The pressure is on. Only one more day of posts in my desert island ten. What will I wrap it up with. I dunno. Today however I stray far afield in my choice.
I like trance music and electronica. I have been listening to this edge of the music spectrum since the mid-1970s. I have my old Brian Eno LPs with titles like Music for Films and Music for Airports. Music for Airports is probably my favorite electronic piece of music. In recent years Moby has caught my interest.
It is funny I first heard the first of these two pieces on an early episode of Without a Trace. I fell in love with the song the second I heard it. There is something about the brightness to the sound of ambient/electronic music that really attracts me. I don’t dance but I do appreciate the grooves.
Sometimes it isn’t anything but the music that matters.
The second track is a really beautiful piece that is a fitting compliment to my reflections in these electronic pages.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Friday, January 29, 2010
A Desert Island Series of Musical Interludes VIII *
Today’s post is a three for one. I realize this is a bit of a cheat on my part. I had one song in my but I had a couple of alternatives up the sleeve if I needed. However all the songs had problems when I was searching for them on Youtube. On two of the tunes the problem was an issue of audio quality and the third one had an issue with video that I have posted before but the music quality is good.
The artists involved on these songs are the unifying elements. Richard Shindell and Robert Earl Keen are singer/songwriters. Shindell has a wonderful voice, am excellent way with a lyric and is a damned competent guitar player. Keen, well he is a damn fine songwriter and his heart comes from a place where I have been and I think most of my friends have been. Both have caught my attention over the last ten to fifteen years.
As you may know I have been following and going to see Shindell since he was playing in church basements years ago. In an intimate setting his music has an immediacy and warmth that is hard to resist. This artist has a couple of songs that just amaze me every single time I hear them. One is the Ballad of Mary Magdalene. The other is Reunion Hill. Both have a sneaky depth to them that leaves you thinking even after you have finished humming along on the catchy choruses.
What I had intended to post was Shindell’s cover of a Robert Earl Keen song called Shades of Gray. He performed it about a decade ago with a group called Cry, Cry, Cry. The whole depiction of tipping over porta potties and doing a little dance just outside the law reminded me of Pedricktown if you had grown up there 1969-1975. The bit where the guy is referring to the main actors in the song as just a bunch of sorry kids well yeah that kind of summed it if you were male and from Oldman’s township.
Given there was no good post of it I went with the Shindell cover song of Cold Missouri Waters because the audio quality was great and the story compelling. In order to at least offer a nod to my original choice I decided to post Keen’s version of the song. Alas there are no really clean copies of the song out there. Most were from hand held concerts and the audio was dicey. Well what the heck I decided I will post the best of the mediocre renderings of the tune and tack on my favorite Robert Earl Keen tune as a bonus.
Walking Home was a CD my niece gave me back in her days as a record promoter. It took me about six months to put it in the CD player but when I did I just loved it. Being Robert Earl Keen there are a couple of throwaways on the disk, but there is also a suite of songs that reminds of Cormac McCarthy’s Border Trilogy. (If you haven’t read those books you really should at least read the first one if I remember it right it is called All the Pretty Horses. It is much better than the movie they made of it. ) Any how there was one song that just stuck out on that disk, Feels So Good to be Feeling Good Again.
Good golly that song just sounds like the perfect night. First you walk into a bar. Next you find all your friends there. Then you discover you have more cash that you thought you had. How wonderful would that be? Anyway this post was going to be Cry, Cry, Cry singing Shades of Gray, but because I couldn’t find an okay (to my taste) version you get these three songs. Enjoy.
The artists involved on these songs are the unifying elements. Richard Shindell and Robert Earl Keen are singer/songwriters. Shindell has a wonderful voice, am excellent way with a lyric and is a damned competent guitar player. Keen, well he is a damn fine songwriter and his heart comes from a place where I have been and I think most of my friends have been. Both have caught my attention over the last ten to fifteen years.
As you may know I have been following and going to see Shindell since he was playing in church basements years ago. In an intimate setting his music has an immediacy and warmth that is hard to resist. This artist has a couple of songs that just amaze me every single time I hear them. One is the Ballad of Mary Magdalene. The other is Reunion Hill. Both have a sneaky depth to them that leaves you thinking even after you have finished humming along on the catchy choruses.
What I had intended to post was Shindell’s cover of a Robert Earl Keen song called Shades of Gray. He performed it about a decade ago with a group called Cry, Cry, Cry. The whole depiction of tipping over porta potties and doing a little dance just outside the law reminded me of Pedricktown if you had grown up there 1969-1975. The bit where the guy is referring to the main actors in the song as just a bunch of sorry kids well yeah that kind of summed it if you were male and from Oldman’s township.
