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And the worm, having had yesterday off, has to work twice as hard today to make up the hours. So here's his first selection, one of Prince's early hits, from the album “1999” (seems such a long time ago now, doesn't it?) and “Little red Corvette”.

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And the second selection the worm would like to point you to today is a great hit from ex-Eagle, Glenn Frey, which indeed featured in the TV series “Miami Vice”: it's “Smuggler's blues”.

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Time to again buy your tickets and take a perilous journey into the deep, dark and twisted depths of my musical taste! Yeah, more weird sh*t I like: stuff that normally wouldn't be featured here as it's kind of outside the spectrum of the music I would confess to listening to, but good nevertheless. Try these for size!

As we're a few days short of Halloween, where else to start but with the weirdest soundtrack of them all, Halloween-themed although it's a Christmas story? The residents of Halloweentown celebrate the season that scares as they sing “This is Halloween.” Was that a trick of the light, or did something just move there in the darkness?


Great song from the tail-end of the sixties, this is Peter Sarstedt, with a song always recognised by its distinctive accordion intro: “Where do you go to my lovely”.


The enigmatic Christie, with “Yellow river”.


The great Judy Collins, with one of her big hits, “Both sides now”.


And just for the hell of it, here are the gang from “Spitting Image”, with a lampoon of that awful “Birdie dance”, this is called “The chicken song”! Take note of the mad lyric!


Okay, those of you who have survived the trip (there were no guarantees: please check the back of your ticket), the exit is here --- careful now, you'll be a bit woozy, that's it, slowly does it --- and we hope to see you again real soon, y'hear?

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Karmacode --- Lacuna Coil --- 2005 (Century Media)


Tell you what, those Italians sure know how to rock! This is Lacuna Coil's fourth album, with a mixture of European and Middle Eastern flavours, the latter immediately apparent from the opener, “Fragile”, which rocks along at a good pace with both a double-vocal (male and female) and a double guitar attack. Some nice synthy strings help the song along. Second track “To the edge” (is there a hidden allegiance to Yes here? Albums “Fragile” and “Close to the edge”... hmm) is another heavy track, with vocals initially by Cristina Scabbia, then joined by her vocal partner Andrea Ferro, while the two guys on guitar --- Marco Biazzi and Cristiano Migliore --- let rip. “Our truth” has the same sort of arabic chants that were in the opener, but sounds essentially similar to the previous track.

“Within me” at least breaks up the heavy, faster tracks with a nice mellow ballad, Cristina taking the lead on this one and the beat a nice, swaying sort of waltzy one. This track proves that the guitarists can take it down a few notches when required, that they're not just mad axemen, and the other Marco, Zelati, on bass and keyboards, adds some nice touches on the keys. Tall order that, to play both bass and keyboards, but he manages it well. Not so sure how he'd manage live though.

Back to the heavy tracks then for “Devoted”, this time Andrea taking vocals first, then joined by Cristina, and the guys are off hammering those guitars again. “You create”, meanwhile, is an interesting track, basically Cristina chanting behind an arabic-sounding guitar melody. It's a short track, just over one and a half minutes, with at the end a spoken part by Andrea, and the melody and chant continue into “What I see”, while “Closer” starts out with a funky bass line then pulls in some mad synthesisers, with a nice heavy beat and some great vocals by both the singers.

“Without fear” is a nice change, sort of mid-paced and very catchy with some nice vocals (in what I think is in her native Italian) from Cristina and lush keyboards from Marco Zelati. The album closes on a rather good cover of Depeche Mode's “Enjoy the silence”, which has become their biggest hit. Not too surprisingly I guess: everyone knows the song, just a pity Lacuna Coil are going to be known outside their own fanbase for just this one cover. Nice to hear a new-wave song get the heavy rock treatment, even so.

A lot of this album is very similar, which is a situation I'm finding more and more with bands of this genre. However there is a lot to recommend it, and if you like this sort of dramatic/progressive hard rock, then you're likely to enjoy “Karmacode”. Whether or not it's typical of their output I have to admit I don't know, as this is the first, and so far only one of their albums I've sampled to date.

TRACKLISTING

1. Fragile
2. To the edge
3. Our truth
4. Within me
5. Devoted
6. You create
7. What I see
8. Fragments of faith
9. Closer
10. In visible light
11. The game
12. Without fear
13. Enjoy the silence

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It's Friday and the worm wants to ROCK! Just as well those wild-eyed boys who had been away are back, huh? Better get down to Dinos...

