The Price of Pop: Halloween Challenge Night 16

 

I am twelve, and like most people I know my age, I am crazy about Michael Jackson's new album. 'Billie jean' is an absolute banger, 'Beat It' a badger of very hot properties. The whole things sounds brilliant and is probably the first album I ever buy that I listen to, absorbing as much of the backing instruments and their interplay as I can to try and work it all out. It was a fool's errand, and I may as well have tried to pull apart Jackson's insane dance moves for all the good it (and that!) did me. But the best was yet to come. Tonight, for Halloween, I'm revisiting the next big thing to come off Jackson's unassailable album: 

Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' (John Landis, 1983)

The production is a film and cult media geek's dream: Landis was not long off the set of The Twilight Zone, bringing Rick Baker in tow for makeup - both had worked together of course on An American Werewolf in London, the only movie of Landis' that Jackson had seen, although  it was enough to get him on the line. Rounding out the interstitial music was Elmer Bernstein, also a past collaborator with Landis on Werewolf as well as Animal House, and soon to be providing the original score for Ghostbusters. And then of course Vincent Price, who doesn't seem to have been on set, but whose presence is essential in the song and for the extended reawakened dead scenes. The short film itself is an honest homage to the old form - Jackson loved the tradition of movie shorts, so wanted to bring them back, the story takes place in a Fifties'/ Sixties opening, and later zombies storm a creepy abandoned house, shuffling and moaning in a visual recreation of Night of the Living Dead. Finally there's the cinema itself, location of the movie within a movie opener, and tellingly festooned with posters of Price's - and Landis' past works. Much of this I know - but not all. And for the first time seeing it on TV, the same night as all of those other kids I know, I have no idea what's coming next. But it's brilliant.

Forty-three years on, and it's still a great diversion, even if you have to squint your brain at the history of some of its principal players. The direction is nice, the sound and lighting terrific and the colours in particular are fantastic - I'm a sucker for Eighties zombies with their parchment skin, deep-set eyes and angular features. get them dancing the way Jacko did and it's a vision. Plus, I can swear that one of them is a reference to Tor Johnson. In y opinion Jackson peaked here - he never looked as good, cast such a shadow, or electrified the screen. Thriller is a miniature treat, from gas-strapped prologue to that memorable final spin with its cat-eyed hero that would stay in my young mind for days afterward. Truly, noone could resist this Thriller.

Halloweenometer. As loath as I am to go straight down the zombie route, this has graveyards, a full moon, a spooky house and a werewolf. It's pretty much made for Halloween.

Companion Piece. The audio for Vincent 'One Take' Price's additions (complete with third, unused verse) is here. But why no add in another of Landis and Baker's great collaborations from the time - courtesy of a future Ghostbuster, naturally. I rewatched this again for a laugh and still jumped, crying out, knowing what was coming. And laughed at my silliness. By jeepers it's a good scene!

The Whicker, Man: Halloween Challenge Night 13

The UK horror experience fascinates me. For something as homegrown and ready-loaded with a ready arsenal of classic, gothic literature and a hefty output of the Hammer and Amicus Studios in the 60s and 70s, it feels as though British horror often gets overlooked in favour of its glitzier, more camera-ready US cousin, with its Universal Monsters, serial killers, Munsters and Addamses. There’s a charisma to American horror that’s sometimes lacking in the older, colder, damper, camper British version. And yet, consumers of the form overlook Britshock at their peril, because beyond the celebrated works of Stoker, Shelley, Cushing and Lee there’s an intriguing domestic oeuvre in UK horror that has a taste all of its own. A rare vintage, redolent of wet post War Victorian townhouses, urban cemeteries, canals, shadows, Scream comics, House of Hammer series, and guilty tattered paperback dreadfuls passed under school desks by day, to be consumed in secret after sunset.

I go on – and could easily continue to, but suffice it to say, British horror – even in the early decades of my long life, is a broad church, as evidenced by Alan Whicker’s exploration of the British Horror psyche here, on the cusp of a new era of visual nasties...

 Whicker’s World: A Handful of Horrors: I Don’t Like My Monsters to have Oedipus Complexes (1968)

This is once over lightly stuff, but intriguing for its scattershot skimming of what makes for British horror in the day – horror magazines, low budget schlockers, a distracted interview with scream queen Barbara Shelley, an earnest but wired Screaming Lord Sutch, Christopher Lee, Terry Nation and his Dalek creations, and our oh-so-lampoonable host drifting through Highgate Cemetery, pursued by a Yeti. It’s all good, it’s all valid, it’s all there – bumping its ugly bits together in a mash-mash stitched-together way. Reminiscent of… I don’t know what.

Horror essentially defies codification, which is part of its character and an essential element of its perennial appeal, so a single episode doco is never going to do it justice – even if geographically contained. Heck, subsequent documentary series have covered literature and film and still not scratched the surface, but that just means that there’s more to discover, to experience, to appreciate and argue over.

YouTube option:



Halloweenometer: Your mileage may vary, as it should. Trust me, it’s better that way.

Companion Piece: I nearly did Lord Sutch's 'Jack the Ripper', but opted for something a little more catchy and... comic. Here's the Damned!

Merry X-Mash Everybody

 The season of Yule has come around for us all in the Monkeyhouse - and Y'all out there, too. We hope you're able to celebrate it with people and animal friends you love and that you have a cracker or two throughout the day.

