Reading - February 2014

Be My Enemy by Christopher Brookmyre (2004)

Dark but entertaining.

The Week (1 February 2014 / Issue 956)

Guitarist (March 2014 / Issue 378)

Going Deaf For A Living by Steve Lamacq (2000)

Amiable amble through Steve's music-related life so far. He has a few trenchant observations on the inanities and idiocies of the music business. He has a few interesting stories of encounters with bands on the indie-er end of the spectrum. He has an enteraining chapter on the infamous Gallagher brothers interview on Radio 1. A bit ho-hum overall though.

The Week (8 February 2014 / Issue 957)

The Week (15 February 2014 / Issue 958)

Things Can Only Get Better by John O'Farrell (1998)

A Fever Pitch for political activists (not an original observation, obviously). Very entertaining, while making some interest points. First is his observation that "Labour was only a left-wing party for five or six years really", which I'm sure some would argue with but I can see the logic. Second is his assertion that he never wants to be an MP. Perhaps he never expected to win in Maidenhead in 2001 or in Eastleigh in 2013.

The Dead Of Jericho by Colin Dexter (1977)

About fifteen years ago I ploughed through all the Morse novels in one almost continuous go. Now I'm not sure why. This is slow and unsatisfying, both from a solution point of view (the main death appears to be a suicide and turns out to be ... a suicide), and from a character perspective, because Morse doesn't really develop at all. It suits a certain mood I suppose.

Shakespeare by Bill Bryson (2007)

Characteristically jolly, informative and succinct account of what we know of Shakespeare and his life - which is to say, not much, and this book is accordingly slim. Bryson also pours gentle scorn on those who would seek to make definitive statements about Shakespeare's thoughts, attitudes and deeds based on no evidence - in particular, those peculiar people who remain convinced that Shakespeare was not the real author of the plays. 

How To Make Your Electric Guitar Play Great! (Second Edition) by Dan Erlewine (2012)

Erlewine has an almost legendary reputation in guitar circles, partly as a result of this book and partly as a guitar tech to the stars. There's a ton of information in this book about setting up guitars, some of it I've never come across before in almost thirty years of playing and reading about the instrument. The level of detail involved in a setup is daunting. Now, if only this could be presented with the same level of quality as the Haynes guitar manuals, it would be perfect.

Shopping 22 February 2014

In which a middle aged man indulges himself.

Wish we were here!

Yesterday Brian and I made our annual pilgrimage to Berwick Street and took in the usual haunts of Sister Ray, Reckless Records and the Music And Video Exchange. We also found a couple of new shops too: Sounds Of The Universe on Broadwick Street (very pricey and not so good for rock and pop, which is my main interest) and Phonica on Poland Street (again, no mainstream stuff, although there were some rather nicely packaged albums that I might have taken a punt on if they weren't fifteen whole pounds).

So, the albums came from the usual three shops and encompass some of the usual suspects - nothing outré here, just cheap albums I hadn't got round to buying before or hadn't heard of until recently. They were:

Kings Of The Wild Frontier by Adam And The Ants (1980)

Prince Charming by Adam And The Ants (1981)

I've been meaning to buy these albums almost since they came out. Hey, I'm only 33 years late to the party.

Fields Of Fire (The Ultimate Collection) by Big Country (2011)

I've broken my own rule here and bought a compilation rather than the original albums. I just wanted "Wonderland" really. I probably should have been more patient.

Carried To Dust by Calexico (2008)

Parent album of "Red Blooms", one of my favourite songs from the 00s.

Tago Mago by Can (1971)

I don't know anything by Can, and there it is in the 1001 Albums list, so here it is.

Pearl by Janis Joplin (1971)

"Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz".

Angel With A Lariat by k.d. lang And The Reclines (1987)

Shadowland by k.d. lang (1988)

k.d. lang's first two albums were not present in my collection, for some reason. Odd given how much I like her third, fourth, fifth etc.

Houses Of The Holy by Led Zeppelin (1973)

I know this album well, thanks to my student days, but still didn't own it until now. Plugging another gap in my collection.

The Holy Bible by Manic Street Preachers (1994)

I'm a sucker. This is a limited, 10th Anniversay edition of an album I didn't think I owned, but already did. Probably the first time I've ever bought something twice by mistake.

Deserter's Songs by Mercury Rev (1998)

I own the two significant singles from this, bought at the time ("Opus 40" and "Goddess On A Hiway"), so not sure what the album will add. Let's see.

Days Of Future Passed by The Moody Blues (1967)

"Precursor to prog-rock", it says here. Also 25% of the trivia question: name the odd one out, from Days Of Future Passed, Ulysses, 2001: A Space Odyssey and 24.

