The world is mine yours

This is The World Is Mine, a 2019 single by UK R&B artist Samm Henshaw. No, it's not my usual bag*, but I do very much like it. I could almost imagine it being a 21st Century Bond theme ... and maybe I'm not alone in thinking that, because it did get picked up for the excellent TV adaptation of Anthony Horowitz's teen spy series Alex Rider. That's where I first heard it, courtesy of Amusements Minor, so today seems a good day, the best day, to post it. The world is yours, my son.

Great video too.

* My usual bag, such as it is, will no doubt resume next time.

Beat, surrendered

To say the news that Rick Buckler died yesterday caught me out would be an understatement; I hadn't even known he'd been unwell. And Christ, 69 is no age to be dying, is it? Surely this couldn't be true?

But then came the messages from Paul and Bruce, and coverage on BBC News. It was undeniably true. I WhatsApped The Man Of Cheese with the awful news.

I'm not going to write much about The Jam, today. If you're reading this, you already know all about them and probably have an idea how much they meant to me. Mean to me, still. I will post music though, celebrating a sound that has stood the test of time since it was made four and a half decades ago. For example, here is, to the best of my knowledge, the only Jam song on which Rick had a co-writing credit.

Fantastic, isn't it? And Rick's rattling tom-toms and driving snare propelled it forward with such energy and urgency, typical of the dynamism he brought to the band as one half of a crack rhythm section.

It wasn't all plain sailing, of course. Rick could never really get his head around Paul calling time on The Jam, a decision he regarded as crazy. He felt that both he and Bruce could have gone in the different musical directions Paul was keen to follow, and maybe he was right, technically. Hard to imagine Rick being happy on Confessions of a Pop Group though.

After The Jam, Rick formed Time UK, but didn't really trouble the charts. His book That's Entertainment: My Life in The Jam (a birthday gift from The Man Of Cheese, and thoroughly recommended) covers this post-Jam period well - I might be misremembering, but I seem to recall Rick shared an agent with Schnorbitz, Bernie Winters' St Bernard sidekick ... but Schnorbitz was getting more bookings. No surprise, then, that Rick fell into a new art - carpentry and furniture restoration. He opened a shop selling upcycled and distressed furniture back in Woking, and that might have been that were it not for a chance meeting with Russell Hastings that led to their forming The Gift. And when Bruce joined a little later, they renamed themselves From The Jam. The picture on the right was taken by me on a rubbish camera phone, all the way back in December 2007, Rick looking the epitome of cool behind his trademark oversized white tom-toms. I'd first seen FTJ live in May of that year, after which I wrote "Rick's drumming was mind-boggling at times - quite how he could drum so quickly and powerfully with apparently so little effort (seeming to barely touch each drum-skin and cymbal) was beyond me." I stand by that - Rick's drumming was all about controlled power, timing and precision. He made it seem effortless... and cool. But even FTJ wasn't to last for Rick - he left in 2009. I often wondered if it was a coincidence that this was around the time Bruce reconciled with Paul. No-one ever said as much, least of all Rick, but I have sometimes wondered if he saw this as a betrayal? I guess we'll never know.

Outside of music, Rick was a devoted family man, honest and passionate according to all those that knew him. He was willingly involved in, and showed up for, many Jam retrospectives, not least About The Young Idea. And he still managed to use his music business experience, working in artist management and promotion.

Rick's obit mentions that he had recently been forced to cancel a spoken-word tour of UK venues because of health problems, and that his death followed a short illness. This news comes not long after Bruce announced that the current run of From The Jam dates will be his last with the band, as he retires to focus on his health. Our heroes are getting old. Inevitable, I know, but sad nonetheless. At least they know, when their time comes, that they have left a mark, made something that endures. Oh, to be that lucky.

I'll end with two more songs, and a photograph. I love the video for Absolute Beginners, not least because it features a lot of running, and Rick is clearly the most up for it. In this, he looks like he would run through a wall for the band. By contrast, Paul looks like he has smoked way too much (and/or is hungover). Plus, Rick's jumper is cool as.

And then there's their cover of So Sad About Us, which The Jam recorded in tribute to the untimely passing of another drummer, a certain Keith Moon. Here's a live rendition by From The Jam.

As for the picture, it's a relatively recent shot in which Rick recreated the 7" picture sleeve of Down In The Tube Station At Midnight. He looks dignified in it, I think. Dignified, and still cool.

