1991 dance classic. Brings back great memories for me of doing the Christmas disco at my place of work at the time. A House beat and a soulful pop sensibility. Utterly danceable. One of the very best dance records of any time.
The Hurley’s House Mix was the best version.
Enjoy!
I put on “Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea” by PJ Harvey on my iPod this morning, on the way to work. It’s a brilliant album, and it won the Mercury Music prize in 2000. There are many excellent songs: “This is Love”, “The Whores Hustle and the Hustlers Whore” and “Kamikaze’ to name three. Gripping, challenging rock music. But the best of all, for me, is “You Said Something”.
A wonderful love song.
On a rooftop in Brooklyn, one in the morning, looking over Manhattan, the magnificence of Manhattan, the Empire State building…
You said something, that I’ve never forgotten…
Wow! Can you imagine that? Looking over one of the greatest views in the world, inspired, overwhelmed, and then… you said something.
That I’ve never forgotten.
This IS love.
This is Polly Jean performing the song on the Letterman show.
The Shard… from Battersea. Miles away and just shows how the bends in the River Thames can be so deceptive.
2 November 2013 was a good day for Harlequins.
First, Chris Robshaw and Mike Brown starred for England in their 20-13 victory over Australia.
And then Quins went away to Leicester, and won 23-16.
(Meanwhile West Ham had another 0-0 in the footie, this time with Aston Villa. Keeping my powder dry on that for now).
England’s win over the Aussies was deserved, but a bit scratchy. The first half saw both teams playing equally badly, but the Aussies engineered a try towards the end of the half, when centre Matt Toomua burst through a feeble tackle by his opposite number Billy Twelvetrees, to take a 13-6 lead. The most worrying thing for England was the usually metronomic Owen Farrell missing three relatively straightforward penalties. The best thing was Quins’ Mike Brown at full back, playing superbly on the kick and run, catching with aplomb, gaining the yards with every break. Just like he does at Quins.
It got better in the second half. England started to put on the pressure. Twickenham debutant Marlon Yarde got the crowd going with a brilliant power run down the wing. Then Mike Brown fielded an Aussie kick with real skill, sold a couple of dummies and booted upfield. From that a mellee ensued in which a Will Genia clearance was charged down and Chris Robshaw pounced for his first England try. The momentum shifted from that point. Owen Farrell scored another try with a clever surge, which may have benefited from a bit of obstruction by hooker Dylan Hartley. Maybe. The ref, aided by the TMO, didn’t penalise it.
Australians will undoubtedly claim that both of England’s tries shouldn’t have been awarded (In the first, Mike Brown’s feet were arguably over the touchline when he fielded the Aussie kick). And well, yeah, they might have a point, but England were the better team overall, and, as ever, with any game, because the forwards were better. And Robbo, rightly still captain, was a magnificent example to the others. Mike Brown got man of the match, but Chris wasn’t far off.
Two Quins players that fans from other sides might not have in the team – we are all biased! But hard to deny today that they were two of the best. Joe Marler did well when he came on too.
And so to Leicester, Welford Road. The fortress of the best team in the Premiership, over the years. As it happens, Quins won there last year, but it’s a rare event. Both teams had lost a lot of players to injury and international call ups. So a few youngsters playing, but good ones. The conditions were foul – strong winds and heavy rain at times. Quins were magnificent. In the first half they dominated possession and territory, but only at the end did they get a forwards’ pushover try, from Nick Easter, to go 10-6 ahead. In the second half, with the wind behind them, they let loose for a while, and Matt Hopper scored with a searing cut-in from the left wing. A couple of penalties (with one for Leicester) took the score to 23-9. At Welford Road!
Then, of course, the traditional Leicester comeback began. The last fifteen minutes were an assault on the Quins’ line. But they held out, right until the end, when Leicester got a penalty try for persistent scrum infringments by Quins. That got the Tigers a losing bonus point, but Quins emerged victorious. Some of the tackling was beyond belief. Ugo Monye was awesome – one time stopping what looked like a certain try when the Leicester player was already over the line, with an unbelievable show of balance and strength, forcing the man back behind the line. Nick Evans, not the biggest of players, threw himself into a try-saving tackle out on the wing, Danny Care following up to be certain.
15 man defiance. One that might just turn the season around, after the dodgy start.
Man of the match award went to Tim Molenaar, a centre who only joined Quins, from Gloucester, on Monday. So many long term injuries forced the club’s hand. Molenaar is experienced and tough. It showed.
This weekend felt like the spirit of 2011-12 had returned. The feeling that Quins can beat anyone – whether they are playing for club or country.
Let’s see!
