Monday 22 December 2008

Another Bit of Bad Poetry

Friday 19th December:

'Twas the week before Christmas, and all through the town,
Shoppers were laughing as prices came down.
Labour had found financial rules to bend,
In the hopes that the likes of us would more spend.

The "Giggers" and some partners, to get in the mood,
Had arranged to meet up for jolliness and food.

The plan was to meet up at seven, restaurant Bari,
We could have guessed which of the regulars would tarry...

The food it was good, 'tho I wasn't in a hurry,
At lunchtime I'd gone out with work for a curry.
After beef for my starter, a bowl full of pasta,
My tummy was full and others ate faster.

The company was good and the bill very reasonable,
I think we all left feeling just a bit seasonal.

My wife had decided to go home on the bus,
The rest? Well, on to Fibbers for us.
When we got there the evening's show had started,
First band - The ABC Club - had already departed.

Pulled Apart By Horses were into their act.
Fast they played and shouted
their lyrics, that's a fact.
Energetic, loud, fast,
The guitar-playing was.
On stage and off stage in the middle of us.
I liked some of the music, If I was to be honest.
However, nothing for me did the rest.

After a short break in which I drank terrible beer,
The Grammatics took the stage to a bit of a cheer.
Now, this band was better by far than the first.
Not the best that we've seen but by far not the worst.

Influences? Probably more than these two.
But I thought I heard Morrisey and the great U2.

From Sweden, Emilia for them plays the cello.
It makes the music a little more mellow.

Near the end of the set, was added a new voice.
Laura Groves on backing vocals, a very good choice.
Her harmonies were both subtle and sweet,
And the songs she sang on were an extra treat.

At the end of the show we went out into the air.
Who's on at the Bath? Let's wander down there.
We queued to get in until two were let through the door.
Straight out they came. "Funk! Need we say more???!"

Onto the Punchbowl but there was no music playing.
So we stood on a corner, our goodbyes saying.

This poem isn't as long as the one I've based it on.
And it has to be said that I've got some of the scanning wrong.
Now I've run out of things to say that sound right.
So, Merry Christmas to all and to all a Good Night!

Monday 15 December 2008

More Masterworks

Monday 15th December: Best laid plans of mice and men were thwarted on Friday evening when the non-appearance of a bus put a stop to me going out to see the Mojos again. Instead, cold and wet, I wandered home to curl up with my wife and a book. I've got through a few (books, not wives) since my last burst of reviews, so here's a very quick catch-up.

The Centauri Device (M. John Harrison, 1974) is yet another example of 70's SF that I just didn't get. It seems a simple enough story - John Truck, lowlife spaceship captain, is half Centauri and the last hope of defusing/activating a device found on Centaur after a long war. He is pursued across the stars by miltary groups descended from Arabs and Jews in a bid by both sides to get him to use the device for their aims.

Except, I hadn't got a clue what was going on. Harrison's style is overblown and verbose - "A Zen-master of prose" reads a quotation on the cover. Hmm, verbal diahorrea if you ask me.

Non-Stop (Brian Aldiss, 1958) was much more enjoyable. A small group of villagers set out to find "forwards" and find instead that their lives are a lie. The blurb on the back cover hints of secrets, twist and revelations and I was quite surprised to find, early on, that at least some of the characters already knew what I thought I had cleverly worked out. This didn't stop my enjoyment of this book, though as the ending was an even bigger twist than I expected.

Good action sequences, good characters and a plot that has been done a few times since this book was published. Very enjoyable ane one of the best books in the Masterworks series.

Fountains of Paradise (Arthur C. Clarke, 1978) is, in my opinion his best book and this was actually a reread (although in a new format). The science and technology of building the great space elevator is so believable that you can almost reach out and touch it. Add to that the novel's setting (a thinly disguised Ceylon), the mixture of technology and ancient religion (although Clarke frequently comes across as anti religion) and the truly believable characters and you get a very readable novel that should be held up to non-SF fans to show how good SF can be when written well.

OK, it does turn into a bit of a disaster movie derivative in it's latter stages and Clarke can't help but add in a benevolent alien intelligence but this is an excellent novel and one of my top ten of all time.

The City and the Stars (Arthur C. Clarke, 1956) starts of well as Alvin, citizen of Diaspar (the last city on a far-future Earth) dreams of leaving his home and seeing the outside (some that very few Diasparans ever dream of). Falling in with a jester, whose job it is to bring uncertainty to the controlled environment of the city, Alvin discovers a smaller settlement at the end of an old transit line and, eventually, a spaceship in which he explores the stars.

As the book went on, however, I couldn't help thinking of the two I had read earlier in the year by Olaf Stapledon. This should probably come as no surpise as the latter was the author who inspired Clarke, but I didn't like those books and, as this one became more and more similar, I found myself liking it less than when I started it. Which is a shame, really, as this is regarded as one of Clarke's finest works by most of his fans.

Childhood's End (Arthur C. Clarke, 1953) was Clarke's second novel and is equally as respected. Fortunately, I liked this one a bit more.

Just as mankind is about to reach the stars, huge spaceships arrive over capital cities across the world. The occupants, Overlords, hide themselves from humanity for fifty years but bring about an end to war and usher in a golden age for mankind. When they do reveal themselves, they prove to be the visual equivalent of the Devil, igniting questions about their role in the development of Man. However, the Overlords themselves are only workers for the galaxy-spanning Overmind and it may just be the time for mankind to take its ultimate place in the universe.

This is quite possibly the least scientific of Clarke's novel and falls in at barely 200 pages long. It is, however, full of ideas and speculations, not least on the place the supernatural has in our lives. Images from it have appeared in the likes of Independence Day and V but that just shows, again, the Clarke was way ahead of his time.

Wednesday 10 December 2008

It's Award Time

Wednesday 10th December: With just three weeks of 2008 left it seems that it's the time to reflect back on the past year. It's this coming Sunday that the BBC will announce its Sports Personality of the Year (and the field for this year is, in my opinion, wide open thanks, in part at least, to the excellent showing during this Summer's Olympics. I just hope the award doesn't go to that car driver...) Seldom Seen of Strensall has already posted his top five gigs of the year here and very soon the TV channels will be filled with looks back.

And so I'm going to take this opportunity to announce the inaugural Dr'ids, a series of awards which will reflect the highs of my 2008. With golden envelopes at the ready, here we go...

First up and, perhaps, easiest to award is Best Film. It's just over a year now since I stopped going to the cinema regularly but I managed to see a handful of films this year. The return to York of my cinema-buddy a couple of weeks ago resulted in an unplanned visit to see the latest Bond film which, while not as tense as Casino Royale, is a worthy addition to the Bond canon. The producers may be turning the veteran spy into a version of another agent with the initials JB but it's probably true to say that the change is necessary if the franchise is going to continue. A Quantum of Solace is my film of 2008.

Best Original Gig took me a bit by surprise. I bought a ticket to see Mostly Autumn at the Grand Opera House just after the gig was announced and had been looking forward to it for months. However, it was a much older band that left me stunned at the end of their concert. I own two tracks by Uriah Heep, both on rock compilation albums, and if I were honest, I doubt I would have recognised either of them. So, I took a bit of a gamble when I went to see them at The Duchess (17/11). Not only were they excellent but they also had a superb support band in Maccara. Overall, this was an excellent gig and easily the best of the year. Honorable mentions go to Mostly Autumn (The Grand Opera House, 28/11) and Breathing Space (The Roman Bath, 22/11).

Best Covers Gig was another easy one. Way back in June we saw The Chantel McGregor Band in the Roman Bath for the first time. I was immediately in awe of the young, diminutive, barefoot guitarist as she charmed the audience with a varied set of blues and rock covers. When she returned to the Bath on the 6th of September, there was no way I was going to miss the gig. Good job as well, as it turned out to be, somehow, even better than the first time.

Most Consistently Entertaining Original Live Act is a bit of a mouthful but it's a category I have added so that Hope and Social can win an award. I first saw them when they were still Four Day Hombre and was immediately enamoured by both their music and their easy going style on stage. I saw them twice in 2008 and, up until November, they were in line for the Best Original Gig award.

