Top tracks - Peter Gabriel

I was first aware of Peter Gabriel when 'Games Without Frontiers' was a hit when I was young.  It wasn't until the album 'So' was released in 1986 that I took serious notice of his talent.  That album and the videos produced, made Peter into an international star after a decade of solo releases that had provided success in Europe mainly.

There are a couple of things about Peter that are consistent: firstly, he is an musical innovator and secondly, he is a slow worker!  The long gaps between releases appear to partly be due to other work as well as his slow writing style.

As you may know, Peter was the original vocalist in Genesis and apart from his solo work, he has promoted world music, set up WOMAD, carried out humanitarian work, operated a successful studio complex and ran a record company.  His work on internet projects has also been highly successful and influential.  His website was one of the first artist sites and his software called 'Filter' that gave music recommendations based on an existing music collections has been copied many times.

Here are my favourite tracks - as his first 4 solo albums were all called 'Peter Gabriel', I have numbered them:

1. Solsbury Hill  (Peter Gabriel 1)
2. Games Without Frontiers    (Peter Gabriel 3)
3. Mother Of Violence    (Peter Gabriel 2)
4. Sledgehammer    (So)
5. Sky Blue    (Up)
6. Steam    (Us)
7. Big Time    (So)
8. In Your Eyes    (So)
9. Digging In The Dirt    (Us)
10. Red Rain    (So)
11. Downside-Up [Live]   (Hits)
12. Growing Up    (Up)
13. No Way Out    (Up)
14. Don't Give Up    (So)
15. More Than This    (Up)
16. I Grieve    (Up)
17. Shock The Monkey    (Peter Gabriel 4)
18. Come Talk To Me    (Us)
19. I Don't Remember   (Peter Gabriel 3)
20. Blood Of Eden    (Us)
21. Father, Son    (Ovo)
22. Kiss That Frog    (Us)
23. Flume    (Scratch My Back)
24. Shaking The Tree (Shaking the Tree: 16 Golden Greats)
25. The Barry Williams Show    (Up)

You can see this list on iTunes and listen to clips here.

PG hits?

Last night Pete and I were at the O2 in London to see Peter Gabriel in concert.  PG is one of my all times favourite artists (I recommended track that you are unlikely to know on this blog posting) - he is a musical genius in my book and has produced some outstanding and innovative music.

Last night was clearly an experiment.  He has just released an album of cover versions called Scratch My Back (and the covered artists will be returning the complement).  Rather than opt for a normal band, he has used full orchestral arrangements... no drums, no guitars.  The experiment did not work.

The evening did not start well.  Ticket holders had received an email stating that "Peter Gabriel will be on stage at 7.30pm".  This seemed a bit early, but we took our seats at 7.15 and waited... and waited.  At 7.45, Peter appears and explains the concept of the evening and then introduces a support act!   Thankfully she only sang 3 songs.

The first half of the show was the Scratch My Back album in its entirety.  Most of the songs are very slow and I was praying for something up tempo and it didn't come.  The light show, complete with stunning animation and the overall sound were perfect, but the music itself seemed completely out of place.  Perhaps it could have worked at the Royal Albert Hall, but I was bored - something I thought I would never be at a Peter Gabriel show.

Then there was an atmosphere killing interval and then some of his own music, also in the same style.  He chose some obscure tracks, again many that were too slow.  The audience only perked up when they played Solsbury Hill.  A disappointing evening with many people around us looking confused and not "concert happy".

Anyway... here are some pictures I took yesterday.

Songs you might like #2

This is the second post looking at some rare music - the first can be found here. Despite a lack of comments, it was one of my most read blog entries. So this time, please let me know your views and suggestions!

These are songs that you probably won't know but I would like to recommend them. You may love them, you may hate them - the choice is yours, but at least you had the chance to hear them...

"Trouble" by Lindsey Buckingham

Lindsey is the songwriter/guitarist/vocalist in Fleetwood Mac that wrote such classics as Go your own way, Big love and Tusk. In 1981 he released his first solo album called Law and Order which was a weird mix of music styles, but had this fine track with a killer hook. Supposedly, much to his annoyance, the album flopped whereas his band mate and ex-girlfriend Stevie Nicks' first solo album sold millions.

"Nobody's Sleeping" by Anne McCue

Once in a while, the freebie CD's on magazines throw up some magic and when I heard this track I knew I had to hear more. It's a simple rock song with a folky feel and is representative of her Roll album.

"Mother Of Violence" by Peter Gabriel

Peter Gabriel is one of my favourite artists - it's a shame it takes him so long to release new music. This song was hidden away on the second of three albums called simply "Peter Gabriel", this song has an eerie acoustic sound whereas the rest of the album sounds mushy to me. Peter's website was one of the first artist sites and his sort-of-monthly video updates are always worth viewing.

"I Wanna Stay Home" by Jellyfish

Back in the late 1980's, Jellyfish had a hit called The king is half undressed - a fun pop tune. When my friend Sonny went to Pakistan for a few months around 1999, he bought back a load of poorly recorded pirate cassettes and the Jellyfish album Bellybutton was one of them. This is a true album in that it flows from start to finish, is listenable throughout and has no filler - this is just one of many fine tracks.

"When The Spell Is Broken" by Richard Thompson

When I was about 20 (yep, many years ago) I started guitar lessons with a guy called Richard Pronger. I went for a couple of years and didn't progress as much as Rick would have liked - though he may be happy to know that I can still play The needle of the damage done. One legacy of those days sitting in his little "studio" was the great music I was exposed to: Neil Young, XTC, Elvis Costello etc. The list also includes Richard Thompson and I have only been able to track down a live recording of this amazing song (Richard is Teddy Thompson's dad by the way).

Here are some short samples of the tracks:

Full moon

The full moon has always fascinated me and in case you didn't know, tonight is a full moon. I have no knowledge of astronomy (or astrology for that matter), but thought I'd find some moon related facts to share with you...

To get technical, a full moon is a lunar phase that occurs when the moon is on the opposite side of the earth from the sun. The phase is said to be linked to crime, suicide, mental illness, accidents, birthrates and fertility. Such correlations haven't been fully proved but do have a name. Lunar effect is a theory which suggests that there is link between the lunar cycle and behavior in humans. A spokeswoman for Sussex Police said: "Research carried out by us has shown a correlation between violent incidents and full moons". Strange eh?

Full moon to full moon takes 28 days to complete which is directly related to the fact that, on average, a woman's menstrual cycle is 28 days.

The moon has a role to play in the tides - though that's incredibly complicated.

By coincidence, one of my favourite films is An American Werewolf In London which obviously has links to the moon. A interesting fact about the film is that every song featured has moon in the title including Blue Moon, Moondance and Bad Moon Rising.

I have tried to take a few photographs of the moon, (see above pic) but it's actually very difficult thing to do. And now for the dull part... as you have to keep the shutter open for a while to capture enough light (maybe half a second), the moon moves across the sky just enough to blur the picture. However, this picture is one of mine... taken with a Pentax K100D with a 300mm zoom lens and x2 adapter. I aim to get a better zoom lens or even a connection to a telescope to improve the quality. Yep, I told you it was boring.

And one of my favourite musicians, Peter Gabriel publishes a video blog every full moon.