Piano Man

Dear James,

Here's two new discoveries:
1, Type "Old Grey Whistle Test" into youtube and admire the goodies it showers upon you;
2, Billy Joel with a moustache. Any chance we can do an occasional series of performers we don't usually associate with moustaches who at some stage had a moustache? I'm sure you can find one of Phil Collins at the very least. I looked for one of Elton John, but came home empty-upperlipped.

You're a musician James - is it harder to play a harmonica and a piano, or a harmonica and a guitar? I'm tempted to phrase the question as "Is it easier to do a Billy Joel tribute act, or a Bob Dylan tribute act?" In which case, I think I've answered my own question. Speaking of tribute acts, we saw the Will Ferrell film Stepbrothers the other day which includes a lengthy Billy Joel joke. It's not tremendously funny, but then neither is the film, so in context it's tremendously funny. Not a patch on Blades of Glory, of course, but then what is?

Other Billy Joel songs off the Piano Man album I found are Travelin Prayer, possibly the silliest song to ever start an album (and that's coming from a Queen fan), and a wonderfully overfast rendition of Ain't No Crime, one of my favourite Joel songs, if only because he says it's OK to go out and get drunk. In 1973.



Those seeking further Joel-based entertainment might like to check out his 1982 nightschool. I'm going to watch it now, but only because I've already read this superb bilingual blog about life in Buenos Aires. Our 95 readers (!) would be well advised to head there first. There's photos and stuff.

Telephone Line

Dear James,

For every one of your cool-former-NME-reader posts, I post ELO. Besides, Wire were just an ELO rip-off. I was listening to this beauty on my way home and remembered this fact: All of ELO's videos from 1973 to 1980 were recorded in the same studio and on the same day, March 14th, 1973. For each video, ELO changed their clothes and facial hair in accordance with what they imagined would be the style over the coming year. Naturally, the songs were composed according to their predictions of the musical styles to come. The plan worked up to and including the 1979 album Discovery (or "Disco? Very!" as their fans call it), which made them the biggest selling act in the UK in 1979. Then it all went very wrong in 1981, for which ELO, having wrongly predicted that aliens would have invaded the planet and banned cellos, had recorded a synth-heavy, sci-fi album. The alien invasion failed to materialise and ELO went into eternal decline.

However, Jeff Lynne had one clever ace up his sleeve. The day after ELO recorded all their videos in one day, Jeff Lynne got pissed with his friends Bob Dylan, George Harrison and Roy Orbison, oh, and Tom Petty, I always forget him, and drunkenly tossed off a load of ironic 60s pastiches. Lynne then released the recordings in 1988, against the wishes of Harrison, Dylan, et al, and called it the Travelling Wilburys. True story.

I'm off to play snooker.

Dear Daniel,

Not sure what you're getting at with the NME-reader thing but it leads me to thinking that, over various years, I read Select, Mojo, Q, Melody Maker, Smash Hits and Look In and I'm sure Wire were mentioned in at least 4 of them. I remember fondly the Look In Chairs Missing pullout section with lyrics: "The lives of lambs, the shepherd cries / An afterlife for a silverfish / Eternal dust less ticklish."

I'm happy for you to post ELO. At least it's not Anthrax. I love the Disco?Very! thing. You bought me Discovery on vinyl at the same time as Atomic Kitten's Be With You was in the charts. I really and truly wish pop writers would come up with original music which is both modern and timeless, stuff like this (I hope). More often than not, however, they're nicking stuff from old records. I remember being very disappointed that Be With You wasn't an original piece of music, but not as disappointed as I was when I found out that the Crazy in Love music was not original.

Dear James,

I was looking for Los Clasiqueros' cumbia cover of Las Train to London when I found this funny guy, trying to fit the literal Spanish translation over the original song. I giggled.



Here are those Clasiqueros:

Beggin

Dear James,

I´m writing this on Funseeker´s Mac, having failed for the 5th consecutive week to buy some speakers for my pc. Having mastered the computer at work, I´m now mastering this one. Bear with me, it might take a while. It just took me an hour to work out why the sound wasn´t working. The Mac was plugged into my amp, which was switched off.

So, adverts, eh? This one you´ll probably know from that sumptuously stylish Adidas ad and you´re probably sick of hearing it over there by now. Not here though, where music fads take a while to catch on, hence Iron Maiden´s enduring popularity. You may also have heard or seen this:



I´d be interested to know your wife´s views therein.

Stars that Play with Laughing Sam's Dice

Dear James,

I was watching one of those rock biography films last night of the type that should appear on the Hallmark channel but in this case appeared on VH1. You know the type, like the one which imagines what the conversation might have gone like when Paul McCartney and John Lennon met up in New York in 1975, with actors with a passing resemblance to the people in question and questionable accents. This particular one was about Jimi Hendrix, although the filmmakers didn't appear to have obtained the rights to include any Jimi Hendrix songs, so had him singing "Like A Rolling Stone" in a Hendrix styley, and also recreating the Wild Thing guitar burning bit. It was so dull, I switched over to Ray on the other channel, but even heroin and the devil's music couldn't keep me from going to bed.

