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Leave a light on --- David Soul --- 1997

I'm not sure what the message is behind the opener, "I drink", but it starts off like a cross between Tom Waits and The Doors, then Soul's vocal is virtually acapella in a folk style, a troubador sitting in a night club pouring out his woes. It's a lot more mature and almost angry, a major shift from his first two albums, though whether this has been a gradual change over the previous two also I don't know, as I have no intention of listening to all of his albums. Can't imagine any children's songs on this one! Great horn work on this song, then we're into "Jazz man", sort of a rocky track with vibrant guitar and a nice bassline and a happy boppy piano. Seems like in a complete reversal from his second album Soul wrote all of this one, every song, though to be fair details on his music are damn hard to come by, even from his own website.

"Tearing the good things down" is a slow, laidback acoustic ballad, similar to much of his earlier material from the seventies, though the subject matter is far more bitter and angry than his previous, mostly starry-eyed, naive efforts. Seems our David has learned that the world is a cruel, tough, unforgiving place and wants to express that through his music, which is no bad thing. "Mean old woman" is all right but a bit boring, trying to evoke the spirit of the blues but I believe falling short, then "Sailor man" is a contender for standout, a great heartfelt ballad with acoustic guitar and mandolin. Until, that is, it for no apparent reason bursts into some sort of flamenco dance, with attendant faux Spanish accent, and then goes back to how it began. Why? What in the name of sanity was the point of that, David? It was worse than when Lionel Ritchie's "Say you, say me" unaccountably bursts into an uptempo dancy bit right in the middle. Completely pointless and out of place. God damn you David, you ruined what could have been the best song on the album!

Jesus! He does it again at the end, going quite mad with Spanish guitar, castanets, mariachi trumpets and the whole damn thing. Complete mess. After that, the title of the next song must be taken with a grain of salt, though "Trust me" does start off like a nice lounge ballad, quite easy-listening in tone, and seems to feature a duet, though who the woman he's singing with is I don't know and haven't been able to find out. Again it's okay but nothing terribly special, in fact it's several levels down from his best. Sort of a sub-Christopher Cross vibe to it, and it's followed by "Simple life", whose opening line contains the title of the album, and is in fact a rather nice ballad, quite lives up to its name. I'll take a chance and assume this isn't going to suddenly jump into some mad salsa rhythm. If not, then so far it's the standout for me. It has a guitar solo that's so close to Mark Knopfler's style that I would wonder if he guested on the track? Probably not.

His old interest in reggae from the first album comes back then in "To a heart that's true", which I must admit I would have expected to have been a piano or acoustic guitar ballad. Shows what I know. He also gets in all his Elvis references, throwing in song titles like "Heartache hotel", "Blue moon" and "Love me tender" and, uh, "Return to sender", even doing an impression of the King. Oh dear. Anyway, on we go. Not too far to go, thankfully. Nice piano intro to "Dance with life", sort of reminds me of a cross between The Divine Comedy and Barry Manilow. Yeah, I know. "Come to me" is a nice little ballad as is "Our lives" though a little more on the lounge/easy-listening side with some interesting flute work. Everything kicks back up then for "I'll be doggone", with some blazing piano work and a great fun vibe, excellent horns and Soul sort of sliding back into his (bad) Elvis impersonation. Still, it's pretty soul man (oh god did I really say that?) stuff.

The end of the album, and effectively the last songs David Soul recorded, bit strange to be honest. You have the song "Money" bookended by two short piano instrumentals, each thoughtfully titled "Piano bit". Hmm. Was he getting bored at this point and just wanted to finish the album? I never think it's a good idea not to put at least a little effort into naming your songs. Hell, even call them "Piano bit one and two"! ANyway, the first is a power-piano bash at the keys, real jam material but probably would have been better had it been left off the album. The aforementioned "Money" is another uptempo soul track, with the either really unfortunate or tongue-in-cheek opening line "I'm only in it for the money"... more great horns and a cool funky bass line drive the songs. Still, to my mind it does sound a little like our David is getting bored and tired now, and perhaps knows this will be his last album. He has other fish to fry: TV is calling, as is the stage and many other offers. The final track, the one that brings to a close David Soul's music career, at least on record, is forty-three seconds of piano almost identical to the first "piano bit". Why, I ask? Why? "Money" would have been a pretty effective closer. Oh well, I guess if you're hanging up your mike for the last time and you've made your money, why not have a little fun before the curtain comes down?

TRACKLISTING

1. I drink
2. Jazz man
3. Tearing the good things down
4. Mean old woman
5. Sailor man
6. Trust me
7. Simple life
8. To a heart that's true
9. Dance with life
10. Come to me
11. Our lives
12. I'll be doggone
13. Piano bit
14. Money
15. Piano bit

Since calling time on his music career, David Soul has gone on to star in other TV programmes, some movies, has been involved in many projects in the West End, having relocated to London, and has also indulged his love of motor racing, appearing on the popular show "Top Gear". Although it would certainly seem music was a big part of his life, he seems to be managing all right without it, and although his popularity reached a peak in the late seventies, he's still in demand now, even appearing on Fosseytango's album as a guest as recently as 2012.

All of which is great for him. But what we're concerned with here is, do we categorise him as a bandwagon-jumper? Let me explain the criteria for such a label, as I see it:
1. The artiste needs to have come to music as a secondary career. Check, with a caveat. Although David Soul made his name in TV, and later moved to music, it was music that first gave him his break in the late sixties. So he was already acquainted with the business, if only in a small way. Therefore he gets a thumb up on this.

2. The artiste needs to have mostly or all covers on his or her album, and the hits they get should probably be covers too. As far as David Soul is concerned, though he had covers on his albums none of them were hits, so he gets a thumbs up on this, as his hit singles were all original material.

3. The artiste would generally be expected to recruit cronies, "guest stars" to play on his album, either people he or she has come to know through the world of TV and/or film, or his own personal friends who he calls in to help him out. David Soul never did that, not once, so another thumb up for him on this.

4. The artiste needs to exploit his "newfound musical fame" for all it's worth, signing sponsorship deals and doing advertising campaigns. Note: this does not, in my opinion, include charity work or ads made to highlight worthy causes. Again, I see no evidence of Soul having participated in this sort of exploitation of his fame.

5. The artiste tries to score points off his previous fame, by things like titling his album as being "X from that show" or whatever. In fairness, Soul capitalised on his "Starsky and Hutch" image, even if he didn't refer to it specifically, so we'll give him a cautious thumb down on this one.

6. Once the hits dry up, the bandwagon-jumper will then abandon ship. Soul stayed at his music career, on and off, twenty years after the last hit, so give him a big thumb up on that.

7. The artiste will most likely only sing, and will write no songs. Thumb up for David Soul then, who played guitar and wrote songs, even if half of the time we wish he hadn't bothered! At least he tried.

So, all things taken into account, we have
Thumbs up: Six
Thumbs down: One

Result: David Soul, while primarily a TV and film personality, briefly dipped into the world of music and had hit singles, but being already a musician he stuck it out as long as he could. When it looked like nothing more would come of his music he put it to one side and concentrated on other things. He did not milk it for all it was worth, and though the hits are still occasionally played on radio and included on compilation albums, you'll find it very hard to locate and buy any of his albums, even the big chart successes.

Verdict:

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I love this journal :)

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Lore --- Clannad --- 1996
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When I were a lad at school, the very very odd time something interesting would happen down in the gym --- a place I feared and loathed, being a skinny, unfit, specky, not at all sporty and easily embarrassed kid --- would be at weekends when they'd screen movies we could see for free and of course there'd be the expected school play every year. But one year Clannad came to play at the school. Being what, about fourteen at the time I turned my nose up to them. Who the hell are they? I regretted it ever afterwards, especially after "Robin of Sherwood" hit the telly screens and then "Harry's game" made them household names, even though they were already that in trad circles. I've always wanted to get more into their music, so now's as good a time as any.

Leaving aside the obvious albums, the ones with the hits and discounting "Legend" (the soundtrack to RoS) as I've already heard it, many times, I've gone for this one. Why? I dunno. Like the title, it's in the nineties which gives me a better chance to evaluate how they developed after the "big hits", and well that's about it really. First of all, for those who don't know, the band name is pronounced "klawn-odd", coming from the Irish "clann", for family. Yes, the word clan comes from it. Look at that: you're learning things already!

But to the album. Clannad have always been characterised by the angelic voice of Maire ni Bhraonain, also known as Moya Brennan, sister to Enya, and here is no exception as a ghostly atmospheric "Croi croga" (kree crow-ga) opens the album, and no I don't know what it translates to: croi is Irish for heart, so something heart, but Irish was always taught in schools with the least amount of interest or enthusiasm by the teachers, almost as a punishment, so that you just rebelled against it by default and refused to take it in. Some of it has stuck though, and I'll attempt a few of the other titles, though not all (thank god) are in Irish.

"Seanchas" (story I think) is far more upbeat and almost contemporary, with some nice uileann pipes and sax, twinkling piano and lovely vocal harmonies, while "Bridge (that carries us over)" rides on the singular vocal talent of Maire, soft and silky, almost a hymn. Slow and stately, it has a sense of powerful grandeur, some great but restrained electric guitar and low whistles, and those same whistles open, accompanied by low booming slow drums, "From your heart", which if possible slows down the tempo from the previous track. Maire never seems like she's ever in any danger of forcing her vocal; it seems to flow as naturally as water from a rock, slipping down and irrigating the dry land with its honey-soft tones. She really often more breathes the song than sings it, and it's a very relaxing and calming sound. Lovely tinkling piano just adds to the tranquil vibe on this song, and I must admit so far this album is exceeding my expectations by quite a way: not a (as we say) skiddly-idle in sight, ie no reels, jigs or the like.

I'll reserve judgement for a few more tracks, but so far I'd have a hard time categorising this as Irish traditional music. It certainly doesn't fit in with the likes of Planxty et al. At best I'd say newage or just celtic, though "Alasdair Maccolla" (no I don't know who he is! Stop asking me questions!) comes closest with a sort of ceili chant, a kind of nearly bossa-nova beat and probably ranks as the first track I don't like. Bodhrans. Not mad about bodhrans. It's short though, and leads into another soft ballad in "Broken pieces", which again almost sounds like a contempory song with some truly beautiful harp work from Maire. Now, if I remember my half-learned Irish, "Trathnona beag areir" (tra-no-na be-yug ah-rare) means something like a little afternoon yesterday, or something like that. Anyway, it's a lovely little acoustic guitar ballad --- sung in Irish of course, but when you have a voice as beautiful and soulful as Maire's, it really doesn't matter. Conjures up images of the Kerry mountains and the Shannon river with the evening drawing in as the sun sets.

"Trail of tears" has a kind of ominous feel to it, with some choral vocals and nice whistles then it ramps up a little on the back of some sprightly piano and harp, though I could probably do without the predictable "Native American chorus" near the end. Sounding the most like "Harry's game", "Dealramh go deo" (not even going to attempt that one) is another slow atmospheric and hypnotic track, with yet another gorgeous yearning vocal from Maire and a sweeping, lush soundscape laid down by keyboards. Some almost spinechilling vocal harmonies just make the song. A strong vocal then for "Farewell love" and a surprisingly upbeat tone given the title, then the album closes on a lovely uileann pipe and harp instrumental called "Fonn Mharta".

TRACKLISTING

1. Croi croga
2. Seanchas
3. Bridge (that carries us over)
4. From your heart
5. Alasdair Maccolla
6. Broken pieces
7. Trathnona beag areir
8. Trail of tears
9. Dealramh go deo
10. Farewell love
11. Fonn mharta

It's easy to see why Clannad have lasted as long as they have --- thirty years plus now: although they follow the basic traditions of Irish and Celtic music, there's a fairly varied mix in their music --- new age, ambient, folk, even the odd bit of rock or dare I say pop? --- and it all comes together really well. They're accomplished musicians, that much has never been in doubt, and Maire's voice has the capability of transporting you to a calmer time and place, somewhere safe and green and warm, where her voice just washes over you like the sigh of the waterfall in the distance, or the sussurating breath of the wind.

In a word: magical.

Stop! --- Sam Brown --- 1988 (A&M)
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What do you do when your father is a successful rock star and your mother also sings? Born into a musical family of note, Sam Brown contracted the music bug early in her life and began singing mostly backing vocals on some famous albums by people such as The Small Faces, Spandau Ballet and Sade, later taking the step to record and release her own music. This was her debut album, and sadly in terms of commerciality, though it is a good album the title was prophetic: this hit the charts but none of her later albums did. A protracted legal battle with her label over artiste's rights on her third album led to her forming her own label and releasing "43 minutes" herself. Her big, and only, hit single from this album was the title track, which is a great little song and really showcases her stunning vocal talent.

There's a big swaggering swaying cold rocker to start off, elements of Simple Minds' "Waterfront" in the guitar as "Walking back to me" gets going, and to be honest her voice is good on this but it won't really become apparent how good it is till a little later. It's a goodtime, upbeat song and has some nice backing vocals, with guitar provided by her brother Pete, and Sam herself on piano, then "Your love is all" is a darker little piece with a lovely bass line and some atmospheric keys. Kind of stutters along a little for the verses and has, to me, something of mid-eighties Judie Tzuke in the chorus. Some pretty hard guitar too, though this time it's not Pete Brown who provides it.

That takes us into the title track, her big hit single which you've probably already heard at some point. With a breathy vocal almost Monroe-like, it's a slow, sensuous ballad that finally gives full vent to the weapon that is Sam Brown's voice. Some fantastic orchestral backing gives the whole thing a very forties-style feeling, but even then the strings almost fade away under the power of this unique voice. When she hits the high notes it's truly something to hear. The amount of passion and longing Sam puts into this song makes it worth the price of the album on its own. A word for the orchestra though: it really does add extra punch to the song, as do the soulful backing vocals, but the other real high point of the song is the stupendous organ solo in the middle, courtesy of Bob Andrews. Powerful song, but in a way it overshadows the rest of the album by being so much better than most of what else is on it.

Another point to consider is that we don't just have here a girl singing songs written by someone else. On every track on this album Sam co-writes, except for the one short track she writes herself, so this is all her own music. "It makes me wonder", while also being an perhaps unwitting nod back to Led Zep, is a slowburner with an almost gospel tint that again for me treads heavily in Judie Tzuke territory (whaddya mean, who? Just for that, watch for a feature soon!) and then halfway through like the train in the lyric begins to pick up speed and ramps up the tempo as Sam's voice again scales the heights. The god that is David Gilmour pops up to rack off a suitably stunning solo in "This feeling", which also has a nice accordion opening. One of the other standouts, it has a really nice squarking keyboard --- squarking? It's a word I made up, prefectly cromulent --- passage running through it, almost China Crisis in feel. Another great vocal from Sam on a smouldering little ballad which, while not anywhere as hot as "Stop!" (nothing on this album is) still comes across as one of the better tracks. Well, the mere presence of Gilmour would assure that, but it's more than just that.

Personally, silly as it may seem, I love the forty-five second "Tea", the only song Sam writes on her own. It's quirky, it's different, it's funny and it's clever. And... it's over. "Piece of my luck" then is really jazzy with a slick bassline and some sexy horns (ooer!) and takes everything back to that forties feel, slow, sultry, sexy, moody in the best way possible. "Ball and chain" on the other hand has a slick funky feel to it, almost Art of Noise in places, quite stripped-down (who'd like to see Sam stripped down, eh?);) with a great guitar riff running through it. Crazy little vocal in it that reminds me of M's "Pop muzik" too. "Wrap me up" has a very new-wave synth line in it and indeed Sam sings in a sort of new-wave fashion on it too. Very busy rhythm going on. Great guitar solo too, sort of reminds me (does everything have to remind you of something, Trollheart? Yeah. Wanna fight about it?) of Dave Stewart's solo in "Sisters are doin' it for themselves", then the other amazing ballad, standout number two by a mile is the superb slowburner "I'll be in love", with a scorching guitar line from the returning Gilmour and ghostly piano, the latter played by herself. A truly stunning and smoking vocal performance from Mrs. Brown's little girl: a musical wet dream and no mistake.

An interesting segue from this to the next track, as the former ends on a sort of heartbeat sound and this then morphs into a shimmering drum roll which brings in a pretty stark opening for "Merry go round", which is characterised by heavy, thumping drums and a sort of swirling strings sound that runs through it. Very different to her other work on the album, and it ends on the upbeat, quite commercial "Sometimes you just don't know", which would have made a good single but wasn't selected. Nice almost progressive rock guitar line with a low-key vocal on the verse then it cuts up on the back of some soul-style drumming and backing vocals. There are three extra tracks on the CD, but as a) two of them are covers and b) the original listening experience I had was on vinyl, and this is then where that album ended, I won't be featuring them, as per my usual rules.

