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Archive for the ‘Rock / Pop’ Category

Day 60. Bach, The Clash and Cat Stevens.

Thursday, March 25th, 2010

I ripped both of the Cat Stevens greatest hits tonight as well as the ‘Clash on Broadway’ box set. A few weeks back I heard ‘If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out’ at Joe Bar cafe in Capital Hill, which of course made me think about ‘Harold & Maude’. Such a beautiful movie, and I think that as a result, I tend to associate rather ‘live life’ feelings with hearing Cat Stevens. He’s also someone that I know both Tamiko and I associate with our early childhoods. What surprised me a little tonight though was that I only had these two collections on CD. After a little looking around I realized that ‘Teaser And The Firecat’ and ‘Tea For The Tillerman’ are on vinyl. One of the things that sounds a little strange about the CDs is that this is music I really got to know on my dad’s record player (and I think I can even hear where the cracks and pops are supposed to be in ‘Moonshadow’). I don’t have any specific memories about Cat Stevens though… they all seem more distant and fuzzy to me. The almost seem like they are someone else’s memories in some ways (maybe because we are supposed to, at 35, be different people then we were at 5). But his music has been in my subconscious for probably most if not my whole life, and I tend to associate that feeling of being young (though not necessarily childish) with his music.

My Clash discs are definitely on the front part of my CD shelf, but it was the box-set that got picked for tonight. ‘Clash On Braodway’ is a great collection… and seeing this set is one of my first memories of working at the Tower in Roseville. We had a very small box-set section (for two reasons – first that box-sets weren’t a huge item yet, and second because we were a small store) and I remember seeing this set on the shelf, prominently facing out (one copy) the first week I was working there. Well – the first week I was working in the record store (new employees generally started out in the video side). It had come out just in time for Christmas and I was hoping to buy the set. But money was short. So I figured I would wait for a couple weeks. Then it sold. Then it came back in and I was broke again. Then I got some money for my birthday, and when I went to pick it up, it had sold again… and I think this went on in one way or another for close to two years. I finally got it in ’93 (I am pretty sure I got it for myself for high school graduation… but definitely had it for the summer). And I’m pretty sure the discs rotated through my old 77 Corolla until I moved to Berkeley. One bit of irony – ‘Police on My Back’ had just finished one night coming home from Tower on Watt (a couple nights before I moved to Berkeley). ‘The Magnificent Seven’ was on and I get pulled over for the light being out on my rear license plate. I am given a warning, and don’t think much more about it (what are the odds of getting pulled over again for this?). Well, two nights later (two nights before I move to Berkeley) I get pulled over again… same cop! And she remembers me! “Are you going to get that thing fixed?” she asked.

“I get paid tomorrow!”

“OK – just make sure you fix it” and all I get is another warning. I figure I’ll take care of it on my lunch break at work the next day and plan on walking over to an auto-parts store around the corner from Tower. I get to work (listening to The Clash again) and park… then have a few minutes before work is supposed to start, so I decide I’ll go get the light. I turn the ignition and hear a terrible crunch. I look under the car, and my starter is sitting on the ground. So I wind up walking to the auto parts store, get a light AND a starter, then fix both in the parking lot during my lunch break. I got the car fixed, but decided at that point that there would be no more Clash in the car until I got to the Bay Area with the car in one piece.

I also continued the Bach box today. Was able to finish ‘Volume 2’, the works for keyboard. Nice performance of the Goldberg Variations and I also listened to the Partitas. All good so far. I also started Volume 3 (the first part of the cantatas).

‘Where Do The Children Play?” was just playing on my computer and Tamiko just told me her memory of the song. In first or second grade she had an advanced reading class and they were given the lyrics to read and figure out. Another kid memory.

Will Celia or Mira hear Cat Stevens in elementary school? We’ll see… Tamiko and I just finished registering Celia for kindergarten… I wonder what songs she’ll hear.


Day 58. Violent Femmes, Beethoven.

