Progressive Thoughts - Day 8

Edging out towards the pop end of the progressive spectrum are Electric Light Orchestra a band who combine rock and pop music with classical music and have been a favourite band of mine since the 1970’s.

Today’s song is the first part of a four part piece called “Concerto for a Rainy Day”, which culminates in the final part which is the excellent and most well-known Mr Blue Sky. This song is called Standin’ in the Rain.

Many people in the world picture England as a rainy, dull place with grey skies and miserable people. Elements of that are true, but only small elements. When the rain comes, the sky can become a miserable dark grey colour and the coldness of the raindrops isn’t pleasant. Walking home in the rain is quite depressing particularly if you have forgotten your umbrella.

The rest of this myth is totally false. I regard British people to be amongst the friendliest in the world and certainly the funniest. Maybe our inclement weather helps in this regard. We are willing and able to laugh at ourselves and smile in the face of adversity.

Manchester in particular has been done a disservice in the weather stakes. It rains a lot here but we are not the rainiest city in the United Kingdom by any stretch of the imagination. Furthermore, we are really friendly too. It has been observed that when a Mancunian travels to London, for example, he assumes that he can just turn to the person next to him on the London Underground and hold a conversation. In truth he can’t because, as a rule, Londoners are less friendly.

I have had some wacky conversations with random people in my adopted home city, just in passing. That’s one of the reasons I love the place, despite the higher than average rainfall.

One good thing about the rain is that the areas surrounding Manchester, the North West in particular, are always lush and green. When William Blake wrote the poem Jerusalem, I like to think he was thinking of the North West of England when he wrote the words “green and pleasant land”.

I’m sure he wasn’t because, in truth, the whole of the United Kingdom is as green as it is pleasant.

Anyway, back to the rain. I’ve mentioned this before but, despite the common belief that Manchester is the rainiest city in the United Kingdom, we aren’t. Here is the list:

1. Cardiff

2. Glasgow

3. Preston

4. Huddersfield

5. Plymouth

6. Blackpool

7. Carlisle

8. Manchester

9. Gloucester

10. Liverpool

One of my worst experiences of rain in the United Kingdom was in Glasgow. I was at Strathclyde University for a course in November some years ago and, in the evening, I decided to go for a walk to explore the city. I love walking and just meandered around the dark streets, taking in the sights. Sadly, I wandered a little too far from my hotel and was unsure of the direction back (this was in the days before satnavs).

And then it started to rain.

I was totally unprepared. I had a relatively thin coat on and had stupidly hoped that walking would help me work up a bit of a sweat. It did but then I realised that it had little protection for sudden rainstorms. Accompanying the rain was a biting northerly wind that tore through my flimsy protection and chilled me to the bone.

And then the thunder started.

I have never seen such rain in the United Kingdom. It was like ice and totally torrential. People in Glasgow must have been aware of what it was like being stuck in the cold November rain (perhaps this was the inspiration for the song by Guns ’n’ Roses) and were safely tucked up in their warm houses.

I was alone in the cold wet streets and ended up taking quite a few wrong turns as I searched the city streets for a sign I recognised. Sadly, my glasses were useless because the rain was so intense that I simply couldn’t see a thing.

After what seemed like an eternity, I stumbled on a taxi rank and hopped into the first cab. I was drenched – utterly drenched.

The hotel was just a three minute ride away and the driver’s almost unintelligible Glaswegian accent was no help whatsoever. I couldn’t understand a single word. One thing I did understand though was his mocking laughter as he dropped me off.

Back in my hotel room, I peeled off my cold wet clothes and discovered that the rain had penetrated everything. Only my socks were dry. Even my underpants were soaking wet.

I spent about an hour in a hot shower to warm up.

I have seen worse rain in Singapore, Trinidad and Hong Kong but at least in those countries it was warm.

If you take one thing from this post, it should be this:

Always carry an umbrella with you in Glasgow in the winter and make sure that you know the way back home – or at least the way to the nearest taxi rank.

Top Ten ELO Songs

The other day, I was flicking through the TV channels when I stumbled across a time machine. The TV programme was coverage of the Glastonbury Festival, an annual music event in the UK where generations of music fans stand in the mud and rain in front of a giant stage shaped like a pyramid and listen to many different bands covering many different styles of music.