Given there was no good post of it I went with the Shindell cover song of Cold Missouri Waters because the audio quality was great and the story compelling. In order to at least offer a nod to my original choice I decided to post Keen’s version of the song. Alas there are no really clean copies of the song out there. Most were from hand held concerts and the audio was dicey. Well what the heck I decided I will post the best of the mediocre renderings of the tune and tack on my favorite Robert Earl Keen tune as a bonus.
Walking Home was a CD my niece gave me back in her days as a record promoter. It took me about six months to put it in the CD player but when I did I just loved it. Being Robert Earl Keen there are a couple of throwaways on the disk, but there is also a suite of songs that reminds of Cormac McCarthy’s Border Trilogy. (If you haven’t read those books you really should at least read the first one if I remember it right it is called All the Pretty Horses. It is much better than the movie they made of it. ) Any how there was one song that just stuck out on that disk, Feels So Good to be Feeling Good Again.
Good golly that song just sounds like the perfect night. First you walk into a bar. Next you find all your friends there. Then you discover you have more cash that you thought you had. How wonderful would that be? Anyway this post was going to be Cry, Cry, Cry singing Shades of Gray, but because I couldn’t find an okay (to my taste) version you get these three songs. Enjoy.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
A Desert Island Series of Musical Interludes VII
It was most likely in 1970 although it could fall a year either way in the march of time I was listening to WMMR as I dried the dishes in my south Jersey home. The deal was that my old man would wash the dishes and I would dry. As an accommodation I would get to turn the radio to FM and listen to WMMR and that damn hippie music.
Back then WMMR was the bastion of underground music and free form radio. You would hear Miles Davis, the Jefferson Airplane, Moby Grape, Long John Baldry and a ton of other artists in a row and the announcer might or might not tell you what you had just heard. Several songs and the artists involved eluded me for years. This was mostly because by the time a real format had developed for the station that free form ethos had faded and the artists had fallen from favor. Two of these artists and songs I have posted either here or on the FB page. To get a sense of what I am talking about follow my old links to Ralph McTell’s Streets of London and to the stuff off Nick Drake’s Bryter Later.
One band that did not get away from my consciousness was Fairport Convention. With raucous guitar work and odd instrumentation they played old, old songs, or so it seemed. One song they played really was an old one, it is part of the Child Ballads http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_ballad From the moment I heard this song I fell in love with Sandy Denny’s voice and Richard Thompson’s guitar. By the time I was in a place and could see the concerts I wanted Sandy Denny was dead. It was one of folk rock music’s greatest losses.
However I did get to see Richard Thompson a number of times. Every time I see him perform be it in an electric rock band or solo acoustic the music is wonderful. In college nobody knew who Fairport Convention was. While they might have been big in Philly they had not been heard in the Midwest. I would crank up all my Fairport LPs out the window of my dorm room on spring days. The English exchange students would all appreciate this a taste from home. I also got to know a number of other people would come up and say who is that and wow that was great and then we would start talking.
Even today this song still rocks.
The link is music only.
Back then WMMR was the bastion of underground music and free form radio. You would hear Miles Davis, the Jefferson Airplane, Moby Grape, Long John Baldry and a ton of other artists in a row and the announcer might or might not tell you what you had just heard. Several songs and the artists involved eluded me for years. This was mostly because by the time a real format had developed for the station that free form ethos had faded and the artists had fallen from favor. Two of these artists and songs I have posted either here or on the FB page. To get a sense of what I am talking about follow my old links to Ralph McTell’s Streets of London and to the stuff off Nick Drake’s Bryter Later.
One band that did not get away from my consciousness was Fairport Convention. With raucous guitar work and odd instrumentation they played old, old songs, or so it seemed. One song they played really was an old one, it is part of the Child Ballads http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_ballad From the moment I heard this song I fell in love with Sandy Denny’s voice and Richard Thompson’s guitar. By the time I was in a place and could see the concerts I wanted Sandy Denny was dead. It was one of folk rock music’s greatest losses.
However I did get to see Richard Thompson a number of times. Every time I see him perform be it in an electric rock band or solo acoustic the music is wonderful. In college nobody knew who Fairport Convention was. While they might have been big in Philly they had not been heard in the Midwest. I would crank up all my Fairport LPs out the window of my dorm room on spring days. The English exchange students would all appreciate this a taste from home. I also got to know a number of other people would come up and say who is that and wow that was great and then we would start talking.