Christmas is, of course, the classic mash-up. its origins in several European pagan festivals, usurped by the Christians, moulded into many of its modern trappings by the Victorians - both British and Germanic thanks to Victoria and Albert, and then the new world of the United States and then and then... there's folklore, Christian and Jewish elements and a jolly good old dose of commercial salts through it these days. You get the drift. It's become its own weird thing, forever winter wherever you are, a compulsory feast and with familiar trappings rooted in obscure saints, unnamed angels and a bioluminescent reindeer borrowed from a novelty 45.

So this year's Xmas delivery is a mashup.

There are plenty to choose from. I like a good mashup, and really dig Bill McLintock's inventive blends of unlikely bedfellows (Huey Lewis and Metallica, Donna Summer and Ozzy Osbourne, Deep Purple and the BeeGees.) This year's solstice combo brings Bon Scott's AC/DC  into the world of Peggy Lee with Dirty Deeds Around the Christmas Tree. It's fine, it's fun... but it's not really all that Christmassy until Peg get to join in, naturally. So I've looked farther afield.

And what did I spy, making his way through the snow like some weird English King bossing a peasant to fetch him firewood, but DJ Cummerbund combining Billy Idol (I'm interested already), Jose Feliciano (...okay...), Rob Zombie and er, Rush. Sure, he also interrupts proceedings with a Christmas message but LEAVE DJ CUMMERBUND ALONE AND LET HIM DO HIS TRUMPET SOLO - HE WORKED HARD ON THIS. JEEZ!

It's Feliz Navidad as you may never hear it again. Enjoy:

Generation X(mas)

 There's been a bit of an Idol Renaissance in the Simian household this year, spurred on by a little nostalgia. Jet Jr is about to start high school next year, bringing out all my feels as well as the music I was listening to at the time. That's for another post, but the works of the man born William Broad, plus his lead gunslinger Steve Stevens is on pretty high rotate. That's helped also by a pretty decent return to form this year with some studio TV appearances to boost sales of his new Roadside EP, the first single of which, 'Bitter Taste' I liked a lot.

Old (Rebel) Yeller Billy Idol has aged well, his voice acquiring a Johnny-Cash-like rumble, and he was always a lover of the classics of rock and roll, so it should be no surprise that he had a Christmas song in him. In fact, he's had several through the years, including the bittersweet family memoir 'Yelling at the Christmas Tree' from 2005 album Devil's Playground - but that has to have been beaten this year with an entire album, ladies and gentlemen, of Christmas standards. Read that list and weep, because the man is committed to the form, and he doesn't disappoint. 

But it's not all covers. This is his (presumably original) 'On Christmas Day', an epic, sweeping statement of redemption and amends, of a family reunited on a specific day dedicated so often to the concept of family. Here's Billy Idol, family man On Christmas Day, born to run wildly back to his 'child' (interpretations open, which is clever) And it's another cracker!

We can forgive Mr Broad for missing the obvious 'Dancing With My Elf' this time, but he's on notice.

Merry Christmas, one and all, and rock on! Have a safe and happy family holiday, whatever and wherever your family may be.

Hell's [Jingle] Bells

 2020 has been a rough year for the arts and entertainers. Albums delayed, tours put on hold, and we even lost a few to COVID-19, alas.

But amidst that bad news, some good. Albums have been worked on, musicians have still collaborated, new compositions created, and old projects dusted off. Case in point: AC/DC's new album Power Up, the second since the death of Malcolm Young. It's good - great, even - and something of a miracle in the circumstances; but this isn't a post about that album. Let's go back further.

Come with me to a time where the mullet was giving way to the all-round longhair of new metal and grunge, to AC/DC still at their second peak and the era of one of their greatest songs 'Thunderstruck'. It is 1990, and I am flatting and have my own band. I begrudgingly appreciated 'Thunderstruck', and nearly a lifetime later would eventually sing it myself. But this isn't a post about that song. It's another song off the same album, The Razor's Edge. This is 'Mistress for Christmas'

Now, lyrically there's not a lot of Yuletide marking here. Possibly the song came about from the titular rhyme. There are Jingle Bells in the opening (and I've made my opinion on that song known already) and some guff about descending smokestacks later on, but hey - just enjoy the thing! That's what it's for.

And let's have no more talk of 2020. Cheery Mistress, to one and all! 

Christmas is a Love Story

The kids these days - and by kids I also mean middle-aged nostalgonauts, have apparently taken to dubbing a certain Bruce Willis movie a 'Christmas Movie.' Fair enough - I can't argue, as to shout against all that would also be to shout against some other fine Yuletide romps, like Gremlins, Batman Returns - and even Shazam! has Santa in it. It's a movie about children, wishes, magic and families - of course it's a Christmas movie!

But similar things could be said for songs. We adopt songs for our times, and reinvent songs to fit our times. I was agog this week to discover, for example, that my chosen musical bete noir of Nativity-tide, the veritable dog in the manger if you will, said Jingle Bells - is many times not Christmas. It's a Thanksgiving song, apparently. But here we are. And sometimes songs slip into Christmas by intent, despite some ropey sentiment (cough!DoTheyKnowIt'sChristmascough!) and, in the following case, by timing and visuals.

