My Aura

Is big. Keep your adolescent thoughts to yourself.

The Soundtrack Of My Life This Past Week

Loscil.

Truer words were never spoken

Fast Forward to 13:56

A Phenomenal Sonic Blast

I Like Making Atmospheres

This is from five or so years ago.

Engineers

As much as I love the idea that one of my favorite artists, Ulrich Schnauss, has joined another fave, Engineers, the resulting output couldn't possibly measure up to anyone's expectations, least of all mine. So I dig back in the catalog. Home.

Credits

I read album credits. I have always pored over them. I want to know who played what on which song, every detail.

Allmusic can suck it.

Wikipedia rulez.

Soundpool

Disco Shoegaze FTW.

Maybe I've Acted Hastily

Maybe there's nothing but green lights from here.

Out of the Office

Rawk Club is on indefinite hiatus. I hope you weren't appalled at the peak into my psyche. Maybe one day I will share more with you, but that day isn't today. Now go listen to your favorite song. Cheers.

The Push..

..is Dave Wesley and Casey Borchert. Swadishthana Orange.

The Push - Swadishthana Orange 67_5 - EPv1 by davewesley

Thursday Morning Ear Worm

The Witch Hazel Sound. Fontaine.

The Association

Along Comes Mary, from the Smother Brothers Show.

Wednesday Morning Ear Worm

Today's ear worm was a simple four-bar hook. Straight four time, drums and keys.

A Shoreline Dream

A Shoreline Dream. Manhattan Beach. Long live shoegaze.

I Need More Noise

Comfort food for the agitated soul. Killing Joke. Asteroid. Live version. From their 2003 self-titled album.

I Need Noise

Hüsker Dü. Makes No Sense at All.

Tuesday Morning Ear Worm

Steely Dan, Everyone's Gone to the Movies, from Katy Lied.

Unfortunately the original recording is unavailable as a You Tube clip, and I'm not going to take the time to find streaming audio of it. Suffice to say if you aren't familiar with it, you should be.

Busy Monday Evening 3

A neighbor redoes one of my favorite McCartney songs.

Busy Monday Evening 2

Justin Bieber, slowed down 800%. This is my new favorite song. I'm not kidding.

Busy Monday Evening 1

Utopia, reunion tour, Japan, 1992. A killer live version of Hammer In My Heart from the Network album.

Kanye's Samples

I find this kind of stuff fascinating...

Moss Garden

Today is a cold, snowy white, overcast Heroes day.

Monday Morning Ear Worm

Nothing today. No music, no four-bar hook, nothing.

Hotlegs

When I was six, our family was host to a young Native American boy and girl, siblings, for a summer. The boy, Hiram, bought a 45 of a song called Neanderthal Man by a band called Hotlegs. I did not like it. The drums were too loud, the vocals were too soft, and the motif was too simple. When that summer ended, Hiram didn't take the 45 with him. It ended up in my care. Over the years I listened to it occasionally to see if I still hated it, and I always did. I kept it despite this, and still have it. When/If you listen to Neanderthal Man (video #1 below), it's worth noting that it went to #2 in Britain and #22 here, and sold 2,000,000 copies. I wonder how many remain.

When I was twelve, I joined the Columbia House Record Club and got 10cc's The Original Soundtrack with my initial shipment. I wore out the grooves on that album. But over the years I didn't dig into anything else from their catalog beyond The Original Soundtrack, Deceptive Bends and Bloody Tourists.

Starting about sixteen years ago, the internet enabled me to indulge my idle curiosities. I discovered, and found terrifically interesting, that Hotlegs actually was 10cc. Three quarters of 10cc anyway. They were later joined by Graham Gouldman, the author of For Your Love, Bus Stop and other hits from the mid-60s. They soon changed their name, etc. etc. Naturally I read everything I could get my hands on about the band and its members, most of which I've long forgotten. But it's an interesting history, and too much for me to rehash here. If you're curious, here are links to other sources.

