Don't look back in anger

So as another year draws to a close, it's time to have a look at what music I enjoyed this year. These are in no particular order.

The Alt-J album "an awesome wave"won the Mercury music prize this year and quite rightly so. To be honest it was my eldest son Matthew that got me into this album and I'm very glad that he did. It's different, a bit hip-hop , a bit acoustic but generally a really lovely album.

My prog rock collection has grown this year with new albums from Neal Morse and Marillion. Both are probably each artists best album for a while and were both welcome additions to my collection.

2012 was also the year of prog rock artists re recording some of their finest works. Steve Hackett decided to do a second album of Genesis revisited where he takes some of his former bands finest songs and rerecords them. They're pretty faithful to the originals to be honest but his choice of vocalists to replace Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins are well chosen and the overall result is a really high-quality album. His version of "The Lamia" from The Lamb lies down on Broadway album with Nick Kershaw on vocals is inspired!

Rick Wakeman also decided to do a studio version of "Journey to the centre of the earth" the original album having been a live recording. He's added extra music to the original version as well and a mighty fine album it is too.

This was also the year that Ben Folds put back together the Ben Folds Five (the joke being that there's only three of them) and released a new album. His last couple of studio albums, released under his own name, have not been as good as previous recordings but this is a real return to form.

Other albums I've enjoyed this year were the Bruce Springsteen album which was Bruce at its finest, he's angry and when he's angry he always writes good songs.

Muse's album "the second law" was also released this year and continued their excellent work. A bit more funky in places nonetheless it still rocked when required!

Finally I can't let this post go without mentioning Led Zepplin's "Celebration day'. This is a live album recorded back in 2008 when they reformed for one off concert at the O2 arena in London. It's immense and truly acts as a wonderful epitaph to the band.

Experiments in Mass Appeal

For the last 22 days I've been carrying out an experiment on Facebook and Twitter. Each day I post a Christmas song in what is wittily entitled "Mark's musical advent calendar".

It gave me a chance to share with my friends, some of the music that I like to listen to around this time of year. I have an extensive Christmas playlist that I like to listen to mainly as I drive around and I thought that it would be an opportunity to share some of these songs with my friends, mainly via YouTube clips.

It's gone fairly well and certainly on Facebook I've had lots of comments and "likes". Every day has resulted in some kind of response from my friends. That has made it more fun for me and inspired some of the music posted.

The response on Twitter however has been completely different. It's been the social media equivalent of tumbleweed blowing down the deserted high-street! I think I've had one, response may be two?

What does that tell me? Well I think maybe it just reflects the fact that on Twitter you can follow anybody whether they know you or not. That means that my Twitter feed is full of posts from people that I don't really know and can skip over if I'm pressed for time. Clearly my posts get read that way too!!

On Facebook however my timeline is full of posts from closer friends and I'm therefore more interested in what they're saying and I take more time to read them. That seems to work for my friends as well bearing in mind their reaction to my posts.

Not an earthshattering discovery I know, but I did expect a bigger response to my twitter posts.

Change we must

One of the reasons that there has been huge gaps in this blog, has been the inability to update it other than sat at my laptop. There is a smartphone app but the inability to write something and save it via the app to be revisited later, meant that you had to write the whole thing there and then. Too difficult!

Well that has changed with the latest update to the Blogger app and here I am using it! Hopefully now when I am inspired, I can whip out the old iPhone and right away, write away!!

Well it all sounds good, lets see what happens!!

Walk this way

OK, so yet again, there has been a huge gap in between blog posts.

This time, however there is a kind of valid reason! I have taken up walking to get fit! (Those who know me well were amazed at this news, when I started!)

I have been needing to do some exercise for a while and couch potato is not a career aspiration to be proud of!

I have a friend in the US, Stevie G, who has been regularly walking a marathon distance each week for as long as the weather in Cincinnati will allow him.

He in turn has inspired a friend of his over here, Diane, to follow suit and she has too been walking 26.2 plus miles per week and a lot more for the last 18 months. He suggested that she and I walk together and one Sunday in June I turned up on her doorstep completely ill prepared and we walked two miles!

I enjoyed that so much that I decided to invest in the correct footwear and clothes and a regular walking friendship has ensued. What started as 2 miles, quickly grew to 4/5 miles and then to 6 miles per walk.

While that is great, the bit that I didn't expect was to want to walk as much as I have when Diane and I can't. That has meant that most nights when I get home from work, I now get changed and don the trainers, plug in the iPhone, cue the podcasts and off I go.

