So to mark my ambitious project to take on TS Eliot's "The Wasteland" for the 21st century, starting with "The Fire Sermon", here are songs about fire and flames. Enjoy.
1) The Doors - "Light My Fire"
I think this may have been the song that Morrison was singing when he er whipped his 'fire' member out on stage in Florida and got busted for gross indecency. They said Joe Orton's member was in a terrible state when they autopsied him. I suspect the same would have been said of Morrison, if that is indeed him in the grave at Père Lachaise. The Doors are a remarkable entry in my record collection, seeing as they were a) from the 60s, a tedious musical decade and b) had no bass guitar
2) Cop Shoot Cop - "Fire In The Hole"
If like me you're missing the sound of the bass guitar, here's a band who had two of them! There, i feel like musical equilibrium has been re-established.
3) The Prodigy - "Firestarter"
I sort of like The Prodigy, but always feel they cut themselves short in their songs, the volume needs to be turned up to 11 and the song to go on for just a bit longer to really imprint itself into your cranium. But you gentle reader may feel you disagree...
4) The Jam - "Set The House Ablaze"
The Jam were the band I saw most regularly play live (until The Fall came along). This was always a show stopper live, but sounds a bit thin on this recording. You can always check out the studio version.
5) Lee Scratch Perry - "Soul Fire"
Love, love this song. That is all.
6) Gun Club - "Fire Of Love"
Confusingly this track is off their second album "Miami", even though the debut album was called "Fire Of Love". Primordial rock and roll. 1-2 Bash, plunk
7) Jimi Hendrix - "Fire"
And the master of the smoking guitar... I notice there is a Bruno Mars song of the same name, it better not be a cover version...
8) The Bug - "Catch A Fire"
More seductive than Jim Morrison's leather trousers.
9) The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown - "Fire"
This must have freaked folk out in the 1960s. No wonder they say rock and roll is the Devil's music.
10) Section 25 - "Friendly Fires"
Let's calm things down a bit shall we? Actually, this tale of aerial bombardment is really unsettling in atmosphere.
11) Einsturzende Neubauten - "Feurio"
A play on the German word FUEUR meaning fire, but I looked up the lyrics and it counts for the purposes of this chart. Anyway, my chart, my rules. Singer Blixa Bargeld's voice really is a musical instrument in its own right, not a soothing one, but what sounds come out of his larynx...
12) Talking Heads - "Burning Down The House"
The intro is way better than the rest of the song, but what you gonna do?
13) Johnny Cash - "Ring Of Fire"
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Johnny Cash... Hate to think what "Viz" comic would make of the lyrics, the character Johnny Fartpants in particular. From the sublime to the ridiculous, mea culpa but that's how I (rock and) roll.
14) Marc Riley & The Creepers - "Baby's On Fire"
I know Brian Eno did the original, but I prefer this i finger on the piano version that shows it stripped down bare.
15) Public Enemy - "Burn Hollywood Burn"
On the one hand the timing is unfortunate with the recent devastating fires in Napa and surrounding areas, but then with the issue of Harvey Weinstein's white male patriarchal domination of the movie industry, then perhaps the timing is apposite.
16) Meat Puppets - "Lake Of Fire"
Always had a soft spot for Meat Puppets with their blend of punk and country rock.
17) Big Country - "Fields Of Fire"
Or rain in this case by the look of it. No one needs a drumkit that size. This is the Scottish version of The Meat Puppets methinks. Do you spot the essence of The Clash's "Should I Stay Or Should I Go" in the tune?
18) Sylford Walker - "Burn Babylon"
Reggae at its finest.
19) Birthday Party - "Sonnys' Burning"
A song truly from the bowels of Hell. Rowland S Howard's guitar is astounding as it builds up. RIP Rowland and Tracey Pew.
20) The Ruts - "Babylon's Burning"
My karaoke song at a work's Xmas Party (it was a punk karaoke). My voice is quite similar to Malcolm Owen's.
Bonus Track
MC 900Ft Jesus - "The City Sleeps"
Lots of songs here about sexual conflagration and emotional arson, but here's the real thing. The most chilling narrative about an arsonist.