BTW - The author of this video has mislabeled it as "10cc".

It's a far cry from that....to this: (caution, video #2 is much louder than #1)

Spanky and Our Gang

Like to Get to Know You is an amazing slice of pop, but what happens starting at 2:13 takes it to a level seldom equaled. It goes from amazing to uniquely transcendent, a high water mark in modern popular music.

Dream of You

In December 1986 I got a job in a restaurant called the Ediner, washing dishes. Typical starving artist job. It was a retro diner, and part of the vibe was the music they piped in - hits from the 40s and 50s. It was my first exposure to the Mills Brothers, and it was love at first listen. There were only two Mills Brothers songs on the tapes they played, Paper Doll and Dream of You. There are many recordings of Paper Doll, which was one of the biggest hit singles of the 1940s. Dream of You, however, proved to be difficult to find. Find it I did, though, and here it is.

Saturday Starts

With "Always Returns" from Brian Eno's "Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks" album, then moves to "Simplesmente" from Bebel Gilberto, the Tom Middleton Balearic Remix, from the compilation album "Ziriguiboom: The Now Sound of Brazil, Vol. 2".

Working to Music

There's a balancing act involved in selecting music for certain activities, like working. It ought to stimulate and percolate but never distract. I prefer instrumental music, like Ulrich Schnauss. But my favorite "working" music is Zero Tolerance for Silence by Pat Metheny. I once brought this piece, #3, to music club, and the other guys agreed that it was the probably the worst selection in club history. The entire album sounds much like this track. There are only a handful of albums I'm aware of that step out on this limb - Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music is one, Neil Young's Arc is another. Unsurprisingly, Thurston Moore is on record as loving both Arc and ZTFS. Most critics and fans seem to hate these excursions, but I love them. Because a lot of the time, this is what it sounds like in my head.

St. Vincent

One of the best albums of 2009. For more than a month that year, this was my #1. Stellar, front to back. It's a shame "Actor Out of Work" got so much airplay. Other songs on the record are more deserving, IMO. "Save Me from What I Want", for example.

Music

There are times I'm convinced it's only about imbuing meaning in ephemeral things that have none. An indulgent pretense.

Friday Morning Ear Worm

Weather Report - A Remark You Made. A live version from 1978.

I'm Easily Amused

I'm a musician, always have been. I won't tell that story, except in bits and pieces. Here's a bit. Or a piece.

In 1990 I was in a band in Minneapolis. Mostly a cover band, but we played a couple of originals. There was enough musicianship to win other musicians over, and the non-musical just liked our set list. We had a gig (one of many) at a large club, since defunct, in town.

One night I had an idea, and I was so enthusiastic about how cool it was, the other guys agreed to do it.....

.....we would go on stage, be introduced - "Ladies and gentlemen, (band name)!" , our drummer would click off "One Two Three Four" and we would immediately go into what's called a "train wreck". A train wreck is the stereotypical ending of a live rock song - the drummer plays a bunch of BS, and the rest of the musicians play either one note or one chord, it lasts a few seconds, then BAM! At which point every member of the band would stop playing and exit the stage. That night I suggested we treat our intro as if it were the end of the last song of the night - do the train wreck, say goodnight, then walk off stage. And we did. It went like this:

"Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome (band name)"
one two three four
TRAIN WRECK
one two three four
BLAM
"Thank you! Good Night!"
We exit the stage.

We took off our guitars and ran back to the dressing room, hysterical. After a minute a couple of the other guys suggested we go back out - the joke's over and we needed to play our first set. I kept begging them to stay put - to see what the audience would do. But the audience did nothing. Silence. I finally acquiesced. It wasn't going anywhere. We went out and re-introduced ourselves. Our singer may even have apologized.

A thin conceit, but a funny one. One of many.

Beach House - Walk in the Park

I had a mishap recently, and I've been in a considerable amount of pain since. Pain affects how you see, hear, taste, touch, feel. Pain dictates what I can listen to. Many sounds are unacceptable - very few offer comfort. Maybe we are less likely to take risks, go out on a limb, let something woo us, when something's wrong inside. So we gravitate to the things that are sure.

