Sorry about the terrible pun which came to me as I was putting together last Saturday's piece about The Smiths.There's loads can be said about Ben Watt - the laziest and easiest thing I can do is refer you to this wiki page.
But returning somewhat to the roots of this blog, I'm going to have a wee look at his one solo album as an artist to date (and given it is now 28 years old, will probably be the only thing he ever releases under his own name).
North Marine Drive is a good but not great album. While it is a work that predates anything he made with Tracey Thorn, it is very evident that it is a close relative to the first few Everything But The Girl LPs. It's also an album that I reckon Paul Weller listened to a lot back in the days for there's quite a few of the songs quite similar in mood and tempo as many a b-side by The Style Council. It's really no surprise that Ben and Tracey ended up guesting on Cafe Bleu.
So why do I say good and not great??
Listening to it afresh all these years later, I still cant find anything to criticise about the five tracks that make up Side A. But I still get annoyed by the opening song on Side B - Waiting Like Mad - and its all down to the inclusion of a saxophone piece that makes it sound like some sort of innoffensive but totally bland bit of muzak that wouldnt be out of place at dinner parties where guests were more interested in the sound of their own voices and boasting about how quickly they would make their next million on the stock market.
It's five minutes of hell in an album that is only 33 minutes in length, containing 8 original Ben Watt compositions and a Bob Dylan cover. It's a record I played a lot in my student days - always without fail skipping Track 1 on Side B - and just before putting this post together, I listened to in its entirety for the first time in at least 20 years.
And with it being an unusually warm, lovely and sunny day in Glasgow, especially for the time of year, I was taken back to an era when life did seem so much carefree and less worrying. When getting out of bed before noon wasn't a neccesity, when your circle of friends were always around you and you saw them every day, and when I was umpteen stone lighter, thinner and there was more hair on the top of my head. Oh and to when I dressed exactly like Ben Watt in the picture above....even in the summertime. Except for the white cotton socks. Could never bring myself to wear them.
mp3 : Ben Watt - Some Things Don't Matter
mp3 : Ben Watt - Empty Bottles
mp3 : Ben Watt - North Marine Drive
Happy Daze indeed.....
8 comments:
More pun-titles! I love 'em.
Ben Watt looks exactly like the comedia Stewart Lee in that photo.
White cotton socks? Why did you have to remind me, my cheeks buring with shame.
Happy days. The title track is the one for me, terrific little song; I've a lot of affection for this album.
White socks and loafers!
Grand stuff. Can I do the Marine Girls album ?
Wot no Lucky One?!
Used to really rate this album, back when I was 15 or so. Like yourself, hadn't listened to it for at least a couple of decades until the mood took me, for no apparent reason, back at the start of the summer.
Being brutally honest, large parts of it haven't stood the test of time for me - indeed I wonder what Watt himself might make of it these days.
But then again, easy for me to carp; if I'd been making albums when I was a callow youth, I shudder to think how diary-frank & overwrought I'd have been (especially if I'd just heard Nick Drake for the first time). And besides, I'm a jaded git nowadays, polarised & harder-hearted, & I never ever wore white cotton socks oh no sirree... *ahem*
On balance, I'd agree with you - Side A Si! Side B No. But I have to doff my cap for that guileless pic of Watt on the rear sleeve, all overcoated & seasprayed, frozen in a moment most of us choose to deny ever happened. Bless.
The Summer Into Winter EP he did with Robert Wyatt around the same time, mind, is proper good stuff. Watt once generously recalled how young & green he was at the time by recounting how he was "scared" when Wyatt made him a cup of tea & tried to put soya milk in it. Almost as good as the time he denied the NME's accusations of tweeness by claiming he liked nothing better of an evening than to "piss in a milk bottle & chase Tracey round the room", that.
yrs aye
DMcA
the very best thing about EBTG was the fact they once had a music video directed by hal hartley.
it's a fact.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxgztMu3Mdg
North Marine Drive is one of those "best kept secret" albums in my collection. I don't go out of my way to share it with other because it means so much to me. I am a sucker for those few and far between moments on EBTG albums where he takes the lead on vocals. There is a clip on YouTube I believe from an old OGWT appearance where he sings lead on one of Tracey's tracks from Eden.
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