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Future-Past

David BowieSimple Minds

Michael RotherManic Street Preachers

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Hello, I’m Alexander Tate and I’ve been collecting vinyl since I bought a 7” with some winnings from the Penny Falls in an arcade whilst on holiday in the mid-eighties.

Over the years my collection has grown and my income less illicit, but vinyl still appeals most out of all the formats.

Visits to the Tuesday Market second hand stall in King’s Lynn and the Norwich Record Exchange filled my teens and my collection grew.

There’s special attention for items relating to my favourite bands, especially in my favourite format. While they require mint condition items, I can often be found the bargain bins searching for … well anything that catches my eye.

My house does look like a record store, coupled with boxes tucked away in the garage and under beds I should be looking at reigning it all in. Not a chance.

Obsessive? Yes. Compulsive? Yes, but all in alphabetical order.

All the following ar ticles appear at alexandertate.wordpress.comI can be contacted at alexandertate@optusnet.com.au

I also write for Born To Mum; a wesbite based on my approach to Motherhood.

Well, in fact it is many people’s approach as we all do it differently. As covered in the introduction, this site will cover many aspects of being a parent, but leaving some of the blood curdling, soft focus snapshots of our little cherubs firmly out of sight.

Mostly though, this is my variant, a Dad’s perspective, on one of the most rewarding, tiring, frustrating, tear jerking, red tape encountering and poorly paid jobs in the world.

I’m not perfect at it, and I’m as likely to write about my mistakes more often than any successes. No one likes a smart arse.

My older daughter is Ava and it is her adventures I hope you’ll be reading about her mischief making and knee grazing. My newest arrival is Bowie, another girl, as soon as she can, she may want to tell you her side of growing up in this house.

Aneala also lives here. She is my wife and the mother of the two girls, who, in future, may gang up with her upon me.

Come and join me online, on Facebook and Twitter.

borntomum.comfacebook.com/borntomumborntomum@optusnet.com.au#borntomum

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Co

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Patient Bowie

Cheap Trick or Bluesbreaker?

Johnny Marvels in Frontman Role

Cool and Colourful

Wham, Bam, Thank you Ma’am

Reich ‘n’ Roll

The King And The Dame

Has Digital Killed The Record Store?

Psychedelic Guitars And Electro-Rock

Revival Idol

Neu! Gold Dream

Modern Minds

Neu! Sounds From 40 Years Ago

Is the euphoria of Bowie’s comeback justified? 4

Jack White’s new record with extras 8

More than a modern axe icon 10

Bass-centric Britpop from Eugene McGuinness 11

Are MP3s a one night stand of instant gratification 12

Krautrock discso for the new millenium 14

Happy Birthday Elvis and Dave 16

A defiant record buying comminuty says not 21

Simple Minds and Devo delight 22

Billy’s knockout return 25

From combusitble guitars to brilliant electronica 26

Vintage themes become contemporary and progressive 28

Krautrock originals still ahead of the future 31

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Is the euphoria worth it? The clamour to raise Bowie further, to a previously unmatched iconic plain after an almost silent decade following nearly two being panned by critics and music fans, is all enveloping.

Yet, Bowie’s influence has been rumbling away for many years, just very few named him. Only those with very obvious references who had already made their mark were seen above the parapet.

Any androgynous being making electronic music was lazily pinned with a Bowie badge. Any hint of New Romanticism given a stroke of Bowie blush rather than the eye shadow of Duran.

Was he really still influencing these people, had no one else sown seeds within young musicians for 20 years? One may suggest the need for an icon like Bowie to shake us from the constant production of plastic bands and synthetic singers. Bowie’s constant recutting of his cloth, the feeling of the fibre in his fabric distinguishes him from many of his contemporaries.

The surprise announcement on his birthday of a new single and new album generated a buzz, almost a meltdown. It seems his silence had produced a rise in stock. Bowie had created a frenzy without lifting a finger.

Patient Bowie’s Spectacular Comeback

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Keeping out of the public eye gave more credibility to the opinion that Bowie had retired, maybe this time for good. We were all fooled by a carefully structured act of deceit. Of course there was an album coming out. Hidden in plain sight.

Where Are We Now? is a fragile piece of elegia, not to distant from Hours... or Heathen’s more tender moments. As his first new music in a decade this was again Bowie sidestepping the public, it’s not an honest indicator of what The Next Day holds. Yet, as a stand alone piece of music, it was perfectly measured and intriguing enough for the first whiff of his new record.

With everyone caught off guard and so little coming from Bowie HQ what are the informers to the public supposed to do at short notice? Search engines strained under the need for Bowie information, the speed of turnaround for every online news site causing extra panic. Magazines had slightly more time to file Bowie copy, yet were digging up old interviews as they couldn’t get anything new, covers adorned with Aladdin Sane to grab attention were in fact one in a bus stop queue of similar ideas on newsagents’ shelves.

This anti-PR is in fact some of the very best PR. The exhibition at the V&A already fired the starting gun with its own promotion, a display so unlikely to fail they had little to undertake in order to advertise their amazing collection of Bowie artefacts. Indirectly, Bowie was already in the news. The new music thrust him into a spotlight that beforehand was gathering dust.

Working on and off for two years, with his close network of trusted musicians all sworn to secrecy, a collection of songs were evolving with guidance from long time partner Tony Visconti. Even after his long musical break the new work has a flow from his previous, this is not a stark turnaround in Bowiesonics.

D A V I D

B O W I E

T H E N E

X T D A Y

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In fact it sounds every inch Bowie. The title track opens the LP with a recall of Lodger’s Repetition, second single The Stars (Are Out Tonight)’s funky bass and overlaid strings would shine amongst the gems on Reality.

There are more transparent uses of his past. So Lonely You Could Die closes with an echo of the almost funereal drum pattern of Ziggy opener Five Years.

Whispers of his portfolio float through The Next Day. It’s not a cherry picking of his highlights, because with close to 30 albums so much of Bowie’s work simply sounds like Bowie.

Dirty Boys is less obvious, a bass heavy, lazy blues number with honking sax telling the story of a Clockwork Orange style band of delinquents. Love Is Lost growls, throbs and threatens, Gail Ann Dorsey and Gerry Leonard thrill amongst Zachary Alford’s drumming, an early peak.

By the time Where Are We Now? appears the bass is smoother but no less prominent, the song’s growing presence increased by militaristic drumming and very quiet squalls of guitar.

