VAN MORRISON Album by Album Discussion: Part 2 (Wavelength 1978 - Enlightenment 1990)

I have no recollection of hearing those songs live before.

 

This thread, it's like a locomotive.

Sorry I've been absent. The weather was so nice here yesterday I just had to go out and enjoy it.

 

whats nice weather? an oxymoron in the north in february...hahaha...good for you. Van sounds very nice on a lovely day by the way....

 

Tir Na Nog, Foreign Window and A Town Called Paradise were all performed mulitple times in '86.

 

I have a video of Van and Bob Dylan performing "Foreign Window" in Greece.

 

No Guru is one of Van's masterworks imo. a delayed and unanticipated followup to Veedon Fleece in a way, as mentioned by others. it came as a very organic breath of fresh air at the time of its release.

my original vinyl and west german cd sound pretty darn good, but as usual the cd tends to skip less in the car

 

This is one of my favourite of Van's too. A great record all the way with a vibe through the whole record that's wonderful. I have heard "Foreign Window" in a radio broadcast of a concert many years ago.

And this is the one record in my experience people reacts quickest and positively too, if they haven't heard much Van before.

 

Here is a review I copied out of the November 1986 issue of Stereo Review magazine. I'm missing the first paragraph or two, but I don't think much is missing.

After a string of brilliant, synthesizer-based albums (Common One, Beautiful Vision, Inarticulate Speech of the Heart), Morrison returned to the laid-back, acoustic soul-mantras and Celtic mysticism of albums like the mid-Seventies’ Veedon Fleece on 1985’s A Sense of Wonder. His new No Guru, No Method, No Teacher sustains the same kind of feel. It’s quiet, introspective, and devotional, with soaring oboe, piano, and acoustic guitar cloaking his smoky, gnomish vocals. But something happens in the middle of side one that is arresting and wonderful: Morrison recalls his great masterpiece, Astral Weeks, the album that many feel is not only his greatest record but one of the five or ten greatest rock albums ever.

Three tracks on No Guru – “A Town Called Paradise”, “In the Garden”, and “Tir Na Nog” – could easily have been called Astral Weeks Revisited. To begin with, they feature the work of two musicians who haven’t played with Morrison since his Woodstock days in the early Seventies – Jeff Labes on piano and synthesizer, and John Platania on guitar. Platania’s distinctive, gigue-life cadences and clean, sharp attacks were what first sent me to recheck Astral Weeks. Sure enough, he was there. Listening to his playing on No Guru is like going through an old scrapbook. There are lots of specific references to Astral Weeks too – the loping bass figure of “A Town Called Paradise”, the string arrangement of “Tir Na Nog”, the repeated lyric references (“in the garden all wet with rain”).

This kind of reaching into his past isn’t unusual for Morrison – his first half-dozen or so albums always made reference to turning up the radio, a source of great amusement to my friends and me at the time. But it raises No Guru, No Method, No Teacher from the ordinary – and “ordinary” with reference to Van Morrison means exceptional – to the essential.


Mark Peel

 

Thanks once again, Craig.

Can you imagine "Tir Na Nog" live, with the strings and all?

 

What does everyone think of the No Guru cover?

 

It's another winner Actually, I find the sepia tones pleasing, but could Van possibly look less cool than in that shot? Well, may be if he dressed like Zoro--oops, he already did that

 

That cover is a Van classic, imo.

 

I find it fascinating, the contrasting 50-50 image of Van dressed in dark tones while in the light of day on one side, and the well-lit, priestly-looking figure in the shadows on the other.

 

And I like the script and color codes on the back of the album cover as well.

 

Me too.

 

Go for it.

 

Yeah,I mentioned that in another thread about superstars meeting one another.I had seen it on an A & E special on a Sunday morning with those two jamming near the Acropolis.It was really cool!

 

Mike P5877 thanks for posting the Peel review. It is pretty close to my own feeling about this one.

Tom, I think this cover represents an improvement over the last three. I always thought that statue was some kind of a Budda. Still it will not win any awards. Yes, Van looks very portly and middle-aged, but in concert it was worse Khakis and a navy blazer made him look like a car salesman.

Here is a partial set list from the Van show I saw at Pier 84 in NYC July 10, 1986. Anyone else who can fill in the blanks? I think there was one at least more tune in the encore. I've seen Van quite a few times, but this show was the best.
Lark Ascending
Got To Go Back
Moondance
Tore Down Ala Rimbaud
Vanlose Stairway
Northern Muse
A Sense of Wonder
The Street Only Knew Your Name
Ballerina
She Gives Me Religion
Haunts of Ancient Peace
A Town Called Paradise
The Master's Eye
In The Garden
Bright Side of the Road
It's All In the Game/Make It Real
When the Healing has Begun
Summertime in England
Encore: St. Dominic's Preview, Send In the Clowns

 

But Van looked middle-aged when he was in his 20's!

 

I think that was the look, and attitude he was aiming for.

 

hmmm, i'm making a call, I may know someone with a tape of this show....I'll see what I can find out...

 

Full Force Gale