Being a rock star is of course the coolest thing you can possibly be. But it doesn’t mean everything about you is cool. In fact, some of the biggest rock stars you know are nerds just below the surface.
Jimmy Page
Page started his career as a session guitarist and can be heard on dozens singles that would be deemed far too poppy and cheesy for any Zep aficionado. Led Zeppelin themselves dropped several references to The Lord of the Rings into their early songs and Page is such a fan of Aleistair Crowley he bought Crowley’s former home.
Nerd score: 7/10
Brian May
The Queen guitarist is a Doctor of Astrophysics, a passionate campaigner for animal rights – particularly badgers – and plays a guitar which he built himself as a teenager out of timber from the family fireplace. With a sixpence!
Nerd score: 12/10
Metallica
Their image is heavy but Metallica are music nerds at heart. Their rhythms are meticulously crafted and they will never play eight bars of 4/4 where a mix of 5/8, 3/4, 12/8 and 6/4 will suffice.
Nerd score: 8/10
Frank Zappa
Although the bulk of his lyrics were aimed at frat boys, Zappa’s music was all nerd. Auditions for his band bordered on the cruel. Applicants were required sight-read ridiculously complex parts and then improvise over bizarre time signatures like 11/8. Having learned from his father, Dweezil has said that 4/4 is the hardest rhythm for him to play.
When Zappa discovered he had a namesake in ’cellist and composer Francesco Zappa, Frank made an album of Francesco’s work by programming it into his Synclavier – an instrument he used for composing parts that were practically impossible for a human to play.
In the early 90s, Zappa had planned to set up a consulting business to facilitate trade between former Soviet Union states and the west. Czechoslovakian president Václav Havel had named him Special Ambassador to the West on Trade, Culture and Tourism but the appointment was nixed by then secretary of state James Baker.
Nerd Score: 10/10
John Lennon
The working class hero was never really working class. He was brought up by his middle-class aunt and went to art school. He published twovolumes of absurdist verse, prose and cartoons in his lifetime and another was posthumously published.
Having once described avant-garde as “French for bullshit,” he fell in love with conceptual artist Yoko Ono, and embraced her experimental style on the albums Two Virgins, Life with the Lions and Wedding Album.
Later, during his house-husband years, he would take Polaroid photos of the loaves of bread he baked and send them to friends.
Nerd score: 8/10
George Harrison
The Quiet One discovered Indian music almost by accident while filming the move Help! He took to it with a passion and studied the sitar under master Ravi Shankar. His interest in non-western instruments influenced almost all of late 60s music. He signed Radha Krishna Temple to Apple Records and inadvertently invented WOMAD.
He was a supporter of the Natural Law Party, a political offshoot of the Transcendental Meditation movement.
A lifelong Monty Python fan, he appeared as a reporter in Eric Idle’s spoof The Rutles, and financed Life Of Brian after big studios balked at the subject matter.
Nerd Score: 7/10
Jeff Baxter
The Steely Dan and Doobie Brothers guitarist has probably the most interesting side hustle of them all: he is a consultant to the US Defence Department, with a particular focus on missile defence. Stemming from an interest in how objects can be used for things they weren’t designed for, he wrote a paper in 1994 about how an anti-aircraft facility could be adapted into a missile defence system and passed it on to his representative. He’s been on the Pentagon payroll ever since.
Nerd Score: 7/10
David Bowie
Bowie’s earliest releases flopped at the time, and it’s probably just as well. He later admitted that if his first album had been a hit, he would probably have ended up in West End musicals. His first album is pure music-hall, with songs the likes of Uncle Arthur and She’s Got Medals that make his novelty song The Laughing Gnome sound positively hip by comparison.
Bowie was also a keen reader who could easily drop Philip Larkin quotes into an interview. He played the lead role in the cult classic Labyrinth, and in the 90s, set up his own internet service provider so subscribers could have their email address @davidbowie.com.
Nerd Score: 10/10
Art Garfunkel
Garfunkel is a voracious reader and keeps his books in chronological order of when he read them. He once walked across America by getting a friend to pick him up at the end of the day, drive him to the nearest motel, and drop him off at the same place the next morning.
