“Because of a few songs wherein I spoke of their mystery,” he muses, “women have been exceptionally kind to my old age/ They make a secret place in their busy lives, and they take me there/ They become naked in their different ways/ And they say, ‘Look at me, Leonard/ Look at me one last time’/ Then they bend over the bed/ And cover me up like a baby that is shivering.” Did I say funny? Make that funny and moving at the same time, a trick he’s been pulling off for several decades.Like 2001’s Ten New Songs, this album features Cohen working closely with his current team of “angels”, producer/engineer Leanne Ungar, and singers Sharon Robinson and Anjani Thomas, whose soothing, siren tones take the lead on several songs, offering refreshment for his baritone murmur. If there were ever any lingering doubt that, contrary to the widespread perception of him as some kind of suicidally miserable poet, Leonard Cohen is actually one of the funniest men in music, it should finally be dispelled by “Because Of”, the second track on this latest collection of observations from the twilight of life.
Like several songs on Dear Heather, it concerns the inevitable waning of libidinal desire, an entirely appropriate consideration for a ladies’ man on the unfortunate side of 70. As with the Jaxx, the vocals are spread around a diverse set of contributors, from Ive Mendez’s sultry tropicalismo serenades and Tyra Fennell’s beach-based invitations to the dance, to Sneak’s descriptions of nitrous-oxide parties (“The Gas”) and memories of sci-fi movies (“Inside”). Best of all – or most outlandish – are Bear Who?’s contributions to “Que Pasa” and “Fix My Sink”, a fanciful account of how well he sorted out some ladies’ plumbing, related over a twitchy, horn-punctuated groove that’s like a mad cross between James Brown and George Clinton Infectious fun from first to last.. What really shakes things up elsewhere on the album, though, is the audible influence of indie “slo-core” acts such as Low and My Bloody Valentine, with Slamka often hatching wonderfully impressionistic guitar solos.Talk to Slamka for any length of time and you soon detect something of Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye about him, something concerned and humanitarian “Why am I like that?” he asks “I’m not sure. It could be the case that I’ve had experiences when I was a child, when I’ve seen the line between right and wrong being crossed.” The singer goes on to talk of a childhood friend, who, aged 7, regularly had “the shit beaten out of him” by his parents. The Samoan accidentally collided with a player’s elbow and on regaining his feet, he found the ear was hanging by a single artery.
Leota underwent plastic surgery and, unsurprisingly, will be out of action for a fortnight.. Political footballs do not get kicked around because they are irrelevant to the affairs of state, but because they are central to them – and in terms of rugby governance, the Heineken Cup is the National Health Service and the education system rolled into one. Ten years ago, the English and Scottish unions declined to participate in the inaugural tournament because they were scared to death of its potential; a couple of seasons later, the Premiership clubs boycotted the competition after realising this was the biggest blow they could strike in pursuit of a larger role in the decision-making process.
And now? Wasps, the reigning European champions, are pointing an accusatory finger at the Celtic nations, and the Irish nation in particular, over the clear injustices in Heineken qualification, which allow the likes of Munster and Leinster to be guaranteed places in the competition by their own national union and, as a result, plan their campaigns methodically and meticulously over a period of many months. The English, French and Italians, meanwhile, must sweat torrents from the start of September to the end of May, just to stand a chance of making the cut. Gloucester, the equal of almost any side in the northern hemisphere on their day, very nearly missed out on the competition that begins in Belfast, Llanelli and Perpignan this evening. Sale, perhaps the form side in England, are nowhere to be seen.When Lawrence Dallaglio, the Wasps captain, raised the issue in public forum earlier this week, he did not do it to pass the time of day. It was a wail of anger, driven by his frustration at the continued loading of the dice in favour of provincial, regional and district sides playing in a tournament that was created ideally for teams of the club variety.It also confirmed, as though confirmation were needed, that the Heineken Cup is the only true yardstick of an ?te outfit’s place in the great scheme of things Wasps won the domestic-European double last season.
For all their commitment to the Premiership, they would unhesitatingly have traded Grand Final victory over Bath for European victory over Toulouse had they been forced to make the choice.”This is the measure,” said Ian McGeechan, a three-time coach of the British and Irish Lions, and director of rugby in Scotland, at the tournament launch in Edinburgh. “It has drawn the northern hemisphere together and created a European rugby community that simply wasn’t there in the mid-1990s. It forces coaches and players to look outward, to prepare to play internationally and this multi-cultural environment has been of inestimable benefit to all of us on this side of the equator. I would certainly select for the Lions on the basis of performance in this competition; indeed, I have done so.
Why? Because of all tournaments, this one strips the players of their sense of the familiar. They have to do things differently, and that separates the men from the boys.”There are precious few infants to be seen in this season’s jamboree. DJ Sneak is probably best known as the self-proclaimed “Mad Skunk Burner” from Basement Jaxx’s Remedy album, so it’s perhaps understandable that this third solo set from the Puerto Rican should follow the Brixton duo’s distinctive Latin-house crossover style on tracks such as “Can’t Wait”, “Salsa Elektrika”, and the single “Que Pasa”, the monumental bumping salsa-house party groove that leads off Housekeepin’. Lyrically, his concerns are split between cheating songs of various stripes – he’s usually either apologising, protesting his innocence or eyeing up a new conquest – and songs which reflect his gospel roots, such as “It Don’t Have to Change”, a nostalgic yearning for a simpler time “when the family was everything”, sung with several generations of his own family Quite literally, practising what he preaches A household name by Christmas, I reckon.. Tracks like “Stay with You”, “Live It Up” and “She Don’t Have to Know” betray the influence of Curtis Mayfield, Bobby Womack and Sly Stone respectively, while the brittle beats and cyclical, West African-style guitars of “Refuge” offer a more contemporary soul flavour.
Legend’s story is a testament to perseverance: after four independently produced albums, and a nine-year tenure as choir director of a Philadelphia church, he’s finally making this major-label debut, which pivots elegantly on the cusp of classic, Seventies soul and modern hip-hop and R&B. The junkie in “Pressure” who spends his time “shooting up in the park” is straight out of a Specials-style societal tableau, while the warning, in “Why So Rude”, that criminals and sociopaths will eventually be called to account for their misdeeds is in the long and distinguished tradition of Jamaican rude-boy sermons. Elsewhere, “Keep On” is a righteous ska sermon, “Writing on the Wall” a sluggish reggae-rocker predicting retribution “for the sorrow”, and “Place in Life” a mockney rap-rock diatribe with a healthy scepticism about the fog of political discourse. John Legend is the secret weapon behind several of R&B’s current successes; his voice, lyrics and piano skills are all over albums by the likes of Jay-Z, Alicia Keys, Black Eyed Peas, Lauryn Hill, Common, Talib Kweli and, most recently, his mentor, Kanye West. It’s not all gloom and foreboding, though: “Best of What You Got”, “Pick It Up” and “Better a Know” all advise the downcast to raise their spirits and take control of their lives, rather than let others run them down. The instrumentation, varies from feisty trombone and bluesy harmonica to poppy organ and fat, fuzz-guitar chords, while the sound is diversified further through the Indian/ska crossover “Nachna” and the brisk ska-blues “Cow Cow Yicky”, which makes Little Axe-style use of its Leadbelly source material: mad, irresistible nonsense.. This solo outing finds the former Specials and Fun Boy Three member still mining the varied strata of Jamaican rhythms that have characterised his career so far, and applying them to socially relevant issues.
