Aug 22: My Desert Island Discs

A few months ago, I posted about Desert Island Discs and invited people to share their choices. One person has responded to the request so far - thanks!

I've been thinking of my music choices. These are subject to change of course, but at the time of posting, I reckon I would take the following:

Piece 1: Ommadawn Part One, Mike Oldfield - the GOAT 

Tubular Bells is the one that people always talk about when considering the work of Mike Oldfield, and his debut certainly had an impact, and launched the Virgin empire. This, his third album involved working with a wider range of musicians, and once again lots of overdubs and multi-instrumental virtuosity from Oldfield. There are also guests such as Paddy Moloney from the Chieftains who played the uillean pipes, and Les Penning.

There were some issues when recording. He faced a serious technical issue several months in: having almost finished recording side one, the recording tape started to shed its oxide layer, causing irreparable damage. Virgin delivered a machine so that copies of the master tape could be made and Oldfield could carry on working, but the same problem recurred, leaving him with no choice but to start again using a new brand of tape. Pierre Moerlen also played on this album.

Piece 2: Ará Batur - Sigur Rós

This is one of those pieces that builds and builds to a huge crescendo and I was fortunate to have been in the Royal Albert Hall when it was played live for only the 2nd time (the first time had been the night before...) There are several recordings of this moment online.

Piece 3: Headlights on the Parade - The Blue Nile

From the classic album 'Hats'. They remain one of my favourite live memories.

Piece 4: The Road not Taken - Bruce Hornsby

Unrequited love in the Appalachians, with a nod to Robert Frost's poem.

Piece 5: Close to Home - Lyle Mays

The final track from Lyle Mays' first solo album, released in 1986. 

Piece 6: Goodnight America - Mary Chapin Carpenter

An excellent version of this song from the 'Songs from the Movie' album which I first heard on the radio one evening driving back home. I saw Mary play this song live a few years after that.

Piece 7: The Lake - Mike Oldfield

No apologies for including a second long Mike Oldfield instrumental. This one was released in 1984, and later that year I made my first visit to Norway.

I had it on cassette on my Sony Walkman (remember those?), and listened to it while sat by a lake in the sun.

Piece 8: The Garden - Rush

The final track from their final album made with Neil Peart.

It's a perfect piece of music.

In terms of books, I am going to have to go with J. R. R. Tolkien's 'The Lord of the Rings'. I have a special Deluxe edition of the book which I was given for a birthday present over well over 40 years and is worth anything up to £2000 apparently.... it dates from 1979 and has gold leaf on the front cover and came in a special box.

And my luxury of course will be a stash of single malt whisky, specifically this one:

Please let me know your own Desert Island Discs.

I will share more contributions later in the year hopefully.

Aug 1: 2004

2004 saw me still teaching in Norfolk. 

We were still living in Snettisham by the coast and I was fairly settled, although always looking for new opportunities.

Jan Garbarek released 'In Praise of Dreams', which was a decent album.

The Blue Nile released their final album 'High'.

The line up was the same as before:

Robert Bell – bass, synthesisers

Paul Buchanan – vocals, guitar, synthesisers

Paul Joseph Moore – keyboards, synthesisers

Some of my favourite bands were now starting to get older too...

What was your favourite music from 2004?

Jun 28: A song by an artist whose voice you love

Of all the vocalists there are several whose tone stands out: Peter Gabriel is instantly recognisable; Kate Bush was unlike anyone else when she appeared on the scene; Aimee Mann of course.

I'm going to go for the voice of Paul Buchanan from 1989's album 'Hats' from The Blue Nile. I've mentioned them several times on the blog already - their name is geographical of course.

The song is called 'Headlights on the Parade'.

According to Buchanan the song's meaning is:

"It's about being alive and therefore lots of things, happy and sad, happen to you simultaneously, so what do you hold on to, really?"

Jan 12: Ticket Stub #1: The Blue Nile

Remember these? 

