2. Steven Wilson – Cover Versions 1 to 6 (2010)

3. Kimara Sajn – Life Stories (2009)

4. Pat Metheny – Orchestrion (2010)

5. Anthony Phillips – Private Parts and Pieces (the whole lot…all 10 of em!)

6. Genesis – Selling England By The Pound (1973…not the remixed version!!)

7. Bass Communion – Chiaroscuro (2009)

8. Bill Evans – Explorations (1961)

Michael Mantler/Carla Bley – 13 and 3/4

Loosely affiliated with ECM via a distribution deal, WATT records was the collaborative label established by composers Bley and Mantler to exclusively present their own music. And just as well, as even in the “golden age” that this was recorded in (1975) you can’t imagine too many record labels saying, “yeah, ok…why not?” to this music. This is a seriously dark and disturbing orchestral/free jazz/minimalist/cacophonous hell fire of an album, or at least 50% of it is. Bley’s 3/4, is appropriately enough in a lurching waltz-time for the most part, with its main child-like piano part sounding like Steve Reich without the theoretical posturing, mixed with a slightly inebriated version of the main theme from The Godfather. It’s still a challenge though, but anyone who has enjoyed her epic Escalator Over The Hill will find the subtly humorous, yet adventurous score very pleasing .

Over on the other side of the record however, Mantler’s 13 makes Carla Bley’s piece feel like the Carpenters. Imagine one of those horribly jarring orchestral moments that you get when someone gets stabbed in a horror movie – then keep that sound going. Then keep it going some more. Then remove all sense of structure and tonality and why not add a second orchestra to the mix? Yes that’s right, no less than 8 trumpets, 6 trombones, 4 french horns, 2 bass trombones and 3 tubas constitute mearly the brass element, and that’s already enough for Mahler and Wagner to get slightly wet eyed over. It also sounds as though the sax section from the Glenn Miller orchestra have accidentally crash landed into the studio as well. Though ultimately as impressive a sound as this makes, what is particularly stomach churning about the piece is its intensity, almost to the point where by the end you literally can’t take it any more (as I’m sat typing this the final deranged onslaught of  the piece is genuinely causing me mild breathing difficulties!) But, despite that the work is strangely compelling. Again, like a horror film there is something about it where you just can’t take your eyes or ears off it, no matter how horrific it gets. And everyone looks to be having a very pleasant afternoon in the woods on the back cover, so that’s nice.

Although not available on CD, those of you with Spotify access can hear the opening 3 mins of Mantler’s half of the album on the recent ECM retrospective of Michael Mantler called Review:

An agonizing 15 month wait was on the cards for Zappa fanatics after the release of Halloween and it did sort of feel as if the Vault may have involuntarily sealed itself up, especially as the ZFT had begun their curious policy of less than helpful information distribution: i.e, you got a new Zappa album in your hands roughly a few days or so after they announced it, with precious little promotional build up and little or no explanation as to why any particular release had been chosen. So it was with Joe’s Corsage that appeared somewhat unexpectedly in May 2004. The Zappas though had really shot themselves in the foot in terms of fan expectations by making available the film trailer for the Roxy Performances a few years before, as any release that didn’t in some way feature Frank and the Mothers live on stage in December ‘73 would inevitably be a tad dissapointing. Despite that though, the concept of the “Joe’s” series was an interesting one: Joe Travers, now firmly trusted with the alarm code for the Vault had been given a further licence to collate releases of particularly unique historical value, that might otherwise not fit in to any other project.

First up in the collection (which at the time of writing is currently at four volumes) were a selection of pre – Freak Out demos by the “original” Mothers featuring, on the first four tracks, second guitarist Henry Vestine, plus a few covers (the Wedding Dress Song/Handsome Cabin Boy combo makes an early appearance here) and a few brief spoken word sections with Zappa talking about the early days. There’s also a fun early version of Take Your Clothes of When You Dance with different lyrics. Sound quality is quite stunning considering the era, and overall this brief CD makes a nice little companion to both Freak Out and the Mystery Disc and Lost Episodes albums. But, you can’t help feeling that maybe it’s real home would have been on the giant MOFO boxset from a few years down the line. The following “Joe’s” albums (each with it’s own bewilderingly obscure rhyme for Garage) would produce even more controversey regarding just what Zappa fans were prepared to pay for. But before that there was yet another unexpected release in the form of Quaudiophiliac….

