What are you listening to?

[Eddie Teach]

Soul Asylum- Somebody to Shove

[The Minsky Moment]

Miles Davis - On the Corner (1972)

Davis' most controversial album; one biographer called an "insult to the intellect of the people." Widely trashed at the time, since the turn of millennium, it has acquired equally strong defenders. who see it as a musical ur text for later musical trends including hip hop.  According to his own autobiography, Davis' intent was to depart from his jazz roots for a funk-influenced sound that would attract interest among young Black record buyers.  The album flopped commercially and Davis blamed Columbia records for poor marketing.  There was some truth to that but the bigger problem can be discerned by Davis' own description of the music in the same bio: as a mix of (British cellist/composer) Paul Buckmaster, Sly Stone, James Brown, and experimental composer Karlheinz Stockhausen.  Davis may have miscalculated the degree to which early 70s youth (of any race) were yearning to get down to Stockhausen.

My own take is that it is neither a disaster nor a modern masterpiece. The harmonics are stripped down and melodically Miles on wah wah augmented trumpet and Carlos Garnett on sax duck in and out. The main action is the constant swirl of rhythm, driven by 5 or drummers and percussionists, two Fender Rhodes keyboards, a bunch of electric guitars, tabla, and 2 electrified sitars.  It is danceable but not in way a 70s era Western ear would likely feel it at the dawn of the age of disco. It's not something I'd put in regular rotation but it was worth the listen.  And despite its age, it sounds a more fresh today then much of Davis's synthesizer drenched music from a decade later.

[Malthus]

Metallica's seminal Master of Puppets album was released this month 35 years ago.



We're as far removed from its release as the album was from (*looks at 1951 top 30, recognizes none of the songs, just the artists*) the movies An American in Paris, Quo Vadis, and A Streetcar Named Desire.

I once did a pic partly using a Metallica-style font.

For a concept I will one day work up (this was just a sketch that got out of hand a bit). I thought it would make a fun heavy metal album cover, when worked up:

https://i.imgur.com/J3Oy1wY.jpg

[Darth Wagtaros]

Over the Hills and Far Away, the original English song, not the Nightwish one.

[Josephus]

Over the Hills and Far Away, the original English song, not the Nightwish one.

Kudos for mentioning Nightwish

[Eddie Teach]

Which isn't the Led Zeppelin song.

[Darth Wagtaros]

Over the Hills and Far Away, the original English song, not the Nightwish one.

Kudos for mentioning Nightwish

I do love Nightwish.


RIght now, I'm listening to Flogging Molly's St. Patrick's Day concert. Streamed since live music is gone forever.

Tonight is DKM!!!!!!

[FunkMonk]

Flogging Molly 

[Jacob]

The Dubliners

[Savonarola]

I've been going through a list of greatest music videos and recently saw "Firework" by Katy Perry.  It's been a long time since I heard the song and I had forgotten how heavily auto-tuned her voice was, to the point that she sounds like a machine.  Of course Perry's voice is only a minor factor in her success as a singer; and the video director was clearly under no illusions about this either as he wisely focused on Katy's magnificent chest.  In this video it's so magnificent that she can shoot fireworks from it. 

It occurred to me while watching the video that this is where Marvel Comics failed with Jubilee; by shooting fireworks out of her fingertips she really couldn't do anything else.  If she had shot fireworks out of her boobs that would have left her hands free to wield weapons.  She could have been an expert swordswoman, or Chow Yun-fat style gunslinger or mistress of the nunchucks and incorporated pyrotechnics into her fighting style.

[Syt]

Batushka - Yekteniya 3: https://youtu.be/1a7-ggjvLIc

Accrodinng to Wikipedia:
Batushka (stylized in Cyrillic as БАТЮШКА) is a Polish black metal band formed by Krzysztof Drabikowski. Their music and lyrics, which are written exclusively in Old Church Slavonic language, are inspired by the Eastern Orthodox Church. The band members wear habits and Eastern Orthodox schemas during live performances to conceal their identities, and remain anonymous. In contrast with many other black metal bands, they use eight string guitars.

[The Minsky Moment]

Rollins in Holland (2020)

Sonny Rollins is sitting on thousands of hours of unreleased recordings that he won't release because they don't all meet his exacting standards.  He did authorize this release so that's a good sign.  Like the title says it consists of two recordings made in the Netherlands in May 1967.  The date is significant because Rollins didn't release any albums between 1966 and 1972; this is the first recording documenting that period. It's a bit unusual as Rollins works with two very different Dutch musicians - bassist Ruud Jacobs who plays conventionally in the style of Ray Brown and drummer Han Bennink who was (and is) a fixture of the European free improv scene and here channels the energy of Animal the Muppet.  As Rollins often feeds on the energy of his side players, he has fun and plays with enthusiasm.

[Savonarola]

BBC Radiophonic Workshop - BBC Radiophonic Music (1968)

This is a collection of television themes, jingles and incidental music composed for the BBC between 1962-1968.  It's unusual in that almost all the music is electronica; performed on oscilloscopes and the primitive synthesizers from the era.  Despite that there's nothing experimental in the compositions (a couple of the sci-fi show themes are a little out there); they were for television shows after all.  Still I thought some of the tunes were interesting.  It's more impressive that they could do this at all at the time.

Both Brian Jones (of the Rolling Stones) and Pink Floyd would tour the BBC Radiophonic Workshop Studios in the late 60s.  They used some of the techniques they found there for "Their Satanic Majesties Request" and "Piper at the Gates of Dawn" respectively.

[Savonarola]

Ray Baretto - Acid (1968)

Conga master and jazz band leader Ray Baretto tried to cash in on the boogaloo craze in this one; he ended up making something that sounded like the missing link between Tito Puente and War.  It is kind of cool, all wild percussion and blistering horns on mostly soul songs ("A Deeper Shade of Soul" is probably the biggest hit from the album; or at least the only song that I had heard before.)  "Acid" was probably not the best title for this; as it's not psychedelia by any stretch of the imagination.   

[The Minsky Moment]

Got to try that one.