2011 In Review–Part 3, The CDs

Friday 13th January: OK, I’m probably not in the best position to put this part of my year in review together but if I don’t do it now I’m probably never going to get round to it. So, here goes…

During 2011 I added eighty-two albums and five EPs/Singles to my CD collection.

Starting with the EPs/Singles, I’ll be honest and admit that I’m not really a fan of either format. To me, both seem to be a waste of time – you’ve no sooner put them into the CD player and pressed play than you have to go back and do it all again. (Yes, I still play most of my music through a CD player – I guess if I used MP3, EPs and singles would work better for me.) Anyway, two of the five were freebies. One was a Judy Dyble sampler which came with an issue of Prog, the other a copy of Morpheus Rising’s Fighting Man single, which the band were giving away during Graeme Tennick’s farewell gig. Of the others, I bought Differences of Light (Also Eden) as part of a bundle offer of all their recorded material and, at nearly twenty-five minutes long, you don’t have to revisit the CD player quite as quickly as some others. Altitude (Panic Room), I bought more or less for completeness sake and was a little disappointed by it as it only really contains one track, the cover of ELP’s Bitches Crystal, that I didn’t already have in other. The animated video for Satellite is quite impressive but, obviously, has to be played on a computer. On the other hand, I put off buying The Phoenix Suite (Heather Findlay) until it was available from Play, having heard less than brilliant reviews of it. It didn’t grab me when I first listened to it but while re-listening in preparation for seeing the live performance it really did start to grown on me.

I won’t bore you with a full breakdown of the eighty-two albums that I bought (or had bought for me). Even discounting the ten that were given away free with Prog, it’s more than I expected to buy and I haven’t had a chance to listen to a lot of them yet. I did take advantage of cheap deals from Play to start working on back catalogues of 70s prog bands such as Camel, Caravan, The Strawbs, Uriah Heep and King Crimson as well as more modern prog from Dream Theater, Opeth and Porcupine Tree and straight rock from Foreigner, Alter Bridge and Wolfmother. I also carried on my tradition of spending money to support bands that I saw live, buying albums from local bands such as Glass and Two, as well as those from touring bands like Vega, The Crave, Jeniferever, Also Eden, Amplifier and The Pineapple Thief.

Ignoring the free albums, twenty-four of my new albums were actually released during 2011 and, as is the tradition I have tried to pick my favourites from them. Firstly a few words about my criteria. I have listened to all twenty-four at least once and I have tried to rank them in order. It’s impossible – some of them are so different to others that it would depend on my state of mind while listening to them as to whether one was better than another. Similarly, my choice of favourites might change from one day to the next. Also, I very carefully chose the word “favourites” – these aren’t necessarily the best albums that I bought (I’m certainly not qualified to judge a CD based on the production or writing), but they are the ones that, as I look at the list, jump out as ones that I would l listen to right now if I had the time. With repeated listening to some of the others, that list might change over time. This might also explain why some albums which feature highly in other people’s top ten lists don’t even make an appearance in mine. Anyway, enough preamble, without further ado here are my favourite ten albums (in alphabetical rather than any other order…)

The Octopus (Amplifier):

This is a monster of an album – a double CD of proggy goodness, a concept album (but I rarely “get” concepts) that is choc-full of interesting and, at times, sublime music. It took me a couple of listens to get into but, eventually, was worth the effort.

 

Tao Of The Dead (…And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead):

This was pretty much an impulse purchase, based on a review in Prog and the fact that I thought there was a free graphic novel with it. Sadly that turned out not to be the case with the version that I ended up buying. The music, however, is quite brilliant – prog tinged with a little punk and, in one small section, something unmistakably “indie”. It’s not the easiest of listening experiences but it is powerful and, with its repeating themes, ends up being quite memorable if not catchy. Worth listening to for the epic, sixteen-minute final track, if for nothing else.

Mylo Xyloto (Coldplay):

Coldplay are one of the few non-prog bands that I am guaranteed to buy a new release from and their latest is, for me, a return to form after the disappointing Viva La Vida. This one is definitely catchy and, with few tracks lasting over four minutes, nothing one it outstays its welcome. I liked this album from the first play and it is one of the few from this year’s releases that I can get away with playing while Debbie is in the room. Perhaps the only weak spot is the collaboration with Rhianna.

