Seventh Heaven

ONLY ONES CELEBRATION: PART THREE
Live: The Only Ones
AntiKnock Club, Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan



This is the Big One. My friend and I are both celebrating our 50th (ulp!) birthdays and there's no place we would rather be than Tokyo's punky AntiKnock Club.

That's because our all-time faves The Only Ones are on their second visit to Japan since they gave their fans the shock of their lives by reforming two years ago.

The guys get a delirious reception from the crowd and kick off with a rocking version of The Immortal Story. Front man Peter Perrett looks every inch a star in black suit and red shirt. Guitar hero John Perry - judging by the expression on his face - is already in seventh heaven. Mike Kellie can't wait to bang the bejasus out of his kit and Alan Mair rapidly puts his mark on the proceedings with a tasty bass solo.



After that we get exactly what we came for: one timeless classic after another reminding us why we love this band...and why we've been missing them like hell for the last twenty-odd years.

Those familiar faces may be more lined, the waistlines a tad broader, but the music hasn't aged a day. The band storm through Program, In Betweens, It's the Truth, Flaming Torch, As My Wife Says, Miles from Nowhere and they sound as fresh and vital as the day they were released.



This was no exercise in mushy nostalgia. If the oldies sound great, the newies sound bleeding AWESOME. Black Operations, Till it Hurts (? - sorry if I've got the title wrong, chaps), Louder than Words are bona-fide Perrett classics. If the band can do justice to them in the studio (and why wouldn't they, the four of them seem to be on such a high right now) I predict the forthcoming LP is gonna be FUCKIN' MEGA.

The lads proceed to bring the house down with a barnstorming Me and My Shadow which features Perry's milky slide guitar and a sweeet drum solo just to underline the fact that Mike Kellie – he of the permanently upturned white collar - is one of Britain's most rock solid rhythm gods.



Naturally they play Another Girl Another Planet – if they didn't I'm sure a riot would swiftly ensue. Even if you've never heard of The Only Ones you probably know this one, and the fresh-faced Japanese fans who form the majority of the audience – most of them young enough to be my kids - whoop with appreciation.

Perrett has a recurring tuning problem with his rented Les Paul Junior which only adds to the loose, celebratory air and gives the crowd a chance to banter with their heroes. He asks for requests and a collective cry comes up for Why Don't You Kill Yourself? which seems to be everyone's favorite track from Baby's Got a Gun. There's one amusing moment when Mr. Kellie counts in before Mr. Perry is quite ready and is playfully rebuked, causing laughs all round.

By now a touching bond between band and audience has developed, and the room is full of love. Long-time fans - grown men for chrissakes - are yelling “We love you, guys!” and Peter graciously replies “We love you too! We wouldn't be up here if it weren't for you.“



It doesn't feel the least bit corny or fake. In fact it's as real as it gets, this connection between an all-too human band of outlaws which has returned from the edge of oblivion and an audience which never really went away and ecstatically receives its heroes with open arms.

It's like each of us – musician and fan alike – is having the same realization: "We made it, didn't we? After all these years we're still standing. Christ, who'd-a thought it?"



There are tears of joy in my eyes and I'm telling my mate this is the best gig of my life. Well, maybe it is and maybe it isn't and who the hell cares? All that counts is that this is what life is about: art and love and friendship and survival and singing along with your favorite band. Right?

The Only Ones perform two encores and leave us with the triple whammy of The Beast, The Whole of the Law and Lovers of Today. It's been a superb show and I have a huge smile on my face as I leave AntiKnock and breathe in the balmy Tokyo air. The Only Ones. Blimey. I wish they'd never gone away, but it sure is good to have 'em back.



Photo Set HERE

Another Planet

ONLY ONES CELEBRATION: PART TWO
The Fan



Miki Says...

I feel that The Only Ones can say many things to young Japanese today. For example their song Another Girl, Another Planet.

Sometimes I feel I am a girl on another planet. That's this crazy planet called Japan where life is so strange. I wonder if The Only Ones can feel they are on another planet here in Tokyo tonight. Actually, one of my friends is an alien.

The Only Ones are an older band but I guess they are kinda timeless with cool, edgy but gentle image. I love many UK bands but for me The Only Ones are the best.

Their songs can teach us many things, like there are many kinds of love and love has many sides. We shouldn't judge others too harshly. You know, that's the whole of the law.

They've had many trials and tribulations, so I want to tell Peter, Mike, Alan and John please "kiotsukete" (take care). Oh and come back to Japan soon.

