My memory told me that <Goats Head Soup> followed <Exile on Main Street>. Must have been one of the toughest Stones' outputs. (I mean .. pretty hard to improve on that one)
That said, Goats Head Soup (who named it??!?!?) actually includes a few of my favorite Stones pieces - ones I could listen to back to back/over and over again. [Maybe I did once upon a time]. The AllMusic review says as much: difficult placement after Exile ... lots of good overlooked songs. But, it's <Winter> we need to zoom in on.
Something about the melodic structure - the sound of the instruments ... something else I'm missing that manages to convey a real sense of winter/cold.. Is it the reverb? Or just Jagger's uncanny ability to fit the voice to the theme?
Granted, the lyrics slightly miss the theme of ice and snow, but ...hey ... Winter: the season of ice and snow.
And here I thought this song was all about winter conditions.
It
was my son who introduced me to the Red Hot Chilli Peppers - me being
from a Who and Stones generation, I find/found it harder and harder to
keep up with groups that appeared after about the arrival of Prince.
Around about Nirvana's arrival, I just tuned out.
Granted, it
would have been hard to miss the arrival of some of the post 90s music,
and the Chilli Peppers fall into the pretty hard to miss category.
But
my ignorance - no naivete goes deeper: I took the lyrics of
<Snow> on their surface meaning. I mean "tracks in the snow" - you
know how you leave footprints in drifts. As Anthony Kiedis said: a
fresh canvas of snow. In between the perfect cover of another wonder - I
mean, a covering of snow is a true wonder. Master of lyrics he is, I
now read that Kiedis is couching his addiction to snow of a different
kind in a metaphor about the weather. Look a bit deeper, and the lyrics
speak about "get high on" and "killing me". Oh! Snow. Now I get it. Ah
well, chalk it up to experience.
Doesn't detract from my love of the song. It's great music that sits up there with classics like the Stones and the Who.
Quite a metaphor, that, uncertain which is the dominant force, whether it is sugar sweetening the destructive power of an iceberg, or a the gulp of realisation following a swallow of something not quite so sweet after all. I am sure the lyric explains but I prefer the uncertainty, tending more towards the tune and the presentation. Both of which this band had, here and in general, in spades. And I notice they have some gigs lined up for next year, this late return surely worth a shout, pinned as it is on the back of the 25th anniversary of their third album, 'Jollification'. (Which was last month, with a trio of initial shows then taking place.)
I was on the bus a bit before Jollification, they, or he, Ian Broudie, having hatched the band alone in his studio, playing all the instruments and singing all the vocals on the first album, 1989's 'Cloudcuckooland'. Perhaps not quite as big an ask as you might imagine, he being already an accomplished producer of other folks records in his home town of Liverpool. But I am still ahead of myself, my introduction to Ian Broudie being through his membership of Liverpudlian semi-supergroup Big in Japan. Where, let alone anywhere else, they weren't, their fame being mainly down to where the many and various members went next, it being the launchpad for, amongst others, Frankie Goes to Hollywood and the KLF, one drummer later joining Siouxsie and the Banshees, the keyboardsman joining The Teardrop Explodes. And Ian Broudie becoming producer for Echo and the Bunnymen and The Icicle Works. Not bad for a band so reviled in their lifetime as to have a petition taken out to promote their dissolution, albeit signed also by the band themselves.
Above is 'Pure', the debut single from the above mentioned 'Cloudcuckooland', I remembering well the first time I heard it. I was in full Morris Dancing costume, dancing with local side, Silhill Morris, at fabled warwickshire country pub, the Black Boy, the pub as mentioned, momentarily, in the finale of Peaky Blinders, series 5. Whilst I dare say I may not have fully dredged up this skeleton from my past, something for another day, that day some bemusement was to be had by the already punished locals by the sight of yours truly putting the song on the jukebox, repeatedly and repeatedly, whilst my colleagues danced outside to the song of an altogether older Albion. I love the music of the morris, but, that day, I was transfixed.
Next album, 'Sense', followed a couple or so years later. It was good, if not quite so, the video for lead single, 'Life of Riley', perhaps revealing why, at least for the espousedly non-football loving me, it had Broudie delineating his love for all things soccer writ large. Prejudice is a strong word, but it was enough to put me off the band. So, when Broudie then teamed up with comedians David Baddiel and Frank Skinner, all three utter football nuts, to write and perform the (admittedly very catchy) England European Nations Championship song of 1996, I was mortified. Getting it to number one in the UK singles charts twice, it being reprised in 1998, made it worse still, the horror of when one of your favourite bands not only become well known and celebrated to all, it also being with also something you cannot admit to any love for. (Admit is the operative word, I fear, as see also Chumbawamba.)
So I missed out, at the time, on 'Jollification'. And, until this piece, had no idea the b(r)and put out a further three albums, the knowledge giving me no small amount of homework. The featured song even comes from one of them, 'Dizzy Heights'. Are they any good? Unsurprisingly, yes, they are, even if the bubble of britpop had burst somewhat, along with the laddism of football hurly-burly becoming, now to others as well, a less well received intrusion, propelled no doubt with the ongoing dismal performances of the national side. In particular, I like the more dance oriented sound on 5th album, 'Tilt'.