Nerd score: 8/10
Sting
Gordon Sumner’s day job was as an English teacher. He practices tantric yoga (among other things if you believe the rumours), and learned to play the lute for an album of 16th century British compositions, released on Deutsche Grammophon.
Nerd Score: 14/10
As a bonus feature of The Dark Horse Years box set, this was a wonderful addition. Now that it's been released as a standalone DVD, there is something vaguely unsatisfying about it. And it's mainly down to the fact that the program stays true to its brief of being the Dark Horse years which, apart from being the lifespan of George's record label, is a rather curious way of defining his career. It means there's no mention of All Things Must Pass, The Concert for Bangladesh, the Travelling Wilburys or the Beatles Anthology. Okay, so you already knew that, but there's something slightly incongruous about the disc starting in 1976, flipping through to 1992 and finishing in 1987.
That quibble aside, it's quite a treasure trove. We get all the Dark Horse videos, each with a brief excerpt from an interview by means of introduction. The four songs from Live in Japan, remixed in 5.1 surround, only leave you hungry for more. There's also short film on the beginning of the Dark Horse label and a perfunctory piece from the making of Shanghai Surprise, the ill-fated Madonna/Sean Penn vehicle that produced by George.
Highlight: Crackerbox Palace and When We Was Fab, two of the greatest examples of the art of film clips.
Feature: * * * ½
Extras: it's all extras really.
Audio: LPCM Stereo throughout, Dolby 5.1 and DTS on the live tracks
Let me say from the outset that this is not about 80s nostalgia. I have no time for it. I was there the first time and they were crap – and crap isn’t any less crap just because it’s nostalgic crap. In fact, seeing the 80s revised into some kind of golden ages gives me a slight idea about what it might have been like to grow up in the 1960s – pop culture has conspired to suppress all the crap so they end up looking much better than they were.
Of all the things we remember the 80s for – big hair, loud colours, new romantics, ra-ra skirts, stone-wash denim, poodle metal, superstrats – one that never gets mentioned is the phenomenon of 12-inch singles. As mentioned on one of the records below, a 12-inch single was just like a 7-inch single, only bigger – and longer. Although the format began in the 70s along with disco, and continued into the 90s before going the same way as the 7-inch single for the same reason, by the mid-80s, any single with an outside chance of charting was also released as a 12-inch and often with an extended remix.
It was not a remix as we interpret the word today. In fact, on most extended versions, the mix (that is, the balance of instruments and vocal parts and their placement in the stereo picture) was exactly the same as the regular version. In these cases, a better description would have been Extended Edit, or in some cases, Unedited Version.
There were many ways artists and/or producers made songs longer for the larger format. Sometimes they were the full length version of the recording before it was edited down for released. Sometimes they had extra parts added. Sometimes they just let the song play out. If you can get hold of the 12” of World Party’s Ship Of Fools, the extended version is created by not fading out until two minutes later, giving the listener a rare glimpse into what happens after the fade. Dire Straits’ Money For Nothing didn’t need extending because the album version goes for 8 minutes anyway.
A common method of creating a 12-inch mix was a simple cut-and-paste job. Firstly, play the intro twice. If you can’t resolve the intro musically in order to play it again, it doesn’t matter – just stop at the end of the intro, throw in some S-S-S-sampled B-B-B-beats and start again. Next, play the first verse without the vocal. Do the same with the chorus if you feel like, then start with the first verse proper. If there’s a middle-8, play an instrumental copy of it before the second verse. If there’s a guitar solo or other instrumental part, double the length. Then repeat the final chorus with lashing of gratuitous delay and Bob’s yer uncle! You’ve got yourself a 12-inch extended version.
12-inch singles also had a fascinating mystique to a young collector. They were never played on the radio, not included on compilations and certainly not available on cassette. The only way to hear the extended version was to buy the record.
I had wondered whether to include these examples in the order they were released or in the order that I discovered them. In the end, I went with a bit of both.
Tina Turner: We Don’t Need Another Hero
This is the first 12-inch single I bought. The main reason was because I had just received a turntable for Christmas and this was the song I liked most in the 12-inch rack at my local record store.
It’s a bit of a tease as extended versions go. It’s exactly the same as the regular version up until about two thirds of the way through. The song is from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, so composer/producer Terry Britten’s sense of drama may have had something to do with how the 12-inch version was arranged.
