Marillion's Live From Cadogan Hall: Much More Than Just Another Acoustic Show

Music Review: Marillion - Live From Cadogan Hall (2 CD/2 DVD)

Marillion's third live concert DVD in recent years (dating back to 2005's Marbles On The Road) is a radical departure from both of its predecessors.

Filmed on the final night of the Less Is More tour — which took its name from Marillion's 2009 album of the same name, and featuring stripped down recreations of previously released songs from the progressive rock band's vast back catalog — Live From Cadogan Hall is still much more than the simple acoustic concert document you might think.

There is a whole lot more going on here than your standard two hours featuring a bunch of guys sitting on stools strumming folk guitars, and as a concert film, Live From Cadogan Hall leaves you with the inescapable feeling of having just witnessed something quite special.



The cathedral like ambiance of London's prestigious Cadogan Hall also makes for an appropriately elegant backdrop — especially during this DVD's many overhead shots showing a giant Christmas tree perched high above the band (the concert was filmed back in December 2009).

One of the first things you notice about this concert though, is the number of diverse, unusual instruments being played by the musicians on the stage.

These are things you wouldn't normally associate with a rock concert at all. There are xylophones, glockenspiels, dulcimers, celestes — there is even an autoharp which keyboardist Mark Kelly at one point claims to have built himself.

All manner of percussion instruments — bells, chimes, wooden blocks and the like — are also prevalent in this concert. They are not only played by monster drummer Ian Mosley either, but rather at one point or another by all five members of Marillion.

The thing is, all of these exotic instruments serve as far more than just window dressing for this concert. Marillion make fabulous use of all of them throughout, showing off their musical chops in ways that are only hinted at in the more grandiose progressive rock recordings the band is so much better known for.

From the oriental motifs of "Interior Lulu" to the lighter shades provided by Kelly's xylophone on "Hard As Love," this album is above all else a showcase for Marillion as a band of fabulous musicians. Even vastly underrated bassist Pete Trewavas gets a moment to shine here, turning in a series of fabulous sounding runs on "The Space," rumbling just underneath the tandem of Kelly's jazzy keys and Steve Rothery's gorgeous guitar.

Speaking of Rothery, although the guitarist is better known for the soaring, Pink Floydian heights he normally reaches with Marillion, his guitar work here is no less worthy. With the smaller arrangements heard here, Rothery is able to display a more subdued, but no less powerful and intricate side of his considerable guitar prowess. Lest anyone worry though, Rothery finally cuts loose with a ripping solo on the second disc closer "Three Minute Boy."

The setlist on Live From Cadogan Hall is also one sure to please Marillion fans. In addition to the entire Less Is More album — including new versions of everything from their earliest songs after Steve "H" Hogarth replaced original vocalist Fish in 1989 ("The Space") to more recent material from the group's 2008 double-disc Happiness Is The Road ("Wrapped Up In Time") — the second disc includes new takes on songs like "You're Gone," Marillion's near hit from the 2004 prog opus Marbles.

There aren't really any extras to speak of on this DVD, and that's okay. The 127 minutes of exquisite music here should be plenty enough to satisfy fans of the band, and for anyone willing to gamble twenty bucks, perhaps make them a few new ones as well.

The DTS Digital Sound Mix captures every musically nuanced highlight of this great concert (and there are plenty of them). The high definition video, while shot rather simply, is tasteful and straight forward, concentrating on the musicians onstage as well it should.

Marillion's Live From Cadogan Hall will be out on double disc DVD and Blu-ray on March 29, 2009, as well as on a double disc audio CD.

This article was first published at Blogcritics Magazine

Worst Neil Young Video Ever? You Decide...



Doing research for a book on Neil Young, unfortunately means also reacquainting yourself with some of his more embarrassing albums, such as 1986's particularly vapid Landing On Water. Here, "Touch The Night," a song that when played live with Crazy Horse circa 1984, could actually be mistaken for a slightly less great retread of "Like A Hurricane," is reduced to a typically overproduced, overdubbed eighties mess.

