The evils of Britain

Taking a quick break from music, it's time to get political, with these two articles by one of Britain's most articulate and interesting journalists, Johann Hari (I'm not too sure what to make of all Mr Hari writes, but there is no denying he is a refreshing alternative to The Mail's legions of evil columnists). Basically, these two articles display and remind of why I hate two particularly nasty British institutions: the Conservative Party and, most of all (after all, at least the Tories are playing the part they were meant to play), the national tabloid press.

For me, our tabloids are currently undoubtedly the biggest stain on this nation's image, with the exception I guess of the Iraq War (I say I guess because the tabloids do actually annoy me more, the War's being going on for so long now it no longer manages to provoke outrage, which is precisely part of the problem).

There is nothing nice to say about our national gutter press. Xenophobia (fuck it, let's call a shoe a shoe in the case of the Daily Mail: it's racism), homophobia, cheap gossip, slander, intrusion into peoples lives... And lies. And more lies. Incessant lies, all in the aim of pushing forward a political agenda and making a lot of money along the way. Whether it's accusing Elton John of pedophilia, spying on a sick Lady Spencer, using racist slurs to attack our European neighbours and asylum seekers, spitting on gays and lesbians or accusing Liverpudlians of defiling corpses, there are few depths these rags won't resort to. It's enough to make you ashamed to be British.

Sadly, this is a matter that so reviles me as to limit my ability to properly write up a stinging critique. In these moments, it's best to turn to the pros. In these two texts, Hari effectively and powerfully denounces the attitudes of our press (and in the second case, the Tory party) for its attitudes towards foreigners and gays. It makes for disturbing reading to realises just how bigoted and unpleasant "newspapers" such as The Sun and The Daily Mail are. That they are the two most-read rags in the country is a rather damning statistic. The solution? None, sadly, short of a cull.

TWO ARTICLES BY JOHANN HARI (http://www.johannhari.com/)

1) The asylum-hating press - and the politicians who appease them - have blood on their hands

Here's a real asylum scandal, far more shocking and savage than a few Romanians being allowed to slip into Britain. Yet you won't see this on the front pages of the more rabid British newspapers, and you won't hear Michael Howard ranting about it at the despatch box. Jhon Reyes thought he was safe when he made it to Britain's shores. He came from Colombia, a country riven by both fascist and communist paramilitary groups, and three of his relatives - including his father - had been hunted down and slaughtered. Jhon and his children were running for their lives.This country has particular responsibility for the human casualties of Colombia's civil war like Jhon, since the British government has destabilised that country for over 30 years. Britain is one of the main international enforcers of a crazed "war on drugs" that has handed the drugs trade (Colombia's largest industry and 40 per cent of its economy) to criminal gangs. They have proceeded to make the country ungovernable. Thirty thousand people have been killed in the past year in a Colombian civil war facilitated, funded and fostered by our failing "war" to keep cocaine off our streets. So when he arrived here, terrified, traumatised and indisputably a genuine asylum seeker, you might expect that we would treat him well. But the Home Office is run by a cowardly politician, David Blunkett, who will not challenge a right-wing press that has been condemned even by Ruud Lubbers, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, for inciting violence against asylum-seekers.

Blunkett instead chose to appease our own domestic far right by being so "tough" that Jhon was forced - with your tax money and your police force - on to a plane back to Colombia. Blunkett claimed that Jhon would be safe if he went to a different part of the country - a statement that was obviously nonsense to anybody who knows anything about Colombia. The Home Secretary was warned by the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns that he was potentially sending a man to his death. He ignored them. So on Monday afternoon, Jhon was tracked down by the paramilitaries and shot. It is pure luck that he was not killed; he expects the gunmen to return. Over a dozen asylum-seekers were deported from Britain to their deaths last year. The asylum-bashing press and the politicians who give in to them have blood on their hands.The British press has created a hate-filled culture where even centre-left politicians behave like this.

I saw the distortion machine at work when I was invited on to Littlejohn, the Sky News TV show presented by the Sun columnist Richard Littlejohn. He is a journalist who almost every week incites hatred against people fleeing torture. He jeered about the Rwandan genocide and the refugees fleeing it, asking: "Does anyone really give a monkey's about what happens in Rwanda? If the Mbongo tribe wants to wipe out the Mbingo tribe then as far as I am concerned that is entirely a matter for them." He has even suggested we should be pleased if refugees drown on their way to Britain. I was invited to appear on his programme against a British National Party thug who was standing in a council by-election that night. I was initially inclined not to go, but then I realised that it was an opportunity to ask Littlejohn some questions. For him to present himself as a neutral arbiter between the BNP and non-fascists was so absurd (and typical of Rupert Murdoch's empire) that I thought I could have a chance to expose that too. After all, BNP leader Nick Griffin has described Littlejohn as his favourite writer. The hero of Littlejohn's semi-literate "novel", To Hell in a Handcart, says, "Don't give me multi-fucking-culturalism. The only culture these pikeys have is thieving."

Littlejohn makes a great fuss about condemning the BNP as a "rabble", but what exactly in their political programme does he disagree with? No, Littlejohn pumps out the anti-asylum sewage and the rats of the BNP inevitably feed on it. With this in mind, I arrived on the set. He was already ranting about me, saying to his producer that I was "a nutcase". I coughed politely. He twitched and shook my hand. As we were waiting, I thought I would have some fun with the notoriously homophobic Littlejohn. "My friend Peter Tatchell really likes you," I said softly as we were waiting. He shifted awkwardly. "Oh. Does he read my columns?" "No Richard, he really likes you." (Apologies to Peter. It was for a good cause). Silence. With that, we started the show.

The BNP fool was very easily dispensed with. I pointed out he hadn't sued the Evening Standard after it was revealed that he was a convicted football hooligan banned from his local grounds for screaming abuse at black people, and he simply blustered. No non-racist was going to vote for him. So I asked Richard how much a single asylum seeker is given in benefits each week. You'd think that a journalist who writes about asylum twice a week would, of course, know something so incredibly basic. His response was clear. He snapped: "I have no idea". No idea. I pointed out that he refers constantly to asylum-seekers being "hosed down" with benefits. He implied in his novel that they are given hundreds upon hundreds of pounds a week. Shouldn't he try to find out some facts before he writes his far-right propaganda? (By the way, they are given £37.77 a week, 30 per cent below the poverty line. This is the fortune that Littlejohn and his friends - the bulk of the British press - says people are flocking to Britain to claim.) He began to howl: "It's people like you who help the BNP!" He declined to talk me through the mysterious process by which people who peddle urban myths, exaggerations and prejudice about asylum-seekers are really stopping the BNP, and people who correct those distortions are helping them. I kept offering him facts, like the simple truth that the Association of Chief Police Officers has stated that asylum-seekers do not commit more crime than anyone else. Or that asylum-seekers and immigrants make a net contribution to the UK economy of £2.5bn a year - saving us the equivalent of a penny on income tax. Littlejohn's response was to accuse me of staging "a student prank".

Soon we were off air, and Littlejohn started to screech at his producers. "I told you not to ask him on! I told you not to ask this nutcase on to my programme!' He looked genuinely upset. I tried to explain that if he doesn't want to be humiliated he should make his articles correspond with reality. He began to howl, and one of the floor managers suggested I leave. Littlejohn - and the countless other journalists inciting hatred against asylum-seekers - justify their behaviour by saying that they are simply reflecting the prejudices of their readers. When the Daily Mail said in 1938 that "the way stateless Jews from Germany are pouring into this country is an outrage", no doubt many of their readers agreed too. No doubt many believed the stories about Jews carrying diseases, exploiting our hospitality and committing evil crimes.That doesn't stop it being a litany of lies. Most of Britain's asylum-seekers in the past decade came here from Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, Somalia and Iraq. They are no more thieving crooks than Jews fleeing Hitler.The distortions of the asylum-haters have now created a climate in which the British state is handing men like Jhon Reyes to murderous gunmen, and it is not considered a national scandal. Well done, Richard.


2) SECTION 28

Twenty years and an eternity ago, the final official piece of anti-gay prejudice was signed into British law. Its name was Section 28, and it ruled that local councils – including their schools, libraries and social services – could not “promote” homosexuality. Councils were forbidden from saying that we were “normal”, and from approving of our “pretended family relationships.” The consequences scarred and infected the lives of a generation of gay men and lesbians in this country – and even though its corpse has now been tossed onto the bonfire of history, the stench still hangs over Britain’s playgrounds today.

The strange story of Section 28 begins in the 1980s, when a young new wave of left-wing Labour councilors began to emerge in London. They were the first to ever come of age in a country where you could be openly gay and not be sent to prison. They looked out over the city – teeming with out gay people who flocked here from all over the world – and saw that there was still a spiked chain holding us back. A gay teenager was six times more likely to self-harm than his heterosexual twin brother. And worse still, a new sexually transmitted disease, AIDS, was beginning to rip through the gay community – but homosexuality wasn’t even mentioned in the sex education lessons at 82 percent of our schools.

That’s why a few councils decided it was immoral to stand inert while gay kids killed themselves and more and more young men contracted HIV out of ignorance. So they began to distribute bland, cosy literature explaining to children that gay people exist and they aren’t anything to be frightened of. A typical example was called ‘Jenny Lives With Eric and Martin’, which showed a four year old girl living with two daddies. She ate breakfast with them, she made cakes with them – wild stuff. And for older teenagers, there were leaflets explaining safe sex, and helplines where they could receive counseling.

A sudden tsunami of bile smashed into the councils responsible. They were savaged by the tabloid press as the “loony left” and “militant perverts.” The Sun newspaper announced that “benders” and “poofs” were trying to “recruit children” by “distributing filth.” The stories inverted reality, claiming that the people trying to prevent homophobic bullying and protect children from violence were “gay bullies” and “homosexual fascists” from whom children needed “urgent protection.” In a typical article, the Daily Mail’s Gerald Warner warned against “the paedophile aggression of loony-left London boroughs” who were pumping out “the propagandist machinations of a homosexual underclass.” He said that gay people’s “invert psychopathology seeks to subvert society in favour of their recently decriminalized subculture” and he concluded that if the uppity gays didn’t shut up, “the normal 95 percent of the nation” should begin to call for “the recriminalization of homosexual activity.”

The Conservative Party piled in behind them. Rhodes Boyson MP demanded action against the councils, saying: “It is wrong biblically, is homosexuality. It is unnatural. Aids is part of the fruits of the permissive society. The regular one-man, one-woman marriage would not put us at risk in this way. If we could wipe out homosexual practices, then Aids would die out.” Nicholas Fairbairn MP said in parliament that homosexuality was “a psychopathological perversion” based on “inserting your penis into another man’s arsehole.” At the height of the backlash, a London newspaper called Capital Gay had its offices burned down by anti-gay arsonists – and a Conservative backbencher said the arsonists were right. In parliament Elaine Kellett Bowman said of the attack: “There should be intolerance of evil!” A few months later, Margaret Thatcher made her a Dame.So a few peers in the House of Lords decided to take a stand. In 1986, the independent peer Lord Halsbury introduced a Private Member’s Bill to bring these councils to heel. He said that “sick” homosexuals – who are “reservoirs” of disease – needed to be stopped. The proposal failed, as almost all Private Member’s Bills do, but Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher thought it was such a good idea she picked it up and made her government push it through. In her 1987 conference she expressed her outrage that children “are being taught they have an inalienable right to be gay.” Instead, she said, they should be instilling “traditional moral values.” And so Section 28 was born – a hard, go-to-prison ban on “promoting” homosexuality.

What did this mean for ordinary gay kids across Britain? Adam Powell, 49, is a heterosexual English and PE teacher who taught in a comprehensive school in Ealing at the time. He explains how Section 28 made him unable to protect gay children. “You would hear kids calling each other ‘poofter’ or ‘queer’ all the time, but you felt your job was on the line if you challenged it,” he says. “There’s one kid I still think about because I feel so ashamed that I didn’t do more. He was a quite effeminate boy, and very clever. The other kids would pick on him. Obviously if they attacked him – which they did pretty often – I would intervene and punish them. But the name-calling, the isolation… I didn’t do anything about that. I wanted to intervene and say – if he is gay, so what? There’s absolutely nothing wrong with it, it’s a fact of life, get over it. I would challenge racist kids if they called somebody a ‘Paki’ or whatever, and it worked. They would stop. I could have stopped that homophobic abuse, and I didn’t.” After attacking one of his bullies with a pen-knife and then trying to cut his own wrists, the boy was expelled from the school. Powell doesn’t know what happened to him. This was far from an isolated incident. A Stonewall study in 2000 found that 56 percent of teachers said they had difficulties in addressing the needs of gay and lesbian students as a direct result of the legislation. The gay journalist Alex Bryce remembers what it meant for him. “I was in the throes of puberty, with my hormones in overdrive and I was starting to develop an awareness of my sexuality,” he says. “As my own feeling were not explained or even mentioned in the sex education lessons, for the first time in my life, I began to feel different. After one particular PSE lesson I plucked up the courage to stay behind after class to talk to my teacher. I remember packing away my things slowly and carefully choosing my words. ‘Miss, what do men who are attracted to men do in bed?’ I asked. The teacher looked slightly concerned by my question. ‘I would really like to talk to you about this, but I’m legally obliged not to,’ she said with genuine regret. This was my personal encounter with Section 28. What could have been a turning point for me, allowing me to feel acceptable and ‘normal’, left me isolated and confused at a time when I was particularly vulnerable.”