And there on stage stood my very first musical hero.

That man is Jeff Lynne, the creator and genius behind the very first band I fell in love with, The Electric Light Orchestra or simply ELO for short.

I was instantly transported back to the 1970’s as a young teenage boy.

At that point in my life I hadn’t discovered the glory of heavy metal or rock music. I liked pop music but by far and away my favourite band at the time. I spent my hard earned paper round money on their albums. Given the ratio of my income then to the amount I spent on music, this was a big deal. I had to negotiate with my dad to let me have time on his music centre (usually when he was out). I played the albums to death and I still have them in my attic until now.

Back to the present, Jeff Lynne, now aged 68, was standing in front of the now called Jeff Lynne’s ELO belting out my favourite songs as if he were still in his 20’s. And amazingly the guy doesn’t look his age at all. What’s more, he’s from Birmingham – just a few miles down the road from where I was born.

Seeing Jeff bang out a load of old favourites  gave me an idea for this post and I am sadly going to inflict it on you, dear reader.

Here are my favourite ELO songs. I hope you enjoy them.

10. Here Is The News

The first song is actually a later one from the early 1980’s when I had actually started university. ELO sacrificed the orchestral side a little in favour of synthesiser but that distinctive ELO sound is still there. 

9. The Diary of Horace Wimp

At the time I heard this song for the first time, I was a weird spotty little seventeen year old with an attitude and girl problems – i.e. I didn’t have one. In many respects I was Horace Wimp, the hero of the song and the song told my story."Well he just stood there mumbling and fumbling"  was a little too close to home.. However, I loved the optimism of the song particularly when Horace finally asks a girl for a date and his amazement when she says “Yes!”. In some ways, this gave me a little bit of courage – if Horace Wimp could get the girl then so could I.

8. One Summer Dream

This is a beautiful song from 1975 and yanks violently on my heart strings. I’ve always loved the way that ELO fuse guitars and drums with violins and cellos simply because it makes a simple song sound more epic and all embracing. When I hear this song, I feel like I’m floating over the English countryside on a beautiful sunny day.

7. Rockaria!

The fusion of styles between orchestral instruments and rock guitar is probably most evident on a song about fusing opera with rock and roll. One of ELO’s most famous songs is about an opera singer, raised on Beethoven and Puccini who is persuaded to apply her vocal talents to good old fashioned rock and roll and is the quintessential ELO song.



6. Do Ya

The very first ELO album I bought was A New World Record, containing the previous song, Rockaria! as well as this one, my favourite song on the album. Sadly Do Ya wasn’t released as a single, much to my surprise. Perhaps it’s a little too much of a rock song for the tastes of the 1976 youth. That’s a shame.

5. Ticket To The Moon

This is another beautiful song from the early 1980’s with a hint of melancholy that shows just how good a songwriter Jeff Lynne is. Again, when I hear the song, I feel my tear ducts starting to work again. I simply love this tune – I can’t say more than that.

4. Turn To Stone

I am so sad that I actually learned the fast bit of this song so that I could impress my two sisters who, in typical sibling style, were no impressed at all and completely took the piss. Listen out for it:

Yes
I'm turning to stone
'Cause you ain't comin' home
Why ain't you comin' home
If i'm turning to stone
You've been gone for so long
And I can't carry on
Yes I'm turning
I'm turning

The sad thing is I can still do it – and Mrs PM is not impressed either.

3. Mr Blue Sky

After the sadness of the last song, let’s hear an uplifting tune. Mr Blue Sky is probably the band’s most well-known hit and I can see why. For me in particular, it reminds me of walking the streets of Walsall with a huge bag of newspapers, forcing them through letterboxes that were sometimes too small. At those early hours, the streets were empty and in summer, it was eerie because the sun would rise well before 6am yielding a beautiful blue sky with few people around to witness it, apart from me and a few cats. This song will make even the most miserable person feel positive.

2. Fire On High

Imagine you are walking through a haunted house in pitch black. How scary would that be? The opening of this fantastic song is quite spooky and if I were creeping through such a house and heard this I think I would quite literally shit bricks. After the spookiness, it evolves into a progressive masterpiece and is one of my most played ELO songs, even today.