Best CD Release should have been another certainty, with Mostly Autumn releasing Glass Shadows in 2008. In fact, however, my favourite album of the relatively few I bought in 2008 has changed. When I reviewed Elliot Minor's debut album I was proud to proclaim it the best of the year so far. Then I went to see them live and realised that, good as it is, it is possibly over-produced and is quite a bit different from their live sound. In fact, I am going to plump for an earlier purchase (and another debut) as I declare Panic Room's Visionary Position to be my album of 2008. Its progressive rock background mingled with Eastern promise, jazz and straightforward ballad utilises Anne-Marie Helder's voice to haunting/powerful/sentimental effect and is currently my most played CD. Apart from the two already mentioned, honourables also go to Bryan Josh's first solo album, Through These Eyes.

Best New Book is a little different from the other awards. I am so far behind in my reading that I don't think I read a single 2008-released book during the year. So, for this award only, "new" refers to new to me. This was the year that I discovered Alastair Reynolds and found that, while not quick reads, his novels were truly satisfying. It's also the year that I started (but have yet to finish due to missing pages) George Stewart's Earth Abides and really enjoyed Lady of the Forest, Jennifer Robeson's romantic retelling of the Robin Hood legend. However, for sheer readability, (almost) believability and in some ways audacity, this year's award goes to Return to Mars by Ben Bova. It definitely has its faults but Bova weaves an interesting tale which goes some way to resolve the cliffhanger left in the prequel.

And that's it. 2008 in a few lines. Not a full review. In many ways not a review at all. I doubt many people will agree with my choices and I doubt that I would agree with those of many other people. There is a slight chance things will change over the next three weeks, but I doubt it. Overall, in terms of music and books, it's been a very good year. Yes, I've seen a couple of bands I wouldn't contemplate seeing again and read a couple of books that will be boxed away when I get round to sorting the shelves out, but that is to be expected.

I do miss my almost weekly visits to the cinema but it's my choice - I'd rather go to a gig every couple of weeks with friends than sit watching most films on my own - and, eventually, the visits will pick up again.

In the meantime let's hope that 2009 continues the standard set by 2008.

Saturday 29 November 2008

A Mostly Impressive Gig

Friday 28th November: I still find it difficult to believe that, until just over a year ago, I hadn't heard of Mostly Autumn. York-based, prog-rock (with more than a hint of folk), eleven years old, extremely talented and, somehow, completely off my radar until I took a chance and went to the launch of Offerings by Odin Dragonfly.

Yet, in some ways, it's not that surprising. Despite a country(world?)-wide hardcore of truly dedicated fans, the Mostlies still come across as a small band that have somehow made it reasonably big. The band members are people you could pass in the street and not have an inkling that they were, at least in the minds of some people, rock gods. Being York people, you occasionally see them in local pubs (usually when music is involved) and, if you timed it right, you could probably bump into some of them in the supermarket. Their style of music isn't the most popular around and, unless you listen to the likes of Planet Rock, you aren't likely to hear them on the radio. Modern progressive rock seems to exists solely on the foundations of word of mouth and links on the internet.

However, since I discovered them, Mostly Autumn have become one of my favourite bands and though them I have come across a few similar outfits. Currently, Mostly Autumn (or, perhaps more specifically, Bryan and Heather) appear to be the music centre of a whirlpool of talent. Past and present members link the band to Panic Room, Breathing Space, Fish, Coverdale's Night, Odin Dragonfly and, probably, many more. Just following links from those bands can open up a world of exciting and interesting music.

When Mostly Autumn played their York gig last year, I missed it and went to see a Led Zeppelin tribute band instead. Unfortunately, I was very disappointed with the latter's performance and vowed that I would take the next opportunity to see the former. So, when tickets went on sale for tonight's gig at York's Grand Opera House, I bought mine almost straight away. Despite it being month's away, my anticipation was high.

Tonight's gig was the first after a four month break due to the birth of Heather's son in October. Heather herself looked radiant in a series of simple black and red dresses. The relatively small stage meant that, from where I was sitting, I could hardly see anything of Iain Jennings, only saw Anne-Marie Helder whenever she ventured from behind her keyboards to play flute or guitar or Livvy Sparnenn, who looked incredibly lonely so far back on the stage by herself. The rest of the band were fully visible, however, with Bryan and Heather front of stage (but who was that third microphone for?), Andy Smith alternating between pacing around like a caged tiger and retreating to his corner, Liam Davison rarely coming forward from his central position and Henry Bourne, of course, staying in place behind the drums.

The set itself contained about an even split of songs that I did know and ones that I didn't, although their were more from the latest album, Glass Shadows, than I had expected from reviews of other gigs. The vast majority of songs were excellent. My only complaint would be that the simple repetitive keyboards of Above The Blue was pretty much repeated a handful of songs later - once was just about bearable, the second time was bordering on monotonous. It should be said, though, that Heather's rendition of Above The Blue was absolutely superb. A lot of the band's songs are written, from the heart, as personal tributes or celebrations of life. Powerful songs that, in some ways, batter the audience on an emotional level (as Bryan himself pointed out). Heroes Never Die and Tearing At The Faerytale aren't the kind of songs you hear from "ordinary" bands and the audience loved them. A Different Sky is an entirely different type of song - the archetypal three-minute pop song - and was almost a breath of fresh air compared to some of the others. Songs such as Evergreen and The Spirit Of Autumn Past are typical of the style of the band and are personal favourites. There were (obviously) more but I either can't remember them or didn't know them.

Mostly Autumn are, without doubt, an ensemble band. Yes, Bryan is the heart and guitar of the band and Heather is the voice, but everybody has their part to play and, tonight, they did so admirably. Iain's keyboards soared, Anne-Marie's flute was used to great effect and the various guitarists were brilliant, while the backing vocals added just the right amount if variation to to the main ones. Towards the end of the show, the mystery of that third microphone was solved - Troy Donockley appeared on stage to perform a tune on the Uillean Pipes and continued to play for the remainder of the gig, providing accompaniment on the pipes, various whistles and guitar. The whole performance was highlighted with a much smaller and much less subtle, but no less effective, light-show than you would normally expect from a rock concert.

Despite it still being November, Christmas was an ongoing theme during the gig. The first half was ended with Greg Lake's I Believe in Father Christmas, while the encore started with Heather singing Silent Night accompanied by former band-members Angela Gordon and Chris Johnson. Bryan then proceeded to tell us how the band see Christmas as a special time for family and friends before announcing that they were really going to "*&%$ing ram it down our throats..." What followed almost needed a bigger stage as the whole line-up ended the show with Fairytale Of New York and Slade's Merry Christmas Everybody, while wearing suitably festive headgear. At one point, Livvy was joined at the back by Heather, Angela and Anne-Marie - that's not a bad-looking backing vocals line-up in anybody's book.

Throughout the show the band appeared to be having fun on stage. At the end, the audience (finally) got to their feet and gave them resounding applause.

Forget Chinese Democracy being the most anticipated album of the year. Tonight's gig was my most anticipated of the year and it lived up to those expectations. To my mind, there isn't another band quite like Mostly Autumn. Conversely, Mostly Autumn are like quite a lot of other bands, but I don't mean that in any disparaging way whatsoever.

Tuesday 25 November 2008

Saturday Is A Sort Of Preview Of Next Friday

Saturday 22nd November: It's not that often that my wife and I can both say that we like the same band. It's also not often that you get to see fantastic original music, played live, for free. So, when the opportunity to see a fantastic band, that both my wife and I like, play live, original music, it's time to take advantage and organise a rare night out together.

So, after a good curry, we head off to the Roman Bath to see Breathing Space. It's as full a turn-out for the weekend gang as you are likely to see, with six of us squeezing into a rapidly filling pub.

This is our third time of seeing Breathing Space and, I think, their best performance to date. Not only were we treated to songs from the first (Breathing Space by Iain Jennings) and second album (Coming Up For Air by the now-steady line-up) but also at least one new song from the third album, which is currently being written. I'm sure that lead-vocalist Livvy told the story behind Butterflies but, it being the Bath, too many people were there just to try to be louder than the music and I missed what she said. It was a good song, though.

