Where Worlds Collide

I guess I’m not the only person playing Pink Floyd tonight.

The one currently playing is “Is There Anybody Out There”, the live version of The Wall from Earls Court in 1981. I know The Wall isn’t generally reckoned to be the high point of the career 28 years on, but it marked the point where I came on board as a fan, so that work still means a lot to me. And I saw that show, polystyrene bricks and all.  It was the only time I ever saw the Floyd live, and the first really big gig I ever attended.

The relationship between Rick Wright and Roger Waters may have been strained at this point, but Rick’s playing is superb on this live album.  His style was always understated, never flash, but he was always a key element of Pink Floyd’s sound.

Pink Floyd’s Richard Wright has died at 65

Rest in peace, Rick, and thanks for the music.  You were one of the greats.

This was the eleventh time I’ve seen Breathing Space live, and the seventh time this year.

It’s amazing how far this band have come since I first started following them; I first saw them live playing in a pub in York last February; that night wasn’t a terribly good gig, as they struggled with serious technical and sound problems, but I could see they had potential. Towards the end of last year they released the superb album “Coming Up For Air” which surpassed my expectations. Then at a small club in Mansfield this June they played an absolutely spellbinding gig which for me was the point where it became clear they were playing in the same league as their fellows in the ‘York/Swansea scene’.

Bilston continued this progress. Having seen some small crowds at Breathing Space gigs I wondered what sort of audience they’d attract on a Sunday night. But while the place was by no means full, they pulled a healthy sized crowd.

As at the Mansfield gig, the support was a semi-acoustic set from Mermaid Kiss, this time playing as a four-piece without Jon Edwards on keys. While they were good, I didn’t think they quite had the edge they’d had the last time I saw them; the sound was a bit muddier and I missed Jon’s keys. Still, Evelyn Downing was on fine form, even though her distinctive vocal style is not to everyone’s taste, and Wendy Marks’ assorted woodwinds gave some excellent backing.

Breathing Space’s performance was up to the standards I’ve come to expect, everyone on top form as usual.  With only two albums worth of songs, there wasn’t much in the way of real surprises in the setlist (No return of “Shades of Grey”), except for the live première of a new song, “Butterflies and White Feathers”.   Difficult to judge on one listen, but it’s an atmospheric beginning and some great Hammond organ at the end.  It’s interesting different from anything they’ve done before, while still sounding like Breathing Space.  It augers well for their next album, which they plan to record next April.

As if you really needed to know…

Yes, it’s another stupid list. Deal with it.

1. Marillion have made more that two good albums
2. Marillion have five creative band members, and have kept the same lineup for 19 years
3. Even ex-members of Marillion have made made great solo albums - how many classic records has Bonehead made since leaving Oasis?
4. The Guardian Music blog does not include pointless blogs about Marillion every week.
5. You cannot blame Marillion for the phenomenon of landfill indie
6. Nobody would consider calling Steve Hogarth “Monkey Boy”
7. Marillion are far more than a glorified tribute to the bands they were accused of ripping off at the start of their career.
8. Marillion have never released an album accompanied by deafening hype, which then turned out to be complete rubbish.
9. Let’s just not talk about Oasis’ contribution towards the profitability of Bolivian marching powder industry…
10. Even Richard Dawkins thinks Steve Rothery is God, only Noel Gallagher thinks Noel Gallagher is God.

I’m still spending far too much time listening to last.fm, but I think I’ve discovered a flaw.

I’ve been listening to last.fm’s Radio ‘Spill, which initially came up with an eclectic mix of music, but subsequently degenerated into playing the same dozen or so artists over and over again. You can get very sick of Cornershop’s “Brimful of Ahsa” after a while.

I think I’ve realised what’s been happening; too many people were listening to the group radio station and were scrobbling at the same time; the result was that over time people’s last.fm libraries got homogenised. And a random selection of songs, some by quite obscure artists, that just happened to get played to a lot of different people in a short space of time went high up the group chart and thus got served up to everyone else. And so long as people kept scrobbling while listening to streaming radio, those songs got into more and more libraries and got served up more and more.

I think the solution is to scrobble only when I’m playing CDs, not when streaming.

Being from the Guardian’s Readers Recommend community, Radio ‘Spill seems to be heavily biased towards 60s r’n'b and scratchy 80s post-punk anyway, neither of which are really my kind of music. My attempts to educate the Guardian readers into the delights of Breathing Space, Panic Room and The Reasoning don’t seem to have borne much fruit.

