Husband says "Best CD you played in the car stereo in a long time."

It's not often that one of my music choices on the Saturday shopping drive earns an instant response from the housemate, but Lady's Bridge, an album from Sheffield artist Richard Hawley, managed it. Eamon Carr reviews:

Hawley Grail

..."I'd be a shit rock band. On all my records the influences I draw on are well before 1969. I still listen to Marty Robbins, one of the best singers that ever lived.

"I don't hear that very much in a lot of modern music that I hear. People seem to be scared to expose themselves to what they're feeling."

For a man who's quite relaxed and not bolshy or argumentative, Hawley has fixed ideas on what makes interesting music. "If I'd been in a pub band playing blues or whatever I'd be happy," he says. "When you earn your living out of music there's a honesty to it that I like. I refuse to compromise. When I write songs the first person I have to please is myself," he says.

The songs on Lady's Bridge pass the test. It's the most compact treatment of loss and lonliness since Frank Sinatra recorded In The Wee Small Hours in 1954 or Roy Orbison, the Sultan of Sorrow, performed surgery on heartache in the 1960s. Echoes of that bruised baritone haunt Lady's Bridge...

Whole review at the link.

Double Half-Caf, Soy Milk McCartney with Carmel Topping

Yes, it is true that I still owe the world my confused thoughts on Starbucks: the music store that sells coffee. For only this last spring I purchased a CD from the amazing Sounds Eclectic: the KCRW music program hosted by Nic Harcourt.

I bought it to hear Damien Rice cover Radiohead's Creep and I was a bit harsh on ole Damien 'cause he wimped out and wouldn't say a word that Bono (practically an archbishop these days) tosses around like loose change. (Hmmm...do you think Bono is familiar with 'loose change' anymore? He can probably pay Bill Gates to pick up that five dollar bill for him!) Later I realized Damien was probably constrained because it was National Public Radio and all and we don't want our tax money spent on obscenities.

The main point being: I can't throw stones at Starbucks and its music franchise anymore. But with Paul McCartney signing to their label, I might need an extra java jacket to ward off the shudder. Eamon Carr reviews:

Paul McCartney's Full Circle Review

WHILE the world celebrates the fortieth anniversary of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band, his own concept, Paul McCartney releases a new solo album which explores his 64 years of memory.

But, interestingly, he appears to have forgotten about EMI, the company associated with him and The Beatles since the beginning and, instead, assigned this album to a label that's part-owned by Starbucks.

Is McCartney's music now a side-order to a sandwich? Or is it once again the main course?

While he expertly tapped into the King's Road/ Haight Asbury zeitgeist in 1967, we don't expect McCartney to nail the mood of the times these days.

He playfully acknowledges this by sticking a comfy armchair on the album cover. This is the first sign that this isn't simply a throwaway collection or mere contract filler...

More at link.

Don't leave me hanging on the Tara Telephone

One of the projects that I've been slowly working on throughout the summer for Come Back Horslips, is a history and online exhibit of the poems and art of Tara Telephone.



Visit the main Tara Telephone page of my project so far and you'll read the basic history that usually appears on other sites. Scroll down a bit and read from Mark Cunningham's Hot Press article on Horslips, which shows how Tara Telephone brought together rock voices and literary traditions in a wild, experimental mix. And some traditional music thrown in for good measure.

I know this story. It's the Haight-Ashbury in the 60s, North Beach in the 50s, Greenwich Village in the 30s and 40s, Paris in the 20s...and right now in any number of crossroads of urban culture and young people ready to take it on.

Obviously I only learned about Tara Telephone through reading Horslips' histories but in April I made an exciting discovery of a connection between Tara Telephone and Gallery Press.

I'd been a fan of the Gallery Press catalog ever since I bought my first volumes of Ciaran Carson's poetry, and that predates my discovery of Horslips. Finding this link encouraged me to look for Tara Telephone publications and learn as much as possible about the group.

Much work has now been done. A bit more to do, but a couple of people have seen a preview and say it is looking good. I'm torn between making each page available as it is finished or waiting until the whole collection (as far as I have it) can go live. And at that point I'll also figure out how to situate it on the site.

But the Tara Telephone link of recently updated pages has moved off the top of my site screen and I want to give the links to the pages already live:

Tara Telephone
Tara Telephone Introduction
A Tale of Love, Poster Poem 2