U2 (Rock)
LP: No Line on the Horizon (Interscope, 2009)

Confirmed Fan

Firstly let me say I love U2 and I’ve been a confirmed fan for thirty years. Sure, they’ve had their embarrassing moments - Bono’s messianic fervor, Adam’s early hairdos - but they’ve also recorded some thrilling, inspirational music, and Edge’s spiritual fusion of Celtic soul with digital technology redefined modern guitar playing.

During my student days their debut album Boy was the perfect accompaniment to my post-adolescent voyage of discovery. And I still remember that thrilling pivotal moment in their career when the band stole Live Aid with their incredible performance of Bad.

Shortly thereafter I spent the mid-eighties living in Southern California and hanging out with a bunch of Irish maniacs whose patron saints were - who else? - U2.

While we were getting crazy in the California desert, the soundtrack to our madness was The Joshua Tree, the band’s stunning odyssey through America’s spiritual hinterland and one of the most emotionally compelling - and successful - mainstream rock albums ever recorded.

It’s been a long time since those heady days. U2 went on to world domination, tirelessly campaigned for social justice and humanitarian causes and continued to release reliably stirring, if not always artistically challenging, music.

In truth U2 haven't been half as experimental as they'd have you believe. Some say they should have called it a day by now, but whatever their strengths and weaknesses, their songs generally manage to worm their way into my brain after repeated listenings.

No Line on the Horizon

U2's new album is No Line on the Horizon. Let’s see how it measures up, track by track.

1. No Line on the Horizon
I'm afraid it’s not a promising start. The overall sensation is one of numbing boredom as Bono warbles with all seriousness: “She said ‘Time is linear’/Then she put her tongue in my ear.” What’s worse, The Edge’s wimpy guitar flourishes are uncharacteristically subdued.

2. Magnificent
For some reason I wanted to sing “Whooah Black Betty, Bam a lam” over the intro to this song, because it sure do sound like Ram Jam. It starts out with a sense of purpose and hearkens back to the U2 of yore with soaring guitars and Larry’s four to the floor beat.

But the track rapidly descends into bathos and you can sense the usual production team of Eno and Lanois creakily making “creative decisions” to squeeze some life into the whole mess. It pains me to say, as a great admirer of Eno, that his contributions throughout seem divorced from each track's inner context.

I don't know if he came up with the keyboard stabs which punctuate this song, but they sound lazy and underdeveloped.

Anyroad, magnificent it ain’t.

3. Moment of Surrender
Aah. This is more like it. Featuring an impassioned vocal, Moment of Surrender’s soulful, spiritual lament returns the band to their comfort zone as Bono emotes on “the rhythm of my soul”, “stations of the cross,” and suchlike.

Bono's edgy performance reminds me of In a Little While from All That You Can't Leave Behind, where his cracking vocal was recorded following an all night alcohol binge. Methinks our Paul should get shit-faced more often if this is the result. Even here, though, the song's a tad predictable and Edge's guitar lines sound hesitant and prosaic.

Almost, but not quite, a U2 classic.

4. Unknown Caller
Oh God, what’s this? U2 ape the Human League!? Not a pretty sight. The problem I’m starting to see here is that you can’t bloody sing most of these songs, they’re so lacking in melody. It really hurts to say this because boy do I love this band.

5. I’ll Go Crazy if I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight
Well, I can sympathize with the sentiments expressed in the title, because we all have to let our hair down sometime. Let’s see if the music and lyrics live up to it.

Oops, no dice. As expected, the song’s about pushing the boundaries and letting go, but the words are so meaningless they could have been written by Noel Gallagher.

6. Get on Yer Boots
The driving riff and electronic farts cannot disguise the fact that this is easily U2’s worst single ever, and a prime contender for the lousiest ever song title.

When you are next staggering in front of the karaoke machine, I defy you to sing-along to, “I’ve got a submarine/You’ve got gasoline/I don’t want to talk about war between nations.”

Hang on, lemme just spin it again to confirm how atrocious it is.

Yep, right first time. A toss-up between this one, Mofo, Miami or God Part II as U2’s worst ever track.

7. Stand Up Comedy
After a spirited Led Zeppish intro come some not unexpected references to humanitarianism, terror, African children and the absurdities of rock stardom.

Worthy topics they may be, but lyrically this is on a par with all of U2’s recent albums - a withering litany of sense impressions and clichéd observations from Bono’s global jaunts with no overarching theme or focus. So not funny.

