Thoughts on Glastonbury Part 3 - Livid in the Long Drops

The concluding part of my Glastonbury chronicles - see also Part 1 and Part 2.

On Saturday, being wet, grumpy and adrift in clarts, we figured that The Healing Field could provide blessed relief and joined an 'Introduction to Meditation' class. This seemed quite in keeping with the hippy vibe of Glastonbury, and the instructions to focus on the breath and prevent your mind yearning for sun, dryness and virginal toilets helped restore a certain sense of calm. This turned to mild wonder as we spotted Thom Yorke outside afterwards - diminutive, top-hatted and strutting foppishly like an amiable eccentric.

Suitably transcendent, we floated to the Cabaret Tent and caught both the impassioned politics of Jeremy Hardy, who lambasted 30-somethings such as myself who retreat into political apathy, and the surreal silliness of Kevin Eldon, a comedic actor whose CV is impeccable (I'm Alan Partridge, Brass Eye and Big Train among others) yet wider fame eludes him, assuming he even wants it in the first place.

I had intended to see Pulp, the weekend's other secret special guests, that evening but as I approached the stage towards where they were due to perform, my inner misanthrope decided that the baying crowds and current status of the mud (welly-devouring quicksand, sediment fans) were too much. Every fibre of my being insisted that I flee to the sanctity of the Acoustic Tent to see Pentangle, so I did precisely that.

This was not a decision I regretted, as it gave me an opportunity to see two of the best acoustic guitarists around in Bert Jansch and John Renbourn, plus the inimitable Danny Thompson, a man who has provided supreme double bass to Nick Drake and John Martyn amongst many others. Jackie McShee provided haunting vocals atop the lissom pastoral folkiness that eased gently into the night air, as I took sips of fine single malt from my girlfriend's Little Miss Sunshine bottle (a hipflask may be useful in future and less incongruous among fans of classic folk music.) Hindsight both reinforced my decision and added a sense of melancholy, as this was one of Bert Jansch's final performances prior to his sad passing in October this year.

I continued my rehabilitation with some fine local ales and exquisite carrot cake, as the avuncular strains of Elbow drifted over from a nearby field. I even found some toilets that were queue-free and serviceable – known as 'long drops', they are much cleaner than portaloos as all effluence is dropped into an unspeakable (and partially visible) pit several metres below. This may not sound great, but distance between yourself and raw sewage is a good thing and prevents the far greater hazard of overflow.

As the evening wore on, I gritted my teeth and returned to the Park to watch Wild Beasts, which was the musical highlight of the festival for me. Unfortunately, some members of the audience threw empty bottles and cans into the crowd, which beggared belief – how can you like this beautiful, intelligent music and yet be a callous blaggard who hurts people? A plague upon their tender portions.

Wild Beasts themselves were superb and rapturously received, to the extent that the audience loudly declared their love at regular intervals. The band seemed genuinely moved and slightly taken aback with the crowd's gushing approval. Musically, they were brilliantly tight and played note-perfect renditions of songs mostly taken from their last two albums, with only Devil's Crayon appearing from their 2008 debut, Limbo, Panto. They are something very special indeed, the best modern band around and quite capable of taking their place in the canon of great British groups.

Next was my attempt at what the youth call 'clubbing' – I was relieved to discover we wouldn't actually be bludgeoning small mammals, but rather dancing to repetitive music in makeshift discotheques. The Arcadia area was undeniably spectacular, despite queues that rivalled our Glasto arrival – enormous metal structures reformed from military scrap pierce the skyline, including a giant spider which belches fire and sears the night sky with lasers and channelled lightning. It's a visual and engineering masterpiece, but the accompanying music was trancey tat so we headed off to a roofless nightclub for DJ Yoda's set instead.

Elsewhere, the radical Block 9 area had some amazing sights, including a section of decaying tower-block with a lifesize tube train protruding from it. This was a 50ft structure and a functional nightclub to boot, so was a tad more impressive than simply dancing in a big tent. However, fatigue was defeating us so we were forced to camp, after a brief interlude of playing Head, Shoulders Knees & Toes with some flamboyant Germans. If you're reading Dad, don't worry - I am writing literally and not metaphorically.

I suspect my constant bemoaning of the weather will go hard with you, but honestly, Sunday was brutally hot. Our tents were as microwaves and shade elusive as water in a desert. I had hoped to see Laura Marling and others but it was too hot to move – we just grabbed a couple of hours sleep under a large public gazebo, securing just enough space to lay down and oblivious to the clatter and chatter around us. Eventually, we crawled to a sheltered area to hear The Bees' set without exposing ourselves to any harmful rays. When the heat became less oppressive, we headed up the hill next to The Park area for a 360 degree panorama of the entire festival.

We remained here for the duration and watched the sun set over Glastonbury. The valley below us illuminated as dusk fell and pulsed with revellers squeezing the last drops from this year's festival. In all, my first Glastonbury was a positive one and I'm very glad I finally attended. If you can't bear mud, rain, crowds, queues and feculent toilets then you may struggle, though to counteract this you will be armed with life-affirming music, great food and drink, amazingly ambitious spectacles to immerse yourself in and a good helping of hippy camaraderie. Worth a go I reckon.

