Aural Fixation- Gavin B.'s Music Blog

Gavin B. · 11-11-2009, 11:17 AM

Song of the Day
DAY THREE: All Intrumentals Week!

The cover of the Blues Project's sole studio record on Verve.

Flute Thing- The Blues Project The Blues Project was one of the earliest and most revolutionary bands from the New York city underground rock scene of the mid-60s. The Blues Project should have been one of the top tier bands of the 60s but the band fell prey to intramural bickering and self destructed before producing a decent body of work.

The only studio album recorded by the Blues Project was the dazzling Projections, one of the benchmark albums of the 60's pop music renaissance. There was also two live albums of the Blues Project; Live at the Cafe Au Go Go and Live at Town Hall but the production value of the recordings is so amateurish that both live albums are a bit of an embarassment to the band.

There was a good reason why the fidelity of both live Blues Project albums was so awful. Way back in 1966, recording engineers had yet to develop a precise technology for recording live rock bands. Finally in 1971 Atlantic Record's master producer Tom Dowd presided over a near studio quality recording of a three night gig by the Allman Brothers band at the Fillmore East. Dowd's mixing and editing techniques used to record The Allman Brothers at the Fillmore East became a producer's how-to manual for recording a live rock band. Unfortunately that was about four years after the break up of the Blues Project.

"The Blues Project" name was a bit misleading because the band played an ecclectic array of music including blues, jazz, rock, soul, folk, psychedelica and even some baroque ballads with a classical influence. In 1966, no other band on the American rock scene had mastery over as many styles of music as the Blues Project.

The band was the first rock band to be signed by the venerable jazz indie label, Verve Records. Through the Verve association the Blues Project developed crossover appeal among jazz and blues fans, as well as the younger audience tuned into music of the flowering rock underground.

The founders of the Blues Project were two Greenwich Village guitarists Danny Kalb and Steve Katz, along with Andy Kulberg who was a classically trained flute player. . The group's drummer, Roy Blumenfeld, was a nuanced and versatile jazz drummer who also possessed an equally proficent apptitude for playing hard rock.

Keyboardist Al Kooper joined the band after hearing the Blues Project's audition for Columbia Records. Kooper was a Columbia Records contract player who played keyboards on the sessions for Bob Dylan's groundbreaking Highway 61 Revisited album in 1965. Those bluesy Hammond organ fills at the chorus of the song Like A Rolling Stone were played by Kooper. From my perspective, Kooper's organ playing was a big part of why Like A Rolling Stone is such a memorable Dylan song.

It was pretty clear upon his entry to the band, the brilliant but pedactic Kooper would have a big impact on the creative vision of the Blues Project. Kooper's primary rival for creative control of the group was Kalb, a hellaciously good blues guitarist whose reputation as blues player was second only to that of Mike Bloomfield of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Kooper wanted to add horns to the band and Kalb objected.

Kalb dropped some bad acid trip and disappeared for several weeks, during which Kooper and Katz left the band to form the first edtion of Blood Sweat and Tears. Kooper left Blood Sweat and Tears after recording their brilliant debut album and formed a partnership with ex Butterfield guitarist Mike Bloomfield and recorded two very successful Super Session albums.

With Kooper and Katz gonzo to form BS&T and Kalb suffering from acid damage; Kulberg and Blumenfeld made one final halfhearted more album under the Blues Project banner then formed a second Blues Project splinter group called Seatrain.

Kalb recorded a pretty good album titled Crosscurrents with accoustic guitar wizard Stefan Grossman in 1969 and made a couple of feeble attempts to reform the Blues Project the early 70s. There was a single reuion gig of the original Blues Project in Central Park in 1973 in which Danny Kalb instructed Al Kooper not to make eye contact with him during the gig.

After that gig, Kalb lost his moorings and vanished somewhere in the 70s of life. Kalb returned to the land of the living this year with a critically acclaimed album of accoustic blues called I'm Going to Live the Life I Sing About.

Kooper still produces music and gigs from time to time. Andy Kulberg died of lymphoma in early 2002. The only reason I know about Kulberg's death is his longtime girlfriend was an old and dear friend of mine from Boston. Flute Thing was Andy's song and this video is a great tribute to his talent. BTW Kooper was absent from the filming of this documentary video and it looks like Booker T. Washington of the MGs is filling in for him on Hammond organ.

This Family Dog poster of a 1966 Blues Project gig with the Great Society (the earliest edition of the Jefferson Airplane) at the Avalon
Ballroom is a collector's item. An original print of the poster signed by the artist, Wes Wilson will fetch a price of around $1000 on eBay.

Gavin B. · 11-13-2009, 09:32 AM

Song of the Day
DAY FOUR: All Insturmentals Week!

Music from Film Scores

Before I start let's deal with terminology. A film score and a film soundtrack are two different things but are often used interchangebly by even folks who know the difference:

Quote:

A film score is the original instrumental music composed to accentuate the the director's film. John William's score to Star Wars is one of the better known scores as is some of the instrumental music from the James Bond movies. There's a small group of composers that primarily write scores to films like Bernard Hermann, Ennio Morricone, John Barry and Angelo Badalamenti, but writing films scores is a vanishing profession because it's far more profitable for a movie producer to throw together 12-15 popular songs and use them in the film and only hire a composer to write the opening theme and the end credits music.

