Around mid-December 1980, very soon after John Lennon's untimely death, I happened to be driving towards Liverpool's city centre via the 'Scottie Road' end. This was - and still is - my favourite approach into Liverpool since it is from here, coming out of Everton Valley, that on a good day, if you're lucky, the city lies ahead of you in a sheen of silver...
]]> Closer in, and just approaching the complex of the Liverpool City libraries and galleries, I saw written on a bridge straddling the busy dual carriageway - or was it on a wall, I can't be entirely sure now - some words which have stayed with me ever since - 'John Lennon we love you,' it said in broad white brush strokes, impossible to miss, and I remember thinking what a fitting tribute it was to a great musician from the people of the city that he came from.
Those last days of 1980 were very sad days for people like me who really appreciated John Lennon's music.
You're supposed to know where you were when great figures past into history, and in my case I remember it vividly.
I was in my last year at Loughborough University at the time and awoken from a deep sleep at around 3 O'clock in the morning by a friend who spoke three terrible words - 'John Lennon shot.'
In the confusion of sleepy emotion that followed, before lapsing back into a deep sleep, I remember thinking that he must have got caught up in some vindictive gambling dispute and got shot - since how else could you explain such a mad act?
The following morning the awful news seeped through and some people, myself included, seemed to go around campus in a daze. It was an awful time for Lennon fans since music stations were playing his music on loop, which just seemed to intensify the tragedy.
I remember going into Loughborough the evening after we heard the sad news and my friends were singing along to all the old Beatles songs, though I didn't. They seemed surprised at me for cussing them for their carefree abandon, even asking 'what's the matter?' They didn't seem so affected by John Lennon's death as I was, and couldn't see that I was very very angry - he shouldn't have been killed.
I suppose like a lot of Beatles and John Lennon fans I was recoiling from the horror.
'Beautiful Boy' I think wondrous, and 'Woman' is a firm favourite, but for me 'Imagine' is in a class of its own.
There have been lots of tributes to John Lennon down the years, and I think the decision to rename the old Speke airport, 'John Lennon International Airport' some years ago was a great one.
I remember Bernard Hill playing him in the mid-Eighties, in a televised adaptation of his life, and there is a scene in it where, in relation to Lennon's music, a critic spouts on about, 'diminished sevenths' and the like, yet set aside the simple words I read on the bridge that day - 'John Lennon we love you', for my humble penny's worth, John Lennon would have hated the former, but loved the latter.
Certainly I can't be the only one that remembers this grateful graffiti in Liverpool soon after John Lennon's death. At the time I used to go to the William Brown libraries practically every Saturday, as I was incredibly 'booky,' and for that reason I can safely vouch that it was there for at least two weeks as I saw it on more than one occasion. Probably it was mournfully washed away in the early days of 1981.
And yet perhaps I am the only one to remember it in the way I do, since - rather like the inscription, 'This Is Not Here' over the door in John and Yoko's famous film footage to 'Imagine' - whenever I drive into the city now, at that particular point, I always see those words by that mysterious and anonymous John Lennon fan written invisibly in the sky - 'John Lennon We Love You.'
Roxy, Bowie and the truth about the New Romantics...
This might mean nothing to you, or Vienna, but thirty years ago it might of meant a lot to the "New Romantics" .
]]>The term NewRomantic was actually just a term used to describe the look of the band Spandau Ballet in the Face magazine. The musical movement they came from already had the name Futurist and was lead by the likes of Gary Numan and Ultravox !
The kids, fed up with the depressing social economic climate of the late seventies, high unemployment, strikes and all that, were looking for a scene of their own.
From 1976 the punk movement had given the kids a voice and that spawned a plethora of artists in Liverpool, a lot coming through Erics club and onto the National stage.
Some kids wanted something different.
Post punk brought new sounds to the pop world with the electronic sound of synthesisers to the fore.
Marrying the electronic futurist sound with a camp "New Romantic" look of frilly shirts and britches a la Percy Shelley, bands such as Spandau Ballet were attracting a following in London.
Coming out of the club nights started in a club called Billy's by Rusty Egan the former drummer with "punk" band The Rich Kids and later founder member of the band Visage with Midge Ure and Steve Strange.
The club commenced to host what it called "Bowie" nights where the best of the kitsch early seventies glam rock was played along side the music of the new bands.