Thoughts on Glastonbury Part 2 – Mud, Filth & Shangri-La

Part 2 of my barely-coherent Glastonbury ramblings – see Part 1 here.

My first taste of Glastonbury proper was to follow, as we left the campsite and made our way to The Park area for some vital sustenance. Not for Glasto the crap burger vans, hot dog stands and boiled farts of lesser festivals - my first meal was a huge Lebanese mezze incorporating falafels, splats of hummus and cheesy-herby things in pastry. In keeping with the original hippie vibe, much of the food at Glastonbury is veggie, though those desperately in need of something's flesh are catered for too. It is possible to eat badly at Glastonbury, but it's difficult as most of the food is ace and covers pretty much every cuisine.

The two days prior to the music mostly involved wandering around and familiarising ourselves with the festival format and localities. There's an area called Shangri-La which is essentially “a futuristic and dystopian wonderland created by over 1,500 crew and artists.” It felt like a film-set (specifically Bladerunner), and was conceived as a pre-apocalyptic world for the festival-goer to immerse themselves in.

So with the end of the world apparently approaching, I felt it was as good a time as any to try some curry and some splendid strong, warm cider that may or may not have led to my subsequent purchase of a straw panama hat. My hopes of appearing as a right-on member of the counterculture were dashed with the realisation of my Geoffrey Boycott resemblance, but I stuck doggedly to my brimmed headgear until it was rained off in true cricketing fashion.

However, as Friday progressed and the drizzle saw no signs of abating, I began to consider that I was actually done with festivals, having been to too many wet, muddy, miserable affairs. It does tend to dampen the spirits as well as the skin when walking for miles through quagmires and queuing for the pleasure of using toilets that would be deemed unfit for animals in most circumstances. The sheer volume of people didn't help either – every inch of available camping land was seemingly taken up and the weight of numbers was ridiculous at times. It seemed rather avaricious of the organisers to cram Glastonbury farm with what felt like the absolute maximum legal amount of festival-goers, thrown together in the mud and filth to create crowds everywhere and render every journey a mission to be endured.

The turning point, of course, was seeing my first band, namely that of BB King. I was alone in the crowd, as my friends had gone to see some shouty blokes called the Wu Tang Clan. The rain continued, but my first experience of good music (on the main Pyramid stage too) transcended the elements. BB himself didn't come onstage for a good 15 minutes, leaving it to his band to showboat, taking individual turns in the spotlight to showcase their blues/jazz skills – as a chin-stroking jazz fan who now had an annoying hat to match, this was actually far better than it sounds.

Eventually the man himself arrived to rapturous applause. He's now 85 years old, so without being morbid I didn't know if I'd get chance to see him play again. Throughout I was thinking that this would be one to tell the grandchildren about, but sometimes it's best to enjoy the moment without thinking “this is history” and recording the event on your mobile phone so keenly that you miss the actual instance of the performance. Again, there were large instrumental passages to begin with and it occurred to me that perhaps his voice had gone and he's now content to make Lucille, his Gibson ES-355 guitar, sing. This fear was unfounded, as he provided stirring vocals throughout the set from then on.

Temporarily lifted, I gradually returned to terra firma as the rain persisted down and I turned to Radiohead, renowned purveyors of “hello-trees, hello-sky” good vibes, to provide comfort. They were announced on the day as surprise special guests but their scheduling was unfortunate, as they were playing at the same time as Morrissey. This of course presented a dilemma for fans of angsty introspection, and siphoned away those who would otherwise have enjoyed both acts into an either/or quandary. Personally, I was buoyed by footage of Radiohead's triumphant 1997 performance replayed on TV in the weeks before the festival, so swayed towards the Oxford band instead of the unsigned former Smith who I figured would be promoting new material to secure a record deal.

As it happened, Radiohead played a somewhat esoteric set, eschewing their 90's work for more tricksy post-millenial material. Mozzer, on the other hand, ran through a greatest hits set with plenty of Smiths songs, though apparently he included the bloody awful Meat is Murder so my disappointment at having missed him was tempered slightly.

In fairness to Radiohead, this was a rare opportunity to play such a set, with their status of surprise special guests partially negating the sense of expectation synonymous with an actual headline act. Their show was hampered slightly by low sound levels, though the volume was passable enough from where I was standing. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi sounded great, as did Reckoner and the new material was impressive too. However, the crowd wanted, and needed, some well-loved OK Computer/Bends-era anthems to help them forget the mud and rain.

Indeed, even a smattering of 90's hits amid the newer material would have caused the damp crowd to gratefully erupt, but we had to wait until the encore for the sole pre-Kid A offering (Street Spirit/Fade Out.) Not a bad set by any means, but it felt like a missed opportunity for both band and audience. In a bizarre twist, Harry Enfield was watching only feet away from me, maturely ignoring a broadside of “Only Me's” from a battery of laddish cards.