Frankie Goes to Hollywood's The Power of Love, the third and greatest of the singles troika going by that name in 1985, is now 35 years old. Sweet Baby Jesus. Released in November of that year, it crept into the public consciousness and made FGtH's third consecutive number one from their debut album. Thematically, it's not Christian in focus or Christmas in theme, but I cant hear it without thinking of the Godley and Creme video and its multi-ethnic magi, imagining the lyrics to be the sentiments of a bewildered and bowlderised Joseph, who loves this girl, but like her is just being carried helplessly along by a greater tide. Back in its native home that video (not to mention single sleeve) did the job, almost, and it would have made the coveted Christmas Number One slot but for Sir Bob Geldof and chums. Never mind. Enjoy this at the close of another brutal year- the sweeping strings, lulling piano, children's cartoon bogeymen, and those vocals. Dampen down the inhumanity and misfortune that 2019 wrought, and hope for better things to come. Let yourself be beautiful, indeed.

I had a girlfriend once who thought this song was warbling drivel. Always knew she was a wrong'un.




"I always felt like 'The Power of Love' was the record that would save me in this life. There is a biblical aspect to its spirituality and passion; the fact that love is the only thing that matters in the end."
- Holly Johnson

Kinkle All the Way

Merry Christmas one and all, and welcome to another annual seasonal musical.

I'm pretty sure my introduction to The Kinks came courtesy of my big brother and his borrowing back in the day of a friend's copy of 18 Karat Kinks - probably highly collectable nowadays benig both a local collection and on vinyl, but as golden as this collection is (look at the Sixties gems there - Lola! Got Me! All Day! Dedicated Follower! Sunny Afternoon! Waterloo!), it's barely half the story of Ray Davies' huge career. There was more magic being spun even then in the early Eighties as Davies took his group Stateside for arguably a more lucrative second career. This particular track was one of them, a post-punk stab that's too melodic to be provocative, yet with a 'stuff your toys - feed the poor!' sentiment that can't be overlooked.

Santa gets mugged. But it's all in a good Clause- er, cause. Just don't let the kids hear the opening verse - it almost gives the game away!

Happy Horrordays 1: Kate Bush: 'Hammer Horror" (1978)

Today marks the beginning of a bijou series of posts themed around Halloween. Hooray!

Also, today marks the fortieth aniversary of the single release of this little number from Kate Bush.

On Point!


What is there to say about Hammer Horror? Well, just look at it. It's a marvellous slice of Seventies gothpop and, mere months after her debut Wuthering Heights (Hammer is her third single outside Japan) must have looked to the casual observer to be fully setting out Bush's stall as a specialist in supernatural and ghostly turns. In fact, according to legend the song concerns thetrical superstition and an actor assuming the role previously held by a departed friend. So, not really about the Hammer Horrors themselves, and of course, Hammer Studios never did their own version of the song's Hunchback of Notre Dame. But that said, I never really took much stock in the artist;s own description of her songs (some songs off Hounds of Love in particular.)

But that video. Here's la Bush, looking all black and velvety and witchy, with a hooded dancer helping her through some of the more physical moves executioner-style. Bush live is a tricky thing to track down, and in the examples I've seen, it seems our Kate prefered to concentrate on the dancing for this one, and in the Tour of Life footage seems to even dispense with the idea of miming.

Effective, though, and decidedly creepy - especially that last minute throat grab. Good luck getting that on before the watershed in later years, and even now it comes across as edgy.

'What is the Future of the Future?'

Manic Street Preachers: Resistance is Futile (2018)

With a vintage group announcing a new album, the long-term fan may feel an approaching leap of faith. Will this be the best? The least-loved? The peak? The last? Every release is a spin of the chamber.

I'm tempted to regard a dichotomy to Manic Street Preachers album releases - like Guillermo Del Toro's on-off Hollywood and arthouse projects, or the alternating quality of Star Trek movies. With Manics the commercially-oriented alternates with the artistic - not perfectly, and with not as much regulatory as would fit the comparison, but compare Resistance to Postcards and Send Away the Tigers... and you may sense a pattern. 

This is an accomplished album, but not characterised by the confident musical probing of Futurology or the greater lyrical reach of This is My Truth; instead, Resistance presents an album meticulously arranged, familiar in trappings, and reliable in themes: memory, loss, disenfranchisement. Not an angry album, but one resigned to being... resigned. There are clear highlights after the table-setter People Give In , International Blue comes across as pure pop Manic - James Dean Bradfield once again offering a tenor belying his years, and Nicky Wire and Sean Moore bringing up a thundering rear. 

Consciously, the album is reflective not only in its mood, but also in its sound - Sequels of Forgotten Wars (a personal favourite) the closest to the faster, early Manics, Dylan and Caitlin a return to earlier albums' wining duets (Your Love Alone and Little Baby Nothing more than Sullen Welsh Heart). Topically there's a looking back - at past idols like Bowie (In Eternity), while Liverpool Revisited finds itself haunting the same Hillsborough as Truth's SYMM, from the other side of the later coronial inquest and twenty years on from the disaster. 

 (Wire even provides a guitar solo for Liverpool) 

That said, there's a lot to like. International Blue is a belter, Broken Algorithms could have been a great closer (I do wonder if the album could be a couple of tracks shorter), and penultimate single Hold Me Like a Heaven provides the singalong stadium who-oahs and memorable hooks to surely make it a live favourite. As said, the album is engineered well - reflective of the extra time put into it while the band's new studio was being built. As any ageing rocker will argue - why rush quality? 