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010

“Add It Up’ has got to be one of the best angry young man songs ever written. It is one of the few songs on the first Violent Femmes albums that has Gordon Gano playing some electric guitar, but it is still amazing how loud parts of this song are with just guitar, acoustic bass guitar and a single snare drum. I’m ripping four Violent Femmes CDs tonight, the first album, ‘Hallowed Ground’ (with some of the darkest music I think the Femmes ever made, plus some of the most out there – with some heavy thanks to John Zorn and his Horns of Dilemma), ‘Why Do Birds Sing’ and the ‘Add It Up’ compilation from ’93. I have a couple others in the back shelves of the book cases, but I’ll have to dig for those. The first album is – I really don’t know how to put it – every whiny teenage loser kids album of anthems? It certainly was there for me during my low points. What amazes me is how fun it is to listen to now since it makes me think ‘phew! I’m not there anymore’. And I get the sense that this is probably the case for the band as well. ‘Hallowed Ground’ is a solid album as well, but the Violent Femmes really were one of those bands who did their best and brightest on the first record. (Pink Martini, from last night, I think is also in that camp). And while ‘Blister In The Sun’ gets it’s fair share of radio play on ‘alternative’ stations still, ‘American Music’ from ten years later is really their big hit (though really no where near their best song… just more accessible I guess).

I got to see the Violent Femmes once at the Fillmore in San Francisco, and what a show that was. The group came to the stage THROUGH the middle of the audience playing snare drum, a trombone and a cymbals… hopped on stage and rocked out a great show. I’m still amazed how much these three guys were able to do together as a band (though at this point Victor DeLorenzo had been replaced on drum(s)… what a strange audition that must have been – ‘So, can you play a snare drum?’ ‘Sure’ ‘OK! You’re hired!’). Brian Ritchie played some pretty mean marimbas on ‘Gone Daddy Gone’ and it seemed like all three of them were picking up instruments here and there as needed. They looked like they were having lots of fun (to say the least). And opening that show was Carmaig DeForrest and his ‘Death Groove Love Party’… Carmaig only put out a handful of discs that were probably only available around shows in SF, but they sure were fun. Hmm… may need to rip that one in the next day or two.

There is something poetic though about how I wound up ripping the Violent Femmes tonight. Before bed, Celia came downstairs to pick out tonight’s rips and pulled out a couple of blank CD cases (because they were a pretty red), then she saw the first Violent Femmes record and said ‘Daddy! There’s a little girl on that one!’. So – Violent Femmes it was, because my daughter saw the little girl on the cover. The Violent Femmes – part of the soundtrack to my breakup with Tamiko (which, if it had stuck, would have meant no Celia in this world… WAAAHHHH!!!!). And it’s not like I can put it on for her tomorrow and say ‘Celia – here is the music with the girl on the cover!’… how do I explain ‘Kiss Off’? She’ll recognize that the man singing is counting, but why does he forget what 8 is for? Or ‘Gone Daddy Gone’ when one of her biggest fears is that I might leave in the middle of the night? (This as a result of a poorly planned trip on my part where I had to leave for the airport one time at 3am). No – I think Celia will just have to live in mystery of this disc for a bit of time.

I am beginning to suspect that part of my romanticization / longing for Berkeley must partly be a result of the strong, vivid memories that were formed there. Memories so strong and clear that I am actually surprised by them… am I still capable of these strong memories of what seem to be simple, small everyday details? I mean – I can still form them when the moment calls for it. I can still remember how both of our girls felt the first time they were in my arms for instance. But the memories that I am talking about are more about these moments that are NOT earth shattering life changing moments, but I can still recall the temperature in the air and the quality of the sound in a specific space. I described some of this a few days ago regarding Charlie Parker, and tonight is another one… this time around it is the first time I heard Beethoven’s String Trio, Op. 9 movement IV. Of course I didn’t know what it was (I was still acquiring mostly basic knowledge of classical repertoire) but I was walking (quickly) between the Tower in Berkeley to get to orchestra rehearsal. And as I walked past Henry’s on Durant, the little cafe at the street level (in the picture above, at the left edge of the frame) had the radio on over a couple of crappy in-ceiling speakers. And that is where I heard it… the last movement is fast and virtuosic and I stopped in my tracks and snuck a seat on the sidewalk. It was an early fall day, still warm with a little bite of cold in the air as the fog was getting ready to roll up to the Berkeley hills, the sun was about to set and there was a great golden color coming up the street, and I just sat there for about four minutes listening to the music hoping it was the radio and I could find out what it was. I was half expecting that if it WAS the radio someone would come up and ask if I was going to buy anything while the piece was named and I would miss it… but no. It ended and it was the Rostropovich / Anne Sophie Mutter recording of the Beethoven trio. It was Beethoven! So ‘classical’! I was so surprised (I really was expecting Haydn or Mozart or someone I hadn’t heard of before) since most of the Beethoven I knew up to this point were the moodier ‘hits’. Then I got up and headed off to orchestra rehearsal (Berlioz – ‘Symphonie Fantastique’) and found a recording the next day (as well as the score in the library).

