If Music Could Talk

I've just been listening to Western Front and The Carbon Bubble for the first time in a number of years. Sometimes I feel like this little slice of history didn't happen, and that it was taken a little for granted when it was going on.

While its probably pointless just listing songs you like, I've got to say that I'm so happy and appreciative that songs like The Magic Suitcase, National Anthem, Gangs of England, Soylent Green, Psychotic Fish and Why Do Men Fight exist, and its pretty amazing that these songs just started popping up for free on the internet in relatively rapid succession in the mid-2000s after a near decade of silence and some pretty underwhelming releases prior to that. Add those to the The News, The Global War on Culture, Night Falls and a few others and its a pretty amazing thing all in all, capped, in my opinion, by The Crack-Up Suite - which for me was pretty much perfect (Pier 51, Buckethead, Falun Gong Love Song (who would ever imagine we would get guitar playing like that from Mick in 2007!) And then, of course, it was over - The Last Post slowing the spontaneous forward momentum and The Carbon Bubble proving yet again (sort of like Tighten up Vol. 88 and Higher Power) that its not easy being that damn good.

Anyways, thanks to Tony and Mick for some great music - melodic rock with intelligent, interesting lyrics - something I'd personally been hoping for from Mick for a number of years and something I got with CSi way above any reasonable expectations - and fuck the drum machine and song length arguments.

Nice post.

TeddyB Not Logged In wrote:Nice post.

Maybe it could have done with losing 2 minutes off the end.

And some great gigs along the way and in particular seeing Mick smiling while playing and obviously enjoying it. Something we didn't see while with The Clash(understandably) and very briefly during BAD

Heston wrote:

TeddyB Not Logged In wrote:Nice post.

Maybe it could have done with losing 2 minutes off the end.

Ha ha, good point!

Psychotic Fish is great. Big Surprise was, well, a nice big surprise too after such a long period of silence.

If it's the last thing c/s ever release, Big Surprise was a lovely way to go out.

This thread inspired me to go back to some c/s cuts. Damn, but The News was a terrific single.

Carbon/Silicon ARE great.

So many excellent, ridiculously underrated songs up until then, but Carbon Bubble was comparatively weak save The Best Man. Mick just wasn't able to put in the creative effort for various reasons and Tony was left to carry too much weight.

TeddyB Not Logged In wrote:So many excellent, ridiculously underrated songs up until then, but Carbon Bubble was comparatively weak save The Best Man. Mick just wasn't able to put in the creative effort for various reasons and Tony was left to carry too much weight.

Yes agreed.

"The Last Post" is a great album and gets regular plays here.

I need to listen to more Carbon/Silicon really, the only song of theirs I have is pier 51 and it is such a fantastic tune, what others would you recommend?

drowninghere wrote:I've just been listening to Western Front and The Carbon Bubble for the first time in a number of years. Sometimes I feel like this little slice of history didn't happen, and that it was taken a little for granted when it was going on.

While its probably pointless just listing songs you like, I've got to say that I'm so happy and appreciative that songs like The Magic Suitcase, National Anthem, Gangs of England, Soylent Green, Psychotic Fish and Why Do Men Fight exist, and its pretty amazing that these songs just started popping up for free on the internet in relatively rapid succession in the mid-2000s after a near decade of silence and some pretty underwhelming releases prior to that. Add those to the The News, The Global War on Culture, Night Falls and a few others and its a pretty amazing thing all in all, capped, in my opinion, by The Crack-Up Suite - which for me was pretty much perfect (Pier 51, Buckethead, Falun Gong Love Song (who would ever imagine we would get guitar playing like that from Mick in 2007!) And then, of course, it was over - The Last Post slowing the spontaneous forward momentum and The Carbon Bubble proving yet again (sort of like Tighten up Vol. 88 and Higher Power) that its not easy being that damn good.

Anyways, thanks to Tony and Mick for some great music - melodic rock with intelligent, interesting lyrics - something I'd personally been hoping for from Mick for a number of years and something I got with CSi way above any reasonable expectations - and fuck the drum machine and song length arguments.

Its nice to hear something positive about that time. I actually never took any of it for granted and I still dont. Great songs, great times, great gigs and great friends from that forum.
Mick and Tony brought many years of happiness to so many people. But you know i always feel that Mick knows when to stop. If he feels thats its run its course well lets say he knows when to move on and ensure a discography of amazing songs are left behind, that the whole band (new and old members) can feel really proud to be apart of.
I think once Mick had to deal with the men in suits then thats where the whole thing started to go wrong. Sadly im not too sure we are going to see much of Mick doing those sort of roles again and will provide a more influential role behind the scenes.

BitterTom wrote:I need to listen to more Carbon/Silicone really, the only song of theirs I have is pier 51 and it is such a fantastic tune, what others would you recommend?

Why Do Men Fight
Magic Suitcase
Gangs of England

BitterTom wrote:I need to listen to more Carbon/Silicone really, the only song of theirs I have is pier 51 and it is such a fantastic tune, what others would you recommend?

All of them.

Chuck Mangione wrote:

BitterTom wrote:I need to listen to more Carbon/Silicone really, the only song of theirs I have is pier 51 and it is such a fantastic tune, what others would you recommend?

All of them.

I'm one of Mick's biggest fans but C/S released some awful stuff in my opinion.

Its funny that this thread was brought up again today. I actually was listening to some Carbon Silicon on my drive to and from work. I've really come to like What the Fuck?. Its a really rocking song and its very obvious Mick wrote it. The guy loves to use the I Can't Explain riff.