705.
David
Byrne + Brian Eno - mea culpa
Pivotal,
seminal, pioneering – My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts is more than
just an album without a weak link. It changed music. Like a
soundtrack for all your favourite fever dreams. Which meant it was
great for epic doses of LSD, assuming you're up to it. I wasn't
always. I recall once hearing Mea Culpa at gloomy, January dusk, a
riverbank, a cold breeze blowing. We were in the flight path of the
local airport. I was convinced an incoming plane was crashing. Then
I realized, it wasn't the plane. It was me.
703.
Embryo
- Strasse Nach Asien [randoEDIT]
It's
1979. The 60s are over, gone, get over it. Or, if you're a crowd of
German hippies with hot musical chops, pile into a bus with a film
crew and a load of recording gear and go further, go east, across
Persia, Afghanistan, down the sub-continent into India, mix it up
with masters and untouchables, deliver something timeless.
702.
T-Rex
- Buick MacKane
We
were arguing just the other night, Motron and myself. What's the
essential T-Rex album? I was on the side of 1971's Electric Warrior.
He wasn't budging from the next one, 1972's Slider. My argument was
simple enough. NOTHING could ever top Bang A Gong, heard by my
ears a million times, yet my ears still weren't tired. He countered with
Buick MacKane, heavy and wild. And more to the point, "A girl
named Buick.
Did her parents call her that? Was it a nick-name? Did she
actually legally change her name? But I don't want to know the real
answer. The song is answer enough." We stopped arguing, drank
more Scotch.
701.
Black
Sabbath - of confusion
The
official history lesson would be something like, " … after
three albums inventing and defining what would eventually come to be
the CORE of heavy metal – it was time for Black Sabbath to expand,
roll with the progressive changes of the moment, but still stay
HEAVY." But for me, twelve or thirteen, catching random pieces
on late night radio, it was just this unimaginably DEEP stuff that
seemed to be about everything that was weird and wrong with the
world. Wheels of Confusion indeed, crushing anything that got in
their way. And so cool.
700.
Robert
Fripp + Peter Gabriel - exposure [randoEDIT]
Exposure's
a song (for lack of a better word) that Peter Gabriel and Robert
Fripp put together for Gabriel's second album … with PUNK erupting
in the background. Bleak, abrasive, creepy – it was determined (it
seems) to drive some kind of a wedge. Then, to drive the point home,
Fripp made it the title track of his 1979 solo album (his first
release after five years in the wilderness, laying low, hanging with
various mystics and disciplinarians). Attached now was a different
singer (a woman named Terre Roche) who took things even further than
Mr. Gabriel to the point of HURTING. Because, to quote Mr. Fripp, "
… the old world, characterized by large, unwieldy and vampiric
organizations, was dead." And what did the new one sound like?
Small, independent, mobile, intelligent. And definitely up for a
fight.
698.
Dave
Davies - death of a clown
A
darned fine single from the English version of the Summer Of Love,
which I wouldn't hear until at least the mid-90s -- my post-grunge
phase where I'd listen to pretty much anything that wasn't heavy,
angry, and in need of a shave and a haircut. Reminds me of former
roommate Dale who had it on one of his all-time fave mixtapes, right
next to some John Coltrane as I recall. The mid-90s were like that.
696.
Eric
Clapton - lonesome and a long way from home
Every
life has its earworms. This is definitely one of mine. Always just
hanging there, ready to slip into consciousness when I'm feeling
sorry for myself. Not that I've ever been a huge Eric Clapton fan
(Hendrix was always more relevant, and Jimi Page, Steve Howe, Neil
Young, Duane Allman). Nor have I been perpetually lonely, and where
the hell is home anyway? "It's over there somewhere," as
my friend Steve used to say, "Always over there."
694.
Captain
Beefheart - Dachau blues
It's
1969 and, with the likes of Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin stomping
the terra, the blues just keep getting heavier and heavier. But the
Captain's way beyond all that. He knows there's no blues heavier
than those Final Solution Blues – as lowdown evil as it ever got.
From an album where everything else is full-on DADA to the point of
utter mayhem, there's no doubt what this one's about.
693.
Einsturzende
Neubauten - morning dew
It's
hard to even imagine now what it must've been like to be living in
Berlin (east or west) in the mid-1980s. Cold War on steroids,
nuclear Armageddon more imminent than at any time since the early
1960s, and you're right there, where the two opposing worlds meet.
Yeah, the Wall's doomed to come down in a couple or three years, but
you don't know that. As far as you're concerned, it's an eternal
fact, obscene and blazing hot with friction. So what do you do about
it? You dig deep, sing the blues, maybe smash a few chunks of
genuine heavy metal.
692.
Al
Kooper + Stephen Stills - season of the witch
It's
called Super Session (Al Kooper, Mike Bloomfield + Stephen Stills) but read the fine
print and you'll discover they all never actually play
together on the same song. But so what? It's hot stuff anyway and the Stephen Stills
extended jam on Donovan's creepy Halloween hit goes all kinds of cool
places.
691.
Clash
- the call up
Have
I raved enough yet about how indispensably, imperfectly essential
Sandinista is? Three slabs of vinyl, thirty-six songs, jams, dubs,
meltdowns, whatever you want to call them. Not World Music but what
the world actually sounded like in 1980 (everything as always
happening at once). Including war, here-there-everywhere, young men
being called up for duty, all too often heeding it. Which is what the
Call-Up's about. Don't fall for it, young man. Remember, there's a
rose you want to live for.
690.
Camel
- Nimrodel
It
must've made perfect sense at the time (the early-mid 70s). Let's
write rock songs about Lord Of The Rings stuff. Of course, most of
what the world ended up hearing was pretty dumb (even Led Zeppelin
fell into that hole). But there's something about Nimrodel (by
Camel) that still works. Maybe it's the lack of vocals, and the
tendency of the singer to mumble what little he does sing, so you
don't really focus on how silly it is. Or maybe it's just the smooth
and beautiful sweep of it all, like great winds blowing in off the
desert, which isn't really Middle-Earthian at all. More Eastern. One
thing is clear. It was great stuff to listen to you when you were
high. Still is.
689.
Public
Image Ltd - ease
Nobody
saw this coming in the mid-80s – Johnny Rotten hooking up with Bill
Laswell, Ginger Baker, Riuchi Sakamoto, Stevie Vai, and cranking out
the closest thing to Led Zeppelin HEAVY anybody had heard in better
part of a decade. Loud, hard, epic even, with Ease being the track
that takes things the furthest. Hell, I'm still trying to catch it.
No comments:
Post a Comment