Bruce Dickinson has had a life well lived, with plenty of lows as well as highs. He has beaten throat cancer - a gruelling treatment, and fences internationally.
He is also a trained/qualified airline pilot
On some Iron Maiden tours, the band used a jumbo jet which was piloted by Dickinson, called 'Ed Force One'.
In this song from 2010 he describes the experience of piloting his plane and looking down at the Earth below:
Credited songwriters: Stephen Percy Harris / Bruce Dickinson / Adrian Frederick Smith
Curving on the edge of daylight 'Til it slips into the void Waited in the long night dreaming 'Til the Sun is born again Stretch the fingers of my hand Cover countries with my span Just a lonely satellite A speck of dust in cosmic sand
ZTT Records was a label that was particularly active during the 1980s, having been founded in 1983.
Their first signing was Frankie goes to Hollywood.
It was founded by Trevor Horn, Jill Sinclair and Paul Morley.
ZTT is an initialism of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti's sound poem Zang Tumb Tumb, which described "zang tumb tumb" as the sound of a machine gun.
One of their best releases was Propaganda's 'A Secret Wish'.
I used to have a Citroen with a sun roof and on a sunny day I played this loud as I drove around Yorkshire and Derbyshire.
Another classic which got played in the 1980s was Grace Jones' 'Slave to the Rhythm' which has wonderful instrumentation and groove... there are also endless remixes of their tracks, which was a particular feature of ZTT's work.
This is the 12" edition and the production on this track is incredible...
Quite a few musicians are very open about their political views of course. A Roger Waters live show is very political in nature, and not without controversy...
This track from the Jethro Tull album J-Tull Dot Com (bad title - based on their website at the time) is relevant to the atmospheric phenomenon which threatened to lead to record temperatures in some parts of the world when it was seen to be developing earlier this year, and the predictions about its impacts are quite dire. Certainly sea surface temperatures in the Pacific are off the charts...
It unbalances the climate of Australia and South America.
Lyrics by Ian Anderson reference some of the major aspects of an El Niño....
It's 41 years today since this album was released in 1985.
That makes me feel old. I had a copy on cassette and remember the original release and TV appearances to promote 'Running up that Hill'.
This was brought to the attention of a whole new audience when the music was featured on 'Stranger Things' and it went back to the top of the charts again.
There are some classic tracks on the album, and the whole of the second side of the album works beautifully together. More on this album and Kate herself in a separate post...
The Manor was owned by Richard Branson for a while in the 1970s.
It was used by a wide range of recording artists who recorded some classic albums there, including Tangerine Dream and XTC, and It Bites (who have appeared on the blog)
It was at the Manor that Mike Oldfield was given some time to work on a solo project with some support from Tom Newman.
Here's a short film made by Robert Reed about that.
The Manor was located in North Oxfordshire.
When it went up for sale in 2010, there was a booklet produced by the estate agent handling the sale:
The Manor, high altar of 1970s rock and birthplace of the legendary album Tubular Bells, has been put up for sale. The eventual buyer will snap up not only a grand 16th-century, Grade II-listed house in Oxfordshire, but also a large slice of music history.
Converted by a 21-year-old Richard Branson, the Manor was Britain's first residential recording studio. Opened for business in 1971, the Manor, at Shipton-on-Cherwell, lifted album-making out of cramped city studios and placed it in the countryside.
Among those who recorded there in the early 1970s were Sandy Denny, John Cale, Gong, Vivian Stanshall and the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, Faust and Tangerine Dream. Later came XTC, Black Sabbath, INXS, Rush, Radiohead and Cast.
This album features one of the finest vocal performances of any album, from Peter Gabriel.
It is a concept album which was released 51 years ago this year, but still sounds as fresh as ever. It was Gabriel's final album with the band and he left following the tour of the album which featured even more costumes than usual.
I have played this regularly for well over 40 years and have various versions of the album in different formats.
Geographically, it starts in New York and features a Puerto Rican character called 'Rael': an anagram of Real. He is a former gang member and a graffiti artist.
He has a series of bizarre encounters during the narrative of the album.
This New Yorker piece refers to it as 'the Ulysses of concept albums' - referring to James Joyce's impenetrable novel, and "representing a culmination of the excesses of the progressive-rock era and also, in some ways, a fracturing of them".
The album begins with Rael stepping out of the Times Square subway station where he has just tagged his name.
The singer has said that “The Lamb” is “like a ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ on the streets of New York,” a reference to John Bunyan’s allegory of religious salvation, composed in a jail and published in 1678. Both works are the products of vibrant imaginations populated by monsters. They share an overriding sense of life-or-death desperation.
Gabriel apparently also worked with the film director Jodorowsky to work out a possible film linked with the concept - that would have been quite something. The same director worked out a 9 hour version of 'Dune' which was never made. Check out 'The Holy Mountain' to see his style...
Someone has put together a video which explores this collaboration and where it may have led...
Spoiler alert / advisory: some imagery and language NSFW.
Belfast has had a troubled history, and music is an important part of the city's history. There are several pieces of street art commemorating some key local bands.
The Undertones were formed in the city. Here's one of their classics:
Sandra said that:
"The music scent in Belfast and unique history has created a stunning sound. Stiff Little Fingers are a specific example. Barbed wire love is about love across the peace line. Alternative Ulster is an anthem for hope in the City.
Every August they play Custom House Square in the city and it is unmissable for any Punk fan."
She also shared an album cover.
Greenday - "Saviors".
