Ennio Morricone is a legend, full stop. His music can be heard in the “Spaghetti Westerns” of Sergio Leone, in Once Upon A Time in America (one of my favourite movies), The Untouchables, Bertolucci’s Novecento, Sean Penn’s State of Grace (another underrated classic) and, of course, Cinema Paradiso, one of the only films to ever bring a tear to my eye.

In terms of soundtrack composers, Morricone is the only one that counts for me. And, given that Paul Newman died at the weekend, it’s high time we appreciated a couple of soundtracks on thishereboogie.com.

After The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966), his compositions became more and more emotional, culminating in this piece of music, possibly his last truly great score. For anyone who’s seen this fantastic Italian movie, the soundtrack looms large and listening to any piece from it will transport you instantly back to the cinema and piazza of that little Sicilian village.

There’s little more I can say about this piece of music, except that it always tugs at my heartstrings and fills me with nostalgia. Here’s a famous scene from the movie with the piece of music in the background. Hope you enjoy.

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Continuing the theme of favourite songs while heading to festivals as blogged about previously here comes another cracking song that will get you in the mood for a festival if you don’t already have festival fever and shame on you if you don’t. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, or B.R.M.C for short, hail from California in the US and at the time were associated with the whole garage rock craze that happened at the turn of century - Im thinking The Hives and The Strokes here.

I’ve only ever listened to two of their albums B.R.M.C  their debut album from which this song comes from and their third album Howl , which is actually my favourite album of theirs. In terms of music there seemed to be a big shift in musical style between albums. The first album contains a lot more distorted , electric guitar (which is always good for an outdoor gig) while Howl  is more folk and blues with the acoustic guitar being the central instrument with the harmonica thrown in for good measure.

Spread Your Love is laced from start to finish with distorted power chords that really light up the song. The lyrics ‘Spread your love like a fever, don’t you ever come down’  is repeatedly sung between 

‘She spread her love like a big fire 
I only saw it once 
She gave me love like a sister 
She’s bad, but not enough’

I know I’ve always enjoyed playing song when going to music festivals and also late at night at the festivals winding down from the day. Check it out.

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I’m really liking Klaxons at the minute. Their Myths of the Near Future album (which gets an unfair dissing on rateyourmusic) updates early ’90s rave music and staples it to solid pop grooves, brilliant harmonies, and quasi-mystical lyrics to brilliant effect.

‘Two Receivers’, the first song on the album, starts with a grungy drumbeat that seems to come from the ether, before bass and cascading keyboards announce the introduction to Klaxons’ worldview:

“Krill edible oceans at their feet
A troublesome troop out on safari
A lullaby holds their drones in sleep“

I’m not even going to try to interpret this, but the alliteration and phrasing of the lyrics work very well with the song and backing harmonies. With song titles like ‘Atlantis to Interzone’, ‘Golden Skans’, ‘Totem Timeline’ and ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ (nice to see fellow Pynchon fans), it’s safe to say that many of the lyrics are digressive in-jokes and meanderings.

But one meaning I got from this song was a 2001: A Space Odyssey-style set of ‘receivers’, positioned “nearly out of reach” and tracking everything that humankind does, to report back to base camp. Hmmm…very profound.

The music, like all of Myths of the Near Future, is layered yet very hummable. Listen to this three or four times and you start to notice things in the music, the keyboard riff beneath the keyboard riff. It’s difficult to know what their next album will be like - they should be jailed for starting the ‘fluorescent adolescent’ craze in the first place - but ‘Two Receivers’ and the rest of the Myths… album are worthy debuts. Listen to the song on this YouTube video.

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Mick Flannery, to me, is one of the best up and coming musicians currently plying his trade in the Irish music scene. He first came to my attention a few years ago when he appeared live on Irish television performing another great song from his debut album Evening Train called ‘If I Got a Dollar’ which is a simply gorgeous song that he duets with another female musician who I don’t know. If you like bluesy folk then you will like Mick Flannery. Think a young, Irish Tom Waits and you’ll get the picture.

The song, like a lot of songs on the album revolve around relationships, love and gambling especially card playing which is the main theme of today’s song which is basically a conversation between three guys playing a card game and is sung in the same manner.I know Aaron Dillon, another Irish musician is a guest vocalist but I don’t know the other. What separates this from other songs that I have heard recently is the atmosphere that the song conjures up and the realistic conversation that friends and foes have when there is money involved in a card game. Below is the first verse of the song but I’m not really doing it justice that can only be achieved by listening to the song:

‘I put 55 dollars on this hand
Im In, Im out, not a chance
so only one of you dogs wanna dance
ah you better have some balls in those pants
give me two cards, one card, don’t look at that
trying to feel a flush up bite me in the ass
Jesus you must have lady luck up there hiding in your hat
don’t try and fuckin fool me boy we’ll see about that
It’s a hundred to play now we’ll see what you weight now
that pot is getting hotter boy we’ll see if you stay around’

The song continues in this vein as the size of the pot gets heavier and tension grows

’shut the fuck up what the fuck its got to do with you
I don’t see your money here so you don’t get to contribute
nothing to this little bet’

I got the chance to see him play in Whelan’s last year and it was a good gig even though the place was half empty. He made one funny quip as he was introducing a new song by say “This is a new song….not that you would know” - typical Cork humour. He’s playing in Whelan’s again tonight so get your asses to it. Here’s a youtube link to the song.