Part 3 coming soon: Guru Smith goes a-meditating, enjoys some cabaret and skulks off to the Acoustic Tent in a strop.

Thoughts on Glastonbury – after the dust has settled (and mud has finally flaked off)

This summer saw my first trip to Glastonbury. I did plan to document the experience at the time, but circumstances, including that twin-headed demon procrastination and disorganisation, prevented this. However, it occurred to me that offering a different perspective by collecting my thoughts now, months later and detached from the summer festival maelstrom, may not be entirely without merit. Given the downpour today, it also seemed rather apposite.

We drove down on the Tuesday through the night, attempting rather unsuccessfully to sleep in the van. I don't know when you last tried to get a full night's sleep while sitting up, but it's a ruddy nightmare of creeping leg cramps and ears numbed against window frames. On top of this, our plucky driver was still in the front seat and trying in vain to get some kip, but his momentary lapses into unconsciousness resulted in slapstick headbutts of the horn.

After a night of cranium-induced klaxon tooting, we 'woke' to Wednesday's gentle rain and thought we'd best join the already-huge queue, swollen with the many dedicated revellers who'd congregated through the night. Our Tuesday night travels were an attempt to beat the queues, though it appears that thousands had the same idea and got there first. Apparently, it gets worse every year due to the increased numbers of people – someday soon, Glastofolk will have to start queuing while still at home, though at least they'll be able to put the kettle on.

Having eventually located the end of the queue, and standing there in the grey drizzle around 90 minutes before the gates were even due to open, one of our party pointed out that we'd paid nearly £200 for the experience of being refugees. Thankfully, the gates opened early and the queue started to move, though having arrived at the brow of a hill we saw the queue snake for miles through the adjacent fields. Fully laden with enough camping gear to dislodge vertebrae, our hearts sank at the prospect of several hours slow trudge through the Somerset countryside.

However, some enterprising souls had noticed that a quick trawl through a ditch enabled the prospect of jumping the vast majority of the queue. Dodging mud, branches and my throbbing conscience, I followed those of our party who'd already decided that this was the only feasible way forward and 'joined' the queue near the entrance. A slight wait developed into purgatory thanks to a mad-eyed Scouser who, perhaps due to having taken a few liveners, seemed unaware of the concept of festivals and was perplexed as to why we had bags, tents and wellies. I think he was unaware of the concept of tickets too, as we never saw him once the queue surged forward and we were through the barricades into Glasters' golden fields.

We arrived at our chosen camping spot as the first in the field and it began to rain, so we hurriedly constructed the gazebo and took shelter inside, all nine of us dripping and steaming with our bags and tents piled in the centre like a futile offering to the spiteful god of festival camping. The rain eased off long enough for us to construct the tents, and with the sun coming out it looked like all was well. A quick sleep in the heat of the tent followed and upon waking, I saw that the vast expanse of green field had been filled with tents of all hues, with merry revellers cracking open their tins of ale and unwisely stoking barbecues under gazebos that threatened to melt inwards and consume the very consumers. And thus it begins.

Part 2 coming soon: I'll stop moaning and actually mention some music, so sit tight gentle readers (all three of you...)

Artist Guide - David Bowie Pt 2

Where to start when faced with a legacy stretching over forty years bequeathed by one of pop’s great shapeshifters? Part-timers may opt for The Best Of and whilst this is perfectly acceptable, those digging deeper will find greater reward. Dame David helpfully released 10 original studio albums over a 10 year period that is generally accepted to be his creative peak. This decade-long purple patch forms the basis of this guide, split into two parts to aid digestion. The comments section is below for any Bowie zealots vexed at my omission of The Man Who Sold The World, Let's Dance or the Labyrinth soundtrack indeed...

This is the concluding part of my humble foray into the Dame’s output (see part one for 1971-75)

Station To Station (1976) An illuminating mid-point between Bowie’s soul-influenced Young Americans album and the experimental “Berlin trilogy” that followed, Station to Station contains echoes of both. Supposedly central to this album is Bowie’s Thin White Duke persona, a darker, megalomaniac version of his Young Americans soul guise, distorted into strange new shapes by cocaine dependence and dragging the soul sound of Young Americans into dark new places.

Visually subtler than Ziggy Stardust, the Thin White Duke was an Aryan, suit-wearing creation with interests in The Third Reich that led some to erroneously suggest that Bowie himself had sympathies with fascism.

Certainly, Station to Station begins with sinister, nameless atmospherics yielding to a creeping dirge with an air of brooding malevolence. In characteristic fashion, the second half of the song then shifts without warning to an anthemic, ebullient rocker underpinned by a stomping disco beat, even namechecking Bowie’s then drug of choice: “it’s not the side effects of the cocaine, I’m thinking that it must be love.”

The twisted disco theme is echoed in the dextrous hooks of Golden Years and the rapier riffing of Stay. By way of balladry, the sweeping melodrama of Word On A Wing and Wild Is The Wind see Bowie breathe life into grandiloquent sentiments with his impassioned delivery and restrained arrangements.

