Musical tastes.

We are getting new uniforms for the Secret Ninja Cleaners. They’ll be black again, naturally. Still no sword though. As it is, we are to be found in polo-shirts or pullovers and any old black trousers we can find.

The new stuff will provide trousers (with creases!), proper shirts and ties. Ties? Ties? The manager wears a suit and tie but then he’s a suit and tie guy. Assistant managers don’t and neither does anyone else. Ties just get caught in things and dangle into horrible messes while you’re trying to clean them up.

I never wore a tie when working as a scientist. My argument was that they employed me to use my brain, so cutting off the circulation to it with a decorative tourniquet was a bad idea. There was also the matter of the pigs. To keep pigs entertained in the otherwise dull environment of a piggery, they get a few toys to play with. One of these is a strong leather strap hanging from the ceiling. They like to bite it and swing on it. Lean over the pen with a dangling tie and you might find 80 kilos of pork suddenly attempting to tighten it.

So, proper smart black trousers, crisp black shirts and (probably green) ties. We are going to have to practice ZZ Top’s ‘Sharp Dressed Man’ while looking like Kraftwerk.

(monotone) – ‘Zey come a runnin’ just as fast as zey can ’cause every Fraulein crazy ’bout ein sharp dressed man’ (then a sound like a drum kit dropped into a lift shaft onto a nest of cats, followed by two hours of synthetic steam train noises, then the chorus again). I think we have a hit here.

The previous post brought out a lot of opinions on rock music. Which are valid? All of them. What you like in music is entirely personal, and it can change. On the other hand, the bands you like can change to the point where they no longer fit your tastes and you move on.

I liked early Kraftwerk. The first two albums were an entirely new experience in noise, even for someone brought up on Pink Floyd and Tangerine Dream. They continued the theme with Ralf und Florian and Radioactivity. Autobahn was good, Trans-Europe-Express was very good, The Man Machine was… okay. Then they went into synthopop and I lost interest. No more tracks that sounded like they kicked the orchestra down stairs. This was the stuff of clubs and of little kids pretending to be robots.

As for Nickelback, yes, I know they are not comparable to Black Sabbath or Deep Purple or Nazareth or a host of bands from my youth – but compared to what’s generally available today I think they are good. Even ten years ago, when smokers were still allowed in pubs, there was an incident where I was drinking with a friend and one of the cloned girl-singers was on the TV. We could not decide which one it was. They all look and sound the same. As with boy bands, they might as well be die-cast and rolled out on a production line somewhere. It has only become worse since.

And yet those cloned girls do well. Many people buy their records and go to their concerts although I note they usually don’t show the audience in photos and clips. There are probably too many dirty raincoats and pebble glasses present.

The Daily Mail keeps going on about Miley Cyrus. Two or three stories a day. I have never heard a song of hers on Kerrang or BBC Six or Planet Rock radio at work so I have no idea what she sounds like. I do know what pretty much all of her skin looks like and I know her tongue doesn’t fit inside her head but as foir her singing… no idea.

There are other radio stations at work. I don’t much care what’s on, the hourly news is a time-check for me and the rest is backround filler unless it’s something I like. It depends who is running the stores because they control the radio. The Indian guy puts on Indian music, okay with me although it does give me curry cravings. Then there’s a Londoner who likes Gilbert and Sullivan style showtunes. I prefer the Indian music. The only one that irks me is the guy who wants the football coverage on. I have no interest in football at all.

My record collection has Beethoven and Captain Beefheart. Rossini wasn’t the one from Status Quo – I have both The Barber of Seville and Piledriver here.The Barber of Seville has more chords and less total hair.

Tangerine Dream and This Is York (yes, it is a vinyl LP of nothing but train noises from York station and it’s even more terrifying than Kraftwerk at full volume). I have Otway and Barrett in here, Ian Dury, lots of Sabbath and Floyd, Tenacious D, Peter Gabriel,. Mozart, and you just know I have Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor. Every horror writer has that one.

Lately I bought the download version of AwolNation’s album because I really liked the ‘Kill Your Heroes’ track and its official video. I don’t buy much music these days, the stuff I like most is all on YouTube because it’s old. Awol is not ‘rock’ by any definition but the band look like they are having a lot of fun singing their stuff and that is part of the old school. Black Sabbath and Otway and Barrett and Elvis Costello and the Ramones and Squeeze (some of the few I was lucky to see live) all looked like they were having as great a time up on stage as we here having watching and that matters. It really does.

I met John Otway when I was a student. Very nice man. He signed my copy of DK50/80 in the bar after his concert and he did it with a big smile. I still have it. We were both very drunk and both smoking.

Some of that punk music was very good and some was total shite. The Sex Pistols I didn’t really rate at all but when Johnny Rotten formed Public Image Limited I thought he was much improved. He wasn’t just going for shock value any more. Much more complex and interesting.

I could bang on about this until the sun comes up and until it goes down again. Even though I have already answered the post’s question in paragraph six. What you like is what you like.

So Nickelback aren’t really hard rock. I agree, they aren’t. They have done some songs trhat I’ve thought ‘Bah. Shite’ but my all time favourites, Kraftwerk, have done whole albums I’ve thought that about.

The Coral have some songs I think are great and some I think are awful. Same for absolutely every band ever. Even Mozart had his shit days.

My father still recalls the day when Tom Jones played his working men’s club in Wales in the late 1950s. He was paid off and told to piss off after his first set. The Welsh mining audience, mostly male. did not appreciate all that hip-thrusting stuff. As my dad said, he was told ‘You will never play the Ynysddu Prog again’ and do you know, to this day, he never has. They don’t mess about in Ynysddu.

At least I can console myself that I have never bought anything by Tom Jones or Elvis. Not one song.

Thangyouberrymuck.