I can hear the grass grow:
The Wedding Present ‘Valentina’ - having heard - and liked - the Cinerama version of this, my preference firmly remains with the original album. In fact, it’s up there with ‘Bizarro’, ‘Seamonsters’, ‘Disco Volante’ and ‘Torino’ in my personal Top Five David Gedge creations. Love, lust and betrayal never sounded so good;
Emerson, Lake & Palmer ‘Works Volume 1’ - I’ve recently read David Weigel’s ‘The Show That Never Ends’ summary of prog rock and, having been reminded of ELP’s obscene excesses of the time, thought I give this a rare spin. Oh dear, I rather wish I hadn’t. Aside from a couple of Carl Palmer’s tracks, and the full length version of ‘Fanfare For The Common Man’, this could be the most self indulgent wank ever unleashed upon the masses. Keith Emerson’s Piano Concerto is puerile, neo-classical rubbish that might’ve just worked as a band piece, but is sheer tedium for an orchestra who must have had to mask yawns and laughter in its execution. Greg Lake’s tracks are dreary, trite and tuneless. Worst of all, ‘Pirates’ is a sub-Lloyd Webber mini “rock” opera that cloys from start to finish. Even the sleeve has an annoying, pompous feel about it, coming across like the cover of a posh restaurant’s menu. If this hadn’t been a surprise gift from my dear late dad I’d have ditched this decades ago. As it is, I’ll put my still pristine 1977 double LP back in the racks, never to be played again - well, not by me anyway. Life’s too short, and I’m already in its latter stages;
Gordon Lightfoot ‘Summer Side Of Life’ - I’m unfamiliar with most of this sadly departed artist’s work but rehearing this has left me hungry to explore more of it. His muse was as wide as Dylan’s with a more conventional vocal delivery. RIP;
The Move ‘Anthology 1966-1972’- near-definitive box of classics, deep cuts and rarities from one of this sceptered isle’s finest bands, whose lifetime was far too short. Check out Carl Wayne’s magisterial vocal on ‘Don’t Make My Baby Blue’. Kinell, that’s a long way from the New Faces theme, innit;
Family ‘In My Own Time’ 45 - for me, Family’s excellent sequence of 45s - sometimes non-album - define them better than their patchy long players, the magical and atypical ‘Music In A Doll’s House’ excepted. This is the best one;
Stray Cats ‘Rant n’Rave With The Stray Cats’ - the third and best of the Cats’ ace early ‘80s LPs, with a production that made them sound at once both revivalist and contemporary. Irresistible;
Mal Waldron ‘The Call’ - a heady blend of jazz, kosmische and prog elements over two side-long tracks that rise to meltdown and back;
Haydn: 6 String Quartets, Op.33 (Doric Quartet) - the Dorics play modern instruments with period bows, minimal vibrato and maximum emotion. Theirs is a probing, intense approach to Haydn’s muse that can elsewhere so easily pass off as just happy and tuneful. Not the way I always want to hear this music but my, they make me think about it. And they’re pretty good in:
Mendelssohn: String Quintets (Doric Quartet w.Paul Ridout) - Mendelssohn’s chamber music represents the peak of his achievement for me and his first String Quintet, composed at the age of seventeen, is one of his finest utterances. This record does it full justice, and makes a good case for its much later follow-up too;
Beethoven: Piano Sonata no.25, Op.79 (Vladimir Ashkenazy) - Beethoven’s shortest mature sonata, played just right;
Beethoven: Piano Sonata no.32, Op.111 (Anatol Ugorski) - possibly the most drawn out and perverse rendition ever of a Beethoven sonata (he takes half as long again as most pianists in the Arietta), yet totally compelling;
Elgar: Introduction & Allegro/Vaughan Williams: Symphony no.6/Beethoven: Symphony no.7 (Halle/Barbirolli) - Sir John’s 70th was marked with this wonderful concert of party pieces. Sad to say, he didn’t live to celebrate any more birthdays, but what a legacy he left behind.
Useless information seems to fill my head with nowhere else to go.
May thy week be sublime, dudes.
Dave x
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