The Endys!

As 2006 draws to a close it’s time for the first Annual Endlessly Rocking Awards highlighting the pick of the year’s Rock music.

And ‘The Endy’ goes to;



Album Of The Year

Snakes and Arrows – Rush: Arguably the best Rush album since Moving Pictures as producer Nick Raskulinecz convinces the Canadian trio not to overlook their past in their ever-changing musical landscape

Commended:
Fear Of A Blank Planet – Porcupine Tree: A coming of age for Steve Wilson’s ‘new-prog’.
Libertad – Velvet Revolver: No ‘difficult second album’ blues for Slash & The Boys.


Band Of The Year

Rush: The “World’s Greatest Band” return with their best, and most critically acclaimed album, for at least 20 years. Suddenly it’s cool to love Rush!

Commended
Heaven and Hell: Come back of the year from Dio-era Sabbath


Web Presence Of The Year

The Ahmet Ertegun Tribute Concert Ticket Ballot: More than a million fans applied online for the 20,000 available tickets – one of the single biggest events in web history.

Commended:
Rush – surely the largest and most obsessive fan-base on the web
Bruce Springsteen – brief video clips from live performances as The Boss winds his way around the world.

Rock Icon Of The Year

Syd Barrett: Syd’s death in July, aged 60, came almost 40 years after his departure from Pink Floyd. It is hard to imagine any of the other band members attracting such broad media attention.

The Pink Floyd Story: Which One's Pink?

If this excellent BBC documentary achieved nothing else, it at least demonstrated that the wounds caused by the forced separation of Roger Waters and Pink Floyd are as raw as ever, despite the 20 minute cessation of hostilities that was Live 8.

Using interviews with the band and close associates to chart the history of the band, the occasions when Waters and the rest of the band are in agreement are few and far between. Even Syd Barrett’s descent into madness exposes a difference of opinion. Waters reminisces fondly over Barrett’s increasingly bizarre behaviour whilst Rick Wright appears close to tears as he rejects Waters’ suggestion that Syd suffered from schizophrenia and lays the blame squarely on substance abuse.

The halcyon days of Dark Side Of The Moon and Wish You Were Here are dealt with fairly quickly, as if the documentary team can’t wait to get to the next bone of contention - Waters’ increasing dominance of the band. Whilst David Gilmour refers to the period leading up to The Wall and the subsequent World Tour as “a dictatorship”, Waters dismisses any suggestions that he refused to allow other band members to contribute to the writing process. From that point on the story focuses increasingly on the two main protagonists; Gilmour & Waters, with the remaining band members largely commenting as observers rather than participants.

The semantics of Waters departure and his subsequent brief restoration for Live 8 are interesting. Upon leaving the band Waters assumed that Pink Floyd was no more. He admits in hindsight that his reaction to Floyd’s continuing existence (a long-running and ultimately unsuccessful legal battle) was wrong, but the scars remain vivid – especially for Gilmour. It was he who resisted longest to Bob Geldof’s emotional blackmail over Live 8 (the interviews with Geldof give an interesting perspective on the band’s internal politics at that time). When he finally relented it was very much on his terms – Waters was reminded that Pink Floyd were closing the Live 8 Concert and that he was welcome to play with them if he wished, but on their terms.

To all intents and purposes David Gilmour is now Pink Floyd. Whilst the final comments from Waters, Wright & Mason left the door open for a further reunion, those from Gilmour did not. It looks like Live 8 really will be the band’s final cut.

One Weekend in Belfast

Belfast hosted two of rock's biggest names at the weekend yet Endlessly Rocking attended neither event - for very different reasons.....

The Boss was in town on Saturday night but like thousands of others I didn't get the opportunity to see him. Playing such a relatively small venue as The Odyssey Arena (capacity 10,000) was always going to lead to disappointment but the manner in which the sale was handled has left a sour taste in the mouth of many. I didn't make it down to the venue when the tickets went on sale but most of those who did make the effort to turn out before sunrise on a cold winter's morning left without tickets. I can only guess at their frustration when tickets appeared almost immediately on eBay - at vastly inflated prices. The efforts made to stop the touts at the recent Zep reunion concert are to be applauded, but the only truly effective way to combat this is for fans to stop buying tickets at anything other than face value and I'm sure hell well have frozen over long before that happens.

Tickets were anything but difficult to get for Thin Lizzy's show at The Waterfront Hall the following night but again I sat at home and watched a movie. I had thought long and hard about this one but in the end I just couldn't accept that the band on show was Thin Lizzy. Only two names remained constant throughout Lizzy's career; Brian Downey & Phil Lynott. Neither were on stage last in Belfast last night. However entertaining John Syke's tribute band may be - it isn't Thin Lizzy.

Album Reviews - November 2007

This month Endlessly Rocking reviews ‘new’ offerings from two of the 70’s biggest (if not the biggest) bands;

Long Road Out Of Eden - Eagles

Virtually everyone likes Eagles. Such is the eclecticism inherent in the band's multi-talented line-up there will invariably be something there for everyone. Unfortunately, on the bands first album of new material in 28 years, their greatest strength proves also to be their greatest weakness.

Disk 1 starts off promisingly enough with the a cappella No More Walks In The Woods followed by pleasant country rockers How Long and Busy Being Fabulous. Sadly though a procession of ‘X-Factor finalist’ ballads follows, broken only by the Ozzy-sings-Quo 12-bar work out of Guilty Of The Crime and the 80's funk of Fast Company (amusingly sung in a with Prince-style falsetto).

Disk 2 (the sickening I Love To Watch a Woman Dance aside) exhibits a slightly harder edge than the opening set and benefits greatly from it. Long Road Out of Eden (the album’s stand-out track and the closest it ever comes to Hotel-California-like greatness) kicks off a series of songs examining the ‘State of America’ and generally finding it wanting. The music may be middle-of-the-road, but the opinions on show certainly aren’t – this won’t be on the Christmas Party play list at the White House!

Combining the harder-hitting tracks onto a single disk effort (entitled Shorter Road Out Of Eden?) would have made this a killer album – over two disks though I find myself reaching for the next button just a little too often.

Rating: Good

Mothership - Led Zeppelin

Despite having had every single album on vinyl, this is the first time that Led Zeppelin have appeared on my iPod. Why is that? Upon reflection the answer is clear – whilst I like ‘Zep’, I don’t love them. The air of arrogance and aloofness the band cultivated has tended to generate respect rather than affection. Not to mention Robert Plant’s irritating fake-orgasms…..

So, has a gap of almost 20 years changed my view? Not entirely. This ‘greatest hits’ collection is undoubtedly of the highest quality with almost all of the 24 tracks on offer worthy of the much over-used label ‘classic’ (only the faux-reggae, bad-joke of D’Yer Mak’er and Physical Graffitti’s Trampled Under Foot and Houses of The Holy failing to make the grade). However, whilst I am reminded of just how good the band was, there is still an element of frustration that they could have been even better. Monster-constructs such as Kashmir, No Quarter and Achilles Last Stand are deflated slightly by muddy production and a weak guitar and/or keyboard sound. Imagine how magnificent they would be with a fuller, more powerful mix! Ultimately though, this is akin to claiming that the ceiling of the Cisteen Chapel would benefit from a deeper shade of blue. This is a masterpiece; showing its age in places, too gaudy at times and a little dull in others, but still a masterpiece.

Rating: Essential