What are you listening to?

[Syt]

Didn't watch Galaxy Rangers as a kid, but the intro song "No Guts, No Glory" is perfect 80s cheese.

[Duque de Bragança]

Watched it as a kid.
Classic "American" animation, done by a good Japanese studio, TMS (Cobra Lady Oscar/Rose of Versailels.) so above average though varying in quality from an episode to another. The featurettes on the DVD have the creators saying they did not have the  animation A-team for all episodes.

French version of "No Guts, no Glory" (adaptation), from the glorious Sécam mono. 

[Josephus]

Peter Gabriel Plays Live (1983)

His first live album back when live albums where released every few years not every week.

Solid set recorded at several venues in late 1982, with a little bit of cheating added on later. Songs include  I Don't Remember, Shock the Monkey, Biko and a previously unrecorded song I Go Swimming

[mongers]

Peter Gabriel Plays Live (1983)

His first live album back when live albums where released every few years not every week.

Solid set recorded at several venues in late 1982, with a little bit of cheating added on later. Songs include  I Don't Remember, Shock the Monkey, Biko and a previously unrecorded song I Go Swimming

Indeed, or different colours/version of the same album released at the same time, sometimes those different tracks selections limited to certain countries. 

[Savonarola]

Ella Fitzgerald - Ella in London (1974)

Recorded at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in Soho.  I think her voice was starting to go a little at this point, not like Billie Holiday or anything, but I don't think sounded as sharp as she did in her 50s and 60s era American Songbook recordings (of course that could be due to this being a live album.)  In anyway it's a lot of fun, especially as she scats her way through different genres like country and western or soul train music.

[Savonarola]

The Grateful Dead - Anthem of the Sun (1968)

I've been reading a biography of the Grateful Dead; and I can see some of the elements from their story in these songs now.  The most notable one is "That's It for the Other One," which is about their time with the Merry Pranksters.  "Cowboy Neal" is Neal Cassady (Dean Moriarty from On the Road) who did in fact drive the Prankster's bus.  "Caution (Do Not Stop On the Tracks)" (in addition to being good advice) was one of the first songs they composed when they were a very loud bar band called The Warlocks.  They were jamming and Pigpen started singing/mumbling about a gypsy woman.

Even by their standards this one is out there, it's several studio recordings and live shows spliced together in sort of a musical collage.  They were trying to make something avant-garde like John Cage or Karlheinz Stockhausen (at one point they put a gyroscope on a piano to produce aleatoric music), the problem is their skills as producers and sound engineers were lacking at this point so it tends to sound muddy more than anything.  Though it is probably as close as one can get today to attending an Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

[Savonarola]

MIKE - Showbiz (2025)

I came across this on Pitchfork; they described him as sounding like MF Doom.  They do have quite similar voices, but they're worlds apart in terms of content.  MIKE's work is confessional, while Doom raps about food and being Dr. Doom.  It isn't bad, but all the songs have the same slower tempo and, to me, all started to run together (most likely because I'm older.)

[The Minsky Moment]

The Byrds - Eight Miles High (1966)
John Coltrane - India (1961)

Oexmelin in another thread was talking about history involving making causal linkages. For some reason, my youngest son became interested in 1990s era heavy metal - over the weekend we were watching a video of Neil Young playing at Bob Dylan's tribute concert (the one where Sinead O'Connor got booed) and he starting to complain about Young's playing.  I pointed out that Neil Young was definitely an influence on Pantera, his favorite band. He responded that Pantera had not mentioned Young as an influence, citing the unquestioned authority of Wikipedia.  But I responded that Eddie Van Halen was listed as an influence, and Eddie was definitely influenced by Neil Young.

That brings me to son 2, who is musically inclined and was talking yesterday about late 60s psychedelic rock and 60s-70s prog rock and the carry over influence.  I mentioned off-hand that Coltrane had started all of that stuff, and he scoffed.  So I played the two songs listed above.

Eight Miles High is a pretty important milestone in psychedelic rock - the Beatles and the Yardbirds were playing around with similar ideas, but Eight Miles High hit the radio before Revolver was released.

Coltrane's India was played live in 1961 but not released on record until a few years later.  Eight Miles High isn't exactly the same song but it is pretty similar.  The bass line is turned into a rock vamp, David Crosby's rhythm guitar takes on the role of McCoy Tyner's heavy left hand, and McGuinn tries his hand playing Coltrane-like lines on lead guitar.   Michael Clarke is no Elvin Jones, but then again Coltrane and Dolphy didn't have the Byrds spooky vocal harmonies and the Byrds managed to complete the song in a radio friendly duration as opposed to India which filled most of a 60s era LP side.

It's probably true that lots of the 60s/70s bands didn't listen to Coltrane, although without looking it up I'm 99% sure King Crimson did and probably Jimmy Page/John Paul jones too, among any others.  But even the ones that didn't were influenced because they all listened to the Byrds.

[Savonarola]

Melbourne, Florida is not exactly a high culture mecca so if you like classical music you have to take what you can get.  A couple weeks ago we saw a string quartet perform Vivaldi's Four Seasons; that was passable.  For their encore they played selections from Astor Piazzolla's Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas (Four Seasons of Buenos Aires.)  I hadn't heard that before.  Their version, unfortunately, was flat and lifeless, but I found a version conducted by Piazolla and that was every bit as manic as his other works.  He does make some musical references to Vivaldi and more generally to the baroque. 