Beach House's Walk in the Park

Thursday Morning Ear Worm

XTC's cover of Ella Guru by Captain Beefheart.

The Elliott Smith Wall

The other highlight of seeing LA was seeing the Elliott Smith Figure Eight wall. After visiting the Walk of Fame and the Hollywood sign, we drove to the wall.

It had been defaced with a bunch of pedestrian ugliness that had nothing to do with Elliott. I had recently read that Roger Waters was taking some heat because posters advertising an upcoming appearance by him in LA were plastered on it. He ordered them taken down.

The wall is not in a glamorous part of town - it's in a seedy area of Sunset Strip, across the street from a strip mall. It was a little hard to feel comforted there. Such a public place, and the Elliott connection is so personal, visceral and private.

My wife suggested signing it. Great idea! No pen. No marker. I went into a nearby Mexican restaurant and asked if they either had a marker or knew where to get one. No luck. Where else to go? How much time should I allow for this? I decided it wasn't worth the effort, and walked back outside to look at the wall again.

Now a woman, about my age, possibly five years younger, was in front of the wall. She wasn't really looking at it though, she was standing on the curb by her car, looking at one of her sons, of which she had two - one about 14, one maybe 16. I turned to her and said "It's a shame what they've done to this, isn't it?". She didn't acknowledge me. At all. Maybe an LA thing, I thought. Maybe here you don't acknowledge strangers. But that's odd, not what you would expect from a fellow Elliott fan. I turned to look at her sons. The oldest was looking around aimlessly. The youngest was right up near the wall, staring at it. It was then I realized it was her SON who had wanted to stop and look at the wall, not her.

I stole another look at her face, and saw impatience. Unacceptance. The woman and her sons got back into their car and drove away. I posed for the obligatory "I was there" snapshots, none of which turned out. I looked horrible. Something had changed. I felt fulfilled, ashamed, immature and old at the same time. My brain was telling my heart to grow up.....and my heart was telling my brain to fuck off.

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Nature Abhors a Vacuum...

...in my all-too-often vacuous skull.

No Music

All music is abrasive right now.

Wednesday Morning Ear Worm

Weather Report, Harlequin. Off the Heavy Weather album. Particularly the bass stuff starting at 2:36.

Tuesday Morning Ear Worm

The Mills Brothers

A highlight of my visit to LA last summer was seeing the Mills Brothers' star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I have a child-like fascination with simple things.

Pitchfork on Beefheart

Appreciation: Captain Beefheart

Monday Morning Ear Worm

The song I woke up to this morning is...........

Farewell, Cap'n

His death occurred just before I started this blog. The open sore left by his passing still burns. This was a guy after all, who came to me in a long line of artists, starting with the B-52s and The Sinceros a couple years prior, and shaped my view of the world. It wasn't so much that Captain Beefheart's music opened my eyes, it was more that he was able to define and describe a part of me that nothing else could previously. Ice Cream For Crow was on the short list albums that meant the most to me at age 18. It's still on the short list today.

This song is called "Semi-Multicoloured Caucasian". It is an instrumental off Ice Cream For Crow. It is not only in my Top 10 favorite songs of all time, I believe I want it played at my funeral.

Been Reading

Santa put Keith Richards' book "Life" in my stocking this year. I've only started reading it, but I'm impressed his memories are so lucid, so intact. Especially since my own are so hazy and I have nothing to blame my haze on. Tonight I also picked up "Street Player: My Chicago Story" by Danny Seraphine. I didn't even know it existed - I read a couple pages at the store, and was sucked in. I grew up with Chicago, and they'll always be near and dear. I was never a fan of Seraphine's drumming, however. To me it always seemed he must have come from the Cream-era school of musical interaction, because his playing often not only didn't complement the music, it was a distraction. The same could be said of Peter Cetera's bass playing, but that's a topic for another day, but more probably never.

