Welcome to the RPM Seven Day Soundtrack, week ending Friday 20th January 2023...

Tony -

"Here's my 3 for the week with best wishes to everybody as we (hopefully) emerge from the big chill of the last week or so."

Piers -

"It has been one of those weeks when there has been a huge variety of new music which I have heard and could dip into. These are a favourites…"

John -

"Hi Everyone, I hope you're all keeping safe and well. Like Tim, I listen to a lot of music while I'm driving. This week I'm selecting tracks from some of the CDs that have been on rotation on my car stereo in the past seven days."

Dave -

"Hi ya all, it’s all ways a pleasure on a Friday evening to sit down and pick 3 tunes for the playlist. A good excuse to dig through the record collection!!!! Here’s my 3 guilty pleasures this week."

Jackie -

"Driving to Farndale, I listened to Acoustic Classics by Richard Thompson, so I'm focusing on that album this week. The first two choices are my favourites....the third Jayne chose a few weeks ago, but it bears repeating, and I'm claiming a bonus track as it's my birthday on Sunday....

Alan -

"Some songs to test the patience perhaps this week."

Van Der Graaf- 'Pioneers over C' (from 'Vital; Live at the Marquee Club. London 16th January 1978' double album released July 1978. Charisma label)

"A curiosity here in several ways; firstly the band name was truncated (no longer were they a 'Generator'!), secondly, for a band whose reputation had long been almost legendary in a 'live' setting this was their debut live outing after almost a decade in existence and thirdly, the 'regular' line up was, for most of the numbers, minus saxophonist David Jackson but plus Grahame Smith (ex Charisma label mates String Driven Thing) on violin and Charles Dickie on cello and synths. And what an unholy row they kicked up, which owed as much to the then popular 'punk' scene (possibly influencing Hammill fan John Lydon's new band Public Image Ltd methinks?) as it did progressive rock thanks to the energetic and uncompromising playing of what was mostly a trawl through the bands back catalogue refreshed by the expanded line up. I was present for the recording of this album (Sue was awaiting the arrival of our second child, JonPaul, who duly arrived a month later) and sort of got to meet the band prior to the gig..... the Marquee dressing room fitted the oft used description of 'a toilet' as the entrance door was actually inside the Gents and, inadvertently, I opened the door and was confronted by the band sitting around awaiting the start; there were confused looks from Hammill and Co, followed by profuse apologies from yours truly whilst retreating in reverse through the door!!! The album itself, like many others from the band, divides both fans and the 'casual' listener (if there is such an animal for Hammill/VDGG records) but it was a novel way in which to sign off the band in its Mark One format, for a while at least, as Smith and original bassist Nic Potter had already replaced organist Hugh Banton and Dave Jackson on the previous years excellent release 'The Quiet Zone/The Pleasure Dome'. It would be 27 years and 23 solo albums from Hammill before the band returned (generally as a three piece) to recommence their unique existence. An acquired taste to say the least and, as Morra once said when I played the 'Time and a Word' album by Yes at an RPM meeting many moons ago, "there's a lot of music in there"..... and I don't think he meant it as a compliment!!!!! The song itself first appeared on the coruscating 'H to HE, who am the only one' album and refers to " a group of astronauts who travel faster than the speed of light (hence the "c" in the title) on a relativistic one-way journey that takes them beyond the physical universe." and contains this memorable Hammill couplet as its finale regarding the astronauts plight:

"I am the lost one, I am the one you fear,

I am the lost one,

I am the one who went up into space, or stayed where I was,

Or didn't exist in the first place"

Parental Guidance Warning: This song, like many other VDGG outings, is not for the faint of heart!!!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juPZ-oJBd10

"And speaking of Public Image Ltd..."

Public Image Ltd- 'Poptones' (from 'Second Edition' double LP released February 22nd 1980. Virgin label)

