Marr, Morrissey and the notion that comebacks don’t work

Last week, as I write, this blog and its beloved went to see Johnny Marr play at that lugubrious Dublin venue, The Academy. For anyone in their 40s who had seen The Smiths in their heyday (i.e. any point in their brief career), it was an extraordinary experience.  Johnny Marr has finally settled back into his skin, reclaiming his role as the guitar hero of a generation and the man behind some of the most delightfully crafted chord sequences ever created. He not only has a fine solo album, The Messenger, out, but he’s now merrily playing some of those old greats like it was the most natural thing in the world.

And really, it should be the most natural thing in the world. They’re 50% his songs.

The ‘surprise’ (and, really, we should have had more faith) is just how natural it is for him to play – and for us to hear.  His former sidekick Morrissey has been playing the same songs on and off for nigh on 20 years, as he was the voice and the melody we had all known and adored on those records. However, it was but a bar or so into Marr’s rendition of ‘Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before’ (the second song of his set) that it becomes obvious what we’ve been missing all these years – hearing those songs played properly.

Mumford & Sons…

…WHY?

Saviours of Irish rock? The return of 79Cortinaz

They’re back! Back?! BAACK!! Carlow’s foremost rock ‘n’ roll sons (i.e. band) 79Cortinaz have risen from the grave and seem intent on returning to the studio to entertain us with further adventures in rural indie guitar rock. They released their debut album Hopioki in early 2008, before apparently breaking up in December of that year.

We say “apparently”, as this split was disputed – loyal, patient and/or weary readers of this blog might remember the most bizarre comments thread in IHGN‘s history, when, running against the spirit of positive yearly album round-ups, I gathered together a selection of my Worst Albums of 2008. A member of the band, who firstly mistook me for a female critic (?) denied they had split up and took more than a little umbrage at the album review. As well he might. Hopefully that’s all water under the bridge now.

In the meantime, the band have very kindly gathered together their own back catalogue and put them on Soundcloud so that you may judge for yourselves.

♫ Hartleys is my New Jam! ♫

No one can say this blog isn’t down with the thrilling stuff those crazy internet kids are up to – only New Jam has been around since I was wee.

I never never want to go home, because I haven’t Gok Wan…

Clever old spammers.  No sooner is Gok Wan in Dublin to peddle his range of retro frames at Specsavers than the cookies get to work trying to find appropriate blog posts to spam.  Congrats to the cookies, then, for finding several posts on IHGN which, for some obscure reason, seem to suggest that I’m a Smiths fan.

Are cookies able to work these things out?   Did they say, “Oh! You know that Morrissey Smith fellah, he wore retro NHS specs before they were retro, didn’t he?  Let’s SPAM his fans!”?

Decent Smiths cover shocker

As I’m sure you know, dear reader (singular), I’m a big fan of The Smiths but not a big fan of other people covering Smiths songs.  And when I say “other people”, I sometimes include Morrissey himself, whose present band simply aren’t up to playing songs as intricate as ‘This Charming Man’.

All of which makes it even stranger that a gamer geek going by the name of Lazyitis has produced a fantastic cover of that very song.  I’ve been chair-dancing to this since I first heard it (at the time of writing, about ten minutes ago), and my kids are enjoying it just as much.

2002 – A Hella Good year for music?

This week, BBC 6 music is a decade old, a fine landmark for a station which almost didn’t make it this far. Thanks to the efforts of listeners and well-wishers, it was saved from the chop, and thank heavens. The station’s birthday celebrations have kicked off in earnest this week and, as these things tend to do, made me look back at the year that was.

2002 was a year that promised so much. Without trying to be melodramatic, I think of it as the year that saved music.

The period from 1998-2001 was, in my humble but strong opinion, the absolute worst time for popular music since it began. I look back at the conveyor belt of rubbish that came along, and break out in cold shudders. Of course there was decent stuff in amongst it, but if you consider that it was an era where supposedly cool people turned to David Gray, Macy Gray and Travis, while Red Hot Chili Peppers became one of the biggest bands in the world, it all looked relentlessly dire. Groups like Muse, The Strokes and even The Hives were touted as greatness when, in fact, it all sounded like laughable mediocrity to these ears.

Dear reader, meet Screenreader

At the end of January this year, young Cork trio Screenreader released their self-produced debut album Disconnect The Dots.  On first listen, there’s little doubt that it’s a “homemade” record but it doesn’t take long to grow on you.   It’s a charming triumph of aspiration and conviction over quite obvious fiscal restriction.  These are attic recordings with loftier ambitions.  On show are some blisteringly good riffs, inventive arrangements and lyricism that often walks that perilous line between inspired and complete codswallop.

Working class heroes?

A wafer, God’s sake.  For some obscure reason, the shockingly awful song “Blue Riband Blues” is stuck in my head today.  This song, sung by Mike Berry in the 1980s’ commercial, advertised Blue Riband biscuits – lightweight chocolate-covered wafers that were “the very thing”, as my late Granny used to say, to have with a wee cuppa tea.  I remember a few arguments between family members as to how to pronounce it: Rib-and or Rib-and.  I still don’t know where to put the stress – answers to the usual address.

Actually, I hated the advert back in the day but I was a big fan of the biscuits. 

Mouse Trumpet – the biggest band you’ve never heard

Even in the age of endless “internet phenomenons”, Mouse Trumpet might just be the strangest band in the world. Well, today, at least. With an aversion to having their songs heard, their faces photographed or their members even named, it’s hard to work out how they intend to achieve their stated aim of being “the biggest underground band ever”. Not that asking them yields any solid answers either.

They are, as far as I can tell, a trio from Scotland, whose music sits somewhere between Section 25 and Chic – or at least, that’s the legend. They described their own music as “Experimental Rhythm Swamp-Twee” but have no music available to listen to anywhere.  It’s difficult, if not impossible, to prove or verify anything.

Their method of ‘promotion’ thus far has been like a game of word-of-mouth pass-the-parcel.