13 March 11

Grandad Of Gob-Irons

Watching a programme about accordions (first of a series about them, no less! How quirky is that?), I came across this unlikely looking contraption, called a sheng (pronounced, 'shung', apparently.) It's the earliest known free-reed instrument, and so can lay claim to being the ancestor of both squeeze-boxes and harmonicas.

First off, this is the instrument in its oldest form – a resonating chamber, some reeds, and a pipe-organ-like arrangement of tubes.

And now this more modern version, with keys. I'm guessing from the occasional 'clack' sound that they're something like the keys on a saxophone, and indeed there is a somewhat sax-like undertone to the over-all sound, though mostly it sounds more like a harmonica, unsurprisingly.

Well, I thought it was interesting! Now, I wonder if Hohner make cheap, affordable ones…

18 March 11

Some Folk Music

I watched part two of that series about the accordion last night. This week's was all about its place in Celtic music. Strictly speaking it was more about the various versions of Celtic music, with a slight emphasis on squeeze-boxes, but no less entertaining or informative, for that.

We started of in Galicia, the historically Celtic region of North-West Spain. Celtic traditions and music were ruthlessly repressed during the Franco era so, naturally, Celtic music became a symbol of freedom and hope. It strikes me that all the major forms of 'folk' (in its broadest meaning) music seem to have come from poor or opressed peoples (or both, of course); the various national styles of Celtic music, jazz, blues, the earliest examples of rockabilly and rock 'n' roll, sea-shanties and other work-songs, Appalachian hillbilly (admittedly that's a progression from mainly Scots Celtic styles, with other influences thrown in), bluegrass and country (as opposed to the awful commercialised, processed and packaged product that we know as country and western). Even many of the major trends within rock & pop, when they've first appeared, have had predominantly working-class roots, or have been started by people who've felt somehow disenchanted or disenfranchised. Maybe one good thing to come out of the current economic mess will be some new, vibrant music forms. I certainly hope so. The current crop of manufactured, manicured, exchangeable plastic dummies, who seem to be targeted at an audience of twelve-year-old girls, certainly aren't producing anything of note. Anyway…

After Galicia we're whisked off to the Basque Country, which isn't actually a Celtic region, but the music crept in via the shared repression by, and opposition to, the Franco regime, and appears to have taken root. While there, though, the presenter took time to introduce us to more traditional Basque music, including this week's Unusual Instrument. It's called a Txalaparta, and it's a bit like a large glockenspiel. It's also the only musical instrument I know of that takes two people to play. The teamwork and sense of timing shown is, I think, pretty amazing:

After that, we make a quick visit to Brittany in France, and then hop over to Padstow in Cornwall, where we see the famous 'Obby 'Oss festival, a middle-ages version of the ancient Celtic Beltane, which celebrates the coming of Summer:

Then it's off to Ireland, the country that would probably come first to mind to most people, when Celtic music is mentioned. Here I'm going to change tack slightly. This band weren't featured on the show, or even mentioned, but they're one of my favourite Irish bands in the traditional-music genre, so here for your delight are … Flogging Molly:

Incidentally, I wonder why it is that the Irish seem to have been so much more successful than anyone else at merging their traditional folk forms with rock, yet still keeping the folk-flavour. Certainly country (and — ugh! — western) artists that try it manage to end up making nothing but schlock-rock that seems to have entirely lost its roots. Okay, the Eagles and Credence Clearwater Revival both managed it to some degree, but that's about forty years ago – ditto reggae. And the odd few bands that tried it with English folk music, also about forty years ago, disappeared without a trace after a brief dash through the spotlight. Anyway, I digress. Again!

I'm not sure why we missed Scotland, although it's a Scots presenter and a BBC Scotland programme, so maybe they're saving that for a grand finale. I'm going to finish with a clip of the presenter, Phil Cunningham, himself, though not from the programme. He's the accordion-player, as you might have guessed…

30 March 11

The World Accordion To Phil

It's about time I caught up on the latest in the series I've been following on the Beeb, about the accordion. I mentioned last time that it's on BBC Scotland, so even those who watch TV via iplayer outside Scotland may have missed it. So, for anyone interested who can get iplayer, it's called The World Accordion To Phil (yes, I groaned too), and the first three episodes are still on there, and available until Wednesday the 6th of April. Hopefully, once the Beeb have taken it off iplayer, some kind soul will upload them to YouTube, as the BBC seem more relaxed about that, these days.

Anyway, It's nigh-on a week since the third episode was on, and I've forgotten much of the content, (that'll teach me not to make notes on a programme I knew I was going to be blogging about!) so the rest of this post will be more video than anything else, though I did notice that he made the same speculations that I did in my previous post, about the most vibrant music forms nearly all being products of the poorest or most oppressed sections of society. Maybe it's because it's more accessible than other forms of public expression. You need no publishers or galleries, and you're not at the whim of the owners of large theatres or, these days, television studios. A modicum of talent and a sympathetic public-house landlord, or even just a street-corner, are all you need. Only a theory, but plausible, I feel.

