ARCHIVE CLASSICS!!!
ESSENTIAL VIEWING TO GET YOU THROUGH THE LOCKDOWN!!!

These are strange and uncertain times for sure, with the world full of empty streets and socially distant queues for the small number of shops that are remaining open during this never-ending lockdown. Going out to gigs, clubs, cinemas and eateries is something we'll all have to wait a fair while for. Staying at home and filling your days with constant entertainment for yourselves and your families is the new normal. So, in the spirit of keeping everybody busy, here's the first in an occasional series of posts celebrating some of my all-time favourite performances that have been captured on TV screens over the years from some of my all-time favourite acts. All the food groups are going to be represented so indulge yourselves why don't you?

PEARL JAM: BLACK

First up, a band who - in an ideal world - I would have been seeing live in Hyde Park in a few weeks time. Covid-19 has of course put paid to that with the whole of the summer gig schedule - and beyond most likely - being totally decimated. Seattle legends Pearl Jam would have been celebrating their 30th year together with a huge worldwide tour in support of their truly excellent new album 'Gigaton', and their headline appearance in London - supported by the Pixies no less - would have been one of the highlights of my gigular activity for 2020. Instead, I have been making do with some of their classic online performances from the last three decades. This one still tops the lot for me. Recorded in early 92 - a few months after the release of their debut 'Ten' and just as the whole grunge juggernaut was taking over the world, this MTV Unplugged show was utterly compelling from first to last. The band were on sublime form, toning down the heaviness to fit in with the show's parameters, and vocalist Eddie Vedder was on absolutely incendiary form. If you've yet to watch the whole show, I implore you to get involved. In the meantime, just lose yourself in this spine-tingling rendition of one of their greatest ever songs.

TEENAGE FANCLUB: EVERYTHING FLOWS

Another band who I was hoping to see live later this year were Scotland's very own answer to Buffalo Springfield, the gloriously groovesome Teenage Fanclub. As of writing, their November gigs are still going ahead but I'm doubtful they'll happen. I've seen them live many times over the years so it won't be too much of a hardship for me if the gigs are rescheduled but I'll miss my bi-annual get-together with this very special band. They've been thrilling me with their splendidly ramshackle jangle-infused grunge since 1990 and albums like 'Bandwagonesque', 'Grand Prix', 'Songs From Northern Britain' and 2016's delightful 'Here' are as good as modern music gets quite frankly. One of the first times I experienced the band in a live setting was at 1992's magnificently mud-encrusted Reading Festival. This was way back when Reading used to be an essential festival excursion - not like these days - and the weekend was full to bursting with extraordinary sets from the likes of Nirvana, Ride, Public Enemy, Mudhoney, Pavement, Nick Cave, The WonderStuff, The Charlatans, Smashing Pumpkins, Buffalo Tom, L7, Screaming Trees, Therapy and Suede. It was a tremendously enjoyable few days - despite the horrific weather - and, as is obvious from this clip, The Fannies were quite wonderful. (NB: Myself and my two companions are in that filthy throng somewhere..)

MATTHEW SWEET & SUSANNA HOFFS: CINNAMON GIRL

Some years ago, Nebraskan singer-songwriter Matthew Sweet - famed for 1991's utterly superb power-pop confection 'Girlfriend' - hooked up with his old friend Susanna Hoffs - frontwoman of hugely successful 80's pop crew The Bangles - and hunkered down in the studio to record cover versions of all their favourite songs from years gone by. The results were released across three albums - one of 60's tunes, one for the 70's classics and the final one focusing on 80's tracks - which they titled the 'Under The Covers' project. Like most cover versions collections there were hits and misses but in the main the albums were a joy to listen to, with Sweet and Hoffs obviously thoroughly enjoying themselves whilst singing songs by the likes of The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Velvet Underground, Fleetwood Mac, Television, The Ramones, The Smiths, Tom Petty, Echo & The Bunnymen, Prince and a multitude of others. A 2-disc compilation featuring all the best bits has just been released and it's well worth a couple of hours of your time. This clip is an American TV performance from 2008 and shows the duo absolutely owning the Neil Young classic. Storming.

FLEET FOXES: HELPLESSNESS BLUES

During these recent crazy times, I've been rediscovering shed-loads of pastoral folk music and earthy, back to the land type odes to nature and songs that look past the materialistic stance of the modern world and which recall a more innocent and rustic viewpoint. I've been diving into the back catalogues of bands like Fairport Convention, Jethro Tull, Pentangle, Fotheringay and Trees as well as more recent releases from the freak-folk brigade of the last fifteen years or so such as Midlake, Iron & Wine, My Morning Jacket and Tunng. The best of the lot though, for me, were always Seattle's supremely talented Fleet Foxes who burst onto the scene in 2008 with their magisterial self-titled debut album. An astonishing collection of chiming guitars, hushed Americana, dulcet folk stylings and brain-caressing three-part harmony vocals, the band appeared as if fully-formed and for a brief period there in the late noughties they were pretty much my favourite group in the known universe. The constant touring schedule for that first album almost burned them out and it was a full three years before their second opus arrived. Magnificently, it was almost as good as the first. This performance of the extraordinary title track is from an Austin City Limits show from October, 2011 and it quite simply a thing of utter wonder. 