Live At The Cafe 68 (Heather Findlay and Chris Johnson):

This is a recording of a special, acoustic live gig that Heather and Chris played in front of just a couple of handful of lucky ticket-holders. Sadly I wasn’t one of them although, if I had known how good the recording was going to sound, I might have made more of an effort to get hold of a ticket. Comprising track from Heather’s solo EP, Mostly Autumn’s back catalogue and Parade (now Halo Blind) along with others, it’s an extremely nice album which is enhanced by the stories told to introduce some of the songs. Easily the best of the three live albums I bought this year.

Sleep Sound (Hope & Social):

The third album from one of my favourite live bands is another return to form. Also, being released on the “pay what you want” basis, it can represent superb value for money. Once again, Hope & Social push the boundaries of self-recording/release, this time by including a full choir on the opening track. Sleep Sound is full of great songs that you just can’t help singing along to and that manage to run the gamut of emotions while you are listening to them.

Eclipse (Journey):

Apart from a Best Of album, this is the first thing I have bought by Journey and, in my opinion, most of it is better than a lot of the “Best Of”. Yes, everybody knows Don’t Stop Believin’ but this album’s opener. City Of Hope, is head and shoulders above that anthem. There’s an energy to Eclipse that makes the album seem to erupt to the speakers. A definite must-buy for fans of AOR, as well as air-guitarists and air-drummers everywhere.

Sangreal (Mandalaband):

Telling the story of the Holy Grail as it travels across Europe after being used by Christ at the Last Supper, this is a suitably grand and epic album which might easily be the soundtrack from a stage musical. Full of pomp, wonder and theatrics it sometimes hovers on just the right side of cheesy but ultimately it is superbly written and features not only great music but some fantastic vocal performances.

 

Like No Other (Chantel McGregor):

Chantel is another live favourite and I have been looking forward to this album since she announced she was working on it. It ended up being not quite what I expected and is, perhaps, a more commercial album than the solely Blues/rock album release I suspect most fans were expecting. Opening with the pop-diva Fabulous could be seen as a brave move but the inclusion of a stripped-down, acoustic version of Rhiannon and a superb rendition of Daydream was inspired. Original songs easily stand alongside those and even the, for me, uninspired Cat Song can’t take away the fact that this is one of the best debut albums I have come across.

Let The Sleeper Awake (Morpheus Rising):

Let’s face it, this release had very little chance of disappointing me. Not just one of my favourite live bands but my favourite York band (at the moment), Morpheus Rising survived the departure of vocalist Graeme Tennick and his replacement with Simon Wright to produce one of the best heavy metal albums I have heard in a long time. I sometimes worry that people think I “big up” certain bands in my live reviews because I have got to know the members. I don’t and in the case of Morpheus Rising they have never failed to impress me and have continued to do so with this album, which may have single-handedly revived my interest in a genre that I have barely listened to for some time.

The Unforgiving (Within Temptation):

I’ll admit to a little reticence before I first played this album. I had bought a couple of prior releases on the recommendation of a friend and they hadn’t grabbed me, to the point where I wasn’t actually certain why I bought this one when it came out. After leaving it on a shelf for a few months I finally gave it a play and was more than impressed. It’s a bit more mainstream rock than the others I had listened to and a little less dark than I remembered them. It’s a mark of how good it is that, after the first listen I immediately put it on again.

So, there you have today’s rather varied top ten. On another day it might include Steven Wilson’s Grace For Drowning, another album I worried about listening to when I started reading reviews saying that it was dense and inaccessible but which I found quite easy to get into during its only play so far. Or, perhaps, Anathema’s Falling Deeper, mostly instrumental re-workings of some of their back catalogue, which is pleasant enough but which I don’t know enough about to appreciate properly yet. Also bubbling under would by the newest releases from Whitesnake (Forevermore) and Yes (Fly From Here), while the new album from returning veteran Stevie Nicks (In Your Dreams) is unlikely to ever make my top ten – not that it’s bad, it’s just not that good. For completeness, the 2011 releases that I haven’t yet mentioned are: Think Of The Children (Also Eden), Breaking The Silence (The Crave), A Treasure Of Well Set Jewels (Liam Davison), Gown (Jo Hamilton – probably my least favourite of the year), Silesia (Jeniferever), Still Beautiful: Live 2011 (Mostly Autumn), Heritage (Opeth), Live In The U.S.A: The Bottle Of Gettysburg (The Reasoning), and Siren’s Song (The Union)

