Parents - The Cradle Of Ego

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.

The Beast of Ego and The Soothing sounds

I shouldn’t be allowed to be put into a position to look into the lives of the general public and to in any way compare and contrast my existence with the greater population, it makes me feel ill and makes that red mist of anger course through my veins and cloud my vision. As a population we have made a country that is bland and disinteresting where mediocrity is accepted and even applauded and where true individualism is labelled as abnormal and abhorrent, for a while it makes me feel sorry for those that don’t see the bigger picture but ultimately it fills me with an apocalyptic rage that tempered by the knowledge of my powerlessness drives me back into my own space where art and expression can mean everything and the small worlds that we create for ourselves can be painted in bright colours and twist into interesting and exotic shapes.

I have been weighing my own ego and using it to benefit my future but when it gets out the box it is like a rabid beast that must feed, feed on human flesh. There is a stunning lack of honesty between us as a race that leads to appreciation of what you have achieved being seen as mouth-watering arrogance and there are so many things that we are for some reason not supposed to say that most people end up saying nothing at all. There are great contingents of creative and interesting people and they are no different biologically from anyone else they just broke the cycle and believed in themselves enough to make themselves heard, it’s only a rarity because we take such pleasure in crushing people. Capitalism is a system that thrives on competition, now I do believe in competition, a healthy competition that pushes our own goals ever upwards while inspiring those around us to do more, to be the best that they can be, what I can’t stand is the competition that crushes others underfoot as one person rises ever upwards. Be mindful of your potential and remember to congratulate yourself for your achievements, but do it quietly and in the small company of those who are invested in your journey – don’t shout it and don’t ever believe that it makes you something more than any other person. Face challenges with confidence and a faith in your abilities but without arrogance and reverence for what the task involves because it demeans any endeavour and you for engaging in it with a closed heart and a caged mind.

My head is full to bursting point with ideas and new situations and trying to conceive how I will extract the best out of them, trying to come to some agreement with myself about how I will deliver what people expect from me while staying true to the person I think it is important for me to be. I will have to learn to remember that I can’t always take the simplest option and be resolute in my determinations and the small and subtle acts that can colour the way you are perceived. I have to have faith in my judgment while still having an open hand and a head to accept the ideas of others, I will have to tame the ego so that it still operates, still accepts nothing but the best but requires nothing more than the soundtrack of my life to keep it sedated. As the rest of my life becomes more crowded and bustling with new concepts and pulling me further into the rabbit hole of culinary exploration it becomes even more important for me to remember my love of music and the part of my soul that is happy satisfied and ready to wallow in other people’s creativity.

Soaking myself in new music as I missed the first two weeks of 2012 and it highlights what an addiction it can become and how behind you can feel for even missing a single day of trawling and listening. The years and the months will go into competition as I select what is the best that I have heard and become aware of and share that with you in the order it fell into my ears. I have already been blown away and had some near religious experiences with sound this year so the bar is set very high and I wait with baited breath to be excited and entranced by what the year has to offer. The promise of releases from some big hitters this year that immediately spark my interest The Shins, Marc Lanegan, Queens Of The Stone Age & even possible new material from Rage Against The Machine & Soundgarden but there are many more artists who won’t be filling a stadium near you who I can’t wait to get my ears round there new offerings and I’m sure many bands who I have never heard of that will pop up and become firm favourites. As I always say the enjoyment and appreciation of an album can be a journey, they can grow and evolve in your appreciation so I will try to let you know what is sticking in my head and where my musical journey is taking me this year, I look forward to sharing it all with you.

 

   ‘Future This’ by The Big Pink  straight of the bat and we can tell that these scamps plan on re-cycling the anthem success of ‘Dominoes’ by turning up loud and giving us a big riff we can’t help but yell at the top of our voices. I do hate the way the music press can turn on an artist for delivering anything too much like their previous work but also castigate them for treading too much new ground. This group found a good sound in their first single and it’s no surprise that they would try to utilise that style again and I couldn’t get enough of ‘Dominoes’ so I am certainly listening with a smile on my face and yes yelling out the chorus even though I don’t know the words. There are some lovely little beats dotted around the album and as well as the singing style that sounds like a football terrace rowdy rant there are the hints of quite posh accents and subtler lyrics than you might expect. The production is warm and deep and polishes the edges of the group to give them a big and professional sound. It’s not hit after hit but its toe tapping fast driving stuff that will get into your head and endear these boys into your ear space.

You can’t beat turning it up loud and waiting to yell a lyric at the top of your voice with a track like ‘Stay Gold’

   ‘The Dreamer, The Believer’ by Common I realised on looking back at my albums from 2011 that I had nearly completely stopped listening to any Hip-Hop or Rap and that maybe such genres could save me from permanently being tarred with the miserable old cardigan wearer moniker, but I have to say I find it hard to gel with the modern propensity for high brag and overpowering stacks of sounds on top of sounds production value, we’ve come away from your small scratchy noise Kool Hurc, and one Lonnie Rashid Lynn Jnr has come away from guesting with Erykah Badhu on a love song ode to the glory of the original days of hip-hop.

