So, that was 2007. Did you enjoy it? Good. I had quite a good year, thanks for asking- here's a highly derivitive rundown of the good and the bobbins from while the Earth's been hurtling round it's most recent lap of the Sun.
Living the Dream:
Robert FitzRoy- The chances are you've never heard of Robert FitzRoy but his is a story that never fails to make me smile. In 1831, FitzRoy set off on an expedition in his ship to chart coastal waters all over the world for the British Government, a job that was to take him 5 years. Knowing he would be away for such a length of time, and unable as a man of gentlemanly stature to spend his time with any of the serfs who would actually be manning the ship, FitzRoy decided to bring a companion with him- someone who fancied a bit of adventure and had no trobule leaving England behind for half a decade. The man would also have to be of a pastoral bent as the expedition was to have a extra agenda of FitzRoy's own- he was determined to find genuine evidence of God's creation of Earth. He was looking, essentially for the Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve. So he took along a man who had just gained a degree in Divinity from Cambridge University and was about to take up the life of a vicar when FitzRoy came calling.
FitzRoy's ship for this voyage was HMS Beagle and his chosen companion was called Charles Darwin.
This is now my favourite story in history. It happened 176 years before 2007 but I only found out about it this year so it makes the list.
Neon Bible- The Arcade Fire returned this year with their second album- which sounded pretty much like the first album crossed with the end of the world. Other honourable mentions go to half the Arctic Monkey's second album, Simian Mobile Disco and The Hold Steady's 'Boys and Girls in America' which sounds like the best bar-band playing in the best bar in Chicago.
Die Hard 4.0- For THAT scene with THAT car and THAT helicopter and THAT tunnel.
Roque Santa Cruz- Suddenly, a shimmering piece of South American beef has arrived in East Lancashire with all the nonchalant cool of the lead singer of The Strokes smoking oysters. Even on a cold post-Christmas night at the City of Manchester Stadium he still strode round like he was playing footie on a beach with a crowd of pneumatic bronze Amazonian women in dental-floss bikinis looking on admiringly between salsa dances.
Oz and James Big Wine Adventure- This would be the cosiest, middle-England-pleasing smug-cast on television if it wasn't for the latent love-story between the two hosts. On their respective tours of France and California Oz Clarke has been the nervous, eager-to-please, Eurocentric, modern Brit abroad- desperate to show all the locals he meets how much he knows about their culture whilst cooing over their wines, while James May slouches around being suspicious of everything foreign and wearing fetching t-shirts, usually with British motorcycle manufacturers emblazoned across the front. In the end, however, Clarke clearly comes to be fascinated by May's breezy charm and acute intelligence, while James obviously adores Oz for his depth of knowledge and sneaky sense of mischief. It's like Strangers on a Train, but with wine instead of murder.
Having a Mare:
Skins- Bad enough to make a man pine for Hollyoaks: In The City. Filled with the sort of edgy dialogue (lots of naughty words) and racy content (some spliffs, bit of vomiting, occasional tits) that Channel 4 exectuives in their late 30's think makes for cutting-edge teen television. No wonder the kids all watch Scrubs instead.
The Cadburys Gorilla Advert- Yes it was funny the first hundred times but it came dangerously close to making the music of Phil Collins popular again. Stop. Before. It's. Too. Late.
Blade Runner: The Final Cut- Ridley Scott twats about with the adventures of Deckard once again for no apparent reason other than to make it even more obvious that Harrison Ford is actually a unicorn, or something.
Chris Benoit- And to think there are people who say wrestling's fake.
The Sopranos- Fittingly, the best TV show ever went out with the best ending ever. Should be in with the very best things of the year but the sheer joy of a new episode has been sucked out of my world and that's a deep wound to bandage over. Hopefully David Chase won't now pull an Aaron Sorkin and go on to create a spectacularly self-indulgent televisual mis-fire that crushes expectations quicker than it crushes Matt Perry's career.
Saturday, 29 December 2007
Tuesday, 18 December 2007
I'm dead inside. Seriously. Crack open my chest and you won't find a heart in there- just a cold, dark stone with the density of a quasar that would suck you into it's core in a heartbeat. If I had a heart to beat. Which I don't. Emotional intensity is an alien concept to me at the best of times- if I was to become a father on the same day I was cure of head cancer whilst winning the lottery on a space trampoline I'd maybe crack into a giddy smile. Maybe. But I'd probably look as blank as a cow being told knock-knock jokes.
