"accept no substitute"

I think if there was one person whose record collection I would most like to see, it would be Quentin Tarantino. I've said this for years (he's yet to allow me access), and my position was certainly reaffirmed last night when I caught Jackie Brown on the TV. In the process of shutting down for the night and turning off the lights, I was halted in my tracks, hypnotised by the opening bars of Bobby Womack's 'Across 110th Street', which were emanating from the box. I was trapped. 3 hours later, when I eventually made it to bed, I was vowing once more that somehow, sometime in my life, I'd find a way to persuade Sir Quentin to let me into his vault.

As with Cameron Crowe (see On the Kerb Again, below), a guaranteed part of Tarantino's movies is a cracking soundtrack ("It is the rhythm of the film," he says), and in Jackie Brown we are given his homage to 1970s funk and soul music and Blaxploitation flicks. Not always bothering with mere snippets, he opens the film with the blissful entirety (all 3-minutes and 46-seconds) of 'Across 110th Street', before winging us via the Brothers Johnson, Minnie Riperton, the Meters, Bill Withers and the Delfonics. The look that Samuel L. Jackson gives Robert Forster, upon starting his car to find the Delfonics' 'Didn't I (Blow Your Mind This Time)' playing on the stereo, is possibly the best bit of acting he's done in 15 years.

Equal parts disgust and wonderment, I imagine it's the same look I'd fire at Quentin if ever I get my grubby mitts on his vinyl.

If you're reading this QT, just gimme one shot.....

It's a Sin

It's something I never thought I'd say, but the new single by the Pet Shop Boys, 'Love Etc', is absolutely brilliant. Instinctive reaction a month ago was that The Brits panel had lost their minds when suddenly throwing out a bunch of accolades after all those years, but I will happily hold my hands up and admit to being wrong and pleasantly surprised when I heard the track.



True talent, I guess, doesn't fade.
Get hold of a copy.

'A Piece for Assorted Lunatics'

36 years ago this week, Pink Floyd released The Dark Side of the Moon. Often considered the group's defining work, and a regular on Greatest Album lists, Dark Side spent over fourteen years on Billboard's list of the Top-200 best selling albums and is the 3rd highest selling album of all time in the USA.

That the album was a commercial success is undeniable. That the success was unintentional, however, is often overlooked. Perhaps more than any other rock act of the late-1960s and early-1970s, Pink Floyd maintained a focus on musical experimentation, working to their own sense of artistic credibility rather than to what might 'appeal' to a mass audience.

Dark Side kept to that vision. Dealing with birth, greed, violence, insanity and death, the album is an entire human life in the space of 42 minutes and 59 seconds. Songs were interspersed with snippets of dialogue taken from impromptu interviews with the band's road crew, adding an ethereal but also human element. And on a technological front, the album was recorded using some of the most advanced techniques of the time. It is one of the first albums to use quadraphonic surround sound systems, and features the rhythmic sequencing of numerous sound effects, such as clocks, money drawers and even a human heartbeat.

At a time when the current chart contained the likes of the Partridge Family, Little Jimmy Osmond and Olivia Newton John, Dark Side was as far removed from commercial as you could get. And yet the album was adopted by millions and became a cultural phenomenon, even expanding into other spheres. There is a well-known coincidence that when played simultaneously alongside the original 1939 film version of The Wizard of Oz, the music perfectly intertwines with the images on screen (what the hell was the guy on who first noticed that?!). The album even topped a poll for 'The Best Album To Have Sex To' (I'm yet to personally confirm that one).

In an era when record execs sit around in plush offices discussing what Sound and what Look the public should like next ("Let's bring back the 80s, because it wasn't shit enough the first time!"), it's good to remember a purer time when musical acts were given the freedom to work on their art without interference. Long may the current Indie scene carry that torch forwards.

Bad Vibrations

Daytime TV has long been the scourge of the daylight hours. The teenage pregnancies and wife-beatings of Jeremy Kyle, the re-runs of Going For Gold or the chance to buy 2 shopping basket trolley bags for under 10 quid if you call me in the next 7 minutes. It's enough to drive anyone into employment. Well, almost anyone.

There has been a recent shining star on the horizon of late, however, in the form of the excellent Seven Ages of Rock documentary series. And having just caught the episode on 90s Indie/Brit Pop, a thought occurred to me: where have all the inter-band battles gone?

Back in my formative years, there was only one important question - whether you liked Blur or Oasis (personally I preferred Supergrass to either, but that's just the way I am). Your social standing lived or died depending on your answer, and many a fight could start from a throwaway comment about Damon Albarn being a pansy.

A generation earlier the Rolling Stones and the Beatles tussled for superiority of Britain, embarking on artistic one-upmanship and subtle parody in an attempt to be declared The Greatest. The Stones even temporarily abandoned their blues-rock blueprint in exchange for a crack at psychedelia, 1967's Their Satanic Majesties Request, lest they allow the Fab Four to claim the market unchallenged.

What stands out from these examples is that artists previously used their craft as the expression of their talent - they let the music do the talking. Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys drove himself into a nervous breakdown, so determined was he to create something that would surpass the Beatles (admittedly 'Good Vibrations' is arguably the greatest single ever recorded, even if it did take a year to make and cost him his sanity). But in a world of MySpace and OK magazine, it's all too easy now for 15-Minute Popstars to sit on their pedestal of hubris and hurl out insults at their chart rivals. Now, I'm happy to slang abuse in the direction of Eoghan Quigg or Peaches Geldoff as much as the next guy, but if I had genuine talent, a studio and a record company at my disposal, I'd emote my ideas through music. After all, isn't that what real artists do?