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Reading today’s Guardian, I saw a piece about Van Morrison banning the sale of alcohol at his gigs. Apparently ‘Van the Man’ doesn’t want to be disturbed while he phones in his repertoire. So, for those of you who might be sickening of the cantankerous old pudding, here’s a classic from his real heyday.

The Astral Weeks album rightly sits atop the pile of “best of the best” albums, up there with Revolver, Highway 61… and Exile on Main Street. It sold almost no copies when it came out, but now it’s almost mandatory listening. Never mind that Mojo magazine have made a living out of worshipping this type of music, it doesn’t make it any less brilliant.

The title track of Astral Weeks lays strong claim to be Morrison’s finest moment. On the surface, it’s a meditation on reincarnation, materialism, love and beauty in the world. Morrison youthful ’sense of wonder’ comes across strongly throughout this song, but on ‘Astral Weeks’ it’s yet to be tempered by the cynicism creeping into later songs such as ‘Madame George’.

Repetition of key phrases in the song leave them burned into your mind: the cyclical chanting - “To be born again”, “In another world”, “Way up in the heaven” - seem so free-wheeling and jazzy that you can almost see Van sidling up to the muse.

I can’t get the studio version of YouTube, so here’s a live version on YouTube from recently. The Van Morrison branding is all over the video, for some reason. Not sure what’s going on there. Anyway. Guess that’s what happens when you get old. Look at Bob Dylan…

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I find it hard to know whether I really like the New York Dolls or not as I roll back and forth on the topic. To me The Ramones eptiomised the New York rock scene at that time even though the Dolls are more glam rock than punk rock. They recently reformed again and I got to see them perform on the Jonathan Ross show and to be honest I really didn’t think much of their performance.

I’ve only ever really loved three songs of theirs and to an avid fan of the band they are probably the most obvious songs - Looking for a Kiss and Personality crisis both from their first album New York Dolls while the third song is Chatterbox from their second album Too Much Too Soon. I can’t honestly say why but i think my interpretation of the lyrics of these songs had more a resonance with me than other songs which brings me onto today’s song which I take as the band comparing being in the limelight to having a Personality Crisis as you may have to be somewhere or behave in a certain way when being in the public domain.

I’ve written about this topic before on a previous post about a Devendra Banhart song here. While Devendra was singing specifically about his life or the life of a well known musician (I don’t like to use the word famous) the Dolls seem to incorporate friends with a reference lady:

‘Well we can’t take it this week
And her friends don’t want another speach
Hoping for a better day to hear what she’s got to say‘

and further into the song friends are also referenced:

‘ That personality everything starts to blend
Personality when your mind starts to blend
Personality impression of a friend,
Of a friend, of a friend, of a friend, of a friend
Personality wonderin how celebrities ever met
(Look and find out on television)‘

As expected the tempo of the song is really high merged with power chord driven guitar work and some nifty keyboard work to ever so slightly mellow the song out. Check out a live version of the song.

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While I know that Brel influenced almost everyone with his crooning voice, literate lyrics, passionate delivery and sombre tone, there’s very little I know about the man or his music - with the exception of ‘Ne Me Quitte Pas’. He has been a big influence on such diverse artists as Bowie, Beirut, Sinatra, Dresden Dolls and Nina Simone, all of whom have recorded interpretations of his compositions.

Born in Belgium (and frequently featured in the pub quiz staple “Name five famous Belgians” - I can only think of him and three footballers), Brel’s adopted home was France. Sharing the language with his adopted home (though he was of Flemish descent), Brel swiftly became an icon for his angry, passionate, mournful songs of love and regret.

‘Ne Me Quitte Pas’ (’Don’t Leave Me’), probably his most famous song, has been described by Brel as “a song about the cowardice of man”, and is almost certainly autobiographical. The song uses mournful violin, a minimal piano figure reminiscent of Satie, and Brel’s plaintive, fearful voice. He uses lyrics that, in other hands (or voices) would be cliched, but from Brel they seem totally sincere (English translation in brackets):

“Je f’rai un domaine (I will give you a kingdom)
Ou l’amour s ‘ra roi (where LOVE will be king)
Ou l’amour s’ ra loi (Where LOVE will be the law)”

The lyrics are profound and deep, especially in the last verse (a fairly good translation of which can be found here). My French is terrible, even though it’s mandatory subject for students in Ireland, but even his delivery of the verse is searing.