Thompson Twins: King for a Day
I bought this a week later and it was the first 12-inch of a song that I really wanted to have the 12-inch of. Yes, it’s the Thompson Twins, of Hold Me Now – what’s your point? Despite looking very mockable, they had some really nice songs and don’t forget this record was produced by the great Nile Rodgers.
It’s a particularly long version that in part follows the standard method mentioned above but also features some actual different mixes in parts and still doesn’t outstay its welcome.
Mike Oldfield: To France
This was the first time I had heard this song, but I would buy anything with Mike Oldfield’s name on it, so at first it was hard to where it has been extended. Even without comparing it to the album version, it’s pretty clear now that an additional instrumental section has been edited in just before the end of the song.
Marillion: Market Square Heroes
I had never heard anything of Marillion before this, but the record was calling to me. This is actually the B-side of Punch and Judy and I truly don’t know if that’s an extended version. I suspect probably not. Truthfully, the reason I bought this is… well, just look at it! How cool is it? Fortunately, the song isn’t bad either.
Paul McCartney: No More Lonely Nights
This is where it all came together - Paul McCartney and an extended mix and a picture disc. I was holding out hope when I bought this that it would be the ballad version of No More Lonely Nights, which is not only one of the greatest ever Paul McCartney love songs but also one of the greatest ever David Gilmour guitar solos. Ah, but no such luck – it’s the playout version, which closed his forgettable film Give My Regards to Broad Street. It might be just as well. Doing an extended version of the ballad would be like trying to improve on perfection.
There were actually two extended mixes of this track. This one was released in the UK and I actually like it better than the more collectable Arthur Baker mix released in the US.
Tears For Fears: Everybody Wants to Rule the World
Probably a good example of an obligatory extended edit, although the bassline at the beginning does sound rather similar to Michael Jackson’s The Way You Make Me Feel, which was still two years away. The full guitar solo is used until the recording appears to peter out and starts again for the final chorus and a repeat of the first part of the solo, which is faded early.
Prince and the Revolution: Raspberry Beret
This “new mix” starts out with the same intro that is used on the official video but not used in the album or single version. As the song nears conclusion, it repeats the minor key variation used in the intro (complete with cough) and finishes up just noodling around. It seems like he started with an interesting idea but didn’t know where to take it.
Cliff Richard and The Young Ones: Living Doll
In 1986, even a novelty charity record had an extended 12-inch (ooh-err!) and the fact is lampooned in the extended portion of the song. There are also skits at the beginning and end that weren’t on the 7-inch version.
Genesis: Invisible Touch
Um, I have no explanation for this one. I was young and curious. Don’t judge.
Men At Work: Down Under
Not released alongside the initial 1981 single, but remixed for a 1986 best-of album. I believe this is the version that was included on that compilation as well. In terms of the mix itself, there are some subtle differences, with Colin Hay singing the beginning of the final chorus solo. As an extended edit though, it’s awful.
Icehouse: Crazy (Mad Mix)
At which point, we begin naming the remixes, preferably along the same theme as the song. Rather than follow the same old formula, Iva Davies completely reconstructs the song in a genuine remix and re-edit. We also discover that the guitar solo which is cut down to a middle-8 on the album/single version actually goes for a whole verse and more as originally recorded. This mix takes an already bombastic song and cranks the dramatics up well beyond 11. It’s all utterly mad but then, that is what it says on the label.
The B-side features the rather lovely Midnight Mix, which does away with the rhythm section altogether and suddenly it’s become a song of seduction – which goes to show how important mixing can be.
George Michael: I Want Your Sex (Monogamy Mix)
Now this is creative! I Want Your Sex was a controversy-baiting single dressed up as a safe sex message. As nookie songs go, it’s exactly mid-way between Barry White and Salt’n’Pepa. However, if this record had finished at the 5-minute mark, it would still have fulfilled all the requirements of a 12-inch. Instead, it’s presented in three sections – Rhythm 1: Lust, Rhythm 2: Brass in Love, Rhythm 3: A Last Request. As I understand it (I haven’t heard the album), the first two sections follow the album arrangement, with the final section (also on the album but not in the same order) turns it into a 13-minute epic.