...and then it Started Again

You Fantastic. Friendless. A random pick that obviously feeds off the Philip Glass vibration.

This Sunday, like any other Sunday

Began at Bill Evans, moved a square to Philip Glass, then simply stopped.

What Comes First

I said to a friend last night: "I can forgive a mediocre lyric as long as the music moves me." For him, the inverse was true. I can respect that, but it's terribly difficult to for me to comprehend.

Daryl Hall

I am a Daryl Hall fanboy. Have been, unapologetically, since 1976. His first solo album, Sacred Songs, (fascinating back story, worth your time to read about), included "The Farther Away I Am".

Clinic

Clinic is, well, I'm not going to get into it, you can read for yourself. Their visual gimmickry is a distraction. Their latest record Bubblegum (2010) appeared to sink like a stone upon release. I'm actually quite fond of it.

A Love Affair

One day many years ago, I was listening to 99.5, the classical music station of MPR, while driving to work. On came one of the most inexplicably entrancing pieces of music I had ever heard. When I arrived at work the piece was still playing, so I sat in my car in the parking ramp, waiting - wanting it to go on forever because I felt such a kinship to it, but also wanting it to finish so I could find out who the composer was. Finally the announcer said the name of the piece was "blah blah blah" (something in another language, I believe Portuguese) and that it was written by "Me-Oh". A little time on AltaVista later (this was before Google), I discovered it was Saudades do Brasil, written in 1920 by Darius Milhaud. A little more searching revealed it was a recording by William Bolcom, a student of Milhaud's, and a renowned composer in his own right. It was originally released in 1975.

Saudades do Brasil is a collection of short pieces for the piano, and uses polytonality, which is the simultaneous use of more than one key. There are quite a few recordings of these pieces, and I own a few, but to my ears the gold standard is the one I heard that day. I couldn't find a youtube video of the Bolcom recording, so I made my own. This is Corcovado, the 7th of 12 pieces that comprise Saudades do Brasil.

Music Club

Music Club tonight. Someone asks, jokingly: "Do you think Rick Rubin could revive Rod Stewart's career?", to which someone else replies: "That would require Rod to want to revive his career."

Rainy Day Women

In Bismarck in the early 70s, I didn't pay much attention to the radioscape, except for what I happened to hear in the car or what I tuned in and heard late at night. For whatever reason, they played this song frequently. They didn't play many of RZ's hits, not a lot of his quote/unquote important songs, they played this song. Which, in Bismarck, was probably pretty subversive. After all, a radio programmer somewhere was saying "everybody must get stoned" and I was in grade school, listening.

In Celebration of Russian Christmas

January 7 is Christmas in Russia. Russian children are given gifts by Grandfather Frost (Дед Мороз), a character who bears more than a passing resemblance to Santa Claus.

Friday Morning Ear Worm

Steely Dan, My Old School.

Local Natives

Love their Wikipedia description: "afropop-influenced guitars with hyperactive drumming and hooky three-part harmonies" - reminds me of Fagen and Becker's description of Peg: "Pantonal 13 bar blues with chorus".

Little Joy

There are people younger than us, having more fun than we ever had, or so they might have us believe. The music makes me smile, regardless of the pretense.

Owen Pallett

The Beach Boys on acid, avec orchestration. I haven't the slightest idea whether Owen even knows who Brian Wilson is - I know nothing about Owen. But it occurred to me that it might be more interesting if he's not familiar with Brian's work - however doubtful that may be - because this song was grown from Brian's DNA.

Little Dragon

Thanks to a friend, I'm reminded of how much I like these guys...

Fortune

LITTLE DRAGON | Myspace Video

Golden Death Music

Revisiting an old favorite.

Thursday Morning Ear Worm

If I Let You Go, by The Procrastinators. I played bass with these guys right around the same time I was in Playhouse - 87/88.

Playhouse

A long forgotten Minneapolis Band from the 80s. I was a member for a short time in 1988. Should have been much more popular than we were. Song produced by Dave Pirner.

