Seeing as we are in Canada for the weekend (dear thieves, the house is not unoccupied, and the lad staying there is a fighty little fucker), I figured some Canadian songs might be in order. I am actually half-Canadian, which is a bit odd, because I’ve never actually lived there. So it’s always weird coming here, to a country I’m technically from, but which I really don’t know at all.
Given we played Born Gold, Odonis Odonis, Slow Down Molasses and Hot Panda on last week’s show, however, I figured that was probably enough new Canadian bands for the time being, although the excellent Hooded Fang did sneak on this one at the beginning.
But mostly, apart from the more usual new stuff I tend to play, I’ve included a handful of nostalgic songs by Canadian bands, most of which I haven’t listened to in quite a long time. And I must say it was sort of nice to look this stuff up again, after so long.
01. Hooded Fang – E.S.P. (00.44)
02. The Tragically Hip – Ahead By a Century (09.26)
03. UMA – Drop Your Soul (feat. Silver Apples) (16.20)
04. White Heath – In a Glasshouse (19.36)
05. 54-40 – Casual Viewin’ (33.11)
06. Bruce Springsteen – Circus Song (Live on WBCN 9th Jan 1973) (41.07)
07. Giant Giant Sand – Detained (47.35)
08. Alan Watts – Africa Bats (51.37)
09. Barenaked Ladies – Wrap Your Arms Around Me (1.00.59)
10. Kate & Anna McGarrigle – Kiss and Say Goodbye (1.08.12)
11. Kate & Anna McGarrigle – Heart Like a Wheel (1.11.00)
When I was down in Bristol for The Great Escape I went vinyl shopping. To quite an irresponsible degree. The term I used (it might even be fair to say coined) on Twitter was ‘divorceable amounts of vinyl’.
Some of it was new, like the new Lower Dens album, and some of it was old, such as Ivor Cutler. One thing I picked up out of the blue in Resident, however, was this double vinyl release by Bruce Springsteen. I didn’t even know it existed, or anything about it, but fuck me it’s brilliant.
Now, I am a big fan of really early Bruce Springsteen. I know it’s an unbearably hipster thing to say, and I don’t at all intend to downplay the quality of his later stuff, but Greetings From Asbury Park, New Jersey and The Wild, the Innocent & the E-Street Shuffle are phenomenal records.
Maybe it’s because his influences are still so close to the surface, and there’s so much funk in there (not something you’ll hear me say every day), but there’s something about the exuberance of those albums which I have always loved, and these radio sessions sound a little like being there when they first started to take shape.
The music is tentative and a little ramshackle, and a lot less full and forceful than you’re used to hearing from the band. For me, particularly with a band as polished and tight as the E-Street Band, there’s something a ‘glimpse behind the curtain’ about even hearing these songs in such a sketched-out manner.
Almost as captivating as the songs, however, is the chat. I didn’t see Springsteen’s keynote address at SXSW this year, but I listened to it later, and it is a confident articulate speech. The chat on these recordings is just that of a nervous kid though, with a really dorky laugh. It’s incredible. For some reason it’s a bit of a shock to realise that even someone as accomplished and successful as Bruce Springsteen started out like one of us: always a little bit amazed when someone takes notice.
If you’re not a Springsteen fan then fair enough, but if you are, particularly of the early records, which are the songs mostly played here, then I would get this as soon as I could possibly get my hands on it if I were you.
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After last year’s relatively sensible podcast (I think the BBC cameras scared us into some degree of sensibleness), this years is far, far less sensible. I’m not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but it’s probably a little more honest.
This time around, as well as the more usual suspects of Messrs. Galloway, Reid, Thomas and myself, we are joined by The Two Jamies: Webster who manages Three Blind Wolves and Gilmour who manages We Were Promised Jetpacks. This is helpful because instead of drunken fuckwits gabbling at one another, we actually have some proper insight from people who have brought bands out to SXSW and have something useful to add.
And for the rest of it me, Vic, Peej and Stuart just take the piss out of one another. So umm… well, you have to take the rough with the smooth I suppose.
