Van Morrison: your views please

https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/article/van-morrison-john-cooper-clarke

Well, someone *loves* the new album...

(The article writer, not JCC...)

looking forward to Latest Record Project, Volume 2: Have I told you lately that I hate you

I need my laptop to play “Why Are You on Facebook?” every time I go to the website.

end of that interview is amazing.

xp Yes! New browser extension where instead of blocking the time-wasting websites it just forces you to listen to Van's latest record project the whole time you're on them.

Well, someone *loves* the new album...

... appalling Tory dickhead, Dylan Jones, to be precise.

Funny name, does he sing “ballad of a thin man” to himself?

So Van's label tried selling signed copies of this to help sales, and they even posted a photo of him signing one. But fans started to grumble that the signatures were fake - at least one reported by the press resembled a printed or stamped signature (the ink's uniform instead of a path of ink traced along by a writing instrument), and several photos of different signed CD's owned by different people have completely identical signatures even though they're placed on different parts of the booklet. (I just saw After the Thin Man for the first time last week, and hilariously this very subject figures in that film where they identify forged signatures using the same method - putting two checks on top of each other over a light and discovering they are more or less identical.) His management has already denied this, pointing to the photo of evidence. All this somehow feels appropriate given Van's support of the same bullshit theories spouted by the orange Mussolini who has relocated to Florida.

hmmm....that's interesting. because at this point i'd think they could probably predict exactly how many copies of a new van morrison album they were going to sell give or take a thousand or two.

guess the press must be turning off some of the hardcore fans

The price wasn't marked up much, if at all, so maybe whoever organized it thought it was "okay" because of that. Plus Van probably said "I'm not signing a thousand f-ing CD's!"

Van probably said "I'm not signing a thousand f-ing CD's!"

Fixed that for you.

"Bring me some Edison Cylinders!"

van usually seems so pumped about going the extra mile to please his fans. disappointed he would be involved in a lazy ripoff

He signed some for us last time around, so, not unheard of for him to do this. They weren't auto-penned or anything, but there also weren't that many. 100 or so, I think.

important new interview i enjoyed very much
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZrVM089byI

Picturing Van standing (alone) outside a vaccine centre with a placard with "Down with this sort of thing" on it.

https://news.sky.com/story/vaccine-programme-opens-to-all-adults-in-northern-ireland-12318011

This is Extra ordinary . pic.twitter.com/M0jmA0JIf2

— Stephen Nolan (@StephenNolan) June 11, 2021

Working out the chorus lyrics for volume 2 in public these days.

Why's Van so angry? Rangers won the league this year

Not 100% sure about the chronology, but hours before Nolan tweeted that, he also reported about four Van Morrison gigs that had been cancelled the previous day "at the last minute," so Van could be particularly angry about that happening.

I've never actually seen Van lose it and scream like that before - a pretty sad sight, but at least we got an amusing "Brown-Eyed Girl" request. (Of course Van didn't look amused.)

Unexpected'zinger' there from the DUP's Ian Paisley Jr.

Ah, that's who "junior" was. Not someone I'd ever vote for.

This is the calibre of person Van hangs out with these days.

Might have to remove this bookmark. Nothing good happening with Van.

I heard Van Morrison had announced the postponement of shows via social media (including Facebook!) specifically due to health concerns for his audience over the omicron variant. For a second, I thought maybe he saw the error of his ways, and indeed, announcements with those specifics were made via Facebook, Twitter et al...but they also used the pronoun "we" (i.e. his management). In the days following those posts, new ones with the pronoun "I" (i.e the man himself) pretty much groused what he's already been grousing for the past year.

He has a Chicago show coming up in May, and the first thing that pops up on the link to Ticketmaster from his tour page is "The Event Organizer is requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccination to attend this event."

Van is offering his jelly roll to so many people with such frequency. I hope they are actually separately wrapped jelly rolls.

I guess he's cranked out another album.

Tracklist:

1. Dangerous
2. What's It Gonna Take?
3. Fighting Back is the New Normal
4. Fodder for the Masses
5. Can't Go On This Way
6. Sometimes It's Just Blah Blah Blah
7. Money From America
8. Not Seeking Approval
9. Damage and Recovery
10. Nervous Breakdown
11. Absolutely Positively the Most
12. I Ain’t No Celebrity
13. Stage Name
14. Fear and Self-Loathing in Las Vegas
15. Pretending

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91MDCAJgN9L._SX425_.jpg

I'm guessing a hard pass for me.

