The Peace of the Lord be...

Well, I, for one, can't wait to see this movie based on Don Miller's cracking book 'Blue Like Jazz'. Instead of a 'coming of age' storyline it's a bit more of a re-discovery with some seriously perceptive observations of the church.

Love it!

P

Out of the mouths of babes...

Adele's wonderful cover of Bob Dylan's 'Make You Feel My Love' plays over the closing credits for BBC's documentary masterpiece, 'Poor Kids' broadcast last Tuesday. Filmed and directed brilliantly by Jezza Neumann, here's the official blurb:

Documentary telling the stories of some of the 3.5 million children living in poverty in the UK. It is one of the worst child poverty rates in the industrialised world, and successive governments continue to struggle to bring it into line. So who are these children, and where are they living? Under-represented, under-nourished and often under the radar, 3.5 million children should be given a voice. And this powerful film does just that.

Eight-year-old Courtney, 10-year-old Paige and 11-year-old Sam live in different parts of the UK. Breathtakingly honest and eloquent, they give testament to how having no money affects their lives: lack of food, being bullied and having nowhere to play. The children might be indignant about their situation now, but this may not be enough to help them. Their thoughts on their futures are sobering.

Sam's 16-year-old sister Kayleigh puts it all into context, as she tells how the effects of poverty led her to take extreme measures to try and escape it all.

Poor Kids puts the children on centre stage, and they command it with honesty and directness. It's time for everyone to listen.

Sadly there are only a few days left to watch on iPlayer, try and make the time...

P

Awake my Soul - The PS22 Chorus

Some inspirational singing of this superb Mumford and Sons song from the PS22 Chorus, a junior school choir from Staten Island, New York. The choir has become an internet phenomenon as well as receiving high praise from the very artists they cover...

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Bob Dylan, troubadour extraordinaire...

A passionate cover of Bob Dylan's song 'When He Returns' from the 1979 album 'Slow Train Coming' by Gospel singer Rance Allen to celebrate the bard's birthday. Of course, I adore the original, however, there is also something pretty special about this version with its blistering Hammond accompaniment and no holds barred vocal performance.

There is also another incredible version, albeit gentler, from John Lee Sanders.

This aptly illustrates the concept of 'improvisation' rather than 'intervention'...

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Paul Simon makes inspiration blossom...

Sometimes inspiration bears fruit in extraordinary ways! At Paul Simon's recent Toronto concert on May 7th a fan, Rayna Ford, who'd travelled all the way from Newfoundland, shouted out a request for the song 'Duncan' adding that it had inspired her to learn guitar. What follows is one of those special moments that you'd really wish you'd been there to be part of. Regardless, this bit of footage captures the joy and tears all round, especially during the verse:

Oh, oh, what a night
Oh, what a garden of delight
Even now that sweet memory lingers
I was playing my guitar
Lying underneath the stars
Just thanking the Lord
For my fingers,
For my fingers

Fuller story here on NPR Music

P h/t @solobasssteve

Free music - The Pirate That Should Not Be

A sneak preview of some of the forthcoming soundtrack album from yet another Pirates of the Caribbean epic feauturing the sensational guitar playing of Mexican duo Rodrigo y Gabriela... Tracks from them are featured alongside the post After The Fire band ZipcodeS' producer (and now world famous film composer!) Hans Zimmer.

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Touch Wood, Joy Of Man's Desiring...

Clearly the profits mobile / cellphone companies make are still excessive enough to employ an agency to build this unique gravity driven installation to play J S Bach's Cantata BWV 147 more popularly known as 'Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring'.

Once more, with feeling?!

PB (h/t The Wedlocks)

When Goldie met Prince (Harry)...

Caught the final edition of this excellent three part series fronted by drums n bass artist Goldie which gives a seriously fresh look at music in Britain today. Whilst all the young musicians were linked by sharing various challenges in their lives, the synergy as the band gels together to play their own material with such diverse cultural styles and in front of Prince Harry at Buck House was truly inspiring.

In addition to the band's journey, with realistically forthright criticism at the hands of their mentors, which included producer Guy Chambers (who co-wrote the Robbie Williams anthem 'Angels'), Soweto Kinch, Cerys Matthews and Ms Dynamite-eee, there were some stunning individual performances too. The really engaging aspect was the authenticity of the writing and composition styles ranging from classical music and musical story telling to, frankly, painful autobiographical disclosures.

There are a few days to watch again using the BBC iPlayer, give yourself a treat!