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Random Track of the Day
Friday, October 28 2011
If the worm can rock, so can the random-o-meter! One of my very favourite bands today, cruelly underappreciated in my opinion, a band called Ten, with a track from their album “The name of the rose”.

Don't cry --- Ten --- from "The name of the rose" on Now & Then


Great vocal melodies as ever, Gary Hughes in great form and some truly killer AOR stuff on “Don't cry”, from their second album, released in 1996. As I say, a band who deserve far more recognition than they've got to date. Check out their catalogue of nine albums for more.

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Evenin' all. Inspector Quaver 'ere, with rather h-exciting news. We 'ave now captured, tried an' prosecuted our first case under the new h-Offences h-Against Decency and Taste Act 2009, subsection 3(a), to wit: Crimes h-Against Music. As you will all be aware, the filming of court procedure is prohibited in the h-United Kingdom, unlike h-elsewhere --- I believe it may 'ave been Mister David Bowie who remarked, “This is not h-America” --- and indeed it is not. So we are h-unable to record by video or take photographs of the actual trial.

'Owever, a case such as this is bound to make all the local rags, as you can see from the front pages from tomorrow's papers, shown below.

THE CASE OF THE SOAP SINGLE, AKA ANYONE CAN FALL IN LOVE, APPARENTLY.
CASEFILE: SCAMTF20111028/MP/FQ/444-FTE95

Anyone can fall in love --- Anita Dobson --- 1986 (BBC Records)





'Aving successfully prosecuted our first case, the lads an' me are now off to celebrate with a few swift bitters down the Dog an' Hound --- strictly off-duty of course! We are in the process of making further arrests, and when those cases come to court you can be sure you will read about them.

For now, a dangerous felon is be'ind bars, and the world is, I fancy, just a little bit safer tonight. No need to thank us, just doin' our jobs.

Until then, good night all, and remember, crime never sleeps, nor does the Met!

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Random Track of the Day
Saturday, October 29 2011
More rockin' today from the random-o-meter, this time from the unflappable Tom Petty, and a track from his most recent commercial success.

Into the great wide open --- Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers --- from "Into the great wide open" on MCA


I was never a massive fan of Tom Petty. I didn't --- and don't --- dislike him, I just was never that much bothered with him. I did enjoy “Full moon fever”, for the most part, which was his first real “chart” album, with singles galore, so when this was released I bought it. I find it more commercial than “FMF”, a lot less of the rock and a lot more of the pop side. This is the title track.

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Okay then, time to strap on your six-guns, tilt forward your hat in a menacing way, chomp down on that cee-gar (but I don't smoke!) and mosey on down to the Last Chance Saloon, to check out another album in my collection that really did not impress me on first or subsequent listens, and which I have filed away until now.

Personally, I feel it was a tragedy when the late Ronnie James Dio was fired from Black Sabbath. I like the Ozzy-era albums, but RJD really added a sense of majesty and wonder to the catalogue, bringing his own style of fantasy, epic songs, costume and great lyrics to a band which had, up to then, been pretty mired in a kind of ever-decreasing circle of similar black metal music. Which is not to say that I didn't like the previous albums --- “Vol 4” is a great album, and I love “Sabbath bloody Sabbath”, and of course there's the excellent “Master of reality”, not to mention “Paranoid”, but to me Sabs were stuck in something of a rut until Ronnie came along, and I felt he, in the parlance of TV and the movies, “revitalised the franchise”.

So I was sad to see him go, even though he would later make a triumphant return for one album nine years later. Sadder though was I to hear that his replacement would be Ian Gillan! Now, I'm a Purple fan, though not a big one, but I never liked anything Gillan put out with his own band, and his snotty claim on joining, at the second asking, mind you, Black Sabbath, that they should not be described as a heavy metal band, was a real slap in the teeth to their longtime fans (like me), in addition to being, well, how can I put this? Insane? Sabs not metal? You might as well say Maiden weren't metal!

So, the stage was set and the battlelines were drawn, and I was in a frame of mind, not surprisingly, to hate the new album, which turned out, as it happens, to be the only one Gillan did with Sabbath. I was not disappointed. Or I was, depending on your viewpoint. Essentially, I felt that Gillan had done as I had expected and feared, and ruined one of the godfathers of metal. I hated the album.

