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Archive for the ‘Rock / Pop’ Category

Day 80. Grateful Dead.

Monday, May 3rd, 2010

Today has a stack of Grateful Dead discs (mostly concerts) getting added in to the server. Most of the concert recordings are from the 70s (via Dick’s Picks), a few recordings I downloaded some time ago from archive.org and a few actual album releases. Right now I have ‘History of the Grateful Dead Vol. 1, Bear’s Choice’ on. I don’t many people who would list this among their favorite Dead discs, but I think Bear chose well. The mostly acoustic set reminds me of the early 80s disc ‘Reckoning’, but with even more of a folk feel, but then you also get the bluesy feel of Pigpen singing ‘Hard to Handle’ as well.

Hearing recordings of Pigpen singing is always pretty exciting to me. He passed away before I was born, and a few of his songs were performed by the Dead through the 80s and 90s, but the energy and gravelly sound he gave to the band never really was replaced. Among the live recordings I pulled off tonight there were also a couple of recordings of ‘Turn on Your Love Light’. In the 80s, Bob Weir sings the song and it lasts about 10 minutes and has a good groove, but in the 60s Pigpen sang the song, and tried to find hook-ups for everyone else in the audience. You hear him pointing out people, telling them to check and see if someone else already has someone to go home with that night. He throws some suggestions for what to do in as well. After Pigpen, in spite of the drugs and drunkenness that would be seen at a concert, you rarely had the band telling people to actively start getting it on. For some reason, I think if Pigpen had been with the group into the 80s, I don’t think my parents would have been taking me to Dead shows (though the drugs and drunkenness were not worries for them in the same way???).

I went to LOTS of Dead shows growing up, and now, having the benefit of being able to hear good recordings of shows from before my memory, I can see how much their shows changed after the early 80s. The shows from the 70s really are amazing for the most part. But the shows from the 80s usually have the more expanded ‘Drums and Space’ that I still enjoy quite a bit (and these are also the parts of the show that probably sound the most like my own music at times!). So – I know it all influenced me, and while I can’t see going to concerts now, it sure is fun to listen to old recordings. Thanks to all those people who, for decades, taped and digitized one pretty amazing archive or work!

Day 79. Bob Weir, James Brown and Eddie Hazel.

Sunday, May 2nd, 2010

So after a week of simply an amazing amount of work happening at UW, I decided to take 30 minutes or so tonight to at least get something added to DAC and write a post. Tonight’s additions were Eddie Hazel’s ‘Game, Dames and Guitar Thangs’, James Brown’s ‘Soul On Top’ and Bob Weir’s ‘Ace’.

‘Ace’ is an album I pretty much remember from being a kid, and for all intents and purposes it is really a Grateful Dead record. Many of their concert staples come from this record (most notably ‘Playing In The Band’, but my faves are ‘Greatest Story Ever Told’ and ‘Cassidy’). And like most Grateful Dead studio albums, the studio versions don’t stand up as well as live performances. Not that the album is bad, just that if I want to hear just about any of the songs on it, I’d rather dig up a live show from ’77 then put on ‘Ace’.

While I was familiar with Eddie Hazel and his playing with Parliament, it was during a drive around Tacoma one night with KUPS on (the best thing about UPS is its radio station). They played Eddie’s cover of ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’ and I think the car slammed to a halt because my jaw dropped onto the brake pedal. SUCH a funky version… and so soulful. I found the recording the next day and was more then pleased to discover the genius of the rest of the disc, including an even more amazing cover of ‘California Dreamin’. These covers are everything that covers should be. The artist makes them their own, and the songs grow because of that ownership. While testing sound this morning I put ‘California Dreamin’ on and was floored again. What an amazing guitarist, and the arrangements (horns and vocals) are great.

‘Soul on Top’ is another great example of what an artist can do with cover songs. The twist here is that in many ways it is James Brown covering some greats (Kurt Weill and Hank Williams) it is also James Brown covering James Brown. The group consists of a big band along with a couple of the standard James Brown contingent, and the results are mixed. The size of the group sometimes makes some of the songs lumber a little, but on ‘It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World’ and ‘Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag’ the re-arrangement works very well. Not ‘better then the original’ but for these tracks it feels like James Brown re-thinking his music with the new performance forces. And the version of ‘You’re Cheating Heart’ is simply one of the best covers ever done.

