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6 Music Searches For The Axe Factor

Recently guitar legends Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton co-headlined a show for the first time. This, after the news that a ‘new’ Jimi Hendrix album was due, prompted a discussion at 6 Music Towers about why these three continue to top ‘Best Guitarist’ votes, but contemporary fret-wizards are often overlooked. We started kicking names around, and realised that, wow, there are loads: Jonny Greenwood, John Squire, Johnny Marr. That was just the Johnnys. Let’s do something about it, we said.

And so we came up with The Axe Factor – an endeavour to find the best guitarists of the last 30 years. Why 30 years? Because we had to draw the line somewhere. Limit it to ten or 20 years and you miss out on the likes of Johnny Marr. Make it 40 years and it gets unwieldy. Make it ‘Best Ever’ and we’re back to ‘Hendrix Best Guitarist Ever’ shocker – the whole point is to find today’s guitar gods.

So to do that, what would the criteria be? Well, year zero then would be 1980. To be included the guitarist in question needed to make his debut in or after that year. Also the guitarists had to be regular to the type of music 6 Music plays – so no Steve Vai or Joe Bonamassa. And influence mattered more than technical ability, hence the presence of The Edge. Love him or hate his band, you cannot deny that you know a U2 song as soon as you hear his guitar.

Even with these reasonable perimeters, people will still complain about our shortlist. It absolutely kicked off in the 6 Music production offices when we started drawing up the shortlist – you should see the indignant emails Gideon Coe sent. But it’s inevitable that such lists cause controversy, and frankly, that’s what fun about them.

It wasn’t easy choosing just 40 guitarists. And it was tricky when there are two good guitarists in one band. Undoubtedly, we missed your favourite, but we couldn’t include everyone. Some will notice that I’m not on that list, for instance. I came in at 43, ahead of Shaun Keaveny (that’s the pair of us below), but behind ‘that guy from EMF’. But while you might find that someone you think is good is missing, you can’t say that those listed are not deserving (oh okay, you can and you will).

Nevertheless, scan our list of 40 guitar heroes and pick your favourite. Steve Lamacq will count down the Top Ten on April 9.

In the meantime, if you have ambitions to be a Guitar God yourself, look out for our online tutorials in Anyone Can Play Guitar. 6 Music’s Tom Robinson and Huey Morgan have kicked it off. There will be more to come. Remember to turn it up to 11.

Mike Hanson is BBC 6 Music’s Assistant Editor.

Related Links
6 Music’s Axe Factor – cast your vote

¶ Posted 08 March 2010 † Mike Hanson § Music ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged: 6, classic, Country, pop, rock, Ute Schaedler

Editor’s Pick of New Releases, February 2010

There’s really no need to drag this introductory paragraph out beyond a very simple outlining of what follows: a recap of last month’s finest new albums, as heard and subsequently assessed by the BBC’s vastly experienced team of critics. Many have also received the thumbs up from DJs across our radio networks – do check out our recommendations page for the latest tips from airwaves tastemakers.

(Like last month, I’m not restricting myself to a limited number of picks – all of these albums are worthy of investigation.)

- – -

Corinne Bailey Rae – The Sea
(EMI, released 1 February)
Radio 2 Album of the Week / 6 Music Album of the Day

“The Sea, produced as per the debut by Steve Brown and Steve Chrisanthou, is no self-indulgent lack of tunes-fest. Even at its bleakest – Closer, say, or Love’s on Its Way, where there is “blood on the streets” – the music and melodies draw you in, and even when they follow their own lushly orchestrated circuitous path, they seem to dare you to drift away. What’s going on? This is.”

Read the full review

Corinne Bailey Rae – I’d Do It All Again (live on Later)

- – -

Nils Frahm – The Bells
(Erased Tapes, released 1 February)

“Frahm’s innate gift and creative approach differs from most of his contemporaries – Max Richter, Goldmund and Sylvain Chauveau – in its reliance on instinct, allowing his evident poise, touch and imagination to awaken these sorrowful passages from their slumber. This album will expose him to a wider audience, a demographic with a seemingly insatiable appetite for more prime neo-classicism.”

