a BCB astral weeks thread

[Perpendicular]

to get high on.



in a BCB world where a run of roxy music singles and an over-wrought trite song chosen by one of our more emotionally challenged posters can eclipse an out of body experience, then it is time to take stock and have a bloody good look at ourselves

[Goat Boy]

We don't talk about Van much, do we?

[Perpendicular]

We don't talk about Van much, do we?

for shame.

[Goat Boy]

Grumpy old transcendent twat

[Perpendicular]

transcendent twat

mmmm

[Perpendicular]

[fange]

It is a beautiful album, and one of those that changed the way i heard music afterwards. Truly magnificent.

[mission]

I think I have listened to this album more than any other.

I just have to think of the song titles and I automatically hear the songs, fully formed, in my mind. Like a lowrent version of the the obligatory scene in a VHS1 "story of the album," where they sit at the mixing desk and fuck about with the faders, I can build the songs up in parts, imagining the bass and then the hihat comes chinking in and then Van sings away like a man literally possessed.

He was only 22 or 23, a fucken kid, when he did this. It is unbelievable. What were you doing when you were 22? Apart from obsessively wanking in the shower.



Timeless, in that he looked 60 when he was 16. A man very rooted in the shitty mud of existence, a blobby ginger mess incapable of finding fitting clothes, he has made more beauty than I would have thought possible.

Yeah - transcendent. The slim slow slider.

[Count Machuki]

That album is so good that it's spoiled everything else that the man has done for me. Moondance and other bits are OK, but when I hear him I think, "damn, man, you did Astral Fucking Weeks, what is this pop bullshit?!"

[mission]

(Thanks, Fange - try this instead!)

Get to work, buddy.

[fange]

^ something's gone wrong there, mish.

[naughty boy]

Moondance is AOR piss

Astral Weeks isn't an album I'm totally familiar with, but I know it well enough to agree with all the plaudits. You know, 'transcendent' isn't hyperbolic. It's unique and it's masterful and - most importantly - it really moves you.

[mentalist (slight return)]

It is a beautiful album, and one of those that changed the way i heard music afterwards. Truly magnificent.

I'm with all of that. It's some kind of miracle that it got made and that Lewis Merenstein got the right group of musicians together to help realise it.

[Count Machuki]

(Thanks, Fange - try this instead!)

Get to work, buddy.

Yeah, I'm on the lookout for this one.

I played His Band & the Street Choir last night.'Domino' is a cool single and there was one song (end of side 1?) that was striving for Astral territory but over all it was just...earthbound. Especially knowing he was capable of so much more. And the whole "Street Choir" idea struck me as pretty terrible, too.

[Mike Boom]

This is magical
On Hynford Street Live from Cyprus Avenue

[Count Machuki]

Dropping this here to read later

https://www.theringer.com/pop-culture/2 ... ary-review

eidt: i found the time. This is a great article.

[The Fish]

Greatest album ever. Stop spluttering and foaming at the mouth Yomp. It totally is.

[fange]

Dropping this here to read later

https://www.theringer.com/pop-culture/2 ... ary-review

eidt: i found the time. This is a great article.

Marcus quotes another critic who says, “Van always looked to me like a half-homicidal leprechaun who lived under the bridge.”



Lovely read, cheers Count.

[Diamond Dog]

I've just listened to it again for the first time in, I would guess, twenty years.

a) Acoustic guitar
b) shuffle drums
c) (more than) occasionally ridiculous vocal stylings
d) absolutely NO FUCKING CHANCE of a middle eight to relieve the tedium
e) play for twice as long as strictly necessary
f) muse about a long lost beauty
g) hi hat absent-mindedly thrown in for no apparent reason
h) an inappropriate string arrangement
I) repeat THE SAME FUCKING WORDS OVER AND OVER.

That's it.

Great, isn't it?

[andymacandy]

I've just listened to it again for the first time in, I would guess, twenty years.

a) Acoustic guitar
b) shuffle drums
c) (more than) occasionally ridiculous vocal stylings
d) absolutely NO FUCKING CHANCE of a middle eight to relieve the tedium
e) play for twice as long as strictly necessary
f) muse about a long lost beauty
g) hi hat absent-mindedly thrown in for no apparent reason
h) an inappropriate string arrangement
I) repeat THE SAME FUCKING WORDS OVER AND OVER.

That's it.

Great, isn't it?

Yup, sounds like you're finally getting it.