Today, Syd Barrett would have turned 80. Being a musician in the late 1960's and early 1970's was a dangerous business. Drug use not only led to unexpected musical highs, but also to real health crashes. In some cases, however, death was not necessarily the worse fate, as the case of Syd Barrett shows. Too much LSD drove him mad and transported him to another world, from which he never returned until his death. Today he would have turned 80, providing an opportunity to look back on his musical legacy.
Barrett was the leading figure of Pink Floyd in their very early years and responsible for their psychedelic sound. I am not a great fan of the band and never really got into his solo albums but their debut is still remarkable because Barrett found a way to play a psychedelic guitar like no one before.
This week's compilation consists mainly of releases from 1982. I can't say why, but perhaps it's simply because only good songs were released that week.
It's seldom that I feature the same artist within a few weeks but I can't resist doing this with the last release by 100 Poems, the project of Dublin's DJ and producer Mike Wilson. Ten weeks ago he surprised me with his first release Everything's Balearic When You Believe and now he's back with another album full of spaced out Balearic sounds. His trademark is the combination of typical Balearic beats and Westcoast sound guitars. Sometimes I think the guitars are played by Pink Floyd's David Gilmour but this doesn't disturb and fits perfect to the rest of the music
In 2010 The Orb released Metallic Spheres, a collaboration with Pink Floyd's guitarist David Gilmour born during a charity session. There is only one song on each side and a superb fusion of ambient and old style psychedelic guitar. It was an album that is played in many chilled out bars when I was in Asia these days. Last year a remix of this album was released and shows the beauty of this collaboration once again. For me a perfect start into the week.
The Orb again. There are less artist releasing so many albums during their 35 years lasting career. Last week their latest album Prism was released. Looking at the cover my first thought was that they move towards Pink Floyd because it reminded me much at Dark Side Of The Moon with it's switched light beams. But listening to the album it has nothing to do with the psychedelic pioneers of the late 60's. Prism is another album that sprawling, genre-bending work that shows their creativity in electronic works. It is an album you should listen to and not just hearing to enjoy all facets of their music. They travel from dark ambient sound over reggae to dub and drum and bass. An album that surly will played more than once at my place.
Sweden seems to develop to the epicenter of new psychedelic music and it seems like the numbers of new bands is almost endless. One the new ones are Stockholm' CB3 (Charlottas Burning Trio). A three piece instrumental band sounding like a bastard of early Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix with small pieces of jazz inside. A festival of fuzz and riffs that don't need any vocals. Another trip from Sweden to space and back.
This series wouldn't be complete without some real psychedelic sound by Pink Floyd. I was never a huge fan of them but their first records were ace. When I listened the first time to them I was unable to understand their playings. Years later and with more informations about psychedelic sound i came back to those records. Interstellar Overdrive from their first record Piper at the Gates of Dawn is an essential piece of this genre. Never before and seldom after there was this kind of music. A perfect ride into space with a guitars, organs and drums. It is still impossible for me to understand what kind of drugs Syd Barret used to create this sound. I don't know where this footage was made but for the best version I could find in the web,
A few days ago I poked in bandcamps releases of the last weeks and I found a band I never heard before. Their music made me investigate for more. Olden Yolk is a project by Shane Butler and Caity Shaffer and they released their first album a few weeks ago. It would be another good folk album with tight vocal harmonies over motorik rhythms and spry hooks if they didn't absorbed their parents music. They add to their songs the best of the late 60's psychedelic bands. You can hear a fuzzy guitar on one song and Jefferson Airplane-like guitar-passages that takes you back to these days. It is a long time ago that a band reminds me to artists like John Martyn and the early Pink Floyd on one record. Absolute amazing.
In the early days when I begun to run this blog I started a series about songs they were fantastic and mean a lot to me. I don't know why I stopped it but I think it's worth to continue this series during the next months. There will be no default concerning temporal classification or music style in this series. Load to you surprise what will soon appear.
Back in 1979 is was for a lot of month in the army. I remember very well what's new at this year. Dire Straits released their first record and Pink Floyd released their double record The Wall. But I fell in love with Ska and Two Tone when I saw the first time The Specials on German TV. A bunch of black and white boys dressed up like 60s mods made a performance with some reggae influenced music. I didn't knew much about this music than it's origin was in Jamaica. And A Message to you, Rudy was my song of the summer and I will always love it. But if anyone would ask me for my favorite Specials song I would say: Listen to the song below.