Read the full review

Nils Frahm – Said and Done (audio only)

- – -

The Soft Pack – The Soft Pack
(Heavenly, released 1 February)

“It might not hang around, the debut long-player from San Diego’s The Soft Pack, but it doesn’t need much time to leave a lasting impression. Ostensibly garage rock – carried by surf-savvy guitars, underpinned by echoes of psychedelia and boisterous of primal percussion – the constituent pieces don’t seem all that special. But the whole far surpasses the sum of its parts.”

Read the full review

The Soft Pack – Answer to Yourself

- – -

Midlake – The Courage of Others
(Bella Union, released 1 February)
Recommended by Bob Harris / 6 Music Album of the Day

“Midlake won’t ever be a ‘cool’ name to drop. They’re the kind of band who’ll prompt your parents to tell you about all the fun they had in the 60s, and dig out their Fairport Convention LPs because ‘If you like this, you’ll love that’. It doesn’t matter, of course: The Courage of Others is a lovely, lovely record that doesn’t sound like it belongs in this age at all. It’s all the better for it.”

Read the full review

Midlake – Acts of Man (unofficial video)

- – -

Los Campesinos! – Romance is Boring
(Wichita, released 8 February)
Recommended by Huw Stephens / Bethan Elfyn

“It seems like Los Campesinos! are limbering up for a shot at, if not the stadiums, then a couple of the smaller arenas. Coda: A Burn Scar in the Shape of the Sooner State is all very serious, and young, and tormented in a Conor Oberst/Bright Eyes way; There Are Listed Buildings, meanwhile, is a good old-fashioned romp in the style of Pavement’s Slanted and Enchanted.”

Read the full review

Los Campesinos! – Romance is Boring

- – -

Massive Attack – Heligoland
(Virgin, released 8 February)
Recommended by Dermot O’Leary / 6 Music Album of the Day

“Massive Attack spent their first 12 years as breathtaking pioneers, while 99.9% of their rivals might manage ten minutes of such inspiration. They may never be as original again, but as long as they make albums as rich, textured and seductive as Heligoland they will remain one of our most fascinating, extraordinary bands.”

Read the full review

Massive Attack – Splitting the Atom

- – -

Gil Scott-Heron – I’m New Here
(XL, released 8 February)
Recommended by Craig Charles Funk & Soul Show / 6 Music Album of the Day

“It’s been a long, hard road to redemption for Gil Scott-Heron, the influential musician, poet and author, whose last full-length album, Spirits, was released 16 years ago. I’m New Here is an unlikely but triumphant return, packed full of sadness, experience and an underlying feeling of someone making peace with their mistakes and regrets.”

Read the full review

Gil Scott-Heron – Me and the Devil

- – -

Yeasayer – Odd Blood
(Mute, released 8 February)
Recommended by Zane Lowe / 6 Music Album of the Day

“One website has proclaimed Odd Blood its Most Anticipated Album of 2010. The band’s new sound features a dense, Dave Fridmann-like production: pumping, parping, squelching sounds familiar to those from The Flaming Lips, or MGMT. What comes next, who can say?”

Read the full review

Yeasayer – Ambling Alp

- – -

Pantha du Prince – Black Noise
(Rough Trade, released 8 February)

“Hendrik Weber, aka Pantha du Prince, might have ascended during the minimal era but was clearly never attached to its coattails. His gift for generating heavily melodic mazes of sound, which remains intact on Black Noise, makes that certain. But the new album offers a different kind of experience to its predecessor, This Bliss.”

Read the full review

Pantha du Prince – Stick to My Side (feat. Panda Bear)

- – -

Field Music – Field Music (Measure)
(Memphis Industries, released 15 February)
6 Music album of the Day

“(Measure) is a sturdily made piece that sprawls, yet always surprises. You sense the love and energy taken in the Field Music enterprise, and it nods to a proud craftsmanship. Across its many and varied pieces, this collection proves that Field Music truly are a gem of a band.”