As ever, you might find yourself wondering where the next Manics album will lead.

Cover story: A colourised portrait by Baron Franz von Stillfried-Ratenicz: 'Samurai Warrior 1881' - a once-heralded soldier captured on the eve of a new century, and a future that will be characterised by automatic weapons and machines of war. The band (as has been noted) cast as a relic, composed and dignified, displaced and resigned.

Here's my gift to you: a soundtrack to the void.

Friday Night Local: Shihad - Pacifier

Hey, and welcome to another May, another NZ Music Month. You know the drill. There's gonna be a viidjio.

And look, it's not a very imaginative pick this week. Another Shihad video, another one from The General Electric and another single. But dammit, it's a great one from one of our best bands who are getting a lot of airplay at the Monkeyhouse this week. I want to play this live one day.

Here's Shihad's Pacifier, recorded in 1999 and apparently written for Jon Toogood's friend Aaron Tokona of Weta/Cairo Knife Fight.  A bit of a family favourite, and even quite playable on a ukulele:

It's also a cool video, even if this one really needs to be in high definition. Yes, it's a Clockwork Orange pastiche, a bit like the Blur one, or the Rob Zombie one, but different because it's ours.

That's all I have, really. See you next Friday with another video!

 

Dancing on a Friday Night

The Darkness with Push Push
The Hunter Lounge, VUW 20/4/2017

I have for a very long time wanted to see The Darkess live. I didn't really think it would ever happen of course - the band split up in the late Nineties, only visited NZ once for a Big Day Out, and even when the reunion happened and then the Going Down Under Tour was announced last year, I didn't ever envisage myself being anywhere close to seeing them perform. Two missed chances with Iron Maiden have been geat teachers; but despite all avenues being exhausted with fellow audience-goers (one even at the eleventh hour), I went, I saw, and I believed.

It wasn't without its misgivings - a University venue meant the the whole student experience of crushing crowds, sticky floors and shuffling with eyes darting on either side waiting for an errant elbow to the head, was the order of the day. Strange how you forget the weird pehenomenon that is the front four rows of a standing gig quietly and mysteriously getting taller as the main act approaches. I haven't been in that sort of crowd since my own varsity days, and I didn't miss it.

But I'm so very glad I also didn't miss this experience. After a loose, fun and nostalgic warm up by Push Push, the main act was not tardy in fronting up - and front up they most certainly did. The Darkness are seasoned, but not yet venerable. Justin Hawkins has the energy of Jagger and the quick cheeky wit (and some of the look) of Russel Brand, and the band overall was tight, punchy and focussed. Brother Dan Hawkins lived up to his reputation s the quiet one, both siblings sharing guitar leads while bassist Frankie Poullain looked like the coolest man in Wellington as he would have had to have been, dressed in a polo neck, waistcoat and lounge suit. They opened with a reliable blinder - Black Shuck - and had me in the palm of their hands for the rest of the evening. Almost all of debut album Permission to Land was played, with a sprinkiling of new tracks including, curiously, what sounded like Hot Legs' Prima Donna - a few surpises and very few quiet bits, all lapped up by a fuller crowd than I'd anticipated. I don't think I've thrown so many goats, bawled out so many bawdy lyrics or - dear lord - danced. Ever. That just was never a Dunedin thing, I swear.

Well, I called it dancing. It was more jumping up and down on the spot - less pogo and matched with a decorous attempt to keep my arms close to my body (above my head for most of the time, though - it was really that kind of a gig), and on more than one occasion I was quietly grateful nobody I knew was there to see me. The soles and heels of my feet paid me back the next day (and I regretted not picking up a tee shirt on the way out); it's a young man's game. But hey, I had a literal brush with greatness when Hawkins, zipped up in his purple faux-cheetah-lined jumpsuit soloed past me on the shoulders of a roadie during their lengthy encore of Love on the Rocks With No Ice and I left feeling very very happy.

"Tell your freinds and families... we'll be back!" Justin Hawkins called out as they left the stage somewhere close to midnight. I hope the next time won't be too far away, and was already envying Christchurch its show the next night.

Back to School of Rock

I have over this holiday period been busy, and while I'm now but three days back at the zoo, I am of course a lot busier - but some activities haven't changed.

To what am I referring, you don't ask? Well, I have another work-related gig coming up. A musical one. To readers who know me probably also know that I had one of these last year, some fifteen years since I last played some form of live gig (my own wedding, in what would turn out to be the last ever time me and my old bandmates would ever be in a room together, let along playing impromptu.) The circumstances around this sudden return to treading pedals and dodging guitar leads are quite hum-drum; suffice it to say I was lured into a gathering of sales staff who shared a middle-aged musical itch and some degree of talent, and with a month or so's home practice and one kind of boozy actual rehearsal, once we were in the same town the day beforehand, we became the surprise entertainment for a company get-together in front of our working peers and managers. No pressure, then.

The exercise was as fruitful and inspiring as it was sphincter-tighteningly anxious. If I thought playing my own songs in front of friends and family with two drunk ex-bandmates might have been a challenge (and the wedding video offers little clue to the contrary), then a full set of varying covers and standards in front of colleagues was something else. Some return experiences in life can be wonderful - like stepping back into a comfy pair of slippers. This was (almost literally) like attempting to squeeze one's self into a pair of lycra pants from two decades before. I was not at my best on the night, and crucially aware that I stood among musicians much more talented and practiced than I - even in the simple art of looking like one knew what one was doing.

