As my parents have started to read my blog post and because I greatly enjoyed reading there musings and posts while they were gallivanting the globe spending the inheritance I have decided to honour them with a post dedicated and derived from them and our tumultuous journey from teenage tantrums towards being the good friends we are today. I can and can’t understand people who deal with strained relationships with their own parents once they have flown the nest and built one all of their own, my transition has been in some way quite dramatic and required me to traverse the globe but now we have arrived at this point it seems quite ridiculous that it didn’t resolve earlier and with far less air-miles and arguments. For a diehard egotistical maniac like myself there is nobody greater to have around, these people are your biggest fans and though they may have learned to hide it well I’m sure that your brags and boasts bring a grin to their faces, your victories are their creations and if they can have grown enough as people to take council from you in return then surely it can be one of the most rewarding friendships you can have. I speak from the tipping point where although I am not a parent I am thinking forward to it so my view of parenthood is one closer to me than when I was a teenager who was sure that everybody was wrong and they were first in the firing line. To my mums credit it was her who taught me to question everything and look for my own point of view without realising it would be her that I questioned first and it would lead me to be quite objectionable in my quest to be victorious. I am no longer hunting for a victory and what a pitiful task it would be to score points against a person who offers you unconditional love, I do still have a stab and a cutting jibe from time to time but that is only because she is such a worthy adversary, the person who taught you to argue being on the receiving end of a witty repost – too much to resist for a prick like me. From my Dad I take a tireless work ethic (not that my mother doesn’t have this too) a dog eared determination to get the job done and be there for when you are needed, its simple ethics but having them at the core of what I was raised around has got me through work and life situations that I would have floundered and drowned in otherwise.
It must be strange to view the life of your child and think of the notion that they are a sum of your parts, wondering to yourself where all these foibles and eccentricities are coming from what bit of you has influenced them in that way. It must also bring great sadness to share in their pain and take it on your own shoulders and even at sometimes know the need to let them go through it because it is part of what they will need to endure to allow then to progress on their journey.
I am quite if not too open about my mistakes and stupidity to those lovely elderlies who I love to visit now because I don’t feel any restraint in our relationship no worries of seeming naughty or wrong, I visit them as friends quite often instead of visiting friends because with them it is the relationship most likely to be void of egotistical point scoring and the most nurturing of what is best for all involved. You have a shared history and memory that calls to the very centre of who you are and how you got there, they are the greatest link to your nostalgia and the greatest clue to your future. So if you can go to them with an open heart and an open mind, being happy with the person you are and how you came to be there then this could be the safest bubble there can be. There is a comfort that makes ceremony pointless and when you step away from what at the time may have seemed like the confines of “their house” and “their stupid rules” you long to go back there in the most natural way, not standing on ceremony and being on your best behaviour but just being with them in a day to day way being the beautiful imperfect creatures that we are.
I look forward to the idea of being a parent though it obviously plants a small seed of dread in my mind, I mean I’m quite protective and anal about tweaking and getting the best out of the food that I produce, what if that attitude turns me into a meddling parent who wants to make a child the way they think they should be. I hope I have the strength of mind to let them make their own mistakes and be there for them unconditionally whenever you re needed. My only hope and only thing I would want for them was to be interesting, to be a person with passion who is not strangled by fear and allows themselves to live their own lives to their own rules and being a person who believes in themselves and their ability to get where they want to go. With the invention of the Facebook timeline it will make it even easier for the next generation to look over our faux pa so we better start learning to be more honest and work on relationships that will carry us long into old age.
More uncertainty in the world and big changes coming in my life that will hopefully make positive steps to me being a more creative and involved person. Going to have to have the faith to throw away some familiar crutches and allow myself to run with ideas without fear of failure, but these are the challenges that push us on or at least give us interesting stories to tell. While we plod on there is always the beat and the art of a generation to keep us level so plug in to some more early 2012 sounds.
‘Django Django’ by Django Django I don’t regularly get sucked in by singles, usually an album review or a band name being passed down the grapevine is the route I would take to falling in love (academic I know) but when the wonderful BBC 6 Music played ‘Default’ all work stopped the volume got pumped to way above the acceptable level for “during service” play, feet stomped on the flaw and fists pumped in the air – out of nowhere a party atmosphere was thrust upon us and wouldn’t let it go. I couldn’t wait to troll the net and find out who it was that was fusing the great sounds and techniques responsible for making such an addictive song.
The album plays out like a tribal drum-fest calling the Stoners of their sofa’s drying of the tears of those still mourning the end of The Beta Band’s carer and pushing them onto the dance-floor for a joyful rejoice in sound. Psychedelic has come to mean many things as maybe it should, but the moulding of seemingly disparate styles and sounds, the peeking into the head of a musical therapy group for people suffering from attention deficit disorder and coming out with a coherent and solid album is where we should be heading with our expectations of the psychedelic. There is a hypnotic nature to the sounds here and a real open sandbox of small stylistic influences and changes of pace, but the incoming killer blues guitar riffs pulls us back to a place we know and love. These chancers odviously approach music from a different way with an emphasis on the warm glow of the individual sounds and there gentle addition to one another forming something that grows from its part, this organic growth is what usally labels music as “stoner” but really its just great. It is hard to resist the partycentric sounds of lead single ‘Default’ but for stonking riff and a sense of the album I would have to go for the track ‘Wor’
‘Give Up America’ by Howler the brilliantly Anarchic, sarcastic title is hard to resist but below that is an all American hero that takes from their best and serves it up on a platter with French fried potatoes. Half surf pop half grunge the band fuses these yank styles into something approaching all your own. If the Strokes are the New York rich kids with the uber cool band and the super tight style then here we have the impoverished kid from down the way with the cheap guitar but with that bit more fire in their bellies and dirt in their eyes. Some reviews have said that here we see nothing new but delivered well but I have to disagree the sound is fresh and while does lean heavily on genres from the past there is a modern spin and the gravel in the vocal gives it a sound of the not so clean cut America we all know lies behind the billboard perfection. Plenty of songs have been sang out to the bikini clad babe on the beach who becomes a subject of teenage fantasy but few people have called her out as the boring half-drunk bimbo slut she more than likely is. To sing out the American dream to start the fire and sing out your birthplace in front of the stars and stripes is one thing but the more recent image of America has less swelling pride and some see it as the shallow and insipid vision that is painted here.
