A farewell treat: more 'hoopy' basslines

Although I am hoping to still add a few more 'Top Five' music posts retroactively to my 'Music Week' at the start of this month (my grandiose plans for that were much disrupted by my VPN and Internet connection going on the fritz), this will officially be my final music post before the end of the world on Friday. Well, OK, the penultimate music post; I've got one more lined up.

Today, we have a long planned conclusion to my Great Basslines series, a further roundup of what I have come to call 'hoopy' basslines, where the playing is more varied and intricate, rather than just propelling the song along.

Since this is the last entry in the series, I should perhaps apologise for some of my more egregious oversights in compiling it. I just haven't had time to consider jazz, for example. Or reggae, which is noted for its deceptively tricky lilting basslines. And, while I am aware that there are some outstanding exponents of the bass in the realms of funk and soul, these are not areas of music that I know very much of. I'm sure I probably could have had at least one 'Top Five' just of James Brown numbers, but I'm not famililar enough with his oeuvre (oh, go on, then - have a little blast of William 'Bootsy' Collins playing bass for him on Soul Power, from a great live show in Zaire in 1974). Michael Jackson is perhaps an even more glaring omission: songs like Billie Jean, Thriller, The Way You Make Me Feel and Smooth Criminal are certainly amongst the strongest and most recognisable basslines recorded (apparently it was Louis Johnson who played for him on the Off The Wall and Thriller albums, and Nathan East on Bad - although he is mysteriously not credited in Wikipedia entries on the individual songs). But, while I can't help but like such hooky songs, I never liked MJ; even before all the weirdness, the plastic surgery disasters and the paedophilia allegations, even when he was a little kid, there was something about him that just creeped me out. And that feeling got worse when he relaunched himself as an adult star; I never could stand that high-pitched voice, and his attempt to reinvent himself as a rock'n'roll bad boy - all that swagger and sneer, and the crotch-grabbing - struck me as ludicrous. So - sorry, Jackson fans, it has been a conscious prejudice of mine to leave him out of this series.

Having got that out of the way, here we go....

Another Top Five 'Hoopy' Basslines

5)  This Is Not A Love Song

We had Public Image Ltd in the first of these 'hoopy' selections as well, but you can't have too much of a good thing. I confess, though, I had thought this was still the great Jah Wobble playing. Music Mike pointed out in the comments below that he left the band after their third album, and this, from their fifth, actually has Louis Bernardi on bass. [The video for the album version is here.]

4)  Pusherman

Joseph 'Lucky' Scott is widely considered to be one of the greatest of all bass players, and this Curtis Mayfield track (from his score for the 1972 blaxploitation classic, SuperFly) may be his finest hour.

3)  War Pigs

We've had Black Sabbath in this series before as well, with Paranoid being one of the essential bass 'chuggers'. On this song, though, especially in the introductory section, Terry Butler isn't just the band's engine, but really gets to show off what a technically accomplished bass player he is. [This is a great live performance from 1970. You can listen to the album version instead here.]

Trivia note: There's an interesting coincidence here. Terry Butler is, of course, invariably known by his nickname 'Geezer'; and it just so happens that Jah Wobble chose Memoirs Of A Geezer as the title for his autobiography. And what a great title that is!

2)  Taxman

A special treat for Music Mike, who has been a regular comment-thread sparring partner of mine over the last year or so and was the main inspiration for me getting started on this series... and is also perhaps the world's biggest Beatles fan, and thus regularly complains about my omission of Paul McCartney from this series so far. I've been delaying this post largely for the fun of antagonising him.

And just to antagonise him some more, I kept Macca out of the top spot here. What do we have instead?

1)  The Mayor of Simpleton

I've never been a particular fan of XTC, but they did produce some undeniably hooky tunes, and Colin Moulding's bass playing always commanded attention. A friend reintroduced me to this number a couple of years ago, and it has become a favourite.

Great Drinking Songs (40)

I can't believe I hadn't posted this before. Could have sworn I did years ago. Ah well, better late than never.

Here's The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me); Tom Waits letting his hair down with one of his more humorous numbers - although the imagery is as clever as always ("the newspapers were fooling, and the ashtrays have retired"): the greatest lyricist of our times, and also, as he demonstrates here, a comedy genius.

This is a marvellous 1977 performance from Fernwood Tonight, a short-lived spoof of a talk show on a local TV station that starred Fred Willard and Martin Mull as an inept pair of presenters. These are two major comic talents, but Tom more than holds his own with them.

You can also listen to the original version of the song from his 1976 Small Change album here (one of my very favourite albums of his, one that I played incessantly during my last year at university).

And this is an inspired rambling riff on the number from a Dublin concert in about 1981, later released on the Bounced Checks anthology album.

I love Tom!

