The Concept of Albums

Today we hone in on the concept of a concept album. Now pay attention...

The Concept of Albums

I was listening to Queensryche’s Operation: Mindcrime today, wondering what makes a great concept album.

Apparently many people don’t know what a concept album is, judging from Wikipedia’s list of purported concept albums. I’m unfamiliar with many of the names, but a random sampling include Metallica’s ...And Justice For All and Load (wrong on both counts and if Load, why not Reload?), the first four Blur albums (I mean honestly) and Herbie Hancock’s Maiden Voyage (this one I find the most baffling of all).

What’s just as surprising here is what’s missing, given these albums represent the criteria on which we are supposed to judge what makes a concept album. Metallica but no Megadeth, several of who’s album get nearer to approaching a unifying concept or theme. I’m not sure that a jazz album can be a concept album, but if Maiden Voyage is a concept album then I can think of several that have a better claim, including Hancock’s own 1973 album, Head Hunters and certainly Miles Davis’s Sketches of Spain. As for Blur, well to paraphrase a line from something the source of which escapes me for the moment, stop it, now you’re just naming albums.

Most egregious in the Wikipedia list is the inclusion of The Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the most famous concept album that isn’t a concept album, the clue being in the fact that The Beatles themselves said it isn’t a concept album. Abbey Road might have a better claim, or at least the second side of Abbey Road, which is broadly conceptual, like the second half of Queen II, an album which also appears in the Wikipedia list.

For me, an album must have something of the musical about it to be considered conceptual. It must be almost operatic. Which is odd, given that I can’t stand musicals and I can only listen to opera. Watching opera is like having teeth pulled. I do enjoy a good concept album. However, a group or musician attempting a concept album is like a footballer attempting a bicycle kick. Get it right and it’s spectacular. Get it wrong and you look like an absolute dick.

Operation: Mindcrime is a fine example of getting the concept album right. It contains all of the elements for a good concept album. It has the structure of an hour long musical, including talky acting bits in between songs. There are leitmotifs borrowed from Wagnerian opera, which return to haunt the album at various points. It also has a clear plot of revolutionaries, terrorism, murder and corrupt priests, which is quite easy to follow. The narrative is circular, ending at the same point at which it begins. 

Operation: Mindcrime also contains echoes of maybe the most famous actual concept album yet recorded, Pink Floyd’s The Wall. Especially near the end of Mindcrime will you hear very deliberate musical strains referencing The Wall. It’s a nice touch. You hear the same thing in Mastodon’s Leviathan, a concept album built around Moby Dick, which tips its hat to Iron Maiden’s 1988 concept album, Seventh Son of the Seventh Son, which is about... well, guess.

It’s perhaps a little kitsch to admit this, but I love The Wall. A friend of mine used to say that rather than watching horror films, he preferred sitting down to listen to a Slayer album with the lyrics sheet in front of him. I used to do almost the same with Pink Floyd. I would have a smoke or four, get into bed with all but my face wrapped in sheets and listen to the whole of The Wall in the dark through a pair of headphones. It beats the hell out of a emersion tank. The Wall’s musical narrative tell the story of the rock star, Pink, and his slow decent into madness. I love The Wall because it’s an album of eighty minutes of unrelenting bleakness, punctuated by two minutes of light at the end of the tunnel. I also love it because by accident or by design songs like The Trial contain many of the same tropes as Ulysses and Finnegans Wake.

The Wall and Operation: Mindcrime can perhaps be better described as rock operas than concept albums, the same as The Who’s Tommy or The Kink’s Arthur. Yet this, in one sense, is exactly what makes a concept album. There are many that describe Floyd’s previous three albums, Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here and Animals as also being conceptual. I would submit only the last album of the three for consideration. A concept album isn’t just one in which similar themes are explored, there has to be an overarching, unifying theme, if not an actual fictional narrative. If Dark Side of the Moon was a concept album, then so would most other albums ever recorded. I’m sure every One Direction and Justin Bieber album could be considered conceptual using this standard. Is that what you want? Is it?

  

Sloppy categorising is exactly the same thing that allows ...And Justice for All and Maiden Voyage to be accepted into what should be a highly exclusive club. For instance, what about the Alice in Chain album, Dirt? Is this a concept album? All but one of its tracks can be argued to be about heroin addiction. I would say that no, it isn’t, for exactly the reason that one track (Rooster) is about the experiences of guitarist Jerry Cantrell’s father’s experiences in Vietnam. Yet Dirt probably has a better claim than half of the albums in Wikipedia’s list.

