R.E.M. Newport Centre, Wales. 18 May 1989

My favourite gig ever was R.E.M.'s concert in Newport Centre, Wales during the Green European tour of 1989. I wasn't that big a fan before the concert, only had 3 or 4 tapes of the band, but they completely blew me away. In retrospect I think the timing was right, they were a band very much on the ascendency, having released their first album on a major label months before. "Green" was a brilliant debut for Warners, it wasn't the commercial sell-out that many had predicted, in fact the acoustic instruments where very much to the forefront, more so than in the previous years release "Document". The "Green" album was well represented in the concert, 8 out of the 11 tracks were played that night. The band musically were fantastic but it was Stipe who shone. It was the first time i'd ever seen a front man so charimatic and exciting that you literally couldn't take your eyes off him. Support that night was from Bristol's The Blue Aeroplanes, a band before that night i'd never heard of. When they took to the stage with three guitarists, a bassist,a drummer,a dancer and vocalist in shades, i got the feeling "this is going to be interesting". I wasn't wrong. Brilliant live band, guitarists going mad, a vocalist shouting poetry and a Wodjek the dancer, doing well, some sort of mime/dance hybrid. When their next release "Swagger" came out i bought it immediately and was pleased to see that they managed to get Stipe to sing backing vocals (well, moaning really) on "What It Is". So on 18 May 1989 i was lucky to see two of my top five favourite bands of all time on the same bill, at the top of their game, being brilliant. You don't get many nights as good as that.

Pop Song 89
These Days
Disturbance At The Heron House
Turn You Inside-Out
I Remember California
Orange Crush
Driver 8
Feeling Gravitys Pull
Swan Swan H
World Leader Pretend
Begin The Begin
Underneath The Bunker
Pretty Persuasion
Get Up
Auctioneer (Another Engine)
It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

encore 1:
Stand
Crazy
You Are The Everything

encore 2:
Harpers
Let's Stay Together-Summertime
Finest Worksong
Perfect Circle
After Hours

The Men They Couldn't Hang - Man In The Subway

The Men They Couldn't Hang have announced on their website www.tmtch.net that they are working on five songs for their new album - and a download is available for one track "Man In The Subway".

Snippets of lyrics and chords :-

Brixton Hill
Blood is dancing in my veins
Like some young horse I need the reins
Hunger, hunger, deep and strange
Infects me now that I’m in range

Jam Tomorrow
(G) Oh (D) Yes (C) Life’s a (D) Mess!
(G) Still I (D) have to (C) make the (D) best
(G) Today I’m (Bm) fed on (C) butter and (D) bread
(G) there is (C) jam to(G)morrow….

Madeleine
In the Paris of your education
Conversations glittered down the halls
Now cold black eagles are gathering
And they perch on every wall

Man in the Subway
(G) Here I (Em) stand, Guitar in (G) hand
While you walk (C) by I stay behind I’ve got to
(G) sing the subway (D) song
The stage (G) belongs to me

The Winter Wind
I was (C) born in the billow of a (F) winter (C) wind
I (F) breathed the (C) winter (G) dark
I (C) built my strength from the (F) cold and (C) ice
The (F) ramparts (G)of my (C)heart

My 100 Favourite Albums (In No Particular Order) #4

Billy Bragg - Brewing Up With Billy Bragg (1984).

The first concert I ever saw was Billy Bragg on April 7th 1985 at Penyrheol Leisure Centre. Barely a week earlier i'd heard my first Bragg song when he appeared on Top Of The Pops singing "Between The Wars". My elder brother must have liked what he saw because he bought us both tickets for the nearby concert. Support was from cult band The Three Johns and a local male voice choir. I kid you not. The concert was a fund raiser for local familes who were affected by the Miners Strike at the time. So this was the first Bragg album i heard after seeing him in concert. Like all the best Bragg albums you have your political songs and the personal. I must say as much as i like his political songs i've always preferred his relationship/lovesongs. On this record you have two of my all time favourites, "St. Swithin's Day" and the almost perfect "The Saturday Boy". I think "The Saturday Boy" resonated so much beacause it echoed my life at that exact moment, the boy who admired from afar and never got the girl, as another great lyricist put it "Fifteen, clumsy and shy". "St Swithin's Day" became another "song of my life" when a long term relationship ended the lyrics "The Polaroids that hold us together will surely fade away like the love that we spoke of forever on St Swithin's Day" seemed really profound. That's the ability of great lovesong writers to speak of unspecific events that so many people can read into and enterperet as "their song". The rest of the album crackles with political numbers ("It Says Here"), anti-war songs ("The Island Of No Return") and other's bitter relationship songs (the equisite "Myth Of Trust"). Billy Bragg has written many better songs, certainly more mature songs but i don't think he's ever written a better "album" since. Having said that "Worker's Playtime" runs it a close second.

My 100 Favourite Albums (In No Particular Order) #3

The Pogues - If I Should Fall From Grace With God (1988).