Then Shane Richie happened. Now, Alfie Moon off of Eastenders was never the man who I thought would yank me from my emotional coma- strangely I always thought that when it happened Jesus might be involved. Or Derren Brown. But that's exactly what the cheekiest of cheeky chappies managed on Saturday night at the Palace Theatre in Manchester. That's where you'll find him playing the lead in the musical 'Scrooge' and where, if you'd been there this last weekend, you'd have found me in the stalls having my melon well and truly twisted. Then bent. Then folded in on itself. Then turned into an ostrich. Which was having it's melon bent.
This is because I was drunk. I'd started a few hours earlier in Manchester's resolutely bonkers Christmas market, which smells of a German farm in the middle of a bonfire and where, for a reasonable price, any innocent member of the general public can buy mulled wine which could only be described as 'military-grade'. A small glass of this stuff could power Luton for a week. I had two large ones.
(Before I continue, I should point out this isn't a story about how brilliantly drunk I got and how brilliant brilliant I am for sticking so much booze down my neck. A lot of my anecdotes seem to have that as a feature and it's not a side to my personality I like. The only reason I do it is because the only people worse than those who get spannered then talk about it are people who don't drink, or would tut-tut at those who enjoy a libation or two. If you're one of these people- try this. Get drunk. Get very, very drunk. See what the world's like? Magic, eh? Now sober up. See what the world's like now? Cack, isn't it?)
Anyway, back to the story. Myself and the present missus then joined her family to celebrate her brother's birthday in an Italian restaurant in the company of some luscious red wine, but not before stopping off at the City Arms so I could continute to ingratiate myself with Amy's dad by joining him in drinking ales so real they have soil in them.
So, having survived trial by Bavarian mental-juice, trial by beer and trial by plonk I found myself in the stalls at the Palace as the curtain went up and people started milling about in a Dickensian street scene- fitting really considering the author of the source text. This was fine. I've been to the theatre before and was familiar with it's codes and conventions (I sat in my bit of the building and the loud people in the silly clothes stood on the raised bit at the front and had a bit of a pretend for a couple of hours. Simple.).
Then they started singing.
And I'd forgotten to prepare myself. I should point out that when I've had a bit to drink my train of thought, which is usually prone to more than a little diversion, has a tendency to fly off the rails completely and head for outer space- rather akin to the end of Back to the Future Part III. Therefore, I was at this point pondering which who would win from all the characters on stage if they were to have a game of 'chainsaw darts' when one of them started belting out a tune, which all the rest on stage seemed rather pleased about and joined in.
Then Shane Richie turned up and took charge of proceedings- which essentially entailed more singing when I was just getting used to people talking and then talking when I was expecting more singing. The world, suddenly, was full of drama, excitement and melodic sunshine dispensed seemingly at the whim of simple joy itself.
And what a world it was. It was the world I want to live in, my Xanadu, my Babylon. I saw the light and it's name was Shane Richie.
The next morning I'd sobered up and got a hangover. I stumbled downstairs and put the TV on to be greeted by '20 Greatest Songs From Musicals' on one of the music video channels. I watched for a bit.
About 10 seconds to be precise. Then I put on Soccer AM.
Then Shane Richie happened. Now, Alfie Moon off of Eastenders was never the man who I thought would yank me from my emotional coma- strangely I always thought that when it happened Jesus might be involved. Or Derren Brown. But that's exactly what the cheekiest of cheeky chappies managed on Saturday night at the Palace Theatre in Manchester. That's where you'll find him playing the lead in the musical 'Scrooge' and where, if you'd been there this last weekend, you'd have found me in the stalls having my melon well and truly twisted. Then bent. Then folded in on itself. Then turned into an ostrich. Which was having it's melon bent.
This is because I was drunk. I'd started a few hours earlier in Manchester's resolutely bonkers Christmas market, which smells of a German farm in the middle of a bonfire and where, for a reasonable price, any innocent member of the general public can buy mulled wine which could only be described as 'military-grade'. A small glass of this stuff could power Luton for a week. I had two large ones.
(Before I continue, I should point out this isn't a story about how brilliantly drunk I got and how brilliant brilliant I am for sticking so much booze down my neck. A lot of my anecdotes seem to have that as a feature and it's not a side to my personality I like. The only reason I do it is because the only people worse than those who get spannered then talk about it are people who don't drink, or would tut-tut at those who enjoy a libation or two. If you're one of these people- try this. Get drunk. Get very, very drunk. See what the world's like? Magic, eh? Now sober up. See what the world's like now? Cack, isn't it?)