A film soundtrack may or may not include the score of a film and is usually a set of previously composed songs by notable musicians. Film sountracks often become best sellers because many of them are collections of popular songs that are woven into the film. Examples of soundtracks are the music from the movie The Big Chill with it's collection of Motown hits, or collection of traditional music on the soundtrack of Oh Brother Where Art Thou. Both of those soundtracks made a whole lot more money that the films the songs were used in.

That distinction is important for both movie directors and fans of the cinema. From my perspective the decline of the movie and television score is a sad development. I will frequently view a bad film with a great soundtrack several times over because a composer of a good soundtrack can make a mediocre movie seem great.

Janet Leigh made the most perceptive comment on the power of a film score when she was asked about the nortorious shower scene in the 1959 movie Psycho. Leigh said she watched the daily rushes of the shower scene with Hitchc0ck before Bernard Hermann had added the score and she wasn't impressed. The next night Hitchc0ck added Bernard Hermann's schreeching dissonant violins to the action on the screen and Leigh said she was frightened out of her wits and the effectiveness of Hermann's score even shocked Hitchc0ck himself. A powerful film score has a big impact on the perceptions of a film viewer and a soundtrack collection of music will never be quite as effective as a good original score.

My subject is the film score of original music, but the score is sometimes generically referred to as the "soundtrack" even by industry professionals. The practice using a collection of recycled popular songs as a soundtrack to a movie is relatively new. I'm not referring to the kind of soundtrack that collects popular hits, as soundtracks frequently do in this day and age. Are you confused?... so am I, but if I said I was going write about my favorite film scores, some people would be wondering why I'm calling a soundtrack a score. The film's score is the (mostly) instrumental mood music that was writen as ambient music for a specific film, however some soundtracks aren't original scores of music but recycled pop songs which were never writen as part of a film score. The reason why recycle pop music is used in a movie, rather than a proper score is money... A good selling soundtrack can often net more money sales than box office recepts for a movie. And a producer and director can skim off a larger share of the royalty points soundtrack sales, if they don't commission a composer to write an original score for their movie project.

Here are three songs from three of my favorite film scores.

Gato Barbieri- The Last Tango in Paris (soundtrack) Barieri's soundtract to the 1972 Last Tango in Paris captured all of sensuality, passion and sexual conflict of Bertolucci' cinematic masterpiece. Barbieri uses elements of jazz, blues, Parisian musette music, and Agentinian tango music with straying off into cliched jazz fusion. The song called Jeanne is the theme song of Jeanne (played by Maria Schneider) a beautiful young Parisienne femme fatale who encounters Paul (Marlon Brando), a mysterious American expatriate mourning his wife's recent suicide. Instantly drawn to each other, they have a stormy, passionate affair, in which they do not reveal their names to each other. As an experiment, Barbieri wrote musical score that frequently counterpointed the action on the screen, that is when there was a lot of action and activity, Barbieri played slow music and in the quiet introspective moments, Barbieri wrote frenetic music to accompany the screen action. Barbieri's use of counterpointing became widely imitated by soundtrack composers after Last Tango in Paris.

Ennio Morricone- A Fistful of Dollars (soundtrack) Ennio Morricone developed highly distinctive trademark sound that defined Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns and made him the most innovative of soundtrack composers. His best known song is the theme from The Good, Bad and the Ugly and since most people are familiar with that song, I chose Morricone's A Fistful of Dollars theme from the same spaghetti western era.

In A Fistful of Dollars Morricone pulled out all the stops with his bag of musical tricks: a lonesome whistler, the sound of a bullwhip, kettle drums, a twangy guitar, ritualistic chanting, penny whistles, a fiddler, tolling church bells even elements of Gregorian chant that Morricone frequently incorporated into his epic spaghetti Western scores. The song is laden with shiny musical gimmicks that reach out and grab your attention.

Lalo Schifrin- The Dirty Harry (soundtrack) Strangely enough my thrid choice for soundtrack composer is also associated with Clint Eastwood's movies. Clint Eastwood is the most musically conscious director in Hollywood, a jazz pianist, and music collector. His epic film biographty of jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker, Bird (1998) is an unflinching portrait Bird's self destructive nature and is the most authenic biopic of a musician I've ever come across. Schifrin was Eastwood's musical collaborator of choice.

Argeninian Lalo Schifrin was frist noted for his noirish theme music for two television spy shows: Mission Impossible and the Man from UNCLE. Schifrin greatest accolades came from his for his brilliant jazz influenced score of the Steve McQueen movie Bullit. Schifrin became Clint Eastwood's composer of choice for all of the films he directed. Schifrin was one of the most prolific soundtrack composers of his era and he's still composing soundtracks, and conducting both a symphony and a jazz big band.

Scifrin's from Dirty Harry incorporates all of the great elements of jazz/funk fusion movement that came to the fore in the early 70s.