[Savonarola]

The Byrds - Eight Miles High (1966)
John Coltrane - India (1961)

Oexmelin in another thread was talking about history involving making causal linkages. For some reason, my youngest son became interested in 1990s era heavy metal - over the weekend we were watching a video of Neil Young playing at Bob Dylan's tribute concert (the one where Sinead O'Connor got booed) and he starting to complain about Young's playing.  I pointed out that Neil Young was definitely an influence on Pantera, his favorite band. He responded that Pantera had not mentioned Young as an influence, citing the unquestioned authority of Wikipedia.  But I responded that Eddie Van Halen was listed as an influence, and Eddie was definitely influenced by Neil Young.

That brings me to son 2, who is musically inclined and was talking yesterday about late 60s psychedelic rock and 60s-70s prog rock and the carry over influence.  I mentioned off-hand that Coltrane had started all of that stuff, and he scoffed.  So I played the two songs listed above.

Eight Miles High is a pretty important milestone in psychedelic rock - the Beatles and the Yardbirds were playing around with similar ideas, but Eight Miles High hit the radio before Revolver was released.

Coltrane's India was played live in 1961 but not released on record until a few years later.  Eight Miles High isn't exactly the same song but it is pretty similar.  The bass line is turned into a rock vamp, David Crosby's rhythm guitar takes on the role of McCoy Tyner's heavy left hand, and McGuinn tries his hand playing Coltrane-like lines on lead guitar.   Michael Clarke is no Elvin Jones, but then again Coltrane and Dolphy didn't have the Byrds spooky vocal harmonies and the Byrds managed to complete the song in a radio friendly duration as opposed to India which filled most of a 60s era LP side.

It's probably true that lots of the 60s/70s bands didn't listen to Coltrane, although without looking it up I'm 99% sure King Crimson did and probably Jimmy Page/John Paul jones too, among any others.  But even the ones that didn't were influenced because they all listened to the Byrds.

The Grateful Dead listened to Coltrane, they credit him as an influence; that's something else I learned from their biography.  I'd expect that a number of the San Francisco Bands from that era who had roots in the art scene (The Great Society, Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Moby Grape) also listened to John Coltrane; he was a regular performer in San Francisco and their style of jamming owes a debt to jazz improvisation.

I really don't know about the Los Angeles bands; they seem more influenced by folk and the Wrecking Crew (although someone in The Doors was a fan of Kurt Weill.)

[Savonarola]

Bix Beiderbecke - At the Jazz Band Ball (released 1990)

I found a quote from Randy Sandke saying "If Louis Armstrong is the Sophocles of jazz, Bix is its Aeschylus."  That amused me, though I have no idea what the Aeschylus or Sophocles of jazz would mean.  (Presumably Dizzy Gillespie is the Aristophanes of jazz, who is the Euripides?  Maybe Miles Davis?) I've read other critics that thought Beiderbecke is only so well remembered (relative to his contemporaries) because he lived in Chicago which, unlike New Orleans, was a music industry hub at the time.  I think some of the critics ire comes from that a lot of his recorded work is commercial standards; but when he does jazz he does it very well.  This collection has a bit of both.  I did like his jaunty take on "Old Man River," Paul Robeson will always have the definitive version, but it was nice to hear it in a different light. 

[The Minsky Moment]

I've read other critics that thought Beiderbecke is only so well remembered (relative to his contemporaries) because he lived in Chicago which, unlike New Orleans, was a music industry hub at the time.  I think some of the critics ire comes from that a lot of his recorded work is commercial standards; but when he does jazz he does it very well.  This collection has a bit of both.  I did like his jaunty take on "Old Man River," Paul Robeson will always have the definitive version, but it was nice to hear it in a different light. 

The issue with Beiderbecke is that for most of his very short career, he played for non-integrated white dance bands like the Whiteman orchestra, that were very commercial and featured musicians who may have had technical merit but no jazz feel.  There are exceptions like Frankie Trumbauer but overall Bix didn't have many recordings that match the small group Armstrong Hot 5s and 7s. That said, there was a period of a few months in 1927 when Beiderbecke released a series of singles featuring small groups playing the equivalent of jazz standards: Traumbauer played on most of the sides, and a young Jimmy Dorsey makes an appearance on a few singles.  Those singles were collected in Volume I of the same 1990 Columbia compilation release you were listening to.  Bix's rep as a jazz player to a significant extent rests on those recordings and I think based on that it is well merited.  Were there other good players that remain obscure because they didn't get a similar opportunity to record?  Probably but that's always been true.

[Josephus]

Rush's sophomore album is 50 years old today, so giving Fly by Night a listen.

[mongers]

Rush's sophomore album is 50 years old today, so giving Fly by Night a listen.

Jos, great reminder , I shall give it a listen el pronto.

[Maladict]

I've been listening to a lot more music lately, on a Pink Floyd trip atm. Escapism for sure, but it's enjoyable all the same.