Don't Rust In Peace

It is not unknown for drummers to say they hope to die on stage – literally, rather than metaphorically. Because we want to keep playing to the end.

But the reality of death on stage has just taken Nick Menza at the relatively young age of 51. A player since the age of two, he was best loved as the drummer with Megadeth in their heyday.

I can't pretend to be a Megadeth fan, but I really like Menza's no-nonsense and very physical approach to playing the kit. And I am envious of his nifty double-kick-pedal work. Check out his drumming and mourn the loss of a full-on player.

Voice Of A Fallen Angel

The late-night drive back to London from playing a gig in Brighton was the perfect opportunity to listen to Bob Dylan's latest album, 'Fallen Angels'.

What a wonderful piece of work and – like everything he's done – it's something that no one else could pull off. For an ageing troubadour to take these ancient songs and make them fresh and full of timeless meaning is more than a small miracle.

This is part two of 'Shadows In The Night', pretty much just as 'World Gone Wrong' was part two of 'Good As I Been To You' – another couple of albums when he took a kind of sabbatical (enforced possibly by writer's block) and turned a whole load of old songs into, in effect, new Dylan songs.

Great as Bob's singing is on 'Fallen Angels', what really stands out on this album is how damn good his band are on every track. And, as ever, the appetite is whetted for what comes next – whatever that may be.

Underground, Overground

Is this what we went through the Sixties for? It's difficult to decide whether the sleeve of Atom Heart Mother being adorned with the Queen's head and stuck on a stamp is a win or a lose.

This is the conundrum posed by a new set of official UK postage stamps dedicated to Pink Floyd.

The Floyd once appeared to be the epitome of the counterculture. Have they now been fully subsumed by the establishment? Or have they simply made a mockery of it?

On balance, maybe we should just smile and move on.

A set of Sex Pistols stamps next? With Johnny Rotten alongside the Queen's head...

School Of Schlock

'School Of Rock' is a great film – and one of the best rock 'n' roll movies ever. It was too much to hope that it might be left as just that.

Today tickets are being offered for the 'School Of Rock - The Musical' on stage in London. A musical version of a perfect musical film? But wait. It gets worse. It's by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

I am old enough to remember the release of the 'Jesus Christ Superstar' album and its being talked about as a 'rock opera'. It was neither an opera nor rock music.

With 'Superstar' and everything that followed, in among the padding there was usually a memorable show tune. But Lloyd Webber must be a contender for the man least likely to ever have any kind of connection with the spirit of rock.

Simon Sings

Mentioning Paul Simon in the previous post, I'm afraid that I didn't think to explain who he was.

Thanks, then, to an email today from Eventim, advertising tickets for Simon's upcoming UK tour and explaining: "Paul Simon is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist."

Is it me? Or is there something odd about someone at a ticket agency feeling the need to introduce Paul Simon – and with these words?

Borderline Genius

I'm glad they found the "missing" Sinead O'Connor. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has been worried about her.

And I'd been listening to her beautiful singing just a few days before her Prince/Arsenio Hall comments caused such a furore.

She's almost as good at causing uproar as she is at moving you to tears with her voice.

I had been revisiting Willie Nelson's 'Across The Borderline' album from 1993 – his finest work and one of the best albums ever.

Sinead performed an emotional duet with him on a version of Peter Gabriel's 'Don't Give Up', the track being recorded just the day after she had been more or less booed off stage at the Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary gig – because, just before that, she had torn up a photograph of the Pope on TV in protest at the Catholic church's handling of child abuse.

(What supposed Dylan fans were doing booing someone for making a legitimate protest is something of a puzzle – although Dylan 'fans' have, of course, not been unknown to boo Bob Dylan on a number of occasions.)

Dylan, inevitably, has a presence on 'Across The Borderline', joining in on 'Heartland' which he co-wrote with Willie. And Nelson also throws in a great reading of Dylan's 'What Was It You Wanted'.

With additional contributions from Bonnie Raitt and Paul Simon, every track on this album is a masterpiece, and Sinead, a voice crying against the wilderness, provides one of its very finest moments.

Oh Yes! It's Another Bob Dylan Book

John Bauldie and Patrick Humphries once wrote a book called 'Oh No! Not Another Bob Dylan Book'. It's one of the few Bob Dylan books I haven't read.

Among the best are 'Dylan's Visions Of Sin' by Christopher Ricks... and, of course, 'Chronicles Volume One' by, er, Bob Dylan. (What about Volume Two? Is it rolling, Bob?)

But I must now also recommend 'Dylan Disc By Disc' by Jon Bream, which does exactly what it says on the cover. It's a fresh critical analysis of every studio album the man has done, from 'Bob Dylan' to 'Shadows In The Night'. But, typically, it is about to become out of date because Dylan is releasing 'Fallen Angels' later this month.

'Disc By Disc' features not only informed and intelligent discussions about every one of the albums from assorted line-ups of critics, but it also features great pictures of the man in his many incarnations.

It really is essential reading.

Words Fail...

It's always a joy to visit Kew Gardens in London – even on a holiday weekend like this one.

There is so much beauty there, and it is impossible to put it into words.

They also have music at Kew in the summer. The schedule of concerts for 2016 is as follows:

Simply Red, Will Young, Bjorn Again, Jools Holland, the Corrs and the Gipsy Kings.

Oh well... Kew still has a great line-up of trees...