Words And Music by Saint Etienne (2012)

Bought entirely for overwhelmingly geeky awesomeness of the cover (see above).

Phaedra by Tangerine Dream (1974)

"Like The Orb without beats," say Brian, and who am I to doubt him?

Scott 4 by Scott Walker (1969)

Another classic.

White Blood Cells by The White Stripes (2001)

Actually what I wanted was The Raconteurs.

You And Me Both by Yazoo (1983)

Can't go wrong with a bit of Vince Clarke.

Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere by Neil Young with Crazy Horse (1969)

CSN&Y notwithstanding, I'm still not sure about Neil Young. Giving it a go.

Echoes by Will Young

Bought for £2, purely for the single "Come On", which I really like.

Eliminator by ZZ Top (1983)

Billy Gibbons is a Guitar God.

Accompanied by good beer, good chat, some surprisingly nice fish and chips (The Duke Of Argyll comes up trumps again) and more beer and chat, it was another good day. Shame South West Trains spoiled it slightly.

Journey Through The Secret Life Of Plants

Stevie Wonder
1979

Curate's egg of an album nevertheless proves that, pre-1982, there really was no such thing as a bad Stevie Wonder album.

Is this a proper Stevie Wonder album? It was originally a soundtrack to a long-forgotten slice of pseudo-scientific nonsense but, thanks to Wonder's fame, the music has long since outgrown the association. In fact, the instrumental sections illustrate the images rather well (remarkably so given that Stevie obviously couldn't see any of them), and they are never dull; but taken on their own they are a little aimless.

I much prefer the songs with more traditional lyrics and structure, and one of the good things about this album is that it contains some lesser-known examples of Wonder's songs that are new to me. "Race Babbling" is a nicely funky groove, although it's a bit too long. "A Seed's A Star" has a great tune and driving beat, and wouldn't be out of the place on Songs In The Key Of Life, nor would "Outside My Window".

There's quite a lot of what sounds like early digital synth technology, which now sounds more much dated than the analogue synthesizers used on earlier classic albums like Talking Book - what are classified in my mind as Casiotone sounds, although I'm sure that in 1979 it took a lot of expensive technology to sound like that.

Nevertheless, there is more good than bad here and it's great to find some Stevie Wonder material that hasn't been played to death.

Reading - January 2014

Bad Pharma by Ben Goldacre (2012)

Brilliant, and highly readable - if slightly over-long - diatribe against big pharma. Essential reading.

The Commitments by Roddy Doyle (1987)

Shorter than I remember, slightly dated, and with an unbelievable and unnecessary (imho) sub-plot involving the backing singers all sleeping with the middle-aged trumpet player - but still classic.

The Story Of Tracy Beaker by Jacqueline Wilson (1991)

K has just read this, so I was curious to know what it was about. Tracy Beaker is a very realistic and believable character, and you get a real insight into her world - which isn't an ideal or particularly nice one. Not much happens though. I tried to get K to articulate what she liked about it, with little success.

The Week (11 January 2014 / Issue 953)

Guitarist (February 2014 / Issue 377)

The Elements Of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth (2013)

A marvellous little book about the forgotten figures of rhetoric. Why isn't this taught in schools?

The Week (18 January 2013 / Issue 954)

The Men Who Stare At Goats by Jon Ronson (2004)

This starts out as a whimsical "aren't people odd" discussion but gets gradually darker and darker, until it links some easily mockable new-age thinking to the atrocities in Guantanamo Bay. Thought-provoking.

Running Like A Girl by Alexandra Heminsley (2013)

Entertaining and readable - I finished it in one day - this is a personal account of one runner's experience. Primarily aimed at women thinking of or wishing they could run, it has relevance to all beginning runners like me. Apart from the bits about sports bras.

The Week (25 January 2014 / Issue 955)

The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison (1961)

An old friend. Sometimes it's nice to read a familiar story. In many respects, this is surprisingly undated, apart from occasional references to something called "film" (on which one takes photographs, apparently). Good fun.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service by Ian Fleming (1963)

On of my favourites of the original Bond books. Of its time rather than dated, although the casual sexism does grate, and starting to show the influence of the films (Dr No had been released the previous year); but a cracking story and my favourite Bond girl woman, Tracey, who Bond marries. Shame Fleming kills her off at the end in order to preserve the status quo.

Brilliant Corners

Thelonious Monk
1957

Delicate, sensitive harmonic exploration, or tedious, lethargic, meandering indulgence?

