Queen Nina

Despite the truth of the last post, I feel the need to share things I love with people, which makes it impossible to refrain from embedding this next short video. Nina Simone is a masterful singer and here she seems distracted, constantly probing for the emotion of the song. Such simplicity in the lyric, such adventure in the voice.

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Cave, man.

"Anything that anyone has to say outside making a record isn't that important." - Nick Cave

New Gravity

I've just got hold of a copy of Swithering by the poet Robin Robertson. Here's something pertinent he said in 2008:

"Art is difficult and I don't see why we should shy away from it. We live in such a disposable age that anything that needs a second thought is ignored. We are missing out on the real sustenance."

And here's a touching poem by Robertson:

New Gravity

Treading through the half-light of ivy

and headstone, I see you in the distance

as I'm telling our daughter

about this place, this whole business:

a sister about to be born,

how a life's new gravity suspends in water.

Under the oak, the fallen leaves

are pieces of the tree's jigsaw;

by your father's grave you are pressing acorns

into the shadows to seed.

This poem is from the collection, A Painted Field.

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What a load of old pony.

I must stop just rifling through YouTube... but until I do here's some more videos that caught my eye (but mostly my ear(s)).
Two of a perfect pair. Both sadly departed.

First up, the widescreen groan of Australian poet David McComb and his band The Triffids, accompanied by one of the naffest videos out there, but bear with it for a glimpse of McComb lip-synching in a field, looking like a lost soul. What a grand song.

Secondly, an example of great musicianship and an inventive, questing spirit from John Fahey, one of my favourite guitarists. An errant yet gifted man, by most accounts.



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Quicksilver fingers

Sometimes, late at night, I'll put on a record by Mississippi John Hurt in order to soothe me into a restful sleep. As with most blues singers, there's a despair and turmoil being described in many of the songs, but Hurt's voice is so gentle and comforting, and his guitar playing twists and twinkles, until, finally, the predominant feeling is of a softened joy.

This clip has a lovely, hesitant introduction in the days before television sanded off the edges of a performance and became a slicker vehicle. A simple song, yes, but you try playing it!

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Read between the lines.

Ladies and gentlemen, Lester Beall

I was looking at some Jan Tschichold (master typographer) layouts and then I saw this chap's work.
It was indicative of its time and although indebted to others, this has no impact on my enjoyment of it.
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Teenage Sundays

A friend of mine sent me this rough and ready footage of The Sundays singing My Finest Hour and it brought back a lot of feelings I'd had when I was younger. As a thirteen-year old, I found The Sundays to be the female-fronted version of The Smiths, with Harriet Wheeler's swooping voice also reminding me of a more lucid Elizabeth Fraser. These days, I think what strikes me most is the Englishness of the voice and the ringing guitar. Rhythmically, it's of its time, but there's a real strength in a woman singing "poetry is not for me", ironically, in a quite florid and 'poetic' context.

I was at a woman's house once and I wandered over to her pile of CDs to have a nosy, but she rightly admonished me for my typically-male habit. She said something like, "Don't go sniffing around and judging me by my taste in music - men always do that and make mental notes about my psyche". At least, that was the gist. Ever since, I've reigned in my eagerness to inspect people's belongings the first time I visit their house.

I'm also reminded of Tracyanne Campbell's lyrics on Camera Obscura's Swans: "No surprises in the record collection/You must've thought I was someone else", which is both a sad and withering song. The first time I heard it, it gave me a pang in my chest.



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Green With Envy

Here's some footage of a confident young man in total control of his own ability. The guitar rolls and growls as his smooth voice teases out a sorrowful tale. I will never be able to play the guitar as well as he does, but that's okay because this good stuff already exists. I'll just sit back and look on with wonder.

Radio Days

Whatever happened to the more literal film poster?

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Tony Amazes Me

My height ... just average

My weight ... just average

And my IQ is like you'd estimate, just average

But evidently she does not agree

Consequently, if I seem at sea ...

It amazes me, it simply amazes

What she sees in me

Dazzles me, dazes me

That I've learned to clip my wings

And soften my ways

These are ordinary things

Unworthy of praise

Yet she praises me

Just knowing I'd try for her

When so many would,

If they could,

Die for her

I'm the one who's worldly-wise

And nothing much phases me

But to see me in her eyes

It just amazes me.

When I listen to Tony Bennett, I listen to the more mature recordings. Every bump and bobble in his delivery has been earned.

'It Amazes Me' has such an air-tight form that when a master like Bennett gets hold of it, the song is like one long sigh of satisfaction.

Glorious.

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LoneLady This Christmas

I really like this picture. It's of a musician from Manchester, who's on Warp Records.

The grain of her suit and the shadows from her collar are both really important to its success. She's expressionless, which makes a change in a photograph meant to be seen by lots of people to 'promote' your music. No pouts, no scowls, no grins, no intensity - just light falling on the upper body of another person.

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Soft and Downey

What to do do on NYD (I assume people are abbreviating the day after, too)?

Pie, mash, peas and Clapton were on the menu for me. I was thumbing through a friend's record collection as vegetarian pie smells wafted through the air when I came across a copy of Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon & Garfunkel. For a serious record, it has a funny cover. It looks like Paul Simon's hair is a giant handlebar moustache drooping from Art Garfunkel's upper lip. I also pondered what it would be like to hear this record when it was released; to be part of a different time and to wonder how this now ubiquitous album fitted into its own socio-historical context. You can hear so much space on the key songs; such a gentle merger of voices and sounds. Imagine if it was coming out tomorrow (download only).

This was followed by a walk in the deep snow where my foot became submerged enough for the snow to cover my toes and look like it was wiggling about of its own accord, before crumbling in the silence.

Going to the big pictures was a snap decision, but when the main roads are slushy, the bright lights and shiny fittings are strangely appealing.

Robert Downey Junior's Holmes was unusually tanned for Victorian London, but picking holes in a Guy Ritchie movie is not the done thing when brain candy's on offer. I love the Conan Doyle stories, but the best way to approach the film is to ignore the source and hitch a ride on the blockbuster express, calling at stations known as 'Fightscene' and 'Chase' on the way to your destination. Nobody will match Jeremy Brett's depiction of the detective in the TV series, so Downey sensibly goes for smart instead of brooding; cartoon instead of character.

From the top floor of The Gate complex you can look down on the club next door with its under-lit floor and curvy, futuristic barstools, but it seems permanently sealed off because of the layers of glass that separate the two spaces. It has a faint, indistinct allure.

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