Music

[JR8]

Yeah sorry I wasn't at all clear there.

My point was more that the US does not seem to yield up cutting edge music any more. It used to, of course. But I can't think of the last time I heard some current music where I've gove 'Hmmm, I like it, what are they called?', and they have turned out to be a US band.

Maybe, despite the internet, music has become so commercial, formulaic, fake...

Don't know!

[Brah]

I think it has a lot to do with what the music business decides what makes it to our ears. A lot of the better music isn't commercially viable.

While this is nothing new, it has gotten progressively worse over the years.

For example, if you like Prog Metal, two of the best things I've heard, Symphony X* and Spock's Beard are from the States, and this is coming from someone who gets most of his music from the UK. Another example of good and new-ish American offerings is The String Cheese Incident.

That's only scratching the surface. I think there is just so much good and bad music out there that there just isn't time to discover it all. But we'll still here the same crappy stuff on any given radio station, except for those great progressive college stations.

Web radio introduced me to the better things I now listen to.


*except their most recent album, which hasn't yet clicked with me, unlike the last two which are great

Yeah sorry I wasn't at all clear there.

My point was more that the US does not seem to yield up cutting edge music any more. It used to, of course. But I can't think of the last time I heard some current music where I've gove 'Hmmm, I like it, what are they called?', and they have turned out to be a US band.

Maybe, despite the internet, music has become so commercial, formulaic, fake...

Don't know!

[JR8]

I think it has a lot to do with what the music business decides what makes it to our ears. A lot of the better music isn't commercially viable.

> I cut my teeth (musically) listening to the eponymous John Peel Show on Radio one. He played a lot of new-wave/punk and other very challenging material. He was a big fan and advocate of both Captain Beefheart and The Fall. It's a shame nothing like that show exists today. I wonder at what point the big record companies took control of air-play. The whole punk revolution won the the battle but apparently lost the war [sigh!].

While this is nothing new, it has gotten progressively worse over the years.

For example, if you like Prog Metal,

> I am the same with music as with contemporary art. Liking it is not necessarily the sole purpose, I also seek to understand the message, and hopefully find how a musician expresses his message rewarding. This is how I could simultaneously enjoy punk and say Abba and the Bee Gees

two of the best things I've heard, Symphony X*

>>This was just a little too in my face I think. Funny, don't know why, it's rare I experience that in music. But I was going to close it part-way though and then suddenly the style seemed to shift and I could see it growing on me.

and Spock's Beard are from the States

Hmmmm nice, I enjoyed this one more.

, and this is coming from someone who gets most of his music from the UK. Another example of good and new-ish American offerings is The String Cheese Incident.

Woof!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCODxHMwuEo
String Cheese Incident on Austin City Limits

I could listen to stuff like this all day!

That's only scratching the surface. I think there is just so much good and bad music out there that there just isn't time to discover it all. But we'll still here the same crappy stuff on any given radio station, except for those great progressive college stations.

Web radio introduced me to the better things I now listen to.

Web-radio? Hmmm... can't say I'd ever tried to find music over a web-radio station. In fact I've never really considered that such a thing could exist on the web! Is this like ... IIRC Sirius, in the US?


*except their most recent album, which hasn't yet clicked with me, unlike the last two which are great

[JR8]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyCEexG9xjw
Wall Of Voodoo - Mexican Radio

I remember at the time the above seemed very hard-boiled, but now it just seems rather tired and over-long. Is this what happens? Each successive generation has to take it to a higher level (of shock-factor) to have any impact?

[Brah]

> I cut my teeth (musically) listening to the eponymous John Peel Show on Radio one. He played a lot of new-wave/punk and other very challenging material. He was a big fan and advocate of both Captain Beefheart and The Fall. It's a shame nothing like that show exists today. I wonder at what point the big record companies took control of air-play. The whole punk revolution won the the battle but apparently lost the war [sigh!].
We had Allison Steele / The Nightbird on WNEW NYC who played a lot of great, non-commercial things, I learned a lot from her, and she played a lot of album sides as that's how a lot were produced then, there was continuity and / or concept.