Anyway, back to the story. Myself and the present missus then joined her family to celebrate her brother's birthday in an Italian restaurant in the company of some luscious red wine, but not before stopping off at the City Arms so I could continute to ingratiate myself with Amy's dad by joining him in drinking ales so real they have soil in them.
So, having survived trial by Bavarian mental-juice, trial by beer and trial by plonk I found myself in the stalls at the Palace as the curtain went up and people started milling about in a Dickensian street scene- fitting really considering the author of the source text. This was fine. I've been to the theatre before and was familiar with it's codes and conventions (I sat in my bit of the building and the loud people in the silly clothes stood on the raised bit at the front and had a bit of a pretend for a couple of hours. Simple.).
Then they started singing.
And I'd forgotten to prepare myself. I should point out that when I've had a bit to drink my train of thought, which is usually prone to more than a little diversion, has a tendency to fly off the rails completely and head for outer space- rather akin to the end of Back to the Future Part III. Therefore, I was at this point pondering which who would win from all the characters on stage if they were to have a game of 'chainsaw darts' when one of them started belting out a tune, which all the rest on stage seemed rather pleased about and joined in.
Then Shane Richie turned up and took charge of proceedings- which essentially entailed more singing when I was just getting used to people talking and then talking when I was expecting more singing. The world, suddenly, was full of drama, excitement and melodic sunshine dispensed seemingly at the whim of simple joy itself.
And what a world it was. It was the world I want to live in, my Xanadu, my Babylon. I saw the light and it's name was Shane Richie.
The next morning I'd sobered up and got a hangover. I stumbled downstairs and put the TV on to be greeted by '20 Greatest Songs From Musicals' on one of the music video channels. I watched for a bit.
About 10 seconds to be precise. Then I put on Soccer AM.
Wednesday, 5 December 2007
I've seen the future and it's terrifying. A newspaper recently featured an article on the "Trolley of the Future" (presumably no-one was busy blowing each other up and stabbing pensioners that day so there was a bit of spare room to fill) that, amongst other things, warns you off buying unhealthy food. Apparently, anything you put in your trolley is scanned by a little black box that can also guide you round the store like sat-nav for the permanently pathetic, and if this little lump of plastic doesn't like what it sees it's not going to be backward about telling your podgy, fat, stupid face to put it back and buy more celery. And get a haircut.
The company behind all this, who go by the chillingly vague name of 'EDS', issued a quote for the piece which ranks as one of the most sinister utterances ever printed in a British newspaper: "It may not stop you putting cream cakes in the trolley but you will be made to think about the decision".
There you go- in the future even a shopping trolley will tell you how to think. Potentially your last vestige of responsibility will be surrendered to an ugly tangle of wire and wheels that spends its time directing you to the salad bar and tut-tutting at the Pringles. If you try to buy fags, it'll almost certainly turn on you as if in a Terry Gilliam animation.
Actually, now I ponder it, this doesn't sound like such a bad idea. Looking after yourself and taking responsibility for your actions is, as we all know, bloody hard work- who hasn't slaved over an iron and a toaster in the morning before slogging it to a job when we all know it'd be much easier to stay in bed and live entirely on a diet of Smirnoff Ice? I recently joined a gym in an effort to get in shape and, in two short months I've replaced a life of injury free slobbishness with one leg that alternates between aches and stabbing pains, the other leg that's given up the ghost altogether, a shoulder that screams with agony in the cold and a back which is flummoxed by such strenuous activity as sitting down. And I'm paying money and giving up my precious time to feel like this! Beforehand I had that cash to spend on my free and easy evenings sitting in front of Freeview eating lard flavour gourmet crisps.
Now I'm pretty sure that if a shopping trolley was forcing me to go through all this punishment at the gym I'd feel much better about it. Sure my self-esteem might be affected by my life being controlled by a metal cart with a wonky wheel but that's a small price to pay for not having to worry that I might be doing the wrong thing. In this situation I just blindly follow the trolley and if it get's anything wrong and I accidentally find myself in hospital or dangling from Gloucester Cathedral dressed as Idi Amin then I can just blame the technology. Then ask it how I get down.