I was fascinated by the idea of three sections looking at the cover in the record shop, but couldn’t come at actually buying a George Michael record. I picked this up at a market many years later. Listen without prejudice.
Roger Waters: Radio Waves
The Radio KAOS album is regarded as a bit of a mistake by most which is quite unfair. Waters’ intention was to make a straightforward rock and roll album and naturally threw in some apocalyptic fear and a message of redemption for good measure. In fact, the album’s other theme of corporate dominance and dedication to all those who find themselves at the violent end of monetarism are more relevant than ever.
Appropriately for the musical objective of the album, an extended version of the lead single was released. It’s a fairly formulaic mix, but interesting coming from an artist like Waters.
George Harrison: When We Was Fab
George’s wonderfully dry sense of humour was all over this record. The A-side is clearly labelled “unextended version,” but the B-side featured the “reverse ending,” where the song plays all the way through to the end, and then comes back playing backwards!
Paul McCartney: Once Upon a Long Ago
A good example of an extended version being a less edited version than the single release. An additional intro is tacked on at the front, but most of this version is the song in its entirety with an ad-libbed repeat of the first verse at the end and full length solos. The extended string note right at the end is a nice touch. A beautiful and underrated song.
Travelling Wilburys: End of the Line
Even a band of five traditionalists like the Travelling Wilburys couldn’t avoid the obligatory 12-inch mix, and this mix is exactly what you would expect when fulfilling obligations.
Paul McCartney: Figure of Eight
This is a rare example of a 12-inch single which features a completely different recording to the album version. While not listed as an extended version, this live-in-the-studio take is longer than the album version and much closer to the arrangement that opened Paul’s live shows at the time.
Billy Bragg: Sexuality (Manchester Mix)
It may just be coincidence, but naming the mixes after the cities they were done in (the B-side features the London Mix) looks like it may be a tribute to The Smiths, who named the three versions of This Charming Man Manchester, London and New York. The latter was pulled almost as soon as it was released and never heard again until included on The Sound of The Smiths.
The Manchester Mix of Sexuality was mixed by Owen Morris, who would later produce Oasis. This is both extended version and true remix, with Johnny Marr’s guitar pushed to the front of the mix. What more could you ask for?
The Cure: High
Curiously enough, I did actually hear this version for the first time on the radio and that’s what made me buy it because I’m not really a Cure fan. This is both an extended edit and a remix and I think this mix is far superior to the album version. As smitten as that!
The title of Martin Scorsese’s documentary on the life of George Harrison is more than just a reference to George’s second solo album. A recurring theme throughout the film is George’s ambition to leave his body (or the material world) in the best way possible.
A little over half the film is spent on his time in the Beatles, but even the stories we’ve heard before, such as the Beatles’ rough apprenticeship in Hamburg, aren’t as stale as they might be because they are shown through George’s eyes. Astrid Kirchherr recalls the time she photographed John and George in Stu Sutcliff’s room shortly after she had informed them of his death. It’s actually a pretty well known photograph but I had never heard the history behind it before.
There is no narration, with George’s story being told via interviews with family and friends, and with George himself. Many of these are from unused interviews for the Beatles Anthology and there are also some very interesting, rarely seen television appearances. Elsewhere, Dhani reads passages from George’s letters and diaries. The new interviews indicate just how long it has taken to make this film. Billy Preston died in 2006 after a long illness and we all know where Phil Spector is now.
Unlike so many similar projects, the breakup of the Beatles is not presented as some great turning point, but as a natural progression, which is just as George would have regarded it.
No-one is written out of the story. Patti Boyd is interviewed and reads passages from her book and her relationship with Eric Clapton is dealt with candidly. Although George’s creative output at the time suggests he might have been more upset about the breakup than he let on, the film respectfully sticks to George’s story that he was cool with it so long as they were both happy.
The film discusses George’s work with Monty Python and the subsequent creation of his production company, Handmade Films, but curiously, no mention is made of his record label, Dark Horse Records.