8. FEZ-Being Born
The first rock song since Steely Dan’s Fez to, er, mention a fez (actually it's about the Moroccan city where the album was recorded, not that you can tell), this is one of those aimless disasters which bands excuse by calling them ‘experimental’.

Just to give some idea of how bad this is, it could be a reject from any of the last four Bowie albums. The instrumental breaks make no sense whatsoever and I haven’t got a clue what Bono’s on about. Something to do with The Bay of Cadiz.

You can usually rely on The Edge to provide a few minor miracles, but one of the most depressing aspects of this album is how even he falters on almost every song. Eight tracks in, and so far there hasn’t been one jaw-dropping guitar moment, no, not even a Vertigo or Beautiful Day.

9. White as Snow
Alarms started going off in my head after I read that Bono "got tired of [writing in] the first-person so [he] invented all these characters; a traffic cop, a junkie, a soldier serving in Afghanistan."

I can’t quite identify which folk song they’re ripping off here, but even if he’s adopting a character, Bono singing about going hunting with his brother doesn’t quite ring true, not for a guy from Glasnevin. White as Snow is pretty only in the most vapid sense of the word.

10. Breathe
Starting with thundering drums this is one of those familiar U2 arms outstretched embracing the universe anthems. It’s one of the better tracks on offer here and hard to dislike. Shoulda been the single.

11. Cedars of Lebanon
The keyboard intro strangely echoes Brian Eno and Harold Budd’s ambient classic The Pearl. Is this a coincidence? Considering Eno co-produced this album, I don’t think so.

Anyway the track - a blissed out meditation on marital(?) discontent (is all well chez Hewson?) - ambles along with a nice mellow groove, tasty ambient guitar from Edge and an atmospheric semi-spoken vocal.

There hasn’t been anything quite like this on any other U2 album, which to my mind is a good thing. It's a great track and a more than decent closer but unfortunately it’s too little too late.

For some, maybe it's enough that U2 still have the energy and the will to create records. Fans will purchase No Line on the Horizon in the millions, and it's already been praised to high heaven by Rolling Stone and their ilk. However, Moment of Surrender, Breathe, and Cedars of Lebanon aside, No Line on the Horizon plays it too safe. Much as I love Dublin's finest, this predictable collection isn't classic U2.

Play the U2 Video Game!
Get on Yer Boots. How long can you stand it?
(My record so far, 1 minute 15 secs!)

Liquid Morphemes

2009-02-26T09:28:00.013+09:00

Japanese Band Names

Bump of Chicken

Many jokes have been cracked at the expense of Japanese language learners. Namely their difficulty in distinguishing between the 'R' and 'L' sound in spoken English.

Such cheap shots are entirely unfair since these sounds simply don't exist in the Japanese language. Linguists refer to them as the retroflex ('R') and lateral ('L') phonemes of the liquid morpheme.

In any case, the problem works both ways. Japanese has a sound which is a combination of 'R' and 'L'. Thus, a Japanese name like 'Ryoko' should be pronounced with a sound which is somewhere between an 'R' and an 'L' and which is, as far as I know, uniquely Japanese. Most foreigners fail to enunciate this sound correctly, preferring to reduce it to a simple 'R'.

For music fans, one entertaining by-product of this language point is its effect on Japanese band names.

The most famous example is the case of Glay, the Japanese superstars who are known for their androgynous look and outrageous hairdos. They make records too, but I wouldn't bother with those if I were you.

Anyway, the official explanation of the band's strange name is that it was a deliberate mispelling of the word 'gray', intended to represent their style of music, a mixture of rock (black) and pop (white).

The more likely explanation is that, like many of their countryfolk, the band simply confused the spelling and fell victim to the familiar 'R' and 'L' problem.

In the case of Tokyo ska punks Shaka Labbits, the confusion is intentional, since the band wished to combine their favorite animal, the rabbit, with the phrase 'Love it'.

Er, fair enough, I guess.

An amusing language error was definitely the reason behind the strange name of Tokyo punks Thee Machine Gun Elephant. When they recorded a cover version of a song on The Damned's Machine Gun Etiquette album, a friend mispronounced the name.

Like many western bands, Japanese rockers often pay homage to their cultural heroes when choosing a label. I immediately recognized The Mad Capsule Markets' moniker from a William Gibson novel. T-Bolan were obviously inspired by T. Rex vocalist Marc Bolan, though to the westerner the intended tribute seems rather trite.

It's fun trying to guess the hidden meaning behind the more esoteric Japanese band names. In the case of Chiba rockers Bump of Chicken I like to imagine their name refers to the goosebumps fans feel when listening to their music.