As egregious as Sgt. Pepper’s inclusion in this list is the exclusion of PJ Harvey’s Mercury Music Prize winning album, Let England Shake, an album that is as conceptual as you can get without actually crossing over into rock opera. I honestly don’t think that a better album has been produced this side of the millennium, a record all about Britain and its involvement in wars now and centuries past. I have waxed lyrical about Let England Shake at length in my essay, The Sombrer Opacities of the Gloom.

Curiously, you also won’t find any Bob Dylan albums in the Wikipedia list. A convincing case can certainly be made for John Wesley Harding, given that it was recorded when The Beatles were recording Sgt. Pepper and The Rolling Stones were copying them with Their Satanic Majesties. Dylan meanwhile recorded an album that is about as far from psychedelia as it’s possible to go. An collection of songs that don’t contain any choruses is certainly a concept. A argument could also be made for Blood on the Tracks and Time Out of Mind, great divorce porn albums them both. Yet like Alice in Chains Dirt, the concept doesn’t  entirely track across either album. A better case can be made for Jack White’s Blunderbuss, which is both divorce porn and consistently conceptual.

Tom Waits has recorded a handful of concept albums, but many of these were recorded for actual plays (The Black Rider, Alice and Blood Money). Nighthawks at the Diner from 1975 though is that rarest of breeds, a concept album recorded live, in which Wait’s channels the spirit of Jack Kerouac’s beat poet performances. There is also the curious case of the Easy Star All-Stars. The Easy Star All-Stars rerecord classic albums, Dark Side of the Moon, Ok Computer, Sgt. Pepper, Thriller, etc. in reggae and dub styles. That’s conceptual art for you. Meta Conceptual even. Easy Star All-Stars’s version of Pink Floyd’s The Great Gig in the Sky is one of my favourite things ever.

 

Perhaps the most exciting artist to be producing conceptual albums in recent years is Janelle Monae. Her debut EP, Metropolis, and two albums, The ArchAndroid and The Electric Lady continue the same narrative, where Monae’s alter-ego, the android Cindi Mayweather, falls in love with a human being in the future and travels back in time to the present day to escape arrest. It’s high concept indeed, heavily influenced by Fritz Lang’s science fiction silent film, Metropolis, as well as the robotic stories of Isaac Asimov.

I’m not exactly a fan of modern R&B, but genius comes in many forms and Monae is there or thereabouts, taking her influence from artists as diverse as Michael Jackson and Prince, Outcast, the B52s, David Bowie, Scissor Sisters, Rachmaninoff and George Gershwin. Like Dylan, she had the foresight to write a polemic entitled Mr. President, without mentioning the incumbent at the time (Dubya). My one criticism is that she should spend more time singing the song during Obama’s administration and less time hanging out at the White House. After all, Dylan continues to perform It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) whether the President who ‘must sometime have to stand naked’ be Johnson, Nixon or one either of the Bushes.

So there you go. I hope we have managed to establish the concept of a concept album. Or at least tightened our definition. OK Computer, yes (just), Kid A and Amnesiac, no. The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society, yes, The Kink’s Muswell Hillbillies, no. Any Frank Zappa album, yes, any Captain Beefheart album, no. Got it? Good, ‘cause I don’t want have to run through this shit again (*winks*).

Get it done.

Playback

Since the Fall/Rupture/Event, Dave Keenan has been plummeting backwards through key moments in his life. It's not an uncommon phenomenon, given all the people that were living in the past when the rift opened.

For Dave, though, it's different. For Dave always loved music and always wanted to be a musician, but he lacked the dexterity or discipline required to learn an instrument. So instead he would listen alone and air guitar and picture himself performing for all the people who never took him seriously. How naive of him to think musicians would be held in any higher esteem than the rest of society.

Since the Rupture, though, this is exactly what Dave has done. Now a virtuoso guitarist, he jerks backwards through time, playing gigs to the people in his past, accompanied by a fleet of the finest musicians. The following are transcripts of his liner notes, including personnel and set lists.

Note on text: 'played spontaneously' indicates where a member of the audience stood up and played an instrument that appeared in their hands. The majority of those involved reported the experience as being a positive one and many went on to take up an instrument for real.

 ***

Dave - Vocals (but where stated) & Guitar

Ricardo - Vocals & Guitar

Sid (½ of SidLee) - Vocals & Bass

Andy - Drums

Dee - Vocals, Keyboards, Strings, Guitar & Banjo

Lee Mai (½ of SidLee) - Wind & Brass

Where I came in. Can't say when. Sam was there. Murray & Sarah too. Can only have been days before. Making peace.

Ever have that dream where you're caught jerking off in public? I felt like that, standing there, holding something in my hand, everyone looking at me. Instead of my dick, though, it was a guitar I was holding. Nylon strings. Rico asked if I was ok. He started to pound out the rhythm again and I somehow knew what to do. From there, we did a great gig and none of it seemed odd for an instant.

