Are No-Man Secretly Steven Wilson's Best Guitar Based Band?

Music DVD Review: No-Man - Mixtaped

This is an absolutely fabulous live document, let me say that much right up front.

But I also have to admit that it's a little weird to see Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson playing before a live audience in what amounts to mostly a sideman role. What a sideman he is by the way. But more on that in a minute.

On Mixtaped, unlike his live DVD sets with both PT and Blackfield, Wilson doesn't say two words to his audience throughout this entire DVD.

In fairness, frontman and vocalist Tim Bowness barely does either. Well okay, he does thank the audience a couple times and also intros the song "Days In The Trees" by saying perhaps No-Man should play at least one song that was played during their last appearance at London's Bush Hall (the one captured here is from 2008). But even then, he never smiles.



But it is exactly this undertone of deadly seriousness that works so perfectly within a group like this one. Even the chandeliers hanging from the ceiling suggest high-brow, but in the case of No-Man this is definitely a good thing.

Visually speaking, Bowness is a picture of that earnest sort of seriousness. His eyes are often closed tightly, as though completely engrossed in every word he sings, and he doesn't really move about all that much. You could probably even accuse Bowness of being somewhat wooden onstage.

In terms of his actual voice, the best word I could use to describe it is dramatic — perhaps even to the point of being slightly overwrought. Think of a slightly less gay Marc Almond from Soft Cell and you wouldn't be that far off.

The criticisms end there however. Bowness's voice works perfectly well within the context of No-Man's songs.

Genre-wise, No-Man can be really all over the map — they've incorporated elements of everything from electronic trip-hop to avant-jazz on their studio albums. But the common thread — at least most of the time — is the lush, and yes moody, romantic pop that is at the center of No-Man's best work. In that respect, Bowness's voice is a perfect fit for what they do.

But back to this DVD.

Officially, No-Man exists as the duo of Wilson and Bowness. Onstage, they are fleshed out by a full compliment of bass, drums, keyboard, violin and a second guitarist. The transformation of these songs from their studio creations to the more fleshed-out live versions is nothing short of a jaw-dropper — and Wilson in particular is a revelation on guitar.

I never expected a No-Man concert to be more of a showcase for Wilson's guitar work than a Porcupine Tree show, but that is indeed the case here. Wilson doesn't so much shred the way he does with PT here, but rather just fills the room with waves of gorgeous harmonic sound.

On songs like "Time Travel In Texas" and especially the feedback-drenched workout on "Mixedtape," Wilson's guitar is absolutely out-of-this-world sounding. The sounds that Wilson gets out of that green Les Paul knockoff and those pedals of his — which he plays barefoot! — sound positively unearthly. On a slightly slowed down version of "Days In The Trees," Wilson's guitar textures weave effortlessly in and out of Steve Bingham's very cool looking see-through violin. Second guitarist Michael Bearpark is no slouch either.

I should also make mention of the sound on this DVD. Both the 5.1 and the stereo mixes sound great, and they do a wonderful job of separating the many layers of this very complex music. You hear every single nuance, from the simple jazzy flourishes of the drums, to the colors provided by the synthesized strings and violin, to all of that beautiful noise emanating from Steven Wilson's guitar.

Mixtaped also comes with a second disc that includes an 85-minute documentary film about No-Man's career. Among the more interesting revelations found here are how the "daisy age" hip-hop of bands like De La Soul and Tribe Called Quest influenced No-Man, and the fact that Porcupine Tree was in fact once considered a side project for Wilson. There are also a number of No-Man videos included here.

But the biggest revelation of Mixtaped is the way it reveals a previously unknown, new side of No-Man's sound. You'd never know it from the studio records, but in concert this may just be Steven Wilson's best guitar-based band.

Good Riddance To 2009 - And Hopes For A Year Of Saturdays in 2010



New Years Eve 2009, 2:00 AM

I used to love the song "A Roller Skating Jam Named Saturdays" by De La Soul back when it first came out twenty years ago, and hearing it now reminds me a lot of those times. I had just started at NASTYMIX, and riding Sir Mix-A-Lot's success, I thought we were all headed for a long, rewarding future as a big happy family not unlike the Motown Records story I'd read about as a kid.

Obviously, that dream didn't quite work out...but that's another story.

More than that, the song makes me remember a much simpler time when as the lyrics state there were "five days of work and one more day to play." As I much loved that job, I lived for those Saturdays.

As for the music, "Saturdays" was the high point of the album De La Soul Is Dead, which was an otherwise disappointing followup to the hip-hop classic Three Feet High And Rising. Still, the sampling magic found on this song matches anything on it's predecessor. Who else could blend Chicago's "Saturday In The Park" and "Grease Is The Word" -- two songs which I otherwise absolutely hated -- to make music alchemy around the lyrical fantasy of running through sprinklers and roller skating your woes away on a Saturday? The song is brilliant escapist fun, as all Saturdays should be for the working stiff.

