2011 Retrospective

Tuesday 20 December – It’s been a great year in music for me. I attended 19 live gigs, 1 rock festival, and bought 40 albums of which 12 were actually released this year.

Of the live gigs I managed to pack in; 98Pages, Boss Caine (twice), The Blueprints, The Buccaneers, Sombre, Missing Kids, The ABC Club, Glass, Dorien Starre, The Bitter Image, Panic Room, Marbled, The Pepperhearts, The Mothers, These City Walls, Dinosaur Pile-Up, The Xcerts, Japanese Voyeurs, Blind Pilot, The Decemberists, Hope&Social (3 times), Andy Gaines, Jeniferever, Panic Procedure, The Tiny Eyes, Marcus Bonfanti, Sandi Thom, Nick Tudor, Pelico, Marc Atkinson, Dream of Apollo (twice), David R Black, Panic Room, Chantel McGregor, Patrick McCallion, people:in airports, Rosie, The Union, The Pineapple Thief, and Playing The Pilot.

In the summer were we down in London for the Sunday of the High Voltage Festival and got to see; Black Country Communion, Dream Theater, Heaven’s Basement, Love Fungus, Michael Schenker, Saint Jude, and my all-time favourites Thunder. It really doesn’t get much better than that!

The non-2011 releases that I purchased reflects, I guess, my eclectic taste in music. For easy listening there’s; Sandi Thom, Florence and The Machine, Billy Joel, and Rihanna. Some good old rock; Guns ‘n’ Roses, Clapton and Winwood, Chickenfoot, Linkin Park, Joe Satriani, Alterbridge, and Black Country Communion. I also bolstered my collection of Dream Theater and Porcupine Tree as well as dipping my toe in the more esoteric waters of; Anathema, I Like Trains, Orpeth, Jeniferever, Amplifier, and a second helping of The Pineapple Thief.

All of which brings me to the albums of 2011 that I, personally, decided to part money for, and I guess I ought to bring some kind of ranking into play here.

Outside of the top 10 are a couple of albums which, although I wouldn’t call them duff, they don’t get played as much as the others; Into The Wild by Uriah Heep and A Grounding In Numbers by Van de Graf Generator. Neither of these lived up to my expectations. Heep’s offering was no where near as good as Wake The Sleeper, and VdG were a name from my past that didn’t live up to the hype of the music press. The actual top ten albums I would recommend to anyone, so let’s press on:

10 Crystal Sounds by Thirteen Senses. This is pretty much more of the same from the Cornishmen, which is not a bad thing because I really like them, so I’ll describe it as ‘workmanlike’.

9 Wasting Light by Foo Fighters. I’m left slightly confused by this album because it is good, very good indeed, but there isn’t a single track that has hooked into my brain. How does that work?

8 The King Is Dead by The Decemberists. More quirky alt-Americana from a band that delivers and entertains in equal measure.

7 Grace for Drowning by Steve Wilson. Great prog-ness from the master himself. The music press can’t get enough of the man but he didn’t make number one for me. Pah! I spit in the face of popularity.

6 A Dramatic Turn of Events by Dream Theater. Awesome album and we got to watch them live at High Voltage which was basically musically nirvana for me.

5 Siren's Song by The Union. I just love this band; Luke Morley’s superb guitar and Pete Shoulder’s incredible voice, what a combination.

4 Like No Other by Chantel McGregor. Brilliant debut album from the pocket-sized lass from Bradford who is finally getting the recognition that she deserves.

3 Dust Bowl by Joe Bonamassa. I’ve pretty much got most of his recent albums in my collection. I’m constantly staggered by the number of ways that blues can be played and still sound fresh and different. Top stuff.

2 Black Country Communion 2 by Black Country Communion. More Bonamassa-ness, this time in the form of top-notch super-group BCC which also includes Glenn Hughes, Jason Bonham, and Derek Sherinian. But, top of this year’s Xmas tree, parp de-de-parp (trumpet blast)...

1 The Octopus by Amplifier. Ye gods this is great stuff. More prog than you can shake a mellotron at and a bargain as it’s a double CD worth of soundscape-y, pretentious (in a good way), gorgeous music.

Have a very Happy Xmas and a great New Year.

Hail to the Thief

Wednesday 7 December – I’m going down with man-flu. I could feel it in my bones. My whole body ached. I’ve lost my appetite and trust me, that meant something’s seriously wrong. But nothing, no nothing, was going to stop me from getting out tonight.

We arrived a little after eight o’clock at Fibbers, just in time for the start of the support act, Playing The Pilot. PLP are a York-based group defining themselves as Indie/Alt-rock. Their line up consists of Kat McHugh (lead vocals), Felix Manders-Wilde (guitar/vocals), Ryan Noble: (lead guitar), Matt Davies (bass), and Jack Fisher (drums). When she sang, Kat had a pretty good voice. The real problem for me was that their songs usually ended up with her doing a white girl rap in the style of Lilly Allen, which really didn’t do justice to her voice. The guitarists pretty much seemed to do their own things pumping out tinkly math-rock style riffs, while Jack and Matt propelled the songs along with strong drum lines and workman-like bass. The most memorable track for me was Your Face In The Mirror.

PLPs act was slightly marred by an issue with feedback into the singer’s microphone, either from the bass or drums, and I’m afraid that the soundman hadn’t fixed this problem by the time the headline act took to the stage. Why were The Pineapple Thief playing York? Well, it turned out that, although they are a Somerset band, bass player Jon Sykes is actually a local lad. TPT consist of Bruce Soord (guitar/vocals), Jon Sykes (bass/vocals), Steve Kitch (keyboards), and Keith Harrison (drums). They play prog-rock in the soft/loud/soft style with carefully constructed time signatures that sweep you from one passage of music to the next.

The set consisted of a mixture of tracks from their latest album, Someone Here Is Missing, and a lot of new material. From their current album I certainly recognised; Nothing At Best, Wake Up The Dead, The State We’re In, and Preparation For Breakdown. The majority of the new songs were presented with a lead acoustic guitar which is at odds with their current album but in line with their earlier work Tightly Unwound. Whether the tracks are utilmately ‘beefed up’ for the new album or remain as they are, they still sounded fantasic on a first listen.

For many of the songs the transition from soft to furious loud meant that it was difficult not to shuffle your feet (dancing I think they call it) or head-bang along to the heavy rhythmic sections. Think of a mad collision of Radiohead, Procupine Tree and Pendulum.

Their encore consisted of a current track, a very old one and a very new one, possibly being called Burning Pieces, and likely to be the opening track to new album. A superb gig and I sincerely hope that they will be bringing their new album on tour to York in the not too distant future.