Read the full review

Field Music – Them That Do Nothing

- – -

Efterklang – Magic Chairs
(4AD, released 22 February)
Recommended by Radcliffe & Maconie

“This makes for a superb introduction to one of the world’s most uniquely-minded bands. Where other ‘indie’ acts stick a violin atop a standard-issue rock-stomper and call it an anthem, Efterklang assemble their arrangements from classical-forged fragments. Across Magic Chairs they exhibit a singular classiness, their composure and patience immensely admirable.”

Read the full review

Efterklang – Modern Drift

- – -

Eluvium – Similes
(Temporary Residence, released 23 February)

“Similes is blessed with moments, with movements, of impossibly diaphanous, distinctly delicate elegance. Cooper’s occasional vocals are part-Stuart Staples, part-Matt Berninger, imperfect yet all the more engaging for their roughness. Glorious, albeit predictably so, Similes is a delight to be distracted by.”

Read the full review

Eluvium – The Motion Makes Me Last

¶ Posted 03 March 2010 † Mike Diver § Music ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged: album, classic, Country, pop, reviews, rock, Ute Schaedler

Making a Radio Ballad

I grew up in South Yorkshire with the pithead of Cadeby Colliery, one of the biggest pits in Britain framed in our kitchen window. So when we were commissioned by Radio 2 to make a Radio Ballad on the Miner’s Strike of 1984-85 I was a bit daunted. Most of the people in our street worked at the pit, apart from my father, he worked in a foundry making castings and machine parts to be used at the pit. So in a way my early years were financed by pit money.

In 2006 we made six Ballads for Radio 2 based on the ground-breaking work of Charles Parker, Ewan McCall and Peggy Seeger, during the 1950s. Our efforts had been well received in the main, we won two Sony awards and were relatively pleased with our work and felt we’d stayed reasonably true to the original concept of a Radio Ballad. But when it came to the Ballad of The Miner’s Strike I found it incredibly difficult to start the programme.

Vince Hunt had come back with some fantastic interviews, full of passion, poetry, honesty and anger. But I found it impossible to select material in a way that I felt did justice to people I’d grown up with, lived amongst and then watched on the sidelines as their way of life was totally destroyed during the 80s. I needed other thoughts and ideas.

I sent some of the interviews to songwriters Julie Matthews and Jez Lowe and within a week they had come back with three wonderful songs, Jez had Judas Bus and Arthur My Dear and Julie had written Beyond The Picket Line, a moving song about the role of women during the strike. These three songs pointed the way for me and we had our first chapters.

I then went to spend a day with John Tams and after about eight hours we had pretty much decided on a shape, the chapters and the fact that we needed at least six more songs. I left John to come up with them and with help from Ray Hearne and a moving piece of work from Kay Sutcliffe, Coal Not Dole, the songs began to arrive.

The Radio Ballads are a true teamwork. Many people have their hands on the tiller and help to determine the direction the programme will take. I thank all the musicians and songwriters, Andy Seward the music producer, Annie Grundy our editor, Vince Hunt our reporter and most importantly, musical director John Tams.

John Leonard is Exec Producer of Smooth Operations who produced the Ballad of the Miners’ Strike for BBC Radio 2.

To hear all the stories and views, listen to the programme on Tuesday 2 March 2010 at 8.30pm on BBC Radio 2.

Related Posts
Revisiting The Miners’ Strike In Song – John Tams write about the programme

Related Links
Ballad of the Miner’s Strike

¶ Posted 26 February 2010 † John Leonard § Music ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged: 2, classic, Country, pop, Radio, rock, Ute Schaedler

Revisiting The Miners’ Strike in Song

Building a radio ballad

Everything starts with the “life-tellers” – without them there is nothing, whatever the subject – they are the vital source, the inspiration – the true heroes and heroines of the work. Their stories are then cradled in song by a team of songmakers each given specific “chapters” to support, advance and generally deal with.