Babes Feelin' It

Most people can't remember much of their lives before age four or five. I remember being two, sitting in the lid of a portable record player, playing a 45 of Climb Every Mountain from The Sound of Music over and over, because at the time it was the most beautiful thing I'd heard. That song held the "most beautiful" crown until Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head was released in 1969, a title Raindrops holds to this day.

Slow Day

Many days the mojo doesn't show up for work, and I retread previous days' tunes. Many other days my soul simply can't be soothed by music - I abstain from music altogether those days. Today there was no soothing the soul, despite my best efforts. The drugs required to alleviate pain from a recent mishap are tamping down my ability to ecstasize. So I'm revisiting recent discoveries The Smith Westerns and Dominant Legs in the hope of revisiting what I felt yesterday. And that vibe, to my surprise, is partially still there. But on a normal day, music that moves you should completely transport you - take you out of your surroundings to the kind of fantasia heroin addicts describe.

Wednesday Morning Ear Worm

Dionne Warwick - Heartbreaker. I have no #^@$&# control over these things.

Dinner Music

Loving Pillows of Wind.........esp track 6 by Tom Croose.

Mick Karn

Dead at 52. Bad day for this kind of thing I guess. Mick was a great fretless bass player, best known for his stint in Japan.

Gerry Rafferty

Dead at 63. Thanks for contributing to my soundtrack. The one of my life. I'll bet you didn't realize you were on it.

Be Careful With Unequivocal Claims

Chuck Klosterman (author and fellow North Dakotan) once wrote that there is at least one point in the youth of every male, (emphasis mine), where they think Led Zeppelin is the greatest band in the world. No. Not even close. I was huge into the big rawk in the 70's - Aerosmith, Kiss, AC/DC, Van Halen, Blue Oyster Cult, Rush, The Nuge, you name it. Zep never even made it into my Top 10. Or my Top 50. Or Top 100. Not then, not since. I simply do not relate to their music. Oh and BTW, Jimmy Page is one of the most overrated guitarists in all of history. He's unimaginative, sloppy, and prone to drooling on stage.

Don't forget - the band that gave us Stairway to Heaven also laid this steaming turd clam at our doorstep:

New Favorite Discovery of the Day

That didn't take long. The new single from The Smith Westerns, Weekend, from their upcoming album Dye It Blonde. This is an amazing slice of pure pop. Please, Please, Please let the rest of the record be as good as this.

Favorite Discovery of the Day (so far)

Dominant Legs. Some production values (e.g. slapback effect on the lead vocal) seem designed to evoke specific eras, and the songwriting sounds like a subtle lift from 80s pseudo-folk hipsters (of which there were few, Lloyd Cole & the Commotions come to mind). Thus far the grand total output from these guys appears to be four songs. Sixteen whole minutes. Their EP is Young at Love and Life.

Tuesday Morning Ear Worm

Most mornings I wake up with an original musical phrase in my head, as I've said. Some mornings the ear worm is something familiar though, most often from my "youth or childhood". Today I arose with Neil Diamond. So I sit on my living room couch, pillow at my back, blanket over my legs, laptop at hand, tall cup of caffeine to my left, a furry friend to my right, enjoying Cracklin' Rosie, unashamed.

Monday Evening Nightcap

Windsor for the Derby's 2008 LP How We Lost.

The song Maladies:

Shigeto

Shigeto was an accidental discovery. I seldom put his music on, but tonight his 2008 EP New Crossings feels like my only tether to reality.




Update: I just put on his first proper full-length album Full Circle, and it leaves me cold. No Thanks. Blech.

Every Day a New Song Snippet

Virtually every day I awaken with a two or four bar musical hook in my head. No idea why, generally instrumental, quickly forgotten. I have never written them down or attempted to record them. I have wondered, however, if I'm foolish for turning my back on them. To paraphrase a Mitch Hedberg joke, it's usually inconvenient to commit them to tape, so I convince myself that they aren't very good.

