Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells A Story
Rod the Mod finds his solo footing, headed for stardom, with the Faces in his wake.
6:00 AM GMT 22/06/2011
Features Disc of the day
Robert Calvert
Freq
(Flicknife, 1985)
Hawkwind’s dynamic sci-fi poet gets conceptual re: the miner’s strike.
The sadly curtailed career of hypomanic writer-performer Robert Calvert – he died of heart failure aged 43 in August 1988 – includes some striking ‘Mad Bob’ anecdotes, like the time he went for then-bandmate Lemmy with a sword onstage, or when he chased Hawkwind’s limousine on foot after they abandoned him in Paris, all the while wearing an army uniform. Yabbering, maximalist solo discs like Captain Lockheed And The Starfighters (a Goon Show-esque concept-gangshow about the post-war German Luftwaffe, starring Viv Stanshall? Why not) bear out this unpredictable persona. But Freq, produced pretty much single-handed during the miners’ strike of 1984-85, shows a more sober side. It combines cold, ungrooving synth-rock with field recordings from the picket lines - “Arthur Scargill is a first class wanker” opines one interviewee of the former NUM President - and archly reflects on industrial decline, unemployment, ecological decay, state surveillance, genetics and other science gone bad. But as on opener Ned Lud, named for the mythic leader of the Luddites, it also mixes fatalism with its feelings of frustration and anti-Thatcher anger, not least in All The Machines Are Quiet’s plaintive “all we’re asking is a living wage.” All of which means that Freq still resonates, with an extra kick of now-ness delivered by The Cool Courage Of The Bomb Squad Officers, a song about the defusing of a terrorist device.
Ian Harrison
Posted by Danny_Eccleston at 6:00 AM GMT 19/11/2008
Further Listening
Robert Calvert – Captain Lockheed And The Starfighters (UA, 1974)
The Human League – Travelogue (Virgin, 1980)
Alan Moore/David J – V For Vendetta (Glass, 1984)
Previous Disc of the day
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Earl Brutus - Larky
Last salvo of Ginsters Pasty-Warholism from Britpop ramraiders.
12:04 PM GMT 08/06/2011
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Loudon Wainwright - T-Shirt
An overlooked small wonder from an unpredictable career.
6:00 AM GMT 03/06/2011
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Landscape - From The Tea-rooms Of Mars… To The Hell-holes Of Uranus
Dry computer club Futurists, upon hitting implausible chart paydirt.
6:00 AM GMT 17/05/2011
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Causa Sui - Summer Sessions Vol 1-3
Epic Danish jams, for when the neighbours get you down.
6:00 AM GMT 12/05/2011
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