5 Songs of 2011

I’d been waiting for another album from the Red Hot Chili Peppers for 5 years. Did I Let You Know is my favourite song on I’m With You.

I probably lose man points for admitting this, but I really like Christina Perri’s album. Her song Arms reminds me a bit of Phil Wickham’s song Home. I’m so fickle in my relationship with God, but with Him is my home.

I don’t know anyone called Savannah, but for some reason I can’t get enough of this song by Relient K.

2011 has been the year when I really got into Reformed Rap/Holy Hip-Hop. Perhaps I’m having a quarter-life crisis, trying to appear “hip” by listening to rap music, but I think it’s more that I just appreciate the brilliance with which Trip Lee manages to cram so much Biblical truth into 5 minutes as he summarises Paul’s letter to the Philippians in To Live Is Christ.

And through Trip Lee I came across this song called Grace Amazing by Jimmy Needham.

Spot The Difference?

It’s actually more like ‘spot the similarity’ between the videos for Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Hump De Bump and The Saturdays’ Higher:

… in case you can’t work it out, they’re both pretending to be in New York, but actually on a set in LA.

I’m In A Rock ‘N Roll Band

…well no, I’m not, I’ve just been watching a programme of that name on iPlayer.

The show’s website asks for suggestions for who would be in your fantasy band, so I offered my opinion.

If they were all around at the same time, I would’ve loved to have seen what these guys might’ve done together:

Freddie Mercury on lead vocals

Jimi Hendrix on guitar

Flea on bass

John Bonham on drums

Matt Bellamy on keys and backing vocals

(insert more interesting title than ‘A-Z of Music @ the Start of 2010′ here)

I thought it might be interesting to document my music taste at the start of 2010 and see how different it is by the end. (I did say might be interesting… it might not)

So, 1 song for every letter of the alphabet to represent my musical taste at the start of 2010 (to make it easier, the letter could be the first letter of the song title, artist, or album title)…

A – Angels & Airwaves – The Adventure

B – Bublé, Michael – Haven’t Met You Yet

C – Cash, Johnny – In My Life

D – Dreams – Fleetwood Mac (I like this more after hearing the story behind it)

E – The Empyrean – John Frusciante – Song to the Siren

F – Fly Me To The Moon – Frank Sinatra (Pete Allen Jazz Band concerts with fish & chips included are what all concerts should be like)

G – Gramercy Arms – Looking at the Sun (first heard this on Chuck)

H – Hey There Delilah – Plain White T’s (played and attempted to sing along to this A LOT)

I – I’m Taking You With Me – Relient K

J – Jason Mraz – Lucky (feat. Colbie Caillat)

K – Kings of Leon – Beneath The Surface (shame about the A-side to this song)

L – Lille – Lisa Hannigan

M – McFly – That Girl (again, played & sung along A LOT. sorry housemates.)

N – Now You’re Gone – Basshunter – Angel In The Night (just heard this a couple of days ago for the first time in ages)

O – Oopsy Daisy – Chipmunk (don’t know why I like this, but it’s had quite a few listens)

P – Paramore – My Hero

Q – Queen – Save Me

R – Röyksopp – What Else Is There? (classic Alphabet Soup)

S – Swift, Taylor – Hey Stephen (I may have had green hair, but Taylor thinks I look like an angel )

T – This Is Your Life – The Killers

U – Undisclosed Desires – Muse

V – Venice Queen – Red Hot Chili Peppers (I watched the Slane Castle DVD many many times before I realised the point of the intro to this song)

W – Weezer – (If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To

X – You Me At Six – The Consequence (There’s an x in their name, that’ll have to do.)

Y – You Really Got Me – The Kinks (hearing this as someone’s ringtone reminded me what a great song it is)

Z – Zombies! Aliens! Vampires! Dinosaurs! – Hellogoodbye – Baby, It’s Fact

That’s a fair amount of time I probably should have spent revising, and if you’ve got this far, the same probably goes for you… unless you don’t have exams coming up. You probably still could have spent your time better though.