Dave and Ricardo

Diablo Rojo - Rodrigo y Gabriella

How Does it Feel? - Roy Harper

Tom Tiddler's Ground - Roy Harper - Lee Mai handing out recorders to some of the kids and showing them the melody to play along.

By the Riverside - Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee (Rico - vocals/guitar, Dave - harp)

Four Piece

Song for the Dead - Queens of the Stone Age (Sid - Vocals) - These first few songs are about us establishing our authority over the audience. Then we can start bringing people in with us.

No One Knows - Queens of the Stone Age

Machine Men - Bruce Dickinson

Down Payment Blues - AC/DC

Gone Shootin' - AC/DC

Bad Boy Boogie - AC/DC (Rico - Vocals: Dave - Lead Guitar)

Full Band

Great King Rat - Queen - Lisa spontaneously played acoustic guitar in the middle. We hugged at the end and she kissed me and said she'd forgiven me.

My Fairy King - Queen (Dee - Vocals) - Rico's out in the audience. Couple of guitars with people out in the crowd, hooked to up a short delay to play the middle section. Each sequence of notes are played forwards a couple of seconds before the reverse comes into effect through the speakers. He used to the same with the Beatles, 'I'm only Sleeping', though we don't play that one so much these days.

You Don't Understand Me - Raconteurs (Dee - Piano/Vocals) - Just the band here. Gives them a break and you find at this stage that they admire just watching you play.

Top Yourself - Raconteurs (Dee - Banjo) Sid's brother's mate spontaneously bashing away on piano at the end there. Not much of a trick to it, any chord in key will do.

You Know You're A Man - Captain Beefheart (Rico - Vocals) - All kinds of brass action and other spontaneous shit going on all over these Beefheart songs. We love playing Beefheart, the possibilities in his music are endless. With just about everything else we play, the instrument is played by the same person for the duration of their part. The Captain won't be restricted to such narrow roles though, and his music flies all over the place, three notes played by this person here, next four played at the end of the room. Not even the band play every note. The rest of the evening is almost in our complete control, but we throw these songs in to mix things up for ourselves, as much as anything. It's terrifying. Also exhilarating.

Bat Chain Puller - Captain Beefheart

Grow Fins - Captain Beefheart

Big Eyed Beans From Venus - Captain Beefheart

Big in Japan - Tom Waits - Waits songs are all about the journey into self. We don't have to do anything special here, just play, sing the words and watch everyone spacing out on the trip of their lives. Occasional spontaneous players emerge from their trance to play.

Clap Hands - Tom Waits

Tango Till They're Sore - Tom Waits

God's Away on Business - Tom Waits - This one goes all Beefheart. The brass is all over the audience. Have the 'Ha!' in the middle down pat, so that I can make it ripple through the crowd, like a wave.

Talking At the Same Time - Tom Waits

Bad As Me - Tom Waits

Satisfied - Tom Waits

Brown Sugar - Rolling Stones

One More Weekend - Bob Dylan

The Man in Me - Bob Dylan - Everyone singing, La-la-la etc. Piece of piss.

Sabotage - Beastie Boys (Sid - Vocals) - Everyone shouting, Listen all of y'all there's a sabotage etc. At this point, we're very much phoning it in.

2 + 2 = 5 - Radiohead - Rock out. No other reason.

Down is the New Up - Radiohead - We do this one with a double orchestra of audience members. Dee conducts, me on piano, Rico making other electronic noises. Brought the house down tonight.

Jigsaw Falling into Place - Radiohead - More rocking out for the hell of it.

Why Don't You Write Me - Simon & Garfunkel - Member of the audience spontaneously plays one half of the intertwining sax solos with Lee Mai. One of John's mates this time, I think.

Superman's Big Sister - Ian Dury & the Blockheads- Double orchestra again. Same setup.

Cleaning Windows - Van Morrison - Lee Mai and three specially picked brass players. Girls she was at college with.

Encore

Give Us Bubblewrap - HMHB

Depressed Beyond Tablets - HMHB

When the Evening Sun Goes Down - HMHB (Lee & Dee on penny whistles with the kids)

 ***

2013

Dave - Vocals (but where stated) & Guitar

Ricardo - Vocals & Guitar

Sid (½ of SidLee) - Bass

Andy - Drums

Dee - Keyboards, Strings, Guitar & Banjo

Lee Mai (½ of SidLee) - Wind & Brass

I was in a bad place right about now. Drinking too much. Not working. So lazy, I didn't even bother the stand up to go through my one man mime act. I spent most of the time slumped down in a bean bag on the Xbox, same playlist ringing in my ears hour after hour, half singing, half growling, breaking off from Gears of War now and then to take a solo, giving two fingers to the fuckers who got me sacked. Depressing, when you think back. To be honest, if the world hadn't ended, I'd probably have ended myself.