=================================================

Other Prominent Soundtrack Composers Worth Checking Out

John Barry- The composer of most of the James Bond film soundtracks.

Bernard Hermann- Alfred Hitchc0ck's longtime musical collaborator.

Angelo Badalamenti- Soundtrack composer for most of David Lynch's films and his television series Twin Peaks.

Yann Tierson- The brilliant French composers with roots in the post-punk movement and composer to the soundtrack to Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amelie from Montmarte (aka Amelie) Tierson is currently my favorite neo-classical composer and his music is frequently compared to composers like Eric Satie, Fredric Chopin and Phillip Glass.

NumberNineDream · 11-13-2009, 05:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gavin B.

Yann Tierson- The brilliant French composers with roots in the post-punk movement and composer to the soundtrack to Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amelie from Montmarte (aka Amelie) Tierson is currently my favorite neo-classical composer and his music is frequently compared to composers like Eric Satie, Fredric Chopin and Phillip Glass.

I just returned from his concert! That man is a ****ing genius !

He ended the concert with a heavy/electronic/psychedelic/folk rock rendition of La Valse d'Amelie, nothing like I've ever heard. He didn't play any other soundtrack tune in the concert, that one was during the encore. Great concert in all, fusing the sincerity and lightheartedness of his soundtrack tunes with some experimental chaos.

Great film score review, a film score is so critical it can bring a movie to the stars or just bury it in the ground (Requiem for a Dream wouldn't be this huge success without Clint Mansell's compositions). Tho I don't think film scores are a finishing profession, what's great about original scores is controlling the timing of the music. You can never do that with a previously recorded song but with sheer luck, and the timing is everything.

As for the previous review, it just made me realize that it's time to get myself into The Blues Project.

Gavin B. · 11-13-2009, 07:45 PM

I've been madly in love with Yann Tiersen's music every since I saw him do a one man show at Les Folies Trevise in Paris in 1998. He is frightfully brilliant and completely
original in both style and the substance of his musical approach. Yann can play just about any musical instrument he picks up. I love his Chopin like solos on the toy piano, his accordin playing and especially his guitar playing. Tiersen is still a punk rocker at heart... It's ashamed that despite his growing international noterity,the French are still trying to keep Yann all for themselves.

Gavin B. · 11-14-2009, 11:55 AM

Song of the Day
DAY FIVE: All Instrumental Week

The Lounge Lizards

Harlem Nocturne- The Lounge Lizards The Lounge Lizards were started by brothers John and Evan Lurie who along with their frequent collaborator, filmmaker Jim Jarmusch were early provacateurs of the New York City's early 80s downtown No-Wave scene. Both John and Evan Lurie were also actors in some of Jarmusch's early films which embodied the calculated cool and the uncompromising nihilism of the short lived but influential No-Wave movement.

The Luries then added Arto Lindsay who played his atonal noise guitar in nortorious anti-music bands like DNA and the Cortortions. The bass player was Steve Piccalo a first rate jazz bassist who possessed a smooth touch on the fretboards. Anton Fier was a drummer's drummer who originally played in the Feelies and after the demise of the Lounge Lizards Anton Fier was one of the founders of the Golden Paliminos. Anton did a short stint as drummer for the avant garde band Pere Ubu and has played on sessions and toured with Laurie Anderson, John Zorn, Herbie Hanc0ck, and Yoko Ono.

Arto Lindsay described the Lounge Lizard's music as fake jazz but he was being humble. The bands music sounded like a mix of hard bop, free jazz, film noir music played with plenty of punkish no-wave attitude. This Lounge Lizard's musical deconstruction of Harlem Nocturne, Earle Hagen's sultry jazz classic is revelation.

================================================== ==

BONUS SONG

The Raybeats

Jack the Ripper- The Raybeats The Raybeats emerged from the same downtown No-Wave scene as the Lounge Lizards and were another side of the same coin musically. The two founders of the Raybeats were saxaphonist/guitarist Pat Irwin who played guitar in Lydia Lunch's legendary 8 Eyed Spy; and Jody Harris, perhaps the most notable indie oriented guitarist in NYC who has played with Lou Reed, Robert Quine, Richard Hell's Voidoids, and the Contortions.

I saw the Raybeats live once and the were a joy to behold. The band was all dressed in matching suits and ties, did coreographed band steps and were a tongue in cheek, ironic no-wave version of a 60s surf band. All of the music of the Raybeats is currently out of issue and it's nearly impossible to find any of their songs on YouTube. I could kick myself because I sold of their 1981 debut album Guitar Beat for $15 when I moved from Boston in 1998. That same album is being sold used on Amazon for $54.

Hint to music collectors: NEVER pay over $20 for an album, no matter how much you want to own it because even the most obscure of albums will eventually comes back into issue, if only for a limited number of pressings. The best thing to do is make a list of the out of issue albums you want and check Amazon or AMG's weekly list of new releases to see if the albums have been re-issued, then buy a copy as fast as you can because collecters usually snatch up the entire supply and the album will quickly go out of issue again. Never buy or sell any out-of-issue album at an exorbitant price because it allows the greedy traders to create a seller's market with grossly inflated prices of collectable music.