Valentine’s Day, a pop song about a high school shooter, has guitar splashes from the perennially cool Earl Slick. If You Can See Me provides a return to Earthling’s drum ‘n’ bass interludes. But it is here the album loses the shock of the new. Not dull, but rather a trundle of template rockers, only the strange lyrics bring us back to Bowie at his intelligent and ingenious best. Bowie’s well read, and has a schoolboy desire to show off, to slip clever references by you without you knowing. Many writers and fans dig deep to uncover the sources and meanings, aiming to unravel what Dave is on about, as he delivers those unique vocals with a serve of upper class cockney.

The bass, and groove, are back with How Does The Grass Grow? Gerry Leonard continues to excel here and intertwines with Mr Slick to great effect on You Set The World on Fire, a 400m sprint of a track possessing an urgent riff with a desire for Bowie’s old the legs to pick up pace, quality and experimentalism for the home straight to the record’s close.

At its conclusion The Next Day contains the very best of Bowie, not a tired 60 something clinging to the limelight in his twilight. It’s a fully functioning comeback on all levels. His voice is strong, his imagination still turning ideas over at a rapid pace and he’s still producing something new.

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In times of austerity, everyone is looking to make their dollars count.

Bowie, and his record label, are no different and issued The Next Day Extra eight months after the initial multi-format release.

Some fans complained at further financial outlay, others rejoiced. It wasn’t a flimsy collection of outtakes and poor remixes.

In addition to the album, including the extra tracks available on some earlier formats, it housed a DVD of film clips, extra booklets and, most interesting of all, a disc of further new tracks and a couple of remixes. One in particular is worth the price of the box set alone.

LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy remixed Love Is Lost, one of the highlights from the album, and created a mammoth 10 minutes of smooth electronica. Not only taking the original and creating something quite different, his deft touch and musical intelligence allowed him to add the Ashes to Ashes melody in a homage to Steve Reich.

Bowie, noting the call for ‘cash in,’ placed the set on iTunes, so you could purchase what you wanted from the glut of tracks available.

Murphy has given subtle nods to his Bowie fanship before, his Lodger mimicking for This Is Happening.

With full page adverts in the UK press carrying no more than the full set of album lyrics or alternative suggestions for the record cover, Bowie is at his playful best. He’s working with people who understand his hunt for the new, something clever, pretentious even. It’s not just David Bowie, there’s a ‘whole’ containing many like minded individuals who understand the position he finds himself in, understanding his history and the pitfalls of making an effective comeback, when, for many of his contemporaries, you wish they’d stick to just looking back.

His return is well paced, highly creative and executed with sniper precision, as were all the PR moves and promotion surrounding The Next Day. The majority of songs are fantastic, the remainder are simply great. It is a strong and beautiful collection of work, one that only Bowie could make in his own unique way. And this is why he is being lauded on the highest iconic plain.

And the next dayAnd the nextAnd another day

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In recent years ‘B-Side’ has become a dust covered word, consigned to inhabit wherever record collectors hang out in search of a gem left off an album, a strange cover version or a rare live cut from last year’s tour.With the demise of the single, where do artists put their strange experiments in 2014?

“Experiments!?! Experiments?!?,” I hear Simon Cowell cry. Yet, not everyone wants their pop hopping and leaping from the speakers blinding us with its shiny radio friendly perfection.

Modern blues experimentalist, Jack White, records his imagination for his LP tracks, often showing White busting the Blues to an inch of its life. He has always had this to his music. So, why tuck away your innovation for the fans who buy such releases rather than for the wider world to hear and to help them to understand the noises in your head?White’s latest release, Lazaretto, does not suffer from over experimentalism. But it is filled with brain frazzling fretwork, peculiar noises, off kilter piano and an extraordinary blues-rock howl.

On the album opener, White states he has three women, ‘Red, blonde and brunette,’ and feigns shock and horror in such an over-dramatic black southern accent you wonder what you’ve let yourself in for.

Cheap trick orBluesbreaker?

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Yet with ‘That Black Bat Licorice’ White revisits the wilder elements of Elephant and Get Behind Me Satan era Stripes as he continues with a quirkiness that is often so rare in American artists. ‘High Ball Stepper’ is a huge instrumental laden with glorious distortion and a playful call.Are these the songs that White wrote when he was 19 years old and rediscovered years later in his attic that lead to Lazaretto selling over 138,000 in it’s first week of release, with 40,000 of those on vinyl?

No.

Is it not that good then?

Oh, it is good. Brilliant even.

But there’s something else within the limited edition “Ultra” LP which gets the collectors, and hipsters, hot under the collar. Not only are there the 11 listed tracks but also 10 unique gimmicks, including dual groove intros, songs hidden under the centre label, holograms which materialise as the record is being played and songs at 33, 45 and 78 rpm. The latter apparently a world first.

As per usual with White’s ThirdMan releases, he insists on giving the punters more than music in his own quest to keep vinyl sales turning over. With close to 300 limited releases in 13 years their impact is more important than revenue.

While it could be aimed squarely at selling records through a gimmick, it is nothing new. As discussed elsewhere on this blog, bands have been encouraging fans to buy limited editions for years.

I have no problem with it. I love this side to my addiction, er… no, addiction is right.

For White, I wonder if he wishes to get the maximum out of the format? To push the boundary of one speed and two sides. It certainly encouraged me to buy the vinyl. But CD is so boring these days and MP3s are an empty void. Yet as a music fan and collector, with vinyl being my preferred format, I didn’t feel conned, more, excited by it.

The music contained within these secret grooves at various speeds is some of White’s very best. Imagine the backlash if you had to shell out $50 for a transparent selection of humdrum songs for the Pope. Perhaps that’s why U2 gave their record away?

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Using the momentum gained from 2013’s The Messenger, Johnny Marr is back with a vibrant follow-up to his solo debut. Playland utilises this energy and opens vigorously with a succession of high intensity rock ’n’ roll songs.

As expected his guitar leads the way, but for all the guitar heroics, Marr needs a foil. He’s a very talented musician and competent lyricist but needs the pressure of someone casting their eye over his creativity then meeting it head on with their own, to produce a better whole as seen in with his work as a member of Electronic and Modest Mouse.

Although it doesn’t push any boundaries Playland is a modern sounding collection of guitar laced electronica. ‘Easy Money’ has a typical Smithsian jangle over an electrobeat, and it’s a formula Marr uses well. ‘This Tension’ carries an edgy introspection but otherwise the mood is upbeat, a decisive move away from The Smiths miserablism or the intense darkness of The The.

Marr is in a position to do as he pleases and lend his hand to almost anything and he has become more comfortable at being a frontman on this record, rather than just an axe icon.

