GETTING TO GRIPS WITH THE UPS AND DOWNS.....
As 2003 began, i knew i had to make some changes in my life, chiefly getting off working nights on my own and getting out more. A job opportunity appeared on the horizon in the shape of a new supermarket being built in my town, and as nothing else seemed to be forthcoming i applied. It was still working in retail, but the prospects of better wages and working with other people were too much to resist, and i was soon employed in the petrol station. It was nice to be part of a team again, and their friendship would later prove important.
My record buying that year was less busy and less current than the previous one, as i bought less singles and new albums. I was still basking in the brilliance of 2002's music, and although a few new acts entered my collection, i began investigating the past. I discovered a new (well, it opened in 2001) record store in Nottingham that sold CD's, DVD's, and books for as little as £5, and once i'd stepped through the doors i was in my own little paradise! FOPP had plenty of new releases, and mainly championed the alternative and fringe over the mainstream, and the fact that i could spend £50 in there and come out with a wealth of music meant i was in there on a weekly basis. I used these visits to widen my musical knowledge and tastes. But more of that later....
The year got off to a good start with the quirky but electrifying "Danger! High Voltage" single by Detroit six-piece Electric Six. Fusing garage rock, disco, punk and new wave styles, their appearance and style had them labelled as a novelty act, but they were far more than that. The band were aquaintances of Jack White of The White Stripes, and the rumour that it was his vocal duetting on the track with frontman Dick Valentine no doubt helped boost their profile - along with the madcap video - , and the single hit No. 2. They would have another Top 10 hit during the summer with the frantic antics of "Gay Bar" (with another daft video), and a No. 7 album with Fire, which whilst not a classic still has its moments.
I found myself delving into darker territories this year, in the form of two bands: the psychotic Gothabilly/Psychobilly of (deep breath) The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster, and the Gothic rock of Finlands' HIM. The former were a intense bunch from Brighton who drove around in a black dragster with orange and red flames on the sides, and were well known for their chaotic live shows. The song that introduced me to their music was the single "Psychosis Safari", a nightmarish punk-fuelled blast of thrashing guitars and fucked up Elvis vocals, which was their most commercial song at the time, and propelled them into the Top 30, aided by a truly bizarre video.
After seeing the video for this song - and the previous one, the hilariously incestuous "Celebrate Your Mother", which saw the band playing to a room of transvestites - i sought out their debut album, Horse Of The Dog. At just over 25 minutes it's more like a mini-album, as it rushes through 10 quickfire tracks of what the band termed "psychosis rock", which range from the more tuneful (the three singles already mentioned) to the downright unhinged ("Giant Bones", "Presidential Wave"). It's one for blowing away the cobwebs!
HIM (formerly His Infernal Majesty) were a Gothic Rock band from Finland who'd already been around for a few years, releasing 3 albums and a bunch of singles which were all big in Europe, but hadn't managed to gain much success anywhere else. Love Metal, their 2003 album - named after photogenic frontman Ville Valos' description of their music - was to change all that, with 3 Top 30 singles released from it that year. MTV2 was a good source for discovering music at the time, and the videos for "Buried Alive By Love" and "The Sacrament" were on regularly. I've always had an attraction to the darker and mysterious side of life, their melodic but suitably heavy music stirring something in me, and i became quite a follower of theirs, seeing them live 3 times over the next couple of years. Love Metal, with its iconic "heartagram" sleeve - the bands trademark - was a dark, emotional slice of rock music, with influences from Black Sabbath, Sisters Of Mercy, Depeche Mode and more, with Valo's voice ranging from dark depths to soaring highs, with dramatic musical backing.
Bands like these became my entry point to darker, heavier music over the next few years, and part of my ever expanding tastes. It's a cliche to describe people who are into such music as moody, miserable, depressed or troubled, but looking back on those years i wasn't a happy person, although i didn't quite realise it at the time. Music was a lifeline for me like never before, an outlet for expressing feelings and thoughts that i didn't know how else to articulate.
