I am a big Mike Oldfield fan, but I’ve often had issues with some of his live DVDs. HIs more recent performances available on the Tubular Bells II/III double-header to me seem very forced and almost robotic as if he was playing to a click-track and leave me feeling underwhelmed. So you can imagine my surprise when I loaded this new double DVD set into my player and sat back to enjoy the ride.
What you have here is a classic performance taken from 1979 at the Wembley Conference Centre and it is absolutely brilliant. The concert features a full rendition of the “Incantations” album and a funked up take on Tubular Bells on the second DVD – if you already have the album “Exposed” you are basically getting the visuals to go with this great album.
While I am not a great fan of “Incantations”, I am absolutely spellbound by the performance by Maddy Prior as she sings the “Hiawatha” section by Longfellow and this is repeated on this DVD. She does an absolutely amazing job with it and I dare anyone not to be left open-mouthed…WOW! There’s lots of energy on this disc from the singers and performers and a level of playfulness that you don’t often get from Mike Oldfield.
The really great thing about this disc is that you can switch angles and concentrate on performers as the concert goes on – this is what the DVD format was invented for. My only complaint is that the audio is presented in bog-standard stereo and while this is very clean and acceptable, it would have been nice if the authors of this disc had created a 5.1 Dolby mix and added some ambience to the rear speakers – but I am probably asking too much.
If you love “Incantations”, if you really dig Oldfield from this period of his career, then this is an absolute must-have. If you like his later, more mechanical performances, you might see this release as quaint and as a thing of its time. I however think this is musical magic and Oldfield should get back to this route of organic music making.
But the best part of the disc is at the beginning when the classical performers drafted in by Oldfield to augment his band complain of not having any music to play to and having to play by memory. They are actually in awe of the rock players who can memories this stuff!
Archive for November, 2005
Yesterday was interesting. I had a feeling that my eyesight might have been on the wain and it was interesting to hear about the eye problem that had been dogging me for a while (it seems I have a cyst on my left eye, which makes itself painfully known if I am under stress or in smoky environs, but it can be removed with surgery – oh goody!). The delightfully sounding “eye crystals” left me feeling a little depressed. We don’t have any history of glaucoma in my family (I asked my mother when I got home), so I was a bit alarmed when the optometrist told me about my condition. Of course, it is too early to say whether I will ever develop glaucoma, but it got me a little depressed when I was having lunch in the local pub. Though saying that, I am not sure if it was the news or the fact I’d handed over all that money that made me feel upset. I don’t know – the thought of slowly going blind isn’t something that makes me feel good all over, but the upside is that at least it is non-fatal, it’ll cut down the time I spent wasting on the Internet and I’ll get a guide dog. See, there’s an upside to everything!
Anyway, when choosing my glasses, I basically left it to the assistant to choose what I wanted. I didn’t have any idea what to choose as I had never worn glasses before and I wasn’t going to piss around spending ages choosing spectacles. In the end, there was a choice between “ageing geek” and “paedophile teacher” – the choice was simple, “ageing geek” won by a country mile. Oh how snazzy I’ll look walking Alex the Wonderdog in my new glasses. People will point and stare and say: “He’s an ageing geek”. Oh yes. Just got to wait for them to be made now.
Caught the teaser clip from the new Doctor Who episode to be shown at Christmas. It was OK. Not sure how long it will take me to warm to David Tennant as I thought Eccleston nailed that role and was easily my third favourite Doctor (after Baker and Davison). Yup – I’m an ageing geek.
In the post: something returned from one of my eBay sales. The little scrote said the item didn’t work, but it did when I sent it out as I had tested it. Every year I get one negative mark from some eBay wanker and I think that this is my eBay wanker for the year. Ho hum!
Had a dream in which Alex the Wonderdog appeared to be having puppies. Of course this is nonsense because he is a piss-licking, shit-rolling, boy dog…nay, a MAN’s dog. In the dream, somehow a Westie bitch had secreted herself inside Chez Lock and was pumping out little white puppies at the rate of knots, turning the house into something like 101 Dalmations (except they were Westies). Alex was none too pleased. Can’t remember what really happened, but after much hunting and pup-wrangling, I found the bitch living in our swimming pool (hey, told you it was a dream) giving birth to more puppies whilst being pleasured by a large brown dog, possibly a Staff or something else. Weirdness, pure weirdness. I am sure it means something to someone.