Isn’t that a great story? I was able to walk down the street, hear classical music, sit down for a few minutes, listen and find out what it was in amazing surroundings! And like I said – I can still feel what that whole moment was like…

Day 57. Pink Martini, She & Him and M. Ward.

Monday, March 22nd, 2010

So – tonight I have been plugging away on some new code, trying to learn a bit more abbot programming interfaces for Apple’s Interface Builder (which creates the visual part of an application that we usually see when we launch an application). Fun. Kind of. But – I didn’t get to rip any discs. BUT I did buy a couple new ones. She and Him Volume 2 came out ‘today’ at 9pm (midnight east coast time) and I discovered that Pink Martini also has a new one. Or a newer one… at least one I hadn’t seen before. Not sure what to think about the new Pink Martini so far… one of the songs just ripped of the first Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto. And I don’t mean it quoted it… I mean it used bits of melody with a ‘wrong note’ every six or seven notes. The song before that sounded like ‘Cantaloupe Island’ by Herbie Hancock, but again, not quite. I’m hoping it gets better though. Pink Martini’s first album absolutely stunned me with how great it was. It came out in 1997 after the group had been together for a few years. It was, and still is, amazing. ‘Hang On Little Tomato’ came out 7 years after that, and was a great second album. ‘Hey, Eugene’ came out 3 years after that, and it was a little ‘eh’. The new one took two years. I’m concerned after just a couple tracks. I’ll listen to the rest later and hope it gets better… on to the new She and Him for now (so Tamiko can hear it as well right now as she sites next to me).

I thought the first She and Him was brilliant. It really grew on me, and there were a few weeks this last summer that I had it on just about everyday. So far, number 2 is sounding good as well. So melodic. And M. Ward really can do almost no wrong in my book. My friend Charles sent me a mix disc a couple years ago with ‘Chinese Translation’ on it and that was one of those songs that I immediately tracked down so I could buy the album. This was right after I started to use eMusic – and there he was. I went ahead and purchased a few other albums from him over the next couple weeks and he has been a steady part of my pop musical diet ever since. I eagerly await his (and their) new releases. I would even go so far as to say that if you are serious about pop music in the 00s, you need to have an opinion about M. Ward. (If you are serious about pop music in the 90s, I think you need to have an opinion about Yo La Tengo). These artists I think show that you know more then just what the music industry ‘tells us’ to listen to. If my musical snobbery is a mountain range, it is probably statements like these that are some of the peaks. I know this is not necessarily an attractive side to me, but I would also lie if I didn’t admit to it. Anyways, so far so good on the new She and Him… and that’s it for tonight. I’m beat.

Day 56. Mark-Almond, Liszt and more Vivaldi.