RIP Rick, and thanks for everything.

Blue Friday: Slide

Jake Bugg burst into the public consciousness around 2012 when his song Lightning Bolt dovetailed serendipitously with Usain's brilliance at the London Olympics - the song was everywhere, and Jake seemed to be a hip, post-Millennial hybrid of Bob Dylan and Lonnie Donnegan, at least to listeners of a certain age. But there's a lot more to him than that, and Slide is a great example of what.

Lyrics are great for today too, for all those who don't subscribe to the hearts and flowers nonsense of February 14th. "Is love just suffering?" Jake wonders. Good question. Let's not forget, Saint Valentine was beaten with clubs, beheaded and buried under cover of darkness, before being disinterred by his followers... but give a card with that on it and I doubt you'll get laid.

UFO spotting

An email from Bandcamp just landed in my inbox at lunchtime. Now you don't need me to tell you about Andy Bell but you may be unaware, as I was until the email arrived, that he has just released a new track entitled Apple Green UFO. And it's rather excellent, much of the time sounding like it's arrived here straight from 1989. Imagine a lost Stone Roses track if Ian Brown could sing and, unlikely admittedly, they'd added a brass motif to the chorus. Simple but effective ear-wormy bassline as well.

There are two versions: a four minute-ish edit for the video (below) and an eight minute-ish extended take on Bandcamp (below below).

Good, isn't it?

D'you want a bag on your head?

Way back when, before my so-called career (ha!), I used to work in a hi-fi shop. It wasn't quite like this, though there were occasions when the customer's lack of technical knowledge could be advantageous. Upselling, I'd guess you'd call it these days. Don't judge me, it was a very low paid job with a commission element. Anyway, what I can say is that it was easy to sell expensive kit as long as it was demonstrably better. As long as I could demo a Sony CCD-TR805 camcorder I would sell it, more often than not, even though it was hideously expensive at £1,099.99, just because it was obviously so much better than everything else. Ditto the brilliant TCK-611S cassette deck, again expensive at £299.99 but an easy sell once demonstrated. Likewise the WM-DD33 Walkman (£99.99).

I was a good salesman, I think, because I made sure I knew my stuff, and used that knowledge to find something that matched the customer's needs. I enjoyed the job too, more often that not, and met a good mate there in the form of Tim, a friendship that endures to this day, despite rarely seeing each other.

I was interested in it all too, which is why I still knew those models numbers and prices instantly off the top of my head, despite my time there being more than 30 years ago. The brain's a funny thing, I guess. For the record, the 805 was a better camcorder because it had an optical image stabiliser (basically a clear gel between two lenses that acted as a dynamic prism) rather than the digital efforts of other brands, which tended to give grainy, pixelated results because they just didn't have the necessary processing power back then. And the 611S brought Dolby-S noise reduction to the domestic market, so much better than B and C; with a good quality blank tape (Sony Metal-XR, for example) the 611S would be the best way of recording CDs until MiniDisc and CD-Rs came along. As for the WM-DD33, well, DD stood for direct drive - no drive belts to stretch over time - plus it had heft! A sign of quality components, back then. Terry Hall had a WM-DD33, fact fans (and so did I).

I'll end with a track from a CD we used for demos, mostly because it was a DDD recording - digital recording equipment, digital mastering, digital media (rare then). With a good amp and decent speakers you could really appreciate the sound quality however much you liked the music ... and Sting irked the musos, even then. Here's the closing track from Ten Summoner's Tales, in all its 21st Century, compressed, low-bitrate, embedded YouTube misery. Does anyone care about sound quality any more?

That's a very Beatlesy outro there, isn't it?

Sunday shorts: Commercial Break

Start playing the video now and it could be over around the time you finish reading...

Parklife may be the album that sold pajillions, and the brilliant 13 may be their creative highpoint, but I maintain Blur's best album is Modern Life Is Rubbish. Rarely has the sound of a band reinventing itself - saving itself, arguably - sounded so good. An album that was so strong they could afford to leave manifesto single Popscene off it. Okay, so maybe it was also the last Blur album not to top the UK chart, but what do we care for charts here at Amusement Towers?