Today I went to the opticians for an eye-check. It was all the idea of The Missus. It had been three years since my last eye check so I reckoned it was a good time to find out just how badly my eyesight had failed. Despite impressing Mr Hui (the optometrist) with my recognition of the bottom line on the chart, my eyes required some glasses for when I am out walking the dog.
“Despite your long vision being impaired slightly” said Mr Hui, “Your close vision is excellent.”
Great.
“However, I noticed that there were crystals growing in your eyes,” he began.
“Crystals, eh?” thought me, “That sounds exotic.”
“Yes, these crystals are caused by calcium deposits,” he continued, “Nothing to worry about really.”
“That’s good,” thought I, “I like not worrying.”
“However,” he began again, “These crystals are a precursor to glaucoma.”
“Oh boy,” thinks me, “This is is bad.”
“But this is nothing to worry about,” he says, before pausing, then adds, “Mind you, for someone as young as you to develop crystals in your eyes is very unusual. You had better return in 12 months for another checkup.”
This did not make me feel very good at all. The worst of it was that the combined cost of my and The Missus new glasses (because we are both speccy gits from this day on) was £261. OUCH! That hurt. Handing over that kind of cash was very upsetting. I almost wanted to cry.
Oh well, I collect my new glasses in 5 days time. Who knows when the glaucoma will take hold and render me completely blind, eh? Mustn’t grumble…
Afterwards, we went to the pub and had a few drinks. As I said to The Missus, the only kind of blind I want to be is blind drunk. The pub had no baguettes (a good thing) and so they actually had to make us a sausage sandwich. Hurrah!
Have you ever read an email that wasn’t meant for your eyes? Or perhaps you’ve eavesdropped a conversation where your name is mentioned? Not very pleasant is it? Last night, an email plopped into my inbox that was not meant for me, but had been CC’d accidentally. I was mentioned and while the person writing it wasn’t being nasty about me, certain parts of the email depressed me. You realise that people “out there” spread bad vibes about you without giving the full story. While I don’t mind portraying myself as something I’m not, I have to draw the line at other people indulging in the pursuit. A man has to have his limits, no?
Oh well, you’ve got to put it behind you and ignore it. In the grand scheme of things, it means absolutely nothing.
In the post: the new Van der Graaf Generator book, which at first glance looks absolutely fucking superb. Excellent!
Of course, I’ll keep it this place going. It’s what I ALwAYS do because I am so fucking predictable. True, you have to do it for youself, and I like this place as a reference point for the gigs I go to. When the Missus mentioned the previous blog entry, she just rolled her eyes at me and said “Yeah, right. You always say that, but you’ll continue.”
True. But wouldn’t it be nice to be brave enough NOT to be bound to this. Maybe a paper diary would be an option? Nah, I always forget to keep them. At least with this, I write entries when I am avoiding work or should be doing other things. So I guess I’ll just dig deep and find the money. But then I’ll have to write MORE in this blog to justify the cost.Grrr…
Meanwhile, I am suffering from a bout of GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) which is a condition that afflicts anyone who is stupid enough to buy a guitar or other musical instrument. GAS makes you look at the newest guitar on the block and say “Ooooh, I’d like one of those” or at the latest guitar FX unit and drool “Oooh, that sure looks purty”. The downside to GAS is that it costs you. It costs you hard. I normally offset these costs by selling other stuff to pay for my acquisition.
With the GAS, I’ve recently been interested in buying a Chapman Stick on eBay (I blame last week’s visit to the Blue Man Group for this). I saw a really good offer, but by the time I’d import it and pay the duty tax on it, it would still cost a fortune. So I’ve kind of given up on that dream. Plus it would involve learning a new instrument and I can’t really claim to be able to play the guitar yet. So I’ve got my eye on one of these instead. It’s a Godin xtSA and the thing about this guitar is that it has all the electronics to run my Roland VG-88 and GR-33 already built into it. It also has a feature (a tranducer pickup) that makes the guitar sound like an acoustic, while actually being an electric guitar. Man, I’m dribbling just thinking about it.