Showing posts with label Jam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jam. Show all posts
Wednesday, 18 October 2017
Sunday, 27 November 2016
Mid-Life Crisis = Standup Comedy Routine
So in September my twin boys went off to University and suddenly my wife and I had the house to ourselves again for the first time in eighteen years. Empty nest syndrome? Not on your nelly. Mid-life crisis (my parents divorced after 25 years once their only child disappeared off up to uni), no, not on your life. I don't just seem to have a richness of free time, I seem possessed of more focus and energy with them gone. After not a single live reading through until the start of September, by Christmas I would have hit double figures. I've written a lot, including starting a new project and coincidently landed a first publishing deal for one of my novels with a small independent publisher (more of which in future). So I guess I'll be busy with preparing a marketing and promotion campaign for the book in the new year.
So business as usual for me, except maybe more so. Only... a couple of nights I performed my first ever stand up comedy routine. Now that surely is a symptom of mid-life crisis, bursting out into new territory, trying something completely different from what has gone before? Except writing and performing a comedy routine really wasn't that much different from writing and reading live. Unless you're one of those comedians like Tim Vine who just gets up on stage and tells joke after joke without much in the way of narrative, comedians are story tellers. More often than not, their stories are based around the character of themselves that they project on stage. So in many ways little different from a protagonist created by an author in any novel. Except that there is this tension between the character they present on stage and the true life person, as the audience try and figure out how much of the act is an act and how much they are really like the persona coming through the mic. I make the same calculations as a writer, because I believe no matter how far seemingly removed from yourself a fictional character may be, it still represents some part of your psyche. So for my routine, I did draw on my own life and then had great fun playing and distorting it into, well a fiction. The character is a 50+ year old geezer (that'll be moi) looking back to his youth and the influence of punk rock. That much is true, as is maybe the character taking a slightly sad hypocritical, non-dewey eyed look at what he is now compared with the ideals of punk. But in doing so I exaggerate for comic effect a lot of that tension between then and now, (for example this character talks about no longer being able to pogo on account of a skiing accident, when in fact I have never been skiing in my life). I also bring punk ideals up to date in a way that is probably completely specious, in talking about them in the context of Trump's election and the influence of social media. The Jam get a hammering in the routine but at the time they were the band I saw play live more than any. Sham 69 getting a pasting is in fact representative of my true feelings about them.
In terms of the genesis of the routine, I was watching a live show by my favourite standup comedian Stewart Lee, who deconstructs his comedy even as he performs it (echoes with plenty of my own fiction writing). And in the middle of it - I can't remember the exact prompt - I started composing a routine about punk lyrics (I know, heresy to be writing material of your own when watching your favourite standup performing his act). I mean these were songs I've been listening to and occasionally singing aloud for the past 40 years, so I was able to put my hand on to their lyrical content and started imagining performing a running commentary on some of them. Added into the mix was a couple of twitter hashtag puns I'd made in the past when the hashtag is band or lyric themed and suddenly a whole routine was coming together. Was I really going to try and perform this myself, live in front of an audience? Well if it stood up to the test of me writing it out and it still seeming like a good thing then I already had the perfect open mic night for trying it out. So on my tube journey home from Stewart Lee I wrote out in my notebook what had been in my head in the course of that Thursday evening. On the Saturday I sat down to transcribe those notes and write a full version. Since that was completed by Sunday, I felt this thing was a goer. Now the only thing was to memorise it.
That is the main difference between performing comedy and reading prose live. You don't have the book/script in your hand. Now I'm used to acting out my own stories with gesture and expression, so that aspect didn't pose me an issue. But here I'd had to learn 1500 words perfectly, because as all good comics show, the exact word choice can be very important and funny in itself. So I rehearsed all week. At night with my head on my pillow, I went through the routine in my mind. Didn't get much sleep last week. But I managed to memorise it all and at the show last Friday was pretty much word perfect and raised a few sniggers and snorts from the audience. A couple of people came up afterwards and said they enjoyed the set. I don't think this represents a career change, but was both a really useful thing to do from a writing point of view and though I don't have a bucket list, I think it was something I'd always had a sneaking desire to do at least once.
One final point, I knew that if I was going to perform it live, I would also record a version back home to put on YouTube. Yet there is a huge difference between performing into a microphone where you only get one shot at it in real time and recording to camera where just a few hours after I'd been word perfect in front of an audience, it took about 15 takes just to get through the first 2 of 7 sections. There's is nothing quite like the prod of a microphone and an audience to keep you tightly focused.
So here is the probably one-off standup routine for your delectation and pleasure.