1. Don’t Bring Me Down

Ultimately I love a good rock song and ELO can do that too. Don’t Bring Me Down has a fantastic drum beat and came at the time I had discovered rock music causing me to embrace it with the hope this was a future direction for the band. Sadly it wasn’t but I still love the song today.

And Finally...

I hope you liked that little collection. ELO still has a place in my heart and it is good to see Jeff Lynne still enjoying himself.

Do you remember ELO, dear reader?
Do you have a favourite song by the band?

Yet Another Music Meme

I love a good meme and I love a good music meme even more. I have discovered yet another one while prowling cyberspace so without further ado, let’s get going.

1. Which bands/artist do you own the most albums by?

That’s easy – Rush. Given that the band is very soon celebrating their 40th anniversary, and they have been my favourite band since 1981, it’s kind of obvious really. In total I have nineteen albums by the band, including live recordings. Let’s hope they continue to make superb music for a while yet.

2. What was the last song you listened to?

I am currently have iTunes on shuffle on my desk top and the song that has just finished is Here Is The News by Electric Light Orchestra, a classic from the early 1980’s.

3. What’s in your CD player right now?

The song I am currently listening to is Every Day Is Exactly The Same by Nine Inch Nails:

So the album is With Teeth (by the same band of course).

4. What was the last show you attended?

The last gig I went to was Within Temptation at the Manchester Apollo, earlier this year. For those of you who haven’t heard of them, they are a symphonic metal band from Holland.

5. What was the greatest show you’ve ever been to?

I think that would have to be Rammstein, a highly controversial German industrial metal band who sing almost exclusively in German yet are massively popular among the metal loving English speaking world. The show was incredible, full of fire, fun and a massive audience of English people all singing in German – myself included.

6. What’s the worst show you’ve ever been to?

That’s easy – Cher. My ex-wife persuaded me against my better judgement to drive all the way to the Birmingham NEC in the late 1980’s to see this so-called superstar. The support was fairly dreadful but Cher simply took the piss in terms of value for money. I was used to seeing the feature artist on stage for at least an hour and a half. Sher came on and sang a few songs, changed her costume every five minutes and played for just over an hour. The best bit of the concert was when she disappeared for five minutes and left her dancers to show their art to a fairly good rock instrumental – but even that was ruined by a big screen showing us all how great Cher was at singing and acting. At the time it was the most expensive gig I had been to, which is another reason why I hated it.

7. What’s the most musically involved you have ever been?

I guess that means taking part in a musical act of some kind. I have played a trombone in the school orchestra at Walsall Town Hall in front of an appreciative audience of parents and teachers and also played in a brass group in the school hall in front of a similar bunch of people, including a stand up solo to the Floral Dance. How embarrassing.

8. What show are you looking forward to?

I have three concerts lined up in the next few months but the one I am looking forward to most is Steel Panther, a kind of extreme version of Spinal Tap who take the piss out of 1980’s heavy metal. They are extremely  rude and offensive but hilarious.

9. What is your favorite band shirt?

I don’t buy band shirts anymore because, quite frankly, they are a complete waste of money.  The last one I bought was Guns’n’Roses way back in the early 1990’s, so I’ll select that one.

10. What musician would you like to hang out with for a day?

I think my current favourite is a guy called Steven Wilson, a progressive rock genius who is the main songwriter and driving force behind Porcupine Tree. He has recently released his third solo album called The Raven That Refused To Sing (and Other Stories) which is one of the best albums I have heard for years. I would like to spend a day watching him at work.

11. Who is one musician or group you wish would make a comeback?

I would like Led Zeppelin to go into the studio one more time, with Jason Bonham replacing his father John on the drums, and record an album in the same style as their very first album.

A particular favourite is Dazed and Confused and if they could reproduce a bluesy masterpiece like this I would be absolutely delighted.

12. Who is one band/artist you’ve never seen live but always wanted to?

Again that has to be either Steven Wilson as a solo artist or with his band Porcupine Tree. He toured last year and played in Manchester but sadly, I was in Muscat so I couldn’t go.