  

LIZA MINNELLI: LOSING MY MIND

Finally, in this little stroll down memory lane, a real curio and and an absolute delight. Back in the late 80's when Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe - AKA the Pet Shop Boys - were ruling the pop roost, they found themselves with a multitude of wondrous songs that they had written that due to their hugely prolific nature at the time, they felt unable to record themselves. Some were fashioned as duets - the superb Dusty Springfield collaboration 'What Have I Done To Deserve This?' being the most obvious example. Some, however, were farmed out to other acts. Reasonably famous 'It Girl' Patsy Kensit and her band Eighth Wonder were the first recipients with their take on the lovely 'I'm Not Scared' which was a big hit in 1988. Tennant and Lowe though felt that the remaining cache of songs they were holding onto needed a more substantial artist to sing them. Someone with real talent and worldwide renown. Enter, if you please, the one and only Liza Minnelli. In truth, Oscar-winner Minnelli had been through a tough decade with most of her film and music projects not really passing muster. But once in the studio with Tennant and Lowe all the old star quality returned to the fore with an absolute vengeance. The album that was released - the still staggering 'Results' - featured a bunch of the finest songs the Pet Shop Boys ever wrote in 'I Want You Now', 'So Sorry, I Said' and 'Don't Drop Bombs', as well as early PSB classics like 'Rent' and 'Tonight Is Forever'. There were also some brilliant cover choices such as a mind-bending version of folk-pop singer Tanita Tikaram's sultry 'Twist In My Sobriety' and this frankly bonkers version of a tune from Stephen Sondheim's early 70's musical 'Follies'. This performance of said track comes from an August 1989 edition of classic UK pop show Top Of The Pops and is about as glorious as you can get. A consummate professional at the top of her game putting all the other popstrels around at that time to shame. 'Losing My Mind' was a real outlier that summer - surrounded as it was by clunky dance tracks, Stock/Aitken/Waterman pop fluff and the horror that was Jive Bunny - but it still managed to reach Number 6 in the charts. The album followed suit and Minnelli was back at the races. (And check out the dramatic chin-rub about halfway through. Fabulous.)
"It's Liza with a Z not Lisa with an S, coz Lisa with an S goes Ssss, not Zzzz..."

Well, that's it for now. Keep your eyes and ears peeled for more classic archive clips from the days of yore that I'll be regaling you with over the next few weeks. 
Lockdown Schmockdown! 

OBITUARIES

As has become something of a very sad regular event during these uncertain times, here I am again paying tribute to some legendary rock and roll heroes who have recently shuffled off this mortal coil to join the Parthenon of greats up above us taking part in that great gig in the sky. I recommend that you pull up a comfortable chair, raise a glass of something suitable and pay homage to all of these maestros.
Recent weeks have seen us lose the likes of hugely well-respected country rock singer/songwriter John Prine who, after many years of ill-health, tragically succumbed to the effects of Covid-19 at the age of 73. A true maverick and the epitome of the songwriter's songwriter, Prine's albums over the years - especially the utterly sublime 'The Missing Years' from 1991 - will stand the test of time and are a worthy testament to his life in song. AfroBeat pioneer and - according to frequent collaborator Damon Albarn - "The greatest drummer that's ever lived", Tony Allen, has also passed suddenly at the age of 79. Renowned for his work during the 70's with legendary African musicians like Fela Kuti and Hugh Masekela, Allen became even more well-known in recent years thanks to his sterling stints in Albarn's The Good, The Bad And The Queen collective and their Rocket Juice And The Moon project. We've also bidden a fond farewell to early disco progenitor and funk aficionado Hamilton Bohannon; powerhouse vocalist and the queen of blues-inflected gospel Betty Wright; Dave Greenfield - punk stalwart and long-standing keyboardist for Guildford's black-clad rockers The Stranglers; and 60's psych-rock legend and vocalist for the wonderful The Pretty Things, Phil May, who passed away only yesterday at the age of 75 after suffering severe complications from a recent surgical procedure. Rest in power to all of the above.   