Cities across the UK copied this template and the nights in Liverpool became know as Roxy Bowie, nights at various locations on different nights tagging the name of seminal art school band Roxy Music on to the title as they too fit in the ethos of the look and the sound.
Young people looking for the next exciting movement to be part of loved this return to the glam rock of the early seventies and the new electronic late seventies futurist sound. It was more glamorous and sexier than punk. It wasn't angry and there were no boundaries. Liverpool band A Flock of Seagulls emerged from this futurist club scene.
The New Romantics or Futurists had nothing to say, they just wanted to have a good time, feel good and look good. They didn't take themselves seriously and could party hard.
The charts began to fill with the bands now allied to the movement (mostly by the music press) and the dressing up element became a large part of the scene.
From long grey raincoats and trilby hats in dimly lit cavernous cellar clubs to outlandish re creations of historical characters , guys wearing as much make up as the girls in plush stylish clubs. The androgynous look popularised by the likes of Boy George and Steve Strange showed the way forward for fashion designers who were now left behind as the kids called the shots in the couture stakes.
Parents were outraged, yet again.
In Liverpool the scene blossomed from 1979 onwards in clubs like Michelle Clares, Uglys, Hollywood, and the Harrington Bar in Harrington Street. It is there were you would have found the Dj who became the most important Dj in Liverpool pre the days of the superstar Dj's of the 90's onward. Steve Proctor was quick to latch onto the new sounds and soon established himself as the Dj to follow in Liverpool. Steve started playing nights at Cagneys, The Executive, The System and later on in the State Ballroom. James Barton creator of the clubbing legend Cream cites Steve Proctor as a major influence on the late 80's dance scene and all of the household name Dj's associated with that era.
Now stalwarts of the Liverpool scene have got together to create a reunion night
to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the peak of the scene. The night will be called Retrospective and it will be held at Kingdom, 25 Harrington Street, Liverpool. April the 8th is the date and to keep informed of whats going on become a fan of RoxyBowie on Facebook.
WAS there ever a singer as iconic as Elvis Presley? Well, to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the birth of Elvis Aaron Presley, Elvis 75 is a three CD collection of Elvis Presley's 75 greatest UK hits.
]]> It's a real treat for every fan of the king - mine's not been out of my car since I got it. The compilation includes Heartbreak Hotel, Suspicious Minds, Are You Lonesome Tonight? and more.
CHECK (or should that be Czech?) out the first Wenceslas Castle folk at the Leaf Tea Shop on Upper Parliament St tomorrow (Friday January 8) night.
Wolfbox is the blistering new album from the incredible Davy Brothers.
One play and you are hooked, as it salmon leaps its way in one long shimmering iridescent curve that hangs between blues, soul and the highest octane rock that ever ripped your soul apart and put it back together, bigger, better and ready for whatever the night may bring...
]]>Wolfbox is crammed to bursting with driving, dangerous, living music that seethes and twists with inventiveness, and jaw dropping virtuosity, yet their soul deep blues credentials keep the vibe honest and groovy, however far into the land of Seriously Extreme Other they may lead you.
Jesse Davey makes his geetar sing like no other ever has, and that is why he is a bone fide genius, as is the creative powerhouse that is his brother Robin Davey. As you would expect of an album of this calibre, they are joined by other extraordinarily talented musicians, including fellow Hoax members Hugh Coltman and Jon Amor, along with one Katy Perry on backing vocals.
The Davey Brothers are simply a force of nature, who just happen to make very very good music. Remember to thank me for telling you this, while you can still get to see them play live to rapturous audiences in the modest sized venues, and in the meantime, there's this glorious slice of musical delight to get your grateful ears around...
http://www.myspace.com/thedaveybrothers
http://www.myspace.com/jessedavey
http://www.robindavey.com
http://www.thehoax.co.uk
Review by Rikki Wright
]]>Have a look at this great song from The Dead Class. It's one to warm your cockles this Christmas.
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It's easy to see why the band is still around such a long time after their debut. Their first album, Blue Lines, is as timeless a piece of music as you'll ever come across. It also featured the heart-stoppingly beautiful single 'Unfinished Sympathy' which, to this day, is considered groundbreaking and incredibly moving.
The group's third album, 1997's Mezzanine¸ was a departure from the style found on their debut album, yet was still incredibly compelling. Mezzanine contained a dark, introspective and heavily textured sound which, more than ten years after its release, still manages to sound futuristic and unlike anything before or since.
The unforgettable song 'Teardrop', whose chilling vocals came from Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins, became one of the group's most successful singles to date.