And if all that failed, I'd start shooting a la Biggie and 2Pac - at least that had some violent poeticism about it.

On the Kerb Again

When watching many films, it is often easy to strip away the special effects and technology, to see through the extra-thick layering of 'romance' and attempted social commentary, and reach some very simple elements. Such is certainly the case with Cameron Crowe's Elizabethtown, which I watched last night. Once you move past Orlando Bloom's dubious American accent and the overall unlikeliness of the entire story, you are left with two staples of Crowe's movies: a Journey and a fantastic Soundtrack.

The idea of the Great Roadtrip is straight out of the American tradition - of westward expansion and Manifest Destiny. On its shoulders ride the ghosts of Lewis & Clark, the Gold Rush prospectors, a dusty Kerouac and the tripped-out insanity of Hunter S. Thompson. Throw in some great tunes and you've got the ultimate combination: the Open Road and Rock & Roll.

The two certainly go hand-in-hand, just look at Easy Rider for proof. For an Englishman limited to fist-pumping down the M6 toll road with Meatloaf's Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell blaring out of the stereo, the appeal of an American Rock & Roll Roadtrip is endless. Wide highways, bright sunshine, beer in truck stops and the world's cheapest petrol prices. The current plan therefore is for a journey of musical discovery later in the year, from Cleveland (the home of Rock & Roll) to Memphis (the home of Sun Records) to New Orleans (the home of jazz). With additional stops also at any nearby college towns (the home of hot college chicks!), and Louisville, Kentucky (the home of Colonel Sanders) to stock up on chicken snacks.

I suppose the only question is: what songs to put on the playlist, to fit in with the grand tradition of those that have gone before?
"Oh, mama, can this really be the end...."

Suggestions please.

Blog of Eternal Stench

As I sit here, mired in the confusion that comes hand-in-hand with the 'all important 2nd album' syndrome, I couldn't fail to notice that my debut blog may appear slightly on the 'negative' side. It's certainly true that I detest Reality TV and Viewer-Voter music shows with a murderous passion, and hold them accountable for the decline of British Society. Them, and mushrooms. But why focus on the downsides of life, for surely that man was right when he said that we should accennnnnnnnntuate the positive.

The intention then is to be a Beacon of Hope, a light in the window for my poor wandering boy, lost in the wilderness somewhere between Steps and Miley Cyrus. There has, after all, been almost a century's worth of recorded popular music, and it's only in recent years that things have truly started to suck. So we shall stand as a musical Treaty of Versailles, a League of Nations, designed to call to account the aural atrocities and make sure that They Don't Happen Again. (Admittedly, Versailles and the L.O.N ultimately allowed for the rise of Nazi Germany and Big Adolf's World Tour 1939-1945, but the intention was in the right place).

From Hank to Hendrix, Marvin to Miles, Dylan to The Dillards, ? and The Mysterians to ?uestlove and The Roots, we shall champion the great and rise above the unworthy. On a sun-blessed Friday afternoon, what more could anyone ask for?

Idol-ness Killed the Radio Star

The great philosopher and musicologist Theodore W. Adorno once wrote that "a country's music has become a political ideology by stressing national characteristics, appearing as a representative of the nation, and everywhere confirming the national principle." If this sentiment still stands true in the modern age, I move to suggest that we are, as a nation, in cultural trouble.

Culture has long been defined as “the best that has been thought and said in the world." But from a musical standpoint, when was the last time that anybody actually said anything of value? Addicted to technology, lazy to the core, the 'Me Generation' has been probed, invaded and hypnotised by the biggest cultural Death Star of them all: Pop Idol.

Worse still is that the plague is spreading. X Factor, Fame Academy, Big Brother even.... where will it end?! Now don't get me wrong, I'm happy to laugh at an over-weight pie factory worker in a cowboy hat, belting out an off-key rendition of Elvis' 'Burning Love'. That and any number of cringe-worthy 'auditions' from the early stages. But as an expression of Britain's talent, this should be relegated to the lowest echelons of circus performance, next to the Bearded Lady and the Man With a Small Head. We're amusing ourselves to death in front of the TV set, and the price we're paying is the loss of great music.

The so-called Winners from these shows, those that earn recording contracts, offer nothing to the Great Library of music history - Gareth Gates, Leon, Michelle McManus, David Sneddon...... I mean come on! And even those with an ounce of longevity, like Girls Aloud or Leona Lewis, are better to look at than listen to, let's be honest. The root problem is that music should have nothing to do with image or television. Yet we encourage the creation of Plastic Popstars with no substance through shows which are little more than Glorified Karaoke, and then offer them up to the universe as the greatest exponents of our national cultural expression. Well forgive me for thinking that we should aspire to greater quality.

Lily Allen hit the nail bang on the head with her recent single 'The Fear': people's aspirations nowadays are solely to be famous, to be a Celebrity, and it is Reality/Viewer-Voter TV shows that fuel this misguided notion. Irrespective of talent or hard work, just get yourself on TV somehow and the world's your oyster. Or at a bare minimum you'll be allowed into China Whites once or twice. And all the while, in pubs, clubs and small venues across the country, hard-working and talented acts scrape out a musical living, but stay ignored by the record companies because it would be too much work and cost too much to find and promote them. Perhaps they don't have the right Look.

Groucho Marx had a point when he noted: "I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book." Our musical culture is being eroded at a fast rate of knots, and it's Death By 40inch Plasma Widescreen.

But then again, what would I know. Anyway must dash, there's a Cheeky Girls special on channel 39.