I am also, therefore, now doing a marathon equivalent per week (well I have for the last 4 weeks!)

The benefits? Firstly, I've lost a lot of weight. At least half a stone, probably nearer a stone, but I didn't weigh myself before I started any of this. I'm certainly thinner, both around the waist, down one whole trouser waist size and in the face, even my Mum has noticed!

Secondly, I'm eating a lot less. Walking and snacking don't go together and generally I'm less hungry.

Thirdly, I feel so much better about myself. Doing something and enjoying it has made me a far more confident and positive person!

How long will this last? Who knows, but at least until the weather turns cold and even then I'd like to think I will battle on. Walking after work in the dark may prove a challenge but time will tell.

Steve and Diane, I am in your debt, thank you from the bottom of my ( healthier) heart for kick starting this and continuing to support and motivate me.

Bridge over troubled water

I have just finished watching the Swedish/Danish TV series "The Bridge" and it has been one of the best programmes that I have watched for a while.

A detective thriller, it has a plot that kept you guessing until the last couple of episodes (there were ten in all) and then it played out as race against time.

Set in Sweden and Denmark, it featured the Øresund Bridge, which effectively links Malmo and Copenhagen, on which a body is found and as the investigation proceeds, this links the Swedish and Danish police forces to the crime. 


The two lead detectives are Saga Noren, an attractive, blond Swedish female officer and Martin Rohde, her Danish counterpart, who looks like the British MP, George Galloway!


Initially they find it hard to work together (Saga files a formal complaint about Martin after they first meet!) but as you would expect as the series develops so does their working relationship. The fact that Saga is virtually incapable of small talk leads to some wonderful scenes as they drive around both cities. Martin has a complicated personal life and this is initially shown as he tries to work having just had a vasectomy and then discovers that his wife is pregnant (again).


It's hard to describe the plot without giving too much away, but it revolves around a killer who is setting a series of traps/puzzles to make a number of socio-political points about varies injustices and spins on from there. 


The programme looks fantastic with the director of photography using lots of washed out colours and effects and both cities look wonderful, particularly at night. There is also a modern soundtrack which adds just the right amount of tension when required. 


As it's in Swedish/Danish, you have to turn off computers and phones and concentrate on the sub-titles. That also helps with the complex plot, so you don't miss things either. 


It's still on the iPlayer and although at ten, one hour episodes, it's a sizable commitment, but it's worth every minute. 

Fantastic Place

I've supported Southampton Football Club, the Saints, for most of my life and attended my first game on my 8th birthday (0-0 at home to West Ham).

For the majority of that time, they have been in the top division of English football. In the mid-seventies they did drop down a division, but during that time they won the F A Cup.

In 2005, when the man predicted to be the next England manager, Harry Redknapp, was our manager we were relegated from the Premiership and that started the worst period I've known as a Saints fan.

Redknapp stayed on as manager for our first season in the Championship, but in December that year resigned and returned to Portsmouth as manager. Saints appointed George Burley as his replacement and mid table respectability followed. The next season was seen as a good opportunity to go back up and although automatic promotion was beyond us we did make the play offs. This hope ended however on a rain soaked evening at Derby, when a penalty shoot out went about as badly as one can go.

Expectation was again high the next season, but any momentum was lost when George Burley left in January, to become Scotland manager. Eventually Nigel Pearson was appointed as his replacement, but by then the Saints had slipped down the table and it was only a last day home victory that avoided the drop to League 1, which rather confusingly is the third tier of English football.

Despite Pearson doing quite well in avoiding relegation, he was sacked in the summer and Jan Poortvliet, who had played in the Dutch team of "total football" fame, was appointed. Guess what, again expectations were high, and indeed in one League cup game I remember them playing some of the best passing football we had seen for a while. That was very much the exception and Poortvliet resigned in January of the season with Saints at the bottom of the league. There were also increasingly worrying stories of financial problems despite the best players having been sold in the previous two years. Mark Wotte, who had been assistant manager, took over but he was unable to save the team and they were relegated to League 1. Worse still the club's parent company went into administration and this resulted in a 10 point penalty being applied to the start of the next season.

During the summer months of 2009 the financial position was so bad that the club being liquidated was a possibility. Eventually a German industrialist, Marcus Liebherr, bought the club and appointed Alan Pardew as manager. Despite a 10 point penalty, the team started to climb up the table and for the first time also took part in the Football league trophy, known as the SJP Trophy. The league eventually proved too tough  mainly through the 10 point penalty and the team finished frustratingly short of the play off places. The SJP trophy though had a better outcome with the Saints winning the competition in a Wembley final; against Carlisle Utd (4-1).

