Bill Withers, Watching You Watching Me, 1985
When I first met the music of Bill Withers I was amazed not only by it, but by the control. That extends over from the subtly of the arrangements and his vocal control to the quality control – here was a guy that started late and finished early; he was really only active across the 1970s. And he didn’t have a bad album…
Until I found it. Read More
old guy walking as if against
the wind, but the day is still
and calm, he’s weighed down–
further by his yellow plastic bag,
perhaps it holds the ingredients
for that night’s recipe –
that’s if he makes it to wherever
he is heading; gets to wherever
he needs to be –
it’s a slideshow afternoon
and he has slid by me. I hope he made
it. His struggle seemed real
the way
smoke curls, lingers
then leaves. The way
smiles so often seem
the same no matter
what. The chance to
make a difference never
made any difference.
I leave in a puff of
smoke. No magic
trick there. Your
lingering smile
will never leave
me. I’m lucky.
I hope you think
so too.
Deep Purple, Concerto for Group and Orchestra, 1969
I have a complicated history with this one – I probably thought about it before hearing it more than has been the case with any other album…
Let me explain. Deep Purple was one of my first loves – a Singles collection by the band was the very first CD my parents bought when they were replacing their vinyl collection. That became one of my most listened to albums – and as I was gathering up information about the band in a pre-internet world, in little old Hastings, NZ, I hung on to this idea of the group recording with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. The very thought of it seemed so thrilling. I had to find this album… Read More
when he plays guitar
I’m caught in the wave
as if all he ever needs to say
is in that moment,
and then
forever circling,
as he paints the sky
Diving back into Elvis Costello. I’m a fan. I’ve collected most of what he has released even though I know you are supposed to only like his late-70s and very early-80s work. After that its diminishing returns, right? Well – I’m not so sure.
You see I listened to When I Was Cruel a few weeks back. For the first time in a while. I reckon it’s a really decent album – nothing close to a dud track on it, it flows well, the songwriting and performances are strong. I’m not saying it holds a candle to This Year’s Model or Armed Forces but it’s pretty good. It was released in 2002, which is, depending on where you get off the Costello bus, either 22 years, 20 years or at least 16 years too late. Read More
We couldn’t go out for a while. So we didn’t. And then we could. So we did. We walked out and about and we looked like we were taking it all with us, big strutting. Everything that is but the kitchen sink. Oh, and also, any stink or trace of when we said that we’d change. We weren’t about to change anything but our underwear. We once again don’t really care for change. We just want the walls and columns of our social media pages to suggest that we do. That’s good enough. That’s the job done. And now it’s off to buy more things we do not need. To complain about the smallest things. Since the smallest things are now back in vogue. Read More
A few years back I reviewed a Kindle Single, a keen drummer’s list of his Top 30 Drummers. Keen drummers don’t always make the best writers and this book – well it’s a sliver of a book (as is the point of Kindle Singles – seems wrong in this instance to bestow a title like essay) – is very poorly written. But, hey, points for trying, I guess. In this brave new world we can all be writers if we want. And we can all be reviewers too. And so on.
So good on Ian Worrall for having his say – but his list is riddled with typos, lurches along with little in the way of punctuation and then, most shockingly – well, it’s not a shock as such but certainly most disappointingly – the list finishes with his #1 pick being Neil Peart. Read More
The 2018 Writers-Readers Festival was a busy one for me, I committed to going to about a dozen talks and writing something about each one. This included two talks by the writer, critic and photographer Teju Cole. I’m a big fan and particularly loved his book Blind Spot which was part of the focus for his visit.
As I said here when I wrote the review this was a brilliant but infuriating talk. I really felt for the organiser/s and tech-support people. Cole announced at the start that he hadn’t been interested in attending the tech soundcheck and figured they’d just plug in and get started. Read More
Street Fighter II was the one
to beat – and I could do it
on just a couple of coins.
It took a while, but I got
good – rode my bike into
town, put my coins in
the slot, put my hat on
backwards – so I could see
better, plus there was no
sun inside the arcade. It
was always best when people
didn’t gather – because then
you could practice at getting
good but it was also pretty
great when you had a crowd
watching, provided you didn’t
tank out. A couple of hours
playing beat-em-ups and then
we’d bike out to my mate’s place
on the orchard and dodge the rotten
apples hurled from the back
of quad-bikes, then park up
on huge old sofas and watch
horror films or those comedies
Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor
made together. A glass of coke
was a really big treat, some
Fat Boys on the stereo and
a big bounce on the trampoline.
Another day in paradise,
and thankfully none of the
older kids had turned up to buy-in
and knock you on your arse.
It should have been called Hot Mess! Amiright? Or amiright?
Most Queen fans hate Hot Space, rate it as the one to not rate – its saving grace being the final track, the duet with David Bowie – Under Pressure. Apart from that? What’s there? Messy, meaningless, disco-tinged pop-crap that has none of the pomp or rock-opera glory of the band’s mid-70s peak, nor the urgency of their early-70s prog-meets-punk energy. And doesn’t come close to the pop-hook crafting that arrived on the albums in immediate follow up to Hot Space; nor even the one that directly proceeds it. Read More
I always love having a chat about music on RNZ – I look forward to the chance every month or so to have a natter and for this feature I got to talk about Curtis Mayfield, one of my all-time favourites.
I’d been spending a lot of time with Mayfield’s music recently and wanted to tell some of the story of how he moved from his own vocal group (The Impressions) through his own solo albums and to scoring movies – for himself and others. There’s so much more to say about his music but I enjoyed presenting this snapshot. Read More