2011 In Review–Part 2, The Books

Thursday 5th January: 2011 saw a couple of relatively major changes to my reading habits. My regular reader will know that I haven’t bought many new books for a while now – I have had a “to read” pile which, when you add in the books I need to complete series that I have started buying, numbered quite a way into treble figures. Until this year, I had been concentrating on individual books, or series that I had already owned all the volumes of. Last year, however, I started reading incomplete series and if I found that I wasn’t enjoying them as much as I thought, I decided not to carry on buying them. Series that fell by the wayside in this way included Jan Seigel’s Fern Capel (after the first volume) and Orson Scott Card’s Tales of Alvin Maker (after four volumes). I also, for only the third time that I can remember, gave up on a book – The Worm Ouroboros by E.R. Eddison. Small changes, but they are helping bring the pile down a bit more quickly.

At the beginning of the year I also bought a Kindle which, if nothing else, is saving me shelf space and making purchasing books a bit easier (at least in some cases – not all the books I want to read are available as e-books yet). I have to say that I think the Kindle is one of the best pieces of kit I have come across. Whether it is better than other e-readers I can’t say, but I have yet to find anybody who doesn’t like it and, while I doubt I’ll ever completely give up on books, I really enjoy reading on it and can see a future when all my fiction is bought on it if available.

During the year, managed to read (or give up on) a total of fifty-eight books and added, either through purchases (anything I bought, I read) or gifts, twenty-five, leaving me with a total of sixty in the to read pile at the end of the year. These figures don’t include twenty-six Stephen King novels that I bought as a special offer from a book club – I really shouldn’t be allowed to drink alcohol at tea-time – and which are still sitting in a box under my bed.

Part of the reason that I managed to get through so many books was my foray into the Paranormal Romance genre, out of curiosity to see what all the fuss was about. I managed to pick up a number of Sookie Stackhouse novels (Charlaine Harris) and the first three Twilight books (Stephanie Meyers) very cheaply. I had previously given up on watching True Blood, the TV Series based on the Harris books but found myself enjoying the books which not only diverged quite dramatically from the TV version but only took a couple of days (if that) each to read. They are, perhaps, the literary equivalent of a Milky Way bar – the books you can read between other books – but are quite fun. I was less enamoured of the Twilight books but decided to read the fourth for completeness and found myself completely hooked by it, desperately hoping that the inevitable didn’t happen and wondering what direction the story would take after it had. I doubt I’ll be dipping my toe into the genre anymore.

My crime reading has also tailed off recently. I haven’t read a Patricia Cornwall for ages but did read three Jonathan Kellerman novels this year. Again, these are novels that I seem to fly through so it’s probably a good thing that crime isn’t my genre of choice as it would probably hurt my wallet more than SF and Fantasy do.

Disappointments in 2011, as well as those mentioned above, included Rainbow Mars (Larry Niven) which I just didn’t “get” and which went straight to the charity shop when I finished it, and the five books of Juliet E. McKenna’s Tales Of Einarinn, a fairly standard fantasy which suffered, from what I can remember, by having different viewpoint characters in each book but being written in the first person which, reading one after the other, left me confused at times.

From the Science Fiction genre, highlights for me were Orson Scott Card’s Shadow Saga, a parallel series to the Ender’s Game series. I originally read Ender’s Game some years ago and didn’t particularly get on with it, finding it hard to reconcile the age of the main character with his actions. I did, however, enjoy the sequels, perhaps because in them Ender had grown up. The Shadow Saga doesn’t necessarily need to be SF, and could under other circumstances just be a completely separate technological thriller series but it was an easy read and, for some reason, I didn’t find it as difficult to accept the very young characters as I did with Ender’s Game. I also enjoyed Alastair Reynolds Century Rain – I have yet to read one of his books that I don’t enjoy – but, in much the same way as Rendezvous With Rama (Arthur C. Clarke), I find myself wanting more. My favourite from SF, though, was something I read way back at the beginning of the year (and which, in fact, only found its way into my collection when the SF/Fantasy Book Club mistakenly sent me two copies…) Walter Jon Williams’ Dread Empire’s Fall trilogy is a Man versus aliens, navy in space story with parallels to the likes of the Hornblower era. The spaceships of the series have Captains who fill their cabins with fine art and employ what amount to interior decorators among their servants. Reading as slightly satirical in places, there is plenty of action, both in space and planet-side and I found the three books very entertaining. It reminded me of a less brutal version of David Feintuch’s Seafort Saga.