To understand this song you've got to go back in history:
On the 4th of May, 1979 a woman assumes with Margaret Thatcher for the first time in the history of Great Britain the office of the prime minister. She stands for a hard conservative course friendly to economy: She wants no social state, hates the trade unions and attacks migrants. Before the parliamentary elections she stated: »It is no question from the left or on the right, but an objective statement that we too a few do not separate rather too many foreigners have.«
Hardly in the government the »iron lady prescribes« for the social system a rigid shortening programme and makes worse the stay rights for migrants. In the course of her reign she privatises virtually all state enterprises – from the dockyards and ironworks about the coal pits and airports up to the local drinking water care and the public local traffic. After not even two years in the office the Thatcher's government is one of the unmost popular in the British history. No wonder: In Thatcher's Great Britain the empires celebrate, the arms become poorer. In 1981 more than twice as many people are without job like with Thatcher's assumption of office: All together there are 2.7 million unemployed people. The economic crisis meets the British cities in the heart. The formerly flourishing commercial towns of London, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester shrink: Empty warehouses, neglected docks, neglected railway area, boarded up stores and unoccupied houses.
The Specials these impressions process in "Ghost Town" musically. The song starts with howling sirens, jangling wind whistle and a dim organ sound: Welcome to the ghost town. The transverse flute breathes the song subject by the boxes. At the latest now everybody thinks of desolate streets, collapsed houses and clattering shutters. However, then charged blowers interrupt crashing the scene as if the Specials wanted to say: »Awake on! Here this is no dream. You are not in any desolate Wild-West-tourist-ghost tows: Here this is the reality.«
The band plays a classical reggae dub: The bright guitar counters the dark bass. The unmistakeable basic rhythm of the reggae originates from the stress of the second and fourth tact part. The percussion, the blowers and the organ come, however, the sound remains minimalist. The Specials work with contrasts. About the "good-mood-riddim" the singers propagate her serious message: »In this country there are no jobs« and »The government leaves the youngsters« in the sting a voice shouts. »The people become furious«, another roars.
My time in the army comes to an end and the daily life will me have back again. I had hard times there but also good days in the army but I am longing for a ordinary life back in business and no one that teaches me what to do or not. Me and my army mates looked forward to end of march to get retired from this job. We had some last good days together and said goodbye to each others knowing that we will see no one again. But life doesn't work this way. We all got back in to our ordinary life again until a letter received from the military authority in August. This letter was sent to all reserve soldiers who got retired the last six month and told us to get our equipment handed out again. The reason therefor was the political development in Poland and the reaction of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. In this time the Polish workers stood up against the communist regime. Main reason was that the government has drastically increased the price of meat products and thus has triggered a wave of strikes, in the Lenin Shipyard under the leadership of Lech Walesa had its origin. What did this mean for me and my comrads? Nothing less than we placed to alert because the Soviet Union and some members of the Warsaw Pact sent their troops to the Polish border to support the Polish as they were also members of the Warsaw Pact.The western nations and the NATO took it as a chance to protect et the flower of democracy with also sending their troops to support the striking shipyard strikers. Now that we were so close to the war I realized that the last 15 month weren't a joke at all and that we had to defend the principles of democracy. I am still glad, that this conflict got to a final conclusion without using any guns and I didn't have to go to war.
So I could spent the rest of the year to plan my future life. The main thing that was in my head was to move out of my parents house as soon as possible. Not that I don't loved my parents but if I want to life a life of my own I should do it with all consequences. But this is a story that should be told next time.
And what do I remember in music this year?
Pink Floyd came back with a song, suitable for masses
The return of Motown into the international charts
Chrissie Hynde & The Pretenders: Listened so often to this song all summer long
Peter Gabriel - Biko: The world recognize what happens in South Africa with the apartheid regime
Martha & the Muffins: New darker sound from over the Atlantic ocean. Cool at this time
American punk music from the Dead Kennedys: Not everybody's taste but a hit in the independent scene this year. A song against young people who think it's cool and hip to life in a slum.
