Music Maps

This one’s a guest post from the lovely Rosa. If you fancy writing one, then please do! The email address is hello at music-maps.com, or if you simply have an idea for a post then leave a comment on the blog.

In 5th century BC, the Athens Parthenon was built. Eight stunning columns of the doric order were erected at the west and east facade, the sides had 16 columns each. Complex mathematics and sciences were employed to simply plan the building, the golden ratio was used to make sure it appealed to our basic human desire for balance, rhythm and harmony. This was, and still is, a giant in classical architecture.

In 1879, Nashville decided they wanted a piece of the action. Having the nickname ‘The Athens of the South” it was decided it was only appropriate they created a replica (as exact as possible) to the original Parthenon. It was made temporarily at first, from plaster, wood and brick, to commemorate the 100 year anniversary of Tennessee joining the United States. In the 1920s it was decided that the Parthenon should become a permanent fixture of the landscape, and they made it all over again, this time using concrete.

Attention to detail is evidently one of Nashville’s strong points, casts were made of the original sculptures found in the ruins at Athens so that Nashville’s sculptures could be as close to the original as possible. More decorations throughout the Parthenon have been painted as close to the colours that were presumably used in ancient Greece as possible. You’ve got to hand it to them- it’s dedication.

In 1990, artist Alan LeQuire recreated the statue that the original Athens was built for, a 41 foot chryselephantine sculpture of The Greek Goddess Athena, who was also the protecter of Athens. But this time it wasn’t a reductive sculpture carefully chipped out of stone or marble, this time it was cast an aluminum structure covered in fibre glass. Yes, that’s right, 41 foot of fibre glass, perhaps not so true to the original. Later, in 2002, it was gilded and painted in bright colours, just like the original would’ve been, well done LeQuire, well done.

I’ll meet you at the Parthenon/That’s the place we always went.

Casiotone for the Painfully Alone’s song has a lot less to do with Ancient Greece, than its namesake. The song is a touching plea to a friend, or loved one who has left Nashville, to come home.

Because if I could have my way/I wouldn’t be alone.

The track can be found on the Etiquette album.

Looking back at my past few posts, I’m a touch worried that I’ve focused on a few too many bloody awful Britpop records, and that’s probably because I have. So it’s time to remedy that with XTC’s 1982 album English Settlement, the sleeve of which is adorned with an image of the Uffington White Horse, a 3000 year old figure that was cut and chalked into the turf on the side of White Horse Hill in Uffington, Oxfordshire.

Whether Uffington White Horse is actually a horse has been cause for regular debate, with locals claiming that the image is that of the dragon that Saint George slew on Dragon Hill beneath the horse.

XTC coming from the nearby town of Swindon probably explains the reasoning for using the image on the sleeve to their filth album, although the same can’t be said for Nirvana who use the image on the back of their In Utero record. Kate Bush is another who’s used the location in pop, fooling around on the top of the hill in the promo video to 1985’s Cloudbusting single:

English Settlement is available for less than a fiver at Amazon, and with the likes of Pitchfork giving it a rare 10.0 rating, it’s worth a gamble even if you’re unfamiliar with the band.

If you want to know more about the White Horse or visit the hill, then the website of the National Trust - who now own and manage the site - can give you more details.

Even though I only mentioned Glastonbury a month ago, I’m going to do it again because a) I’ve got a ticket and I’m dead excited and b) I’ve stumbled across GlastoEarth, which is a pretty nifty add on for Google Earth by Paul Holmes which puts my singular marker pointing at the Pyramid Stage to shame:

Whether you are new to the festival and want to get a feel for what you’ll find, or are an old hand wanting to seek out those hidden places you can never seem to find, this map will hopefully help. The current version is based on 2007, and includes both items from the official map distributed at the festival, and other highlights - notably a few of the best food stalls - recommended by other visitors.

Remember that the layout of the festival evolves every year, so what you see here might not all be in the same place (or there at all!) this year, however a 2008 version of this should be available shortly before this year’s festival.

So yes, download Google Earth and then GlastoEarth 1.2. Even if you’re not going and only watch it on telly (although registration for the festival has reopened and tickets are available once more - visit glastonburyfestivals.co.uk), it might just give you an idea of how huge the Worthy Farm site is.

Country House is Blur’s worst ever single. As part of “The Battle of Britpop” in the summer of 1995, its release date was moved forward a week in order to clash with Oasis’s Roll With It. It was a clever PR exercise, and one which led to Country House comfortably beating Roll With It to number 1 in the UK single charts. However, Oasis’s corresponding album (What’s the Story) Morning Glory ? went on to comprehensively outsell Blur’s patchy The Great Escape - the former going 14 times platinum in the UK (as well as being the third biggest selling album in UK chart history) compared to the latter’s 3 times platinum status.

The sleeve to part 1 of the single (part 2 was a live EP with drastically different artwork and, like part 1, long deleted but available from eil.com) features Neuschwanstein Castle, a “19th-century Bavarian palace located on a mountain top in Germany, near Hohenschwangau and Füssen in southwest Bavaria” according to trusty Wikipedia, which goes on to explain that “the palace was built by Ludwig II of Bavaria as a retreat and as a homage to Richard Wagner.”

The castle is Germany’s most photographed building and, should you want to visit, available to visit all year round. Should you want to make some sort of Blur related pilgrimage to the palace, then the Neuschwanstein Castle website is probably the best source of visitor information around. It’d probably be much easier just to go for a walk up Primrose Hill, mind.

Bloody awful, but if you’re new to the band and want a better example of what they’re capable of then get hold of the follow up to The Great Escape, the self titled Blur, and then track down magnificent 2000 single Music Is My Radar (again, probably most easily found at eil.com)

Opened in 1947, Weeki Wachee Springs, Florida, is the bizarre tourist location featured in the promo to Supergrass’s low key 2005 single Low C:

As you’ve hopefully gathered from the video above, Weeki Wachee is famous for its performances by ‘mermaids’. It’s an odd place, and one probably best explained by a visit to its website.

Possibly even odder is the population of the city of Weeki Wachee itself - a mammoth twelve according to a 2004 census. That doesn’t make it the smallest in the US - that honour goes to Maza, Dakota - but the springs make sure that the city enters the record books as they’re the country’s deepest, measured at 403 feet.

And back to the video itself, Hernando Today (the full article is available to read at Supergrass.tv) explains more:

Director Garth Jennings visited the park as a child and when the band approached him with the single, Jennings said he thought of the park immediately and wrote the video around it.

The 10-member crew also filmed scenes on the park’s riverboat and at the homes of former Mermaid Barbara and current Mermaid Carli as she got ready for her shift at the park.

“It’s an affectionate portrait of this place,” said Jennings, who has directed other videos for Supergrass. “I thought it would be interesting to see the amazing people behind it and how special that all is.”

Now a hard to find single, your best bet of getting hold of Low C is on the band’s fifth album - Road To Rouen.