Even today this song still rocks.
The link is music only.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
A Desert Island Series of Musical Interludes VI *
When I was younger say 19 years old Pat Metheny would come by East Lansing one or two times a year. When he first was passing through he would he would play at the kivas in various dorms. As I understand kiva means meeting place. The rooms were open, circular and small. For the next couple of years I would go early and would literally sit at his feet because there was no stage. There were just some pieces of plywood laid out that comprised the stage area of the room. At most the room held 200-225 people.
Sitting there, I heard what was probably some of the best live jazz playing I will ever hear. These were the years Metheny was on ECM and the album he was supporting for the first couple of tours was called Watercolors. If you haven’t heard it, find it on line and give it a listen. He was barely older than I was then and it was just amazing to see what he could do with the guitar and his band was none too shabby either.
After the concerts we would walk across the frozen tundra that was the campus of MSU here in Michigan (read 2 degrees F and wind blowing icy snow at your face wrapped in a scarf inside a parka) to the Olde World Café. A couple of bucks would buy a big fresh baked pretzel and a mug of hot mulled wine. Filled with ethereal music and hot mulled wine the nights did not seem so cold. (Well that and the fact that if you had taken a date to this fest of ethereal melody- I mean it was the 70s - you probably were going to get laid, ergo it wouldn’t be all that cold at all now would it)
Excuse my digression and just enjoy the music.
Sitting there, I heard what was probably some of the best live jazz playing I will ever hear. These were the years Metheny was on ECM and the album he was supporting for the first couple of tours was called Watercolors. If you haven’t heard it, find it on line and give it a listen. He was barely older than I was then and it was just amazing to see what he could do with the guitar and his band was none too shabby either.
After the concerts we would walk across the frozen tundra that was the campus of MSU here in Michigan (read 2 degrees F and wind blowing icy snow at your face wrapped in a scarf inside a parka) to the Olde World Café. A couple of bucks would buy a big fresh baked pretzel and a mug of hot mulled wine. Filled with ethereal music and hot mulled wine the nights did not seem so cold. (Well that and the fact that if you had taken a date to this fest of ethereal melody- I mean it was the 70s - you probably were going to get laid, ergo it wouldn’t be all that cold at all now would it)
Excuse my digression and just enjoy the music.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
A Desert Island Series of Musical Interludes V *
It seems to me like they were always there that indescribable band from San Fransico. I think the first time I heard the Grateful Dead was on a Sunday evening late night progressive show on an AM station out of Philadelphia. WIBG had some mellow voiced dude that had a couple of hours when he would play the acid rock sounds coming out of the left coast. The station could see the handwriting on the wall from FM and was trying desperately despite its history of playing rock and soul pop to hold an audience. I think the first song I remember hearing from the Dead was something like Don’t Stop on the Tracks.
Anyway a little while later one of my nefarious cousins had a purloined copy of American Beauty. It was too country for him so I bought it for a dollar. American Beauty became the anthem of my high school years. I played that record so many times that when you picked it up by the edge it became a slinky. To this day, my brain just shifts out of gear when I hear the opening strains of Box of Rain on Pandora.
When I got to college one of the first two or three records I bought was the relatively recent release by the band called Wake of the Flood. It became the soundtrack of that year of change and turmoil. Eyes of the World is special because well it was the soundtrack of, well uhm, it was my answer to Barry White albums if you get my drift.
No matter what has happened in my life the Grateful Dead have always been there. Unbroken Chain was playing when Primus was born.
Funny story. One day I was sitting talking to an anesthesiologist and we were comparing rock concerts we had attended. Damn if he hadn’t been to all the small and odd Grateful Dead shows I had been to like Masonic Hall in Detroit. The Crisler show in Ann Arbor was noted by both of us to have been real good. He had also been to the Pine Knob show where they only sold to row J. It was at that one that the hot air balloons went over and you heard 2000 people collectively say, “Wow man”. I looked at the doctor and said “From Deadhead to anesthesiologist?” He smiled and replied “You do what you love, ya know what I mean?”
Anyway a little while later one of my nefarious cousins had a purloined copy of American Beauty. It was too country for him so I bought it for a dollar. American Beauty became the anthem of my high school years. I played that record so many times that when you picked it up by the edge it became a slinky. To this day, my brain just shifts out of gear when I hear the opening strains of Box of Rain on Pandora.