On the extras side, there are additional interviews with Paul McCartney, Jeff Lynne and Damon Hill, a live performance of the Ravi Shankar collaboration Dispute and Violence (which sounds not unlike something Frank Zappa might do) and a lovely moment in the studio where Giles and George Martin listen to the multitrack of Here Comes the Sun with Dhani. The Damon Hill piece also features home video by George. The moment where he gate-crashes a doorstop press conference with Damon Hill after he lost the 1994 World Championship is priceless.
Living in the Material World is a beautiful film about a beautiful man and it flows like a well-sequenced album. Just as it’s about to make you cry, it makes you laugh, but before you laugh too much, it reminds you that there are greater things – just like George’s music.
My dearest once put it to me that George Harrison was the most artistic of the Beatles. After thinking it through, I suspect she is right. While John and Paul each had very different approaches, they were still essentially saying, “Look at me!” with everything they did. Ringo was, and remains, the beloved entertainer. George just did what he wanted to do and people either liked it or they didn’t. There have been three compilations released in George Harrison’s name, and only one of them with his clear approval. Are any of them any good?
The Best Of George Harrison - 1976
It’s something of an insult to George’s solo career that the entire first side of this album is taken up by Beatles songs. George’s songs were often the highlights of Beatles albums, largely as a reflection of how bloody good they had to be if they were to be heard above Lennon and McCartney. While Here Comes the Sun, Something and While My Guitar Gently Weeps all deserve to be counted among George Harrison’s finest work, they are still Beatles songs, not George Harrison solo recordings. George himself had nothing to do with this release. It was a contractual obligation that George suggested a tracklisting for and EMI ignored it.
The one slight attraction of this collection is that it contains the only album release of the studio version of Bangla Desh. Beyond that, it has nothing to recommend it.
For: Cheap
Against: Nasty
Best Of Dark Horse 1976-1989 - 1989
In 1987, George Harrison performed one of the greatest musical comebacks with his Cloud 9 album. A year later, he consolidated his popularity as part of the Travelling Wilburys and by the end of the 80s, the Quiet One was arguably the most recognisable ex-Beatle. It was a perfect time to bring out a compilation and remind people of some underrated classics such as Blow Away, Life Itself and Crackerbox Palace.
The album also contains three previously unreleased tracks - Cheer Down, which was used on the Lethal Weapon 2 soundtrack, and two others which remain unavailable anywhere else. Poor Little Girl sounds like a worthy out-take from Cloud 9. Cockamamie Business, which channels Bob Dylan in the lyrics, could be seen as part three of an autobiographical trilogy that began with When We Was Fab and continued with Handle With Care.
As the album title suggests the collection only includes songs from George’s Dark Horse label, so there’s no My Sweet Lord or What Is Life? but in a way, the album is better for it. By 1976, George had developed a style and sound based around his disciplined and precise slide guitar playing. That’s what Best of Dark Horse presents and it holds together as an excellent album in its own right. It’s just a pity it’s not easily available now.
For: Consistent, two songs unavailable elsewhere.
Against: Out of print, nothing from Apple years.
Let It Roll: Songs by George Harrison - 2009
The subtitle of simply Songs by George Harrison suggests that this is neither meant to be a hits or best-of album, but perhaps more of an introduction. It’s the only compilation of the three to span George’s entire solo career but in doing so, it leaves out some fairly significant songs as well. Cheer Down is included but Bangla Desh is not. I Don’t Want to Do It, a Bob Dylan cover previously only available on the soundtrack to Porky’s Revenge(!) is included. The Jools Holland collaboration Horse to Water is not.
Three Beatles songs - While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Something and Here Comes the Sun - are included, but these are live versions from the Concert for Bangla Desh. I’m torn, as I’m sure many other fans are, as to whether this is a reasonable compromise or a bit of a cop out. On one level, it’s fair enough since George effectively invented the modern charity concert with that show. In any case, I daresay Olivia has a good idea of what George would have approved of.
On paper, the track sequencing looks a bit weird, jumping from All Things Must Pass, to Brainwashed and back again, but when you listen to the album, it flows perfectly.
For: Remastered, covers George’s whole solo career
Against: Leaves out some hits
If you had to choose one, choose....
Let It Roll, if only because it’s the easiest to obtain. Best of Dark Horse comes an extremely close second, hindered only by its rareness today.