The drums are particularly awful (even though they are played by the great Steve Jordan). As for the video, well, get ready for Neil Young as Clark Kent.

But wait. I take it all back. This lovely little ditty, taken from the same album, may be the actual worst Neil Young video:

To V Or Not To V: All Hail Your New Reptilian Gods, Puny Humans

In case you missed it — and if the ratings for this season are any indication, most of you did — ABC wrapped up the second season of its once much-ballyhooed alien invasion series V this past Tuesday.

Officially, Tuesday's two months too early "Mother's Day" episode was only the season finale for this reboot of the eighties sci-fi cult classic. But few outside its most optimistic fans expect the show to be back next fall. In many ways, V was doomed from the start — a combination of both classic mishandling by the network (was the show ever around for more than a few weeks in between hiatuses?), and its own initial failure to live up to the enormous wave of hype preceding its 2009 debut.

Still, for pure balls alone, you've really got to hand it to these guys. If this really is the end of the road for V, then they have gone out on a full head of blood, guts, skin and cheese. In one of the more audacious risks ever taken on behalf of a show facing almost certain cancellation, the writers and producers of V threw the television equivalent of a last second, fourth and long, Hail Mary pass on Tuesday night.

Major characters, including lizard-loving teen drip Tyler, alien baby daddy Ryan, and repentant eighties alien Queen Bitch Diana (Jane Badler) all got killed off in the final thirty minutes (Diana's lizard spear through the gut was a particularly bloody scene for network TV). And in perhaps the ultimate "if we're going down, were taking you with us" move, the writers then proceeded to write the rest of us humans out of the show. As it turns out we weren't conquered by superior technology or military might at all, but rather by the "bliss" of alien lizard super crack.

Leading up to this, V likewise went for broke in trying to match the cheese of the original eighties series. They brought back original star Marc Singer — now sporting a Ming The Merciless Fu Manchu to boot!

There was even a brief eighties sliding split screen segueway from Tyler's death by rough alien sex aboard the mothership, to a "meanwhile, back on Earth" shot with Tyler's Mom Erika (Elizabeth Mitchell) being kidnapped by black hooded thugs. Earlier in the episode, a different set of kidnappers wore grey alien masks. Nice touch.

But there were also holes big enough to drive a fleet of saucers through. Like how for instance, does Ryan manage to sneak out of a fascist tent revival meeting full of lizard converts after her amphibious majesty Queen Anna demands their worship on bended knee?

Or, in V's biggest reveal, how does a full bodied, fifteen foot high lizard baby turn into a manufactured by skin, human clone of the shorter, much more petite Princess Lisa — who is still convincing enough to seduce the hapless romantic Tyler? Well, okay. The kid is dumb as a box of rocks and twice as gullible. Still, that is some serious skin shrinkage.

Cheese factor aside, this go-for-broke attitude is exactly what the finale needed if this is really it. Despite being mishandled by the network nearly every step of the way (and following an over-hyped, but underwhelming start), V really was starting to get good this year. One has to wonder if a third year might have brought a breakout season.

As it stands, V concludes with enough wide open spaces to fill several Grand Canyons. It could always still get picked up on cable by a network like SyFy or Chiller. Otherwise though, they have ended things up with an audaciously spectacular F.U.

All hail your new Reptilian Gods. Puny Humans.

This article was first published at Blogcritics Magazine.

Bruce Hart's Pro-Wrestling Tell All Puts You In The Middle Of The Ring

Book Review: Straight From The Hart by Bruce Hart

Ever since the mafia like code of silence governing the secrets of professional wrestling known as "kayfabe" was broken once and for all back in the nineties, pro-wrestling insiders have been tripping all over themselves to publish their own "tell-all" books about the sports entertainment business.