As 2010 approaches, I am hoping to once again enjoy a few of those Saturdays myself, following the first full year I've ever spent among the unemployed in my adult life. So good riddance to 2009, and here's to a year filled with Saturdays in 2010.



"Now is the time to act a fool tonight, forget about your worries and you will be alright...it's a Saturday."

Bring on the skating revival!

Happy New Year!

Rhymin' And Stealin' With The Beasties in '87

I found this video earlier tonight, and it perfectly captures the craziness I've spent nearly twenty years trying to describe to my friends who weren't actually there that night in 1987.

The strippers. The beer. The whole damn thing. It was one of the coolest concerts I've ever seen. And it was definitely a moment in time. A few months later the Beasties came back to headline a show at the Paramount with Run-DMC, and me and my boy Nasty Nes emceed it. Anyway, you had to be there...but this video really captures the craziness. Enjoy.

Further On Up The Road



Christmas Day 2009, 1:00 AM

It's been awhile since I've written one of these personal blog entries, but the holidays always seem to be a time for personal reflection. So here goes.

As bad as the "double zeroes" have been as a decade (what exactly do we call this decade anyway?), I find myself feeling this weird sense of optimism that I can't really explain. This past year has been particularly rough. In about two weeks, I will mark the occasion of my first full year among the unemployed. To say I'm not used to this would be an understatement.

I've never been rich, but this year I've never been more broke. And doing the annual Christmas thing with my parents, without being able to buy any presents to speak of for the first time in my adult life was a particularly odd experience. As much as my parents have helped me this year, that was definitely tough.

One of the stranger things I've noticed about these past few years though, is the way that old, and quite significant faces from my past have resurfaced. Nasty Nes. Huey Suguira. Mike Levy. Pat Koory. Kim Murrell. To most of you reading these names will be meaningless, but to me each and every one of them had everything to do with who I eventually became...for better or for worse. And they have all come out of the woodwork these past few years -- these are in many cases, people who shaped my life that I fully never expected to hear from again. Since I got on Facebook a few weeks ago, this has only increased.



And that's what reminded me of Johnny Cash's brilliant re-interpretation of the Bruce Springsteen song "Further On Up The Road," from his final album American V: A Hundred Highways. Cash recorded this only months before he went to meet his maker, and in it you can hear both the resignation, but also the eerie peace in his voice of knowing that a life the likes of which few of us have ever lived was nearing its end. It's one of the very few cases where someone covering a Springsteen song did a better version of it than the man itself, and it comes from one of the best records I've heard in the past ten years.

Further On Up The Road indeed...

Not many of us have lived, or will ever live, the life that Johnny Cash did. But there is still comfort in knowing that in however seemingly insignificant ways we did it, we somehow still managed to touch peoples lives along the way. Just as they touched our own.



I have no idea what 2010 is going to bring. There are some hopeful signs, including a potential book deal to write about another of my all-time favorite artists, Neil Young. Whatever happens -- and book deal or not, hopefully it includes a meaningful source of income -- I feel a whole lot better in knowing that whatever it may be, I've got this whole army of friends and family who apparently were always there even if I didn't always realize it.

I'll be seeing you guys further on up on the road.

Merry Christmas everybody.

Think You Know The Beatles? Think Again...

Book Review: Fab Four FAQ - Everything Left to Know About the Beatles ... and More! by Stuart Shea And Robert Rodriguez

There's still time.

Although you're probably a little too late if you plan on getting it done online at this stage of the game, most of the mall stores should still be open until midnight on this, the "real" busiest shopping day of the year. Forget about Black Friday. December 23rd is the day when the real last-minute scrambling takes place.

And if you're stuck for ideas, what better gift to give this holiday season than the Beatles?

Now there's something nearly everyone can agree on, right? The only problem there is that if you're anything like me, the Remasters box may be a bit out of your price range. As far as CDs and books go, the Beatles fan in your life has also most likely already heard and read it all.

Fear not, procrastinators. We have the perfect gift for both the casual and the most obsessed Fab Four fanatic. Because if you think that everything that could be possibly said about the Beatles has already been written, think again.

Fab Four FAQ is an easy-to-read, 500-page book that is absolutely crammed to its bindings with just about every obscure factoid you would ever want to know about John, Paul, George and Ringo — not to mention Stu, Pete, Brian, Linda, and Yoko. This book covers just about everyone who has ever been associated with history's most celebrated band. They don't miss a single groupie here.

The book is broken down into five distinct sections, and comprises some 50 chapters that really are more like a series of lists. You get pages and pages of the sort of stuff that even the most knowledgeable Rockologist or Beatles buff in your life might have either forgotten, or most likely never knew in the first place.

