Blasts from the past. There was a time, not so long ago, when artists who had reached their zenith went one of three ways: maintain some stature as a “stadium act” – Stones, Springsteen, U2, R.E.M. (R.I.P.) etc, disband and return to the 9-to-5 or regurgitate their 15 minutes of fame on the chicken-in-a-basket or (if they were lucky) package-tour circuits. It was a rare occurrence when anyone continued to plough on, diminishing audience or not, creating new works as a career choice. Possibly due to the many ways in which music is disseminated & consumed these days there seem to be more examples than ever of musicians continuing to write & tour or bands reforming with new material. In different ways the three examples here, all veterans from the late 70s “New Wave” era, demonstrate the wisdom and/or pitfalls of such a path. To be fair, none of them has - as yet - achieved the renewed popularity of, say, Blondie, but all are to be admired for their tenacity.
(The) Mekons – definitive article lost since their transformation from spiky punky Leeds underlings into alt.country transatlantic “nearly theres” – emerged in 1977 to regale the world with their mixture of agitprop and relationship woes. Never the most technically gifted of bands, they nevertheless produced an early body of work which many of us loved – not least David Bowie, who selected their wonderful second single Where Were You? as one of his Desert Island Discs. I have fond memories of seeing them at a May Day Festival in Digbeth Civic Hall sharing a bill with The Au Pairs and MP Tony Benn. I admit that after their underwhelming debut album The Quality Of Mercy Is Not Strnen (if you don’t know don’t bother asking!) I lost interest in the band, occasionally aware of their continued existence but never really inclined to put in the effort to listen to them. In 2004 I happened to catch them on a rare TV appearance playing one of their early songs – Work All Week – with a new & rather fetching arrangement. It turned out that they had revisited vast swathes of their catalogue to produce the album Punk Rock; I promptly ran out to buy it (well, sort of) and it was, indeed, a pleasant mixture of nostalgia & reinvention.
When I heard that their latest effort was entitled Ancient & Modern: 1911-2011 my interest was piqued. Could this herald a really innovative approach to a century of music from a band that has existed for over a third of that period? Would they create something compelling which mixed together their own varied background with other musical and lyrical styles? What the hell was it going to sound like?
Ancient & Modern: 1911-2011 is not an easy listen. Rather than experiment with either musical frameworks or lyrical constructs to convey 100 years of “something” the set has a fairly singular tone throughout. The underlying concept seems to be drawing comparisons between modern-day and a century ago, but it lacks focus (e.g. PJ Harvey’s Let England Shake had a similar notion but succeeded more by concentrating on “war throughout the ages”). Afar & Forlorn is indicative of this set, with John Langford delivering a ditty of loneliness & isolation over a guitar/drum/accordion/fiddle arrangement:
The title track is probably the standout. Over its 7 minutes (in olden days that would have constituted a whole EP for these guys!) it takes a great big melting-pot and throws in folk, Bowiesque vocals, Sally Timms reciting a solemn soliloquy, shades of the Rocky Horror Picture Show and a Welsh male-voice choir to produce something that does manage to straddle the Ancient and Modern (“nostalgia as a sepia glow”).
There are some clever lyrical touches here - Calling all Demons gives us “the head of John the Baptist sitting on a tea tray”, Warm Summer Sun seems to be a homage to The Kinks’ Village Green Preservation Society with “firelight and toast after I come home from playing cricket” before darkening to “corpses, skeleton trees… unimaginable hell in front of my eyes” – but the overall tone is a little too earnest and, if I’m honest, borders on hectoring. Even if the world is going to hell in a handcart and our economic infrastructure is on the edge of oblivion, there was a time when this band would have approached such doom & gloom with a degree of wit or lampooning (as on early career highlight 32 Weeks: “It takes 32 weeks of your life to get a car… it takes one week of your life to buy a mattress… it takes two hours of your life to buy whiskey… get a job, get a car, get a bed, get drunk” etc.).
Faring rather better are Mancunian mavericks Magazine with No Thyself (groan). This is the first new material from Howard Devoto’s collective in over 30 years and, while not quite reaching the heights of The Correct Use Of Soap, it’s not bad at all. Original guitarist John McGeoch, later of Siouxsie & the Banshees and so intrinsic to Magazine’s sound, died in 2004. Bassist Barry Adamson, who was involved when the band reformed to tour in 2009, is also absent having resigned to, it seems, direct his first movie, but otherwise the core of their classic line-up remains.
