It’s time for a little guitar heroism.
Extreme are a hair-rock band best known for that acoustic ballad often murdered by teenaged boys (I did my part. Did you?), “More Than Words”. Five years later, their fourth album, Waiting For The Punchline included this brilliant little acoustic instrumental.
As in instrumental.
Nuno Bettencourt has fast, fast fingers of the kind that aren’t often matched to such a melodic style. On “Midnight Express” he gets the speed out of an acoustic guitar by — if I remember correctly — tuning down a step to slacken the strings off a bit. That also adds to the nice percussive tone of the track.
This one I didn’t even try to learn how to play, although a guy I was at school with did make a credible stab at it.
On the album recording, after music ends, you can hear a very self-satisfied laugh. Fair enough :D
“Midnight Express” [YouTube]
(PAW2009 23/52)
My father-in-law trains gundogs and competes with them in working tests and field trials. (I think the difference is that the tests are run with training dummies while the trials are at an actual shoot, with real birds.)
On Saturday we had a grand day out at a test just through Bellaghy. It was a much nicer afternoon up there than we had morning in Lisburn, at a nice wee spot by the Bann. I didn’t even know where Bellaghy was until we drove through it to get there.
This was Paddy, one of the other competitors.
William Shatner: Kirk, TJ Hooker, Denny Crane. Like the Hoff he’s spent a lot of time lately sending himself up.
Also like the Hoff, Shatner’s made a couple of stabs at a musical career. His 2004 album Has Been gets most of its play for an astonishing cover of Pulp’s “Common People”, but the whole thing is pretty credible. (That’s probably helped by the impressive list of collaborators on the record: Ben Folds, Aimee Mann, Brad Paisley, others.)
Ben Folds co-wrote most of the record, and “That’s Me Trying” shows it. Shatner’s spoken word is a father’s letter trying to make contact with his estranged daughter, full of self-conscious missteps and sad pauses, and the gentle piano and softly-sung choruses (Folds and Mann) make this the strongest track on the album.
Has Been is a strange record. It flicks back and forth between humour and seriousness and sadness (“What Have You Done” is about how Shatner found his third wife drowned in their swimming pool) and never quite finds its tone. It’s probably not for everyone, but I like it.
“That’s Me Trying” [YouTube]
“That’s Me Trying” [Spotify]
(PAW2009 22/52)
Something a little different from my usual. This one may contain the seed of a reasonable desktop wallpaper.
The collision of music and humour often leaves a mess. At the extremes you have the musical comedians (Mitch Benn and Bill Bailey being fine examples) and the serious artistes (oh, pretty much everyone who’s a little too earnest for their own good). In the middle it can be tough to find anyone to properly recommend.
Enter Barenaked Ladies, the Canadian alt-rockers contending for Most Misleading Band Name Ever. Somehow they manage to take stonking, if occasionally obscure, musicianship and meet it with brilliant, surreal, Canadian funniness.
Which is not to say they’re a comedy act; they’re not. Instead, the lyrics and the manner have a slyness to them that can be light-hearted or poignant, but always funny — if smirking or eyebrow-raising rather than always belly-laughing.
My introduction to Barenaked Ladies came with the tune “Shoe Box” when it was picked up for the Friends soundtrack album, although I quickly sought it out in its proper home, 1996’s Born On A Pirate Ship. Energetic, it manages their usual trick of being playful and thoughtful at the same time.
From my first little fib when I still wore a bib,
To my latest attempt at pretending I'm someone
Who's not seventeen, or doesn't know what you mean
When talk turns to single malts or stilton.
(I couldn’t find streaming links for this one, which is a shame. You can hear a snippet through iTunes if you have it installed.)