As were the rest of the songs played during a two-hour set. I can't remember whether bassist Paul Teasdale has contributed backing vocals before (and I can't remember which song he did for tonight) but he did so superbly. As which much keyboard-led prog rock, the songs seem to take on a life of their own when played live. It's always going to be hard to tell whether each song is played the same at each gig. The keyboard players, Iain and Ben Jennings are talented enough that they could be ad-libbing and you wouldn't know it. As usual, Livvy's vocals were excellent and the guitar playing, by both Teasdale and lead guitarist Mark Rowen, was superb. The whole thing was backed up by Barry Cassells on drums and added to by John Hart on sax and various electronica. As is traditional, the set ended with The Gap Is Too Wide, my personal favourite.

Next Friday, Livvy and Iain will be rejoining Mostly Autumn on stage at the Grand Opera House, as their tour restarts after being delayed to allow Heather Findlay to give birth. Which gives me a not-too-subtle link to...


Through These Eyes is the first solo album by Bryan Josh ("the heart and guitar of Mostly Autumn"). Apparently he has been working on this, the first of a series of albums, in secret and the first I heard about it was when an advertising email landed in my inbox earlier this week. Obviously, being the careful spender that I am, I ordered a copy straight away and, luckily, it arrived yesterday, giving me plenty of time to listen to it before taking it along to tonight's gig to get it signed by both Bryan and Livvy, who provides vocals on some of the tracks.

"Solo", in this case, means Bryan doing pretty much everything himself. He has written the whole album, performs almost all the vocals and plays almost all the instruments (except drums - Gavin Griffiths and Henry Bourne - and flute - Sarah Dean). He has also done most of the technical wizzy bits behind the scenes. Bryan is quick to settle fans' nerves by stating that this is not the end of Mostly Autumn, just a chance for him to explore other shades of music. However, on this album at least, it can be hard to separate the man from the band. Inevitably, much if not all of the songs have a resonance of the band's sound. That certainly doesn't detract from the quality of the release, though. Behind a welcoming front cover and brilliantly designed booklet, lies a top album.

I don't pretend to understand a lot of what Bryan has written about, although there is an undercurrent of loss and, perhaps, a yearning to allow friends, relatives and heroes to live again running through a lot of the songs. The CD opens with Merry She Goes, an eighty-five second instrumental track a little reminiscent of Dire Straits, which appears to be a tribute to a deceased pet. The title track (and my favourite on the album and again reminding me of Dire Straits but for another reason) appears to tell of a dream in which Bryan wanders around a gathering of his heroes (although quite why Hitler is there isn't answered) as they mingle with each other. At the end of the song the members of "tonight's band" are introduced - that's one band I would pay good money to see play. Not A Dream appears to be a message from Bryan to his father, telling him things that he couldn't tell him in life.

It's not all doom, gloom and memories, though. The Appian Way is this album's epic track if only in theme and not in length. It tells of a soldier forced to join the Roman army in their fight against the Gauls (although the Appian way actually led South from Rome so the Gauls could have been lost). As befits the song's story, the music reminds me of incessant marching which actually makes it sound boring. It is far from it. A "radio edit" of this song, with the one F-word blanked out, is included as the fourteenth track and, to me, is nothing but filler.

As I mentioned, many of the songs aren't too far removed from the sound of Mostly Autumn. Land of the Gods, Black Stone and Not A Dream could all sit comfortably on an MA release, with Bryan's trademark guitar playing, as well of the overall style of the songs, reminding me of the band's music.

This album contains some of the best use of Livvy's vocals I have heard. From the haunting voice on Slow Down, through the brilliant counterpoint to Bryan's voice on We Grow and through to the almost duet on Carry Me (which is also dedicated to her), her singing is superb and used well. Old Friends is sung entirely by Livvy - he only sing on the album not to feature any of Bryan's vocals.

Going Home, shows Bryan at his most poetic, with a gorgeous description of moonlight and the sun going down, while Only In The Loss is a short, spoken word track, almost a poem in its own right.

Which just leaves Into Your Arms. I think I would have ended the album with this track, rather than placing it in the middle. Its Queen-like guitar track and somehow familiar vocals (my wife suggests Oasis, I'm not sure and am still racking my brains) make it the most unlike Mostly Autumn track on the album and its soaring sound seems somehow out of place where it has been put on this release.

An excellent album.

Monday 24 November 2008

Carrolls in November and Keyes to Intelligence

Monday 24th November: Because I currently have so many books waiting to be read, my usual modus operandi is to read everything that I own by any one author, one after the other. There are exceptions (for example, despite enjoying the Alistair Reynolds books that I read recently I haven't read the last one in my pile simply because they were each taking so long to get through) and there are probably reasons good reasons for not doing it, but it works for me. And so, after The Wooden Sea, I found myself reading two more novels by Jonathan Carroll.


White Apples (2004) tells the story of Vincent Ettrich, family-man but womaniser, who discovers that he has died and been brought back to life by his one true-love.

It is also, perhaps, the most frustrating book I have read in a long time. Containing some wonderful characters and sequences (I love the whole idea of the King of the Park), brought to life by some truly magical and lyrical writing, I found it disjointed and, ultimately, it went nowhere. I don't think that I rushed through the book but I still don't know why Vincent was brought back. The cover blurb gives an explanation but I struggle to remember any part of the story which relates back to the blurb.

Like The Wooden Sea, White Apples deals with big questions without giving any real answers but, whereas in the former novel, that didn't seem to matter, in this one it seems to leave an empty space where answers should be. The writing, however, is superb. Carroll's characters are always well-written. In this book, they are exceptional. The first ten pages are used to describe Ettrich meeting a woman and asking her out - how many other authors would take ten pages to do that?? Throughout the book there are snippets of sheer brilliance - a man writing on pills the memories that he knows are about to be taken from him; the description of death, heaven and purgatory; the aforementioned King of the Park - and, while I wouldn't recommend this book for its story, I would definitely recommend it for the writing.

On the other hand, Land of Laughs (1980, this version 2000), Carroll's first novel, is a good overall read. While not having fully developed the dream-like writing style of his later works, Carroll again manages to fill a (short) book with interesting characters.

School-teacher Thomas Abbey's favourite author is Marshall France, a reclusive writer of children's fantasy who died at the age of forty-eight. A chance encounter in a second-hand bookstore leads to a relationship with the slightly strange Saxony and, ultimately, to both of them travelling to Galen, where France spent much of his life, in an attempt to convince France's daughter to allow them to write a biography of the author. Once there, they discover that there is more to the town (or, more specifically, its inhabitants) than first appears.

This is fantasy with a slight edge of horror and Carroll's pacing means that it works extremely well. If the cover blurb hadn't stated that there was something strange to be found in the town, you would get halfway through the book thinking that there might be but never quite being sure. Then strange things start happening and the pace picks up towards a suitably creepy ending.

My version is a reprint in Gollancz's Fantasy Masterworks series and, while some may argue that there is much better fantasy that could have been used in the line, I would agree that this book deserves to be in there. Brilliant stuff.

As is Flowers for Algernon (Daniel Keyes, 1966). Originally published as a short story in 1959 (and winning a Hugo in 1960, while the novel won the Nebula award) it uses a series of "progress reports" written by Charlie Gordon over the course of less than a year. At the beginning, Charlie is a janitor at a bakery with an IQ of just 68, but he is about to be the first human to undergo a surgical procedure designed to increase his intelligence. Within months Charlie is a genius-level intellect, far surpassing the team who carried out the procedure and who are monitoring him afterwards. The procedure had already been tested on mice but when the titular Algernon starts showing signs of regressing, Charlie realises that his intelligence may be fleeting.

The style of this novel, with all the words and thoughts being those of Charlie, makes it one of the most moving pieces of fiction I have ever come across. At the start of the novel Charlie is happy in his ignorance. He gets teased by his colleagues at the bakery but believes they are his friends while at the same time hoping that the surgery will make him better so that he can make more friends. As the surgery unlocks both his intelligence and his memories, showing his life with a family that abandoned him seventeen years ago, he comes to believe that he is better than those around him and he becomes less likable. As the inevitable decline happens, however, the reader's ideas of just who Charlie's friends are are turned on their head.

Although written in what could be regarded as a much simpler time, Flowers For Algernon still resonates today. If this story doesn't make you question your attitude to people less fortunate than yourself then you don't deserve the ability to read it. Superb stuff.

