Black Cat Bone

has anyone else read that bloody awful book "northern sky" that name checks drake amongst other folk icons?

I've been on a Five Leaves Left bender lately. At the moment, I'd make it one of my desert island discs. Had this on for some of my pastoral drives a few days ago, yeah, how Volkswagon commercial. But sometimes delicate and shimmering is exactly the right thing.
Fortunately, I'm not one of the people bothered by the RT contribution to Time Has Told Me. Can't say the same for my husband, tells me each time I play it, forgetting that he's told me before, "See, I hate that part."

JQW wrote:

The Slider wrote:
In many ways I like the instrumentals best.
But they do all sound like the theme tunes to ITV serieses from the very early 70s, don't they?

They most likely were used as theme tunes! The local TV stations up here (both ITV and BBC) used to pinch all kinds of things for their theme tunes back then, particularly if instrumental. I first heard Tull's 'Bourre' as the them to a local TV show called Naturewatch.

the title track sounds like a cross between 'Man About The House' and 'Mary, Mungo and Midge'

The Slider wrote:

JQW wrote:

The Slider wrote:
In many ways I like the instrumentals best.
But they do all sound like the theme tunes to ITV serieses from the very early 70s, don't they?

They most likely were used as theme tunes! The local TV stations up here (both ITV and BBC) used to pinch all kinds of things for their theme tunes back then, particularly if instrumental. I first heard Tull's 'Bourre' as the them to a local TV show called Naturewatch.

the title track sounds like a cross between 'Man About The House' and 'Mary, Mungo and Midge'.

And this, from a man who is almost universally acclaimed as one of the greatest singer-songwriters of all-time, whose melancholy, tender voice and sweet, poetic, finger-picking guitar style moved entire generations.

That the title track of one of his greatest albums - a classic, no less - sounds like a cross between 'Man About The House' and 'Mary, Mungo and Midge'..

Really, truthfully, no more need be said.

You are too young to remember just how good those two august tunes actually were.

Whippersnapper.

Album : 'Byter Layter'

Song : 'I fucked a cyberman up the shitter and electrocuted my bollocks (demo)', from a a bootleg I got from a market stall in Mesopotamia. A pearl of a feelgood song if ever I heard one.

I just want to restate something that I posted on another Nick Drake thread: whatever "baggage" there may be around this performer has absolutely no significance for me. I don't find him iconic at all; he was really very little known as a person and as performer in life, and even in death there is not much information available about him. Compare with casualties such as, say, Jim Morrison or Syd Barrett. Honestly, I'm not aware of any 'cult' surrounding Nick Drake and thank fuck for that.

What I get out of the music is that it creates, in a small body of about 35 songs, a self-contained world as vivid and as rich as a first-person Thomas Hardy novel; and it is every bit as remote, romantic and tragic as that implies.

northernsky wrote:I just want to restate something that I posted on another Nick Drake thread: whatever "baggage" there may be around this performer has absolutely no significance for me. I don't find him iconic at all; he was really very little known as a person and as performer in life, and even in death there is not much information available about him. Compare with casualties such as, say, Jim Morrison or Syd Barrett. Honestly, I'm not aware of any 'cult' surrounding Nick Drake and thank fuck for that.

I think the cult, and the baggage, is due to the fact so little is known about him. He's a genuine enigma, something which is very rare in rock history.

Album - Bryter Layter

Song - One of these things first

Thompson's guitar playing is like pulling nails out of a coffin (Marcus's description). Drake's is like rubbing your fingertips on unvarnished wood.

Red card, T5D. I enjoy reading many of your comments, but this one is so meaningless and, dare I say it, pretentious that I am lost for words.

Think about it.. Nick Drake's guitar playing is like rubbing your fingertips on unvarinished wood... (rough? pointless? risking splinters? dry?)

If you think his playing is rough then say rough, clumsy then say clumsy, precise then say precise.

His singing is like slurping up dribbled milk from a kitchen work surface.

EDIT: I had linked a couple articles from the website run by Nick Drake's estate:

Nick Drake: A Memoir Of My Childhood Friend

Nick Drake: Live Performances

but the site's been reformatted and the links don't work anymore. Just go to the website and you'll find them.