2. Ralph Towner – Chiaroscuro (2009)

3. Harmonia – Deluxe (1975)

4. Cluster – Sowiesoso (1976)

5. Mike Keneally – Scambot (2009)

6. Magma – Emehntehtt Re (2009)

7. David Bowie – Stage (1978)

8. David Bowie – Outside (1995)

9. Anthony Phillips – 1984 (1981)

10. Art Bears – Hopes and Fears (1978)

This playlist is mostly about 20th century classical music. Whilst I’ve been enjoying Holst and Elgar, I think the real highlight has been finding Dutilleux, a little known french composer of real integrity and style. I started off by listening to the Belcea Quartets’ performances, which led to hunting down the orchestral work and boy is it good! Dutilleux’s writing is a wonderful blend of Debussy, Ravel and Stravinsky but managing always to maintain an individual voice. Some of the vocal work in particular is excellent! Pieces sung with no vibrato at all, sounding very modern and haunting. I have some more CD’s on order so I’ll be posting up some pointers as I go.

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A few years back, it was possible via the Zappa.com website to send an email to the Vaultmeister Joe Travers asking about upcoming releases. One such email sent by me enquired about the possibility of L. Shankar being featured on any future albums. A reply came back informing me that my world would be “rocked” very shortly. Well…almost. For those in the know of course, Zappa and Halloween at the New York Palladium became a legendary pairing like Floyd in Pompeii, or Bill Evans at the Village Vanguard. It was his place, and for a few nights every year leading up to Halloween night, Frank and his”rocking teenage combo” (which at this time featured Vinnie Colaiuta, Arthur Barrow, Tommy Mars, Peter Wolf, Ed Mann, Denny Walley and bonus Bass guitar guest Patrick O’Hearn) put on shows of epic proportions. None more so than Halloween 1978: 6 shows in total culminating in a truly momentous 4 hour extravaganza on the 31st, with the aforementioned L (Larry as Frank called him) Shankar, fresh out of Shakti, on hand to provide what can only be described as a dueling partner for Frank throughout the show. These solo battles took place in Pound For a Brown, Little House I Used to Live In, Watermelon in Eater Hay, Packard Goose and Black Napkins and were one of the reasons that the concert nearly hit the 4 hour mark, the other being the sheer variety of material being played from throughout Frank’s career. As he says at the start of this DVD-A: “we’re going to play a very long show, I hope you people arn’t in a hurry to get home…”. He then lets us know that after playing the normal part of the show we’ll be treated to a “whole collection of stuff that we don’t normally do”.

So far so good, and with this being DVD-A the possibilities for cramming an ungodly amount of prime Zappa into one disc seemed exciting. Things start of well with the opening guitar solo Ancient Armaments wonderful setting up the hysteria of the event. But, tragically what follows becomes merely a Zappa greatest hits show. The “whole collection of stuff” that they don’t normally do gets moved to one side to make way for Yellow Snow, Stinkfoot and…wait for it….Dinah-Moe Humm!! To be fair, this album’s version of Easy Meat kicks supreme arse with a great guitar solo, some hilarious seal noises from Vinnie and a lovely swagger throughout. There’s also some hot guitar in Stinkfoot and a nice moment of crowd interaction as Frank spots someone that he recognises from the Garrick theatre days, which makes up for this song seeing it’s 5th official release at this stage. But by the time that the Dinah-Brillo-Muffin Man encore kicks in, you can’t help but feel that a great opportunity to present one of Frank’s greatest concerts has slipped away.

That is until the final track quietly starts up: a softly rendered version of Black Napkins that slowly disintegrates into discordantly scattered guitar phrases over Vinnie’s typically splintered drumming, before the most miraculous transformation occurs. Out of nowhere Zappa starts poking away at the melody to the Deathless Horsie and the band, rather than simply dropping straight into the correct chord sequence, instead modulate and pull around the harmony benind the guitar before finally easing into the tonic key as the groove gets re-established. At which point, out pops Shankar for a some more of what had been taking place all night at the Palladium but sadly not on this album. Shankar ghosts Zappa’s solo beautifully, before a cue form the boss sends everyone back to Black Napkins to finish things off.

It must be something to do with the ZFT’s deal with DTS that warranted such a “hits” intensive release, and the Napkins/Horsie combo clearly comes across as the bait to get the hardcore fans on board. And of course, don’t forget the fact that it was a 5:1 release which was quite ahead of the game for 2003. And Vinnie’s drums do sound edible!! But you can’t help hoping that more is to come from these particular shows…

The BBC 4 Krautrock documentary caused me to dig out some of my faves that I hadn’t listened to for donkey’s years, which then sent me in the direction of Eno before embarking on a Camel fest via Aphex Twin and more!

1. Harmonia and Eno – Tracks and Traces (1976)

2. Neu – Neu’75 (1975!)

 
3. Klaus Schulze – Timewind (1975)

4. Amon Düül II – Wolf City (1972)

5. Popol Vuh – In den Garten Pharaos (1971)

6. Brian Eno – Before and After Science (1977)

7. Fripp and Eno – Evening Star (1975)

8. Aphex Twin – Selected Ambient Works I and II

9. Camel – Mirage (1974)

10. Camel – Breathless (1978 – so what if it’s a disco prog album…I like it!)

11. Terje Rypdal – Waves (1978)

12. Mastodon – Crack the Skye (2009)

13. Gowen/Miller/Sinclair/Tomkins – Before a Word is Said (1982)

http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/new-podcast-starring-freewheelin-danny-baker

Listen from around the 26min mark for a passionate dispelling of the fallacy that everything started with Punk.

1. John Surman – Free And Equal (2003)

2. Mark Feldman – What Exit (2006)

3. Hatfield And The North – Hatfield And The North (1973)

4. Gill Evans – Out Of The Cool (1961)

5. Bernard Wagner – The Fourth Night (2005)

6. Porcupine Tree – In Absentia (2005)

7. Nigel Price – Fools Gold(2005)

8. Todd Rundgren – A Wizzard A True Star (1973)

The late 90’s was a strange time for Zappa fans. The Zappa Family Trust in partnership with Rykodisc had unveiled the rather wonderful “Lost Episodes” and “Lather“, but by the time that “Have I Offended Someone” and “Mystery Disc” came out they seemed to be accompanied by the highly ambient sound of the bottom of a barrel being vigorously scrapped. What about the mythical Vault we had heard so much about? A subterranean lair 73 miles deep filled with 2,396 unreleased Zappa albums…or at the very least a few cool live shows? Time passed…something Zappa fans would soon get used to in regards to new releases. But then! Suddenly! An animated Kangaroo appeared on zappa.com signalling the arrival of the first, official Vault release: FZ:OZ – Live In Australia. After getting over the initial disappointment that this was not from the 1973 world tour with the Ponty/Duke era band, fans could start getting excited about what was contained on these two discs. Firstly, the extremely rare line up of Napoleon Murphy Brock, Roy Estrada, Terry Bozzio and the “blink and you’ll miss him” super rare appearance of Andre Lewis on Keyboards, who has a very distinct playing style, particularly when he takes his many synth solos throughout the show. Then there was the prospect of a full, complete concert. Not even the Helsinki Concert had been a single unedited performance, so this was a first. And also, a great set list. Certainly, short on the instrumentally challenging side of things, but interesting nonetheless with both Freak Out and We’re Only in it for the Money medleys, prototype versions of soon-to-be-classic Zappa songs, and lots and lots of great guitar solos. In fact, disc 1 feels a little like a Blues version of Shut up and Play Your Guitar at times.

But it’s on disc 2 that, for me the fun really starts. There’s the just about recognizable early draft of Let’s Move to Cleveland, here going by the title of Canard Toujours, a 100% unreleased “new” song in the form of Kaiser Rolls – not a Zappa classic, but still well worth hearing – and the aforementioned Money medley, featuring my favourite moment on the whole album: the blistering re-working of Lonely Little Girl that contains the coolest guitar solo since…well, Advance Romance back on disc 1.

Chunga’s Revenge (amazingly receiving its first official live release here) and Zoot Allures finish the main part of the set with nearly 30 mins of solos and, later on in Frank’s case, some extremely introverted guitar improvisation that makes you forget the fact that there were several thousand, possibly inebriated, Australians waiting for Dinah-Moe-Humm. In fact, it’s worth remembering what a challenge a Zappa show must have been for the “average” audience, with a good 50% of this material being unreleased at the time of the recording. Even on CD, and listening in the comfort of your own home, the full concert experience is quite exhausting – name any other artist in history who played, completely uninterrupted for over 2 hours?? – so much so that the encores are a bit of a let down and probably will be listened to considerably less that the bulk of the main concert.

As an opening shot from the ZFT this was a great start with lots to keep rediscovering upon each listen. But the next few years would prove to be an extremely bumpy ride….

to be continued…

Anyway, the gig! Porcupine Tree are the best live band in the UK today. There, i’ve said it! Possibly the best band in the world, considering the uniqueness of what they do. For those who have been living in a cave for the last few months, this tour features the band playing there 55min epic song-cycle “the Incident” for the first half of the show – and it was incredible. From the moment that Wilson and the band walked out and hit those deafening opening chords to the final acoustic arpeggios of “I Drive the Hearse”, the Bristol audience were treated to a masterful display of songwriting, musicianship, texture and dynamics. In a nice touch, Steven used the brief gap between “the Blind House” and “Great Expectations” to speak to the audience to say how great it was that every time they play Bristol they get promoted to a bigger venue.