Wednesday 19 November 2008

Stadium Rock Live in the Heart of a Small City

Monday 17th November: When I was younger I went to quite a few gigs. Admittedly, not as many as I find myself going to now. However, back then they were, for the most part, larger venues than I go to now. I started my gigging career at the now demolished Queen's Hall in Leeds but quite quickly moved up to stadium concerts, both indoors and outdoors. I saw the likes of Queen, Genesis, Elton John, Eric Clapton, Bruce Springsteen, U2 and many others. Big names at big venues. As time moved on, I got bored of being constantly on the phone, trying to get through to buy tickets for the next big draw and, in hindsight, feel a little privileged that I managed to get to see some of the bands that I did. With ticket prices moving towards the somewhat extortionate, I practically gave up live music for a few years, until the opportunity to join up with the weekend group came along and I discovered the relative joys of smaller venues and smaller bands. There are still some big names that I would try to get (reasonably priced) tickets for (and some, sadly, where the opportunity will now never arise again) but, in the main, I'm enjoying seeing up-and-coming bands with little or no recorded material behind them.

Until tonight's visit to The Duchess...

Firstly, a mention for the support act. Yes, just the one. This was no three band, thirty-minute-a-set line-up but the more traditional main act with one support band. Maccara are a band of undetermined locality - the only detail I can find is that Boanecker Illy (lead guitar and main writer) is Sri Lankan. Vocalist Hollie Evans, singing with extreme clarity and sounding just a notch down from Amy Lee (Evanescence), speaks with the kind of lilting Scottish accent that makes me go weak in the knees. The rest of the band are Andy Brook (guitar), Klaus (bass) and Tom Kirkham (drums). Their musical style was heavy/melodic rock with a sprinkling of pop and a small smidgen of reggae - unusual to say the least. But they really were extremely good, putting lie to my theory that you never properly hear lyrics of live songs, but that your brain fills in the words from the recorded version, assuming you have heard it. Although there were a couple of weaker songs, the set overall was excellent, certainly good enough to entice me to shell out cash for a copy of their debut CD (or, at least, the advance copy that was on sale). Holly and Illy were signing as many copies of this as was put in front of them and, Holly told me that she thought the sound was a bit on the loud side. I had to disagree as I thought it was top notch and kudos should be heaped on the sound engineer for tonight's gig.

In my past gig-going experiences, it wasn't often that I saw a support act that was as good as the main band. Maccara, however, were certainly getting there tonight.

That main band was, in fact, twenty-one studio album veterans Uriah Heep. Formed in 1969 and almost constantly recording since then (although with many line-up changes), Heep somehow bypassed my musical radar in the 80s when rock and heavy metal were my main "things". However, I had heard of them and when I found out they were playing York I didn't hesitate to buy a ticket. Flipping glad I did as well. As good as Maccara were, the youngsters were put to bed by these old-timers of rock.

Scintillating guitar-playing, superb drumming, melodic keyboards and powerful vocals (although not quite as clear as Hollie's) all added up to a performance that met, exceeded and then soared past my expectations. The set list comprised of the whole of the latest album (Wake The Sleeper, released earlier this year) together with older songs which, judging by the reaction of the majority of the audience, are considered classics by the fans. Listening to the songs, I could hear similarities between them and other bands - most notably Asia, Yes and Deep Purple - but, while the sound might not have been unique, Uriah Heep have been around long enough for it to be coincidence rather than plagiarism. After all, two of those bands were recording at the same time as Heep and the other pretty much formed from the remnants of Yes.

As the set went on, and the years seemed to fall away from lead singer Bernie Shaw, I found myself enjoying the music more and more. I'm told that, for most of the time, my jaw was on the floor.

Overall, this was easily the best gig I've seen in years and definitely the best I've seen in York. This really was stadium-sized rock played in the heart of our fair city.

Monday 10 November 2008

Stealing the Wooden Sea

Monday 10th November: At this time of year, I tend to pick easy reads from the rather large pile of books that I have waiting to be read. It helps me bring my average pages per days up (I'm a bit of a closet "statto") and brings the total number of books down a bit more quickly.

Most people I know think that I have strange taste in books. After all, apart from a few forays into crime (generally Patricia Cornwell and Jonathan Kellerman) and the odd horror novel (generally Stephen King), most of the books that I read involve spaceships, ray-guns, elves or magic. It seems to me that if I read a lot of science-fiction, I get a hankering for fantasy. And vice versa.

However, every so often, I like to dip into "contemporary" fantasy (or, perhaps, magic realism). Stories in which elements of the fantastic sit side-by-side with everyday life. It's still fantasy but I like to think of it as a bit more grown-up than the majority of "epic" fantasy. Proponents of this genre include Brit Neil Gaiman, Canadian Charles de Lint (my personal favourite) and Vienna-based American Jonathan Carroll.

The Wooden Sea (2000) tells the story of Frannie McCabe - forty-eight year old Chief of Police for the small town that he grew up as a rebel in. As the book opens his life has taken a turn for the strange. The ugly three-legged dog that he had "adopted" has just died. Two of the town's inhabitants have disappeared, leaving a beautiful feather in their lounge. His stepdaughter has just got a tattoo. The three-legged dog, which McCabe buried in the woods, has turned up in the boot of his car, with the feather, which also happens to be the exact thing that the stepdaughter has had tattooed on her back. Oh, and McCabe's seventeen-year-old self has turned up in the middle of the night.

Reading back that summary of the first couple of chapters, it sounds slightly flippant. As though the book is humorous. There are funny moments. There are also tender, unsettling and exciting moments. McCabe's town is populated with well-rounded, original and likable characters. The story starts quietly, despite the catalogue of events above, but gradually reaches a page-turning ending, along the way leaving the reader desperately wondering what the heck is going on.

In this book, the fantasy elements come thick and fast and I'm not going to spoil it by listing them. Perhaps the best bit, for me, was the idea that we, human-kind, have been a little on the vain side when interpreting the biblical story of the Genesis.

Unfortunately, despite this being a very good book, it was also a bit of a disappointment. I can understand why the ending is unresolved - Carroll couldn't finish this story in a satisfactory manner any other way - but there are too many unanswered questions throughout the story.

Overall, a good book but not up to the standards of Kissing the Beehive or The Marriage of Sticks. Still, Carroll is definitely worth a look if you fancy something different.

The Thief of Time (2002) was Terry Pratchett's 26th Discworld novel. I'm not a huge Pratchett fan, although I have quite a few of his novels published as special editions by the SF and Fantasy Book Club. To me, he just isn't as laugh-out-loud funny as Douglas Adams' Hitch-hikers books.

The Discworld novels that I have read, however, I have liked. There are a few laughs and more than a few chuckles in most of them and Thief of Time if no exception. In it, the fate of the Discworld is under threat when the world's first truly accurate clock is invented, stopping time and allowing the cosmic auditors in. It's up to Death's grand-daughter, Susan, Lu-Tze and Lobsang (two Monks of Time) and Ronnie, the fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse (he left before they got famous) to save the world and, perhaps, the whole of creation.

It's a complex plot, with many, many references and in-jokes some of which I got, others of which I can't believe I missed. I particularly like the character of Susan, reluctant more-than-human heroine and she is joined this time by the two very funny monks. There are some excellent sequences - particular favourites are Susan's meeting with the headmistress of the school she is teaching in and the final battle against the auditors, with the heroes' weapon being...

...well, that would be telling. All I'm saying is that I would have been no good in that fight...

Sunday 9 November 2008

A Full Head of Hair

Thursday 6th November: A weekend of standby for me, together with location and general busy-ness for the others meant that it was going to be impossible for all of us to meet up this week. The others were going out on Friday night at least and you can see a review of their trip to the Duchess by clicking the link on my Blog roll. Not wanting to miss out on live music for another weekend I took a late decision to make my own way to the Duchess to see a couple of bands that I already knew I liked.

The evening didn't start well, however, when Dead Rebellion took to the stage. Rock-style drumming with some sort of small keyboard-type thingy and hip-hop lyrics - not my cup of tea at all, to be honest. I lost interest very early in the first song when I realised that the lyrics were shouted, repetitive and completely unintelligible. The latter may not have been the band's fault - the sound (especially the bass) was up so loud that not only were my clothes vibrating but, I suspect, so was my wardrobe back home. Frankly, the thirty minute set felt a lot longer but that was probably just my prejudice against this genre of music.