The genius of Massive Attack is that they are both incredibly popular and yet have managed to retain a certain anonymity from the circus of the mainstream UK music scene. They have sold over one million albums in the UK alone, and have achieved enduring popularity. Their album 'Collected' - a compilation of singles and album tracks from their first four albums, proved that the group are still relevant and in demand when it reached number 2 in the UK album chart in 2006.
Arriving seven years after their last album, 2003's 100th Window, Heligoland (the group's upcoming fifth studio album) is long overdue for Massive Attack's long-time fans. The album features collaborations from Martina Topley-Bird and Damon Albarn, and will undoubtedly become another unforgettable musical masterpiece.
Guitarist Sergio Pizzorno stood fixed to the spot, rangy and languid as ever, while vocalist Tom Meighan strutted round the stage, dreaming he was Ian Brown.
They'd even peppered the set with literary references - projecting 'Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori' above the stage at one point, Ophelia's soliloquy from Hamlet at another.
But rather than explaining anything about the songs or the set, it smacked of A level English literature, of posing for posing's sake.
A small complaint, though as they certainly gave everything they had to the set, belting out the hits and delighting the packed crowd.
Shoot the Runner, Where Did All the Love Go, Club Foot, Cutt Off (dedicated to John Lennon) Vlad the Impaler and new single Underdog were all present and correct.
Fire, the lead single from their current album, was all set to be the best of all, until a technical problem partway through flooded the arena with white noise.
But the fans danced on, flinging their drinks joyfully in the air.
For all their arty posing, Kasabian are at their very best with the big, bold, jubilant anthems.
The big tunes showed flashes of genius, but something just wasn't there for the slower numbers, no matter how hard they tried.
Maybe it's just a question of time.
Their new album, West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum, is their best yet. Serge has said that if he were to get put into a mental asylum, it would be for "setting up a tent in Buckingham Palace, the Queen's house."
It seems the lunatics are in charge of the asylum indeed.
But that's no bad thing...
Maybe sometime soon, with a few years' experience under their skinny belts, they'll be rock royalty in their own right.
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The Happy Mondays' famous dancer and percussionist Bez was unable to join the band because of problems with his flight, and De La Soul also had to cancel.
"It has gone amazingly well, there were always going to be a few teething troubles, but I'd say 90 per cent has gone fantastically well," said Dave. "The feedback we've had from the conferences has been phenomenal sponsors and speakers have said they're all coming to Liverpool Sound City next year.
"I feel really proud that in a year of recession we have been able to do something that has never been done in this part of the world before and get there relatively unscathed.
"One of the biggest highlights that I'll take with me is getting Shaun Ryder into Dubai. That was a feat in itself. When we said we were bringing The Happy Mondays into Dubai people looked at us like we were mad. They thought they'll never pull it off but he was here, doing 24 Hour Party People and showing off that razor edged wit. That was great.
"The Liverpool bands too - Wave Machines did two terrific sets - it was great to see them. Sound of Guns and Bicycle Thieves showed themselves as the new rising talent. It was fantastic to see that. The Liverpool bands were the ones that really smashed it."
It was the first time Dubai had seen a music event on this scale, and the first time many of the bands had visited the emirate.
"It's a fascinating place," said Peter Hooton, lead singer of The Farm. "It's like Disneyland in the desert. Everything is big and new and shiny. It's a great place to play, but I keep finding myself wondering what was here before all this. You've got shopping malls with ski slopes inside. It's like a whole city inside the Trafford Centre.
"But then you look round and you realise that you know everybody," added Farm bass player Carl Hunter. "It's like walking down Bold Street - there's all the bands you bump into in town, and they're all here for the festival. It's like somebody's picked up Liverpool and put it in the desert."
The headliners performed at the Irish Village, while other key events were spread across the area's music venues including Chi@The Lodge and 360º - set on its own pier in the middle of the Gulf Sea.
And as well as performing, the bands have certainly been making the most of their surroundings, as Liverpool band The Wombats explained.
"We've had a wicked time - Murph (the band's singer) has been playing golf on this amazing course," said drummer Dan Haggis. "And we're going to go out on a desert safari. We're going to go out sand-surfing. Then maybe we'll come back into the city and do some ski-ing in that big shopping mall. You can't come to Dubai and not go ski-ing, after all."
See more of Mark's festival pictures at http://markmcnulty.typepad.com/
