Just been wishing an old friend in Oz happy 50th and reminiscing about the great music we used to listen to in the Seventies when we were hairy teenagers [and for my part still do! I never grew up, still play records, watch videos, don't own an IPod and have never played a video game in my life! Sad I know!]. Well, as is occasionally my want, here's one of those tunes [or tracks as we would have so earnestly said aged 17!] that simply embodies those halcyon days of stupendous promise and everlasting youth, Al Stewart's truly beautiful Year of the Cat from the LP of the same name, all of which is equally haunting. Al has that indescribable and unique English male voice like Nick Drake and Peter Hammill. Recommended Moonbase play. Just remembered how I loved looking at the cover spotting all the moggy artifacts! Oh what feline fun!
If you liked this then maybe listen to Al's Broadway Hotel from the same album. Gives me goosebumps every time I listen to it!
5 comments:
I still think his earlier album, "modern times" was better.
pleased there is at least one other technology-luddite about!
Excellent album indeed! I'm amazed my record has any groove left, number of times I played it. Which I did while building dioramas for and with Tamiya's samurai figures (I believe Mr Woods had those too?), based on Japanese woodprints of the 48 Ronin and whatnot, so to this day there's this association between that record and those woodprint images.
Luddism? Better described as a proper appreciation of old & obsolete technology, I'd say. Just because technology as a whole has moved on, doesn't mean that old technology is no longer fit for the purpose it was invented, designed and built for. To name but one example, I do listen to music on my iPhone, and appreciate what it does. But next to that I also very much appreciate the poetry in motion provided by my (incomplete, wheezing but working) 1956 Wurlitzer. And explaining to my sons' friends what on Earth it is and letting them push the buttons on the thing. :)
Best
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Paul
... and I'm very fond of his "Night Train to Munich" as well - pretty zany in a coherent kind of way (or the other way round).
Nothing really good on yootoob (sound-quality-wise I mean), but these at least get the fun across:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCNkEIy7E9M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldWydfe11bo
Mr Woods might like this too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GY9ST-ebLA
There's a terrific OGWT live version of Year of the Cat on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdwUY7TknS4
Sean
I went on to buy Time Passages, which I liked as well but not as much as Year of the Cat. Like Van the Man's Astral Weeks it seems to define the artist's sound and in the case of Cat it defines that time for me in the late Seventies when music was my world, a soundtrack of he likes of Budgie, Rush, Neil Young, Al Stewart, Lou Reed, Camel, Flairck, Pink Faeries, PFM, Yes, UK, Judas Preist, Zep, Sabbath, Purple, Hendrix, Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Roy Harper, Tull and Free. My musical tastes have not really moved on but I have discovered a few more sounds since then and some new classics alnums.
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