Second on stage were The Runaway Sons. This is the third time I've seen them and they seem to get better every time. This time they only had a thirty minute set and, unlike Dead Rebellion, that wasn't long enough. Most of the set was familiar songs although, towards the end, I thought they played one or two new ones (or, at least, new to me). As usual, the playing was excellent - these guys have a really good stage presence - and this time they seemed to be a bit more comfortable talking to the audience between songs. Most noticeable, however, was the fact that Jim Gipson has had his hair cut and is no longer a Suzi Quatro look-a-like.

Finally, tonight's "head"-line act - the appropriately named The Hair. Last time we saw these guys, they were supporting Hope&Social at Fibbers. Since, then, they have been propelled to the big time by supporting the Kaiser Chiefs on their recent tour. Again, a lot of their infectious pop/rock/alternative tunes were familiar from the last time but, being a longer set, they also played new ones and there wasn't a duff song amongst them. These guys seem to really enjoy performing and are definitely developing their own style. By this time I had met up with another colleague and he admitted that, while he didn't know what to expect from this band, he really enjoyed them. Unfortunately, their forty-five minute set (including two song encore) was over much too soon, ending with each member of the band (except the drummer) in turn eschewing his own instrument in favour of bashing a cymbal. A good end to a really good set. Hopefully they'll be back soon.

Sunday 2 November 2008

Reading, Listening and a Bit of Drinking

Sunday 2nd November: This is the second weekend in a row when I haven't been to see any bands - not that the opportunity wasn't there, but November could turn out to be busy in terms of music so I took the decision to stay in with the family. So, what have I been up to instead?

For a couple of days this past week, I was working in Norwich. This coincided with the annual CAMRA beer festival in the city and my colleague and I decided to wander along to sample an ale or two (or three, or four, or... well, you get the idea). This was my first visit to a beer festival, even though I profess to being a fan of real ale and like trying different ones. I was a little surprised by the payment method used. On entering the hall, you purchase a "starter" kit - a pint glass (used to hold whatever drinks you decide to try) and a number of "tokens", basically a perforated sheet of paper made up of a number of stamps worth 10p each. Each beer then has a token value for either a pint or a half and you hand over the relevant number of tokens for whatever you are trying. This means that all cash is held in one place in the hall and, to my mind, could work better. At the end of the evening, my colleague and I had a small number of tokens left - less than £1's worth but unspendable unless we went back and bought more and, even then, only by careful planning of which drinks to try. The drinks themselves were priced similarly but not all the same - between £2.20 and £2.80 per pint, if memory serves. To my mind, this whole system would work a lot better if the drinks were all priced the same - say £2.50 a pint, £1.25 a half - and tokens were to the value of £1.25, meaning 1 token per half pint bought. Much easier to work out than counting out twenty-eight small paper tokens once you have had a few drinks.

That aside, it was a pleasant evening. We tried seven different beers, after working out that the pint glasses were also marked with half pints so we didn't have to buy a pint every time. It felt a bit strange drinking halves all night but we soon got used to it. Being honest, I don't think I could remember which beers I tried even if I were to look through the event's programme booklet, but I enjoyed all but one of them to one degree or another.

On the way back to York I heard on the radio of somebody who had received eighty different beers for his 80th birthday and has, so far, tried over 750 different British beers. That's a record worth going for, in my opinion. I really must start recording which ones I have tried.

A few days ago I finally finished Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space trilogy - Redemption Ark (2002) and Absolution Gap (2003). I'm not going to write full reviews of them, partly because I didn't make any notes while reading them and partly because I couldn't say too much more than I have in past reviews. Although I read these slowly (normally a sure sign that I'm not enjoying a book) Reynolds writes excellent science fiction. These books are so full of ideas that it is practically impossible to read them quickly. Sentient spaceships; pigs genetically altered to be almost on a par with humans (much like David Brin's Uplifted dolphins); humans genetically altered to be more than human; doomsday weapons; the death of planets; the death of suns; messages from the future; a whole religion based on an accident; mighty cathedrals slowly moving across the face of a moon in order to be constantly underneath the parent planet; far future galactic collisions and, perhaps most challenging of all (for me anyway), the concept of Brane Spaces - multi-dimensional spaces layered on top of each other. All these and much, much more are used to stunning effect to tell the story of a small group of characters, but much larger group of people, against a backdrop of interstellar destruction being wrought against Humanity by the ancient Inhibitors.

The third book, in particular, as the story rushes towards its conclusion, shows how Reynolds uses different styles within one trilogy. Absolution Gap tells its story across three different times and two different planets and the interstellar space in-between. At the end of the trilogy, the Revelation Space universe has been irrevocably changed with many of the locations used in the series being destroyed or totally changed.

At first, I was a little disappointed with the end - a huge, galactic scale war was ended off-page, almost as thought Reynold's had backed himself into a corner and needed a Deus ex Machina device to enable him to complete the story. After a bit a musing, however, I realised that the large scale story had always been in the background. The story I was reading was more to do with the various members of the smaller casts - always involved in the war but only really on the periphery (well, apart from starting it all off in the first novel). Then the ending made sense. I believe that there are a number of short stories and another novel set in the Revelation Space universe, which add to and expand the overall story. I will be looking out for them when my "to read" pile is a bit more manageable.

Since finishing the Reynolds books, I have been trying to get through some smaller, easier to read books in order to boost my total for the year. I'm not going to review them but I have recently just completed a handful of the Doctor Who novels put out by the BBC a while back. I was buying them as they came out but stopped after a while, while the Doctor portrayed was still Paul McGann. The few I have just read are variable to say the least but, in the light of the new version of the TV series, it is vaguely interesting to see the direction that the books were going in, portraying the Doctor as a fallible half-human.

Finally, notes on a couple of the CDs I bought recently. Again, I'm not going to write full reviews but just give some general thoughts.

First up is Asia - Live in the U.S.A. (recorded November 1992 at Chestnut Cabaret, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania). This was the seventh show of the Aqua (fourth album) tour, featuring Geoff Downes (keyboards), John Payne (vocals, bass), Vinny Burns (guitar) and Trevor Thornton (drums), with a guest appearance from Steve Howe (guitar). This is a fabulous live recording, the sound is raw and you feel as though you are actually standing in the audience as, at times, you can hear people chatting in the background (thankfully between songs rather than during). Originally, this was one of a three part "official bootleg" series and lives up to that name by not appearing over-produced or tidied up to any great degree.

Apparently, the Chestnut Cabaret was a night-club with a stage for live bands. I have seen it described as a mid-sized room. It no longer exists but sounds as though it could have been a good place for live shows - during the encore of this performance Downes is heard commenting that it's 01:15 and people are still wanting more. Asia are one of my favourite bands (I plan to write more about them when I've had a chance to properly listen to their latest release) but this is the first live album I've bought by them. While definitely a product of it's time - big sounding, keyboard-led prog rock - limited by the size of venue, I consider it to be a very god addition to my collection.

At the other end of the venue scale is Roger Waters' In The Flesh tour from 1999. Originally planned to be held in small venues, tickets sold so well that many shows were upgraded to much bigger locations, despite Waters' apparent disdain for stadium concerts. This two-CD recording is one of those annoying types that, instead of being a genuine representation of a single concert, takes bits and pieces from a number of shows and links then with crowd sounds. Not that you would know from listening to it. I only realised when reading the accompanying booklet.

Without delving too much into the politics and personalities of the members of Pink Floyd (another of my favourite bands), I was a little surprised by how much this concert sounded like a Pink Floyd show. I'm not an aficionado and haven't heard a great deal of the solo releases by either Gilmour or Waters but I did see the recent (shortened) airing on BBC4 of the former's Gdansk show which, although featuring some Floyd songs, was definitely a Gilmour concert. Waters' In The Flesh shows seemed to me to almost channel Floyd and, being honest, most of the tracks on the album are Floyd songs.

Apart from Waters himself, the band comprises of Doyle Bramhall II (guitar, vocals), Graham Broad (drums), John Carin (keyboards, lap steel, guitar, vocals), Andy Fairweather Low (guitar, bass, vocals), Andy Wallace (hammond, keyboards), Snowy White (guitar) and Katie Kissoon, Susannah Melvoin and P P Arnold (vocals). The more musically-knowledgeable may recognise more names from that list than I did.