J O H N N Y

MARVELS IN

F R O N T M A N

R O L E

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McGuinness became more adventurous with 2012’s The Invitation to the Voyage, which had trace elements of Parklife era Blur, but Chroma is a further sonic shift away from straight ahead British pop. He continues with occasional fey psychedelia and British queerness, not that it’s camp, but there is a lightness to both his voice and lyrics within his deft, often provocative, wordplay.

‘Godiva’ is a raucous opener echoing The Beatles’ ‘Day Tripper’, a perfect place to start when showing your ‘60s influence. ‘Immortals’ throbs and chimes with filmic quality from the same decade, while the vocals are pure New Wave. It’s suave and effortlessly cool, but it’s the fidgety bass lines which create an interesting listen for McGuinness’ fourth LP. This is a bass centric record, creating pace and groove, which gives the album a harder edge on his skewed pop vision. Smooth harmonies appear all over Chroma often dripping a honeyed feel over the tracks.

‘Deception of the Crush’ goes full blown ‘60s club house band, a shimmering back drop with black roll necks all round, while Heart of Chrome and Fairlight, with their pulsating undercurrent and frenetic twang, lead to a thunderous close of an LP which had the potential to fizzle out rather than pop at its conclusion.

McGuinness again displays his skill for concise pop, wrapping up his lovelife dramas in under three minutes, but while Chroma punches well, it lacks enough killer blows. He needs more quality to his consistency to be able to take on his contemporaries, Miles Kane and Jake Bugg.

Chroma doesn’t have an immediacy that grabs you around the throat and shakes your body down. These songs are less gaudy, yet more fluent than McGuinness has offered before, creating a more balanced and even set. His Britpop croon and various influences mingle easily and play well together, but are perhaps too numerous and unique to take on the mainstream; if crystallised they could take him into a higher league.

COOL ANDCOLOURFUL

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I haven’t paid much attention to the charts for many years, it’s not my musical home anymore.

But there was an article on the Internet that caught my eye. It noted that after The Voice had finished its 10 week run, 22 of the songs recorded by the contestants or judges dropped from the Top 100, with eventual winner Karise Eden’s ‘Stay With Me Baby’ plummeting from No.1 to No.54, the biggest drop in chart history.

Before that Celine Dion’s ‘My Heart Will Go On’ went the same way as the Titanic going from top spot to No.24. It appears The Voice has changed the singles chart into a one night stand of instant gratification.

Although there is a CD single available for Karise’s ‘You Won’t Let Me,’ most of her chart success comes from downloads, probably purchased on the night after the show as kids, who are probably online anyway tweeting their love for her, can pop over to iTunes and download what they need. Yet it is less than 2% of the TV audience.

But what do they own? A file? An icon somewhere on their phone or laptop? If they were to die in an accident tomorrow, they’d have no belongings for their parents to remember them by. OK, that’s a bit severe, but if I die, my daughter has piles of vinyl, cd’s and tapes to sift through and say, “Dad listened to some shit!”

I’m a different generation and I’m not going to say, “It’s not like the old days.” But it’s not like the old days. When I bought singles, I went after school, well, during school, to the local record shop. And if I were lucky some of my favourite bands would have limited editions. Picture discs, laser etched discs, gatefolds. And if I was extremely lucky, a box set that had extra contents as well as the vinyl; patches, posters and badges. That’s what my daughter will be looking at.

But why did they disappear? The finger points squarely at chart compilers. In the UK the chart was based on vinyl sales only, that were usually written in a book that shop owners would phone through to the compilers at the end of the week, which of course never lead to any fiddling of those sales at all.

Then came 12” and cassette single options and finally the CD single arrived. By 1991 the British Phonographic Industry had reduced the number of eligible formats from five to four, and were now counting sales through the scan of a barcode.

Four years later four became three. Record labels were not prohibited from releasing singles in more than three formats, but were required to identify the three eligible formats for chart compilation.

So luxurious box sets slowly died out as the cost was not offset by a higher chart placing through sales. Cassette singles went the same way, which left 12” and two CD options as the selected formats. Part One and Part Two CD sets enticing the public to buy it twice.

As downloads were becoming a more popular way of buying singles, chart compilers decided that a download could be available two weeks in advance of the physical product, thus giving longevity to the singles market, allowing the single to grow in public and slowly rise the charts, like the old days.

Gnarls Barkley quickly put that idea to the test by reaching No.1 on downloads alone in April of that year. Downloads did however revitalise the UK singles market, driving up sales from 32.3m in 2004 to 62.1m in the first 51 weeks of 2006.

So the aim for singles to be a longer-lived product failed, no more instances for an ‘Everything I Do (I Do For You)’ by Bryan Adams spending 16 mind-numbing weeks at No.1, or ‘I Will Always Love You’ by Whitney Houston being at No.1 for 10 weeks (1992) and Wet Wet Wet’s ‘Love Is All Around’ a 15 week chart topper in ‘94 anymore. Thank format for that!

It should be noted with a maximum format rule for chart eligibility all songs had the maximum amount of formats allowed therefore all sales meant chart eligibility. No box sets, no posters, no badges.

But these acts shifted units regardless of attaching their song to a film for extra promotion. It was bands such as Del Amitri, Gun and Hothouse Flowers using these box sets and limited editions to help them scrape into the Top 40.

Ah, that’s it, scrape. Was it the acts needing that extra push using box sets to gain those extra sales, to get the kids to become bigger fans by offering gifts with the purchase?

‘Wham! Bam! Thank you, Ma’am!’ Why MP3s don’t measure up to a 12” box set.

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Well, not all the time. U2, despite worldwide success still had not achieved a UK Number One single. In 1988 with Rattle and Hum about to be unleashed on our ears, and eyes with its cinematic release, the band needed a successful first single. Desire was released with a 7”, 12”, a 7” gatefold, a 12” gatefold and a CD single. All eligible to count towards sales, and the track duly hit No.1.

A year later Simple Minds were tussling with Michael Ball for the number one spot, midweek indicators showing Simple Minds were just ahead.

Their promotional team tried to get a box set out in the second week of release. That would normally take six weeks but they got the box made in three days. But the boxes came in flat and needed to be in the shops on Saturday to give the band that push to get to Number one.

The entire team spent all Friday afternoon putting 3,000 box sets together. The hard work paid off and Simple Minds got their first UK number one. Of course, on both occasions the strength of the songs, popularity of the bands plus other promotion helped but hardcore fans will buy multiple formats and it is sales that get you to the top of the charts.

But do today’s kids really want box sets and pictures discs? This 38 year-old one does. But if the bands I adored so much in my teens were knocking out box sets with posters now, it would be cringeworthy.

