Saturday, October 11, 2008



Just listened to this to rinse the (increasingly dull) Hooverphonic stuff out of my ears.

'Slightly All The Time' is a key track.

Pretty ghastly group photo, not very good sound quality - but who cares? The music is wonderful.

3 comments:

walrus said...

Yes, I can't say Hooverthingy really did it for me from what I cd listen to on their website.

May I stick my neck out again & suggest you take out (gulp) Bob Dylan's last CD, Modern Times, & listen to 2 tracks: 'Nettie Moore' & 'The Levee's Gonna Break'. Once you get past the fact his voice sounds like he's been gargling ground glass (a result of the extensive & exhausting Alimony Tour in the 80s, apparently) it shows the old dog is still capable of producing the most wonderful music, IMHO.

I'm still on quite an extensive Dylan trip -- though I've assiduously avoided anything from the 80s & 90s. If you're at all interested, I've spent many happy hours with the interactive timeline on the BBC website:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/
bobdylan/

Now why don't they do something similar for Zappa, I hear you ask...

All the best,
Walrus

belgianwaffle said...

Will check into this. I am - despite appearances - extremely respectful of Dylan. And yes, I have 'Modern Times' on the iPod ready for the right moment. So maybe it'll be this week? (Blood on the Tracks is good - no?).

Hooverphonic really don't cut the mustard. Massive Attack did it better - & came from Bristol!

Sadly, I think Zappa is largely forgotten - at least by the MeeJuh. Far too politically unpalatable & also no one really benefits from reissues (other than the Zappas). I didn't catch BBC4's programme on guitar heros but I'd be very surprised if FZ figured. TV wants strut - and Zappa did SNEER.

What about Ballard? Is he on your radar? I'm finding The Atrocity Exhib. fascinating.

walrus said...

Pt 1 of The Story of The Guitar (BBC1, 10.20pm) starts today -- 3-parter by Alan Yentob -- promises Hendrix & Fender Stratocasters, but Zappa -- I wonder? Should do, of course, but you may be right...

Ballard should be on my radar, yes, but I found Atrocity Exhibition less exciting than I'd expected. I found Burroughs's The Soft Machine and Nova Express in a 2nd hand bookshop recently & they give off more of an electric shock, as it were, though it's interesting to read them in the trilogy with Naked Lunch, which you suddenly realise doesn't use cut-ups at all (I think). There was a real change with Gysin's discovery & The Soft Machine (I've never listened to Soft Machine the band though). I shall look again at my copy of The Atrocity Exhibition & see if I'm ripe for it yet . . .

Btw, I'm glad Le Clezio won the Nobel -- He was one of Deleuze's favourite novelists. However, not one of his 30 books is currently in print in English translation. Yet I've noticed the Books pages of newspapers are increasingly devoting whole pages or more to children's literature. A strangely infantalised literary 'culture' we have...

W.

April Fool?