Overall, a good live album just, tinged with a similar disappointment to finding out that Thin Lizzy's Live and Dangerous wasn't a true live album.

Thursday 23 October 2008

Isn't t'internet Brilliant (at least when compared with...)?

Thursday 23rd October: Whatever format you prefer to purchase (or otherwise) your music in, you can't possibly disagree that the internet is the best thing since sliced bread.

Whether it's tracking down long deleted albums through auction sites, buying regular stuff from mainstream sites or simply trying something new from small bands' websites/networking pages, the sheer volume of stuff out there is mind-blowing. Vinyl, CD or digital download, whatever format you want is at your fingertips whenever you want it.

Why am I suddenly spouting off like this? Well, to put it simply, it's because I came to realise yesterday how poor the bricks-and-mortar version of HMV is, at least in York.

There are two HMV outlets in our fair city - one in the centre and one on an out-of-town shopping park. I try to avoid the latter. It's the smaller of the two and, with limited floor space, generally limits its stock to mainly newer stuff. I had, however, been given a not inconsiderable amount of HMV vouchers so off I trundled into the centre to spend them, thinking that the bigger store would have a lot more choice.

It used to be that the vast majority of the downstairs was given over to rock/pop/chart CDs. Yesterday, there was probably less than half of that floorspace given to music at all. The rest had been taken over by DVD boxsets and sale DVDs, presumably in the run-up to Christmas. I don't mind DVDs. I've got quite a few. I just didn't want to buy any yesterday.

So I meandered about the (small) selection of CDs, trying to find something to buy that would get me the best return on my vouchers. There was a 2-for-£10 offer on, which meant I could have walked out with ten CDs. But there was very little decent in it. I'm not a big fan of most chart CDs (and those that I do want are on my Christmas wish-list anyway) so I checked out the full price selection and walked out with just five CDs (after adding nearly a tenner cash to the vouchers...)

It's not that I'm picky when it comes to buying CDs. I like a wide variety of music and if I were ever to win the lottery there are probably hundreds of CDs that I'd like to own. It's more that HMV's selection, if you don't want the latest WestZone or High School Aloud album is extremely limited. I went in with a few ideas of what I was after and walked out with completely different CDs. And their prices are astronomical. I know I wasn't actually paying for the stuff but three of my purchases cost me £16 each - all of them are cheaper not only at the likes of Play.com but also on HMV's own website. The trouble is, you don't seem to be able to spend the gift vouchers online.

So, what did I buy?

Queen: - Jazz
Queen: - A Day At The Races
Asia: - Live In The USA
Asia: - Phoenix
Roger Waters: - In The Flesh

Despite the above rant, I'm looking forward to hearing them all and I may even get time to write reviews of some of them.

In the meantime, whenever I'm planning to buy music I'll stick to sending my credit card details over the web. More choice, less cost works for me every time.

Classic Covers and New Material

Saturday 18th October: Being honest, I wasn't planning on going out this weekend. My original plan for this year was to try to average a gig every other week and, given that I'd been to two gigs last week, I thought I'd better stay home with Debbie for a change.

However, Freeway were playing the Roman Bath so we settled for a compromise. Our Daughter was dropped off at the grandparents and Debbie and I went out together, starting the evening with a nice Chinese at Happy Valley in Goodramgate and then heading to the Bath for some musical entertainment.

Freeway, you may remember, are a heavy metal covers band who perform songs by the likes of Thin Lizzy, Whitesnake, Gary Moore and the like. This was the first time I'd had a chance to see them since the sad and untimely death of drummer Howard Sparnenn and, while members of his family were present in the audience, this time there was no guest vocal spot by daughter Livvy.

The music was good - the usual mix of tracks, played excellently - and a good time was had by all.

Howard had been replaced on drums by Paul Gibbons who, as well as handing over a pair of splintered drumsticks to a female fan at the end of the gig, is also the drummer with Morpheus Rising which, in turn, is the long-time project of Pete Harwood, Freeway's guitarist. Also, featuring Andy Smith (Mostly Autumn), with Grae Tennick on vocals and newly announced guitarist Damien Sweeting, Morpheus Rising promises to echo the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. They list their influences as the likes of Saxon, Iron Maiden, The Cult, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and more. With a pedigree like that, they sound as though they are worth looking out for.

They have a single - An Ordinary Man - available for download from their site from the 27th of October and all proceeds will be going to Help for Heroes, a charity supporting injured forces personnel. According to their website, the band are currently fine-tuning their music before unleashing it on the world. I'll be looking out for them playing live around York.

Monday 13 October 2008

Mojos and Minors

Monday 13th October: Musically, last week was a funny sort of week...

It started with a bit of a disappointment. We had planned (and, indeed, had tickets) to see Curved Air at the Duchess on Thursday. But, on Monday, we discovered that the promoters had cancelled all gigs outside of the South-East of England. Had the credit-crunch hit the band's travel budget? Maybe hardly any tickets had been sold? We don't know and I doubt we ever will. I'll admit that I knew hardly anything by this re-formed 70's prog-rock band - I have one track Back Street Luv on a compilation CD - but I was looking forward to seeing them live. I think that, if I ever had to chose to listen to just one style of music it would be prog-rock and we don't get that many opportunities to hear it live in York. (Up-coming gigs by Breathing Space, Mostly Autumn and the original Asia notwithstanding...)

Anyway, that meant that I had to meet up with the guys on Friday night instead - Roj had something to pass on to me before Sunday (more on that later...) There wasn't a great deal that took our fancy, so we planned to go to the Roman Bath to see The Penetrators, allegedly a 70's to noughties rock covers band. I say "allegedly" because, when we arrived, The Penetrators were nowhere to be seen. (Maybe they were holed up with Curved Air in the South East.) Instead, The Mojos were gracing the stage area. Now, up until Friday I was a Mojos virgin. The other guys, however, had seen them a number of times and had told me that they were pretty good.

The first thing I noticed, however, was the, errrm, let's say disparate ages of some of the band. Well, let's be honest, it was, being perfectly frank, the apparent age of Dave, who could have been the father of any of the other members. If I hadn't heard of them from the guys, I would have had the vague thought that this could have ended up being embarrassing. A bit like finding out that your Grandad played in a rock band. However, the past reviews were right. These guys are really good. Their selection of covers is slightly different to the usual fare and they play them extremely well. Tonight's set was spoiled slightly by a couple of electrical problems - one ending Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall somewhat abruptly (all we need is just another 50p in the metre??), the other making The Mojos' version of The Kaiser Chiefs' Ruby better than the original. A packed set was graced, for me, with many favourite songs by many favourite bands, including Robbie Williams, Bryan Adams, Guns 'n' Roses, Whitesnake, To-to and Queen. Being honest, I'm off the opinion that nobody should ever cover Queen, but that's by-the-by - they didn't do too bad a job at all. The set was rounded off with a fantastic medley containing songs that I can't remember the titles of. (Must start carrying around pen and paper.)

The only thing that remains to be said is that the bass guitar that John was playing is possibly the ugliest guitar I have ever seen. That didn't stop him playing it well, though. A good gig by a top covers band. One I hope to catch again sometime.

And, as the evening drew to a close (or, at least, as we were kicked out of the Bath to commence our usual chit-chat/insult-trading on the streets of York) Roj handed me my ticket for Sunday night's gig at the Duchess, featuring York band Elliot Minor.

Regular readers (I like to kid myself that I have some) will remember that I reviewed their debut album a few months back and that I liked it enough to rate it my album of the year at that point. Sunday night's gig was set up at short notice, was for charity and, given the almost boy-band status of Elliot Minor, I didn't think I'd manage to get a ticket. Thanks go to Roj, who braved the humiliation to pick one up for me.

It's a bit of a complicated story but I arrived at the Duchess at seven o'clock on Sunday evening, thought I'd missed the first band, who were due to finish at seven and couldn't work out what had happened to the second one, The Hot Melts, as they seemed to have morphed from a Liverpudlian foursome into a York-based female threesome who I had seen before. It urns out that The Hot Melts had cancelled at short notice (there's somewhat of a them developing here...) and the girls were the first band starting late. (It was good of them to wait for me, don't you think?)