Part of what made the album feel so vital, in the 'alive' sense rather than in the 'must have' sense, is that it felt like the band were packing everything in, just in case they didn't get another go at it. Each side concludes with a quick instumental workout, the sort that sound like the band were just playing with ideas in the studio and committed some to tape. Side One ends with the appropriately titled Intermission, tacked onto the end of Chemical World. Side Two notionally concludes with the decidedly downbeat Resigned but maybe someone, somewhere, felt it wasn't such a good idea to end on a low (they'd do that on the next album, of course) and so this jaunty little thrash was tacked on the end. I see the title as optimistic too - Commercial Break implies the band still felt, or at least hoped, there was more to come, even if some of those around them at the time were doubtful. Maybe, then, this is the sound of Britpop hoving into view... but we shouldn't hold that against it, right?

Blue Friday: It's A Wonderful Life

You might expect a song entitled It's A Wonderful Life to be an upbeat ditty but it's anything but. "I'm a bog of poison frogs," intones Sparklehorse frontman and songwriter Mark Linkous, on this 1999 track from the album of the same name. "I'm the dog that ate your birthday cake." And he'd know, I guess. A couple of years earlier, a valium/alcohol/heroin combo very nearly killed him. Even though he survived, he was in a wheelchair for six months and needed dialysis for kidney failure. Don't do drugs, kids.

Whatever demons were eating at Linkous, no amount of critical acclaim sated them. Neither did the respect of his musical peers, as collaborations with the likes of PJ Harvey, Cracker, Tom Waits and Nina Persson were a constant in the life of Sparklehorse. In 2009, the band teamed up with Danger Mouse and the late David Lynch on the album Dark Night of the Soul; it turned out to be one of the last things Linkous did, as he took his own life in March of the following year.

I am the only one
Can ride that horse, th'yonder
I'm full of bees who died at sea

It's a wonderful life, it's a wonderful life

I wore a rooster's blood
When it flew like doves
I'm a bog of poison frogs

It's a wonderful life, it's a wonderful life

I'm the dog that ate your birthday cake

It's a wonderful life, it's a wonderful life

On the dark side of the road

I went to see Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown last night, and very much enjoyed it. Other bloggers with more Bob-knowledge than I have written about it already (I'd especially recommend Swiss Adam's post at Bagging Area) so I won't do a full review. I will say I think the cast are uniformly excellent. Timothée Chalamet (or Tomato Chalamuffin, as Amusements Minor calls him) inhabits his role, and will be hoovering up nominations come awards season, I have no doubt of that. Edward Norton's supporting role as Pete Seeger is also noteworthy. But beyond the performances, both acting and musical, part of this film's strength is the authentic recreation of early 60s New York. Obviously I wasn't there, of course, but it feels very right, somehow. Watching felt like time travel.

Of course it's not flawless - what is? I'm no Bob expert, we've established that already, but even I know the infamous cry of "Judas" came at the Manchester Free Trade Hall in '66, not the '65 Newport Folk Festival. There's a whole slew of such creative variations but that's fair enough; after all, this is a dramatic retelling, not a documentary statement, and a little licence adds to the story. So even though Suze Rotolo didn't go to Newport in 1965, we get to see Sylvie Russo (an undisguised avatar for Suze) attend with Bob, and finally realise she can't be with him, because it serves the film's narrative arc. And that's okay - it's a story based on truth, not the absolute truth, after all.

Other issues? Well, Toshi Seeger's character is ornamental throughout, almost to the point that you wonder why she was even in the film. Her sole dramatic moment is to stop husband Pete hijacking Bob's electric performance. Critics have been quick to point out that there was a hell of a lot more to Toshi than this... but this is a film about Bob, not the Seegers. The lack of depth in her character was noticeable but not, for me, detrimental.

Anyway, where was I? The film is very good, go and see it if you haven't already. Chalamet is exceptional (see Adam's later Bagging Area post for videos of Timothée performing Dylan songs live on Saturday Night Live, both electric and acoustic), and the whole thing will have you scurrying to revisit your Dylan collection.

Speaking of which... one track I have always loved got a brief, subtle airing in the film, around the halfway mark. Bob and Sylvie's relationship is starting to unravel, there is tension in the air. Whilst they skirt around having a full-blown argument, Bob starts finger-picking the intro to Don't Think Twice, It's All Right. He doesn't sing it, just plays the intro. It's a neat bit of foreshadowing, of course, for Don't Think Twice... is a next-level break-up song. "I give her my heart but she wanted my soul" indeed. From 1963's Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, here it is.