In the rerun, things played out much better.

Four Piece

Grind - Alice in Chains

Hollow - Alice in Chains

My God is the Sun - Queens of the Stone Age

Beanman (Camera Part One) - Apes, Pigs & Spacemen - For me it's always been about the lyrics. All about singing the words I love best and communicating them to new ears. These A, P & S songs are all off their second albums, Snapshot. It's virtually unknown, which is bullshit, 'cause it's one of the best collections of sustained lyrical brilliance that I know.

Monster - Apes, Pigs & Spacemen

Blood Simple - Apes, Pigs & Spacemen - 'I've always known ya stubborn and malicious and pathetic, but I didn't realise until know exactly how stupid'. Take that bitch!

Full Band

Hollow - Apes, Pigs & Spacemen - Violins spontaneously played by Lisa's mates

Trouble - Apes, Pigs & Spacemen - 'An innocent observer, rather like poor Joesph K, I find I'm implicated from a thousand miles away'. Come on! Got the audience doing all kinds during this one. My mate Mike did all the mournful moaning, spotlit, while Dee played the glockenspiel parts on the back of a T-Rex skeleton.

Sixteen Saltines - Jack White - This turned into a bit of Jack White mini-set. Blunderbuss hadn't been out that long.

Hypocritical Kiss - Jack White

Weep Themselves to Sleep - Jack White - Loved playing the duelling solos here, me and Rico fading reappearing in other parts of the hall with each distorted back and forth.

Old Enough - The Raconteurs (Dee - Violin)

Top Yourself - The Raconteurs (Dee - Banjo)

Carolina Dream - The Raconteurs - Another la-la-la singing crowd moment. Hard to get these wrong. Remembering all the lyrics is tricky. Just got through it.

Nadine - Chuck Berry (Rico - Vocals)

All Along the Watchtower - Jimi Hendrix (Rico - Vocals) - Weird shit

Twice As Hard - Black Crowes

Thick n Thin - Black Crowes

Duquesne Whistle - Bob Dylan- Song was a year of so old at the time, but no one in the band had actually played it before. Could we get it right first time? With a little help from the audience, yes.

You Know You're A Man - Captain Beefheart (Rico - Vocals) - Time for things to go all Beefheart. Love it.

Bat Chain Puller - Captain Beefheart

When I See Mommy, I Feel Like A Mummy - Captain Beefheart

Nowadays a Women's Gotta Hit A Man Captain Beefheart (Rico - Vocals)

Too Much Time - Captain Beefheart

Big Eyed Beans From Venus - Captain Beefheart

Sympathy For the Devil - Rolling Stones

Paint it Black - Rolling Stones

In the Dark Places - PJ Harvey (Dee - Vocals) - This gave me Goosebumps, I will confess.

Weird Fishes - Radiohead - Like Waits's songs, Radiohead is all about taking people into themselves, rewiring them and sending them on their way anew. No one leaves a worse person than when they arrived, and that's our guarantee.

Bodysnatchers - Radiohead

Jigsaw Falling Into Place - Radiohead

Down is the New Up - Radiohead - Same way we always play it, but with a new twist. We take them in to themselves with Radiohead and we bring them out, to find themselves sat in a horseshoe in tuxes and ball gowns, each tuning up an instrument. Dee steps forward, lifts her baton, and we're off.

New Shoes - Crazy Gods of Endless Noise - Sudden desire to play a couple of Crazy Gods songs. Wondered what would happen. Not as much as I'd hoped, though we did get very literal for a second there, every line triggering a vision in air that dissolved and reformed as the song moved on.

Trapped Water - Crazy Gods of Endless Noise - Ditto

Just A Man - Faith No More - Entire crowd coming in as chorus at the end here. Great way to end.

Encore

Enjoy Yourself - The Specials- Specials songs jump all over the crowd like a Beefheart song, but with a lot more predictability. Good fun just to watch it running through people.

A Message to You Rudy - The Specials

Gangsters - The Specials

Ghost Town - The Specials  

 ***

2011

Dave - Vocals & Guitar

Ricardo - Vocals & Guitar

Sid (½ of SidLee) - Vocals & Bass

Andy - Drums

Ah yes. This was the week '90 Bisodol (Crimond)' came out, I discovered Half Man, Half Biscuit (HMHB), and played little else for months. Little happened here of note, except for the simple joy of singing some great lyrics ('at the end of the day, just like I say, we'll take each Armageddon as it comes'). Everyone should know of the Biscuit.

