What are you listening to?

[Savonarola]

Guy Clark – Old No 1 (1975)
 
I'm not that big of a fan of country music, and I'd never heard of Guy Clark before.  Looking over his biography, I have heard a number of his compositions as he was more well known as a songwriter than singer.  This album is really good, all about drifters, loners, desperadoes and one night stands.  Based on this I thought what Tom Waits is to Kerouac, Guy Clark is to Larry McMurtry.

[Savonarola]

Fela Kuti - Expensive Shit (1975)

Short (clocks in at 24 minutes and has only two songs) but compensates for that by having topless women on the record cover.

According to Pitchfork:

The title of the album and first track refers to an incident in 1974. The Nigerian police planted a joint on Kuti. Before he was arrested, he ate the joint, but the police brought him into custody and waited for him to produce the (titular) excrement. According to legend, he managed to use another inmate's feces and was eventually released.

Which is certainly a fact I'd hate to ruin by further research.  The second track, "Water No Get Enemy," I think is the better track.  I once saw Femi Kuti perform that live.   

[Savonarola]

Mahmoud Ahmed -Ethiopiques, Vol 7. (1975-1978)

I've never heard anything like this before, most of the African music I'm familiar with is either from west or south Africa.  This, from Ethiopia, doesn't use a western scale, but instead has a five note scale.  It sounds sort of Indian, but uses western instrumentation.  I really enjoyed it - the other Ethiopiques will have good songs on them, but aren't consistent, but this and Volume 6 (also with Ahmed) are excellent.

This was made in a turbulent time in Ethiopia - Ahmed had been a singer with the Imperial Bodyguard Band.  These releases would cover the period of the reign of Amha Selassie, the overthrow of the monarchy and the beginning of the dictatorship (which, in 1978, would forbid him from releasing anything on vinyl.)

[Savonarola]

Louis Jordan - The Best of Louis Jordan (1975)

Jordan was an innovator of The Jump Blues, a precursor to Rock and Roll.  To me the songs sound like Ray Charles style R&B but livelier.  Most of the songs sound like novelty numbers (like "Ain't Nobody Here but Us Chickens") but it was the 1950s and "How Much is that Doggy in the Window" was considered a serious song.

[Josephus]

Supertramp: Crisis What Crisis.
Probably the least well known of their quadrilogy of Crime of the Century, Even In the Quietest Moments, Crisis and Breakfast in America; there's some great tunes on this including Sister Moonshine, Soapbox Opera and the late Rick Davies penned Ain't Nobody But Me

[mongers]

BOC -'Secret Treaties' - for the type of music it is, it's a near perfect album, 7 diamond tracks out of 8. 

[Savonarola]

David Bowie - Station to Station (1976)

Play that funky techno music, white boy

A transition between Bowie's Plastic Soul era and Triptych Electronica era and recorded during a week long cocaine binge.  It doesn't seem like there should be a transition album in the first place, that even Bowie wouldn't have a techno-soul album, but he does and it's one of his best.  There's disillusionment, there's paranoia, there's coked up religious songs and there's a brilliant Nina Simone cover; for only six songs this album packs a lot in.

The title track is a masterpiece, sort of like a techno sonata in that it builds from a slow start to an ecstatic finish.

[Syt]

I've never really been a regular buyer of the EA Sports games. There were titles from the earlier years that I was quite fond of, though. The 2D FIFA versions on SNES, for example.

On PC, there were two titles I played fairly extensively, but it's only by their soundtrack that I can really identify them anymore.

One was FIFA 99.

The eye (ear?) catcher at the time was Fatboy Slim's Rockafeller Skank that was played up and down on radio and TV at the time. Still a fun song IMO.

It set the tone for other menu songs, like Dylan Rhymes' excellent Nakend and Ashamed:

And Lionrock's Rude Boy Rock:

Full FIFA 99 soundtrack here: https://youtu.be/5dF0RldDSn0


The other game was NHL 2002. I especially loved playing with a custom team. I created face textures for an all-Star Wars team in the in game editor

Its soundtrack was mostly what I guess you'd call skate punk?

Here there was also one standout track - Sum 41's Fat Lip.

It's a fun song, but a bit hard not to cringe 20+ years later.

My favorite, though, was Gob's I Hear You Calling ... ironically the video has a soccer match, not hockey. And sexy(?) zombie cheerleaders.

Those opening chords are etched into my brain.

Other bands on the soundtrack include The Tea Party, The Immigrants, Treble Charger and Canada's finest: the Barenaked Ladies.

Full soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlx6KpLdGdPlYieVC6NVws0YPVX0tf0_h

[Savonarola]

Rush - 2112 (1976)

"Caress of Steel" had been a disappointment and, only with special pleading, did Rush's manager convince Mercury Records (their international distributor) not to drop them.  The gamble paid off and Rush did manage to chart in the United States; as well as having a big hit in Canada.

I haven't listened to this in a very long time.  I was struck that the composition wasn't quite there yet.  For instance during the lyrics after the protagonist has discovered the guitar:

See how it sings like a sad heart
And joyously screams out its pain
Sounds that build high like a mountain
Or notes that fall gently, like rain.

The guitar should do those things, or there should be a solo afterwards where it does, instead neither happens the song just continues.  Also having Geddy Lee do both sides of the dialogue between the Priests of the Temple of Syrinx and the protagonist doesn't really work since he has such a distinctive voice he comes across as suffering multiple personality disorders.  The story itself works out pretty well (especially considering Neil cribbed it from Ayn Rand (whom he gives credit to)).  The ending is so enigmatic that the listener is forced to make up his own conclusion; but that's not necessarily a bad storytelling technique.

I had forgotten what an obvious weed song "Passage to Bangkok" was.   

A couple weeks ago I was at a concert.  During the intermission the concert hall was playing music over the sound system.  I noticed one of the security guards (who was in his 20s) was singing along with "Spirit of Radio".  I joined him for the "All this machinery making modern music" part, so there is hope for the youth of today. 

[Savonarola]

Philip Glass - Einstein on the Beach (1976)

First of Glass's portrait trilogy, which would be followed by Satyagraha and Akhenaten.  I had heard "Songs from the Trilogy" before, which contains works from all three operas, but never Einstein on the Beach in its entirety.  The works on Songs from the Trilogy are, far and away, the most accessible works from the opera, the rest is kind of strange.  The chorus either sing the notes (Do-re-do) or counts (1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 2-3-4.)  The leads just talk in something that usually sounds like radio chatter.  I've never seen it performed (and it's unlikely to becoming to Melbourne, Florida anytime soon) but my understanding is that there's no story, it's just intended as something of an abstract portrait of Albert Einstein.  It does have flashes of brilliance, but some of the repetition gets annoying after awhile.