Welcome to Issue Ten of Razzmatazz

Hi there

Welcome to Issue Nine of Razzmatazz

Well Hello There!

Welcome to Issue Nine of Razzmatazz
Are you a fan of Wuthering Heights, The Man with the Child in his Eyes, Babooska, Sat On Your lap, Running Up That Hill, Hounds of Love, Don't Give Up, The Sensual World, Rubberband Girl, Moments of Pleasure?


Happy Birthday

And Finally Happy Birthday Al Pacino
Al says: "Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn."

Welcome to Issue Eight of Razzmatazz

Hello!
45 years ago this album was released...

Forget the first and second Velvet Underground albums. They are so revered, over-written about, hailed and acclaimed, set upon plinths in the Rock'n'Roll Hall Of Fame and worshiped by all of Those Who Know and the rest of us who unquestioningly follow the pointing fingers of Those Who Know that it is impossible anymore to hear the music. It is easy to admire 'The Velvet Underground & Nico' and 'White Light/White Heat'  - because the band deliberately set out to make records that would impress the cognoscenti; they knew which buttons to push (songs about S&M and drugs, dressed in distorted, discordant and ugly noise) - if you buy into that living-on-the-edge pose.

  The Velvets' third, eponymous, album is - due to its absence of shock tactics - the real deal. Unpretentious (the nine-minute silliness of 'The Murder Mystery' aside), lyrically and instrumentally spare - which must have been quite a sonic slap in the face for 1969, after Beatles-led advances in studio sophistication and the rise of the guitar hero (Clapton, Hendrix, Page) and the advance towards muso virtuosity - they provide a sound that is entirely simpatico with the album sleeve, an intimate Billy Name black-and-white snap of the group in drab duds (only Mo Tucker's shiny blouse hints at their glamorous job). The CD cover includes a second photo taken that night - and it's pleasing to see that, in both, Lou Reed is in relaxed mood, pulling non-rock-star silly faces.

  White America's musical contribution is Country & Western and, though they share the same tenets of rhythmic simplicity, the Velvet Underground in almost other respect rejects the aspirations of the pioneer spirit, the religious fervour, the epic landscapes, the scorched earth and the bountiful harvests. No, their music is City & Eastern - it's squalid tenement blocks permanently in a skyscraper shadow, it's the stink of half-chewed hamburgers, the taste of bummed cigarettes and cafe coffee, it's black and white TVs that can't get a decent reception (so they never saw Neil Armstrong & co. landing on the moon). There's no flowery poetry here, no genius musicianship. There's no fury in the playing, no ecstatic visions, and very little tension. They sound so tired ("Help me in my weakness," they sing plaintively in the very pretty "Jesus"), the backbeat is so slack it's almost an afterthought, the vocal occasionally barely rises to a spoken whisper. But these are not faults. These are the elements - like Lou's goofy self-mocking giggly vocal on "Beginning To See The Light" - that give the record a rare humanity. It's an open-hearted warts-and-all portrait of young, vulnerable people in all their yearning, keening, plain-speaking, perfect imperfection.

  Some records hit you instantly. They are brash and loud and command your attention. This one is like your shy friend who has been sitting just out of your eyeline for a long time before    you notice him/her. You have to make the first move and, though initially reticent and withdrawn, your friend, like a flower, will open his/her petals and reveal a beauty in the sunniness of your smile.

Happy Birthday to Spike Lee March 20th 57 years young!

Mr Lee says: "I think people who have faults are a lot more interesting than people who are perfect."

Welcome to Issue Seven of Razzmatazz

Well, Hello there! This month Orange Juice are to re-release their four magnificent albums.

Orange Juice were a huge influence on The Smiths, Belle & Sebastian, Franz Ferdinand.
Alex Kapranos: "Whenever I listen to Orange Juice I feel overwhelmed with idealistic optimism. I'm still in awe of the fact that they had the guts to do it." The reissues follow Domino records release of Coals to Newcastle, a 7 disc anthology.
Formed in 1979 by Edwyn Collins, James Kirk and Dave McClymont (bass) and Steve Daly (drums).
You Can't Hide Your Love Forever, Rip It Up, Texas Fever, The Orange Juice.
And Finally... Happy Birthday to Mr Bob Marley!

Marley says: "One good thing about music is when it's hits you, you feel no pain."