Before turning over, I noted with curiosity that The Jimi Hendrix Experience once toured with The Soft Machine in support. The Soft Machine, who may even be called plain Soft Machine, is a band that has frequently piqued my interest, though never enough to bother watching anything on Youtube or download any of their songs illegally. Even now, in what is by all rights a Soft Machine post, I can't be bothered to look for videos, although this is mostly down to knowing that you'll have something up your sleeve and my being at work.

This much I know about The Soft Machine:
1. Robert Fripp was in them, and he's supposed to be this really good guitarist who features frequently in magazines like "Guitarist Monthly".
2. They were named after a William Burroughs novel. I used to be interested in William Burroughs, back in my subversive days, but the film for Naked Lunch was just a bit too boring.
3. Brian Eno might have had something to do with them, or I'm just making that up to suggest some tie-in with my previous post.
4. The chap in the wheelchair who sang "Shipbuilding" was in them too.

So as you can see, I'm at a bit of a loss and would appreciate any assistance. In return, I can tell you that Stars who Play with Laughing Sam's Dice was a b-side to Burning of the Midnight Lamp, the title includes a reference to LSD and to STP, and in common with most songs off Smash Hits, it brings back fond memories of my first girlfriend, Lucy.

Dear Daniel,

If Stars That Play... was the B-side of Burning of the Midnight Lamp, then that's my two favourite Hendrix moments in one concise package. If they'd put Crosstown Traffic and Fire (or just the comedy "let Jimi take over..." bit) in the run-off grooves, that would be the only Hendrix record I'd listen to.

I want to continue this reply as a new post, so that I can bring more attention to one of my favourite guitarists... it'll be Bowie's Fashion.

Dear James,

You don´t like Hendrix? All this time, and you never told me.

Gallows Pole

Dear James,

Concerned by the male-heavy direction the blog is taking, and eager to post another recently-dead folk singer, here's a lovely song from Odetta, who also popped up briefly in the Frank Zappa biography I claim to be reading, as well as in the Bob Dylan documentary I claim to have watched all the way through, where she played Water Boy. There was another very interesting folk singer in No Direction Home, with white hair, playing a stringed-instrument on his lap, but I neglected to note down his name. Not wanting to rely too heavily on our readership today, but if anyone has the inclination to watch the documentary here this and find out who it was, we'd be much obliged. Ex-girlfriends and stalkers need not apply.

I was just reading that Odetta started out life as a domestic servant, which is interesting because she bears more than a passing resemblance to my domestic servant. Maybe I should get Alejandra a guitar. Maybe I could pay her to watch No Direction Home until the appearance of a white-haired man playing what may or may not be a hurdy-gurdy.

Las increibles aventuras del señor tijeras

Dear James,

I was going to do a post about the UK Christmas number one, in light of that wonderful Alexandra girl's victory on Opportunity Knocks. I read in The Guardian that she "literally cried". Literally! Can you believe that? She didn't just cry cry, she literally cried. Anyway, then I saw the video to that evil satirist Peter Kay's Christmas song and only made it half way through before switching it off in disgust/boredom/the need to get to bed early. So I'm going to tell you about Sui Generis. No, not Genesis.

You'll know Sui Generis from a tape I sent you many moons ago which included their Cancion para mi muerte, or Song for my Death for those of us that don't have Spanish degrees. Well, last Saturday I found myself in the all-too familiar situation of an Argentinian asking me if I liked any Argentinian music, looking offended at the degree of negativity in my answer and then spending the rest of the evening trying to play me something I might like. This time it was one of Josefina's 297 cousins, Eduardo, and finally an Argentinian came good.

Las increibles aventuras del señor Tijeras, or the Incredible Adventures of Mr. Scissors, for those of us who thought a maths and chemistry degree would serve us well in life, being written in 1974 is about censorship, as you'll guess from the scissor sound effects at the start of the song. Taken from their third and penultimate album, the sound marks a change from the "hippies with a flute sitting round a campfire" aesthetic of their first two albums, and is all the better for it. In this respect, singer and songwriter Charlie (later Charly) Garcia is very much a latter day South American Dylan, although don't tell Argentinians that as they'll claim he's far huger than Dylan ever was, and indeed anyone else.

The things that made me like this song instantly are: 0:23 der der der der der der der der! 1:33 the "I'm bored of this musical direction, let's change in mid-song" moment of zen. Charlie had just got himself a new Moog from the States and couldn't wait till the next album to use it. My apologies for my use of the phrase "moment of zen", by the way. That's what we linguists call a snowclone. And then 2:45 when the synths come in, just when you thought the big musical change was at 1:33. One of Charlie/Charly's main influences was Procol Harum and Vanilla Fudge. I'm glad somebody was influenced by those bands.

Dear Daniel,

What wonderful, psychedelic nonsense. I love it. To me, there seems to be a gentle open-mindedness to this era of bizarre mixtures between Beatles-style harmony and avant-garde wierdness. A kind of engaging naivity which was completely missing from 70s prog rock, who is essentially the same hairdresser attempting the same job but with shinier scissors and an arrogant air of, "Who was the last person to cut this?".