TRAXMARKS review

Mick Jones, Carbon/Silicon, BAD and cetera.
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TT5TH

TRAXMARKS review

Post by TT5TH »

Nice review from Jean Encoule at trakMARX.....

Carbon/Silicon – “The Last Post”
Sounds: Some of you may have noted reference to the debut Carbon/Silicon LP on my myspace page recently! Here’s my review:

Carbon/Silicon – “The Last Post” (Carbon/Silicon Records) – Mixed by Bill Price


“The horses are on the track”: how long have we been waiting to hear that voice again? How long have we been waiting for Mick Jones to get his s**t together? How long is it since BAD’s debut platter rocked our world? How long’s a piece of string?

Here’s the news: Mick’s back, so’s Tone . . . & Leo . . . & some geezer who used to drum for someone who’s name I’m scared to type. Forget the false starts. Forget the dodgy moniker. Forget the shining heads & thinning hair. This is a record made by people who know how to make good records. If you don’t know that, you don’t know nothing! “The Last Post” is here at last! Let the memories coming flooding back!

Track 1: The News (see Single Of The Issue: tMx 29) . . . opens proceedings with the kind of eternal optimism that only a true survivor could muster the wrong side of 50-years of age. An amalgamation of Bottom Line era BAD & Love Missile F111 era Sigue Sigue Sputnik (whaddya mean, how many other Sigue Sigue Sputnik eras were there?), Mick wonders why we can’t all be a damn sight more grateful than we are for our continued existence. What’s wrong with smiling? The world’s a beautiful place. Let’s take care of it! The analogy that ‘punks were just hippies with short hair’ (John Cooper Clarke) holds plenty of water here (& throughout!) . . . but the tune’s a strong one - & the basic concept is sound. My daughter loves this one!

Track 2: Magic Suitcase . . . the second (obvious?) 45 culled from The Last Post, & an almost faultless exercise in ‘classic’ Mick Jones’ song-craftery. It has just about everything atypically ‘Mick’ a fan could possibly desire - in spades: world weary but essentially chipper cockerney barrow-boy vocals, soaring lead guitar lines, genius chord changes, gutter-poet lyrical concerns. Corker! Dismissed elsewhere by lesser scribes as ‘poorly titled’ (??), Magic Suitcase is a tale of luggage abuse & terror tactics told with wit, aplomb & swagger:

“It spent a year at JFK,
I complained to TWA,
But it was all in vain!”

I love this one!

Track 3: The Whole Truth . . . a strident rocker on nodding terms with the riff to The Clash’s 1977, & why not? It rattles along at a hell of a pace for a bunch of oldsters on prescription drugs! Not one of my favourites, or my daughter’s either, for that matter. Maybe it’s a bit obvious! Maybe it’s because I’m not a Londoner!

Track 4: Caesars Palace . . . aha, this is more like it: Somebody Got Murdered & Lost In The Supermarket welded to a NASA probe fired in the general direction of the incoming Planet X!

“Value what is necessary,
leave what is not.
Tell me what I’m doing,
in another shop?”

Consumerism may be the obvious target here, but there’s insight aplenty too:

“I tried to give up smoking,
I tried to give up drugs,
I tried to give up smoking weed but I have to walk the dog.
I tried to give up drinking,
But I think I need a drink,
I tried to give up thinking that I was the missing link”

We both love this one to bits!

Track 5: Tell It Like It Is . . . touching sentiments & pertinent advice all wrapped up in an essentially old school rock and roll package that’s as old as the hills yet as fresh as young Daisy. A neat trick, replete with ‘toasting’ courtesy of the ever-reliable Leo . . . a real grower!

Track 6: War On Culture . . . mid-paced rocker with a shuffle & a truffle up it’s nose! Mick intros with a heart-warming “I say, I say, I say”, whilst Pete Doherty doubtless makes a mental note to book more cockerney lessons! Worth the admission price alone, as they invariably say! ‘Repeat’ button abuse, anyone?

Who could he possibly be referring to here?

“Well, it’s red tops versus cokeheads,
in a cultural civil war!
At least I know,
What I’m fighting for!”

Or here?

“As hypocrites & liars,
adopt a moral tone.
He who is without sin,
Might as well go home”

This is everything we expect from a Mick Jones record (including a couple of dodgy ‘ooh eeh oohs’)! Repeat! Repeat! Repeat! We both really, really, really like this one!

Track 7: What The f**k . . . it’s the riff to Guns On The Roof (almost). It’s a bit obvious (almost). But almost impossible to dislike or mistrust, & that’s why we loved Mick Jones then . . . & that’s why we love Mick Jones now. Part-throwaway, part- adroit-observation, this is what the kids need (& anyone who can name-check Fyodor Dostoevsky & Jean Paul Satre in the same song without coming across as a total woman's undercarriage gets my vote every time!)! Obviously, due to the gratuitous swearing, my daughter hasn’t heard this one!

Track 8: Acton Zulus . . . mid-paced rocker, not one of the strongest on offer, but none too shabby all the same. It’s all well noisy on the western front! When I say ‘well noisy’, I mean from the perspective of a pensioner on a bus, obviously!

Track 9: National Anthem . . . it’s almost back to Sandinista for this one:

“The first thing I wanted to say was: we make a fundamental mistake in telling people that they can judge themselves, because they, the children of children, were not loved enough to be given a real moral grounding. How can you judge yourself when no one told you the rules”

Mick proffers erudite advice for the ‘youth of today’, with an ever so slightly camp arm draped around your shoulder . . . & a dodgy fag on! Listen to your Uncle Mick, you f**kers, he’s not bullshitting. There’s gold in them there conceptual
hills . . . & wisdom in them sentiments! My daughter loves this one!

Track 10: Really The Blues . . . initially one of the weakest tracks on The Last Post, but one that subsequently grows in stature with each consecutive spin: Disco a-go-go, Strummer-esque BVs, grovesome hi-hit action, eggboxes, want adds . . . all the fun of the fair sport of self-mythologyy. You’re never too old to be the new rock and roll. Comical little bleeder . . . you’ll look funny when you’re 50!

Track 11: Oilwell . . . took a few listens, this one. The most overtly political lyric on the LP, possibly! At first it felt forced, preachy, lumpy & naïve. I might have taken this kind of advice & written it on the back of a leather jacket back in the early 80’s, but I can think for myself now, thanks . . . repeated exposure, on the other hand, as it inevitably does, etc, eventually renders the refrain:

“Trying to make a humanitarian case,
for dropping some love on the human race”

. . . one of the more unfeasible copper-bottomed hooks of the pop year thus far. Sorted!

Track 12: Why Do Men Fight? . . . coming out of the stalls like a nuclear greyhound on high grade amphetamine, this one rocks chunks like Teds beat up on punks:

“Religion, race, colour, creed . . . whatever!”

. . . & closes The Last Post exactly the way The News opened it: with style, verve, wit, tune-age & authority . . . & how many 50-year old ex-pop-star’s records can you say that about in 2007? Not many, I should coco!

You can all continue to fight your futile battles, conduct your petty squabbles - & think you know it all! War, war is stupid . . . & people are stupid! It would appear that peace has finally broken out in Mick Jones’ world . . . & boy, is it contagious?

The Armistice Has Been Signed! I have in my hand a piece of plastic . . . the rest is up to you. Go show Uncle Mick you care about him as much as he obviously cares about you!

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