I could only find on Raybears song on YouTube and even if Jack the Ripper isn't their best tune it gives you a pretty good idea of the Raybeats trademark brand of slightly off kilter no-wave surf rock. Rhino Records needs to get on their toes and reissue the 2 or 3 Raybeats albums because they deserve a bigger audience.

Gavin B. · 11-16-2009, 09:58 AM

Notable Albums of 2009

This is my long list of notable album for 2009. I'm going to be featuring songs from this list of 2009 in my Song of the Day feature and hopefully I'll whittle the list down to the 10 best by December 31st.

Fever Ray- Fever Ray
Back Spacer- Pearl Jam
Through the Devil Softly- Hope Sandoval & the Warm Inventions
Mystics- Ursula 100
XX- XX
Grace/Wastelands- Peter Doherty
Trapped Animal- The Slits
Lovetune for Vacuum- Soap & Skin
Midnight at the Movies- Justin Townes Earle
Everything You Love Will Be Taken Away- Slaid Cleaves
The List- Rosanne Cash
Machine Dreams- Little Dragons
Bomb in A Bird Cage- A Fine Frenzy
Time To Die- The Dodos
It's the Blitz- Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Still Night, Still Light- Au Revoir Simone
Ellipse- Imogen Heap
Two Suns- Bat for Lashes
Vekatimest- Grizzly Bear
Fascination- The Greencards
Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix- Phoenix
Dark Was the Night- Various Artists
Where the Wild Things Are (soundtrack)- Karen O. and the Kids
Troubador- K'naan
All In One- Bebel Gilberto
Wilco (The Album)- Wilco
I'm Going Away- Fiery Furnances
The Liberty of Norton Folgate- Madness
Preliminaries- Iggy Pop
The Enternal- Sonic Youth
Popular Songs- Yo La Tengo
Country Club- John Doe & the Sadies
Love Is Not Pop- El Perro del Mar

Are there any albums I've missed on my list? Pass on suggestions to me and I try to listen to them and add them to my long list, if appropriate.

There is such a large volume of music releases during the course of any given year, no single fan or critic can make an all encompassing list, so the floor is open for your nominations for addtions to my list. If I like your nomination it get added to my long list and be considered for by short list of ten most notable albums of 2009. Final decisions are mine alone and if you disagree then rip me to shreds on your own blog or journal.

I begin my notable albums of 2009 Song of the Day feature with the frist single from Imogen Heap's Elipse.

======================================

Song of the Day
Notable Albums of 2009

2009 Notable Album: Ellipse by Imogen Heap

First Train Home-Imogen Heap This song is from electronica artist and Internet phenomenon Imogen Heap's dazzling album Elipse. Elipse is on my long list of notable 2009 albums. First Train Home is the Immie's first single from Ellipse and as good as it is, there's even better songs on the album. The video is a live perfomance of the song on the Late Night Show on August 22, 2009. As you can see from the video, Immie has more homemade electronic gizmos and gadgets than you can shake a stick at.

music_phantom13 · 11-16-2009, 01:51 PM

Hooray for no-wave day! Lounge Lizards were someone I only very recently got into sadly, despite the fact that I love the Feelies and The Contortions and knew they had the same drummer. They're amazing, I love that cover (I think your use of deconstruction is more fitting in this case) and it gives a great idea of what the band, and the whole no wave scene really, was all about. I hadn't ever heard of the Raybeats before, but the song seemed marvellous to me. And I'm with you on the records, I couldn't imagine paying hundreds of dollars for a record to see it re-released the next year and dropping back to normal price

Gavin B. · 11-18-2009, 12:15 PM

Song of the Day
Notable Albums of 2009

2009 Notable Album: Midnight at the Movies by Justin Townes Earle

They Killed John Henry- Justin Townes Earle Justin Townes Earle has a double curse in his given names. He carries the last name of his father, legendary tunesmith Steve Earle, and he carries as his middle name the given name of his father's good friend the equally talented songwriter Townes Van Zandt. Justin Townes Earle's sophomore album Midnight At The Movies displays an adeptness and musical sophistication of remarkable, organic breadth and is as lyrically sharp as a lover's tongue as she is walking out the door. Justin effortlessly taps the romanticism imbued in the beaten-soled travelogues of Woody Guthrie; Midnight at the Movies is held firm by Justin's astonishing vision and conviction, yet roams o'er the vast landscape of American music without so much as a stumble.

They Killed John Henry is Justin Earle's retelling of the American folk lore story of John Henry the freed slave who "died with a hammer in his hand" in a race with a steam powered hammer to dig the Big Bend Tunnel for the Chesepeake and Ohio Railroad in Talcott West Virginia in 1870. Like his railroad counterpart Casey Jones, nobody is really certain if John Henry existed, however there is a degree of truth in every folk ballad.

Prior to the rise of extensive newspaper coverage of events on the American frontier, the folk ballad sung by a traveling troubador was a common method of spreading the news of significant events. Topical folk ballads sung by wandering troubadors were a method of spreading news events in 19th Century frontier America. A troubador was a sort of musical news reporter if you will. Unfortunately there wasn't a method of fact checking the events chronicled in a folk ballad.

