Shining Light - Ash
Angel Interceptor - Ash
There's a Star - Ash
Starcrossed - Ash
Jesus Says - Ash
Jack Names the Planets - Ash
Aphrodite - Ash
Polaris -Ash
Girl frm Mars - Ash
Orpheus - Ash
And that's not to mention the b-sides.
It doesn't take too much familiarity with their work to notice that Ash have certain lyrical preoccupations - stars, planets, angels, deities, that kind of thing.
Ash aren't everyone's cup of tea, I know, and they even attract contempt in some circles, but I really think they're hugely underrated, and some of the things people slate them for are actually strengths. People talk about Tim Wheeler's thin voice and their immature song subjects, but for me their greatest moments lie in the expression of, and nostalgia for, a perennial adolescence, some attempt to articulate and recapture a golden moment in one's youth, and the voice is a part of that. Believe me, it sounds strong enough when you see them live.
I've seen them twice, and one of those, outside at Somerset House on the hottest day of the summer of 2003, was really one of the beautiful gigs of all time, a succession of sun-drenched hits, from Burn Baby Burn to Oh Yeah, Wild Surf (the sun, summer, beaches and surfing being Ash's other great lyrical preoccupation - Walking Barefoot, Orpheus, On a Wave, Oh Yeah, Pacific Palisades etc), Envy, A Life Less Ordinary, Kung Fu, every one a stunner.
A way to sum up Ash's milieu is a combination of Star Wars and The Beach Boys - now I'm not saying these are things to live your life by, (in fact you might suggest that they are linked by breathtaking technical accomplishment being allied to a determinedly childish world view) but it's a pretty great combination if you're in the mood.
They've gone off the boil a couple of times, I accept, and one wonders, as they enter their thirties, if they'll still be able to work credibly within their limited oeuvre, but 1977 and in particular Free All Angels are near-perfect albums. The latter, I think, tops everything else by any of the Britpop generation bands - to some, not a great claim, I accept.
Stargazing's a rare thing for us city folk, and I'd be lying if I said I missed it particularly - the universe is big but once you decide that most of that bigness doesn't apply to you at all, there are plenty of things to keep you occupied on ground level.
However, it is a pretty picture when it's the right night and you're far enough out of town - it never ceases to amaze how many more little dots you can pick out the more and more your eyes adjust to the blackness.
I blinked; they say a shooting star
flashed 'cross the autumn sky.
Time was I saw nine a night -
wouldn't it be nice?
Say it's a satellite,
you see them all the time
but I'm blinking all the time
hiding from the light.
Say it would be nice
and it would be great
a sheet of stars for blackest night
and creeping through the meanest streets
and stumbling through the baddest lands
all these dark nights of the soul
never figured in my plans.
I think I saw a shooting star
tumbling 'cross the awesome sky.
I could be wrong, I'm usually wrong
but wouldn't it be time?
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