Born again --- Black Sabbath --- 1983 (Vertigo)


So, was I right to hate it? Did I give it a chance? Well, probably no to the second, with judgement (obviously) reserved on the first, as this is the main question we are here to find an answer to. To be fair, the first I heard from the new lineup and from the then-forthcoming album was at a rock festival in Dublin (yeah, we had the odd one --- think it was called Monsters of Rock. Or is that Donington? Well, something similar anyway) and it was a little hard to make out the music, but when I got the album I was almost glad I had had difficulty hearing it onstage, as it really sounded awful to me. Has time mellowed my opinion, changed it? Will this last listen redeem this lost lamb (well, wolf I guess) from the Black Sabbath flock? I wonder, I really do...

It starts off heavy enough, though I could do without Gillan's trademark annoying scream. Right from the off, I don't find his voice as strong as either Ozzy or Dio --- they're in a different class. I also note some similarities in the opener, “Trashed”, to a lot of Deep Purple material, particularly “Speed king” and “Highway star”. Is he involved in the writing? Let's have a look. Yes, but in collaboration with the rest of the guys. Still, you can certainly feel his influence on this track. Nice solo from Tony Iommi, little heavier and more contemporary than usual.

My concern, of course, is that Gillan would use Sabbath as a backing band, making it more of a case of Ian Gillan and Black Sabbath, but as the album goes on I'm getting that impression more and more. “Stonehenge” has a nicely atmospheric, dark opening, very reminiscent of Ozzy-era Sabbath, nice keys from Geoff Nichols, very prog-rock to be honest. It's a short song, and indeed an instrumental, but it at once fits in nicely and stands out from the usual Sabbath fare. Then we're into “Disturbing the priest”, a song written for the Madman if ever there was one. Gillan does an okay job on it, to be fair. It's very heavy, more screaming, a slower track than the opener, more a cruncher than a rocker. Although the title screams, as I say, Ozzy Osbourne, the song itself is pure classic Dio, and I could very easily hear RJD singing this one.

Another very short instrumental follows, more a collection of noises really, which goes under the title of “The dark” and leads into the longest song on the album, “Zero the hero”. At just over seven and a half minutes, it comes over to me as an attempt at a Led Zep copy, and I don't see it as a Sabbath song at all. Great extended guitar solo in the middle though. Very much overlong: the same basic melody goes all the way through, and there's little change as the song blunders on towards its conclusion. To be honest, I heaved a sigh of relief once it ended.

“Digital bitch” is a lot of fun, written apparently about Sharon Osbourne (sentiments I heartily concur with!), a more straight ahead rocker than really anything else on the album so far. A good song, but I would have to say not a great song. More than halfway through the album and nothing has really grabbed me by the throat up to now, as I would expect a Sabs album to. Whether it's the manic energy of Ozzy or the sumptuous vocals and sweeping lyrical themes espoused by Dio, I've always had my attention kept by any previous Sabbath album, and though I haven't heard the later ones with Ray Gillen or even Tony Martin, I find Gillan's vocal presence the least riveting I have heard on a Sabbath album.

The title track is a ballad, of all things, very bluesy, and the second-longest at just over six and a half minutes. Nice echoey guitar from Iommi and some really nice effective bass from Geezer Butler, and in complete fairness this sort of song does suit Gillan's voice, though I could just as happily hear Dio sing it (maybe not Ozzy); so far it's the best thing on the album, but is it too little too late? It is. “Hot line” is throwaway basic filler, while the closer, “Keep it warm”, is, well, more filler. Oh dear.

I would have to say that my original impression stays. While Iommi's guitar playing is as flawless as ever, the whole direction of Sabbath changed, for me, on this album, and not for the better. “Born again” can't hold a black candle to the likes of “Master of reality”, “Sabotage” or “Heaven and Hell”, and I'm not surprised Gillan didn't last as the singer: his style never seemed to mesh with the ethos and craft of Black Sabbath, and they soon parted ways. Hopefully before he had a chance to ruin the band.

Honestly, if this was Black Sabbath “Born again”, then I could recommend a backstreet doctor that could have performed a certain operation that might have saved us all some grief.

TRACKLISTING

1. Trashed
2. Stonehenge
3. Disturbing the priest
4. The dark
5. Zero the hero
6. Digital bitch
7. Born again
8. Hot line
9. Keep it warm

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The worm is certainly not averse to the odd dance song now and then, and this is one of the better ones, from D:Ream (see what they did there?), with “Things can only get better” --- surely an anthem for the times?

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