TRACKLISTING

1. Walking back to you
2. Your love is all
3. Stop!
4. It makes me wonder
5. Your love is all
6. Tea
7. Piece of my luck
8. Ball and chain
9. Wrap me up
10. I'll be in love
11. Merry go round
12. Sometimes you just don't know

Although her second album had a few minor hits on it there was no further solo success for Sam Brown, but she was and is highly prized, both as a backing vocalist/duettist and as a songwriter. She continues to collaborate with the cream of rock, providing backing vocals for Pink Floyd on the album "The division bell" and writing most of the late Jon Lord's second solo album . She has also teamed up with the Beautiful South's Dave Rotheray and under the name Homespun has recorded three albums. So she will never starve. It is a pity though that the promise shown on this album was never completely allowed to flower into what it could have been. The death of her mother would have been a turning point, both in her life and in her career, and indeed it was then that she decided to set up her own label, looking to exercise more control over her work.

As a debut this album speaks volumes. It's just a pity that after the initial roar, as it were, the rest sort of faded away in the background, like the slowly-disappearing echoes of a shout now almost inaudible.

Push the sky away --- Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds --- 2013 (Bad Seed Music)
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Yay! The first review of a 2013 album!

Alright, settle down, settle down...

I've already related in my review of "The good son" that it was through this album that I first got into Cave, and worked forward from there. I bought his earlier albums, but due to their darker, harder-edged feel, some with almost an element of punk in them, I've had trouble getting into albums like "Your funeral, my trial" and "From her to eternity". Seems I got into Cave at just the right time, for me, as he was just moving into a more sedate, perhaps slightly more mainstream phase with "The good son", and this mostly continued through subsequent albums, though his last ones I have not been on the whole that impressed by.

There were three words that came to mind when I heard this album for the first time, and they were "The boatman's call". If any album depicted Nick Cave at his laidback best, that 1997 album was the one. Every track was slow and laconic, almost lazy, and to some extent it's the closest Cave comes to being described as easy-listening. Even at that, you'll never get away from the darkness in Cave's music, and "The boatman's call" is full of such stark imagery, as indeed is this. To some degree I would have put 2001's "No more shall we part" as the natural progression from "The boatman's call", but even that album had some hard, punchy tracks on it. Of course, the one followed the other so the similarlity between the two is not that surprising.

But it's been twelve years now since "No more shall we part", and Cave has issued three albums during that period --- one a double --- with this being his first new album in five years, so to hear him as much as returning to the style of both those older albums is both interesting, gratifying and perhaps a little mystifying, given what came out on "Dig, Lazarus, dig!" and parts of "Abbatoir blues" too. The album also marks the end of three decades plus of a friendship and association with Mick Harvey, who departed the band in 2009.

Looking for inspiration for songs, Cave says he looked on the internet, particularly social media and articles on Wikipedia, and you can see that influence even in the titles of some of the songs, not to mention the opener, "We no who U R" (also no doubt referencing the deplorable treatment the English language has received at the hands of the internet and text speak). It's his belief that the easy access to stories and articles on the web have made us more liable to believe that which prior to the advent of the internet we might have been more sceptical about, and also that we assign far more importance to things which should really carry less weight with us as a civilisation. Facebook updates, anyone?

The soft opening on Fender Rhodes to "We no who u r" is indeed very reminscent of "Into my arms" or "Lime tree arbour" from "The boatman's call", and it's a relaxed, restrained song with Cave's dark, gruff voice as ever the focus of the song. He's always had a great eye for metaphor, and here his comparison of tree branches to hands may not be original but it works really well: "The trees will stand/ like pleading hands" possibly gaining more weight when he sings about the trees' destiny to burn. There are a variety of female backing vocals, and they work really well, softening the somewhat harder snarl of Cave's voice.

Often it's pointless trying to decipher Cave's lyrics as they can be quite obscure and sometimes mean more than one thing, which is I think how he intends his music to be. Here though I think the title would lend credence to the possibility of this either concerning online bullying or the efforts of megacorpoations to gather information on us all through our browsing and our buying habits. The lyric itself does not reflect this, talking of nature and peace, but I wonder if it's that simple? Some interesting loops from Warren Ellis then lead in "Wide lovely eyes", another slow song of stark beauty as Cave sings of the fine line between fantasy and reality, between fairytales and the real world, and places where they can both collide, till you're unsure which is which.

Like a dark prophet wandering through a blasted landscape, or a lost angel surveying what has happened to the world, Nick Cave slouches through this collection of nine songs, taking note of how bad things have become, wondering what hope there is for humanity, and finally shrugging his massive shoulders in a manner familiar to those who know his work: it's the world, what can you do? People won't change. Ellis's familar violins open "Water's edge", and I'm reminded of songs like "The hammer song" and "The weeping song " from "The good son", as well as "Song of joy" from "Murder ballads". When Cave whisper/growls "You grow old/ And you grow cold" you do indeed feel a chill. Thomas Wydler's rolling drumbeats are almost an afterthought running through the song.

"Jubilee Street" owes a lot of its melody to "Brompton oratory" (yes, again, "The boatman's call") with a sort of ticking beat and a laconic guitar line, and Cave almost speaking the vocal rather than singing; it's like a kind of narration, as if he's making a documentary with musical backing. When Ellis's violin comes mournfully in though the song really takes shape, and I can also hear elements of U2's "All I want is you" in here too. But to pull away from the constant references to "The boatman's call", this album though almost completely consisting of slow songs, possesses a dark atmosphere and a sense of menace and brooding that album did not. It's a terrible beauty, a dark symbolism, the mumbled, muttered voice of an old-ish man more cutting at times than the newest bright young thing in music could muster. This is the old hand, the master of the macabre, the man who smiles as he kicks you in the teeth and tells it how it is, turning and leaving you to bleed out in an alleyway without a backward glance or a single thought.

"Mermaids" either mocks all religions or says they're all acceptable, hard to be sure when Cave is being sarcastic sometimes, and when he's singing in earnest. The song rides along on a lovely piano line, almost like a wave on which the eponymous creatures swim. Soft percussion again, but these songs aren't built for loud drumming; it has to be minimalist, gentle, almost feather-light; just a suggestion. Returning Bad Seeds member Barry Adamson, replacing longtime bass player Mick Harvey, outdoes himself in the bassline for "We real cool", and the song hangs on his pulsing rhythm, with Warren Ellis adding light and shade with his superb as ever violin work.

More narration from Cave as he relates the process of writing "Jubilee Street" as we head into "Finishing Jubilee Street", an almost slightly funky twist to it in the percussion and chiming guitar, and some great backing vocals from the various singers. Cave has never been above a bit of sardonic humour though, and in "Higgs Boson blues" he seems to poke fun at the CERN research laboratory and their search for, and apparent discovery of, the "god particle" as he sings "I'm drivin' my car down to Geneva/ ... Who cares what the future holds?"

The song runs on pretty much the same few chords all the way through, but it's Cave's voice you concentrate on as he as much as preaches, reeling off pop culture references like there's no tomorrow --- Hannah Montana, Amazon, Robert Johnson and of course his old sparring partner, the Devil. The album ends on the title track, another soft yet edgy laidback slow track with some really fine loops and some great violin, and perhaps the message that you need to be your own person (push the sky away) and not just follow the crowd.

An accusation that, no matter what he does, is never going to be levelled at Nick Cave.

TRACKLISTING

1. We no who U R
2. Wide lovely eyes
3. Water's edge
4. Jubilee Street
5. Mermaids
6. We real cool
7. Finishing Jubilee Street
8. Higgs Boson Blues
9. Push the sky away

So, only nine tracks. Value for money? Well, when every song is so lovingly crafted as these are, and when they each tell a story of our modern world and how intrinscially broken it is, I'd have to say I'd take these nine songs over anyone else's twenty. For me personally this is a return to the Nick Cave I know: I wasn't blown away by "Nocturama" or "Dig, Lazarus, dig", though I did like the double album from 2004, even though it had its faults. But this is the sort of thing I've been hoping to hear from Cave since I first spun "No more shall we part" and knew I was listening to something special.

It's been twelve years, but I finally have that feeling back again.

Take the crown --- Robbie Williams --- 2012 (Island)
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Once upon a time there was a boy called Robbie. And he was a bad boy. In and out of rehab, battling addictions to everything from alcohol and coke to disprin and Lucozade (!) Robbie was certainly the man least likely to emerge from the breakup of Take That as the last man standing. While within the group he wrote little, sang less and was famously (or infamously) described by that bard of the verse Noel Gallagher as "that fat dancer from Take That". Yet in 1996, after the breakup of the band and some time after he had already quit them, Robbie embarked on a solo career that resulted in a rise to fame that could really only be described as meteoric.

"Let me entertain you", he grinned cheekily, and all the girls (and some boys) giggled and blushed and said "Yes please!" Robbie has released eight solo albums between 1997 and now, with this being his ninth. There's a lot of energy and youth on this new album, and while that's good (and sells well) it comes across to me as somewhat playing to the gallery. Williams is after all now approaching forty years of age, but here he's singing and writing (or at least co-writing) as if he's still seventeen. I just think it shows a lack of maturity and a resistance to getting older.

See, the trouble is that yes, Robbie was a maverick, a loose cannon, a bad boy, but that was then and this is now, and fifteen years later he seems to be in a sort of Peter Pan mode, refusing or finding himself unable to grow up. The album is predictably full of sly digs at his "enemies", with lashings of his famous ego on top, and while there are some good, even great songs on the album, it's all a little hard to take seriously.

Opening on "Be a boy", it's a high-energy, uptempo pop song with that annoying "Whoa-oh-oh!" chant that seems to be everywhere these days. Robbie has been carrying one massive chip around for fifteen years now and it doesn't look likely to fall off his shoulder anytime soon, with little digs like "They said the magic was over/ They said I was losing it/ I don't think so!" just really serving to reinforce the insecurity that has seen him party, blag and womanise his way through his career.

Now don't get me wrong: I'm a fan, although it may not seem like it from this review. In fact, I'm preparing a whole piece on his career for transmission later this year. But I like artistes to grow up and show some maturity. When you're pushing your fourth decade it's time to stop playing the teeanger. To slightly paraphrase Fish, "Pulling seventeen with experience and dreams/ Sweatin' out a happy hour/ When you're hiding thirty-nine..."[/i] and you would think that after having sold what, seventy million records and having countless number one singles and albums, a pop icon on both sides of the water and easily eclipsing the success of his parent band that Robbie would be happy to put the mistakes of the past behind him, but no, he's still at it, as we find in the second track, "Gospel", where he sings "I drink to you/ You always wished me well/ And to those who don't/ Go **** yourselves!" He did something similar on "I've been expecting you", where he added a litlte message to one of his teachers who told him he would amount to nothing, and back then you could forgive that: the guy was on top of the world, rather unexpectedly, and ready to give the finger to anyone who said he wouldn't make it. But that was a long time ago. It seems however that rather like Father Ted in the Christmas Special, he's still settling old scores, and to be frank, it's getting boring and stale.

The energy and effervescence in the new album is partially due to his pairing up with young Australian songwriters Tim Metcalfe and Flynn Francis, and indeed the production of Garret "Jacknife" Lee, whose work we mentioned in our recent review of Two Door Cinema Club's latest album "Beacon". But youth and energy are all very well, if you're young and energetic. Now I guess you'd have to give Robbie the second part --- his concerts rarely disappoint, and he puts his all into them, and you can tell he loves his music --- but he's no spring chicken anymore. And though much of the songwriting concerns lessons learned, there's a sense of naive partygoing and bedhopping that just doesn't ring true when the guy singing the song is coming closer to what we generally term middle-age.

It's a shame really, because these criticisms do the album something of a disservice. It's a pretty good record really, though I feel not a patch on his earlier efforts, and the opening two tracks as detailed above are catchy, well written and played. Either, or both, could and probably will be hits. However it's the third one in that is in fact the hit, the lead single from the album and already a number one for him, and this is where I have yet another problem. I think it's possible "Candy" has only done so well because Robbie Williams fans, starved of any new solo output by him for three years, would probably buy anything he released. So is that a proper measure of the single's worth? To quote himself, I don't think so.

Only one of three tracks on the album to be not written with his newfound mates Metcalfe and Francis --- who are surely going to be a double Guy Chambers for him in the future --- it's in fact co-written with his old mucker from Take That, Gary Barlow, and Jacknife himself. It's quite an annoying song, I must say, though infectiously catchy. It rides on a sort of children's chant/nursery rhyme, which I can only really describe as "Nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah nyah-nyah!" You know the sort of thing; you hear children singsonging its like in a hundred games they play in the street. It also bounces along on a kind of summer/pop beat with a little of calypso in it, and it is, to be frank, fairly throwaway, not what I would have expected the first single to be, but there you are. It's one of those songs that although you may hate it, won't bloody get out of your head. Which is, I suppose I have to grant, the mark of a good pop song.

And so it goes. "Different" is a good bit more mature, a fuller song with some nice orchestration and a desperate plea to be given another chance. It has that familiar Robbie Williams sound identified with tracks like "Strong" and "No regrets", and is a very decent track. It's followed by "**** on the radio", which is where it all breaks down again. The inclusion of such a song may seem a bold move, but if you're expecting a searing indictment of the state of popular radio airplay and current trends in music, well, get ready to be disappointed. Back to the writing pair of Francis and Metcalfe, and the song exists solely on its "cheeky" title, which Williams gleefully jams as many times into the chorus as he can, repeating that chorus also whenever it's possible, while emphasising the four-letter word.

It's almost like a kid who has discovered a bad word, and makes a point of using it as much as possible. Okay, the sentiment is there, but the lyric doesn't support the title, and I can bet, "brave" as the title may be, this won't be released as a single, or if it does, that word will be changed to something more palatable, because radio listeners and the general public don't want to hear the word ****, er, on the radio, do they? But the biggest irony about the song is that it is dancy, throwaway, forgettable pop pap, exactly the type of thing Williams appears to be attacking in the lyric. Perhaps this is intentional and it's a clever dig at himself, saying look at me, I'm no better than the people I'm slagging off: we all have to make a buck. But again, I don't think so, and I believe the message, if indeed there is or was intended to be one, is lost in the totally substandard song.

And yeah, it won't get out of my head! Like many of these songs, even the ones I consider really bad, I just keep humming them in my head. Dammit! They are catchy though.

This is the point where it all begins to slide a little downhill really. "All I want" and "Hunting for you" (is it my imagination or does he sound like he's singing "Tonight I'm horny for you!"?) are not bad songs, per se, but they're unremarkable and I don't really find them sticking in my head. I must say though the former gives me pause in a way, as I notice that everything about Robbie Williams is, well, about what he wants. In fact, if I go back through his catalogue, I find it hard to find one song that's not written about him, or from his standpoint. I can't find a song he wrote about someone else --- even "She's the one" refers back to him --- and it would have to be said that quite contrary to the title of his 1999 compilation album, the ego has a long way to go before it lands anywhere.

Ironically, tracks like the previous one and "Candy", which I would consider far inferior to either of these two, make more of an impression. There is however some hope when "Into the silence" comes around. With a lovely soft low keyboard intro and a rattling, jangly guitar it's a strong, powerful song with a certain sense of U2 about it, and probably if I'm honest one of the standouts, if not the standout on the album. The same can't be said unfortunately for "Hey wow yeah yeah", which is as terrible as the title makes it seem, total written-in-nine-seconds-what's-next territory; probably go down a storm on the dancefloor. It's interesting though if only for Robbie's terrible Beastie Boys-style rap!

Then there's an attempt to finish strongly with "Not like the others", which again catalogues Robbie's many conquests --- "Got lots of lovers/ You and me/ Are not like the others" --- as he attempts to persuade the current woman in his life, or in his bed, that she's special. Oh- kayyyy.... For me this kind of jumps back to "Monsoon", from "Escapology", with a twist: there he was berating all the girls he had slept with who then went on and sold their story to the rags, whereas here he's more or less admitting that he just uses women. Hmm, big revelation there Robbie. Maybe it's meant to refer to his recent marriage to Ayda Field, and with a baby daughter now to think of, perhaps he's re-evaluating his lothario lifestyle?

This could be why he ends the album on "Losers", which features a duet with someone only credited as "Lissie", who I'm sure people cooler than me will recognise and know who she is, but it's the acoustic track on the album, as there often are on his recordings. I don't know why: maybe it's an attempt to legitimise what is essentially a pop star as a bona fide rock star, but "I've been expecting you" had "She's the one", "Sing when you're winning" had "Love calling Earth" and the last album I heard from him, "Escapology", had "Sexed up". Okay, they weren't exclusively acoustic but they began and mostly continued on the acoustic guitar, certainly not your average pop instrument.

There are, however, certain problems I see with this song. First, the lines don't scan at all. The lyric seems uncomfortable, ill-fitting, almost as if it was written and then music shaped around it but not very well. It's stilted, halting,unsure of itself. I can't actually blame Robbie for this, as it's the last of three tracks on the album not written by him, and the only one in which he has no hand at all, the song being penned by Barbara and Ethan Gruska, a cover of the Belle Brigade's song off their debut album. Maybe that's why it doesn't fit, as it's the first time I recall Robbie including a cover version on any of his album ("Somethin' stupid" notwithstanding: that was on a covers album in the first place) and it just seems out of place.