Welcome to Issue Six of Razzmatazz

Happy New Year and Happy 40th Birthday to:

Happy birthday also to Granmaster Flash

• Born Joseph Saddler, he is the leader of the influential hip hop group Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five and one of the pioneers of hip hop DJing.He is credited with the invention of the first crossfader, which he made by sourcing parts from a junkyard in the Bronx.
  
  Flash says: "Normal kids in their teens want to go and date girls and do mischievous things, your hormones are jumping around, but I stayed in my bedroom in search of something."
• 
  

Welcome to Issue Five of Razzmatazz

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL OUR READERS!!! THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT!
What were the best albums of 2013?

Josh's Top Five:

5) Snapshot by The Strypes

4) Walkin On A Pretty Daze by Kurt Vile

Kurt Vile – Wakin on A Pretty Daze

Read more at http://www.uncut.co.uk/blog/uncut-editors-diary/the-best-new-albums-of-2013-the-editors-choice#aI2aJKuqszhPPrLx.99

Kurt Vile – Wakin on A Pretty Daze

Read more at http://www.uncut.co.uk/blog/uncut-editors-diary/the-best-new-albums-of-2013-the-editors-choice#aI2aJKuqszhPPrLx.99

Kurt Vile – Wakin on A Pretty Daze

Read more at http://www.uncut.co.uk/blog/uncut-editors-diary/the-best-new-albums-of-2013-the-editors-choice#aI2aJKuqszhPPrLx.99

3) Elements of Light by Pantha Du Prince

2) Shangri La by Jack Bugg

1) Melt Yourself Down by Melt Yourself Down

Kitty's Top Five:

5)  Push The Sky Away by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

4) Red Hot & Fela by Various Artists

3) Random Access Memories by Daft Punk

2) Matangi by MIA

1) AM by Arctic Monkeys

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And finally... HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO... RICHARD PRYOR

The best stand up comedian of all time was born on the first of December 1940 and sadly died of the 10th of December 2005.

Merry Christmas!

Welcome to Issue Four of Razzmatazz

Macca's Back

PAUL MCCARTNEY: 'NEW' (2013)

So Lord Sir Macca has returned with his 394th album, released just in time for sticking in the  Christmas stockings of bust baby-boomers, worn-out groovers, frail and weedy pot-heads and un-embarrassable dancing uncles. Why does he do it? Isn't he rich enough? Surely he doesn't need any more islands stacked sky-high with tenners? Does he get some kinky kick from the online insulters who, knowing nothing of him, point at his Herman Munster Frankenmullet and laugh? Why doesn't he retire and let the world of Pop be run by da kidz? For a legitimate reason for his reluctance to hang up his plectrum, let's turn to another mad-haired Scouser OAP who still rampages the stages of theatres. Ken Dodd, when asked about the thought of quitting by Bob Monkhouse ten years ago, replied that retirement was when you stopped doing the job you didn't like. And McCartney is no reluctant performer. It's not just some job of work for him; it's his compulsion, it's his permanent itch. What would he do otherwise? He knows no other way of passing the time.

  And it doesn't really matter whether the records are good or bad, whether they're inventive or dull, pleasant or painful, brilliant or plain. That's not for him to decide. He hasn't the time to discern the qualities. He is, to his detriment and benefit, a great believer in the random aspect process and the first thought/best thought policy, and will leave some lyrical gobbledegook in place, simply because it sounds good to him. 'C Moon' finds him trilling that "I'd never get to heaven if I fill my head with glue", and 'Monkberry Moon Delight' finds him screaming about sitting in the attic with a piano up his nose. Does this mean anything? Should it? It's a delight that McCartney eludes the didacticism and naked confessionalism of Lennon's solo output (God, all those bloody one-dimensional Yoko songs! It was like being cornered by a humourless pub bore droning on about his car or Sunderland's chances this season. Very early on in his solo career, Macca trod lightly on the same espouse-the-spouse path as Lennon - e.g. 'The Lovely Linda' - but realised very swiftly that this was a creative cul-de-sac, the wrong kind of self-indulgence). McCartney's songs are as empty or full as you wish them to be. When, on 'Band On The Run', he sings "The rain exploded with a mighty crash as we fell into the sun", are we supposed to take this literally or metaphorically? McCartney litters his songs with lyrical red herrings, blue meanings or bare-faced codswallop  - who is Billy Budapest and why has he got Macca's pyjamas? Is 'Ram On' cryptic autobiography (his showbiz soubriquet, pre-Beatlemania, being 'Paul Ramon')?

