Blue Aeroplanes: Classic or Dud?

New album, "Welcome Stranger!" out on the 6th. Early download for pre-orderers sounds pretty good on first blush.

Yep, started listening this morning, very nice!

I see they have a UK tour lined up for the second half of January too

Dates here: http://www.theblueaeroplanes.com/?page_id=24

Since the glory days, when they were one of the best live bands around (see Access All Areas DVD/YouTube for evidence), I saw them a couple of times in the 00s, which were fun shows. But tonight's was back up there with Swagger/Beatsongs era. I think this must have something to do with the new album being really good.

I think every album since "Rough Music" (except the covers album "Harvester") has been excellent, with "Cavaliers" being extremely underrated. I only got to see them in the states once, on the "Rough Music" tour.

Anyone know whatever happened to Rodney Allen? Such a wonderful voice, full of emotion. He must've gone back to work...

Weird thing this morning. "No Go (For Louis MacNeice)" by The Cleaners From Venus was suggested to me by Spotify. Not a band I'm very familiar with, but I was struck how the phrasing really reminded me of The Blue Aeroplanes. Once this occurred to me it was hard to get the thought of Gerard Langley singing it out of my head.

And of course, the common link between this 1990 track and The Blue Aeroplanes is Langley's favourite poet, Louis MacNeice. The song itself is based on a MacNeice poem called Bagpipe Music, but when I listened to a recording of MacNeice reciting it, it doesn't particularly remind me of Langley at all.

Seems like being inspired by MacNeice just seems to lead pop musicians to intonate in the same way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABzPePvO6l8

When I got round to checking out Rolling blackouts Coastal Fever relatively late I couldn't not think of The Blue Aeroplanes. The vocal rhythms maybe aren't that similar but I don't have all that many ready reference points for speak-singing over driving multi guitar jangle.

Good heavens, other Aeroplanes fans!

That Cleaners From Venus song is circa 1990, perhaps a year or two earlier. That would've been the peak exposure for Gerard and the BA's so Martin Newell might've played with them or otherwise dug "Swagger" which got a lot of airplay.

Gerard's first band, Art Objects, titled their only album "Bagpipe Music".

Allegedly there's a new BA album in the works. Slow and steady releases at this point.

I'm listening to Swagger for the first time since...my thread revival? Besides the peak of a certain kind of Poppy Bush Interzone-era attention to the interaction of 12-string guitars against self-consciously imagistic lyrics, it reminds me to what degree R.E.M. were feeling their oats during this perios. From the cameo on "Jacket Hangs" and the instrumentalists playing on Zevon's Hindu Love Gods project to Stipe's appearance on Billy Bragg's "You Woke Up My Neighborhood," these guys thought they could do no wrong.

Lurve that album, was listening to one of the best-of's the other day. Some of my all-time favorite intricate weaving guitar lines.

New album, "Culture Gun" coming in April!

I somehow missed this and there's been no news since. Is everything OK?

We are sorry to announce that our upcoming April shows in Glasgow and London have been rescheduled to September on medical advice due to Gerard having been admitted to hospital for emergency surgery. pic.twitter.com/1U3xW1WNHA

— TheBlueAeroplanes (@Blue_Aeroplanes) April 12, 2023