Man, I need to sell a kidney. Anyone need a kidney? Only one feckless user…good value…credit terms available…
Yesterday evening, there was the most amazing sunset. I snapped off a few photos to capture it. I was in such a rush to do this that I’d selected the wrong settings on my camera, so the pictures came out a little blurred. But it doesn’t really matter as you still get a sense of the colours.
Meanwhile, my thoughts turn to the impending deadline on this place. In about seven days time, my web lease runs out and I’ve got to decide whether or not it is worth paying another £70 per year to keep this site going. Everytime the lease comes to an end I think to myself “Why am I doing this?” and “What exactly is this site for?”.
I think I’ve been running a proper website under my own name for about five years now. In the past, it was meant to be a promotional tool to show prospective employers what I can do and who I’ve written for. However, with the blog culture growing in popularity, I thought I would join that trend. But what is this all for?
Is it to show-off to other people? Possibly.
Is it to be a candid diary? No way, I couldn’t possibly write down how I was really feeling. That would be too much of a turn off.
Are you getting the traffic you want? No, not really. Looking at the various logs and that, the only people who come here are those looking for Nookie Bear, blowjobs, Ronnie Barker’s Fork Handles script, Robert Fripp and Kate Bush. (That last sentence will have sent Google into an apoplexy). I’m not sure how much of the traffic that comes here actually comes here to read about me and the projects I am doing. I think it is very little.
And so I have to decide whether or not to pack this up once and for all and give up on the great web experiment and do something completely different instead. The easiest course of action is to pay the man his money and continue. The hardest course would be to give up completely.
To say I am jaded and cynical about the Internet would be true. While it has given me the opportunity to harrass and upset many people with my online persona, my music and other witterings, I’ve not really got much back in return with all the time, energy and money I’ve invested in it. In fact, some aspects of online life gives me a nasty taste in the mouth.
But what to do, what to do?
If I was a better man I would give up right now and invest my time where it is needed: in my creative endeavours, the place where I am most happy, lost in writing or recording or whatever.
I just need the strength to cut my credit card and turn off the virtual lights as it were.
Now it struck me that I’ve seen most of the King Crimson alumni playing live now (with the exception of Boz Burrell, Gordon Haskell and some of the lesser known contributors) and this concert was to be the first time I’d see Greg Lake performing. I’d never bothered with his 90s stint with ELP, so when this concert was announced I thought I’d give it a go, not really knowing what to expect.
What I got for my money was a lightning fast gallop through Lake’s back catalogue featuring material from King Crimson, ELP and his own solo career. Unlike some of the KC singers out there, Lake still has managed to retain his vocal prowess and it is a big old voice he has there, very impressive. The band was very tight too, though the guitarist Florian Opahle (who looked so young that he might have had to have gotten a note from his mum to appear with Lake) while accomplished, was prone to hard rock widdling and posing. His addition of “wah-wah” guitar to “In the Court of the Crimson King” actually made me laugh out loud…and this was the opening song. Even so, the performances were good and the music intact. Some of the songs didn’t do much for me as I am not a follower of Lake’s solo career and the band’s attempt at “Pictures at an Exhibition” seemed to descend into mush, but it was worth it for the more up-tempo tracks such as “Paper Blood”, “Fanfare for the Common Man” and “Touch and Go”. I was upset that “Still You Turn Me On” wasn’t featured, but we got a decent represenation of “From the Beginning” instead.
I didn’t expect the music to touch me in anyway, but about halfway through “Lucky Man” I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck beginning to stand on end. The music was working. And it was a double punch when they followed up this great performance with an absolutely knock-out version of “21st Century Schizoid Man” – I was mightily impressed with the tightness of the performance, the drummer held it together very well and the syncopated stop/start sections were simply brilliant. Yes – I’d got my ticket’s worth!
To finish off, while some of the songs weren’t exactly to my taste and some of the arrangements were just a little bit too “balls out rock” for my liking, it was a very enjoyable evening and I am glad that we got the chance to see Mr Lake doing his thing. As I said to The Missus in the car on the journey home: “It’s prog, Jim, but not as we know it”.