PB

Peter Gabriel - New Blood in two halves

No one could ever accuse Peter Gabriel of not being adventurous and the second outing for the New Blood Orchestra provided some unexpected surprises. I caught the previous tour at the 02 back in early 2010, effectively promoting his Scratch My Back orchestral covers album which I reviewed in some depth here. This show (Wed 23rd March 2011) at the Hammersmith Apollo mainly featured orchestral versions of his own extensive repertoire.

The first surprises were in the first set. To kick off with 'Intruder' seemed a strange choice with all its dissonance and harshness. However, on reflection, it was a good choice to both enable any settling down to take place and keep any hiccups hidden behind the sonic assault the piece has. However, that didn't work as the next song, 'Wallflower' PG actually had to stop after a disastrous start. Even after the restart things still sounded awry with tuning problems and PG's voice barely audible. It seemed the cellos were not playing from the same score, such a massive shame as they stole the show during the 2nd set with a stunning rhythmic part for 'Red Rain'. I sunk into my seat both with embarrassment for the man himself and also in case my good buddies were wondering why on earth I had encouraged them so enthusiastically to accompany me into London for the day!

Strangely, another surprise, it was the back to back selection of the Scratch my Back songs that eased the show back on course despite PG's vocal still being too low in the mix. The empty and plaintive 'Boy in the Bubble' was followed by the dramatic 'Après Moi', then 'The Book of Love' with 'The Power of the Heart' completing the Scratch my Back selection. Another one of PG's more strident pieces, 'Darkness', was shoehorned in before the final surprise of the first set, a brilliant and moving version of his timeless classic 'Biko'. Here the overhead and back of the stage carried a simple film of some candles burning along with a monochromatic picture of Stephen Biko himself. Until then the graphics had been noticeably out of sync with the music, a technical surprise, but once Biko had finished the sense of joy and delight that being part of the Peter Gabriel congregation had returned in abundance.

The second half was blissfully transcendent!

Peter Gabriel is an extraordinary encourager, whether that be of his noticeable support of World Music, cornerstone of The Elders peace initiative and of his music collaborations. So the romantic in me imagines a serious yet inspiring team talk at half time as the all round improvement was staggering! It seemed everything was sorted and now PG's vocal soared... clearly a gig of two halves!

The set started of with San Jacinto and moved through Digging in the Dirt, Signal to Noise, Downside Up, Mercy Street, Rhythm of the Heat, Blood of Eden, Red Rain and finishing with the evergreen favourite: Solsbury Hill. We were then treated to encores of In your Eyes and Don't Give Up with the wistful instrumental The Nest That Sailed the Sky finally sending us on our way. My posse was split on singer Ane Brun's interpretation of Kate Bush's memorable vocal on the original Don't Give Up, personally I thought the girl did great, made it her own with perfect control and diction.

In his March Full Moon video Peter says this whole New Blood project will be put to bed once the last handful of North American dates are complete. We can look forward to both the album and the DVD filmed at the Hammersmith shows, if you can make the real thing I so strongly recommend it. I had not even planned on going, it was all a last minute moment of madness and, despite the gremlins in the first part, I cannot fully express how special it was. Like many established artists PG now has less constraints to find new ways of expressing his creativity even if some think it is merely whimsical. His voice just keeps getting better, his music never ceases to amaze and now John Metcalfe's brilliant arrangements provide another dimension for our listening delight.

P

Seth Lakeman, Benji and Cormac play a blinder!

Went off to Colchester Art Centre last week to see the amazing Seth Lakeman, this time in his acoustic trio line-up featuring Benji Kirkpatrick (guitars, mandolin and bouzouki) of Bellowhead and the amazing percussionist Cormac Byrne, of Uiscedwr, as above demonstrating his skill on the Bodhrán. The evening was fantastic, three superb musicians in perfect synergy made all the more special by Cormac's incredible versatility and engaging smile.

Interestingly even though these three guys have done so much to re-energise folk music they are generally frowned on by traditionalists who say they both don't play their instruments 'correctly' and they're dumbing down the genre... reminds me of something??!!

P

Tubular Bells and Girl Power...

This is a re-creation of Mike Oldfield's epic Tubular Bells by an ensemble of New York female musicians under the collective name of The Brooklyn Organ Synth Orchestra.

If you are at all into historic synths, organs and other clever audio devices then this is definitely for you!

Read more about the project here.

h/t DV Magazine

Rob Bell in his own words...