Great Love Songs (40)

I think The Wind Knows My Name was my favourite of the Mark E. Nevin songs from the superb Fairground Attraction album First Of A Million Kisses. The theme of restlessness and inconstancy strikes a particular chord with me. I don't think that's been an issue in my love life. Well, not on my side, anyway. Well, not directly; I suppose that if one is unsettled in the rest of one's life, it makes it difficult to form stable and lasting relationships. It's hard for a nomad to make a nest-builder happy, and vice versa.

One of the great songs of farewell, anyway. And so this seems an especially appropriate choice, as I prepare to move on from this blog. And, hopefully, from Beijing. And maybe even from drinking. Really. Lots of changes happening in my life at the moment.

Here's the lovely Eddi Reader singing The Wind Knows My Name. She might be the only singer to get three mentions in this series; I've posted on her previously here and here. [You can listen to the album version here.]

Recommended Posts, October-December 2012

A selection of highlights from my last few months of despatches from The Barstool. This list might end up being a little longer than usual, because the approaching demise of the blog prompted me to post quite prolifically, and to address a number of especially good topics that I'd somehow failed to get around to over the previous six years.

Guided Tour - recommended posts from the 4th quarter of 2012

1)  Blues Week

I began October with a week of diverse musical posts, covering varieties of the blues: we had some Motorhead (a slowed down version of The Ace of Spades), Cream, ZZ Top, some early Fleetwood Mac, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin (some amazing footage of one of their first ever TV appearances), the astonishing blind singer Turley Richards, and piano legend Otis Spann playing with the great guitarist Peter Green.

2)  The desire for oblivion - 5th October 2012

My weekly haiku triggers one of my more serious posts, examining my lifelong history of depressive illness.

3)  If they'd asked me.... - 9th October 2012

I imagine what my responses might have been if The Beijinger magazine had invited me to participate in their new 'A Drink With...' series.

4)  "The Carp" - 11th October 2012

A reminiscence of a favourite restaurant during my first year in Beijing - and its horribly memorable floorshow.

5)  Childhood holidays - 12th October 2012

It's amazing what the aroma of a single malt Scotch can evoke!

6)  A Top Five Guitar Riffs - 13th October 2012

Does exactly what it says on the label. Of course, it's impossible to limit myself to just five once I get started on this topic - I imagine I'll be returning to it at least once or twice here.

7)  Useful words - 16th October 2012

I discover a couple of intriguing concepts from other languages... and wish that we had English equivalents for them.

8)  Stop that! - 25th October 2012

Flirting is BAD, m'kay? At least according to the Anti-Flirt Club - a real (though short-lived) social campaign from the Prohibition Era in America.

9)  Drink and age - 26th October 2012

The passing of another birthday makes me ponder on the spectre of the dreaded Mid-Life Crisis.

10)  Drum & Bass: a Top Five rhythm pairings - 27th October 2012

Can you guess who my top pick was? Moon and Entwistle? Bonham and JPJ?  [Some more Great Basslines here and here.]

11)  Possibly my favourite ever 'Weekly Bon Mot' - 29th October 2012

Not one of my own, alas; but very, very good.

12)  The Rule of Custom - 30th October 2012

I a reminded of why you shouldn't go into restaurants that have no customers in them.

13)  Bitter? Moi? - 5th November 2012

This is one of my own bon mots - combining my favourite subjects: women and drink.

14)  The Top Five Unusual Places I Have Drunk - 7th November 2012

Gosh, I have led an adventurous life! Well, in my younger days, anyway.

15)  The Monmouth connection - 14th November 2012

Reminiscences about how the place where I grew up influenced my burgeoning enthusiasm for music.

16)  A rare regret - 16th November 2012

My return to Hong Kong after a LONG absence revives memories of a not-quite-romance from nearly 20 years ago... and prompts me to recount the story of how I once blagged my way into the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club.

17)  Ginger ale that knows someone! - 19th November 2012

Champagne - I am not a fan. And neither was Hawkeye.

18)  Bad behaviour - 23rd November 2012

I reflect on what it is about hotels that so incites people to misbehave.

19)  "Don't think this has taught me a lesson." - 26th November 2012

I allow myself a bit of a swoon over the inimitable Tallulah Bankhead.

20)  On Anonymity - 27th November 2012

I explain why I opted for anonymity in my blogging - and why I feel it would in general be a better course for anyone who's reviewing bars and restaurants.

21)  Chinese hotel breakfasts - 29th November 2012

One of the most hilariously awful things in the world!

22)  What kind of probe? - 30th November 2012

It is not until I journey into remote south-west China that I discover that Beijing's local beer is sponsoring the Chinese space programme.

23)  Lost songs - 14th December 2012

Two fragments from my brief career as a lyricist for a punk rock band. (I was 17; forgive me!)