Day 78. The Shins and The Decemberists.

Sunday, April 25th, 2010

A bit of music from the aughts tonight… I must say that my discovery of newer music (particularly pop and rock) in the decade took a pretty big hit. I wasn’t working at a record store anymore, I WAS buried neck deep constantly in graduate school, and though the first half of the decade was bad, as CDs disappeared and Celia and Mira showed up, my music shopping became more and more restricted to iTunes and eMusic. Plus – I just wasn’t hearing too much that I found interesting (getting older and set in my ways??? Hell no! But… yeah). There are exceptions of course, and two of those groups were ‘The Decemberists’ (from just south of us) and ‘The Shins’.

‘The Crane Wife’ is a pretty great album. And while I generally stay away from 70s prog-rock, the best parts of that genre found their way into ‘The Crane Wife’. The 12 minute second track (‘The Island’) has moments of ELP keyboard rockin’ that sound simply amazing. And the first three tracks are perfection. And though she doesn’t understand the words, I get a kick that it is one of Celia’s favorite songs (though she will take Kylie over the Decemberists any day). Though I do really like this album (and their first few as well), I was surprised that I didn’t jump and buy their latest once it came out. I actually was turned off a little bit by the uber-NPR promotion of ‘the next great’ concept album by the baroque rockers. It’s over-seriousness was a little too much for me. At some point though I really should pick it up. I imagine I’ll love it if it does pick up where ‘The Crane Wife’ leaves off.

The Shins on the other hand have really held my interest, and when ‘Wincing The Night Away’ came out, I DID get it the same day. And though there was a wave of fan disappointment over ‘the new sound’, it caught my ear right away. And part of what I really like about The Shins is that there is progression among all three of their albums. The mostly acoustic sound on the first one was a winning formula, but by the second one things have changed a bit. Still quite melodic, but also more electric and pop-y on one hand (‘Girl Inform Me’ is one of the best songs of the aughts in my opinion) and even more acoustic songwriter on the other (‘New Slang’ which, in spite of its cheesy usage in ‘Garden State’ really IS a great song). Then ‘Wincing The Night Away’ starts with synthesizers and vocals with effects… quite the surprise, but a wonderful one. I was sold on it about halfway through the first song, and thought the album was definitely a great step forward. It’s been about 3 years since its release, and I can’t wait for the next one.

Day 76. Saint-Saëns and the Beastie Boys.

Thursday, April 22nd, 2010

There were two albums that I bought as a kid that made my parents concerned. The first was ‘License to Ill’ by the Beastie Boys (followed by ‘Appetite for Destruction’ about a year later). I find it ironic that , 25 years after the first Beastie Boys album came out (and lewdness laws were created due to behavior at their concerts), that I think it would be hard to find a group of more artistic and politically involved individuals. They’ve created some ground-breaking work, and in many ways came of age along with MTV (certainly using the music video as an artistic vehicle with as much importance as the songs themselves). I remember listening to that record with my friend George as a kid (and George also introducing me to what was probably influencing the Beasite Boys as well… thanks George! I still remember hearing NWA on a tape deck outside your house!).

They were also part of one of my favorite music SNL memories:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tondtut3dOc

I remember seeing this with my friend Colin, and both of our jaws just dropping. What a rad moment (no matter how staged it may have been).

But the only Beastie Boys I have on CD is ‘The Sounds Of Science’, the two disc compilation they put out in 1999. It’s a good set, and my Beastie Boys vinyl is still in fine condition in case I was to hear all of ‘Paul’s Boutique’. But it is some of the extras on this disc that are just great. Their version of ‘Benny And The Jets’ with Biz Markie is one of the most brilliant and funny covers I’ve ever heard (violating the law that ‘a cover shouldn’t imitate the style of the original’ – but doing it in a brilliant fashion, even including the sound of a crowd cheering in the background).

