MOG - Tom Gray's Posts

Dirty Butlins

Tom Gray — Wed, 02 May 2007 13:39:23 GMT

My liver has finally stopped aching from my weekend sojourn in Minehead. All who made the expedition had a splendiferous time at the Dirty Three curated ATP festival. Myself, rather blearily, included. Although owning a few of their records, I'd never seen the Dirty Three do their thing, and 'hazard!', I cried; they are bastard-well brilliant! If there were medals for sheer presence, a tidy row would be pinned across Warren Ellis' chest. I particularly enjoyed his twix song banter....this is a song about waking up in the morning, staring at the phone not ringing, finding you only have one piece of stale bread, no butter, but there is some rancid marmalade, and then thinking to yourself 'I should have gone out last night'.....or something like that - all delivered in a comically nonchalalant low melbourne accent. They were dramatic and subtle in equal measures. Beautifully eardrum-buggeringly loud too. Joy. Nick Cave's performances had us all with our arms in the air and our inhibitions left somewhere in the Somerset countryside. Bobby Gillespie made for a brilliantly hopeless tambourinist. Bill Callahan made me cry like a small girl.

Happy days.

dolphins

Tom Gray — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 18:02:42 GMT

One of my favourite songs of all time. An elusive, solemn number. Neil's songwriting is , for me, the perfect combination of early twentieth century styles. His crooning may not be for all, but it's suits me fine. This song has been covered many times. In my opinion, most successfully by Tim Buckley and, bless his socks for giving it a go, by Billy Bragg. I think Buckley's version may be it's exemplification, but Neil's is warmer and less pretentious. You'll probably know Neil's work as he was the writer of "everybody's talkin'" Harry Nilsson's hit from Midnight Cowboy. I think he was a brill building writer. I once heard, though I've never found the track, he wrote for Buddy Holly, incidentally, another of my biggest heros. I've bin searching........

one horse townes

Tom Gray — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 18:26:51 GMT

I just saw, "be here to love me" the Townes Van Zandt documentary. If I have ever been more depressed by a film in my life, I can't think of it.

arthur russell

Tom Gray — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 20:15:04 GMT

I just replaced a copy of an old compilation I loved called "crooning on venus". A mad, beautiful compilation based on the tenuous premise: what you'd be likely to hear in a space-port waiting-lounge on venus. It's basically a bunch of well chosen tonal tracks including 'my ideal' by chet baker, amazonian throat singing, john lee at his most downbeat, john martyn, 'starsailor' by tim buckley, and a great track called, 'young and supernatural' by a band called the lilacs who seem to have disappeared into thin air. It was this compilation that first introduced me to many of these artists. But on listening again I heard this gem, 'see through love' by arthur russell. I thoroughly recommend learning about arthur's background and antics, although he died in '92, he's left a bizarre and wonderful footprint on the contemporary world. David Byrne and Philip Glass pop up in this renaissance man's history. You'll come across his disco first off, its not to my taste, but its interesting nevertheless. It's these solo cello-based tracks that move me. Reminiscent in tone of John Martyn at a Talk Talk convention - it's pure minimalist brilliance. Their only possible downfall: the huge chunk of 80's digital reverb. However, doleful and enigmatic. Check it out at your earliest convenience. cheers, tommy

Here I am

Tom Gray — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 06:26:29 GMT

So, here I am, wonder of wonders. I've been intending to get in here for ages. If you wanna know more about me I regularly blog here. Much mez love, Tommy Gomez x