Legs Music 7

Aquarius, TV Series

Flat-Top

I’ve just watched the first episode of Aquarius, the David Duchovny led TV programme set in 1967 LA and revolving around the Charlie Manson ‘story’.

I mention here because it has a superb soundtrack – with songs by Manson himself – though they are mainly quick snippets. However, so far the ’67 selection is pieced together with some flair.

Duchovny sports an emblematic flat-top haircut to consolidate his stereotypical role as a law officer, and the presentation of the hippie/freak scene is somewhat clichéd, though I wouldn’t want to be making excuses for the world of Charlie Manson. What I think is rather condescending is Duchovny’s ‘superior’ take on the moment, and I feel this has more to do with what we can accept as a retrospective appreciation of the honest if hopeful nativity of that time, but I don’t accept such an awareness could have been as knowing then as it has been conveyed in the opening episode.

I look to the programme to somehow convey the charisma of Manson, rather than just his monstrous being. If the programme is to have genuine merit it has to present the complex rather than a crime soap opera, as compelling as the acting and setting can make even that.

I do look forward to the further selection of that soundtrack.

Lips Music 6

Funkadelic - One Nation Under a Groove, album review

FFO

Funk's finest, Funkadelic prove with third track Who Says a Rock Band Can't Play Funk? that they easily can without losing their groove, although Maggot Brain with original guitarist Eddie Hazel proved that already [I mention 'original' as the live version on this cd is played lovingly by Mike Hampton].

The opening title track is the incarnation of funk, and second Goovalligiance slows the pace a little and presents a rich soul spectrum of vocals.

Fourth Promentalshitbackwashpsychosis Enema Squad (The Doodoo Chasers) is as adventurous as the title, some mad harmonica setting the opening scene. Firth Into You is a ballad of sorts, but with some funky bass vocal, and sixth Cholly (Funk Getting Ready to Roll) is back to a fullfrontalfunk core, bass slippin' and slidin' to the Roll. Seventh Lunchmeatophobia (Think! It Ain't Illegal Yet!),  which is the first track of a three song EP with the original LP, is a rousing rockfunk instrumental.

FunkingFarOut.

Hands and Feet Music 3

Nick Mulvey - First Mind, album review

Live

Watching Sky Arts highlights of this year's Cambridge Folk Festival reminded me of three things: particular artists, one Nick Mulvey that I am reviewing here, and two Rhiannon Giddens - her album Tomorrow Is My Turn already reviewed very briefly here - and third how live performances provide more than credibility to the impact of an artist because they can also enhance the appreciation of that artist.

Mulvey's nylon-stringed guitar-played songs are essentially very simple ones, their overall impression established through the repetition of each core melody, and any accompanying, rising orchestration and/or other musical support. A song like Juramidam on the album is illustrative: neatly but not virtuoso plucked guitar and a melodic line that has pace over memorable tune, increasingly foregrounded guitar work in the slap rhythm as well as playing of harmonics, and the background electronics that push along with that pace. Interestingly, this song is immediately contrasted on the album with Cucurucu which begins as a stripped back acoustic track, though this too then grows with the increasing beats, electronics, orchestration and multi-tracked vocal.

I mention all the above because the live performance I watched of second album track Fever to the Form makes it so much more impressive, the simple repeating melody also made more engaging through the live vocal which is honest and true - no more, but that is enough - and the tight band with particularly cello, but also very precise bass playing. This is a classic crescendo song, rousing on record as it rises, but that live rendition trumps. Indeed, I had rather ignored this album as sounding somewhat generic on a first listen, but the live versions have pushed me to this greater appreciation.

Rhiannon Giddens didn't require a live performance to signpost her excellence, but nonetheless the clips shown last night did reveal the tremendous joy and energy of her live singing, as well as the inventiveness and skill of her band. Outstanding.

Bridge Music

Greg Brown - Songs of Innocence and of Experience, album review

Bottle-Diddle-Lee-Do

This is a cute, genuine album from 1986, one that could have been quite pretentious and/or disastrous, but Greg Brown places the poetry of William Blake within simple, delicate folk melodies, or, as with The Echoing Green, jaunty blues which really does add a sweet lightness – especially the harmonica, fiddle and bottle-diddle-lee-do [an approximate translation] vocalisation.

The Tyger gets a swamp-blues presentation, the harmonica and fiddle again dancing provocatively as musical backdrop. It’s not so much threatening as - cool. The warm baritone [now rather grizzled] of Brown’s singing adds warmth to Infant Sorrow; and Ah! Sun-Flower makes an interesting comparison with the version by The Fugs: the latter played to my class in secondary school by a dynamic supply teacher which ignited a teenage interest in poetry, as well as that iconoclastic band/ensemble, and if I was still teaching today I’m sure I’d be in a different classroom armed with both versions. The Little Vagabond has a pretty country folk melody with harmony vocal and is another example of these Blake poems re-presented with Brown’s careful creativity.