But even apart from that, and allowing for the fact he didn't write it, it's hard to take a guy seriously when he sings about not being bothered about making money and being popular any more, when his current net worth is around ninety million and he's the idol of half the world. Rings a little hollow, to me, and almost comes across as arrogant and something of a put-down. It's beautifully sung by this Lissie person, no doubt about that, but overall I find it a very awkward song, both to like and even to listen to, and I feel it closes the album very badly.

TRACKLISTING

1. Be a boy
2. Gospel
3. Candy
4. Different
5. **** on the radio
6. All that I want
7. Hunting for you
8. Into the silence
9. Hey wow yeah yeah
10. Not like the others
11. Losers

But in the final analysis, what I say or think is not going to matter one bit to Robbie Williams fans. The album has already hit the number one spot, has already gone gold (platinum in some territories) after only two months, and looks set to be one his biggest-selling and most successful albums to date. I find it weak in places, good in others, occasionally great but for me it's not a patch on "Escapology" or even "Sing when you're winning", and I think he's taken the easy path here, penning (or co-penning) catchy pop ditties that will play well on the dancefloor and dominate the radio for the next few months no doubt.

I'd preferred to have seen something more mature, but then, I guess that's why he is where he is, or where he wll soon return to, and why in the end, it seems only natural and inevitable that he will indeed take that crown he has his heart set on.

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Okay, let's be fair about this. I went to the Batlord's house. I sneaked in while he was headbanging away to Suffocation or some other noisy nonsense. I wired up his super-powered "Inconsiderate Bastard" (TM) Mark VI's to some C4 and slipped his favourite High On Fire album into his CD player. I retreated to a safe distance and watched through my high-powered binoculars. Sure enough after a little while the strains of "Fury whip" burst across the neighbourhood, scaring mean dogs and stopping more than one pacemaker, then almost immediately there was a loud bang and a flash and when the smoke cleared there was nothing but a large crater where his house used to stand.

Ah, but then...

Out of the smoke, coughing and spluttering, a cartoon-like figure emerges, blackened beyond recognition and with his hair spiky from the blast, reeling about and still clutching his favourite headphones, and says "Man! Whatever that **** I smoked was, I want MORE! THAT was ****in BITCHIN!" Then he turns around, sees his house was gone, shrugs and says "**** it, I hated that ****hole anyway! Time to visit Devin Townsend and go on another bitchin' time-travellin' adventure!" And he staggers off into the smoky distance. Jesus! Is the guy the Metal Terminator or what? Guess you really can't kill a True Metalhead!

But --- and this is the important part --- I tried, as the destruction of his entire block will attest to. So come on Gods of Metal! Cut me a break! Let me this time, for once, come across a band I can actually talk about and review. I've been searching for months now and the last proper band I got was Sauron: everything else has been either unsigned or disbanded, or else so unknown that they don't even have a single YouTube video, let alone an album. With all the good metal out there, surely I must be due to happen across a proper band on my random travels? Huh? Huh?

Nervously I push the "Random Band" button, like someone fearing an electric shock, wait a moment and....
Oh for the love of Satan! Why me? WHY ME? ANOTHER unsigned band, but not only that, these guys are broken up, too! Sigh!
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But wait, there may be some hope. I see they did actually get to release one album before splitting. Is it available? Let's go a-huntin'... Oh great! There are two other bands who both use this name, both metal, both in the US --- and both still playing apparently. Well, with confusion like that in the air it's highly unlikely I'm going to happen across the proper one here, and as all three bands seem to use a pretty similar logo... ah hell, let's just chalk this up as another fail and move on.

:banghead:
No, that's not the sound of me headbanging! Well, sort of, but I'm actually banging my head against the wall in frustration! What come up next is a band from Slovakia (yeah) who have two demos (great), one released in the year they formed, 2005 and the next the following year. So, seven years later, no album guys eh? Let's see if you got onto YouTube even...
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Well, surprisingly, they do. So let's do them for now. They hail apparently from Bardejov in Slovakia (no I don't know where it is, nor do I care) and have as I say but two demos to their name, the second rushed out presumably to capitalise on the, um, failure of the first. Since that last demo, 2006, nothing has been heard from them yet good ol' Encyclopaedia Metallum has them listed as "active", and who am I to argue? What is interesting, quite funny in fact is that if you go to the first demo, from which the below YouTube comes, and click "lineup" it says "band members: none". First in my experience; an album made by nobody. Backtracking though I do come across notes on two members, each of whom are so poor it would seem that they can only afford one name each. Ah, the fall of Communism hit us all hard, did it not?

FYI the lead (only) guitarist and so-called vocalist is known as Jarldrahn, while his mate on bass prefers to be called Svantovith. Indeed. Luckily I can drill down further into their biogs and unearth the priceless information that they are both male. You don't say. Of course, as you might expect, Legion Obscure (in case you couldn't make out the intricate logo, that's what they're called) are a death/black metal band. Would you seriously expect me to come across any other type in my random searches? Their lyrics concern barbarism, domination and prophetic visions, apparently, though not prophetic enough to see they weren't going to get anywhere with this trash, it would seem. However it does seem to have prophesied that they would remain obscure, so maybe there is something in that...

This is the video, the song taken from their first demo released in 2005 and entitled "Synovia Slovanskej Zeme" --- it's the title track! I'm a little confused as the track starts off with the sound of a wolf howling, and the neighbour's dog is also barking outside, though to be honest I'd rather listen to an album by him than a full song from these guys! I'm not hearing any vocals, unless they're pitched outside the realm of human hearing, though there is some sort of gutteral growling going on that I can hear now; totally drowned out by the mad guitar. There's someone playing drums too, though they're not mentioned in the entry. Oh well.

That was fun. So let's give it another go and see if we can find a proper band to review, shall we? Must we? Yes, I fear we must.
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This, in case you haven't already noticed over the last few months, is really beginning to get on my nerves! ANOTHER unsigned band, split up, with a demo, and EP and a "split"(?) to their name. They come from the good old US of A and seem to have been active, if that's the word, from 1995-1996. Oh yeah, they're death/thrash metal. Or were. Probably all work as bank clerks now. Let's see if they've left anything behind to mark their passing...

Ooh! Apparently they have. From their first demo, released in 1995, which had the rather grandiose title of "Keep your dogma out of your de-kathoder" --- not a clue what that means --- this is called "Two dogs in a race (Murder song)"...

Yeah. After that I feel like committing murder! Oh okay, for those who simply must know, Kathode were the inappropriately-named Eric Prozac on guitar, Andrew W.K on drums and vocals and Jeff Rice on vocals, with two other guys, Mike Williams and the poor Shawn, who like the boys from Slovakia above seems to be able to afford one name. These two are shown as "unknown", so I couldn't tell you what they did in the band or how they contributed, but it's a safe bet they didn't play harpsichord or cello! Movin' on...
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On my last effort this time out, it seems I may actually have hit paydirt. This band are signed, have albums and are still alive! Yay! Mind you, they're shown as playing "pagan black metal". Boo. At any rate, since they have albums and it would be hoped they would be available in some shape, let's go the whole hog on them.

Just before I get to that, a quick comment. Yes they appear to have material available but being a tight-fisted old git I don't want to pay, so I tried to download a torrent of their discography. Rather appropriately, my torrent client shows a black spot, which usually means the torrent is not going to download for me. And checking back I see that yes, I have a "getaddrinfo failed" message, so so much for that. They seem to have a good few YouTubes though so I won't be starved of material for them, but good or bad I'd still rather have a full album to review. Not that I'm shelling out eighty cents for one, you understand, but as my unofficial family motto says, "Sic gratis mea" --- if it's for free, it's for me --- so I'll continue with a few more torrents before I give up. Meanwhile, here is some music...

Better yet, here is the bio of the band.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/i...CqV73yjhmtFK8Q
Band name: Kampfar
Nationality: Norwegian (Fredrikstad)
Subgenre: Pagan Black Metal
Born: Officially 1994 but really 2003 (see below)
Status: Active
Albums: Mellom skogkledde aaser (1997) Fra underverdenen (1999) Kvass (2006) Heimgang (2008) Mare (2011)
Live albums: None
Collections/Anthologies/Boxsets: None
Lineup: Dolk (Vocals) F
Ask (Drums, vocals)
Ole (Guitar)
Jon (Bass) F

Seems that the band began life in 1994 but after releasing two albums they split up, and it wasn't till vocalist Dolk (why can't these people afford a second name? Something must be done!) joined another band and met Jon that they resurrected Kampfar in 2003, thus explaining the large hiatus between their second and third albums. One thing I read about them that I do like is that their music is inspired by my favourite of all mythologies, Norse. But then you'd expect that, considering where they hail from. I have no illusions though that I'll be hearing anything like Manowar or Virgin Steele here: black metal is not my thing and I'm not expecting to particularly enjoy this, just survive it. Although...

Reading an interview with Dolk he seems to categorise and describe Kampfar as more "Norse pagan folklore metal", so perhaps it won't be as bad as I had feared. Kampfar apparently is an ancient battlecry warriors used to shout before plunging into the fray, and roughly translates to evoking the king of the Norse gods, Odin or Wotan or Woden. Seems like the band sing in their own native tongue, so like my review of Tyr's albums this may not be too easy, but sure we'll give it a go. At least there are albums to choose from. Speaking of which, how is my download doing --- Gaah! Failed again! Well, let's get a sense of them via the You of Tubes...

Hmm. I'm disappointed to hear Dolk is a growler/screamer, because I have to say the music behind him is not at all bad and I think I could get into it, but listening to a full album of this may be difficult. I'm also faced with the problem of not being at the moment able to download anything from them, and though I could buy one album to review I'd rather not now that I hear his voice. I mean, eighty cents is eighty cents in these hard financial times, ya know? I should partner up with the Batlord on this really: I'm sure he'd be able to PM me some albums. Then again, his setup as he says is really basic so the chances of that are actually nil. Plus he's currently off waving parts of his body at dinosaurs or something, or calling Tomas de Torquemada a puff. Maybe Unknown Soldier? Ah hell let's just go for it: sod the expense!

Oh wait just one tension-popping moment! Grooveshark has just come to my rescue! There's a full album --- yoink! And it hasnt cost me a cent, red or otherwise!

Fra Underverdenen --- Kampfar --- 1997 (Napalm)
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Okay, so the other good thing about this is that the album only has six tracks, so it shouldn't take too long to review. It's their second, and the one that led to the hiatus, so I think on this you just get Dolk and recently-departed (from the band, not this Earth!) Thomas. Yeah, that's it: Dolk adds drumming to his vocal, er, talents and Thomas handles guitar and bass. I could hazard a really bad guess at what the title of the album means --- lady of the forest? --- maybe not, don't know, but there is at least one of their only two, so far, songs in English on this album, so that will be a help.

I must say I'm surprised at the pastoral guitar opening of "I Ondskapens Kunst", but then Dolk roars and the song takes off, on sharp guitar and pounding drums. Nevertheless, it's no heavier than any other metal song I've heard to date, and without the screaming of the mainman I could probably enjoy it. Yeah. It just kicked up into about ninetieth gear and Dolk in addition to growling all over the place Dolk is pounding the drums like a man on a mission. Oh dear. The guitar work from Thomas is pretty sublime though, even at this speed. It certainly rocks along, and if any song could be said to take you completely by surprise in a sudden change, this is it. It's quite long at just over seven minutes, though not the longest on the album. It's got a real catchiness about it and were it not for the annoying vocals as I say I could probably enjoy this. More than halfway through it again slows down and what sounds like piano but certainly isn't comes through before Dolk slams his foot back down on the accelerator and off we go, charging into a wall of sound.

There's no doubting the prowess of Thomas on the guitar though, and he must surely be a major loss to the band, having parted company with them in 2010. Next up is another seven-minuter, "Troll, Død Og Trolldom", which starts off like something out of "Lord of the Rings" with what I am reliably informed is a didgeridoo (you know, that thing Rolf Harris used) but quickly powers up into another speed metal scorcher with attendant screeching vocals from Dolk. No idea what he's singing about (trolls, presumably, and not the internet kind one would assume) but Thomas again puts in a fine performance on the axes, handling lead and bass with equal aplomb. Completely fooling me, the song fades down to nothing in the third minute, there's about a second or two of silence then it comes back up on dramatic, harder guitar, slower and with a vocal so deep it sounds like our man Dolk has descended to the Underworld and is shouting up at us from there. Not sure whether I prefer (if prefer is the correct word) his screaming or his growling, but at least there's not so much of it in the "second movement", as it were, of the song, and we can concentrate more on the talents of Thomas.

Great little solo from him in the fourth minute, until that is Dolk spews all over it like some sort of lunatic screaming, and so the song winds on, gaining a little in tempo now but not quite as fast as it was at the beginning. I guess you have to give the boys some credit: it's a lot of noise and not the worst music to be made by just two guys. Probably needs a mellotron though... ;) Thomas takes over for the last minute more or less, the song instrumental apart from a few grunts from Dolk, then we're into "Norse", the only English language track on the album, not that it makes any difference as you still can't make out what Dolk is singing! Some backward masking starts it off, then a frenetic guitar riff blasts the song along in almost power metal territory while Dolk does what Dolk does. Very catchy, if I can use the word, melody, especially if you ignore or shut out the screeching, snarling vocals. Still, as I say, the guy could be singing in Norwegian here too for all the sense I can make of what he's singing.

When Thomas is allowed to cut loose his guitar for once sounds bright and clean, and in fairness Dolk seems to have discovered that drums will also work if you just hit them; you don't have to batter them into submission. It's almost a boogie blues beat as the vocalist plays with his new toy with the wonderment of a child who has just realised that great as the box is, there's something better inside it! Mind you, that doesn't last long and like that same child Dolk is soon back playing with the box, pounding it, kicking it, jumping up and down on it, anything that will make the most noise. Thomas, almost ignoring him, continues playing what has become some fine neo-classical guitar, and whether he's wasted in the band or whether Dolk is (for me) the weak link, the two are almost complete opposites of each other to my ears.

Hold on to your pikestaffs, because "Svart Og Vondt" is the longest track, edging the eight-minute mark, and starting with another big howl from Dolk (oh goody!) then moving along in a rhythm that reminds me in places of Iron Maiden's "Quest for fire"; the drums have managed to get a reprieve and Dolk is again trying them out as an instrument and not something to destroy. Really, if there was a way to strip the vocals out of this album I think I'd quite like it, though then I guess it would be something different altogether. I just don't have much respect for people who think they can sing when all they do is growl and roar, but then that's just me. Dolk is probably considered a really good vocalist in his genre; just not for me. Thomas on the other hand is an excellent guitarist, and I would love to hear an instrumental song on this album to really appreciate his sound and his technique. I doubt we'll get that though. With a howling, laughing roar Dolk is off again; I think I heard the word "suffering" in there (though probably not as this isn't in English) and if so, I know how he feels.

Luckily enough it's not too much later that it all fades down and away, but Dolk ain't gonna let me off that easy, and "Mørk Pest" (emphasis on the pest part!) bursts upon us with another of what I'm seeing now to be his characteristic roars. Great hard hammering guitar from Thomas and it's mid-paced, if such a description can be applied to this kind of music, with almost a sense of progressive metal lurking in there somewhere too. In general it kind of thunders along with Dolk sounding angry really. One thing I do find odd, even funny about most of these tracks is that they fade. I really don't expect metal of any kind to fade: it usually ends on a hard guitar chord, scream or yell, or even a roll on the drums. But fade? Still, that's what happens with ninety percent of what's here. That didgeridoo is back to open the final track, which is also the title one. A much more restrained, almost whispering Dolk for a few moments anyway and a nice sense of suspense and buildup in the song, the shortest at just over three minutes and the closest it would appear to an instrumental on the album. Almost laidback, which is not a word I expected to use with this band at all. With the barest minimum of input vocally from Dolk it comes out as my clear favourite for obvious reasons, and a good one to close on.

TRACKLISTING

1. I Ondskapens Kunst
2. Troll, Død Og Trolldom
3. Norse
4. Svart Og Vondt
5. Mørk Pest
6. Fra Underverdene

So what do I think of this band? To be honest, they're probably about the best I've come across in my six-month search so far. Despire the annoying screech and growl of the vocalist I'm conscious of some real talent here, and the fact that this is the product of only two bandmembers is laudable. I wonder what their other albums, with now a four-piece, sound like? Sadly, the voice of Dolk will mean I never want to listen to another of their albums, unless it's instrumental or he somehow has changed his style. But as a metal band Kampfar are certainly interesting, and not one you soon forget. I mean, how many other bands in this genre, never mind subgenre, can boast the usage of an Australian aboriginal native instrument in their repertoire?