24)  The BIG Question - 14th December 2012

I ponder the tricky question of whether a bar can make more money off Chinese or foreign custom, and whether it's possible to combine the two.

25)  A final 'unsuitable role model': Fred Dibnah - 15th December 2012

An affectionate tribute to the affable Bolton steeplejack who was one of the great stars of British television during my childhood - and one of the most admirable and enviable men I've ever encountered.

26)  American bartenders - 17th December 2012

I love 'em to bits, think they're the best in the world, but... their habit of randomly slashing people's bills at the end of the evening discombobulates me more than somewhat.

27)  A Beijing 'Bucket List': 10 things to try before you die - 19th December 2012

I reflect on some of the more frivolous and fun experiences I've had during my decade of living in the Chinese capital.

28)  A more cynical 'bucket list': the things you probably will have done before you leave China - 19th December 2012

Barbed farewell satire on the rather-too-common expat experience in this country.

I'll also be 'cheating' a bit - returning to the blog every once in a while to add further music posts here, and new 'Top Five' posts on other assorted topics here. So, keep your eyes peeled.

Drinking Song leftovers

I just did a post this morning on Froogville about the 'leftover' candidates who hadn't quite made it into my 'Fantasy Girlfriends' series over there.

In similar vein (since these blogs of mine are going to end in less than a fortnight, even if the world isn't), I thought I'd offer you on here today a 'Top Five' never-quite-made-it possibilities for my Great Drinking Songs strand.

A Top Five Drinking Songs

5=)  Hank Williams Jnr. - Whiskey Bent and Hellbound

A special treat for my buddy The British Cowboy, who, after studying law at Vanderbilt University in Nashville a decade ago, has become a huge C&W fan - and keeps on trying to convert me. I am more susceptible than I usually let on to him. [Another good version here, where Hank's duetting with Kid Rock.]

5=)  Van Halen - Take Your Whiskey Home

Women and Children First is my favourite Van Halen album, and this is one of my favourite tracks from it. Here's a fun live performance from a gig in Baltimore in 1980 - but audio only, unfortunately. [You can try the album version here.]

4)  The Doors - Alabama Song

The Brecht/Weill show tune is a classic drinking song, but - despite Jim Morrison's notorious drinking proclivities - it was a quirky choice for a rock band. The Doors' version of it, though, has become one of my favourites. [Although I also have a weakness for Ute Lemper doing this, obviously.]

3)  Sam Cooke - Chain Gang

Not an obvious drinking song choice, perhaps, but I once sang it in the tiny back bar at the Bullingdon Arms in East Oxford, with an impromptu chorus of friends and strangers. I have such happy memories of that, I dream of repeating the experience some day.

2)  Chumbawamba - Tubthumping

I recall there seemed to be a reaction against this song at the time, or shortly afterwards, perhaps because it got rather overplayed for a while, or perhaps because the band's in-your-face style got a bit too uncomfortable for most people. Me, I never tired of it. I think this is one of the best singles of the '90s; though it is also, curiously, one of the less impressive songs from the eponymous album, which I think was my 'album of the decade'.

And what am I saving for the No. 1 spot this time?

1)  John Otway - House of the Rising Sun

Of course, I like The Animals' version too (it is one of the only things I have ever been induced to sing at a Chinese karaoke session), but it is stalwart British pub entertainer John Otway's idiosyncratic interpretation that I have particularly come to love - through having seen the man live more times than I can count; some dozens, certainly, over the space of about 28 years. I've never got to the bottom of how he hit upon the idea of doing it like this, but I imagine that some time early in his career he genuinely stumbled over a lyric and was offered a mocking prompt by someone in the audience. It soon evolved into a necessary centrepiece of his stage show that this song would be delivered as a kind of call-and-response, with facetious questions from the audience interrupting the singer every half-line or so. I have myself once had the privilege of leading this audience interaction, when the great man turned up to play a poorly advertised and thinly attended gig in Toronto while I was living there - and I was the only person in the bar who'd seen him before. Here he is, supported - for once - by a full-scale band (most of the time he performs solo, or with his mate Richard playing the fancier guitar bits); it's from a great concert video shot at London's Astoria theatre (my all-time favourite gig venue, now sadly defunct) - some time in the early Noughties, I believe. [I've just learned the old bugger turned 60 a few months ago. And he's still gigging just about as fast and furiously as he ever did!  Happy Birthday, John!!!!!!]

OK, if you insist, you can have Eric Burdon and The Animals doing it as well (since it is a rather excellent HD video).

Great Love Songs (39)

Mention this morning of the Skatalites reminded me that I first came across this great version of I'm In The Mood For Love on a ska anthology twenty or so years ago, and was instantly smitten with it.

Here's the original recording, by Lord Tanamo and The Skatalites.

And here they are still tearing it up live at Glastonbury in 2003, which is some 38 years after they first recorded it.