01. Grave Babies – Nightmare (00.21)
02. Pond – Leisure Pony (5.59)
03. The Animals – We Gotta Get Outta This Place (16.28)
04. Bruce Springsteen – Excerpt from SXSW keynote speech (19.37)
05. Roy Orbison – Crying (21.33)
06. BITCHES – Cage Babies (27.26)
07. Yellow Ostrich – The Shakedown (34.32)
08. The Twilight Sad – Sick (45.21)
09. We Were Promised Jetpacks – The Walls Are Wearing Thin (59.56)
10. OFF – Jeffrey Lee Pierce (61.47)
11. Thulebasen – Gate 5 (77.22)
12. Samuel L. Jackson – Go the Fuck to Sleep (83.00)
I was told off in the comments of a recent podcast for being mean about her, but I honestly couldn’t possibly care any less that Whitney Houston is dead, and when the news was announced I spent no more than a minute or two even thinking about it.
Her music was so fucking awful that I only slowly realised, as the eulogies began to roll in, that she actually sold a lot of records.
Given I love loads of music which is shite in almost every technical sense imaginable, I tend to define ‘good music’ as being a phrase which only means anything if it is entirely conflated with the term ‘popular music’. The music I like being shit or unpopular doesn’t make me like it any the less, and no-one is going to lessen my enjoyment by providing objective, empirical proof that it is rubbish.
Music is good if you derive something out of it which means something to you, personally, so I am left with little use for any broader meaning of the phrase ‘good’ music other than ‘lots of people like it’. By this definition, of course, most of the music I listen to and release is shit. I don’t care though, I can live with that. As I said, this doesn’t make me like it any the less, but does that mean that Whitney Houston was actually quite good? Please no!
Of course there are obvious ways to look at it differently, and one such was very nicely expressed in this particular blog post recently, which made the excellent point that even though the Toyota Corolla is the best-selling car of all time, no-one would make the argument that it was the best. Art and automobiles are evaluated by rather different criteria of course, so the analogy is not quite right, but it’s still a good way to look at it.
However the ‘just because it’s popular doesn’t mean it’s any good’ point was actually made as part of a wider argument that, irrespective of record sales, Whitney Houston was actually a pretty shite singer. I agree with this, personally, as the constant warbling did my fucking head in, but there are more reasons than aesthetic preference put forward.
The writer makes the distinction between a great singer and a great voice, and points out that irrespective of the notes you can hit or hold, being a great singer has as much to do with creating an emotionally resonant delivery of the actual words you are singing as it does with showing off your facility for vocal gymnastics. In that sense, Whitney Houston reminds me of the slightly sad sight of the busking footballer who can do endless keepy-uppies and ball control tricks, but is nevertheless fuck all use to anyone on a football pitch.
Her ludicrous, pantomime delivery of I Will Always Love You by Dolly Parton has so distorted its meaning that people actually get married to the song, which is just daft when you look at the words. It’s pretty undeniable that the bombastic Disneyfication of Houston’s version seems entirely consonant with the wedding use, and I thought ‘damn, he’s right, she’s not just interpreted the song, she’s broken its entire meaning’.
The most obvious other example of this would be the American right’s co-opting of Springsteen’s Born in the USA. The song is obviously a protest song, and the lyrics are a harsh social critique which run in more or less diametric opposition to the context in which the song tends to be used, when it is used for clumsy propaganda.
Born in the USA, however, was initially recorded for the Nebraska Sessions, and sounded radically different. The version of Nebraska we know and love is not actually what Springsteen had in mind, apparently, but rather a series of demos which were intended to be re-recorded with the full E-Street Band. Those re-recordings never quite sounded right, so in the end the demos were released instead, although a radically different Born in the USA did make a famous re-appearance on his eighties album of the same name.
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Listen to the above version, and it’s pretty obvious what the tone is, and many people have expressed total bafflement and contemptuous derision that those on the right could possibly think the song expressed anything which chimed with their politics at all. I understand that bafflement of course, but in some ways you can say that the fault also lies with Springsteen himself.
Listen to the album version below. You can’t really blame chest-beating jingoists for co-opting a song whose most obvious musical characteristic, in this version anyway, is a kind of giddy, air-punching euphoria. There are many songs whose deliveries are at odds with their message, and I can understand the argument that the bitter message of the lyrics and the anthemic bombast of the music are intentionally cast in satirical juxtaposition. But the misinterpretation of the meaning of this song in particular, a little like Houston’s mangling of I Will Always Love You, does seem to be actively encouraged by the musical interpretation offered by the artist themselves.
And just as I was about to close the book on that one, write Houston off as someone with plenty of vocal dexterity but no artistic sensitivity whatsoever (and to rather more quietly chide Mr. Springsteen for being a grandiose muppet), I was reminded of another occasion where people completely bypass the meaning of a song and treat it as something completely different from what the artist intended. And in this case it’s really a lot less clear that the musical delivery is anything like as complicit in the confusion.
