The Blue Nile: A Walk Across The Rooftops 40 Years Old Today

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‘Every record should be compared to silence. Silence is perfect. What are you going to put on it?’
Paul Buchanan, Blue Nile co-founder/singer/songwriter, 1984

The Blue Nile’s debut album A Walk Across The Rooftops – released 40 years ago today – embraced silence.

The first minute of the title track was a case in point. Buyers all over the UK were wondering if their tapes and records were faulty.

In a superb year for debut albums, the Scottish trio stole a march on David Sylvian, beating his Brilliant Trees by two months (Scott Walker’s Climate Of Hunter came out a few months before A Walk).

Both Sylvian and Walker reportedly adored A Walk, as did Peter Gabriel and Brian Eno.

But how does my original Linn/Virgin CD (catalogue number LKHCD1) sound 40 years on? Fantastic. Seldom have acoustic drums and pianos been better recorded, the songwriting is solid and every electronic noise has its place.

‘Tinseltown In The Rain’ and ‘Heatwave’ would make for superb hi-fi testers. Buchanan’s voice is original and affecting.

Lyrically, his speciality seems to be life-changing realisations in ordinary settings. The title track, for instance, was reportedly inspired by the view outside his Edinburgh kitchen window.

A Walk only got to #80 in the UK on release but became a formidable sleeper hit and has apparently sold way beyond the band’s wildest expectations.

They waited five years to release followup Hats, an album many believe is superior to A Walk. Not this writer though. It was a great debut album in a decade full of them.

Michael Hedges: Aerial Boundaries @ 40

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Alternate guitar tunings were nothing new in 1984. Many flamenco and folk guitarists deviated from the standard EADGBE, and of course John Martyn and Joni Mitchell were innovators whose own ingenious tunings aided their compositions.

But when Sacramento-born guitarist Michael Hedges recorded the title track from his album Aerial Boundaries – released 40 years ago this weekend – he created something new under the sun.

For a start, it’s remarkable that all of this sound came from one guitarist – no overdubs. He used hammer-ons, pull-offs, tapping (often ‘clawed’ or barred with one finger), finger-picking and harmonics to build up layers of counterpoint. The independence of limb is pretty staggering. This guy must have been a great drummer. And all performed on a bog-standard steel-string acoustic guitar (reportedly with heavy strings and a very high action).

Other contemporary guitarists like Stanley Jordan and David Torn used tapping and hammering-on to a great extent too but arguably never to the smooth, rolling, melodic effect that Hedges achieves.

‘Aerial Boundaries’ is certainly a jewel in the Windham Hill Records’ crown, and sounds completely unlike any of the label’s other solo guitarists. Hedges called it a ‘systems’ piece, a la Steve Reich, Philip Glass etc. The tuning is CC(an octave higher)DGAD but he pretty much used a different one for every composition. Most guitarists try a common alternate tuning and then noodle around until they find something interesting. Not Hedges. It seems the music came first, then the tuning.

It’s a real challenge to play and has inspired many YouTube cover versions – this guy has nailed it. Hedges made it look ridiculously easy when he played it live and sometimes even added in a riff or two from Iron Butterfly’s ‘In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida’.

Hedges’ music is frequently described as ‘new age’ but he was actually a big Prince and Genesis fan who died in a car crash in 1997 at the age of just 43. Arguably he never topped ‘Aerial Boundaries’. Happy 40th birthday to a solo guitar masterpiece.

‘Top Gun’ And 33 Other ‘Classic’ 1980s Movies I’ve Never Seen

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Which ‘non-classic’ 1980s movies are virtually impossible to switch off when they come onto the TV late at night, no matter how many times one has seen them?

In my case, it’s stuff like ‘Desperately Seeking Susan’, ‘Barfly’, ‘Innerspace’, ‘Hollywood Shuffle’, ‘The Man With Two Brains’, ‘Christine’, ‘Evil Dead II’, ‘Clockwise’, ‘Fletch Lives’, ‘Uncle Buck’, ‘Caddyshack’, ‘Class’, ‘The Sure Thing’, ‘Alligator’, ‘St. Elmo’s Fire’ etc. etc. – the list goes on and on.

But then there are the ‘classic’ 1980s movies which leave this writer totally cold. Most of the below are either multi-award-winners, critically-acclaimed cult favourites and/or films that made a huge splash in popular culture, but are hitherto completely unwatched in their entirety by movingtheriver, either by accident or design. I generally didn’t fancy seeing them during my teens, and the clips I’ve seen since haven’t changed my mind…

34. Top Gun (1986)
Smug, young Cruise is too much for this writer – see also ‘Risky Business’ – but that changed with ‘Rain Man’.