The album opens with an explosion of bravado and swagger setting the stage for a Kanye toppling mega album with glitz and glam that won’t be ignored but that is needed when you are trying to write yourself into the company of the modern aspirational black figures. Martin Luther is name checked in the same breath as Denzel Washington shortly followed by Run DMC and a vocoded tip of the hat to Jay Z, this is American Dream stuff – filling kid’s heads with the notion that your young talent can topple the kings. But there are subtler moments where a seasoned artist calls from inspiration from a true legend who deserves bringing into the Hip-Hop domain with the brilliant Curtis Mayfield sample on the track ‘Lovin’ I Lost’, for me this track makes the album and highlights the talents of an open hearted rapper with a good flow using those original breaks and grooves to make a standout modern track.

   ‘Into The Wild’ by The Maccabees and then she comes, the album to start your year with a revving engine and dreams in your heart. Already hailed in the popular press as an album of the year and the future predicting boffins of NME prophesising this to be the Maccabees year, but in many ways I can see their point. Five years and now three albums in they are a band you can listen to their talent increase and their sound not change but become a more coherent product as if the skill of the hands is catching up with the scope of their ideas, so yes they drop this album at the start of a year that could see many people discovering the burgeoning talent that has flourished to life in the wild.

That magical feeling when you enjoy a piece of music so much that you are completely hooked in, the hairs standing up and every note and line seeming to seep straight into your consciousness and you feel so lucky to enjoy something so much, you hope that other people can take this much enjoyment from something as simple but at the same time you think it might be specific to you. Me driving home with ‘Pelican’ playing loud in my ears my fist pounding the rhythm on the car door, every lyric hitting home and every beat driving me on. Maybe I have grown to love lyrics about the inevitability of growing older but ho hum.

The album really is a tour de force as grandiose as it is delicate and with the truly original voice of Orlando Weeks telling us tales and swooning us through every track. The drum track is brilliant up-tempo and precise with uplift to the beat that gives that fist pumping rhythm, there are some great switch ups that give the songs new elements and can quicken the tone even when the vocal soars far overhead. This album is going to ring out over festival summers and play out loud over long drives with cars packed full of lucky music fans, lucky to have a musical heritage that has our new breed of bands living up to the heroes they adored as kids and making albums as good as this.

Though I hasten to tip the single here because there are so many great songs it is with ‘Pelican’ that I had a near religious experience and lead me in to the rest of the album more fully, I feel that this album will stay with me though and I will find my way through all the tracks being my favourite and I urge you to let it into your lives – why because it will make it a better place.

     ‘Baby’ by Tribes another hotly tipped and hyped group of London scamps break out of a lot of initial buzz and high hail’s to drop their full long player to welcome ears. I get the feel of a lot of good bands in an interesting blend Supergrass, Cribs, Weezer and other such successful acts but there is a good London shout along chorus that gives the music a good riot boy sound that we love at the moment. But this release has more tender moments and an aching heart desperation a sort of drunken rant that while doesn’t have the chaos of a Titus Andronicus there is a rasp that is hard to ignore and its tempered by the slow drawl which may draw vocal comparisons to the recent Arctic Monkeys, a lot of comparisons I know but they are all solid and make for a good blend.

Maybe they lyrically fall into the traps of melodrama and trite try hard traps but if you are sold by that point you will swallow it and sink into it. Let me wait a while and let the hype boil down and I will get a better picture and form a more solid opinion but for now listen to ‘Half Way Home’ and make your own damn minds up

   ‘The Lion’s Roar’ by First Aid Kit Will we ever reach market saturation of folk singer songwriter songstresses? But when you get young pretty and Scandinavian into the mix it makes for a heady combination then add songs name checking the great and good of country legend and a Fleet Foxes cover and exposure will follow. The close harmony is rich and there are trills in all the right places, the single ‘Emmylou’ has an authentic country twang mixed with that Swedish Folk edge that makes it quite a jaunty affair but I really don’t hear it sticking in your mind for too long. This is a genre that now requires you to have an edge to be noticed, doing it well just aint enough. Not till the last track ‘King Of The World’ do I feel a spark of lasting interest that maybe they have conjured something a happy sad ballad that mixes in some Spanish bandit horns and a hoe down string section and also a big endorsement from the king pixie of this genre Conor Oberst with a final verse, maybe we watch this space.

   ‘Attack On Memory’ by Cloud Nothings From a distraction to fill in time while at university to a home recorded track that caught the right peoples ears to this the third album release Dylan Baldi has created something quite special that could herald a return of a musical form that has been too long missing from our airwaves and record shelves. The album is dynamic, screams of desperation and skill a measured emotional path between shy retiring and full on rage at the world and at themselves making anthems for the self-deprecating masses and hymns for the disillusioned – this is quite simply brilliant. This album could be a nail in the head for the emo movement when we see the same angst and power can be on show without bombast and over sentimentality but sheer talent and a use of music to paint a landscape and convey anger. Punk has come a long way and I find it hard to say I love punk music because of so much of the trash that is performed in its name but with ‘At The Drive In’ reformed a new ‘Cursive’ album on the way I will once again be proud to call myself a filthy punk. Everything from the recording, the guitar sounds, the dead thump of the drums and the nihilistic lyrics oozes the essence of punk. Hard to pick a favourite from this great concise and clearly brilliant record but for its duality and precision guitar work I will pick ‘Fall In’ I urge you to listen to this and listen loud.

So welcome to a 2012 that I hope will be full of challenges and changes and will be overflowing with the mastery of old favourites and the discovery of new talent. Take care of yourselves and each other and I will speak to you soon enough.