GOBLIN
Concorde
2, Brighton, Mon 24th Feb
It's
not an exaggeration to say that Goblin were for Dario Argento what
Ennio Morricone was for Sergio Leone. Even if their film soundtracks
worked in quite different ways. Leone's films were almost operas
without the singing, with the grand sweep of the music doing more
talking than the characters. In, for example, 'Once Upon A
Time in the West', Harmonica's character is filled in more
through his musical theme than anything he tersely utters.
But
Argento's lurid and surreal horror films were more interested in
atmosphere than character. So the soundtrack isn't something slapped
on top, audio cues to let us know how to respond to what's happening
on the screen. Instead it just keeps going,
permeating the whole film - marinading it in its mood. It would be
virtually impossible to imagine those films without the soundtracks,
they'd no longer be the same thing. (It may even be true each needed
the other. Though I love the film, their soundtrack to Romero's 'Dawn
of the Dead' (1978) isn't all that memorable.)
But
of course, unlike Morricone, Goblin were a rock band. A band who had
already produced an album before they fell into working with Argento,
almost by chance. (They were due to contribute to 'Deep
Red' (1975), when the existing composer walked out -
leaving the job to them.) Which is significant. This was the era
where the sound of a recording, rather than just
the beat or melody, came to matter. Which pushed popular music and
soundtracks together. Popol Vuh, for example, had a similar
relationship with director Wim Wenders Werner Herzog on films such as 'Aguirre
Wrath of God' (1972). And while Black Sabbath never
produced soundtracks, it's notable they were inspired in both their
sound and their name by the eponymous horror film.
And
yet almost no band produces so split a reaction in me than Goblin.
They're like chalk cut with cheese. They were first inspired by
English prog bands Genesis and King Crimson. Who to my mind mark the
stranger and more interesting side of prog, even if both could also
have their moments of empty ostentation. There also seemed something
of a Kosmische influence on them, such as the afore-mentioned Popol
Vuh. (For example on the track 'Markos'. Though
who can say if German underground music was even known in Italy at
the time?) Plus, formally, the different nature of soundtracks could
have a liberating effect. While much prog promised a breakaway from
the norm, then served up standard rock tracks just with longer solos,
soundtracks were a route out of such limitations.
Yet
the failings of prog were always reappearing in Goblin just as they
seemed transcended, with haunting sections of the most mesmeric power
all-too-soon souring into regular Seventies rock-outs. And this was
particularly true of their non-soundtrack albums, like they'd grown
wings only to fold them away again. Though even the 'Suspira'
soundtrack, surely their finest work, manages to span the sublime and
the frankly cheesy.
I
went to see them through the conviction that such rare opportunities
should be seized. (In the original line-up, even!) But also to see if
such a split could resolve itself. Which it couldn't, really. It's
evident that they truly were a band first, for they provide a tight
rhythm section - which could even get convincingly funky when it
chose. But there were several trebly guitar outbreaks and other
sections I simply waited to be over. There was, before you ask, even
a drum solo.
It's
notable how the soundtracks have defined them, even as a live band.
They're called Goblin for one thing, despite that originally being
intended as a one-off nomme-de-plume for 'Deep Red'.
They perform before film clips. (Though they also served up several
tracks from the non-soundtrack 'Roller'.) And,
though they don't save it for the finale, its the theme to
'Suspira' which won the biggest audience cheer.
Designed
as soundtracks, the pieces don't necessarily work the same way live.
What can seem boundless during a film, where you're used to music
appearing as a series of short excerpts, seems almost curtailed live
- like a greatest hits set. And there's a textuality to the studio
recordings, a seemingly endless accumulation of musical layers, that
can't really be reproduced live. To see them live and up close is an
opportunity. But the best way to experience their music is still
through watching those Argento films.
But
let's finish on a broader question. When they are good, what is it
that makes them so good? Well, of course they're good at being
bad. All that Satan-bothering bollocks from the
likes of Venom forgets the basic rule that the Devil is supposed to
have the best tunes. With it's music box element the 'Suspira'
theme is seductive, like a siren call. Listening to it is like taking
a soporific drug, seducing you to sleep even as you feel your alarm
systems trying desperately to kick in.
You
wouldn't need to undertake much research into Seventies cinema to
conclude it was a decade with the taste for the supernatural. Which
makes it interesting that prog is so roundly condemned as cluelessly
utopian. True, the convoluted, equipment-heavy music can seem
inherently techno-fixxy. And of course bands such as Yes did indulge
in terrible New Age babblings.
But
there was also a more sinister side to the music. As recounted,
Goblin's biggest influences were Genesis (think of the twisted nursery story of 'Music Box') and King Crimson. (Have you
ever heard anything more dystopian than '21st Century Schizoid Man'?) This is probably another example of
history being rewritten by turncoat music journalists after punk's
victory. Prog had to be seen as blissed-out to contrast it against
punk's tales of dole queues. (A kind of angst the best punk rarely went in
for anyway.) Goblin are sidelined from this by being portrayed as
film composers rather than a band who wrote for films.
Nowadays
it seems every style of music has its own dark derivative, including
Dark ambient, dark cabaret, dark folk and dark easy listening. (Okay, I suppose I may have
made the last one up.) Maybe a music which genuinely had it's share
of darkness, back in it's original era, should get it's place in the
light. (Um, maybe that should be unlight.) After all, it doesn't get
much more join-the-dark-side than Goblin...
