Tag: music
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A Year With Last FM
In a post a year ago I described a recently-published chart of ‘best ever’ albums that claimed to be the most accurate as it was based on historical sales. I posited that a chart based on what people were actually listening to would be better, although this would be impossible to obtain. In that post, I hazarded a guess (by way of example) that the 10 albums I listened to the most were: Radiohead OK Computer Desaperacidos Read Music Speak Spanish Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited Jesus and Mary Chain Darklands At The Drive In Relationship of Command Pleasure Forever Alter Oasis… Read more
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This Lost Boy, Back From the Wilderness…
Many years ago (1988), I took my girlfriend-at-the-time to see Roy Harper play live. He was supported by a young singer/songwriter/guitarist called James Varda. The gig was excellent, and I was so impressed with James Varda, that I bought his debut LP, Hunger (direct from the record label , as HMV didn’t carry it). It didn’t disappoint, with the best lyrical imagery this side of thin-wild-mercury Dylan, and some powerful use of a semi-accoustic 12-string. I must have all but worn out the grooves on that album. A year or so later the girlfriend left me and – I found out later… Read more
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The Bible Was Wrong*
The in-laws are currently visiting, so I thought I may as well take a week’s vacation (first one since we went to Spain in 2005, I think…) and go somewhere interesting. ‘Interesting’ turned out to be Memphis, Tennessee. “Why Memphis??” everyone here in Houston asked. “Why Memphis??” everyone in Memphis asked. I’d like to think that I went there to visit the “Birthplace of Rock N Roll” (TM) and soak up some of that ol’ blues history, but the truth is that, at 600 miles from Houston, Memphis is about as far as I thought I could take the kids… Read more
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The Black Keys, The Warehouse, Houston
I’ve been back in Houston for four months now, and decided that it was about time I got back into the live music scene. There was no-one I desparately wanted to see, playing, but I fancied a night out, so I took my chances with The Black Keys, at the Warehouse. I hadn’t heard anything by The Black Keys, but I’d heard some positive things about them, so I thought I’d give it a go.  Finding out that Dinosaur Jr. were also on the bill was the decider – although I couldn’t believe that J. Mascis & co. were relegated… Read more
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When The Music’s Over…lyrics ain’t poems
I just finished reading Danny Sugarman’s biography of Jim Morrisson, No-One Here Gets Out Alive. It’s quite a few years old, but Jim’s been dead since before the book was written (even so, this is the second edition), so I reasoned that I probably wasn’t missing much. I enjoy reading biographies and autobiographies of the artists I like – I find it gives me a better insight into their work, and I enjoy the music more as a result. But with this book, although I still enjoyed reading it, I wish I hadn’t read it at all, because I came… Read more