Some of these books, such as Mick Foley's Have A Nice Day have proven to be both entertaining, and quite revealing. Many others however, written by such names as Hulk Hogan, Eric Bischoff and Ric Flair, have more often than not yielded little in the way of previously unknown details, and in a few cases have even proven to be more than a little self serving.

Bruce Hart's Straight From The Hart falls somewhere in the middle of these two extremes. On the one hand, this memoir of Hart's life as both a wrestling performer and "booker" (for his father Stu Hart's Stampede Wrestling promotion) offers a fascinating inside look at the pro-wrestling business, with all of its colorful cast of characters and equally cutthroat behind the scenes politics.

At the same time, Hart's book also serves as a forum for the author to air some of his own dirty laundry in public. Reading between the lines, it's hard not to see through Hart's often harsh criticisms of his more famous siblings (this is especially true in the case of his brother Bret "Hitman" Hart), as not being at least a little colored by his own professional jealousy. There also seems to be some genuine hurt there over the way that Bret Hart handled the matter of Bruce's ghost writing Bret's syndicated wrestling column for the Calgary Sun.

Mostly though, this book is a real eye-opener that makes for some very fascinating reading, even if you don't necessarily call yourself a wrestling fan. As the lesser known son of the Hart family — a professional wrestling dynasty that includes such famous names as Bret and Owen Hart, British Bulldog Davey Boy Smith and Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart — Hart's qualifications as an insider with unique insight into the inner workings of the squared circle are virtually without rival.

Some of his stories will of course be familiar to wrestling fans. The story of the infamous "Montreal screwjob" at 1997's WWE Survivor Series pay-per-view for example certainly represents familiar territory. As such, Hart's own retelling of what went down on the night that Bret Hart was "screwed" out of the WWE title in a real life conspiracy involving Vince McMahon, arch-rival Shawn Michaels and referee (and close friend) Earl Hebner offers few new details.

The death of his brother Owen Hart however, is a revealing look into how this tragedy (Owen Hart fell to his death while attempting to perform a stunt from the ceiling of an arena at a WWE pay per view show) shook his family and friends to their emotional core.

In Bruce Hart's account, Owen's death reads like the latest chapter in a long series of events that came to define the unique love-hate relationship which continues to exist between the Hart family and Vince McMahon to this day. Even as the family was grieving and pointing fingers of blame over the tragedy, there was also a strange business as usual aspect about it, that seemed to suggest the show must nonetheless go on. It makes for some of the most eye-opening reading in this book.

Elsewhere, Straight From The Hart reveals many of the insider details you'd expect from such a book. There are the humorous road stories about the "ribs" wrestlers often pull on one another as a way to amuse themselves during the otherwise mundane grind of traveling from city to city during their decidedly unglamorous "house show" tours.

There are also the darker stories about steroid use, and the accompanying rate of premature death amongst wrestling performers. This is most tragically illustrated here by the case of family friend and promising wrestling talent Brian Pillman, found dead in a hotel room at the age of 35.

Mostly though, Straight From The Hart is Bruce Hart's own story about growing up in one of the most powerful families in wrestling, complete with all the personal memories and anecdotes one would expect. To his credit as a writer, Hart also holds little back here — whether its dealing with the backstage politicking or with more deeply personal matters like the deaths of Pillman and his brother Owen.

There is plenty of dirty laundry here to be sure, and more often than not Bruce Hart seems to have some personal axes to grind. But the story is also told with the candid feel of reading from someone's diary. In that respect, Bruce Hart's Straight From The Hart puts you right in the middle of the ring.

This article was first published at Blogcritics Magazine.

Radiohead's The King Of Limbs: These Are My Twisted Thoughts

After having had the opportunity to live with Radiohead's new album The King Of Limbs for nearly a week now, I can honestly report that I still have semi-mixed feelings about it. Which, at least in the case of this particular band, is probably a good thing.