With the nucleus of R & B musicians in place (Carlos Alomar, Dennis Davis and George Murray) who would provide the crucial foundation to Bowie’s sound until 1980, Station To Station is a marvellous flowering of melody, funk and innovation, considered by some to be his magnum opus.

Low (1977) The beginning of the “Berlin trilogy”, Low describes Bowie’s state of mind at the time; recovering from cocaine addiction, reeling from the momentum of his own success and with his first marriage in freefall. Consequently, he left LA and its decadent coke scene behind, decamping to Berlin to regain control of his career and life.

Originally intended to be a series of recording experiments that were uncertain to be released, the first “side” of the album (as was intended with the original vinyl format) is actually brimming with short, direct compositions. Be My Wife sees Bowie singing in what is almost a London “geezer” accent, the urgency of the popping bass and thudding piano riff underpinning lyrics that seem like a human cry for contact/domesticity/love amid the paradoxical loneliness of megastardom – “Please be mine/Share my life/Stay with me/Be my wife.”

Ditto Sound and Vision, lyrically evoking solitude, futility and despair: “pale blinds drawn all day/nothing to do, nothing to say”. However, the musical buoyancy of this track is established and indomitable by the time Bowie’s first words emerge halfway through, softening the lyrical theme and almost creating an air of positivity, a stiff-upper-lip attitude as opposed to maudlin self-pity.

Side two consists of four ambient, synth-driven pieces, the other instruments ebbing away as side one closes. Bowie and keyboardist Brian Eno (who was to collaborate on the entire trilogy) deliberately threw away the manuals to the synthesizers they were using to veer away from convention and aid the creative process, ironically setting a convention for others to follow in later years – many artists have made a good living peddling stark synth-laden wares inspired by Low. Bowie’s voice is actually featured on side two, though he uses it like another instrument, singing wordlessly in some arcane tongue.

Despite being a product of the late 70s, Low is a distinctly modern album with little organic warmth to be found within its synthetic structures. However, it remains a densely textured work of enduring depth that will reward the patient listener manifold.

Heroes (1978) Recorded at the self-explanatory Hansa By The Wall studios in West Berlin, the proximity to one of the 20th century’s most prominent landmarks led to the epic grandeur of the title track, one of Bowie’s best loved songs and familiar to anyone not living under an oppressive communist regime for the past 30 years. The Dame has stated that Heroes was written after observing a canoodling young couple who met at the wall under a gun turret each day and the incongruity of this lover’s meeting place kickstarted Bowie’s artistic licence, imagining them to be having an affair and imposing this restrictive location on themselves due to their guilt.

However, producer Tony Visconti has a conflicting account, claiming that the adulterous couple was actually himself and backing vocalist Antonia Maas kissing by the wall, thus inspiring the song and causing Bowie to invent an anecdote to protect Visconti’s marriage. Whatever the inspiration, Bowie injects the song with a consuming passion that is unrelated to Low’s detached vocal performances. Similarly, the emotional fervour of Robert Fripp’s stunning guitar is universal despite being practically warped beyond recognition by Eno’s synth, producing an almost constantly sustaining series of notes pitched calculatedly to strike the listener square in the solar plexus.

The album was recorded in very few takes with Bowie sometimes composing lyrics as he sang; the words for Joe The Lion, set to a backdrop of Alomar’s snarling funky riffage, were partly inspired by a performance artist who was willingly crucified to the top of a Volkswagen (“Tell me who you are if you nail me to my car”…).

A close sonic sibling of Low, Heroes also features stark instrumentals on its second side – Sense of Doubt, with its vaporous electronics and sinister four-note piano motif, could conceivably soundtrack an austere existence in the solitude of a communist-era apartment block. As part of the Berlin “triptych” (as Bowie called it), Heroes slots in next to Low without incongruity.

Lodger (1979) Slightly less electronic than its Berlin siblings (though no less experimental) and eschewing the ambient instrumentals, Lodger is probably the least immediate of the albums covered in this guide, with slightly fudgy sound quality – Bowie has admitted to not paying enough attention to the mixing, distracted as he was by personal matters such as his doomed marriage.

In the opener Fantastic Voyage (perhaps the most melodic offering on the album), Bowie allows his voice to soar in a departure from the almost-spoken singing style that characterised much of his late seventies work. He employs a similar vocal urgency in Yassassin (Turkish for: Long Live), a song which could almost pass for the standard Western rock star’s fling with world music; effort is required on the listener’s behalf, though its ballsy union of choppy reggae guitar and Middle Eastern melodies elevate it above mere tokenism.

DJ was released as a single and indeed is one of the only tracks on Lodger that one can imagine even grazing the Top 40, with its quasi-danceable disco beat and a chorus melody verging on hummable. It also features a startling solo from guitarist Adrian Belew that veers from sirens, springs and 80s computer game sound effects in the space of a few seconds; all the more impressive when considered that Belew did not hear the tracks on Lodger until he was actually recording his parts, the idea being to capture his instinctive reaction.