And so a generation of gay children were left to be bullied, and in ignorance of the terrible threat of STDs. We will never know how many people contracted HIV as a result – but we know there are some. The UK Gay Men’s Sex Survey in 2003 – commissioned by the Terrence Higgins Trust – found that one third of 20 year-old gay men, the children of Section 28, did not even know the most basic facts about HIV transmission. Some 51 percent didn’t know that HIV is more likely to be passed on if he or his partner has another STD; 31 percent did not know that water-based lubricant reduces condom failure; and, incredibly, 14 percent did not know that HIV is more likely to be passed on if a man ejaculates inside his partner. Several AIDS charities believe there is a trail of infected blood that runs right back to Margaret Thatcher.

Whenever Section 28 and its hateful backers dominated the news, the rate of gay-bashings was ramped up – but the gay fight-back was as brave as the assaults were cowardly. Gay activism became bolder and bigger than at any time in British history. Thirty thousand people marched on Westminster. Ian McKellen – one of Britain’s most famous actors – was so horrified he felt he could no longer remain in the closet; he was followed out by Eastenders star Michael Cashman, and a battery of others, declaring that in the age of Section 28 everyone had to stand and be counted. A group of lesbian protestors abseiled into the chamber of the House of Commons to disrupt the parliamentary debate of the Clause, and they later burst into the live broadcast of the six o’clock news. Thousands of people banded together to form Stonewall, still the most high-profile and high-impact gay lobbying group in Britain. The gay community’s most successful weekly gay newspaper, the Pink Paper, was set up to report on the savage backlash against gays.The legislation always seemed to reveal a strange insecurity on the part of its fans about their own sexuality. Did they really think children could be ‘taught’ to be gay, like they are taught the ten times table? In 2005, I asked Michael Howard – who piloted it into law as the Local Government Minister – if he thought he would be gay today if his teachers had “promoted” it to him. He said, “Well I think that there are some people who could be influenced. Who could go either way. I think there is a question about the extent to which people can be influenced…” He trailed off, with a little shrug of embarrassment.
At first, the Labour Party supported Section 28 out of fear of being tarred with the “loony left” brush. But it soon regained its moral compass and began to call for its repeal. The Conservative Party swooped in to use this as a wedge issue against them. Norman Tebbit drew up an election poster showing a shelf-full of gay books and the slogan: “This is Labour’s idea of a comprehensive education.” They accused Labour of supporting “perversion.”Britain’s religious establishment rallied behind the Tories. Cardinal Thomas Winning announced: “It pains me to use the word perverted when discussing the homosexual act but that’s what it is. I will not stand for this sort of behaviour.” He compared gay people to the Nazis, saying: “In the place of the bombing of fifty years ago you find yourself bombarded with images and ideas which are utterly alien.” Today this seems like an act of psychological projection: he was, after all, a senior figure in a Church that was riddled with real perverts and paedophiles who were committing the mass rape of children under Winning’s own nose.The Tories and the religious – from the Chief Rabbi to the Muslim Association of Britain – stayed with Section 28 to the end. Labour came to power in 1997 committed to repealing the anti-gay law. Tony Blair said: “I guess, reading the newspapers, that repealing Clause 28 is not popular, but we are doing it because it is the right thing to do. The truth is that this campaign is based on people who do not want to openly say they are prejudiced against gay people, so they hide behind the issue of child protection.” The Conservative leader William Hague called this “politically correct nonsense”, and said bizarrely that “true tolerance means a minority accepting the experiences and beliefs of the majority.” He ordered his party in the House of Lords to hold up the repeal for years.The most senior figures in the Conservative Party today are still tainted by their association with Section 28. The Tory mayor of London, Boris Johnson, defended it, even though in his recent interview with Attitude he didn’t seem to actually understand what the law was. The current Tory leader, David Cameron, voted for it at every opportunity, and used the issue in his election literature to attack his Labour opponent.

The law was finally, at last and at least, abolished in 2004 – but its consequences live on. In every other area of British life, attitudes towards gay people have been radically transformed. Yet in our schools, anti-gay prejudices were preserved in the formaldehyde of Section 28. The fight against homophobia is only now beginning in our playgrounds – after it has been largely won in the places where it could be legally challenged, like the workplace. Stonewall found recently that 80 percent of schools admit they have a problem with homophobic bullying – but only 6 percent have a policy to deal with it.Let end with the story of one boy – one of many – who paid the price for Section 28’s stalling. Jonathan Reynolds was a 15 year-old from Bridgend, South Wales, who came out to some of his closest friends in 2006. They blabbed – and he was bullied and harassed and threatened as a "faggot" and a "poof" until he couldn't take it any more. His school had no policy in place to protect gay children; any move to develop one had been squashed by the vast legal block of Section 28, and hadn’t recovered in time for him. So one day, after he sat a GCSE exam where he earned a starred A grade, he lay down on the train tracks near his home. He texted his sister Sam: "Tell everyone that this is for anybody who eva said anything bad about me, see I do have feelings too. Blame the people who were horrible and injust 2 me. This is because of them, I am human just like them. None of you blame yourself, mum, dad, Sam and the rest of the family. This is not because of you." Then a train sliced his body apart. Jonathan Reynolds’ final text message – his last cry of “I am human” – should serve as the obituary for the late, un-great Section 28.

My note (Lonely Planet Boy): Most interesting in this last article is the points that the two most visible Tories, Boris Johnson and David Cameron, one recently elected as London Mayor, the other the next Prime Minister of the UK, both supported Section 28 up to its demise. This, the same loveable BoJo that seduced the capital's voters and who was editor of The Spectator, a magazine that regularly featured articles by self-described racist Taki during Boris' tenure. This, the same friendly "Dave", who is supposedly putting a friendly face on the Conservatives. This article I hope shows that the Tory part hasn't actually changed since the eighties. If you're gay, please don't be fooled just because they count Alan Duncan in their ranks. This is still the party of Portillo, Widdecombe and Tebbit. It's still the party of Section 28.