And therefore, really on the strength of their diversity and the fine guitar work of Thomas, and despite the jarring, don't-shout-at-me-I've-just-had-six-pints voice of Dolk, I'm proud to be finally able to award one of these random metal bands a reasonable cleaver rating.

Oh, and thanks, O Metal Gods! Finally...
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I'm sure most artistes try to be as original as they can, particularly when it comes to song titles, but there are bound to be those times when a title is used by another artiste, or has already been used previously. Sometimes, quite often in fact, this can be spread across several quite separate genres, so that a certain song is unlikely to be mixed up with another from a totally different genre. But sometimes similar songs will crop up in the same, or close to the same, circles. These are the ones we look at in this section.

If you mention the song "Sail away", most people of a certain age will think of this one, though there are rather a lot of songs that possess the same title.

Sail away (David Gray) from "White ladder"
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ite_Ladder.jpg

One of the big hits from his most successful album, "White ladder", this song is a slow, acoustic laidback piece that just makes you think of, well, sailing away without a care in the world.

Sail away (Chris Rea) from "King of the beach"
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._the_beach.jpg

Another slow and lazy ballad (come on, you didn't expect any of these to be headbanging rockers, did you?) this song rides mostly on a lovely little piano line and some smooth slide guitar from Rea, but whereas Gray's song is one of escape, and of two people escaping together, Chris's is a sadder song, as he watches his lover sail away without him.

Sail away (Creedence Clearwater Revival) from "Mardi Gras"
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Certainly more uptempo, and going right back to 1972, Creedence also had a song called "Sail away" on their last album. As you might expect it's not so much a ballad as the others above, and again it's a song of escape but more of one man turning his back on the world and just leaving it all behind. Rather appropriate, given that this was their final album.

Sail away (Pet Shop Boys) from "Nightlife"
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Not strictly speaking on the album but released as the B-side to one of the singles on it, this would appear to be a version of a (very) old song by Noel Coward, given the PSB's upbeat treatment, with honking synths and clicking drum machines but still betraying its age.

Sail away (Kenny Rogers) from "Love or something like it"
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Crossing the genres even further, this was released by country legend Kenny Rogers on one of his early albums. It's got a toe-tapping upbeat sound about it, and more optimism than some of the other songs that bear its title. It also has an opening riff that is curiously reminscent of Orleans' "Dance with me"...

Sail away (Randy Newman) from "Sail away"
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Back to 1972 again for a classic from Randy Newman, with full orchestra and almost an anthem from one of his very early albums. Also later covered by Joe Cocker.

Sail away (Great White) from "Sail away"
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Yes, even a rock/metal band wrote a song called "Sail away". In fact, like Randy Newman above, though twenty-two years later, they also used the title for one of their albums. Again it's not a headbanger, not quite a ballad but with a nice sort of country-ish feel and again a very familar opening --- Simon and Garfunkel's "Mrs. Robinson"? I'm not kidding!

Sail away (Ten) from "Return to Evermore"
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...oevermore1.JPG

There are far more songs written with this title than you'd expect, and I could probably feature twenty, but we have to draw the line somewhere, so I'm bringing this to an end with a song from one of my favourite bands you never heard of. This is a lovely ballad with some fine piano and a great guitar solo.

Do you really listen to albums by David Soul and Kenny Rogers?

Hey man, I've listened to Boybands! Like, all the way through! Whole bloody discographies, or near as dammit! Soul and Rogers hold no fears for me!

Seriously, no. I decided to check out David Soul because of the whole "Bandwagon" thing, but like many of my articles encompassing a large discography I didn't listen to all his albums. Mind you, I had to listen to three, so as to be able to review and comment on them. I'd say they were generally ok but I wouldn't be inclined to listen to them again.

As for Kenny Rogers, I just looked up the different songs with that title and grabbed as many diverse ones as I could. I listened to the song as it played, but otherwise no, I'm not a Kenny fan. I'm not saying I wouldn't listen to his work for an article --- in fact, soon I'll be delving into the world of Johnny Cash, and I did review Kris Kristofferson's latest --- but country in general doesn't do a whole lot for me.

http://www.trollheart.com/nicesong.jpg
Yes, you're right: I'm rolling out all the older sections I haven't had a chance to look at recently, what with my new journal and the larger features I'm working on, not to mention Christmas and all those 2012 albums I had to catch up on. Still plenty more planned for the ol' Playlist, but for now I'd like to look back to an album that definitely deserves the above description. If I had a section called "Disappointing albums" I think this would certainly fit in that category. There are maybe two or three, at a stretch, good tracks on it and the rest I just don't like at all.

No angel --- Dido --- 1999 (Arista)
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Look, you can't get more pretentious than to have the name Dido Florian Cloud de Bounevialle O'Malley Armstrong, but I suppose at least she wasn't just taking the name from history. I was always rather surprised to find that Madonna was the singer's real name; thought it surely must be an assumed one. But no, it's the one she was christened with, and here again we find that Dido is this girl's real name. Mind you, the third part of her name certainly suits her as far as I'm concerned, because I found her music, through this album, almost exclusively depressing, whiny and self-indulgent. I wouldn't even call it melancholy, because that suggests a certain amount of acceptance. Dido's music --- at least on "No Angel" --- comes across to me as "poor me" all the time, none the moreso than her big hit single which, though ostensibly a song of gratitude, if you dig not too far beneath the surface, is all about her and what she has to put up with every day. Not that we all don't have to go through the same thing, Dido: you're not unique you know.

But to the album. Let's dispose of the good tracks first. Won't take long. ;)
First though, let's allow credit where it's due. Dido does at least write or co-write every song on this album, so she's not just singing someone else's songs. Paradoxically that may be a bad thing, as the ideas then, and the tone and mood of the songs can be at least partially attributed to her, and she can't blame anyone else for misrepresenting her. Not that I'm sure she cares one bit, but it's a common thread of doom and despair and, well, basically sulkiness that comes through this album for me at any rate.

Despite what I said above, I have to admit "Thank you" is a decent enough song, even if the whining does get on my nerves.

The opener too is okay, even though it bears something of a striking resemblance to the big hit single...

And the only track I really like is the closer, which is I think a bonus track, and the only thing that made the album worth the price of the purchase. A complete reversal of the themes of the other songs and --- shock! Horror! --- an upbeat, happy song! How did that get in here?


Now the bad ones, and they're many. Start off with "Don't think of me", with its self-indulgent, wrapped-up-in-itself lyric...
Then there's "My lover's gone". I have to say, I'm not surprised.

"Honestly OK" is just annoying...

"Slide" is just painfully boring, like Sade on downers

"Isobel" is dreary as hell

and the almost-title track,"I'm no angel", just brims over with self-pity, as does most of the album.


There's no question that after having bought this I had no further interest in listening to anything Dido had to say or sing. It's one thing to be introspective and moody on an album, but this just takes the biscuit. Hell, even the Smiths lightened up from time to time! Just depressing, and not the sort of album you put on to help you cheer up, that's for sure. And what has she to be so pouty about anyway? Didn't she sell millions of copies of this, and didn't it lift her up into the bright lights of international stardom?

Some people are never happy.

Okay, well about a year later than intended, here we finally are, with the first in what will be an occasional series focussing on the giants of the guitar, the ayatollahs of the axe, the supermen of the strat. In this series my intention is to detail the guitarist's life, both personal and in music, and review most if not all of their recorded material, which might explain why there's only the one album by this guy reviewed in my journal up to this. Yep, I was saving it all for this feature. The level of depth and coverage I want to go into here will more than likely, almost certainly in fact, require that this section be split up into sections, which I will post over a number of days/weeks, depending on how much I get done.

So, drum roll please --- well, guitar solo would probably be more appropriate --- and let's get going on the first ever edition of

http://www.trollheart.com/guitarman.jpg
http://www.thebluescornerradio.com/p...allagher_1.jpg
Rory Gallagher

Name: William Rory Gallagher (1948-1995)
Birthplace: Ballyshannon, Co, Donegal, Ireland
Born: March 2 1948
Died: June 14 1995
Cause of death: Complications brought on after he contracted a virus while waiting for a liver transplant. Also overprescription of antidepressants contributed to his ailing health.
First band: Fontana/The Impact
First solo attempt: 1970
Influences: Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, Lonnie Donegan, Woodie Guthrie, Lead Belly
Albums (Studio): 11
Albums (Live): 5
Compliations/Boxsets: 14
Singles: None
Hits: None
Legacy: Signature Fender Stratocaster, millions of adoring fans and the message that you don't have to compromise your ethics to make it in the world of music. A fresh honesty and a true dedication to the Blues.
A fitting epitaph: "Rory lived and died the Blues" --- Donal Gallagher


The Early Years: 1963-1966
Born into a musical family, both Rory and his brother Donal were musically-inclined, though it would of course turn out to be the older brother who was destined to become a star. His father had played in a ceili (pronounced kay-lee) band -- basically Irish traditional dance music --- and his mother, in addition to being an actor, had a great singing voice. Listening to the radio at night Rory heard the greats of the day --- Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochran --- and knew from an early age that he wanted to do what they did for a living. Winning his first talent contest at age twelve on a self-taught acoustic guitar, he used the prize money to buy himself an electric guitar, and later a Fender Stratocaster, which would remain with him, and identified with him, for most of his career.

With the family hardly rich (his father worked for the ESB, the Irish electricity company) and a record-player a luxury far beyond their means, Rory had no choice but to listen to late night radio and occasional programmes on the television to try to hear the music he was beginning to feel a kinship with, and try to hunt down song books so that he could learn the songs he heard. Music was by no means as available or accessible in the 1950s and 1960s as it is today. There was no internet, hardly any computers at all, and only tinny, mono radios called transistors or "trannies" (Now... :nono:) while video recorders were decades away, so if you wanted to see a TV programme you had to make sure you caught it then and there. Programmes, especially music ones, were rarely if ever repeated.

Though his first love, Rory decided he did not want to restrict himself to playing guitar only, and taught himself harmonica, sax, mandolin, bass, banjo and sitar, elements he would later incorporate into his live shows. In Ireland during the sixties there was only one outlet for a musician who wanted to be heard, who wanted to tour with other musicians, and that was the dreaded showbands. Twee, sentimental, cabaret bands who all dressed and sounded alike and played mostly ballrooms and dances, covering the popular hits of the time, this was not Rory's cup of tea but he bore the restrictions it put on his music, just to be out there playing. His exuberant displays on the guitar soon made him a minor legend, and he made a name for himself with Fontana, his first showband which he subtly moulded into more an r&b outfit, angering staid promoters and ballroom owners but speaking to the desperate need in the audience --- particularly the younger ones --- for a new kind of expression and freedom, a break from the boring traditions of their parents.

After guiding the band's sound sufficiently that they really no longer were the same band, Rory changed their name to The Impact, and they had minor success, especially in Spain. When they disbanded Rory continued on with the bassist and drummer and toured Germany. Returning home to Ireland, Rory was impressed and influenced enough by what he saw in cities like Hamburg to decide that his time in showbands was over, and he formed what would essentially become his first "real" or "remembered" band, Taste.

You should have known that resistance was futile. The Light of True Metal cannot be dimmed by vaginal secretions such as you.

BTW, what's this about not being able to find metal bands to review (I'm assuming by that you mean extreme metal bands)? There are about fifty million and one good bands out there.

No what I mean is that in this section I go to "Ecyclopaedia Metallum", go to the "Random band" option and see what I get. So far the only bands who have come up that I can actually get music from have been Sauron and Effrontery, until just now when I got those Nordic chaps. It's all down to chance, and so many of the bands that have come up on random search have been split, unsigned or just simply don't have anything available I can review.

I know, what are the odds? But it keeps happening... :banghead:

Don't forget Sail Away by Deep Purple from Burn (1974). It's the best track on a strong album, consisting of a duet between David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes, which makes me wish that the latter took all the lead vocals during the post-Gillan/Glover period. I say this despite Coverdale being a reasonable singer. There is a remastered CD of Burn, which has not one, but two versions of this great song. Play it loud!


Deep Purple - Sail Away - YouTube

D'oh: why not just ask me, Terrible Lizard (or a variety of other chaps here on MB) for metal recommendations every so often? Especially if you are digging around in extreme metal realms, finding something that might actually appeal to you is like finding hay in a pile of needles. :afro:

Time passages --- Al Stewart --- 1978 (RCA)
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A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away ... okay, not far away at all. This one, in fact. But a long time ago certainly, I used to do radio DJ work on a small --- very small --- local radio station. One night, while the records spun and I was bored I decided to go look through what was laughingly called a library. This was essentially a motley collection of records that other DJs had brought up to the station and either left behind by mistake, or just couldn't face bringing home with them. It was a few wooden shelves of records from artistes you had never heard of (or would want to), mostly Irish traditional or country with perhaps some "debut" singles from people who would never be let near a recording studio again, some handouts by artistes who mistakenly hoped we'd play them on air (we never did) and the odd decent album. This was of course the aforementioned, and I came across it, knowing of Al Stewart pretty much from his big hit "The year of the cat" and also one or two other songs I'd heard on the radio (though not, ironically, "Song on the radio"!) so I decided to, er, borrow it. It's still in my collection, and now seemed as good a time to actually listen to it as any.

Al Stewart is one of those people you know but don't know. Most of you will know the abovementioned song, although you may not be aware who sings it (it's Al Stewart!) and may have heard the odd other song by him, but you, and I, will be unaware that he was such a pivotal figure in the early pop/rock/folk scene in the fifties and sixties. He's the man who can lay claim, literally, to knowing Yoko before she ever met Lennon, to sharing an apartment with a young man called Paul Simon, and playing the very first Glastonbury Festival in 1970. He has also released sixteen studio and three live albums, and had six of his singles chart over the seventies, two of which hit the top ten, but only one of which made any impact at all this side of the pond, that being the famous "Year of the cat", which barely scraped in at number 31. But chart position is not everything, and that song particularly has proved far more popular and enduring than its paltry chart performance would have you believe.

The title track gets us underway with a nice soft digital piano and some acoustic guitar, gentle percussion and it's the sort of laidback, middle-of-the-road rock that typified much of the seventies. Good driving music I would think. It's one of the hit singles off the album, in fact the one that rose highest in the charts, at least Stateside. A sort of reflective song with an air of quiet resolution about it, it's shot through with some nice sax breaks from Phil Kenzie that unlike many sax players doesn't take over the song but enhances it gently with his playing, through when he wants to break out in a "Year of the cat" moment he certainly can do that with aplomb. Some lovely guitar from Stewart and fine piano from one of three keyboard players used on the album, you can see how this became a hit: it was a real song for the times. Probably wouldn't even get a single airplay these days if it were written today.

Stewart's voice is strong but not overbearing at any time, and I always felt he had a somewhat slightly feminine lilt to his voice, which isn't meant as any sort of criticism, just how he always appeared to me. Big sax break as we near the end of the song and you can see how Stewart was building on the phenomenal success of his big hit single from the previous year, as this song does retain many of the hallmarks of "The year of the cat" without being a copy in any way. Simple gentle piano then starts "Valentina way", but it quickly metamorphoses into an uptempo rocker on the back of electric guitar, sort of Dave Edmunds in structure and feel, the piano getting much more rock-and-roll now. It's interesting to note that, though he had no input into the songwriting that I know of, this is one of the early jobs for Alan Parsons as producer, and this song has a lot of the melody of many of the songs he would go on to oversee with the Alan Parsons Project. Whether he influenced this one or took influences away to his own solo career is not a question I can answer, but there's definitely an echo of "Valentina Way" in later songs to appear on APP albums.

"Life in dark water" is far more ominous, with a big heavy drumbeat and atmospheric guitar, great work behind the skins by Jeff Porcaro, just a year before he would found Toto and go on to fame and fortune. This song is the slowest on the album so far, not a ballad by any means but a real slowburner, dramatic and powerful with a certain feeling of claustrophobia about it. Then halfway through it goes into a bouncy, boppy Beatlesesque rhythm before bringing in some very effective guitar and piano for the middle eighth. I hear echoes of early Dan Fogelberg in here too, and the sonar effect at the end is both clever and chilling, when you realise the subject matter. A more mid-tempo song which to be fair takes a little from the melody of the opener, "A man for all seasons" is a nice little track, with a piano run which ELO would later rob for their hit "Confusion" (Okay, they probably didn't even know about it, but it is very similar) and another interesting lyrical theme, this time Thomas Moore, historical arch-enemy of King Henry VIII, with some rather telling comments on religion along the way. Nice backing vocals and some warbly organ with yet another really inspiring guitar solo from Stewart.