I have blogged before about my late-teenage infatuation with jazz - or, at least, my attempt to be seen liking jazz (hey, how interesting am I?) - but even then, I preferred something with a bit of life to it. Many of the albums I liked were on Blue Note, and the label has come to be associated mostly with hard bop that has more of a soulful or funky edge - such as Donald Byrd's Byrd In Hand, one of my favourites.

Despite Brilliant Corners being classified as hard bop (according to Wikipedia, anyway), this doesn't sound like it to me. It's not soulful or funky enough. I'm quite prepared to believe that there's some very clever composition and playing, but it doesn't touch me.

As Joey "The Lips" Fagan says in The Commitments (the book), "soul is from the heart, jazz is from the head". This is head music and there is no heart in it. Dull dull dull.

Before And After Science

Brian Eno
1977

I'm finding Before And After Science to be a more interesting album than Here Come The Warm Jets, but it's still a patchy affair.

Much of the first side reminds me of something else - and usually something better. "No One Receiving" sounds like Station To Station-era white funk, only less convincing. "Energy Fools The Magician" sounds a bit like a cross between Jaco Pastorius' first solo album and Miles Davis circa Decoy or Tutu, which is no bad thing, but it's a bit directionless. "Kings Lead Hat" is obviously Talking Heads (in anagram and sound) - scratchy, antsy and funky, just not quite as good. It's fitting that Eno should then go on and produce them though.

The second side is more relaxed and less derivative and better for it. None of the songs stand out particularly, but are nicer in mood and sound and provide a more rounded listening experience. Again, none seem to go anywhere much but it's easier to forgive here.

To be charitable to Brian Eno, I think much of Before And After Science would be classed as experimental, which from what I know of the great man is more likely to be what he was aiming for than popular, polished or commercial. Unfortunately, it doesn't make for something that rewards me for repeated listens.

Bad Pharma

Ben Goldacre
2012

Ben Goldacre's previous book, Bad Science, was a brilliantly indignant rant (if something so measured in tone and so completely referenced can be called a rant) against some very obvious, yet entirely deserving targets. As such, it didn't surprise, except sometimes in the lengths to which people will go to fleece their fellow humans.

Bad Pharma, however, is a real eye-opener. My general assumption - and, I think, that of the general public - was that medicine was, on the whole, benign. Sure, there are good and bad doctors, good and bad hospitals even (see recent news passim), but overall my expectation is that medical practitioners are well informed and that the pharmaceutical industry is there to serve the public.

Well, it turns out this might not entirely be the case. This book documents the lengths to which those companies will go to fix the market. Goldacre treads a fine line and never makes outright claims of deceit (except in documented legal cases) but his overall point is clear. Big Pharma designs deliberately skewed trials, lies about the results, hides unfavourable ones completely, bribes regulators, politicians and doctors, and even invents diseases (for which they already have "cures" of course) - all in pursuit of a profit. As a result, our doctors are working with out-of-date, incorrect, wildly compromised data.

This affects our health. Everyone's health. And it's ridiculous that this should be the case. Why would people go out of their way to damage other people for a quick profit? As he says, in what to me is a key paragraph:

On this issue, since people with resources often defend the pharmaceutical companies from deserved criticism, it's worth remembering one thing: health care really is one of those areas where we are, in a very real sense, in it together. If you're super-rich, in the top 0.2 per cent of the population, you can buy pretty much anything you want. But however rich you are, if you become sick you can't innovate new medicines overnight, because that takes time, and more money than even you have. And you can't know the true effects of the medicines we have today, because nobody does, if they've not been properly tested, and if some results go missing in action. The most expensive doctors in the world don't know better than anyone else, since any trained person can critically read the best systematic reviews of a given drug, what it will do to your life expectancy, and there is no hack, no workaround, for this broken system. Even if you are super-rich, even if you make $10 million a year, you are right here in it with the rest of us.

(Chapter 3: Bad regulators, p150)

In a different light however, this is all entirely expected. Capitalism, as has been almost said by many people, isn't the best system possible, it's merely the best we know of. All the problems in the book, real and as in need of solutions as they are, are symptomatic of capitalism - a system that tries to mitigate against people's instincts to compete with each other by using money as a proxy, as Douglas Adams so brilliantly said,

This planet [had] a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much all of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979), Introduction)

Sometimes the balance is wrong. The signs are that in this case, the situation is being corrected, as Ben Goldacre discusses in a new final chapter.  Proponents of capitalism would say it is in the process of self-correcting, and they may have a point. The book mentions in passing that evidence-based medicine has only really been around since the sixties, which makes it a very young discipline really - a generation or two old. Real change in society takes a number of generations. Just look at how long it's taking politicians to catch up with the internet, which has only been with us for about twenty years. By the time my kids are my age, this may have been sorted out. Let's hope so.