Top Five Embarrasing Admissions

I have always maintained that I hated the Eighties musically. It was the decade where I passed through my teens into my early twenties, so it should by rights have been the peak period of my life for exposure to contemporary music. Many people in their forties - especially Americans - seem to have a huge nostalgia thing going for the Eighties these days. But I'd been a precocious brat: I turned on to music early in life, and was already perhaps starting to get a bit blasé about it by my late teens. And the preceding decades seemed to have produced far more worthwhile music: my childhood in the Seventies had seen the exuberance of glam rock and the iconoclasm of punk; the Sixties, which I'd experienced a little vicariously through my parents and my older brother, had seen things like protest folk, the blues revival, psychedelia, and... well, almost everything good that ever happened in rock music, really. And then in the Eighties the music business (re)discovered that there was more money to be made selling records to teenage girls than to teenage boys, so androgynously good-looking male vocalists became the vogue. Somebody thought it was cool that you could use a computer instead of a drummer to lay down the beat. And people started playing keyboards more than guitars. Yep, the Eighties SUCKED.

And yet, and yet, much as I deplored the general trend of the times, I have to admit that in amongst all of that synth-pap and New Romantic bollocks, there were a few really outstanding artists at work, and some fantastic tunes being written. Much as I would like to write the whole decade off as a musical aberration, I do find myself getting sometimes quite wistful about a lot of the stuff we listened to back then - even some of the synthy stuff.

So, here is my shame-faced confession of....

The Top Five Eighties Tracks That Froog Really Likes (Despite Himself!)

5)  Depeche Mode - Master and Servant

These guys epitomised the synthy sound that I hated, but damn, they produced some good songs, particularly on the Some Great Reward album which came out shortly after I started at university. Atheist that I am, I liked Blasphemous Rumours best, but this is unquestionably catchier. And it's hard to resist a song about BDSM (the only other one I'd ever heard was Tom Lehrer's Masochism Tango). [Also quite a good live performance here.]

4)  Thompson Twins - We Are Detective

I don't think I liked anything else this band did, but this was one of the best singles of the decade for me. The warped, witty lyrics, and the odd, lilting, folky feel of the tune - somehow evocative of Viennese café culture (I wonder if they were consciously seeking to conjure reminiscences of The Third Man?) - really made it stand out from the crowd.

3)  Big Pig - Breakaway

Australian Oleh Witer put together this drumming collective towards the end of the Eighties, and their debut album, Bonk!, briefly made quite a splash. Alas, it took them too long to put together a follow-up, and the project fell apart. But they had a really unique sound, and some very solid songs on their first album - and an outstanding vocalist in Sherine Aberaytne. I'm disappointed we haven't heard more from her in the last twenty years. [You should also check out their Devil's Song from the same album: not as catchy, but an even better song.]

2)  The The - Infected

I loved the dark intensity of Matt Johnson's lyrics, and he was one of the few artists of the early Eighties still emphasising guitars over synths (Johnny Marr played with him on a couple of his later albums). His 1986 album of the same name was a strong contender for album of the decade, in my view.

And there's a great live performance of this song here.

But my No. 1 this time, somewhat inescapably (since I was myself unable to escape it throughout my student days: it remained permanently lodged on the jukebox playlists of student bars for at least four or five years after its first release), is....

1)  Soft Cell - Tainted Love

Despite the underlying bounce of the tune, it was hard to credit that this song had started life as an early, unsuccessful Motown single (you can hear that original version by Gloria Jones here). Marc Almond made it completely his own. I'm always surprised to read that his version was released in 1981: I didn't really hear it until a couple of years later. And it wasn't until some years later again that I bought the album, Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret (one of the GREAT album names!); I was pleasantly surprised to find that there was a lot of other good stuff on it - not least Say Hello, Wave Goodbye, which somehow passed me by when it was first out as a single. These days, it's hard to conceive of a song becoming such a huge hit with such a terrible video; but video was very young back then.

PS:  I really wanted to include something by the Kane Gang here, but there's still not that much of them around on YouTube. Here are links to my two favourite songs of theirs, Gun Law and Losersville; but the former has rather dodgy sound quality, and the latter is audio only. Better than nothing.

Girl power! - A Top Five songs by female vocalists

To kick off the advertised 'Music Week' here on The Barstool, here's a varied roundup - possibly compromising my usual macho image??!! - of girly songs that I rather like.

Not a very considered or definitive pick, just an off-the-top-of-my-head (and what I could find on YouTube) selection.

Froog's Top Five Girly Songs

5)  Lisa Loeb - I Do

Ridiculously hooky little song, with the hint of inner toughness and self-assertion that I always look for in my women (I can't stand drippy "I can't live without him" love songs!). And Ms Loeb is quite a compelling character: she has that librarian-sexy thing going on.