Little country/folk then for "Almost Lucy", a much more uptempo song that just makes you tap your foot, and brings back those memories of Dan Fogelberg to me at any rate if to no-one else. Excellent piece of Spanish guitar, then everything slows down in a very Alan Parsons way --- or I suppose I should be fair and say, a sound that would become Parsons' trademark --- for the stately and grandiose "Palace of Versailles". Nice, measured drumming and some fine work on the keys with Stewart's clear voice rising above it all, it's a retelling of the French Revolution, and the orchestration near the end is again very similar to the sound we would grow used to hearing from the APP. "Timeless skies" has a certain sense of Chris de Burgh about it --- certainly his earlier work, such as "Far beyond these castle walls" and "At the end of a perfect day" --- and some soft accordion from Peter White, then the other big hit from this album is "Song on the radio", which is about as commercial as you can get really for the time.

With a big breakout sax solo starting the song it bops along really nicely, and you can again hear elements of later ELO here; perhaps Jeff Lynne listened to Al Stewart and took some influences from him? It has one of the best hooks which manages to almost qualify the lyric: "You're on my mind/ Like a song on the radio" and which guaranteed it success in the charts, though it only hit outside the top thirty. It has gone on to become one of his best and most-played songs though, and much of this is certainly down to the energetic and flamboyant sax work of Kenzie, in marked contrast to his work on the opener. The song pretty much rides on his sax lines and the piano melody too. Of course, it all comes together under Al Stewart's friendly, gentle and everyman voice, which sells the song like no-one else could. The album ends on one of my favourites of his, which was used by one of the radio stations I used to listen to as their "closedown" song, rather appropriately, as it's called "End of the day".

If the title track was reflective, the song that closes the album is doubly so. Carried on a sparkling guitar line with a real laidback feel, some rippling piano and some flowing Spanish guitar, it's a short song but it doesn't need to be long. It's almost an instrumental, and a real showcase for the guitar work of the man whose name adorns the cover of the album. Just when you think there are going to be no vocals his voice floats in, with just a few lines, all the more effective for their brevity and the song is in fact the perfect ending to the album, the musical representation of the sun sinking slowly in the west, its rays splashing out over the darkening sea, with the promise of its return tomorrow.
TRACKLISTING

1. Time passages
2. Valentina Way
3. Life in dark water
4. A man for all seasons
5. The Palace of Versailles
6. Almost Lucy
7. Timeless skies
8. Song on the radio
9. End of the day

Songwriters like Al Stewart don't come along too often. He's had a pretty big influence on music down the decades, working with people like Jimmy Page, Tori Amos, Rick Wakeman and of course Alan Parsons, and yet few people are even aware of his existence. If it wasn't for "The year of the cat" being a minor hit over here we'd have nothing to mark his presence in the charts at all. And yet that record is played and requested more than most other songs from this era, even today. Timeless classics, you see, don't date and they don't go out of fashion, and even if time does continue in its passage, and we can do nothing to stop it, music like this lives on down the years.

A man for all seasons, indeed.

Yes, I saw it but as I say I had to have a cutoff point somewhere. Great song.

Well because the whole "Meat Grinder" section is built around the idea of random search. It's not that I particularly want to find metal bands, it's more what will I find when I go looking? With what's come up in the first four editions it's kind of metamorphosed into an almost comedic lack of good bands and as Blaro says it makes the section even more interesting. It's just amazing how many bands are out there with no claimable music on the net.

Alternating scenes --- Illusive Mind --- 2011 (?)
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This band are something of an engima. Very very hard to track down, and even on their own website there is no English version; my Spanish or Portuguese being somewhat rusty (ie virtually non-existent) I've had to make some educated guesses but what I've come up with is this: the band, as such, appears to be the solo project of one guy, Darwin Lubo, who so far as I can make out writes, sings, produces and plays everything here. The music is descibed as "rock progresivo" (anyone?) so I think I'm in about the right area. It looks like this is their/his second album and as far as I can see no label is mentioned, with the entire thing available via his Soundcloud page, which leads me to believe that either the album cover is just some pretty art and there is no hard CD copy, or that he released it independently. I can't obviously verify any of that, as he (let's call the project he, as there is only him involved as far as I can make out) doesn't come up in searches on any of my main metal or prog rock sites. Oh yeah, he's from Venezuela, hence the Iberian tongue. Does he sing in English? Well, the titles are in English, so let's find out, shall we?

"Trapped" gets us underway with a big synthy, dramatic opening and some low choral voices, effects and almost the feel of some sort of ceremony taking place, then big hard guitar pounds in and the tempo kicks right up alongside galloping drums, keyboards sliding into the mix for a few moments before they fade back out and the guitar takes the melody. Oh, then they're back in with a sort of organ sound and then augmented by very proggy arpeggios. Halfway through the song it's fairly clear this is going to be an instrumental. Will it be so all through the album? Time will tell. Good running keys with attendant guitar backing up the main one, then more ramped-up arpeggios and as we head into the last minute the guitar takes over, not so much a solo but definitely an instrument leading the charge. A big powerful end and we're into "Mechanical plague", which starts with a sound like someone plugging a lead into a guitar, then the guitar itself fires off in a marching sort of riff, percussion added to the sound and the guitar soars off into the heavens.

More guitars (presumably multitracked if our man Darwin is the only one in the band) set up a high squealing melody, with some talkbox work and it's obviously another instrumental. Very powerful guitar, almost shades of Iron Maiden in this at times, then that "plugging-in" sound again, leading me to believe this is definitely self-produced, though nothing about "Dream master" sounds in any way amateur. A great slow ballad with some lovely resonant guitar, almost bluesy in ways, some nice keyboard lines layered over the main guitar melody. I think by now as we work through the third instrumental in a row it's pretty clear this album is not going to have any vocals. Well, if it does I'll be surprised. Lovely orchestral-like keyswork halfway through that really adds a sense of drama to the music, the guitars then joining in on the same lines and creating an overall solid soundscape.

We're rocking again with the title track, powerful speedy guitars and some peppy keyboards, a really fine drum solo in the middle that's then added to by a rising organ salvo, bringing the guitars charging back in for the closing minute, while "Intruder part 2" (what happened to part 1? Search me. Maybe it's on the first album) has touches of the ghost of Metallica and some righteous keyboard work, chugging along at a fine pace, taking us into "Tight squeeze", with a sound familiar to old fogeys like me, the rasping click of stylus on vinyl that almost always preceded the music at the beginning of any album. Some odd sounds then the guitar takes it and it's slightly slower and a bit heavier than what has gone before, with some stabbing keyboard chords and later some really nice chiming keys too. But Darwin loves his axe, and it's this that snarls the ending and takes us into another "part 2" that doesn't seem to have a "part 1" that I can see, at least not on this album.

"1983 part 2" is built on a really nice chingling guitar sound with some synthy backdrop and a really nice bassline, another slow one it would seem although I'm kind of wrong there as there are some speedy licks on the keys more towards the end as it speeds up, and the tempo then stays high for "Divide and conquer", a guitarfest on which Darwin shows what he can do with that axe, racking out some great basslines too. Not that the keyboards don't get a look in... "Dr. Dometone" on the other hand pretty much rides on a mad synth line with the guitar banging away looking for attention, but your ears get drawn to the amazing keyboard riffs. The closer is the longest track on the album, almost nine minutes and to write and play a nine-minute instrumental that doesn't get boring is not easy, but on "Out of sight" Darwin has managed it admirably.

It explodes to life with a crashing drum intro and high keyboard arpeggios before the guitar slices in, and the piece just oozes with energy, as if he's saved the best to last. Strangely enough, just before the four-minute mark he racks off a chord on the guitar and brings the whole thing to a close, then a second later pumps it back up on the back of some wibbly keyboards and charging guitar again. Almost as if this were two tracks stitched together, though the sound is pretty much the same, so I suppose it should be seen as a false ending really. Some nice stop/start guitar then the bass takes over with some weird little synth effects before the main guitar comes smashing back in. To be honest, it's over before you realise it's run its course: how many (almost) nine-minute instrumentals can you say that about?

TRACKLISTING

1. Trapped
2. Mechanical plague
3. Dream master
4. Alternating scenes
5. Intruder part 2
6. Tight squeeze
7. 1983 part 2
8. Divide and conquer
9. Dr. Dometone
10. Out of sight

Listening to this music it's incredible to think (provided I understand the bio correctly) that this is the work of just one man. He makes Illusive Mind sound like a full band, and if this is a self-produced effort it's a pretty damn fine one. I must see if I can unearth his first album. If you like instrumental hard rock on the style of Pg. Lost and ASIWYFA, then you could do a lot worse than give a listen to this guy from South America. It's not too big a stretch of the imagination to say that he could find himself up there with the ... er, with those big rockers from ... um ... You know what? He could very well be on the way to being the one to put Venezuela on the rock map.

Note: unfortunately there are zero videos of this guy on YouTube, but here is his Soundcloud page, where you can listen to his albums: https://soundcloud.com/illusive-mind...nd-alternating

Darkling, I listen --- The Black Atlantic --- 2012 (Beep! Beep! Back up the truck)
http://slowcoustic.com/wp-content/up...g-I-Listen.jpg

Yeah I know: I'm listening to quite a few EPs recently. They've all been really good though, and hell, if there isn't an album to buy then an EP is the next best thing. The only trouble is that it leaves you often with little to review, as they usually only have four or five tracks. This one has five. You wouldn't expect this at all from an ex-metalcore founder, but I guess that just goes to show that you can't always judge a book by its cover, or an artiste by their previous work. This EP is a masterpiece of dark ambient melancholia, while yet retaining enough of an upbeat edge that my wrists are completely free of razor-marks.

Now admittedly I know nothing of the band called Shai Halud, but apparently they're an American metalcore band which mixes punk, thrash and progressive metal into their music, and Geert van der Velde was their frontman for some years, before he decided to take a course in philosophy, it would appear. During that time he wrote a song for his girlfriend (later wife) which he posted on Myspace and which then got so much interest that a label signed him to produce a whole album. This is the second album as such, although it's an EP. Mind you, I don't know if there's an album to come after this, but I do know that The Black Atlantic's first album is available for download from their website on one of those "pay what you want" deals that are becoming so popular now.

There's a soft gentle acoustic guitar to open "The aftermath (of this unfortunate event)", and it's very moody and melancholic indeed, with some strange sort of sliding percussion and then a nice electric guitar with the vocal quite folky in tone and not too far removed from progressive rock in places too. Gets a bit more animated as it nears the end of the song, sort of reminds me in places of Travis. Some nice lush keyboard then in the bluesy "The flooded road (Built on sand), van der Gelde gets to exercise his vocals a bit more, stronger and more forceful delivery than in the first. This one reminds me a little of Deacon Blue at their laidback best. Again, strange percussion, this time sounds like it's echoing. Lovely arpeggios on the keys from Matthijs Herder and a fine soft yet insistent little guitar line, then we're into the definitely more upbeat and uptempo title track, with the drums sounding "normal" for the first time in the EP, as they trundle out the beat, and some really effective vocal harmonies on the chorus.

A sweet little piano line from Kim Janssen joined by Geert's guitar, then it all stops for acapella vocals for a moment against just the pounding of the drums (sort of like listening to the sea crash against the rocks, very atmospheric) before a solid synth line that reminds me unaccountably of Genesis's "Watcher of the skies", the opening part anyway. There's a gentle little progressive, pastoral feel to "An archer, a dancer", and it's a slower song but some hard percussion cutting in ups the tempo slightly before it drops back to its original folky feel. The members of The Black Atlantic all appear to be multi-instrumentalists (bastards!) :p: as they all seem to play about three instruments at a minimum, from guitar and piano to percussion and ukulele! Well, all except the drummer. Very talented bunch. The song gets a little psychedelic near the end, falling into something of a Beatles vibe, and certainly seems the most upbeat of the tracks.

And all too soon we're into the closing track, as "Quiet, humble man" brings the curtain down with a beautiful little ballad right out of the early Genesis playbook, rippling soft guitar and flute, muted percussion and a really, again, pastoral feel. A lovely little laidback track with a ton of passion in the vocal and a really nice way to end the EP. Just wish there was more.

TRACKLISTING

1. The aftermath (of this unfortunate event)
2. The flooded road (Built on sand)
3. Darkling, I listen
4. An archer, a dancer
5. Quiet, humble man

Actually, there is, because as I say there's another album. It's available from their website, The Black Atlantic (you should go there, if only to see the video running live on the page) and you can purchase it; they now have a set price structure but it's still very reasonable. I'll be watching for more from these guys, and once I get their first album downloaded and have a few listens to it, expect a review here in the not too distant future.

Isn't it a bit depressing, TH? You mention it's just upbeat enough to avoid suicidal tendencies but do you really enjoy it THAT much? :D Why not review something happier for us next time?!

^^;

Hey, think yourself lucky I didn't post some Depressive Suicidal Black Metal! :laughing:
Not to worry, hon: most of my stuff is upbeat or at least not depressing. I don't like depressive music, but I really liked this one.

Coming up in the next hour: part two of my special on Ireland's favourite son!

Oh, and thanks for taking the time to comment: it really means a lot... :)

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The Taste Years: 1966-1970
Formed as a power trio with himself on (of course) guitar and vocals, John Wilson on drums and Richard McCracken on bass, Taste (originally The Taste) supported Cream and Blind Faith, making it to the Royal Albert Hall for the former's farewell concert, which must have been some experience for the young band. They played London's Marquee Club regularly, and also appeared at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970. This was in fact to be their last performance. But before that they released two great albums, and it is these we now will look at, as essentially the first official recorded output from Rory Gallagher.

Taste --- Taste --- 1969 (Polydor)
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This was where Rory finally got to play the blues, unfettered by popular convention and band rules. He had snuck in blues and rock tracks into his previous band, The Impact, but mostly to the chagrin of the promoters where they played. In the Ireland of the early sixties, if you didn't play showband you didn't play, and if you were in a showband there were rules to follow, expectations to be met. As often as he could, Rory would flout those rules and destroy/exceed those expectations, making a name for himself not because of the showband circuit, but in spite of it. Taste, however, was his band. He had put it together, he led it, he decided what they played. And here, on their self-titled debut, he writes every track bar the blues covers he includes on the album.

You can hear from the outset how Rory intends his music to be: hard, gritty, dirty and uncompromising. It's almost as if he wants to blow the cloying cobwebs of the sickly traditional/pop music he was forced to play in the showbands away forever, like pulling yourself free from a trap, or struggling out of a straitjacket. "Blister on the moon" gives an early indication of the sort of blues-flavoured rock he would purvey for the rest of his career, and it's one of his own compositions, essentially the first time he's played his own music under his own name. Of course, it's a little rough and his vocals need some honing, but even this early in his to-be illustrious career he's already a master of the guitar, and the clear, honest sound of a power trio that would characterise his music for most of the next almost thirty years is evident in this opener. It's a cover next, one of Lead Belly's, a real blues standard with a walking bassline from Richard McCracken and Rory's soon-to-be recognisable and indeed signature slide guitar. "Leavin' blues" is far more restrained than the opener, built pretty much on the bass pattern with Rory's Strat cutting through and throwing riffs and licks all over the place. The song however does not leave as much room for his instrument of choice as would later be normal, and as I say it's quite laidback.

It's another from one of the greats next, a cover of Howlin' Wolf's "Sugar mama", which certainly gives Rory more scope to exercise the guitar and also lets him unleash his gravelly, raspy vocals which, while they would never win him any awards as a great singer, were always more in a workingman style than someone who wanted to impress with his voice. Rory was always more about the guitar, and to be fair, even when he didn't sing the Strat had its own voice and told its own tale. Here it goes all-out, as you would expect from one of "The Wolf"'s songs, and in fact the track is the longest by far on the album, clocking in at just over eight minutes. What you would also expect on a song of that length would be an extended blues guitar solo, and Rory does not disappoint. You can hear the promise in the young guy here, and it's pretty obvious that even at this early stage we're listening to something special, that a true legend is in the process of being made, or at least started on his path.

To be honest, at times John Wilson seems a little lost behind the drumkit on this song, just kind of bashing away as Rory goes into overdrive, but that's a small quibble on a song this good and the frankly stupendous guitar work from Rory easily glosses over any failings in the percussion department, though I do wonder (this is my first listen to a Taste album) if the problem persists further on down the line? "Hail" then has an extended little bit of acoustic guitar noodling and sort of akin to a Delta blues song with elements of folk in it, another Rory original. Little sparse for my personal tastes, and it's followed by "Born on the wrong side of time", a nice big slice of rock with some great percussion this time (sorry, John: guess it was a one-off!) with a catchy little hook and reminsicent of songs he would later write such as "A thousand miles away" and "Used to be". It breaks down after about a minute into a sort of Beatles-ish sixties quiet acoustic vibe, with McCracken's bass again holding the line before Rory's guitar powers back in and the song takes off again. Bit off-putting, really; don't see the need for the section in the middle. That aside, definitely so far the closest to what would end up becoming Rory's sound on his solo albums in years to come.