There were plenty of Depression era newspapers and magazines around to confirm the existence of a notorious bankrobber named Charles Arthur Floyd when Woody Guthrie wrote the song Pretty Boy Floyd. However, there wasn't any media on the site of the Big Bend Tunnel iin 1870 to confirm the that a certain man named John Henry died in a race with a steam hammer to dig the tunner, but railroad historian Roy C. Long found that there was indeed Big Bend Tunnels along the Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O) Railway....and the C&O employed multiple black men who went by the name "John Henry" at the time that those tunnels were being built.

The legend of John Henry has become museum piece in the cabinet of American historical curiosities. The 24 hour news cycle and globalization of the news product, has made the troubador an obsolete profession Justin's version of They Killed John Henry breathes new life into an old tradition and he makes the legend of John Henry becomes something more than a lost postcard from the past.

Gavin B. · 11-19-2009, 08:39 AM

Song of the Day
Notable Albums of 2009

2009 Noteable Album: The List by Rosanne Cash

Motherless Children- Rosanne Cash Like yesterday's featured artist, Justin Earle, Rosanne Cash is another child of a country music legend, Johnny Cash. The List refers to a list of 100 traditional public domain songs that Johnny Cash gave Rosanne on her 18th to listen to because Johnny was concerned that Rosanne only knew the music she was listening to on rock music radio. The songs perfomed on Rosanne's new album are selected exclusively from the Johnny Cash list.

Since passing of her father, Rosanne Cash has rejuvenated her career by becoming more like her father. In 2006 Rosanne released the excellent Black Cadillac a rootsy memorial album to her father, and now with this year's The List Rosanne is following the deep roots Americana approach of her father. The 12 songs on The List are the best collection of public domain songs performed by a popular artist in a long time.

Motherless Children is a song written by A.P. Carter and sung by the America's first country music stars, the Carter Family. Rosanne's step mother, June Carter Cash, is the daughter of the Maybelle Carter of that same Carter family. Rosanne's uptempo jazz influenced arrangement is more within the neo-traditionalist camp but her modernist refinements to Motherless Children are finessed with all due respect to the country blues origins of the Carter Family's original arrangement.

The bluesy slide guitar solo is performed by producer extrordinaire and multi-instrumentalist John Leventhal, Rosanne's ex husband and her long time collaborator and producer. Leventhal is the producer of The List and plays most of the the musical instruments on the studio tracks of the album but all of the distinctive arrangements of the songs were done by Rosanne.

The embedded video is a live performance of Motherless Children that is pretty close to the arrangement you hear on The List.

Gavin B. · 11-20-2009, 12:38 AM

Song of the Day
Notable Albums of 2009

2009 Notable Album- The Eternal by Sonic Youth

Malibu Gas Station- Sonic Youth The bad news is that Sonic Youth got sacked by their major label, "Goofin' Records" after a 20 year stint. The good news is Sonic Youth's first album on the venerable indie label Caroline is better than all of their albums with Goofin'. In fact you'd have to reach back 21 years to Daydream Nation to find Sonic Youth playing with more commitment. finesse, clarity and vision as they are playing with on this year's The Eternal. For all their flaws our favorite musical subversives have never lost their bearings in the dark sea of musical dreck we call pop music. Give a listen to Malibu Gas Station and you'll know why Sonic Youth is still important to musical malcontents everywhere.

11-14-2009, 11:55 AM	#145 (permalink)
Gavin B. Model Worker Join Date: Jan 2009 Posts: 1,248	Song of the Day DAY FIVE: All Instrumental Week The Lounge Lizards Harlem Nocturne- The Lounge Lizards The Lounge Lizards were started by brothers John and Evan Lurie who along with their frequent collaborator, filmmaker Jim Jarmusch were early provacateurs of the New York City's early 80s downtown No-Wave scene. Both John and Evan Lurie were also actors in some of Jarmusch's early films which embodied the calculated cool and the uncompromising nihilism of the short lived but influential No-Wave movement. The Luries then added Arto Lindsay who played his atonal noise guitar in nortorious anti-music bands like DNA and the Cortortions. The bass player was Steve Piccalo a first rate jazz bassist who possessed a smooth touch on the fretboards. Anton Fier was a drummer's drummer who originally played in the Feelies and after the demise of the Lounge Lizards Anton Fier was one of the founders of the Golden Paliminos. Anton did a short stint as drummer for the avant garde band Pere Ubu and has played on sessions and toured with Laurie Anderson, John Zorn, Herbie Hanc0ck, and Yoko Ono. Arto Lindsay described the Lounge Lizard's music as fake jazz but he was being humble. The bands music sounded like a mix of hard bop, free jazz, film noir music played with plenty of punkish no-wave attitude. This Lounge Lizard's musical deconstruction of Harlem Nocturne, Earle Hagen's sultry jazz classic is revelation. ================================================== == BONUS SONG The Raybeats Jack the Ripper- The Raybeats The Raybeats emerged from the same downtown No-Wave scene as the Lounge Lizards and were another side of the same coin musically. The two founders of the Raybeats were saxaphonist/guitarist Pat Irwin who played guitar in Lydia Lunch's legendary 8 Eyed Spy; and Jody Harris, perhaps the most notable indie oriented guitarist in NYC who has played with Lou Reed, Robert Quine, Richard Hell's Voidoids, and the Contortions. I saw the Raybeats live once and the were a joy to behold. The band was all dressed in matching suits and ties, did coreographed band steps and were a tongue in cheek, ironic no-wave version of a 60s surf band. All of the music of the Raybeats is currently out of issue and it's nearly impossible to find any of their songs on YouTube. I could kick myself because I sold of their 1981 debut album Guitar Beat for $15 when I moved from Boston in 1998. That same album is being sold used on Amazon for $54. Hint to music collectors: NEVER pay over $20 for an album, no matter how much you want to own it because even the most obscure of albums will eventually comes back into issue, if only for a limited number of pressings. The best thing to do is make a list of the out of issue albums you want and check Amazon or AMG's weekly list of new releases to see if the albums have been re-issued, then buy a copy as fast as you can because collecters usually snatch up the entire supply and the album will quickly go out of issue again. Never buy or sell any out-of-issue album at an exorbitant price because it allows the greedy traders to create a seller's market with grossly inflated prices of collectable music. I could only find on Raybears song on YouTube and even if Jack the Ripper isn't their best tune it gives you a pretty good idea of the Raybeats trademark brand of slightly off kilter no-wave surf rock. Rhino Records needs to get on their toes and reissue the 2 or 3 Raybeats albums because they deserve a bigger audience. Last edited by Gavin B.; 11-14-2009 at 04:52 PM.