As as for those bands that haven’t put any of their music on last.fm at all, thus missing out on a chance to get their music heard - Odin Dragonfly, I’m looking at you.

Just to annoy Steven Wells’ stoat-eyed acolytes, The Guardian Music Blog has a thread in which we are invited to nominate our favourite cult albums.

There’s some discussion in the resulting comment thread about the definition of a cult album, and one person stated that “cult” is just a synonym for “obscure”. But it isn’t. Or at least it shouldn’t be.

A lot of stuff is obscure for a very good reason; it’s rubbish. I don’t think many people are going to consider Sledgehammer’s one and only album as cult album. I may be wrong, and there’s still a dedicated band of Sledgehammer diehards in Slough, but somehow I doubt it.

Cult albums should those you love even though they’re not that well-known. Often they’re the records that push all your personal buttons; since we’re all different, they’re likely to sell in smaller quantities than the mass-market stuff aimed at the lowest common denominator.

I remember an article in Sounds years ago that commented (correctly) that the huge-selling albums are always the good ones, not the great ones.

So here’s the list I posted to the thread.  I would guess anything by any prog band that formed since punk forced the genre underground is ‘cult’ by definition, at least according to the mainstream; and all this list comes from that genre, or at least it’s penumbra.  As you would expect, the York/Swansea scene features prominently.

Twelfth Night - Fact and Fiction
IQ - Subterranea
Marillion - Brave, Afraid of Sunlight
Spock’s Beard - Beware of Darkness, Snow
Dream Theater - Metropolis II
Porcupine Tree - Lightbulb Sun
Ordinary Psycho - The New Gothik LP
Mostly Autumn - The Last Bright Light
Karnataka - Delicate Flame of Desire
Pure Reason Revolution - The Dark Third
Odin Dragonfly - Offerings
Breathing Space - Coming Up for Air

The last two are probably too recent to qualify, since they only came out last year.

Because my CD player has been out of commission lately, I’ve been listening to music on my laptop instead - which means that I can sign up to Last.fm. You can download an application that keeps track of what CDs you play (it doesn’t upload or file-share them, so the Entertainment Cartel goons won’t be breaking down your door). It then compiles an internet radio station tailored to your tastes. I find a lot of my online and offline friends are on there too, including the likes of HippyDave, Tiggereh, DarceysDad and Graeme.

If you look at my profile, it tells you precisely what I’ve been listening to. It’s a mixture of what CDs I’ve been playing, and whatever the internet radio throws up. It’s unintentionally hilarious Portuguese Hammer Horror Metal from a band called “Moonspell” at the moment.

Just to annoy that idiotic Steven Wells, I’ve had yet another go at ye olde Seven Songs Meme.

Just list seven songs you’re really into at the moment.

Opeth - Burden
Opeth - Coil
Panic Room - Apocalypstick
Fish - Milos de Besos
Marillion - Neverland
Magenta - Blind Faith
Mostly Autumn - Second Hand

This one is really a list of the songs that have ended up being stuck in my head recently.  Yes I know there are two from the same album, Opeth’s magnificent prog-metal masterpiece “Watershed”.  The more I listen to this one, the better it gets.  May well end up as album of the year.

Anyone reading this, consider yourself tagged.

I commented in a post on the Fish Forum about Tribute bands, which attracted the ire of a member of Dutch Marillion tribute band Lords of the Backstage.

While there is probably a place for some tribute bands, and I don’t know the situation in The Netherlands, over here in Britain there are far, far too many tribute bands. They’re dominating the club circuit to the extent that bands playing their own material are finding it increasingly difficult to get gigs, if they play a style of music that isn’t generic indie.

I’ve heard the argument that tribute bands aren’t in direct competition with the likes of Breathing Space or The Reasoning, in that they appeal to non-overlapping audiences. I’m not convinced by that argument myself. Is there really nobody out there who might listen to something new if it wasn’t for the inexhaustible supply of bands willing to pander to lazy audiences who haven’t listened to anything new since 1985?

Am I right, or am I “talking a load of crap”?

Nick wants anti-war songs. I suggested Marillion’s “A Few Words For The Dead”

Somewhere in history you were wronged
Teach your children to bang the drum
Tell all your family, tell all your friends
Teach your brothers to avenge

It carries on

Or you could love
You could love

Much more profound that John Lennon’s platitudes. Well, I think so, anyway.