Showing posts with label Jazz. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jazz. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 07, 2012
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Seven Songs...
It's Friday again(as I'm writing this), another week over. Another one of those up and down weeks full of good and bad and Brie and Salami sandwiches and music and thank Christ, sunshine. Lots of sunshine. I'm rocking a serious sandal/t shirt tan. I was in the park yesterday during my lunch break, eating a sandwich, listening to music, and saw two young topless deviants, known as chavs round these parts, drinking cider and wrestling by the hedges. It was a very homoerotic, violent Larry Clark meets George Michael meets Ken Loach type scene. Not my preferred choice of sunshine/sandwich/music/relaxing in the park entertainment. Around these parts the sunshine seems to bring the scum out like rain to worms.
Anyway, over the last week I listened to a lot of music, and particular songs stuck in my brain more than others, as particular songs have a habit of doing. Roughly seven, this time around. A song for each of the last seven days! If you wanted you could put all seven songs together in order, you know, fashion a playlist. You could give it a clever name and walk around your town picturing some fictional phantasmic week that was and never was. A week full of sandwiches and goblins and sunshine and deviants and beauty and disappointment and dogs and vampires.
We start the week at the beginning, with a cover of the Godfather Theme song by Jesus Acosta and the Professionals. A seriously heavy seriously soulful seriously dirty rendition of the iconic theme. With a killer distorted guitar riff and a organ line that sounds like it's coming from deep inside your brain. It's just the kind of late 60's/early 70's world music funk I love stumbling across. The song can be found on the wonderful compilation Cult Cargo: Belize City Boil Up, that I really couldn't recommend enough. Any volume of the Cult Cargo series is a gold mine worth owning, but Belize City especially.
Song two, Tuesdays song, is one minute of aggression from Los Angeles' volatile girl punk band Mika Miko. Now tragically disbanded. The song is End of Time from the band's Kill Rock Star's label debut C.Y.S.L.A.B.F. The girls in the band always claimed they were best appreciated live. Additionally they also make for great park walking music. If you were so inclined and had the appropriate headphones, ideally ear buds, you could do some tumbles in the grass. Maybe punch a tree. Or the air. Or a hippy.
Next is a sublime track from a soundtrack Mile Davis recorded for a French film called Ascenseur pour l'echafaud(Lift to the scoffold). The song is called L'Assassinat De Carala. I've never seen the film and in many ways am glad for that fact. The album is the very epitome of film noir. Of 50's jazz cool. And I prefer not having any associations with the film. I want to keep it as a soundtrack to my own life. The record is drenched in atmosphere. A beautiful, sinister, melancholy timeless soundtrack. It's serious, deeply affecting music, quite separate from the rest of Davis' output around this time in the late fifties to early sixties. It doesn't fit in with his earlier bebop material or his later Kind of Blue period or his ambitious and infinitely more challenging Electric material. I'm not sure how the album sits with serious Mile Davis fans, but it's one of my favourites. Simple, elegant and moving.
The next song came on my ipod when I was in Whitby with my wife. It immediately latched onto my feet and arms, making me move them in outlandish frantic weird movements. I started laughing, going oh yeah. Feel that. And other such ridiculous statements. I assumed it was something from the seventies. Something I'd managed to avoid somehow all my life. When I got home and turned on the computer, I found out the song was called Last Bongo In Brighton(Remix) by the very contemporary, very hip hop,very English DJ Format. From his debut album Music For The Mature B-Boy. Format specializes in big beats and 70's funk breaks and anyone who likes good hip hop will dig his music.
Tom Waits appears on my ipod frequently. Over the last seven days a song from his essential album Rain Dogs played several times. Rain Dogs is the middle album of a trilogy book ended by Swordfishtrombones and Frank's Wild Year's. Coincidentally it is also the first album I ever owned by Tom Waits. I bought it from the Goodwill store in Toronto, at Coxwell and Gerrard to be specific, when I was about seventeen. Vaguely familiar with Waits at the time I was sold on the intriguing album sleeve and subsequently confused, challenged, and amazed by the music on the vinyl record. I'd never heard music like it, and hadn't even been aware you could make music like that. It sounded like carnival music from a nightmare. The song Gun Street Girl appears towards the end of the record. One of the more straight forward acoustic numbers. I'd sort of forgotten about it till this week. It's a barnstormer. A fearsome piece of songwriting. That quite frankly leaves me stunned.
