Kenton retreats

I read part one of Kenton Hall's posts on the Chris Difford's songwriting retreat and said to myself, "Someone should link all these posts in order to make them easier to read."

Then I remembered that I'm a Squeezeblogger and that someone should be me.

Black Coffee in Stansted, The Chris Difford Retreat Diaries, Part One

The Waiting Game, The Chris Difford Retreat Diaries, Part Two

Some Fantastic Place, The Chris Difford Retreat Diaries, Part Three

Melody Motel, The Chris Difford Retreat Diaries, Part Four

Trust Me To Open My Mouth, The Chris Difford Retreat Diaries, Part Five

Lost for Words, The Chris Difford Retreat Diaries, Part Six

In Today's Room, The Chris Difford Retreat Diaries, Part Seven

Cool for (Tiny) Cats - The Chris Difford Retreat Diaries, Part Eight

Can of Worms, The Chris Difford Retreat Diaries, Part Nine

What's Wrong With This Picture? - The Chris Difford Retreat Diaries, Part Ten

Slightly Drunk, The Chris Difford Retreat Diaries, Part Eleven

When the Hangover Strikes - The Chris Difford Retreat Diaries, Part Twelve

Tight Rope - The Chris Difford Retreat Diaries, Part Thirteen

Hourglass - The Chris Difford Retreat Diaries, Part Fourteen

Points of View - The Chris Difford Retreat Diaries, Part Fifteen

Goodbye Girl - The Chris Difford Retreat Diaries, Part Sixteen

Chris Difford's Five Favourite Song Crafters

Count Five: Chris Difford's Favorite Song Crafters

It's great having a surf through the old internet, and ending up on a beach soaked full of Squeeze news!

Spinner has a great article with our very own Chris Difford.

Read on!

As the lyric-writing half of the creative duo in pop group supreme Squeeze, Chris Difford has established his credentials as an authority on songwriting. That's why many don't consider it sacrilege to mention his and collaborator Glenn Tilbrook's names among the great English songwriting pairs such as Lennon and McCartney. Little wonder that fans of superior song craftsmanship are making Squeeze's upcoming tour one of the most anticipated reunion treks of the year. Difford gave Spinner some insight into what he might be listening to on the road via his examples of what makes good music.

1. The Beatles: Some of the first music I ever heard was the Beatles, growing up. And when I listen to 'With The Beatles' it just reminds me of getting ready for school in the morning and putting that record on the record player while I was getting ready and just feeling totally at home.

2. XTC: When I first heard them, I thought they were very deliberately complicated. But now when I listen to it I realize I don't think they're being complicated; they were just being themselves, which is a very honest way of making music.

3. Jellyfish: I was in Los Angeles making the Squeeze album 'Play' and that's when I got introduced to their music. What I really enjoyed about it was it looks into English music in a way I've never seen an American band do. They'd obviously been inspired by English pop music like 10cc and Queen.

4. The Feeling: They do a really amazing job of taking musical history and modernizing it, really. They're sort of lovingly reconstructing great songs.

5. Feist: Any track from the Feist album would be a good introduction for people to appreciate really well-constructed pop music. If somebody arrived on a spaceship and they said to me they wanted to hear something that was recent that conjured up what was good about writing songs, I think I would play them the Feist album.

... And I must say that they certainly are great choices :0)


Text- Steve Baltin, and the original article can be found right here.


Now dive into these wonderful waters of the world wide web:

Chris Difford- Website
Chris Difford- MySpace