Another purveyor of dark moods was Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, whose work ranged from lovelorn balladry to fire and brimstone noise rock, full of biblical themes, murderers, sadness and badness, and the darker, seamier side of life in general. They seemed to have toned down the more psychotic side of the music by 2003 though, beginning with the stripped down piano ballads of The Boatmans Call (1997) and the more elaborate No More Shall We Part (2001), and whilst the former was a masterclass in the art of the love song, influenced by the breakup of Caves' marriage and subsequent affair with PJ Harvey, the follow up seemed to lack grit, as Cave was now happily married to model Susie Bick and had kicked his various drug habits. Now settled down in Brighton with twin sons, the fire seemed to have gone out of his songwriting. So when the Bad Seeds' new album, Nocturama, came out early in the year, the preponderance of ballads on it initially seemed to confirm the worst: that Cave was turning into another McCartney at his most sentimental - "ballads and babies". But repeated listens uncovered a darkness hidden under most of the songs - "It's a wonderful life, if you can find it" on the opening song "Wonderful Life", injecting some doubt into the proceedings. "He Wants You" and "Right Out Of Your Hand" are a tad schmaltzy, but the two songs that follow burst out of the album like a shark that had been lurking under calm waters. "Bring It On" is a great piece of rock and roll, the music stalking and creaking on the verses before launching into a beery pub rock chorus, featuring Chris Bailey of Australian cult punk band The Saints on guest vocals. The tongue-in-cheek video was a response to MTV's suggestion that they make something "more mainstream", and since the norm at the time was women in bikinis shaking their arses, that's what they did!
"Still In Love" is another piano-based ballad, but one whose lyrics and minor keys indicate a murder or a stalker. "There Is A Town" has a queasy feel to it, and the upbeat "Rock Of Gibraltar", with its slightly naff lyrics, is a throwaway piece of fluff. "She Passed By My Window", with a creaking violin to the fore, has a nostalgic melancholy about it. The final track, though, sees a return to the Cave of old: an epic roaring, howling hellfire blast of primal blues/noise rock at nearly 15 minutes long, "Babe, I'm On Fire" had me grinning ear to ear the first time i heard it. A repetitive list song with a host of characters proclaiming the title:
"The backyard abortionist says it/chinese contortionist says it" "The man in the van with the abominable plan" "The sweet little goth with the ears of cloth" (a witty nod to the medias idea of their fanbase".... hilarious, rollocking, and completely mad, as is the accompanying video which has the band dressed as all the characters in the lyrics, one by one.
Two more long players from the previous years new wave of exciting Garage Rock bands appeared in this year: Elephant, the fourth from The White Stripes, and the debut from NYC art stars Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Elephant contained The White Stripes first real huge hit, "Seven Nation Army", a stomping rhythm and blues number with fuzz bass-sounding guitar and thumping drums that reached No. 7. More bluesy rock and roll stormers such as "There's No Home For You Here", "Black Math", and "The Hardest Button To Button" followed, and a raucous cover of "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself". They embellished their raw, stripped down music a with keyboard touches here and there, and the moody "In The Cold, Cold Night" was a solo effort from Meg on vocals and organ.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs had been the darlings of the New York art rock scene since their first EP in 2002 but their only release since had been the "Machine" single in late 2002, which managed to creep into the lower reaches of the Top 40 despite virtually no promotion. So their first album was hotly anticipated, and when it was released in April i was eager to hear it. Spiky, edgy, full of fire and passion, with an arty bent, it was one of the most exciting albums of that year. The first single "Date With The Night" had set the tone a few weeks before, an electrifying juggernaut of a song packed with frantic drums, eruptive guitar noise and Karen O's sexy, dangerous vocals. The album was packed with short sharp shocks like "Pin", "Tick", "Rich", and "Black Tongue", full of salacious and surreal lyrics backed by clattering but creative drumming and short circuiting guitar spasms and effects. One of the highlights of the album took a different tack though: "Maps" was a love song and a ballad of sorts. Written about Karen seeing her then boyfriend planning to go on tour (Angus Andrew of art-punk band Liars), it's a deceptively simple but emotionally powerful song: "Wait, they don't love you like i love you". Backed by a spidery wall of guitar effects and tumbling drums, it's probably one of the best love songs written in the last 20 years. Elsewhere there were signs of experimentation in the dubby punk of "No No No". As the album progresses, hidden depths are uncovered and the sleazy lyrics give way to a more fragile and reflective tone in "Modern Romance" and the aforementioned "Maps". One of the best albums to come out of the Garage Rock revival scene, and one that they have yet to better.