So, to borrow from the title of a song once intended for this album, these are my twisted thoughts.

You see, Radiohead is a band whose albums — especially the good ones — have this tendency to sink in rather slowly, taking deliciously insidious root in your brain and in your psyche, brick by brick. Likewise, the really great ones — as I suspect The King Of Limbs may well prove to be — reveal previously undiscovered new sonic textures that might have been initially glossed over with each new spin.

Like most really great music, once it gets under your skin, Radiohead's best stuff has this tendency to really take root and grow on you. The journey getting there can be occasionally difficult, and quite often is. But the final destination is almost always worth it in the end, and also one which much more often than not leaves you wanting more once it's over.

The King Of Limbs is no exception.

I also suspect that the physical CD release — which is still about a month away — will reveal even more new audio treasures of the sort only hinted at in the initial MP3 and Wav downloads that were released this past Friday. In the case of 2007's In Rainbows, this was certainly true and then some. The difference between that initial download release, and the actual CD that came later, was almost like hearing two completely different records.

The King Of Limbs marks Radiohead's full-on return to the layered, somewhat icy soundscapes of 2000's Kid A, and its 2001 companion album Amnesiac, following the fuller, more traditional rock instrumentation (at least comparatively speaking) heard on 2003's Hail To The Thief and 2007's In Rainbows. Not surprisingly, there are already rumors afoot of a similarly forthcoming companion to The King Of Limbs (based on the title of the closing track "Separator," and its lyric "if you think this is over").

On an initial few listens, the songs here have the sort of unfinished feel to them that — at least to the more casual listener — might sound more like a series of half-baked ideas, even though looped over the occasionally lush, often trippy, but nonetheless intriguing music that it is.

On the surface at least, there is nothing on The King Of Limbs with the same grand, sonic sweep as In Rainbows best songs like "Reckoner," nor a song anywhere as fully realized (at least in a traditional sense) as "All I Need," from that same album. Even so, there is a hypnotic quality to these songs that is almost impossible not to be sucked in by, particularly after repeated listens.

But the real star of The King Of Limbs is Thom Yorke's voice. As most fans of Radiohead's post-OK Computer work already know, Radiohead's lyrics have not always been one of the bands stronger suits.

When you can pick them out here, lines like "I'm such a tease and you're such a flirt" (from this album's "Little By Little"), make about as much sense as "yesterday, I woke up sucking a lemon" did the first time Yorke sang them on "Everything In Its Right Place" from Kid A.

Even so, the way that Yorke uses his high pitched, borderline eerie sounding falsetto as an instrument to not only compliment, but enhance the overall atmospheric textures of this album is nothing short of amazing.

When Yorke's lonely, seemingly just beyond the grave voice is looped over and over saying what sounds like "don't...hurt...me" during the song "Give Up The Ghost" for instance, I have absolutely no idea what he's singing about. But, and perhaps inexplicably, I still find myself drawn spellbound to it like a moth to a flame.

The first time I heard Yorke use his voice as an instrument like this was on 2000's classic Kid A, an album which, along with its companion piece Amnesiac, gave me initial cause to draw comparisons to what David Bowie did back in the seventies on his Berlin trilogy with Brian Eno.

That comparison largely still holds, by the way. But hearing Yorke's use of his voice as a unique compliment to the music on The King Of Limbs, I'm also reminded a lot of what Neil Young did on his highly under-appreciated eighties syntho-pop experiment Trans. It's probably not a coincidence that Yorke has been known to occasionally sneak in a few verses of Young's "After The Gold Rush" during the song "Everything In Its Right Place" at Radiohead's concert performances.

Much like Kid A (an album which The King Of Limbs, not coincidentally in my own opinion, shares much in common with), and to a slightly lesser extent, Thom Yorke's solo album The Eraser, the icy cool of Radiohead's new album will probably not bring any comfort to those fans who have been patiently waiting since the nineties for that followup to The Bends or OK Computer (neither of which are probably forthcoming anytime soon by the way).

But for right now, The King Of Limbs really feels like one of those great Radiohead albums.

This article was first published at Blogcritics Magazine.

New Radiohead Album Arrives Saturday As Download, CD And Vinyl To Follow

Radiohead's long awaited new album — their eighth studio release overall and the band's first since 2007's In Rainbows shook up the recording industry with its then revolutionary new distribution model — will be available this Saturday as a download through a special website set up by the band. The album is once again produced by longtime Radiohead musical collaborator Nigel Godrich.

Details about the new album, titled The King Of Limbs, were first released in a statement by the band this past Monday, and in typical Radiohead fashion, were predictably sketchy.

What is clear is that Radiohead will once again initially employ the same download-only distribution model they used for In Rainbows, although there will not be a "pay what you want" or otherwise free option this time around. At the time of its 2007 release, In Rainbows shocked the music industry by allowing fans to download the album for whatever price they chose to pay, including paying nothing at all. This time around, the download will come at a fixed price of about $9.00 American.

The band will subsequently release physical CD and vinyl editions of the album on March 28. The vinyl edition is being touted by the band as the world's first "newspaper album," due to its elaborate jacket that folds out like a newspaper. Perhaps, they have never heard of Jethro Tull's Thick As A Brick, which was released in a similar jacket way back in the early seventies.

What is less clear about The King Of Limbs however, is the track listing. A Japanese website set up for online pre-orders was at one point reporting that the album will feature eight new tracks, but has since removed the post. Early sessions for the album in 2009 produced two tracks, "Harry Patch (In Memory Of)" and "These Are My Twisted Words," which were subsequently leaked as downloads.

However, various news sources on the web report that neither of these are likely to make the final cut of The King Of Limbs. AtEaseWeb, the popular, semi-official Radiohead fan site, suggests the following songs as strong possibilities for the album:

The Daily Mail
Mouse Dog Bird
Lotus Flower
Give Up The Ghost
Skirting On The Surface
Open The Floodgates
Let Me Take Control/Chris Hodge
Burn The Witch
No Shame
Pay Day
Super Collider

While sites purported to be streaming tracks from the album are likewise said to be plentiful, a diligent Google search failed to yield any actual results for places to hear so much as a single snippet. Of course, we will all know by this Saturday, won't we?

American fans can download Radiohead's The King Of Limbs beginning this Saturday, February 19 by going here.

This article was first published at Blogcritics Magazine.

By Request: NYFAQ Table Of Contents

Since a number of you have been asking -- and since my ever-anxious publishers today joined this group -- here is a preview (subject to change) of the table of contents for my Neil Young book, which I still hope to have out by his fall.

As always, this comes with the usual disclaimer that things are subject to change as events develop between now and my late spring deadline to deliver the actual goods.

Neil Young FAQ

The Albums And Archives Of Neil Young

Contents

Introduction: Everybody Knows This Is Neil

About The Author

Forward (Writer TBD)

Part One: A Dreamer Of Pictures

Neil Young’s Early Years: 1963 – 1969

1. - I Am A Child: From Canada To California
2. - Hello, Broken Arrow: Buffalo Springfield
3. - Buffalo Springfield Again: Latter Day Remembrances, Compilations, Anthologies And Boxed Sets
4. – Is This Place At Your Command?; Neil Young, Elliot Roberts And David Briggs
5. – When I Saw Those Thrashers Rolling By: Neil Young & Crazy Horse
6. - Sleeps With Angels (Too Soon): Departed Bandmates, Brothers In Arms, And Sisters In Song
7. - You See Us Together Chasing The Moonlight: Neil Young’s Bands

Part Two: The Needle, The Damage And The Ditch:

1969 – 1975

8. - We Have All Been Here Before: A Brief History Of Crosby, Stills, Nash (And Sometimes Young)
9. – An Open Letter From Neil Young (Reprinted from Blogcritics Magazine)
10. - There Was A Band Playing In My Head, And I Felt Like Getting High: After The Gold Rush
11. - I’ve Been To Hollywood, I’ve Been To Redwood: Harvest, Nashville, And The Stray Gators
12. – So I Headed For The Ditch: Time Fades Away, On The Beach, And Tonight’s The Night – Neil Young’s Ditch Trilogy
13. – Why Do I Keep Fuckin’ Up?: Neil Young’s Biggest Commercial Flops
14. – Hey, Ho, Away We Go, We’re On The Road To Never: Neil Young’s Most Underrated Albums

Part Three: Dancing On The Light From Star To Star: 1975-1980

15. – Zuma, The Stills-Young Band, And The Return Of The Horse
16. – Like An Ocean Fish Who Swam Upstream: Chrome Dreams, American Stars And Bars, The Ducks, Decade, And Comes A Time
17. - More To The Picture Than Meets The Eye: Human Highway, Rust Never Sleeps, And The Punk Rock Connection
18. – Get Off Of That Couch, Turn Off That MTV: Neil Young’s Live Recordings
19. – Piece Of Crap: Five Essential Neil Young Bootlegs
20. – A Kinder, Gentler Machine Gun Hand: Five Great Neil Young Concerts From Seattle, Washington

Part Four: Sample And Hold: The Geffen Years And Neil Young’s Lost Decade

21. – Why Do You Ride That Crazy Horse?: Hawks And Doves, ReAcTor, And A Kid Named Ben
22. – I Need A Unit To Sample And Hold: Trans, Island In The Sun, And Geffen
23. – Computer Cowboy: The Best Neil Young Websites
24. – No Matter Where I Go, I Never Hear My Record On The Radio: The Shocking Pinks, Old Ways, And Farm Aid
25. – Strobe Lights Flashin’ On The Overpass: Landing On Water, Life, Muddy Track, And The Bridge School
26. – Aint’ Singin’ For Pepsi: The Blue Notes, American Dream, Ten Men Working, And The Road Back Home
27. – What We Have Got Here, Is A Perfect Track: Eldorado, Times Square, The Young And The Restless
28. – This Shit Don’t Sell: A Brief History Of Neil Young’s Unreleased Recordings

Part Five: A Thousand Points Of Light: Neil In The Nineties

29. – Rockin’ In The Free World: Freedom And The “Return” Of Neil Young
30. - Don’t Spook The Horse: Ragged Glory And Arc/Weld
31. – From Hank To Hendrix: The Most Noteworthy Neil Young Covers, Collaborations, Sendups And Tributes
32. – On This Harvest Moon: Twenty Years Later, The Sequel
33. - Change Your Mind: Sleeps With Angels, Mirror Ball, And How The Punks Met The Godfather Of Grunge
34. - Good To See You Again: Broken Arrow, Dead Man, Looking Forward, And Year Of The Horse
35. - Touch The Night: Neil Young’s Latter Day Disciples

Part Six: It’s A Dream: 2000 – 2011

36. – Let’s Roll: Broken Arrow, 9/11, Are You Passionate?, And Greendale
37. - Falling Off The Face Of The Earth: Prairie Wind And Heart Of Gold
38. - Motion Pictures On My TV Screen: Shakey In The Movies
39. – Should’ve Been Done Long Ago: Living With War, Let’s Impeach The President, And The Freedom Of Speech Tour
40. – Sure Enough, They’ll Be Selling Stuff: The Resurrection Of The Archives
41. - No Hidden Path: Chrome Dreams II and Fork In The Road
42. – I Said Solo, They Said Acoustic: Neil Young Brings Le Noise To The Twisted Road
43. – Buffalo Springfield Again

Acknowledgments/ Sources

Index

PS - Congrats to Neil on his long overdue first Grammy for music this past weekend!