Shine On

ONLY ONES CELEBRATION: PART ONE

The Only Ones (Rock)

LP: The Only Ones (1978)



When The Only Ones emerged in 1978 with one of the great debut LPs in British rock - and a name which showed they had cojones in spades - stardom seemed a foregone conclusion.

Great songs, superb musicianship, a brilliant live act uniformly adored by the music press. What could possibly go wrong?

But only three years later it was all over. Mired in drug addiction and with a lead singer bizarrely on the run from an attempted murder rap on their final US tour, The Only Ones imploded.

I was a rabid fan from the very start, buying every release and following their live act around the UK. One highlight was the legendary Leeds Futurama festival, where they shared a star-studded bill with Joy Division, The Fall, Public Image Ltd and other post-punk luminaries. The Only Ones were supposed to come on before Hawkwind that night, but they got held up on the way to the gig and ended up topping the bill.

Though they were lumped in with the new wave vanguard, the band were too musically literate - not to mention long in the tooth - to be punks. Rather they were sophisticated guitar rockers whose sound embraced all flavors of 50s and 60s rock.



In Peter Perrett they possessed a gifted, idiosyncratic songwriter who seemed destined to become a leading figure in British rock. An androgynous Dylan obsessive with a quasi-hippy fashion sense, Perrett sang in a narcotic drawl which perfectly matched his tales of tragic dissociation.

In John Perry they boasted one of the great unsung guitar heroes. A portly, cricket-loving axe genius who wore an expression of semi-stoned indifference, Perry was a guitarist's guitarist, effortlessly unleashing one awesome lick after another on his trademark white Stratocaster.

Drummer Mike Kellie and bassist Alan Mair were 60s renegades who had seen it all with progressive rockers Spooky Tooth (Kellie) and “The Scottish Beatles” The Beatstalkers (Mair). Kellie was a commanding and musical drummer, Mair a solid and inventive bassist. He was also, as it happened, no slouch behind a mixing desk.

So how could a band so obviously steeped in talent fail to attain the success which seemed their birthright?

It was partly because they signed with corporate monsters CBS, Perrett reportedly being keen to share a label with his idol Bob Dylan. But The Only Ones were far too wayward to accommodate the demands of a major. Their constant stylistic variation, anti-image, aloof stage persona and Perrett's unusually fey vocal style didn't exactly make them obvious chart toppers. Tragically they spurned the advances of Island Records, whose maverick style would have suited them better.

And then there was the dope.

Three-quarters of the band were unapologetic drug fiends whose interviews were loaded with references to smack and marijuana. Their eponymous debut stands as one of the great substance-driven albums in rock, packed with drug-inspired ballads of elegantly-wasted dissolution.



It kicks off with the aching love song The Whole of the Law. Taking its title from dark magus Aleister Crowley's foreboding dictum “Do what thou wilt, that shall be the whole of the law,” the opener sets the tone for the album's romantic fatalism. With superbly restrained guitar flourishes from Perry, it's a stunning beginning and a worthy curtain-raiser to...

"The hit single that never was.”
Perrett's stupendous Another Girl Another Planet - the band's most celebrated creation - seems to equate love with addiction until you realize the “girl” is actually heroin itself: “Space travel's in my blood/There ain't nothing I can do about it.” The parting line, “Another planet is holding you down” suggests escape is futile.

The greatness of Another Girl demanded nothing less than superlative musicianship, and as usual the band rise to the occasion, especially John Perry, whose legendary guitar solo is only one of his many impressive moments on this record.

If an obbligato should be part and parcel of a song, emerging organically from its spiritual center, Perry's effort is a case in point as he comments on the lyric's general sense of elevation and transcendence. Admirably tasteful and accomplished, it's a jaw-dropping effort.

Throughout The Only Ones, love is always on the verge of collapse, threatened by dissolution, addiction, departure. The protagonist of Breaking Down describes mental anguish and the hand of fate closing in: “People keep away from me/Guess there's something wrong with me/I can't do you no good/I always thought I could.”

The song's jazzy break illustrates how The Only Ones were musically miles ahead of their punky peers. Here as on every other song, Mike Kellie's drums are fluid and articulate, his tom-toms characteristically punctuating the stereo spectrum in effective style.



After that the carousing City of Fun celebrates city madness with “people drowning in a sea of life,” from which there's “only one way out.” And what do you think that might be? A haze of narcotic escapism? Perry's frantic guitar adds to the general sense of life on the edge.