Old song in a new stripped style: Still a great version after all this years
Maybe the best song from his last record
What would be a year in this time without any song from The Clash?
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Another great song from Gladys. It wasn't only new sounds we listened to.
Fusion - the sound for the ones that denied all new sounds. But Chuck Mangione and the rest made great music.
LP's released in 1980 that are still worth to be remembered:
Split Enz - True Colours: First record by the New Zealand New Wave band with the main songwriter Neil Finn. 'I got you' is a great song.
Young Marble Giants - Collosal Youth: A monster of a record. Minimalistic sounds with the beautiful voice of Alison Statton. Still incredible.
Linton Kwesi Johnson - Bass Culture: The London dub poet at his best. Song about peoples life in England spoken in clear words with a superb sound.
Grace Jones - Warm Leatherette: The disco queen turns from disco into reggae-New Wave with a lot of excellent songs on it.
The Soft Boys - Underwater Moonlight: The start of the neo-psychedelia
UB 40 - Signing Off: Smooth reggae for every one.
Motörhead - Ace Of Spades: The breaktrough for Lemmy and hard rock
John Lennon & Yoko Ono - Double Fantasy: Every second song is great. The farewell from John Lennon before he was killed in NYC.
The Cramps - Songs The Lord Taught Us: Debut of the garage-punk band with an epochal LP. They inspired the following psychobilly bands.
The movies we have seen in 1980:
Blues Brothers: Great story with great comedians Aykroyd and Belushi with guest appearance of a lot soul giants.
The Shining: One of Stanley Kubrick's masterpieces. Jack Nicholson shows us how everyone can get insane - unbelievable.
The Elephant Man: David Lynch and his bleak movie based on a true story. That's not the way to treat handicapped people.
Raging Bull: Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro shows us the rise and fall of Jack LaMotta with impressive pictures.
The Fog: One of the best horror movies in this days (not only because there was less blood).
The Long Ryders: A classical western movie at the hight of time with a lot of stars
What happened in the world in 1980:
Robert Mugabe is elected as Prime Minister in Zimbabwe and the torture of his people begins; The Mi Amigo, the ship that housed pirate radio station Radio Carolina, sinks; U.S. President Jimmy Carter announced that the United States will boycott the Olympic Games in Moskow; Archbishop Oscar Romero is killed by gunmen while he celebrated a Mess in San Salvador; Yugoslav President Jozip Broz Tito dies - the country spits and will end in tragedy; Mount St. Helen erupts and in Europe it will rain ashes; former governor and actor Ronald Reagan is nominated for U.S. President; Victory in the strike of Gdansk Shipyard in Poland; Six Provisional Irish Republican Army prisoners in Maze prison refuse food and demand status as political prisoners; the hunger strike lasts from October until December the Gang of four trials begin in China; John Lennon was murdered in New York; Football European Championship was won by Germany 2:1 against Belgium.
Bought this record only because the cover and the line up with a horn section not knowing that this will be a love that didn't end until now. When I put the record on player I heard some snippets of Deep Purple, The Sex Pistols and The Specials that turned after the shouting of Kevin Rowland into an up-tempo soul song with a fantastic horn arrangement. I was speechless because I didn't heard a sound like this before. A brassy sound combined with the aggression and intensity of punk rock. They also had big influence of Northern Soul and all sounded like it was played and designed for the very first time. There are few records that means more to me. Not only the songs and the sound are great - also the lyrics were excellent. With the lyrics Kevin Rowland reached the top with his last year record with the Dexys.
All over the years new bands covered the songs of their heroes to get a tribute to them or just because it were simply great songs. Some bands or artists were covered many times others less. I just know a only few bands who tried to cover a song from Pink Floyd. One of those who did it was Wyclef Jean, a Haitian-American Rapper . He first received fame as a member of the acclaimed New Jersey Hip Hop group the Fugees. In 2010 Jean filed for candidacy in the 2010 Haitian presidential electio, allthough te Electoral Commission subsequently ruled him ineligible to stand as he had not met the requirement to have been resident in Haiti for five years. I like this version, it's slow groove and the words Jean added to it.
