Where Worlds Collide

Fifth gig of the tour I’ve attended, and another new venue for me, the Drill Hall in Lincoln. It’s a old Victorian building which has been very extensively refurbished a couple of years ago; standing down the front, and tiered seating down them back.

This gig marked the welcome return of Jon Spence on the mixing desk, and it showed; this was probably the best sound mix I’ve heard so far on this tour; despite being directly in front of Bryan Josh, his guitar didn’t drown out the rest of the band, Anne-Marie Helder’s flute and Livvy Sparnenn’s backing vocals were noticeably more prominent in the mix, which is a good thing.

With the tour nearing the end, the lineup has well and truly gelled now; new drummer Henry Bourne is possibly the best man behind the drums they’ve had while I’ve been following them, and Anne-Marie has really fitted in well on multiple instuments; seeing her really going for it on the tambourine during ‘Never the Rainbow’ is proof she’s a very different personality than Angie Gordon. And as for Liam Davidson and Iain Jennings, it’s great to see both of them back. Iain’s Hammond organ pyrotechnics on ‘Never the Rainbow’ reminded us of what was missing last year. And Heather Findlay, now six months pregnant, just gets better and better on lead vocals.

The two-hour setlist is the same as the last few shows, with four songs from the new album “Glass Shadows”, and also drawing heavily from “Passengers”. Of the new songs, ‘Unoriginal Sin’ is turning into a incredibly powerful live number, Heather channelling all that anger and bitterness from the middle of last year, and is made all the stronger by mixing Anne Marie’s and Livvy’s harmony vocals much higher; very much the high spot of the first half of the set. ‘Tearing at the Faerytale’ is equally powerful and emotional live. And ‘Flowers For Guns’ has just got to be a single.

The oldies were equally good; I’ve never heard them play a bad version of ‘Evergreen’ and tonight’s was no exception; ‘Carpe Diem’, one of those songs that relies heavily on the sound man getting the balance between Bryan’s guitar and the vocals right, was magnificent, and ‘Heroes Never Die’ is finally making the hairs on back of my neck stand up again; Anne-Marie may have struggled with that flute part on the intro earlier on the tour, but tonight she nailed it.

Just two dates left on this tour now; at Leamington Spa on Thursday 12th, and Stocksbridge the following night. Catch them if you can, they’re worth it. After a couple of festival dates, the band take an extended break while their lead singer is on maternity leave.

Bruce Schneier in The Guardian comes up with one explaination as to why photographers seem to be hassled more and more when trying to take pictures in public places out of misplaced fear of ‘terrorists’

Given that real terrorists, and even wannabe terrorists, don’t seem to photograph anything, why is it such pervasive conventional wisdom that terrorists photograph their targets? Why are our fears so great that we have no choice but to be suspicious of any photographer?

Because it’s a movie-plot threat.

A movie-plot threat is a specific threat, vivid in our minds like the plot of a movie. You remember them from the months after the 9/11 attacks: anthrax spread from crop dusters, a contaminated milk supply, terrorist scuba divers armed with almanacs. Our imaginations run wild with detailed and specific threats, from the news, and from actual movies and television shows. These movie plots resonate in our minds and in the minds of others we talk to. And many of us get scared.

At to this that many of the sorts of people employed as security guards are not exactly the sharpest tools of the box, are poorly-paid, poorly-trained, and recruited through a process that fails to weed out small-minded bullies, it’s not surprising that some photographers get hassled.

And I’m not willing to listen to the sheeple who bleat “it’s better to be safe than sorry” when authority figures overreact to largely imaginary terrorist threats. If we do nothing, our freedoms will be slowly salami-sliced away. If when they came for the railway enthusiasts with cameras and you did nothing, what will happen when they come for you?

The infamous Guardian Music Blog has a posting which starts with “let’s celebrate fifty years of independent music”.

Unfortunately the sub-editor insisted on giving it a title with the word “indie”. So naturally the majority of commenters aren’t thinking beyond scratchy 1980s post-punk or jangly guitar pop. Only a brave few thought of 70s labels like Island or Charisma; apparently the majority opinion was that there was nothing ‘independent’ until punk came along. OK, so the 1980s may have been the heyday of the independent label; but nowadays, ‘independent’ means not bothering with a record company at all.