Before the days when you have your ticket as a QR code or bar code on your phone, or printed it at home using your own ink and paper - even animated for particular events at the O2 these days so even a screenshot isn't enough to deter the fakers...

I'm going to share some of my old ticket stubs which I took some pictures of back in the day. There were plenty more which disappeared into the mists of time... some others are tucked into CDs and LP sleeves I think.

This ticket was from a gig by the Scottish band Blue Nile. They have a very geographical name of course. They apparently picked their name while looking at a map.

I first heard them in the summer of 1988 on tape cassette in a bothy on the isle of Rhum.

It took place at Cambridge Corn Exchange in 1996. I've seen many a gig there over the years.

Because of the reluctance of the singer the band has hardly ever toured, and albums have been very infrequent.

We had excellent seats: on the 8th row and on the end of the middle section of seats. And you can't argue at the price. I went to this gig with my girlfriend of the time (now my wife for over 25 years) who also loved the band - she's an 80s girl. I also still have my polo shirt which I bought from the merchandise stand that night, and I can still fit into it. 

That's a reminder that we will also start sharing pictures of old tour shirts in a future post. So start hunting those out too....

This gig was absolutely amazing...

Here they are on Jools Holland's programme in that year, performing one of their classic tracks:

And here's Paul Buchanan performing with Peter Gabriel in a song from his 'Ovo' album.

The band are from Glasgow and this blog will explore the influence of cities on the sound of bands, and their cultural significance. Many other musical acts also come from this Scottish city. The band were referenced by Taylor Swift in a recent album.

The excellent piece by Kieran Curren in The Tribune linked to above explains more of the links with the city:

Seeing themselves at odds with some of the more trendy denizens of the Glasgow scene at the time, the group holed up in their flat in the city’s West End, often rehearsing all night through headphones, perfecting their sound. This would take hold on the 1984 LP A Walk Across the Rooftops, released on South Glasgow’s own Linn Records (an ad hoc label offshoot of their hi-fi company Linn Audio), adorned with a photo of the trio gazing through a shop window in the Southside’s Cathcart Road.

On Tinseltown in the Rain:

Much of their work is focused on the city of Glasgow itself, the city as a character, and the changes wrought by the early shock of the Thatcherite revolution. A Walk Across The Rooftops’ key track is ‘Tinseltown in the Rain’, today their most popular song in terms of streaming numbers on Spotify. Sounding like a possible hit in an alternate universe, ‘Tinseltown’ provides wry, contemplative lyrics where ‘tall buildings reach up in vain’, full of nostalgic dread (‘Love was so exciting’). It is also a hymn to the ‘one big rhythm’ of the city, the interrelationship between standardised consumption and the feeling of strange magic. It still resonates powerfully with Glaswegians to this day, the Glasgow that is in flux, taking it hard, but always emotionally open and expressive. Yet Buchanan has also spoken of its universality, its replicability—this could be anywhere (but in a good way).

And on Heatwave:

Buchanan’s resigned lyric is a riposte to the hyper-capitalist boosterism for greed, under the guise of economic growth: ‘Are we rich or are we poor, does it matter anymore?’ Much as the essential detail of the city—its almost-connected red sandstone tenements—is zoned in on in the title track, ‘Heatwave’ points out another target of Thatcher’s shock doctrine: ‘falling down, on the young and foolish’. Its vacant centre, its illusory quality, ‘straw houses, in the promised land’.

More on 'Hats' and the music and the struggles to make the album on this RTE Documentary, which starts with Matt Healy from The 1975 talking about how it influenced their music.

In the documentary they head for Kelvingrove in a taxi to visit the house where they recorded the music for their first album... and where Paul Buchanan could look out of the kitchen window across the rooftops...

I remember picking up the LP of 'Hats' when it came out from a record shop in a small town on the Norfolk/Suffolk border.

There used to be an app with a Walking Tour of the city but it was removed some years ago...

What's your favourite Blue Nile track?

Have added a few to the Spotify playlist today.

Let me know in the comments...