The hypothetical Saturday song in this fictional musical week, loosely based on my actual real life listening experiences over the past seven days comes courtesy of The Nazz. A band I got into over the last few years, they have a straight forward satisfying psych rock sound, and were formed by Todd Rungren. The song I listened to this week is called Crowded from the band's 1968 self titled record Nazz
Our final song, Sunday's song, the song for that wonderful day of rest belongs to Mr Johnny Cash. From his album Now, There Was a Song! released in 1960. The song is the rollicking I Feel Better All Over. It was actually penned by the gambler himself, Mr Kenny Rogers. A song tailor made for Sunday drives, or Sunday mornings dancing with your girl or Sunday afternoons drinking in the backyard. The music industry did it's best during the last seven or eight years to over saturate the market with Johnny Cash, and as such I had to take a step back for a short while. But his music will never die and Cash will always be in my heart, just as he should always be in yours.
Anyway, over the last week I listened to a lot of music, and particular songs stuck in my brain more than others, as particular songs have a habit of doing. Roughly seven, this time around. A song for each of the last seven days! If you wanted you could put all seven songs together in order, you know, fashion a playlist. You could give it a clever name and walk around your town picturing some fictional phantasmic week that was and never was. A week full of sandwiches and goblins and sunshine and deviants and beauty and disappointment and dogs and vampires.
We start the week at the beginning, with a cover of the Godfather Theme song by Jesus Acosta and the Professionals. A seriously heavy seriously soulful seriously dirty rendition of the iconic theme. With a killer distorted guitar riff and a organ line that sounds like it's coming from deep inside your brain. It's just the kind of late 60's/early 70's world music funk I love stumbling across. The song can be found on the wonderful compilation Cult Cargo: Belize City Boil Up, that I really couldn't recommend enough. Any volume of the Cult Cargo series is a gold mine worth owning, but Belize City especially.
Song two, Tuesdays song, is one minute of aggression from Los Angeles' volatile girl punk band Mika Miko. Now tragically disbanded. The song is End of Time from the band's Kill Rock Star's label debut C.Y.S.L.A.B.F. The girls in the band always claimed they were best appreciated live. Additionally they also make for great park walking music. If you were so inclined and had the appropriate headphones, ideally ear buds, you could do some tumbles in the grass. Maybe punch a tree. Or the air. Or a hippy.
Next is a sublime track from a soundtrack Mile Davis recorded for a French film called Ascenseur pour l'echafaud(Lift to the scoffold). The song is called L'Assassinat De Carala. I've never seen the film and in many ways am glad for that fact. The album is the very epitome of film noir. Of 50's jazz cool. And I prefer not having any associations with the film. I want to keep it as a soundtrack to my own life. The record is drenched in atmosphere. A beautiful, sinister, melancholy timeless soundtrack. It's serious, deeply affecting music, quite separate from the rest of Davis' output around this time in the late fifties to early sixties. It doesn't fit in with his earlier bebop material or his later Kind of Blue period or his ambitious and infinitely more challenging Electric material. I'm not sure how the album sits with serious Mile Davis fans, but it's one of my favourites. Simple, elegant and moving.
The next song came on my ipod when I was in Whitby with my wife. It immediately latched onto my feet and arms, making me move them in outlandish frantic weird movements. I started laughing, going oh yeah. Feel that. And other such ridiculous statements. I assumed it was something from the seventies. Something I'd managed to avoid somehow all my life. When I got home and turned on the computer, I found out the song was called Last Bongo In Brighton(Remix) by the very contemporary, very hip hop,very English DJ Format. From his debut album Music For The Mature B-Boy. Format specializes in big beats and 70's funk breaks and anyone who likes good hip hop will dig his music.