Bands that really stand out from the rest, that are very singular in their style, are far and few between, but one Sunday in July whilst listening to the Top 40 countdown, i heard such a band. From the opening strains i was mesmerised: the band was the very English and eccentric British Sea Power, and the song was their first Top 40 entry, the double A-side "Carrion/Apologies To Insect Life". It's fair to say that they are one of those bands who sound like no-one else - they have their influences like any musicians, but it's difficult to pick them out of their sound. "Carrion" has a haunting quality to it, with ghostly choir-like keyboards (i assume: it's hard to tell what instrument is creating that sound!), nagging wonky guitar lines, and a breathy vocal. The band are unique in many ways: giving journalists map references for interviews, talking (and singing) about birdwatching and nature, playing gigs in unusual locations, and decorating the stage with foliage collected from the area of the gig. When i got around to buying their debut album, The Decline Of British Sea Power, i became even more interested, and i spent many a bus journey and walk listening to it on my MiniDisc Walkman. Unusual and often oblique lyrical references to WWI, Field Marshal Montgomery, sunken ships, the coast of the British Isles, Dostoyevsky, and the unnatural use of symbols of nature in war, it sounded (and still sounds) like nothing else released at the time. The music veered from scrappy, frantic post-punk and hardcore-influences to grand, cinematic epics, with a general theme of loss and mortality seeming to underpin the whole album. It still remains one of my favourite albums.
One of the most epic releases of the year, though, was Absolution, the third album from Muse. Building on the increasingly theatrical space/prog rock of their first two, this was the album that took them onto a whole new level that would see them headlining festivals like Glastonbury, and selling out stadiums with increasingly ambitious stage sets. Absolution mixed powerful rock juggernauts like "Hysteria" and "Stockholm Syndrome" with orchestral rock pieces - "Butterflies And Hurricanes" and "Blackout", alongside the stomping "Apocalypse Please", the icy fractured keyboard notes of "Sing For Absolution", and the finger-clicking groove of lead single (and their first Top 10) "Time Is Running Out". Themes of fear, paranoia, and of things coming to an end inform the lyrics, with main man Matt Bellamy being influenced by world events like the Iraq War.
My interest in the back pages of rock would lead me to discovering some great music, and one band whose back catalogue i would fall in love with was Liverpudlian indie legends Echo & The Bunnymen. I'd become familiar with their singles and the odd album track through compilations, and of course they'd reformed to huge success in 1997 with the Evergreen album and its huge first single, "Nothing Lasts Forever". A couple more albums and singles had followed over the next few years to dwindling success, but i kept listening. In 2003, their first five albums had been re-released with extras as part of the bands' 25th anniversary, and i snapped them up, starting with 1983's Porcupine, which contained their hits "The Back Of Love" and "The Cutter". From the Doors-esque psychedelic post-punk of their first, Crocodiles, the brittle rhythms of Heaven Up Here, the dark, twisted indie rock Porcupine, and the majestic and lovestruck Ocean Rain, i was hooked (the self-titled fifth has its moments, but generally was a let down) on the mystical holler and croon of Ian McCulloch, the inventive guitar playing of Will Sergant, and the groovy and elastic rhythm section of Les Pattinson (bass) and Pete de Freitas (drums). They've influenced many a band over the years, but none have come close to their sound. I'll be reviewing their albums in another post.
