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Friday Random Ten
Feb. 23rd, 2007 10:15 amAnd another, for you and yours . . .
1. "Reality" - David Bowie - Reality
Recently, mainly in regards to Bowie's hysterically funny appearance on Extras, I've been hearing the "Bowie hasn't done anything good in 20 years" line a lot. I assume this is from people who haven't been paying any attention to him in the last fourteen years. First, if you're going to use the "no good work since [whenever]" line with DB, you might as well go for saying it's been 27 years since he did anything good (Scary Monsters and Super Creeps). Second, though no album or project from 1981 to 1993 is fully up to the quality of what he was putting out from say, 1970-1980, the best of it is as good as anything from his "classic" period, and the worst of it is nowhere as bad as the worst material from that time.
Third, since 1993, the man has recorded some of the best albums he's ever put out, and no one's paying any goddamn attention to them in the USA (I was pleased recently to discover they are at least selling respectably in the UK; I thought they were flopping everywhere). The Buddha of Suburbia, Outside, Earthling, Heathen, and Reality are all excellent albums (there's another album in there, 'hours', which would go fourth on that list, but it isn't all that good, though it's not as bad as it's sometimes made out to be by Bowie fans; the songs on it are much better live). And no one cares.
I saw Bowie live after each of the last two albums, and watched audiences only come alive when he did "Changes," "Fame," and "Ziggy Stardust." "Changes" especially. That's going to be THE SONG that Bowie is remembered for. "Changes." I have almost all of his recorded work in the iTunes and iPod, from "Louie Louie Go Home" to "Bring Me the Disco King" -- 244 songs; I've left out very, very little from his entire career, really -- and you know what songs are among the ones I DON'T have in there? "Changes," "Fame," and "Ziggy Stardust," because they're not all that good and I wanted to leave room for all the better Bowie songs.
Now I didn't like either Earthling or Reality much when I first heard them, but repetition made me "hear them" better -- Berit likes to take credit for the fact that she "got" Reality first, after I had dismissed it as "scattered" and far inferior to Heathen, and it was only her playing it over and over that got me to actually listen to it. Yes, she's right. The songs on Reality, including this title track, tend to jump around and feel at first like parts of several different songs put together. The more you listen to them, the more cohesive they are.
Bowie's still doing great work, and should be paid attention to. I'm still waiting for the next one, anxiously (though he'll probably change direction and break my heart, AGAIN).
2. "Following You" - Pierre Dutour et Son Orchestre - Chappell Dance and Mood Music, volume 9
Late '60s slick, cool library track. Organ, guitar and horns. Big hard frantic drums. Exciting.
3. "King Kong" - Tarantu1a Ghoul & The Gravediggers - Las Vegas Grind! volume 2
Cheesy lounge-band "rock" with a great groove despite itself. Almost an instrumental, but occasional interjections from a female voice (and then calls from the band). "I'm goin' ape!" Good dancing or driving music.
4. "No One Receiving" - Brian Eno - Vocal (box set, originally from Before and After Science)
Isaac Butler recently asked at Parabasis if there was as important figure in post-Beatles rock as Brian Eno.
No, there isn't.
Besides his own solo song albums (this is the first track from the fourth one, from 1977, and sounds like the state-of-the-art in the "avant-garde" rock music of 1982), his influence, not only on the bands he produced himself, but on the music producers who either came up as his engineers and proteges, or who simply learned by example, has affected almost ALL popular music since 1980 or so. Wish he'd keep making song albums himself, though, those are my favorite work of his (his recent Another Day on Earth was okay, with fine moments, but thin altogether).
Here the groove takes over, predating his work with the Heads and David Byrne by a few years, but not sounding that different, and featuring the great vocal stylings of what I think of as "The Brian Eno Chorale" (as Bowie has said, "Brian, he sing all mix down and multi-tracked lik' a lil' girl!"). I noticed recently that Eno also has the BEST bass guitar sounds in all of his work. I don't know what he does, but no one gets the great bass sounds he does. Firm, solid, undistorted, driving without being bossy. Not easy.