Nobody's talked about Nick Drake since last August??????

That's a disgrace.

petulant clarksville wrote:Nobody's talked about Nick Drake since last August??????

That's a disgrace.

We've been talking about him quite a lot in the secret room.

I went to see that Nick Drake tribute bloke; it wasn't that good really; he didn't try to sound like the records and I didn't like his beard!

Neil Jung wrote:

petulant clarksville wrote:Nobody's talked about Nick Drake since last August??????

That's a disgrace.

We've been talking about him quite a lot in the secret room.

I went to see that Nick Drake tribute bloke; it wasn't that good really; he didn't try to sound like the records and I didn't like his beard!

There's a secret room? WHERE? Is it at the back of the second-hand bookshop?

kalowski! wrote:

Thompson's guitar playing is like pulling nails out of a coffin (Marcus's description). Drake's is like rubbing your fingertips on unvarnished wood.

Red card, T5D. I enjoy reading many of your comments, but this one is so meaningless and, dare I say it, pretentious that I am lost for words.

Think about it.. Nick Drake's guitar playing is like rubbing your fingertips on unvarinished wood... (rough? pointless? risking splinters? dry?)

If you think his playing is rough then say rough, clumsy then say clumsy, precise then say precise.

His singing is like slurping up dribbled milk from a kitchen work surface.

Two comments:

1) If I were to have compared Drake's playing to some grand, abstract metaphor (e.g., something to do with fluffy, celestial clouds--as if there were any other type of clouds) I could see how the comparison would be "pretentious". Comparing his playing to something as mundane and as ordinary as rubbing your fingers on unvarnished wood has nothing to do with pretention. It just doesn't.

2) I'm sticking by my description, by the way. If you can't see it, you should try playing some of Drake's tunes using his tunings: CGCFCE. More than any other guitarist I can think of, his sound really has the sound of his fingertips. There's a lot of noise in his playing and a lot of it comes from detuning the guitar.


These descriptions are not nonsequitur attempts to be odd or pretentious. They have to do with sitting down and trying to figure out how Drake got his sound.


***

I could give a technical description of why when you detune strings, the string pick up more nonharmonic tones, but many people have indicated that they are not interested in that much technical detail.

take5_d_shorterer wrote:

kalowski! wrote:

Thompson's guitar playing is like pulling nails out of a coffin (Marcus's description). Drake's is like rubbing your fingertips on unvarnished wood.

Red card, T5D. I enjoy reading many of your comments, but this one is so meaningless and, dare I say it, pretentious that I am lost for words.

Think about it.. Nick Drake's guitar playing is like rubbing your fingertips on unvarinished wood... (rough? pointless? risking splinters? dry?)

If you think his playing is rough then say rough, clumsy then say clumsy, precise then say precise.

His singing is like slurping up dribbled milk from a kitchen work surface.

Two comments:

1) If I were to have compared Drake's playing to some grand, abstract metaphor (e.g., something to do with fluffy, celestial clouds--as if there were any other type of clouds) I could see how the comparison would be "pretentious". Comparing his playing to something as mundane and as ordinary as rubbing your fingers on unvarnished wood has nothing to do with pretention. It just doesn't.

2) I'm sticking by my description, by the way. If you can't see it, you should try playing some of Drake's tunes using his tunings: CGCFCE. More than any other guitarist I can think of, his sound really has the sound of his fingertips. There's a lot of noise in his playing and a lot of it comes from detuning the guitar.


These descriptions are not nonsequitur attempts to be odd or pretentious. They have to do with sitting down and trying to figure out how Drake got his sound.


***

I could give a technical description of why when you detune strings, the string pick up more nonharmonic tones, but many people have indicated that they are not interested in that much technical detail.

I'm with you, er, take-d-shorterer (?) Kalowski was just crushing the human spirit. I like that unvarnished wood thing. If we all had to choose from just rough, clumsy or precise then it would be time to jump under a train.

Album: Five Leaves Left

Song: Three Hours