All this music - and the friendship of my workmates - would help and guide me through a dark time in my life when, in October that year, my Mum suddenly passed away, just a few weeks shy of her 50th birthday. It was a shock that left a hole in my life, and i think about her often, especially through music. She nurtured my love of music from an early age, and we often liked the same bands and songs as i grew up. She took me to my first gigs - Madness - and it was through her that i learned more about past bands. I often had a go at her for not looking after my CDs when she borrowed them! Whenever i hear certain songs, it makes me think of her. I found it hard in a house full of men to talk about how i felt, and listening to music was my way of dealing with the loss. I'm not sure if there is anything after this life or not, but if there is and you're up there, I love you and miss you Mum.
My record buying that year was less busy and less current than the previous one, as i bought less singles and new albums. I was still basking in the brilliance of 2002's music, and although a few new acts entered my collection, i began investigating the past. I discovered a new (well, it opened in 2001) record store in Nottingham that sold CD's, DVD's, and books for as little as £5, and once i'd stepped through the doors i was in my own little paradise! FOPP had plenty of new releases, and mainly championed the alternative and fringe over the mainstream, and the fact that i could spend £50 in there and come out with a wealth of music meant i was in there on a weekly basis. I used these visits to widen my musical knowledge and tastes. But more of that later....
The year got off to a good start with the quirky but electrifying "Danger! High Voltage" single by Detroit six-piece Electric Six. Fusing garage rock, disco, punk and new wave styles, their appearance and style had them labelled as a novelty act, but they were far more than that. The band were aquaintances of Jack White of The White Stripes, and the rumour that it was his vocal duetting on the track with frontman Dick Valentine no doubt helped boost their profile - along with the madcap video - , and the single hit No. 2. They would have another Top 10 hit during the summer with the frantic antics of "Gay Bar" (with another daft video), and a No. 7 album with Fire, which whilst not a classic still has its moments.
HIM (formerly His Infernal Majesty) were a Gothic Rock band from Finland who'd already been around for a few years, releasing 3 albums and a bunch of singles which were all big in Europe, but hadn't managed to gain much success anywhere else. Love Metal, their 2003 album - named after photogenic frontman Ville Valos' description of their music - was to change all that, with 3 Top 30 singles released from it that year. MTV2 was a good source for discovering music at the time, and the videos for "Buried Alive By Love" and "The Sacrament" were on regularly. I've always had an attraction to the darker and mysterious side of life, their melodic but suitably heavy music stirring something in me, and i became quite a follower of theirs, seeing them live 3 times over the next couple of years. Love Metal, with its iconic "heartagram" sleeve - the bands trademark - was a dark, emotional slice of rock music, with influences from Black Sabbath, Sisters Of Mercy, Depeche Mode and more, with Valo's voice ranging from dark depths to soaring highs, with dramatic musical backing.
Bands like these became my entry point to darker, heavier music over the next few years, and part of my ever expanding tastes. It's a cliche to describe people who are into such music as moody, miserable, depressed or troubled, but looking back on those years i wasn't a happy person, although i didn't quite realise it at the time. Music was a lifeline for me like never before, an outlet for expressing feelings and thoughts that i didn't know how else to articulate.