A ten year gap, to 2009, and their final, at least so far, committal to disc, 'Four Winds'. Resorting now more to co-writes, you might be mistaken, from the opening of 'Ghosts', below, that this represents a further change in direction. That is, until the familiar angelic vocal chimes in, a familiar clang-clang backbeat, even if surrounded by sweeps of synth. So, all is well.
I await my show, in March, an early and late birthday present to myself. I look forward. Just don't play bloody 'Three Lions'......
(If this actually is up your street, between 'Tilt' and 'Four Winds', perhaps tilting at the four winds, came 'Tales Told', altogether simpler fare, the studio tricks reined in, may be even more so, it being a solo Ian Broudie release.)
There are many truisms in the world of music fandom, and one of them is that when a “punk” band starts releasing well-produced albums, particularly on a major label, and particularly when the songs and playing show craftsmanship, the band’s early fans scream “sellout.” For example, The Clash were accused of “selling out” at least as early as London Calling, and certainly by the time of Combat Rock. Of course, other critics at the time, and more recently, have pointed out that another word for that is “evolving,” or that it was possible for ambitious, talented bands to want to transcend the purity of punk for a broader artistic vision and, possibly, a larger audience (and yeah, probably more money.)
Hüsker Dü emerged from Minneapolis in the late 1970s-early 1980s, and their initial approach of playing music loud, fast and hard was made clear from the name of their first album, Land Speed Record. But relatively quickly, you could hear through the aural assault (and poor production values) that songwriters Bob Mould and Grant Hart were able to write melodic pop songs. Even if those songs were played at punk rock speeds and volumes, and often dealt with difficult themes.
As their music evolved, their influence increased, and in the mid-80s, Hüsker Dü became the first band of their “scene” to sign with a major label (during a period when major labels were taking risks, looking to find the next big thing(s). Of course, the complaints of "sellout" rang out (as they did years later when Green Day transcended their punk roots and became more mainstream and popular.) I saw Hüsker Dü tour in support of their first major label album, and it was a great, if incredibly loud show. Their second album for Warner Bros., 1987’s Warehouse:Songs and Stories, was a double album filled with well-produced, well-written songs that still had the energy of punk. It wouldn’t be a stretch at all to say that this album was one of the precursors of the “alternative rock” movement that became popular in the ensuing years.
However, despite the quality and influence of Warehouse, it was also the end of Hüsker Dü. Over the years, Mould and Hart had developed a rivalry that was both artistic and personal, fueled first by their substance abuse, and later by Mould’s cleaning up and Hart going in the opposite direction.
One of the highlights of Warehouse is Mould’s “Ice Cold Ice,” a typically bleak and depressing but incredibly powerful song that uses cold and ice both metaphorically and literally.
In 2011, Mould was honored with a tribute concert at Los Angeles’ Walt Disney Concert Hall, mostly featuring Mould and his band playing with a series of guest stars, and it included this great version of “Ice Cold Ice,” featuring Dave Grohl:
The concert was, through a Kickstarter campaign, turned into a movie, but it doesn’t appear to be streamable at this time.
When I think of snow and ice, I think of Scotland. And when I think of Scotland, I think of Jackie Leven. Yes, I have mentioned him before in these pages, that being no good reason not to bring him back again. His legacy of recorded material is immense, having been so prolific for his record label that he had to seek different contracts under different names to get it all out. Sadly missed, his brand of celtic soul impacts on and draws inspiration from his home and the characteristics that reminded him of it. Kate Bush may have offered 50 Words for Snow, I swear Big Jackie had 50 songs. Here are a few.
Snow in Central Park
From his full length solo debut in 1994, Snow in Central Park is arguably one of his better known songs, if any had a claim to that right, his appeal the epitome of cult, a world famous superstar only to those in the know. Of course, it wasn't even his solo debut, he having had (at least) two careers ahead of this, firstly as late 60s singer-songwriter John St. Field, and in scary punk/new-wave band Doll by Doll. And then there were the two alongside, Fife balladeer, Sir Vincent Lone and the Kirkcaldy David Sedaris, Jackie Balfour.
None of the below are in chronological order, but all display lyrical nods to the snowier, icier aspects of his oeuvre. Don't get me wrong, he could do songs about rain and wind as well, being no one winter pony. (Actually I jest, for although he could and did, he could also sing uplifting and cheerful songs too. Just less often. And not for today.)
Stopped by Woods on a Snowy Evening (A Robert Frost poem set to music by Leven.)
Your Winter Days
The Wanderer
Lammermuir Hills
Kirkconnell Flow
Washing by Hand
Finally, with all the above coming from his 20 odd studio albums, it is worth a mention is how he took his muse out on the on the road, leaving behind the often lush arrangements and instrumentation. Live it was usually just himself, a burly bear of a man, year round shorts, ripped denim shirt and battered guitar. A masterfully inventive player on that instrument, bringing all sorts of percussive textures to bear, tapping the wood and caressing the strings, the high point always his voice, a majestic croon, beauty from the beast. At one foot a pint glass with the vodka and lemonade he would occasionally seek topping up, at the other a microphone, to catch the constant rhythm of his foot. You can't catch him now, dead these 8 years, but there are a celebration of live albums also out there. The song below is typical Leven, describing the fear men hold inside. The fear men have without love, without a mother, a wife, a partner, and the dark places that such solitude leads, and the tragedy of it all. He knows these men and, if we are honest, so do we, all within us, but for better grace and luck.
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