The songs referenced in the routine:
Sex Pistols "God Save The Queen"
The Clash "White Man In Hammersmith Palais"
Talking Heads "Psychokiller"
Ramones "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker"
The Adverts "Gary Gilmore's Eyes"
The Jam "Down In the Tubestation At Midnight"
Gang Of Four "Guns For Butter"
So business as usual for me, except maybe more so. Only... a couple of nights I performed my first ever stand up comedy routine. Now that surely is a symptom of mid-life crisis, bursting out into new territory, trying something completely different from what has gone before? Except writing and performing a comedy routine really wasn't that much different from writing and reading live. Unless you're one of those comedians like Tim Vine who just gets up on stage and tells joke after joke without much in the way of narrative, comedians are story tellers. More often than not, their stories are based around the character of themselves that they project on stage. So in many ways little different from a protagonist created by an author in any novel. Except that there is this tension between the character they present on stage and the true life person, as the audience try and figure out how much of the act is an act and how much they are really like the persona coming through the mic. I make the same calculations as a writer, because I believe no matter how far seemingly removed from yourself a fictional character may be, it still represents some part of your psyche. So for my routine, I did draw on my own life and then had great fun playing and distorting it into, well a fiction. The character is a 50+ year old geezer (that'll be moi) looking back to his youth and the influence of punk rock. That much is true, as is maybe the character taking a slightly sad hypocritical, non-dewey eyed look at what he is now compared with the ideals of punk. But in doing so I exaggerate for comic effect a lot of that tension between then and now, (for example this character talks about no longer being able to pogo on account of a skiing accident, when in fact I have never been skiing in my life). I also bring punk ideals up to date in a way that is probably completely specious, in talking about them in the context of Trump's election and the influence of social media. The Jam get a hammering in the routine but at the time they were the band I saw play live more than any. Sham 69 getting a pasting is in fact representative of my true feelings about them.
In terms of the genesis of the routine, I was watching a live show by my favourite standup comedian Stewart Lee, who deconstructs his comedy even as he performs it (echoes with plenty of my own fiction writing). And in the middle of it - I can't remember the exact prompt - I started composing a routine about punk lyrics (I know, heresy to be writing material of your own when watching your favourite standup performing his act). I mean these were songs I've been listening to and occasionally singing aloud for the past 40 years, so I was able to put my hand on to their lyrical content and started imagining performing a running commentary on some of them. Added into the mix was a couple of twitter hashtag puns I'd made in the past when the hashtag is band or lyric themed and suddenly a whole routine was coming together. Was I really going to try and perform this myself, live in front of an audience? Well if it stood up to the test of me writing it out and it still seeming like a good thing then I already had the perfect open mic night for trying it out. So on my tube journey home from Stewart Lee I wrote out in my notebook what had been in my head in the course of that Thursday evening. On the Saturday I sat down to transcribe those notes and write a full version. Since that was completed by Sunday, I felt this thing was a goer. Now the only thing was to memorise it.
That is the main difference between performing comedy and reading prose live. You don't have the book/script in your hand. Now I'm used to acting out my own stories with gesture and expression, so that aspect didn't pose me an issue. But here I'd had to learn 1500 words perfectly, because as all good comics show, the exact word choice can be very important and funny in itself. So I rehearsed all week. At night with my head on my pillow, I went through the routine in my mind. Didn't get much sleep last week. But I managed to memorise it all and at the show last Friday was pretty much word perfect and raised a few sniggers and snorts from the audience. A couple of people came up afterwards and said they enjoyed the set. I don't think this represents a career change, but was both a really useful thing to do from a writing point of view and though I don't have a bucket list, I think it was something I'd always had a sneaking desire to do at least once.
One final point, I knew that if I was going to perform it live, I would also record a version back home to put on YouTube. Yet there is a huge difference between performing into a microphone where you only get one shot at it in real time and recording to camera where just a few hours after I'd been word perfect in front of an audience, it took about 15 takes just to get through the first 2 of 7 sections. There's is nothing quite like the prod of a microphone and an audience to keep you tightly focused.
So here is the probably one-off standup routine for your delectation and pleasure.
The songs referenced in the routine:
Sex Pistols "God Save The Queen"
The Clash "White Man In Hammersmith Palais"
Talking Heads "Psychokiller"
Ramones "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker"
The Adverts "Gary Gilmore's Eyes"
The Jam "Down In the Tubestation At Midnight"
Gang Of Four "Guns For Butter"
Thursday, 30 April 2015
Weaponised Songs - 16 songs about weapons
Even Wham had a song called "Young Guns" although that was used of people rather than weapons of death. from shotgun weddings to protest songs at war and nuclear arms, music has been full of references to weapons. Here's a sprinkling for your listening pleasure.