At first listen Lodger appears less related to Low and Heroes than they obviously were to each other, though anyone scratching beneath the surface will find that Lodger is an incremental progression of what Low started and Heroes continued; a result of Bowie fusing his top-notch, black American R&B band with Kraftwerk and Neu-inspired European electronica.

Scary Monsters (1980) As the 80s dawned, the musical spine of Alomar, Davis and Murray remained to provide taut rhythmic frameworks to be embellished or distorted by whatever means Bowie saw fit. Thus, Robert Fripp was unleashed to carve up Fashion’s disco beat with his teeth-grinding industrial guitar and It’s No Game (Part 1) included female vocals doubling Bowie’s lyrics in Japanese.

The video for Ashes To Ashes, another of Bowie’s best loved and most innovative tracks, featured Bowie’s sense of theatrics returning to the fore, heavily made up in a pierrott clown costume. The song itself, an opaque haze of strings, staccato popping bass and Eno-esque sound effects (absent for this album, though his influence can be heard throughout), is a result of the previous three years’ envelope-pushing distilled into a pop song of near-peerless complexity that was a number one hit in the UK. Lyrically, Bowie revisits his Major Tom character from Space Oddity, though the doomed astronaut fared little better this time around: “strung out in heaven’s high/hitting an all time low…”

Penultimate track Because You’re Young, a narrative concerning two star-cross’d lovers, has been interpreted by some as a farewell to ex-wife Angie, whom he finally divorced shortly before the album’s release. Indeed, the words have a certain poignancy when viewed in this light: “Because you’re young/You’ll meet a stranger some night/What could be nicer for you/And it makes me sad/So’ll dance my life away.” It has also been suggested that this song is a warning to his young son about the pitfalls of romance, Bowie roaring the outro words of “A million dreams/A million scars” as if they are the sum total of his romantic escapades to date.

If Lodger was a continuation of the processes of Low and Heroes, Scary Monsters was the culmination of what was learned and applied during the entire Berlin trilogy, achieving the mainstream commercial success that eluded its three predecessors to boot. This was the aural representation of the sun setting on a great artist’s most fertile period.

Scary Monsters is often cited as being Bowie’s last great album before his muse was swallowed by the globe-straddling behemoth that was 1983’s Let’s Dance, an album that has been viewed varyingly as overproduced, unit-shifting eighties cheese and supremely crafted, intelligent pop music. Perhaps both views are correct to a certain extent, in that Bowie had reached so high he still had some way to fall; some prime Bowie moments can be found amid the slick ‘80s production.

Of course, further great songs can indeed be found on albums outside of the ten highlighted in this guide, whether in the gentle folk of Space Oddity, the dark experimentalism of The Man Who Sold The World or even in post-millenial minor returns to form. However, it is this ten-year stretch of sustained innovation that elevates him above the vast majority of his peers, meriting inclusion with the Beatles, Dylan and a tiny handful of others who were able to excel whilst under the perpetual glare of megastardom.

Artist Guide - David Bowie Pt 1

Where to start when faced with a legacy stretching over forty years bequeathed by one of pop’s great shapeshifters? Part-timers may opt for the Best Of, and whilst this is perfectly acceptable, those digging deeper will finder greater reward. Dame David helpfully released 10 original studio albums over a 10 year period that is generally accepted to be his creative peak. This decade-long purple patch forms the basis of this guide, split into two parts to aid digestion. The comments section is below for any Bowie zealots vexed at my omission of The Man Who Sold The World, Let’s Dance or the Labyrinth soundtrack indeed…

Hunky Dory (1971) After the false start of his only hit Space Oddity in 1969 and the following year’s patchy The Man Who Sold The World album, Bowie had been dropped by his record label when he began this, his first true classic. This album represented perfect synergy for Bowie as his songwriting and lyrical abilities came of age, with the musicians who would later become the Spiders From Mars backing him for the first time.

An accessible, lushly orchestrated album laden with some of the more instantly recognisable tunes from Bowie’s oeuvre, Hunky Dory is predominantly a gentle, acoustic affair underpinned by a rich, melodic directness, though the proto-glam thrashings of Queen Bitch serve as a precursor to the Ziggy Stardust era. It would be a solemn soul who could resist the hooks of Changes, its weighty lyrical substance (concerning his own capacity for reinvention) rendered light and breezy by its infectious melody.

Indeed, the musical ebullience of Hunky Dory itself, in particular the droll campery of Fill Your Heart and the warm singalong Kooks, is in contrast to lyrical themes that show Bowie’s existential reflections coming to the fore – generational divides, the joys of fatherhood and the future of man. The latter topic is referenced in Oh! You Pretty Things, via the lyric “Homo Sapiens have outgrown their use” and Nietzschean references to “Homo Superior”, though this song was, somewhat incongruously, also a solo hit for Peter Noone of Herman’s Hermits.