We went to see “Liola” at the Lyttleton this Sunday afternoon. It’s a play by Luigi Pirandello, Italian author and playright. Set in rural Sicily, it’s comedy, farce, musical, moral tale, and maybe, political statement, all in one. It’s slight, but then, when you think about it, quite profound. It’s well acted, and with a twist. Set in Sicily it may be, but the cast are Irish. And the music, played by an onstage band, is East European in style.
What is this telling us? That the ways and travails of rural communities have a lot in common, wherever they are? Or maybe it was just a device to bring it closer to home. A clever juxtaposition. Anyway, I thought it worked well, for the most part. Made you think a bit more.
The story has a dark heart, although it’s not really brought out as much as it could be. The main landowner in the area, Simone Palumbo, has married a young girl, Mita, from the village. After five years they are childless. She is, of course, to blame, and is mistreated. Meanwhile, the hero, Liola, is an agricultural worker, who has had no problem fathering children. He has three boys, who he cares for, with his mother. He’s a charmer, with a love of song. He makes another young woman, Tuezza, pregnant. She’s a niece of Palumbo, and a rather unlikely story is concocted to suggest that he is the father. His obsession is having someone to inherit his wealth and Tuezza’s child looks like the best bet. In his anger, he beats up Mita, as she protests against this arrangement. She briefly escapes him. It turns out that Liola has always loved her and, in an even more unlikely twist, he persuades her to make love to him, so that she also has a child whom Palumbo can call his own. This, of course, doesn’t work out too well for Tuezza, but redeems Mita. Liola, meanwhile, manages to float above all the angst, until the end, when Tuezza makes a half-hearted attempt to knife him, for ruining her grand plan.
And of course, everyone in the village knows what is going on, as everyone in villages does. The claustrophobia of the small community.
So we have domestic violence, adultery, poverty, a village denuded of most of its men through emigration and war. Men who act with impunity, women who take the blame. But all in a rather jolly romp. I kind of hoped that Liola and the landowner were going to have a showdown, a Shakespearean confrontation. But no, in the end, the women took the hit, and the men continued as normal. Mita turned from victim to accomplice when the deception changed in her favour, with no real explanation.
Was that being condoned by Pirandello, or was he just reflecting the way things were? The music, a modern addition, with a song called “That’s How It Is” (or something like that) suggests the latter.
It was an entertaining afternoon, and Rory Keenan was excellent as Liola. I could see him in a few Shakespearean roles in the future. The music was great and the acting engaging and amusing. There was a great reception for the cast at the end.
But it left me reflecting that this was a play that could have been much more. It’s a reflection of its time, I guess. Men getting away with it. Women accepting their lot.
And singing and dancing their troubles away…
Wharncliffe Viaduct, Hanwell, built in 1836-37 to carry the Great West Railway over the Brent River Valley (Not a big valley!). Designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. It is now a grade 1 listed building.
I cycle this way a lot. I love the views around the viaduct, from both sides.
You can catch a glimpse of the River Brent on this next one. Kind of a stream-plus.
The other side. Church Fields/ Brent Lodge park (popularly known as the Bunny Park, as there is a small zoo there). Shot into the sun.
Landmarks, old and new.
If I was in Paris, I’d be snapping art nouveau Metro signs…
I’ve read a lot of excellent pieces about Lou Reed since he passed away this weekend just gone. Always a sad moment when an artist you admire leaves this world, and a moment for reflection.
Of course, Lou Reed will always be associated above all with the Velvet Underground. The band that, more than any other, can lay claim to being the source of punk, new wave, glam and half of the best indie music since then. Revolutionary in their time, although not many people noticed at the time.
My first recollection of Lou Reed isn’t with the Velvets, but when he released “Transformer” in 1972. I was 13 then – the Velvet Underground had come a bit too soon for me, especially as I was living in Cyprus between 1967-70. I didn’t buy “Transformer”, but a couple of tracks had a big impact. Of course the biggest was “Walk On The Wild Side”. As a 13 year old, living in Suffolk, I’m not sure I got all the references to tranvestism and drugs, but that didn’t matter. It was an amazingly exotic, louche song, unlike anything else that made the charts, although with T.Rex and David Bowie, amongst others, there was a growing amount of music that challenged genres and annoyed your parents. And then there was that bit at the end where the “coloured girls” sang doo, doo, doo. What was that all about?
The other great song for me at the time was “Vicious”… you hit me with a flower. Sharp, tacky rock’n’roll. Could have been on Bowie’s “Ziggy Stardust”, and of course Bowie produced “Transformer”. “Perfect Day” was on the album too. Always a great ballad, with a twist. Became massive in later years here in the UK, when it was used as a soundtrack to a charity campaign.