New members notwithstanding this is recognisably a Magazine album with all of the elements that one would expect in place: the one that sounds a bit like The Light Pours Out Of Me (The Burden Of A Song) – check; the funkier one that owes a debt to Sly & the Family Stone (Blisterpack Blues) – check. It’s not all just a replay of their heritage though. Physics opens, for the first 5 seconds, with what sounds uncannily like the theme from old ATV soap Crossroads before settling into a Lou Reed-type muse on the big questions in life (“My mind goes back to the earliest times when I learned how to use a sticking plaster”), while there are definite nods elsewhere to Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and New Order in the arrangements.
Dave Formula’s keyboards dominate this set – perhaps too much at times – and he seems to be tinkling just about every type of “black & whites” and displaying dexterity in just about every style imaginable. While this occasionally overshadows some impressive work from new guitarist Noko, the general strength of the band’s new material does manage to create that slightly dark & unsettling mood which accompanied their best work.
On the rocky Holy Dotage Devoto sings “In my dotage, more mortal than ever”; if this means that age has not dented his rather lascivious view of life then the (frankly filthy!) Other Thematic Material provides proof positive. Elsewhere his perspective remains obscure at best; Hello Mister Curtis (“Hello mister Cobain”) could be either homage or critique – or both - but I guess that’s just Howard’s Way (sorry, I couldn’t resist that one):
I suspect that this album will grow the more it is listened to – there’s a lot of subtlety on display here – and it certainly suggests that Magazine still have something worth saying. My buddy Clatter, a Devoto devotee of 35 years’ standing, will surely love this.
For me the best of the bunch comes from erstwhile Squeeze stalwart Chris Difford, who follows up 2008’s impressive (if at times a tad mawkish) The Last Temptation Of Chris with Cashmere If You Can (groan again). Difford released these tracks one at a time over the last few months via his own Saturday Morning Music Club website and has now collected them into a single package – and a jolly enjoyable collection it is too.
As befits a man in his 50s Chris spends a lot of time looking back; the majority of the songs are written in the first person and are clearly personal. I can’t remember ever hearing a song which is as brutally honest & self-critical as Back in the Day. It doesn’t shirk from acknowledging the writer’s gross failings in life (“The day I mugged an old lady was the day that ruined my life… The day I punched you in Harrods was a day that I won’t forget”). Difford isn’t trying to justify or excuse these events in any way – he’s clearly documenting them, perhaps in a cautionary manner, and the more that these songs reveal about him the more I get the impression that, should he ever choose to write an autobiography, it would redefine “warts & all” and would be an essential read.
1975 is a glorious glam-rock stomp in an Alvin Stardust style (with a brief “coo coo ca choo” thrown in to underline its lineage) and fairly races along through the decades recalling more of Difford’s problems with amazing alacrity - “I know how hard it hit me and how it changed my life, I threw away a family, a fortune and a wife” – but again there’s no sense of self-pity here and, indeed, he clearly has an awareness of ultimately how lucky he’s been (“Sounds like I’m complaining but I’m happy to be here”):
In case you’re getting the impression that this is all a depressing look at (his) life’s failings, it’s not! Plenty of other ground is covered. Like I Did has a Kinks (yes, them again) melody à la Come Dancing and gives an honest view on parenting - “He’s getting stoned.. he’s playing bass.. he lays in bed.. how can I complain?”- summarised as “It’s funny how your kids turn into you”. The excellent Goldfish details a tug-of-love custody battle for the titular creature. Chris shares the vocals here with Scouse songstress Kathryn Williams and the result has more than a hint of The Beautiful South, both lyrically and musically.
There’s a nagging sense that this sounds like a man who is documenting his past as a final act: Wrecked comments “What a wonderful journey it’s been” while Upgrade me has the plea “I want to be assured that when I leave this world I will not be ignored”. I hope this is not the case; Chris Difford is at the peak of his writing ability and I trust he continues to produce songs of this quality for some time yet.
Ancient & Modern: 1911-2011 is available now on Sin Records. No Thyself is released on 24th October on Wire-Sound. Cashmere If You Can is available now from SMMC Media.
Ancient & Modern: 1911-2011 is available now on Sin Records. No Thyself is released on 24th October on Wire-Sound. Cashmere If You Can is available now from SMMC Media.