4)  Meredith Brooks  -  Bitch

A song that perhaps goes a bit far to the opposite extreme from the soft-and-fluffy/pathetic/can't-get-by-without-a-man image of femininity, but I've always found this sort of sassiness very appealing - even if it can be scary, vexing, and impossible to live with. I wonder if this song got under my skin so much because it came out just after the great break-up of my life (from a gorgeous Aussie academic I later jokingly dubbed 'The Evil One'): there did seem to be rather too much appropriateness in it.

3)  Sheryl Crow - Strong Enough

A similar stance to Bitch, but not so in-your-face, and with a touching overlay of vulnerability: not so much 'I will make your life hell just for the fun of it' as 'I will make your life hell because I'm a bit of an emotional basketcase'. This one is probably even more appropriate to that break-up, but not so contemporary.

I can't resist adding this duet with Stevie Nicks that I just found.

2)  Throwing Muses - Honeychain

I've mentioned a few times before that I'm a big fan of Tanya Donnelly and her subsequent band, Belly; but I wasn't so familiar with her earlier work with Kristin Hersh in Throwing Muses. My mate Ned introduced me to their 1991 album The Real Ramona, and this song really got under my skin somehow. That line Stare holes into the wall I find particularly haunting.

And at the top of this particular heap...

1)  Transvision Vamp  -  I Want Your Love

I believe someone - it might have been Malcolm McLaren - slightly snarkily dubbed Wendy James "the face of the '80s". It was a backhanded compliment because she and her band didn't break big until the late summer of 1988; and sadly prescient, because the band would soon fizzle and die in the '90s. But oh damn, their infectious pop-punk was tremendous FUN for a while, a late high point in what had been a mostly rather musically uninspired decade. And Wendy James might just possibly be the sexiest female singer Britain has ever produced: not just supermodel gorgeous, but brash, ballsy, smart as a whip - and she had a decent voice too. (Elvis Costello wrote a solo album for her, which suggests that I'm not alone in thinking she had some talent.) I remember the first time I heard this, I had just finished at university, and I was walking through London on a gloriously sunny day, the streets almost deserted on a midweek afternoon; suddenly, there was an open window on an upper floor, and someone had cranked up their hi-fi to full volume to blast out this song. "Damn," I thought to myself, "this is, um... bouncy!" And then I saw the video...

Great Love Songs (38)

Some years ago, I stumbled upon in a DVD store here in Beijing The Best of The Old Grey Whistle Test, Volume 3.

I never got around to watching it. Partly, I think, I was distracted by my vexation at never being able to find any of the other volumes of the series. But mostly I was a little afraid of the tsunami of nostalgia that it might unleash in me - I was waiting for a 'special occasion' to revisit this highlight of my 1970s childhood, one of the best TV music shows ever (I've mentioned it on here before; it used to be on BBC2 on Sunday nights, after M.A.S.H.), and to wallow in the melancholy that this was likely to induce.

I finally found such an occasion a couple of months ago - and the selection did not disappoint. Well, there was a noticeable falling off in the standard of the last few entries from the 1980s (although it was nice to see the great comedy band Half Man, Half Biscuit included, with their warped childhood anecdote All I Want For Christmas Is A Dukla Prague Away Kit), but the 1970s stuff was pure gold.

And in amongst this consistently high quality (Steppenwolf, Humble Pie, Supertramp, David Bowie, Jackson Browne, Stealers Wheel, Freddie King, B.B. King, Janis Ian, Joe Jackson, The Jam - gobsmackingly good stuff), the absolute standout - a shivers-down-the-spine revelation for me - was this acoustic performance of the exquisite love song, A Heart Needs A Home. 

Richard and Linda Thompson, I now learn, have been giants of the English folk scene for over 40 years - but they had completely passed me by. I am belatedly quite smitten with Linda; not only does she have a compelling voice, but she is here just radiantly beautiful too (the hippie headscarf notwithstanding). This performance (introduced by the notorious 'Whispering' Bob Harris, an inspiration for John Thomson's Louis Balfour character, the low-talking host of the Jazz Club segment in The Fast Show) is from early in 1975 - a year or two before I started getting into the show, I suppose.

Recommended Posts, July-September 2012

A roundup of the best bits from my summer travels.

Guided Tour - recommended posts from the 3rd quarter of 2012

1)  Time is tight  -  5th July 2012

A great live performance of one of the classic instrumental numbers by Booker T. & the M.G.s.

2)  Hail to the Duck!  -  7th July 2012

A tribute to the great bass guitarist Donald 'Duck' Dunn, who had died at the age of 70 a few weeks earlier.

3)  Mongolian Drinking Song  -  22nd July 2012

Beijing's favourite folk-rockers Hanggai perform a traditional party song which has become a regular highlight of their sets.