Sunday, March 21st, 2010

Just a short post tonight. I plowed through the rest of my Vivaldi discs, grabbed Michelle Campanella’s recording of Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies, and Mark-Almond’s Greatest Hits (no, not Soft Cell, but the British duo that played with John Mayall at one point). Of course, I can’t help but think of Looney Tunes when I listen to the Liszt (though there is SO much amazing music in this set of 19 pieces that it is also hard not to become completely engrossed in the piano writing), and I can’t help but think about being a really small kid in a dark rental house in Ohio when I hear the Mark-Almond. I put it on the other day because I had ‘The City’ stuck in my head for some reason, and Tamiko shot me a look that I interpreted as ‘why in the world are we listening to this 1970s old sad bastard music?’. When I said ‘hmm… are you wondering why we are listening to this 1970 old sad bastard music?’ she said – ‘yeah … I’m want you to hear something else) at which point I quickly took off Mark-Almond so she could play me her faves off a new mix discs she got from Bryn.  Tamiko was right. BUT – I did put it on today while I had a little time alone, and I forgot how great some of that song is. There is also a cover of Billy Joel’s ‘New York State of Mind’ on it that doesn’t conjure up the stadium sized crowds that would cheer when Billy Joel would sing it, but more a run down slummy tenement in pre-Koch New York that is gritty and great. What a wonderful cover (even if listening to it may be depressing).

On the software front, still not sure what to replace Simplify Media with. So sad. DOT.TUNES really seems to have its CPU problems. I tested it at Origin 23 this afternoon, and running the laptop on battery power I saw the CPU spike and the ‘remaining time’ shrink to about an hour on full battery. Well – that just won’t do. And it is really too bad, since the interface in iTunes is EXACTLY what I would want. It mimics the playlist layout exactly (something the Simplify Media, for some reason, couldn’t seem to do). Hopefully more on this front later in the week.

Day 52. R.E.M.

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

Events of the past few days have kept me from ripping CDs until this morning. The days have been filled with a mixture of things – anniversaries and adversaries, bugs external and internal, comfort, family and smoking melted combs. It is also the end of a quarter and the beginning of spring (break). My friend Christina suggested we ‘smudge’ the house with a sage burning to begin again – get rid of the evils of the past few months and start fresh. The idea is appealing, but as I was discussing with my friend Jill the other day, even the bad has its purpose and I feel like with all that has been going on with us here at the Parmura household, me, Tamiko, Celia and Mira have learned and are figuring out quite a bit. These past months have been pretty rough in different ways for all four of us. When it comes down to it I wouldn’t get rid of the crap we have had to deal with. I know we are growing because of it. But I have also found myself with music from my ‘angry young man’ days running through my head off and on. So today I ripped a good chunk of my R.E.M. CDs (‘Life’s Rich Pageant’, ‘Document’, ‘Green’, ‘Out of Time’ and ‘Monster’). If all is calm after tonight’s class listening session, I may try to work in the first couple Violent Femmes albums as well, maybe some early Cure. While I did have a good amount of Ministry and Nine Inch Nails that I played during my senior year of high school, I am glad that the mostly melodic and ‘angry’ alternative 90s staples mentioned above are what I still listen to when I feel a little agro and need to get some energy out. I’m more comfortable with my masculinity now then I was in 1992.

I have ‘Life’s Rich Pageant’ on at the moment, but earlier I had ‘Green’ on with the girls. Mira (who is recovering from a stomach bug, as well as a hard night at the urgent care to make sure she didn’t have a bladder infection) started to dance in my arms when ‘Pop Song ’89’ came on. I actually hadn’t even listened to ‘Green’ or ‘Out of Time’ for awhile. Then main exception is my yearly mix-disc ritual where I rip ‘Losing My Religion’ as part of the first round of cuts for that years disc (only to have it weeded out as the music is cut down to the 80 minutes needed for a blank CD). It’s a great song, but too obvious to just have thrown onto a mix disc without carefully leading into and out of it. Maybe this year. Probably not

For the most part now I tend to put on ‘Life’s Rich Pageant’, ‘Document’ and ‘Automatic For The People’ now when I listen to R.E.M. Yes, I know which one doesn’t belong with the others but I will unapologetically say that it is a great album, And I think you can be a good R.E.M. fan and like songs like ‘Drive’ and ‘The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight’. Along with the first Violent Femmes album, one of the Cure greatest hits albums and the Pixies ‘Trompe Le Monde’, this album was part of the soundtrack for a getaway weekend with some high school friends to Fort Bragg.  Tamiko and I were going through our ‘He’s still in high school and a loser and being WAAAAY to immature for his college girlfriend’ break-up (complete with my purple hair) and a few good friends (Josh, Cheryl and Molly) decided we needed to head to Molly’s families beach house in Fort Bragg. And we all (just friends) spent a good chunk of time jumping off sand dune cliffs, hiking around and relaxing on the beach between figuring out what we could find at the grocery store to eat. Later in the year, some tension was created among the four of us because of someone else I dated and the other three, as well as other teenage tensions among the four of us towards each other. The four of us, by the end of the school year pretty much weren’t talking much to each other (and looking back now, I imagine uncertainty about where we would be ending up after high school was probably a big part of the problem). But for that weekend and a couple months afterwards, we had lots of fun together just hanging out.

One thing that is hard about the ‘soundtrack’ for this weekend in Fort Bragg though is the fact that, for me, lots of things sucked. Tamiko and I were breaking up and it was really hard (though we obviously get back together and I think we both see that time now as a great period of growing up for both of us – though especially me – and I also think that we were a much stronger couple afterwards). If I ever tell Celia this story, she would probably say – ‘Dad, this sounds like a horrible time for you! Would you want to remember it? No!’. (Celia has begun to rhetorically answer her own questions) But the fact of the matter is, these three friends really kept me together that weekend and, while they may not know it, I am very grateful for this. And while the break-up sucked, lots of good came from it eventually.

Like almost any real thing that happens in life, it is difficult for there to be clear-cut good times and bad times. I remember times when I was a kid and really sick (especially one very scary trip to an ER because of a severe asthma attack when I was 4 or 5, another time when I had a finger nail ripped off of my finger). And I have a feeling that Celia will remember when she is older about the time Mira seemed really sick and we needed to take her to urgent care. Celia was terribly worried about Mira last night, and very sad that she couldn’t go with us… but for now (and maybe in 20 years?) I have the image of a slightly feverish Mira in my arms dancing to R.E.M. with Celia smiling at the table while she is eating jammy toast. Celia knows her sister is feeling better. Maybe R.E.M. will subconsciously trigger this memory for her.

Day 48. Yo La Tengo and The The.

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

Tonight’s grabs were a couple of discs by ‘The The’ and a few from ‘Yo La Tengo’. ‘Dusk’ and ‘Hanky Panky’ were both released in the early / mid 90s. Matt Johnson (the only constant member of The The) puts a group together, makes a record and may do a tour. Dusk’s most notable contributor was, by far, major contributor Johnny Marr. And like just about anything Johnny Marr touches (The Smiths, The Pretenders, Modest Mouse) the album was golden. I still remember getting to work at the Tower on Sunrise early on morning to hear the ‘Dogs of Lust’ blasting on the stereo. The harmonica opening leading to a great heavy bass riff caught my attention pretty quickly, and I was listening to ‘Slow Emotion Replay’ on my car stereo on the way home that afternoon. While Johnny Marr wasn’t on the next album (Hanky Panky) his sound lingered a bit with the group. ‘Hanky Panky’ was an entire album of Hank Williams songs. What I liked most about the album was the sound it created. Like most good covers the songs don’t sound like Hank Williams, but like The The taking the poetry and lonesome feel and creating a The The record.

Along similar lines is the CD single Yo La Tengo released of multiple versions of Sun Ra’s ‘Nuclear War’. It was the groups first Top 10 single. The versions are all pretty much brilliant, starting with just the group singing with drums (though there is some bleed through from the second tracks tapes … if you play it that loudly you can hear it, and yes, I have played it that loudly), where version 2 features a chorus of kids singing the backing parts. Version 3 features an extended jazz jam that is simply phenomenal. To read about how this single (perhaps the most profane disc I own) became such a sensation, it really is best to just read it from Yo La Tengo themselves:

http://www.yolatengo.com/billboard.html

That same year also saw the release of ‘The Sounds of the Sounds of Silence’ which is an instrumental soundtrack based on performances by Yo La Tengo over film viewings of Painleve films. Painleve’s films are French documentaries about sea life, many filmed under water. The music is stunningly beautiful and it became even more so when I finally was able to pick up Criterion’s release of these films with Yo La Tengo playing over them (different versions of the songs even!!!). Tamiko, me and our friend Bryn watched the films a few months ago and were blown away by the marriage of film and sound. Between these two discs alone, I think 2002 may have been Yo La Tengo’s most creative year. These followed up ‘And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out’, a moody, mostly quiet album. Except for possibly my favorite Yo La Tengo song ‘Cherry Chapstick’ which can get me going whenever nothing else will. But the last track ‘Night Falls on Hoboken’ is probably my favorite tracks on the album… a 17 minute instrumental mood piece that makes me feel floaty. It reminds me of ‘Green Arrow’ (from 1997’s ‘I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One’ – the best album of the 90s in my opinion). And it definitely looks ahead to ‘The Sounds of the Sounds of Silence’.

Yo La Tengo is one of the few bands that I eagerly await new releases from, and will buy them the day they come out. Yo La Tengo is one of my favorite bands. Ever.

Day 47. Fleet Foxes.

Monday, March 8th, 2010

Today needs to be short … it was quite a busy day. In fact, I couldn’t even go down and grab any discs, so today’s post is transferred from the digital only part of the project (stuff I have bought, but never bought on CD). Getting the Fleet Foxes onto the server is a nice step though… good to make sure this music is well backed up.

I am biased when it comes to the Fleet Foxes. Casey Wescott (keyboards and vocal) was a former student and classmate of mine. I TA’s his last theory class at the UW, and we went through the intro to computer music series together (as well as a number of the advanced classes). While he was a student at UW, Casey also was tireless trying to put together and maintain bands and tours. To see him and the Fleet Foxes have such a successful couple of years is exciting. I know how hard these guys work, and while most groups probably go through similar years of hard work, hearing about it first hand from Casey just strikes me as amazing. These guys toured like crazy the past couple years, and have worked to create a sound that comes from all their different influences. And I think it sounds great. Saturated reverbs, beautiful harmony, and some great musicianship. In general, not what you see a lot of in pop groups these days.

One of my most exciting memories though was hearing the simulcast of their performance at Newport Folk in 2009 (which I downloaded and split into tracks). Pete Seeger was performing at this festival this year as folk stars from around the world paid him tribute, and the Fleet Foxes even got to perform with him at the close of the festival. Mavis Staples was performing the same day… and they got to share the same festival with these legends! It was blowing my mind. Then as the music began, I could see how well these guys were fitting into this scene. Live, the music was just as lovely as the albums. It was a thrilling hour, and I got chills more then a few times.

I saw Casey a couple weeks later (we still get together when we can to catch up and share SuperCollider stuff). He was still excited as could be about the performance. As he put it: “Here I was watching Mavis Staples and Pete Seeger and I’m thinking, what the HELL am I doing here?”. It takes some self-esteem to get on stage and tour with a rock band night after night… but the modesty I heard in his voice at the same time amazed me. The weight of historical perspective was not lost on Casey who has had a VERY successful couple years as a musician. And really I think that is what separates a lot of professionals from amateurs. Professionals  know they are just part of a lineage. They weren’t the first and they aren’t the last. In the current music business, I had forgotten how many performers today don’t necessarily get this anymore. By the sound the Fleet Foxes bring together (really a huge variety of performers spanning probably close to a 70 years of blues, folk and rock) I can tell that this significance is not lost on them.

Day 45. Chris Isaak and Oingo Boingo.

Saturday, March 6th, 2010

I had a small ’79 Honda Accord as a second car in high school (after I rear ended someone with my small little Chevy Sprint). It was an odd little 2 speed automatic but it had a tape deck and I was able to hook an adapter into it to play CDs. The night before a friend was going to head off to the Marines a few of us went out for a little goofing off around Sacramento. I actually can’t really remember what we did that night, except for a drive down a stretch of I-80 while playing Oingo Boingo really loudly. While driving down the freeway, everyone else in the car was bouncing left and right along with ‘No One Lives Forever’ testing out the shocks in the car. We wound up at a Taco Bell in Roseville, played the song even louder and danced around the car. Ah – early summer in the Sacramento area, where it was warm enough at 11pm to be outside in shorts, dancing to Oingo Boingo while waiting for a rather poor excuse for Mexican food.