Blankey Jet City's name suggests emptiness and urban ennui, which is quite appropriate considering most of their songs deal with issues like juvenile delinquency and broken homes.

Tokyo metal act Maximum the Hormone inexplicably used to write their name in Latin script, but their sobriquet certainly conjures the testosterone-fueled energy of much metal music. Unfortunately, the band suck.

In some cases, band names serve only to baffle the listener. Tokyo Yankees seem to be confusing music with sports, but other names simply defy understanding. What are The Autopsy Report of Drowning Shrimp about? Or Doping Panda? Coaltar of the Deepers? Guniw Tools? Your guess is as good as mine.

Some Japanese bands have great names. Lunkhead and Melt Banana are particular favorites and their noms de guerre make me want to hear their music. Likewise The Pees. I have a feeling they'd get on rather well with my old band The Pubes.

Everyone has his limits, though. I wonder if HIDE with Spead Beaver or Sound Masturbation really know how their names sound to westerners? And I can assure you I won't be getting together anytime soon with either Bathtub Shitters, Pussy Pudding, Flying Testicles or The Garlic Boys.

Delicious Intensity

2008-12-27T18:11:00.001+09:00

Sounds of 2008
16. TV On the Radio: Family Tree

A long, long time ago I was smitten by a red-haired beauty. We were as happy as any lovers could be. Until I met her family.

They were a dysfunctional coven of religious maniacs who despised our contentment, and endeavoured to undermine it at every turn.

As perverse a lovers' ballad as you could imagine, the disturbing imagery of Family Tree - "Brought down by an old idea / The shadow of the gallows of your family tree" - brings back those dark days with delicious intensity.

Does blood run thicker than water? Since those days I've never been sure.

Video: Family Tree

Neo-Soul Gem

2008-12-26T15:05:00.004+09:00

Sounds of 2008
15. Erykah Badu: Telephone

I've had a major bee in my bonnet for some time now about the bandying about of the term "r 'n' b."

Far divorced from traditional rhythm and blues music, r 'n' b has become a catch-all term for black - or black-influenced - music as a whole, anything from hip-hop to neo-gospel and 2-step.

Thus, anyone from Anthony Hamilton to Alicia Keys, Mariah Carey or ('scuse me while I barf) Craig David - are likely to be described as r'n'b, even where there's precious little rhythm or blues to be found in the grooves.

There's no doubt, though, that Erykah Badu's New Amerikah Part One LP deserves the moniker of r ' n ' b as it goes some way toward arresting the depressing decline of soul music over the last two decades.

Though it's defiantly hip-hop in tone, New Amerikah hearkens back to the heyday of avant-garde soul and invokes the spirits of Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, Sly Stone, Stevie Wonder and Funkadelic.

At a time when hip-hop has lost its way, ricocheting between self-parody and implosion, that can only be a good thing, and Badu surrounds herself here with fearless hip-hop/neo-soul avatars like Madlib and 9th Wonder.

Whether this record heralds a resurgence of black power I don't know. With a black president about to take office, it's not unimaginable. If D'Angelo ever gets around to releasing a follow-up to his definitive neo-soul masterpiece Voodoo - and if the recent re-emergence of classic soul in hip-hop becomes something more substantial - we might see the emergence of a new power in black music.

At any rate, this is an awesomely expansive, ambitious, politically charged record. Songs range from oblique inner explorations to biting social commentary.

Though it's occasionally frustrating in its high-art indulgence it's always a challenging and thought-provoking listen. One of my favorite tracks of the year was Telephone - an elegiac neo-soul gem.

Erykah Badu MySpace

Open Range

2008-12-25T12:19:00.010+09:00

Sounds of 2008
14. Drive-by Truckers: The Monument Valley

During my time in The United States I took two fabulous road trips through the glorious scenery of Arizona.

From the spectacle of Canyon De Chelly to the overwhelming Grand Canyon, Arizona offers one stunning experience after another.

But my favorite place in Arizona is Monument Valley. It has a calmness and spiritual atmosphere unequalled in the west.

The trip I took there with my dad was special. He's a big fan of western movies, particularly the John Ford classics which were shot in Monument Valley.

It was a dream come true for my dad as he gawped at the astonishing western scenery. He could hardly believe he was standing in the very place where his childhood movie fantasies were created.

Another time I visited Monument Valley with my friend Ian. I'll never forget the profound feelings I experienced while gazing through the 'North Window' across the magnificent plains.

As my mind reflected on the Navajos' unique bond with their land, I had what I think was the single most religious experience of my life. It became manifested in a sense of deep connection with the earth and a joyous awareness of my own insignificance.

