Hard News by Russell Brown

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Hard News: Friday Music: The Beatles' adventure guide

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  • Mike O'Connell,

    That track, man. It’s the spawn of rock music as drone, you can drop it into a modern DJ set, it’s everything.

    Absolutely. Incredible song which will never age. It set places like San Francisco alight when it came out. So the story goes, for his vocals, John Lennon asked George Martin to make him sound like the Dalai Lama!

    More recently (2013),Matthew (One Man) Bannister reinterpreted Revolver as Evolver. I prefer the original any day but here's his take - Tomorrow Never Knows

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 385 posts Report Reply

  • Ian Dalziel,

    That's very (very) spooky, I had a long, vivid dream about a big city, and a big house, which involved Terence Hogan just last night...
    ...it was all about looking for things!

    I put it down to the bad cold I am almost over, then I watched The Last Wave today, about dreams and dreamtime and premonitions, and then read this.
    The shiver that went through me was different to the cold shivers I've been experiencing...

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 7953 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown, in reply to Mike O'Connell,

    More recently (2013),Matthew (One Man) Bannister reinterpreted Revolver as Evolver. I prefer the original any day but here’s his take – Tomorrow Never Knows

    Yeah, I like this too – it's sort of Madchester. I got a video of it live at the Thirsty Dog:

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Gareth,

    Oh no! Not the leg...

    Bucolic in the backblocks… • Since Jan 2008 • 269 posts Report Reply

  • Graham Dunster,

    Auckland • Since Nov 2009 • 184 posts Report Reply

  • Ana Simkiss,

    I confidently predict The Beths will be huge! I saw them maybe a year ago and they were superb live. I beleive they're at the Portland Public House on Saturday, if you can I urge you to go!

    Freemans Bay • Since Nov 2006 • 141 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown, in reply to Ana Simkiss,

    confidently predict The Beths will be huge! I saw them maybe a year ago and they were superb live. I beleive they’re at the Portland Public House on Saturday, if you can I urge you to go!

    Damn, I'd have been 100% up for that – I love a show I can bike to – but I'm indoors this weekend getting over having a lump cut out of my nose and the nearby skin correspondingly rearranged. Missing Anthonie Tonnon and Nadia Reid tonight too! Wah!

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    The new ad for the Average Rap Band album. I'm all in favour of the fact that Tom Scott is making his own videos now:

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • nzlemming,

    That track, man. It's the spawn of rock music as drone, you can drop it into a modern DJ set, it's everything.

    I was grinning madly all through that. Thanks.

    Waikanae • Since Nov 2006 • 2937 posts Report Reply

  • Alan Perrott,

    I brought in 2000 while considerably enhanced to Tomorrow Never Knows. Best. Time. Shame. About. The. Rain.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 438 posts Report Reply

  • Rich Lock, in reply to Russell Brown,

    It's the spawn of rock music as drone, you can drop it into a modern DJ set, it's everything.

    This. Nothing much to add except that this came out in 1966. Two short years earlier, they were releasing fluff like 'can't buy me love'. That tickles me and mildly blows my mind. Now, let's all get up , and dance to a tune that was a hit before your mother was born.

    I have an original copy of 'Revolver' on vinyl. Thanks for the lend, mum and dad! I'll give it back soon!

    you can drop it into a modern DJ set

    Like this? (runs and hides)

    back in the mother countr… • Since Feb 2007 • 2728 posts Report Reply

  • Ana Simkiss, in reply to Russell Brown,

    Commiserations Russell on the terrifying sounding surgery! Here's to a full recovery

    Freemans Bay • Since Nov 2006 • 141 posts Report Reply

  • Gareth,

    One more theremin for Russell's edification: in which Blue Monday is reinvented on instruments from the 1930s here.

    Bucolic in the backblocks… • Since Jan 2008 • 269 posts Report Reply

  • Mike O'Connell, in reply to Russell Brown,

    it's sort of Madchester

    ...with a VU makeover to make it three chords! Is that Jane Dodd on bass?

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 385 posts Report Reply

  • linger, in reply to Gareth,

    Referenced in the original post. Remarkable, eh? I listened to it and thought: paging Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra…
    Unsurprisingly, there are already some ukulele arrangements out there, e.g.:

    Tokyo • Since Apr 2007 • 1944 posts Report Reply

  • Mike O'Connell,

    Worth a mention - go see if you can, Jerron ‘Blind Boy' Paxton who played in a packed out show at the Naval Point Yacht Club in Lyttelton last night. Well worth making the (long) hike. Sam Neill did!

    As luck would have it, he didn't play Auckland on Thursday – luck as in he lost his voice on the flight over and has rescheduled for Monday night at the Tuning Fork. Plus Bodega tonight and tomorrow in … Havelock North.

    His voice wasn’t in top shape (blame it on the German flu he said!) but more than enough to get him through, helped along with Glenfiddich ! Amazing performer. Multi-talented – the voice, piano, fiddle, banjo, harmonica, acoustic guitar of course and, oh, the banter… you’ll get the lot!

    The banjo at times was eerily reminiscent of W Africa and the desert blues. Look out for old standards like Diga Diga Doo (opening number, on the piano) and Tiptoe through the Tulips plus his hilarious singalong ‘shaving cream’ song.

    You’re in for a treat - y’all have a great time y’hear! This one's great, he did it last last night, Railroad Bill:

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 385 posts Report Reply

  • Gareth, in reply to linger,

    Oops!

    Bucolic in the backblocks… • Since Jan 2008 • 269 posts Report Reply

  • linger,

    No worries; confirms our host’s taste, eh.
    (Aside: Blue Monday is resilient, but doesn’t survive everything that’s thrown at it; there’s a surprisingly bad version by Nouveau Vague out there, complete with mistimed faux-amis pronunciations of the lyrics, that I am not going to link to, on the grounds that it’s kinder to all concerned that way.)

    Meanwhile: dunno how you’re doing in Aotearoa, but all deconstructions of “Tomorrow Never Knows” are geoblocked in Japan – and now are being systematically taken off YouTube altogether; note that the link in the original post now reads “This video does not exist”. Utter, utter bastards.

    Tokyo • Since Apr 2007 • 1944 posts Report Reply

  • Joe Wylie, in reply to linger,

    all deconstructions of “Tomorrow Never Knows” are geoblocked in Japan – and now are being systematically taken off YouTube altogether;

    This one's still up. Back when NME first reviewed Here Come the Warm Jets, Brian Eno's vocals were likened to the sound of "a wounded hare shot up the arse with an airgun pellet". Not on this one he doesn't.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report Reply

  • linger, in reply to Joe Wylie,

    Anything directly involving George Martin’s production, I meant;
    covers are not being subjected to takedowns.
    E.g. here’s the Brainchilds:

    Tokyo • Since Apr 2007 • 1944 posts Report Reply

  • Rob Hosking,

    It’s the spawn of rock music as drone, you can drop it into a modern DJ set, it’s everything.

    I think the first 'rock music as drone' was the Kinks' 'See My Friends' - inspired by a visit to India in '65, apparently, and released as a single the same year.

    Doesn't have the production effects of 'Tomorrow Never Knows' though, which sounds like an entire aural landscape of another planet.

    South Roseneath • Since Nov 2006 • 830 posts Report Reply

  • Mike O'Connell,

    Getting back to George Martin, acclaimed Beatles biographer Philip Norman has written a piece It could easily have been Lennon McCartney and Martin. Here too, musicians pay tribute to Martin.

    Much has been said about Tomorrow Never Knows. For that masterpiece, A Day in the Life, there was no written score: Martin simply gave the musicians (in their red noses and gorilla paws!), a top and bottom note and told them:

    ’Gentlemen, in between, it’s every man for himself.’ As a result, a producer who never so much as puffed a joint created veritable drug-delirium in sound.

    Recalling the 'Thatcher/ that Cher' death mix-up in 2013, somewhat amusingly, Game of Thrones author George RR Martin told his fans this week that rumours buzzing around the web that he’d died ‘have been greatly exaggerated.’

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 385 posts Report Reply

  • Ian Dalziel, in reply to Rob Hosking,

    the beat goes on…

    I think the first ‘rock music as drone’ was the Kinks’ ‘See My Friends’ – inspired by a visit to India in ’65, apparently, and released as a single the same year.

    …and apparently the Yardbirds recorded the song below Heart full of Soul 6 days after The Kinks See My Friends – but it wasn’t released until much later – then both bands went on tour together.

    …according to: source

    which also mentions in the ‘close enough for Jazz’ department India by John Coltrane Quartet with Eric Dolphy from 1961:

    maybe more indian than droney


    and boingboing has a great drone overview:
    http://boingboing.net/2012/10/19/music-appreciation-drone.html
    which ends with the ultimate drone

    In musical terms, the pitch of the sound generated by the black hole translates into the note of B flat. But, a human would have no chance of hearing this cosmic performance because the note is 57 octaves lower than middle-C … At a frequency over a million billion times deeper than the limits of human hearing, this is the deepest note ever detected from an object in the Universe.
    …. It is thought that this sound wave has “remained roughly constant for about 2.5 billion years."

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 7953 posts Report Reply

  • Gareth,

    More Blue Monday on unusual instruments. Here's a music box/mandolin version by Hannah Peel (who has a fine voice):

    Bucolic in the backblocks… • Since Jan 2008 • 269 posts Report Reply

  • Paul Rowe, in reply to Rob Hosking,

    Rob, I'll see your See My Friends, and raise you a Still I'm Sad, by The Yardbirds. (B-Side to Evil-Hearted You)

    Lake Roxburgh, Central Ot… • Since Nov 2006 • 574 posts Report Reply

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