For example, if you like Prog Metal,
> I am the same with music as with contemporary art. Liking it is not necessarily the sole purpose, I also seek to understand the message, and hopefully find how a musician expresses his message rewarding. This is how I could simultaneously enjoy punk and say Abba and the Bee Gees

two of the best things I've heard, Symphony X*

>>This was just a little too in my face I think. Funny, don't know why, it's rare I experience that in music. But I was going to close it part-way though and then suddenly the style seemed to shift and I could see it growing on me.
Not sure what you heard, this one is a masterpiece, I skipped over the Simpson-esque/Danny Elfman orchestral intro and it's still very long so be warned but it's worth the time:
The Odyssey: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaN3pwBsRf8#t=3m39s

Accolade II: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Kb8SVgbzgM

Spock's Beard are from the States
Hmmmm nice, I enjoyed this one more.
Not sure what you heard, their best, The Great Nothing is not on YT except for a poor live version, but these are good:
June: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiuYjG3h5aI&

June Live: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW8cbh_qoU8&

It's pretty easy to hear SB's influences - Genesis, Kansas, Gentle Giant, Yes, The Beatles.

The String Cheese Incident.
Woof!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCODxHMwuEo
String Cheese Incident on Austin City Limits

I could listen to stuff like this all day!
There is a triple-live album which is very good, they do everything from bluegrass to jazz fusion, and are in that Phish / Grateful Dead / Steve Kimock jam band genre.

Web radio introduced me to the better things I now listen to.

Web-radio? Hmmm... can't say I'd ever tried to find music over a web-radio station. In fact I've never really considered that such a thing could exist on the web! Is this like ... IIRC Sirius, in the US?
Download free WinAmp and you can subscribe to any free net radio channels. You can find a lot of these from ShoutCast. You can also use Windows Media Player to listen to these, the stations are basically just URLs, but I recommend WinAmp.
http://www.shoutcast.com/
http://www.live365.com/

Some net radio stations I like are Morrow and Canvas Productions; those are almost all Prog, old and new. There are hundreds of web radio stations, most are free, any genre you can think of. Plus some of them have their own player on their websites.
http://www.morow.com/
http://www.canvasproductions.net/theproghour.cfm

Pandora, which I used a lot before the RIAA stopped allowing it to broadcast outside the US, is great, I had all kinds of ‘channels’ I set up for different types of music, which uses algorithms based on a song you choose to suggest and play others, then you rate what they play for you and that refines your channel further. You can get around that using a VPN. Another is http://www.last.fm/

[JR8]

We had Allison Steele / The Nightbird on WNEW NYC who played a lot of great, non-commercial things, I learned a lot from her, and she played a lot of album sides as that's how a lot were produced then, there was continuity and / or concept.

That’s interesting, I hadn’t heard of her before. Her entry on Wiki is a scream!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alison_Steele

re: Symphony X
Not sure what you heard, this one is a masterpiece, I skipped over the Simpson-esque/Danny Elfman orchestral intro and it's still very long so be warned but it's worth the time:
The Odyssey: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaN3pwBsRf8#t=3m39s
Accolade II: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Kb8SVgbzgM

Thanks, I’ll be checking out all your links over the next couple of days. Thanks for sending them all!

re: Spock's Beard
Not sure what you heard, their best, The Great Nothing is not on YT except for a poor live version, but these are good:
June: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiuYjG3h5aI&
June Live: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW8cbh_qoU8&
It's pretty easy to hear SB's influences - Genesis, Kansas, Gentle Giant, Yes, The Beatles.
There is a triple-live album which is very good, they do everything from bluegrass to jazz fusion, and are in that Phish / Grateful Dead / Steve Kimock jam band genre.

I think it was what came up on a Youtube search that had the most hits.

Download free WinAmp and you can subscribe to any free net radio channels. You can find a lot of these from ShoutCast. You can also use Windows Media Player to listen to these, the stations are basically just URLs, but I recommend WinAmp.
http://www.shoutcast.com/
http://www.live365.com/
Some net radio stations I like are Morrow and Canvas Productions; those are almost all Prog, old and new. There are hundreds of web radio stations, most are free, any genre you can think of. Plus some of them have their own player on their websites.
http://www.morow.com/
http://www.canvasproductions.net/theproghour.cfm
Pandora, which I used a lot before the RIAA stopped allowing it to broadcast outside the US, is great, I had all kinds of ‘channels’ I set up for different types of music, which uses algorithms based on a song you choose to suggest and play others, then you rate what they play for you and that refines your channel further. You can get around that using a VPN. Another is http://www.last.fm/

Thank you very much! I’ll look into those over the weekend. I have a VPN that I use to watch the BBC iPlayer, and I believe that there is a function to flip it to the US, so I’ll look into that too!

[Brah]

Wow, what a blast from the past.

Dunno why, it reminded me of these:
People Who Died by Jim Carroll Band: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQbzGOKb6xg

and the less morbid The Nails - 88 Lines About 44 Women: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwUotTbF2aw

The Nails - Let It All Hang Out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7QTjyi3Xrs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyCEexG9xjw
Wall Of Voodoo - Mexican Radio

I remember at the time the above seemed very hard-boiled, but now it just seems rather tired and over-long. Is this what happens? Each successive generation has to take it to a higher level (of shock-factor) to have any impact?

Agree, I think that this was at a time when everyone was trying to out-weird everyone else, this was the time of Devo and the like. And that a lot of the stuff wasn't necessarily very good (though acts like Oingo Boingo and Devo were).

That WoV clip is making me think of more like this that haven't yet come to mind.

[JR8]

Dunno why, it reminded me of these: People Who Died by Jim Carroll Band:

> HAha.... which reminded me of an up-tempo Ramones...

and the less morbid The Nails - 88 Lines About 44 Women:

Reminds me of another song from the 80s, that is a quickfire micro-descriptions of 'all the women I've ever slept with'. The backing is quite South African in style.... was it King Sunny Ade or something [re the backing]... ?

The Nails - Let It All Hang Out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7QTjyi3Xrs

Of a style, just not really mine. Sorry! Just really don't understand what the point of it is

RE: Wall Of Voodoo - Mexican Radio
Agree, I think that this was at a time when everyone was trying to out-weird everyone else, this was the time of Devo and the like. And that a lot of the stuff wasn't necessarily very good (though acts like Oingo Boingo and Devo were).

Yes Devo were weird, at that time. But now you'd probably think of them as mainstream, rather stilted and tiring. Einsturzende Neubauten was off-the-scale hard-core back then, sort of teutonic industrial punk, but I'm sure it wouldn't be thought of like that now.

This is a quiet 'interlude' kind of track from them, far from hard-core... but the composition still suggests their depths.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBP57yI-jmY
Einstuerzende Neubauten - The Garden


That WoV clip is making me think of more like this that haven't yet come to mind.

Yep, me too. Look forward to any coming discussion!

TTYL

[JR8]

------------------
The Spinners - Rubberband Man
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKbADFJOCkU
------------------

Eh Brah, if you had to describe this to an inquisitive youth (say 16YO) who had never heard it before. How would you do it? [genuine question]

If you can be bothered (yah I will understand man ).... max 20-30 'ish words.

Is that too harsh a test? I haven't tried but I think I might struggle.... but then [as you know] I am wordy/a seeker of clarity [eye roll]

[Brah]

That was a curve ball...

I don't know that I'd be the right person. Because although in the midst of my hard rock background, I came to align myself with late 60s-early 70s soul and funk, but I detested Disco when it came out, still do.

But this is in the same CD aisle of stuff I did/do like, such as:
Stevie Wonder - We Can Work It Out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB24z00ajU4
Strawberry Letter 23 - Brothers Johnson http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L07nHyDedAU
Stevie Wonder - I Was Made To Love Her http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pYux5-d1Es
Stevie Wonder - We can work it out (Live at the White House 2010) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uznnHd5thXE

...and not just for the obvious reason for me...

I would simply describe things like these as the shit.

------------------
The Spinners - Rubberband Man
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKbADFJOCkU
------------------

Eh Brah, if you had to describe this to an inquisitive youth (say 16YO) who had never heard it before. How would you do it? [genuine question]

If you can be bothered (yah I will understand man ).... max 20-30 'ish words.

Is that too harsh a test? I haven't tried but I think I might struggle.... but then [as you know] I am wordy/a seeker of clarity [eye roll]

[JR8]

That was a curve ball...

I don't know that I'd be the right person. Because although in the midst of my hard rock background, I came to align myself with late 60s-early 70s soul and funk, but I detested Disco when it came out, still do.

But this is in the same CD aisle of stuff I did/do like, such as:
Stevie Wonder - We Can Work It Out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB24z00ajU4
Strawberry Letter 23 - Brothers Johnson http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L07nHyDedAU
Stevie Wonder - I Was Made To Love Her http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pYux5-d1Es
Stevie Wonder - We can work it out (Live at the White House 2010) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uznnHd5thXE

...and not just for the obvious reason for me...

I would simply describe things like these as the shit.

I wouldn't describe The Spinners as disco. Wiki suggests it is RnB/Soul which sounds about right to me... with a bit of a funky edge

I never liked Stevie Wonder. I don't like his pitch/wailing, and he was very commercial (duetting with Paul McCartney was probably the death-knell for me). Very talented though, of that there is no doubt ...

Brothers Johnson. LOL thanks for that ... haven't heard that in years! It has a really nice feel/vibe to it. That only made #35 in the charts at the time in the UK, so I wonder how I know it (mainstream radio tended to play top-30 only, as did the one TV show Top of The Pops). It is entirely possible my sister had it on some 'dance compilation' LP or other.

Nice one!

[Brah]

I wouldn't describe The Spinners as disco. Wiki suggests it is RnB/Soul which sounds about right to me... with a bit of a funky edge

Hmmm...well maybe, the genre is pretty wide, they were on the pop side of soul.

I never liked Stevie Wonder. I don't like his pitch/wailing, and he was very commercial (duetting with Paul McCartney was probably the death-knell for me). Very talented though, of that there is no doubt ...

Yeah I didn't like much of anything past Innervisions, which was '73 so it has some nostalgia effect for me as well as the super funky synth bass. Stuff like "I Just Called To Say I Love You" makes me cringe.

If you've never heard it, this is a little-known one that oozes funk Maybe Your Baby http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pM5SVMSB3HQ

And the stuff I like before that is the post Little Stevie stuff, it was before he went Pop and was Motown-y, and had James Jamerson on bass, which is a sure win.

Brothers Johnson. LOL thanks for that ... haven't heard that in years! Nice one!

To me that was the real funk of the time, they have some good ones, some I still listen to. I met Louis Johnson in Tokyo at a music clinic.

[JR8]

re: Stevie Wonder

Yeah I didn't like much of anything past Innervisions, which was '73 so it has some nostalgia effect for me as well as the super funky synth bass. Stuff like "I Just Called To Say I Love You" makes me cringe.

That might be the problem. I doubt I registered any of his music before c.'75. And by then he'd 'lost his soul' to the mighty-$ (IMHO).

If you've never heard it, this is a little-known one that oozes funk Maybe Your Baby http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pM5SVMSB3HQ

That is so much better, super-funky.

To me that was the real funk of the time, they have some good ones, some I still listen to. I met Louis Johnson in Tokyo at a music clinic.

Yes, some music just seems to stick with you for life. Lucky you for getting to meet him!


p.s. Here's one for you...
http://www.naimlabel.com/recording-meet ... n-192.aspx
Meet Me In London (192kHz Super Hi Def Edition) - Antonio Forcione & Sabina Sciubba

This was one of the earlier albums put out by Naim Audio (a privately owned high-end hi-fi company in the UK. I think the late owner started a sideline in producing CDs that he felt showed his hifi at their very best. I have the original version and even through my PC her voice sets my hair on end (I forget her vocal range but it is well, breath-taking, incredible). You hear the track 'Visions' near the end of the embedded video, in that track she does one vocal from the bottom to the top of her range in a single loooooong breath. Stunning.

[Brah]

p.s. Here's one for you...
http://www.naimlabel.com/recording-meet ... n-192.aspx
Meet Me In London (192kHz Super Hi Def Edition) - Antonio Forcione & Sabina Sciubba

This was one of the earlier albums put out by Naim Audio (a privately owned high-end hi-fi company in the UK. I think the late owner started a sideline in producing CDs that he felt showed his hifi at their very best. I have the original version and even through my PC her voice sets my hair on end (I forget her vocal range but it is well, breath-taking, incredible). You hear the track 'Visions' near the end of the embedded video, in that track she does one vocal from the bottom to the top of her range in a single loooooong breath. Stunning.

That was a cool clip, and educational, having done some recording work eons ago. In addition to Sciubba's velvety voice, it opened me up to Antonio Forcionne, who I've never checked out before, I like his playing.

That recording does have an amazing amount of space and clarity in the recording as is explained in the clip, this Tony Platt is quite the producer.

[JR8]

[Brah = Black]
That was a cool clip, and educational, having done some recording work eons ago. In addition to Sciubba's velvety voice, it opened me up to Antonio Forcionne, who I've never checked out before, I like his playing.


[JR8 = Blue]
Ah were you, so you have a good insight then!
Yes. Those two really work off each other nicely. Neither dominate but both are 'understated' (i.e. not showy), and the result; Less is More

That recording does have an amazing amount of space and clarity in the recording as is explained in the clip, this Tony Platt is quite the producer.

He's just one of those names that if you're into music (and maybe our age ) you know. But I just looked at his Wiki entry, and I was 'Ooooh, ok. THAT'LL explain why I know his name ! '
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Platt

Rarely do the producers/engineers become household names, what ever heights they scale...