1) "Mack The Knife" - Lotte Lenya & Louis Armstrong
Brecht, Weill, Lenya & Armstrong, does it get any better than this? You really can see that Weill was influenced by Armstrong in this.
2) "Poison Arrow" - ABC
Don't think ABC have ever turned up in any chart of mine. The 1980s really was the death of music. While you lot were liberally applying blusher and hairspray, a few of us were turning our battered eardrums to New York City and the grimy industrial brutalism of bands like Swans and Sonic Youth. Time has not mellowed me as to which was the more worthwhile... Everything about this song grates me, the 'Eastenders' drum sound, the cheesey organ sound, the feeble slap bass...
3) "Burning Spear" - Sonic Youth
See a man playing his guitar with drumsticks, now that's what I'm talking about! Currently I'm trying to decide whether to buy Sonic Youth bassist Kim Gordon's biography "Girl In The Band" or not. She was a tad more than just the guitarist's girlfriend, she was his wife! But they recently got divorced and I think the book's going to be pretty ugly on that score...
4) "Swords Of A Thousand Men" - Tenpole Tudor
I never quite got Eddie Tenpole's schtick. I think I'm right in saying he was in the sex Pistol's movie "The Great Rock And Roll Swindle" and then seems to have had a chip on his shoulder that he never made it to the big time. Except for a brief stint with this knockabout campery.
5) "Eton Rifles" - The Jam
The Jam were really quite subversive. They had so many Top ten chart singles, including this, appeared on mainstream pop shows constantly and all the while not pulling any political punches in many of those chart hits.
6) "Bazooka Joe" - Big Black
So there were these three bands who resolutely refused to have a drummer, but worked with a drum machine and all the performers were out at the front of the stage. One was Carter The Unstoppable sex Machine with their cheeky South London puns. The next was Three Johns with their Yorkshire political fist pumping. And then there was Steve Albini's Big Black who just out-powered them and went for the noise and the dark side of US life. I liked all three in point of fact, but now in my dotage Big Black have way outlasted the other two in my affections, even though they were the only one of the three I never saw live.
7) "Armalite Rifle" - Gang of Four
A throw-away B-Side really, but there's something about its stripped down almost football chant simplicity that sets off the significance of what they're singing about.
8) "6" Gold Blade" - Birthday Party
Well Nick Cave is forever singing about knives and killing isn't he? Always seems to be women on the receiving end of his knives as well...
9) "Love Missile X-111" - Sigue Sigue Sputnik
The debut single of the first manufactured rock band and they disappeared as quickly as they arrived. Named after a real US military weapon, I however am grateful since I initially used it for a title of a stage play of mine. When I rewrote it as a novel I changed the title for another song, Cindy Lauper's "Time After Time". See, I have mellowed... But not in my opinion of this song which is cack.
10) "Careful With That Axe Eugene" - Pink Floyd
It's not like Roger Waters hadn't served you all good notice with this long before "The "Wall" and "Dark Side Of The Moon'. Madness is an ever-present theme in his work. Is that mad grin just a by-=product of his vocal or is it for real? You decide.
10) "Mi Uzi Weighs A Ton" - Public Enemy
Wait, we've got to number ten before mentioning a Rap band with their loves for all things semi-automatic and drive-bys and tings? This was the song that really introduced UK audiences to PE I think. Even though they quickly moved away from this kind of gangster posturing and left that to the West Coast rappers like Ice-T. the beat on this really does seem to weigh a ton.
11) "Tommy gun" - The Clash
We say that about Rap, but every other song by the Clash seemed to contain a weapon or two; "Guns Of Brixton", "Washington Bullets", "Drug Stabbing Time", "sten Guns In Knightsbride". But then they were fighting the revolution I suppose...
12) "Yankee Bayonet" - The Decembrists
The Decembrists have pretty much passed me by. Sound like second rate REM to my ears
13) "Ten percent Pistol" - Black keys
Earnest musos or smash up your guitars as you cavort around the stage lost in the trance of your own thrash trance. Know which I'd rather have...
For which I give you -
14) "Little Man With A Gun In his Hand" - Minutemen
If you think these guys were just a thrash punk band making a noise as in this terrible recording ion a boat, then check out the acoustic version's musical complexity in the video after
15) "My 9mm Goes Bang" - Boogie Down Productions
And we're back with rap's fetishisation of the gun
16) "Happiness Is A Warm Gun" - Breeders
And bringing some calm to proceedings, we all prefer this to the Beatles original right? What do you mean no!!!