"Same old story" is a mid-paced boogie blues rocker with again much of what would find its way into Rory's later compositions, and "Catfish" appears to be an old traditional song given a heavy blues twist by Rory, and clocks in as the second longest on the album. I have to say, for me it doesn't work and just comes across as long and droning, boring and stolid. It's a prime example of a song stretched to well beyond breaking point. Oh well, can't fault the guy on his debut album, can you? And it's not really even his debut, as in solo effort yet, so he has a ways to go and much to learn. Closer "I'm movin' on" is a cover of Hank Snow's song, reflecting Rory's fondness for country music and ends the album in a nice, understated way.

TRACKLISTING

1. Blister on the moon
2. Leavin' blues
3. Sugar mama
4. Hail
5. Born on the wrong side of time
6. Dual carriageway pain
7. Same old story
8. Catfish
9. I'm movin' on

Never one to let the grass grow under his feet, Rory made sure Taste's next album was in the shops the following year, and it was a more mature, structured and accessible offering, with this time no covers and Rory composing every track. It's gone down as their best --- although they only had two, plus two live albums --- but this year, 1970, would lead to the breakup of the band and Rory launching his own solo career, from which he would never look back.

On the boards --- Taste --- 1970 (Polydor)
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I don't know who designed the cover, but the album couldn't look older if they had tried. Even in 1970, its sepia colour, faded look and the frankly terrible picture of the band (Rory looks like a Native American or a priest or something, and his clothes make him look much fatter than he is) made the album look like it had been around at least a hundred years. Still, cover's aren't everything and no-one was buying Taste albums for the cool sleeves (check the artwork on their debut above): everyone was more interested, rightly, in what was between the grooves. The music was the thing, and terrible cover aside, "On the boards" delivers on every front.

A big heavy guitar riff that would be repeated in part on songs like "Moonchild" and "Last of the independents" some years later, "What's going on?" is a semi-blues rocker, with some nice introspective guitar at times from Rory, one of those great smooth solos he would become famous for, while "Railway and gun" sort of brings in the country/bluegrass elements we heard in the closer on the debut. Great busy little bassline drives "It's happened before it'll happen again" but again I find the drumming a little disjointed. Mind you, I'm not crazy about this track at all. It is however the first time I can hear Rory on the sax, and that's interesting if a little jazzy for my tastes (hah!)

There's a real change for "If the day was any longer", with an acapella intro from Rory which leads into a folky little acoustic number, quite short but cool, and features the first use --- that I can hear --- of Rory's famous harmonica, which would accompany him on so many gigs and be a facet of his performance both live and in the studio, just another of the many instruments he would learn and become proficient on. Minimal percussion and a steady bass line, and we're into "Morning sun", an almost funky little piece which reminds me of, er, Madonna's "True blue". Yeah, sorry, it's just that sort of beat, even though Madge wouldn't appear on the scene for at least another ten years. Great stride guitar although some of Rory's vocals are a little quiet, as they are again on "Eat my words", his squealing Strat leading the charge and sliding all over the song, setting up a great sound that would become familiar to all adherents of Rory's music.

The title track is a slowburner ballad, that again pulls in some jazzy sax from Rory. Sorry, but I really don't like jazz and I'm glad that (good though he is on it, and credit where it's due) Rory mostly dropped the sax from his solo albums, concentrating on the guitar and harmonica, and for a while, piano. This one again I find overlong and not a little boring and hard to get through, though nowhere near as bad as "Catfish" was. A rockin' boogie rocker then in "If I don't sing I'll cry", and I must admit I think most of the problems with Rory's vocals here are probably more than likely down to poor production. I find this very muddy, very fuzzy and cut quite low, although when Rory fires off his Stratocaster it's certainly high in the mix, which is at least a blessing. There's not too much singing in this, luckily, and a nice quick blast on harmonica, then it's two more short tracks to end the album, with "See here" a nice solid acoustic ballad on which you can hear Rory's voice clearly for once, then the album closes on "I'll remember", a big dirty heavy rocker with a walking bass line and some almost big band sax and a superb little solo from Rory.

TRACKLISTING

1. What's going on
2. Railway and gun
3. It's happened before, it'll happen again
4. If the day was any longer
5. Morning sun
6. Eat my words
7. On the boards
8. If I don't sing I'll cry
9. See here
10. I'll remember

By this time, Taste had built themselves a strong following (though it's probably fair to say the one drawing the most attention would have been Rory on vocals and guitar as the frontman) and looked set for big things. They played the Isle of Wight Festival that year and released a live album from the concert, but it was released after their breakup, along with their previous album, also live, also released in1971. Even twenty years later the true story of how and why Taste broke up is not fully known. When asked about it, Rory would either clam up and declare he didn't want to go back over "ancient history" or get quite angry and emotional about the way he was treated, and painted as the villain. What we can piece together from the rumours and stories is that, plagued by management strife and internal problems, Taste, having been the vehicle to propel Rory Gallagher to international attention if not stardom, broke up in 1970 and Rory decided it was time he took on the world on his own terms, under his own name, as a solo artiste.

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Having been gently accused of posting something too depressing by the redoubtable misspoptart (mmm.. pop tarts!) I dedicate this entry to her good self, who from her online personality at least gives the rather encouraging impression that she is seldom, if ever, depressed.
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As I said in the first episode of this series, there's not always a clear reason why certain songs cheer us up or put us in a good mood, and indeed some of the ones I select may have the reverse effect, but this is my journal and if you don't like it YOU CAN ALL JUST GO TO HELL ALWAYS BUGGIN ME ANNOYIN ME SICK OF IT .... Er, sorry, forgot to take my pills today. Ahem. Anyway, these are songs that when I hear them just make me smile and want to be happy. Which most of the time I am anyway. God knows why...

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"Love is in the air" --- John Paul Young, from the album "Love is in the air", 1978

I love the optimism and simplicity in this song. It's got no deep meaning, just the pure joy of someobody walking around and seeing people in love. Great beat and I love the way the chrous builds up on that "climbing" piano. One of my favourite "up" songs.

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"True blue" --- Madonna, from the album "True blue", 1986

The beat of this song makes it for me, also the "Hey!" at the start. I'm no big fan of Madonna's but I really like this single, and again the simplicity of love and devotion in it --- even if it's hardly likely to reflect Madge's own personality --- speaks to me. Always evokes the best part of the late eighties in my mind.

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"Love's the only rule" --- Bon Jovi, from the album "The Circle", 2009

The upbeat tempo of this song, plus the power and passion Jon puts into the music makes this one of my favourite tracks on the last album. Say what you like about Bon Jovi --- I've heard it all before and you won't change my mind about them --- they know how to write catchy pop/rock, and this is about as catchy as it gets. Always puts me in a good mood.

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"Don't stop" --- Fleetwood Mac, from the album "Rumours", 1977

I hardly need to explain why this song makes me happy do I? One of the cheeriest, most optimistic, uptempo records of the seventies, and from a classic album too. What more could you want?


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"And a bang on the ear" --- The Waterboys, from the album "Fisherman's blues", 1988

Perhaps odd that two of the songs I chose as happy ones, or ones that make me feel happy have "blue" in the title, but there you go. This is a great celtic swinger from Mike Scott and the boys. It sort of has no real chorus, just the line where he sings the title, but it's a real one to get up and have a hoolie to, and the sort of philosophical shrug Scott treats each of his failed love affairs with is refreshing.

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Getting somewhat harder to find cover versions of songs from the Simpsons. This latest batch are all quite short, with the video quality ranging from okay to totally abysmal (I mean, what the hell's wrong with the guy on the first one? He got Parkinson's or something? Can't hold a camera/phone/camcorder steady for like more than a minute?), but then I've remarked on this before.

Otto sings "Free bird" by Lynyrd Skynyrd (eventually)... and also causes the fiery death of Spinal Tap! Yay!


Lisa sings the strike protest song and at the end plays Mason Williams' "Classical gas", at the request of Lenny (not Lenny!)


Groundskeeper Willie sings a, er, singularly Scottish version of Petula Clark's "Downtown".

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The Early Solo Years: 1971-1974

The early seventies were Rory's most prolific, as he struggled to establish himself as a solo artiste in his own right. At that time, there really were no international artists from Ireland, and with Van Morrison Rory led the way, recruiting bass player Gerry McAvoy, who would be one of the mainstays of his band for over two decades, and a firm friend, to create another power trio, though unlike Taste this one would have a harder rock edge, and was clearly from the start Rory's own band. Although he had basically taken the controls at Taste, performing under his own name gave him an extra degree of contol over the output, and on his first, self-titled album he wrote every track and also produced the album. He also pulled in Wilgar Campbell on drums, but whereas McAvoy would remain a steadfast ally of Rory's through the seventies and eighties, Campbell would be replaced after the second album.

Rory Gallagher --- Rory Gallagher --- 1971 (Polydor)
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There's a big boogie number to start the debut album off, with "Laundromat", and it's rockin' good, though again I find the vocals very far down in the mix, like on the Taste albums. Rory produced this himself and it was likely his first attempt at production, so perhaps he was just unfamiliar with how to mix an album properly. Either way, the guitar work of course stands out head and shoulders above everything, and Rory uses his trusty harmonica for the first time on one of his own albums. McAvoy keeps up a great bass rhythm, almost as if it were an upright bass he was playing, and Campbell bashes out the beat the way you would expect a seventies drummer to. Rory's style of singing was often more shouting lines at you than conventional singing, and nobody would I think class him as one of the great singers, but as a guitarist he had few if any equals. "Just the smile" slows things down a little with a hard dobro-style sound on the guitar, and a folky melody that still maintains an edge. Has a great almost "Mrs. Robinson" rhythm to it.

This song is mostly guitar, as were many of Rory's: he never forced too many lyrics or even vocals into a song if he could avoid it, preferring to let his guitar do the talking, and so it works. You don't really concentrate too much on the singing --- though it's fine, but nothing terribly special --- and just let the great fretwork wash over you. Slowing it down even more then for the blues-style ballad "I fall apart" with again soft vocals from Rory but a hard guitar and the first really standout solo. That old mixture of Delta blues and country shows up again on "Wave myself goodbye", featuring for the first time piano, here provided by Vincent Crane, in one of two appearances by him on the album. It does add a nice honky-tonk feel to the song, and compliments the acoustic guitar nicely.

"Hands up" is a more rocky, bouncy track with some fine powerful drumming from Wilgar Campbell driving the beat, and featuring an extended workout by Rory on the Strat, while the next one up was to become one of his standards and best-loved songs. "Sinner boy" starts off like a blues ballad but then breaks out into a real rocker, with that squealing twanging guitar that was to become something of his trademark, high pitched with plenty of slide. A much slower, laidback song then in "For the last time", a kind of menacing blues ballad, of the type Rory would become identified with, as would his contemporary Gary Moore, the sort of song where the singer admits he's been a fool (usually for some woman) and swears that won't happen to him again. Another great solo and a walking bass line from McAvoy, sort of doomy drums from Campbell, and the lion's share of the song is taken up by another serious workout on the guitar, taking us into the bluesgrass-styled "It's you", a bopping, slide-guitar aided little tune (I'll be honest: it sounds like steel guitar but I can't be sure, and there's no such instrument credited, though it's a guitar so... maybe) and on into "I'm not surprised", the other song containing piano accompaniment from Vincent Crane.

Starts off almost Rush-style on hard acoustic and mandolin, then gets going in a blues groove with the piano sliding in; sort of a Beatles vibe to the song, and the album then ends on "Can't believe it's true" with a sort of shuffle melody and coming closer to the more famous songs he would pen down the line. This also features sax from the man, but again as I said in the Taste reviews, I don't really feel it adds much to the song or makes that much of a difference. A good album, a good debut but it was unlikely to set the charts on fire. Then again, that was never Rory Gallagher's intention. He just wanted to make music that people might like to hear. Simple, huh?

TRACKLISTING

1. Laundromat
2. Just the smile
3. I fall apart
4. Wave myself goodbye
5. Hands up
6. Sinner boy
7. For the last time
8. It's you
9. I'm not surprised
10. Can't believe it's true

Eager now more than ever that he had released his first solo album to get his music heard, Rory was back in the studio at the end of the year and this resulted in his second album coming out in the same year. Although only his second it is markedly different in its tone and feel, and copperfastens the beginning of the real Gallagher sound on tracks like "Crest of a wave", "In your town" and the melancholy "Should've learned my lesson".

Deuce --- Rory Gallagher --- 1971 (Atlantic)
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Right away there's a more cohesive sound to the album. Whether that's due to his growing proficiency on the guitar or the fact that his intention for this album was to give it a more "live performance" feel I don't know, but one thing I do hear is that his vocals are more balanced, not pushed down to the point where they could be not quite inaudible on the debut, but definitely low in the mix. "I'm not awake" gets us underway, bopping along nicely with some rolling percussion from Wilgar Campbell, an almost Irish traditional rhythm to the song, some more fine soloing. Much harder and rockier is "Used to be", with Rory's growled vocal rising to meet the snarl of his guitar, and again I hear a lot of Alex Lifeson in his playing here, although Rush would not release their first album for another three years yet. That country/folk element comes back in for "Don't know where I'm going", with another star turn for Rory's other old mate, the harmonica, allied to his acoustic guitar.

Back to the electric then for "Maybe I will", with an almost jazzy tempo to it, some great basswork from Gerry McAvoy, sense of rockabilly to it too, then "Whole lot of people" is even moreso, while the real standout on the album comes in the shape of "In your town", with a big boogie blues rocker with Irish reels threading through the melody. The story of a man released after serving his time in jail and out for revenge or just to have a good time (it's not clear), it's a great bopper and really just bursts with energy and enthusiasm. In total contrast then is "Should've learned my lesson", a doleful blues ballad in the mould of "woke-up-this-morning-and-my-woman-done-gone" so beloved of the old hands. Great stuff.

"There's a light" has a sort of Santana idea about some of it, rocks along nicely and you can definitely hear a marked improvement in Rory's singing, his voice much stronger, more determined and focussed. More of the folky country feel from the previous album on "Out of my mind", some great mandolin playing by Rory, with the closer the brilliant "Crest of a wave", another which would become a fan favourite, a great heavy groove that just closes the album as strongly as it began. For a second album, I think "Deuce" shows a giant leap in Rory's talent, which is not to say the debut was bad, because it wasn't, but this is a world removed from that first album, and you could see even then this boy was not going to be held down; we're witnessing here the birth of a star.

TRACKLISTING

1. I'm not awake yet
2. Used to be
3. Don't know where I'm going
4. Maybe I will
5. Whole lot of people
6. In your town
7. Should've learnt my lesson
8. There's a light
9. Out of my mind
10. Crest of a wave

Of course, every true musician knows there's no substitute for the stage, and though Rory was getting no radio airplay at this time, and certainly releasing no singles, and was pretty much an unknown quantity generally, he raised his profile and built his fanbase on the back of continuous touring, becoming one of the hardest-working musicans certainly in Ireland, maybe in Europe. He ensured that he toured his native country at least once a year, often more, and yet managed to fit in recording two albums a year between 1971 and 1973. Rory's reputation was built, maintained and mythologised through his live performances, and many people consider versions of studio tracks inferior to the live renditions. Certainly, free of the constraints of studio time Rory could lengthen and expand some of his better songs onstage, and he also got a chance to cover some ones he would probably not have put on his studio albums.

Two live albums have gone down in history as being definitive of his work, the first released in 1972 and pretty much made up of covers and traditonal songs, with just one track from each of his first two albums. "Live! in Europe" was recorded, not surprisingly, on his European tour of 1972 and together with the later "Irish Tour '74" gives a fascinating insight into a man who lived to walk the stage with a Strat, a guitarist who loved the stage spotlight but shunned the celebrity one, and an almost reluctant star who lit up any stage he strode.

Live! In Europe --- Rory Gallagher --- 1972 (Buddah)
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It's probably not the greatest of starts, to be honest, when they introduce him as "Rory Gallag-er" rather than "Galla-her", but the album gets going with a track that, though it appears on none of his studio albums and is not his own song, became another to be very clearly identified with him, Junior Wells' "Messin' with the kid", great bit of blues boogie rock and you can hear Rory's singing voice now firmly established; gone are the squeaky, breathy, echoey and at times almost inaudible vocals that plagued the first album: Rory's singin' loud and proud now. Strangely enough, the track he chooses from the debut album is "Laundromat", which is okay but certainly not the best track on that album: I would have gone for "Sinner boy" or something like that. Nevertheless, it's a spirited version of the song, and it's also nice to hear Rory thank the crowd and say hi after the first track: adds to the genuine live experience so few live albums manage to capture.

Next up is one of four traditional arrangements on the album, a song apparently Bob Dylan wanted to duet with Rory on, but which sadly never happened. With a melancholy harmonica intro and sharp guitar, " I could've had religion" has a blues/gospel arrangement, then breaks into a crunching slow rocker, with pounding percussion from Wilgar Campbell and chunky bass from Gerry McAvoy framing the song. Real slowburner, and Rory really gets to exercise his pipes here, then much more restrained and in a country vein is Blind Boy Fuller's "Pistol Slapper Blues", pretty much on acoustic guitar without any accompaniment that I can hear from the band: I feel (though I could be wrong) that even the minimal percussion in the song is engendered by Rory tapping his palm against the guitar. What would appear to be a Gallagher original not on either of his first two albums to date, "Going to my hometown" is almost acapella with some frenetic work on the mandolin by Rory, big thumping drumming from Campbell and some enthusiastic clapping from the audience.