With his realisation that love is lost, his tone becomes despondent and, by the end of the song, he repeats “Ne me quitte pas” almost as mantra, probably to a just-closed door. In the late ’50s, when it was all ‘Tutti Frutti’ and that, this is a frighteningly raw and mature piece from a singer old beyond his years. Here is the video for ‘Ne Me Quitte Pas’. I love Brel’s delivery in this video - he doesn’t stop looking straight at the camera.

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A short post today with a link to a sweet song and the second sub-three minute song which will kinda tell you my tolerance level this week for long, complex songs. Songbird is an Oasis song, the first single that was written by Liam Gallagher, and is taken from their fifth studio album Heathen Chemistry. I think if we discussed whether or not Oasis are a great band we could be here till the end of the century because the views on the band are so disjointed. During their time they’ve definitely promoted a great deal of attention which is fair enough in my opinion, all bands want to be heard.

The song was written for Liam’s girlfriend. I’m not going to say a whole lot more about it - you can read more about it here if you’re interested but it does show that the younger sibling has a softer side or he’s just mellowing with age. Probably no coincidence the song is called Songbird considering the Beatles are one of their favourite bands and the song they got called ‘Blackbird’ but then again I may just have too wild an imagination. Anyway here’s a live version .

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I really got into Pavement when I was in my teens. Growing up in the middle of the Irish countryside, touch-me-I’m-sick bands like Nirvana or earnest, hand-on-heart-despair bands like Pearl Jam (sorry Des, I know they’re a favourite!) didn’t do an awful lot for me. My music taste focused on three groups: Sex Pistols, Velvet Underground and these boys, Pavement.

‘Cut Your Hair’ is a classic example of their ability to glue a great melody together to some sparkling wit. A commentary on the explosion of the “hair, flannel shirts and sincerity” groups that came up in the wake of grunge’s pioneers, the harmonies that open the song and come up after the choruses are inspired, like a slowed down Beach Boys on helium.

The lyrics always get me laughing, just for the surrealism. Lines like “hit me wearing muzzles”, “did you see the drummer’s hair” and (my favourite) “NO BIG HAIR!” just seem to come out of nowhere. It’s as if the band sat down to write a poppy song, but just kept getting sidelined into weird tangents that come out in the lyrics. This isn’t the only Pavement song that does that - check out ‘Silence Kit’ (or, as I always thought it was called, ‘Silent Kid’), the first song on the Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain album.

The whole Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain album is a really good listen, and their debut, Slanted & Enchanted is also recommended. Here’s the video for ‘Cut Your Hair’ - a treat in itself. “No big hair!”

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Polly Jean Harvey or PJ harvey as she is more comely known as, has been around for a while now and I have always been a big fan. A couple of years ago she was playing at the electric picnic and I was an excited little boy as I had never seen her before. Turns out she was almost an hour late for the appearance and I ended up not seeing her at all as it impacted my schedule for other bands. A big no no for me is being late for festival appearances, do it on your own time. It irked me so much that as a form of protest I refused to buy a ticket for her gig in the Olympia a month or two later - not that it made much of a difference to anyone except me. I also didn’t listen to her latest album when it first came out but I eventually buried the hatchet. Like lovers quarreling she had some making up to do with me and when I eventually listened to her latest album the making up was done.

This is the first single from her latest album ‘White Lines‘ and marks a massive departure for the queen of the post-rock genre. Nearly all the songs are softer, mellower than her previous efforts. It always takes courage for a musician to depart from their signature sound as it can either create a whole slew of new fans or cause current fans to distance themselves from the artist. One of the first things I noticed from the new album is that she actually has a lovely, sweet voice that to me, was somewhat lost on her previous guitar heavy albums.

Lyrically I’m a bit confused about what the song is about. Its could be a number of things - childbirth, dreaming, abortion or even hallucination (thats if you have ever seen fear and loathing in Las Vegas and their penchant for Ether).

‘Something inside me, unborn and unblessed, disappears in the ether, one world to the next‘

So right now, I’m taking it that she is giving birth - ‘the woman beside me is holding my hand’ while Ether is being used as the anaesthetic which is causing some mild euphoria ‘The ceiling is moving‘ and ‘conscious of nothing‘ . Musically its mainly just a keyboard accompanying PJ and its the keyboard that accentuates the feeling of helplessness throughout the song. Check out a live version of the song from Copenhagen  here

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