The next season, promotion back to the Championship, was Pardew's only task. Sadly in August that year Marcus Liebherr died with his vision still a work in progress. When at the end of August, despite beating Bristol Rovers 4-0 away from home Saints were at the bottom of the table, the club still reeling from Liebherr's death acted and Pardew left.

His replacement was Scunthorpe manager, Nigel Adkins, who had successfully taken his old club out of League 1. His style was different and attention to fitness and focus on your tasks in the team become well known phrases in post match interviews. The team climbed the table and in May 2011 beat Walsall at St Mary's to return to the Championship as runners up.

This season started with mixed feelings, how would we do? Back in a league we had struggled in and with  ambitions to get beyond this league back to the Premier league. The season started at home to Leeds who would give a good test as they were a team expected to be one of the teams who would be part of the promotion race. Well Saints won 3-1 and they went on to win the next three games too which put them top of the table.

It's well known that football is a game of confidence and as that grew, results continued to go well and through the autumn Saints remained in the top two. A good November underpinned that position but then in December a bad patch arrived with only one win, yet the lead built up and other teams also faltering meant the top two position remained secure. January was slightly better but then all the hard work kicked in and a 13 game unbeaten run started. This saw the team to Easter and the business end of the season. The top of the table was Saints, West Ham and and a rapidly advancing Reading.  West Ham were drawing a lot of games, Reading were winning and Saints had to play Portsmouth. A last minute goal from Pompey drew the game, but an Easter Monday away win at Crystal Palace, kept Saints top.

Then came the big game, home top Reading, effectively the winners would all but be promoted. We lost & for the first time all season doubt started to creep in. Two away games to go and the first at Peterborough saw Saints win and West Ham only draw, we were 5 points clear with 6 points to play for. A win at Middlesborough and we were back in the Premier league. We lost.

Still another chance, if West ham lost at Leicester City we were up. West Ham won.

So to today, we needed to win at home to Coventry City. Coventry are already relegated and have the worst away record in the league (we have the best home record too). Surely we wouldn't throw away the best chance we've ever had of going back to the promised land.

Well we started nervously, but 2 goals in a minute calmed the nerves and two more in the second half mean that Saints won 4-0 and are a Premier league football team again!

COYR.

Tribute

I have never really understood the demand for "Tribute" acts, which seem to fill the schedules of most small to medium sized music venues of late.

I go to the Brook in Southampton occasionally and a quick glance at what they are hosting for the next few months, shows a good percentage of the acts are tributes to former favourites who are either no longer with us or too old/scared to play live.

I have seen a couple. Gaga, a Queen tribute band who sound just like their heroes used to and look a bit like them. Freddie and Brian are represented by one overly talented guy who you can’t help thinking should maybe be trying to emulate Matt Bellamy, with original material in his own name.

I’ve also seen U2UK who do sound and look like the originals, but although enjoyable enough only really made me want to see the real U2!

Last week however I went to see the Australian Pink Floyd and they changed everything! They made me realise that for some bands/genres the live experience is just that and who actually is delivering that experience is less important.

APF reproduced Floyd at their finest, with the full on stage show, including the huge circular screen at the centre of the stage with lights all around it. They had lasers, inflatable pigs, inflatable school masters and best of all, a twelve foot tall, bouncing, inflatable bright pink kangaroo!!!! The musicianship was of the highest standard and they nailed song after song, to the point that the real band being on stage, in aural terms, would have been only slightly better. Clearly they didn’t write a note of the music and the original stage show was designed by others too, but they therefore also don’t have the record royalties to fund such a special evening.

I have therefore changed my view on some Tribute acts. These days most classical concerts are in some way a tribute act evening. Beethoven is long gone so the chances of his conducting his own 5th Symphoney is unlikely. So when the BBC concert orchestra perform it live, it is no more than a tribute act, albeit on a bigger scale.

APF are no different, they reproduce "classic" rock music in a way that reflects exactly how the writers would do so and that, to me, makes this type of Tribute act completely justified.

Easy

I have been searching for an app to use to blog from my phone and it looks with iA I may have found it. At last!

Very simple to use and files can be easily saved on iCloud.

Let's get typing!

Wrecking ball

One of the things that I'm trying to do is listen to albums that I buy. That may sound a bit daft, but my iTunes library is littered with albums that I've bought, because it's so easy to do it in the digital age. Then I have maybe, only listened to it  once, or worse still I forget that I bought it and find it days, weeks or months later and then I can't be bothered to make the effort!