Highlight of the album for me is a ten-minute storming version of "In your town" from "Deuce", my favourite from that album and I'm glad to see that if he had to pick only one track from the second album that this is the one he decided on. The song is made for a live performance, and goes down really well with the crowd. That leaves three trad arrangements to take us out, the first of which is called "What in the world" and opens on soulful harmonica and a slow blues/soul beat with the thickest bassline you're likely to hear, then it's another slow heavy blues tune in "Hoodoo man", and the album closes on yet another track that, though it would never feature on a studio album by him, would become another standard and expected song at every gig, the rockin' and rollin' boogie "Bullfrog blues".

TRACKLISTING

1. Messin' with the kid
2. Laundromat
3. I could've had religion
4. Pistol slapper blues
5. Going to my hometown
6. In your town
7. What in the world
8. Hoodoo man
9. Bullfrog blues

When Rory's second live album, the career-defining "Irish Tour 74" was released two years later, he would quite amazingly have another two studio albums to choose material from. The early seventies were a time of great productivity and creativity for Rory, and he would release, all told, seven albums before the decade was halfway through. That's some workrate, especially when you take into account that he was also squeezing in at least one tour a year into his schedule. Some of today's artistes could learn from this man.

After being first made aware of the blues by listening to his heroes, studying them, covering them and eventually emulating them, Rory was finally rewarded in the early seventies by playing with them. Muddy Waters invited him to guest on his album "London Sessions" in '72, and though he says it was a honour to play with his idol, as well as the likes of Steve Winwood and Mitch Mitchell, even participating in those recordings did not keep him from gigging. He would play a concert in the evening and then drive at speed up to London, arriving in the early hours and, in true rock-and-roll fashion, jam till dawn. Rory was so impressed by, and in awe of Muddy, that he kept the car in which he had driven the blues legend to various gigs as a sort of shrine to him, letting it rust away in his front garden back home in Cork. He just could never bring himself to sell it, the car an integral part of his history and a concrete link back to the glory days.

As mentioned, "Live! In Europe" was the last album to feature Wilgar Campbell behind the drums, and he was replaced the next year by Rod De'ath (yeah, his real name apparently!), who would stick with Rory for another six years, right through to the end of the seventies. He also brought with him a recommendation for his friend Lou Martin, a pianist and keyboard player. Rory had been thinking about incorporating the sound of keyboards into his band, and Martin seemed to fit the bill. And so in February of 1973 Rory's band changed from a power trio and for the first time included a keyboard player. Under this lineup he released his third studio album, one of two he would produce that year, and one of his most regarded.

Blueprint --- Rory Gallagher --- 1973 (Polydor)
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There's an immediate difference in the sound thanks to Martin's influence behind the keys. A big booming organ sound greets the opening of "Walk on hot coals", and then changes to a funky piano that complements Rory's guitar as the song goes along, a rocky, uptempo toe-tapper, and a song that would become another favourite live. As on all his previous and future albums, other than cover versions, every track here is written solo by Rory. He was a man who never co-wrote with anyone, and that was how he liked it. His songs were his children: he gave birth to them, he nurtured and cared for them and he was responsible for them. It's quite stunning really that he could be such a tremendous guitarist, showman, songwriter and singer --- although as noted, while he was certainly an adequate singer no-one would put him up with the greats purely on the strength of his vocals.

A great piano run takes us out of the song and we're into "Daughter of the Everglades", a somewhat more downtempo song driven this time mostly on Lou Martin's steady piano, the keys lightening the tone of the song somewhat, nice little organ stabs also adding to it. If this song reminds me of anything, in structure and melody, it's his later "Overnight bag" from the very successful "Photo finish", released a few years later. Rory breaks out the harmonica then for an old-style blues lament he calls "Banker's blues", which could almost still be relevant today if you look at it from a different angle to the one under which Rory originally wrote it. More great piano work here, and acoustic guitar takes the lead, with a great harmonica and piano ending, taking us into "Hands off", a bouncy, uptempo boogie rocker where once again Martin gets to shine as he adds his own special touch to the song.

"Race the breeze" then gets something of a progressive rock edge due to the organ work on it by Martin, the song chugging along like a steam train, and in fact again reminding me of a future song he would record, "Ride on red, ride on", from the "Jinx" album, released in 1982. Some great slide guitar on this, then fifteen years before Iron Maiden had it, Rory's "Seventh son of a seventh son" isn't quite as mythologically/fantasy-based as the title track from that album, though there's again quite a prog rock intro on crashing cymbals and rippling keyboards with a lovely shuffling bass line from Gerry McAvoy. Some very Doors-ish piano from Martin too, and it's a long song, the longest on the album at over eight minutes. I have to admit though, it's quite repetitive once it gets going, and in that manner I think it goes on too long. Way too long.

Nice little acoustic folky tune in "Unmilitary two-step" played on maybe mandolin, or could be the acoustic guitar, even a dobro, not sure, but it's the first instrumental track of Rory's career. The album then ends on the very country-styled "If I had a reason", with what sounds like Hawaiian guitar (!) but hell, that could just be Rory making his axe do what he wants it to do. A slow, country ballad, it's perhaps an odd way to end what is otherwise a pretty hard-rockin' album, but then, Rory's tastes and influences were always quite diverse.

TRACKLISTING

1. Walk on hot coals
2. Daughter of the Everglades
3. Banker's blues
4. Hands off
5. Race the breeze
6. Seventh son of a seventh son
7. Unmilitary two-step
8. If I had a reason

I can remember seeing some time back, that you did a huuuge article on Rory Gallagher and now you're doing another one! Maybe you should collate the two and we'd have one very big article on the man.

With his new band lineup established, Rory was back in the studio before Christmas to record what would be his fourth album, and one from which many of the tracks would go on to become minor classics and requested live songs. During this period Rory would also somehow fit in a tour of the USA, Canada, and Europe --- twice! Did the man have an army of clones? And of course he always made certain to tour his beloved native country, including Northern Ireland, even at the height of "The Troubles", when few if any bands from the south would venture north across the border. This dedication to his fans, bighearted bravery and a refusal to allow politics --- or even the risk of his own safety --- to affect his live schedule increased his army of admirers and solidified the almost messianic love those who already followed him lavished on him. Never a man to boast or brag, Rory shrugged his shoulders when asked about such things and replied that he just wanted to play, and see his fans. It really was as simple as that.

Even when, two years later, the popular Miami Showband were gunned down and killed near the border, and tensions between north and south reached breaking point, when no-one from the Republic would play in the Six Counties, Rory would buck the trend and continue his practice of playing venues like the King's Hall and Ulster University, almost oblivious to the danger, as if it had nothing to do with him. Perhaps inside he was worried, but if so he never showed it, and his fierce determination not to be scared out of playing the north made him a local and national hero.

Tattoo --- Rory Gallagher ---- 1973 (Polydor)
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Building on the somewhat fuller sound of tracks like "Daughter of the Everglades", the title track --- well, sort of: it's called "Tattoo'd lady", but as close to a title track as you're going to get here --- starts us off in a sort of mid-paced tempo, definitely more guitar driven this time, though Lou Martin's piano still makes its presence felt, but Rory's firing up the Strat and letting it have its head. Martin's organ is let off the leash however for another song that would become a big favourite, "Cradle rock", which, er, rocks along at a great pace, Rory adding in a good dose of the ol' harmonica for effect. Not hard to see how this became a live favourite! Rory slips on the acoustic then for "20:20 vision", with Lou adding the piano lines, and some more harmonica finds its very welcome way into the tune.Gerry threads a great walking, almost swaggering bassline through the song, and it's a real swinger.

Sounding almost like the opening to "Grange Hill" (anyone remember it?) "They don't make them like you anymore" is another rocker, with a sort of lounge/cabaret feel to it, some fast piano and another great jazzy bassline from Gerry --- yeah, I could hear this in some upmarket club as the champagne glasses clink and people talk in the background. Sort of. "Livin' like a trucker" then is a harder, more stripped-down song, with some talkbox guitar from Rory and a funky rhythm, while "Sleep on a clothesline" has a twelve-bar blues beat that Status Quo would be proud of. Plenty of honkytonk piano and squealing guitar, then like a lone gunman riding into town it's Rory's Strat that leads the way on "Who's that coming?", joined shortly by bass and drums with plenty of slide and harmonica getting in on the act, and although the song is in fairness a little repetitive, there's something about it that makes its seven minute run not seem stretched too far. Great piano solo by Lou Martin helps, certainly, but I think it's kind of more the energy and just simple fun of the song that defies you to get bored of it. In fact, I'd probably listen to a couple more minutes of it!

Another big fan favourite then in "A million miles away", and another long song, the second on the album over seven minutes, it's a blues slowburner with a lot of soul and a sense of homesickness that translated really well to the live stage. This is the only track to feature Rory on his sax again, and I must say for once it actually works well here, adding to the sense of tension and loss in the song. I think I would have preferred the album to have ended on such a strong, powerful and later classic song, but there's one more to go, and it's "Admit it", which I will admit, is not that great an ender. It's not bad but you know... Interestingly, on this album Lou Martin is credited with also playing accordion, but I can't hear it anywhere. I guess it's there somewhere, but it just doesn't stand out to me.

TRACKLISTING

1. Tattoo'd lady
2. Cradle rock
3. 20:20 vision
4. They don't make them like you anymore
5. Livin' like a trucker
6. Sleep on a clothesline
7. Who's that coming
8. A million miles away
9. Admit it

Irish Tour '74 --- Rory Gallagher --- 1974 (Polydor)
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Acknowledged as one of the finest and most honest live albums by a rock artiste, this album shows Rory's determination to tour Ireland during the troubled times of the mid-seventies, when few bands would even contemplate crossing the border into Northern Ireland. Rory played Dublin, Cork and Belfast, and this album is a testament to how his audience and his fans rewarded his dedication to them, and, it has to be said, his bravery in facing what was a very turbulent time in Ireland with the stoicism and everyman courage that coloured his entire career.

The album is made up of half material from his previous albums, three covers and one song that resulted from a jam session, and ends with a tiny little instrumental. "Cradle rock" starts us off, as it would many of his shows, and although the announcer again gets his name wrong, calling him Galla-ger instead of Galla-her, the crowd reacts with passion and he's obviously seen as a folk hero, especially in Belfast, who at the time would have been starved of acts to play in Ulster Hall. A version of Muddy Waters's "I wonder who" is next, after Rory has introduced the band. It's a real opportunity for him to pay homage to his heroes and also to show what he can really do on that beat-up old Stratocaster! A great organ solo too from Lou Martin, then we're into "Tattoo'd lady", another song that would become a favourite at live shows.

Another cover then, in J.B. Hutto's "Too much alcohol", which goes down really well with the (probably slightly pissed anyway) crowd, then he keeps the tributes going with Tony Joe White's "As the crow flies", with some fine individual skill on the Strat, playing it almost like a banjo at times. Rory also breaks out the harmonica, which fits in really well with the kind of folk/bluegrass feel of the song. It's Rory originals though from this point on, with the immense "A million miles away" getting us started, which Rory introduces as "a new song". Well, given that "Tattoo" was only released in November of 1973 and this tour took place in January of '74, I guess not too many people would have had the chance to have heard it, so yeah, from that point of view it could be seen as a new song.

Rory extends the song by about three minutes in this live performance, and it's a joy to hear. Martin plays his usual flawless part, and it really goes down well with the crowd. Ratcheting the tempo right back up then with "Walk on hot coals", another extended version (seriously extended: an extra four minutes compared to the version on "Blueprint"!) --- okay, let's be honest: it's overstretched but you can forgive that when it's live. I remember attending a Rory gig once where he "finished" a song about six times, jumping up and down with his Strat and each time as what we took to be the last chords were hit, running off into another verse or chorus. It's showmanship, it's entertainment, and you expect it at the gigs. Nobody wants to go to a concert and hear the songs played the way they are on their albums: why go if that were the case? What would be the point?

With that in mind, a ten-minute version of "Who's that comin'?" (original length just over seven) is perfectly acceptable, and to be honest, the more Rory you could have the better. No-one ever wanted his concerts to end, I'm sure, and like Springsteen at his height, Rory gave his all every gig, playing for two, sometimes three hours, and nobody complained. Rory crammed everything into his live performances, from his music to his personality and from his talent to his very soul, and I cannot believe anyone ever went home from any of his gigs feeling anything other than exhausted and satisfied.

As indeed are these guys as they chant "Nice one Rory, nice one son! Nice one Rory, let's have another one!" And he obliges, coming back for the encore with the jamfest "Back on my stompin' ground (After hours)" which I don't think is available on any other album, so those lucky people got a brand new song there that night in January seventy-four. And that's it, apart from a little fifties-style instrumental of less than a minute. A storming gig no doubt and if you were lucky enough to have been there be thankful. I did get to see Rory live as I say (I touched his boot!) so certainly consider myself blessed. This album has rightly gone down as one of his best live performances and taken its place among the live albums you must hear before you die.

TRACKLISTING

1. Cradle rock
2. I wonder who (gonna be your sweet man now)
3. Tattoo'd lady
4. Too much alcohol
5. As the crow flies
6. A million miles away
7. Walk on hot coals
8. Who's that comin'?
9. Back on my stompin' ground (After hours)
10. Maritime

Nope, I never did one on Rory. That was Gary Moore.
I've been working on this for months, saving it up, and now seems about the right time to hit yaz with it....

Just....YES!

How the hell do you not go over the five thousand word limit on your posts?!

I do. I actually look at the character count, and it can often be over the stated 20,000 limit. I did here too: this was supposed to be one entry, as evidenced by the "Early solo years 1971-1974" tag. If you notice, I had to stop it at 1973 and split it into two. Yes, sadly this happens to me all the time. Check the Couch Potato, and you'll see some single episodes that have had to be split. In fact, my last review, the movie "Dust Devil", ran over the max and I had to split it too.

Stupid rule...

I find that the more experienced you become writing journal entries, the word count tends to shoot up. I do mine by lines and it's a normally a maximum of 25-30 lines per section (overview and verdict) when I first started I was doing a lot less than that.

The rule is not stupid, otherwise these journal entries would have more waffle than they should.

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The Easter Rising, 1916

The last straw: eight hundred years of foreign occupation

The Tudors, the Normans, Cromwell: all had invaded Ireland in its past and subjugated its people, with varying degrees of success down the centuries, but Ireland had been a fiercely independent nation, an island in the most literal sense, with its own language and beliefs and its own ruling classes, and an almost fanatical determination to resist conquest. Of course, this resistance was complicated and diluted down through history due to the everpresent rivalry of opposing factions, so that when the Irish were not fighting the English or some other invader they were invariably fighting among themselves. It's no way to establish a stable government.

In 1169 a loosely-affiiliated band of Norman knights landed in Ireland, with the blessing of the pope of the time, who wished the then-pagan island civilised and, more importantly, to levy taxes on Ireland. He then granted permission to King Henry II of England to assert his dominion over Ireland. In typical Irish fashion, this invasion was sponsored by an exiled Irish prince, Diarmuid of Leinster, who could only see as far as regaining his own throne, and was prepared to sell his country out to the invaders as the price of that restoration of power. This would happen a lot throughout Irish history, not just with the English but with the French, Scottish, Spanish ... anyone a disgruntled or out of favour Irish lord could use as a means of regaining his power. We whine and bitch about "the English invaders", but it's sobering to think that we actually invited them here in the first place!

However, as soon as Henry was recalled to England to deal with pressing matters of state, factions arose within both the Irish and Norman camps, and rival groups, knights and kingdoms faced off against each other. Ireland was again at war. In 1495, as a backlash against rising powers within Ireland --- Norman knights who had "gone native" or indeed former kings or high kings of Ireland before the invasion --- the king imposed English statute law on Ireland. This took power from the previously more or less autonomous Irish Parliament, and in 1543 made Ireland a kingdom, thus coming under the direct control of the English monarch. The secession of Henry VIII from the Catholic Church following his difficulties with the pope regarding his wives, meant that English law required Ireland, as a kingdom of England, to practice the protestant religion, with catholicism, the then dominant belief in Ireland, outlawed and its adherents punished. Henry had monasteries and abbeys confiscated, monks priests and abbots slain, and generally sowed the seeds of discontent among his new subjects.

