Happy Happy Joy Joy. The early 80’s were bleak. Someone needed to soundtrack it. But you can have humour in amongst all the nuclear fall out. The Two Tribes videos shows you how. The Final Cut is so far up its own arse that it can’t connect with the audience - either mainstream or even muso snobs. It’s an empty album that talks to no one but itself. It’s the sound of a band being slowly put to sleep. Instant gratification would have been better.
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Yeah yeah - I’ve gone down something of a prog rabbit hole this morning. Aphrodite’s Child is the album that Pink Floyd should have made as their final sign off. It rambles on and on and bloody on. But it still kept my attention whilst going about my morning tasks. It must all mean something. I’ve no idea what. That the appeal of prog, right? The band name is awful, as is the album art. Never judge a book, etc. Decent.
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After the heatwave of the past couple of days, temperatures around the Estuary Wilds had dropped five degrees or so this afternoon. The wind had also picked up - warm wind. Which can only mean one thing: a return to the outdoor wind ball. It was swaying around, giving the impression that some killer spin had been applied. It hadn’t, obvs.
This was a lazy game for a lazy early, early summer’s day. We both couldn’t be arsed after a bit of a challenging start to the day earlier. Hey hoe. Whatever. We pressed on, taking the odd point off each other. With the scoreline stuck on 3-3, we both walked away whilst we still could.
A complete hairdryer of an album - in every respect. Style and substance. I don’t know why it’s called soft rock. There’s nothing half, erm, hearted about this. It’s ridiculous of course. I quite like the pantomime feel to the bangers like What About Love and These Dreams. Heart were never cool, and neither was I.
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“The one little trumpet fluff on the bridge of the final theme statement is the dropped stitch in the Persian rug, included by the weaver in acknowledgment that true perfection belongs only to Allah.”
Richard Williams on Miles at 100
HYPE ALERT: The opening two tracks that segue Kayleigh into Lavender gives The Beatles' closing tracks on Abbey Road a run for its money. Blimey. Hype over. Misplaced Childhood is still a bloody great album, completely out of step, then and now. Marillion stood out like, well, like a time machine gone wrong back in 1985. It was quite a bold move during such tribal times. I could never commit to them back in the day, despite secret bedroom playbacks. I don’t give a shit these days. I bloody love Marillion. Fish. He’s a one.
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Very rustic, very laboured. Yet still there’s a soul element running through from start to finish. Bob Elms dropped a track over the weekend. Nice, I thought. The third album from The Band is new to me. My finger hovered over a cheapo cheapo ebay purchase. The stream finished. I couldn’t quite bring myself to committing.
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This was a random listen after Late Junction dropped the track Flight of the Ibis. I admit to never having heard of McDonald & Giles. The modern internet wasn’t a great deal of help, either.
Flight of the Ibis is lush. The production is so rich with the analogue bass and drums pushing the song forward. It’s a hazy song for the current May hazy days. It would probably work well during mid-winter as well.
Elsewhere and the rest of the album is half decent. Things get incredibly funky on The Workshop. The random sax blowing in and out is a nice touch. Plus I do love an album that has a ‘suite’ of songs. The styles change, but they still sound connected.
This is quite a breakthrough record for an album that came out in 1970. It takes the King Crimson blueprint, but adds a lot more energy and vibe. I doubt that vibe was a thing in the year I was born. Christ, this album is old, much like me…
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Twaddle. Crap twaddle.
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To the Table of Dreams! On a very hot Bank Holiday Monday. We made the strategic decision to play with the non-wind ball. The reason being, there was no bloody wind around. Job’s a good ‘un.
A bit of a knock around warm-up started. It was the usual corner to corner let’s TWAT the ball around AND live out our semi-pro table tennis dreams. Good luck with that one. It was far too warm for a decent warm-up and so we headed straight into the game.
Hang on, something’s not quite right here. The non-wind ball wasn’t bouncing very well. We had a brain wave: I remembered that the non-wind ball was packed away many months ago because it’s not actually a ball.
It has been squashed around so much it bounces in an irregular fashion, which can be quite a major factor when you’re playing table tennis, either semi-pro or even as park amateurs.
My concentration, as ever, was sketchy. The heat didn’t really help. I lost 4-1. Oh dear.