Hop Farm Festival 2008

Hello angels!

Before continuing on with Slowdive and the shoegaze movement, I would like to take a mini-detour to post my thoughts and feelings on the Hop Farm Festival, which took place on July 6 in a lovely corner of the Kent countryside. The bill was solid: Primal Scream, Supergrass, My Morning Jacket, Rufus Wainwright, and my own personal god Neil Young. How could I not attend?

Well, the weather would have been one reason not to. I guess it's all part of the Festival fun, but fuck me did it pour down. And personnally, I can think of a number of things that I'd rather do than spend nearly four hours getting soaked. I love rock'n'roll, but that's just taking the piss. And it just wouldn't let up! It was like the meteorological equivalent of Jim Davidson: unpleasant and relentless.

I had arrived early, to make sure I caught every act, and must first tilt my hat at the sterling organisation. A bus picked us up at the station, there was no queue to get in (the perks of getting there early, maybe) and every act was pretty much on time. Plus, the bars were nice, the food varied and interesting, and the sound was great for an outdoor venue. Thumbs up to the organisers!

But, by the time the first act, the pretty decent country-rock quintet Everest, came on, it was pissing down. Despite my hood and umbrella, and their excellent set (well, for a first band on, it was tight, smooth and melodic - can't really ask for more at 12.30 in the afternoon!), it was pretty dispiriting, so I went to take refuge under a tree during the second set, by folky 18-year-old singer Laura Marling.

So, it was on to Guillemots, an atypical "new rock" act, who have somehow managed to take the tired Franz Ferdinand - Razorlight - post-Strokes sound and inject a little originality by adding a sense of fun and wackiness most modern bands desperately lack. I can't say I like all their songs, but singer Fyfe Dangerfield is impossibly charismatic and funny, and they have a Flaming Lips-ish vibe and several lush, over-the-top melodies that worked like clockwork on my senses. Latest single "Get Over It" is a pounding, unrelenting, shouting bit of pure hard-pop energy, but it was the epic duo of "Trains to Brazil" and lengthy closer "Sao Paulo" that really got me going. The music is lush, with gently shifting and subtle rythm patterns, and an overload of bonkers sounds that at times even had me thinking of Roxy Music at their peak. No small compliment. Plus, Fyfe has a cracking voice, a bit like Thom Yorke, only madder and less overblown. "Sao Paulo" was actually stunning, as the band let rip, bringing on a bunch of roadies to bang away on random percussion as Fyfe punished his keyboards and the guitarist wailed away like an indy Kevin Shields. Shame about the rain...

Next up was Rufus Wainwright, after I'd refreshed myself with a surprisingly tasty burger (funny what seems delicious when yer knackered and cold!). He's always reliable to give a good show, even on his own, as was the case here. He played his most distinctive songs ("My phone's on vibrate for you", "The Art teacher", "I'm going to a town"...), in his glorious tenor, which is just as arresting live as on record, adding a little bit of camp glamour to the otherwise muddy event. And, just as he rolled through a gorgeous rendition of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah"... the sun came out!!!!! This prompted whoops of glee from the crowd and added a moment of simple poetry to the day, especially as it remained mostly clear until the end. Thanks Rufus, you bring the sunshine into all our lives!

At this stage, I have to admit to feeling butterflies in my tummy. The reason was that My Morning Jacket were the next act, and I always feel nervous when a band I love is set to perform, especially if it's the first time I'm seeing them. Will they deliver the goods? MMJ are also relatively under-appreciated in the UK, so I was willing them to kick off this crowd's introduction to them with a bang. Thankfully, I needn't have worried! Although I can't say I'm that keen on the material from their latest album Evil Urges (decent enough tunes, but not memorable, and a couple of them were too soul-inflected, never a good idea if you're a white rock band. Only Todd Rundgren and Antony Hegarty can really pull off white boy soul, guys!). But the tunes from Z, my personal fave by these Kentucky-ites, were just stunning when subjected to the live treatment. Here, Jim Jones fabulous high voice soared out on the wings of his superbly crafted melodies, drenched in reverb, but always powerful, whilst around him the whole band blasted out the album's thumping alt-rock with a fervour and energy that only Neil Young would surpass later. The guitars squealed and roared, Jones prowled the stage like Gary Rossington in his prime and the keyboardist ripped weird and wonderful noises out of his machines like Eno in full flight (ok, maybe not quite, but still). "Off the Record", "Anytime" and "Wordless Chorus" deserve classic status, in my books, and these guys proved just why rock remains the ultimate live music with this all-too-short high-octane set. Rock on!

And now, it's confession time. I have to admit that I had actually managed to confuse Supergrass with The Stereophonics! Either way, I had little interest or familiarity with the music that came next (collective gasp from Brit-pop fans, who supposedly look at Supergrass as legends). Instead, I took advantage of their set to catch up with some friends and have a wee and a pizza (not at the same time). I did bop away to "Alright", but, given how static these veterans were, I was quite happy to do so from a distance.

The same kind of goes for Primal Scream. I know they are the darlings of the UK indy scene, but (second confession), I'm not that fussed. They have some good tunes, but few that have ever stood out in my mind, and like their predecessors, I found them rather static. I know that this means they supposedly exude an overwhelming sense of cool-ness, but for me there's a fine line between seeming cool and seeming bored. So, I was happy to focus most of my attention on the vodka jelly shots a charming chap was selling at 5 for £5. If the band I'm watching seems bored, it tends to make me feel bored as well. Having said that, the rest of the audience was loving it, which meant for a great atmosphere, and I was very pleased to head towards the front of the crowd for "Rocks" and "Movin' on Up", which were actually better live than in the studio, and really had everyone jumping. Again, I won't be listening to either track at home, but I did enjoy hearing them belt out from the stage to the roars of thousands of adoring fans.

And so onto the big one. The Loner. Shakey. The Godfather of Grunge. Again, I could feel the butterflies. How would my idol hold up to the scrutiny of this youthful (ok, there were some oldies in there, but more than a few scrawny indy kids too) crowd, many of whom I suspected were mainly there for Primal Scream? The massive crush to get to the front suggested at least that he had a loyal following in there, and of course, I needn't have worried.

