Weirdness of weirdness. The inside back cover of the latest issue has an advert for an album by a bloke called Ian King. That same Ian King was my best friend in High School. I haven't seen him in 15 years, and suddenly there he is in the Word, on the cover-mount CD no less, (and at the time of writing he's the banner advert at the top of the blog). We were in a punk band together in the 70s, (he was the punk, I was the only guy they knew who played drums). We did Calamity Jane together. Sometime during our dole years we tried to get a country and western band together to play around the working men's of the North, (we failed, we couldn't take it seriously - we would be able to now, though).

a) it's lovely to be back in touch with my friend again - we've lined up a pint for next week
b) check out his song Death and the Lady on the cover Cd, and if you like it, give the album a try. I'm relieved to tell you that it's well worth the effort
c) he's been making music for 30 years now, and he's finally making a name for himself. That's quite something, isn't it!

The mighty Olthwaite's post about Pub Jukeboxes started me thinking how the Word Album Map could be extended to include a layer showing pubs which still have good jukeboxes, or even that have no music at all. Boozers worth drinking in if good music matters to you.

And then the further thought came that this could be extended to include a layer for quality record shops. And another for good gig venues large and small, upon which the Massive can pin their My Night Out With reviews.

I am sure there are other interesting ways this could be extended, eg newsagents which stock the Word, towns and cities featured in songs. What we'd get over time is a world map displaying the places we can find quality music, places worth visiting if you're in a strange city and you want to know where to spend your time.

From the Word's POV, I can't help thinking it would be a very useful marketing tool, and it might even work as a floggable iPhone/Android App. And for us lot, it would be great fun to put together.

Just a thought.

I'm a big believer that there's a thin line between competence and greatness, and some of my favourite bands started out with just a bare degree of recognisable ability but still managed to make wonderful music. I'm thinking here of Orange Juice, Jesus and Mary Chain and Belle and Sebastian. All Glaswegian, and I don't think that's a coincidence. All got better technically over the years, but they each had to change to accommodate their new-found ability, and maybe lost a little bit of charm in the process. But in the early years, they all had a singular vision of what they wanted their music to sound like, and found a way to write very good songs to suit, and their collective threadbare chops were just enough to get that vision across.

So what's the best band with the worst musicians?

A while ago I read that one time in the studio, The Flaming Lips had a long discussion about what the best-sounding handclaps were on a record. The conclusion they came to was the claps at the end of Andy Warhol by David Bowie.
Other fine examples I can think of are in the middle of Camera Obscura's (I think) Come Back Margaret and behind the 'Papa says he knows that I don't have any money' break on Springsteen's Rosilita. I also like the clap-snap-snap-snap on The Shangrila's Walking in the Sand.
So, anyone have a favourite example of quality handclaps they'd care to share with the Massive?

Has anyone here managed to slice garlic so thin it liquifies in the pan with just a little oil?

I always like it when a song throws in a word from a different vocabulary or linguistic register to the rest of the lyric. For example, the Middle 8 from Cry Me A River:

    Told me love was too plebeian
    Told me you were through with me and ...

You don't expect a word like 'plebeian' in a pop song, but here it is, skilfully drawing a picture of the whole relationship. He's a bookish clown who is dumping the girl because he's decided love is what common people do, (or at least that's the reason he's giving her). The chiming rhyme of '... through with me and ...' suggests that she finds it difficult to believe what she's hearing.

Another example is I Predict a Riot by the Kaiser Chiefs, with the unexpected appearance of the word 'Leodensian'. It's an academic word, and it separates the singer out from the rough characters he encounters in the song.

Both these words sit very nicely with the melodies in their respective songs. Both are fine demonstrations of the songwriter's craft.

Anyone else taken with this (minor) phenomenon? Any good examples you'd like to share with the class?

I love McCartney's original Maybe I'm Amazed, but this is also excellent:

(ps McCartney's Original - shouldn't that be some sort of boiled sweet?)

I've just discovered From the Basement:
http://www.fromthebasement.tv/home
I came across it courtesy of the one and only Steve Bowbrick: http://bowblog.com. And Retroman mentioned it in a comment to a post a while ago.
I'm sure I'm late to the party, and the good readers of this blog have been popping round to each other's houses to watch it from the last couple of years, but it's gloriously good, and if you haven't come across it, it's well worth checking out. The performances I've seen so far on there - Dead Weather, The Kills and White Denim - have been fantastic.
It was put together by Nigel Godrich and broadcasts on Sky Arts. Here's a bit more information about it for those who want to know more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_basement

Drinking red wine watching Moonlight Mile:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0179098/

Thoroughly enjoying myself.

It's that nightmare again, the one right out of 'The Devil Went Down To Georgia', where you've got to take on and beat Beelzebub's Demonic Swinging Pixies with Diablo himself on lead vocals in order to keep possession of your soul. You're allowed to put a band together to give support to your case, but for reasons knowable only to the truly damned, you are limited to picking a house band from just one studio or scene.

So which house band would you choose? Would you reach out to the Funk Brothers for your salvation? Would you find redemption through the Wrecking Crew? Would Booker T and the MGs be the key to escaping eternal damnation? How about the Muscle Shoals' Rhythm Section? MFSB? The American Studio band? Or is there another group of musicians somewhere to whom you would rather entrust your soul?

Unarguably, these are all magnificent bands who have been the beating heart of some of the greatest music ever made, but if you had to pick, which would you choose?

I reckon each and every one of us from the Word Irregulars have put in well over 10,000 hours of practice listening to music, so by that definition (Malcolm Gladwell's) we are experts at our own tastes. By now, we should have a fair idea of what we listen for in a song. I appreciate this is the World's Most Inexact Science, but there must be patterns you've spotted in your listening habits.

So, rank the following in order of importance to you:

- lyrics
- melody
- groove
- singer's voice
- mood
- genre

Anything I've missed? Anyone listen to songs predominently for the bassline? The guitar solo? The singer's personality? Can a good cowbell turn your head? Have you a weakness for a Zither? Do you come over all peculiar for a Harpsichord?

And the flip-side - what would put you off a song?

I'm toying with the idea of building a Pedal Board for when I play live, (which my friend Mike, who knows about these things, guarantees will make me look like an arse) and that started me thinking about bands and songs containing the names of guitar pedals.

We've Got a Fuzzbox and We're Going to Use It is surely the ultimate, (and in the process of getting the spelling right, I came across this gem - ).

But if I may also offer:

Bachman Turner Overdrive
Mudhoney's Superfuzz Bigmuff
Echobelly
Spiritualized's Pure Phase

And I might throw in King Tut's Wah Wah Hut for good measure. And Let It Bleed cake maker Delay-a Smith.

Over to you...

The flip side of Arriving Late to an Oeuvre, (see my rip-roaring, couldn't-be-missed, Dickens-in-blog-form post from a few days ago - http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/arriving-late-ouevre) is the band/artist/musician/actor/tv series that you stumbled upon in their absolute formative days, spotting their latent talent and championing proudly as they've grown to greatness.

And any you missed out on? My wife chose to go to the pub and so missed Belle and Sebastian's second gig. I love Belle and Sebastian, as does she, and I point out this faux-est of all pas whenever she picks on my dodgy Heavy Metal past.

I've just finished Hell to Pay by George Pelecanos. I'd previously read his Shame the Devil. Ahead of me lie what according to Wikipedia is another 16 novels by the same writer, the thought of which has my mouth watering.

This post isn't particularly about Pelecanos, it's more about that fantastic feeling when you realise the worth of a writer/director/musician/series and can glory in the knowledge that you have a whole load more of the stuff to look forward to.

When I was going through my Hard Rock/Heavy Metal phase in the late 70's, the live albums of some of my favourite bands were far better than their studio albums. The examples I give are:

Thin Lizzy - Live and Dangerous
UFO - Strangers in the Night
Deep Purple - Made in Japan
Judas Priest - Unleashed in the East

Does that hold true beyond these 4 bands - any other bands past or present whose studio albums are pale compared to their live recordings?