Here Comes the Flood

The first gig I ever went to was at Guildford Civic Hall in roughly 1981 - it was a charity show by the ex-Genesis guitarist, Steve Hackett. At the end, Peter Gabriel appeared and did two or three numbers including a rock version of Reach Out I'll Be There and a very memorable rendition of Here Comes The Flood. It was quite a show for one's first introduction to a live rock band.

Simon W in the comments points to this YouTube video of a version of the latter song - one I've not heard before, featuring Gabriel and Robert Fripp of King Crimson. Listen to the introduction...

Anyone know who is speaking?

Dad rock

I was having an interesting online chat with statistics blogger Matt Briggs. Matt was making unfavourable comparisons of the Beatles to earlier masters like Cole Porter, particularly in the lyrics department. While I'm hardly the biggest Beatles fan in the world - I can honestly say I've never bought one of their records in my life, I think it's hard not to recognise their influence on pretty much everyone else who has come since. No their lyrics were probably not up to the standards of Porter's, but to me it's the music that counts anyway.

I was reminded of this exchange at a dinner party the other day, when I observed the teenage son of one of the other guests wearing a Queen t-shirt, which struck me as a bit out of date for one so young - much more my era than his. Anyway, the aforementioned teenager explained that bands like Queen and Pink Floyd remain very popular among the young, where they form a genre known as "dad rock".

This made me feel very old.

Does this renewed lease of life for the old seventies rockers mean that they represent a form of music of genuine longevity.  Having spent a few months revisiting some of the murkier depths of my record collection, it's clear to me that Queen, Pink Floyd and parts of the Genesis oevre sound as fresh as they did thirty years ago. Do these groups have genuine staying power? It certainly looks like it to me. Nobody I knew listened to the Beatles when I was young.

Beatlemaths

The application of discrete Fourier transforms to A Hard Day's Night.

Blood of Eden

I used to listen to Peter Gabriel a lot when I was younger, but I've kind of lost touch with the world of popular music since getting a job and a family. Then I chanced upon this video on YouTube the other day, and I've listened to it roughly every two to three waking hours since. I'm still trying to work out if it's the song, the arrangement or the performers that sends shivers down my spine. The young lady singing the harmony, whose name is apparently Paula Cole, has a fine pair of lungs on her, I would say.