Very few of these reality competition winners ever have more than short-term success. The public get behind who they think is the best singer, or whose story tugs their heartstrings the most or more simply which gurning surfie is the fittest. But they don’t necessarily buy the product.

Times have changed, The Voice is a cynical money making scam. Karise’s album ‘My Journey’ was on sale days after her victory, many of the songs taken from her performances on the show and not actual new studio recordings.

Did she have a say in what songs she wanted on her debut, or was it Seal her mentor for the show? Or was it down to what publishing deals the Dutch-based Talpa Media Group could agree with Universal Music Group? They’re the force behind the, now, international show.

‘My Journey?’ Sorry Karise it should be ‘My 10 weeks on the nations current favourite reality show,’ as there was virtually nothing from your previous 19 years on earth.

So while the chart compilers have failed to negate the short life of the single and create a fair chart, record companies are seeking new ways to make money. Hence The Voice having close to a 25% share of the Top 100, Karise having four songs in the top 5. “Let’s release everything we can digitally while we’ve got the kids’ attention, all on a shoestring, then we laugh all the way through to next years Voice and do it all again.”

It’s harmless fun I’m sure. But music fans that stay music fans throughout their lives will always buy a physical product. They are also unlikely to fall for the manufactured pop of Karise, Sarah or Darren with their zero input to their musical output. Although I did enjoy Darren’s version of ‘Wherever I Lay My Hat,’ but not enough to spend $1.69 on a download, or a few bucks on a 7” box set with life size poster and badge. I should be so lucky!

So last week as I opened a 7” box set that I bought online from a record shop in the UK, unfolding the poster of some long haired, leather jacket wearing rock group that I wanted to look like, my wife stated firmly, “That’s not going up!”

You’re damn right it’s not going up, I want to keep this tidy, unmarked by Blu-tak and feel the buzz every time I do slip off the belly band from the box, carefully lift off the lid and unfold the poster and feel the sort of sensations that sent me dizzy with excitement half my lifetime ago. Certainly not the same as hearing a beep telling me my track has downloaded.

These are different days, and time moves on and the way I used to do things no longer can be done in 2012. As I’m able find that limited edition box set online I can relive some of the old days. But if Karise and Universal Music Group continue on their majority digital release path, those shops could go the same way as my beloved box sets. But that’s a whole other story.

For now I wish Ms Eden, Ms De Bono and Mr Percival, success and ask them to please enjoy it because you too may disappear. If the fans can’t own any CD’s, t-shirts, posters, books or magazines they have nothing to help their fan seeds grow in their fertile young lives, and that is where the interest drops off.

So while there is now little threat to topple the record of Frankie Laine’s ‘I Believe,’ which totalled 18 weeks at No. 1 in two sittings in 1953, the music industry is making money. Sales are going up and actual record shops are finding that customers are coming through the doors again. They’re just not buying The Voice products, they’re buying Jack White’s ‘Blunderbuss’, ‘Valtari’ by Sigur Rós, The Black Keys ‘El Camino’ and other artists who have an appreciation for the physical product you have to carry home.

Maybe everybody is happy after all. More music than we can possibly listen too, all becoming more widely available and websites allowing us to communicate with each other and enjoy our music and thoughts on it. A positive difference to the old days.

This article first appeared online July 2012

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Rather than a big fanfare, Primal Scream slipped back into the disco with 2013 in February.

With songs appearing on the internet rather than the radio and social media covering every slight movement these days, easing their way back in probably suited the band who had apparently turned down landing at Luton Airport because it wasn’t rock n roll enough.

After spending 20 years as magpies to a man and producing a varied offering of albums at every turn More Light shows Primal Scream have found their beat; they actually, finally, sound like themselves. Beautiful Future was the prophetical start and, five years later, this album continues the groove.

But the departure of Mani back to the reformed Stone Roses could have left a gargantuan hole. He single-handedly woke the Scream Team from a heroin riddled Stonesian nightmare, bringing with him a battering range of bass lines as heavy as an iron army marching with only utter destruction as intent. Simone Butler steps into Mani’s size 10 kickers, playing with ingenuity and subtleness on a less bass-centric record.

2013 is a state of the nation address that opens with an almost comedic police siren, its rhythmic Roxy Music sax sitting alongside Neu!’s Hallogallo beat - Krautrock is a touchstone the band continually stroke. Gliding along for over nine minutes gives Bobby Gillespie plenty of time to checklist the ills facing Britain in, er, 2013.

Politics is a subject Gillespie enjoys, rebellious behaviour a stylistic default setting, and More Light gives him over 70 minutes to mix the two. Yet this isn’t Billy Bragg or Rage Against the Machine political activism, the message is delivered in the Primal’s own bleeding spirit of rock ‘n’ roll style.

Reich ‘n’ Roll

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A strange Indian mantra teases River of Pain downstream, acoustic guitars with a ripple of castanets, before David Holmes’ film score production adds drama to a finale of glorious 1950’s MGM strings, as the Eastern rhythm returns like a smoother cousin to Tomorrow Never Knows. These songs are noticeably less concise, and the expanded workout can be sprawling, but the variety within engages the listener, encouraging them into a kaleidoscopic tunnel of sounds and colours. A hint of psychedelia weaves through the LP, where traces of Can and Hawkwind circle the periphery.

Holmes’ production hand brings stability to the rock ‘n’ roll train; rather than lurching from disco to dub, the band are coherent and are sounding like, well, like Primal Scream. This isn’t to say it’s a pastiche of previous primal palettes - although It’s Alright, It’s Ok is a fair echo of Movin’ On Up.

Hit Void’s urgent drumming is the foundation for a swelling, industrial grinding backdrop for Gillespie’s plaintive repetition of the title. Then a Robert Fripp guitar comes straight from Scary Monsters to accompany a squawking sax to close four blistering minutes. There’s more procurement on Tenement Kid as the bass line comes from the same block as Pink Floyd’s Money.

For what is thrown at the Scream Team in regards of stealing, massaging and twisting other people’s work, here is a group of music fans so devout that it can only produce something that will beat seven shades of shit out of the blandness sent through the airwaves of today.

So in an act of honesty Gillepsie, Innes and Duffy invited Robert Plant to sing on Elimination Blues, rather than just ripping off the best voice to hold a senior citizens card. Plant and Gillespie trade lines in this slow country blues take. Some exquisite female backing vocals compliment the deep male semi-drawls as a squally guitar rivals for the spotlight. A standout.

Another bright light is Invisible City, which fizzes and bubbles with funk, its Teutonic pulse and warm bass line creating a joyous dance floor shuffle. Holmes reviving his Las Vegas skills from his work on the Ocean movies liberate the listener from the extreme times the band are documenting elsewhere.