The other discs ripped tonight were the complete Saint-Saëns symphonies with Jean Martinon. The third (‘The Organ’) has some great moments and deserves to be his best knows symphonic work, but my favorite is his second in A minor. The orchestral forces are small compared to the large romantic orchestral forces of the 3rd Symphony and the piano concertos, but along with that comes a nostalgia for the music written for smaller orchestras. Parts of the piece sound more like something Mozart would have done, and points even have some contrapuntal writing that is surprisingly clear and simple. But there are some striking dissonances in the piece and some very effective drama, all while clocking in at around 22 minutes. For a romantic symphony, it is almost a miniature, but taken out of its historical context I think it has some real strengths over his other symphonic works. The opening arpeggios let you know right away that this is a classical work, and the main theme (treated fugally) is lots of fun. But after Beethoven (and Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Schuman and Brahms) the 7 minute LONG movement feels brief and succinct. Not that I have anything against long and developed… just that for some reason the proportions and material of this symphony have always captured my attention in a strange way. And playing it now (after not hearing it for MANY years) I’m glad to see that my impression of it is still intact.

Day 74. Pink Floyd.

Sunday, April 18th, 2010

So – quite a week. Hopefully can get BACK into the DAC routine, and also starting a new exercise one. Spring is here, and the dark months are behind us for now (in terms of both actual sunlight and some of Tamiko’s professional drama that seems to finally be wrapping up).

There is also darkness ahead here in Tacoma though… Roger Waters will be bringing ‘The Wall’ here this fall, so I went and dug out a few Pink Floyd discs for tonight. And being a teenager from Roseville in the 90s, I certainly remember hearing LOTS of Pink Floyd. Whole album sides on 93 Rock, my friend Josh singing out ‘Mother do you think they’re going…. to break… my balls???’, laser shows at the Crest and I could keep going. But – I think my biggest Pink Floyd memory / association comes through Tamiko. And not because Tamiko was the biggest Pink Floyd fan… her boyfriend Matt (who she dated before me) was. Matt and I had our lockers next to each other. Both the same year at Roseville High, and met during band camp the week before school started. He started dating Tamiko a few weeks into our freshman year, and I started dating a good friend of his around the same time. Matt was HEAVILY into Pink Floyd. Matt and Tamiko broke up during a band trip at the end of our freshman year, my breakup a few weeks after that, and it was Tamiko and I that were there for each other. Though I haven’t talked to Matt for a long time, we actually remained friends through high school (as did he and Tamiko to an extent).

So – 20 years after all this, almost half of that working in a record store where some form of Pink Floyd would come up every few weeks, what do I think about when I hear Pink Floyd? I still think about Matt. The laser shows, ‘Meddle’ blasting in the back room of Tower and classic album sides are certainly there, but they have faded with time as well… but I still think about this 14 year old kid who’s locker was next to mine, and who’s girlfriend I started dating (and eventually married) a few weeks after they broke up.

Day 72. John Lennon, George Harrison and The Beatles.

Monday, April 12th, 2010

Yesterday was the 40th Anniversary of Paul McCartney publicly acknowledging that The Beatles had, indeed, broken up. The exact point where that happened is probably just about anybody’s guess, but April 10th, 1970 was at least a moment where the pop world could start coming to terms with the official breakup. I wouldn’t ever be alice in a world with The Beatles playing together, and I remember the news of John Lennon being shot when I was 5. I also remember the REALLY sad ‘Free As A Bird’ that was released with the first Beatles Anthology album (the virtual Beatles reunion that reeked of Jeff Lynne production standards… ugh, that was horrible). And of course – last year’s remasters (stunning) and the Guitar Hero version of the Beatles. The virtual Beatles all playing ‘Back In The U.S.S.R.’ together especially made me chuckle. I remember joking to my friend Colin ‘so – to win do you have to break the band up by the time you are learning the licks for Abbey Road?’.

Tonight’s rips are mostly in honor of what mostly happened near the end and after The Beatles’ official career. Among the re-issues and re-masters of the past few years, the ‘cleaning-up’ (or rather the ‘de-Spectoring’) of ‘Let It Be’ has been a high point for me. ‘Let It Be… Naked’ is a beautiful disc. And while the Phil Spector production of the original is just that (and can be appreciated in all that Phil Spector crazy), hearing some of these songs in more of a ‘Get Back’ form is amazing. I even like ‘The Long And Winding Road’ now (a song that basically just bugged me before). One of my favorite George songs also stands out… ‘I Me Mine’ is a great song on both versions, but the ‘Naked’ version feels cleaner to me. Which leads to ‘All Things Must Pass’.