When you come to ‘independant’ rather than ‘indie’, nothing epitomises the DIY ethic more strongly to me than underground second and third generation prog bands. Here we have a genre ignored or derided by mainstream critics, and sneeringly dismissed by hipper-than-thou self appointed guardians of musical taste. Yet on small prog-orientated labels, sometimes owned by the bands themselves, the genre is not only alive, but thriving.

These are five of the best from the 90s and 00s:

• Marillion - Anoraknophobia (Racket Records)
• Karnataka - Delicate Flame of Desire (Immramma)
• Mostly Autumn - The Last Bright Light (Cyclops)
• Porcupine Tree - Lightbulb Sun (Snapper)
• IQ - Subterrania (Giant Electric Pea)

Marillion may have started their career on EMI, but it was the fan-financed release of “Anoraknophobia” that marked a significant milestone in the way non-mainstream music is created and released. Nowadays getting fans to pre-order in lieu of a record company advance is quite common practice, but Marillion did it first, a fact often ignored by mainstream scribblers.

I think it’s artists like these that represent the future of the music business. Not that everybody is going sound remotely like them, of course. But they represent the growing legions of underground bands, building long-term relationships with their fanbases, controlling their own destinies and completely immune to short-term fads and fashions. Free from having to fund the overheads of a big record company, they’ve proved that recording and touring on a smaller scale can be economically viable.

It looks like the future of Planet Rock is secure

At long last I’m delighted to be able to announce that Planet Rock’s future is now secure. We have been purchased by life long rock and radio fan Malcolm Bluemel and his consortium supported by our very own Tony Iommi, Ian Anderson , Gary Moore, and Fish, saving Planet Rock from certain closure.

In a deal finalised earlier today Malcolm takes control of the station with immediate effect, there will be no break in transmission or changes in programming

I’ve got the station on at the moment, and they do seem to be playing a slightly more eclectic selection of material rather than the same old rock standards.

I would suggest that seeing the last name in the consortium ought to imply that not to play a certain York-based band on the station because their lead singer is his ex should be considered an act of gross unprofessionalism

What’s been on the CD player the last few days:

Pure Reason Revolution, The Dark Third.
This is one of these albums I keep forgetting how good it is until I play it again. Pure Reason Revolution may have been a bit of a pastiche, a sort of prog-rock version of The Darkness, but unlike the Lowestoft bunch, their album seems to have lasted. I’ve has random bits of ‘Dark Third’ have been stuck in my head all morning at work. It is a bit repetitive in places, but I find it just works as one continuous of music with recurring themes and motifs; very ‘prog’.

Led Zeppelin, In Through the Out Door
Recently picked this one up for a fiver on CD, as the only Led Zep album I still only had on vinyl, and therefore hadn’t heard for years. Conventional wisdom suggests LZ ended with a whimper rather than a bang, with Jimmy Page AWOL at least in spirit half the time, but while it’s clearly no “Physical Graffiti” it’s actually not a bad album. Songs like ‘Hot Dog’ might be throwaway fluff, but I’d forgotten that ‘Carouselambra’ is actually a little bit more than just a poor man’s ‘Achilles Last Stand’. And ‘In the Evening’, ‘All My Love’ and ‘I’m gonna crawl’ are pure class.

Yes, Fragile
Nothing quite like some classic 70s prog. “Sharp! Distance! How can the wind with so many around me, I feel lost in the city“. I’m sure this song is about Jon Anderson’s former day job as a milkman. It’s a pity this band are judged by the mainstream on what everyone but their fanboys accept is one of their worst albums, the overblown “Tales from Topographic Oceans”, rather than albums like this one.

Panic Room, Visionary Position
At the Breathing Space+Mermaid Kiss show a week and a bit ago, Jon Edwards (who was playing keys for MK) personally thanked me for my review of the album. I should have thought to thank him for recording it. It really is that good.

Porcupine Tree - Lightbulb Sun
Every time I dig out a PT album, I immediately think “This is their best one”. I think that’s one of the great things about Porcupine Tree - all their albums are quite different, but all have their strengths. This one catches them as their moved away from ambient soundscape prog towards psychedelic pop, but before they went metal. I love the sarcastic Britpop pastiche “Four Chords That Made a Million”.