Aged nine, Peter Underwood woke up to find his father standing at the foot of his bed. This would be fine, except his father had passed away earlier that same day.
Abbey Road? Pet Sounds? The Dark Side of the Moon? Or perhaps something more contemporary, like Wild God, or one of the 63 albums King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard put out last week?
Go on, take a guess. For you’ll never guess. Nope. Not in a million years.
Give up? OK.
The album Wikipedia uses to illustrate their article about “the album” – the album which might therefore be considered the quintessential album – is Hey Petrunko (2003), the independently-released second album by Ooberman.
Here’s a screenshot, just in case someone changes this image between my time of writing and your time of reading:
Granted, this is but one of a number of images used on Wikipedia’s entry on “the album”. Scroll down the page and you’ll also see a Thaikovsky 78, a picture of a vinyl LP, a “typical” 8-track tape player, a blank cassette tape, the CD of Led Zeppelin III, and a photo of an orchestra in a studio.
But that Ooberman album is the first image you’ll see, accompanied by the caption “Albums c. 2000 came on compact discs stored in jewel cases.”
Why this album, instead of literally any other album? I realise it’s possible to get an insight into the editorial process on Wikipedia. But I’ve heard that to delve into such haunted vaults is to invite gibbering madness into your mind.
And besides, I don’t think I want to know when and why the spirits of Wikipedia chose this album in particular to illustrate their article. As long as I don’t know the true reasons for this choice, I can tell myself that this is the work of an Ooberman ultrafan, diligently carrying the torch for their favourite band by whatever means necessary.
I was 16 in 2003, which by many accounts, appears to have been one great summer. The NME thought so, anyway. They described it as “the third summer of love”, and even tried to define all of these sunny, slightly psychedelic sounds as a whole new genre, which they called shroomadelica.
Further research suggests that the NME’s shroomadelic third summer of love may actually have taken place in 2004. But hey ho, you can’t trust music hacks who exploit legal loopholes to enjoy “shroomy Tuesdays” in the office to remember their dates correctly.
In any case, there must have been something in the air in these early years of the 21st century. For even now, most of the music I’ve retained from 2003 appears to radiate a highly pleasant warmth. The songs, the production, the artwork – it all comes together to form something bright, friendly, and comforting.
That’s nostalgia, yep. This is the effect of listening to the past through rose-tinted headphones. But I bet you feel the same way about whatever music you were listening to in the summer you turned 16.
Here are a number of songs which I think have that delightful 2003 sound – a sound which, I hope, will always make me feel like the world is bright and full of possibility.
They were truly some of the best days I’ve ever known, and there was a time when I knew that I’d be going to this festival for the rest of my life.
But now it’s more expensive than ever, and it’s getting harder and harder to get tickets. I’m finding less to love on the lineups each year. The site’s getting too big, and large parts of it feel grimly nihilistic, or even outright hostile. I used to think the festival represented humanity at its best. But now I don’t know if I’d even feel welcome there anymore.
Will I ever go again? Who knows. But in any case, I’m immensely grateful for the multitude of life affirming experiences I had there over the course of 16 years. As I attended repeatedly in my formative years, it’s fair to say that the festival’s played a part in making me whatever I am today.
Today I’m ranking every Glastonbury headliner I ever saw in order, from least appealing to most overwhelming. We’re sticking to the Pyramid Stage because, when a Pyramid headliner delivers the goods, it really does feel spiritual. Also, if I delved into the numerous other acts I’ve seen headlining other stages at the festival, we’d be here all day.
Note: When I’ve seen a band play this slot more than once, I shall combine both performances into a single entry. Otherwise we’re just splitting hairs, aren’t we?
Right. Here we go.
There’s a reason why every festival lineup looks essentially the same these days.
It’s because most festivals are booked by the same handful of promoters.
In America, Live Nation and AEG seem to run the show. The latter controls Coachella, which is presumably why the organisers now obsess over social media metrics when compiling their lineups. Why make memories when you can make money?
Once such titanic promoters get involved, your beloved festival will quickly start to look and feel different. At first, the bland lineups will simply leave you feeling alienated and dispirited. But eventually it will feel like they’re sending a clear message: That you are not invited, and that you are certainly not welcome. Dare to attend and you will feel like an interloping pervert among the influencers, an unsightly human stain lurking in the background of their perfect selfies.
But some festivals manage to retain their independence. And when they retain their independence, they retain their dignity and identity. They still feel like something or somewhere, rather than just another fatberg glistening in a turgid river of grey sludge.
Yes, I am getting old.
Chicago’s Riot Fest is such an independent festival. Every year my brother and I send pictures of the lineup to each other, usually accompanied with such words as “Jesus Christ” or “for God’s sake”. It always looks good, you see. They always manage to put something special together.
“If you spend a long time in a wild place, you hear things…”
Paul Winter won the New Age Grammy Award twice in a row – first in 1994 for Spanish Angel, a live album he recorded with his Consort. The very next year, he was proudly clutching that gilded gramophone yet again. This means that not only does Paul hold the record for most New Age Grammies overall, he’s also the only artist to ever win the award consecutively.
Today we’re revisiting the 1995 Grammy Awards, in which Paul Winter took home the New Age gong through offering a Prayer for the Wild Things.
You’ll like this one. So let’s listen and learn, together.
We’ve explored the depths of RateYourMusic, and the outer reaches of the Jamendo Music archive. But all New Age pilgrims know that the best visionary music is found “in the wild”.
This is a roundup of some of the New Age albums I’ve found by chance while out and about – usually in charity shops.
It’s common to find albums by Enya and Enigma in second hand shops. But if you’re lucky, you’ll find something more unusual – something you probably would never have encountered by any other means.
We’re not talking about those omnipresent Pan Pipe Tribute to the Beatles albums. Who buys those, and why? Even I have my standards. Though I regret not buying one I recently found called Ocean Tchaikovsky – the composer’s melodies set to ocean waves. What might have been.
I was going to call this series – for it will be a series – Car Boot New Age, as a tribute to Nightmares on Wax. But I am yet to find any New Age music at a car boot sale. One day. One day.
Lord Gloom 