And it’s true. My first Porcupine Tree gig was in 1997 in a tiny club with about 30 people in the audience that nearly ended in a mini riot when Wilson started having a go at the lamentable venue management (there wasn’t enough power to run all of the band’s equipment and no promotion had been done). Later gigs at Shepherds Bush and the Astoria showed how the band had managed to punch through all the odds to be a cult band with a respectable following. But i’m sure every long time fan has seen the difference in all aspects of the band’s promotional activities recently. It certainly felt different arriving at Colston Hall, with a wonderfully diverse collection of fans of all ages, proving that Porcupine Tree may not be “cool”, but as Frank Zappa said, “who give s a fuck anyway!”.

Highlights of the first set included the monumental guitar solo in “Time Flies” and the mesmerising animation that formed the backdrop for “Octane Twisted” – a deeply disturbing yet beautiful sequence that sees some bizarre robot type creatures causing a train crash…I think. All of the projections were great in fact – and there were even some dead babies thrown in for good measure to keep the Bass Communion fans happy! The sound was spot on, allowing even the most subtle of keyboard effects from Richard Barbieri to be heard clearly. Top marks to for the lights – simple yet effective use of colour without too many vari-lites going berserk, although those white lights on either side of the stage did burn permanent shapes on to my retina, but not to worry.

Set Two was mainly for oldies, that’s if you count everything from “In Absentia” onwards as being old of course. A decisive moment happened two songs in when Wilson asked the audience to stand up. It has to be said, the energy in the room increased enormously paving the way for a jaw dropping rendition of the middle part from “Anesthetize” – for me the absoulute highlight of the gig. That was, at least, until “Strip the Soul”. So, so, so very fine indeed, plus a nice segue into “.3″, also from “In Absentia”. Wilson had some issues with his in-ear monitor leading to some amusingly home-erotic comments from the crowd as his guitar tech fitted him with a new device – which can’t have worked too well as the audience’s over enthusiastic clapping nearly caused a train wreck during “Lazurus”!

Encores were the now obligatory “Sound of Musak” and “Trains”, and they were just the right thing too, after an intense show. All in all, it was a fantastic performance all round. Special mention should be given to John Wesley who’s role on 2nd guitar and vocals seems to keep getting better. Gavin Harrison played to his usual standard, whilst i’m fairly sure at one point Colin Edwin on bass managed to find the resonant frequency of Bristol itself such was the vibration that shook through the room!

You’re left wondering, with music as relatively demanding as this, can Porcupine Tree better this next time around. Although I seem to recall thinking the same many times before….

Setlist:

The Incident, Start of Something Beautiful, Buying New Soul, Anesthetize part 2, Remember Me Lover, Strip the Soul/.3, Lazurus, Way Out of Here, the Sound of Musak, Trains