The song in question is The One I Love, by REM. This, like I Will Always Love You, is another song chosen frequently to be payed at weddings, and this one is equally baffling when you listen to the lyrics. It’s basically a song about treating a relationship as light entertainment and then discarding it when convenient – the very antithesis of marriage.
As I said, though, in this case I really am not so sure where the misinterpretation comes from. Stipe’s delivery is far from saccharine. It’s not even all that passive – the song is howled acrimoniously at the listener. With familiarity, the guitars sound less awkward and unpalatable these days than when the song was released, of course, but it still seems a long way from the kind of warm, fuzzy stuff you’d want soundtracking your nuptials. Mind you, what the fuck do I know, I had Better Off Without a Wife by Tom Waits playing at my wedding.
So maybe it’s not Houston’s fault after all. Maybe people are just fucking idiots.
I don’t know where I was going with this, but there are some points to be made, I guess. Just because she sold a lot of records doesn’t mean she was any good. Just because she could hit a lot of notes doesn’t mean she was a good singer. Bruce Springsteen can be too damn over the top for his own good at times. Document by REM is a fucking incredible album. I should DJ more weddings. And no-one at any point in human history will look back fondly on the Toyota Corolla.
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Yep, it’s time to lie back on the shrink’s couch and ‘tell me about your childhood’. Well. Sort of. Actually, my mum just happens to be in town, so I reckon that on Fresh Air Radio this week I might just play all sorts of mum songs, just for shits and giggles.
This came about because of the following comment by my brother on the thread about music formats this week:
“I need to at some point clarify Mum’s music taste for your readers because the poor woman just constantly gets dismissed as a ‘pop fan’.
The poor woman has a massive collection of jazz, blues; a truly encyclopaedic Opera and symphonic collection and yet, one Lighthouse Family album and the poor woman’s whole musical taste just goes whooosh out the window while Dad is sanctified while you merrily ignore his David Grey albums. Albums with an emphasis on the plural!”
Now, as you might well know by now, I am a philistine, so mum’s classical music and whatnot means absolutely bollocks-all to me. However, I think it needs to be pointed out that I most certainly do not ‘dismiss’ my mum as a pop fan. I fucking love the pop stuff she used to play around the house when we were growing up, and if anything it was my mum’s stuff which first properly got me into music in the first place.
So for all I do indeed call her a pop fan, which she most certainly is, I do not at all mean that to be a dismissal. As you will find out on Fresh Air today, when I will be playing all sorts of shite from my mum’s record collection. And of course, seeing as I left home in 1993, it will be enormously 80s-tastic!
And now, while we’re at it, for the Friday Fives. Honestly, I doubt I can do much better with these questions than I’ll do with the music I’m going to play this afternoon, but Mrs. Toad and I were talking about doing a Saxcast this weekend, so I thought I might ask for some help.
1. Which instrument would you like to see get the saxophone Total Taboo treatment?
2. Best super cheesy 80s sax tune.
3. Acceptable use of sax.
4. Awesome Great Big Eighties Pop Song!
5. Most eighties of all eighties movies.
Song, by Toad’s Friday Fives radio tracklisting for today:
1. David Bowie – China Girl
2. Meat Loaf – Dead Ringer for Love
3. Bow Wow Wow – Aphrodisiac
4. Sparrow & the Workshop – Devil Song (Live)
5. Erasure – Sometimes
6. Bruce Springsteen – Dancing in the Dark
7. Withered Hand – Cornflake (Fresh Air Session)
8. Mike MacFarlane – Waltz (Fresh Air Session)
9. Simple Minds – Don’t You Forget About Me
10. Kate Bush – Running Up That Hill
11. The Magnets – Ever Fallen in Love (Buzzcocks cover)
12. ABC – Poison Arrow
13. Meursault – Lament for a Teenage Millionaire (Fresh Air Session)
This week began with the terribly sad news of the death of Clarence Clemons of the E-Street Band. Clemons had been a member of Bruce Springsteen’s legendary backing band since 1969, and his exuberant saxophone was a key component in creating the distinctive sound of Springsteen’s early records.
You’ll have read reams about Clemons’ vast contribution to Springsteen’s career in obituaries and articles written since last weekend, so I won’t bore you with a copy-and-paste job here; but I had an interesting conversation with Martin Savings & Loan the other day about where the loss of Clemons leaves the E-Street Band as a viable outfit moving forward.