The privilege the “life-tellers” grant the songmakers is onerous. They must tread very lightly on the lives they are given such unique access to, attempting all the time to thread a fabric in melody and lyric that gives their “chapter” honour, dignity and the truth of their source material.

The Ballad of the Miners Strike

For me and indeed all my colleagues, without exception, this was a serious challenge that threatened all we thought we’d learned by doing the 2006 Radio Ballads series. Although we’d won a brace of Sony Academy Awards this was quite another issue and we needed to re-invent our own rulebook. Of all the programmes we’ve made together and it was good to see the team reunited, we were now dealing with issues so monumental that the changes they wrought affected the whole of the political and social landscape of the country.

Striking miners, 1984

I’m a former journalist and the one thing that disturbed me most then was to make an obituary for a friend. Now as a songmaker I have to write an obituary for an industry that had been a friend – part of the family – a way of life. I witnessed the strike and continue to witness its fall-out – the disintegration of community and all that means, asking all the while if disintegration was in fact a concerted effort to dismantle. The dissolution of coal remains an open wound in former pit villages.

There are those who don’t want to talk about it, let it lie, almost like a war – some say it was the last civil war – and there are those who live the strike everyday of their lives.

Well over 40 hours of “life-tellings” needed to be reviewed and distilled to approximately 40 minutes giving space for the songs to bring in the programme at 59 minutes. Hunter gatherer Vince Hunt took responsibility for many of the interviews, folded into “chapters” by Annie Grundy, both under the direction of Executive Producer John Leonard who edited, shaped, integrated the music and song and after many weeks in watchmaker’s detail fashioned the final cut. The team of songmakers working alongside Music Producer Andy Seward were Julie Matthews, Jez Lowe, Ray Hearne and myself, with Kay Sutcliffe’s magnificent “Coal Not Dole” written at the time of the strike bringing the ballad to a close.

Not an obituary then – more a requiem.

Ballad of the Miners’ Strike airs on Radio 2 at 8.30pm on Tuesday 2 March.

Related Posts
Making a Radio Ballad – executive producer John Leonard writes about the programme

¶ Posted 26 February 2010 † John Tams § Music ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged: 2, classic, Country, pop, Radio, rock, Ute Schaedler

Brian Eno and the Arena Bottle

A bottle drifts across dark, smoky water towards you. Inside are neon-lit letters spelling ‘Arena’. Over the top plays Brian Eno’s evocative piece of music Another Green World.

That Arena has recently profiled the composer of its famous signature tune seemed like the perfect excuse to make this short film about the much-loved opening sequence that’s remained unchanged for more than 30 years.

A Short Film About Bottles

Anthony Wall, series editor of Arena since 1985, was the obvious first person to talk to. For starters, the original Arena bottle is perched high on a bookshelf in his office. It reappeared a few years ago after someone found it in a clear-out of old BBC prop cupboards.

The Arena team are habitual archivists. As well as the bottle they showed us a bulging file full of decades-old letters that viewers had written enquiring about the memorable theme tune. We were also able to use a selection of the alternative title sequences Arena has made over the years which placed the bottle in surprising situations (a supermarket, on the moon) or reversioned Eno’s music in a completely different style.

My colleague Pete Marsh has done a lovely job editing the piece and used these gems from the archive to great effect. Sadly we couldn’t squeeze them all in. The most bizarre was the title sequence for Arena’s Animal Night from 1989 which saw puppets by Spitting Image creators Luck & Flaw on board a very suspicious-looking Ark.

We also interviewed the musician and writer David Toop whose first album was released on Brian Eno’s Obscure label in 1975 and who’s quoted in Geeta Dayal’s recent book about Another Green World.

For a perspective on how credit sequences have changed over decades and what makes Arena’s so enduring we met Richard Norley, the Creative Director of Jump Design and Direction. His company have made opening titles for such hits as the X Factor and Hell’s Kitchen.

You only have to read the comments on YouTube to see how much people love Arena’s bottle and Eno’s wonderful tune. Let us know what you think about our little tribute.