FLORIAN SCHNEIDER: 7/04/47 - 21/04/20

The death this month of German electronic music pioneer and founding member of the monumentally magnificent Kraftwerk - Florian Schneider - has hit me the hardest out of all of the current losses related to the musical universe. I grew up listening to Kraftwerk due to the presence of their 1974 album 'Autobahn' in my step-father's record collection. As a young boy, I had no idea what this music was or if it had even been made by human beings - so futuristic and other-wordly did it sound. As I discovered and fell in love with electronic pop music in the early 80's as a teen, I realised just how influential the band had been to the likes of The Human League, Soft Cell, New Order, Heaven 17, Depeche Mode and the Pet Shop Boys - as well as to legendary 70's acts like David Bowie and Roxy Music. Indeed, it's safe to say that there was probably only one band that the perennial trend-setter Bowie had ever tried to ape - most pertinently on his tremendous 'Station To Station' album - and that band was Kraftwerk. Fusing together an extraordinary blend of - at the time - unheard synthesised sounds, drum machines and computerised beeps and whistles, Kraftwerk's five-album run of the aforementioned 'Autobahn', 1975's 'Radioactivity', the astonishing double-whammy of 77's 'Trans-Europe Express' and the following year's 'The Man Machine' and then 1981's peerless 'Computer World', comprise one of the most consistently brilliant catalogues of music from any genre at any time. The fact that 1986's 'Electric Cafe' and 'Tour De France Soundtracks' from 2003 don't quite match up is only down to the phenomenal marker the band had set themselves previously.
Kraftwerk's precise, compact and seemingly simple tunes that belied the hours, days and weeks of preparation and perfectionism that went into recording them, were mind-blowing to listen to at the time and, if anything, are even more magisterial now. Influencing everything from synth-pop, techno, ambient soundscapes and even hip-hop, it's no stretch at all to state that the future of modern-day 21st century music was born the first time Kraftwerk entered a studio. Just take some time to listen to tracks like 'The Robots', 'Neon Lights', 'Pocket Calculator', 'Tour De France', the surprise 1982 Number One single 'The Model' - as well as the magnificent title tracks from all of their seminal albums - and it's easy to see why they are the most influential music group since The Beatles.

Schneider himself - who has died at the age of 73 after suffering from cancer - formed the band in 1970. Originally called - quite magnificently - Pissoff, Schneider teamed up with fellow multi-instrumentalist Ralf Hutter and changed the name of the band to Kraftwerk, after the German term for power plant. At first, both Schneider and Hutter played traditional instruments before filtering their sounds through a primitive form of electronic processing. Eventually, after purchasing various prototype synthesisers, speakers and microphones, the electronics took over and the original way of making music was jettisoned. Schneider himself once said that he found his old musical instruments too limiting so he just "threw them away". After three early albums of prog-indebted experimental rock music, Kraftwerk expanded into a quartet with the addition of Wolfgang Flur and Karl Bartos and quickly became the enigmatic, smartly attired 'bank managers on a jolly' synth-pop masters that changed everything in the late 70's. Schneider and Hutter's relationship became more and more strained over the years - not that you would have known it too much due to the almost comical reticence for interviews and such like - and after touring the 'Tour De France' album in the mid-noughties, Schneider quietly retired and disappeared from public life. As a band, Kraftwerk continue to tour the world with their multi-media spectaculars - they were due to play London this summer before the Coronavirus took over - but Hutter is the only original member left. Best to remember them as they were in their pomp: matching outfits, slicked-back hair, standing stock-still at their keyboards and changing the face of the musical map at every turn.
Auf Wiedersehen, Florian.
Danke.

Finally, a quick shout-out to the incomparable Richard Penniman - otherwise known as Little Richard - who has left the world at the grand old age of 87. An absolute force of nature in his time, it's difficult to imagine how his extraordinary act was accepted in the straight-laced mid-50's of post-war America. Black, openly bisexual, astonishingly flamboyant and blessed with a quick wit and a sharp tongue, it's a wonder he didn't disappear as quickly as he arrived - possibly with the aid of J. Edgar Hoover and his paranoid Federal Bureau of Investigation. And yet, Little Richard thrived during that first flush of eye-opening, trailblazing rock and roll music that turned the world upside down. The songs helped of course: 'Tutti Frutti', 'Long Tall Sally', 'Good Golly Miss Molly', 'Lucille'. Utter classics, one and all. Performing these songs on early TV broadcasts wearing brightly coloured zoot suits whilst standing at the piano, wiggling his hips, licking his lips and winking at the cameras, Little Richard must have seemed like an alien creature to the parents of 50's teenagers - here to steal their offspring away to some far-off Bacchanalian nightmare. The kids of course lapped it up, and Richard was a huge star in a matter of months. He gave it all up within a few years - renouncing what he called "the devil's music" - and turned to spiritual matters, becoming a preacher in his home state of Georgia. The music came and went, some of it good but most of it forgettable. 'Lifetime Friend' from 1986 - which included the fantastic 'Great Gosh A'Mighty' - was his last true decent collection. His first few years on the rock and roll scene were the foundations of his legacy and with good reason.
He was, in his own words, "The King - and Queen - of boogie-woogie!"
All hail The Quasar Of Rock And Roll!

LITTLE RICHARD: December 5th 1932 - May 9th 2020