Anyway, they were Third Conduct (and networking socially) and I had originally seen them at Fibbers over a year ago. Billed as "pop punk", you can imagine their style from the two covers that they performed - Green Day's She and, errrm, The Monkees' I'm a Believer (albeit the slightly rockier version from Shrek). However, they primarily play their own stuff and very good it is too. Kate's pounding drums belie her tender age, Hannah's guitar-playing is electric while Sarah's vocals, despite a slight nasal quality, have improved vastly since the last time I saw them. This was a much more assured performance overall and was thoroughly enjoyable. I'm not normally a big fan of either punk or punk-lite, but these girls are good enough for me to consider getting hold of a copy of their 8-track EP. Unfortunately, I didn't see them after their set finished so didn't get to pick one up on the night.

And so to the main act. I have a vague feeling that if you were to take Elliot Minor's album and rework it slightly (take away the string arrangements, tone down the slightly plummy vocals, crank up the volume a bit) you would have a slightly better than average rock album, rather than the excellent, sophisticated pop-rock album that it was released as. Add in some youthful exuberance, some excellent musicianship and a crowd composed partially of screaming girls and crank up the volume even more and you have what turned out to be an extremely good rock concert.

There can be no doubt that the boys of Elliot Minor have a great deal of talent (and, it has to be said, the looks to make you wish you were part of the same gene-pool). Being labelled as a boy-band doesn't do them justice. Their live set, containing most songs from the album and at least one new track, isn't just a re-hash of those songs but almost completely different versions. Yes, the lyrics are the same but the music is a lot rockier, verging on heavy and the vocals are a lot more raw, losing some of the "posh" tones which were my main criticism of the album, but retaining the variety of having multiple vocalists. They even showed a variety of talent by playing Silently totally acoustically, without drums.

A word about the audience. I expected to be completely composed almost exclusively of screaming girls and fully expected to be the oldest person there. I was pleasantly surprised to find that, while a good deal of the audience was student-aged, there was a fair number of older music fans present as well. Even some who admitted to owning the album. There was even a handful of people older than me and some of them didn't appear to be related to the band.

Whether Elliot Minor turn out to be a flash in the pan or whether they can sustain and build upon the momentum created by their first release remains to be seen. Personally, though, I'm glad that I took the opportunity to see them live relatively early in their career. The only downside to the performance was the somewhat mixed message coming from the band about under-aged drinking - while bass-player Ed was advising people not to do it or they would be kicked out, lead guitarist Alex responded with "f*** the bouncers, let's all have fun tonight." It may be rock and roll but, given the hoops that had to be jumped through to get The Duchess open in the first place, it's probably not what Tim and Michelle wanted to hear.

The proceeds of this gig are going to York Against Cancer and it raised over £3,100. Somehow it feels good to enjoy yourself while doing some good.

Sunday 28 September 2008

More Welsh SF

Sunday 28th September: I nearly didn't have anything to write about this weekend. Having had a cold and two very late nights (due to work) during the week, I chose not to join the group for Friday night's visit to the Duchess. I did see Leeds beat Hereford yesterday but, to be honest, I don't think I'm the best football writer in the world. (Cue cries of, "Yes, but you're not the best music/book writer, either!!")

Despite it being two weeks since I last posted book reviews, I was nowhere near finishing the next Alastair Reynolds. I'm enjoying his books but they are quite hard-going. The one I'm currently reading had a short paragraph describing the relative velocities of two objects approaching each other at light speed which I had to re-read a number of times and I'm still not sure I understand it. I wonder if that's why they call it "hard science fiction"... because it's hard to understand?

Anyway, for a few tens of minutes on Friday evening I found myself with some spare time but bereft of said book. There was nothing else for it but to start another one. I chose another Reynolds, but one about a third of the size of his others and with much less dense print.

Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days (2003) brings together two of Reynolds previously published novellas. Both are set in the universe of the Revelation Space novels and contain aspects of that universe to tell stories unrelated to the novels.

Have you ever worried over a puzzle, gradually getting closer and closer to the answer, but finally realising that it is to hard for you? Only for it to nag away at the back of your mind until you start looking at it again? If you have, you will feel some sympathy with the characters in Diamond Dogs. They form a team, put together by a Chasm City resident previously thought dead, in order to breach a mysterious spire on a barren world. The spire contains a number of rooms which the team have to enter in sequence, solving mathematical puzzles in order to open each door. As they get further into the spire the puzzles get harder, the doors smaller and the time they are allowed to answer the puzzles shorter. A wrong answer, or no answer in the specified time, results in horrific injuries. Eventually a secret is revealed, but it is not the spire's.

On Turquoise, an isolated water-planet inhabited by the mysterious Pattern Jugglers, a communication blackout put in place as a spaceship is detected approaching causes two young researchers to swim with a Juggler, before they have the proper training. One dies and two years later, as the spaceship arrives, her sister tries to get closure by getting to see the Ultras that she believes caused, if indirectly, the death. Thus starts a series of events that changes the world of Turquoise forever.

The Revelation Space universe, while full of standard SF wonders is a dark place. These two stories show somewhat different sides of it. Diamond Dogs is interesting not for the central theme of the spire and its puzzles - any story which can reference the films Cube and Raiders of the Lost Ark as well as Algis Budry's novel Rogue Moon (1960) is well aware of its roots - but for the somewhat horrific ways that it treats its characters. The injuries sustained by them in the course of their explorations are treated in such ways to let them continue. It is the lengths that the characters are willing to go to to try to find the Spire's secret that makes this story one of the most disturbing that I have read in the genre.

Turquoise Days, on the other hand, is a fairly straight forward adventure story with just the slightest of twists. In other hands, perhaps those of an author handling emotion better, it could have been a tear-jerker. But, while Reynolds writes fully developed characters he doesn't really seem to do emotion. That doesn't, however, make this a bad story. It is exciting in places and sheds a bit more light on the Pattern Jugglers and the worlds that they live on, while using the differences between Human factions as its basis. I also have a bit of a soft spot for stories set on oceanic worlds.

Two more stories that show that Reynolds is, in terms of current British science fiction, up there with Stephen Baxter and Peter F Hamilton.

Sunday 21 September 2008

A Favourite Live Act and A New Discovery

Friday 19th September: One of the things that I like about going out with the group (apart from standing outside chatting and laughing as the evening winds its inexorable way towards morning) is the opportunity to see new bands. Before I started tagging along I thought I had a wide ranging taste in music but, it turns out that, while I owned lots of CDs, the range wasn't as wide as I thought. Over the past couple of years, I have heard many new bands - most small, most local, many good and some great (and, being honest, some not so good) - and found some that I'd willingly pay money to see again and again. I'll come to one of them later...

First up at the Duchess tonight, however, were the Blue Jupiters. Now, I don't listen to enough so-called "indie" music to know one style from another but some of the songs in this set seemed a little paradoxical to me - fast-paced guitars almost covering the lyrics, combined with much more complex playing during the instrumental sections. While there wasn't a great deal wrong, the songs started to feel a bit samey to me. That is until they were joined on stage by a keyboard player and started slowing things down, at which point the enjoyment went up a notch. Not bad overall but I preferred the second half of the set.

Next up were Dorien Starre, another band visiting from Leeds, although they seem to be playing York fairly regularly. It's strange that, when the band contains a rhythm guitar as well as a lead, that fast-paced style of playing sounds, to me, to be so much better. I have to say that I enjoyed this band more than the Blue Jupiters, even though they seemed to lose their way a little bit towards the end of the set - at one point lead-singer Leo seemed about to continue singing before realising that the song had ended. They redeemed themselves with a final song which I thought was superb. (If only I could remember the title...) A special mention must be given to Andrew Ackroyd who produced some of the most energetic and inventive drumming I have seen in a long time.

Which leads us to the main act - Hope & Social. This is the third time I have seen them (one in their previous guise as Four Day Hombre) and I was a little surprised by the smallish crowd that had turned out tonight. Maybe it's just that the Duchess is bigger than Fibbers and the crowd just looked smaller than usual. Anyway, it starts to become harder to write gig reviews for a band the more that you see them. I've already written about their style of music, audience interaction, general attitude of fun and even some of the songs. The guys are getting towards releasing a new album so tonight's set consisted mainly of songs we had heard before - not that that makes them dull. There is something about Hope & Social that makes them sound fresh every time. Maybe it's the general feeling that they are having such a good time playing on stage, maybe it's the spontaneity of their replies to good-natured heckling from the audience. Even the latest new drummer seemed to be having fun and fit in with the rest of the guys. This really is a top band that deserves wider exposure.