4)  It's my party - or is it? -  26th July 2012

A particularly strange dream.

5)  Craft beer?!  -  27th July 2012

My return to England from America triggers some adverse reflections on the beer scene over there.

6)  A culinary 'Unsuitable Role Model'  -  28th July 2012

Fond reminiscences of Keith Floyd, one of the first and greatest of all TV chefs - and an unabashed boozer.

7)  The 3rd Avenue crawl  -  31st July 2012

One of my best nights out during my recent American visit. (A few others are described here and here and here.)

8)  Great Love Songs (33)  -  5th August 2012

Waves of nostalgia brought on by being back in the old home country remind me of The Beautiful South, a band I used to listen to a lot in the '90s. Their Song For Whoever is a typically warped and witty account of how a writer's urge to treat everything as raw material for his work distorts his experience of the world and compromises his relationships. Why do I feel such a connection with this?

9)  Conversions  -  7th August 2012

Some reflections on the difficulties of shifting between different countries and currencies... And the shocking realisation that Britain is now a cheaper place to drink than Beijing (in bars, anyway).

10)  Great Drinking Songs (34)  -  11th August 2012

Well, more of a smoking song, really - Afroman's splendid catalogue song about the hazards of over-indulging in weed, Because I Got High.

11)  Another nail in my heart  -  14th August 2012

Remembering The Carpenter's Arms, one of my favourite pubs from my days living in Oxford in the early '90s; one of the many small pubs in the UK that have closed in the last decade or two.

12)  A pocket full of moonshine  -  15th August 2012

As my return to China draws near, I reflect that erguotou - a particularly rough variety of the native white spirit, produced in Beijing - is NOT one of the things that entices me back. However, I am intrigued to discover the website of a chap who is trying to learn to love Chinese spirits. Rather him than me!

13)  The call of the wild  -  16th August 2012

Another 'Unsuitable Role Model', though really not so unsuitable this time: Les Hiddens, an Australian survival expert who had a superb TV series in the 1990s about how to live off the land in the Outback.

14)  Songs that make me weepy  -  19th August 2012

Some of the music that I find most self-indulgent cathartic when my depressions strike.

15)  The blues make it all seem better  -  31st August 2012

My first couple of weeks back in Beijing had been utterly miserable. But there's nothing like a dose of the blues to perk you up.

16)  Gosh, has it really been FIVE years??!!  -  2nd September 2012

The anniversary of my favourite little bar, 12 Square Metres, is upon us. I celebrate with another dose of The Beautiful South - the rather too appropriate Liars' Bar.

17)  Something new  -  7th September 2012

I discover an excellent new barbecue place down in Shuangjing - and try a couple of dishes I've never had in China before.

18)  Great Love Songs (34)  -  8th September 2012

A serendipitous discovery during my travels was April Smith and The Great Picture Show. Here's their bouncy, saucy little love song, Wow and Flutter.

19)  Our 'theme song'  -  15th September 2012

My 'local' has become a bit of an '80s timewarp just lately: they seem to be constantly playing Twisted Sister's We're Not Going To Take It. Not that I'm complaining. Not at all. It chimes with my present mood very well.

20)  Bon mot for the week  -  17th September 2012

A particularly good one - from Noah Baumbach's great film Kicking and Screaming.

21)  I have often walked down this street before...  -  21st September 2012

The return to familiar Beijing stomping grounds cues some reflection on the territoriality of my life here (strictly a Gulou boy!), and some reminiscences about my early days in the city (when I enjoyed it far more). This, of course, was soon a pretext for a song or two - a pair of favourites from My Fair Lady that I have often been known to sing on the streets of Beijing.

22)  After-love  -  26th September 2012

I am told that the Russians have a single word to describe the feelings that you have for a former lover. I express my scepticism - rightly, as it turns out.

Recommended Posts, April-June 2012

To keep in sync with brother-blog Froogville, where I've just added a similar rundown, here are some of the highlights from The Barstool earlier this year.

Guided Tour - recommended posts from the 2nd quarter of 2012

1)  Great Drinking Songs (32)  -   8th April 2012

Harry McClintock's hobo song Big Rock Candy Mountains, which I remembered fondly but dimly from my distant childhood, and was happy to rediscover a few years ago when the Coen brothers used it in the soundtrack to their Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?

2)  A Top Five Double Whammy - all-nighters and succumbing to slumber  -  13th April 2012

As I near the date for my (possibly final) departure from China, I reflect on some good times past and list those Beijing bars where I have seen the sun come up.... and/or fallen asleep.

3)  Great Love Songs (31)  -  14th April 2012

Hoarse-voiced Norwegian dynamo Ida Maria's infectious shoutalong I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked.

4)  Cocktails in the afternoon!  -  17th April 2012

A private tasting at MaoMaoChong introduces me to some interesting new drink recipes.

