Something old, something new.

Something old, something new. Technology is great, though, isn’t it?

Yeah. Hm. But.

It iiiiis, but it also tends to, well – make you its bitch.

If you’ve been making music for more than ten years, you’ll know what a bottomless pit it was to invest in a home studio not so long ago. At my (still relatively taught-skinned) age, you were in fact not only exactly the right age to have to pay the UK Poll Tax as a student, but also just old enough to have scraped together the money beyond your graduation Poll Tax Debt for a brand new reel-to-reel eight track – about twenty minutes before digital became good enough and cheap enough to take to the bosom of your amateur studio.

There was no Undo in my day. …And I know, >sigh< it shows.Making it aside, listening to it is an even bigger chance for technology to pimp. I swore at the time that I'd never buy any music albums on cassette. (Oh for pete's sake don't laugh; how am I supposed to give this straight faced history lecture if you keep pointing at my sideburns? Cassettes really did exist and yes we managed to live back then.) Yet, as a steeowdent, away from the bulky homliness of my second hand hi-fi cupboard, I had no way of playing LPs... (What now? What about my 'rationing card'? ...No I did not Dig For Victory. Blighter.)

The point I’m making, sounding considerably older than I look – no, really – is that technology makes you buy your own stuff again. And possibly again. There are old gems on LP and even cassette (because it’s groovy, okay?) that I may have to purchase again for the modern world.

To this end, I recently rediscovered something. My teenage years were wallpapered sonically with various electronic bleeps and wooshes but for a long while it was dominated by one particular collection of second-hand LPs from the late seventies – Tangerine Dream.

Well, this week, thanks to the good people of Amazon, I have been rediscovering what it felt like to be 17 and driving for hours in a dangerously old car to see some girl or other. A particular girl, in fact. And now it’s our car, in fact. And it’s a bit better. And we live in the same town these days.

It was inspired by catching a moment or two of Risky Business late one night. We smiled and stayed up a little longer to marvel at Tom Cruise’s diminutive youth. But I found myself taking worryingly more notice of the reeeeally cool bit from Force Majeure playing over the top than of the fact that Rebecca Demornay had just slipped her dress off.Just how old am I feeling? I’d like to say this was actually down to moral fibre – but it had more to do with air drums. The point is, I went to bed remembering how The Dream Is Always The Same and Love On A Real Train are classic examples of Tange’ at their height – and how much this stuff lit my fire to make music with bleeps in it. I knew the band’s albums inside and out (well, as many as any human could collect, anyway) and hearing them again – I started with Dream Sequence – was weirdly nice to hook up with old friends.
But you know what? Creatively, it’s not a great idea to look backwards. Not sure there’s been a time with more creativity going on around the world of music; I think I want to get back into today. And possibly even tomorrow.So I took the plunge and bought an iPod. Yes, I know, yeeeeeeeeears later than the rest of humanity. There are people who’s governments still can’t plumb in a water supply who start the long walk to the municiple tap with a shuffle. Hardly needed one, did I? I’m at home all day or in the car all day – these are things that come with music-making devices built in. But it’s shiny and nice and I’ve mainly just stroked it and rubbed it with a soft cloth to get off the instant fingerprints.Thing is. Yeah. Will it ever let me out again, or am I condemned in manner of greek mythology to forever be loading my album collection onto the damned thing? And am I supposed to re-buy all my albums, so I can have the album artwork appear on the screen?

Rannygazoo.

Rannygazoo. Word of the day. Say it with me: “rannygazoo”.

Who knew? All these years enjoying the finest radio feature produced by eight decades of BBC output, Swannycazoo, on I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue, and I’d missed that there was an extra layer to it. Not simply the timeless format of reproducing popular songs and melodies using only a swanny whistle and a cazoo, but a play on words. Silly and cerebral, how marvellous.

Use it today .. rannygazoo. It means a jape. A joke. A prank. In the style of, say, posh edwardian chaps pulling the wool over a chum’s eyes for comradely hilarity. It’s origins, unsurprisingly then, are in PG Wodehouse or thereabouts.

Not to be confused with Hullaballoo, Runnyaspoo or Fannymcgrew. But try it out for size – as long as you remember health and safety.

Just divine.

