I was walking through the park the other day and I saw a Sheffield United season ticket nailed to a tree.  I took one look at it and thought to myself, ‘I’m having that.  You can never have too many nails…’

As well as being a musician and songwriter of the highest calibre, Richard Hawley is well-known for the dry, laconic wit with which he delivers his inter-song links during his live shows. He would have been in his element at the recent 2012 ‘Spill Awards ceremony and I like to think that he would have shared some of that laconic wit with us on Friday evening – possibly making a reference to his two unsuccessful Mercury Prize nominations and his one successful ‘Spill Album of the Year prize and the relative importance of each in his life…

Hawley’s rise to fame came via a somewhat torturous route.  The release of Cole’s Corner in 2005 first brought him to the attention of the record-buying masses but this breakthrough came after more than twenty years in the music business.  From his formative years in Treebound Story (a band formed when he was still at school – pictured above) via the relative success of Britpop band Longpigs, and a short spell in Pulp (Hawley and Jarvis Cocker have known each other since the early 1980s), Hawley had always been on the fringes of whatever it is that constitutes ‘success’.  His decision, in 2001, to begin recording as a solo artist was a risk – described by Cocker in a 2002 interview in the Independent on Sunday as a ‘last throw of the dice’ – but it was a risk that paid off.  Seven solo albums down the road, Richard Hawley has become an established and hugely respected artist – perhaps not quite a household name but I guess it’s safe to assume that he makes a fairly decent living out of his music.  And surely no one can deny that he deserves that much at least.

He’s an unlikely pop star and it’s safe to say that nothing about his appearance or his musical background quite prepares you for his voice.  Essentially, he’s a 1950s/60s-style crooner who also happens to play a mean, twanging, country-tinged guitar and write some stunningly beautiful pop songs.  I love the guitar, I love the arrangements, I love the compositions but it’s the voice that does it for me – it’s clean and pure with just the occasional hint of a growl thrown in for good measure.  It gets into your soul and sits there, warming parts of your insides that you didn’t even know you had.  The music is as simple as it can be without being in any way anodyne, bland or insipid.  Many of his songs are four, three or even two-chord tricks and Hawley’s skill is in creating the variety, the light and shade, through his subtle use of strings and guitars (and that voice) to build layers of sound – the songs often reaching almost orgasmic crescendos (or maybe that’s just me!).

I had a great response to my original post with a nice range of Richard Hawley nominations from the ‘Spill collective.  Several tracks were chosen more than once and I’ve tried to include all of those while attempting, for the benefit of the uninitiated, to provide an interesting and representative cross-section of the Hawley oeuvre.  I was umming and ahhing about whether to include any material from the pre-solo career and I decided in the end not to.  It’s merely of historical interest and doesn’t really add anything to the listening experience.

So my starting point was 2001’s eponymous debut mini-album from which I’ve chosen the track Sick Pay and I followed that up with Something Is… from Late Night Final, the first ‘proper’ album.  Both of these tracks show signs of what’s to come – nicely understated, simple arrangements with gorgeous, wistful melodies that you could listen to all night long.

Next up, from the 2003 album, Low Edges, I give you, Oh My Love – and for the benefit of DarceysDad, it’s the live version from 2008’s Festival Internacional de Benicàssim, the distorted guitars suggesting that Hawley’s love of the Phil Spector ‘Wall of Sound’ predates his most recent album by some considerable time.

Then we come to Cole’s Corner.  I’m desperate to avoid accusations of hyperbole here, but it’s hard not to come across as too gushing when it comes to this wonderful album.  It would be among the first records that I’d choose to take with me to my Desert Island.  It’s a rare example of an album without a weak track.  Alex Turner famously opened his 2006 Mercury Prize acceptance speech with the words ‘Someone call 999. Richard Hawley’s been robbed!’  It’s clearly not just Alex and I that feel so passionate about Cole’s Corner: no fewer than six tracks were nominated by various ‘Spillers and the title track alone was chosen by four different people.  It would therefore be wrong of me to leave it out.  So I haven’t.  I’ve also gone for barbryn’s choice of The Ocean which is a fine example of Hawley’s slow build technique in action.

Cole’s Corner was never going to be easy to follow but Richard Hawley made a pretty good fist of it with 2007’s Lady’s Bridge.  The bishbosh and DarceysDad nominated Valentine and CaroleBristol’s choice of Tonight, The Streets Are Ours are the two tracks I’ve chosen here, the latter neatly representing the more up-tempo side of Hawley’s work.

It took a while for Truelove’s Gutter (2009) to grab me but I would now rate it as highly as Cole’s Corner.  It features Open Up Your Door which, quite rightly, made it onto the recent RR Songs About Doors list.  I was personally disappointed that makinavaja beat me to the nomination but this was more than made up for by John Dennis quoting my “one of the greatest songs of the 21st century” dond in his write up.

I’ve included the song here, as no Richard Hawley playlist would be complete without it and I’ve also gone for Remorse Code (nominated by glasshalfempty, sessionblogger (who he/she?) and DarceysDad (again. Good taste that man!).  Finally, from Lady’s Bridge we have the beautiful, Abba-esque For Your Lover Give Some Time, another choice from our Bristolian friend Carole and one of Hawley’s greatest lyrics.

Standing At The Sky’s Edge was somewhat of a departure for Richard Hawley featuring a much noisier sound with distorted guitars fulfilling the role previously occupied by orchestral strings to achieve the distinctive wall of sound.  The album evidently struck a chord with the ‘Spill Massive as it was the clear winner of the 2012 ‘Spill Album of the Year award.  I know you’re all going to go out and buy it (if you haven’t already done so) so I’ve just chosen one song here, Before, which probably best serves to illustrate the psychedelic noise fest that the latest album is.

I’ve ended the playlist with three extras.  First up we have a lovely version of Hushabye Mountain, a duet with the lovely Lisa Hannigan, as nominated by the lovely shoegazer. Bishbosh wanted to include Hawley’s cover version of The Jesus & Mary Chain’s Some Candy Talking and who am I to deny his request?  And finally I’ve indulged myself by including a personal favourite of mine.  It’s a live cover version of The Arctic Monkeys’ The Only Ones Who Know which features Alex Turner himself on lead vocals.

Finally, a big thank you to maki for putting the playlist together for me.  Hope you all enjoy it…

Richard Hawley first came to my attention when his 2005 album Coles Corner started getting rave reviews, culminating in its nomination for the 2006 Mercury Music Prize.  A friend recommended that I give it a listen and I was instantly hooked.  I’ve loved the three albums produced since then and I’ve gone back and introduced myself to the three earlier releases.

If you’ve been concentrating you’ll know that I’m a great admirer of the melodic pop tune as exemplified by such popular musical combos as Prefab Sprout, Belle & Sebastian, Death Cab For Cutie, The Go-Betweens and many more.  But what usually appeals to me is the way that the songwriters in question manage the trick of making what is actually a highly complex composition, sound musically simple.  Richard Hawley goes one step further: his compositions really are assimple as they seem to be.

So there must be something else that makes his songs so special and it’s that mysterious ‘Ingredient X’ that I want, with the help of the Spill Massive, to attempt to identify.  What is it that appeals to you?  What qualities make Richard Hawley, with no fewer than six lifetime Festive Spill nominations, our official number one artist of all time?

All-in-all, we have a fine body of work to consider: seven studio albums plus numerous live recordings and collaborations with acts such as Arctic Monkeys, Elbow and Lisa-Marie Presley!  And those us of a certain vintage might also want to delve into the output of Hawley’s Britpop also-rans, The Longpigs.

So, here’s the plan.  I’d like those of you who are already converts to Sheffield’s finest croon-rocker to nominate a track or two from the oeuvre to represent all that is great and wonderful about the man and his music.  I will then put together the ultimate Richard Hawley overSpill playlist and post it sometime after Christmas for the edification of the class.  How could that not be a Good Thing?

I’ll start the ball rolling by putting forward the following for your consideration…

I just heard, through a friend on Facebook, that Paul Buchanan (of The Blue Nile) is about to release a solo album. I don’t know when I was last this excited about a new album release…

Here’s a sneak preview of the title track.

The Little Band That Could; swirling, giddying, disorienting, romantic majesty; near made me cry; great; a teensy bit overrated; a national treasure; turning into Henry VIII; too many songs that rely on suspended fourths; big hooky hooks; Manchester’s Bury’s finest; better than black pudding! 

That’s what YOU said about Elbow!  And now that the Christmas fairy dust has had time to settle, the brussels sprouts are nearly finished up and the trifle is but a distant memory, it’s time to present the final Elbow spillOVER playlist for your edutainment.

I asked for your suggestions and I got more than enough.  As a bonus, there were plenty of instructive comments and some enlightening debate which kept me entertained for much of the day on Christmas Eve.

Trawling the long history of the ‘Spill (well, OK – I shoved the word ‘Elbow’ in the search box) I found sporadic references to Elbow starting as early as July 2008 with a blimpy/snadfrod item, which largely concerned the volume at which The Seldom Seen Kid should best be played, followed soon after by a gem of a shoegazer post requesting our nominations for best album by every artiste ever, which, as far as Elbow were concerned generated one vote for Cast Of Thousands and one for The Seldom Seen Kid.

Then, on 9 September 2008, DarceysDad posted his celebration of Elbow’s Mercury Prize victory – a post which is well worth a revisit:
http://thespillblog.co.uk/2008/09/09/e-is-for-elbow-and-for-eeebahgum-theyve-dunnit/

On 4 January 2009 came the announcement that Seldom Seen Kid had won the far more significant 2008 ‘Spill Album of the Year award and this was followed by snadfrod’s effusive review of Elbow’s 2009 gig at the Bridgwater Hall, Manchester accompanied by the Hallé Orchestra:
http://thespillblog.co.uk/2009/07/09/hallbow/

What I was really searching for (and didn’t find) was a post which I’m sure I haven’t imagined from an unknown ‘Spiller suggesting that Elbow might be the Band That All Spillers Like Or At Least No One In These Parts Actively Dislikes.  Whether Elbow represent this much sought after Eldorado (or should I say Elbow-dorado?) [No. Ed.] (‘Spilldorado?) [Still, no. Ed.] or not, it was perhaps significant that there wasn’t a serious buke to be heard – perhaps (in time-honoured ‘Spill fashion) Those About To Buke kept their collective heads below the parapet.  My hope is that they will now take the time to listen to this playlist and perhaps (like everyone’s favourite Deadhead) re-examine their Elbow-related feelings.  Of course, this list may have the opposite effect and convince Chris and others who hoped to be converted that Elbow are not for them after all.

A few notes on my selection. I decided to allow each ‘Spiller just one nomination.  I wanted to include one collaboration and one cover and after much deliberation I went for Murder of Birds with Jesca Hoop and Mercy Street (Peter Gabriel) to represent these two categories.  I loved the Elbow version of Independent Woman (which I hadn’t heard before – thanks shoey!) but didn’t feel that it was quite in keeping with the mood of the rest of the selection.  I also wanted to reflect one regularly-mentioned feature of Elbow – namely, their remarkable live performances: I have therefore included a couple of these in the list at the expense of the studio versions.

I think it’s fair to say that Elbow have long been on the ‘Spill radar and an overview such as this is arguably well over due.  I thank everyone for their contributions, hope that the final list meets their expectations (which of course are ‘great’) and, with a promise to spend more time on the ‘Spill in 2012, wish you all a happy and prosperous New Year.

(Thanks to maki for making the playlist work and to tfd for offering to do the same.)

Track listing:

From: Asleep In The Back
01. Powder Blue – fredflinstone
02. Newborn (live in Amsterdam) – garethim
03. Scattered Black And Whites – DarceysDad

From: Cast of Thousands
04. Fugitive Motel (live on Jools Holland) – exodus
05. Grace Under Pressure – barbryn

From: Leaders of the Free World
06. Station Approach – saneshane
07. Forget Myself – blimpy
08. The Everthere – shoegazer
09. Great Expectations – ToffeeBoy

10. Murder Of Birds (Jesca Hoop) – barbryn

From: The Seldom Seen Kid
11. An Audience With The Pope – tincanman
12. The Loneliness Of A Tower Crane Driver (live at the Mercury Prize awards) – glasshalfempty

13. Mercy Street (Peter Gabriel) – alimunday
 
From: Build A Rocket Boys
14. The Birds – ShivSidecar
15. Lippy Kids – bishbosh

This is something I’ve been thinking about quite a bit recently. How do we listen to new music? And by ‘new music’ what I mean is ‘music that is new to you, the listener’.

The digital age has almost certainly changed the way that we approach this. The concept of an album is now very different to what it was in my two most active record buying periods – 1975-1987 with vinyl LPs and 1987-2000 with CDs. In fact, the impression I get from the young people in my life (i.e. the two LittleMissToffees) is that the very idea of an album is now somewhat blurred. In ‘my days’ it simply wasn’t possible to own an album track without owning the album from which it came – I suppose you could tape it from a friend but it would be odd to do so without copying the whole album.

Anyway, that’s just a side issue. What I really want to explore here is how, in whatever format we listen to music, we approach something new to us. I have to confess that I find it difficult. It’s not often that a song, never mind a whole album, grabs me instantly on the first listen. And on the rare occassion that it does, I have the underlying concern that a song which is too easy on the ear, isn’t going to stand the test of time. One instance of this that springs to mind with me is The Thrills’ One Horse Town. I fell in love with this song the very first time I heard it but now I can barely listen to it.

For me, a really good song, has to have musical nuances and complexities – within a conventional ‘pop’ structure’, of course! And it’s these nuances and complexities which usually prevent me from ‘getting’ a song, straightaway. One of the things I find most difficult about RR and the ‘Spill is that I genuinely don’t enjoy listening to music that I’m not familiar with. I know!!!

It might take five, ten, twenty or even more listens until I feel comfortable with a song and it isn’t until then that I feel I can pass judgement on whether it’s a song that I love, like, don’t mind or dislike.

So when I’m presented with a new album, I struggle. Nowadays, I very rarely listen to music, other than on my iPod. I have my iPod on as I’m going to sleep and I have it on at breakfast and in the evening in the dining room. I generally choose music which the other members of the Toffee clan will enjoy but I can’t deny that I take every opportunity possible to indoctrinate the little ‘uns (OK, they’re 19 and 16 now!) into the joys of what I consider to be ‘good music’.

Thankfully, iTunes has come to my rescue and provided me with a method of gradually getting to know a ‘new’ album. I create a playlist consisting of similar music (preferably previous albums by the same artist) and slip the new tracks in to the mix. And it works! After a number of listens to the playlist, I usually have the confidence to listen to the album ‘naked’ and to enjoy it on its own merits. The standout tracks standout and the others are at least familiar to me.

Another side issue. I often find that I enjoy an album best, a year or so after I’ve gone through this process. This is true of two albums which I bought some considerable time ago: Prefab Sprout’s Let’s Change The World With Music (released September 2009) and Badly Drawn Boy’s Born In The UK (October 2006). It may seem like a long way round (see what I did there?) but I’m just about to listen to the latter on its own from start to finish for the first time ever. Wish me luck …

Well what with one thing and another, I very nearly forgot that I had made a commitment to do this bloggy thing.

Apologies if the spiel is a bit rushed but I’m sure we all know how it works by now so I’ll get straight to it.

What I want from all you good folk out there in ‘Spill Land is:

A Song By Someone You Know

I’ll get the ball rolling with this little ditty by an ex-football buddy of mine:

I’ll allow you to come up with your own ideas for what constitutes ‘knowing’ someone – be as creative as you like – but of course what we all really want to know is, how do you know the person in question? Did you go to school with them? Did you date them (is that what we call it nowadays?)? Do you still know them? Do they have a restraining order out on you? Dish the dirt and, of course, ‘Spill the beans …

I woke up this morning to the sad news that Gil Scott Heron had died yesterday.

I was first introduced to his music by a friend whose dad was a big jazz fan and I was instantly captivated by the wonderful mixture (dare I say fusion?) of jazz, soul, rap, poetry and even – yes! – pop in his work. His warmth, humour, passion and sincerity shone out from everything he did. It’s a huge shame that we will hear no more from the great man.

His live double album Tales of Gil Scott Heron is never too far from my iPod’s play list and I think I’ll spend most of today listening to it. Here a few highlights from Gil Scott Heron’s long and varied career.

I hope you all know the most surprising piece of Gil Scott Heron trivia: his father played for Celtic.

Q. What do Dean Friedman and sonofwebcore have in common?
A. They’ve both played with Half Man Half Biscuit!

Regular RReaders will know of my strange, some might say misguided, affection for the whiny singer/songwriter from the 1970s (that’s Dean, not webbie by the way) and my attempts to convince the rest of the world of his virtues (or at least the rest of the woRRld) have so far fallen on comparatively deaf ears (one B-lister in three and a bit years of trying is scant reward for the effort I’ve put in).

I’m on a Dean Friedman mailing list run by Dean himself (he’s that kind of person) which keeps his fans up to date with gigs, new releases and other Friedman related trivia. A recent despatch from him warmed the cockles of my heart and I thought the good people of ‘Spill City might enjoy the story.

Many years ago (in 1981 to be precise) Dean recorded his third album, Rumpled Romeo. His previous two had won him a fair degree of commercial success. He’d had a number of hits – Ariel, Woman Of Mine, Lucky Stars and Lydia to name a few – particularly in the UK where he’d developed a significant following.

So he had high hopes of his third album. Personally, I think it’s his best – it features his usual mix of light-hearted love songs (some with a fairly strong comedy element) and several songs with a more serious, sometimes much darker air.

One of the standout tracks is a pure pop gem called McDonald’s Girl. It’s a simple teenage love song about the young narrator’s love for the girl “in the polyester uniform”. It was the first single from the album and I’m pretty sure it would have been another big hit. Unfortunately, our friends at the BBC scuppered Dean’s plans for world domination. It was banned by the Beeb simply because it mentioned the name of a certain fast food chain.

The upshot of this was that the single flopped and ultimately Dean was dropped by his record label – it was to be seventeen years before he recorded his fourth album.

But it doesn’t end there because the song seems almost to have a life of its own. The Barenaked Ladies recorded a live version of it which became a hit on a Toronto radio station and helped to launch their own career. Then The Blenders released a version which went to number one in Norway!

Over the years a number of other bands have recorded versions and the song’s become a bit of a You Tube phenomenon with student bands at the forefront of the McDonald’s Girl movement!

Now, the story’s taken a whole new twist as McDonald’s themselves have adopted the song using a version with vocals provided by The Blenders.

And here’s Dean himself performing the song live.

I just hope that Dean is benefitting from the use of his wonderful composition. Altogether now:

I’d like an order of fries
A quarter pounder with cheese
I love the light in your eyes
Will you go out with me please?

You might also enjoy:

Disclaimer: This blogger neither supports nor condones the activities or the products of McDonald’s Corporation. So there.

I’ve never been one to hold musicianship in particularly high regard – I mean, not as a primary reason for liking a piece of music. What I mean is, I’m not drawn to music by the musical proficiency of a particular artist – I can admire it, in much the same way that I might look at a new brick wall and admire the craftsmanship, but that’s not what attracts me to the music in the first place and it’s not something that I usually spend a lot of time thinking about. Personally, I feel that musicians can sometimes get in the way of a really good song but that’s probably just me.

And when we had the question a few weeks back about our dream band the names I chose (with the possible exception of Johnny Marr) weren’t people who are in any way renowned for their musical virtuosity. They merely represented bands that I liked and I felt that they might have some sort of collective synergy (if such a thing can be said to exist).

The point of all this apparently mindless rambling (not to say, work avoidance) is that a friend of mine has just written (and had published) a book all about drummers and it got me thinking about the whole issue of musicianship and why it doesn’t grip me in the way that it clearly grips most ‘music fans’. I know that lots of ‘Spillers feel very differently about this so tell me – am I missing something?

The Shameless Plug

I haven’t read my friend’s book yet so I can’t give it an unreserved ‘go-out-and-buy-it-immediately’ type of recommendation but from a brief skim through it seems to be a damn fine read – particularly if you’re of the same sort of vintage as me (i.e. a child of the late 60s/early 70s).

Anyway, the author’s name is Spike Webb and I’ve known him since the aforementioned early 70s. Here’s an Amazon link to the book itself:

Mad, Bad & Dangerous

Available, as they say, in all good book shops, now …

Finally, here’s a fairly random Cozy Powell video.

PS. Apologies to tincanman for not taking part in the Drummers thread from a few days ago – for what it’s worth I would have supported maki’s – oops – magicman’s Steve Gadd shout.