Tom Waits appears on my ipod frequently. Over the last seven days a song from his essential album Rain Dogs played several times. Rain Dogs is the middle album of a trilogy book ended by Swordfishtrombones and Frank's Wild Year's. Coincidentally it is also the first album I ever owned by Tom Waits. I bought it from the Goodwill store in Toronto, at Coxwell and Gerrard to be specific, when I was about seventeen. Vaguely familiar with Waits at the time I was sold on the intriguing album sleeve and subsequently confused, challenged, and amazed by the music on the vinyl record. I'd never heard music like it, and hadn't even been aware you could make music like that. It sounded like carnival music from a nightmare. The song Gun Street Girl appears towards the end of the record. One of the more straight forward acoustic numbers. I'd sort of forgotten about it till this week. It's a barnstormer. A fearsome piece of songwriting. That quite frankly leaves me stunned.
The hypothetical Saturday song in this fictional musical week, loosely based on my actual real life listening experiences over the past seven days comes courtesy of The Nazz. A band I got into over the last few years, they have a straight forward satisfying psych rock sound, and were formed by Todd Rungren. The song I listened to this week is called Crowded from the band's 1968 self titled record Nazz
Our final song, Sunday's song, the song for that wonderful day of rest belongs to Mr Johnny Cash. From his album Now, There Was a Song! released in 1960. The song is the rollicking I Feel Better All Over. It was actually penned by the gambler himself, Mr Kenny Rogers. A song tailor made for Sunday drives, or Sunday mornings dancing with your girl or Sunday afternoons drinking in the backyard. The music industry did it's best during the last seven or eight years to over saturate the market with Johnny Cash, and as such I had to take a step back for a short while. But his music will never die and Cash will always be in my heart, just as he should always be in yours.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Blurg.
If you haven't yet, you should watch the first two seasons of 30rock. Trust me. I also believe you should do yourself a favour and watch Generation Kill as soon as you can. It's by the makers of The Wire and really that's all you should need to know. But just in case it isn't it follows a company of Recon Marines as they head the invasion into Iraq, but it's told in the brutally realistic point of view of the soldiers. Needless to say it paints almost as bad a picture of the war in Iraq as The Wire did the streets of Baltimore, and is uncompromisingly hilarious.
Yesterday I decided for the foreseeable future, to only listen to records on my i-pod that I haven't listened to in a long time. I have a tendency to listen to the same songs when going out into the world with my headphones on, but really you can only listen to Gangstarr and the first Wu Tang Clan album so many times. So yesterday on my way home I decided to listen to McCoy Tyner's 1968 album Expansions, I'm not a sophisticated enough listener of jazz to try and dissect the album or the genre too much, all I can say is Expansions and especially the 12min opening track Vision is a beautiful mix of the early 60's traditional sound and the more experimental sound of the late 60's. So you get this beautiful kind of melancholy sound over this free jazz experimentation and a subtle grooving bassline.
Then I put on a considerably more avant garde jazz record, Eric Dolphy's fantastic album Out There. Like I said earlier I don't know enough about jazz and its various subgenres, so all I can say here is find it, give it a chance and see what you think. Personally I think it would appeal to people who might not normally be into this sort of thing. Listened to at a decent volume on headphones it sucks you into its dark abstract world.
Today I continued my rediscovery of old albums I'd neglected over the past months because of my ever growing hip hop obsession. Today going into town I put on The Grateful Dead's iconic album American Beauty. A fantastic summertime record. This is a complete artifact. 35 min, 10 songs and everyone a gem. And it ends on one of the best album closers ever, Truckin'. When American Beauty ended I put on The Guess Who's record Live at the Paramount, and having listened to my vinyl copy many many many times when I was a teenager, was somehow still completely unprepared for the pure force of this record. On headphones at maximum volume it was almost overwhelming. Recorded in 1972 it sounds so warm. Burton Cummings sounds like he's singing from the top of the Rocky Mountains, his voice the only thing that could be heard from the west coast of British Columbia to the East Coast of Newfoundland. And Randy Bachman's guitar sounds so mean he probably should have been jailed after the show as a threat to mankind. And really, has a saloon piano ever sounded so incredible? Even American Woman, a song I've heard more times than I can remember and have grown to detest, had me dancing around the house. And the live rendition on this album is 16 minutes long. I honestly can't comprehend how these guys have remained relatively unknown in the UK. And the next time your reading an article in some mediocre music magazine, where some asshole critic questions the purpose of a band releasing a live album, and decrees it as nothing more than a money grab, put this album on, set the magazine on fire, smear blood on your face and dance around the flames in a primal trance.