 But I won't lie; it was a very exciting experience, and it changed me for the better. I'm a better player for the limited practice time (YouTube is a godsend!), I have (pauses to grind teeth) a new respect for cover musicians that I never had to this point, because playing and muffing one's own works is a pretty fault-free form of creative expression - if you suck, then your songs suck and that's that. But sucking at playing a song everybody knows, and that somebody out there is almost certainly bound to be able to better you on, is quite another thing. So the discipline is a new thing- as is the joy of getting it right. It's a gamble, but a calculated one. And in one week's time I'm about to do it all over again at a different zoo.

Into Darkness

Pretty cool news to round out a month of wobbles, shakes, tumbles and quakes: Push Push are reforming! No, hang on, that's not it. And it's certainly not the way to announce an article that otherwise ought to get my attention, because courtesy of Twitter I discovered The Darkness are coming to NZ next April. Yah-roo!

And then courtesy of chum Tim I discovered they're coming to Wellington. Get in.

Opportunities are now open for all and sundry to apply for the unofficial position of Jet's Plus One on 21st April 2017. No application will be refused.

And now, to mark this momentous news here's a celebration of calligraphy, geography, Cadbury Flake, casual/alarming cross-dressing and the institution of marriage:

Video Affects: 'Wuthering Heights' - Kate Bush

It's a point of historical fact that for probably the first years of my life my family don't own a modern TV. Ours is big, blocky, and black and white. When we finally have the luxury of two TV sets, the old one is housed for a while in the bedroom of my older sister, and on it of a Saturday evening she, my brother and I will watch the early evening fare before bedtime. Probably The Dukes of Hazzard, The Incredible Hulk or Little House on the Prairie. But crucially also, among my sister's M*A*S*H and Scott Baio posters, some tidbits of pop music via classic chart show Ready to Roll. I am eight years old, and about to have one of the great frights of my life.

Picture a night-black studio, its floor smothered in dry ice fog. Out of it and strobing with the same video feedback trick that made The Jackson Five's Blame It On The Boogie so memorable, is something more starting. A ghost. A wailing, wide-eyed spectral woman in white with a high pitched mournful song that could only itself be about a ghost. At eight I think I've heard of a banshee - and this seems the most accurate depiction of one I could imagine. Somehow, I think the song's creator would approve.

Kate Bush's oeuvre has always had elements of the supernatural and horror about it, from Hammer Horror to Experiment IV, the opening snippet of Night of the Demon leading into Hounds of Love to the wonderfully (and literally) batty cosplay on the back of fourth album Never For Ever. But no song is as redolent as Wuthering Heights, its Gothic imprimatur well intact. Unsurprisingly for what follows, Bush is a revelation - and Wuthering Heights sets out her agenda with aplomb. Eerie, arty, outsider music of a kind which ought not to be able to escape its Seventies trappings were it not for Bush's own ability to follow the trend and her ability to reinvent herself.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. For the moment this is the first time I'll ever see Kate Bush, and I'm ready to run to the hills in terror. There are two videos for Wuthering Heights; this is the lesser-seen one, but it's the one that will haunt my nights for a good few weeks to come.

The Mighty Bush

Times dictate that I must post this today, for today is the day that Kate Bush has her birthday. Happy Birthday, your majestic Weirdness.

Flap-flap-flap! It's a bat.

Kooky, spooky, and very very talented, Kate Bush landed on Earth on this day in 1958, and announced her presence to humankind twenty years later (more on that in another post). By this time she'd pretty much written out her career, and for the next two decades at least, she'd continue to be a significant presence in the UK pop world. She was young, gifted and weird. Arty, intellectual, sexy, exotic and cooly distant, she'd write, compose, choreogrph and direct her impressive body of work almost from day one, all the while maintaining the same destatchment that would mark her persona and probably frustrate her fans. There aren't many artists like her around these days, and there weren't then, either.

Bush Goes Full Achilleos

My first encounter with la Bush will be the feature of my next entry, but like Bowie before and after, her career and public presence (the two being virtually one and the same due to the artist's strict control over her private life) was something that I drfited through. I remember select videos and song from her early years - Wuthering Heights, Babooshka, Running Up That Hill, and the rest was pretty much catch-up.

Catch-up took place for me in 1990, and my second year at Uni. Having joined a band I was a young man very much in pursuit of new musical ideas and influences. My friends and I were all into easily-accessible student fare - local alternative bands, Flying Nun rostermates, Pixies, Smiths, REMs, Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and so on. The result was that in all of this common ground there wasn't much I could call 'my' taste - it was simply shared with too many others. And then my brother's then-girlfriend played Kate Bush's The Whole Story to me one holidays while we were both hanging out at my parent's new home. I don't remember much more, except that I was immediately taken by it, and that Marg also recommended Hounds of Love as Bush's best album. I bought Hounds two years later, having got almost everything else on vinyl - this was one of my first CD purchases, and of course she was bloody spot on. Hounds of Love is a classic.  Perhaps I'll blog that one separately.

