The Stone Roses - All For One

Good things come to those who wait.

Except they don't, do they?

Ten years ago, no-one expected ever to hear new material by The Stone Roses. Even five years ago, it seemed unlikely - they'd hammer the arse off the nostalgia tour, then disintegrate with a whimper, John Squire's ego wrestling with Ian Brown's pride and Reni's disinterest to put an end to the reunion they'd all said could and would never happen.

So anyone who says they've been waiting 22 years for All For One is a fucking liar. And anyone who claims it was worth a 22-year wait is trying far too hard.

This is The Stone Roses in name only. There's none of the hushed psychedelia of their first album, none of the cocksure groove of their mid-period EPs, none of the thunderous Zep-aping rock swagger of their second incarnation.

All For One is a Britpop anthem as written by men in their 50s who were never Britpop first time around. All of what made the Roses The Best Band In The World is missing, and instead we get a shrill, over-produced mess.

The lyrics are dreadful - what few lyrics there are. "All for one, one for all, if we all join hands we'll make a wall" - didn't Pink Floyd spell out the dangers of that 37 years ago?

I initially misheard the verse lyrics as: "A tragedy, a catastrophe", which would have been apt. It's actually some faux Flower Power guff that would have sounded trite in 1966, and just sounds embarrassing 50 years later.

Musically, the biggest crimes are against the rhythm section. Mani's bass, a key component of the Roses sound,  is barely audible.

Reni, master of the indie breakbeat and a drummer second only to Ginger Baker in the pantheon of the greats, is made to sound like any bog standard, four beats in the bar, hit them hard indie drummer.

John Squire's final howling guitar solo manages a late salvage job, but by then I'd all but given up.

I stick by my initial assessment - that it sounds like The Fratellis. More specifically, like The Fratellis labouring over a Seahorses album track for 20 years.

The internet enthusiasm for All For One has been baffling.  Maybe people are just desperate to love it. Maybe they genuinely DO love it.

But as the enduring popularity of Donald Trump, Ed Sheeran and Mrs Brown's Boys show, the general public aren't to be trusted with important decisions.

(Says I, who heard it twice, didn't like it either time and immediately bought it on iTunes anyway.)

I'm going to resort to parental cliché - I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed.

I certainly don't feel like I'm missing out by not seeing the Roses for a third time when they tour this summer.

I can't envisage where All For One will comfortably sit in their setlist - unless it's going to be surrounded by more new songs of similar quality midway through the gigs.

It was never going to live up to the expectation, and it continues the Stone Roses Law of Diminishing Returns.

By the time of their Fifth Coming in 2045, their comeback single will be Ian Brown bludgeoning Michael Jackson's Billie Jean to death.

Oh... 

Top 10 Albums of 2014

Top 10 albums of the year:

1. Radio Moscow - Magical Dirt
2. Swans - To Be Kind
3. Kasabian - 48:13
4. Jimi Goodwin - Odludek
5. Pink Floyd - Endless River
6. The Horrors - Luminous
7. Jack White - Lazaretto
8. Johnny Marr - Playland
9. Aphex Twin - Spyro
10. The War On Drugs - Lost In The Dream

1p Album Club

A bit of shameless self-promotion here - my first review as part of the 1p Album Club has just gone live on the website.

I first found out about the club through Twitter. The premise is quite simple:

Pair up with a friend and each month, send each other an album that is available through the Amazon marketplace for 1p (plus postage).

There are thousands of records on Amazon for that price, and the 1p Albums Club is a way of rediscovering some lost classics, finding new music and putting the idea of the album back at the forefront of music, rather than single tracks or iPods set to shuffle.

I received a record I'd never heard of earlier this week, Space Monkeys' 1997 debut The Daddy Of Them All, and in return I sent The Beta Band's Three EPs.

If anyone fancies pairing up for a monthly exchange of albums, let me know.

The Stone Roses, Heaton Park, Manchester, Saturday June 30, 2012

The first Stone Roses song I remember being aware of is Love Spreads. The lead single from their long-awaited second album was released when I was 14 and still truly to fall in love with music. But that song caught my ear even at that age, when it was played on the radio amongst the reggae pop, Take That and Wet Wet Wet.

