Monday, March 29, 2010
Sometimes A Melody Is Louder Than A Shout
Yeah, I know. But I've got plenty of stuff to be getting on with that's more important to be getting on with than to be writing about. I've been to a number of gigs where I've half-written stuff and not got round to completing it, and I'm not apologising for spending that time on the never-ending search for a job instead. I'm aware that when my late father got made redundant in his early or mid forties, that was the end of something for him that was more than just the end of a job, and I'm fortunate that I have had the option to keep doing the other stuff I've been doing with my life for the last few years without an income, and that state won't last forever. Several months into joblessness, I'm aware that life goes on, and confident that someone will fall for my faultless interview technique (ahem!) sooner or later, but I do need to keep working on that more than on this. Normal service will be resumed sooner than later, I hope, but I'm in no position to make guarantees right now.
Of the few new albums and few gigs I've had this year, every time I've come out of the gig and put one particular album on. It's Chumbawamba's new one, ABCDEFG. On saturday I had the happy convenience of a home game coinciding with the only Chumbawamba gig I could make it to on this tour, albeit a gig that took me a little further from home. Arriving ten minutes after ticket time, I wasn't expecting the old 'wait for a gap in the performance before being allowed into the auditorium' game. Coming in in the dark, it was easier to sit on the stairs than try to find a seat while I couldn't see.
The support was O'Hooley and Tidow, an unwieldy combination of surnames and a twin vocal, one keyboard act sitting somewhere between operatic comedy folk-pop and the Indigo Girls. Going into it without expectations, I was easily won over with their charm, good humour and ability to laugh at themselves, and hope to see them again.
Now, Chumbawamba are an easy target. They are an act with one hit, as they sing themselves in Torturing James Hetfield. But they are also a fine musical act, a fantastic set of songwriting talents, and above all these days they are a combination of minimal instrumental backing and multiple vocals. And here's why I've gone back to ABCDEFG so often; writing an album of songs about music could go wrong in many ways, and it could hardly go this right. And yet The Devil's Interval is a storming attack on superstition couched in pastoral melodies. And yet Singing Out The Days is a poignant expression of anti-war sentiment straight out of the trenches. And yet Ratatatay is a beautiful rendition of a story I first heard years ago, of George Melly getting himself out of a sticky situation by the power of singing the absurd. And yet Wagner At The Opera is a great reminder of how history is a contemporary issue, because there are lessons we should never forget.
And in a nutshell, that's what Chumbawamba is in 2010, a comprehensive resource of melodies informing the lively mind of things it shouldn't have missed along the way. With the clocks going forward for BST, I got home at nearly half past two and I don't regret a second of the disruption.
* 'Sometimes A Melody Is Louder Than A Shout' is a line from Voices That's All, track 2 on ABCDEFG
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Of the few new albums and few gigs I've had this year, every time I've come out of the gig and put one particular album on. It's Chumbawamba's new one, ABCDEFG. On saturday I had the happy convenience of a home game coinciding with the only Chumbawamba gig I could make it to on this tour, albeit a gig that took me a little further from home. Arriving ten minutes after ticket time, I wasn't expecting the old 'wait for a gap in the performance before being allowed into the auditorium' game. Coming in in the dark, it was easier to sit on the stairs than try to find a seat while I couldn't see.
The support was O'Hooley and Tidow, an unwieldy combination of surnames and a twin vocal, one keyboard act sitting somewhere between operatic comedy folk-pop and the Indigo Girls. Going into it without expectations, I was easily won over with their charm, good humour and ability to laugh at themselves, and hope to see them again.
Now, Chumbawamba are an easy target. They are an act with one hit, as they sing themselves in Torturing James Hetfield. But they are also a fine musical act, a fantastic set of songwriting talents, and above all these days they are a combination of minimal instrumental backing and multiple vocals. And here's why I've gone back to ABCDEFG so often; writing an album of songs about music could go wrong in many ways, and it could hardly go this right. And yet The Devil's Interval is a storming attack on superstition couched in pastoral melodies. And yet Singing Out The Days is a poignant expression of anti-war sentiment straight out of the trenches. And yet Ratatatay is a beautiful rendition of a story I first heard years ago, of George Melly getting himself out of a sticky situation by the power of singing the absurd. And yet Wagner At The Opera is a great reminder of how history is a contemporary issue, because there are lessons we should never forget.
And in a nutshell, that's what Chumbawamba is in 2010, a comprehensive resource of melodies informing the lively mind of things it shouldn't have missed along the way. With the clocks going forward for BST, I got home at nearly half past two and I don't regret a second of the disruption.
* 'Sometimes A Melody Is Louder Than A Shout' is a line from Voices That's All, track 2 on ABCDEFG
Labels: Chumbawamba, gigs, O'Hooley and Tidow