"OK, credibility is often challenged by John Lydon but, when Sue and I spent around 30 minutes talking to him before the Pistols first gig at the Outlook in Doncaster there was none of the sneering 'punk rocker' which was being touted in the daily/music press at the time. His knowledge of sixties music was apparent and, although I don't remember him mentioning Peter Hammill at the time, I little expected him to delve into the dub crazy experiments apparent on 'Second Edition/Metal Box', become an advertising tool for butter, take part in a 'reality show' (surely a misnomer if ever there was one?) and put his name forward to represent Ireland at the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest! As the Grateful Dead once said....' What a long, strange trip it's been'!!! 'Second Image' was the slightly later rerelease of the 'Metal Box' set of three 12" discs from November 1979 which was deleted and replaced after the initial 60,000 run and had seen the band 'progress' from the Malcolm McLaren/Catholic faith baiting of the 'First Edition' debut to expand on that albums closing track, "Fodderstompf", a dub fest which highlighted Jah Wobbles natural talent on bass guitar, an instrument he had only recently begun playing at Lydons insistence when he requested longtime friend John Wardle/Jah Wobble to join the new outfit. Keith Levine from the Clash was soon incorporated into the line up which was completed when newly arrived Canadian student Jim Walker answered the time honoured ad in the Melody Maker 'Drummers wanted' column!! 'Poptones' is, allegedly, based on a true story. Apparently a woman was abducted by several men who put her in the boot of what she remembers as a Japanese make of car. They drove her out to a forest where she was beaten and violated. She is reported to have said that, on the drive to the forest and during the assault, they were playing "pop tunes" on the radio. Luckily she survived to tell her story.

Another album to challenge both fans and new recruits alike and, as such, one to 'dip into' on a fairly irregular basis methinks. Lydons vocals are strident, to say the least, but the ensemble playing is exceptional and bears favourable comparison to any of the concurrent Jamaican dub releases of that era."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQtO6R4qkg0

Robert Fripp- '1983' ( from 'God save the Queen/Under heavy manners' LP released January 1980. Polydor label)

"Fripp's second solo album, with each side bearing a different title and being identified as Side A and Side 1. 'God save the Queen', as a track, is Fripps somewhat humorous response to an audience member who called out that, as the concert was taking place on the tenth anniversary of the Woodstock Festival, Fripp should reprise Hendrix's 'The Star Spangled Banner'. Fripp proceeded to play an extrapolation of 'GstQ' with the opening three notes forming the basis for an extended piece of 'Frippertronics' which he was touring around various cafes, bars and small concert halls in North America. The King Crimson format had been mercilessly finished at short notice in September 1974 when Fripp foresaw portents of 'drastic changes in the world' in the upcoming years and that "the phenomenon of supergroups and stadium rock which the band had become part of, was severing all meaningful contact between musicians and their audience". He then retired from the music business, other than the occasional guitar solo on recordings by Blondie, Daryll Hall and Peter Gabriel amongst others, and sought spiritual guidance at various monasteries and religious centres including one dedicated to Fripps new 'gurus', Russian mystic George Gurdjieff and J.G Bennett, where Fripp had a spiritual experience in which "the top of my head blew off". Fripp had, by this time, already recorded and toured with Brian Eno (including a 'memorable concert at the London Palladium which Sue and I attended alongside around 2,284 Roxy Music wannabe's!!) where Fripp improvised over various 'prepared' electronic tapes from Eno's vast library and this served as an apprenticeship for these later 'Frippertronics' outings. When Eno phoned Fripp to invite him to add guitar to Bowie's latest recordings (the 'Heroes' sessions in July 1977) the scene was set for Fripp to return to a more familiar group format, initially with the 'new wave dance group' The League of Gentlemen' and then, after a tour billed as Discipline, the renamed King Crimson (at his managements insistence) which included, for the first time, a second guitarist (Adrian Belew), the reinstatement of Bill Bruford on drums and, after a brief rehearsal (one chorus of the mega heavy 'Red') the recruitment of Gabriel's bassist Tony Levin. Since that time Fripp has reconstituted the band on many occasions and currently tours as a 'seven headed beast' with three drummers and occasionally (or so I'm led to believe) appears on YouTube alongside his frequently underdressed spouse Toyah Wilcox and, apparently, special guest star Chesney Hawkes !!!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHkzZbRZMrc

Philip -

"Last weekend I used some book tokens to buy Bob Dylan's "The Philosophy of Modern Song," and I am very pleased with the purchase. It is eccentric (no Lennon and McCartney but you do get Bing's version of "The Whiffenpoof Song"), as erudite as you would expect from a man with Dylan's way with words, and highly entertaining. It is sometimes very amusing, and a notable feature of the book is the choice of illustrations, which are often selected to elicit a chuckle.

There are only 4 out of 66 songs of British origin, and in one of those cases he chooses Santana's version of "Black Magic Woman" over the original.

My first selection this week is one of the other 62, "Saturday Night At The Movies," in the essay for which he doesn't even discuss the song, but rather uses it to express his view that the art of cinema peaked in the mid-20th century with films (many of them in black and white) that combined popularity and entertainment value with something worth saying about the human condition). I tend to agree with this assessment."

"Best wishes and good health as always. (P.S. I bet that Burt Baccarat was a bit of a gambler)."

Tim -

"Here's three from my week's musical mix."

'Til Next Time...