Later that day, while dusk was falling, Ian and I sat on a butte overlooking the canyon as the local indians chanted ancient songs and beat their drums. The sky ran blood red, and as the echoes of indian lamentations filled the valley we were moved to tears.

On this year's fantastic Brighter than Creation's Dark LP, Drive By Truckers sing about "a time to turn your back on the comforts of home/ and wander round the Monument Valley alone." It's then you'll feel the pain and glory of history and the profound beauty of the open range.

Listen: Drive-by Truckers MySpace

Contagious

2008-12-12T07:21:00.020+09:00

Sounds of 2008
11. The Ting Tings: That's Not My Name

Popular culture seems to confirm the fact that, in terms of sexual politics, we've come a long way since I was a teenager.

TV Shows like Britain's Life on Mars ironically mock the boozy sexism - up with which women had to put - of the seventies. In the USA, Sex and the City humorously explores the modern woman's uneasy rapprochement between independence, body clock and libido.

On the music scene, powerful women are everywhere. The stance of Third Wave 'Riot Grrl' bands like Bikini Kill has influenced mainstream rock. On the contemporary scene Li'l Kim, Beyonce, Amy Winehouse, Beth Ditto, and many more are highly visible, in-your-face performers.

Despite that, many of my generation - those who came of age during an era of issues-driven punk defined by Rock Against Racism and the raucous feminism of The Slits - have been dismayed by the lack of awareness displayed by many young British females.

Confusing yobbish dissolution with emancipation, they indulge in gross behavior such as binge drinking and sexual self-abasement, the latter shamelessly exploited by internet porn barons.

It's the noughties female equivalent of New Laddism - shallow, reactionary, and most unhelpful to the cause of women.

Matters aren't improved by the appallingly crass level of public discourse - chiefly male-driven - recently seen rearing its head on mainstream British TV.

Lewd and inappropriate comments chat host Jonathan Ross made to his 'guest' Gwyneth Paltrow were offensive and beyond the pale. Is this how women are to be addressed - in 2008 - in a public entertainment forum? Shameful.

Consciousness-raising is perhaps not what British indie popsters The Ting Tings are about - the title of their album is We Started Nothing.

The duo are far removed from grrl power - they're half male for a start - nevertheless I think I detect the hint of a feminist message in their catchy single That's Not My Name: "Are you calling me darling? Are you calling me bird?"

I'd like to see The Ting Tings become a tad more upfront about their sexual politics, since their schtick is neither subversive nor original enough - it rips off Toni Basil's Micky something rotten.

But I have to admit That's Not My Name has a contagious chorus which I wish I'd thought of first, and it's a track I've greatly enjoyed all year.

Video: That's Not My Name

Irresistible

2008-12-11T17:17:00.004+09:00

Sounds of 2008
10. Wiley: Wearing My Rolex

If u had no clue what electro-grime was at the beginning of this year, u sure did by the end of the summer when 'Roll Deep' Wiley had a major hit on his hands.

It was hardly deep and meaningful, but it was irresistible from start to finish. And made even better by the brilliant fan video which reimagines the song as a Macca nightmare. Check it out!

Video: Wearing My Rolex (fan video)

Barbs

2008-12-11T15:17:00.008+09:00

Sounds of 2008
9. Randy Newman: A Few Words in Defense of Our Country

I say with no sense of satisfaction that when Dubya first got elected president I predicted the consequences would be woeful for America and the world.

Not exactly a hard call for anyone with half a brain, but in the end things turned out worse than even I expected.

It's a far from impressive record. Thousands dead in Iraq. Human rights abuses in Abu Graib, Guantanamo and elsewhere. An ineffectual response to Hurricane Katrina. Hubris and deceit on a grand scale from a closed-minded administration which refused to listen to reason.

Bush's legacy: terror unabated, America's economy in tatters, its reputation abroad in shreds.

Randy Newman nails Bush and his cronies - but real good - in A Few Words in Defense of Our Country, one of the highlights of this year's excellent Harps and Angels album. His chief weapon, as usual, is an hilarious sense of irony.

Americans aren't bad or mean, he reasons. Nor are her leaders - noxious as they are - the worst the world has ever seen. Not, that is, when compared to The Spanish Inquisition, Caligula and Hitler.

Newman also takes vicious - and completely justified - swings at the Supreme Court and Bush's misguided policy of color-coded terror.

They're obvious barbs at easy targets. But set against arrangements which echo Newman's superb movie soundtracks they work splendidly.

