I hate my life and I want you back:
Opeth at Glasgow Barrowland - at my age I never expect to be as thrilled by a live event as I did in my youth, but Opeth surprised me. What a band: tight, dynamic and beyond exciting. They made this old man very happy for more than two hours;
Opeth ‘Garden Of The Titans’ - more live Opeth to keep my spirits up;
Opeth ‘Damnation’ - their quiet album, if only by comparison with its HEAVEE sister album ‘Deliverance’;
The Damned 'Music For Pleasure' - for my money THE peak of Brian James' artistry, even more the first Damned LP. RIP Brian;
Julian Cope ‘20 Mothers’ - it’s been too long since I last wallowed in this wonderful record which, on another planet (baby) would have achieved world domination. It sounds as fresh as a daisy three decades (!) on;
Julian Cope ‘Citizen Cain’d’ - oh the joy of obtaining this at last. Cor, don’t it rock? I haven’t had time to spin either of its new offshoots but intend to immerse myself in the album proper first;
Mogwai ‘The Hawk Is Howling’ - their first entirely instrumental album, and still one of my faves. No one else sounds so sinister yet beautiful at the same time;
Marshall Tucker Band ‘Searchin’ For A Rainbow’ - time-locked in the 70s (like me), this never fashionable band made solid, good time music that still makes me smile. And when you’re as miserable as me, that’s some achievement. Yee - and, indeed, ha;
Aerosmith ‘Get Your Wings’ - Aerosmith are a band I can dig only up to a point, that point being about 1976. Everything they did up to that point is better than okay by me, especially their first three LPs. This was the second one, riffy and funky;
King Crimson ‘Larks Tongues In Aspic’, ‘Starless and Bible Black’ and ‘Red’ - if ever a more inventive and rewarding trio of consecutive albums existed, I’d love to hear them;
Elvis Presley ‘Aloha From Hawaii By Satellite’ - I watched this on Sky Arts the other night, having not seen it in decades. Ooh ooh ooh, I felt my temperature rising. There’s something about Elvis in the Seventies that’s rarely acknowledged: the richness of his voice. OK, he mightn’t have been rock and roll anymore but my, what tone and interpretative art was growing with his girth. Time to dig out all those bootlegs I spent too much money on back in the day;
Joe Zawinul ‘Zawinul’ - fans of early Weather Report (e.g. me) are bound to like this. Well of course they are. Whatever, the joy for me is a ton of soprano saxophone, an instrument which sounds simultaneously sad and consolatory;
Herbie Hancock ‘Thrust’ - I love all of Herbie’s fusion records of the Seventies. This 1973 effort is every bit as funky and fun as his more famous ‘Headhunters’ album: in fact, I prefer it;
Sonny Rollins ‘The Bridge’ - straight down the middle jazz classic from the living tenor sax legend that is Sonny Rollins;
Horace Silver ‘Song For My Father’ - hard bop excellence is all;
Bill Evans ‘The Bill Evans Album’ - Evans, one of Miles Davis’ choice for his epochal ‘Kind Of Blue’ sessions, was a true innovator on both acoustic and electric pianos. This is but one of many ace records he made with his great rhythm section of Eddie Gomez and Marty Morell;
Bliss: Violin Sonata (Tasmin Little & Piers Lane) - unjustly neglected short one movement work by one of our finest composers, beautifully rendered here;
Glinka: Ruslqn & Lyudmila Overture/Mahler: Symphony no.9 (LSO/Sir Georg Solti) - Solti never got much due as an orchestral conductor on these shores, yet much of his recorded legacy, particularly with the LSO in the Sixties, shows how wrong that was. I played these CDs on Friday night and was wowed. His Mahler 9 mightn’t be the most spiritual out there but my, it has impact;
Dvořák: Symphony no.7 (Cleveland Orch/Christoph von Dohnányi) - the more I hear of Dohnányi’s recorded repertoire, particularly his Cleveland legacy, the greater I think he is. I know few finer takes on Dvořák’s Seventh than this. And what a stunning symphony this is.
I can’t get over you, though I try try try try.
Dave x x x