Related Links
Arena – details of upcoming programmes and what’s available on iPlayer
Short Film About Bottles On YouTube

¶ Posted 22 February 2010 † Nigel Smith § Music ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged: classic, Country, pop, rock, TV, Ute Schaedler

Today’s Joke

for you girls…

Why is 88 better than 69?

You get 8 twice.

¶ Posted 05 February 2010 † Jokes2Go Daily Humor § Publishing § Ute Schaedler ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged: Entertainment, Funny Jokes, Humor, Jokes, Make Money, News, pop, rock, Ute Schaedler

Today’s Story

New paint store just opened up by my place, so I decided as any
red-blooded, sexually repressed young lad to pay it a visit. When I went
in I saw signs all over advertising the newest color: “Natural Blonde”.
There weren’t any samples around, so I asked the clerk to describe it to
me. He replied, “Natural Blonde? Wonderful new paint: not too bright, but
spreads easily!”

Today’s Poem

There was an old fellow named Rapp
Who had a job all considered a snap.
In the insane asylum
He’d grade cunts and file ‘em,
And bi-weekly he’d rub up their nap

Today’s Quote

* Slogan of 105.9, the classic rock radio station in Chicago: “Of
all the radio stations in Chicago…we’re one of them.”

Editor’s Pick of New Releases, January 2010

This time last year, many a critic’s year-end number one LP was in stores. Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion overturned the odds stacked against it by being a January release that actually mattered several months later. That it was Really Very Good helped, obviously, but it’s rare indeed when a release from the first month of the year maintains its support for the duration. Attentions simply weren’t going anywhere else.

But could lightning strike twice, and for the same label? With a plethora of phenomenal reviews, These New Puritans‘ Hidden is already being pencilled into the best-of-2010 equation. An arresting amalgam of direct rock, art pop and classical influences, it’s a mesmerising affair that’s rightly receiving the acclaim it deserves. Domino certainly knows how to pick them – they’re handling Hidden worldwide, with Angular doing the business domestically.

January saw several more brilliant releases. There’s not room for all of them here, but hopefully the below serves as a cross-section that ably represents just how much talent is out there, ready for your investment of both time and pennies (artists need to pay bills, too). From Laura Veirs‘ lauded folk-rock, to Four Tet’s delicious dancefloor artistry, via Beach House’s sublime shoegazing and the sunny Afro-beat of Fool’s Gold, it’s been a great month.

- – -

These New Puritans – Hidden
(Angular/Domino, released 18 January)
Recommended by Marc Riley

“Their second album arrives, and impressively it turns out that vocalist Jack Barnett’s blue-sky dreaming is actually a pretty accurate description of Hidden – heavily beat-driven, almost entirely absent of guitars, and laced with large amounts of elaborately arranged woodwind and brass. The mood is pagan, hallucinogenic, severe.”

Read the full review and listen to clips

These New Puritans – We Want War

- – -

Beach House – Teen Dream
(Bella Union, released 25 January)
6 Music Album of the Day

“Teen Dream almost entirely eschews the junkshop drum machine-meets-indie chanteuse fragility of the duo’s eponymous 2006 debut and its even drowsier follow-up in favour of vigorous, hymnal pop essays that gleam like polished chrome. The most unmistakeable sound here is that of a band truly finding its own voice. In so doing, they may just have minted the new decade’s first essential album.”

Read the full review and listen to clips

Beach House – Silver Soul

- – -

Fool’s Gold – Fool’s Gold
(I Am Sound, released 25 January)
Recommended by Radcliffe & Maconie

“Fool’s Gold stretch Western pop templates out into African shapes, and this debut album belies their name by being a genuine gem. From the sunny six-string licks that open Surprise Hotel through Nadine’s joyous horns and Momentary Shelter’s percussive swansong, they feel like a welcome breath of fresh air – even gusting from your car stereo in a suburban traffic jam.”