Anyway,I'm gonna try and stay true to this game. Everyday I'm going to listen to records I've been neglecting for too long. I have about 3,000 albums on my i-pod,Clarence the 2nd,right now, so I have no excuse.
Well, I guess I should get back to doing what I was initially supposed to be doing on here, which is trying to book our trip to Barcelona in July.
Oh and can I say that the aftermath of my stag night Saturday, aside from leaving every single muscle in my body (and my thumbs), screaming in agony, has also left me full of nervous excitement with the big day looming ahead. I was playing it pretty cool up to now but after looking forward to my stag for so long now, the big day seems so close.
Can someone explain to me why they let American's other than John McEnroe commentate tennis? Oh and am I the only one hoping Andy Murray crashes out of this years Wimbledon?
Yesterday I decided for the foreseeable future, to only listen to records on my i-pod that I haven't listened to in a long time. I have a tendency to listen to the same songs when going out into the world with my headphones on, but really you can only listen to Gangstarr and the first Wu Tang Clan album so many times. So yesterday on my way home I decided to listen to McCoy Tyner's 1968 album Expansions, I'm not a sophisticated enough listener of jazz to try and dissect the album or the genre too much, all I can say is Expansions and especially the 12min opening track Vision is a beautiful mix of the early 60's traditional sound and the more experimental sound of the late 60's. So you get this beautiful kind of melancholy sound over this free jazz experimentation and a subtle grooving bassline.
Then I put on a considerably more avant garde jazz record, Eric Dolphy's fantastic album Out There. Like I said earlier I don't know enough about jazz and its various subgenres, so all I can say here is find it, give it a chance and see what you think. Personally I think it would appeal to people who might not normally be into this sort of thing. Listened to at a decent volume on headphones it sucks you into its dark abstract world.
Today I continued my rediscovery of old albums I'd neglected over the past months because of my ever growing hip hop obsession. Today going into town I put on The Grateful Dead's iconic album American Beauty. A fantastic summertime record. This is a complete artifact. 35 min, 10 songs and everyone a gem. And it ends on one of the best album closers ever, Truckin'. When American Beauty ended I put on The Guess Who's record Live at the Paramount, and having listened to my vinyl copy many many many times when I was a teenager, was somehow still completely unprepared for the pure force of this record. On headphones at maximum volume it was almost overwhelming. Recorded in 1972 it sounds so warm. Burton Cummings sounds like he's singing from the top of the Rocky Mountains, his voice the only thing that could be heard from the west coast of British Columbia to the East Coast of Newfoundland. And Randy Bachman's guitar sounds so mean he probably should have been jailed after the show as a threat to mankind. And really, has a saloon piano ever sounded so incredible? Even American Woman, a song I've heard more times than I can remember and have grown to detest, had me dancing around the house. And the live rendition on this album is 16 minutes long. I honestly can't comprehend how these guys have remained relatively unknown in the UK. And the next time your reading an article in some mediocre music magazine, where some asshole critic questions the purpose of a band releasing a live album, and decrees it as nothing more than a money grab, put this album on, set the magazine on fire, smear blood on your face and dance around the flames in a primal trance.
Anyway,I'm gonna try and stay true to this game. Everyday I'm going to listen to records I've been neglecting for too long. I have about 3,000 albums on my i-pod,Clarence the 2nd,right now, so I have no excuse.
Well, I guess I should get back to doing what I was initially supposed to be doing on here, which is trying to book our trip to Barcelona in July.
Oh and can I say that the aftermath of my stag night Saturday, aside from leaving every single muscle in my body (and my thumbs), screaming in agony, has also left me full of nervous excitement with the big day looming ahead. I was playing it pretty cool up to now but after looking forward to my stag for so long now, the big day seems so close.
Can someone explain to me why they let American's other than John McEnroe commentate tennis? Oh and am I the only one hoping Andy Murray crashes out of this years Wimbledon?
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