Oingo Boingo has been a favorite band of mine for a long time. And one of my favorite aspects of the band was the horn section. I think horns in a rock band often makes the difference between good music and great music. During my Berkeley years, my friend Eric and I talked for a couple of years about putting together a band that would try to grab the best elements of Oingo Boingo (ska sound and horns) and start doing classical music covers at local open-mic nights. We pictured a room jumping around to arrangements of Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody #2 and Rhapsody in Blue. Eric figured his Buster Bloodvessel like proportions and my horn arrangements would be enough to start getting us gigs. The trick was finding horn players that could really rock. We lived just north of Oakland (home of Tower Of Power) and couldn’t seem to dig up 4-5 decent horn players wanting to play some rocking classical covers with a big guy in front of them screaming ‘pick it up up!’. I still think something like this would be a lot of fun to do but I also think I wouldn’t have the energy to pull it off. And without Eric, half the gimmick really would be missing.

It has been a few months since I’ve listened to Oingo Boingo though, so I look forward to seeing if Mira and Celia dance around to … hmm… not sure what I can play for them. Celia is paying close attention to words these days.

Maybe Chris Isaak will be a better choice? Not as rocking… certainly, but his Roy Orbison like style is much more family friendly. ‘Heart Shaped World’ and ‘San Francisco Days’ have some good songs, but a number of dogs as well. But ‘The Baja Sessions’ I think is a solid album that escaped the notice of most people. I remember Tamiko and I taking this album on a couple of road trips along the California coast. It was a great soundtrack for lazy days by the ocean. The stripped down feel of the ‘Baja Sessions’ also suited the ‘let’s get away from it all’ feeling that  often accompanied these trips. Tamiko and I are needing another trip like that pretty soon – it has been a very hectic few months. Maybe I need to make sure I get Chris Isaak into the glove compartment again.

And Tamiko just reminded me that on one of those trips to the coast we had breakfast a couple of tables away from Chris Isaak… he took off to surf after breakfast, we probably put his disc into the player and kept heading north up Hwy 1.

Day 44. Sly and the Family Stone and Simon and Garfunkel.

Friday, March 5th, 2010

Tonight I ripped a few discs from Sly and the Family Stone (‘Fresh’, ‘There’s a Riot Going On’ and a greatest hits disc) as well as the five Simon and Garfunkel studio albums that was released as ‘Collected Works’ on Columbia in the early 90s.

I find it quite ironic that the Sly and the Family Stone Greatest Hits disc is missing some pretty major songs. I can’t seem to find a date on the disc, but I am going to have to assume that the reason ‘Family Affair’ and ‘If You Want Me To Stay’ is NOT on the Greatest Hits disc is because the Greatest Hits was released before ‘Fresh’ and ‘Riot’. Or, the compilation was put together simply based on sales. Not being alive in the early 70s, I really don’t know how much airplay those songs would have gotten (though they were both top 10 singles, so it couldn’t have been shabby)… and I’d be surprised if his excellent version of ‘Que Sera Sera’ was heard by anyone but people who bought ‘Fresh’. I imagine part of the problems was that with ‘Riot’ and ‘Fresh’ the Family Stone was already falling apart. ‘There’s a Riot Going On’ is a pretty dark album (certainly not ‘Dance To The Music’) and it is mostly Sly himself recording most of it (with a drum machine and multi-track recorder). But it has some of his best work at the same time. While ‘Everyday People’ may be his shiny happy people song that most people think of when they think of the Family Stone, ‘Family Affair’ and its tortured stories told in the verses is a masterful and powerful song, I think possibly his best.