To put it succinctly: Neil. Young. Fucking. Rocks. I am beginning to think there is no-one quite like him out there. I'm pretty sure they must have been able to hear this set in Calais! He kicked off with a beyond-grungy version of "Love and only love" and never looked back. Old Black, his trusty Gibson Les Paul screamed, roared, squealed, moaned and howled over nearly ten minutes as the old fucker stamped around the stage, his face screwed up in an expression of sheer, what? Anger, hurt, delight? It's hard to tell with old craggly-face, and it doesn't matter. What matters is that no-one, not Elton, Macca, Dylan or Prince, plays with such fire and rage in their bellies as Young. And this was just the first song!

The stage set up, identical to the one from his Hammersmith Apollo show of a few months ago, had me wondering if I was going to get the same set. Again, why was I worrying? Have I no faith in the man? After all these years? What a cock! Some songs were the same, but there were enough surprises and jolts to have me grinning like a teenager whose just got laid for the first time and is about to tell his mates. "My My, Hey Hey" came next, and, if possible, things got louder. The feedback roared out of the speakers like a monstrous sonic kraken (a pretentious metaphor, I'm aware, but sod it), and I was half expecting earthquake reports this morning. These were My Bloody Valentine-worthy noise levels. We then got the first surprise in "I've Been Waiting For You", a song that goes back 40-odd years and still sounds like it could have been written by, oh, My Morning Jacket. Or Guillemots. Or fucking Primal Scream! Then came "Spirit Road", which continues to grow on me, especially when watching Neil, all of 62 years old, jumping up and down like Pete Townsend circa 1978. I can't enumerate all the delights. We had pure grunge, of Nirvana or Dinosaur Jr. intensity (only better than both) with "Fuckin' Up", a superb acoustic set (maybe slightly more predictable - "Old Man" and "Heart of Gold" are the only songs I believe he has played in all three gigs of his I've seen), and then a heart-rending finale.

I''ve seen Neil three times. Each time I've cried. And I was at it again as the thundering riff of "Words" rang out across the crowd. Who were enthralled - talk about blowing away the competition! I could actually see several jaded twenty-somethings turn and gaze goggle-eyed at their friends, stunned by the intensity and power of this old fogey and his equally ageing mates. They were like a gang, and his guitar was the gang-leader, exhorting its cohorts with each screaming solo or driving riff. And, y'know, it may not be what it was in 71, but Neil's voice still rings out strong and true, and "Words" was the perfect demonstration. It stretched out for over ten minutes, but even that didn't compare to what came next: his rousing new set-closer, "No Hidden Path", easily the stand-out track of Chrome Dreams II and of his live show. It just goes on forever! Each time you think the latest solo is the last one, he suddenly leaps back for more, dragging more and more notes and noises from his protesting axe. At the end, it had become a raging, boiling mass of feedback and squalls as Neil raged, "Ocean skies/Sea of Blue/Let the sand wash over you" over and over as the rain and wind battered at the stage and us poor souls, who couldn't give a care in the world, such was the trance he had us in. And yes, the tears flowed down my cheeks as the joy gripped my heart and I was yet again reminded of why Neil Young is the most important living music artist today.

His encore song, a ragged version of The Beatles' classic "A Day in the Life" that out-did the original in terms of sheer intensity and power, and even managed to be more psychedelic, as Young once again abused poor Old Black, and more and more twisted, elegiac notes sounded out across the Kentish valleys. He ended up ripping the strings off the neck in a possessed rage and pounding the poor axe on the floor to drag out even more feedback (as guitar tech Larry Cragg looked on in obvious horror), before storming off with nary a glance at either his beleaguered (but ecstatic) audience or his bandmates. Punk still lives! It's 62 years old and it's name is Neil fucking Young!

Afterwards, I wandered in a daze for a few minutes, still stunned, still overjoyed. Then it was time to pile into coaches and head back to London and normality. As we cruised past dark fields and empty office buildings, I put my iPod on and tuned into "Down by the River". To keep the dream alive a bit longer. Seeing a true rock legend, an icon, a legend, a hero, will do that for you. You just don't want it to end. Despite the ringing in your ears...

Dreams Burn Down

My Bloody Valentine... Few trios of words contain such wait in today's indy hipster universe. For a band that only managed two albums and a smattering of EPs, that's quite a feat. But then, few bands have produced albums like Loveless. From the moment I clapped eyes on its gauzy pink sleeve, with its close-up of a blurry guitar's strings, I knew it would be immense. And immense is probably the best word for it! Loveless sounds like its cover looks: its hazy, intangible, and so fucking loud! It roars out of your speakers on "Only Shallow", grumbles and hums on "Sometimes" and pummels on "To Here Knows When". The guitars scream, then they whisper, then they howl, then they rumble, submerging the voices until everything becomes whispy, ethereal and cottony (literally - your head feels like it's filling up with wool after 10 songs on the earphones!). I could never do Loveless justice: it's probably the best album of the nineties, and one of the very best of all time. No less.

Luckily, I'm not here to feebly try to tackle the beauty of an album so few have been able to do justice to before me. But, if Loveless has one problem, it's that it has completely overshadowed all the albums that came out around in that were of a similar strain. Plus, the well-documented excesses of its creation (18 engineers, 3 years and thousands and thousands of pounds) ended up providing ammunition to shoegaze's detractors, only too keen to label the genre as pompous, excessive and self-absorbed. Ultimately, the hype around MBV's magnum opus spared it most of the bile, but other artists weren't so lucky. But you know what's coming. Because the truth is that, alongside MBV, Ride and Cocteau Twins, there was a whole raft of bands that created equally noisy, equally beautiful and equally inspiring noise-pop/shoegaze that had the floodlights of fame turned away from them due to the fickleness of the world's rock press. As one commentator said of Slowdive, they were resoundly panned "for daring not to sound like a Suede B-side". Which is a perfect description of the UK's music rags circa 1993. And still today, to be honest. So, this little page is here to praise the art of Slowdive, Cranes, Swervedriver, Chapterhouse and many others, some old, some new (as the shoegaze revival gets under way). Trust me, there are many delicious pleasures to make you bang your head and cry at the same time, and they're just waiting to be discovered!

First breath after a musical coma

I realise my last post must have seemed a tad condescending and prone to generalization. Of course, music magazines do their bit, and I for one have to right away cite one or two that I owe a lot to for introducing me to lots of great music.

In France, Crossroads and, to a lesser extent, Rock & Folk (included mainly for their excellent special edition dedicated to Punk about 5 years ago - otherwise they seem torn between being a French Wire or a French NME, and far too often lean towards the latter) deserve praise. Crossroads' staff's single-minded dedication to celebrate the music they cherish, even if it means disregarding a lot of the mainstream and dramatically reducing their sales, is commendable. They never compromise, and have probably gone a long way towards introducing quite a large number of French people to the best of American roots music that most would never have even noticed otherwise (France has a strangely negative view of The Blues, Country and Folk). Plus, their editor, Christophe Gofette is a truly friendly chap, and always replied to any e-mails I sent him, even though few could have been very interesting. He even printed something I wrote once. Talk about above and beyond the call of duty!