:(

John Frusciante has left the Red Hot Chili Peppers. This makes me sad.

…and intrigued to know who’s replaced him, rumours suggest Josh Klinghoffer, who I only know as the guy the Fru called his favourite drummer and recorded a few albums with, and additional touring member of RHCP.

Musings On Religion, Part 3 (Redemption)

I’m thinking that rather than write a trilogy on this subject I should have just cut the material down to one decent post with an actual point in mind. When I started part 1 I did have some sort of plan in my head for what each part of the trilogy would be about, but that’s got lost amongst other useless information acquired since then. Oh well. If you visit this blog often you may have seen my interpretation of the lyrics in Snow ((Hey Oh)), by Red Hot Chili Peppers, this is kind of a similar idea, based on Muse’s Uprising. You might say I’m redeeming the lyrics for my own ends.

I’m currently borrowing 365 days with Spurgeon, Volume 2 from my brother, which contains an extract from a sermon with a relevant passage from the Bible for each day of a year. Monday began with the words “Christians are soldiers.” He then goes on to ask what use would our soldiers be if they dreaded going into battle?
“Christians are runners too.” Would we not laugh at an athlete who could only compete when no one’s watching? We should defy all onlookers. It doesn’t matter who’s watching, a Christian is looking to Jesus.

However, it’s a much more comfortable life to go along with the crowd, and the majority of people, at least in this country, are heading in the opposite direction to Christians.

So, although I’m pretty sure Uprising is actually about a political uprising, I like to think of it as a call to battle for Christians.

They’ll try to push drugs that keep us all dumbed-down,
and hope that we will never see the truth aroused.
Another promise, another seed,
another packaged lie to keep us trapped in greed.

but

…we should never be afraid to die.

…their time’s coming to an end.
We have to unify and watch our flag ascend.

They will not force us.
They will stop degrading us.
They can not control us.
We will be victorious.

Setlists 2: Giving The People What They Want (or A Seaside Rendezvous)

I went to Teignmouth on Friday.

The first band on were called The Quails, another local band, they were quite good, but not in any danger of outshining the headliners. You can usually get some idea what a band will sound like from what they look like, but they were a bit confusing, the singer looked like he belonged in We Are Scientists while one of the other guitarists looked like a Metallica tribute band member. There was at least one too many guitarists, the singer and Mr. Metallica Tribute seemed to be playing exactly the same thing the whole time, which annoyed me, but overall I might get round to listening to more of them.

Then there was Cosmo Jarvis. I instantly liked him based just on his name. His music wasn’t bad either, with songs with titles like Gay Pirates, you know he’s not taking himself too seriously. I would say he sounds like a cross between Jamie T and Lee Evans. Opener She’s Got You was probably his best song, it started with a Ukelele and finished with a Recorder. I wasn’t optimistic when he later announced “This song’s called Jesus”, but it turned out not to be too bad, he was singing to a friend who’s “not Jesus, but you’re saving me”.

Muse were obviously awesome.

I wrote before that I would have liked to hear lots of the new album. We got 5 songs from The Resistance: Uprising and United States of Eurasia which had been heard in full already, then there was Resistance, Undisclosed Desires and Unnatural Selection, of which I’d only heard 30-second samples. They also played a “jazzy” piano version of Cave (“Oh, those were the days.”)

Muse have a lot of songs starting with the letter ‘U’.

I think they got the balance between new and old stuff pretty much perfect.

I said before that I would have liked them to play all of the new album, but when it came to it, it was better that they didn’t. For me, the best type of music by any band is a song that a large crowd can sing along to, a couple of good examples of the sort of great moments I mean would be Knights of Cydonia on the HAARP DVD and Coldplay’s Fix You on LeftRightLeftRightLeft. So while I would love to see more of the new stuff live, it would be much better to know the songs beforehand.

Resistance and Undisclosed Desires sounded great, and I think the samples gave a good idea of what the songs would sound like. The lyrics to Resistance are clearly influenced by George Orwell’s 1984, while Undisclosed Desires is another step away from the Muse of the past, beyond Supermassive Black Hole and Map of the Problematique.

EDIT: How could I forget to mention Matt’s Keytarcaster used for Undisclosed Desires?

I like the “I Want The Truth” moments in Unnatural Selection, and there’s an epic riff going on that, from videos on YouTube, sounds a bit like the New Born guitar riff, but at the gig itself I was standing too close to tell what it really sounded like, it was just a lot of noise.

I was also reminded that I actually like going to gigs by myself. I’ve seen Muse and Red Hot Chili Peppers twice, once each with other people and once by myself. When you go with other people you have to find the best place to stand to please everyone, I’m pretty tall so not being able to see isn’t usually a problem (although at this gig I was briefly stuck with my nose about 2 inches from the back of someone’s head who was only slightly shorter than me), while some people don’t want to be in the middle of a packed crowd jumping up and down (I don’t jump around much myself, but it doesn’t bother me being in the middle of other people doing it). I’ve also seen Blackbud 3 times, twice with other people and once by myself, and in this case, being a relatively unknown band, I was unsure whether the people I’d taken along were enjoying it.

But in summary, Muse are awesome!

Setlists

This was originally supposed to be just a response to a comment on another blog, but it turned into bit of an essay so I decided to turn it into a post in it’s own right.

Basically, the question is: Should bands play their hits at every gig?

I’m going to see Muse for the 2nd time on Friday, and would be quite happy to hear all of The Resistance and not hear Time Is Running Out, Feeling Good, New Born & Knights of Cydonia.

But maybe this would not be fair on new fans who want to hear their most famous songs.

I saw them before (for the 1st time) at Wembley Stadium, they played 9 songs off of Black Holes, plus everything you would expect them to play (I think), except Bliss. I kind of consider myself relatively new to Muse, having discovered them at the Time Is Running Out stage, meaning songs like Bliss are actually from before my time. But by the time I got round to going to a gig I had listened to their previous stuff and decided that my favourite songs weren’t necessarily the famous ones, and Time Is Running Out has become one of my least favoured, alongside Feeling Good.

I think the idea that bands should always play their hits definitely applies to festival sets, but when they’re doing a headline tour for an album, I expect the set to be dominated by new stuff.

Having said that, I would always expect any band to play some hits, and with Arctic Monkeys only on album #3, I am surprised they would leave out Scummy; while Muse, having been around a bit longer, have a few more hits, and I think can better afford to leave out some of their famous ones. I can’t really comment on Radiohead because I don’t know what they’re famous for. I know The Bends is my favourite of their albums, but I bought it (followed by all the others) based on a recommendation without having heard any of the songs before.

Personally I wouldn’t spend around £60 (that’s a Muse ticket plus train fare) to see a band if I only knew a couple of songs. If people can afford to do that, fair play to them, they’re probably used to getting what they want.

Probably more relevant is my first trip to see Red Hot Chili Peppers when I was a relatively new fan (at the time I owned By The Way, What Hits!? and Greatest Hits), I would have been disappointed on that occasion if they hadn’t played By The Way, The Zephyr Song, Can’t Stop, Under the Bridge & Give It Away. But then, that was the Greatest Hits tour, so it would’ve been a bit stupid of them not to play the popular ones. I would’ve loved pretty much any of the songs from By The Way, which was the first ever album by anyone that I bought, Venice Queen is still one of my all time favourite songs. (My memory’s not good enough to remember an entire set from 5 years ago, I looked it up here. I still find it pretty cool that I was at the gigs where RHCP’s Live in Hyde Park and Muse’s HAARP were recorded, and I saw James Brown live.)

When I saw them on the Stadium Arcadium tour I was actually a bit disappointed they only played 5 of the 28 songs from the new album.

Both times I would’ve loved to see a Flea trumpet solo (having spent 10 years of my school life learning to play the Cornet), and songs like Higher Ground, Knock Me Down and Taste The Pain. They have quite a large back catalogue though, so I’m prepared for the unlikeliness of my ideal setlist actually occurring.