Creature of Doom begins with a comparative feeling of optimism: “I know something that you don't know/It's our destiny /You and me could conquer the world.” But with its talk of epitaphs and final straws there's always the feeling that romantic debilitation is around the corner, redeemable only through some kind of unholy co-dependency.

So it is that It's the Truth describes the stunted communication between a pair of heroin-addicted lovers. “Something's been going wrong/I'm all fixed up and I don't know what's going on/I gotta talk to you...," but then “It's the last time I'm ever going to.” Again the romanticism of the junkie aesthete: maybe I never appreciated you and we're both fucked-up, but this whole stupid thing means everything to me.

Language Problem contains some of Perrett's most twisted lines: “My parents told me that love don't exist just for pleasure/So I guess I'll throw in some pain for good measure.” If there's a moral lesson, it's that drugs lead to a debilitating codependency: “Taking drugs is one thing we got in common/It helps to overcome the language problem/And we really enjoy the damage.” Having said that, in typical Perret style there's always a healthy dose of black humor in evidence.

If I have a favorite track on The Only Ones it just might be No Peace for the Wicked. With its sense of weary isolation and its self-mocking lyric, after all these years it remains one of my personal theme songs.

I don't know how Perrett manages to fit lines like “Why do I go through these deep emotional traumas/Why can't I be like I always wanted to be, carefree?” into a pop song, but he does so in a way that would make Syd Barrett proud. The track features an heartbreaking guitar solo from Perry before Perrett confides: “I'm in love with extreme mental torture,” a declaration of lovelorn masochism which will appeal to beautiful losers the world over even as it alienates those of a more pragmatic disposition.

With its opening declaration: “I used to dream of this/I'd lay awake at night imagining this," the album's closing track, The Immortal Story deals with the scary prospect of finally possessing the object of one's affections: “When dreams become reality that's living death can't you see?“ In its recognition that the best laid plans sometimes go awry, the song unconsciously foreshadows the demise of The Only Ones' quest for fame and glory. Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.

Scandalously ignored by the record-buying pubic - it only reached number 56 in the UK album charts - after 30 odd years this bona fide classic remains one of my favorite LPs. That's probably because I can still detect echoes of my past - my aspirations, friendships and romantic tragedies - in each exquisite moment. It takes me back to a time when each musical experience mattered and seemed loaded with meaning and discovery.

Fans and admirers have long lamented the fact that a band blessed with an abundance of musical and songwriting talent never achieved the success that seemed theirs for the taking. But it's clear now that the seeds of The Only Ones' artistic collapse were evident in their earliest recordings. The band's downfall serves as a cautionary reminder to those who would confuse druggy excess with artistic expression.



For one brief moment, The Only Ones' debut shone brightly and gave us 35 minutes of perfect, twisted pop. Describing the search for love and meaning in a nether world of narcotic romanticism, it's an album of intelligence, wit and emotional honesty which also happens to rock like a mutha.

And thirty years later it continues to shine on, a timeless jewel which only improves with age. Not to put too fine a point on it, it's a fucking masterpiece. And you know there's a million frustrated rockers who would give their right arm to leave behind a legacy like that, me included.

Eco-Mystics

Flaming Lips (Existential Pop)
LP: Embryonic (Warner Bros, 2009)



The more I learn, the more I don't know. Except that a little learning is a dangerous thing.

But if I'm sure of anything, it's that at this stage in their career the Flaming Lips have nothing to prove to anyone.

Though not a huge commercial success, their hypnotic, experimental pop has justifiably earned them critical praise and The Soft Bulletin stands as the last truly great experimental pop record of the twentieth century.

It can't have been easy following up that masterstroke. So wrapped up is Flaming Lips' identity in that blissful, self-defining tour de force, they probably felt they had to run quite a ways to find themselves. So after Bulletin we got the flawed genius of Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002) and the meandering cul-de-sac of At War With the Mystics (2008).



The band have heralded their new double album Embryonic as their White Album. Like that fab landmark it's a great single LP padded with self-indulgent – though not necessarily unlistenable - filler. And like their own Yoshimi it's a half-realized concept album stuffed with free-form prog-rock jams and wig-out fantasies.

It's also packed with empathy, love of life and a philosophy which is decidedly 21st century in its naturalistic world view. A psychedelic jam session for hippies, brights and eco-warriors, if you will.