George Harrison’s first solo album out of the gates. After years of only being allowed 3 songs per Beatles album (a number written into their contracts) and with the Beatles often not taking his song writing very seriously (hence ‘Only A Northern Song’), George had lots of material stored up… and this 3 LP release showed it. George’s songs tended to be the most beautiful ones in my opinion, and this album shows that ‘Here Comes The Sun’ and ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ are not songwriting luck. ‘My Sweet Lord’ is a stunning song, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was written around the same time as ‘Here Comes The Sun’. During my masters degree I took a class on music theory and rock music and we read a great article about ‘Here Comes The Sun’ and how the song brightens in timbre (like a sunrise) as the song goes on, and ‘My Sweet Lord’ seems to have a similar feeling to it. At the same time there seems to be an argument in the song, bringing Eastern philosophy and religion into closer contact with Western philosophy and religion (certainly something the Beatles did in the mid-60s, though this is something that seemed to stay much more visible with George throughout his life).

The Lennon compilations also seem to take the trajectory that he and Yoko were on by the end of The Beatles and extends it. The Phil Spector sound (if not his actual production) are all over the earlier tracks. John, always the 50s rocker (in comparison to Paul’s tin-pan alley influences, George’s blues / folk influences and Ringo’s, well, Ringo-ness) also comes through. There is plenty of homage in John Lennon’s work (his recording of ‘Stand By Me’ being one of the most perfect covers in rock history in my opinion), and there is an amazing amount personal expression that had already been a long part of his songwriting (‘Glass Onion’ and ‘The Ballad of John and Yoko’ being two obvious examples of this). ‘Beautiful Boy’, ‘Watching The Wheels’, ‘Dear Yoko’, ‘Oh Yoko’ and ‘Cold Turkey’ all show his inner love and inner demons as well. Through his music, John may have been the most intimately known of the Beatles. His politics were very public. His relationships were very public. And his problems were very public. Perhaps this is part of the reason his shooting is something that sticks out in my mind. Not because at 5 years old I knew anything about this, but because when he was killed, such a sizable portion of the public felt like they were losing someone that they actually knew, that even a 5 year old kid could see that someone that his family seemed to know had just died.

I actually only have one Paul McCartney album (which I actually forgot had until just this moment – so I didn’t rip it yet) and don’t have any of Ringo’s. With Paul, his solo work (and even a good chunk of his Beatles stuff post ’67) just doesn’t interest me. This isn’t an absolute distaste… ‘Back In The U.S.S.R.’ is one of the best rockers around, but come the musical revolution I think it would be hard not to take the guy who wrote, performed and continued to perform ‘O-bla-di O-bla-da’ and not make him stand against the wall. And as for Ringo, inspire of the fact that Ringo has long been my favorite Beatle, I think he strikes me most as performer. If there was a Beatle that probably suffered most from the cessation of touring after ‘Revolver’, I think it was probably Ringo. His constant tours with his ‘All-Star Band’ are something that I still hope to catch sometime. But every time I’ve heard a Ringo Starr studio track, it seems like what would make them special is missing. ore then anyone else in the group, I get the sense that Ringo’s ego fed off surrounding himself by great musicians, and he just kept doing it all the way into the present.

Heading back to the early 60’s now, the last set of discs I ripped tonight were the Beatles BBC Sessions discs (and for me, this is it on the Beatles front – I never picked up the Anthologies, preferring to respect the idea that what was released was released for a reason, and digging up alternate and un-perfect versions of songs by a group that crafted the modern recording studio would just be un-fun). The BBC Sessions, on the other hand, are the Beatles in the early days, having what sounds like lots of fun. They are on one hand very much rising stars at this point, but at the same time they have already reached a level at stardom at this point that would give them repeated appearances on the BBC (complete with listeners sending in requests for songs). Some of the dialog between the show’s host and The Beatles is kept intact as well, and it is these bits of dialog that I find most entertaining. These cheeky Liverpool youth are having fun, and when they play you get the sense that they are having a good time playing to an audience that isn’t drowning out the music. While the first few albums are pretty close to playing live, actually hearing the Beatles play live is fun. They have a great energy, and they show that they are great performers live. The only other example of this that I can really think of are the films that were shot on the rooftop of Abbey Road for ‘Get Back’ (which became ‘Let It Be’). Again you see them playing as a group and get to hear what they are doing (since the screaming crowds didn’t know to show up) and you can see that these four guys had a very natural musical gift.