Read the full review and listen to clips

Fool’s Gold – Surprise Hotel

- – -

Four Tet – There Is Love In You
(Domino, released 25 January)
Recommended by Gilles Peterson

“Hebden’s tracks are aural mosaics, painstakingly compiled to work on several levels. The skipping two-step of Love Cry, for example, may appear relatively traditional; but take a closer listen and there are intricacies aplenty, including an underlying synth whirr that sounds oddly reminiscent of the noise Fred Flintstone’s legs used to make when he carried the car to work.”

Read the full review and listen to clips

Four Tet – Angel Echoes (audio only)

- – -

Laura Veirs – July Flame
(Bella Union, released 11 January)
Recommended by Bob Harris, Radcliffe & Maconie; 6 Music Album of the Day

“Named after a variety of peach, Veirs’ seventh album is aptly named, its mood erring toward the ripe and summery, the stripped-back arrangements leaving plenty of spaces for her crystalline-as-mountain-air vocals to swoop and glide. It sounds like both an affirmation and a mission statement and encourages the happy thought that her best may still be to come.”

Read the full review and listen to clips

Laura Veirs – July Flame

- – -

Lostprophets – The Betrayed
(Visible Noise, released 18 January)
Recommended by Bruce Dickinson, Rock Show with Daniel P Carter, Fearne Cotton

“This fourth album sounds big – polished, even – and helpfully, that’s a quality that suits them rather well. The Betrayed is not an underachieving record. It sweats hunger and ambition, and while it’s not flawless, it’s a success on their own, aggressively populist terms: 11 songs of big riffs and earworm choruses that reach over the moshpit to the stands beyond.”

Read the full review

Lostprophets – Where We Belong

- – -

Pat Metheny – Orchestrion
(Nonesuch, released 25 January)
Recommended by Jazz on 3

“Although it’s played by machines, this music sounds strikingly human. There are heartbeats in the percussion, voices humming in the strings, and wordless songs from blown bottles. It’s Metheny to the core. After all, he’s composed, played and improvised every sound that you hear, and he’s come close to his aim of making this album more than a curiosity.”

Read the full review and listen to clips

Pat Metheny – Orchestrion EPK

- – -

Vampire Weekend – Contra
(XL, released 11 January)
6 Music Album of the Day

“Prior to release, frontman Ezra Koenig told the press that Contra is about “retro gaming and Nicaraguan politics,” and it may well be – his poetic lyrics can be hard to decipher. What we do know, however, is that this latest offering ushers in an entirely new age for Vampire Weekend: one of wisdom, grace, subtlety and for the first time a really strong sense of identity.”

Read the full review and listen to clips

Vampire Weekend – Cousins

- – -

Delphic – Acolyte
(Polydor, released 11 January)
Recommended by Zane Lowe; 6 Music Album of the Day

“There was some pressure on Delphic to deliver, and they have. From a palette of familiar reference points, they’ve created a fresh, vital sound that could prove to be the basis of an impressive career. Barney and Hooky will exchange knowing glances when they hear it, but Acolyte might just be the first great album of 2010.”

Read the full review and listen to clips

Delphic – This Momentary

- – -

Charlotte Gainsbourg – IRM
(Because, released 25 January)
Recommended by Marc Riley; 6 Music Album of the Day

“The end results here are as unsettling as they are uplifting. Although her last album sold half a million worldwide, Charlotte Gainsbourg remains very much a delicacy in the UK. The deeply moving and organic IRM deserves a wider audience, as it is one of 2010’s first great examples of accomplished, adult pop.”

Read the full review and listen to clips

Charlotte Gainsbourg – Heaven Can Wait (feat. Beck)

- – -

Read more new reviews, and dip into our extensive archive, by clicking here.
Find all of our recent DJ/show recommendations here.

¶ Posted 04 February 2010 † Mike Diver § Music ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged: album, classic, Country, pop, reviews, rock, Ute Schaedler

Tag Archives: Music

6 Music Searches For The Axe Factor

Editor’s Pick of New Releases, February 2010

Making a Radio Ballad

Revisiting The Miners’ Strike in Song

Brian Eno and the Arena Bottle

Today’s Joke

Today’s Story

Today’s Poem

Today’s Quote

Editor’s Pick of New Releases, January 2010

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