  This doesn't mean that McCartney is oblivious to his faults (the schmaltzy ballads, the cooing and the wooing, the sloppy pop, the gloomy strums - Macca Tack, for short): 'Silly Love Songs', beneath its gloss and sheen, is a knowing satirical self-poke ("You would have thought that the world had had enough of silly love songs […] but what's wrong with that, I'd like to know, because here I go - AGAIN! - 'I love you, I love you'…"). His art is inconsistent, uneven, wayward, unbalanced, frustrating - but then so is Life itself. What's the big deal? Which great artist has never painted a crappy picture? And which crappy artist has never painted a great one? It's the way the cookie crumbles, the sausage rolls, the angel delights and the strawberry fools.

  This is as good a place as any to lean over to Francois Truffaut who is saying this at some point in time and space:

  "[T]he practice of cinema has taught us a certain number of things:

- It demands as much effort to make a bad film as a good one;

- Our most sincere film can look like a practical joke;

- The one we do most casually may end up going around the world;

- An idiotic but energetic film can be better cinema than an intelligent but flabby film;

- The result is rarely proportionate to the effort put into it."

  Francois' findings are as valid to record-making as to film-making.

  What we have here on 'New' is a more sober-than-usual Macca. If you want examples of how mad he can be musically, seek out and enjoy his 'Electric Arguments' record made in 2008 with Youth (under the group name The Fireman); there are more ideas and tunacy in its 63 genre-mashing minutes than in forty years of Eno theorising. The contributions of Linda McCartney are much missed - her untutored vocals were a vital, essential ingredient; broken glass in the face cream. And Macca's employment of four of the hippest producers smacks of a desperation for cool credibility. It's too late in the day for him to try and re-invent himself, a la Bowie or Gaga. He doesn't  need to bother about his public image. Despite his continual proclamations of the 'normality' in his life ("Very twee/Very me" - his self-description in 2005's 'English Tea'), we all know he's completely mad and has been since 1964. He took advice from an owl on the matter of whether or not to marry Heather Mills.

   'New' has, as one would expect, a few trademark eccentric lyrical touches ("I need someone who's a sweet communicator I can give my alligator to") but, in the main, this is a solid textbook for the art of pop composition. It rocks, it rolls, he reveals as much as he hides. It's a great listen but, more than the songs themselves, is his continuing talent, his ability to produce something new in that ancient framework of verses, choruses and middle eights. Whereas most of his contemporaries, and the generations following after, find their creative fires burnt out and having to rely on repackaging their pasts in more elaborate and expensive boxes  or churning out their back catalogue onstage, Macca continues digging away, sometimes hitting common rock, sometimes coming up with diamonds. In his eighth decade, he is Pop's Picasso, still curious, still hungry, still moving.

   There have been many pop star deaths this past year - some more expected than others - but the passing of Lord Sir Macca, he of the permanently aloft thumbs, would be probably the most painful for this writer to withstand. He has been making music for my entire life, he has effectively soundtracked it (without my knowing it), he has given me more joy (even the unintended hilarity of something ghastly like 'Wonderful Christmastime', or the devil's advocate argument of defending 'The Frog's Chorus' as a disguised anthem for the workers) than almost any other pop musician. He gives hope and inspiration in so many ways, and in these austere days, he is a treasure you'd be mad to lose. 

Review by Kitty Davies

NEWS
ASTRO QUITES UB40
"After a well-documented turbulent few years I feel that it is time to draw a line in the sand and move on. Since Ali and Micket departed, the band has been like a rudderless ship with no clear direction, no action plan. We've merely muddled our way through on a wing and a prayer. There has been a serious lack of communication between the band and management...
I know it may seem sudden to all who know me but my mind is made up and will not change. I think it's clear that I've had enough of being depressed, as I'm sure other members are, but the difference is I'm not prepared to continue to be miserable at home and work. So it's with a heavy heart I say goodbye. It was (mostly) fun while it lasted." - Astro

UB40 formed by brothers

Robin Campbell and Ali Campbell

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO.... Scarlet Johansson whose special day is November the 22nd.

Johansson says: "It's a great thing to get older and learn I don't feel bound in any way to how many years I've lived. I identify just as much with my 86 year old Grandmother as I do with my sister."