Another purveyor of dark moods was Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, whose work ranged from lovelorn balladry to fire and brimstone noise rock, full of biblical themes, murderers, sadness and badness, and the darker, seamier side of life in general. They seemed to have toned down the more psychotic side of the music by 2003 though, beginning with the stripped down piano ballads of The Boatmans Call (1997) and the more elaborate No More Shall We Part (2001), and whilst the former was a masterclass in the art of the love song, influenced by the breakup of Caves' marriage and subsequent affair with PJ Harvey, the follow up seemed to lack grit, as Cave was now happily married to model Susie Bick and had kicked his various drug habits. Now settled down in Brighton with twin sons, the fire seemed to have gone out of his songwriting. So when the Bad Seeds' new album, Nocturama, came out early in the year, the preponderance of ballads on it initially seemed to confirm the worst: that Cave was turning into another McCartney at his most sentimental - "ballads and babies". But repeated listens uncovered a darkness hidden under most of the songs - "It's a wonderful life, if you can find it" on the opening song "Wonderful Life", injecting some doubt into the proceedings. "He Wants You" and "Right Out Of Your Hand" are a tad schmaltzy, but the two songs that follow burst out of the album like a shark that had been lurking under calm waters. "Bring It On" is a great piece of rock and roll, the music stalking and creaking on the verses before launching into a beery pub rock chorus, featuring Chris Bailey of Australian cult punk band The Saints on guest vocals. The tongue-in-cheek video was a response to MTV's suggestion that they make something "more mainstream", and since the norm at the time was women in bikinis shaking their arses, that's what they did!
"Still In Love" is another piano-based ballad, but one whose lyrics and minor keys indicate a murder or a stalker. "There Is A Town" has a queasy feel to it, and the upbeat "Rock Of Gibraltar", with its slightly naff lyrics, is a throwaway piece of fluff. "She Passed By My Window", with a creaking violin to the fore, has a nostalgic melancholy about it. The final track, though, sees a return to the Cave of old: an epic roaring, howling hellfire blast of primal blues/noise rock at nearly 15 minutes long, "Babe, I'm On Fire" had me grinning ear to ear the first time i heard it. A repetitive list song with a host of characters proclaiming the title:
"The backyard abortionist says it/chinese contortionist says it" "The man in the van with the abominable plan" "The sweet little goth with the ears of cloth" (a witty nod to the medias idea of their fanbase".... hilarious, rollocking, and completely mad, as is the accompanying video which has the band dressed as all the characters in the lyrics, one by one.
Two more long players from the previous years new wave of exciting Garage Rock bands appeared in this year: Elephant, the fourth from The White Stripes, and the debut from NYC art stars Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Elephant contained The White Stripes first real huge hit, "Seven Nation Army", a stomping rhythm and blues number with fuzz bass-sounding guitar and thumping drums that reached No. 7. More bluesy rock and roll stormers such as "There's No Home For You Here", "Black Math", and "The Hardest Button To Button" followed, and a raucous cover of "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself". They embellished their raw, stripped down music a with keyboard touches here and there, and the moody "In The Cold, Cold Night" was a solo effort from Meg on vocals and organ.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs had been the darlings of the New York art rock scene since their first EP in 2002 but their only release since had been the "Machine" single in late 2002, which managed to creep into the lower reaches of the Top 40 despite virtually no promotion. So their first album was hotly anticipated, and when it was released in April i was eager to hear it. Spiky, edgy, full of fire and passion, with an arty bent, it was one of the most exciting albums of that year. The first single "Date With The Night" had set the tone a few weeks before, an electrifying juggernaut of a song packed with frantic drums, eruptive guitar noise and Karen O's sexy, dangerous vocals. The album was packed with short sharp shocks like "Pin", "Tick", "Rich", and "Black Tongue", full of salacious and surreal lyrics backed by clattering but creative drumming and short circuiting guitar spasms and effects. One of the highlights of the album took a different tack though: "Maps" was a love song and a ballad of sorts. Written about Karen seeing her then boyfriend planning to go on tour (Angus Andrew of art-punk band Liars), it's a deceptively simple but emotionally powerful song: "Wait, they don't love you like i love you". Backed by a spidery wall of guitar effects and tumbling drums, it's probably one of the best love songs written in the last 20 years. Elsewhere there were signs of experimentation in the dubby punk of "No No No". As the album progresses, hidden depths are uncovered and the sleazy lyrics give way to a more fragile and reflective tone in "Modern Romance" and the aforementioned "Maps". One of the best albums to come out of the Garage Rock revival scene, and one that they have yet to better.
