Friday, November 16, 2012

Nu Clear Sounds

Well, first off, sorry for the mis-leading title: not everything I'm going to write about is actually new, but it may be new to you!  First part definitely is new though, a new album of Bjork remixes that's currently streaming at the Guardian.  The album, 'Bastards', is remixes from 'Biophilia' and it's rather good on a first listen; I'm even thinking about picking it up, but I think I'll take advantage of this free stream a few more times first.  You can check it out at the link as I can't do an embed on this one, sorry.

On to Ash now, a band from my good old teenagehood who are still around and are on a 20th anniversary tour.  I went to see them last night at DC9, a fairly small venue that was nicely packed for the energetic and happy pop-punk show Ash put on.  It was definitely enjoyable, with some good trips down memory wormholes in search of lyrics I didn't even know I knew, from songs I haven't heard in years.  But as well as the smile-inducing old stuff there were some more recent songs that were also really good -- I haven't really paid a lot of attention to Ash recently but it's great to know they're still around and still releasing good music, while the industry has changed so much in the 20 years they've been going.  I couldn't help reflecting on things like that while I was seeing them, and also on the fact that when I first heard them we were all teenagers -- me, my friends, my brother, and Ash themselves.  Now we're all in our 30's and it was a bit odd seeing Tim up there singing, still looking the same really, but knowing that things like Kung-Fu are now 20 years old.  It was a little sad; I find a fair amount of Ash songs to be tinged with sadness anyway, I don't know why:  maybe something to do with lost youth, or that yearning feeling all their tracks seems to produce?  But we're all still here and OK so it's alright really.  I also found myself wondering about what it's like to be ... them?  Making a living as a band, doing it for 20 years, doing it while perhaps raising a family and all those normal things too but still getting on stage on tours and striking cool guitar poses on top of amps.  It's a bit weird seeing people like this grow up -- they made sense as teenagers, playing this music, but it's almost strange now to see men in their 30's playing the same stuff.  Ho-hum, my incoherent thoughts on music and aging once more.

I'm going to put up a random selection of songs I enjoyed, some old, some new, which'll hopefully serve as a decent intro if you've never heard of Ash, and a nice reminder of how good they are if you have.  The show, by the way, was excellent; great crowd, lots of energy and movement, and great banter from the band too -- they really seemed to enjoy it, even though it was a pretty small place.  I think it served as a great way to celebrate one of the best pop bands of the 90's.  Not that they're done or anything mind; they mentioned working on a new album and touring the States again soon, so hopefully they'll be around for a while yet.

'Arcadia' was new to me and I was really happy to hear that Ash still make great pop songs:



So was 'Return of White Rabbit', which was surpringly funky but NOT crap in that punk-funk way!



I'm going to finish up with two songs from 'Free All Angels', the Ash album I most got into.  These are two songs I hadn't heard in years and had basically forgotten -- until the first chords rung out last night, and they instantly came back to me.  Good stuff!





In case you're wondering, Tim looked exactly the same except he's got a beard that's flecked with white hair (if he shaved it off I don't think he'd look any older really); Rick's got less hair but otherwise hasn't changed much (though he's really really thin); and Mark was slightly tubbier and reminded me of Rick Mayall for some reason.

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