The best straight fantasy I read was Maggie Furey’s Shadowleague trilogy – generic fare but with a slight hint of science fiction entwined in its story. However, fantasy takes many forms and while the urban grime of China Mieville’s Perdido Street Station was as good as all the reviews made it out to be and, in my opinion, better than The Scar, its linked but indirect sequel it was Stephen R. Lawhead’s King Raven books which really grabbed me. Not strictly fantasy by definition, they re-write the Robin Hood legend, transplanting one of England’s most well-known heroes to a Wales of a slightly different era. Lawhead gives his reasons in the afterword of the first volume and they certainly sound plausible to me. Most of the standard ingredients of the legend are included and each of the three books concentrates on and fleshes out a different main character (Hood, Scarlet and Tuck, as per the titles).

As usual with these roundups, I have left out many “medium enjoyment” books in order to concentrate on what I really enjoyed. Despite the series I have now consigned to the “Well, I gave them a try” category, there were more books that I enjoyed than that I didn’t (but, then, I’m quite easy to please…) Hopefully, I can continue to chip away at the remaining pile during 2012, getting ever closer to being able to buy newer novels again. You never know, I may even get round to reading those Stephen King books one day…

2011 In Review–Part 1, The Gigs

Friday 30th December: I still haven’t managed to listen to all the 2011-released CDs that I added to my collection and the year isn’t over yet, so I haven’t finished reading books. That means that the first of my round-ups for 2011 concentrates on the live music I have experienced during the year.

After the turmoil seen by the local venues in 2010, this year was reasonably stable in terms of where to go if you wanted live music in York. The big news was, of course, the opening of the refurbished Barbican Centre, after sitting empty way too long. Inside the money touted as being spent on doing up the building seems to have been mainly allocated to the areas the public see in the light – the bar and restaurant, for example – while the auditorium itself still has the same seating and, as far as I could see, floor. There has been a pretty good mix of live acts appearing there but I only managed one gig, at least partly because of the ticket prices which, like the Grand Opera House (which also showcases some reasonably big names) are much higher than the other venues in the city. Being honest, in most cases I’d rather pay less and see more (and less well-known) bands.

Getting the boring stats out of the way first, I managed to attend thirty-eight gigs in 2011, the highest number (by one) since I started keeping records. Strangely, during those gigs, I saw the same number of individual acts and total performances – eighty-eight and seventy-three respectively. I guess that means that the average number of bands per gig was down this year. Most attended venue, by far, was Fibbers with eighteen, followed by The Duchess with five. The Basement Bar, The Golden Lion and Stereo all came in with two gigs and I attended one each at The Barbican, The Grand Opera House, The Post Office Club, The Red Lion, The Roman Bath, Rowntree Park, The Victoria Vaults, The White Swan and The Yorkshire Hussar. Venues highlighted in bold above are ones that I attended for the first time. I managed to see a wide variety of acts – ranging from heavy metal to a sixteen-year-old ukulele-player. There was a nice mix of local and touring acts, the latter including three international bands. Cover acts were down on previous years, with only four acts whose majority of songs were covers and one tribute band. As usual, most of the acts were good, a handful were superb and a few I won’t be bothering to see again.

While this year saw the three original gig-goers meeting up less often, I did get a new, irregular gig-buddy in the form of my nine-year-old daughter, Elizabeth. I had planned to take her to her first gig this year (assuming she wanted to go) but she ended up going to three “first” gigs (four by the “two venue” rule above). At the end of the Summer holidays we headed off to Rowntree Park for the York Peace Festival, not as hippies but to see a handful of bands in the open air and this also gave Elizabeth the chance to say “hello” to one of her favourite local acts, G. T. Turbo. We also spent a very pleasant afternoon in the October sunshine in the Red Lion’s beer garden and, later, Fibbers (where I seemed to have got special permission for Elizabeth to attend) for York’s Guitar Festival weekend, where she saw G. T. perform again and also experienced her first heavy metal gig with the mighty Morpheus Rising – earplugs were a must. Towards the end of the year, we both went to the Grand Opera House to see Mostly Autumn – no earplugs this time and Elizabeth actually struggled to stay awake for the entire set, twitching along to the music towards the end and only waking up to applaud along with the rest of us. I don’t think the sudden onset of narcolepsy was anything to do with the standard of music and, afterwards, she did tell me that she enjoyed the experience.

Before I bring forth my highlights of the year, I will take a few lines to bemoan the seemingly dwindling crowds seen in York. Some bands that deserve much bigger attendances seemed to be bringing in fewer people but the worst was the two gigs I saw at Stereo – in both cases I was the only person in the audience not connected to any of the bands performing, which I guess is about as bad as it gets for a band. In these cases kudos goes to Stirling’s Miniature Dinosaurs and their support acts – not only did all the acts stay around to watch each other (and make me feel a little less lonely) but the Dinosaurs themselves had the attitude that it didn’t matter whether the crowd was one person or one thousand, you still give it your best. On the other hand, a big thumbs down goes to Leeds’ Arthur Rigby and The Baskervylles who, in a similar situation stayed in whatever green room there is at Stereo until it was their turn to take to the stage, giving no support to any of their support acts. Personally, I think they got what they deserved as most people left when they took to the stage.

As with last year, I definitely have a favourite gig of the year but first, a few highlights. Panic Room played York twice this year supported firstly by York’s own Marbled and then by touring support David R. Black. Both were excellent gigs and Panic Room are definitely a band which deserves a bigger audience than they get. My worry is that, unless that audience comes forth, York may soon be dropped from future tours. Hope & Social also appeared twice, but the Fibbers gig in October was a definite highlight – not only was I right at the front but the whole atmosphere was brilliant, a fantastic mixture of music and laughs. Swedish band Jeniferever also popped into Fibbers and gave us a “wall of sound” performance of ambient rock that pretty much knocked the socks off both me and a newcomer to our band of gig-goers. I went to see Nils Lofgren at the Barbican simply because I knew his name and that he was a sometime member of the E-Street Band. I didn’t really know what to expect but was enthralled by the gig and surprised that the man himself came out after the the show to sign anything anybody wanted him to. Stolen Earth, the band risen from the ashes of Breathing Space so impressed us during their debut at the Post Office Club that even Andy bought advance tickets for their Christmas gig at Victoria Vaults, and this turned out to be one of the best pub gigs I can remember. Long-time live favourites Chantel McGregor and Morpheus Rising both released debut albums this year – Chantel’s tour to promote hers saw her pitch up at Fibbers for what I think is the best I have seen her play, while Morpheus Rising launched theirs at the same venue and gave one of their best performances as well. That gig also formed part of a mini prog explosion in November and December. I managed to see The Heather Findlay band not only perform tracks from The Phoenix Suite, and Odin Dragonfly’s Offerings but also revitalise some of the Mostly Autumn back catalogue that I doubt anybody realised needed revitalising. With the bar raised, the next night saw Mostly Autumn themselves with the best performance I have seen them give in York and then, in the space of a week, I saw Amplifier, The Pineapple Thief and Also Eden (the latter supporting Morpheus Rising). Fish also appeared that week, but clashed with Pineapple Thief and I opted for the latter. There were many more good performances but I suspect you are already getting bored.

…and so, to my favourite gig of the year…

One of the things I like about local gigs is that you can, occasionally, get something completely unexpected. That was to be the case in the Summer when, devoid of anything to see at our normal venues, if was suggested that we head to The Yorkshire Hussar to see something new. To be honest, I wasn’t going to go, but I gave MySpace a quick visit and, after listening to one track, changed my mind. We arrived at the Hussar, which I think had only started putting on live music recently, to find a small crowd which seemed to be made up of friends and family of the band. That band was Dream Of Apollo and, by the end of the night that had impressed us all. So much so that we saw them twice more in the space of just over five weeks, even paying for the last gig as they headlined Fibbers. More or less unique, they don’t seem to have a specific genre of music but, instead, perform a bit of everything, melding it all into one extremely likeable whole. The lovely dreaminess of Someday, the epic, near-prog of Free, the atmospheric Regrets Of The Devil and the rest of the set, including Sandman (the MySpace song that convinced me to go to the gig) and a handful of covers that included Depeche Mode, Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton, made for a totally unexpected but entirely stunning performance. I may have seen bigger names, at better venues, but for its sheer originality and surprise, this was the best gig of the year for me.