I imagine I will go and see them again when they return (apparently they’re starting work on a new album in the next couple of weeks). Hopefully I’ll finally get to see a Trumpet solo, maybe Funky Monks, Higher Ground… Funny Face would be awesome. Meanwhile I would not be at all disappointed if they didn’t play Dani California, Under The Bridge or Give It Away, but then again, they mix up their songs with extended jams or by incorporating other songs into intros, so hearing the same songs need not be boring.

I wouldn’t want to hear too many covers at a gig, and a Nick Cave song wouldn’t have meant anything to me, but I do think it’s interesting to find out who a band is influenced by, and I’ve discovered a lot of great songs via Chili Peppers covers, from artists such as Jimi Hendrix, The Ramones, Stevie Wonder, Looking Glass, David Bowie, The Meters, Bob Dylan, Sly & The Family Stone, Simon & Garfunkel, Sweet, Cat Stevens, The Chantels, The Shangri-Las, Del Shannon, Fleetwood Mac, Elton John, The Chirelles, The Beach Boys, George Clinton, Funkadelic, Iggy & The Stooges, Parliament, Jackson 5, Hank Williams, Fugazi, .45 Grave.

Man’s Best Friend

I watched Marley & Me last night. If you have (or have had) a dog, I reckon it’s a great film.

It brought back memories of our dog, Chester.

He wasn’t anywhere near as bad as Marley.  Favourite memories include my 3 year old (at the time) brother being scared of him when we first got him and climbing on the kitchen table to get away. Then there’s the imitating a fire engine siren that he did once, but disappointingly we couldn’t manage to entice out of him again. Hanging one of his toys on the washing line until he managed to jump high enough to get hold of it and bend the pole as he came back down was also pretty funny.

I’m not sure my parents were quite as attached to Chester as John and Jenny to Marley though. When we moved house, in an attempt to avoid the whole house being covered in hair and smelling of dog, he was banished from the living room once we got a new carpet. There were exceptions to this rule, he was allowed in on special occasions, by which I mean spiders were even less welcome in the living room and he was brought in to eat any that intruded.

Here’s another man’s tribute to a dog:

Port Erin

I’ve just got back from Port Erin‘s launch party for their debut album ‘I’ll Be On The Common’.

I’ll be brief. They were pretty good.

I’d seen videos on youtube before I went and wasn’t that impressed. It was much better watching in person.

It was a little bit weird having been at the same church as Reuben and Jacob as kids.

To sum up how I perceived their music:

Jacob (Bass) & Cerys (Drums) were great, I reckon Chad & Flea would’ve enjoyed them.

Reuben’s guitar was also really good, but for me personally, I wasn’t sure the vocals quite fitted perfectly with everything else. His voice kind of reminds me of Jimi Goodwin from Doves. Not that the vocals are the same style as Doves, just a similar sort of voice. You can listen here to decide for yourself, it’s easier than me trying to describe it and you probably won’t agree with me anyway. Overall, although they’re not my new favourite band just yet, I look forward to hearing more.

(side note: People who had seen them live before suggested they’re a bit like Muse. I didn’t hear that at all.)

Supporting them were The Blood Choir. These guys were also pretty good, bit noisy in places (does that make me sound like a grumpy old man? I don’t mean they were too loud, I mean just noise), but they reminded me of Led Zeppelin (mainly the acoustic sort of stuff, No. 3 is my favourite Led Zep album).

The opening act was She Tells Lies, I really liked her. It was just her and her guitar. If I had to describe her to you I would suggest she sounds kinda like a female Ray Lamontagne, but you can listen to her for yourself here.

All in all, a good night, despite the guy sat next to me getting ridiculously drunk, and the feeling that I didn’t seem to get that many songs for my money, or maybe the time just went really quickly.

The bald tattooed bloke wearing sunglasses and repeatedly shouting “ROCK ON!” and other such phrases also deserves a mention.