andrewcferguson

March was month of strange portents. In the north-east of England, the middle of the month saw unprecedented blizzard conditions, with 50cm of snow falling on Newcastle.

Politically, however, the United Kingdom’s history was turned on its head by the outcome of a referendum, and a motion of no confidence in the Government forcing an election.

The referendum, on 1st March, 1979, was for Scottish devolution. The Scottish people voted by a majority of 77,437 for the proposals for a Scottish Parliament: however, the legislation provided for devolution only if 40% of all Scottish voters were in favour. With a turnout of 64%, only 32.9% were in favour, and Scotland would wait another 20 years for any form of meaningful self-government.

Suitably enraged, the SNP joined with the Liberals and the Conservatives in a motion of no confidence against James Callaghan’s Labour Government. The subsequent election in May brought Margaret Thatcher to power.

Crisis? What Crisis? (Callaghan apparently never really said that, but like all such political stories, it seemed believable enough to enough people for that not to matter).

So, with all that going on, what music was being released this month 40 years ago?

My first selection from the month’s releases didn’t reference any of that, or indeed the previous year’s so-called ‘Winter of Discontent’ in the UK. This may be because Supertramp had decamped to the sunnier climes of California in 1977. ‘Breakfast in America,’ whilst not the outright satire of US culture that some supposed, dealt with American themes, and included four US Billboard hit singles.

Whilst I remember ‘Goodbye Stranger,’ the one that really stuck in my head – and got a lot of airplay amongst some of my friends – was ‘The Logical Song,’ which was annoyingly hooky. I’m pleased to learn from Wikipedia that it did, at least, win the Ivor Novello Award, both for lyrics and music, apparently.

Next up, a band I always liked whenever I heard a track of theirs, but never actually bought an album of (there’s a few of these).

Graham Parker and the Rumour released Squeezing Out Sparks this month: according to many critics, one of his best. You’d describe it as new wave, I guess: interestingly, while the Clash were looking to expand their sound, Parker was looking for a tougher, leaner sound on this album, with the outcome that Parker’s rhythm and blues session musicians all went to record on London Calling.

Standout tracks include ‘Discovering Japan,’ and ‘Protection,’ and, for me, ‘You Can’t Be Too Strong,’ even with its controversial subject matter.

Also this month in music: Elvis Costello gets in a fight with one of Stephen Stills’ touring entourage in a Holiday Inn in Columbus, Ohio. Costello’s disparaging remarks about America are rewarded with a punch. Kate Bush starts what will be her only tour for 35 years; Rod Stewart marries Alana Hamilton (was that number 2, or 3? Who knows); James Brown performs at the Grand Ole Opry; Ozzy Osbourne is fired by Black Sabbath.

My final album selection is another band I should have listened to much more than I have: the Fall’s debut album, Live at the Witch Trials, was recorded in a day and mixed the day after. Undoubtedly influential on a thousand bedroom solace-seeking outsiders who would go on to form their own shoegaze bands, the album has been described as ‘an album of staggeringly rich, mature music, inner questioning hand in hand with rock and roll at its fiercest, its finest, its most honest, rock and roll at its naked, most stimulating prime.’

So there.

Back to my series on albums of 1979, that golden year (for me at least) when I turned 17, could nearly legally drink, could, actually, legally join the army or get married (I’m not actually sure which of these was less infinitesimally likely), and, in February, was undoubtedly shitting bricks about my impending Higher exams.

Fortunately, there was some cracking music to ease the angst.

Although the month started badly for punk with the death of Sid Vicious, a local Fife band enlivened the charts with their debut studio album, Scared to Dance. I’d be lying if I said I ever owned it, but everyone knew the single from it, ‘Into the Valley.’ Featuring Stuart Adamson’s guitar playing, later to evolve into that distinctive bagpipe sound in Big Country, the song’s lyrics were, according to Richard Jobson, about Scottish youths being recruited into the army.

However, a counter-myth has evolved, according to Wikipedia, that it was about West Fife village High Valleyfield,  a place known for its internecine conflicts with neighbouring Torryburn, Rosyth, Oakley and Inverkeithing (interestingly, they don’t mention the most obvious source of inter-tribal conflict, Low Valleyfield). Who knows? Who cares? No one, not even fellow Fifers, could make out the lyrics beyond ‘Into the Valleeeee….’ and ‘Ahoy! Ahoy!’ But then, what more do you need, really?