With Relativity we’re back to the lengthy tracks of squelches, steady beats with Kevin Shields lending his buzzing, thick guitarscapes, until halfway through it becomes a dreamy, delicate, meandering vision.

And this it what makes the album seem longer than it actually is, it’s not short, but the lack of a couple distinguished pop gems gives the album a protracted feel, but there’s quality shape shifting within nearly all of the tracks to stave off tedium.

The shackles of parody haven’t fully been kicked off though, Movin’ On Up It’s Alright… closes the record with it’s euphoric gospel lifting you away from the apocalypse, doing exactly what is says on the tin.

Unfortunately, Chairman Bob and co will eternally have Screamadelica to chase, and will probably always fail to catch, but a deeper look in to their musical well delivers a few belters. It is, after all their wild forays into various aural pastures through each album, a band who have now located an identity that contains all their influences and they’ve used this alchemy to produce a cohesive connection to the their last long player and to sound vital on this one.

More Light is a knowledgeable and deft record, one which displays creativity and ambition, heralding their rampant diversity while acknowledging the spectre of their influences; a band who, from this awareness, have confidently found their own sound. Maybe the myth of being a universal tribute act has finally been XTRMNTD.

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Happy Birthday Elvis Aaron Presley, who today would have been 78. It meant an awful lot to one schoolboy who years later was thrilled he shared the same birthday as The King, he felt it gave him some sort of cool cache.

But it was Little Richard who was a bigger influence on this young man as he hit his teenage years in south London. He even sent off for some pictures of the performer from the NME, one came back with the corner ripped so he Sellotaped it together.

So while Elvis gyrated and ate his way to oblivion and Little Richard blitzed his ivories with boogie-woogie flamboyance, what became of that south London schoolboy? Well, David Robert Jones became David Bowie, Ziggy Stardust, the Thin White Duke, mainstream superstar, a cog in Tin Machine and renaissance neo-classicist. No, really.

Today the Dame reaches 66. While not a zignificant milestone it is however a time to reflect on a life of incredible influence. Not everybody likes David Bowie, it happens to all rock stars of a certain magnitude, Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, Bono, but his influence and involvement across a variety of media cannot be denied.

Often at the forefront, through being acutely aware of emerging trends, Bowie was often labelled an innovator. In reality, it is perhaps Bowie taking it in to the masses. Which he certainly did with Let’s Dance and the Serious Moonlight Tour. It was this move that took Bowie from influential cult to mainstream madness, all blonde, tanned and ripe for mass consumption. It was falling from here to the low of 1987’s Never Let Me Down, which includes a rap with Mickey Rourke on Shining Star (Makin’ My Love), that conveniently splits Bowie’s fame in half.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE KINGAND THE DAME

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Bowie’s 1960’s was a sporadic search for his niche, which even now is hard to define stylistically. After the single Space Oddity charted at No. 5, just ahead of the Apollo 11 moonshot, outer space was left alone until the extra terrestrial took Bowie by the hand again and he emerged as Ziggy Stardust with a band called the Spiders from Mars. This is where Bowie took off.

No one anywhere had seen a 6ft redheaded, platform booted creature before. Bowie immersed himself in it, yet Mick Ronson, Spiders guitarist and Yorkshireman, needed to be convinced about the new band-look. Bowie pleading for him to just put it on, it’ll work. “Are you sure?” questioned Mick. Ziggy, er, David was right. It did work, and continued to do so through the Aladdin Sane LP and tour through America. The two became provocative live foils as the ultra-theatrical taboo busting stage show peaked at London’s Hammersmith Odeon on 3rd July 1973.

“Not only is this the last show of the tour, but it’s the last show that we’ll ever do,” announced Ziggy before the band launched into the finale of Rock n Roll Suicide. He really should have told the band beforehand though.

Keeping the red hair Bowie left glam rock for a more soulful sound, or was it soulless as the cocaine took over. Years later, Bowie joked David Live, recorded on his 1974 Diamond Dogs tour, ought to have been titled ‘David Bowie Is Alive and Well and Living Only In Theory.’

A year later Bowie was living in America, drowning in cocaine yet producing acclaimed work. Fame was a US No. 1 and co-written with John Lennon, although Bowie said it wasn’t one of his favourite songs from the parent LP. The youth of America were dancing in the street and bought Young Americans in enough units to send it Top 10.

To add some credibility to his white plastic soul, Bowie bought in crack musicians from the funk and soul community, including Sly and The Family Stone’s drummer Andy Newmark and Luther Vandross. To keep the feet moving Bowie wished for the tracks to be recorded in one take, with producer and long time collaborator Tony Visconti claiming they hit 85% live.

1969YEAR

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With Station To Station the climate got colder, his image starker and his cocaine usage colossal, yet the music is romantic, often religious yet darkened with a dose of the Occult and Nazism. But Bowie never looked as good than he did now though, his ice cool Weimar look, constant Gitanes cigarette and flop of hair. Despite his detachment from the world around him this is a key Bowie record and one of surprising elegance, innovation and emotion.

With the Nazi fascination and the Krautrock influence it’s not a surprise he relocated to Berlin with Iggy Pop at the close of the Isolar Tour. Aiming to kick the drugs what was he doing going to Europe’s heroin capital with Pop? To be fair he took Brian Eno along too, some work had to be done. And how it was. With two Pop albums and three from Bowie it was a productive period, even if the drug use continued. There are calls that Bowie tried his ideas out on Iggy’s The Idiot before fine tuning them for Low, then sneakily releasing his LP before Pop’s. But Bowie’s aim was to write a soundtrack for The Man Who Fell To Earth, Nic Roeg turned it down, so some of that became Station To Station and some became Low.

But why are these albums considered influential? One whole side of Low is just ambient noodling, the suggestion of Krautrock emerging from the Teutonic shadows not quite the truth. Eno is hardly a proficient musician. His part in early Roxy Music was mainly playing with electronic sounds. But he has plenty of ideas, and unique ways of creating new sounds and finding adventure down untrodden sonic paths. Eno created sound for Bowie’s vision. Low and “Heroes”, both from 1977, are very original and famed for the cavernous production. The staggered microphone set up for recording the vocal for the track “Heroes” being a perfect example.

After side stepping the public, becoming a superstar again could be Bowie’s only option, Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) initiated a steep upward trajectory creating equilibrium between critical and commercial acclaim. But the legacy of Let’s Dance and its hybrid of blues-rock in a dance format emptied Bowie creatively and slide back down began, ending rather abruptly with Never Let Me Down and the Glass Spider Tour in 1987.