11-16-2009, 09:58 AM	#146 (permalink)
Gavin B. Model Worker Join Date: Jan 2009 Posts: 1,248	Notable Albums of 2009 This is my long list of notable album for 2009. I'm going to be featuring songs from this list of 2009 in my Song of the Day feature and hopefully I'll whittle the list down to the 10 best by December 31st. Fever Ray- Fever Ray Back Spacer- Pearl Jam Through the Devil Softly- Hope Sandoval & the Warm Inventions Mystics- Ursula 100 XX- XX Grace/Wastelands- Peter Doherty Trapped Animal- The Slits Lovetune for Vacuum- Soap & Skin Midnight at the Movies- Justin Townes Earle Everything You Love Will Be Taken Away- Slaid Cleaves The List- Rosanne Cash Machine Dreams- Little Dragons Bomb in A Bird Cage- A Fine Frenzy Time To Die- The Dodos It's the Blitz- Yeah Yeah Yeahs Still Night, Still Light- Au Revoir Simone Ellipse- Imogen Heap Two Suns- Bat for Lashes Vekatimest- Grizzly Bear Fascination- The Greencards Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix- Phoenix Dark Was the Night- Various Artists Where the Wild Things Are (soundtrack)- Karen O. and the Kids Troubador- K'naan All In One- Bebel Gilberto Wilco (The Album)- Wilco I'm Going Away- Fiery Furnances The Liberty of Norton Folgate- Madness Preliminaries- Iggy Pop The Enternal- Sonic Youth Popular Songs- Yo La Tengo Country Club- John Doe & the Sadies Love Is Not Pop- El Perro del Mar Are there any albums I've missed on my list? Pass on suggestions to me and I try to listen to them and add them to my long list, if appropriate. There is such a large volume of music releases during the course of any given year, no single fan or critic can make an all encompassing list, so the floor is open for your nominations for addtions to my list. If I like your nomination it get added to my long list and be considered for by short list of ten most notable albums of 2009. Final decisions are mine alone and if you disagree then rip me to shreds on your own blog or journal. I begin my notable albums of 2009 Song of the Day feature with the frist single from Imogen Heap's Elipse. ====================================== Song of the Day Notable Albums of 2009 *2009 Notable Album: Ellipse* by Imogen Heap First Train Home-Imogen Heap** This song is from electronica artist and Internet phenomenon Imogen Heap's dazzling album Elipse. Elipse is on my long list of notable 2009 albums. First Train Home is the Immie's first single from Ellipse and as good as it is, there's even better songs on the album. The video is a live perfomance of the song on the Late Night Show on August 22, 2009. As you can see from the video, Immie has more homemade electronic gizmos and gadgets than you can shake a stick at. Last edited by Gavin B.; 12-08-2009 at 11:46 AM.