Sampled
highlights. You can probably guess which track kicks off...
ALTERNATIVE
TV
Green
Door Store, Brighton, Fri 21st Feb
Alternative
TV are, as if we needed one, another example of an original British
punk band who weren't the regressive and unimaginative force of
popular caricature. (File alongside fellow recent sightings The Cravats, TV Smith and Subway Sect.)
Front
man Mark Perry looked to have his official place in punk history
assured, producing what's commonly regarded as the first British punk
fanzine - 'Sniffin' Glue'. (Though I dare say some
spiky headed trainspotter is naming some earlier effort even now.) It
was punk-template enough to write it's headlines in felt pen and be
named after a Ramones song. But (in his own words) “as I saw the
initial punk explosion subside into a succession of third rate
copyists, I wanted to have a go myself.” So he jacked the stapling
in to form Alternative TV – with a sound “closer to Can and reggae-type rhythms”. The band's first release was a
flexi attached to the fanzine's last issue. They've continued
intermittently since, with frequent changes in personnel and even
bigger nine-point turns in direction, a zig-zag of break-ups and
reforms.
In
their current live incarnation they offered up no short supply of
classic punk - short, sharp numbers with the grabbiest of hooks. But
other tracks stretched longer than the three-minute diktat, driven by
metronomic riffs and frequently breaking out into instrumental
sections – twin guitars clashing. Such tracks sounded like
something from a long-gone free festival of the era, unhinged
wig-outs accompanied by apparent stream-of-consciousness lyrics, a
bizarre hybrid of declammatory recital and self-doubting inner voice.
At one point Perry cheerily joined in on the recorder, not the most
Ramones-like of instruments. (Back in the day they apparently had a
fondness for full-on free impro, about the one direction they don't
follow up on now.)
Perhaps
the musical variety on show could have come from the set spanning
several of their eras. But with the multi-directional approach, the
best thing about it was all of it. It had both the
driving force of punk and the elusive, amorphous feeling of post-punk
– as if music was just to be played with, like plasticine. They
played their classic track 'Splitting In Two'
(“I'm splitting in two, and so are you!”), yet seemed perpetually
pitched at the point the different sounds could still stay conjoined.
As if they could never quite be pinned to anything, but in any second
take off in other directions.
Was
there ever really a time before punk being a marketing term? When it
actually had something to do with imagination and freedom? It seems
there was.
Not
from Brighton. (You're probably getting used to that...)
BLYTH
POWER
Ropetackle
Centre, Shoreham, Sat 22nd Feb
This
marks the third time I've seen Blyth Power within four years, which
now eclipses the sightings I managed in those days of yore. I expect
that proves something or other, but I'm buggered if I know what.
It is
of course always a pleasure to hear their unique blend of folk, rock
and English songwriting. With nary an undertaste of their original
punk roots. Harmonies can sound so sweet as to be almost poppy. And
front-man Joseph Porter's patented puckish erudition was to the fore
as always.
Despite
the longevity (now over thirty years), they're no spent force or
nostalgia act. We were treated to tracks from their as-yet-unreleased
new album, 'Women and Horses, Power and War',
which Porter cheerily told us at the merch stall will be their
best yet. Even on the second time of hearing, I remain taken by
'Down With Alice', a riff on Crass's 'Berkertex
Bride' which looks back somewhat sardonically on our
armband-sporting youth. (“Man made plans for social change/ And
fraudulent social security claims.” It's funny because it's
true...) Porter jokingly dedicated it to anyone who secretly wanted
to do the conga at a Crass gig. The next time I try to describe Blyth
Power's sound I may even use that...
Performing
at Shoreham Beer Festival, they brought compere Attila the
Stockbroker on stage for a few numbers. (As ramshackle as ever, this
involved a band member rummaging backstage to scout out an extra
lead.) And his viola added so rich an extra element you wished he
could become a regular member.
I have
been slowly and haphazardly working my way through the band's back
catalogue. (You have to say haphazardly, for alas they have more
missing episodes than Patrick Troughton.) So one day I may even write
a proper, fulsome, grown-up thing about Blyth Power. It might even
make amends for the last thing I did write. Which in many ways I still like,
but it was something of an indulgence - chiefly bending one song to my own
purpose.
This,
however, is not that moment. For now, let's just link to a potted history.
Nothing
on YouTube from this gig, it seems. But there is now a
video not only of their Hector's House showing, but of the very track
I wrote about - 'Stitching In Time'. Go figure.
This version sounds like the Velvets' 'Sunday Morning',
somehow. (Audience ambience at no extra charge.)
...but
as this is Blyth Power we're talking about, here's
a second helping. This one from back in the day, where it was
actually against the law to take to the dancefloor if you weren't
wearing combats or a Crass T-shirt. Posted for no better reason than
this track also made it into their Ropetackle set - 'Paradise
Sold'. A song about the North/South divide, what better
place to play it than the South coast?
Popol Vuh are shurely more associated with Herzog (Aguirre is his film after all....) not Wenders.
ReplyDeletegeoff
Doh!
ReplyDeleteFixed now. I was right about Blyth Power doing the soundtrack to 'Profondo Rosso' wasn't I?
:)
ReplyDeleteI was only being picky as I wanted to go to both of these shows and couldn't.