Completists hardest hit

Seriously, this feels like an April Fools' joke four days late.

But it isn't.

LOL what a fucking idiot Van "the Man" turned out to be.

Pains me to say this, but given his long history of being a shit in general, it's not a huge surprise.

The difference is the assholery has now become and overwhelmed his music whereas in the past it was an occasional annoyance.

ILX Pre-Covers?

Sometimes It's Just Blah Blah Blah

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51VYB8UMFtL._SX290_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

Van Morrison has issued legal proceedings against Northern Ireland’s Department of Health and its minister Robin Swann over an opinion piece written for Rolling Stone magazine.

The op-ed called Morrison’s songs about the pandemic a “smear” on those involved in the public health response to the virus and highlighted the damage the musician might cause to public messaging around Covid-19 in Northern Ireland.

Morrison’s solicitors, John J Rice and Co, confirmed that he was taking legal action against the Department of Health and Swann, but declined to specify on what grounds.

I was going to say Robin Swann is the one who should be sueing him judging by that video post upthread but I think Mr. Swann should be content to allow Van to make a public ass himself with his good buddy Ian Paisley Jr.

Absolutely, Van's doing a perfectly fine job of digging himself into a hole. Still massively disappointed that this will likely be the final, ignominious chapter of Van's career.

(I'm sure there will be many more shows and many more records to come, but nothing that will supplant the nuttery going on now.)

The decline of Armond White from crazy to lazy goes with the new Van lyrics he adoringly quotes; the music may be better, but firmly attached to this shit, it may well not matter---anyway, yeah, this is just quotes set in gush, but if you're morbidly, self-abusingly curious, here 'tis: https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/05/van-morrisons-songs-of-the-free/

hooked on purple heather right now
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLvf1UVAotc

an album that should be in the good LP / WTF cover thread...

Fans should get The Philosopher's Stone - it includes a ton of outtakes. Altogether, if you took like the seven best outtakes and included the single, "Warm Love," I think the final result would've been another masterpiece for Van. I was never that crazy about what he ended up submitting, it's kind of a so-so album to me.

(IIRC he considered making it a double LP. Wonder what that would've been.)

Something like...

Side A:
Warm Love
Wonderful Remark
Madame Joy
Contemplation Rose

Side B:
Not Supposed to Break Down
There There Child
Drumshanbo Hustle
Try for Sleep

...I'd really enjoy. There's probably a few other songs that would've been great too. He cut a great cover of Fleetwood Mac/Christine McVie's "Spare Me a Little" that I would've loved. (It hasn't been officially released. The bootleg sounds like it came from a cassette dubbed from a dub, etc.)

Ah, from Clinton Heylin's book (via Wikipedia):

Recorded during a series of prolific recording sessions, there was more than enough material to fill a double-album. Morrison proposed the idea to Warner Bros. Records, but he was ultimately convinced to release a single LP. During the recording sessions held between August and November 1972, there were nearly thirty songs recorded in all, at least three-quarters of them original compositions. A few leftover tracks were saved or re-recorded for future albums like Veedon Fleece, but most would not see release until 1998's compilation of outtakes, The Philosopher's Stone, when nine of the songs would be used. Biographer Clinton Heylin suggested that "only 'Warm Love' and 'Hard Nose the Highway' could have sat comfortably alongside 'rejects' like 'Madame Joy', 'Bulbs', 'Spare Me a Little', 'Country Fair', 'Contemplation Rose' and 'Drumshanbo Hustle'."

xpost that's a great track list from Philosopher's Stone. I've got several of those tunes on my Van playlist.

Just because... Van & Dylan in Athens playing Foreign Window.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtqB6JSiHNg

Johnny Winter ended up with one of those outtakes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TH3ha9O1EjQ

Winter had some great connections back then, as his prior album had "Silver Train" before the Stones and his next album had a then-unreleased John Lennon song.

xxp thanks! That whole collection is really worth getting. I wish he followed through on a volume two!

I just listened to all those you posted. So good! Hadnt heard any of them. Do you not like purple heather?

^love me some purple heather