11-11-2009, 11:17 AM	#141 (permalink)
Gavin B. Model Worker Join Date: Jan 2009 Posts: 1,248	Song of the Day DAY THREE: All Intrumentals Week! The cover of the Blues Project's sole studio record on Verve. Flute Thing- The Blues Project The Blues Project was one of the earliest and most revolutionary bands from the New York city underground rock scene of the mid-60s. The Blues Project should have been one of the top tier bands of the 60s but the band fell prey to intramural bickering and self destructed before producing a decent body of work. The only studio album recorded by the Blues Project was the dazzling Projections, one of the benchmark albums of the 60's pop music renaissance. There was also two live albums of the Blues Project; Live at the Cafe Au Go Go and Live at Town Hall but the production value of the recordings is so amateurish that both live albums are a bit of an embarassment to the band. There was a good reason why the fidelity of both live Blues Project albums was so awful. Way back in 1966, recording engineers had yet to develop a precise technology for recording live rock bands. Finally in 1971 Atlantic Record's master producer Tom Dowd presided over a near studio quality recording of a three night gig by the Allman Brothers band at the Fillmore East. Dowd's mixing and editing techniques used to record The Allman Brothers at the Fillmore East became a producer's how-to manual for recording a live rock band. Unfortunately that was about four years after the break up of the Blues Project. "The Blues Project" name was a bit misleading because the band played an ecclectic array of music including blues, jazz, rock, soul, folk, psychedelica and even some baroque ballads with a classical influence. In 1966, no other band on the American rock scene had mastery over as many styles of music as the Blues Project. The band was the first rock band to be signed by the venerable jazz indie label, Verve Records. Through the Verve association the Blues Project developed crossover appeal among jazz and blues fans, as well as the younger audience tuned into music of the flowering rock underground. The founders of the Blues Project were two Greenwich Village guitarists Danny Kalb and Steve Katz, along with Andy Kulberg who was a classically trained flute player. . The group's drummer, Roy Blumenfeld, was a nuanced and versatile jazz drummer who also possessed an equally proficent apptitude for playing hard rock. Keyboardist Al Kooper joined the band after hearing the Blues Project's audition for Columbia Records. Kooper was a Columbia Records contract player who played keyboards on the sessions for Bob Dylan's groundbreaking Highway 61 Revisited album in 1965. Those bluesy Hammond organ fills at the chorus of the song Like A Rolling Stone were played by Kooper. From my perspective, Kooper's organ playing was a big part of why Like A Rolling Stone is such a memorable Dylan song. It was pretty clear upon his entry to the band, the brilliant but pedactic Kooper would have a big impact on the creative vision of the Blues Project. Kooper's primary rival for creative control of the group was Kalb, a hellaciously good blues guitarist whose reputation as blues player was second only to that of Mike Bloomfield of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Kooper wanted to add horns to the band and Kalb objected. Kalb dropped some bad acid trip and disappeared for several weeks, during which Kooper and Katz left the band to form the first edtion of Blood Sweat and Tears. Kooper left Blood Sweat and Tears after recording their brilliant debut album and formed a partnership with ex Butterfield guitarist Mike Bloomfield and recorded two very successful Super Session albums. With Kooper and Katz gonzo to form BS&T and Kalb suffering from acid damage; Kulberg and Blumenfeld made one final halfhearted more album under the Blues Project banner then formed a second Blues Project splinter group called Seatrain. Kalb recorded a pretty good album titled Crosscurrents with accoustic guitar wizard Stefan Grossman in 1969 and made a couple of feeble attempts to reform the Blues Project the early 70s. There was a single reuion gig of the original Blues Project in Central Park in 1973 in which Danny Kalb instructed Al Kooper not to make eye contact with him during the gig. After that gig, Kalb lost his moorings and vanished somewhere in the 70s of life. Kalb returned to the land of the living this year with a critically acclaimed album of accoustic blues called I'm Going to Live the Life I Sing About. Kooper still produces music and gigs from time to time. Andy Kulberg died of lymphoma in early 2002. The only reason I know about Kulberg's death is his longtime girlfriend was an old and dear friend of mine from Boston. Flute Thing was Andy's song and this video is a great tribute to his talent. BTW Kooper was absent from the filming of this documentary video and it looks like Booker T. Washington of the MGs is filling in for him on Hammond organ. This Family Dog poster of a 1966 Blues Project gig with the Great Society (the earliest edition of the Jefferson Airplane) at the Avalon Ballroom is a collector's item. An original print of the poster signed by the artist, Wes Wilson will fetch a price of around $1000 on eBay.

11-13-2009, 07:45 PM	#144 (permalink)
Gavin B. Model Worker Join Date: Jan 2009 Posts: 1,248	I've been madly in love with Yann Tiersen's music every since I saw him do a one man show at Les Folies Trevise in Paris in 1998. He is frightfully brilliant and completely original in both style and the substance of his musical approach. Yann can play just about any musical instrument he picks up. I love his Chopin like solos on the toy piano, his accordin playing and especially his guitar playing. Tiersen is still a punk rocker at heart... It's ashamed that despite his growing international noterity,the French are still trying to keep Yann all for themselves.