This week I bought the latest Bruce Springsteen album, Wrecking Ball, and it has been on heavy rotation* ever since.

Here's what I think. Every so often, Springsteen nails the current mood in the USA (as it appears to me in England!), he did it with "Born in the USA", then again with "The Rising" (post 9/11), then the Seeger sessions tapped into the rich vein of American roots music and now "Wrecking Ball" is his view on a post Occupy world.

It starts with "We take care of our own", an anthemic rocker which puts all the markers down. Bruce is angry and has a message for you and it will not be subtle. Great stuff.

The album also returns to the music of the Seeger Sessions with plenty of accordion, fiddle and bits of brass.

Subjects covered include, being shackled to our lives which are going nowhere, (Shackled and Drawn), how as the man of the house the writer will do anything to make ends meet (Jack of all trades), that our towns have been stripped bare (Death to my Hometown) and how in this depression, love is what will get you through (This depression).

Half way through Bruce drops in "Wrecking ball" his tribute to the demolition of Giants stadium, which works on a number of levels in the current climate. There's a great video of him playing it in Giants stadium which you can watch here.

The second half starts the climb back out of the abyss. "Rocky ground" is about as urban as Bruce gets, with a brief RAP,. It's about faith and doubt and is full of religious symbolism. This is followed by an old song "Land of hopes and dreams" which was written 10 years or so ago and was part of his live show at that time. It fits perfectly and features probably the last recorded sax solo by Clarence Clemons, Bruce's  "big man" who died last year and who gets a great side of liner notes on the album.

"We are alive" has a cowboy feel to the music and deals with the fact that after we die, we are alive! (I think). And that's it!

Although it's not as the extended version has two more songs, the first of which Swallowed UP (in the belly of the Whale), takes its theme from the Biblical story of Jonah. But when Bruce sings the refrain "we've been swallowed up" it suddenly works on a number of levels. Is he referring to America's world position, the plight of the man of the street, Christianity in a secular world or the music industry in the digital age? Who knows but it's very haunting.

Finally another older song, American Land, which in case we wondered is why we he loves America. This was written around the times of the Seeger Sessions and again featured in his lives shows so it's well worn already. A hooting, singing, twirling finale, which you see being sung in bars on Independence Day.

Overall a real return to form and I wish I could get to see him this summer but it's unlikely, he's only playing four dates here!

* refers to a time when we used play records on a record player!

Back together again

There's a fairly strong argument that Twitter and Facebook are slowly killing blogging. Certainly since I got the "Twitter bug" in particular, this blog has seemed just too much like hard work.

I know that my feeds in Google Reader have a number of blogs that are no longer updated yet I follow/am friends with the writers on Twitter/Facebook and they are active on both, so clearly I'm not alone. I also know of some people who have had to drop both Twitter & Facebook so that they can continue/return to their blog.

In my case I have had ideas for blogs, it's just that the moment passes and it's then easier to make a 140 character pithy remark on Twitter instead! (Well that's the theory any way!)

So what have I "nearly blogged" about?

1. I watched the film comedy "Paul" starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. Good film, but why, I wondered, did a film so "down" on Christianity end with sacrificial death and then a resurrection? 
2. Why is it that bands I grew up with, and whose music I still adore and listen to regularly, have to make complete idiots of themselves and their fans by touring with lead singers from tribute bands or American Idol. Yes & Queen step forward. The former has now got to farcical levels, with a second such singer now joining them, when the original singer, Jon Anderson, is now fit and well enough to be in the band. The latter just isn't Queen. A good rock band yes, as was Taylor May and Rodgers*, but NOT Queen! Freddie's dead and John Deacon has retired (or knows Freddie's dead and wants no part of kicking his legacy to death) so IT WILL NEVER BE QUEEN.
3. Football and more importantly that Saints are currently top of the Championship and have been for most of the season. The last three seasons  have in fact been a great time to be a Saints fan, with a promotion, winning a trophy at Wembley and now the realistic chance of a return to the Premier League. 
4. Football teams not paying taxes. I'm trying to be impartial here and ignore the fact that it's Pompey, but surely some kind of root and branch investigation needs to be undertaken to see how, so quickly after HMRC were denied a large chunk of tax in the first Administration, that a second chunk is now owing and likely to remain unpaid. 

So there we go, some of my nearly blogs and now let's see how long it is before my next entry!

*That's what they're called in my iTunes library as opposed to Queen+ Paul Rodgers.