1. Frank Zappa – Live In New York (1978)

2. Igor Stravinsky – Works Of Igor Stravinsky (2007)

3. Enrico Rava – The Pilgrim And The Stars (1975)

4. Pat Metheny – New Choutauqua (1979)

5. John Surman – Free And Equal (2003)

6. Arnold Schoenberg – Chamber Symphonies (2002)

7. Arvo Part – A Portrait (2005)

2. Captain Beefheart - Lick My Decals Off Baby (1970)

3. Joni Mitchell - Miles of Aisles (1974)

 
4. Aphex Twin - Analord 1 and 2 (2005)

5. Keith Jarrett – Hymns/Spheres (1976)

6. Frank Zappa – Sleep Dirt (original vinyl mix! 1979)

8. Frank Zappa - Hot Rats (original vinyl mix! 1969)

9. Frank Zappa – Sheik Yerbouti (origi…you get the idea. 1979)

10. Edgar Froese – Epsilon in Malaysian Pale (1975)

Pat Metheny - Zero Tolerance For Silence

Pat Metheny is reknowned for two main attributes: firstly his hair. A modern miracle of evolution that seems to be sticking two fingers up at the ageing process, whilst simultaneously defying gravity. Secondly, an equally stubborn attitude towards what constitutes “music”. Metheny is unique amongst jazz musicians in that he seems to have set himself two extremes from which to navigate around his own particular musical universe: firstly, it could be argued that Metheny is, for better or worse, the father of so called smooth jazz, even though the Pat Metheny Group’s inventive compositions bare little relation to the tepid dribblings of the likes of Kenny G. Secondly though, is an approach to music that is best descibed by the title of this blog: stomach ulcer music! Atonal, vicious, uncompromising and nasty. All of these words describe Zero Tolerance For Silence, an album of guitar improvisations that from the first note is literally shocking in its visceral impact. The clanging, raw sound of the guitars on the opening 20 min piece makes the guitar playing on the Sex Pistols Never Mind the Bollocks sound like Yngwie Malmsteen by comparison. It’s one of the few albums that physical made me jump when the first chord crashed out of the speakers, but as with other noise based music such as some of the overloaded sounds on the second Continuum album, there is method to the madness and forms and shapes do start to emerge, only cast in an extremely primitive and primordial form of expression. The real joy of this album though is the fact that Metheny’s previous record to this, the sugary and filmic Secret Story, is so diametrically opposed in almost every conceivable way that surely there must have been some unsuspecting Metheny fans who picked the album up and settled down by the fire with a nice bottle of red wine only to have their relaxing evening of ”smooth jazz” shat upon from a great height!

Significantly perhaps, Zero Tolerance For Silence is currently one of the only Metheny albums that remains out of print, although there is talk of a reissue. Either way, it’s well worth the pain.

MB

Lets take a more in depth look at these insidious enemies.

Part one – The NME

NME or New Music Express was launched in 1952 and was initially printed in a non-glossy tabloid format. The early paper was very successful and by the 60’s had built up sales of 200,000 issues weekly, making it one of the UK’s best selling music journals. However, as music moved into what is arguably one of the richest most creatively productive times in modern history, the 70’s, the NME was slow to respond to the change in music and began to loose ground to Melody Maker.

‘Can you imagine the NME writing about anything remotely forward thinking today?’

By 1976 the great Punk plague was upon the world and thinking intelligent musicians were in heavy retreat but the NME was lapping it up, changing the tone of its writing to appeal to the new bread with articles on all the usual suspects. Sales of the NME continued to grow as teenagers stuck safety pins in their faces and bought the magazine in their droves!
Following the Punk plague was a sort of cultural dark age, the 80’s, where the peddling of mundane drivel wasn’t confined to just the NME. However, in true NME form the magazine dumbed down its writing and got political, inviting Steve Lamacq and Mary Anne Hobbs to write for it, Hurrah!

‘Now something interesting starts to happen, sales begin to drop… quite a bit.’

By the 90’s the hair cut fashion magazine we know today as NME was starting to take shape. Acid House and Britpop were the order of the day and the writing had as much to do with whom Liam Gallagher was fighting as it did culture and music. The 90’s saw the NME running around like a headless chicken trying to find some credibility, writing about Tony Blair and doing a front page spread on God Speed You Black Emperor.

‘Imagine God Speed You Black Emperor slamming straight into an adjacent page on say Liam’s mullet. Cultural worlds collide!’

The 90’s had seen NME’s sales figures drop to 120,000 copies a week, a huge fall from the heady days of 73 where weekly figures were well in excess of 250,000. The downward sales trend has continued year on year and as the magazine moved into the 2000’s things went form bad to worse. The Libertines, Doherty, Artic Monkeys, Babyshambles… need I say more!

The NME has come to represent all that is horrid and wrong with popular culture in the new millennium, becoming some sort of hellish, daytime television, train wreck of a monstrosity. Sales have dwindled to a little over 40,000 copies a week while the magazine continues its self destructive course, writing about bands with no vision and believing itself to be trend setting as the audience moves on to find genuinely interesting and forward thinking publications.

The surprising increase in sales for Classic Rock Magazine speaks volumes about changing reading habits and its new Prog publication, Classic Rock Prog seems to be doing just as well. Perhaps we are starting to see a genuine change in popular culture. Then again…

Next instalment, Oasis break up… church bells ring and angels are singing in my ears!

2. Frank Zappa – The Grand Wazoo (1972)

3. Porcupine Tree – Deadwing (2004)

4. Univers Zero - 1313 (1977)

5. Nik Bartsch’s Ronin – Holon (2008)

6. Jean-Claude Vannier – L’Enfant Assasin des Mouches (1972)

7. Henry Cow - The Road: Volumes 1 to 5 (2008)

8. Kraftwerk - Autobahn (1974)

9. Rush - Moving Pictures (1981)

10. The Caretaker - Theoretically Pure Anterograde Amnesia (1997)

2. Frank Zappa – Roxy and Elsewhere (1974)

3. Astor Piazzolla – Concerto pour Bandoneon

4. Brad Mehldau – Anything Goes (2004)

5. The Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles The Pink (2002)

6. Magma – Wurdha Itah

6. Frank Zappa – Uncle Meat (1974)