1) "Mack The Knife" - Lotte Lenya & Louis Armstrong
Brecht, Weill, Lenya & Armstrong, does it get any better than this? You really can see that Weill was influenced by Armstrong in this.
2) "Poison Arrow" - ABC
Don't think ABC have ever turned up in any chart of mine. The 1980s really was the death of music. While you lot were liberally applying blusher and hairspray, a few of us were turning our battered eardrums to New York City and the grimy industrial brutalism of bands like Swans and Sonic Youth. Time has not mellowed me as to which was the more worthwhile... Everything about this song grates me, the 'Eastenders' drum sound, the cheesey organ sound, the feeble slap bass...
3) "Burning Spear" - Sonic Youth
See a man playing his guitar with drumsticks, now that's what I'm talking about! Currently I'm trying to decide whether to buy Sonic Youth bassist Kim Gordon's biography "Girl In The Band" or not. She was a tad more than just the guitarist's girlfriend, she was his wife! But they recently got divorced and I think the book's going to be pretty ugly on that score...
4) "Swords Of A Thousand Men" - Tenpole Tudor
I never quite got Eddie Tenpole's schtick. I think I'm right in saying he was in the sex Pistol's movie "The Great Rock And Roll Swindle" and then seems to have had a chip on his shoulder that he never made it to the big time. Except for a brief stint with this knockabout campery.
5) "Eton Rifles" - The Jam
The Jam were really quite subversive. They had so many Top ten chart singles, including this, appeared on mainstream pop shows constantly and all the while not pulling any political punches in many of those chart hits.
6) "Bazooka Joe" - Big Black
So there were these three bands who resolutely refused to have a drummer, but worked with a drum machine and all the performers were out at the front of the stage. One was Carter The Unstoppable sex Machine with their cheeky South London puns. The next was Three Johns with their Yorkshire political fist pumping. And then there was Steve Albini's Big Black who just out-powered them and went for the noise and the dark side of US life. I liked all three in point of fact, but now in my dotage Big Black have way outlasted the other two in my affections, even though they were the only one of the three I never saw live.
7) "Armalite Rifle" - Gang of Four
A throw-away B-Side really, but there's something about its stripped down almost football chant simplicity that sets off the significance of what they're singing about.
8) "6" Gold Blade" - Birthday Party
Well Nick Cave is forever singing about knives and killing isn't he? Always seems to be women on the receiving end of his knives as well...
9) "Love Missile X-111" - Sigue Sigue Sputnik
The debut single of the first manufactured rock band and they disappeared as quickly as they arrived. Named after a real US military weapon, I however am grateful since I initially used it for a title of a stage play of mine. When I rewrote it as a novel I changed the title for another song, Cindy Lauper's "Time After Time". See, I have mellowed... But not in my opinion of this song which is cack.
10) "Careful With That Axe Eugene" - Pink Floyd
It's not like Roger Waters hadn't served you all good notice with this long before "The "Wall" and "Dark Side Of The Moon'. Madness is an ever-present theme in his work. Is that mad grin just a by-=product of his vocal or is it for real? You decide.
10) "Mi Uzi Weighs A Ton" - Public Enemy
Wait, we've got to number ten before mentioning a Rap band with their loves for all things semi-automatic and drive-bys and tings? This was the song that really introduced UK audiences to PE I think. Even though they quickly moved away from this kind of gangster posturing and left that to the West Coast rappers like Ice-T. the beat on this really does seem to weigh a ton.
11) "Tommy gun" - The Clash
We say that about Rap, but every other song by the Clash seemed to contain a weapon or two; "Guns Of Brixton", "Washington Bullets", "Drug Stabbing Time", "sten Guns In Knightsbride". But then they were fighting the revolution I suppose...
12) "Yankee Bayonet" - The Decembrists
The Decembrists have pretty much passed me by. Sound like second rate REM to my ears
13) "Ten percent Pistol" - Black keys
Earnest musos or smash up your guitars as you cavort around the stage lost in the trance of your own thrash trance. Know which I'd rather have...
For which I give you -
14) "Little Man With A Gun In his Hand" - Minutemen
If you think these guys were just a thrash punk band making a noise as in this terrible recording ion a boat, then check out the acoustic version's musical complexity in the video after
15) "My 9mm Goes Bang" - Boogie Down Productions
And we're back with rap's fetishisation of the gun
16) "Happiness Is A Warm Gun" - Breeders
And bringing some calm to proceedings, we all prefer this to the Beatles original right? What do you mean no!!!
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