I have all the Simon and Garfunkel albums on vinyl (which I found used over the years) but I still picked up the ‘Collected Works’ somewhere along the way, and I’m quite glad I did. I am not sure if Simon and Garfunkel sound better on vinyl in the same way that John Coltrane does, and while the pops and crackles on my jazz albums seem to lend an ambience (albeit a nostalgic one) to my jazz LPs, I like the CD recordings of Simon and Garfunkel better. The ‘Collected Works’ weren’t cleaned up much for the CD issues (mastering was done as an analog stage) but the harmonies and more gentle guitar work really works better in a clean recording.

I’m not the biggest fan of the song ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’, but I love that Celia hears ‘Cecelia’ and dances to the music. ‘The Boxer’ and its orchestral hits, while over the top are brilliant. And I can’t help but think of the Andean pan-flute players that would be on Sproul Plaza at Berkeley on weekends when I hear ‘El Condor Pasa’. While their last album is great, I am amazed at how far removed it is from ‘Wednesday Morning, 3 AM’. The original version of ‘Sounds of Silence’ has got to be one of the best songs from a first album ever made which would then be remade by the same group for a second album and horribly ruined (sorry – the orchestral background for the second version is just an abomination). The sins of the second album are made up for on the third (with the closing track ‘7 O’Clock News / Silent Night’ rounding the album out in a beautiful and politically jarring way). Bookends was another great album (following the soundtrack work they did for ‘The Graduate’, a great movie made better by the amazing music used in it). Then after ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ that is pretty much it except for reunions in big parks and a great skit on an episode of Saturday Night Live.

I do like most of Paul Simon’s solo work though… but it is hard for me not to think ‘poor Garfunkel… kinda pulled the short end of the straw with the breakup’. Except, they had broken up once before. ‘Wednesday Morning, 3 AM’ took quite some time to catch on… The two had split up even before it was released. When it suddenly began to sell they got back together to support the album, which led to more. So – at least Garfunkel got 5 albums (and a number of reunions) out of the deal. I get the feeling Paul Simon would have figured out a way to make music either way though.

Day 41. Morphine.

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010

Morphine’s ‘low-rock’ appealed to me within the first few minutes of hearing them. When Rykodisc put out ‘Cure For Pain’ it found its way into a play station at Tower, and getting those machine set-up every month was part of my job. I would often choose one of the discs to listen to while I sat at a station and stamped on sale tags. Mark Sandman’s voice with his two string bass and the baritone sax just created such a warm feeling, and I hate to sound cliche, but I was hooked quickly.

I was pretty proud to introduce a number of people to Morphine. They were a band that always seemed to pass by word of mouth more then radio airplay or shear popularity, and I felt like my role as a record store clerk was to sell as much of their music as I could. I would often play them at night in the hour before the store was closing and the sound often seemed to fit. I was working at Barnes and Noble in Seattle though when Mark Sandman died, and I remember being shocked by it. Even more shocking was the manager saying ‘well, guess we better order some Morphine’ in expectation of the opportunity to sell to the hordes of people that would come in searching for the band after the singers death. But (much to my pleasure) the hordes didn’t poor in, and we had a stack of Morphine discs on the shelves for a number of weeks. I suggested that maybe if we play them in the store we may sell some, but that didn’t fit well into B&Ns ‘Kenny G / Old Sad Bastard’ music format that often filled the air in the store. Whatever… but this was one of the many times where I felt I was no longer at the cool hip record store setting that I used to be in (and this was just one of the MANY things that told me that).

I will say though that if you know my music, there is quite a bit that has been inspired by Morphine. The orchestration of my masters thesis (low voice, three cellos and percussion) certainly owed a ton to Morphine, and the overall sound of my ‘Music For Bassoon’ (with it’s slow glissandos) came from the electric bass being played with a slide (though another part of that piece is ripped from Queen’s ‘Killer Queen’… just saying, it might be avant-garde classical, but what I listen to makes its way into whatever I am working on).

I haven’t listened to these records for a few years now… and playing them right now as I type this is reminding me how much I love them… can’t wait to hear them over the next couple days again.