13. Name four or more flawless albums:

I have a lot of flawless albums - but these immediately leap to mind.

AC/DC – Back in Black
Air – Pocket Symphony
Dream Theater – Metropolis Part II: Scenes from a Memory
Foo Fighters – Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace
Joe Satriani – The Extremist
Metallica – Master of Puppets
Nine Inch Nails – The Downward Spiral
Porcupine Tree – Fear of a Blank Planet
Queensrÿche – Operation Mindcrime
Rammstein – Liebe Ist Fur Alle Da
Rush – Clockwork Angels
Steven Wilson – The Raven That Refused To Sing (and other stories)
Within Temptation – The Unforgiving

14. How many music related videos/DVDs do you own?

I own a couple of Rush DVD’s, and ones by Alice Cooper, Roger Waters and Nine Inch Nails.

15. How many concerts/shows have you been to, total?

I’ve been to so many over the years that I simply cannot remember. I would say well over a hundred.

16. Who have you seen the most live?

Bizarrely, the band I have seen most is Thunder, a British rock band from the 1990’s who still tour occasionally. They play good old British rock music that is totally inoffensive and extreme fun. In fact I have actually met the guys when my mate managed to wangle a couple of tickets to the after show party.

Here is a sample of their work:

Here's when I met them (in 2005):

17. What is your favourite movie soundtrack?

I don’t own this OST but I would say The Matrix because it has two fantastic songs on it as well as a few other great songs. Here are Du Hast by Rammstein and Dragula by Rob Zombie.

18. What was your last musical “phase” before you wisened up?

To be honest, I love music from all the phases I have passed through – including 1970’s disco. See next question.

19. What’s your “guilty pleasure” that you hate to admit to liking?

I know – I shouldn’t like this but I do and I can’t help it. it takes me back to a time when I loved bopping away with all the other kids at the school disco in the 1970’s.

I present to you, Daft Punk with Get Lucky – and I love this song and I don't mind admitting it.

31 Days of Blogging - Day 4

Day 4 – The Electric Light Orchestra – Mr Blue Sky

The Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) were my favourite pop band of the 1970s, the first band I was truly obsessed with.

Once I had bought an LP there was no holding me back. It was much more cost effective than buying singles as you got much more music for your money. So I bought Out of the Blue by ELO, a double album that was sheer genius.

It was a bargain and believe me, as a poor child with only paper round money to sustain my greed for music, I needed bargains.

I was addicted.

And thankfully I had a job.

But there was a cost. It’s a bit weird but most people want to read their newspapers first thing in the morning and unfortunately this meant that I used to have to get up at the crack of dawn. While most people were sleeping I was wandering around the house in a complete daze, fuelled by coffee.

The only other people active were milkmen, postmen and birds waiting to wake up the world with their dawn chorus.

Oh – and my dad.

He alternated with his shifts and when it was a 0600 till 1400 shift, he was up and about at 5 am. He was used to it. I wasn’t.

I used to ask him to wake me up and he did so with gusto. I am certain that he got a kick out of it. At 5am he would march into my room and switch on the light.

“Get up!” he would yell.

My reaction? Hide under the covers.

His answer? March back into the bedroom and rip the sheets off the bed and drag me out by my feet.

It was a ritual that worked with the added bonus that he had made me a strong cup of coffee to kick start my day.

I actually enjoyed delivering newspapers in the early hours of the morning. There was virtually no traffic, no people and utter peace. I was a fit young man in those days and jogged around the streets with my bag full of newspapers. It was really nice to see the sun coming up over the horizon and it gave me a sense of total solitude and blissful tranquillity.

And as the sun rose and the black sky gave way to reds, oranges and blues, I would be whistling Mr Blue Sky by ELO; it seemed apt really.

I was at peace.

By way of comparison, I also delivered the local newspaper in the evening and that was a different experience altogether. Rush hour traffic, school kids and others returning home created crowds in the streets and the noise was deafening.

It was a stark contrast to the calm of the morning as the sun rose. I know which I preferred and if it wasn’t for antisocial hours it would have been the perfect experience.

Sadly, I’ve only enjoyed such peaceful beauty once or twice in the intervening years. I enjoy my beauty sleep too much.

And boy do I need it.