Revisiting this one tonight in belated honour of Dave’s birthday yesterday. I suppose this is a reasonably representative performance from the Isolar II tour, with the notable exception of “Sound and Vision” making its concert debut at the very end of the tour. George Murray is a pretty solid bassist here, isn’t he? And the intro on “Station to Station” is mad, markedly longer and noisier and more extravagant than the one on Stage.
Category: [Music]
Some of my best friends are Bengali
On politics, the singer denied he was far-right – a charge that arose after controversial comments on race and racism, as well as his support for now defunct far-right anti-Islam party For Britain.
“Although the left changed and deserted me many years ago, I am most certainly not far-right, and I have not ever met anyone who claims to be far-right,” he wrote.
“My politics are straightforward: I recognize realities. I am therefore sorry to report to some of you that I am absolutely not far-right.”
Yeah, you know who else uses words like “realism” in this sense? Racists. Honestly, Steven Patrick has been dodging accusations of far-right sympathies since the 80s, you’d think he would know better by now than to think this would be enough to convince people. Especially after lending credence to the late and not especially lamented For Britain party, which even Nigel Farage, NIGEL FUCKING FARAGE, said was full of Nazis and racists…
Revolver ’22
Love the Fabs. Love Revolver (if not their greatest album, certainly the best thing they’d done by 1966). Still not 100% convinced by the remix, which I gave another spin this afternoon. I don’t think Giles did anything as egregious to this as he did to “She’s Leaving Home” (changing the speed/pitch of the stereo mix to match the mono version) or “Helter Skelter” (toning down Ringo’s blisters in the mix), but still. Despite the much-vaunted use of Peter Jackson’s audio technology to separate sounds out and all that, there’s still only so much you can do with four-track tape, and in the end it kind of reinforces my belief that you’re better off listening to almost anything recorded before 1969 on less than eight-track tape in mono.
Nada!
Miguel Abuelo et Nada were a group of Argentine expatriates who gathered in Paris in 1973 and lasted just long enough to record this one album, which appeared only in France a couple of years later. They had evidently listened to a certain amount of Led Zeppelin (Abuelo’s vocals display certain Plantisms) and Black Sabbath but also brought enough of their own stuff to the table (the cello is a particularly valuable part of the ensemble). Net result: a fascinating mix of psychedelia, prog and early metal that was perhaps doomed to the limited success it apparently achieved.
Also, if you’re going to listen to it, do so with headphones like I just did. This is one of those 1970s stereo albums.
12! The… number of the Beast?
Amazing. I think that Iron Maiden getting a range of stamps in their honour is way better (and a lot funnier) than getting into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame, of which Bruce Dickinson is a noted non-fan anyway.