Disc of the day
Heaven 17 - Penthouse And Pavement
From Sheffield, synth pop and funk to stick it to Thatcher. Currently being played live!
Features Disc of the day
Van Morrison
Veedon Fleece
(Polydor, 1974)
Astral Weeks’ smarter cousin: songs of innocence, experience and the Irish diaspora…
It was the 4th Century Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi who, when writing on “the transformation of things” told of waking from a dream in which he was a butterfly, unable to figure out whether he was Zhuangzi who’d dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly now dreaming he was Zhuangzi. Listening to Van Morrison’s mystical 1974 masterpiece Veedon Fleece is kinda similar: is this Van in an American arcadia conjuring up memories of pastoral Ireland, or young Van, back in the fields and streets of his homeland dreaming of an escape to Tennessee? Momentary points of half-sense can be found in the bloody gangster tale of Linden Arden Stole The Highlights or Country Fair’s pebbles and rail-tracks but these images do not hold, for Van or for us, because the beauty is too overwhelming, and the intangible, drifting melodies, Jim Rothermel’s flute and recorder, and magical images of myth and riff pull us back down into the deep fathoms of the mind, the high-grass borders of sleep, where we all must lose our way.
Andrew Male
Posted by Danny_Eccleston at 6:00 AM GMT 15/02/2008
Further Listening
Van Morrison – Astral Weeks (Warners, 1968)
Tim Buckley – Starsailor (Straight, 1970)
Dexys Midnight Runners – Don’t Stand Me Down (Mercury, 1985)
Previous Disc of the day
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Heaven 17 - Penthouse And Pavement
From Sheffield, synth pop and funk to stick it to Thatcher. Currently being played live!
6:00 AM GMT 18/03/2010
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Creedence Clearwater Revival - Green River
Essence De Choogle from John Fogerty and crew. Badass!
9:54 AM GMT 17/03/2010
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The The - Soul Mining
Matt Johnson's self-excoriating - but tunepacked! -classic.
6:00 AM GMT 16/03/2010
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Various Artists - Axe Attack Vol II
Metal Britannica inspires MOJO metal amnesty. Studded leather wristbands aloft!
2:32 AM GMT 12/03/2010
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The Pop Group - Y
For connoisseurs of pop-as-rupture-in-the-space/time-continuum
6:00 AM GMT 11/03/2010
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Blissful album. Even on Bulbs, when he barks like those dogs he's hanging with on the cover
Posted by The Encrusted Green at 10:26 PM GMT 15/02/2008 Report Abuse
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I am a big Van the Man fan.I have all the albums and have seen him several times since way back in the Stadium,Dublin in the late 80s! I would agree that Veedon Fleece is an oft ignored masterpiece.It just got lost in the md 70s and is too often forgotten about. Fair Play is beautiful,Van at his finest.You Don't Pull No punches,But You Don't Push The River is magic,I still don't know what it's all about but that's the mystery of Van for you! I will be buying the re-releases over the weekend despite having them all already. When will there be a decent box set of Van from say 69-79 for a start with all the hidden gems?
Posted by colm gallagher at 10:44 PM GMT 15/02/2008 Report Abuse
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I am a big Van the Man fan.I have all the albums and have seen him several times since way back in the Stadium,Dublin in the late 80s! I would agree that Veedon Fleece is an oft ignored masterpiece.It just got lost in the md 70s and is too often forgotten about. Fair Play is beautiful,Van at his finest.You Don't Pull No punches,But You Don't Push The River is magic,I still don't know what it's all about but that's the mystery of Van for you! I will be buying the re-releases over the weekend despite having them all already. When will there be a decent box set of Van from say 69-79 for a start with all the hidden gems?
Posted by colm gallagher at 10:44 PM GMT 15/02/2008 Report Abuse
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A magical album - But Astral Weeks' smarter cousin? No. Wiser, more wordly perhaps, but not necessarily any smarter. Youthful, romantic ebuliance has been replaced by a more somber, nostalgic longing; a desire to revisit the imperfect past rather than face the realities of a troubled present and future. Van is rejuvinated by the poetry and humble nobility of his homeland and its people. And so are we, even now.
Posted by ange tsibogiannis at 2:31 AM GMT 16/02/2008 Report Abuse
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RE: ange tsibogiannis
Ange, you're absolutely right. I sacrificed clarity for the sake of a pointless reference to a now-forgotten Gene Wilder movie from 1975: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072608/
and I didn't even remember that correctly.
"A desire to revisit the imperfect past rather than face the realities of a troubled present and future."
Couldn't have said it better meself and you might well argue that I didn't. But what a wonderful album! One of Nick Cave's faves apparently.
Posted by Andrew Male at 9:55 AM GMT 18/02/2008 Report Abuse
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I don't think this is his best disc, but certainly an underrated one .
Posted by Shain Shapiro at 5:09 PM GMT 27/02/2008 Report Abuse
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Well, it's one wonderful album,mystical, magic, timeless. Specifically in vinyl.
One of my all-time records.
Posted by Anonymous at 11:17 AM GMT 05/03/2008 Report Abuse
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It's a mystical, magic, timeless and wonderful album, specifically in vinyl.
One of my 20 all-time records.
Posted by carneham at 11:20 AM GMT 05/03/2008 Report Abuse
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