Like a few other artists that I have already written about, there isn’t a time in my life that I can remember without also knowing that I knew about The Beatles. My earliest form of ear training was dad asking if I could tell whether it was John or Paul singing a song. So it is an interesting bit of reflection to realize that, 40 years after the ‘official’ break-up, that at 35 I wasn’t alive at all for The Beatles. But that is part of the magic of recordings, isn’t it? Once they are down (in any form), they really do become a time-capsule of sorts. At this moment I’m listening to ‘Watching The Wheels’, listening to John talk about life after The Beatles and how he comes to terms with the change of fame. It feels so immediate on the one hand, but on the other I am listening to a ghost’s memory.

Day 68. James Brown.

Monday, April 5th, 2010

So, Mira’s gravity towards box-sets continues tonight with ‘Star Time’ by James Brown and the complete Columbia Miles Davis / John Coltrane box-set. As Mira pointed out, both are red. I’m saving the Miles Davis for tomorrow (I’m still working on the Bach box as well)… so tonight is about James Brown.

‘The Hardest Working Man In Show Business’ certainly could put on a show. At least that’s what I heard. I had three chances to see James Brown, and blew it each time. My dad saw him in the 70s, and told me about how he would be calling out directions to the group (catching their mistakes!) and dancing the entire time, only to finally crumple to the stage in exhaustion. Of course – this had long been part of the act. Someone comes off from the side, with a purple cape and drapes over the Godfather of Soul, who slowly begins to rise up and sing the word ‘Please’ over and over again before kicking off the end of the show. I would have loved to have seen that.

And while I ‘I Got You’ and ‘Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine’ certainly deserve to pop recognition that these two songs have earned, it is ‘It’s A Man’s World’ and ‘King Heroin’ that I think are really two of the most important songs in his career… for very different reasons. ‘It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World’ with its soulful singing and string orchestration quite possibly is the foundation for an entire generation of R&B and Soul. Would there have been a Barry White without this song? Isaac Hayes? I imagine there would have been, but this song places a high bar for the artists who follow to reach for. And what is amazing is that they do… Where in most jazz traditions there is competition between choruses, competition (and pushing others to higher heights) often comes between singles. And I would be surprised if James Brown wasn’t conscious of this himself. The fact that ‘It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World’ is his second version of this song (the original was ‘It’s a Man’s World’… big difference) even shows that James Brown pushed himself.  The original would have been a great soul song on its own. But the addition of the larger orchestra and more fleshed out string parts makes the second version stand out. And James Brown often came back to his songs to try a different feeling with them. He recorded this one again on ‘Soul On Top’ (in a pretty amazing big band version), and there are multiple versions of ‘Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag’ and even ‘I Got You’. It’s great that this box set contains a few of these multiple versions so you can hear how his thinking changes as the times change (even if the times are only over a year or two!).

‘King Heroin’ is a different beast all together. It is dark. Really dark. And you get a sense that many of the horrors described in it are from personal experience. Over an bluesy groove James Brown personifies the evils of the drug, and what it can drive a man to do… he isn’t singing, he isn’t quite rapping, but he seems to be preaching. And while I’ve steered fairly clear of drugs and addiction (apparently Nancy Reagan’s appearance on a very special episode of ‘Diff’rent Strokes’ did the trick for me), I have a feeling that hearing the four minutes of James Brown telling me what the drug can drive me to do until it leaves me dead would have worked pretty effectively. It is of course sad that James Brown’s last couple decades had him falling in and out of addiction, but I imagine I’m not the only one that is haunted by this song and the lessons it conveys.

My favorite song by James Brown of all time though is ‘Get It Together’. During the course of the song’s nine minutes, you get James Brown singing as strong as you’ll ever here him sing, the launch into director mode… he challenges the horns to keep up with his directions, pulls them out and brings them in one at a time to build up a groove, the finally you just hear him tell the engineer to go ahead and ‘fade it on out’ cause he’s ‘outta here’. The song gives the appearance of James Brown getting a group together to play the song, then spends two-thirds of it deconstructing not just the group and his dynamics with them, but even reveals the unmentionable: that there are other in the studio creating the song that we are hearing, and that even THESE people are under the control of James Brown. Of course, this is really the magical part of James Brown – here was a guy that was obviously a control freak. And he works it into his entire act. Yet the result almost always has a feeling of spontaneity and excitement. What his players had to practice wasn’t the exact musical parts over and over again – I imagine the hardest part about playing with James Brown had to do with the fact that you would’ve had to pay attention to him every moment. The sense that his players were ready for anything, and James could ask for anything, gave his music a level of excitement that is rarely seen live anymore, and is even rarer for the current state of the recording industry.