33. Reds (1981)

32. Arthur (1981)

31. Another Country (1984)

30. Porky’s (1982)

29. Woman On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown (1988)

28. My Beautiful Launderette (1985)

27. Mona Lisa (1986)

26. Dirty Dancing (1987)

25. The Mission (1986)

24. Beverly Hills Cop (1985)
I’m a big Eddie fan, but somehow haven’t been snared by the supporting cast/set-up of this.

22/23. First Blood (1982)/Rambo First Blood Part II (1985)

21. Splash (1983)

20. Repo Man (1984)
Emilio Estevez was part of a great ensemble cast in ‘St. Elmo’s Fire’ and ‘The Breakfast Club’, but carrying a whole movie?

19. Sophie’s Choice (1982)
Forever tarnished by Joan Smith’s takedown in her classic book ‘Misogynies’.

18. Wall Street (1987)

17. Platoon (1986)

16. The Lost Boys (1987)
Kiefer Sutherland directed by Joel Schumacher? No thanks… Great theme song by Gerald McMann though.

15. The Karate Kid (1987)

14. Ordinary People (1980)
Or ‘Ordinary Peepholes’, as memorably renamed in ‘The Fisher King’.

13. On Golden Pond (1980)

12. Stranger Than Paradise (1984)
Have never really got the Jim Jarmusch ‘thing’…

11. Wings Of Desire (1987)

10. The Last Emperor (1988)

9. Pauline At The Beach (1983)

8. River’s Edge (1986)

7. Gandhi (1982)

6. Out Of Africa (1985)

5. Driving Miss Daisy (1989)

4. Kiss Of The Spiderwoman (1985)

3. Mississippi Burning (1988)

2. Paris, Texas (1985)

1. Room With A View (1985)

(Postscript. The ‘classic’ 1980s films I do wanna see, but have somehow managed thus far to miss: My Dinner With Andre, Salvador, My Favourite Year, The Coal Miner’s Daughter, Silkwood, The Year Of Living Dangerously, Once Upon A Time In America…)

Michael McDonald: Sweet Freedom (Extended)

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It’s always a nice surprise when a classic 1980s track suddenly appears on streaming services out of the blue.

Michael McDonald’s ‘Sweet Freedom’, written by Rod Temperton and co-produced by Temperton, Bruce Swedien and Dick Rudolph, is one such single, but the only version currently available is the superb seven-minute extended mix.

It was a good period for McDonald (weird that he wasn’t involved with ‘We Are The World’?). Despite a now-very-dated 1985 album No Lookin’ Back, he had recorded fine duets with James Ingram, Patti Labelle and Joni Mitchell.

As for Temperton, hot off the back of Thriller he had worked on Steven Spielberg’s ‘The Color Purple’ soundtrack, then ‘Running Scared’, nowadays a pretty-much-forgotten Billy Crystal/Gregory Hines vehicle. Recorded at Westlake in Los Angeles, where most of Thriller was laid down, ‘Sweet Freedom’ was the movie’s key song and arguably Temperton’s final masterpiece. The verses owe a little to Lionel Richie’s ‘All Night Long’ and Temperton finally gets his ‘starlight’ motif into the middle eight (‘Starlight’ was an early title for the song ‘Thriller’).

The extended version is a brilliant little pop/soul symphony, with every performer getting a feature. Greg Phillinganes adds his special sauce on keys and there are some beautiful backing vocals from Siedah Garrett. The horn section (Bill Reichenbach, Chuck Findley, Jerry Hey, Larry Williams) contribute brief solos as does guitarist Paul Jackson Jr.

It would have been nice to have heard a real rhythm section (JR Robinson and Nathan East?) let loose on this but no matter. And people who say McDonald isn’t a soulful singer need to hear his performance in the second half of this extended version.

Released in June 1986, ‘Sweet Freedom’ reached #7 in the US and #12 in the UK.

Yngwie J Malmsteen: Rising Force 40 Years On

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When movingtheriver started playing guitar and buying muso magazines in the late 1980s, the name Yngwie J Malmsteen seemed to inspire awe throughout the whole ‘scene’.

But there was no way you could just happen upon Malmsteen’s music in the UK unless you listened to ‘The Friday Rock Show’ with Tommy Vance.

Then my interest was piqued again when It Bites’ Francis Dunnery mentioned him in a Guitarist magazine interview from October 1989. Almost immediately after that I found Malmsteen’s debut solo album Rising Force – released 40 years ago this month – in a bargain bin at the Richmond Our Price.

You could make an argument that the Swede – born Lars Lannerback! – was THE rock guitarist of the 1980s, having as much of an impact as Eddie Van Halen did five years before. Rising Force was a perfect bridge between the UK, Genesis and Yes albums I was investigating and the heavier influences coming in from Steve Vai and Van Halen.

