Hi Woodsy,
Sending this to you direct but it's intended for the blog if you feel it's worth the shot.
As I seem to be around the same age as most of you guys I was really happy to see the slight digressions into the musical side of things which put me in mind of a few tracks I had to "Youtube" up just to ensure my brain cells weren't playing tricks - guess they would fall into the category of "why weren't these guys HUGE at the time?!" towit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHU4qQRlJFU "The Shape of Things to Come" from The Headboys (could be a theme tune for this blog hmmm?)
and possibly the greatest song I've ever heard in my life: "Main Travelled Roads" from Doll by Doll
The latter band was fronted by Jackie Leven who, unfairly perhaps, was always destined to be overshadowed by Van Morrison but in the way that you did when you were younger (well I did anyway) I always preferred Leven's songs because it was a kind of secret known only to the "select few" of me and my mates - imagine Van's style of songs but with much much more emotional content -
Leven in later years became an "enfant terrible" due to drink and drug problems but as sometimes happens his personal demons allowed him to create some pure gold as in:
and of course - if you want to finish it off with summat absolutely epic there's always Alex Harvey:
who - at the time - I couldn't stand but in retrospect I have realised was a bona-fide genius of the first water!!
Funny how your views change as you get older eh?
Cheers!!
Bill Storie
and can I bring things up to date and add to that the latest Arctic Monkeys album "Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino"? Never thought I'd enjoy something by these guys but this is basically a concept album about a house band on the moon but very tongue in cheek-ily done. Alex Turner has been bingeing on a lot of our favourite sci-fi movies I reckon and the album wouldn't be out of place if played alongside the classic Moon Zero Two - which reminds me I really have to get that on dvd !
ReplyDeleteVery interesting Mike. I saw a brief clip of the Monkeys on telly last week and they looked and sounded good. I like the idea of a modern concept album. I read somewhere that the one ever was The Pretty Things' SF album.
DeleteCheers Woodsy - that's one that I missed so I'm off to Youtube again tonight - I lose so much time that way lol!!
Deleteah, now this makes sense! ha ha. This is your article Mike, which I had languishing in my archive for ages and finally dusted it off for the blog! Thanks, its a great piece of rock.
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