I was already a huge fan of the Pogues when i heard the new single that they released at Christmas 1987 - Fairytale of New York. To say that it blew me away on first hearing is a massive understatement. I rushed out to buy it on vinyl from Sullivans Records (great independent shop, still going in Gorseinon) and being genuinely suprised that it was an original composition. Admitedly Shane MacGowan had showed a huge amount of songwriting promise on the previous releases but "Fairytale" was a huge leap forward.
So when the album was released i was filled with anticipation - would it reach or indeed my expectations? In a word, Yes. Oh Yes, indeed. From the very start of opening and title track "If I should Fall From Grace With God" the album starts with gusto and drive. An interview with Joe Strummer on the live Pogues video that came out a while later had him admitting that playing of the songs live wasn't enough - you want to sing them as well - and you can't help singing along to the faster Pogues numbers on this album. "Turkish Song Of The Damned" follows with some great work by Terry Woods and then the raucous and swear-laden "Bottle Of Smoke". The album slows down for the magnificent "Fairytale of New York", the jazzy instrumental "Metropolis" before reaching its second peak on Philip Chevron's "Thousands Are Sailing". This is a perfect example of the strengths of the Pogues songwriting - as well as the genius MacGowan, you had three other excellent songwriters in the band - Jem Finer, Terry Woods and Philip Chevron. "Thousands" is my favourite Chevron composition, the only fault is in its production - the live version is much better, maybe its the crowd's singing and reaction but on record its too reserved. So, that's the end of side 1, reminding me i used to listen to this on my walkman, turning the tape over for side 2 and..... "Fiesta". "Fiesta" is fun, that's it....fun. Brass section going bananas, Shane singing nonsence in Spanish, its a great mid set song that leads onto "Medley", three Irish folk songs joined together (Recruiting Sergeant, The Rocky Road to Dublin and The Galway Races). The next high point for me is "Streets OfSorrow/Birmingham Six". I can remember the Pogues playing this song on Friday Night Live and when they reached Birmingham Six part they went to an advertisment. I didn't realise at the time the song had a media ban. Obviously the song had a happy ending when the Birmingham Six were released in 1991 - with the court case proving that the police had fabricated the truth and supressed evidence which caused the six to be jailed in 1975. Next on the album are the two lullabies for children "Lullaby Of London" and "Sit Down By The Fire". The first one is a beautiful song that lulls you into a sense of false security before the second ends with the curt message "Goodnight, God Bless, now fuck off to bed"! The last song proper is high point no.4, "The Broad Majestic Shannon". I just love this song, the music is perfectly executed by a band at the very peak of their powers, but the last verse lyrics are what moves me every time "So I walked as day was dawning, Where small birds sang and leaves were falling, Where we once watched the row boats landing, By the broad majestic Shannon". Its songs like this containing lyrics like these that keep me hoping Shane can recover his muse and do it again. In an interview Nick Cave said that Shane has pieces of paper all scrunched up in a pile in his house, all containing lyrics. Great lyrics. Poetry. Back to the album which ends with "Worms". A throwaway track sang by drummer Andrew Ranken which ends with the line "Be merry my friends, be merry", which could be the mantra for the Pogues philosophy of life. The Pogues made four albums after this (two with Shane and two without) and never hit the same consistency again.

My 100 Favourite Albums (In No Particular Order) #2

Squeeze -East Side Story (1981).

How to start? This is probably the first album i played and played when i was young (aged around about 10). Actually the third Squeeze album i bought (i was a young starter :)) and still my favourite to this day. I think its the strongest bunch of songs that Difford and Tilbrook ever brought together for one session. Originally the album was going to be a double with four producers handling one side each, Elvis Costello, Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe and Paul McCartney - only Costello and Edmunds songs have as yet seen the light of day. Listening to the album yesterday what strikes me are 1) How strong the songs still seem and 2) what an eclectic bunch of songs they were. You still have really catchy "new wave/power pop" songs - "In Quintessence", "Piccadilly" and "Is That Love?", a country and western song "Labelled With Love", Beatles-esque weirdness "There's No Tomorrow", rockabilly "Messed Around", orchestral ballad "Vanity Fair" and the brilliant (how was this not a massive hit single) "Tempted" with a fantastic vocal from new keyboardist Paul Carrack. Another thing that is great about this album is that you have a splattering of "The Three Kinds Of Good Songs". Confused? Let me explain. My older brother told me at an early age there are three kinds of good songs - 1) catchy - like them first time tracks 2) slightly less commercial - generally four of five songs before you "get it" and 3) tracks that initially you don't get at all but after countless plays the beauty of the song comes through and these become big favourites. This albums fourteen tracks has all three and that to me always a criteria for an all time favourite album. The early catchy ones make you play the album constantly to make the second type appear appealing and then finally the few uncommercial tracks come to the forefront. Eventually even you will like "F-Hole". Honest ;)