Best of all, Embryonic is a head-spinning return to form.

This will come as a mighty relief to those of us who were beginning to fear that the steady decline of the band's recorded output since the astral heights of Bulletin and the better bits of Yoshimi was irreversible.

Happily nothing could be further from the truth. Like life itself, where chaos and uncertainty periodically give way to moments of clarity, Embryonic's random sense impressions somehow organize themselves into a compelling philosophy. This feeling is reflected track-by-track throughout this infuriatingly uneven and brilliant album.



Opener Convinced of the Hex is a case in point as the band throw caution to the wind and dump anything and everything into the mix. Nothing seems too far out to make the final cut, yet Hex sets out the central thesis of the album in no uncertain terms: "That's the difference between us / I believe in nothing / And you're convinced of the hex." I know the feeling.

Just as the best science fiction leads to the big questions, The Sparrow Looks Up At The Machine grapples with the meaning of experience. A dead ringer for Yoshimi's sublime Are You a Hypnotist, the song presses home Wayne Coyne's obtuse secularism: "What does it mean/To dream what you dream / To believe what you've seen? / Why do we feel 
/ To try to find real / Underneath a machine?"

Then there's the eco-grunge of See the Leaves, one of the record's key statements. Bereft of hope and love, the song's conflicted protagonist refuses to believe life has no end as she sees the natural world decomposing and re-emerging around her.

The title of Embryonic reminds us that humankind is still in its infancy and has barely started to fulfil its emotional potential. It also makes perfect sense when you realize how many of these tracks seem barely developed from their rudimentary beginnings. The magical faux-naivete of If - multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd invoking the ghost of Skip Spence – feels like an audio verite moment that went wonderfully right:

"People are evil, it's true
But on the other side, they can be gentle too
If they decide
But they don't always decide
We live on the impulses

Love is powerful
But not as powerful as evil."

But while inspired improvisation preserves the freshness of the moment, it occasionally leads to throwaway ditties like Scorpio Sword, which sounds like Syd Barrett on a bad day. And half-realized jams like Powerless bring to mind the Lips' origins as a spaced out head band.



Having said that, this is the Flaming Lips, so hope is never far away. Post-Nietzschean popsters par excellence, the fearless freaks continue to ask the big questions, attempting to reconcile the unimaginable vastness of our inner and outer worlds with the miracle of existence.

Like previous Flaming Lips records, Embryonic is filled with references to planets, nature, technology and philosophical riddles. Its theme will be familiar to Lips fans: the struggle of the modern human to negotiate the impasse between magic and mathematics in order to overcome evil and approach a transcendent reality. Thus Sagittarius Silver Announcement spookily exhumes the ghost of Ian Curtis to announce "We can be free / We can be like they are / We can be one with the silver machine."

In typical Wayne Coyne style, The Ego's Last Stand celebrates the mystery of a sunbeam, while Worm Mountain invokes the wonder of creation in its litany of frogs, bears and mountains.

Insisting that our cosmic solitude be seen as a source of wonder, Flaming Lips stand with the avatars of the new naturalism as they stand up to the challenge facing a post-religious world: to find meaning in a godless universe while avoiding the pitfalls of ennui and nihilism.

We can do this, they suggest, by immersing ourselves in a kind of serene eco-mysticism, good old-fashioned love and peace, and a healthy dose of shit-kicking rock 'n' roll. They're all part of the same thing, and if you've ever held a flower in your hand, beheld a sunrise, or heard a Flaming Lips record, I have a feeling you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.

Listen: See The Leaves

Watch: I Can Be a Frog

Love and loss

Flamenco performers
El Arenal
Sevilla, Spain

I'm on a quest for flamenco in Sevilla, the nominal home of Spain's earthy, self-defining art form.

Settling into my seat with a bottle of rioja, I fear I might be letting myself in for a touristy version of the flamenco experience. But to my relief most of the crowd seem to be Spanish. Hopefully that's a good sign.

There are two guitarists, three singers and four dancers who over the next two hours offer up a concentrated exposition of flamencology. If it feels a tad diluted, it's an experience unlike any you'll encounter anyplace else.

As the musicians ignite a roaring cantando of sadness and resilience, we are immediately plunged into the never-ending romantic struggle between man and woman, the human drama which elates, frustrates and gives meaning to our existence.

Though life contains suffering, it is indeed better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. The beauty and the ecstasy make it all worthwhile and enable us to bear anything.