5)  Rearranging the deckchairs on the RMS Topicality  -  19th April 2012

In the week of the centenary of the loss of the Titanic, I find myself reflecting on a number of metaphors inspired by the disaster - and their disastrous significance for me.

6)  Haiku Bar Haiku 282  -  20th April 2012

I suffer a case of End of the World blues.

7)  Top Five Things We Miss From JK's Playlist  -  21st April 2012

My favourite bar owner had been back in Oz for 6 months, and down at the bar I found I was starting to miss some of the classic slices of cheese that used to come up particularly often on his iTunes playlist.

8)  Bon mot for the week  -  23rd April 2012

A particularly good one, from Friedrich Nietzsche.

9)  Haiku Bar Haiku 283  -  27th April 2012

Some thoughts on the shortcomings of 'happy hours'.

10)  An extreme 'Unsuitable Role Model'  -  28th April 2012

Perhaps the most unsavoury entrant ever in this series: blathering Glaswegian drunk Rab C. Nesbitt - a fabulous comic creation by writer Ian Pattison and actor Gregor Fisher.

11)  Seasonal drinking  -  1st May 2012

Some cocktail ideas for May Day.

12)  The beauty of statistics  -  3rd May 2012

Where is the highest concentration of bars - per capita, or per square mile - in America? Someone can show you.

13)  Memories of the SARS summer  -  8th May 2012

A long overdue post on my (mostly rather joyous!) recollections of my first summer in Beijing.

14)  A Japanese lesson [Great Love Songs (32)] - 12th May 2012

Reminiscences of my long affection for Queen, and a video of their anthemic singalong (Japanese chorus and all!) Teo Torriatte.

15)  The price issue (AGAIN) - 15th May 2012

A follow-up to this post from a little over a year earlier, decrying the outrageous overcharging we are increasingly being asked to accept in Beijing's bars.

16)  Haiku Bar Haiku 286 - 18th May 2012

On the brink of saying goodbye, I reflect on the handful of bars here that have inspired something like love in me.

17)  Junk food heaven!  -  19th May 2012

I find myself looking forward to some unhealthy eating 'treats' when I get back to the UK.

18)  Taking my leave  -  23rd May 2012

To mark my departure from Beijing after nearly 10 years, I could think of nothing more appropriate than The Wailing Jennys' beautiful a cappella version of The Parting Glass.

19)  Generic expat bars, and why I hate them  -  29th May 2012

A particularly undistinguished new bar opening in the (expat-frequented) Lido area of north-east Beijing leads me into an analysis of what invariably seems to be done badly about this sort of place, and why I could quite happily live without any of them.

20)  Caipirinha!  -  31st May 2012

I celebrate being back in the old country by having cocktails at home - oh, the decadence!

21)  Haiku Bar Haiku 288 - 1st June 2012

The delights of the traditional British 'lock in'.

22)  A song for the Euros - 9th June 2012

I celebrate the kick-off of the European Football Championships by posting a video of Neil Innes' One Thing On Your Mind, a great C&W pastiche about the eternal incompatibility of the sexes. (This post became my discussion thread for chatting about the tournament.)

23)  Does Nanluoguxiang have a future? - 11th June 2012

NO. I predict the inevitable implosion of Beijing's most overhyped, overcrowded bar & shopping street. A great pity - it used to be my favourite place in the city.

24)  A decade of change:

Part 1 - 12th June 2012

Part 2 - 14th June 2012

Part 3 - 19th June 2012

This three-part series on the evolution of the Beijing bar scene during my ten years living here has already been given permanent links in the sidebar.

25)  Another Top Five basslines: getting 'hoopy' - 16th June 2012

Another entrant in my new-ish series on great bass playing, this time focusing on bass parts that are a little more sinuous and sophisticated than my previous roundups of 'hooks' and 'chuggers'.

26)  Last call - 30th June 2012

Semisonic's Closing Time and Tom Waits's I Hope That I Don't Fall In Love With You: two great songs about the poignancy of the bar's closing at the end of the evening - and the danger of romantic entanglements forming at the bar!

Great Love Songs (37)

Today, I am nominating Nina Simone as my 'Fantasy Girlfriend' over on Froogville. It doesn't matter that she was in her thirties before I was even born, and has now been dead for 9 years. Most of these selections have been 'impossible' in one way or another. It's the idea of Nina Simone that I'm in love with.

In addition to the good things included in the Froogville post, here's one of my favourite of her love songs, He Needs Me (which blog-friend JES once informed me was written by one Arthur Hamilton; not one of the more celebrated lyricists, but he was given a flying start in the business when old high school friend Julie London asked him to write her some songs and he came up with Cry Me A River).