I could do with something like this because the real world confuses me at the best of times. For instance, we have the smoking ban. The basic principle of this, as far as I can gather, is that all smokers in a pub should go outside to suck on the demon weed so that the non-smokers can experience some fresh air. However, if it's fresh air they want, why isn't it the non-smokers who go outside? There, if recent studies are to be believed, they'll find shitloads of it. Meanwhile, we smokers can suckle on Mother Marlboro's tarry teat in the sort of smoggy den we all love. Instead the people who want to breathe clean air are now wafting in the smell of stale beer and chip fat whilst all the smokers are outside polluting Mother Nature with a pack of L&B's.
And that confuses me.
Add to that the music charts, 95% of all television, David Miliband, David Miliband's brother whose name I keep forgetting, mobile phones as ghetto blasters, the colour pink as a cornerstone of male fashion, why Jimmy Page now looks like my Grandma and Cheshire and it's clear to see that a sizeable portion of modern living leaves me clutching at the very edge of understanding like a man drowning in treacle.
No, scratch that- olive oil, not treacle. My trolley says treacle's bad for me.
The company behind all this, who go by the chillingly vague name of 'EDS', issued a quote for the piece which ranks as one of the most sinister utterances ever printed in a British newspaper: "It may not stop you putting cream cakes in the trolley but you will be made to think about the decision".
There you go- in the future even a shopping trolley will tell you how to think. Potentially your last vestige of responsibility will be surrendered to an ugly tangle of wire and wheels that spends its time directing you to the salad bar and tut-tutting at the Pringles. If you try to buy fags, it'll almost certainly turn on you as if in a Terry Gilliam animation.
Actually, now I ponder it, this doesn't sound like such a bad idea. Looking after yourself and taking responsibility for your actions is, as we all know, bloody hard work- who hasn't slaved over an iron and a toaster in the morning before slogging it to a job when we all know it'd be much easier to stay in bed and live entirely on a diet of Smirnoff Ice? I recently joined a gym in an effort to get in shape and, in two short months I've replaced a life of injury free slobbishness with one leg that alternates between aches and stabbing pains, the other leg that's given up the ghost altogether, a shoulder that screams with agony in the cold and a back which is flummoxed by such strenuous activity as sitting down. And I'm paying money and giving up my precious time to feel like this! Beforehand I had that cash to spend on my free and easy evenings sitting in front of Freeview eating lard flavour gourmet crisps.
Now I'm pretty sure that if a shopping trolley was forcing me to go through all this punishment at the gym I'd feel much better about it. Sure my self-esteem might be affected by my life being controlled by a metal cart with a wonky wheel but that's a small price to pay for not having to worry that I might be doing the wrong thing. In this situation I just blindly follow the trolley and if it get's anything wrong and I accidentally find myself in hospital or dangling from Gloucester Cathedral dressed as Idi Amin then I can just blame the technology. Then ask it how I get down.
I could do with something like this because the real world confuses me at the best of times. For instance, we have the smoking ban. The basic principle of this, as far as I can gather, is that all smokers in a pub should go outside to suck on the demon weed so that the non-smokers can experience some fresh air. However, if it's fresh air they want, why isn't it the non-smokers who go outside? There, if recent studies are to be believed, they'll find shitloads of it. Meanwhile, we smokers can suckle on Mother Marlboro's tarry teat in the sort of smoggy den we all love. Instead the people who want to breathe clean air are now wafting in the smell of stale beer and chip fat whilst all the smokers are outside polluting Mother Nature with a pack of L&B's.
And that confuses me.
Add to that the music charts, 95% of all television, David Miliband, David Miliband's brother whose name I keep forgetting, mobile phones as ghetto blasters, the colour pink as a cornerstone of male fashion, why Jimmy Page now looks like my Grandma and Cheshire and it's clear to see that a sizeable portion of modern living leaves me clutching at the very edge of understanding like a man drowning in treacle.
No, scratch that- olive oil, not treacle. My trolley says treacle's bad for me.
Saturday, 1 December 2007
Owners of Porsche 911s do not own Porsche 911s and people from Glasgow are not from Glasgow. If you talk to people from the Empire's second city, they'll never say they're from 'Glasgae' but one of it's many, many districts- Bishopbriggs, Partick, Anderson, Queen's Park, Govan, Pollok, Maryhill and so on and so on- which is confusing if you can only understand one word in three of their thick Scottish brogue to begin with. You start by asking a native for directions to Hampden from Queen Street Station by using the seemingly innocuous "Are you from Glasgow?" and have to spend the next half hour being told how to get to the bit of the city they grew up in, irrespective of whether the stadium is anywhere near it. If you want to find the way to Hampden Park you are, trust me, better off wandering round saying "I'm lost, are you from round here?" and if they say "yes" running away and finding a Norwegian tourist. The level of gerographical pickiness prevelant in this otherwise magnificent city however is nothing compared to owners of a certain German sports car.