5. "Steps in the Dark" - Gert Wilden & Orchestra - I Told You Not To Cry
More soundtrack loveliness. I don't know how many shows I've used this track in. Maybe not as many as I think. Slow, languid, sexy sleaziness, with a few peppy bits. Vibes and alto saxophone.
6. "Carolina in My Mind" - James Taylor - Those Classic Golden Years 07
Once again, the hated James Taylor shows up because I downloaded a comp of pop songs from a certain period that included him, listened to a bit of the song, thought, "Well, this is actually a kind of pretty little pop song," and kept it in the iTunes and iPod.
Well, this is actually a kind of pretty little pop song. His voice does get on my nerves, but the song is pleasant, and the arrangement is good. Nice change up from all the other stuff I have in here.
7. "Just Like a Woman" - Bob Dylan - Blonde on Blonde
Came nicely out of the previous song. Bob during the Great Time. Don't think I have anything to say about those two years of Dylan now except, listen to them.
8. "I Won't Cry" - Little David & The Harps - The Roots of Doo Wop - Savoy Vocal Groups
A histrionic without being quite over-the-top vocal performance enlivens this solid little track. Nothing special about it. Good, but there are dozens and dozens of sides like this.
This is from a comp that's meant to document the transitional period between "Black Vocal Groups" (The Ink Spots, The Mills Brothers) and "Doo Wop." This track is full-on doo wop. Close to actual rock & roll actually, with the drumming going on. Rock & roll drums.
9. "The Day the Devil" - Laurie Anderson - Strange Angels
Anderson's remake of a song she wrote with Peter Gordon for his 1986 album, Innocent, where it was done as more of a straight, slower, blues/gospel number as I remember (Gary Lucas on bottleneck guitar, vocal by Clarence Fountain). I have that on vinyl, and haven't listened to it in 15 years or so, so the memory is fuzzy.
Anderson's remake from 1990 is faster and peppier, lots o'synth, but scores big points for her wonderful distorted vocal as "The Devil" (whose monologue includes references to both Dylan's "Ballad of a Thin Man" and the Spuds McKenzie Budweiser ads) and for the full gospel choir that comes in for the chorus and finale.
I love this album of LA's, right from when she was learning to really, really sing. She's still holding back a bit on the record, but her voice is beautiful (I saw her live at BAM a few months after it came out, and she was vocally cutting loose on some of the album's songs, singing to the rafters, in a way she doesn't on the recording). Where's another great record from her? I've been waiting.
10. "Little Orphan Nannie" - Kaleidoscope - Side Trips
Music designed to make you say, "Man these guys are stoned!" Flagrantly "offbeat," "psychedelic," and "experimental" in a massively self-conscious way (catch the album title), though not quite (JUST not quite) so smug about it as to be annoying or unlistenable. Huge Zappa influences in use of sound effects bridging different song styles in different sections, weird little talking and comments off on the side, and a kind of snide quality to the harmony vocals. Fun, sure.
More work to happen to the car today; have to get out and get to it. Almost everything on it is fixed and working great now, just some "cosmetic" work to happen now (the side sliding door is broken and fastened with tie line to keep it closed).
Glad the car is working, we've got traveling to do. Tonight, off to The Brick to see the two plays by Thomas Bradshaw. Tomorrow, up to Garrison, NY to a gallery opening (paintings by Ivy Dachman, my stepmother). Sunday, up to Portland, ME. Maybe more later today. Don't know about the Friday Cat Blogging. I need new photos. Oh, I can't skip a week of that; I'll find something.
My old friend Vanessa Veselka, whom I've known for 24 years but haven't been in any contact with for the last 9, found me last night through email (via The Brick), and we're back in touch. She has had several wonderful bands over the last 15 years (Bell, The Pinkos, The Red Rose Girls) and now has a MySpace page HERE. Due to dial-up/computer issues, I can't listen to her songs there now, but if you're interested, please do. I'm glad to be in touch with her again. It's good to have friends going back that far (thanks to this blog, I'm back in touch with a friend I've known for nearly 30 years, too). I'm beginning to feel like this intarweb thing actually might bring people together rather than keep them apart . . .