4AD3DCD - HMHB

This Leaden Pall - HMHB

Numanoid Hang-glide - HMHB

Even Men With Steel Hearts - HMHB (a rare appearance tonight by Lee Mai on trombone)

For What is Chatteris... - HMHB

Shit Arm, Bad Tattoo - HMHB

Surging Out Of Convalescence - HMHB

Upon Westminster Bridge - HMHB

Joy Division Oven-Gloves - HMHB

Depressed Beyond Tablets - HMHB

Bogus Official - HMHB

We Built This Village On A Trad. Arr. Tune. - HMHB

Give Us Bubblewrap - HMHB

Evening of Swing (Has Been Cancelled) - HMHB

Bad Losers On Yahoo! Chess - HMHB

Took Problem Chimp To Ideal Home Show - HMHB

Totnes Bickering Fair - HMHB

On The 'Roids - HMHB

Tonight Matthew I'm Going To Be With Jesus - HMHB

Them's the Vagaries - HMHB

Thy Damnation Slumbereth Not - HMHB

When the Evening Sun Goes Down - HMHB (Lee Mai playing two penny whistles at once)

Left Lyrics in the Practice Room - HMHB

Rsvp - HMHB

Tommy Walsh's Eco House - HMHB

Joy in Leeuwarden (We Are Ready) - HMHB

Rock and Roll is Full of Bad Wools - HMHB

Paintball's Coming Home - HMHB

 ***

2007

Dave - Vocals (but where stated) & Guitar

Ricardo - Vocals & Guitar

Sid - Bass Sid (½ of SidLee) - Vocals & Bass

Andy - Drums

Dee - Keyboards, Strings, Guitar & Banjo

Lee Mai (½ of SidLee) - Wind & Brass

She was still on my mind, but there was a new love in my life, Lisa. Beautiful, beautiful Lisa. It all frittered away to nothing in the end, but I did end up using her as substitute for Sam, carrying on the same arguments that were still raging in my head.

By now I've come to see this experience as a journey into redemption, a chance to make amends and no excuses for leaving loose ends. Previously I arrived back a day or a few hours before each gig. Here it was a week. Just enough time to set things right and move on. If I had to pick, of all the gigs we've done down the years, this is the one I had the most fun performing. Big sloppy grin on my face all night.

Dave and Ricardo

Diablo Rojo - Rodrigo y Gabriella

Four Piece

Wynona's Big Brown Beaver - Primus (Sid - Vocals)

Song For the Dead - Queens of the Stone Age (Sid - Vocals)

No One Knows - Queens of the Stone Age

Careful With That Mic. - Clutch (Rico - Vocals)

Red Horse Rainbow - Clutch

Cypress Grove - Clutch

Promoter - Clutch

Snakecharmer - Rage Against the Machine (Rico - Vocals) - Lisa loved Rage and Dub War and Rico spent longer on the mike than usual tonight as a favour to me. In total command, he was, though. Made every womb within a half a mile radius flutter (as usual).

Tire Me - Rage Against the Machine (Rico - Vocals)

Down Rodeo - Rage Against the Machine (Rico - Vocals)

Enemy Maker - Dub War (Rico - Vocals)

Silencer - Dub War (Rico - Vocals)

Can't Stop - Dub War (Rico - Vocals)

Spiritual Warfare - Dub War (Rico - Vocals)

Fool's Gold - Dub War (Rico - Vocals)

Voodoo Child (Slight Return) - Jimi Hendrix (Rico - Vocals, Dave - Toilet)

Full Band

This Must Be the Place [Naive Melody] - Talking Heads - After a slow start with the spontaneous events, they now take a hold with a vengeance. All kinds of electronic action going on here, keyboards flying around all over the shop.

Psycho Killer - Talking Heads

Beanman (Camera Part One) - Apes, Pigs & Spacemen - I see this song as anticipating Simon Cowell by a good decade: 'He rubs his hands together on what's rightfully theirs, and tells the stars it's he who makes them shine'.

Blood Simple - Apes, Pigs & Spacemen

Hollow - Apes, Pigs & Spacemen

Trouble - Apes, Pigs & Spacemen

Three Changes - The Good, the Bad & the Queen - From Three Changes to I Want to Be Straight, the music wouldn't stay in the same place for ten seconds. Hard to keep a hold of the reigns with all that's going on. Thank heavens for Andy! Steady as a rock.

Gangsters - The Specials

Dance Little Ruddy - Ian Dury & the Blockheads (Rico - Vocals)

Mash It Up Harry - Ian Dury & the Blockheads (Rico - Vocals)

I Want to Be Straight - Ian Dury & the Blockheads

Superman's Big Sister - Ian Dury & the Blockheads - Double orchestra. Kick ass.