1976 1977 1983

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Tin Machine was not the democracy ‘Dave’ claimed it to be, but take the very best of those two original albums and there’s a heavy blues rock giant. Under The God, Prisoner of Love, Baby Universal and You Belong in Rock n’ Roll all welcome beneath the umbrella of Bowie’s best work.

But Bowie was still thirsty and looking for water. By asking Mick Ronson to play guitar and Nile Rodgers to produce his next work, he was being quenched. He resurrected his balladeering croon, yet Bowie claimed it wasn’t harking back to the past with a desire to make Let’s Dance part 2. But the resultant ‘Black Tie White Noise,’ a competent 90’s hybrid of blues-rock in a dance format, but a kick-start had taken place.

More electronica appeared over the next brace of records with ‘1. Outside’s cyberpunk drenched with Eno’s electro industrial sounds. The album was subtitled “The Ritual Art-Murder of Baby Grace Blue: A non-linear Gothic Drama Hyper-Cycle,” which suggests Bowie was back to his pretentious best. With Earthling containing elements of drum and bass, boundaries of what was expected from him were being bent, pushed and, in some cases, pummelled into oblivion. This left Bowie tired, as depicted on the sleeve to the mellower follow up, ‘Hours…’ It’s a serenely acoustic offering, a more melancholy and reflective Bowie.

‘Heathen’ is the zenith of this renaissance, the highest charting album in nearly 20 years and some of the strongest reviews since Scary Monsters. Here, there’s a harder rock edge to the electro, courtesy of Pete Townshend’s pugilistic guitar wallop, which creates a fine beast. It’s still reflective, but louder, punchier than the preceding collection.

1989 1996 2002

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In 2003 Reality saw a sparky full-length album. A poppier, happier feel to this collection, followed by a world tour showing a full range of Bowie’s catalogue proving the brightness of his star and the longevity his songs.

So nearly 10 years of silence from a former prolific artist, an acutely blocked artery requiring an angioplasty leading to a slow burn of creativity, has been broken with the announcement of a new album in March 2013 entitled The Next Day.

But the catalogue of a chameleon there for all to see in any record shop, the electronic chill of Low, early folk rumblings of Space Oddity and Hunky Dory, the pop nuggets of Let’s Dance or the full on glam rock of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars – an album so complete it is almost perfect in its conception.

It is, however, Station To Station I’m playing for his birthday - the three stage dramatic opening title track, the pure funk of Stay and Bowie’s best vocal on Wild Is The Wind.

The Victoria & Albert Museum in London is holding a retrospective of David Bowie’s career with unprecedented access to his archive, including handwritten lyrics, original costumes, fashion, photography, film, music videos, set designs and Bowie’s own instruments. It’ll be a fascinating insight into one of popular cultures more important movers. Sometimes, you may not be able to see or hear his influence so easily. It’s there, perhaps more so than Elvis Presley’s, but without both the view across 40 years of popular culture would be a vastly different landscape.

It’s no game, but did anyone pick up the placement of random Bowie songs and album titles in the article?

2003 2013 202?

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With many music fans buying items online it may be the case.

But where does this leave the owners of local second-hand shops and the collecting communities?

Recent figures show sales of the physical product are down. CD sales are down 21 percent while digital sales are up 30 percent, according to ARIA’s 2010 Wholesale Sales figures.

Collectables are proving one way to survive in a changing market. Rockaway Records owner Scott Johnson says he saw the shift

“We were one of the first with a website, we compliment our range of original collectables with new collectables,” he says.

“But it’s gaming that’s affected these sorts of stores more than anything else. The young kids buy games rather than three or four CD’s. We then added Total Entertainment to our name. We stock music, movies, memorabilia, it’s a true music store.”

Egg Records owner Ric Trevaskes, a more traditional second-hand shop, says he enjoys talking to people so has no intentions of going online.

“A lot of my customers come everyday, just to see what has come in. People who shop online probably talk online, but there are still a lot of people who don’t. There’s definitely a community here.”

September’s record fair in West End proves how large this community is.

With so few shops like Egg in Brisbane many fans are forced online. Fady Ibrahim, a collector from Coorparoo, shops online more than he’d like.

“It’s brilliant in what it’s done in terms of being able to pick up something you’re trying to find. I would much rather walk into a record store, but the reality is sometimes you have to do it online.”

It appears the best way to survive is to not wholly change with the times, but to be aware that the times they are a-changing.

This article first appeared online October 2011.

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record store?

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ELECTRO-ROCKPSYCHEDELIC GUITARS,

A beautiful lunchtime at a Queensland winery was further enhanced as a Sean Kelly lead Models brought their various musical styles, including the Caribbean feel of Barbados, to Mt. Cotton. An easy introduction to the day’s line up, they pleasantly entertained the growing crowd.

The Church arrived early with the promise of a longer set, which kept the congregation happy for this mass. As a frontman, Steve Kilbey puts in great effort to help lure you away with his gothic vocals to the dark corners where the music lives. The band create an almost epic wall of sound, mostly due to the interplay of Peter Koppes’ six-string with Marty Willson-Piper’s extra-ordinary psychedelic fret work. The monolithic Reptile lead the way and a feedback laden You Took closed the set from these Australian legends.

Devo look like a mixture of dental hygienists, aging Thunderbirds and party cruise pensioners via their frequent costume changes, as they delivered their unique, spiky, discordant pop. The co-ordinated stage moves and visual smack is evidence of their on going popularity and relevance, their sonic blitz frying some already sun-affected brains. These art rockers have loyal fans, but the message was spreading, it wasn’t just the power domes that were nodding through this enjoyable set.

The dazzling computer graphics behind them stating ‘Are we not men? We are Devo!’ getting the teatime audience fully involved, showing these two sets of brothers can still command a crowd, along with an old age pension.

Simple Minds are not so easily described these days. Much of the public have forgotten the early electronic sound influenced by Bowie, Roxy Music and Neu! When pushed, they’ll probably recall the flag waving politicos of the mid eighties.

ON A GRAND SCALE MAKE A DAY ON THE GREEN ONE TO REMEMBER.

AND

COSTUMECHANGES

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So what do Simple Minds do to stay relevant and, if you’re being generous, so popular? They create an amalgam of all you believe them to be, and become an electro rock juggernaut.

Earlier this year the band toured on the back of a five album box set, 5x5, which contained their first 5 records. The tour was based on 25 songs per night, five from each album. Hardcore fans rejoiced! Fans of the global hits were bemused. But the tour proved a success with fantastic reviews as Simple Minds gained some critical rehabilitation.