In the UK, I have already mentioned The Wire (check out their recent excellent interview with Gudrun Gut for a brilliant insight into Berlin's underground scene; also their retrospective on Henry Cow was a delight). Mojo also probably deserve a mention, especially for their "special issues", which allow them to cover ground the pursuit of sales and the current dumbing-down of modern music just won't allow most of the time. They're certainly better than the NME and Rolling Stone, and I will be unrelenting in my criticism of those two vapid, lowbrow and simple-minded wads of toilet paper. Not that they care,I guess.

So, the music is out there, and to be honest, it can't be that hard to find if a lazy cunt like me managed. Hell, that book, 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, as mainstream as it is (something like 5 Björk albums yet no mention of Neutral Milk Hotel or Godspeed You! Black Emperor! What is the world coming to? I mean, I like Björk but for fuck's sake!) still introduced me to The United States of America's sole, self-titled masterpiece, and it's one of the most out-there pieces of manic psychedelia ever made, so there's proof that you can mix mainstream tastes with a love of all things weird, rare and obscure.

And here's a first message to all you music junkies out there: the nineties and noughties don't suck! Well, of course they don't, but truth be told, they're not even that far behind the seventies and sixties in terms of adventure, innovation and artistic merit. But, surprisingly, you do have to look that much harder.

The nineties and noughties have been defined by very specific genres that appealed to mass audiences. There was the Madchester scene, coupled with Techno, Britain's great rave. Then there was grunge, a last hurrah for middle-class morosity similar to that of eighties goth and cold wave. That was quickly superceded by the all-out party of Brit-pop, which also helped revive Madchester and Techno. And since then it's been all about "Indie" (after a mildly dull pop interlude from 1996-onwards), as well as chart-friendly power-pop (plus r'n'b, dance and hip-hop). Amusingly, although the charts now feature more diversity than probably ever before, the divisions between audiences remains immense. But, that's a discussion for another day.

But, the main interest of the nineties and noughties album (and occasionally singles) charts could be the odd presence of quite random artists like the afore-mentioned Björk, Sigur Ros or Beck, artists that play with genres and styles and deploy singularly idiosynchratic approaches to pop music. Sadly, all have struggled to sustain such adventurousness and Beck in particular seems just tired to me these days, whilst Björk's music gets weaker as it gets weirder. Sigur Ros, meanwhile continue to haunt, but not with the consistency that defined their first masterpiece, Agaetis Byrjun.

So, by now you will have realised my propensity to ramble, and duly browsed away. If you haven't - thanks! The point is that artists like the three above took a pop framework and, taking their inspiration from a lot that went before, moved into new and exciting areas. And somehow were successful commercially on top of doing pretty darn well artisically. For me, this just led me to cast my gaze even further!

The modern pop artist's main problem is always going to be that so much has already been done. Originality is thin on the ground, and hard to find. So, what the best tend to do is elaborate rather than innovate. And it can be just as good. It's actually been the modus operandi since the mid-eighties, when the likes of Cocteau Twins and The Jesus and Mary Chain took the punk structure and turned up the saturation and noise; and pulled back the voices to create a new brand of frenetic rock. That it wasn't really original hardly mattered. It was still new. To my mind, in fact, little of any tangible originality has been made since the early days of synth-pop and industrial music in the late seventies. But it hasn't stopped truly marvelous music being created. And in fact, as things like the CD and then of course the Internet made music that much more available, before long genre boundaries were blurring, more and more sub-genres were appearing, and at the same time more music was being created and more bands were flocking to their different totems. It has now become a gold-mind for people looking for new sounds because, whilst never ground-breaking, music has become more varied. And the digital age has made it easier to make as well, meaning that a minuscule sub-genre such as "dark neo-folk" can include hundreds of bands with easily accessible outputs. A lot will be shite, but there may be a few diamonds in there as well.

So, I could look at things like Grunge and Brit-pop and the rave-rock scene. I could start relaying thoughts on which of the "The" bands is actually the best. There are great things available in the mainstream, from Bloc Party to The Arcade Fire. But I shan't. There are loads of people who have done this better than I ever could. But I might put my two-pennies worth in to sing the praises of the genres and artists and bands that don't quite get quite the same recognition. As the mainstream and the rest became more divided, several genres were thrown up, almost in reaction to the 90s VH1, MTV and NME avalanche. They were called shoegazer, neo-metal, stoner, americana and slowcore, to name just a few, and all to me, even up to 18 years later, sound so different to all that went on back then, and all that goes on right now. Not original, but so satisfying. So, this is my hommage to nearly two decades that many of us rock snobs disregard (I'll get to the 80s later), but that actually contain quite a few not-so-hidden treasures. And so back to 1991. The band is an Irish one that's not U2. The album is a pink slab of hazy, noisy, ethereal guitar rock called Loveless.

The great rock'n'roll timeline

It's the lazy hobby of every major rock and pop music magazine or show: over the issues and years, they give us a not-that-detailed timeline for the great rock'n'roll history. That's not a bad thing, quite the opposite, but my goodness, talk about pandering to the lowest common denominator!

Basically, the story goes as follows: rock started with Elvis. Shit, most rags will actually start with The Beatles, and then maybe work back to The King. Along with Mr Presley, there might be a few references to Little Richard, Chuck Berry (thanks to the Pulp Fiction soundtrack only) and Jerry Lee Lewis. If you like Fats Domino, Roy Orbison, Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran or Del Shannon, forget looking through Mojo, Q or the NME, they just ain't bovvered. The NME don't seem to remember that anything happened before 1977! And anything pre-Oasis is generally only given the most cursory of glances. Still, I promise not to turn this into an anti-NME rant!

So, they let us know that once upon a time when the world was simpler and less exciting there were rock stars who launched the genre on unsuspecting audiences, breaking down cultural and ethnic barriers along the way, before moving on to the juicier artists of the 60s and 70s. If you are VERY lucky, they will make a brief detour to salute the influence of Jazz (only Coltrane, Davis and Parker of course), Country (don't expect anyone more than Johnny Cash and possibly Hank Williams), Blues (brief nod to Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters) and Soul (thanks to the movie -and the same applies to Cash- we get Ray Charles, plus Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding and maybe Aretha). Hardly exhaustive, barely a footnote even. Considering these were the founding pillars of rock music, it seems bizarre. But rotund black men in suits playing lengthy sax solos, or hairy, uncouth country singers from the least fashionable parts of the USA probably just don't have the sheen the NME and co. require of their artists. Cue the grinning Beatles and the sexy Stones.

Of course, the 60s was (were?) the landmark decade in the history of modern music. This is when music became pop (OK, that started a bit in the 50s), and when rock'n'roll became ROCK. It's the decade of psychedelia, blues revival, Brit invasion (and therefore the birth of -blech- Brit-pop), acid folk/folk-rock and the cult of the singer/songrwriter. So, the timeline goes on: Bob Dylan to The Beatles, Beatles to The Rolling Stones (if it's a British mag, you'll get a drive-by mention of The Who, The Kinks and maybe The Yardbirds), Stones to The Byrds, The Byrds to Clapton, Clapton to Hendrix, Hendrix to Pink Floyd (Barrett-era), Pink Floyd to Led Zeppelin and the demise of The Fab Four. Oh, and throw in the Beach Boys somehwere around 1965-66. This is all good, but sure does keep it simple. And yet, I'm not sure many mags will really elaborate on that 60s formula. Some will drop The Hollies and Herman's Hermits into the Brit Invasion chapter (again, only the British rags), yet somehow miss out on the Small Faces, The Moody Blues, Them or The Pretty Things. In the Blues Revival bit you might get a mention for Fleetwood Mac and John Mayall, but mostly it will be all about Cream/Clapton. Psychedelia suffers the most, it's too vague, off-the-wall and adventurous a genre to really appeal to Arctic Monkeys fans, so if you're lucky you'll at best get a quick detour via The Grateful Dead, the Doors and Jefferson Airplane before the journos come screaming back to the more conventional Floyd. And for some reason, Led Zeppelin is ALWAYS held up as the band that dragged us screaming into the post-Beatles rock world. Forget Black Sabbath, Mountain or Free, or the fact that bands were doing far more adventurous stuff YEARS before the New Yardbirds became Led Zep. After all, Led Zeppelin sells. And it's easier to simplify things this way.

And on to the 70s. First, we cry a LOT for departed Jimi, Janis and Jim (maybe not Jim). Then, move on with claims that 1970 or 1971 (depending on the magazine or TV show) was THE YEAR THAT ROCK CHANGED FOREVER (cue images of The Beatles' split and Woodstock - which was in 1969 but who cares?). If you're British, it means things kicked off with Glam (Bolan and Bowie + a dribbling of Elton, Roxy Music, Slade and Gary Glitter - no Cockney Rebel or Mott the Hoople of course, and dream on, Jobriath!), but this little quirk of the British rock scene is completely overlooked if you're from anywhere else. So, cue lots of Prog-rock and Hard rock. The Stones, Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Santana, Genesis, more Floyd, more Zeppelin, plus a few tracks from the likes of Yes (although they are VERY unfashionable), Steppenwolf (well, one track, and from the sixties to boot), Free and Blue Oyster Cult ("Don't Fear the Reaper"). Oh, and some more Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin.
Then we get to singer/songwriters and country-rock: more Dylan, some James Taylor, Neil Young, CSN, The Eagles, Joan Baez (even though she's crap), Jackson Browne and America (for "Horse with No Name", generally somewhat erroneously derided as a Neil Young rip-off). Plus an occasional walk to the Wild Side to mention Lou Reed.

Then we move on to classic rock (Queen, Springsteen, Tom Petty, Bad Company and Aerosmith), with a bit more Pink Floyd, The Stones and Zeppelin along the way (by now it's really getting silly, and, much as I like those three bands, it's enough to drive you to hatred!) before a massive quantum leap to punk, where, due to epherality of that genre, you actually get quite a large number of bands. The Sex Pistols and The Clash get precedence, of course (are they the Led Zep and Pink Floyd of the Punk world??), but most journos are able to cram in Buzzcocks, The Jam, The Ramones, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Talking Heads as well. And the death of Sid Vicious somehow always contrives to wrap up the decade two years early, after a quick detour at some point (either in 1976 or 1979) via the world of disco. Especially in Britain, where we do love Abba.

The common factor in all this? Most of these bands sold. LOTS. And it's doubly frustrating because the seventies were the most musically fertile years in rock history. I'm not even talking about the obscure wonders hiding behind the cobwebs of seventies rock, such as the supreme Acid-folk of Comus or Simon Finnn. But what about Gene Clark and Gram Parsons, two singer/songwriters whose fusion of country, rock, folk and blues laid the groundwork for so much of the Americana and Alt-country scenes of the next two decades? Or Townes Van Zandt, the ultimate cult songwriter poet, an influence on stars like Steve Earle or Kaith Urban? Or Television, the premier New York punk band, whose arty, jangly guitar rock resonates in the music of the likes of The Strokes and Kings of Leon? Or Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle, cult bands who launched the industrial genre? Or Mott the Hoople, surely the best of all the glam rock bands, bar Roxy Music? Or (and I promise this is it!) Van der Graaf Generator, surely the most exciting and genre-defying of all the prog bands, and the band that most successfully melded art and rock? Most of all, the complete lack of any mention of the superbly innovative early seventies German rock (aka. Krautrock), a massive influence on nearly every alt-rock and avant-garde artist and band since, from Brian Eno to PiL, Battles to Wilco? I could go on for a while (I promise I won't!), listing bands who never get more than a foot-note at best in most rock histories yet who deserve more, if only for their influence.

And so on to the 80s. First comes electro-pop, with a nice little look back to salute Kraftwerk (but forget Tangerine Dream), before, after sliding briefly past post-punk and New Wave (cursory mentions of PiL, Blondie, Talking Heads again and maybe gang of Four if you're lucky), and a couple more mentions of Pink FLoyd (for the insipid The Wall) and Bruce Springsteen, we get into the world of MTV and gross, mass-produced pop. Aside from The Cure, U2 and Echo and The Bunnymen, it's mostly sludge, from Madonna to Prince, via Michael Jackson, Phil Collins, Cyndi Lauper and Elton John. Geez, thank fuck for Kate Bush, The Smiths and Eurythmics! And then onto hair metal, to collective groans! Despite the great number of truly stunning music made during the eighties (can I just cite Killing Joke, The The, Replacements, Japan, The Human League, David Sylvian, Talk Talk and Sonic Youth?), it's no surprise it is so much-maligned if THIS is what most people were getting exposed to during the satellite TV boom.