2 + 2 = 5 - Radiohead - Introspection time. Mind blowing.

You and Whose Army? - Radiohead

Knives Out - Radiohead

Stop Whispering - Radiohead

Mississippi - Bob Dylan

Summer Days - Bob Dylan - Here, we play the rhythm sections and let all the little guitar licks dart about the crowd.

Bye and Bye - Bob Dylan

Ain't Talking - Bob Dylan

Grow Fins - Captain Beefheart (Rico - Vocals)  - Beefheart time. Madness and we're gone.

When I See Mommy, I Feel Like a Mummy - Captain Beefheart

Nowadays a Woman's Got to Hit a Man - Captain Beefheart (Rico - Vocals)

Too Much Time - Captain Beefheart

Big Eyed Beans From Venus - Captain Beefheart

***

2002

This one happened a few days before I found out what she'd been up to. This time, of course, I already knew. I arrived forty eight hours before the gig and had it out with her, and I wasn't even a dick about it. It was still bitter, some things you can't change, but more amicable. Less hateful. They came to the gig, and I still wasn't a dick. They even joined in on a couple of numbers. I heard both learned to play after. Formed a band. Good luck to them. I'm not bitter. Not much.

Longest set we yet played, over three hours. Good night. Good to see the look on their  faces. I took some pleasure in that. But then, I still had them to deal with. Always there's another angry couple that I have to set things right with.

Dave - Vocals (but where stated) & Guitar

Ricardo - Vocals & Guitar

Sid (½ of SidLee) - Vocals & Bass

Andy - Drums

Dee - Keyboards, Strings, Guitar & Banjo

Lee Mai (½ of SidLee) - Wind & Brass

Dave only

Black Eyed Dog - Nick Drake

Working Class Hero - John Lennon

Dave & Ricardo

Going to California - Led Zeppelin

That's the Way - Led Zeppelin

Four Piece

Travelling Riverside Blues - Led Zeppelin (Rico - Vocals)

All Your Love - John Mayall & His Bluesbreakers (Rico - Vocals, Dave - Lead Guitar)

Safe As Milk - Captain Beefheart - Here comes the Captain Beefheart , Crazy Bonanza ][

You Know You're A Man - Captain Beefheart (Rico - Vocals)

Down Payment Blues - AC/DC - Full on rock out

Gone Shootin' - AC/DC

Riff Raff - AC/DC (Rico - Vocals, Dave - Lead Guitar)

Full Band

Fearless - Pink Floyd - Just for the mischievous pleasure of making the entire crowd, even the Mancs, sing 'You'll Never Walk Alone'.

San Tropez - Pink Floyd

Great King Rat - Queen - Got him playing the acoustic part. Got a nod of approval from her.

Stone Cold Crazy - Queen

New Feeling - Talking Heads

Harry Rag - The Kinks

Big Black Smoke - The Kinks

Sunny Afternoon - The Kinks - Entire front row taking the accordion part. Quite a sound.

Autumn Almanac - The Kinks

Big Sky - The Kinks - Roof opened to the heavens, hall bathed in blue, clouds drifting in, until we feel like we're performing on top of the world.

All of My Friends Were There - The Kinks

Five Years - David Bowie - For all of these Bowie songs, we got other people playing the acoustic part, while I ran about like a dick, singing with my arm draped over each new guitarist, clothes and make-up cycling through Bowie personas. The guitarist here is Len, a guy I used to share a pedestal with at work.

Queen Bitch - David Bowie - Guitarist, Sam.

Rock n' Roll Suicide - David Bowie - Guitarist, my brother, Tony.

Fixing a Hole - The Beatles - Ghost of Mozart on the harpsichord

Being For the Benefit of Mr Kite - The Beatles - Like what we do with 'Down is the New Up', only 60s, la. Psychedelic baby. Groovy.

I'm Looking Through You - The Beatles - I took a little pleasure directing this one straight at them, knowing their turn would be next. I know where this is all going now.

Strawberry Fields Forever - The Beatles - Imagine how crazy the next two songs could possibly get, multiply it by a hundred and you still won't get close to what happened here.

I Am the Walrus - The Beatles - Beyond words.

Paint it, Black - The Rolling Stones - Ditto

Gimme Shelter - The Rolling Stones - Mind blowing        

Brown Sugar - The Rolling Stones - Ditto

Captain Beefheart - The Floppy Boot Stomp - **??*?

Street Fighting Man - The Rolling Stones (RATM version)

Into the Mystic - Van Morrison - Lee Mai has got incredibly inventive with her brass arrangements by now and these Van Morrison songs get complicated, one section of the audience playing off against another, point and counter-point.

