Hotel California

I just read Barney Hoskyns's Waiting For The Sun and it's pretty good up until the late 70s when he starts to rush through punk, paisley, metal through to Hip Hop. I'm a Beach Boys, Byrds, Burritos, Love, The Doors, Gene Clark kinda guy so when it got to The Eagles, Linda Rondstadt, Joni Mitchell, Jackson Brown and ugh James Taylor I thought I'd probably stop reading as my interest waned but man they were all so fucked and took so many drugs it was absurd. Anyway what I'm gettin at is the biggest impact* The Eagles had on me, apart from hearing their songs on the radio growing up ad nauseum, was the inner of the gatefold sleeve of Hotel California.  While in about year 8 in High School me and a bunch of friends watched this video about backmasking, satanism etc. in rock at one of my friends houses whose dad happened to be a teacher at our catholic School.  The video would have been produced by some kind of American fundamentalist christian group to scare the kids away from that evil Rock n Roll. I vaguely recall stuff on The Beatles, Led Zep and Queen and their use of satanic backmasking. The main thing I remember however was the dissection of the lyrics to Hotel California and the study of its cover. From then on that cover became a spooky artifact. It was in my home. I don't recall anyone ever playing it but the cover was often perused with spooky delight. At other peoples houses we'd go through the record collections to invariably find the album cover to check out the dude up there in the 2nd of the 3 windows upstairs. He was meant to be the devil or something. It was pretty creepy whatever he was. The Hotel according to the video was some kind of satanic church...'you can check in anytime you like but you can never leave'...... Anyway I should check and see if that video is on the youtubes.

*I loved Don Henley's Boys Of Summer (One of my all time fave 80s tunes!), I bought the 7", but I probably didn't even realise until much later that he was the dude in The Eagles.

The Church - Heyday

It was the Heyday for those shirts.

So this is the fourth Church LP, which also means it was their fourth classic in a row. What a winning streak they had going in the 80s. Heyday was then followed up with Starfish another classic. The winning streak was then interrupted by the follow up to Starfish. Anyway I'm talking about Heyday because of those recent Scott Walker posts. It is an impeccably produced record with great songs and arrangements. It was Scott walker's main man Peter Walsh at the desk. This is the sound of 80s Australia in the best possible sense. I could bang on about the coolest sounding lyrics ever, the dual guitar interplay of Koppes and Wilson-Piper and the wonderfully intuitive drumming of Ploog. Also saying Ploog is great. Richard Ploog the coolest rock drummer ever! Anyway you've probably heard all that before what I want to highlight is the production and arrangements and how well Walsh and the Church got it so so right.

Night of Light

The strings and horns are arranged here by both Steve Kilbey and Peter Walsh. Can you believe this wasn't even a single. Incredible arrangements, so mesmerising up there with the strings and horns on Forever Changes.

Youth Worshipper

Horns and strings by SK alone this time. Some really weird and unexpected changes in this track. It starts off all nice and jangley then goes down some strange paths. Those horns are so fucking cool the whole thing still amazes me to this day. A high water mark in a career already filled with peaks. These are two of my favourite tunes from this classic album. I wonder why The Church never worked with Peter Walsh again? It's not like the results weren't outstanding or anything.

More Ariel Pink

Just read The Wire cover story on Ariel Pink and loved it. Well done Nick but you seem to think there were only 3 records previous to Before Today as well as Thrash and Burn, the early experiments, which I must admit I have rarely listened to but you know there was Sacred Famous, Lover Boy, FF>> etc. which are, I reckon, just as good as the ones released on Paw Tracks but always seem to miss getting attention in articles on Ariel. Don't worry AP  you won't be getting a soundcloud track sent to you from me. You are a Star! The best thing from LA since Arthur Lee and just as awesome.

LA's Finest

LA's finest
Old Skool

Books: I should read some.

Currently reading two books, Greil Marcus's Mystery Train and Pauline Kael's I Lost it at the Movies. Greil's is what I expected and a  little bit more. I always liked The Band's Up On Cripple Creek and King Harvest but I was still not convinced I would enjoy the whole of the 2nd LP. Marcus convinced me to reluctantly make the purchase and yeah OK it's pretty, pretty good. Whispering Pines lovely, I even like The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down now. Had to edit Rag Mama Rag off the I-pod though. I watched The Last Waltz several times in the last 10 years and went What?? This is supposed to be enjoyable?! Funnily enough at one stage he writes "Their music gave us a sure sense that the country was richer than we had guessed" Which I was gonna' write about The Band's music- that it was richer than I had guessed. Or had Marcus convinced me that it was. Anyway I'm not up to the Randy Newman Chapter yet. Elvis, Robert Johnson, Sly Stone and old R&B I've been big on for a long time so Marcus doesn't have to convince me of anything there but I can't see him converting me to Randy Newman. Newman to me at this moment is the type of guy I'd like to punch in the face. Can Marcus change my mind? Stay tuned.

A Zero that I read was Awkwardness by Adam Kotsko an American phd Knob. This was the most anticipated out of the 3, I guess because the subject matter is quite dear to me. It is an essay discussing obviously 'awkward' but in the context of  TV and film comedy of recent times, The Office (British and US versions), Judd Apatow films (including 40 Year Old Virgin & Knocked Up) and my all time favourite US comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm. Underwhelming doesn't fully describe it. Kotsko tried some theories and arguments about awkwardness that me and the Mrs thought were so flimsy it didn't warrant publication. Words like lame and unnecessary, I think, are being kind. How the fuck did this non-entity get a phd. If this was an essay dished up to me I don't think I would have been able to pass it as it was was totally unconvincing. I should have known better, analysis of comedy has never been interesting or done well. Who needs it analysed. You either think something is funny or not. End of fuckin' story.

33 & a 3rds Greatest Hits Vol One edited by David Barker is another waiting in the wings. It's a collection of chapters from the 1st 20 books in the 33 & a 3rd series. I've always baulked at buying any of these individual books in this series. I thought if I read this it might recommend one of them to me. Entire books full of words about 1 LP is kinda the antithesis of my blog. I like one or two sentences to describe the sounds of a record and that's it. Anyway I read the chapter on Abba Gold by Elisabeth Vincentelli and fuck me it was like a sports statistician was given the job to do the Abba record or maybe a Librarian or some other kind of obsessive compulsive ie.tedieous. This does not bode well for the rest of the collection or books in the series.