Tautology, surely? Isn't air always open? Or, put another way, what is closed air? Apart from this being little more than contrived opener to my post, it conjures up a number of possibilities. I think I can accept that the atmosphere is a continuum, at least as far as the capabilities of my limited imagination. Is there air in space, even if there is no atmosphere? And what is the space in atmosphere composed of? And what of air waves? I suppose closed air waves equate to censorship, this blog an example, thus, of open airwaves. But enough metaphysical paradiddling, I seek merely an absolution to introduce the song as being at least in some way connected to the theme. (So, don't, please, get me started on open fire.......)
Open Air (Ian McNabb) 2001
Ian McNabb has had a long career. Starting as a 20 year old with The Icicle Works, this band hit no small amount of acclaim and some success with the blend of polished melodic rock and his soaring vocals, somewhat out of step with the his dourer new-wave and post-punk peers. Hitting the charts running, on both sides of the atlantic, arguably their greatest success was their earliest. In the UK, Love is a Wonderful Colour made it to the top five of the singles chart, with, a year or so later, Whisper to a Scream (Birds Fly) entering the US charts, and the canadian top twenty. As it became apparent McNabb needed to be in control, the band shed original members, picking up others along the way, largely to augment his vision, projected and played out over five long-players between 1984 and 1990. In expanded versions, spread out, often, over several discs, McNabb was also able to identify his influences, notably Neil Young, of whose songs the band played a slew of covers. Someone unkind (and probably not a fan of Shakey) might say if Young could sing better and had steadier fingers on the guitar, well, he might come out sounding a bit like McNabb. To enable continuity of the theme of this piece, here's an open/close reference. (Ish.)
Blind (Blind) 1988
I first came across McNabb and his band around the time, strapped for disposable cash, I was hoovering up all the content of the local library: you could borrow records, and later CDs, for a fortnight at a time, for a nominal fee. Armed with a pack of C-90s I filled my boots, amongst which was an Icicle Works retrospective. And then I noticed a familiar name on the sleeve of another disc, this being Truth and Beauty, McNabb's first solo album, which places the time about early mid 90s. I loved that record and still do. I was convinced he would become massive. I remember telling everyone so, and he was definitely a huge draw to my first trip to the Glastonbury Festival, in time for his second solo album, Head Like a Rock. And, as I commented upon here, this record was made with the assistance of Crazy Horse. The Crazy Horse, Neil Young's Crazy Horse. Who accompanied him for that live set in the summer of '94, some of the tour tracks emerging as a second disc on the following year's Merseybeast. I can happily say that, at that time of my life, McNabb was my pinnacle, someone who could set no step wrong.
Presence of the One (Truth and Beauty) 1993
Fire Inside My Soul (Head Like a Rock) 1994
Heyday (Merseybeast) 1996
(OK, so it seems I can't keep up any Open/Close dynamic in my song choices. So sue me.)
Sadly, the big break never quite broke. Sure, he went on producing good music, albeit as a self-contained cottage industry. I stopped keeping up quite so assiduously, beyond, it's true, the eponymous album that begat the main track featured for this piece. He cropped up on other folk's radars from time to time: I recall a Mike Scott solo tour towards the end of the century, with McNabb on bass. Music trickled out but often only available at gigs or via his website. The days of recorded music making anyone a living were dying, requiring road play to break even. I am pleased to say it is the road where he retains a strong presence. Still able to sell out a show at the sort of venues that populate, or used to, most towns and cities, 500 bodies or so crammed into lofts and or basements with a music licence and flowing booze. One such is the Hare and Hounds, in Birmingham, in England's Midlands, he appearing there regularly, sometimes with a band, sometimes solo, sometimes half way between, always to a partisan audience, geared up to all the words of all his songs. I have certainly spent a couple of evenings singing myself hoarse. Whether billed as himself or, increasingly frequently, again as the Icicle Works, it's a good night out.
Evangeline at the Hare and Hounds 2019
To bring full circle, he is also the sort of act, hovering on the edge of heritage, who crops up at the sort of music festivals I frequent and hope so, in time, to do again. Open Air in the open air would indeed be wonderful.
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.)
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