The Politics of Contraband

Glenn Frey - Smuggler's Blues from Ian Gray on Vimeo.

And Glenn Frey died too. He was in The Eagles. I never liked The Eagles much. I remember hearing 'Lying Eyes' by them on a radio programme on which the listeners had voted for their favourite song ever. It was not just shite, it was whiney shite too. I don't know if Glenn Frey wrote or sang it (I am somewhat unclear as to who did what in The Eagles and I am too busy to go to the Internet to find out) but he must have had some involvement.

The one thing I do like by The Eagles is 'Hotel California' (the song, not the album). If everything by The Eagles was like that, I would love The Eagles. But it isn't. And I do not know what exact involvement Mr Frey had with this song either.

Glenn Frey went solo and had songs that appeared on the soundtrack of Miami Vice. There was a song called 'Smuggler's Blues', which was at least pretty good. I also recall an album track that I heard once or twice on the radio called 'The All-Nighter'. It was about how he is known as the All-Nighter, because he can keep at it throughout the night, not that he likes to brag or anything. I think it was more comical than anything else. Rubbish Eagles tunes were always associated with cocaine, but this may have been the most cocainey track with which Mr Frey was associated, as approaching random strangers to tell them about your sexual prowess strikes me as the kind of thing that users of that devil drøg would be inclined to do.

I know other people died too. I should mention Carey Lander, keyboardist with popular band Camera Obscura; I did not know her personally but many people I know did and they loved her very much. I must also mention Robin ap Cynan, known to many as a lawyer who worked in family arbitration stuff. I know him as a contributor to Frank's APA known for his erudite knowledge of classical music. He was either rude or funny (or rude and funny) depending on the observer. I am sorry I never met him.

More people have died since I wrote the above. They will be mentioned in due course. In the meantime you can check out things I wrote about other people who have died here.


image source (Robin Mostyn ap Cynan)

Lemmy: Killed by Death

Lemmy's death over the Christmas period was not particularly surprising as he had been in bad health for some time. I had read many accounts over the last few years of embarrassing concerts where he was plainly too sick to perform properly. It struck me as a bit sad because I feared he was trying to perform out of financial necessity rather than true rock and roll abandon, though of course I had no way of knowing this.

And yet, despite his obvious deterioration there was still this sense that he would be around forever, until he wasn't. Then I regretted the various times that Motörhead had played Dublin without my going to see them. I did however have the pleasure of seeing Lemmy performing live once back in the late 1980s when he came onstage for an encore with Hawkwind in the Brixton Academy. He was very tall (or everyone in Hawkwind was very short; from where I was sitting they came to the same thing).

I was never a massive Motörhead fan. I had/have a compilation of some of their big songs (featuring a novelty dance remix of 'Ace of Spades' that apparently featured in an ad for pot noodles). There are plenty of good tunes on it, notably 'Bomber', 'Killed by Death', and especially 'We Are The Road Crew', though the standout track remains 'Ace of Spades', a tune people like me remember for the time Motörhead appeared playing it on The Young Ones, Lemmy characteristically playing with a speaker situated somewhere above his face.

For someone who appears to have never stopped living a rock 'n' roll lifestyle Lemmy made it to a good age. He was no indestructible Keith Richards but he had a reasonably good innings, all things considered.

My favourite Lemmy anecdote is the one about how when Motörhead were touring Bomber they had a lighting rig done up to look like a Lancaster bomber. While playing in Berlin he reputedly looked up at the rig and said to the audience "Been a while since you saw one of them?"

For more death action, check out my recollections of the life and works of Mr David Bowie.

image source (NME)

David Bowie and me

Five Years
When I was small I went around to a friend's house. He put on one of his big brother's records. It began with a strange song about people hearing that the world only has five years left. I thought about how sad I would be if there was only five year left to the world.

Ashes to Ashes
'Ashes to Ashes' was number one in the charts. The video was on continuous rotation, or so it appeared. This was in the early days of music videos, when they seemed to have almost no money spent on them but often communicated a sense of wild artistic abandon. So it was with this one, which perhaps had more spend on it than others. Strange figures walked along in front of a bulldozer, a black sky hung above them, a man in a Pierrot outfit unnerved me. And there was a scene where the lyrics mentioned how the singer's mother told him not to mess with Major Tom, the video showing an older woman talking to the Pierrot. I remember feeling sorry for the old woman in the video as she looked very nice but was having to consort with this clearly depraved character.

Let's Dance
This song and the accompanying album came into the world. The album is a monster success, vastly outselling his previous records. Yet perhaps the cracks are beginning to show or the sharks are beginning to circle. A thing I heard said a lot at the time was that as good as the record may be, Bowie is no longer sounding like an innovator: on this record he is just following the musical ways of others. So it was said by some, but listening back now the song sounds strange and jarring, clearly the product of a unique talent.

Space Oddity
When I was in secondary school whenever there was an occasion where people were playing guitars and singing songs someone would always sing this one. The androgynous guy in my class who was most inclined to sing it acquired the nickname "Ziggy". I knew the words of the song by heart long before I heard it on record.

God Knows I'm Good
The local library had a copy of Space Oddity on cassette. I borrowed it and listened to it a lot. Aside from the title track there was a memorable song about a free festival and a song with the desperate chorus "God knows I'm good / God knows I'm good / surely God won't look the other way".

Never Let Me Down
Another friend at school decided to get really into David Bowie. Like so into him he bought records and stuff like that. This was when Never Let Me Down was the latest record. My friend bought it and listened to it a lot and then started telling me how great it was. "But it's got very bad reviews", I said, as though that meant anything. "The critics have always been against Bowie", my friend replied.

Glass Spiders
I think above-mentioned friend may have gone to Slane to see Bowie on the Glass Spiders tour. Somehow I came across a piece in Hot Press, not a magazine I have ever been accustomed to read. The writer started with the pretty uncontroversial opinion that Bowie's current recorded output is not up to much. But then he went on to assert that actually he had never been much cop. The one interesting assertion, one that had a degree of purchase at that time, was the claim that Bowie's crown as the inventive chameleon of popular music had by that point been well and truly taken over by Prince.

Absolute Beginners
There was a film called Absolute Beginners. It was heavily hyped before it came out but it seemed like at the last minute everyone realised that it was a load of rubbish and it tanked without trace (though I have not seen it myself and so cannot confirm or deny any comments about its cinematic quality). David Bowie appeared in the film, as an advertising executive or something like that. He also wrote and sang the film's theme song, a haunting and evocative tune that in retrospect was the last great Bowie single. The video does a great job of making the film look like it would be worth seeing.

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
It is communicated to me that this is the great David Bowie album. I listen to it and cannot but agree.

Hunky Dory
I hear this on any number of occasions but never warm to it.

Tin Machine
I remember seeing a poster for this band made up of these guys in sharp black suits, Reservoir Dogs avant le môt. I thought they looked well cool and thought about investigating their music. Only after some time did I register that one of the band was David Bowie. Then I heard that everyone thought the Tin Machine album was rubbish so I did not bother with it. But I still wonder.

Low
Someone once bought me a book called Letters to a Young Contrarian, from which I inferred that some think I adopt opinions just to be different from other people. I did buy a copy of Low determined to like the largely tune-free material that made up the second side when this was a vinyl album. Sure enough I do just that.

Outside
Or maybe it is 1. Outside. This is one of Bowie's 1990s records, in which he is reunited with his old pal Brian Eno. I acquire a copy and have listened to it on and off ever since. It might be one of those records that is at least quite good but entirely lacking in standout good tunes. Having listened to it all again in the last few days I still would struggle to remember any of it, bar the track that is excerpted on the Lost Highway soundtrack. But it has an appealingly claustrophobic atmosphere.

I saw him
At some point in the mid-1990s I see David Bowie play live. He was touring with Morrissey, but while initially the tour was billed as a double-header by the time I saw it Morrissey was very much the support act, which was a shame as he was in the midst of his own second wind. I found the Bowie set a bit dispiriting. He had a great band and was clearly an accomplished stage presence but it was all a bit slick, and not in an ironic way. It was also clear from the stage show and the crowd's reactions that he had become a heritage act. Very few people present had any interest in his current material; they all wanted to hear music from 15 to 25 years previously. It seemed like a sad end to a figure who once was possessed of boundless creativity. In retrospect I might be more forgiving; no one has the muse forever and there may not be anything wrong with giving the paying customers what they want.

David Bowie invents Jungle
There was a record on which Bowie dabbles in drum and bass. Somehow in discourse it gets talked about as the record on which Bowie risibly claims to have invented Jungle, despite him having made no such claim. Bowie going jungle seems like a really bad idea, particularly as this was the time when every dickwad was making a coffee table drum and bass record. I'm not sure I ever heard Bowie's efforts in this regard.

Glastonbury
I went to the Glastonbury festival in a year David Bowie was headlining. When I came back someone from work asked me what his set was like and then looked at me like I was insane when I said I hadn't seen it. I try to avoid the Glastonbury main stages.