“I want a girl in a new car, I need a drink and a guitar,
I want to die young as a star, is that too much is that so hard.
I want to be on a TV screen, Iwant to get dressed and be seen,
It’s hard but I just don’t know, why there expectations are so low.” –
‘Wailing (Making Out)’
With some airplay on the more eclectic British radio stations with the lead single from this first full album release ‘Back Of Your Neck’ these yank scamps are endearing and engaging and with a few good live performances over the summer could do well. I am drawn in by the bitter resentment in the lyrics over the fuse of Beach Boys and Pixies in the music and at times with a looming Keyboard soaring as a high echo to the tune there are shades of what The Horrors did to their thrash and chaos. ‘Wailing (Making Out)’ has to be my pick from this one for best encapsulating all those namedrops and styles I have just spoke of.
‘Born To Die’ by Lana Del Rey I have been accused of not being critical enough in the music I review that I am mainly singing praises rather than giving an objective view of the music out there, in essence that isn’t why I choose to write about music this album based warbling is supposed to show my salvation by the sounds that can calm my furious heart and show me the beauty of expression when it seems to be lost. I manage to block out most of the modern music that I know will infuriate me, I have never heard a full Lady Ga Ga song and have no idea what either Cher Lloyd or Cheryl Cole sound like, I do however have to put up with Phil Collins and even Sting being played at work and pretend like I don’t want to smash their smug faces in so that’s as much coping with music as I am prepared to endure. However sometimes there is a fever around an artist who is flung into the limelight that it is hard to ignore and you feel like they must be worth an appreciative listen – how wrong you can be, how narrow minded and corrupt the controllers of the limelight have become and what an utterly unpleasant one hour and thirty nine seconds I spent coming to the conclusion that this is one vapid and dull spoilt brat who is an offense to the ears.
Daughter of the rich investor Robert Grant her success was in the bag before she opened her mouth, “daddy I want a record contract”. Failing to make many waves with releases under her real name of Lizzy Grant, a re-branding took place and daddy’s little po faced princess returned in this media appealing package, but in all honesty I have had baths deeper than this unappealing strumpet and with all those open doors and free rides there is no edge to these songs only a thoroughly dreary boredom. The media turned on her after an appearance on Saturday Night Live branding her as weird, disinterested and undeserving of that platform.
There is no scope range or hidden depths to any of the vocal, even her face seems to be set in plastic like a volley of Botox has hit her young face and made it incapable of emotion or expression. Hailed as a modern day Nancy Sinatra is a title I can’t sit with, there is no intrigue mystery or strange sex appeal here just an insipid swathe of self-indulgent and insipid string arrangements trying desperately to hide an irritating voice spouting mindless mundane drivel that is trying to sound all modern and of its day lyrically while calling back to a bygone age with its arrangement. The true effect is showing the pathetic and superficial nature of the modern young and wealthy and how easy they can have it while still finding things to moan about. Avoid at all costs my friends, don’t let them tell you what to like because its none of their business. Don’t let me tell you either but really if you value your ears id give this one a wide berth. My suggestion for a song from this album is to miss it out and put on ‘Desire’ by Anna Calvi and listen to a genuine exciting modern female voice.
‘Be Strong’ by The 2 Bears One of my rare dalliances into the world of house music, but this is so much more fusing essences of hip-hop soul with the relentlessness of the house beat but most importantly adding a sense of humour and the all-inclusive sense of party ethos that I think the world of house usually displays. These boys are party veterans, a Joe Goddard of Hot Chip adds his clout and expertise to give the album a wry wit while still paying homage to the beat they obviously love and want to share. There is a character based connection with the voices and characters presented in this release that makes you want to get on board and join in on their party, ‘Bear Hug’, this way in to dance just like ‘Gorrilaz’ has given a face and a persona to music that can seem deeply impersonal and bland. There seems to be a message of good vibes through every song but without being oversentimental are repeating stock phrases with monotonous repetition, “there aint no quack can give you pills that will give you natural thrills, like a bear hug” is intoxicating in its innocent simplicity, this is reiterated in asides like ‘Increase Your Faith’ and what a good message to a disenfranchised youth. It is the track ‘Ghosts & Zombies’ that best envisions this party political broadcast anthem singing out to those bored minions beckoning them to “Party with the Bears tonight, we’ve got the funk of 40,000 years for your delight” it’s an attractive proposition especially when the funk is a pared down bass line and a Hacienda, ecstasy honeymoon vocal swoon. The duo even put there own take on country music believe it or not Country-House was not something you thought you wanted but ‘Time In Mind’ is at least a smile on your face in an album with genuine humour and feel good ideals.
So i will retreat into my culinary world for a while but i think i might make an epic journey into my past in the next few weeks that im sure will afford me the opportunity to get all thoughtfull and introspective and want to share my musings with you, until then i bid you good day and good listening.
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