When original E-Street Band organist Danny Federici died a few years ago; Charles Giordano, Federici’s opposite number from the band Springsteen had been working with on the Seeger Sessions project, shifted sideways and filled Federici’s E-Street position.
With no disrespect to Danny Federici or his legacy, it won’t be so straightforward for Springsteen to bring a sub off the bench to fill Clemons’ sizable shoes.
I don’t think it will simply be a case of finding another horn player competent enough to play Clemons’ parts in the songs. Both Clemons and Springsteen are on record stating that the first time they jammed together in 1969, few words were spoken but they felt they shared a subconscious “connection”; that they were each what the other had been searching for in a muse.
Clemons delivered a dynamism and sense of motion to Springsteen’s epic ballads. Put simply, he brought the soul, providing an echo of classic rock n’ roll history. His energy and enthusiasm seemed to electrify the sound of both the records and the band’s live performances. In concert , while the rest of the band would either prowl hunched and elusive with their electric guitars, or be nailed to the spot by their drums or keyboard rigs; Clemons would stand shoulder to shoulder with Springsteen at the front of the stage, almost a co-frontman.
He was the perfect foil for Springsteen. Physically opposites; a huge athletic black man, a mountain of rippling muscles clad in colourful, exotic fashions, stood strident alongside this scrawny, scruffy white dude in worn-out denims and ripped lumberjack shirts, they were a compelling spectacle. And musically Clemons’ style – a mixture of jazz, funk, gospel and traditional rock n’ roll – can’t have been seen as the obvious accompaniment to Springsteen’s introspective, angry ballads composed on an acoustic guitar.
Yet despite – or probably because of - that juxtaposition, the partnership worked and created some of the most popular American music recorded in the last forty years or so. I’m aware that Bruce Springsteen is a favourite amongst many of the readers and contributors to this site, and a love of his music – perhaps reflecting Clemons’ and Springsteen’s odd-couple companionship – unites musicians and fans of disparate tastes and genres that I speak to.
So beyond the immediate devastating loss, where do Bruce Springsteen and The E-Street Band go from here?
This podcast is, as you will already know, very, very late. Personally I blame a combination of the RNLI, gin, and the fact that Mrs. Toad is away all week, which meant that yesterday wasn’t really available for blog things.
It’s also not very new music-orientated either, so hopefully those of you who come here pretty much just for that won’t be too disappointed.
I think what happened was that I got so into a handful of new releases recently that I neglected all the others, so when I came to sit down and write about tunes last week I suddenly realised I had nothing to write about. For blogging that makes things a little challenging, but from a podcast point of view I am always happy to just fuck it and play some oldies, which is what I’ll do here.
01. Mad Melvin (00.17)
02. Chumbawamba – Farewell the Crown (01.43)
03. Billy Bragg – Walk Away Renee (07.37)
04. The Left Banke – Walk Away Renee (09.59)
05. Bruce Springsteen – Growin’ Up (17.07)
06. Psychedelic Horseshit – Rat Poison (24.17)
07. The Chesterfields – Ask Johnny Dee (32.21)
08. The Close Lobsters – Just Too Bloody Stupid (35.23)
09. The Delgados – Everything Goes Around the Water (43.45)
10. The Sleepy Jackson – Acid in My Heart (50.19)
11. Calexico – Si Tu Disais (56.17)
Instead of prattling on about whether or not early Bonnie Raitt was heavily influenced by the Arcade Fire, this week we shall be doing something extremely constructive with our time. Thomas Western, shortly to be unveiled as half of Edinburgh’s answer to the Silver Columns (I’ve not heard it yet, but all I have to say is woo hoo!), is actually a highly studious gentleman (see pic) in his spare time and has asked if I wouldn’t mind posting five questions to help him with his research. Quite what he thinks the nonsensical bollocks we talk here on a Friday is going to do for his academic ambitions I don’t know, but I thought we might as well humour him.
He’s actually studying something to with the sociological aspects of live music, which anyone who has ever seen the queue outside a Hadouken gig (yes okay, it was some time ago, but it was still hilarious) will know is a rather interesting topic. I’ve always been kind of fascinated by the social dynamics of gig-going, from the tribal self-identification to the impact of the crowd mood on the show itself, so I’m looking forward to finding out a bit more about this.
Until then, however, here are five questions for you from Thomas. And once you’ve de-lurked to help push forward the boundaries of academia, feel free to talk utter shite with the rest of us all afternoon.