The success of this tour, aside from its uniqueness, was due to the incredible work of keyboard player Andy Gillespie and guitar hero and founding member Charlie Burchill, who reconfigured the back catalogue to inject fresh sonic blood as new flesh was applied to old bones.

The dramatic intro music plus dimming lights prepared the scene for Simple Minds to launch into Waterfront, the never tiring classic is a call to arms. Its pounding bassline and chiming guitar a green light for the crowd to clap and jump in unison. The throbbing bass becomes a funky groove as Love Song brings back the memories. In 1981, on their first visit to Australia, it was Love Song that set them on the way to their first gold disc, audiences lapping up the bass and rhythmic style so often found in Australia’s domestic rock scene.

Kerr’s stage presence has changed over time too, from the tip toeing, precise movements through to stadium kicks and legs apart singing, he’s warped the two, creating both subtlety and dynamism for his front man credentials. Even at one point considering swinging the mike by its lead. Perhaps the close proximity of backing singer Sarah Brown kept him in check.

The band move between the songs very easily, this seamless flow showcases the consideration of how the show has been put together. This Fear Of Gods, a track of towering menace from Empires and Dance, does side step a few people but those who know the catalogue, and the 5x5 ethos, cheer and sing even louder. It’s a true highlight, with a response suggesting fans don’t wish to wait too long to hear it again.

See The Lights, with its two guitar breaks, nestles surprisingly well between This Fear and Sanctify Yourself, as the band head back into their stadium glory and crowd singalongs. Kerr encouragingly offers the mike to the participating crowd showing a band at their most persuasive as the audience gathers in their collective hands.

Not only does the music finely interweave, so does the band as a whole. Both Burchill and bass player Ged Grimes know how to work the stage, Burchill has enough solos and riffs to take the spotlight while Grimes stalks behind the front pair throwing quiet rock poses. Sarah Brown’s powerful back up vocals, and some female glamour, occasionally steps forward to show her prowess.

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It’s only poor Mel Gaynor, stuck behind the drum kit, who doesn’t get a moment to share with the fans bar his ‘best rock n roll drummer in the world’ introduction.

As the la la las from Don’t You (Forget About Me) fade, the piston-like intro of New Gold Dream powers in to life, a stone cold classic that bridges those early electro years to when the band strode into the stadiums. In its full blown ethereal beauty on a hot summer’s night, arms are raised to the heavens praising the trance like swirl.

Someone Somewhere (In Summertime) was perfect for the evening, and Kerr’s warm voice burnished a deep, lush soundtrack. This must be what maroon velvet sounds like.

Alive And Kicking’s big chorus saw him trade vocals with back-up, Sarah Brown, and Ghostdancing’s frenetic opening guitar kept everyone revved up, before a synchronised blaze of lights and a bow to raucous applause.

Kerr stays to take in the view, a sea of the delirious and sunburnt flowing up the hillside. The hot, the sweaty and the hoarse at the front look at each other eyes wide at an energetic finale to a cracking day.

This review also appears at Dream Giver Redux, a Simple Minds fansite.

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Idol has successfully dug up a thirty year old bottle of peroxide hair dye and used CPR on the contents to create a classic sounding Billy Idol record.

After the catastrophic ‘Happy Holidays,’ Idol’s career was on a knife edge. Fortunately, he pulls back from the edge of the precipice with ‘Kings and Queens of the Underground.’ Idol eschews becoming a cartoon cliche of his past, as the mood here is a little reflective and more reserved.

The LP is more multi-faceted than you’d expect. There’s songs with a flash of flamenco and sensuality, some with a touch of slow, tense doom as Idol’s dusty musical attic is given a spruce by bandmates Steve Stevens and Billy Morrison.

Bitter Pill and lead single, Can’t Break Me Down, are evidence Idol is able to produce pop from his punk and brew up some fun. Energetic, pulsing synths are a prerequisite on an Idol/Stevens track, and their calling card is all over this record, peaking on Postcards from the Past. Where as the rather clumsy title track stumbles with all the deftness of a sixth form musical.

There’s dual PR at work as Idol’s autobiography hits stores just after the record, to suggest the songs are a companion piece would be, well, idle. But when writing your story at 60 it’s hard not to place such reminisces into song.

Love and Glory possesses trace elements of cinematic widescreen grandeur so huge you can see tomorrow’s weather on the far horizon. Impeccably paced, a crescendo is reached via smooth ascendance, with the only place left for Idol to go is full tilt, where Stevens bends his guitar around the holler.

It’s a colossal work of surging energy from an artist whose vital signs were close to flatlining. With his iconic clenched fist, Idol delivers a knockout.

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After an almost repellent idea of an acoustic Manics LP proved to be a wondrous success of widescreen grandeur, the band, again, produce a Cruyff turn by having their synths turned up to 11 for Futurology.

Manic Street Preachers have a slight reputation for gently switching style from LP to LP, the previous move with an emphasis on electronica disappointed. Lifeblood, while selling well and containing two hit singles, failed to negotiate the new ground with any success. There were traces of a band trying something new to maintain public interest.

Here, they continue seamlessly, from Postcards From A Young Man rock through Rewind The Film’s acoustics to Futurology’s rhythmic beats and icy waves of electronica, with sophisticated triumph.

Without doubt, the European shadow of Simple Minds’ early work shrouds this record, Dreaming A City is a bona fide steal of Theme for Great Cities and lead single, Walk Me To The Bridge, acknowledges singer/guitarist James Dean Bradfield thoughts, “Simple Minds were crystalline gods to me.” Yet, the Manics have not created a clumsy homage to those electronic art-rock records, the sound is genuine, and these pieces are emblematic of the whole record.

Wire’s bass pulses with hard Eurodisco as Bradfield resists replicating Michael Rother’s elegiac guitar work. Keeping away from the white Levi clad, Marilyn emblazoned bare chest of the front man, leaning back as yet another Slash dream is executed, he evokes Robert Fripp’s fretwork with Bowie. Another key touchstone in accomplishing the right atmosphere for this Berlin inspired collection.

Krautrock’s motorik beat is not a mere repetitive snap on the snare, Sean Moore’s timekeeping precision shows a militaristic discipline on Divine Youth, as Georgia Ruth delivers a soft, haunting vocal in her duet with Bradfield, which is a counterpoint to German actress, Nina Hoss, whose stern talking on Europa Geht Durch Mich, provides a further Teutonic feel.