Sleigh Bells

I rather enjoy their debut LP, but it's way the hell too distracting to work to. And for fuck's sake, please don't let digital distortion become a movement. Now that Sleigh Bells has used it on their first record, let's all be done with it (including Sleigh Bells) and move on.

Last.fm Eclecticity Test

On the Basic Test, I scored 91 out of 100.

On the Super-Eclectic Test, 832 out of 1000.

The curve:

The Move

I came late to The Move. Like a lot of people, I'm guessing, my first intro to them was through Cheap Trick's California Man and ELO's Do Ya, but I didn't take the time to dig into the history of the songs until many years later. Although, when it came out, I did notice that ELO's Greatest Hits album didn't include Do Ya, and I always wondered why. At the time I supposed it was because they just didn't like the song.

I wanted a little Move to get my week kick started. I only have one Move LP, Message from the Country (1971), the title track of which is a Jeff Lynne composition. There were three releases prior to Message - The Move (1968), Looking On (1970), and Shazam (1970).

January Rock Club coming up

Monthly I meet with friends for "Rock Club". Each month there are themes and parameters you must try to stay within. That format is constraining, especially to my ADHD addled mind. You never know when that visceral connection with a song will steal your heart for three minutes. Occasionally themes are simply so difficult to adhere to that I just bring whatever moves me at the moment. In October 2010, Psychic Chasms from Neon Indian was what I connected to. This is a melting pot of sounds that can't help but remind one of past eras, specific groups, occasionally even specific songs. And yet it sounds like it couldn't possibly have been produced in an earlier time. This song, Terminally Chill, clearly outside the prescribed theme and unlikely to fit into any future themes, will be on my list. The brilliance justifies the digression.

It's only fitting...

...that the day should end as it began. The album is Cover the Windows and the Walls by Grouper. Here, the song Heart Current:



After this, we move on to my son's favorite, Ulrich Schnauss.

It's a Sack & Blumm kind of day

A calm, cold Minnesota winter's day, white snow covering ground, trees, cars, and homes, a cat at my side, warm, purring, and I sit confined to the couch, my laptop the only access to the outside world. Sack & Blumm's debut record fits like a glove. It's unfortunately difficult to find much of their music on youtube or otherwise. Nonetheless, this isn't a collection of songs, it's a soundtrack, and I am the movie.

One of 2010's biggest disappointments

With 2007's 23, it seemed that Blonde Redhead had hit their stride, hit that magical spot where everything converged. Unfortunately, they may be a little overenamored with the idea of change for change's sake, and the result is 2010's Penny Sparkle. If you come to this LP unfamiliar with their previous work I have to guess it would be easy to warm up to, but if you are a fan of long standing, the apparent trajectory is disappointing. This would be due less to the fact that the quality of the songwriting on Penny Sparkle is sub-par (which, by their standards, it is), and more because they appear to be painting themselves into a corner. At the rate they're going, I might expect their next release to visit well-worn ambient territory. And the problem with that of course is simple - it's old hat. It's been done. They're capable of so much more. I want to see these guys go where no one's gone before, I'm just not sure they have it in them.

The best song off Penny Sparkle: Here Sometimes.

Another 2010 Fave

2010 was a good year for music. I would expect maybe a one or two per year to move me, but there were a number of stellar releases last year. Among them - Beach House.

Benoit Pioulard

One 2010 release that hit me where I felt it was Lasted by Benoit Pioulard. This is mood music, introspective, ethereal, dreamy. This cut, A Coin on the Tongue, is my favorite off the CD.

Post #1

You can tell a lot about a person by the music they listen to. Much more than by looking at their shoes, and as far as I'm concerned, even the books they read. Of course, if the person you're attempting to psychoanalyze is a musician, listening to them play will tell you everything you could want to know about them, but I digress. There are obviously more music fans than musicians. So, the first thing I like to do when visiting someone's house is inspect their music collection. Here, you can inspect mine.