When I got to college one of the first two or three records I bought was the relatively recent release by the band called Wake of the Flood. It became the soundtrack of that year of change and turmoil. Eyes of the World is special because well it was the soundtrack of, well uhm, it was my answer to Barry White albums if you get my drift.
No matter what has happened in my life the Grateful Dead have always been there. Unbroken Chain was playing when Primus was born.
Funny story. One day I was sitting talking to an anesthesiologist and we were comparing rock concerts we had attended. Damn if he hadn’t been to all the small and odd Grateful Dead shows I had been to like Masonic Hall in Detroit. The Crisler show in Ann Arbor was noted by both of us to have been real good. He had also been to the Pine Knob show where they only sold to row J. It was at that one that the hot air balloons went over and you heard 2000 people collectively say, “Wow man”. I looked at the doctor and said “From Deadhead to anesthesiologist?” He smiled and replied “You do what you love, ya know what I mean?”
Monday, January 25, 2010
A Desert Island Series of Musical Interludes IV
Ry Cooder is one of those guys that have been at the edge of the music business for decades. He has put out some incredible music. Get Rhythm is a masterwork of just snappy roots rock sensibility.
When I first got to college I bought Paradise and lunch. It had some great songs and it got played again and again. Nobody who I knew understood it. They were listening to Kiss and Styx and Thin Lizzy. No knock on those bands because he along with Bob Seger’s Live Bullet they were the soundtrack of hundred beer soaked Saturday nights. Still occasionally I would run across somebody playing Ry Cooder at a party or somewhere else and their tastes would be way cool. I found myself getting introduced to a ton of great music because once you started talking about Ry Cooder, next this up was Little Feat or maybe Captain Beefheart.
Anyway back to Get Rhythm, the album’s closing number is a heart wrenching ballad called Across the Borderline. I haven’t lived on the southern border of this country. I haven’t experienced the pain both sides in the immigration debate feel. However like a number of Bruce Springsteen’s songs and Dave Alvin’s California Snow this song conveys the heartache that the illegal migration to El Norte carries with it.
When I first got to college I bought Paradise and lunch. It had some great songs and it got played again and again. Nobody who I knew understood it. They were listening to Kiss and Styx and Thin Lizzy. No knock on those bands because he along with Bob Seger’s Live Bullet they were the soundtrack of hundred beer soaked Saturday nights. Still occasionally I would run across somebody playing Ry Cooder at a party or somewhere else and their tastes would be way cool. I found myself getting introduced to a ton of great music because once you started talking about Ry Cooder, next this up was Little Feat or maybe Captain Beefheart.
Anyway back to Get Rhythm, the album’s closing number is a heart wrenching ballad called Across the Borderline. I haven’t lived on the southern border of this country. I haven’t experienced the pain both sides in the immigration debate feel. However like a number of Bruce Springsteen’s songs and Dave Alvin’s California Snow this song conveys the heartache that the illegal migration to El Norte carries with it.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
A Desert Island Series of Musical Interludes III *
In the year of 1983 my father died. At that time I was estranged from my now wife. We weren’t married then and having had her throw me out I was adrift. It was a couple of year period when I was having a time out for my bad behavior.
One night that year I was on the Outer Banks pretty much alone and trying to sort some things out. Well after a couple days of behaving very badly at a friend’s wedding I found myself making a phone call from a telephone booth out in the middle of nowhere trying to get in touch with my now wife. I think I got an answering machine. It was about as lonely a time as I can remember. I really didn’t like myself or where I was headed. But I was a bit headstrong and as of that time not very repentant. Not really.
This song is a wistful thing. It is really talking about the cost of a woman being secure in herself. Still there are lines that just paint a picture in my mind of that trip and that sense of separation I felt from pretty much everyone I thought I had loved. It is a great song and every single time I hear it I can see the phone booth and the Atlantic Ocean not but a couple of hundred yards away that night some 25 + years ago.
One night that year I was on the Outer Banks pretty much alone and trying to sort some things out. Well after a couple days of behaving very badly at a friend’s wedding I found myself making a phone call from a telephone booth out in the middle of nowhere trying to get in touch with my now wife. I think I got an answering machine. It was about as lonely a time as I can remember. I really didn’t like myself or where I was headed. But I was a bit headstrong and as of that time not very repentant. Not really.
This song is a wistful thing. It is really talking about the cost of a woman being secure in herself. Still there are lines that just paint a picture in my mind of that trip and that sense of separation I felt from pretty much everyone I thought I had loved. It is a great song and every single time I hear it I can see the phone booth and the Atlantic Ocean not but a couple of hundred yards away that night some 25 + years ago.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)