First off, some musette. Sounds like the brand-name of a '50s table-top record player, I know, but it's actually the name of that style of music that you probably associate with Film Noir. Slightly quirky, and redolent of smoke-hazed Parisian back-street bars, stubble-chinned musicians, and all that. Which is fair enough; that's where it came into being, and those bars really were the haunt of shady underworld characters, though the reality would be more violent and less romantic than those old black 'n' white mood-pieces portrayed it, one feels.

Apparently, much of the quirky sound of the style comes from the fact that the instruments were often not perfectly tuned; they were going for volume, in those pre-amplification days, rather than perfection. I 'hmmed' a bit at that. It has the feel of urban myth about it. Certainly much French jazz of the same period has that same quirky feel to it, and jazz players most definitely would be perfectionist enough to at least tune their instruments properly. Anyway, here's the wonderful Edith Piaf, in the musette style, with the appropriately titled L'Accordéonsite. No I don't speak French, either. Who cares? She sounds great!

Next up, the polka, which apparently began life when a young Bohemian serving girl was seen dancing double-time to a local folk-tune. It's not a style I know much about, or have much interest in. Though I'll admit that it's a nice cheerful toe-tapper, I wouldn't want to listen to too much of it. That said, I'm putting up two videos for this one. Here's a tune called, in various versions, Skoda Lasky, Rosamunde...

...or The Beer Barrel Polka, famously recorded several times by The Andrews Sisters. Unfortunately, every version by them I found on YT had a copyright clause that meant the embedded video wouldn't play anywhere other than the YT page, so here's a good version by The Lindy Sisters. Take it away, girls.

Next up is the bayan, a Russian version of the accordion. After the revolution, the authorities wanted to promote folk music and folk instruments, rather than the 'elitist' classical styles, and the accordion took centre-stage. It didn't stop there though. They developed the button accordion way past its folk-origins, to the point where it became almost a self-contained orchestra. Just listen to this. Amazing!

And so we come to this week's Unusual Instrument, or rather, two of them the bass balalaika and the Domra. Here's a great version of another favourite of mine, Sabre Dance, from Khachaturian's ballet, Gayane.

And I'll finish on one that's got nothing to do with the programme, or accordions, at all, though anyone who liked the above will probably like this, too. I found this brilliant rendition of Temptation Rag the other day, and just had to share it.

—Daz

14 April 11

Happy-Slappin'

Grab This, & … Dance

Interesting question from an email correspondent who's apparently been amusing herself with the playlist at the bottom of the homepage: "What is that odd sound of the bass on so many of your songs?" Well, it's the sound of a double-bass being slapped, and it's just about the definition of rockabilly as a genre. [Warning: this post is most definitely a YouTube-fest! Mind you, the first few are very short.]

We'll start with the basics. Your entry-level slap-bass technique is just to pull the string out and let it slap back against the fingerboard, producing a percussive 'pop', as it does so, as well as chopping the note off suddenly (with the added help of a little muting with the left hand. Unless you're left handed of course). The next step is to slap the hand across the strings once or twice, banging them into the fingerboard, then pulling the string out and letting it slap back, as this young lad is doing:

Ain't that grand?

Once we've mastered that, we end up with something like … this:

That's your basic rockabilly technique, from Lee Rocker, of Stray Cats fame. He uses guitar-style pickups, though, with steel strings, which gives it a slightly 'funky' sound, that I don't much care for. Here's a much nicer example, and live, too. Notice how she swaps between playing on and off the beat. Lovely stuff:

Right then, how does it sound when it's in a band? Well that's changed somewhat, over the years. Rockabilly started, of course, in the '50s (though the slap technique actually goes back to jazz bands in the '20s, at least). Here's the archetypal '50s rockabilly sound; Johnny Burnette & the Rock 'n' Roll Trio, with Sweet Love On My Mind. (Apparently it's 'restricted on certain sites'. If you get that message, the 'Play on youtube' link will open the YT page in a new tab/window):

Another thing you'll notice with most rockabilly is that the drumming (if there even is a drummer) is pretty simple. When the bass is, effectively, playing percussion too, then that's all that's needed.

Come the much hyped 'rockabilly revival' in the late '70s and early '80s, the genre split three ways (at least). You had your trad-bands, who sounded, and still sound, as much like the '50s originals as possible, at one extreme, and psychobilly, which mixed in elements of punk and garage, horror and SF B-movie plots, and anything else they felt like, at the other, with a kind of middle ground known as neorockabilly, which accepted that the world, and recording techniques, as well as lyrical possibilities, had moved on since 1960, but left off the more outré excesses of psychobilly. As an example of neo, here're The Nitros, with a definitely non-fifties sounding version of a fifties song, All I Can Do Is Cry, originally recorded by Wayne Walker (but you knew that, right? Right?):

Psychobilly is even harder to pin down than the other two. For starters, just as there's no clear boundary between trad and neo, there's no such between neo and psycho, either. And to make matters worse still, from a pigeon-holing point of view, from simple beginnings thirty years ago, it's expanded to draw influences from everything from punk to death metal, stopping off at a few brothels and S & M clubs along the way—we're definitely talking 'seedy' here. But an intentional, tongue-in-cheeck seedy. There's virtually as many different psycho 'sounds' as there are psycho bands. And as many different views on what's 'really' psychobilly as there are psychobilly fans.

I'm pretty damn sure, though, that most of my readers would run away in disgust, disdain, horror or all three of the above at both the lyrical content and the musical sound of most psycho that even approaches hard-core. Oh, and don't even ask about the 'dancing'. Let's just say moshing is for wimps… With that in mind, here's one that teeters on the border of being neorockabilly. It has the advantage of including Paul Oxley; for my money the best bass-player the scene has produced, though he's not particularly stretched on this number. Anyway, I give you Take A Little More, by The Krewmen. And, apparently, a Krewlady. Not sure where she came from…

And to finish, here's a more trad/neo song from Imelda May. Fittingly, it's about a chap called Johnny who owns a double-bass, and even more fittingly, the bass player's nickname is, or was years ago at least, Slap-Happy. This one's called Johnny Got A Boom Boom:

Any requests for further recommendations, death-threats from non-Paul Oxley fans or summonses-to-court regarding compensation for bleeding ears will be dealt with according to whatever mood I'm in when I receive them.

Stay sick. Stay psycho…

—Daz

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09 July 11

Broken-Hearted Melodies

I've been meaning to do this one for a while, and, frankly, between Richard Dawkins making a complete and utter dick of himself—with ensuing brouhaha—and 'journalists' (I use the term loosely) hacking the phones of murdered schoolgirls and other innocents, this seemed like a good time to distract myself (and hopefully you too, Dear Reader) with totally unrelated subjects. Not that those things aren't important, but everything I'd want to say has already been said, ad nauseam, in other places. I'm just taking a brief time-out, is all. Anyway…

Most of my music taste runs to up-tempo and rather very extremely raucus numbers; the rhythm and 'feel' often outweigh lyrical content and musicianship to some degree. Sometimes, though I like to sit back, close my eyes and listen to a few sad and slow numbers; and when I do, these three almost always end up on the playlist.

First off is Julie London, with Cry Me A River. I don't know if it was written for the movie or merely featured in it, but the first time I heard this was in the film The Girl Can't Help It, in a scene where a drunk Tom Ewell is followed around his apartment by visions of Ms London, his ex-love. Whatever the source, though, it's a lovely, moody, slightly jazzy piece that almost begs you to sit back and relax with a large whiskey. (Mine's a Jack Daniels, if you're buying. No ice.)

Two versions of this one, It's Raining, just to show how changing the arrangement can totally alter the feel of a song without destroying the mood. First up are The Darts, a 1970s doowop-ish 50s/60s-revival band.

And now The Go Getters with, in my opinion, the better version; although The Darts' one isn't to be sniffed at by any means. This has more of a sense of drama to it though, I think. Oh, and their version of Tainted Love is also well worth a listen.

And lastly, Ae Fond Kiss, a number that I can only describe as haunting. Lyrics by Robert Burns, arrangement and performance by Fairground Attraction, who are mostly known for their one big hit, Perfect, a word that describes this recording to a T.

And now, I suppose, it's back to the brouhaha. Or maybe just one more for the road…

—Daz

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20 July 11

Walking On The Moon

Well, today's the 20^th and we all know what happened in 1969 on that date, yes?

Constellation, the NASA project to take us back to the moon by 2020, was cancelled by President Obama back in February, thus ending what I suspect was Geedubbya's attempt to be remembered for something more than starting wars and mangling the English language. Whatever, it looks like being the end of that particular dream, for some time at least.

Anyway, I decided I couldn't face the rather gloomy job of going on about past glories that I really want to see repeated but am unlikely to, so I put together a playlist of my favourite moon songs. Well, not my absolute favourtites; I made sure to include some songs set on the moon or about trips to it, even though they weren't in my first-choice list. There's twelve in all—one for each person that's stood there. (Actually I had eleven planned, in honour of Apollo 11, but thought of another one at the last minute. Good recovery though, eh?) What you won't hear is the song that gave me the title of this post, 'cause I think it's a shite record. Mind you, I have a feeling that most folks would say the same for much of this playlist. Each to their own. They're very much in keeping with the types of music that have formed the core of my tastes. Hopefully you'll find one or two you like.

The technical stuff: An oddity of this player is that you can't see the list 'til you've pressed play. With that in mind I've made sure to make the first number a nice gentle one, so that no one gets their ears blasted before getting a chance to adjust the volume. Also, the file-hosting site where the mp3s are stored doesn't allow simultaneous downloads, so if nothing happens straight away, it probably means somone else is listening to it. Shouldn't be a huge problem as this isn't the most heavily trafficked site on the intertubes, and I've made the files small; just 32 bit (which also lowers the quality, but it's good enough for most rock and pop), so the download time is a few seconds.

Enjoy! (Or run away in disgust.)

—Daz

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