Just divine. Heros, by and large, are just you and me with better luck or makeup. …Okay, or talent. I’m not being cynical here, it’s part of growing up to grasp this terrifying reality – everyone’s just someone like you, making it up as they go along, right? Which makes heros all the more important, ironically. (Apologies for spelling out any irony there, it’s just that I hate to think of people missing it and thinking I’ve just lost my way from one end of the sentence to the other. Which, given the much-comma-ed length of many of my sentences would hardly be surprising. …Where was I?)

Heros. One of mine is Neil Hannon. Not because I’ve stalked him anything like as much as I should have done to imagine I know much about him, but simply because of who I hear in the songs. The blissful, romantic, slice-your-arm-off-witty wonderful, many-level-lyrical songs of The Divine Comedy. And at last, on Tuesday night, I finally got to see him live.

Say ‘The Portsmouth Pyramid Centre’ to anyone who lives nearby and they’ll snort. Mainly out of derision, but quite possibly to simply clear their synuses – for the Portsmouth Pyramid Centre isn’t simply a down-at-heel spare room for live music, it’s also a public swimming baths. Neat, huh? An afternoon AND evening out. With showers to go home post-gig clean.

Wandering in, still unsure we’d found the right venue, Caroline and I looked around at the modest hall and hand-made stage at the far end of the carpet and beamed. Really, what could be a better place to see one of your heros perform? We’d almost be on stage with him. The gents were opposite the dressing rooms and for one gloriously delerious moment, as I pushed on the smeery door, I imagined I’d be standing next to Neil before he’d had a chance to dab and do up, asking him enthusiastically if getting the word ‘peripetetically’ to scan and rhyme successfully into My Imaginary Friend really was responding to a bet by a friend as we’ve always imagined it must be. Sadly, I relieved myself without the company of stardom. Possibly this was a better outcome.

Neil’s music doesn’t fit the usual categories that turn me on. It’s not beat-driven or production-driven. It’s about songwriting. But the key thing to remember is.. well, the three key things to remember are:

1: The songs are shot through with that rare commodity in popular music, wit, whilst also being hopelessly romantic.
2: The melodies are flow-perfect. Gorgeous. Lush. The string arrangements, stop me if I get dull, are just what I would do. Given the talent and the budget.
3: Neil is a baritone, which means I can sing his songs much more easily in the bath.

So, nerd of nerds that I am, I couldn’t help myself cheering like a teenage girl when TDC’s main man sauntered onto the stage with a wry grin and flung his arms open in perfect time to a huge cymbal crash fanfare in his huge, camp, orchestral Sauntering Onto Stage music. I then proceeded to bellow every last syllable of his songs into Caroline’s ear for an hour and a half, adding some nice harmonies and generally enhancing the whole marvellously entertaining experience for her.

He had a sickeningly talented, well-orchestrated team around him; all of them multi-instrumental and making an amazingly effective live arrangement of his album tracks. A violinist, a cellist, a percussionist, lead guitarist, two key board set-ups, plus drummer and bassist – and it sounded just great. He banged them out and we cheered louder every time. And he finished with National Express and the crowd went home grin-ache happy.

Talent. Right there. Everyone in the little audience there was undoubtedly some sort of fan, so that he only had to look at us for long enough and we were poised to laugh. I’d hoped for a sort of Dylan Moran with a guitar and a string section and that’s pretty much what we got. And what more do you need?

We first picked up a copy of A Secret History six or seven years ago and embedded it into our memory of driving round Tuscany than summer. Ever since, it’s been hard to get the Divine Comedy’s words and melodies out of the happy place in our brains. We whooped, we sang along, we imagined ourselves buying him a Guiness one day and being a showbizz chum. Well, only I did the last bit of course. But hurrah for a whole evening of sumptuous Between The Wars Cabaret. I think that’s how he describes it.

A little bit of inspiration makes all the difference to a dreary Tuesday evening. They might be making it up as they go along, just like you and me, but it’s WHAT they make up as they go along that makes heros heros.

The Divine Comedy’s songs don’t just put a smile on the face, they work rather like a comedy in the original sense of the word – they make you think everything will one day work out okay.

Cheers for the heavenly noise, Neil. You’re a bally hero.