Ms Bush and I parted company shortly after The Sensual World and her pursuing the (to me) less accessible musical stylings of Trio Bulgarka. Clearly, a Hill too high for Running Up, but by then I'd consumed enough of her creative output to have satisfied my curiosity without entering the dark world of total fandom. Kate Bush fans - or those I'd be comfortable counting myself as one among them - were a bit thin on the ground in early Nineties Dunedin, but brief encounters led me to interesting places. A long conversation I had with a keen fan answering our ad for a new keyboardist revealed that he had recenty bought her retrospectve box set This Woman's Work. I was interested, my bandmates weren't, and we never got that follow-up meeting. But the next person I had an in-depth conversation about Kate Bush to was a lot more fruitful. Just over a year from that phone call I was looking to join a flat with a friend and the two of us met with a girl from his Anbthropology class who was also on the hunt for digs. She was a fan, apparently, and now she's Mrs Simian. So there's that.

We still play The Whole Story occasionally. Mrs Simian is a big fan of Jig of Life, and I would be remiss not to admit that This Woman's Work has got me through a couple of challenging life episodes. And we were both shattered to discover a fortnight ago that we'd blown our Saturday morning roster and not had the time to turn up to Waitangi Park for Wellington's own Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever. But eh. Maybe next year.

So, many happy returns once again Catherine Carder Bush, and thanks for playing a not insignificant part in the life I enjoy today.

My Zombie Weekend

Eleven fifty-five - almost midnight. Enough time for one more story. One more story before twelve- just to keep us warm. 

In five minutes it will be the twelfth of June. Ten years ago on the twelfth of June, down in the South Island a polar blast brought the heaviest snowstorm in seventy years. In the high country of Canterbury some homesteads were without power for two weeks. Trees and power poles snapped from the weight of the snow, North Otago was cut off from the outside world, and Mrs Simian was stuck in Timaru with her parents. This isn't her story. This is instead the story of what I got up to whilst she was snowed in.

It was just me and the cat. We had the whole house to ourselves for two nights (so we thought), including the stereo and the DVD player. A quick fish and chip tea for one (two) gave me more hours for the evening, and I embarked upon a then-distressingly predictable activity: too much screen-time and an early morning retirement. No internet, though - for some reason I was hell-bent on modelling and movies.

The models were Games Workshop Easterlings. Nice sculpts, but colour-wise a bit one-note, really, and they're still unfinished. The movies were an ambitious triple-feature: early ScoJo and mid-career Thora Birch in an adaptation of Daniel Clowes' Ghost World; the then-recent adaptation of Dawn of the Dead by newcomer Zack Snyder - and the original Romero Dawn of the Dead for good measure. 

Ghost World ended the viewing that evening - for the better. I can't recall which version of Dawn started, though I'd say the purist in me would have picked the Romero. It's deservedly a classic and even while familiar in its plot and story beats, I wasn't ready for its length. And in terms of building up a sense of fatalistic dread, Romero was a master. Two hours of gnawing death - on several levels. I should have known, having been properly disturbed by Romero's Night of the Living Dead and depressed by Day of the Dead.

By contrast Snyder's (and screenwriter James Gunn's) remake is sprightly, high-velocity and despite fears to the contrary packs a punch. The title sequence sets the scene - and it's pretty faithful in its nihilism from those first few scenes: 

Back to the cold outside. It was freezing in Wellington, too. The wind was blowing in the wrong direction for the fire to put out any heat, and the cat bagsied what little did come out long before it made it to the couch. The wind also blew a side gate against the house during the movies - bang, bang, bang... I ventured outside to fix it shut and noticed a light on in the basement. Seriously freaked out I crept to the door, drew the bolt... and found I'd just left it on getting the model stuff in the afternoon. 

By 1:30 when Ghost World had finished, I went to bed. And realised I'd not put the electric blanket on. I shivered for an hour before I decided to warm up in the shower, and even then I couldn't warm up. Plus, my over-active brain was embarking on a second session of the zombie double-feature instead of getting me to sleep. The cat had long gone for somewhere warmer. In defeat, I took the car out of the garage and drove around empty streets to try and settle down.

By day things cleared up. The sun came out, and a friend came around for a cuppa and a jam (hi, Tim!) And still somewhat sleep-deprived, I wandered around the house like a... well, you know.

In the mean-time I was still listening to a couple of recent purchases. The Shaun of the Dead soundtrack, and the first two Gorillaz albums. Shaun has a fun selection of movie soundbites and incidental music with the odd remix among them. As you might expect, there's a Romero movie mashup in there, with 'The Gonk', the theme to Dawn of the Dead's overlong slapstick sequence, mixed in with Keith Chegwin's voiceover for It's a Knock-Out. Gorillaz of course have form with the undead, Jamie Hewlett's animation company being Zombie Flesh Eaters of course, but there are also at least three Gorillaz songs ('Overture', 'Hip Albatross' and 'M1-A1') which contain samples from Romero movies (Dawn and Day of the Dead respectively) And 'Starshine' off the untitled debut always struck me as lonely and bleak.

I listened to those songs a lot over that weekend, either on the buzz or to exorcise the spooks, and I did sleep a little better the next night, being somewhat knackered. Mrs Simian eventually bused out of Timaru and arrived back in town a couple of days late, and not a moment too soon. I go to bed at more sensible hours, now.

Speaking of which, it's high time I went off myself, now. Pleasant dreams, everyone.

Shock and Ore

Readers following me through Blogger might well know by now that I've been conducting some sneaky back-fill this past week and before the year ends, more in the interest of putting completed posts in their allotted place than bumping up the numbers. No, really. Yes, there may be more to come. Sorry.