Oi think Oi moight be of some assistance here
David Bowie appears as himself in Zoolander reminding everyone that he has a strange accent. He is funny.

The Next Day
Bowie abruptly released this album a few years ago after ten years of inactivity. He does not tour the album or appear in the media to promote it. Many said that this and the lyrical themes of the album indicate that he is dying and that this record is his last testament.

Blackstar
But then he releases this album. "All that stuff about him being terminally ill must just be some kind of stupid rumour," I think. "He'll be around for ages." And then he died.

I was surprised how affected I was by Bowie's death.I never thought of myself as much more than a casual fan of his work but it is clear now how much of a one-off he was. We will not see his like again. The only still active figures remotely comparable to him are Kate Bush and Prince.

An edited version of this piece appeared subsequently in Frank's APA.

Bob Gilmore

I was saddened to hear of the recent death of the musician and musicologist Bob Gilmore. I first became aware of Mr Gilmore in the pages of the Journal of Music (when it still had pages). His columns there could be combative but were always intriguing. I saw him live during the course of the Ergodos: Off Grid festival in 2009. At that he played with his Trio Scordatura, fascinating me with his introduction to the pieces played and coming across in person as considerably more soft-edged than in print. He also co-programmed one of the pieces at the festival, a performance of James Tenney's In a large, open space. I bought the Trio Scordatura's album Dubh shortly after that festival, an album combining strange tunings, electronics and non-standard classical vocals to create a very atmospheric sound. I have regrettably somewhat lost touch with that kind of music since then, but it was still a blow to read of Mr Gilmore's death. I am sure the people who knew him personally will miss him greatly, as will the rest of us who know him through his work.

See also:

Bob Gilmore in the Journal of Music

Bob Gilmore's own website

Trio Scordatura discography

Dreams In The Witch House

I went on holidays to Lanzarote in January. Flying home, I found myself listening to the strange electronic music of Broadcast, a wonderful accompaniment to my sleepy flight. The next day I learned that Trish Keenan of Broadcast had died following swine flu complications. People die all the time, particularly people involved in the world of music, but her death affected me a bit more than most. She is roughly the same age as me and was struck down not by some crazy rock star ailment but by a very everyday disease that could strike anyone at any time and usually just makes them a bit poorly for a couple of days. If the dice roll badly for her, they could for me too.

Keenan's death came at a time when my interest in the music of Broadcast was on the up. I had gone off them a bit around the time of Haha Sound (I had found that album a bit tuneless, though now I think perhaps it was just a transition from the faux-60s sound of their earlier recordings). I found reading about the recent album they had done with the Focus Group fascinating. It seemed like Broadcast were moving decisively in an almost occult direction, trying to become modern hierophants fashioning a spectral music evoking imaginary cults of cyber magi. The pictures of Broadcast that appeared in The Wire at this time were rather striking, with Keenan having put her youthful looks behind her in favour of an aspect more akin to that of a high priestess of secret wisdom.

And now she is no more. I am very sorry now that I did not get to any of the festivals Broadcast played last year and I think with sympathy of James Cargill, her musical and life partner. Listening to the album Broadcast made with the Focus Group, I am struck by how spectral the record sounds. Now with Keenan actually dead, yet still able to sing to us from when she was alive, it is like she has herself become a ghost of the electronic age.

This is of course my second piece on Trish Keenan. You can read its rather similar predecessor here.

image source

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Bobby Farrell, Captain Beefheart

People from the world of music keep dying. I will now talk about two of them. Captain Beefheart gave up making music in the early 1980s but he was a key figure to those of us aware of his existence. Even if I was never an obsessive fan, I was very fond of his work and I would have to hail him as my first introduction to the world of weirdo music. He will always have a special place in my heart. If you have never heard of the good captain then check out this recording of him playing 'Electricity' with the Magic Band on beach in Los Angeles.


Unlike Beefheart, Bobby Farrell of Boney M had continued to perform right up until the night of his death. Boney M were almost ubiquitous at a key point in my youth. While Farrell did not sing on their records (something that even little Ian suspected), he did sing live and was very much the star of the
show when the band made TV appearances. Boney M were one of the great pop groups of my childhood and so Farrell's death probably means more to me that of Beefheart, but they will both be missed.

Boney M had been one of the first western bands to play in the USSR, which may have been linked to their having had a monster hit single with the song 'Rasputin'. By an odd twist of fate, Bobby Farrell died in St. Petersburg, on the very same date that the original Rasputin met his end in that city. My understanding is that Farrell died of natural causes after playing a concert, and was not poisoned and shot by Russian noblemen before being dumped in a river.



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