Cleaning Windows - Van Morrison

Subterranean Homesick Blues - Bob Dylan - We get so many people involved on this one, so many people playing bits of percussive kit, that it ends up sounding more Tom Waits than Dylan.

Outlaw Blues - Bob Dylan - Introspection time. Everyone experiences this differently.

Tombstone Blues - Bob Dylan

Just Like Tom Thumb Blues - Bob Dylan

Visions of Johanna - Bob Dylan

Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat - Bob Dylan

Most Likely You'll Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine - Bob Dylan

Obviously 5 Believers - Bob Dylan

I'm So Bored With the USA - The Clash (Rico - Vocals)

The Ain't Half Been Some Clever Bastards - Ian Dury and the Blockheads

Encore

Kick Out the Jams - MC5 (Rico - Vocals) - We hadn't planned on a encore, but everyone was so deep in trance this night, that we had to play MC5 to wake them all that. If that hadn't worked, it'd have been Slayer next.

 ***

1996

The Year of Her. I was there a couple of days before & glad to get out almost as soon as the gig finished. That was the night things came to a head. It had been coming a long time. I guess it was mostly my fault. My jealousy and maybe if I'd ended up with her instead of Murray, it would of been him and Colin walking and me and Sid forming a new band with her. As it was, me and Sid walked, bruises inflicted on both sides.

Half of which must be wrong. I mean, I wasn't in a band, was I? It was all in my head. Gets so hard to remember what used to be fantasy and what was real. All the same thing by now, I guess.

Nothing strange happened. Not that rerun. I made my peace with all three of them and we played a killer set and I moved on.

Dave Keenan - Vocals & Guitars

Murray Anderson - Vocals, Guitars, Keyboards

Sarah Dodd - Vocals, Guitars, Keyboards

Sid Taylor - Bass

Colin Anderson - Drums

Misery - Soul Asylum

Shut Down - Soul Asylum

Promise Broken - Soul Asylum

String of Pearls - Soul Asylum

Nothing to Write Home About - Soul Asylum

Runaway Train - Soul Asylum

New World - Soul Asylum

April Fool - Soul Asylum

Without A Trace - Soul Asylum

Richard III - Supergrass

Sorted For Es & Whizz - Pulp

Zero - Smashing Pumpkins

Bullet With Butterfly Wings - Smashing Pumpkins

Galopogos - Smashing Pumpkins

X.Y.Z. - Smashing Pumpkins

Sting Me - The Black Crowes

Remedy - The Black Crowes

Jailbird - Primal Scream

Rocks - Primal Scream

Would - Alice in Chains

The Bends - Radiohead

High & Dry - Radiohead

Fake Plastic Trees - Radiohead

Bones - Radiohead

Just - Radiohead

Sulk - Radiohead

Street Spirit (Fade Out) - Radiohead

Hold Me Now - Elastica (Sarah - Vocals)

Waking Up - Elastica (Sarah - Vocals)

Connection - Elastica (Sarah - Vocals)

Give the Anarchist a Cigarette - Chumbawamba (Sarah - Vocals)

Timebomb - Chumbawamba (Sarah - Vocals)

Mouthful of Shit - Chumbawamba

Bad Dog - Chumbawamba (Sarah - Vocals)

Enough is Enough - Chumbawamba

Stitch That - Chumbawamba (Murray - Vocals)

Alice What's the Matter? - Terrorvision

Oblivion - Terrorvision

Pretend Best Friend - Terrorvision

Encore

Take Our Sorrows Swimming - Apes, Pigs & Spacemen

Open Season - Apes, Pigs & Spacemen

Come Around the World With Me - Apes, Pigs & Spacemen

P.V.S. - Apes, Pigs & Spacemen

 ***

1991

The Cultural Fascists' first gig. We were all 17. Just the lads. One tight four piece, the way we liked it. No one else chipping in either. Arrived back a few days before the gig, in time for last rehearsals in Murray and Colin's dad's garage. Good times.

Again, nothing weird happened. We just played.

Gig was at our old Bell-end School. We were not what they were expecting. But we made them listen anyway. Mwohaha etc.