But, as with any freaky guitar virtuoso, the main issue was finding the right musical context. Rising Force has its duff songs (though always with brilliant guitar playing) but delivers two of the most stunning instrumentals in rock history, ‘Black Star’ and ‘Icarus Dream Suite Op.4’. And to think he was just 20 when he recorded them.

With Malmsteen’s scalloped Strat and nods to Paganini, Bach, Albinoni and Mozart, he achieved (and achieves) a remarkable control of vibrato, both via fingers and whammy bar – demonstrating possibly influences from Allan Holdsworth and Al Di Meola at this early stage – and superb tone, plus a mastery of those baroque passing chords.

I saw Yngwie live once at The Marquee on Charing Cross Road on 11 June 1994. It was thrilling seeing him at such close quarters but I kept wanting the singer to shut up. Eventually said vocalist got into a spat with someone at the front and smashed the mic stand down on his head.

Yngwie then set his Strat alight, kicked it to pieces and chucked the neck towards the sound desk, just missing my head and landing about 15 feet away. The venue was evacuated, and as we chatted nervously outside, a laughing kid ran past brandishing the smoking neck. Wonder where it/he is now.

I no longer have the CD of Rising Force for some reason – wish I had held onto it because the album is not on any streaming platforms at the time of writing. Malmsteen’s career continues at great pace – he’s just played two gigs in London and done a great interview with Rick Beato.

And for those who like reaction videos, The Daily Doug has put together a neat musical analysis of ‘Icarus Dream Suite’ here.

Book Review: Withnail & I (From Cult To Classic) by Toby Benjamin

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The ‘Withnail’ cult shows no sign of waning. Writer/director of the 1987 movie Bruce Robinson spent some of lockdown discussing the film while co-star Richard E Grant posted regular line-readings on social media. And now there’s news of a long-awaited, Robinson-endorsed stage play.

So Toby Benjamin’s excellent ‘From Cult To Classic’ seems to have arrived at the perfect time. Authorised by Robinson and written with his full co-operation, it assembles a veritable cornucopia of ‘Withnail’ info.

The brilliantly blunt Robinson foreword almost had movingtheriver punching the air with excitement. Elsewhere letters from his personal collection show correspondence around the film’s financing and script editing. There are anotated script pages, detailed location administration and premiere tickets. We even see Robinson’s London to Cumbria train tickets for the shoot. Richard Curtis and Richard E also donate personal letters.

There are brilliant on-set photos, many by official snapper Murray Close, some donated by Robinson and the cast (including a great one of a clearly mullered Ringo Starr). All the main cast members give long, interesting interviews, as do many key bit-part players (The Irishman, the ‘Get in the back of the van!’ cop, Farmer Parkin) and the hairdresser, stills photographer, makeup artist, cinematographer, production manager, costume designer and soundtrack composers Rick Wentworth and David Dundas. We even hear from the owner of Crow Crag (Sleddale Hall).

There are a few minor quibbles – the book is dotted with ‘celebrity’ endorsements of the film but you’d be hard pressed to recognise any of them, outside of Matt Johnson, Charlie Higson and Diane Morgan, and no biographies are provided. Also the book’s ‘distressed’ interior design will probably divide opinion.

But if you’ve seen ‘Withnail’ more than once, you have to have this book. Absolutely unreservedly recommended to scrubbers and terrible c*nts everywhere.

The Samantha Fox/Mick Fleetwood BRIT Awards Fiasco: 35 Years On

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Memorable for all the wrong reasons, the 1989 BRIT awards, broadcast live 35 years ago this month, has long gone down as one of the most shambolic, embarrassing  TV shows ever.

It took place at the Royal Albert Hall during the Jason/Kylie/Rick Astley/Brother Beyond/Bros-inspired pop peak of the late 1980s, less than six months after the first Smash Hits Poll Winners Party at the same venue. Madchester was just around the corner but it seemed like another world.

Cool Britannia this wasn’t. Firstly, there was the the two presenters (wasn’t Phillip Schofield available?). Apart from anything else, Fox is 5’1” and Mick 6’6”. Then there was their extremely unnatural, awkward presentation styles, though, to this day, Fox swears that the autocue was broken.

Various bad-tempered Stones came and went, Boy George was introduced as The Four Tops, Tina Turner and Annie Lennox looked desperately awkward, other ‘dignitaries’ were wheeled out and MPs were booed.

Rounding things off perfectly, Cliff Richard was then given a Lifetime Achievement Award and delivered a brilliantly sniffy speech for the plebs. All in all, it’s no surprise that this was the last time the BRITS went out live on TV for 18 years…

 

Arvo Pärt: Tractus (2023)

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Can music bring about social change, get people to put down their guns, retire their drones? Can ‘religious’ music affect the atheist/agnostic as powerfully as it affects the ‘believer’?