Day 64. MTV 120 Minutes.

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

I can’t think of the last time I turned on MTV. I’m pretty sure we have it on our cable package, but a few years back it seemed like the thing that WASN’T on there was music. Just reality crap followed by more reality crap.

This makes me sad.

I remember as a pre-teenager BEGGING my parents for cable, and the only thing I wanted was my MTV. Well – our house wasn’t wired for cable. Then one way day, construction crews dug a trench up Bernal Rd. and finally cable was available in our area. But my parents still wouldn’t have any of it (pay for TV???). We finally got it just before moving to Roseville, and I think I packed in a few good years of watching MTV in those months before the move. I remember having MTV on and doing 7th grade homework. I felt so hip and cool. And what told me that I was REALLY cool? 120 minutes did.

I loved staying up late to hear stuff on 120 minutes that wasn’t playing on KSJO. This is where I discovered New Order, Jesus and Mary Chain (a band name that I wasn’t sure I could mention around my parents) and probably most significantly for me, I discovered the ‘Birdhouse In Your Soul’ and the two Johns from Brooklyn. I still remember the first time I saw They Might Be Giants – in all their geek glory and – and feeling a little comforted. They were quirky and smart and I wanted to learn the accordion. I don’t know if they made me feel less geeky, but I suddenly didn’t mind being as geeky.

Anyways – 120 Minutes put out two compilations in the early 90s, and I think they provide an amazing snapshot of 80s alternative music (pre-Nirvana / grunge). After spending most of the late 80s listening to Guns-N-Roses and learning every Led Zeppelin record (what was on the radio in San Jose mostly and at the Tower in Campbell) 120 minutes showed me the alternate universe of rock music, and these two discs are (while corporate and released on Warner Brothers) two of my favorite

mix discs’ in my stack. It jumps around in style (Faith No More => Violent Femmes), yet makes some beautiful (even though obvious) connections at the same time (Joy Division => New Order). These discs were my first introduction to the Cocteau Twins and The Stone Roses, and at the same time there are tracks on here by The Ramones and the Red Hot Chili Peppers (covering Stevie Wonder). In other words – it feels like a mix disc made by a friend for a friend in a strange way, a little bit familiar, as well as the harder to find stuff that they know you are going to like. Some Camper Van Beethoven, then some Modern English. Some X, and some XTC (and can I say – I first heard ‘Dear God’ while asking some of the same questions to myself… ah, teenage angst).

Day 62. Curtis Mayfield, Mazzy Star.

Sunday, March 28th, 2010

Curtis Mayfield and Mazzy Star tonight. I’m a little ashamed to say that I only have a Curtis Mayfield greatest hits disc. I really should about everything the guy did. It would be a great catalog (and in general, I think I should always have more soul and r&b). I could say that the catalog is harder to find now (which in some ways it is) or that no one really carries as much of it anymore (which is also true) but that is also giving excuses since I will search out a rare Ravel disc for years to find it. The real reason is that it is just a gap in my knowledge. And it is an expensive one to try and fill. Most of the Stax catalog is on eMusic now so I think that is a good place to start, but also I think I need to dive back into some serious vinyl buying to do it right. I know that the songs on the Curtis Mayfield greatest hits disc are great, but I also know there are going to be more gems to find. So I need to get on it. When people would come into the classical department at Tower and ask how to ‘get into’ classical, I would suggest getting a couple samplers then coming back in to find more of what they liked. Then I would pick out a couple discs with those tracks on it by a certain composer, that way there was familiarity on a couple tracks, and exploration at the same time. So what I really need to do is go out and find which Curtis Mayfield record has ‘Move On Up’ on it and go from there.

So – imagine two minutes in between this paragraph and the last… I think ‘why wait’ and go to eMusic and look up the song, and it turns out Rhino is on here, and so is the re-issue of ‘Curtis’ and I’m downloading it right now. Damn, it is crazy what we can do know.