When his successor, Elizabeth I, was declared by the pope to be a heretic and excommunicated, this set the Irish on an even more direct collision course with their English masters. Devoutly catholic since Norman times, the vast majority of the Irish did not want or intend to change religions, and most had remained catholic in secret during Henry's reign. Elizabeth had taken a different tack, allowing people to keep their religion and refusing to impose Protestantism on Ireland. To the catholic Irish then, this proclamation against the person they saw as their main oppressor and overlord, by the head of their faith, God's spokesman on Earth, hardened their resolve and vindicated in their hearts their right, even duty to rebel and overthrow the English. With the enacting of Plantation policy, whereby English settlers were moved to Ireland to colonise and Anglicise it, Irish lords lost their lands and the native population began to feel like they were being squeezed out by the new invaders. This then led to the Irish Rebellion of 1641, under which the country regained its own government, after a fashion, and catholicism thrived until the arrival of Oliver Cromwell in 1649.

"The most hated man in Irish history"
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Although revered and feted in England as a reformer and a leader, Cromwell's name is forever spat with disgust and contempt here. His invasion of the country was a brutal affair, and the stories told of the atrocities his armies carried out, while perhaps coloured and embellished a little, seem to be mostly accepted by historians. Cromwell seemed to view the Irish as savages, hardly human at all and nothing more than an impediment to his assuming total control over both Ireland and England in the wake of the English Civil War. Cromwell, a fanatical Puritan, hated the catholic Irish and saw them all as being heretics. He was also incensed by previous massacres carried out by the Irish in the 1641 Rebellion, and determined to make the blasphemers pay for this slaughter.

Cromwell landed in Dublin and quickly overpowered the attackers who had come to prevent him taking Dublin Castle, where the Parliamentarian centre of power was located. With the capital city secured, and with it a port at which to land his army, Cromwell marched on Drogheda where, after defeating the garrison there, he slaughtered everyone, despite surrender being offered. While one of his lieutenants marched to the north to retake Ulster, Cromwell moved on to Wexford and began negotiating terms of surrender, but in the midst of this his troops broke down the city gates and massacred the inhabitants, burning much of the town. Although he did not order the attack, it is pointed out by historians that he didn't reprimand his men for the act afterwards --- was it some sort of medieval "black op", allowing him what we now call plausible deniability? Whatever the truth, the action became a two-edged sword: some towns, fearing the brutality of his New Model Army, surrendered to Cromwell without a fight, whereas for others their resolve was only hardened, seeing that even if they surrendered they were likely to be butchered anyway.

By contrast, Cromwell's treatment of the surrenders of Kilkenny and Carlow was quite the reverse of that of Wexford and Drogheda; he accepted their surrender terms and honoured them, and no massacre took place. This however may have been in recognition that his excessive use of force and lack of mercy previously was having the opposite effect on his enemies. The re-conquest of Ireland took over two years, and in 1652 the resistance of the Irish was finally and decisively broken when Galway was taken. Following this defeat, the rebel Irish waged a campaign of guerilla warfare against the invader, though eventually even this token resistance melted away as the Irish were allowed to depart the country to serve overseas in other wars, as long as they did not take up arms against England or her allies.

During the colonisation of Ireland by Cromwell, Irish catholics were executed en masse, had their lands confiscated or were deported to the West Indies to work as indentured labourers, essentially slaves. His scorched earth policy produced a massive famine in Ireland, and his hatred of and massacres of catholics fuelled the fires of anti-Protestantism in Ireland which continue even to this day.

The Rising

In 1800 the Act of Union finally brought Ireland under the rule of the English sovereign, and the powerbase of the English goverment in Ireland was established in Dublin Castle. Ireland though never accepted English rule, and resisted it through various methods, such as the Home Rule bill (defeated twice), the Land League and the Repeal Association, as well as an outright uprising in 1848, but as World War One took the attention of the British away from Ireland, rebel factions there decided the time was right for another rebellion, one that would this time be successful and bring Ireland her own parliament and self-determination. The outrage at the fact that Irish men would be forcibly conscripted into a war that had nothing to do with them just added fuel to an already raging fire. The leaders of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) therefore devised a plan which called for two of their number to visit Germany and secure the help of the German army and navy, who would stage a landing on Ireland's west coast. A rising would be planned and executed in Dublin to divert the attention of the British army from the German presence and to pull forces away from responding to it.

The plan however failed, as Sir Roger Casement, an English consul, returning to Ireland on a German U-Boat was arrested and the ship carrying the vital arms shipment was intercepted by the Royal Navy. The date for the Rising though was set and it went ahead as planned on the morning of Easter Monday, April 24. With four key strategic locations being identified for capture, it is the GPO (General Post Office) in O'Connell Street which has gone down in Irish history as the iconic location of the rebels' last stand, and indeed it was their headquarters, though they did abandon it under heavy shelling from the British. Also taken were Jacobs Biscuit Factory, the Four Courts and Liberty Hall, though there were other areas too, such as Saint Stephen's Green public park and Bolands Mill.

Leading the rebels were James Connolly, Padraig Pearse, Eamonn Ceant, Tom Clarke, Sean MacDermott and James Plunkett, the last of whom had travelled with Roger Casement to Germany the previous year. The rebellion was poorly planned: a chance to take Dublin Castle was spurned, as was the opportunity to secure Trinity College, despite both being somewhat lightly guarded. Irish people in the main had not been aware of the Rising and so were taken by surprise and, it is said, treated roughly at some locations including Jacobs and Bolands when they tried to prevent the rebels taking these strategic locations. The fatal undoing of the rebels was their failure to lock down either of the two train stations in Dublin nor the two seaports, which if taken would have denied the British access for the reinforcements they sent as the Rising moved into its second day. By the end of the week, slightly over 1,000 men had increased to nearly 16,000, against a total Irish force of less than two thousand. In many of the areas --- GPO, Jacob's, Boland's, Stephen's Green --- there was little actual combat, as all the British had to do was shell the strongholds or deploy snipers.

"Doomed to failure"

The Easter Rising was over within a week. With heavy casualties on both sides, the Irish rebels were nevertheless easily outgunned and outmanned, and there seems to have been something of a fractured strategy on the part of the rebels. Also, the eternal schisms and arguments between different factions within the IRB led to a weakening of the force that was supposed to rise up, leaving less than two thousand to face the might of the British Army. If indeed they had been intended to, the people did not rise with the rebels; in fact many resented the way they were treated --- some beaten, some shot --- and were unlikely to support them. The GPO, headquarters of the rebellion, was abandoned when the shells landing there set fire to the place, and from their secondary base in Moore Street the rebels could see no way out, and so sued for surrender. On Saturday April 29 Padraig Pearse issued the order to surrender, and the Easter Rising was over.

The reasons for its failure are many, among them the capture of the shipment of German arms being brought to Kerry by Roger Casement, divisions within the leadership, divergent ideas as to what the Rising was about and what its aims were, and what should be done afterwards, and what appears on the surface to have been staggering naivete on the part of the leaders, or commandants of the IRB. Had they secured the train stations and ports then no channel would have existed for the British to ferry in their reinforcements, and the rebellion might have had a much better chance of succeeding. The famous GPO stand appears to have amounted to the leaders holing up in the place and awaiting their fate, as no major offensive was carried out by them, though it's assumed they tried to direct the rest of the Rising from there; mind you, how they communicated I don't know. Also the failure to take Dublin Castle, a fat and waiting target and surely if nothing else a hugely symbolic victory had they achieved it, seems to have been passed up despite the possibility of securing it.

In the end, it would appear that the Easter Rising was badly planned, by men who did not agree on much and that power struggles within the leadership of the IRB led to opportunities slipping by and plans not being properly executed. It's possible that, had all the elements been in place, 1916 would still not have succeeded, but it certainly would have had a better chance than it did.

Aftermath: Legacy and Irish independence

The leaders of the rebellion were all executed by the British. Most if not all of them are now commemorated in street names, many close to where they fought. James Connolly, who had been wounded in the ankle in the battle, had to sit in a chair to be shot. Sir Roger Casement, as the only actual British subject, was tried for high treason and hanged. However, although the Easter Rising was a failure in the immediate sense, the reverberations and repercussions from it continued long on into the next decade. In 1918 the rise of Sinn Fein was almost directly a result of the nationalist feelings awoken by the Rising and more particularly the execution of its leaders. Sinn Fein won 73 seats in the House of Commons but refused to take them in protest, assembling instead in Dublin where in 1919 they formed Dail Eireann, the Irish Parliament which is still today the seat of power in Irish politics, and declaring the creation of the Irish Republic. Thus began the Irish War of Independence, which ended 1921 with a truce and the establishment of the Irish Free State.

Ulster, overwhelmingly Protestant and therefore loyalists to the Crown, sued to be allowed secede from the new State and remain part of the United Kingdom, a boon the King and Parliament in London was only too pleased to grant. This essentially weakened the new Irish Free State, and has ever since remained a bone of bitter contention over the partition of Ireland, as the minority of catholics in what became Northern Ireland felt that they had had no say in the decision, or had been effectively shouted down and shut up. This led to the thirty-year period of sectarian violence and upheaval we refer to as "The Troubles", but that is a story for another day.

What is clear is that without the Easter Rising in 1916, though independence probably would at some point have come for Ireland, it would not have been so soon, and the hand of the British would not have been forced as it was. After the rising, as the smoke cleared so to speak, people began thinking about how they had been treated under British rule, particularly in recent times, and nationalist fervour climbed to a peak, resulting in first the formation and then the victory of Sinn Fein in the General Election of 1918, which itself led by a somewhat circuitous route to the holy grail of Irish independence. Ireland owes, and always will owe, a massive debt to the men who gave their lives for the cause of freedom and independence, and even now, almost a century later, their names are revered in story and song, and their places of honour in Irish history is assured, and unassailable. It's the sort of legacy that led people here recently to ask, in the wake of our ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon which effectively told us to bend over and take whatever Brussels gives us, taking completely away our right to govern ourselves and handing power over to the faceless bureaucrats in Europe, "is this what the lads fought for in 1916?"

A very good question.

I guess it all depends on your style of writing. I've never been that disciplined as a writer: I always tend to "run off at the mouth" so to speak, but I do check my entries back and if there's anything unnecessary --- waffle, as you say --- I cut it out. Nevertheless, I usually have a lot to put into my entries and they do often exceed the max count: it's just annoying when that happens.

I guess most people's posts would be well within the limit and I'm probably one of the exceptions, but I still like to write as much as I want, as much as I feel the topic requires. Admittedly, it's usually the larger sections on which I overrun the character count, hardly ever if at all on album reviews or anything like that.

I do hate it though when I go to post and I get that "exceeds character count please reduce" note... :banghead:

This is amazing if anyone hasn't seen it. Cromwell killed 25% to 33% of the irish population through, hanging, burning, or slaughter. Burning villages were found all over the midlands with women and children hanging off of trees.Then thousands others died of starvation and famine because he had burnt their crops.Thousands other sent overseas as slaves. I found the docuentary interesting because i had no idea that the most slaughter of the campaign happened under a different general, not cromwell, but his son in law, and yet we attach his name to the events.


Irish History Cromwell,God's Executioner Part 1. - YouTube



Irish History Cromwell,God's Executioner Part 2. - YouTube

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Mirage --- Fleetwood Mac --- 1982 (Warner Bros)
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A more radio-friendly outing for a Fleetwood Mac which was already splitting, "Mirage" was a huge commercial success, with several hit singles. With Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham back in the fold, albeit one temporarily, it was the last album the band would put out for five years, before their smash comeback, the multi-platinum "Tango in the night". There are some great tracks on it --- "Gypsy", "Eyes of the world", "Wish you were here", "Only over you" --- but some weak ones too.

As usual the girls take the spotlight, Christine and Stevie singing the best tracks on the album, but you can hear the cracks widening as the discomfort in particular Stevie and Lindsey feel at being back together show. Five years later they seemed more reconciled, but here there's definite tension. Didn't hurt the sales of the album though, and five years apart seemed to have rejuvenated and revitalised the band, who came back in 1987 with an album that blew away just about everything they'd ever done, bar "Rumours".

Perhaps there was something in the title: though you don't hear it in the music, much of the cameraderie here has less substance than that mirage.

TRACKLISTING

1. Love in store
2. Can't go back
3. That's alright
4. Book of love
5. Gypsy
6. Only over you
7. Empire State
8. Straight back
9. Hold me
10. Oh Diane
11. Eyes of the world
12. Wish you were here

^^^

tl;dr ;)

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Rory's fans are unanimous in their praise for his honesty, genuinity and simple down-to-earth courtesy to those who put him where he is today. He never lost that everyman touch, and you could, by all (and there are many) accounts expect to run into him in the bar of the club he had just played, having a pint and relaxing, and he would never be above talking to you or shaking your hand, or even, in one case related below, getting you a hotel room! The following accounts are all taken from Barry Barnes' excellent Rory Gallagher site, Sinnerboy, and used with his permission. Barry plays in a Rory tribute band, and you can see excerpts of some of his performances on his site, well worth a look. I haven't noted names, as I have not obtained permission from each individual person to use their accounts.

Note: some of these "just start" as many of them are a little long and set the scene in ways. In these instances I've truncated and abridged the accounts to only reflect the story as it pertains to Rory. Everything is transcribed directly, including any spelling grammatical or punctutation errors.
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We went for a drink in a nearby bar, I was driving so it was a quick one...probably 4 or 5, I was young and daft then!!?? So off home we set. We walked past the studio, what timing - who was exiting? Yes, yours truly. I went up very shyly as I respected this man more than any person I'd met, actually no-one to this day has ever come close musically, nor as a person for that matter. I could see he had to be somewhere else, I went for my pocket .. I had paper but no sodding pen, He went back in and got one!!!!! so I have his autograph

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I was standing on the sidewalk outside a club in New York (I'm afraid to say I can't remember the name of it) I was about three hours too early for the Rory concert that night but I was determined to take in all the atmosphere I possibly could, I was busy taking fotos of the posters outside the venue when a black sedan started to pull out into the street, the car suddenly veered onto the sidewalk and out of the front passenger seat came Rory Gallagher! There was some vibes coming from inside the car like "Hurry up Rory, we've got to be somewhere" but the man walked straight up to me and said "I hope you enjoy the concert, I can't stop, I've got a radio interview" He shook my hand and jumped right back into the auto which moved on down the street
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Anyway I went to the bar to order the drinks, the barman held my gaze and was just about to serve me, when up stands Rory (He was sat in the corner with the band and a few roadies, his brother could have been there as well) anyway the barman went to serve Rory first, but Rory insisted that he serve me first, I insisted that he served Rory, and so it went on, so the barman took it on himself to serve Rory first, a little while later two pints of lager came over and a thumbs up from Rory!!!!! well this made my day as you can imagine, but what impressed me more than anything and I have never forgotten to this day when I got up to leave the pub, to get ready to walk over the road to see him perform, I went over to him to shake his hand, I felt compelled to do this (I don't normally intrude on anyone's space) when I thrust out my hand rather awkwardly to shake his hand he stopped his conversation and rose to his feet to accept my hand, he asked me if I was going to see the show and told me to have a good night, he was really genuine, modest and down to earth, just having a drink like everybody else in the pub, what a star.
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The only building next to it was the pub. I was in the pub for about 10 minutes when the man himself, Rory walked in with all of the band members. After a few more minutes they were joined by all of the musicians from the smaller bands too. Rory introduced me to all the other band members and we all drank and had a craic together ‘til closing time.

I then decided to go and try and find a place to stay, as I had no place booked. So I walked up the avenue from the pub to see if I could find a local B&B which would consist of a loft full of hay! As I was walking up the avenue I could hear a car coming up behind me. It was an automatic Mitsubishi, Donal Gallagher was driving the car and Rory was in the passenger seat. When Rory saw me he opened the window of the car & he said to me “Mick, where are you off to?” I said I was looking for somewhere to put my head down and he said, “Why don’t you come back to our hotel?” which was in Cookstown. It was a new hotel built after the old one had been blown up by the IRA. It was a beautiful hotel; I still have the menu and guest book at home!
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I drank in the lobby of the hotel with Rory, Donal, and all the other band members from the smaller bands that had played that day. We drank Guinness until 3 in the morning until just Rory, Donal and myself were left. Rory then said to me about 3.30 “We have about 10 or 12 rooms booked for the various bands” so Rory brought me up to a room and said “This is your room, you can stay here tonight at our expense” The room had a big double bed, and a big bathroom with a Jacuzzi! Rory smiled at me and said “Have a nice sleep, see you in the morning” and walked away.

When I got up in the morning there was nobody left……. they were all gone….. and I never got the chance to thank him……
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As I was standing alone, a guy came towards me in a plaid shirt, long hair and shall we say possibly a bit tipsy. I had a little panic, so decided to cut him off at the pass by asking him the time. He asked me if I would be OK standing on my own, a very little girl with very big eyes. I thought to myself "Oh no, not another poet!!!" He explained that I was standing outside his Mum's house. I told him that I had a lift in a few minutes and then the car pulled up and he left - The guys were all yelling at me "What did you say to Rory?" I said "Rory Who?"