I just got BSO's "Songs from Lonely Avenue" and have listened to most of it twice. I would say it is BSO's weakest effort to date. There's just nothing that jumps out as a remarkable song. "Gimme Some Rhythm Daddy" is about the best, with a pretty catchy beat and a good female singer, but the lyrics seem a little stilted. Many of the songs just kind of sound the same as each other.
Most of the album is dark, with a gangster theme. Much of it reminds me of Royal Crown Revue's "Mugzy's Move" CD. That's a little odd... while BSO's themes have always been about the wild side of life, they've never overtly glorified crime as such. And the lyrics are a little more sophisticated than one would expect about gangster subjects, so they seem out of place.
Two inverse instrumentals have the potential to be interesting: "Mr. Jazzer Goes Surfin'" and "Mr. Surfer Goes Jazzin'". But I'll have to listen to them a few more times to be able to tell them apart.
The final track, "Elena", is a fine Spanish-style instrumental. I've heard Brian play "Malaguena" solo a few times in concert, and this sounds much like it. Brian is every bit as good an acoustic fingerpicker as he is an electric flatpicker - I'd like to hear more of this style from him.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Monday, October 12, 2009
The Doobie Brothers and Julie Andrews?!?!
Listen to the Music
This afternoon I watched the last hour of a Doobie Brothers concert on the DVR. I love watching concerts in High Def - you can see so much more of the details of the performers and their instruments. It being the last hour of the concert, they played some of their greatest hits to wrap up the show. I had seen them in concert a few years ago - probably right about the time this one was taped. They really know how to make their music sound great. My 5-year-old granddaughter sat down to watch it with me.
One of the songs, "Long Train Running", took me back to my teenage years because the house band at our church youth group used to play it all the time. Others such as "China Grove" (one of my top 5 favorite songs) and "Black Water" are just superb songs of their genre. I explained that most of these guys had been playing together for many years, and these were their favorite songs, and these 11 musicians were just having a great time. Although the "show" aspects of lighting etc. were pretty simple, that's OK. It's not about how they look. It's about how the music makes you feel. "Listen to the Music" is a great way to end a show.
The Sound of Music
Then we (5yogd and I) watched the last hour of "The Sound of Music". She's going to be in a local production of it, so she's watching it to learn the songs (cool that they have "sing-along" lyrics on the screen). Although it's probably not one I would just sit down to watch, I love this movie. Why? Well, partly because it's just so well done. (Yes, I know it's not a 100% true story.) Partly because this too takes me back. This was probably the first "grown up" movie I ever saw in a theater, and the first professional musical I saw as a teenager. But also, because so much of the music is about music and how it can make you feel: "My Favorite Things", "Edelweiss", "TSOM". Just a great movie - and a great job by Julie Andrews.
So... an odd combination of music to take in back-to-back. You can't get much more different. But I like many styles and genres of music, if they're well done. (Well, I'm not a big fan of classical.) It doesn't get much better than the Doobie Brothers and The Sound of Music.
This afternoon I watched the last hour of a Doobie Brothers concert on the DVR. I love watching concerts in High Def - you can see so much more of the details of the performers and their instruments. It being the last hour of the concert, they played some of their greatest hits to wrap up the show. I had seen them in concert a few years ago - probably right about the time this one was taped. They really know how to make their music sound great. My 5-year-old granddaughter sat down to watch it with me.
One of the songs, "Long Train Running", took me back to my teenage years because the house band at our church youth group used to play it all the time. Others such as "China Grove" (one of my top 5 favorite songs) and "Black Water" are just superb songs of their genre. I explained that most of these guys had been playing together for many years, and these were their favorite songs, and these 11 musicians were just having a great time. Although the "show" aspects of lighting etc. were pretty simple, that's OK. It's not about how they look. It's about how the music makes you feel. "Listen to the Music" is a great way to end a show.
The Sound of Music
Then we (5yogd and I) watched the last hour of "The Sound of Music". She's going to be in a local production of it, so she's watching it to learn the songs (cool that they have "sing-along" lyrics on the screen). Although it's probably not one I would just sit down to watch, I love this movie. Why? Well, partly because it's just so well done. (Yes, I know it's not a 100% true story.) Partly because this too takes me back. This was probably the first "grown up" movie I ever saw in a theater, and the first professional musical I saw as a teenager. But also, because so much of the music is about music and how it can make you feel: "My Favorite Things", "Edelweiss", "TSOM". Just a great movie - and a great job by Julie Andrews.
So... an odd combination of music to take in back-to-back. You can't get much more different. But I like many styles and genres of music, if they're well done. (Well, I'm not a big fan of classical.) It doesn't get much better than the Doobie Brothers and The Sound of Music.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
OK, that was just weird!
I have an iPod Nano and mostly get to listen to it on long drives in the car. I usually leave it on "shuffle", and my playlist that fits on the Nano is mostly my 5-star and 4-star picks. So it's no surprise that most of the songs are my favorites.
I've noticed that the shuffle feature isn't all that random. It seems to go in spells picking several songs from the same album, then I won't hear from that album for quite a while. Having done a lot of programming, I know it's fairly hard to get a really random shuffle. Since I loaded most of my songs from CDs, all the songs from each CD are close to each other in the iTunes database. So it's not surprising that a not-so-random pick might pick something from the same artist, same album. But it should not pick a song from the same artist from a different album... a mathematical algorithm doesn't know Ali from Aerosmith.
So... today it picked a nice song from Ali Farka Toure called Goye Kur from The Source. Some of the recordings from Toure's older albums are kind of noisy (as far as instruments' parts being somewhat indistinct), and the voices sometimes kind of whiny. But the later ones are very clean and easy to listen to, and I like this one pretty well. Listening to Goye Kur, I thought "That reminds me of that one from The River that I like so much. It would be nice to hear that one." (I don't always remember the names... they're in various African languages.) And when driving, I don't mess with the iPod much - the Nano is way too small for me to read safely when driving. So I just let it pick for me. Well, it picked Ai Bine, the song I was thinking of!
Ai Bine is the first song on The River. It starts off with Ali's electric guitar all alone with some echo, as if it's in a big hall. Then in comes a saxophone, buzzy and low but somehow very pure, also with a little echo. It's not often that another instrument takes the lead in Ali's recordings. I think in this recording there's just Ali's guitar, the sax, a very little bass and drum, and a calabash. The guitar and sax play basically the same melody, much of the time, sometimes taking turns, sometimes in unison. Turn it up on headphones in a quiet room, and it's pure magic - what a way to introduce an album. Toward the end the sax really takes off in some wild solos. This is one of Ali's finest recordings. Really made my day.
What are the odds? Actually, the odds are 816 to 1, because that's how many songs fit on my iPod Nano. That was just weird!
I've noticed that the shuffle feature isn't all that random. It seems to go in spells picking several songs from the same album, then I won't hear from that album for quite a while. Having done a lot of programming, I know it's fairly hard to get a really random shuffle. Since I loaded most of my songs from CDs, all the songs from each CD are close to each other in the iTunes database. So it's not surprising that a not-so-random pick might pick something from the same artist, same album. But it should not pick a song from the same artist from a different album... a mathematical algorithm doesn't know Ali from Aerosmith.
So... today it picked a nice song from Ali Farka Toure called Goye Kur from The Source. Some of the recordings from Toure's older albums are kind of noisy (as far as instruments' parts being somewhat indistinct), and the voices sometimes kind of whiny. But the later ones are very clean and easy to listen to, and I like this one pretty well. Listening to Goye Kur, I thought "That reminds me of that one from The River that I like so much. It would be nice to hear that one." (I don't always remember the names... they're in various African languages.) And when driving, I don't mess with the iPod much - the Nano is way too small for me to read safely when driving. So I just let it pick for me. Well, it picked Ai Bine, the song I was thinking of!
Ai Bine is the first song on The River. It starts off with Ali's electric guitar all alone with some echo, as if it's in a big hall. Then in comes a saxophone, buzzy and low but somehow very pure, also with a little echo. It's not often that another instrument takes the lead in Ali's recordings. I think in this recording there's just Ali's guitar, the sax, a very little bass and drum, and a calabash. The guitar and sax play basically the same melody, much of the time, sometimes taking turns, sometimes in unison. Turn it up on headphones in a quiet room, and it's pure magic - what a way to introduce an album. Toward the end the sax really takes off in some wild solos. This is one of Ali's finest recordings. Really made my day.
What are the odds? Actually, the odds are 816 to 1, because that's how many songs fit on my iPod Nano. That was just weird!
Welcome
I've been thinking about blogging on music for some time. I think because musical tastes differ so widely, people (at least most of my friends) don't discuss music very deeply. (Or maybe they just think MY taste in music is weird...) Anyway, I'm hoping people from all over will chime in and chat about the music and artists that I mention here.
If you found this blog, it's probably because your Internet search for some artist or song pointed you here. Browse around the posts and maybe you'll find something similar to what you were looking for, and find something intriguing to search out and try.
I'm not an expert on music or its history, though there are a few areas I've researched a bit. So what's here is mostly my impressions to what I have listened to over the years, and what I've learned about the artists by reading liner notes, listening to interviews, etc. If you have better information about something I write about, please feel free to share it here!
And I'm not much of a musician. I played guitar quite a long time ago, but not much for other people - mostly for my own enjoyment and curiosity. I heard great guitarists and I wanted to do that! After playing Rock Band a few times with my kids, I'm thinking maybe I'll pick it up again... and maybe someday I'll learn to play the piano that we own.
So what kinds of music will I talk about? Well, I grew up listening to 60's and 70's rock and roll, so that's what I like most. But looking deeper into rock takes one to the blues, and many years ago I fell in love with blues, and learned to play some on the guitar. So we'll talk about that... though a white computer guy from California doesn't bring much cred to the discussion.
Looking into old blues inevitably led me to Robert Johnson. The movie "Crossroads" about Johnson led me to Ry Cooder, who played guitar on the soundtrack. And a "world music" album by Ry introduced me to the fantastic Malian artist Ali Farka Toure. So I have also developed an interest in east African music. Funny where music takes us... one of the things I want to explore in future posts is these connections between artists and genres.
The best rock and roll is fast and hard. I got interested in the Brian Setzer Orchestra pretty early in its life, and BSO has remained a favorite, though I haven't really gotten into the whole rockabilly thing. I'm more interested in how Brian backs up rock with the orchestra... and punches up Big Band music with his electric guitar.
If you found this blog, it's probably because your Internet search for some artist or song pointed you here. Browse around the posts and maybe you'll find something similar to what you were looking for, and find something intriguing to search out and try.
I'm not an expert on music or its history, though there are a few areas I've researched a bit. So what's here is mostly my impressions to what I have listened to over the years, and what I've learned about the artists by reading liner notes, listening to interviews, etc. If you have better information about something I write about, please feel free to share it here!
And I'm not much of a musician. I played guitar quite a long time ago, but not much for other people - mostly for my own enjoyment and curiosity. I heard great guitarists and I wanted to do that! After playing Rock Band a few times with my kids, I'm thinking maybe I'll pick it up again... and maybe someday I'll learn to play the piano that we own.
So what kinds of music will I talk about? Well, I grew up listening to 60's and 70's rock and roll, so that's what I like most. But looking deeper into rock takes one to the blues, and many years ago I fell in love with blues, and learned to play some on the guitar. So we'll talk about that... though a white computer guy from California doesn't bring much cred to the discussion.
Looking into old blues inevitably led me to Robert Johnson. The movie "Crossroads" about Johnson led me to Ry Cooder, who played guitar on the soundtrack. And a "world music" album by Ry introduced me to the fantastic Malian artist Ali Farka Toure. So I have also developed an interest in east African music. Funny where music takes us... one of the things I want to explore in future posts is these connections between artists and genres.
The best rock and roll is fast and hard. I got interested in the Brian Setzer Orchestra pretty early in its life, and BSO has remained a favorite, though I haven't really gotten into the whole rockabilly thing. I'm more interested in how Brian backs up rock with the orchestra... and punches up Big Band music with his electric guitar.
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