Which leads nicely into Mazzy Star. I saw the cover for ‘So Tonight That I Might See’ (a wispy purple on black) and between the cover and the name just had to hear it. Something about it made me think about the Velvet Underground meeting Jesus and Mary Chain with waaaay too much reverb, and I really liked it. I mentioned it the next day at work to a couple friends who were surprised that I hadn’t heard it yet and everyone else was suddenly the biggest Mazzy Star fans in the world as to make an even bigger point that I was a loser and how could I have worked with them for so long and not like Mazzy Star? I of course recognized the hyperbole (having dished it out myself to feel a little superior to others when they discovered a gem that I had known about). And when the next record came out ‘Among My Swan’ it was my job to atone for my sin and buy it that day so we could play it in the store. We played it loud. It sounded great. And I think that is one of the secrets to listening to Mazzy Star – it sounds like soft music, but there is so much subtle detail in it that playing it loudly benefits the music beautifully, and envelops you in a lush world of sound.

And I may not have ever gotten around to hearing it if it wasn’t for browsing through the store and looking at record covers. Sure, I was just now able to find Curtis Mayfield and download it within minutes, but I miss browsing through racks. I miss spending an hour going through a store section by section seeing where it will lead me… In some ways, Wikipedia serves that purpose now. Maybe I’ll head over there, type in Mazzy star and start clicking links and see where it takes me.

Day 61. Elvis Costello and the Attraction, Sonic Youth.

Sunday, March 28th, 2010

I continued the Bach extravaganza yesterday and today, finishing the first 30 CD volume of cantatas, with another 30 staring at me. Needed a bit of a break from it though so I went and grabbed a couple Sonic Youth CDs and some of the Rhino Elvis Costello re-issues.

I have a few Sonic Youth albums on vinyl (which sound great), but ‘Washing Machine’ and ‘Thousand Leaves’ both do quite well on CD. The 20-minute ‘Diamond Sea’ is a particular favorite. Great song that turns into some pretty out there stuff. I remember playing this around closing time at the Tower in Berkeley every now and then. It would shuffle certain kinds of people out of the store, and those that were left new that the music was telling them it was closing time. As things would start to loop and drone, people would bring their discs to the counter and be gone with the last few notes. Worked about every time, and it was good music. I still put these on every now and then (much more then then now actually) and I’m always surprised how good these albums are. I remember some hard-core Sonic Youth fans trashing them a bit when they came out, but I think they are a couple of my favorite albums by them. And it amazes me that they have been together for over 30 years. They have reinvented themselves a few times while always being loud, forceful and very musical. If there is a rock group that works itself into the 20th century classical avant-garde I think it has to be them. Their two-disc set ‘Goodbye 20th Century’ (featuring music of Steve Reich, John Cage, Yoko Ono and James Tenney) shows this influence well. I didn’t rip that one today, but the recording on that disc of ‘Having Never Written A Note For Percussion’ is on a mix disc of mine that I was playing the other day. I love how much the recording sounds like Sonic Youth (having a Johnny Marr about of jangle in the sound of the guitars) and at the same time is a great performance of Tenney’s piece.

Equally impressive to me is the 30 year career that Elvis Costello has put together. From the earlier punk influence to working with Brodsky Quartet to his tribute to Burt Bacharach, Elvis has also grown beyond his influences to create a unique and creative voice. The discs I ripped today (just the beginning of what I have) were ‘My Aim Is True’ (his only pre-Attractions album, though it really is mostly with the as yet to be named Attractions), ‘This Year’s Model’ (probably my favorite album of his, especially since Steve Nieve’s organ is turned up to full volume finally), ‘Armed Forces’ and ‘Get Happy’. I love early Elvis Costello. While I was talking about my ‘angry young man’ phase a couple days ago, there is one thing I left out. While I was listening to the Violent Femmes and The Cure, I realize now that it is Elvis Costello I should have been listening to. Better late then never though… while the others did the trick when I was 17, I realize now that Elvis Costello may have suited my geekier ways a little better.

‘No Action’ is SUCH a great side one track one. One of my favorite starts to an album ever. But one thing that I really appreciate about the Rhino re-issues is the second disc of goodies each comes with. The second disc of ‘My Aim Is True’ has an outtake of ‘No Action’ that didn’t have the recording desk levels correctly set, so the whole thing is terribly distorted. But it sounds great (and the engineers realized this as well – since they left the tape running). Of course, it couldn’t be released on the album that way, but as a bonus track it is lots of fun.