1. "Reality" - David Bowie - Reality
Recently, mainly in regards to Bowie's hysterically funny appearance on Extras, I've been hearing the "Bowie hasn't done anything good in 20 years" line a lot. I assume this is from people who haven't been paying any attention to him in the last fourteen years. First, if you're going to use the "no good work since [whenever]" line with DB, you might as well go for saying it's been 27 years since he did anything good (Scary Monsters and Super Creeps). Second, though no album or project from 1981 to 1993 is fully up to the quality of what he was putting out from say, 1970-1980, the best of it is as good as anything from his "classic" period, and the worst of it is nowhere as bad as the worst material from that time.
Third, since 1993, the man has recorded some of the best albums he's ever put out, and no one's paying any goddamn attention to them in the USA (I was pleased recently to discover they are at least selling respectably in the UK; I thought they were flopping everywhere). The Buddha of Suburbia, Outside, Earthling, Heathen, and Reality are all excellent albums (there's another album in there, 'hours', which would go fourth on that list, but it isn't all that good, though it's not as bad as it's sometimes made out to be by Bowie fans; the songs on it are much better live). And no one cares.
I saw Bowie live after each of the last two albums, and watched audiences only come alive when he did "Changes," "Fame," and "Ziggy Stardust." "Changes" especially. That's going to be THE SONG that Bowie is remembered for. "Changes." I have almost all of his recorded work in the iTunes and iPod, from "Louie Louie Go Home" to "Bring Me the Disco King" -- 244 songs; I've left out very, very little from his entire career, really -- and you know what songs are among the ones I DON'T have in there? "Changes," "Fame," and "Ziggy Stardust," because they're not all that good and I wanted to leave room for all the better Bowie songs.
Now I didn't like either Earthling or Reality much when I first heard them, but repetition made me "hear them" better -- Berit likes to take credit for the fact that she "got" Reality first, after I had dismissed it as "scattered" and far inferior to Heathen, and it was only her playing it over and over that got me to actually listen to it. Yes, she's right. The songs on Reality, including this title track, tend to jump around and feel at first like parts of several different songs put together. The more you listen to them, the more cohesive they are.
Bowie's still doing great work, and should be paid attention to. I'm still waiting for the next one, anxiously (though he'll probably change direction and break my heart, AGAIN).
2. "Following You" - Pierre Dutour et Son Orchestre - Chappell Dance and Mood Music, volume 9
Late '60s slick, cool library track. Organ, guitar and horns. Big hard frantic drums. Exciting.
3. "King Kong" - Tarantu1a Ghoul & The Gravediggers - Las Vegas Grind! volume 2
Cheesy lounge-band "rock" with a great groove despite itself. Almost an instrumental, but occasional interjections from a female voice (and then calls from the band). "I'm goin' ape!" Good dancing or driving music.
4. "No One Receiving" - Brian Eno - Vocal (box set, originally from Before and After Science)
Isaac Butler recently asked at Parabasis if there was as important figure in post-Beatles rock as Brian Eno.
No, there isn't.
Besides his own solo song albums (this is the first track from the fourth one, from 1977, and sounds like the state-of-the-art in the "avant-garde" rock music of 1982), his influence, not only on the bands he produced himself, but on the music producers who either came up as his engineers and proteges, or who simply learned by example, has affected almost ALL popular music since 1980 or so. Wish he'd keep making song albums himself, though, those are my favorite work of his (his recent Another Day on Earth was okay, with fine moments, but thin altogether).
Here the groove takes over, predating his work with the Heads and David Byrne by a few years, but not sounding that different, and featuring the great vocal stylings of what I think of as "The Brian Eno Chorale" (as Bowie has said, "Brian, he sing all mix down and multi-tracked lik' a lil' girl!"). I noticed recently that Eno also has the BEST bass guitar sounds in all of his work. I don't know what he does, but no one gets the great bass sounds he does. Firm, solid, undistorted, driving without being bossy. Not easy.
5. "Steps in the Dark" - Gert Wilden & Orchestra - I Told You Not To Cry
More soundtrack loveliness. I don't know how many shows I've used this track in. Maybe not as many as I think. Slow, languid, sexy sleaziness, with a few peppy bits. Vibes and alto saxophone.
6. "Carolina in My Mind" - James Taylor - Those Classic Golden Years 07
Once again, the hated James Taylor shows up because I downloaded a comp of pop songs from a certain period that included him, listened to a bit of the song, thought, "Well, this is actually a kind of pretty little pop song," and kept it in the iTunes and iPod.
Well, this is actually a kind of pretty little pop song. His voice does get on my nerves, but the song is pleasant, and the arrangement is good. Nice change up from all the other stuff I have in here.
7. "Just Like a Woman" - Bob Dylan - Blonde on Blonde
Came nicely out of the previous song. Bob during the Great Time. Don't think I have anything to say about those two years of Dylan now except, listen to them.
8. "I Won't Cry" - Little David & The Harps - The Roots of Doo Wop - Savoy Vocal Groups
A histrionic without being quite over-the-top vocal performance enlivens this solid little track. Nothing special about it. Good, but there are dozens and dozens of sides like this.
This is from a comp that's meant to document the transitional period between "Black Vocal Groups" (The Ink Spots, The Mills Brothers) and "Doo Wop." This track is full-on doo wop. Close to actual rock & roll actually, with the drumming going on. Rock & roll drums.
9. "The Day the Devil" - Laurie Anderson - Strange Angels
Anderson's remake of a song she wrote with Peter Gordon for his 1986 album, Innocent, where it was done as more of a straight, slower, blues/gospel number as I remember (Gary Lucas on bottleneck guitar, vocal by Clarence Fountain). I have that on vinyl, and haven't listened to it in 15 years or so, so the memory is fuzzy.
Anderson's remake from 1990 is faster and peppier, lots o'synth, but scores big points for her wonderful distorted vocal as "The Devil" (whose monologue includes references to both Dylan's "Ballad of a Thin Man" and the Spuds McKenzie Budweiser ads) and for the full gospel choir that comes in for the chorus and finale.
I love this album of LA's, right from when she was learning to really, really sing. She's still holding back a bit on the record, but her voice is beautiful (I saw her live at BAM a few months after it came out, and she was vocally cutting loose on some of the album's songs, singing to the rafters, in a way she doesn't on the recording). Where's another great record from her? I've been waiting.
10. "Little Orphan Nannie" - Kaleidoscope - Side Trips
Music designed to make you say, "Man these guys are stoned!" Flagrantly "offbeat," "psychedelic," and "experimental" in a massively self-conscious way (catch the album title), though not quite (JUST not quite) so smug about it as to be annoying or unlistenable. Huge Zappa influences in use of sound effects bridging different song styles in different sections, weird little talking and comments off on the side, and a kind of snide quality to the harmony vocals. Fun, sure.
More work to happen to the car today; have to get out and get to it. Almost everything on it is fixed and working great now, just some "cosmetic" work to happen now (the side sliding door is broken and fastened with tie line to keep it closed).
Glad the car is working, we've got traveling to do. Tonight, off to The Brick to see the two plays by Thomas Bradshaw. Tomorrow, up to Garrison, NY to a gallery opening (paintings by Ivy Dachman, my stepmother). Sunday, up to Portland, ME. Maybe more later today. Don't know about the Friday Cat Blogging. I need new photos. Oh, I can't skip a week of that; I'll find something.
My old friend Vanessa Veselka, whom I've known for 24 years but haven't been in any contact with for the last 9, found me last night through email (via The Brick), and we're back in touch. She has had several wonderful bands over the last 15 years (Bell, The Pinkos, The Red Rose Girls) and now has a MySpace page HERE. Due to dial-up/computer issues, I can't listen to her songs there now, but if you're interested, please do. I'm glad to be in touch with her again. It's good to have friends going back that far (thanks to this blog, I'm back in touch with a friend I've known for nearly 30 years, too). I'm beginning to feel like this intarweb thing actually might bring people together rather than keep them apart . . .