Dave Keenan - Vocals & Guitars

Murray Anderson - Vocals, Guitars & Keyboards

Sid Taylor - Bass

Colin Anderson - Drums

Prowler - Iron Maiden

Waking the Dead - Suicidal Tendencies

Sabbath Bloody Sabbath - Black Sabbath

Epic - Faith No More (Murray - keyboards)

No-One Came - Deep Purple (Murray - keyboards)

Stone Cold Crazy - Queen

For Whom the Bell Tolls - Metallica

Fade to Black - Metallica

One - Metallica

Sad But True - Metallica

South of Heaven - Slayer

Reign in Blood - Slayer

Souls of Black - Testament

In My Darkest Hour - Megadeth

Dawn Patrol - Megadeth

Got the Time - Anthrax

Anti-Social - Anthrax

Broken Doll - Wolfsbane

Twice As Mean - Wolfsbane

Crucify - The Almighty

Overkill - Motorhead

All Along the Watchtower - Jimi Hendrix

Crosstown Traffic - Jimi Hendrix

Paint It Black - The Rolling Stones

Mr Brownstone - Guns n Roses

Back in the Village - Iron Maiden

Still Life - Iron Maiden

The Phantom of the Opera - Iron Maiden

The Call of Ktulu - Metallica

Am I Evil? - Diamond Head

 ***

1984

Oh, right, this. If I tell you I was ten. It was our class's turn to put on a turn for assembly. Halloween was nearly upon us. Michael Jackson ruled the Earth. Thriller. Oh the horror.

I still sometimes have nightmare about that performance. Not because of the make-up (though I remember some of the kids had nightmares in the weeks after, the gimps). No, just the sheer, tacky, poorly co-ordinated horror of it. If anything, going through it a second time was worse than the first time, but at least I didn't really know what I was doing, which if anything, improved matters.

On the plus side, it was good to just be lads with Colin and Murray and Sid for a couple more days. Simpler times. Enough to make you remember all the mistakes you make. The mistakes you rectify.

The day of assembly and the whole school joined in, even the teachers. Even the parents. Think of that prison that did it in Indonesia, years from here, and then think bigger. Think, actually everyone becoming undead for nearly six minutes. Feeling what it's like to actually be a zombie. Not pleasant.

Then we heard the sound of Vincent Price's manic laughter echoing across the playgrounds and fields and, for me at least, the whole scene faded to black, and the next thing I knew, I was grown up again.

***

∞

Dave Keenan - Vocals, Guitars & Keyboards

Murray Anderson - Vocals, Guitars & Keyboards

Sarah Dodd-Anderson - Vocals, Guitars & Keyboards

Sid Taylor (½ of SidLee) - Bass & Vocals

Colin Anderson - Drums

Lee Mai (½ of SidLee) - Wind, Brass & Vocals

Murray and Dave - The Musical Slammer

Okay, so this mini set stemmed from when I met up with Dee and Rico. We got to talking about whether you could recreate the olfactory experience through music. Like, songs that represented different ingredients in a meal or on a plate. That led, inevitably, to the same conversation, only with alcohol instead of food, and we finally settled on the motif of the Tequila slammer. Three songs, performed or played in quick succession, each representing one ingredient. This is what me and Murray came up with:

Salt: Tonight Matthew I'm Going To Be With Jesus - HMHB

Shot of Tequila: Blue Valentines - Tom Waits

Slice of Latin Lime: Diablo Rojo - Rodrigo y Gabriella

Full Band

Really tight on these new songs now. Played them often enough.

Talking Post Apocalyptic, Time Travelling Blues (Keenan)

Hypatia (Dodd-Anderson: Sarah, Vocals)

Sabbath Bloody Sabbath - Black Sabbath

Epic - Faith No More (Sarah - Keyboards)

Operation Moorcroft (C Anderson/M Anderson/Dodd-Anderson/Keenan)

Centre: Level: Roar - Youngblood Brass Band - This is Lee Mai's baby, but we all join in, playing what instruments we please (Andy tonight guesting on drums), farming out the rest of the parts to members of the audience.

Neophyte (Sid/Lee: Sid -Vocals)

Interject (M Anderson/Dodd-Anderson)

Evolve - Ani DiFranco (Sarah solo)

My Fairy King - Queen (Sarah - Vocals) - An old favourite, done exactly the same way as always.

Promises Broken - Soul Asylum - Crowd broken down into sections for this one, me, Murray, Sarah & Sid each leading a section. Results are amazing.

Whither Be My Wonder? (C Anderson/M Anderson)

[think up title] (M Anderson/Keenan)

NO MAYO (Dodd-Anderson/Keenan)

28 minute, freeform jazz improv, utilising half the audience, playing everything from sax to vibraphone.

Bat Chain Puller - Captain Beefheart - Usual Beefheart craziness

Big Eyed Beans From Venus - Captain Beefheart

Time - Tom Waits - It's why we're all here.

The Changing of the Guard - Bob Dylan - A three song finale, packed with more brass than a meeting of three star generals.

Where are You Tonight? - Bob Dylan

N.F.Y. (Normal For You) (C Anderson/M Anderson/Dodd-Anderson/Keenan)

Spent. Couldn't play an encore if I tried.

Peace, I'm outta here.

***

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