11-16-2009, 01:51 PM	#147 (permalink)
music_phantom13 Music Addict Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Pittsburgh, PA Posts: 942	Hooray for no-wave day! Lounge Lizards were someone I only very recently got into sadly, despite the fact that I love the Feelies and The Contortions and knew they had the same drummer. They're amazing, I love that cover (I think your use of deconstruction is more fitting in this case) and it gives a great idea of what the band, and the whole no wave scene really, was all about. I hadn't ever heard of the Raybeats before, but the song seemed marvellous to me. And I'm with you on the records, I couldn't imagine paying hundreds of dollars for a record to see it re-released the next year and dropping back to normal price

11-18-2009, 12:15 PM	#148 (permalink)
Gavin B. Model Worker Join Date: Jan 2009 Posts: 1,248	Song of the Day Notable Albums of 2009 *2009 Notable Album: Midnight at the Movies* by Justin Townes Earle They Killed John Henry- Justin Townes Earle** Justin Townes Earle has a double curse in his given names. He carries the last name of his father, legendary tunesmith Steve Earle, and he carries as his middle name the given name of his father's good friend the equally talented songwriter Townes Van Zandt. Justin Townes Earle's sophomore album Midnight At The Movies displays an adeptness and musical sophistication of remarkable, organic breadth and is as lyrically sharp as a lover's tongue as she is walking out the door. Justin effortlessly taps the romanticism imbued in the beaten-soled travelogues of Woody Guthrie; Midnight at the Movies is held firm by Justin's astonishing vision and conviction, yet roams o'er the vast landscape of American music without so much as a stumble. They Killed John Henry is Justin Earle's retelling of the American folk lore story of John Henry the freed slave who "died with a hammer in his hand" in a race with a steam powered hammer to dig the Big Bend Tunnel for the Chesepeake and Ohio Railroad in Talcott West Virginia in 1870. Like his railroad counterpart Casey Jones, nobody is really certain if John Henry existed, however there is a degree of truth in every folk ballad. Prior to the rise of extensive newspaper coverage of events on the American frontier, the folk ballad sung by a traveling troubador was a common method of spreading the news of significant events. Topical folk ballads sung by wandering troubadors were a method of spreading news events in 19th Century frontier America. A troubador was a sort of musical news reporter if you will. Unfortunately there wasn't a method of fact checking the events chronicled in a folk ballad. There were plenty of Depression era newspapers and magazines around to confirm the existence of a notorious bankrobber named Charles Arthur Floyd when Woody Guthrie wrote the song Pretty Boy Floyd. However, there wasn't any media on the site of the Big Bend Tunnel iin 1870 to confirm the that a certain man named John Henry died in a race with a steam hammer to dig the tunner, but railroad historian Roy C. Long found that there was indeed Big Bend Tunnels along the Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O) Railway....and the C&O employed multiple black men who went by the name "John Henry" at the time that those tunnels were being built. The legend of John Henry has become museum piece in the cabinet of American historical curiosities. The 24 hour news cycle and globalization of the news product, has made the troubador an obsolete profession Justin's version of They Killed John Henry breathes new life into an old tradition and he makes the legend of John Henry becomes something more than a lost postcard from the past.

11-19-2009, 08:39 AM	#149 (permalink)
Gavin B. Model Worker Join Date: Jan 2009 Posts: 1,248	Song of the Day Notable Albums of 2009 *2009 Noteable Album: The List* by Rosanne Cash Motherless Children- Rosanne Cash** Like yesterday's featured artist, Justin Earle, Rosanne Cash is another child of a country music legend, Johnny Cash. The List refers to a list of 100 traditional public domain songs that Johnny Cash gave Rosanne on her 18th to listen to because Johnny was concerned that Rosanne only knew the music she was listening to on rock music radio. The songs perfomed on Rosanne's new album are selected exclusively from the Johnny Cash list. Since passing of her father, Rosanne Cash has rejuvenated her career by becoming more like her father. In 2006 Rosanne released the excellent Black Cadillac a rootsy memorial album to her father, and now with this year's The List Rosanne is following the deep roots Americana approach of her father. The 12 songs on The List are the best collection of public domain songs performed by a popular artist in a long time. Motherless Children is a song written by A.P. Carter and sung by the America's first country music stars, the Carter Family. Rosanne's step mother, June Carter Cash, is the daughter of the Maybelle Carter of that same Carter family. Rosanne's uptempo jazz influenced arrangement is more within the neo-traditionalist camp but her modernist refinements to Motherless Children are finessed with all due respect to the country blues origins of the Carter Family's original arrangement. The bluesy slide guitar solo is performed by producer extrordinaire and multi-instrumentalist John Leventhal, Rosanne's ex husband and her long time collaborator and producer. Leventhal is the producer of The List and plays most of the the musical instruments on the studio tracks of the album but all of the distinctive arrangements of the songs were done by Rosanne. The embedded video is a live performance of Motherless Children that is pretty close to the arrangement you hear on The List.

11-20-2009, 12:38 AM	#150 (permalink)
Gavin B. Model Worker Join Date: Jan 2009 Posts: 1,248	Song of the Day Notable Albums of 2009 2009 Notable Album- The Eternal by Sonic Youth Malibu Gas Station- Sonic Youth The bad news is that Sonic Youth got sacked by their major label, "Goofin' Records" after a 20 year stint. The good news is Sonic Youth's first album on the venerable indie label Caroline is better than all of their albums with Goofin'. In fact you'd have to reach back 21 years to Daydream Nation to find Sonic Youth playing with more commitment. finesse, clarity and vision as they are playing with on this year's The Eternal. For all their flaws our favorite musical subversives have never lost their bearings in the dark sea of musical dreck we call pop music. Give a listen to Malibu Gas Station and you'll know why Sonic Youth is still important to musical malcontents everywhere.