Actually, apart from Sid’s demise, it was a good month for punk, featuring Live (X Cert) by the Stranglers, the Great Rock n’ Roll Swindle by the Sex Pistols, and Inflammable Material by Stiff Little Fingers.

At the other end of the rock spectrum, George Harrison released George Harrison on February 20th. A gentle acoustic rock record  reflecting Harrison’s domestic contentment, it did moderately good business for him, reaching 14 in the US chart and going gold there. It was even critically acclaimed, although a brief listen to ‘Here Comes the Moon’ didn’t, for me, exactly set the heather alight.

However, given that the Quiet One set up Handmade Films shortly after this and financed Life of Brian for the Pythons by mortgaging his house, we should be eternally grateful that some, at least, of the album-buying public’s dollars were going on soft folk-pop-rock (or however you want to categorise it) instead of punk.

Besides, anyone who can write ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ and ‘Here Comes the Sun’ will always be all right with me.

Almost finally, another album I never owned, but the single of which seemed to be on every radio that year: Cheap Trick at Budokan. The single, being ‘I Want You To Want Me,’ was, cynically, the typical kind of thing lovelorn teenagers of the time wanted to sing along to, although not generally accompanied by 12,000 screaming Japanese fans.

Interesting factoid about the album: it was one of the first coloured albums to be released as opposed to singles or EPs, on what was described as ‘kamikaze yellow’ vinyl. Not sure how politically correct that was even in 1979.

Anyway, although I had mates that were into them, I never even listened to the album, so far as I can remember. But that annoying earworm of a single….

…and finally, since an instrumental I’ve been working on recently has been compared to Tangerine Dream, a band I’ve definitely heard of, but never knowingly listened to before now, it behoves me to mention they released Force Majeure in the same month. I’m listening to it for the first time as I type this, and it isn’t half bad. So here it is.

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I’ve been thinking a lot about drums and bass recently. Almost always the last thing I put in any track I’m creating, they should, of course, be pretty much the first thing. I mean, the rhythm section, right?

There’s a very good series on BBC4 just finished called ‘Guitar, Drum and Bass’ which covers all three instrumental elements of most popular music setups: you can catch it on iPlayer if you’ve missed it.

In it, Tina Weymouth (bass) Stewart Copeland (drums) and Lenny Kaye (guitar) trace their instruments’ history, from early blues and jazz right through to the present. They’re all good, but my favourite was Tina, who as Talking Heads’ bassist has probably had a few musical styles thrown at her over the decades!

I’m not quite sure why bass has been so neglected in my music making. I suppose we all have slightly different hearing ranges, and it may be that mine is tipped towards the treble end. In any event, the Tina Weymouth episode inspired me to experimentation on a track I’d had half-done for some time. In particular, a section on 90s DJs, and their search for ever more profound bass sounds got me twiddling about with the available knobs on my music editing software (of which, as I’d just shelled for the Pro Edition of Mixcraft 9, there are several).

Firstly, I used the Korg synth to record a really basic bass part, as low as I could go on the keyboard. Then, using Mixcraft, I duplicated it, then dropped the second track an octave – or twelve semitones, something I should have known without looking up. That sounded … interesting: basically, I now had a bass part that would have my left hand hanging off the end of the keyboard for most of the notes. And then I thought, how low can you go?

Third track, another octave down. You could still hear it, but it was WAYYY low, growling away to itself. I imagined swimming ever lower and lower, down into the sonic nether regions, beyond the range of the human ear where Beelzebub and his minions lurked, sending messages to the unwary through the sub-bass demonosphere.

Pleased with myself, I got as far as finalising the track with all three octaves of bass on it, growling away underneath the song. I was going to put it up on Soundcloud.

Then next day I decided it didn’t work, cut the two lower tracks and stuck it up with the ‘normal’ bass. Hey ho. Perhaps one day I’ll dive towards the nether regions once more, torch in hand, but not on this song!

(The track itself, by the way, is one of a number of contenders for my next album, Otto’s Biography. It’s not in yet, so any feedback gratefully accepted)

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