Whistle Test

I stayed for 2 nights at my friend Brian’s and as well as the usual over-indulgences we watched a couple of DVDs. The first was the Borat film. I cried with laughter – particularly the dinner party scene – and I have not done that for a very long time. The Fast Show Christmas special from about a decade ago was probably the last time.

On Monday night we indulged, as two ageing rockers in the Old Grey Whistle Test DVD and I enjoyed this as much as Borat but in a very different way. I’d forgotten how great The Sensational Alex Harvey Band were as live performers. Clem Clemson was a magnificent guitar player and a showman. Also featured were Tim Buckley (a magical ‘Dolphins’ recently well covered by the Soul Bossa Trio) – if he had lived where would his career have taken him? An intense sexually charged performer. John Martyn, Bill Withers, Emmylou Harris and Curtis Mayfield represented the singer songwriter genre and all were excellent. I surprised myself by thoroughly enjoying a great Lynard Skynard performance and Jan Akkerman and Focus were also terrific. I have a good Akkerman album called Tabernacle where he plays the lute and it illustrates what diverse and talented musicians these were. The low point was Elton John and it re-enforced my view that although he wrote a couple of classic singles his legacy does not go beyond that.

This truly was the age of supercharged live performances. I do not hark back to a golden age of music however. Times have changed. What I do think is that each generation has a musical style which defines it and in that early seventies era it was great rock music and its subsidiaries. Rock music is now a creatively dead music form but other genres have come along to replace it. Not better or worse. Just different. To illustrate the point, in a future blog I will list some great 21st century albums that I believe enhance any collection.

A different topic. I blogged recently on Sarko and Sego and I am pleased to see that they made it through to the 2nd round. France will have a choice between two fairly distinct sets of policies. What interests me is that commentators are saying that the 85% turnout is a sign of political maturity. You could easily say that this is a sign of its political immaturity. A huge number of people in France clearly believe that France’s decline will be reverted by politicians rather than by themselves and a shift in their own attitudes. For all the ‘new dawn’ rhetoric in 1997 when Tony Blair got elected in the UK only 60% of the electorate voted. The rest of us continued to take responsibility for our own lives.

Song of the Day: ‘Dolphins’ – Tim Buckley