1. What is the best thing you’ve ever seen live? Including where and when this took place.
2. Why was it so good? Try and keep this answer as open as possible – it can cover factors such as the music being played, the performance, some kind of cultural significance, or just people having an ace time together.
3. Is familiarity with material a prerequisite for a great gig? Or has anyone been to a gig to see the headline act, only to be blown away by an unknown support band?
4. How important is a venue when we go to gigs? Do they have their own aura that can contribute to our enjoyment of a performance?
5. And do people go to gigs because folks like me tell them to? This is about the idea of blogs and online critics as cultural tastemakers – Pitchfork being the most obvious example. In other words, when you read a positive preview of something in my Monday listings, are you more likely to attend, and perhaps more likely to enjoy the gig as a conequence?
Now, some great live recordings, including a song from Nick Cave’s Live Seeds, possibly the greatest live album of all time.
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We have been collecting for the lifeboats today and as usual we have had a massive, lovely meal prepared by my darling Mrs. Toad. It was fucking awesome, I have to tell you, and anyone who wasn’t here truly did miss out.
We, and the RNLI, owe a massive debt of thanks to Sharon from the Wirral, Euan from The Kays Lavelle (and many other things), Peter from next door, Matthew from Glasgow (as of last week), Ella from the Last Battle, Lucy and Catherine from Mrs. Toad’s Finance Corp., Jamie from Broken Records, and Dylan and Ed who turned up and were nice but didn’t really do much, and of course the internationally renowned musical expert, the esteemed Dr. Millar.
In terms of actually making a difference, it’s worth pointing out that the collection in Stockbridge has hovered around the £200 mark for about the last thirty years, but since us young ‘uns have been involved that number has almost tripled, which is sort of nice. It actually does make a big difference when you all turn up and show some enthusiasm and commit even just a few hours to helping out. Charity people can be a bit pushy at times, so it gets a bit of a bad rap, but it really does make an important difference. So thank you. And hopefully we’ll see you all again next year.
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1. The Bonzo Dog Band – No Matter Who You Vote For, the Government Always Gets In (5.35)
2. Billy Bragg – The Marching Song of the Covert Battalions (13.27)
3. Wham! – Wham Rap! (Enjoy What You Do) (22.23)
4. Pet Shop Boys – Opportunites (28.59)
5. The Dead Kennedys – Kill the Poor (41.00)
6. Bruce Springsteen – Atlantic City (44.04)
7. REM – Ignoreland (52.33)
8. Pearl Jam – Bu$hleaguer (60.39)
9. Gao Yuqian, Liu Changyu, Qian Haoliang – The Party Has Taught Your Son to be a Man of Iron (80.01)
10. Erase Errata – Another Genius Idea from our Government (81.44)
Tomorr… yesterday I flew out to Paris to see Mrs. Toad, who has been stuck in God Bless America for the last two weeks because of Iceland’s seismic indiscipline. We are going to have dinner and walk together and hold hands and generally act like a couple of idiots. More or less like we always do. For a couple of curmudgeonly old fuckers who spend their entire lives swearing at one another, we are a pretty sentimental pair, really.
This podcast is mostly based around my Dad and his music. For my early years I was well into my Mum’s stuff, but as I got older I got more into my Dad’s kind of stuff – Tom Waits, Dylan, Neil Young and all that. When I really, really got into music it was never into contemporary, modern or trendy stuff, it was always the old shite my parents were into.
I repay them the favour nowadays, or at least, I try to, but I never really picked up on music from my peers, it was always from my folks. Hence this podcast.
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01. Bruce Springsteen – Thunder Road (05.16)
02. The Band – The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down (13.27)
03. Willie Nelson – Mommas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys (16.53)
04. Kate & Anna McGarrigle – Walking Song (24.12)
05. Tom Waits & Thelonious Monster – Adios Lounge (32.54)
06. Elton John – Ballad of a Well Known Gun (41.21)
07. Bob Dylan – Days of 49 (46.07)
08. Elvis Perkins in Dearland – I Heard Your Voice in Dresden (53.49)
09. The Builders & the Butchers – Barcelona (57.51)
10. Jackson Browne – Fountain of Sorrow (66.15)
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Seeing as we are in Canada for the weekend (dear thieves, the house is not unoccupied, and the lad staying there is a fighty little fucker), I figured some Canadian songs might be in order. I am actually half-Canadian, which is a bit odd, because I’ve never actually lived there. So it’s always weird coming here, to a country I’m technically from, but which I really don’t know at all.
