Oblique Saturdays

A series for Saturdays in 2026 inspired by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's set of cards, Oblique Strategies (Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas). Eno and Schmidt created them to be used to unblock creative impasses and approach problems from unexpected angles. Each week I'll turn over an Oblique Strategy card and post a song or songs inspired by the suggestion. 

Last week's Oblique Strategy suggestion was Spectrum Analysis.

My spectrum analysis took me to Sonic Boom and Spectrum, Aphex Twin and Sewell and The Gong. Further analysis came from Dumdedumdumdum (Oh! Gunquit), Ernie (The Dells), Khayem (Captain Scarlet and The Mysterons, Solid Space, Creation Rebel, Florence and her Machine and Seahawks with Prins Thomas), Al G (World Of Twist, Matt Berry), Mrs G (the ZX- Spectrum and Space Raiders), Weird Al (Pac- Man v The Beatles), Jase (Rain Tree Crow), Walter (Billy Cobham and Massive Attack) and Rol (more ZX- Spectrum, Jet Set Willy and Joni Mitchell).

From the above suggestions, here's World Of Twist covering The Rolling Stones...

She's A Rainbow

This week's Oblique Strategy card reads like this- Not building a wall but making a brick.

How are bricks made? I asked the internet. 

The main ingredient is clay. Another key component is sand. Sometimes other additives such as lime, iron oxide or magnesia might be used. The final crucial ingredient is water. The dry material is crushed. The soft wet clay is shaped by a mould. Once the brick has been shaped it is left to dry- the removal of excess water is important. The brick is then fired in a kiln. 

Clay

Clay is from Goldfrapp's 2013 album Tales Of Us, a lovely collection of folky album/ electronic songs. Clay tells the story of a doomed soldier during World War II writing a letter to his lover, Dave. 

Castles Made Of Sand

I don't think Jimi Hendrix ever sounded better than on Axis: Bold As Love- loose, electric blues, psychedelia. Castles Made Of Sand has some wonderful free flowing forwards guitar and bursts of backwards guitar, a tripped out solo and some autobiographical lyrics from Jimi about impermanence. 

I Wash My Hair With Limes

Obscure 1984 outliers Circus Underwater. Dreamy laid back psyche/ ambient. Stunning. 

Throw Some Water In

Lee Perry in 1978 and his Roast Fish And Collie Weed album, his first album to consist solely songs sung by Scratch himself. 

Summon The Fire

Body shaking, addictive astro- jazz/ dance- psyche from The Comet Is Coming is 2019. 

Unfortunately I can't find a song with the word kiln in the title. Killing on the other hand is very well represented. This is Moon Duo in 2009.

Killing Time

Feel free to contribute your own constructions in response to Not building a wall but making a brick in the comment box.

Espana

Y viva Espana! We're off to Spain today for a few days, going to Granada, Nerja and Malaga. There are lots of songs with Spain or Spanish in their names in my collection. Let's go with cuatro songs for today's post. 

Hinds are a Spanish, all girl group with four albums to their name- the most recent, Viva Hinds, was one of my favourites of 2024. They covered The Clash's Spanish Bombs in 2020 in fine style. Joe Strummer's lyric dealt with the Spanish Civil War, 70s separatist Basque terrorism and mass tourism. 'The hillsides ring with 'free the people'/ Can I hear the echo of the days of '39?', Joe asks, harking back to the civil war and the days of one of his heroes, the poet Federico Garcia Lorca (murdered by Franco's forces in 1936). In the chorus Joe declares his love for Spain, 'Yo te quiero, oh mi corazón' ('I love you/ Oh my heart'). 

Spanish Bombs

In 1967 Jimi Hendrix's second album with The Experience had a song called Spanish Castle Magic on it, a glorious slice of '67 blues/ psychedelia, Jimi's guitar raw and raucous, the bass locked into the crunching guitar chords and doubling the riff, Mitch battering the drums. I don't think Jimi ever sang better than on this song.

Spanish Castle Magic

The Spanish Castle wasn't actually in Spain, it was a roadhouse on the outskirts of Seattle where a young Hendrix was sometimes found jamming with local groups. 

In 1999 Gorky's Zygotic Munki released their sixth album, Spanish Dance Troupe. The title track is gorgeous, absurdist, lilting Welsh psychedelic folk. This is Gorky's first appearance at Bagging Area which seems a bit of an oversight. 

Spanish Dance Troupe

Last for today, Galaxie 500 and the B-side to their debut single Tugboat from 1988. In King Of Spain a man inures himself from pain and hurt by becoming the King of Spain, safely isolated as a powerful man but he ends up alone and lonely. Galaxie 500 may have refined their songs and sound over the three years they were active after they released Tugboat/ King Of Spain but almost everything that made them so special is present on this single. 

King Of Spain

I've set posts up for the time I'm away so there'll be no break in service. Bagging Area's commitment to blogging knows few bounds.  

