Robert Plant vs. Mark E Smith
Harry thinks Robert Plant looks old and past it, and should retire gracefully.
Robert Plant appeared on BBC2's "Later with Jools Holland" on Friday night. Plant and his band The Strange Sensation played three songs, two from the new album "Mighty Rearranger", plus a reworking of the old Led Zep classic "When the Levee Breaks". This didn't sound like a washed up relic of the past to me; while Plant has abandoned the screaming vocals of the Zeppelin years (A 1969 clip of "Communication Breakdown" made an interesting comparison), he's still in fine voice for the sort of material he's playing nowadays, an eclectic mix of rock and 'the exciting bits' of world music. Certainly impressed me enough to make me buy the album.
Also on the show were 'punk legends', The Fall. I'm not sure if people only pretend to like the The Fall because they were championed by the high priest of unlistenably bad music, John Peel, or this was just a bad performance. They were awful. The bored-looking band robotically ground out a monotonous two-chord thrash while Mark E Smith ranted incomprehensibly into the microphone. The final song lapsed into chaos, only saved by Jools' humour and professionalism. I don't know whether he was really drunk, or whether he's always like that. If anyone on that show was a shambling has-been, it was Mark E Smith.
Definitely Classic Rock 1, Punk 0
One of Harry's commenters, Pawoodster, quoted this from Popbitch (I've partially excised the blue language)
Mark is the only artist in the history of the show to have a clause in his contract to state that Jools will not play f---ing boogie-woogie piano over any of his songs, or words to that effect. He also delayed filming several times by wandering in and out of shot, calling Robert Plant c---y and just generally behaving like what he is The Last Great Englishman....Robert Plant turned up in a bullit proof limo, the Fall were transported by Salford Van Hire.. oh and the Go-Team kept f---ing up much to the annoyance of all.
That popbitch quote crystallises everything that's been wrong with the British music scene in the past 25 to 30 years.
Artists like Robert Plant are hated because they represented 'the old guard' back in 1975.
Unlistenable rubbish like The Fall now represents 'the establishment', but the pseudo-intellectual old punks can't forgive Robert Plant for still being around in 2005.
The punk generation are as tiresome as America's baby boomers. They think their stupid generational prejudices are eternal truths, and that the whole of history revolves around their coming-of-age.
Posted by TimHall at May 21, 2005 06:27 PM | TrackBackMark E Smith must have have been drunk. He was crap and his band were like a bunch of over keen sixth formers (but who were also crap). Punk is what it has always been - a con for people too insecure to say it's a load of crap. Not that I'm advocating Tim's dodgy prog bands :-)
Posted by: Chris Hall on May 22, 2005 11:44 PM'When The Levee Breaks' is my favourite Zep track but Plant managed to make this relentless juggernaut of a song sound tepid. So much for the re-working...
The Fall were exponentially better - still bafflingly fresh and unsettling - even allowing for the fact that Mark E. Smith came on like a park bench mutterer.
As for Peel being a champion of unlistenably bad music, this simply misrepresents him. Peel was highly eclectic in his tastes and embraced everything from 'classic' rock to avant-garde music. The reason I like both Led Zep and the Fall is because I heard them both on his old radio one shows. Admittedly The Fall are an acquired taste but to dismiss them out of hand is simply crass, as is the assumption that the type of comparison that inspired the above article even needed to be made.
OK, so my line about John Peel was bit of a cheap shot.
But while he played a lot of classic and progressive rock in the early seventies, he dropped them like a stone the moment punk came along. He spent the next twenty years helping to promote the dreadful memes that the early 70s were a uniquely bad era, and that progressive rock was the worst kind of music ever, which punk saved us from.
I'm sick of hearing these memes repeated by people who were too young to remember the 70s, and haven't heard a note of any 70s progressive rock bands.
It's socially acceptable to sneer at prog rock, but if I dismiss bands like The Fall in the same manner, I can guarantee angry responses.
Posted by: Tim Hall on May 30, 2005 12:33 PMI'm coming in late on this discussion but moved nonetheless to comment in full, and old enough to remember the late JP's early 60's dj sessions in socal with the likes of the beach boys etc. Peal introduced Zep to me in '69, and like everyone else I was blown away. Zep were never Prog, hard blues is the best handle i can dial into. See Knebworth 78 and you'll see what i mean, the dvd is better than the gig..Also, Robert is active on the Bristol scene and backing the best up and coming...
...And here I am sitting in my Shanghai apartment where every Fall album sits right up there on the 'most played' playlist. Sure, an acquired taste, but better by far where creativity and relevance are concerned.
I wish ME and the old gang well, and look forward to the next release - it will be painful to digest on first listening but well worth the effort
Posted by: Steve on June 20, 2005 01:40 PM