This is a great song about 'difficult' love. I'm not comfortable with the suggestions of imbalanced affection, dependence, and self-delusion in it - but these all too commonly are elements of love. I prefer to think of it as suggestive of stoical, calmly optimistic perseverance with a partner who's just a little wayward - or perhaps just a little slow on the uptake, a little slow to realise or acknowledge the depth of the relationship that has formed. It's a complex and beautiful little song, and Nina's rendition of it has always sent shivers down my spine.

Another Top Five Basslines

Time for another selection of songs with great basslines.

This time, I'm going for...

5)  Queen - Dragon Attack

Another One Bites The Dust is, of course, one of the most iconic of all basslines, but... well, it's a bit too obvious a choice for me. And like John Deacon's other hook-monster, Under Pressure, it's been rather done to death: covered, sampled, parodied ad infinitum. So, instead, here's his third greatest bassline (like Another One Bites The Dust, also from The Game - the last of their really great albums). It doesn't really come to the fore in this clip from a show they did in Montreal in 1981, but it's superb sound and picture quality - and Brian and Freddie are fairly ripping it up (you can try the album version here, if you like).

4)  George Baker Selection - Little Green Bag

Despite the huge exposure this song got 20 years ago through its use by Quentin Tarantino over the opening credits of Reservoir Dogs, Dutch musician 'George Baker' (real name Johannes Bouwens) still seems to have a rather low profile online, and I haven't been able to find out who was playing the bass here. I would be grateful if anyone could tell me.

3)  Fleetwood Mac - The Chain

Of course, it's the incredibly hooky bit in the extended instrumental second half that we really love, possibly John McVie's finest hour - although he's had many. For me, as for many other Brits of my vintage, this is indelibly associated with BBC2's Grand Prix programme which showed highlights of the F1 races on a Sunday evening, and used this instrumental passage (I didn't realise it was part of a song until years later) as its theme music. I was an avid fan during my teens in the late '70s and early '80s. That was the period when the manic and touchingly inept veteran commentator Murray Walker was teamed with the extravagantly laidback former world champion James Hunt - one of the great accidental comedy double-acts in TV history.

And just for good measure, here's that BBC intro...

2)  Thomas Dolby - The Ability To Swing

It was Terry Jackson who played bass with The Lost Toy People, the band that Dolby put together for his superb 1988 album Aliens Ate My Buick! (one of my favourite silly album titles!), but I'm not sure who's accompanying him at this recent gig in Denver. (You can check out the album version here.)

And in the Number 1 spot this time we have....

1)  The Cure - Close To Me

Simon Gallup featured in the first instalment of this irregular series, and may well crop up again once or twice. His playing is probably the main thing I like about the band. (And this is one of my favourite video concepts, too.)

Peter Green Is GOD

I've written on here once before of Peter Green, the exquisite guitarist who originally founded Fleetwood Mac back in 1967 as a blues band. He is, I think, my favourite blues player (well, mine and B.B. King's!). As well as an utterly gorgeous guitar tone, he's got an engagingly mellow and laidback stage persona, and a very pleasant voice. (There are a lot of online spats about whether he's a better blues player than Clapton. I would say YES, not even close; but if it were in danger of being a tie on their playing, Peter should prevail for his vastly superior voice.) In that previous post, I enrolled his rendition of Need Your Love So Bad into my 'Great Love Songs' series.

To continue my 'Blues Week' here on The Barstool, here are a few more choice cuts from his brief '60s heyday (although, after a long hiatus with mental health issues, he's been playing in public more frequently again over the past couple of decades).

First up, here's Oh Well, musically one of their 'heavier' numbers, but lyrically quite lighthearted - and it's distinguished by a monster riff.

Here's the more brooding and experimental Green Manalishi (which seems to have become better known through a cover by Judas Priest, although I, of course, think that Peter's original is much better).

And how could I omit the classic Black Magic Woman (which seems to have become better known through Santana's cover of it, though I think Peter's original is vastly better)?

And finally, here's one of my very favourite of those early Fleetwood Mac numbers, a cover of the Elmore James song Homework, in which their other guitarist, Jeremy Spencer, a wizard with the slide, takes over lead and vocal duties. I first heard them do this on their strangely obscure (it's not mentioned in the Wikipedia discography!) double album, Fleetwood Mac in Chicago. They were in America in the winter of '68/'69, and took some time out at the start of January to drop in at the celebrated studio of the soon-to-fold Chess Records. The visit became a week-long residency where they jammed with the aristocracy of the local blues scene. Some of the resulting - wonderfully raw sounding - recordings were later put together to create the best blues album I own.
[This is a rather freaky video, from a French TV show. Mick Fleetwood is shirtless throughout, though the cameraman coyly avoids him. The audience of groovy French teenagers all look as if they've come from a model agency. And, oh my god, '60s fashions! And '60s dancing!!!]