Bands that really stand out from the rest, that are very singular in their style, are far and few between, but one Sunday in July whilst listening to the Top 40 countdown, i heard such a band. From the opening strains i was mesmerised: the band was the very English and eccentric British Sea Power, and the song was their first Top 40 entry, the double A-side "Carrion/Apologies To Insect Life". It's fair to say that they are one of those bands who sound like no-one else - they have their influences like any musicians, but it's difficult to pick them out of their sound. "Carrion" has a haunting quality to it, with ghostly choir-like keyboards (i assume: it's hard to tell what instrument is creating that sound!), nagging wonky guitar lines, and a breathy vocal. The band are unique in many ways: giving journalists map references for interviews, talking (and singing) about birdwatching and nature, playing gigs in unusual locations, and decorating the stage with foliage collected from the area of the gig. When i got around to buying their debut album, The Decline Of British Sea Power, i became even more interested, and i spent many a bus journey and walk listening to it on my MiniDisc Walkman. Unusual and often oblique lyrical references to WWI, Field Marshal Montgomery, sunken ships, the coast of the British Isles, Dostoyevsky, and the unnatural use of symbols of nature in war, it sounded (and still sounds) like nothing else released at the time. The music veered from scrappy, frantic post-punk and hardcore-influences to grand, cinematic epics, with a general theme of loss and mortality seeming to underpin the whole album. It still remains one of my favourite albums.
One of the most epic releases of the year, though, was Absolution, the third album from Muse. Building on the increasingly theatrical space/prog rock of their first two, this was the album that took them onto a whole new level that would see them headlining festivals like Glastonbury, and selling out stadiums with increasingly ambitious stage sets. Absolution mixed powerful rock juggernauts like "Hysteria" and "Stockholm Syndrome" with orchestral rock pieces - "Butterflies And Hurricanes" and "Blackout", alongside the stomping "Apocalypse Please", the icy fractured keyboard notes of "Sing For Absolution", and the finger-clicking groove of lead single (and their first Top 10) "Time Is Running Out". Themes of fear, paranoia, and of things coming to an end inform the lyrics, with main man Matt Bellamy being influenced by world events like the Iraq War.
My interest in the back pages of rock would lead me to discovering some great music, and one band whose back catalogue i would fall in love with was Liverpudlian indie legends Echo & The Bunnymen. I'd become familiar with their singles and the odd album track through compilations, and of course they'd reformed to huge success in 1997 with the Evergreen album and its huge first single, "Nothing Lasts Forever". A couple more albums and singles had followed over the next few years to dwindling success, but i kept listening. In 2003, their first five albums had been re-released with extras as part of the bands' 25th anniversary, and i snapped them up, starting with 1983's Porcupine, which contained their hits "The Back Of Love" and "The Cutter". From the Doors-esque psychedelic post-punk of their first, Crocodiles, the brittle rhythms of Heaven Up Here, the dark, twisted indie rock Porcupine, and the majestic and lovestruck Ocean Rain, i was hooked (the self-titled fifth has its moments, but generally was a let down) on the mystical holler and croon of Ian McCulloch, the inventive guitar playing of Will Sergant, and the groovy and elastic rhythm section of Les Pattinson (bass) and Pete de Freitas (drums). They've influenced many a band over the years, but none have come close to their sound. I'll be reviewing their albums in another post.
All this music - and the friendship of my workmates - would help and guide me through a dark time in my life when, in October that year, my Mum suddenly passed away, just a few weeks shy of her 50th birthday. It was a shock that left a hole in my life, and i think about her often, especially through music. She nurtured my love of music from an early age, and we often liked the same bands and songs as i grew up. She took me to my first gigs - Madness - and it was through her that i learned more about past bands. I often had a go at her for not looking after my CDs when she borrowed them! Whenever i hear certain songs, it makes me think of her. I found it hard in a house full of men to talk about how i felt, and listening to music was my way of dealing with the loss. I'm not sure if there is anything after this life or not, but if there is and you're up there, I love you and miss you Mum.
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