Ted Gioia may have some answers but in the meantime the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt has been making special music for decades.

His work was particularly revered in the 1980s as ambient/minimalism gained a bigger following than ever before, his ‘Fratres’ becoming a classic, performed by everything from a string quartet to cello octet and featuring on countless movie soundtracks.

Pärt’s mesmerising new ECM New Series album Tractus – probably movingtheriver’s album of 2023 – was recorded during September 2022 in Tallinn’s Methodist Church. It features music written between 1988 and 2019 for string orchestra, soprano voice, choir, piano and assorted percussion.

The title refers to a series of theological writings published between 1833 and 1845 by
English cardinal John Henry Newman, and also an ancient form of singing first noted as early as the third century AD. There are other historical precedents to both the title and compositional style, outlined in great detail within the CD’s liner notes.

Sadly the people who should listen to Tractus will probably never get to hear it.

Culture Club: ‘Karma Chameleon’ Hits US #1 40 Years Ago Today

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The Second British Invasion hit its imperial phase 40 years ago today, a week after Newsweek had put Annie Lennox and Boy George on its cover.

Off the back of Eurythmics’ ‘Sweet Dreams’ hitting #1 in the US during September 1983, ‘Here Comes The Rain Again’ peaked at #4 at the beginning of February 1984.

In the same week, Culture Club’s ‘Karma Chameleon’ hit #1, their only American chart-topper to date. The band then won Best New Artist at the 1984 Grammy Awards on 28 February, Boy George giving one of the most famous music-award thank-yous of all time:

Regarding the Newsweek photoshoot, George later reported in his autobiography ‘Take It Like A Man’: ‘I heard Annie telling the make-up artist Lynne Easton not to make her look like Boy George. Annie was my female counterpart, the tomboy to my tomgirl. I enjoyed the irony of my being photographed with her; I was the fan made good, even if she didn’t want Boy George eyebrows.’

Both Culture Club and Eurythmics then toured the US during April 1984, the latter enjoying a famous residency at The Ritz in New York City. Did you see either of them live in ’84? Let us know your memories below.

John Lennon/Yoko Ono: Milk and Honey @ 40

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Milk and Honey – planned as the followup to Double Fantasy long before John Lennon’s death on 8 December 1980 – was finally released 40 years ago this weekend, on 27 January 1984.

I believe it was the second vinyl album owned by movingtheriver – the first was The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour soundtrack.

Polydor did John and Yoko proud, with striking front/back photos and a gatefold sleeve complete with Ono’s liner notes, Lennon’s ‘Grow Old With Me’ lyrics and some Robert/Elizabeth Barrett Browning poetry.

But Milk and Honey was somewhat of a commercial disappointment, reaching #3 in the UK and just #11 in the US. And it seems one of the least remembered Lennon-related albums these days. Why? Listening again after a few years this weekend was a pleasurable experience, with a few exceptions, and the breadth of musical styles (reggae, calypso, new-wave, piano balladry, rock’n’roll) is impressive.

Six John solo tracks recorded during and before the Double Fantasy sessions made it onto the album. They’re all pretty good, a few classic, mostly tougher than the previous material. John sounds on great form. His spoken-word moments and count-ins are amusing and he’s frequently heard ‘coaching’ the band (and studio staff) through the songs, Prince-style, with various instructions: ‘Boogie!’, ‘Hold it down’, ‘Groove!’, ‘All right, you can get out now’ etc.

The Lennon tracks also showcase a great band playing pretty much live in the studio. John plays lots of guitar – in that famous Jann Wenner interview, he said ‘I can make a guitar speak’, and you can hear it here. Drummer Andy Newmark lays off the hi-hat most of the time, letting the rhythm guitars fill in the top end.

Three UK singles were released from the album, with diminishing returns: ‘Nobody Told Me’ got to #6, ‘Borrowed Time’ (studio sessions reveal that John used an interesting reference source for the song) #32 and ‘I’m Stepping Out’ #88.

Yoko recorded her tracks during 1982 and 1983, mostly with a very good NYC rhythm section (Neil Jason on bass, Yogi Horton on drums), and they range from the intriguing to extremely corny. ‘Don’t Be Scared’ possibly influenced David Bowie, particularly the title track of Tonight, recorded three months after Milk and Honey was released:

Yoko also enlisted some ‘remix engineers’ who apparently added a lot of post-production effects to John’s vocals, the drums and guitars (she had fallen out with Double Fantasy producer Jack Douglas over unpaid royalties and refused to credit him on the album).

Revisiting Milk and Honey was certainly a bittersweet experience, but it’s an easy album to recommend, and it only makes you miss John all the more. The dunderheaded/ill-informed contemporary critical reactions are explored in this very good video: