Skip to main content

Message for the Band.


Over the past few weeks I’ve been indulging my fangirl obsession for a certain musician’s back catalogue by dipping into ‘Take it Away: The Complete Paul McCartney Archive Podcast’.

The subject matter is as self-explanatory as it is ambitious: the hosts Ryan Brady and Chris Mercer set out to discuss all of Macca’s post-Beatles work, from his 1970 solo album McCartney through to the present day - with an episode per album - while also taking into account as much of his unreleased material as they can lay their hands on along the way.

Listening to them cover a topic I’m so familiar with is like comfort food for the soul (to use a clunky image). It’s the sort of thing I would have loved to have been part of myself, if there’d been someone around to do it with; curse the massive distance between the podcast’s hosts and me. And even I've learnt stuff I didn’t know about my most revisited subject, and heard snippets of demos I was unfamiliar with too.

For some reason, I’m working my way through the series out of sequence, mainly to hear them discuss Paul’s more eclectic - and to me, more interesting - work first. Consequently, I started with their episode on perhaps his most obscure (and admittedly patchy) unreleased material, the Return to Pepperland bootleg; from there, I went to Flowers in the Dirt, then Back to the Egg, Ram, London Town, McCartney II and finally Tug of War, which I’m currently in the midst of. It’s been an enjoyable ride, reminding me of the countless gems sprinkled throughout his epic recording career; just for the sake of it, here's one of my favourites:

Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Shakerpuppetmaker.

Have Parker from Thunderbirds and Noel Gallagher ever been seen in the same room? The resemblance is uncanny. So much so, I think something’s afoot. If my suspicions are correct, I've stumbled across a secret that will blow the music and puppet industry wide apart. In the mid-60s / mid-90s at least. It doesn’t take long to see the signposts. There’s the similarity between the name of Oasis’ first single, Supersonic, and Supermarianation, Gerry Anderson’s puppetry technique. The Gallagher brothers would often wear Parkas . Live Forever was clearly a reference to Captain Scarlet and Standing on the Shoulder of Giants to the size difference between Noel and his bandmates. The more you think about it, the more brazen it gets. It’s fishier than Area 51, Paul is Dead and JFK's assassination put together. The only glitch to the theory is scale . According to Wikipedia, Anderson’s marionettes were 1’10” and Gallagher is 5’8”. How does he maintain an illusion of avera...
Read more

'...I'm Gonna Look at You 'til My Eyes Go Blind."

Over the past week or two, I’ve been on a bit of a Sheryl Crow kick, largely thanks to rediscovering her cover of one of my most-liked Bob Dylan songs. She has one of my favourite female voices, yet despite this, I only own one CD and that’s just a single (her '97 release ‘Hard to Make a Stand’); on that basis, you can only imagine how much of her back catalogue I’d own if I hated her (it would fall into minus-figures). Dylan, conversely, takes up more of my collection than anyone else, save The Beatles and Paul McCartney’s solo work. He’s one of those artists who, when you get him, you really get him - and once I’d tuned into his style as a student, I'd time and again be blown away by his lyrics; he’ll have more jaw-dropping imagery in one track than other people fit in a whole career. These days, I mostly listen to music in the morning when getting ready, and more often than not, this will consist of a suggested YouTube playlist when I’m in the bath, r...
Read more

Stevenage: A (Tiny) River Runs Through it.

If ever a river was mis-sold, it’s the Roaring Meg in Stevenage. I just walked past it on my way to the retail park that has taken its name. They’re similarly uninspiring. The river is less of a roar and more of a dribble; cystitis sufferers produce greater flow. The retail park is soulless. What was once a thriving enterprise is nearly devoid of atmosphere, save an underlying essence of emptiness and despair. With a Toys R Us. When it was first built I was excited. Back then, the thought of a bowling alley, an ice rink, a Harvester and a Blockbuster Video within a small surface area was enticing. I celebrated many birthdays on site. There was an indoor cricket pitch there for a while where I once had a joint party with a friend. Why someone with an almost pathological fear of sport would agree to such a venture is beyond me, but I did it. Now, there’s very little at the Roaring Meg of note. The river would be a metaphor for the shopping ce...
Read more