Upon this Rock...

Honoured to be taking part in the Bet Lahem Live Festival this week, depping on Keyboards for the Fat Band... very much looking forward to the whole experience and meeting up with the guys in this video.

One day...? Let's hope and pray.

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Coldplay - tearing me apart...

And I don't care... if you think I'm uncool, bah, I simply love this, so there...!

This touches me on so many levels, those who know me well may figure it out, a big clue is one of the tags below... and it is about time I posted again!

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Wide, wide as the ocean...

Come on come on and shake down those shabby bones.
We're tired and torn, creaking and cracked I know.
When did we last make some time?

Spinning with stars, dreams disregarded.
Days are all full, stuffed and congested.
When did we last make the time,
To be scared of the dark,
Where the gods and monsters hide?

Dust ourselves down.

Show me the way to make me a child again.
We'll be amazed by all we can't name and then,
We can at last stop to breathe,
And be scared of the dark,
Where our mind's got space to dream.

Click to download for FREE!

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Springsteen explains Pete Seeger so well...

From Bruce's brilliant introductory speech at Pete Seeger's 90th birthday party:

As Pete and I travelled to Washington for President Obama's Inaugural Celebration, he told me the entire story of "We Shall Overcome". How it moved from a labor movement song and with Pete's inspiration had been adapted by the civil rights movement. That day as we sang "This Land Is Your Land" I looked at Pete, the first black president of the United States was seated to his right, and I thought of the incredible journey that Pete had taken. My own growing up in the sixties in towns scarred by race rioting made that moment nearly unbelievable and Pete had thirty extra years of struggle and real activism on his belt. He was so happy that day, it was like, Pete, you outlasted the bastards, man!...It was so nice. At rehearsals the day before, it was freezing, like fifteen degrees and Pete was there; he had his flannel shirt on. I said, man, you better wear something besides that flannel shirt! He says, yeah, I got my longjohns on under this thing.

And I asked him how he wanted to approach "This Land Is Your Land". It would be near the end of the show and all he said was, "Well, I know I want to sing all the verses, I want to sing all the ones that Woody wrote, especially the two that get left out, about private property and the relief office." I thought, of course, that's what Pete's done his whole life. He sings all the verses all the time, especially the ones that we'd like to leave out of our history as a people. At some point Pete Seeger decided he'd be a walking, singing reminder of all of America's history. He'd be a living archive of America's music and conscience, a testament of the power of song and culture to nudge history along, to push American events towards more humane and justified ends. He would have the audacity and the courage to sing in the voice of the people, and despite Pete's somewhat benign, grandfatherly appearance, he is a creature of a stubborn, defiant, and nasty optimism. Inside him he carries a steely toughness that belies that grandfatherly facade and it won't let him take a step back from the things he believes in. At 90, he remains a stealth dagger through the heart of our country's illusions about itself. Pete Seeger still sings all the verses all the time, and he reminds us of our immense failures as well as shining a light toward our better angels and the horizon where the country we've imagined and hold dear we hope awaits us.

Now on top of it, he never wears it on his sleeve. He has become comfortable and casual in this immense role. He's funny and very eccentric. I'm gonna bring Tommy out, and the song Tommy Morello and I are about to sing I wrote in the mid-nineties and it started as a conversation I was having with myself. It was an attempt to regain my own moorings. Its last verse is the beautiful speech that Tom Joad whispers to his mother at the end of The Grapes of Wrath. "...Wherever there's a cop beatin' a guy Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries Where there's a fight 'gainst the blood and hatred in the air Look for me Mom I'll be there."

Well, Pete has always been there.

For me that speech is always aspirational. For Pete, it's simply been a way of life. The singer in my song is in search of the ghost of Tom Joad. The spirit who has the guts and toughness to carry forth, to fight for and live their ideals.

I'm happy to report that spirit, the very ghost of Tom Joad is with us in the flesh tonight. He'll be on this stage momentarily, he's gonna look an awful lot like your granddad who wears flannel shirts and funny hats. He's gonna look like your granddad if your granddad could kick your ass.

This is for Pete...

Watch Bruce's speech right here, big thanks to iamworkingonadream

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Sounding out the Season...

A piece written leading up to and when contemplating Christmas, both the joy of being together yet also the sadness of those missing from families or potentially so...

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Jeff Buckley - BBC Soul Music Archive - Take 3

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BBC Soul Music - Dido's Lament

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I'm delighted to report the BBC has increased the duration of the archived pieces from Radio 4's wonderful Soul Music and have included this edition along with many others, link above.

Here's a re-post of what I wrote about this broadcast back in 2010 which includes some of the content discussed with Jonathan Evens in our book 'The Secret Chord':

BBC Radio 4's edition of 'Soul Music' which featured Dido's Lament turned out to be really special! It always gives me enormous encouragement (and pleasant surprise!) to hear top notch classical maestros admitting truths that most of their colleagues would consider heresy.

The program moved from a fairly conventional start covering thoughts from the mezzo soprano Sarah Connolly and the view of the conductor of the band at the Cenotaph for Remembrance Day.

Jeremy Summerly, the big boss of the Royal Academy of Music and a renowned conductor, issued the first challenges to conventional thinking about the approach to singing the piece. He asked how would anyone know how 17th Century singers would sound and then introduced Alison Moyet's version, praising her approach, the clarity of her timbre and the fact that every word is intelligible. For someone of Jeremy's stature in the classical world to say this is really something, especially as he stated that Purcell's masterpiece is 'the great tune of the 17th Century'.

The closing section of the programme introduced Philip Sheppard, cellist and now composer. He spoke about how he was invited along to be part of the supporting orchestra for Elvis Costello's Meltdown Festival in 1995. One of the pieces was to be Dido's Lament which would be sung by charismatic rock singer Jeff Buckley. Although Philip had never heard of Jeff Buckley before once he heard him singing it had a most profound effect on him:

He seemed to screw every ounce of meaning out of the words and physically he looked like he was wracked with pain and anguish as he was singing it. But what was coming out was beyond ethereal his voice had this quality where it meant so much more than when I had ever heard it before.

But then when he sang it it seemed to be a Lament so much more and it really went beyond what I would consider to be classical music...and to date it's actually probably the greatest musical
experience of my life, in as much as it turned my world inside out.

As a result Philip had to admit:

I know NOTHING about music - at all!

Up to that point I was a musican who played through study rather than a musician who played through feel and now I have to say I seek out people to work with who do not necessarily read music who have their first sense is one of 'ear' rather than of 'technique'...

Philip then goes on to say how this became a pivotal moment in his career which helped him to become a composer, enabling him to move away from being 'a player who just repeated other people's music'.

Jeff Buckley died in a tragic accident just two years later in 1997, sunsequently his version of Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah' reached number one in the US Billboard charts and is considered by many to be the definitive version.

Now Philip thinks of Jeff nearly every day and is ever grateful for the effect of the encounter, even though he only met him for around half an hour...

Listening to this has changed me forever, too, thank you so much...

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A Lament for President Kennedy..

I doubt this tribute needs much explanation..?

I was a mere fourteen years old when President Kennedy died, our neighbours called round to tell my sans TV family the news. Whilst we have subsequently experienced other defining historical moments the shock factor and instant recall of the time and place does not fade.

Since Friday I have pondered appropriate phrases to break my blog silence to mark this particular anniversary. The words of Christ on the cross seemed to resonate along with a prayer for forgiveness. I also noticed Bishop Nick Baines blog made the same connection. So knowing these liturgical phrases would have been very familiar to the Kennedy family when inspiration came I recorded it there and then, last night 23rd November...

Father forgive them, for they know not what they've done
Father, in your mercy, hear their prayer, hear our prayer
Rest in my peace, you who have loved, you who have served
Today you're with me, in Paradise, in Paradise...

And then the official reading for today? Luke 23:33-43

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Thinking Naughty Thoughts... (in church!)

How could anyone resist a request to review a book on church practices entitled thus?! The byline, 'On church, and why I think we need to change', will bring groans from most clergy whilst the rest of us, that rapidly growing denomination on the edge of Exile, will celebrate. Written as a personal journey of discovery, de-discovery and re-discovery by South African author and 'thinker' Johan van der Merwe (JVDM), Thinking Naughty Thoughts covers a handful of sacred cows many Christians hold dear.

Despite the author having many close friends within the clergy, he tackles each topic, broken down per chapter, with vigour and clarity giving historical and theological context that question validity of much we accept without question. In fact, it is, indeed, written in a questioning style and although I sometimes found it a bit long winded that was only because my emerging thoughts have so much resonance with his subject matter.

JVDM covers questions such as 'Do I really have to belong to a local church?' and other thorny issues such as church leadership, tithing, church buildings and the biggie; worship. And it was when I reached the discussion on worship I was tipped over the edge, the PDF I'd been sent was no longer sufficient, I had to order the paperback!

In addition to the questions and personal conclusions there are some great quotes:

p96: ‘Christianity started out in Palestine as a fellowship; it moved to Greece and became a philosophy; it moved to Italy and became an institution; it moved to Europe and became a culture; it came to America and became an enterprise.’ (Sam Pascoe)

p226: However, now it seems that Christianity is more affected by Western culture, than Christianity is actually affecting the West. (John Michael Talbot)

p239: In my own case, the natural progression in my understanding and practice of worship went from noise and sound and lights and music to silence and solitude. Embracing silence and solitude, which Thomas Merton called 'the supreme luxuries of life,' has opened up my life to a rich and deep heritage of worship of which I was unaware in the time when my practice of worship was too one-dimensional and preoccupied with itself. (JVDM)

Some will say the practices critiqued are an easy target and I personally have some sympathy with that view, I cannot say I agree with absolutely everything JVDM says, particularly as he appears to still view through a lens tinted (tainted?) by fundamentalism, yet overall it was such a joy to read even if it serves to simply reinforce my own views. Regardless I feel hats need to be tipped in his general direction, at last someone has articulated views of all of us on that narrow edge of Exile, I rest our case...

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THAT Secret Chord!

h/t Shelley Fritz

Of course I have to mention that there's a cute wee book, The Secret Chord, available at a bookstore near you ;-)

Gabriel's Anthem for Father's Day...

Whether recently parted, as for Peter G, or for a longer time, miss you so...

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Location, location, location...

...plus context, environment and many other factors. Thoughts and prayers for Commander Chris Hadfield and Soyuz crew's safe return to earth today...

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It was thirty years ago...

As listed here: Billboard Charts from 30th April 1983

Although, technically, by 1983 After The Fire was no more we re-convened to film a video ready for the early days of MTV in the US. The first part was filmed in The Venue, Victoria, and then the crew re-created the scene on the top deck of a double decker bus. This was then driven around London during the early morning between 3:00am and 5:00am, I think it was February, with all and sundry getting very cold indeed! Ultimately the video was banned in the UK by the BBC for having the 'scary' tarantula spider. The irony was that when we were filming it was so cold the spider became ultra docile and the only way the owner could get it to stir was to heat the underside of the table with a blowtorch. Suffering for our art... (no animals or insects were harmed in the making of this video).

And we were SO broke!

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Spontaneous Indigenous Intervention...

Checkout the natural and instinctive harmonies that break out as NZ folk celebrate a significant change in their laws with the Māori love song 'Pokarekare Ana'...

Full story here.

P h/t Steve Lawson

Turning audiences into congregations...

This video of Coldplay performing their hymn-like anthem 'Fix You' is discussed on the excellent Rock and Theology blog, curated by Dr. Tom Beaudoin. Am honoured to have been invited to write a guest post for them which includes references to that post. Additionally this gave me an opportunity to respond to both Jen Logan's post 'Music and People' on the Greenbelt Festival blog and my chum Tim Nevell's personal views on her thoughts.

Of course, I felt compelled to draw out some of the themes that Jonathan Evens and I develop in our book The Secret Chord ;-)

Read the full post here: A Matter of Time and Space

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Kicking up Good Vibrations...

Terri Hooley is a radical, rebel and music-lover in 1970s Belfast, when the bloody conflict known as The Troubles shuts down his city. As all his friends take sides and take up arms, Terri opens a record shop on the most bombed half-mile in Europe and calls it Good Vibrations. Through it he discovers a compelling voice of resistance in the city’s nascent underground punk scene. Galvanising the young musicians into action, he becomes the unlikely leader of a motley band of kids and punks who join him in his mission to create a new community, an Alternative Ulster, to bring his city back to life.

Good Vibrations is released in the UK and Ireland by The Works UK Distribution on March 29, 2013.

Music holds, heals and invigorates, gives Dignity

A cracking little project for the metropolis of Leeds recorded and produced in Hope & Social's studio The Crypt... Checkout the full song from the gifted Jasmine Kennedy, available for just one of your British pounds (or more!), a sensitive cover of Deacon Blue's 'Dignity' here:

• More about the Love Music Leeds project
• Blog post entitled: Tales from the Crypt
• My earlier post about H&S: Rolling Sideways with Hope and Social

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The Boss and the miracle of music...

A film put together as part of the MusiCares 2013 Person of the Year award made to Bruce Springsteen. To check out the whole of The Boss' acceptance speech is a splendid idea!

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Is Somebody Singing...?

A fascinating collaboration between the International Space Station Commander Chris Hadfield, the band Barenaked Ladies and the Canadian junior choir the Wexford Gleeks. Band lead singer Ed Robertson is a self confessed space geek, a common theme amongst many musicians ;-)

I watched the video a couple of days ago, thanks to my blogosphere chum Mike Todd (checkout his original post here) and found I kept returning to watch again. I find there is something deeply moving despite the simplicity of the piece. To me it exhibits the characteristics of a Secret Chord moment, where many elements combine to make it thus...

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Driving in My Car...

Info-graphic from research carried out by the Tesco Insurance Comparison website, click image to zoom in...

Tesco Compare users respond: UK’s most popular Driving Music

February 5th, 2013

What do Brits listen to most while driving? The results of a recent competition held by Tesco Compare showed that, from postcode to postcode, Queen are the champions – and by some distance, too.

In September 2012, the comparison website launched a competition that questioned motorists on their choice of in-car music. 30,000 responded to the question, "What is your favourite song to drive to?" The results are published today in the infographic Queen of the Road. Over 75% of the country’s postal districts returned a decisive Mercury as Motor Monarch vote, almost exactly 50% more than Adele, their nearest competitor. Queen’s Greatest Hits, originally released in 1981, was recently confirmed by the Official Chart Company as the UK’s biggest selling album, with sales approaching 6 million.

The London-based rockers did not top the charts in every district, however, and the pockets of resistance make for interesting analysis in themselves. The survey showed that Adele keeps the motorists on track in Bromley, Truro, Wigan, Crewe and Southall, while she shares equal stereo time with other artists in Ilford (with ABBA and Michael Jackson), Worcester (Coldplay and Take That) and Sunderland (George Michael).

Perhaps the most unusual findings showed a small outcrop of passionate Louis Armstrong supporters at the wheel in Slough, and a loose but significant scattering of Killers and Gerry Rafferty fans populating the roads around Llandrindod Wells.  
The Drivers’ UK Top 10 came in as follows:

1.        Queen
2.        Adele
3.        Madness
4.        Coldplay
5.        ABBA
6.        Take That
7.        The Beatles
8.        Meat Loaf
9.        Bon Jovi
10.      Rihanna

Individual songs that scored very highly included Don’t Stop Me Now and Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen, Someone Like You by Adele and Driving in My Car by Madness.

“Despite the abundance of modern pop music, it turns out that Queen retain the audio affections of the UK’s road users,” said Gemma Whitton, spokesperson for Tesco Compare. “Personally, I find listening to music while driving is quite therapeutic and helps me concentrate on my journey. I remember that when I bought my first car, the most important feature was the stereo. These days, I have a playlist of Driving Music on my iPod." 

So we prefer the anthemic stuff then? Happy to reveal my in transit listening habits are a tad different ;-)

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Folk music tradition matters...

This last week I decided to watch the BBC red button transmission of the annual Radio 2 Folk Awards. I have learnt that there are more sub divisions in this genre of music than realised at first, with various factions trying to claim their particular style is more authentically orthodox than the rest. My sense is that this is a problem that tends to arise where there is a clearly defined sub-culture, which folk music surely is.

One of the issues that manifests itself is the 'big fish, small pond' syndrome. Some of the music was simply not that great! A bit like poor versions of mainstream equivalents, even prog. rock (to my prejudiced ear) got a look in. There were notable exceptions from the delightful Karine Polwart and the sublime rendition above from Lifetime (he prefers 'lunchtime') Award recipient, fiddler Aly Bain.

This piece is played with such amazing sensitivity and surpassed anything else that I heard during the evening. Of course, it may have been different actually being there, but from the audience reaction I reckon this was most likely a Secret Chord moment! Unashamed plug warning: read more in Jonathan Evens and my wee book, The Secret Chord!

There are those that have managed to 'crossover' (that dreadful description) to the mainstream, in the last few years Seth Lakeman and Bellowhead to name but two, both of whom have amazing talent and virtuosity. This year an 'outsider' was invited to cross back, as a guest, into the fold, from the big outside world, namely Billy Bragg, who also received a special award.

It was all a bit like going to church, those who knew what was going on were fine, to us on the fringe some aspects were a total mystery (church), lots of meaningless drivel (bad sermons), some inspiring speeches, (good sermons), plenty of average music (typical), a rousing hymn at the end (predictable) and the transcendent rendition from Aly Bain and Phil Cunningham (a rare and precious sacred moment which reminds us what it's all about).

There seems to be plenty of energy devoted to maintaining traditions (back to church again!), but those that choose a higher calling prefer rather to build on the traditions and land up producing something very special, long may that continue...

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