Songs of Pals ~ seconds

 Firstly, a pal's track that has a video where I don a mask of Johnny Hallyday and dance to the beat poetry of contemporary confusion. Jimmy Andrex and the Bible of Dreams puts  a pin in the modern zeitgeist of unreliable facts and truths.

 

My pal Chimneyheart is about to change his name to Blazing Pebbles, so now seems a decent time to note this song that moreorless helped solidify our friendship a long, long time ago.

 

Manu Roig has released a mini-album of skittishly upbeat electronics - here's the lead track that just raises the serotonin the more it pops and claps along.

 

 And here's a favourite from Robert Sunday, steeped in a particularly English melancholy and wistfulness.

"The Wrong and Future Song " - a music video

 

 

This is a video for my track "The Wrong and Future Song" by Jimmy Andrex. It's from my album "Lawns of a Better Place".

Jimmy Andrex is a Northern Beat Poet of wit, insight and generosity. You should check him out.

Does the hand of fate prevent you from getting what you want?

 

The Wrong and Future Song

There’s a rock I thought I would throw, he said

There’s a whole mountain of shit I thought I would know

I expected a franchise that would never let go, he said

Then he played the wrong song.

 

There’s a piece-of-mind I thought I’d misplace

Tides of inspiration and ricochets of grace

Punching holes in the moon when I’m just fed up, he said

Then he played the wrong song.

 

“Where’s my Cornish cottage

By the edge of the sea?”

Living atop a magnum opus, by the sea

Daydreaming… daydreaming…

And then he played the wrong song.

Vinyl buying

Some Vinyl

 

Bought some vinyl at the London Film Fair.

 

I am a sucker for those odd Japanese 7-inch releases of film tie-ins that quite often don’t make sense. For example, in the James Bond section is the Nancy Sinatra single of ‘You Only Live Twice’ – a favourite song – with Sean Connery Bond emblazoned prominently on the cover. And the b-side is… ‘Jackson’, her duet with Lee Hazelwood? It's true that I am more an admirer of Bond Music than the films themselves (although 2006's 'Casino Royale' is the pinnacle for me) and I am a fan of the Sinatra/Hazelwood output, so it's all good.

 

 

 

And how about singles of the themes to coming-of-age classics ‘A Swedish Love Story’ of ‘Forbidden Games’? The latter especially gives 'The Third Man' competition in its jangliness.

 

 

 

And to ‘Melody’, which I have written about here. To repeat: I’m not a Bee Gees fan but can’t deny this song gets to me, where the orchestration swells and threatens to overwhelm with its longing; although it’s the Nina Simone live version that devastates. Must be one of the greatest songs of unrequited love ever written in an endless list. And it comes with a mini lyric sheet? When did we ever get that with our 7-inches?

 

 

 

And also Fumio Hayasaka’s score for ‘Seven Samurai’. This is the sound directly transferred from the film and put on vinyl (rather than taken from recordings), so plenty of dialogue clips. Reminds of when I used to record scores from VHS onto tape. The music ranges from percussive to choral to wind instruments. 

 

Amusements

'50s Garden Rocket - music video

Here is a new video for an old song. "50s garden Rocket" was the first Buck Theorem song, made when I was in the band I Am The Twister. That's my Twister pal Paul West providing some drums and xylophone. It was made on an old 4-track in the early- or mid-Nineties and spruced up digitally decades later. It features on my first effort, "Waiting Firecrackers".

I promise to pick up everyone.

Buck Theorem videos for songs

 Here are two videos I made to accompany my album "Breakfast in Exodus". They are both Covid compliant: masked up and no crowds. These are for "For You, I Go Ape,", and "Afterward, in the Afterlife".

Oh! So music can sound like that? Great!

Here is a list of songs that made go

“Oh! So music can sound like that? Great!”

My rule for this has been that I had to think this upon the very first listen. ‘Telstar’ and ‘In Dreams’ I can’t ever remember not knowing as I was in charge of mum’s 7inch vinyl collection, so they were always how I thought music should sound. I remember ‘I Ain’t Got No/I got Life’ fascinating me as a child; there was something I couldn’t quite fathom about it at the time.

These are all songs that I can remember the first time I heard these, so they are all of a certain vintage. Vangelis I heard first through watching ‘Blade Runner’, of course: that synthesiser diminuendo always gets me. Same for Ry Cooder and Julee Cruise.  I remember Art of Noise on Top of the Pops and the audience not knowing quite what to do. Joe Meek’s production on ‘Johnny Remember me’ has always been a standard for me, but it’s ‘Telstar’ that has the edge. 

For Tom Waits… well, I had heard many artists I liked referring to him, so I went into town and bought ‘Swordfishtrombone’ cassette on a blind buy, never having heard him before. I put it into my Walkman and played. I recall vividly walking down the high street and hearing the opening minute of ‘Underground’ and having my listening skills instantaneously realigned.

There are others, of course – Pink Floyd, early Human League, or  György Ligeti’s ‘Requiem For Soprano, Mezzo Soprano, Two Mixed Choirs & Orchestra’, the gleeful ridiculousness of ELO, and later The Pop Group, for example – the list is too long for favourites.

But I have loved these tracks a long time and they still provoke that initial response. I would say that this selection runs into my twenties.

1.     ART OF NOISE: Close to the Edit

2.     LEONARD COHEN: Suzanne

3.     LOWLIFE: Ramified

4.     THE THE: Infected

5.     DAVID SYLVIAN: Taking the Veil

6.     TOM WAITS: Underground

7.     JULEE CRUISE: The Mysteries of Love

8.     VANGELIS: Blade Runner

9.     RY COODER: Paris, Texas

10.  The TORNADOS: Telstar

11.  ROY ORBISON: In Dreams

12.  NINA SIMONE: I Ain’t Got No, I Got Life