But as with almost all music I heard at that age, it slipped from my memory when the radio playlists moved on to something else.

It wasn't until 1996 that I rediscovered The Stone Roses, by which time they'd finished dragging the sorry remains of their carcass around the festival circuit, a poor imitation of the band that had once had the world at their feet.

The first Stone Roses album I owned was The Complete Stone Roses, a compilation of their output on the Silvertone label that was a birthday present from my Mither. As introductions go, it was more than enough to ignite a love for the band that has never diminished in the intervening 16 years.

Shortly afterwards, I picked up from Groucho's in Dundee a second hand copy of The Second Coming, the album that transformed the Roses from jingly-jangly psychedelic pop gods into thunderous Zeppelin-inspired rock gods. It was John Squire's cocaine album, the riffs and egos coming between a group of four childhood friends and forming chasms that eventually shattered the greatest band of their generation.

So by the time I finally picked up a copy of The Stone Roses' debut album, from Woolworths in Dundee's Wellgate, I thought I knew everything there was to know about the band. Except I didn't. The Complete Stone Roses, while containing most of the tracks from that debut, included shortened, neutered versions of that debut album's monumental bookends, I Wanna Be Adored and I Am The Resurrection. It also missed out anti-monarchy lullaby Elizabeth My Dear and the laid-back groove of Shoot You Down.

This wasn't just a record. This was THE record. The world's most perfect record. When I am Grand High Poobah of The Whole World, I will insist everyone receives a copy with their birth certificate.

Since then, I've acquired various other Roses records - "lost" debut album Garage Flower, a shouty burst of punk-inspired Goth anger that barely hints at the band the Roses would blossom into; an almost unlistenable bootleg of the legendary Spike Island live show; the Turns Into Stone compilation that shoehorns together all of the Silvertone singles that didn't appear on the debut album; an ill-advised but passable remixes album from the turn of the century; various CD singles and live EPs; and, as my salary has grown as middle age approaches, the beautiful but expensive 20th anniversary edition of the debut - heavyweight vinyl, three CDs, a DVD and a lemon-shaped USB drive in a hefty presentation box.

My love for The Stone Roses has been one of the constants in my adult life, and until recently, so had one unbending certainty - The Stone Roses would never reform. The divisions between Ian Brown and John Squire, and between Reni and John Squire, were too wide. Brown was adamant that he didn't need the quitar player, that his solo work stood on its own two feet where Squire's was empty posturing and none-too-subtle ego-stroking. It was the first question asked in any interview with a former Rose - when would they return? And the answer was always the same - we won't.

That always seemed the best solution to me - I'd rather their reputation remained unsullied by an ill-judged money-grabbing reunion. Better to remain that tight-knit group of 20-somethings from the Blackpool Live DVD than four 50-year-olds milking the cash cow.

But at the same time, I always maintained that if they ever did reform, I'd be first in the queue for tickets.

All of which is a very lengthy preamble to the weekend just finished. I've driven 770 miles in a 2003 Renault Clio, from Montrose to Manchester and back again, via Falkirk and Newcastle in both directions. Given the chaos that the Biblical rains brought to the rail network over the weekend, it still appears to have been the better option.

Our gang of three decided to eschew the support acts - we weren't in Manchester to see Hollie Cook, The Wailers, Professor Green or Beady Eye. Our Saturday was devoted to one act and one act only.

Having attempted and failed to catch a tram to Heaton Park - not even standing room on the first tram we saw heading out on the Bury line from central Manchester, and then a line of trams heading for Oldham Mumps - we took a taxi to the venue, our cabbie giving us a list of what indie clubs we should head for after the show.

We caught the end of Beady Eye, who sounded just as flat as when we saw them at the Barrowlands last year. It's an indication of how far Liam Gallagher has fallen that people were standing in the car park drinking warm beer rather than rushing to catch his set. Even a rendition of Rock'n'Roll Star dedicated to Ian Brown, and a run through of Morning Glory, failed to ignite the crowd.

But from then on, we were in countdown mode. Barring a late, but by no means unlikely, disaster or falling out, we would be seeing The Stone Roses in the flesh.

I've rarely encountered such a peaceful atmosphere at a gig that size. We didn't bother attempting the crush for beer, but bumped into someone fresh from the bar queue who sold us four bottles of Fosters for £20. But everywhere you looked, people were smiling. Even as the crowd started thickening at the front of the stage, there seemed to be none of the aggression that would normally accompany the inevitable shoving.

When the Roses did appear on stage, there was no fanfare, no fireworks, no elaborate backing track. Just four men ambling on stage, picking up their instruments and bursting into I Wanna Be Adored. And from that second onwards, I was 16 again.

It was a near-perfect setlist. The only way it could have been bettered would have been by extending the gig by adding Elephant Stone, Tightrope, Driving South and Breaking Into Heaven. All of the songs from the debut album made an appearance:

I Wanna Be Adored
Mersey Paradise
(Song For My) Sugar Spun Sister
Sally Cinnamon
Where Angels Play
Shoot You Down
Bye Bye Badman
Ten Storey Love Song
Standing Here
Fools Gold
Something's Burning
Waterfall
Don't Stop
Love Spreads
Made Of Stone
This Is The One
She Bangs The Drums
Elizabeth My Dear
I Am The Resurrection

Personal highlights were a roaring take on Fools Gold, a song I've never been too fussed by, but that on this showing gave the musicians a chance to shine; Waterfall and Don't Stop - the latter including some phenomenal bass runs from Mani; and the double header of Love Spreads and Made of Stone.

I hadn't long said to one of my mates that Squire hadn't really let the guitar rip when he howled into the opening riff of Love Spreads - that was a genuine goosebump moment. The song ended with Ian Brown rapping over the fade-out:

A pen and a paper, a stereo, a tape
All this with a nice big plate of
Fish, which is my favourite dish
But without no money it’s just a wish
Now I don’t have to dream about getting paid
I dig into the books of the rhymes I've made
I hit the studio and get paid in full

Sugar spun sisters outgoing the distance
Get me, I’m seeking some assistance
High in the realms tonight,
Sky-high like a meteorite
I’m easy like the holy ghost
Ain’t no voice, it’s just a toast
High in the realms tonight,
Sky-high like a meteorite

Stone Roses all the rage
Stone Roses up on the stage
Not a pause, down the doors
Let’s have a round of applause

The first verse is lifted from Eric B & Rakim's Paid In Full, but the rest is all Brown.

It was followed by Made of Stone, my all-time favourite Stone Roses song, and the one I've always thought has the best interplay between Mani and Squire.

Reni's drumming was ferocious throughout. If you'd taken away the rest of the band, it would still have been an absorbing show just watching him drum. It frequently sounded like he was playing live hip-hop rhythms. It's good to have him back.

Those were just my personal highlights, but there wasn't a weak spot at any point during the gig. The band's song and album titles lend themselves to plenty of cliched review titles: What The World Is Waiting For, This Is The One, I Am The Resurrection, Second Coming and so on.

But Ian Brown summed it up as the band stood centre stage post-gig: "We're back".

Firsts

My first cassette single:

My first cassette album:

My first CD single (two of the people on the cover are now dead, one has had a stroke):

My first CD album:

Whiskers On Kittens

A few more of my favourite things.

The bridge/coda from Razorlight's "In The Morning" (from about 3:05 in the video below)

The smell of newly-cut grass on a hot, still, summer's day.

John Frusciante's backing vocals on "Can't Stop":

Baby Girl's giggle

The rumble from my surround sound system at the start of an action movie.

Extra large hoodies.

Almax

In the six or so years I've been blogging, I've "met" some interesting characters.

It was incredibly saddening to hear today that my favourite blogger - indeed, one of my favourite writers in any medium - known to many as Almax, and to readers of seminal football fanzine The Absolute Game by his real name of Alastair McSporran (which he memorably described as having been invented by a Sunday Post sub-editor), died on Tuesday after a long illness.

Alastair's knowledge of music, conveyed through his blog, was an entry point for me into a whole world of previously unexplored music. Through him I discovered The Incredible String Band, Bunny Wailer, Ornette Coleman, Poco and many, many more.

I also enjoyed the debates he led on football, particularly the fortunes or otherwise of the Old Firm. I was lucky enough to be chosen as one of 35 private members of the blog when public access was revoked a few years back, and the community that Alastair created felt at all times like the world's best, most selective, private members club. No topic was off limits, and it became a safe haven of sorts to engage in occasionally heated discussion.

No words I write here can possibly do Alastair's talent justice. If a professional writer had left behind a body of work so varied, so forthright, so honest and so tear-inducingly hilarious, they would be feted for decades. That his blog was the work of a supposed amateur makes it all the more impressive.

While the main blog that bears his name remains behind closed doors, I recommend everyone visit this collection of Alastair's The Absolute Game writings for some of the best analysis of Scottish football you'll ever read.

Farewell Alastair - I'm listening to Blood On The Tracks in your honour.

Friday Ten: Ten Great Album Tracks

Ten great songs that were never released as singles.

1: Hey Bulldog by The Beatles


2: Champagne Supernova by Oasis


3: Driving South by The Stone Roses


4: The Width of a Circle by David Bowie


5: Mardy Bum by Arctic Monkeys


6: When The Levee Breaks by Led Zeppelin


7: On A Plain by Nirvana


8: Optimistic by Radiohead


9: Exterminator by Primal Scream


10: The Chain by Fleetwood Mac

Friday Ten: Ten Songs For A Sunny Day

I'm steadfastly ignoring all claims to include Dodgy...

1. Going Out - Supergrass

2. Daytripper - The Beatles

3. Dry The Rain - The Beta Band

4. ABC - The Jackson 5

5. Sunny Afternoon - The Kinks

6. The Circle - Ocean Colour Scene

7. Whatever - Oasis

8. I Get Around - The Beach Boys

9. Time Of The Season - The Zombies

10. One Love - The Stone Roses

Slide Away

It came as a sobering realistion today that many of my favourite records are 15 years old this year.

Albums from 1997 that rank among my favourites or that otherwise had a big effect on me at the time include:

Radiator - Super Furry Animals
OK Computer - Radiohead
Tellin' Stories - The Charlatans
Do It Yourself - The Seahorses
Be Here Now - Oasis
Urban Hymns - The Verve
In It For The Money - Supergrass
Marchin' Already - Ocean Colour Scene
Vanishing Point - Primal Scream
Dig Your Own Hole - The Chemical Brothers
The Fat of The Land - The Prodigy
Heavy Soul - Paul Weller
Flaming Pie - Paul McCartney
When I Was Born For The Seventh Time - Cornershop
The Colour and The Shape - Foo Fighters
Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space - Spiritualized
Young Team - Mogwai
Songs From Northern Britain - Teenage Fanclub
Blur - Blur
Stupid Stupid Stupid - Black Grape
Good Feeling - Travis
Portishead - Portishead
Attack of the Grey Lantern - Mansun

And those are just the ones I can remember off the top of my head in 10 minutes.

Quite easily the best year of music in my lifetime. We'll never see its like again...

The Nineteenth Groanin' Jock Lyrical Challenge

With only one entrant in the last Groanin' Jock Lyrical Challenge, Neepheid wins by default, having correctly identified Blur's Beetlebum.

Here are the latest tunes to spot, courtesy of the Magic Tune Box set to shuffle. Just identify the song and the artist, no Googling allowed.

1. Pride can hurt you too, apologise to her.

2. I'm looking over the wall and they're looking at me.

3. What a big black mask, what a hunk of love.

4. Watching him dash away, swinging an old bouquet.

5. You were the seven deadly sins, making sense in your "screw me" dress.

What The World Is Waiting For

...This IS the one we're waiting for.

Although I've been saying for 15-odd years that I never want The Stone Roses to reform (and posted about it here almost five years ago), I now have tickets to see them in Manchester next June. I haven't stopped shaking with excitement since 9.35am.

Please. Pleeeeeaaaaaaaase - let it be good.

The Eighteenth Groanin' Jock Lyrical Challenge

A while back, I resurrected the game no-one seems interested in playing, The Groanin' Jock Lyrical Challenge.

Jack Deighton was the winner on that occasion, correctly identifying Money by Pink Floyd. Answers to all of those questions are now in the comments on that post.

Here are the latest songs for you to identify. Place your answers in the comments. No Googling.

1. When I hear that big black whistle they blow, I feel inside it's time for me to be going.

2. When I fully grow I'll outsize you, but I won't let you fall in love.

3. Gonna manage my time just like Johann Cruyff.

4. For what it's worth it was worth all the while.

5. And when she lets me slip away, she turns me on, all my violence is gone.

The Seventeenth Groanin' Jock Lyrical Challenge

My blogging has been very erratic over the past couple of years, for a multitude of reasons.

So erratic in fact that the last time we had a Groanin' Jock Lyrical Challenge was back in September 2009.

Way back then, Cedric M. Kippers (now no longer wandering the blogosphere) identified three of the five tracks and Kenfitlike spotted one.

The answers are now in the comments on that post.

So without any further ado, here is the Seventeenth Groanin' Jock Lyrical Challenge. Simply name the artist and track, post your answers in the comments, no Googling.

1. I don't know if I'm up or down, Whether black is white or blue is brown.

2. Take off your disguise, I know that underneath it's me.

3. Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash.

4. I can see that light surrounds me, I want you to show me round.

5. Such a melting pot, on the corner selling rock, preachers pray to God.

Friday Ten - The 10 Most Played Songs On My iPod

1. Some Velvet Morning - Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood - 19 plays

2. Straight Outta Compton - Nina Gordon - 15 plays

3. Folsom Prison Blues - Johnny Cash - 14 plays

4. Israelites - Desmond Dekker - 13 plays

5. What Have You Gone and Done? - The Cooper Temple Clause - 12 plays

6. Here It Comes - Doves - 12 plays

7. Suspicious Minds - Elvis Presley - 12 plays

8. Here Come The Girls - Ernie K. Doe - 12 plays

9. Anything Goes - AC/DC - 11 plays

10. Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It) - Beyonce - 11 plays

Sunday Soul: Aretha Franklin - I Say A Little Prayer

Friday Ten - My 10 Favourite Singers

1. Nina Simone

2. Bill Withers

3. Robert Plant

4. Kelly Jones

5. Paul McCartney

6. Aretha Franklin

7. Ozzy Osbourne

8. Kurt Cobain

9. John Lennon

10. Matt Bellamy

Raindrops On Roses

These are a few of my favourite things:

Walking around barefoot both indoors and outdoors.

Wearing a new pair of jeans for the first time.

Listening to someone who can really play a harmonica.

The smell of freshly tumble dried clothes.

Waking up on a sunny Saturday morning when I have no plans.

Ginger Baker's drum fills on "The White Room".

Family movies from the 1980s.

The fizz of excitement when the house lights are turned off just before a gig starts.

Scotland scoring a goal in a competitive international football match.

What's New?

Once again, I'm concerned at my recent music buying, and I'm becoming increasingly aware that I'm buying less and less new music.

The last ten albums I bought were:

The Black Keys - Attack & Release
Fleetwood Mac - Then Play On
Ultrasound - Everything Picture
The Highwaymen - The Highwayman Collection
John Mayall & The Blues Breakers - Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton
The Who - Who Are You
The Who - The Who By Numbers
Fairport Convention - Unhalfbricking
Gram Parsons - GP/Grievous Angel
Lee "Scratch" Perry - Soul Fire

Not one of them released this year. Only The Black Keys album was even released this century.

Am I losing my touch or spreading my roots further into classic blues, country, folk and reggae?

Friday Ten: Ten People Who Aren't Coming To My Birthday Party Tomorrow

1: Osama Bin Laden

2: Barack Obama

3: Kylie Minogue

4: John Terry

5: David Cameron

6: Courtney Love

7: Paul McCartney

8: Lewis Hamilton

9: Tiger Woods

10: Cheryl Cole