A handsome and rather intimidating woman takes to the stage and proceeds to offer a dance filled with desperate passion. She brings the crowd to its feet. As she takes her bow, the perspiration oozing between her impressive breasts is one of the most erotic sights I've ever seen.

The following male dancer is sensational.

Astonishingly, he is a dead ringer for footballer David Beckham, and I notice that the ladies in the audience can't take their eyes off his tight Spanish bum. As he stamps and flexes like a coiled spring, the passionate tension he communicates is almost too much for them.

As I leave El Arenal I wonder to myself, where is the heart of flamenco? Though I've enjoyed an entertaining show tonight, and on my wanderings heard the odd golpe and rasgueado reverberating through the ancient streets, it hasn't been as easy to track down real flamenco in Sevilla as I'd thought.

I expected, perhaps naively, to find it in the winding streets, in the bodegas and cobble stones of this ancient town.

Maybe it doesn't exist any more, maybe it's become diluted and commodified by tourism and hypermodernity.

Or perhaps it's something that's too precious to give away.

Pleasantly Woozy

Cante Flamenco
El Cairo,
Sevilla, Spain

I'm propping up the bar at El Cairo, a Sevillan pub I've taken a liking to. It's frequented mainly by older types and serves up delicious fish soup, tortillas sevillianas and a house rioja which goes down mighty easy. Ahem...rather too easy, truth be told.

I'm starting to feel pleasantly woozy when a couple of Spanish geezers down the way suddenly break into song.

You're never far away from music in Sevilla and its bar culture is the perfect environment for a bunch of old codgers to let fly. Their spontaneous crescendo of cante flamenco libre leaves the two viejas who have been tolerating my pidgin Spanish beaming with delight.

The barman seizes the moment to erupt into a Spanish rendition of Herb Alpert's This Guy's in Love with You, proving that cheese is universal and goes as well with rioja and tapas as it does with ale and pickled onions.

Uno tinto mas por favor!

Dance of Death

The Music of the Bulls
Sevilla, Spain

As I take my seat in the arena I notice I am situated directly opposite the bandstand.

An excited international crowd is eating snacks, drinking beer and chattering in Spanish, Italian and German. A chorus of trumpets plays popular tunes and heady Sevillan fanfares.

But this is no concerto, opera or pantomime.

It's the music of the bulls. A dance of death.

Beneath me, somewhere in the bowels of the arena, I hear the bulls bellowing. Their hoarse, brutish roar betokens a bloody, inescapable fate, and a lump rises in my throat.

The orchestra's farty noodlings lend an inappropriately comical air to the grisly proceedings which are about to unfold.

As the music builds to a crescendo, I recognize the tune: Another Day in Paradise.

A bejeweled matador parades around the ring then stops directly in front of me. Unspeakably handsome, he seems to belong to a different time. Proudly addressing himself to family members seated behind me, he announces, "I will kill this bull in tribute to the mother I recently lost."

With the heady combination of lights, crowd and vino tinto, it's a surreal, startling moment straight out of Hemingway.

Suddenly a mighty roar goes up as a blurry black mass explodes into the ring.

It's a fearsome, majestic sight, a primal force totally in accord with its nature. In its animal purity the bull is the moral superior of those who would despatch it on this balmy Spanish evening.

I am conflicted about my presence. My vegetarian friends would choke on their tofu burgers and disown me forthwith if they could see me now.

But nothing on earth can alter the fact that six bulls will meet their end in the ring tonight.

The trumpets play a few staccato bursts which signal the entrance of the picadors. They harry and prick the bull in order to weaken it. Again the flatulent horns before two bandilleros pirourette around the giant beast before spearing him with arrows.

Finally it's man against beast as toro and toreador perform an appalling ballet. The bull is tiring and heaving as dark rivulets of blood course over its huge shoulders and down its flanks. I feel shocked yet transfixed, removed yet somehow culpable.

As the matador makes his final assault - brave, audacious, narcissistic - he grievously mistimes. Not once, not twice, but thrice must he deal the final blow. A chorus of boos and whistles go up from the crowd until finally the animal is slaughtered. The effect is one of undignified bathos.

The bull takes it final bow as its carcass is unceremoniously hauled out of the arena by a team of horses, leaving blood and dust in its wake. Once more the sound of trumpets fills the air as the matador takes his bows and receives the acclaim of the crowd.

The bullring is meticulously raked and manicured. Then the orchestra strikes up a noble fanfare to announce the next attraction.