Although he ends with the words, "The end of an empire's messy at best / This empire's ending like all the rest," you can tell that amid the disappointment Randy still believes in the American Dream and the healing power of a good belly laugh.

And since a Norwegian university study recently concluded that people who easily find humor in real life situations outlive those who don't, I've no doubt Mr. Newman will continue as one of our sharpest social commentators for years to come.

Listen: A Few Words in Defense of Our Country:

Serenity

2008-12-11T06:23:00.005+09:00

Sounds of 2008
8. Burial: Etched Headplate

As if Burial's amazing 2007 debut wasn't enough, with 2008's Untrue he refines his sound, finding dignity, serenity even, amid the urban grime.

It's difficult to make out the words, which is intentional. What emerges through the haze is a portrait of a soul grappling with survival.

Deep, soulful, and miles ahead of the competition, it's a stark yet tender portrait.

LISTEN: Etched Headplate:

How did we get here?

2008-12-11T06:08:00.007+09:00

Sounds of 2008
7. Flobots: Handlebars

Last Saturday I recovered from a hangover after drinking too much sake, felt a pain in my left eye, had a lunch date in Japanese, cooked coq au vin, went drinking with a Scottish software consultant and enjoyed sexual congress, though not with the Scotsman.

Sometimes I wonder how we manage to hold it all together, this fantastic,unlikely existence lived in bars, offices, trains, restaurants, cyberspace and bedrooms.

New to me, if not to the hipsters, Flobots' Handlebars starts out as yer common rock-rap bragfest before mutating into something more substantial - a celebratory lament for the dizzying range of possibilities facing a human life.

Asking "How did we get here?" it's also an investigation into the uneasy co-existence of creativity and oppression, and the fact that as a species we humans are simultaneously innocent and terrifying.

Devotional

2008-12-11T05:57:00.008+09:00

Sounds of 2008
6. Qu'ran Recital, Kuwaiti Mosque

I discovered some stunning Qu'ran recitations on You Tube one balmy summer evening this year.

Ironically, I came across them while I was browsing some of my favorite atheist clips including many featuring the estimable Sam Harris.

Whatever your religious beliefs, this is a profound, affecting devotional, a reminder there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy.

Ultraglide

2008-12-10T11:31:00.011+09:00

Sounds of 2008
5. Radiohead: Bodysnatchers

Even though it came out in 2007, this thrill-a-second joyride from In Rainbows refused to budge from my playlist for most of this year.

From one moment to the next Bodysnatchers is absolute perfection. The opening riff echoes The Beatles' Within You Without You (sez I, no one else seems to agree with me) then the band switches to full attack mode in their own inimitable style.

Thom Yorke expounds on familiar Radiohead themes of sensory overload and post-millenium angst (“I’ve no idea what I’m talking about / I’m trapped in this body and I can’t get out”) and the crushing pressures of fame (“You can fight it like a dog / It brought me to my knees / They got scared and they put me in.”)

And it just keeps getting better: the growling bass, the snarling guitars, the ranting vocals, the glorious moment at 2:08 where the guitars slip into one of those sublime Radiohead ultraglides. Bea…uuutiful.

Listen: Bodysnatchers

Unknown Treasures

2008-12-10T11:04:00.016+09:00

Sounds of 2008
4. Fleet Foxes: Mykonos

One glorious afternoon last August I was swinging on a beach hammock in Koh Phangan, Thailand. Feeling reflective I gazed across the shimmering waters at the island of Koh Tao.

I had recently come out of a relationship and I suppose in that kind of setting any great pastoral pop could send shivers down the spine. But Mykonos is truly special and its lyrics got right under my skin: “With a vision of a gentle coast / And a sun to maybe dissipate / Shadows of the mess you made.”

The chorus of “Wherever you go" made me feel I could never be alone again, while the Neil Young vocal cadences, insistent thrust of the guitars and gorgeous accapella section created a feeling of pushing away from disaster toward the bounty of as yet unknown treasures.

Listen: Mykonos

Pop Heaven

2008-12-10T10:48:00.008+09:00

Sounds of 2008
3. Plants and Animals: Lola Who?

Montreal seems like a bottomless pit of musical talent these days, the ambitious pop of Plants and Animals being a case in point. Their expansive, symphonic sound is recognizably pop but still like nothing you’ve heard.

I’ve been in thrall to this one since I first heard it. The song – a tribute to feminine perfection methinks – builds and builds until the ardor is too much to contain. Then Kinks-style guitar jabs and Revolveresque riffs propel the tune into pop heaven. And these guys are only a trio? Jeez.

http://www.myspace.com/plantsandanimals