A random sampling of the chapters here includes such fascinating trivia as "Ten Acts Knocked From The #1 Spot By The Beatles," "Try Thinking More: The Original Titles Of Beatles Songs," and "Ten Mistakes That Slipped Onto The Vinyl."

Even if you don't know the Beatles, this book is packed with the sort of information that will transform you into an instant expert, or at least make you the most popular guy in the bar on trivia night.

The book also runs down the most common myths associated with the Beatles, (such as John Lennon's rumored trysts with Brian Epstein and Stuart Sutcliffe). Fab Four FAQ likewise addresses all the people associated with the Fabs, from girlfriends and wives, to business associates and even various hangers-on. You'll learn about everything here from the Beatles studio innovations, to who really played what, to all the other acts produced by Sir George Martin.

Fab Four FAQ is also a great reference guide for fact-checking those Beatles questions floating around in your brain you may have forgotten. Remember Mark Shipper's semi-fictional book Paperback Writer from 1978? Neither did I until I was reminded of it here, complete with a picture of its cover.

However, lest you think this is a scholarly work of encyclopedic knowledge — well, it is. But authors Shea and Rodriguez present this treasure trove of information in an entertaining and easy-to-read style. More often than not, the facts are presented in the form of short entries that are more like a series of lists. It is also augmented by lots of rarely seen photos of book covers, album jackets and the like. As a friend of mine put it, this is a great bathroom read.

Fab Four FAQ is a great book for the Beatles fan in your life, whether a casual one or a self-proclaimed authority. Because if you thought you knew the Beatles, this will make you think again.

300,000 Hits: Nuff' Said

Thank you to the academy, and especially to all the little people...just kidding. You can also now follow the World Wide Glen on Facebook. Now if I could just find a real job, I could have myself a real Merry Christmas. In the meantime, we forge our way forward to 2010, devils be damned! Happy Holidays!

Neil Young's Harvest Moon Gets Stripped Down To Bare Bones

Music Review: Neil Young - Dreamin' Man Live '92

Let's face it. For all the different types of music and genre experiments he has tried over the years — and they've included everything from country to rockabilly to Devo-inspired techno-pop — Neil Young is really best known for just two things.

Those would be the full-on, amps-cranked-to-eleven rock shredding he does most often with Crazy Horse on albums like Rust Never Sleeps and Ragged Glory, and the quieter, generally more introspective territory he mines every so often with guys like Ben Keith and the Stray Gators on albums like 1972's commercial high watermark Harvest, and it's 1992 sequel, Harvest Moon.

As part of his ongoing Archives Performance Series, Neil Young has just released Dreamin' Man Live '92, a live album consisting entirely of acoustic performances of the songs which eventually became Harvest Moon.

Since the performances are all taken from shows recorded before the album actually came out, this is not so much a fully realized album, as it is a document of the artist trying out his then-new material on a live audience. So the question is, how do you improve upon what many Neil Young fans have long since come to regard as perfection?

For anyone familiar with Harvest Moon, one of the first things you'll notice about Dreamin' Man Live '92 is the difference in the sequencing. The only songs which maintain their positions on Harvest Moon here are the title track (#4) and "Old King" (#8).

The other thing you may notice though is the much smaller arrangements. Stripped of any studio sheen — not to mention the backing of Ben Keith and the rest of the Stray Gators — all that's left is Neil's voice, guitar, and the occasional piano and harmonica. This is definitely bare-bones Neil Young.

In the case of "Harvest Moon," what this means is you may find yourself missing those cymbal brushes, backing vocals, and especially that lonesome pedal steel that lend so much to that song's lyrical imagery of a gorgeous summer night under the wide open, starlit skies. I know I did. To his credit, Neil does nail the electric guitar part on his acoustic though.

The backing vocals are likewise missed on songs like "Unknown Legend," and especially on "War Of Man." However in the case of the latter, the lack of choir vocals only serves to better bring out the lonesome cry of Neil Young's guitar and voice. What once sounded so lush on Harvest Moon seems far better suited to a more desolate sounding album like On The Beach here. As much I loved the Harvest Moon version, I think I may actually like this one better.

In fact, once you get past the differences, many of Harvest Moon's best songs become new revelations in these stripped-down arrangements. Played alone on the piano, "Such A Woman" takes on an almost hymn-like quality. "Natural Beauty" is likewise another track which sounds more powerful in a solo voice and guitar arrangement. I have to admit I still miss that steel guitar on "Hank To Hendrix" though.

Although Dreamin' Man Live '92 will never be mistaken for a replacement for the original Harvest Moon, these early, embryonic versions of its songs make for a very worthy companion piece to that classic album.