The nineties were even more straight-forward: the music rags got lazier in their pursuit of sales, and it seems as if all of them look at 1993 as the year zero of rock, rather than the continuation that it actually was. So we get, in order, Grunge, Brit-pop, more Pop (Boy Bands, Girl Divas and Coldplay) and the new rock of the last ten years. Radiohead have replaced Pink Floyd as the thinking student's band, whilst Led Zeppelin's metal was replaced by Oasis' rip-off rock. And so it continues ad-infinitum. The words "progressive" and "arty" have become taboo, dance is back in fashion, as well as chronic stupidity it sometimes seems (I mean, Brit-pop was all about raves, booze, cigarettes and football, hardly mind-blowing stuff), and most band names start with "The". Plus, every month the NME picks a new "best band in the world", each time sounding just like the previous month's. And most sounding like a blend of The Smiths, Gang of Four and The Stones.
As usual, there have been a whole host of great bands and artists to have graced our ears since 1989, some mainstream (I'm thinking Suede, The Flaming Lips, Jeff Buckley, Alice in Chains, Bloc Party, Interpol and The Manic Street Preachers, among others), some not (Bardo Pond, Jesse Sykes, Fushitsusha, Tenhi, Jesu, Red House Painters, etc.), but the sheer weight of dogma and fashion victimisation is exhausting.

So, this is my railing against the mass. A little look at some alternatives to this set timeline, and the set road most journalists are forcing to embark upon. Rather than the enforced "R'nR-to-Beatles-to-Brit invasion-to-blues rock-to-country rock-to prog-to-heavy metal-to-glam-to-stadium rock-to-electro-to-pop-to grunge-to-Britpop-to-new rock" route, let's head to the ditch. I'm gonna look at and pay hommage to some obscure-to-unknown masterpieces, as well as some great albums by bands that hit the big time only to be left by the wayside of popular acclaim in recent years. Time to bring back Rock's blank generations...

http://rateyourmusic.com/list/Phimister/obscure_alternatives__unsung_masterpieces_and_underappreciated_gems

Into the realm of sound and beauty

"Music is my junk", the late, great Steve Marriott (right) once said. This sums up the rock'n'roll obsession almost perfectly. Drugs and music, going hand-in-hand with love and dependance. Simon Napier-Bell couldn't have put it better (or more succinctly!).

Of course, this extends beyond rock'n'roll. Jazz, folk, blues, soul, electro... you name it, you will find its fair share of obsessives and "junkies". But rock'n'roll remains the glue, for no other genre has successfully melded so many styles and genres, nor managed to re-invent itself so tirelessly.

I won't go into a massive autobiography, but music has always been my life, from dancing to Michael Jackson as a kid, to discovering my parents' 60s and 70s rock records, to my more recent introduction to the netherworlds of punk, post-punk, avant-garde and free-jazz, via glam, blues, neo-folk, grunge, new wave, electronica and more. And the culmination has been discovering krautrock, possibly the most beautiful musical style ever!

But I get ahead of myself. I want to use this modest blog as a means to shed light on music that quite often doesn't get the right look in, praise, or even notice for that matter. I may well approach some better know stuff from time to time (if only to try to rehabilitate some bands and artists that have got a bad rap over the years - ELP and Grand Funk Railroad anyone?), but the main focus will be on those acts that toiled away in the shadows of the Led Zeppelins, Pink Floyds, Bob Dylans and Aretha Franklins of this world, producing some simply mind-blowing music and art along the way.

I've already made some steps towards this, through my ever-evolving Rateyourmusic lists:
http://rateyourmusic.com/list/Phimister/obscure_alternatives__unsung_masterpieces_and_underappreciated_gems
http://rateyourmusic.com/list/Phimister/albums_that_have_defined_a_lifetime___my_favourite_albums_of_all_time___chronological__and_alphabetical_when_needed__order
But one can always do more, and this space will hopefully give me room to blab a bit more, and centralize my various thoughts a bit. Plus, I get to put a little bit more of myself into this, so be prepared for the occasional musing on minority and gay rights, politics, my hatred of British tabloids, cinema, the arts, city life or the state of the music industry. Such is the wonder of the Web, anyone can find their voice. Not sure who will be listening -or rather reading-, but as one of my idols used to say all the time: "He who dares, wins, Rodney". God knows what winning would mean here, but it's a nice thought.

As a closer to this little introduction (and before I go and have a good think on which album/artist/rant I want to start on), I would like to thank and recommend a few sources for the endless musical joy they have brought me. A lot of great music is out there, away from most ears, and one or two sources have been instrumental in bringing it closer to mine own.

First up has to be the indefatigable Julian Cope who, through his two massive rock books Krautrocksampler and Japrocksampler, introduced me to a goldmine of obscure (and not so obscure) rock gems from two of the most fertile music countries of all time: Germany and Japan. On top of that, his superb website, http://www.headheritage.com/, remains an invaluable source of reviews, discussions and articles dedicated to all music that dares to push back boundaries and provoke the senses. It is an essential pit-stop for any lover of extreme, trippy or adventurous music, and also touches on the likes of Neil Young, King Crimson, Black Sabbath, Funkadelic and Soft Machine. I think the word is comprehensive.

Equally so is http://www.rateyourmusic.com/, a fantastic community for music-lovers. Any album by any band, big or small, is there, to be praised or shot down by hoards of ravenous "junkies" like me.

Then there's The Wire magazine's list of "Albums that changed the world while no-one was listening". Look it up. No music list has been better named, and the lads and ladies at The Wire have exquisite taste. http://rateyourmusic.com/list/FeifUmgotnn/wires_100_records_that_set_the_world_on_fire__while_no_one_was_listening____30_runners_up_that_were_left_out_of_the_original_article/

Finally, thanks must go to Steve Stapleton of Nurse With Wound, who compiled a list (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nurse_With_Wound_list) of the best obscure and unsung albums ever made for the release of their 1979 magnum opus Chance Meeting on a Dissecting table of a Sewing Machine and an Umbrella. Not only is the album a must-have (and very rare today), the "Nurse with Wound list" is a great encyclopedia of weird, mysterious and underappreciated gems. I could also mention Stapleton's good friend David Tibet, of Current 93 fame, who has dedicated more than a little energy to getting a release on CD for the likes of Jan Dukes de Grey's masterpiece Mice and Rats in the Loft and, especially, Pass the Distance by Simon Finn, loved so much by Tibet that he released it on his own label! Thanks to all these great people and sources for enriching my life.

And so onwards, for my own contribution. If it'll help...