The same old scene

So the Npower Championship starts next Saturday and the excellent news is that this season it includes the Saints!

So how do I feel about this season? Will we be this seasons Norwich (who achieved back to back promotions so start this season in the Premier League) or will we be Scunthorpe (who went up then back to League 1)? Or more likely, will this be a season of acclimatisation?

Well we have a squad with depth in it, so much so, that (as I write this) we have only made two pre-season signings, Jack Cork and Steve de Ridder. Cork was on loan from  Chelsea the last time that we were in the Championship and looked good. Last season he played at Burnley and fans were sad to see him go. We've now bought him so let's hope the good signs seen in pre-season games continue. De Ridder is a right winger, looks good and seems to have genuine pace. That seems a great piece of business as, if as expected, Alex Chamberlain does go on a big money move. then we've avoided being asked for silly money when we have to go and buy a replacement.

I don't see any obvious weaknesses in the team, in fact we appear to have a series good problems in that we have 4 quality central midfielders vying for 2 places. We also have 5 strikers in competition for 2 places and again 4 central defenders fighting over 2 more spaces. As long as Adkins can keep everybody happy then we start from a good settled place.

So where do I think that we will finish? If we have a good start then promotion could be achievable, but I expect mid-table to be where we end up.

Let's hope I'm wrong!

The Chain

On Friday morning, at silly o'clock (5.50am) I caught the last 10 minutes of  BBC Radio Five Live's "Wake up to money". This included a discussion on the profits that BSkyB were expected to announce later that morning. They correctly summised that this would be in the order of c£1 billion and that following the withdrawal of the News International takeover bid (Hackgate etc...) they didn't actually have anything on which to spend the profits. In fact the profit announcement included a share buy back of c£750 million which seems to underline the point!

Then at 7 am (at the same time as the profits were announced) Sky Sports revealed that from the 2012 season, they would be taking over the exclusive broadcasting of Formula One motor racing, in partnership with the BBC. The BBC will continue to show selected live races (including the British GP) and highlights of the ones of which they don't carry live coverage.

I have two areas of thought on this. Firstly the addition of F1 to the long list of sports that have moved from "free to air" broadcasting to "subscription" broadcasting brought about the usual "it's the end of the world" comments in the media (including Twitter). Comments along the lines of "I'm not paying to watch something that should be free" abounded. Well firstly you do pay, it's called the license fee. Furthermore, frankly the time for that argument was years ago, around the time that Test cricket was lost to the skies. Sky have an additional c£1 billion per annum of profit, over and above what they already spend on sports rights, that they could spend on sport so they can pick and choose what else they buy up and we have to accept that. If you're a Sports fan you have to have Sky Sports, it's as simple as that. Even if ESPN decided to extend their portfolio, I suspect that the platform used to watch it would still be Sky!

Secondly, then, how do the BBC come out of this deal? Quite well I think! BBC budgets are being cut (slashed?) across the Corporation. In the Sports department I guess that a long hard look at continuing with the F1 coverage had already been undertaken. Having worked so hard to win the coverage back from ITV and
to have done such a good job with the resultant production, losing it would have been a  potentially huge body blow. This deal is perfect for the BBC of the future. It keeps the "best bits" (i.e. the races that we would want to see) probably at 1 pm on a Sunday, to minimise the impact on scheduling. It enables the terrific investment in the "red button" and online proposition, which F1 has really benefited from, to continue as the end users remain. It accepts however that the days of a British "terrestrial" broadcaster being able to afford exclusive Sports rights is finally behind us. I don't therefore expect Six nations rugby to remain solely on the BBC beyond this contract.

After all the BBC did a similar deal earlier in the year on the Masters golf, when the whole tournament was on Sky, with the BBC just covering the last two rounds on it's multi-platforms. The golf fans that I work with seemed happy enough!

Changes

I have just, for the first time. been back to a recent blog and updated it.

I read a couple of articles yesterday about the new Yes album and discovered that actually three of the tracks were written back 1980, not just one, so my blog was incorrect. It is not now!

Knights of Cydonia

Half way through the eight tracks for my Desert Island Discs and this one is a family entry, as it would probably be in the final eight for both my sons as well as me.

The song is by Muse, an English (prog) rock band from Teignmouth in Devon. It appears on their fourth (and big league breakthrough album), Black Holes and Revelations. The album marked a step change in the "sound" of Muse in that it introduced differing musical styles while remaining true to their rock roots. This resulted in two hit singles before this track, at 6 minutes and 7 seconds was the unlikely, but popular,  third choice. It is the band's "Bohemian Rhapsody" albeit , it didn't stay at number one for nine weeks!

The songs starts with a driving rock instrumental section. which owes a debt of gratitude to "Telstar" by The Tornados, before the vocals kick in (after 2 minutes). This leads to an acapella vocal section around the lyrics "no one gonna take me alive" which has swirling keyboards in the background, these are added to with bass and drums which slowly builds to "the heads down no nonsense head banging riff".

In the film Mike Myers film "Wayne's World", there is classic scene, where Wayne & Garth and two friends are driving in a car all listening to Bohemian Rhapsody. When the the heavy rock end section of the song kicks in, they all "headbang" in unison. The final section of this song has the same effect on me! It is a glorious heavy rock ending to a great track, albeit if you listen to "Emerald" by Thin Lizzy it does again bear a passing resemblance.

On the original album this track was the final one and it ended the album on a real high ( sadly, a Japanese bonus track now appears at the end of most versions of the Album) It also ended the subsequent live shows when Muse toured and the sight of the whole of Wembley stadium rocking in unison at the end of the song is a sight to behold!

It's a song that I never tire of hearing and if comes on the radio, you have to turn it up! You can listen to it here

This woman's work

The third of my "Desert Island Disc's" comes from Kate Bush's sixth album "The Sensual world". It's included for two main reasons, firstly it's a wonderfully emotive song and secondly I wanted to represent the music of Kate Bush in my list.

The song was originally written for the 1988 John Hughes film, "She's having a baby" which starred Kevin Bacon and Elizabeth McGovern. Hughes wanted a song to accompany the scene in the film where McGovern gives birth to Bacon's child.. The birth is difficult and the song reflects the thoughts of Bacon outside the maternity suite, while his wife and unborn baby are in danger during the birth. Kate is quoted as saying that it was a simple song to write once she'd seen the scene. The lyrics reflect the husbands guilt at not being able to help, regret at what he's not done and a hope that she'll have the strength to see it through. He also cries in anguish "to make it go away".

Musically it's mainly Kate on the piano with some atmospheric keyboards to give the piece dynamics. You can listen to it here

In the busy lives that we lead it's easy to miss great songs and I have to admit that this song did partly pass me by when the album was released. In fact it took an advert in 2006 by the British charity the National Society for the Protection of Children to remind me of it and for me to fall in love with it. The advert featured a toddler in a cot under threat from a violent parent with the "make it go away" refrain playing over the top. Very powerful imagery to which the emotion of the song adds that final element.

I first discovered the music of Kate Bush, like most of teenage boys of my age, with the release of the "Wuthering Heights" single in 1978. She was, to say the least, different musically and also gorgeous. While her music was more aimed at girls, boys were attracted both by her looks but also the fact that she was discovered by Dave Gilmour from Pink Floyd. This gave her credibility and when she toured in 1979, there were as many male fans ( including me) in the audiences as women. The tour was a show with dancers and acting as well as a rock band and received great critical acclaim. The experience was for her, however, fairly traumatic, so much so that sadly she has never toured again

She further developed musical credibility by duetting with Peter Gabriel on a 1979 Christmas show covering Roy Harper's "Another Day". It's wonderful version and a real shame that although they discussed recording it properly, they never did & the grainy version on You tube remains the only version of it. She did however work again with Gabriel on his third solo album adding backing vocals to his "Jeux Sans Frontiers" single and through that collaboration she discovered the ground breaking Fairlight computer. This sampled sounds (very ground breaking for the 1980's) and thus both changed her music as she increasing used the effects and sounds that computers could add and opened it up to a whole new audience.

Her seminal album followed in 1985, the double platinum "Hounds of Love", which is a glorious coming together of her voice, modern music making and  song writing of the highest standard. It remains my favourite of all her albums.

Subsequent albums have never quite hit the same high water mark, but they continue to push and stretch the boundaries of her music. As she has matured she her demand for perfection has meant longer gaps between albums, (she has also married and had a son) but the release of a Kate Bush album remains an event.

Fly from here Part II - we can fly.

Sorry but this is not a D I D post, but those who know me, will know, that I'm a big Yes fan and the new album came out yesterday, so here's my thoughts. (actually if you don't know me I'm still a big Yes fan!)

I set out here my thoughts on the soap opera that is, and has been, Yes. The album has been available as a pre-order on iTunes for a couple of weeks and having listened to the previews, it didn't sound that great. I also found a stream of the track that heads this post and that sounded better, but I was familiar with it as it was the song that the Drama period Yes played live but never recorded and it appears on "The Word is Live" boxed set.

So here's the thing that I suspected, that was proven last night, be very careful with iTunes previews, they can distort an album. Last night I listened to the album on Spotify (here) and frankly I'm impressed! In short, it rocks, in both meanings of that phrase. So much so that I bought it and have played it twice since!

The trio of Steve Howe (guitar) Chris Squire (bass) and Alan White (drums) always were a tight rock unit at the heart of the band and that shows on this album. Keyboards from Geoff Downes (best known for his work with Howe in Asia) add to this and Benoit David's vocals are close enough to Jon Anderson's to keep the "Yes" sound without sounding like an impersonation.

The main piece on the album is a five part suite "Fly from Here" which is based on the "we can fly" segment but adds to it so that across the different parts various themes and melodies appear and reappear but each part remains it's own. The other tracks are better than I thought they would be (i.e. not filler), particularly "Into the storm" and "Life on a film set". There's also the obligatory Steve Howe acoustic guitar workout, a Chris Squire song and a potential single in "Hour of Need"

Steve Howe's son Dylan (an accomplished jazz drummer in his own right) tweeted recently, that having listened to an advance copy, that he though that it was a bit like "Drama" part 2, referring back to the Yes album from 1980. Indeed it is. Firstly it is produced by Trevor Horn, who sang on Drama and 4/5th's of the band that performed on Drama appear on this album too . Furthermore three of the tracks, were written by Trevor Horn & Geoff  Downes as demo's for their next Buggles release, around the time of Drama's recording. They are available as a bonus tracks on the recent reissue of the subsequent "Adventures in Modern Recording" album. If CD's had been around at that time, "Fly from here" might have made the "Drama album, but the restrictions of  vinyl meant that there simply wasn't space for it. They did however add it to the live set for the Drama tour and a live version of "Fly from here part 1" appears on the 2007 live boxed set "The Word is live"

Now I might just have get a ticket to see them in Brighton in November.