I recently got chatting to a chap who has a 911 but insisted that what he actually drives is a Porsche 911 Carrera 4 RS, NOT the standard Carrera RS mind- the Carrera 4 RS. If you're wondering whether it's an original Carrera 4 or from the re-introduction of the Carrera, I'll make everything clear by telling you that the 911 in question was, of course, a Type 993, not a Type 964. And it's got the 3.8l engine but you probably knew that. By the time he'd gone on to point out that his Carrera wasn't a trubo model but had the turbo model's body shell and some other components from that version I'd glazed over like a frozen pond and started to think about Neil Young.
I do this a lot. Canada's finest export occupies quite a lot of my thinking for any man with a reedy voice and massive sideburns and it was strangely fitting that he was now interjecting himself into my mind during a (one-sided) talk about the most complicated model history in motoring. Put simply, like the timeline of the 911, Neil Young's discography is one of life's great unfathomables- currently featuring 33 solo studio albums (19 by himself, 14 with any one of 6 different backing bands), 8 live albums, 3 albums with Buffalo Springfield, 4 with Crosby, Still, Nash and Young, one with The Stills-Young Band and a film score. He also directed a mental comedy film in 1982 in which he performed with post-punk outfit Devo.
As a general rule, he veers between country-tinged mellow work, often with a social/political bent; and feedback-drenched rock-outs that sound like God putting the apocalypse through a knackered amplifier. He demonstrated this most eloquently in just this past year when he released two classic live shows as part of his 'Archive' series- a solo show from Toronto's Massey Hall that's delicate as gossamer and one from the Filmore East with Crazy Horse that's delicate as Lawrence Dallaglio in mating season. They're both from an 18 month period between '69 and '71 when he was essentially pissing genius and churning out an album approximately every 30 minutes.
Every now and again, like any truly great artist worth their salt, Young goes a bit skew-whiff and turns out the sort of bizarre work which polite critics call 'challenging' and honest fans call 'crap'. A few years ago he came over a bit Pete Townshend and made a rock opera called Greendale (tragically, it's not about Postman Pat) while in 1982 he embraced the fledgling technology of synthesisers and vocoders to make 'Trans', an album so bad his record company sued him.
Naturally, I decided it was ripe for reappraisal. First of all, it's important to explain the genesis of this record. Neil Young has a son born with cerebal palsy and, at the time of 'Trans', had realised that he could communicate much better with his child is he spoke to him using a vocoder. Now if I was in this situation I'd get Steven Hawking to do the babysitting but instead Shakey (that's Young's nickname, based on his film directing alter-ego Bernard Shakey) decided that he'd make an album with all this electronic wizardry instead.
Things start going badly wrong on the cover which is a painfully 1980's graphical rendition of a bizarrely retro-futuristic car streaming towards the foreground away from a pinky-orange sunset. It's somehow appears to be made entirely of right angles. Things don't improve much on the inside either as one of the world's great troubadors is reduced to peddling songs with names like 'We R In Control' and 'Computer Cowboy (AKA Syscrusher)' which sound even worse than their titles suggest. There's even a techno remix of an old Buffalo Springfield number- a band about as ripe for an electronic makeover as George Formby or Robert Johnson.
Matters around this album were so shoddy that one song 'If You Got Love' was taken off at the last minute but no-one could be bothered to change the track listing on the original sleeve- leading to one of the few examples of music fans being glad to be short-changed. Young then took such brevity of material to new heights with his next record which took another left turn stylistically by being an album of rockabilly tunes, recorded with a hastily assembled band called 'The Shocking Pinks' and clocking in at less than 25 minutes. The cover features Young in a pink room, dressed in a pink suit, sturmming away on a guitar like Bill Halley gone metrosexual. The album was called 'Everybody's Rockin'.
And it's brilliant.
But that's Neil Young- wilfully changeable, always evolving, constantly looking to try something new, something wierd, something over-the-top or completely unexpected and all the while always making an interesting, and when he's on his game- brutally beautifully, noise. It's made his music endlessly fascinating and makes Young himself a captivating personality. If he was a car designer he'd probably be just as willing to do something silly which hardly anyone else would try. Like making the headlights shine into the car, or reversing the indicator-stalk action. Or, at a pinch, putting the engine in the back.