Well, it ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe
If'n you don't know by now
And it ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe
It'll never do somehow
When your rooster crows at the break of dawn
Look out your window and I'll be gone
You're the reason I'm a-travelling on
But don't think twice, it's all right

And it ain't no use in a-turning on your light, babe
The light I never knowed
And it ain't no use in turning on your light, babe
I'm on the dark side of the road
But I wish there was something you would do or say
To try and make me change my mind and stay
But we never did too much talking anyway
But don't think twice, it's all right

So it ain't no use in calling out my name, gal
Like you never done before
And it ain't no use in calling out my name, gal
I can't hear you anymore
I'm a-thinking and a-wondering, walking down the road
I once loved a woman, a child, I'm told
I give her my heart but she wanted my soul
But don't think twice, it's all right

So long, honey babe
Where I'm bound, I can't tell
Goodbye's too good a word, babe
So I'll just say, "Fare thee well"
I ain't a-saying you treated me unkind
You could've done better, but I don't mind
You just kinda wasted my precious time
But don't think twice, it's all right

Postscript 1: guitarists, learn how to play the song - though it's not quite as easy as this guy makes it seem.

Postscript 2: Adam at Bagging Area makes the excellent suggestion of watching Scorsese's No Direction Home on iPlayer, after the Chalamet movie. I intend on doing that, tonight. Might I also suggest watching the Coen brothers' brilliant Inside Llewyn Davis before the Dylan biopic too? It's total fiction but will get you in a 1961 Greenwich Village mood from the outset.

Speak!

What do you think about podcasts? Do you listen to them? Do you subscribe? Any that you'd recommend?

I don't listen to many - most of my offline listening is downloaded radio shows from BBC Sounds, and that's not quite the same thing. But I do try to keep up with the usual suspects (Adam Buxton and Louis Theroux, for example). I've also stumbled across the odd gem - The Old Fools, featuring David Quantick and Ian Martin, is a joyous, if occasionally sweary, gem. But then maybe I like that so much because I am, increasingly, an old fool myself. I am the target market. I am the demographic.

Have you ever tried podcasting yourself? If so, what platforms or technologies have you used? How did you find the experience? Would you recommend it? Do it again? Are you still doing it?

And if all this makes you think, oh god, isn't it enough that he already writes a blog that barely anyone reads, now he wants to launch a podcast that ever fewer people will listen to, well ... the thought has crossed my mind. It probably won't happen - it's a lot more effort than just typing a couple of paragraphs, adding the odd hyperlink and then embedding a YouTube video, after all. And I'm not so great with effort, these days. So, rest easy...

Speaking of embedding a YouTube video, I should probably end with one. What is this blog without a bit of appropriate music, after all? (That's a rhetorical question, though the answer would probably be "Not very much.") Anyway, if the only song you're aware of by Sultans of Ping F.C. is the brilliance of Where's Me Jumper? then I'm about to double your knowledge. You can thank me later.

Just one more thing: having asked for your recommendations it seems only fair to reciprocate. I use AntennaPod to consume anything that I don't already get from BBC Sounds. It's brilliant, free, open source, has no ads and, best of all, doesn't require you to create an account. I don't know if something similar exists in the Apple ecosystem but you can get AntennaPod at Google Play and you should because it's a proper piece of software. Although I appreciate that when I say "...and you should" I sound like Patrick Bateman imploring people to listen to Huey Lewis's lyrics.

Blue Friday: Sweetness Follows

Depending on my mood, this song can feel the bluest of blue to me, or an uplifting soar into the clouds. Either way, and whatever your mileage, it reminds us of that time 30-plus years ago, when REM were untouchable, the greatest band on the planet. Play REALLY loud.

Readying to bury your father and your mother
What did you think when you lost another?
I used to wonder why did you bother
Distanced from one, blind to the other

Listen here, my sister and my brother
What would you care if you lost the other?
I always wonder why did we bother
Distanced from one, blind to the other

Oh, oh, but sweetness follows

It's these little things, they can pull you under
Live your life filled with joy and wonder
I always knew this altogether thunder
Was lost in our little lives

Oh, oh, but sweetness follows
Oh, oh, but sweetness follows

It's these little things, they can pull you under
Live your life filled with joy and thunder
Yeah, yeah, we were all together
Lost in our little lives

Oh, oh, but sweetness follows
Oh, oh, oh, but sweetness follows