Let’s Go To War is erie and threatening, powerful and direct, and would not be out of place on Scary Monsters. But the sound of Hansa pulses through The Next Jet to Leave Moscow. This is the most obvious lean to Krautrock, backing Nicky Wire’s lyrics, which fit the sonic mood and embrace the Neu! sound of the band, creating images of Europe’s politically tumultuous 80s.

NEU! GOLD DREAM

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Through the LP there are bleeps and pops, which bubble and fizz as Moore takes note from Dieter Moebius by adding wild embellishments to the glacial tones and frantic throbbing. The Manics show they Can as there’s flashes of New Gold Dream in amongst the Cluster, which sparkle in this amalgam.

Recorded at the same time as last year’s Rewind The Film, which was overflowing with melancholic nostalgia, Futurology sounds very distant from its predecessor in its urgent modernity. Deutsche kosmische musik was the sound of the future 40 years ago and is still attracting visitors today.

Futurology is brilliantly realised electronica, and even more startling because it is unlike any of their records beforehand, yet still sounds like it’s mined from those Welsh hills.

Nearly a quarter of a century has past since their combustible beginnings, yet the Manics are remarkably consistent with their recent output. This is a very honest record from a band many thought on the career circuit, which makes what unfolds within astonishing. This is a band who sound refreshed, oozing with avant-garde vigour, whose future could take them anywhere on life’s autobahn.

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Simple Minds have blown down some cobwebbed tunes, taken them to the top of the highest peaks in Scotland and come back with a blast of the freshest air.

As an album, Big Music is thick with dance floor rhythms and generous keyboards opposite hard guitar, reminiscent of their earlier work.The pre-release concerns of five years in the making, numerous producers, covers and revamped versions, is that maybe Simple Minds had finally trundled to a halt after belting out their back catalogue for the past few years, despite gaining ground from the previous two releases.

Yet, this variety and patience gave the band great impetus. In working with Iain Cook, from Chvrches, and older producers, Andy Wright, Steve Hillage – from 1981 Sons/Sister long players – and Steve Osbourne, Simple Minds used everything in their reach to create something which represents their identity whilst still looking forward, as they arrive at another critical point in their career.

With well documented love from the Manics and Bobby Gillespie, plus few other musos hitching a lift, it seems Simple Minds’ rehabilitation was already well underway. Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill had to prove this wasn’t nostalgia or good timing.The almost spellbinding opening of Blindfolded and Midnight Walking indicates how far the band wish to dream. In a seismic shift, both lean towards the club rather than the stadium.

Lead off single Honest Town’s haunting melody looks back at Someone, Somewhere (In Summertime) with crisp modernity offered by co-writer Cook, one of the young generation declaring Simple Minds as a crucial inspiration.

Inviting outside songwriters doesn’t always work well with the chemistry of a songwriting axis as aged as Kerr/Burchill’s, yet Cook isn’t overawed. Some ground was conceded and understanding on both sides allowed this partnership to grow. He even tempts Kerr into holding back his vocal.

MODERN MINDS

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Warming after its early dark electro chill, the album emerges shimmering in the sun, with synths from New Gold Dream spliced with Sparkle thunder, irresistible hooks and slow-burning tones.

Amongst all the synths and programming, Burchill’s guitar hasn’t been excluded, the effects and textures are all present and correct. The solos are infrequent but the impact is staggering, the jagged riffs on the title track shakes you to the core with a wall of electro-rock.

The critical moment comes in the form of a cover which was inspired by one of their original compositions, which the band first tackled five years ago, then revamped in 2014. Oh, poor Jim and Charlie must be running out of ideas. Well, this time they’ve nailed it.

Let The Day Begin gives the current Simple Minds an electro energy fit for stadiums and arenas pointing to the very best of their stadium sized canon. And in doing so, they give Waterfont a natural successor of equal grandeur; pumping bass, huge chorus vocal and even a hint of bagpipes for extra Scots appeal.

The re-imagined Blood Diamonds adds further gentleness with Kerr’s strong yet sensitive vocal amongst Simple Minds’ familiar electro romanticism. It’s the closest to a missing ballad on an LP which is a propulsive listen, settling into a Sons era rhythm for Kill or Cure, with Sarah Brown’s backing wails a highlight.

A decade of continuing improvement culminates with the hypnotic thrum of Spirited Away, this restrained melancholic, delicate tune becomes rich and uplifting.

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There’s a strange dose of sorrow being cajoled by an energetic spirit, which allied with the bluster filling your ears over 12 tracks, has, at first, created a strenuous listen. Left to settle, there’s vintage Simple Minds aiming to be contemporary and progressive, while offering a full reward of subtleties which tip toe out from between the layers with repeated airings as songs find their inner joy.

With the recent U2 PR faux pas, old comparisons are less valid than before. Simple Minds have recorded a landscape of sounds with their customary themes yet retain a vision of the future.

Kerr’s labelled this album the third in a triptych, yet Big Music is such a step from 2009’s Graffiti Soul with its experimentalism and electronic foothold, Simple Minds stock is rising far beyond their pals, as they negotiate rock music’s modern domain with a stylish swagger.

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Three causally dressed men with free bus passes took to the stage, knobs got twizzled and squinting glances were exchanged before a smattering of weird noises became more audible, and then Neu! groove began.

Krautrock legends Michael Rother, Deiter Moebuis and Hans Lampe don’t carry themselves as if responsible for influencing so much of electronic music since the late 70’s. In fact, Lampe hardly looks like a man physically able to keep a perfect motorik beat for 90 minutes. But slow burning start was classic Rother.

As the array of sounds increased in number and the volume rose, so the crowd grew increasingly wide-eyed.

Without ever becoming totally danceable, the rhythms got heads bobbing and bodies swaying. From the septuagenarians to the kids, all were drawn as if in trance to the electronic flame.

Fur Immer ebbed and flowed, as wave upon wave swirled around an audience refreshed through kosmiche classics.

The songs weaved perfectly through the Neu!, Harmonia and La Dusseldorf canon, with Rother the sonic pivot, his laser guided guitar crisp in the electronic air, as Moebuis fired off dub-style, disjointed synth sounds, with an element of improvisation.

With no euphoric finale, the show ended in reverse, chords phasing out, noise receding, and the three pioneers leaving the stage as the kids stood awed by the modernity of the sound of 40 years ago.

Neu! sounds from 40 years ago still sound fresh today.

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Future-PastAlexander Tate · Writes… © Alexander Tate, 2011-14. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material withoutexpress and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links maybe used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Alexander Tate with appropriate and specific direction tothe original content. Every effort has been made to acknowledge correctly and contact the source and/orcopyright holder of each picture. Apologies for any unintentional errors or omissions.