Anyway,  strike me pink with black and white striped heavy metal pants if by sheer coincidence I actually made some kind of deadline. Just as I was putting my review of Iron Maiden's The Book of Souls to bed, I read on the internet that the same day, Christmas day 2015 (Boxing Day here in NZ of course) marks the fortieth anniversary of the band's original forming by Steve Harris in Leyton. Blimey.

Hair of the Dark! The band in 1976 (Steve Harris far right)

Early Maiden is an almost unrecognisable thing to the casual fan, and I'm not claiming to be anything beyond that, myself. No Bruce Dickinson, of course - nor even a Paul DiAnno. Also, no Clive Burr or Dave Murray or even Des Stretton. Just 'arry and a line-up that was borne, replaced and eventually formed itself into the 1978 version that brought the band to a wider audience than Stratford's Cart and Horses, their first residency. Eddie, presumably, was still a fever dream in Derek Riggs' head, of whihc more, surely, in a later post.But there's the name, the imagery, and the beginning of the whole story, and I find it rather fitting that an ensemble which took its name from a line uttered in The Man in the Iron Mask would be the one that stuck: a fictional torture device invented by antiquarians evoking fear and dread - a bogey. It remains one of the most recognised, influential and yes, iconic band names in rock history.

Documentation of those very very early years is still a work in progress, as this year saw the release of Origins of Iron, a compilation of tracks featuring former IM members, plus there's a unoffical book out there, somewhere. There always is. We have, apparently, this era to thank for 'Wrathchild', 'Transylvania' and 'Prowler' - small acorns, indeed.

Happy anniversary, Harry!

Four Squares 3: Heigh-Ho!

The Chills Silver Bullets

Nineteen years is a long time between drinks.  The last full-length album from Martin Phillipp's band was 1996's Sunburnt, which came out long after my own interest in the band had diminished. There have been releases since then - some compilations of singles and song-doodles (Secret Box, a three-disc example of the latter is a rare find and worth the effort hunting it down), even an EP - but this is the real deal. And to be honest, something of a surprise.

2015 has been a boon of a music year for me, with Dad Rock literally coming out of the walls with not only re-releases of older acts' music (most recently Jean Paul Sartre Experience's own thriple-disc set I Like Rain), but in many cases surprising new releases from vintage acts. More on them in other posts, though. Suffice it to say, that when the past comes knocking, my curiosity is piqued, and when it comes knocking as strongly as this album does, with very little to show for how the years have genuinely condemned Phillipps and his ever-changing (but more recently solidified) roster, then I get excited.


The history of The Chills, like many Flying Nun acts, is one beset with calamity, and after the heights of their early Nineties triumphs there may be no act from the label more befitting an Icarus-like biography than Martin Phillipp's group. I'd pretty much written this mythical album - its title hinted at as far back as a Listener article in 1990, well and truly off - not to mention its creator. Phillipp's liquidity, and later descent into drug addiction and the resulting toll on his health did nothing to dampen my pessimism. A return to form for a leader now being chased by his fifties, I thought, would be nothing short of a miracle.

This is one, though. The sound of this album is as though the years between Silver Bullets and 1990's Submarine Bells never happened. It's an assured return, with gentle, melodic compositions that recall The Chills at their height, pre-Gruge, pre-recording contract collapse, pre-addiction and illness - pre-Soft Bomb and Sunburnt. It's not perfect, but for a Chills album it's damned near close.

There are some real highlights here - 'America Says Hello' is one of the better outward-loking songs Phillipps chooses, amidst a suite that I don't really think are a strong one for him. Social comment floundered on Soft Bomb, and there are echoes of that album's 'Background Affair' in this and Silver Bullets' ambitious, Wilson-esque 'Pyramid/When The Poor Can Reach The Moon'. Similarly, 'Aurora Corona''s prayer to Gaia is more heavy-handed than the earlier 'Underwater Wasteland' - in fact, the album's first half is its srongest; but that said, 'Warm Waveform' is a splendid opener, with some great guitar work and whispered vocals, and I have a soft spot for 'Liquid Situation', near-monumental, but tantalisingly over too soon. The closing couplet of sing-song 'Tomboy' and 2014's upbeat anniversary release 'Molten Gold' round things out well, and point towards a sound future, and I'll be there this time. Nothing much may change, but be grateful that nothing much has, because in a music career this interrupted, miracles are worth celebrating.

Talkin' Eds - The Book of Souls (2015)

File Under: Quite Surprising, and very very welcome.

That was my reaction earlier this year to the news that, now Bruce Dickinson has received the all-clear on his cancer treatment, the album Iron Maiden recorded before his initial diagnosis was to be recorded, the world tour to proceed next year, maybe even with Bruce in the cockpit of Ed Force One again. They're even coming to New Zealand again - I might get to see them at last!

 But first, the album.

The Book of Souls is a long-player - ninety-two minutes of screaming, solos and Steve Harris and Nicko McBrain holding the furniture down. It is, we are told, not a concept album, although some now very familiar Maiden tropes are evident here: historical figures ('Death or Glory', about The Red Baron - not the Snoopy one, mind), death (including the suicide of Robin Williams - 'Tears of a Clown'), the afterlife, and the very Maiden-styled genuflection on both where lead single 'Speed of Light' recalls the likes of last album's 'Starblind' and 'The Final Frontier' to put everything in place. Harris has removed his trademark pinstripe leather trousers and is now wearing his Prog pants, so The Book of Souls will be for most people a lengthy listen or a two-session job, spread as it is between two discs.