In the mid seventies I had some friends who were hugely into Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, so I got to hear most of his stuff, including the grimly depressing “Berlin” and the sheer contract-fulfilling noise of “Metal Machine Music”. Listening to the Velvet Underground, “Venus In Furs” was perhaps the most extraordinary sound. Rasping violin, the shiny, shiny boots of leather, sleazy, completely other-worldly for a teenager in the English provinces. “Waiting For My Man” and “Sweet Jane” were pretty good rock’n’roll songs too. But it was all quite disorientating and distant – especially “Heroin” and other wild stuff like “European Son” – and I didn’t at that time buy any of the albums myself. I was into glam and then metal. Until the advent of punk…
Punk and new wave changed everything musically for me, and of course that deepened my appreciation of the Velvet Underground. I bought a Best Of called “Andy Warhol’s Velvet Underground featuring Nico” at university. It was a double album and had most of the best songs on it, as well as some of Warhol’s iconic Coca Cola bottle graphics.
That was enough for me at the time, but in the 1980s, when I was earning money, I went back and bought “Transformer” and “Lou Reed Live” from 1975. Best of all was an album re-released in 1988, having first come out in, I think, 1974. It was called “1969: Velvet Underground Live”. Paul Morley reviewed it in the NME ecstatically. I recall him saying it was the best album ever made, or something like that, and he made a convincing case. I bought it – on vinyl – and concluded he was pretty close to being right. It’s recorded in Dallas and San Francisco, in small clubs, and it’s like one of the MTV unplugged concerts, where just a bit of electrics sneak in. The songs are stripped to their essence, not having been that complex in the first place. The guitar and bass are elastic, repetitive, awesome. Lou Reed is humorous, warm, delicate. The heavy tracks are heavy, but there is also some wonderful semi-acoustic rock’n’roll. “Sweet Jane”, “I’m Waiting For My Man”, “Lisa Says”, ‘We’re Gonna have A Real Good Time Together”, “I’m Beginning To See The Light”…
A little wine in the morning and some breakfast at night….
It really is a great album, and I’d say if you want to buy one Velvet Underground album, get this. These days it seems to come in two parts so watch out for that.
Lou faded from view a bit in the eighties, notwithstanding the brilliance of “1969”. But in 1989 he released what is arguably his greatest solo album, “New York”. It was an album of great power amid the simplicity of the songs, full of love and disgust for his home city and his country. Looking back, I think it’s an update of Bob Dylan’s talkin’ blues of the early sixties. Magnificent, and another must-buy album. He followed it up with a collaboration with John Cale, his Velvets partner, in honour of Andy Warhol, called “Songs For Drella”. Then in the early 90s, there was “Magic and Loss”. They were a trilogy which marked the renaissance of Lou Reed. “New York” was the best, but all are worth a listen.
Before my last memory, I should mention a fantastic Velvet Underground track which appeared on a compilation compiled by David Toop, called “Ocean of Sound” in 1996. The CD has the most amazing combination of music from around the world, from the sound of howler monkeys to free form jazz. In there is “I Heard Her Call My Name” by the Velvet Underground. Urgent, discordant, wild. Extraordinary music. Taken from the Velvet’s second album, “White Light/White Heat” from 1968. Perfect for “Ocean Of Sound” and in keeping with “White Light/ White Heat”, one of the greatest Velvet Underground tracks, with an complete guitar wig out at the end. You gotta listen!
And so, finally, a couple of years ago, I saw Lou Reed live, at the Hammersmith Apollo. It was the height of summer, and I and my friends made the mistake of having a curry before the concert. But even so, it was dire. He started with a whole string of dirges, mostly unfamiliar. He murdered John Lennon’s “Mother”, a pretty grim tune in the first place. By the time he reached “Venus In Furs” I had lost the will to live. “Venus In Furs” ! One of my favourite songs. Lost in a fog of indifference and heat exhaustion…
Things picked up with excellent renditions of “Femme Fatale” and finally, “Sweet Jane”. But the encore was perversely, another dirge, “The Bells”. Lou just wasn’t going to give us what we wanted.
I guess that’s always been the way. Lou Reed never gave people what they wanted. He gave them what he wanted, and they could like it or lump it. They – we – decided we liked it. Mostly.
So R.I.P Lou Reed. You were brilliant. You were hugely influential. Sometimes you were awful. But all the time you did it on your own terms. The history of rock’n’roll will have you as one of its heroes. But you’d probably stick two fingers up at that. Because you could…
Southern England got hit this morning by the biggest storm experienced since 1997. Two, maybe four people died as a result of accidents caused by the winds. In my part of London, the winds were lively but didn’t seem that spectacular. Enough to disrupt all the railway and tube lines though. I got into central London at about 10am and found Green Park shut, at least from the tube station end – people seemed to be walking in from the Buckingham Palace entrance. I had to divert via Piccadilly and St James’s Street onto the Mall, before heading towards Victoria.
The Mall was shut to traffic. There was a bit of tree damage, but no major collapses.
The tourists were undaunted.
Thoughtsfromwestfive 