I Stand Up Next To A Mountain

Had he lived long enough Jimi Hendrix would have turned eighty last weekend. There were some documentaries on, one of which focussed on Jimi's involvement in a film called Rainbow Bridge. The film eventually came out in 1971, directed by Chuck Wein who had a vision of a new kind of film, scriptless and improvised with non- actors all drawn from Hawaii's countercultural youth community. Wein had produced three of Andy Warhol's films so was no stranger to films with no plot or script. As the money ran out and various investors got jittery someone talked Jimi into appearing, convinced that concert footage of Hendrix might rescue the project. Hendrix plays in a field on the side of a mountain on the island of Maui, on the edge of an active volcano- Haleakala- in front of a few hundred people. The cast had earlier on chanted 'Om' for a few minutes and there was something about the frequencies that the volcano was emitting. Hendrix, with his Cry Of Love band, play on a scaffold with wind blowing across the stage. The film ended up only using a few minutes of Hendrix and no songs in their entirety which when you watch the lost/ now re-found footage is absurd. This turned out to be the penultimate Hendrix live appearance- he died in September 1970. 

Jimi is clearly at the peak of his powers at Maui, a man moving fast and in total control. Looking at the set up- microphones wrapped in foam to dampen the sound of the wind, a small crowd, a flimsy looking stage- it's a wonder anything good came out of it. This though, Voodoo Chile (Slight Return), is the best thing you'll see today. One guitar, two pedals (a wah- wah and a fuzzbox), a Marshall stack and the accompaniment of Mitch Michell and Billy Cox (Mitch said in the documentary that musically they just followed Hendrix). Hendrix looks as cool as fuck too- headband, open necked black shirt with hippy trim down the sleeves, flared jeans and boots. A few groovy souls get up and dance but much of the crowd just sit and stare as Jimi works his way through the song, firing laser beams out from the fretboard, dive bombing runs, crunching riffs and spiralling solo parts. I'm not generally given to guitar heroism but this is worth every single bit. Cox's bass playing anchors it and Mitchell's drumming is superb too but it's all about Jimi.

Due to the wind, Mitchell had to re- record his drums in New York a year later as the film reached release but Hendrix's parts are as filmed on that day, 30th July 1970, on a hillside in Maui. 

The studio version from Electric Ladyland isn't too shabby either- one of those songs that was part of the soundtrack of 1989 as well as 1969. The final verse, 'If I don't meet you in this world/ Then I'll meet you in the next one/ Don't be late', nails things too. 

Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)

51

I'm fifty one years old today. Last year's birthday, the big five- oh, took place in lockdown and despite everything it was a good day- lockdown brought some freedoms with it in a way, do what you can under the circumstances. This year's birthday means we can actually go to a pub although our booking for tonight is for sitting outside, it still feels a bit soon to be going indoors. 

Songs about being fifty- one are understandably thin on the ground. There aren't too many songs celebrating moving another year into your fifties. On Heartland in 1986 The The sang about the UK being the 51st state of the USA but that's not especially cheery for a birthday song. Instead here's Jimi Hendrix and his Experience in 1967 with a song about 51st anniversaries, the B-side to Purple Haze. Hendrix's guitar sings and swings, fuzzy and warm, switching between rhythm and lead or playing both at the same time, Noel and Mitch thudding away behind him. Jimi sings about the flipsides of marriage, a tale about not wanting to settle down, not wanting to be tied down- very much a young man's point of view. Jimi never lived to see his 51st birthday- he died four months after I was born, 18th September 1970. 

51st Anniversary

Sunset On Mars

Just wow.

The first Jimi Hendrix Experience album is one of the few 60s albums that I still sometimes pull out and listen to from start to finish. As well as the heavy blues and riff rock Hendrix was able to do so much more, out there and otherworldly songs with backwards sounding guitar and drones and a haze that could only really have come from somewhere else entirely.

Love Or Confusion

Eventually

Every six months or so I feel the need for some Jimi Hendrix. People are making a lot out of various records from 1967 being fifty years old this year and some of them sound fifty years old in a way, but Jimi's stuff doesn't. In 1967 The Jimi Hendrix experience released two albums, the debut Are You Experienced and then a follow up Axis: Bold As Love. Axis is a step on from the burning hot debut, an exploration of sound and the studio, of Jimi's development as a writer and of psychedelia. Many of the songs on Axis have a confidence to unfold more slowly, to unwind a little. Castles Made Of Sand has long been a favourite of mine- a backwards guitar part, a lazy guitar riff, a laid back groove and Jimi's vocals about impermanence and all things being temporary.

'And so castles made of sand
Fall to the sea
Eventually'

Castles Made Of Sand

Move Over Rover

As a bonus extra to the earlier Hendrix post here's Billy Childish and The Buff Medways ripping through Fire (off Are You Experienced?). Garage style, no overdubs.

Fire

What a great hat. I believe it's known as a Gorblimey hat. Want one. Where did you get that hat Mr Childish?

I Stand Up Next To A Mountain

I heard this on the telly the other day and was struck by it's brilliance. Then I realised how long it was since I listened to any Jimi Hendrix other than inadvertently. I had a big Hendrix phase about, ooh, twenty three years ago. He was all the rage among the 60s heads in the late 80s, although now I suspect now he's just another dead rock star. I never ventured far beyond the records done by The Jimi Hendrix Experience, and then mainly just the first two albums (Are You Experienced? and Axis: Bold as Love and a compilation of singles and B-sides called Smash Hits) and to be fair Electric Lady land was never my favourite but this song is a stunner. I think it's because of the wah-wah.

Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)