Ambivalent “tributes” to contemporaries abound – see Andy Warhol, Song For Bob Dylan and Queen Bitch (a Velvet Underground vignette). Succinctly describing Dylan as having a voice “like sand and glue” (gently pastiched by Bowie), Song For Bob Dylan acknowledges the folk singer’s ability to write words which “could pin us to the floor”, though in truth tries to cajole Dylan to return to the intensity of his sixties work. In all, an exhibition of classic songwriting by a nascent talent, oft-imitated, pilfered and diluted by less-gifted sorts in the intervening decades.

The Rise And Fall of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars (1972) Perhaps THE definitive concept album, Ziggy Stardust concerns an alien rock star who comes to fame when the dying planet Earth has only five years left (see opening track, helpfully called Five Years) and having remained true to the rock lifestyle of bacchanalian excess is eventually a casualty of his own success (see final track, again helpfully entitled Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide).

Backing band the Spiders from Mars come to the fore, lending a group dynamic to the album where each member plays a more active role in the music rather simply backing Bowie. In particular, lead guitarist Mick Ronson, an emotive, melodic player of whom Bowie said “you believed every note had been wrenched from his soul”, was the perfect foil to Bowie in the early 70s and his paint-stripping performances here lend a visceral thrill to this glam-rock odyssey. Listen to the solo at the end of Moonage Daydream as it trills into oblivion and marvel at the fact that Bowie had pictorially represented how he wanted the solo to sound via squiggly lines drawn with a crayon. At the same time, Bowie yells “In out-ah! Far out-ah!” like Mark E Smith might if he were alien, bisexual and prone to wearing make-up applied with a trowel.

This album also counts the seminal Starman amongst its tracks, a masterwork whose impact could not be dulled even by countless club singer interpretations on Stars In Their Eyes, and Lady Stardust, a homage to fellow glam rocker Marc Bolan that seems self-referential in places - “people stared at the make-up on his face” could easily refer to the public response to a heavily made-up Bowie or the legions of fans who copied his look - a bold move when viewed in the social context of 1972, homosexuality only having been legalised five years earlier. A reference point for anyone wanting to understand how today’s musical landscape evolved, this is an album thrillingly played from an era when rock and roll was still relatively young and retained the power to weave itself into the fabric of popular culture.

Aladdin Sane (1973) Following the huge success of Ziggy Stardust, this was the first album Bowie recorded as a bona fide superstar, posing in full Ziggy-get up on the cover in one of rock’s most iconic images. Musically, Aladdin Sane augments the glam rock of Ziggy Stardust with Mike Garson’s elegant piano, adding a flavour of avant-garde jazz to the title track and a touch of classical majesty to Lady Grinning Soul’s camp melodrama.

Revisiting, not for the last time, the apocalyptic theme used on his The Man Who Sold The World album three years earlier, Drive In Saturday juxtaposes a doo-wop backing with a vision of the future where mankind has to relearn sex from old porn movies, the mechanics and emotions of intercourse being but a distant memory in this particular Bowie dystopia. The Prettiest Star shares some of this 1950s musical revivalism, but with a more lyrically straightforward (for Bowie) homage of love, complete with a Ronson solo that may make you swallow your own tongue.

Tellingly, a frantic cover of the Rolling Stones Let’s Spend The Night Together doesn’t specify the gender of the addressee (unlike Jagger’s anthem-for-the-alpha-male original), perhaps to maintain the aura of sexual ambiguity synonymous with Bowie’s glam phase. Elsewhere, Panic In Detroit slinks along with a snake-hipped Bo Diddley beat and ends with a dual guitar freakout, whereas Cracked Actor rocks like a bastard’s bastard. What more can one say? Another gem in the Dame’s jewellery box.

Diamond Dogs (1974) Apocalyptic visions return once more with this album, originally intended to be an theatrical representation of George Orwell’s 1984, but that concept was halted after Orwell’s widow protested. This did at least offer free rein for Bowie to vent forth his own tangential musings of a doomed future, though a cursory glance at the song titles Big Brother and 1984 betrays the roots of the original idea. As you might imagine, Big Brother features Bowie looking to the future and seeing it dominated by an omnipresent Orwellian figure, though if he really could have viewed the post-millennial years and seen them dominated not by 1984’s shadowy autocrat but a vapid reality TV namesake, I wonder which he would have thought the greater evil…?

Musically, 1984 offers a taste, with its Shaft-esque wah-wah guitars, of the black American soul sound that was to follow. Rock & Roll With Me also highlights this transition, its glam rock guitar rendered almost peripheral, pushed aside to make room for the soulful balladry whose sound would be reprised and embellished on Young Americans.

By now Bowie had relinquished the services of Ronson and the supporting musicians who played on his last few albums and not wanting to entrust his music to others at this point, he plays most of the instruments on the album himself. As such, Bowie fills the space vacated by Ronson with his own saxophone and keyboard playing, attempting frayed lead guitar parts occasionally – this gives the album an unpolished, almost lo-fi quality but the abrasive rifferama of Rebel Rebel ensures his contribution to air guitar history. The Stones-esque title track provides a triumphant glam rock swansong, Bowie jumping ship with enviable foresight just before the scene became stale, his next incarnation ready and waiting…

Young Americans (1975) Known as Bowie’s Philadelphia soul album, its exquisite backing vocals are high in the mix and prominent throughout, the pitch perfect warmth of a young Luther Vandross (!) and chums enabling Bowie’s compositions to soar, despite him being slightly out of his idiom with this new venture which he partly dismissed as “plastic soul”. A touch harsh perhaps, as Bowie’s songwriting remains as strong as ever and it took courage to leave behind his established Ziggy Stardust persona (still identifiable both on the cover and in the music of Diamond Dogs). The title track is perhaps the most forceful and immediate track on the album, with a lyrical standpoint that Bowie has suggested is more personal (a sentiment echoed throughout the album) – here he is no longer writing conceptually or from a or character’s perspective.

Guitarist Carlos Alomar, whose methodical, tasteful (yet always funky) playing would form a bedrock to Bowie’s sound for the rest of the decade, makes his debut here – check out Right and Fascination, where not an ounce of musical flab is evident in Alomar’s unfeasibly tight jangling. Fame features John Lennon and must surely figure as the former Beatle’s funkiest recorded moment, though his performance is limited to some stabs of fuzzed-up guitar and shouting “Fame” in falsetto behind Bowie. Lennon also contributes backing vocals to a version of Across The Universe which manages to be both gently funktastic and sympathetic to the original - arguably one of the finer Fabs covers.

Whereas this album’s prominent saxophone noodling may be off-putting to non-soul aficionados and the sheer technical ability of the backing singers can also make Bowie sound thin and reedy at times, for the most part this is lush, soulful, engaging and affecting – in short, another triumph.

Please note that the years 1976 – 1980 are covered in part 2

A little religion is a dangerous thing...

It is the year 2011. We are immersed in digital technology and provable, irrefutable science can provide answers like never before, yet religion still holds sway over vast swathes of the hearts and minds of mankind. It sometimes occurs to me, after reading news reports such as the below, that it seems as if we're going backwards:

A Christian pastor is sentenced to death in Iran for converting from Islam

Moderate Muslims in Pakistan who dare to advocate reforms are fearing for their lives after a series of assassinations by extremists

A woman whose Christian beliefs prevent her from supporting abortion even in cases of rape or incest has only just ruled herself out of the running for the US presidency

And so it goes. Granted, these stories have been cherrypicked for maximum impact, but they are hardly unfamiliar in the media. The left tends to demonise religion in general, often quite rightly for the despicable transgressions of human rights described above, whilst the right-wing tabloids tend to spread fear and conjecture about Islam as part of a wider narrative of barely-veiled racism. However, removed from the abstract dogma of the press, my personal experiences with people of faith has been quite different.

For instance, I live in Manchester, which has a sizeable Muslim population. I'm a regular visitor to Muslim restaurants and cafes, and contrary to prevalent conservative reportage, have never been the subject of a fatwa or viewed the spectacle of Union Jacks, poppies or kittens being set alight as wizened clerics ululate with glee.

Indeed, I have had Muslim, Christian and Hindu friends, colleagues and housemates at various points of my rudderless meander through life. These were, on the whole, decent, moderate people quietly living their own lives without hurting or forcing their beliefs on others. Most tried to give, forgive, inwardly improve and generally live a more virtuous, loving life. Is there a case to be made for the silent religious majority, whose religions are blasphemed and distorted by extremists and media alike to their own ends?

Indeed, should religion be something we welcome to a certain extent, as it offers a tangible code of ethics? Consider the recent UK riots – would these kids be more responsible as practicing Muslims or Christians, both of which faiths condemn looting, destruction and harm to others? Is there a moral vacuum that has arisen steadily in the UK, as many sections of the population become more secular? As a system of governance, religion offers rules and a system of accountability for one's actions, via Heaven and Hell for starters. What rules, beliefs or principles did the rioters conform to?

Ok, I'm starting to sound slightly sinister here, as if I'm advocating religion as an effective control mechanism for the unruly lower classes, but religion is not entirely without merit in a moral sense.

Despite this, it is my contention that separation of state and religion is essential to a civilised society. We have a history of church intrusion here in the UK - the shame of our forebears is to some extent obscured by the patina of ages, but something I read recently rendered the past in terrifying high definition. The book in question was Stuart Maconie's Adventures on the High Teas and a fine tome it is too, packed with the eminent broadcaster's avuncular warmth, humour and considered musings on Middle England.

It did, however, contain one of the more disturbing paragraphs I've read. Maconie described the execution of John Hooper, Protestant Bishop of Gloucester, sentenced to be burned alive for refusing to recant during the Catholic Reformation:

“Eventually, his tongue so swollen he could not even cry out any more, with the fat, water and blood dripping from his fingertips, he banged at his own chest with his arms till they dropped off. Forty-five minutes later, when his bowels fell out of the lower part of his body, he died 'as quietly as a child in his bed'.”

Maconie goes on to comment that all religions contain “a kernel of life-defying madness and intolerance that will, left its own devices, end up with blokes getting burned alive and young girls stoned to death.” This is food for thought, as being rigidly certain about spiritual matters is a dangerous thing indeed – witness 9/11 or indeed George “God told me to invade Iraq” Bush.

Granted, the latter comment was subsequently denied by the White House when they realised what a gaggle of slackjaws their boy had made them look, but in parts of the US Christianity permeates society in ways that would unsettle a European. Note the rise of the ultra-conservative Tea Party movement, who collectively bring to mind the character of Joseph from Wuthering Heights - 'He was, and is yet most likely, the wearisomest self-righteous Pharisee that ever ransacked a Bible to rake the promises to himself and fling the curses to his neighbours.'

Indeed, the Tea Party would force their hysterical smalltown dogma on the rest of the US (and by extension the world) if allowed near the legislative process. It does baffle me that these alleged Christians act in a typically conservative manner of self-interest, rather than addressing one of the more pressing messages from the Bible – namely helping the poor, downtrodden and marginalised in the US and elsewhere. One can only hope that the American people, having redeemed themselves worldwide with Obama's appointment after two terms of George Bush, will laugh any representative of these lunatics out of town.

I'm prepared to partially dismount from my British high-horse here and concede that UK law is grounded in Christianity, but it has evolved with society as we became increasingly secular, and dare I say it, enlightened. The roots of our faltering faith remain all around us, most strikingly via the Christian places of worship which still mark the skylines of Britain. And why not? Like Maconie and John Betjeman, I also enjoy a good church or cathedral, finding that ecclesiastical architecture has a warmth and grandeur that transcends its spiritual purpose and can be appreciated by secular aesthetes as well as the pious.

One could extend this to the central tenets of Christianity itself – forgiveness, charity, peace and helping the poor are obviously good things and their execution does not require belief in God, Adam and Eve or the Sermon on the Mount. We mustn't allow the self-serving to abuse and distort whatever religion they follow and force arbitrary madness on others. Just think of poor old John Hooper.

2011: A Kebab Odyssey #3 - Al Safa

Let’s get this straight, provincials and tutting snobs – I’m not talking about doner kebabs here. Their inherent evils are well known and I’m not making a case for them, at least not now that Turkish Delight in Chorlton have stopped making their own doner from finest lamb shoulder.

No, what I’m largely concerned with during this mini-series of blogs is documenting the Middle Eastern phenomenon known as kobedeh kebabs – a wondrous concoction of minced lamb, turmeric and spices served on a near-2 ft naan with sauces and salad. I shall highlight noteworthy Mancunian vendors of said slabs of lamby meat, in no particular order – the numbering system is merely chronological, as opposed to a TOTP-style chart placing.

Special dispensation will be given to fine purveyors of seekh kebabs (the minced lamb equivalent from the Indian subcontinent) and, grudgingly, to decent chicken kebabs if you’re that boring.

#3 – Al Safa, 40 Wilmslow Road, Manchester, M14 5TQ

Once upon a time children, there was a magical place in Rusholme called West Bank, which offered meat as good as Al-Quds with salad and sauces to the standard of Al Safa, featured here. Plus, they sold baklava! Grizzled elders such as myself still speak of it in hushed tones, and there is talk that such a place will come again. Until then my friends, you must decide upon the combination of factors that constitutes the ultimate kobedeh experience and choose your venue accordingly. I'll be using Al Quds as a direct comparison here, as they've set the standard for newer places like Al Safa to follow.

Meat: Rather good clay-oven kobedeh, though if you held a gun to my head I would say that Al-Quds' is better still. If chicken shawarma is your thing, Al Safa's offering is one of the finest examples in Rusholme.

Bread: Sizeable naan, wrapping said kobedeh like a leavened duvet. Handmade and clay-oven baked, like all the best naan. Possibly better than Al Quds, not as crisp or burnt, though some do prefer this.

Salad: The holy grail of kebab accompaniments can be found here – red cabbage! That alone beats Al Quds into an earthenware salad receptable. Fresh lettuce, onions and tomato too, in quantities generous enough to beguile oneself into forgetting the less healthy aspects of this dish. Pickled chilli was superb.

Sauce: I recommend you point at the special chilli sauce that is obviously made with fresh tomatoes, otherwise the chap serving will default to the standard stuff. Fantastic with yoghurt, one of THE best sauces around, heightening the already-splendid meat, salad and bread to dizzying levels.

Ambience: Something of the new kid on the block, Al Safa sprung from nowhere relatively recently and has a modern feel, with faux-leather booths and what appears to be an Eastern European satellite channel on the telebox. It seemed to be showing some Baltic version of Family Fortunes last time I was in, though usually it’s a Europop 'music' channel with predictably frightful results. As such, I am sometimes forced to put headphones on and almost miss my order, which would be tragic with kebabs of this standard.

Join me next time for more exciting adventures in spicy minced lamb, dear friends.