To round off the evening, we headed to our usual haunt of the Roman Bath, where Go Commando were playing covers of well-known rock songs. We caught the last few and, it's fair to say, it was a good job that there was even more audience participation going on. Apart from a pretty good version of Van Halen's Jump, the bits of the act we caught were OK, but nothing special. Most people seemed to be having fun, though.

Finally, mention of a another band that I've only just discovered. While browsing the Breathing Space website, I noticed that they were being supported at a few future gigs by Quecia (pronounced cue-see-a). Out of curiosity I checked their website and found that they had been formed in 2001, were voted best new band by Powerplay magazine in 2002 and had released two albums - This Is Where We Are (2002) and the imaginatively titled Quecia II (2004). Both are available to buy from the website or www.cdbaby.com, where you can also get both albums as MP3 downloads for the bargain price of $5 each. Given the sort of bands that Quecia are supporting - Breathing Space and Panic Room to name just two - I decided to take the plunge and downloaded both.
Unsurprisingly, this is female fronted melodic rock of high quality. There is, for me, an almost tangible thrill in coming across new bands who produce music that I like. A fair few of the bands I have come across recently have links of one form or another to Mostly Autumn and Quecia are no exception and they are just as good as any of the others. I'm not going to review the albums here as I haven't had a chance to listen to both of them properly yet. What I have heard, though, is very enjoyable.
Apparently Quecia played Fibbers a few years ago and one member says that they would love to play in York again. I, for one, would definitely be in line for a ticket. A third album is being recorded now.

Sunday 14 September 2008

A Rare Bit of Welsh SF

Sunday 14th September: No music for me this weekend (but that didn't mean a weekend without going out - last night, Debbie and I went for a very nice Thai meal at York's Siam House, as part of a friend's birthday celebrations.) It does, however, mean that you get me waffling on about my current reads.

I had taken a few Alastair Reynolds books with me on holiday, intending to get a long way into his output while sitting by the pool. Unfortunately, it took me so long to finish the Starchild Trilogy that I only just managed to start his first novel. Nearly three weeks later and I've finished the first two.

Reynolds is a Welsh writer of space opera. He's had short stories published since the early 1990's and his first novel was published in 2000. He is also a trained scientist - a former research astronomer with the European Space Agency.

Revelation Space (2000)
Although Reynolds had already written about the Revelation Space universe in short stories, it remained unnamed until the publication of this novel. In it, Dan Sylveste, archaeologist is trying to determine what event caused the total destruction of the Amarantin on the planet Resurgam. At the same time, a group of Ultranauts aboard a lighthugger spaceship are heading towards Resurgam in the hopes that Sylveste can help them heal their captain, who has fallen victim to the Melding Plague. Also on board the ship is a cache of weapons, some of which are powerful enough to destroy worlds.

The Revelation Space universe is limited by the fact that faster than light travel is not possible, meaning that voyages between the various planets colonised by humans take years. In the main crews and passengers travel in reefersleep but those left behind age normally. Parts of the universe have also fallen foul of an alien plague of unknown origin. This plague corrupts technology, from the buildings of Chasm City on the planet Yellowstone to the nanomachines used by humans to achieve near immortality. The universe also, once, contained a multitude of different intelligences, but most of these have now vanished and it is the reason why that lies at the heart of the story.

There are so many ideas crammed into this novel that it is hard to do it justice in a short review. Vast spaceships, alien artifacts, nanotechnology, weapons (large and small) and different factions of humanity all vie for space in what is a complex book. I didn't find it an easy read, but for different reasons that I sometimes struggle with older novels. It's not the style of writing, nor the language used, it's the sheer scope of the novel. Once I got properly into it, though, I found it hard to put down and, apart from the slightly bizarre ending, found it a very enjoyable read.

Chasm City (2001)
Chasm City is set before the events of Revelation Space, but is not a true sequel. It does feature the origins of a hunting game which one of the characters in the earlier novel is playing when first introduced and, indeed, I think that the character herself (unnamed in this novel) is seen briefly at the end of the story.

Tanner Mirabel is a security specialist who, after one assignment goes horribly wrong, travels to Chasm City to hunt down Argent Reivich. Arriving at the city, he finds it mutated by the Melding Plague, rather than the utopia he was expecting. Hunting Reivich through the city, he comes into contact with many of the strange factions of humans living there.

Or, rather, that is how the novel starts. By the end of it the origins of the Melding Plague have been revealed, identities have been turned on their heads and Mirabel's dreams (both sleeping and waking) of Sky Haussman, founder of Sky's Edge, Mirabel's home world have been explained.

I found Chasm City to be an easier read than Revelation Space, despite it being full of mostly unlikable characters. Mystery is laid upon mystery and action sequence follows action sequence, making it a much livelier read. The main character, however, is the city itself. As Mirabel travels through the city, discovering its various locations and inhabitants, it seems to come to life.

Like the first novel, the ending is a little strange. In this case, however, it is more a case of having to work out who exactly is who by the novel's end, rather than any sort of implausible ending.

So far, I'm enjoying exploring Reynolds' universe and, with another four books of his in my to read pile, three of which are set within the Revelation Space, I hope to continue doing so.

Sunday 7 September 2008

Barefoot in the Bath, Revisited

Saturday 6th September: When you actually sit down and think about it, there are numerous venues in York where you can see live music for free . Although I speak from a position of limited experience (at last count I think I have only been to four such venues, although I have seen quite a few bands at one of them), I'm fairly certain that the majority of bands appearing at such places are covers bands. There are the odd exceptions, bands that perform their own material - the excellent Breathing Space spring to mind, although I have also paid to see them - but, for the most part, you can hear a lot of the same songs or, at least, the same style of song, weekend after weekend.

It's for that reason that I pick which covers bands I go out to see. The excellent, although now somewhat fractured, Hazzard County are always worth seeing, as were (are?) Freeway. There are probably others that I haven't had the good fortune to encounter yet. There are few, however, that I would go out of my way to see. In fact, so far, I have only come across one.

Tonight at the Roman Bath, it was the Chantel McGregor Band. I've seen (and mentioned) them before and there was little chance that I was going to miss tonight's gig.

The band has had a slight line-up change from the last time they were in York. Chantel and drummer Martin Rushworth have been joined by new bass-player Lincoln J. Roth (how much of a rock and roll name is that??!) who, incidentally, stands a good chance of pushing Brian May into second place if they ever both enter a Brian May look-alike contest... I can't find any mention of why the previous bass-player is no longer with the band, but tonight was only Roth's fifth gig. You couldn't tell - his lively playing, on stage exuberance, funky solo and familiarity with both the material and the other two members of the trio made it seem as though he had been part of the line-up forever.

Chantel herself (the small-statured strummer with a predilection for kebabs) looked more relaxed than the last time she played. I can't think of any obvious reason for this. If anything, the crowd was bigger than last time (one of the gang, turning up late, had to sneak in the back way after being refused entry at the front). Once again, she played brilliantly, with a seeming lack of any effort and managed to keep the audience entertained both with the music and with her stream of consciousness ramblings between songs. This time, there was no mid-set break and the band played for well over two hours, treating us to some of the best in rock and blues. Some of the songs were the same as last time, others were new. The set included, but was not limited to, covers of Jimi Hendrix (All Along t'Watchtower, Voodoo Chile, Purple Haze, Red House), Fleetwood Mac (Gold Dust Woman), Eric Clapton/Cream (Badge, Stormy Monday), Jethro Tull (Too Old to Rock and Roll) and Joe Bonamassa (Miss You, Hate You), as well as others that I can't find artists for - Up In t'Sky, One Of These Days, For The Love of God. I've left Chantel's broad Yorkshire versions of the titles in the list - those and her constant use of "Ta" brought even more smiles to the audience.

As expected, the playing was brilliant, with all three members of the band giving superb performances. As I have said before, it is too easy to run out of superlatives when talking about this band and, in particular, Chantel herself. She really does have to be seen for her playing to be believed. Unfortunately, according to her website, there are no more gigs planned for York for the rest of the year.