Just like a Porsche 911.
I recently got chatting to a chap who has a 911 but insisted that what he actually drives is a Porsche 911 Carrera 4 RS, NOT the standard Carrera RS mind- the Carrera 4 RS. If you're wondering whether it's an original Carrera 4 or from the re-introduction of the Carrera, I'll make everything clear by telling you that the 911 in question was, of course, a Type 993, not a Type 964. And it's got the 3.8l engine but you probably knew that. By the time he'd gone on to point out that his Carrera wasn't a trubo model but had the turbo model's body shell and some other components from that version I'd glazed over like a frozen pond and started to think about Neil Young.
I do this a lot. Canada's finest export occupies quite a lot of my thinking for any man with a reedy voice and massive sideburns and it was strangely fitting that he was now interjecting himself into my mind during a (one-sided) talk about the most complicated model history in motoring. Put simply, like the timeline of the 911, Neil Young's discography is one of life's great unfathomables- currently featuring 33 solo studio albums (19 by himself, 14 with any one of 6 different backing bands), 8 live albums, 3 albums with Buffalo Springfield, 4 with Crosby, Still, Nash and Young, one with The Stills-Young Band and a film score. He also directed a mental comedy film in 1982 in which he performed with post-punk outfit Devo.
As a general rule, he veers between country-tinged mellow work, often with a social/political bent; and feedback-drenched rock-outs that sound like God putting the apocalypse through a knackered amplifier. He demonstrated this most eloquently in just this past year when he released two classic live shows as part of his 'Archive' series- a solo show from Toronto's Massey Hall that's delicate as gossamer and one from the Filmore East with Crazy Horse that's delicate as Lawrence Dallaglio in mating season. They're both from an 18 month period between '69 and '71 when he was essentially pissing genius and churning out an album approximately every 30 minutes.
Every now and again, like any truly great artist worth their salt, Young goes a bit skew-whiff and turns out the sort of bizarre work which polite critics call 'challenging' and honest fans call 'crap'. A few years ago he came over a bit Pete Townshend and made a rock opera called Greendale (tragically, it's not about Postman Pat) while in 1982 he embraced the fledgling technology of synthesisers and vocoders to make 'Trans', an album so bad his record company sued him.
Naturally, I decided it was ripe for reappraisal. First of all, it's important to explain the genesis of this record. Neil Young has a son born with cerebal palsy and, at the time of 'Trans', had realised that he could communicate much better with his child is he spoke to him using a vocoder. Now if I was in this situation I'd get Steven Hawking to do the babysitting but instead Shakey (that's Young's nickname, based on his film directing alter-ego Bernard Shakey) decided that he'd make an album with all this electronic wizardry instead.
Things start going badly wrong on the cover which is a painfully 1980's graphical rendition of a bizarrely retro-futuristic car streaming towards the foreground away from a pinky-orange sunset. It's somehow appears to be made entirely of right angles. Things don't improve much on the inside either as one of the world's great troubadors is reduced to peddling songs with names like 'We R In Control' and 'Computer Cowboy (AKA Syscrusher)' which sound even worse than their titles suggest. There's even a techno remix of an old Buffalo Springfield number- a band about as ripe for an electronic makeover as George Formby or Robert Johnson.
Matters around this album were so shoddy that one song 'If You Got Love' was taken off at the last minute but no-one could be bothered to change the track listing on the original sleeve- leading to one of the few examples of music fans being glad to be short-changed. Young then took such brevity of material to new heights with his next record which took another left turn stylistically by being an album of rockabilly tunes, recorded with a hastily assembled band called 'The Shocking Pinks' and clocking in at less than 25 minutes. The cover features Young in a pink room, dressed in a pink suit, sturmming away on a guitar like Bill Halley gone metrosexual. The album was called 'Everybody's Rockin'.
And it's brilliant.
But that's Neil Young- wilfully changeable, always evolving, constantly looking to try something new, something wierd, something over-the-top or completely unexpected and all the while always making an interesting, and when he's on his game- brutally beautifully, noise. It's made his music endlessly fascinating and makes Young himself a captivating personality. If he was a car designer he'd probably be just as willing to do something silly which hardly anyone else would try. Like making the headlights shine into the car, or reversing the indicator-stalk action. Or, at a pinch, putting the engine in the back.
Just like a Porsche 911.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)