"The photo at front is taken in Belfast. It shows a young boy with a stone. The album cover is an altered version of the photo as the boy is smiling, he was not in the original.
The photo was taken in 1978, before I was born. It makes me think about just how bad it was here and how important it is that young people are integrated today. "
U2 were also linked with the city.
The lead singer of the Undertones: Feargal Sharkey now has a very geographical campaign going to try to clean up the UK's rivers which have been polluted by water companies.
I've mentioned Karl Whitney's 'Hit Factories' before and in the chapter on Belfast he references several bands who were linked with the city.
I have mentioned The Imagined Village a few times this year I think, as their music is definitely infused with place.
This is their version of a song which is an English folk song which has been recorded by numerous musicians and musical groups over the years and is a classic of the genre.
Steeleye Span are one of the other groups who have recorded a version of this song.
Another classic album released today.. and one of the very best... dense, emotional, complex and thrilling.It was the band's 5th album.
Here's the title track...
I saw some coverage of Jon Anderson and the Band Geek's first UK gig in Brighton a few years ago and apparently they opened with 'Close to the Edge'... I can't wait to see them at the London Palladium in a weeks' time...
The line-up included Pierre Moerlen, Steve Hillage and Mireille Bauer, plus Didier Malherbe and Mike Howlett as well as Patrice Lemoine. Some fine musicians there.
Image of Park Hill Flats above Sheffield Midland Train Station in the 1960s, taken by Flickr user sparkgap's dad.
Here's This Picture...
Let's play word association...
"Tower blocks..."
Try to avoid the following images: lifts smelling of urine, fear of crime, Ronan Point, concrete, demolition, windows, nowhere to play...
Why has this image developed ? Is this the image you had ?
The development company URBAN SPLASH has some intriguing web resources on their work to rethink our cities. Their website starts with an image of Park Hill Flats.
Several of their developments would be a useful counterpoint to the more negative images that people might have...
I used to live in Huddersfield, and just up from the road in Newsome where I lived was an old mutli-floored textile mill with a huge chimney which was sat empty, but would perhaps now have been redeveloped into luxury apartments.
Park Hill flats are an image I have seen regularly for the whole of my life: squatting on the hills on the approach to Sheffield from Rotherham - appearing as I sat on the 69 bus from Rotherham. I have spent some time wandering and driving through them at intervals over the past few decades as well - including when I worked in Sheffield at the Geographical Association's HQ. I've also been up to take photographs of them several times.
"Streets in the sky..." was the original plan for this block. They were built to replace slum housing which was of a desperately poor quality, with few facilities.
This is also the name of a musical created by Richard Hawley.
Each apartment had a front door which looked out onto a twelve-feet wide access deck ('street'), which ran from one side of the scheme to the other. Bridges carried the street through the entire scheme, allowing milk floats to trundle from door to door.
Jack Lynn was worried that the lobby space in other Modernist estates tended to become a no-man's land, serving neither public needs nor offering privacy to residents, and it was hoped that the 'streets' would solve this problem. He remarked enthusiastically on the different colours of linoleum at each doorstep as proof that residents' individuality was not being smothered by gargantuan surroundings.
But Park Hill's problems quickly became apparent. The streets allowed some of the worst aspects of urban life to remain (muggers found they made convenient getaway routes), whilst failing to preserve the better aspects.
They were never really streets in the real sense. Although the architects had included shops, a school, and a pub in order to create a distinctive community within the estate, the access decks were really just long walkways with none of the vibrancy, diversity, and organic feel of a city street which has grown and changed over decades or even centuries.
Read the text in the Urban Splash brochure to get a nice feeling for the importance of Park Hill flats.
Sheffield didn't just have Park Hill. There was also the Kelvin Flats and Hyde Park Flats.
Check out the WIKIPEDIA page, which suggests that Park Hill Flats are Europe's largest listed building...
LISTER MILLS, Bradford
Also don't forget the classic Geography Programme about Glasgow which features Basil Spence's designs, and the couple who live in them, and Kitty Murphy.
Here's 'This Picture'.... and a track called 'Blacker than...'
There were maps and illustrations created by Ursula, with some of them printed onto fabric hangings through which you walked. They included the settlements of the Kesh: the imaginary people whose history and archaeology was brought to life in 'Always Coming Home' - one of my favourite books by Ursula. A book was created to go with the exhibition.
A description of the book:
Midway through her career, Le Guin embarked on one of her most detailed, impressive literary projects, a novel that took more than five years to complete. Blending story and fable, poetry, artwork, and song, Always Coming Home is this legendary writer’s fictional ethnography of the Kesh, a people of the far future living in a post-apocalyptic Napa Valley.
Having survived ecological catastrophe brought on by relentless industrialization, the Kesh are a peaceful people who reject governance and the constriction of genders, limit population growth to prevent overcrowding and preserve resources, and maintain a healthy community in which everyone works to contribute to its well-being. This richly imagined story unfolds through a series of narrated “translations” that illuminate individual lives, including a woman named Stone Telling, who travels beyond the Valley and comes to reside with another tribe, the patriarchal Condor people. With sharp poignancy, Le Guin explores the complexities of the Kesh’s unified society and presents to us—in exquisite detail—their lives, histories, adventures, customs, language, and art.
In addition to poems and folk tales, Le Guin created verse dramas, records of oral performances, recipes, and even an alphabet and glossary of the Kesh language. The novel is illustrated throughout with drawings by artist Margaret Chodos and includes a musical component—original recordings of Kesh songs that Le Guin collaborated on with composer Todd Barton—bringing this utterly original and compelling world to life.