Am grateful that George Luke, writer and radio presenter, recently chose to post this mini-interview he recorded when Rob Bell spoke at the Greenbelt Festival in 2009. It struck me both how prophetic it was back then to have predicted some of the grief Rob is getting now over his new book Love Wins and also what grounded perspective he has...

There have been some excellent blog posts in defense of Rob from both sides of the Atlantic:

Maggi Dawn's blog
Julie Clawson's blog
Sojourners' Blog
and one that made me smile:
Is Rob Bell a Universalist?

PB

The President's Speech...

In the wake of the success of the incredible film 'The Kings Speech' comes the trailer for the American adaptation... it helps if you've seen the original, makes this even funnier despite the soft target!

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A blast from the eighties...

Was sent this youtube link by my good buddy Peter Bigg 'tother day, who commissioned me for one of my earliest music to picture jobs for The British Television Advertising Awards.

The production became a pretty collaborative process with motion control guru and director Peter Truckel of The Moving Picture Company. Unusually, no final visual element was completed before the initial music track was recorded and therefore I only had the storyboard for inspiration. All the spot sound effects, all created by synths, were then overdubbed as each piece of video was sent over. When I submitted my very first rough demo tape Peter T immediately gave my creative masterpiece the glamorous title of G-Dung!

I can still pretty much identify every instrument used including:

• Fostex B16 track analogue tape machine
• Soundtracs 16-8-16 mixing desk
• Revox B77 half track tape machine (still have - serviced)
• Yamaha CS-80 Synth (still have - mostly working)
• Yamaha DX7 Synth (version 1) (still have - broken)
• Yamaha RX11 drum machine (might still have!)
• Roland SH-101 Mono Synth
• Moog Multimoog (still have - broken)
• Some BanksyBoy vocals! (yep, still have!)
• Cubase on an Atari ST
• Great British Spring reverb (still have - condition unknown!)
• Some cheap and cheerful delay unit
  
• Klark Teknik active monitors (still have - one broken)


• Yamaha NS10 monitors


• Auratones

It could actually be a bit of a showreel for 80s synth sounds, especially the DX7 brass! The filming and effects took absolutely ages to complete and, at the time, was all very cutting edge stuff...

P

And the greatest of these...

LOVE WINS. from Rob Bell on Vimeo.

Seems the fundies are already up in arms... I thought we were supposed to WANT hell to be empty?! Oh well, seems I must be a post-modern, semi-evangelical, universalist something or other...

PB

Jesus is a Rochdale girl...

From Elbow's much heralded new album Build a Rocket Boys! comes this unplugged version of their song about love and care, sentiments described in the video by singer Guy Garvey. I love the lyrical layers, no idea if it's intentional or subliminal, sounds a lot like the passage in Matthew 10 that my buddy James The Artist (and musician!) drew attention to this week...

P

The Insatiable Moon...

The trailer for the New Zealand film The Insatiable Moon about to hit the UK shores, initial run from March 4th at The Empire Leicester Square in London. A fascinating synopsis for a film which deals with mental illness, religion, communities and relationships all in one package.

Turning out to be a special time for films, I'm still recovering from the excellent multi BAFTA winning The King's Speech and prior to that the wonderful Africa United.

P

Sunday soul soother...

An inspirational version of the song 'Railroad Man' from the enigmatic Eels performed with a string section on Later with Jools. Love the arrangement and instrumentation, simply brilliant:

And I know I can walk along the tracks, it may take a little longer but I'll know how to find my way back...

h/t Graham Peacock

P

Let us sing No Anglican Covenant...

When you, when you forget your name
When old faces all look the same
Meet me in the morning when you wake up
Meet me in the morning then you'll wake up
If only I don't bend and break
I'll meet you on the other side
I'll meet you in the light
If only I don't suffocate
I'll meet you in the morning when you wake
Bitter and hardened heart
Aching waiting for life to start
Meet me in the morning when you wake up

Bend and Break - track 2 on Keane's 2004 album Hopes and Fears

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The Lord's Prayer - Susan Werner style...

Remind the Pope he could have been born a girl...

is just one of the many great lines from this gem of a song by Susan M. Werner. Her publishing royalties will soon be increasing nicely as the voice that is Sir Tom Jones chose her brilliant song 'Did Trouble Me' for his remarkable album 'Praise and Blame'.

Do enjoy this more light-hearted contribution from her repertoire!

P