Fortunately with such length there's room for variety, and pleasingly, all songwriting members of Maiden contribute lyrically to the album - and the title track is a Janick Gers number! Readers of my previous Maiden posts may recall that I rate Maiden's newest member as a strong pen lyrically and musically, and of the several tracks here, the aforementioned title track and 'Shadows of the Valley' (co-written with Harris) are among the more lively on offer, and personal picks. In general, perhaps it's the impatient listener in me, but I prefer disc one (songs one through six) to the rest of the album; they're quicker-paced, more varied, referential to traditional and recent Maiden song styles and sit well alongside one another. Side two has the track that makes The Book of Souls a two disc experience - the eighteen-minute 'Empire of the Clouds'.   Penned by Dickinson this tribute to the ill-fated R101 airship is a significant piece, and not just for its length; lyrically it's well balanced (though it perhaps reads in places better than it sounds) and sensitively composed. Dickinson performs the opening piano parts, having taught himself the instrument to do so, and there's a pleasing mix of real orchestra and band. The subject matter is curious - unsurprising, perhaps, as it ticks a lot of Maiden boxes - British history, flight (blame Bruce!) and so forth, but after the slightly trainspotter-like description and detail, there's pathos, and in the song's elegaic closing, Dickinson places himself in the narrative:

"here lie their dreams/ as I stand in the sun / on the ground where they built / and the engines did run"

The subject and title reference Dickinson's own interest, of course, and the R101 connection is noted, too, in his outside investments in Hybrid Air Vehicles, operating out of the airship's birthplace. I do wonder whether this aspect of the story puts a cap on Maiden's approach to such subjects; and I reckon that the band of thirty years ago might well have instead shoehorned a reference to the airship's afterlife in supernatural lore. Somehow I don't think the omission is an accident.

In all, then, a decent album with some plodding and a luxury-length approach to editing. I think there's a good single disc album in here, at least, but tha there may be more one-off hits in The Final Frontier. The final analysis sggests, however, that after the last two or three years, we should be very grateful for a healty band's return, new album, and world tour - it may be their last, and it's the chance of that especially that will get me thinking about that concert again next year.

Cover Story:

As described previously, a nice, though a little static, head shot of your actual band ascot in Mayan get-up. Marillion album illustrator Mark Richardson seems to 'get' Eddie's look better on this cover, so I can cut him some slack - plus the white on black logo is rather nifty. Inside there are Photoshop spreads of the band as totem poles, ruined temples, and Eddie looking ticked off again - this time he's cut his own heart,   out and is showing it to us. Tsk. That boy - you just can't leave him on his own at all.

Album Tracks
For obvious reasons, nothing of the album has appeared in live form yet, so in the mean-time, we're into the realm of static images and fan videos. Godspeed and good searching, everyone...

If Eternity Should Fail
Speed of Light
The Great Unknown
The Red and the Black
When the River Runs Deep
The Book of Souls
Death or Glory
Into the Valley of Death
Tears of a Clown
Man of Sorrows
Empire of the Clouds

Ed Games

This has been out a week now, so apologies for the dated-ness.

But, datedness is sort of the theme of this post! Iron maiden's new album is out next month, and in advance of this their new single 'Speed of Light' was released to the internet just over seven days ago.

The song is pretty cool - something of a throwback to early Nineties Maiden with Bruce Dickinson's growly voice, and a more rocking feel than the progfests of recent albums. That said, it's an opening track, and the band tend to have form on this tactic - 'El Dorado' was the taster for Final Frontier, 'A Different World' was AMOLAD's opener, and it's arguable whether either was indicative of their parent albums.

But hey, I like it. It's got a lovely Ritchie Blackmore style riff to kick things off, some nice leads from all three guitarists, Bruce sounds great (pre-cancer diagnosis, it must be said), and there's more cowbell working hard here than Waikato Stadium in a home game.

To be honest, though, it's the video that's the drawcard. I love a good video, and with Maiden I think they're something of a rarity: the early days are very much live performance-based with movie cutaways; in the Nineties these turned into slicker products that somehow didn't really sell the band or Eddie very well - some of them just tried too hard. On the whole, however, it's when Eddie'in the visuals that the videos work best, and 'Speed of Light' is a great example, being almost all about the history of Eddie and Maiden's most memorable album covers, as experienced through the medium of... video games! I have fond memories of mashing rubber ZX Spectrum keys to the background sounds of Number of the Beast and Maiden's debut album (point of fact: both games and music were likely loaded on the same tape deck.) Iron Maiden are around the same age as your common or garden home entertainment system, so the synergy of the band's evolution alongside that of digital gaming works really well. Eddie is back in his rightful punkish fright wig original form, it's witty, deferential, self-referential (count those nods!*) and, I think, more than a little essential.

A brief pause to reflect that this is not the first time the worlds of Maiden and video games have crosed paths, as the mid-Nineties compilation/video game Ed Hunter attests. Reception in the gaming mags was not kind, apparently, and it goes to show that despite heavy metal making an excellent gaming soundtrack, getting the right mix is a delicate art. I think they've cracked it this time, though. Hell, I'd buy it :)

UPDATED: Thanks to Dave R's observations, it appears I got my wish! 

*Visual references I noted: