Where Worlds Collide

Ginger has tagged me for the latest music meme doing the rounds.

List ten songs that you are currently digging � it doesn’t matter what genre they are from, whether they have words, or even if they’re no good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying right now. Post these instructions, the artists, and the ten songs in your blog. Then tag five other people to see what they�re listening to.

This list comes either from the stuff I’ve been listening to over the past few months, or the songs that keep appearing in my head even though I haven’t actually listened to them for ages. I think the rules are vague enough to include the latter.

Mostly Autumn: “Mother Nature”. The high spot of their celtic-prog period, this epic still closes their live set.

Moloko: “Over and Over”. I’m not really into dance music, but this one’s got some real instruments on it. I challenge you not to play air-bass to this one.

Yes: “Awaken”. I’ve probably been thinking of this one because I’ve been staying in Vevey in Switzerland, where Rick Wakeman recorded the magnificent pipe organ section. This is one of those songs that epitomises everything that people love (or hate) about Yes; lots of twiddly bits from Rick Wakeman and Steve Howe, and Jon Anderson’s wonderful stream-of-consciousness gibberish lyrics.

Judas Priest: “Lochness”. A 13 minute epic. About the Loch Ness Monster. Can you say “Spinal Tap”? Yes, I though you could. Somehow this manages to go beyond cheesy and come right out the other side, even though the melody of the chorus bears a passing resemblance to Dusty Springfield’s “Windmills of Your Mind”.

Nightwish: “Kuolema Tekee Taitelijan”. I’m a sucker for ballads done by metal bands, especially when they resist the temptation to add buzzsaw guitars. This one, sung entirely in Finnish, is beautiful. I love the cello solo towards the end, which fits the mood perfectly.

Blue Öyster Cult: “Harvest Moon”. One of the standout songs from their late ’90s comeback album “Heaven Forbid”. If you can’t come up with a Call of Cthulhu scenario from the lyric, you’re not even trying.

Porcupine Tree: “Arriving Somewhere (But not Here)”. This kaleidoscopic nine minute epic is the high point of their most recent album “Deadwing”, going from atmospheric prog to metal and back again.

The Mars Volta: “Cassandra Geminni”. TMV seem to combine the raw energy of punk with the complexity of full-blown prog-rock, resulting is something very dark and intense indeed. Don’t file under ‘easy listening’.

Spock’s Beard: “The Beauty of it All”. Anyone who wrote off Spock’s Beard after the departure of original main man Neil Morse turned out to be wrong. Their music might be more structured and melodic than before, but the progressive textures remain intact.

Karnataka: “Speak to Me”. Karnataka played atmospheric celtic-tinged progressive rock, sometimes compared with Mostly Autumn. Sadly the original incarnation of the band imploded before I got to see them live. The excellent live album “Strange Behaviour” turned out to be their swansong; this song is one of two that never appeared on any studio album.

Five people to tag: Scott, of course. Then Carl Cravens, Steve Jones, and to see if any A-list people notice me, Ken Hite and Norm.

This sequence of pictures shows the effort the 19th century engineers had to go through to run a railways through the barrier of the Alps. It on the south ramp of the Gotthard line, between Giornico and Lavorgo, where the very busy double track line loops round in two complete spirals to gain height.

I took all three pictures from the same viewpoint, on the main road near the post bus stop.

A northbound intermodal approaches on the lowest level. The presence of three locomotives, two Re6/6s and a smaller Re4/4, is unusual; I would assume the train is booked for an Re10/10 (one Re6/6 and one Re4/4), and the second Re6/6 is a balancing working to save a light engine path.

A few minutes later, the same train appears at the middle level having passed through the Travi spiral tunnel.

Finally the train appears at the top level having passed through the Pianotondo spiral tunnel. The southbound passenger train on the middle level rather took me by surprise!

I’ve got back from two weeks in (mostly) sunny Switzerland. Coming back to this cold damp island is a bit of shock to the system, especially with the weather the past few days.

I’ve travelled on a vast number of trains, from Inter-City expresses to rural narrow gauge branches, classic alpine main lines and preserved steam lines. I’ve even ridden threatened routes like the old Hauenstein line from Olten to Sissach.

I can think of quite a few ways in which Switzerland is better than Britain, apart from the obvious ones like the trains running on time. For instance:

• A town about the size of, say, Lostwithiel has a station buffet that’s open all day. Not only that, if you order a beer, you get cold draught beer in a proper glass, not a can of warm Stella and plastic cup.
• The SBB’s ICN tilting trains knock the spots of Richard Branson’s Pendolinos. They even manage to make the seats line up with the windows in 2nd class, so everyone can see out. Come to think about it, so do the Italian/Swiss “Cisalpino” Pendolinos. On the other hand, you could argue that passengers are more interested in seeing magnificent Swiss mountains than their British equivalents are of seeing the grotty parts of Birmingham or Stoke on Trent.

I’ll start uploading some of my 400+ digital photos once I’ve had the change to choose the best ones.

I’m off to Switzerland for two weeks. Since I can’t de-spam my blog while I’m offline, I’ve disabled comments for the duration. See you in two weeks time!

Words of wisdom from Ken MacLeod, in the aftermath of what appears to be home-grown suicide bombers.

I can’t say strongly enough that verbally or physically attacking the communities the suspects came from is exactly the wrong way to go. The police and politicians have held that line. It’s too much to hope that all sections of the press will. That line must hold. Otherwise we are looking into the abyss, and the abyss is looking right back.

There’s really nothing else I can add.

More names to add to the vile scum such as George Galloway and Nick Griffin who are exploiting the terrible tragedy for political ends. Some of the presenters and guests on Rupert Murdoch’s pro-Bush propaganda organ Fox News.

This is what their talking heads had to say.

KILMEADE: And he [British Prime Minister Tony Blair] made the statement, clearly shaken, but clearly determined. This is his second address in the last hour. First to the people of London, and now at the G8 summit, where their topic Number 1 -believe it or not- was global warming, the second was African aid. And that was the first time since 9-11 when they should know, and they do know now, that terrorism should be Number 1. But it’s important for them all to be together. I think that works to our advantage, in the Western world’s advantage, for people to experience something like this together, just 500 miles from where the attacks have happened.

VARNEY: It puts the Number 1 issue right back on the front burner right at the point where all these world leaders are meeting. It takes global warming off the front burner. It takes African aid off the front burner. It sticks terrorism and the fight on the war on terror, right up front all over again.

KILMEADE: Yeah.

So it’s a good thing that 50+ people died, so that western governments will pay less attention to Africa and global warning?

This is just vile. Unlike the BNP’s brand of stupidly visceral bigotry, this is cynical, calculating evil. Somehow it seems even worse. It’s a mindset that considers innocent British civilians as expendable pawns to further the agenda of corporate elites. It makes them no better than the vile slime that planted the bombs.

I don’t know who Varney and Kilmeade are; they might just be a couple of blowhard idiots. But I wonder how much their words reflect the real thinking of some of the neo-con right?

(Link from The Ministry of Information)

In our hearts, we all knew it was inevitable something like this would happen sooner or later.

John Kovalic, who may be American but travels to London regularly, says things better than I can.

To quote an old Londoner who lived through the blitz and got caught up in the Canary Wharf explosion: “I’ve been blown up by a better class of bastard than this!”

London is a tough old town, and will bounce back just fine. Which is not in any way, shape or form to diminish what happened today. Indeed, I wish I was there now, to be with friends and family. Or just as a defiant “in your face” to the killers who did this. I recognize all the areas from the clips American television replays (and replays, and replays), and I want to be with my city while it’s hurting.

If the Luftwaffe couldn’t bring the city to it’s knees, these pathetic penny-ante cowards certainly won’t.

40-odd deaths is less than a quarter of that of the Madrid Bombings, the equivalent of about four day’s worth of road accidents. If this is the worst they can do, we’ve got off lightly.

Al-Muhajabah has this to say:

Whoever is responsible for this atrocity will face the wrath of God for the crime they have committed. He who takes a single innocent life is as though he had killed all mankind (Quran 5:32). My prayers are with the victims and their families. May God ease their pain and help them cope. Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un.

I also have complete comtempt for anyone who tries to use this to make political capital, such as the grandstanding clown George Galloway. Even if you do have serious misgivings about the conduct of George Bush’s invasion of Iraq, now is not the time to crow “I told you so”, especially if you’re a well-known apoligist for Saddam Hussein.

Of course, this atrocity is being exploited by the racist troglodytes of the BNP and their fellow travellers to stir up communal tensions. I refuse to link to their vile website, but the content is exactly what I’d expected, with rants about ‘alien creeds’ and ‘the blood stained green crescent of death’. All this is of course a grotesque slander on the vast majority of Muslims who do not support terrorism. But I shouldn’t need to have to say that.

It may have been a sign of the Apocalypse, but the four members of Pink Floyd did indeed appear on stage together just after 11pm, opening with “Breathe”.

Interesting to hear the songs performed by a stripped-down band shorn of most of the extra musicians and singers from later Floyd or Waters solo tours. They even played ‘Money’ without any backing singers. I noticed the huge smile on Roger Water’s face during the first number. His voice was a bit ragged on ‘Wish You Were Here’, but was a lot better on ‘Comfortably Numb’. The BBC focussing the camera on the hulk of Battersea Power Station during ‘Money’ was a nice touch.

I’m surprised they were allowed four songs seeing that The Who (who rocked!) were only allowed two. Let’s hope this turns out to be more than just a one-off; I remember the Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath reunions at the 1985 Live Aid led to further things.

Live 8 seems to be showing how much my own taste in music is out of step with that of everyone else nowadays. I find bands like Coldplay, Keane and Snow Patrol rather boring. And I really can’t see the appeal of the hugely overrated REM. I’d rather see Marillion, IQ, Mostly Autumn or Porcupine Tree

Best performances so far have been by acts I’d never really rated in the past, Annie Lennox, and (surprisingly) Madonna. I’ve always thought her entire career has been the ultimate triumph of style over substance, but today she did put on a very spectacular show. It certainly looked as though she actually sang live rather than lip-synching.

I wish the BBC would show us some more of the acts from other venues. Like more that 20 seconds of Muse’s pyrotechnics at Paris. Or even the whole of Duran Duran’s “Ordinary World” from Rome.

At least we’ve still got Pink Floyd to come.

Update: Which train company’s uniform is Velvet Revolver’s Scott Weilland wearing?

After being in the the country’s most marginal seat at the General Election, I’m now in the middle of this Parliament’s first byelection, in Cheadle. I’ve having to stock up on garlic and crucifixes in case I get canvassed by Michael Howard. (Would be be repelled by a Euro note brandished as a holy symbol, I wonder?)

The Tories seem to be running their campaign on the fact that their candidate, the former MP who lost the last two general elections, actually lives in the constituency rather than half-a-mile outside it. It’s easy to imagine there’s nothing else they positive can say about him. I call this the “Eddie Lopez Lives in Slough” tactic. Eddie Lopez was the Labour candidate in Slough in the 80s, unreformed Old Labour at it’s worst, who’s only selling point was that he didn’t live in Ascot. He never came close to winning. Local band Nine Steps to Ugly even took the piss by recording a song called “Eddie Lopez Lives in Slough”. That became his political epitaph.