The Velvet Underground - Rock & Roll

#The Velvet Underground #Lou Reed #John Cale #experimental rock #art rock #avant-garde #proto-punk #1960s

Though there are many themes that keep reappearing throughout the history of music, few make for better songs than that of the "innocent" child hearing "great" music for the first time. In nearly every genre, some form of this song has been recorded, and while the details change, the spirit behind the song is always one that remind people of the great power of music. With a majority of these songs, the lyrics seem quite autobiographical in nature, while they can simultaneously be applied to nearly anyone, and this is often the reason that the songs become so legendary. While it is truly a countless amount of songs that are created in this manner, there are few that can compare, both musically and lyrically to the mood and power of The Velvet Underground's classic tune, "Rock and Roll." As an integral part of their legendary 1970 record, Loaded, the song perfectly captures these feelings, and yet it is easily one of the most joyous and inspiring songs ever recorded. Powered by the early punk sound of the band, along with the stunning vocal work of Lou Reed, the song instantly grabs the listener and the true genius behind the song remains in the fact that no matter how many times one hears the song, it still has the same level of impact. From the core riff to the iconic lyrics, there are truly very few songs that can compare to the sheer magnificence of the often imitated, but never even remotely duplicated, "Rock and Roll."
Truth be told, the song was actually recorded on the tail end of the bands' previous, self-titled record a year earlier, but it did not make the cut and was left "on the shelf" while the group changed record labels. In retrospect, this was a very good thing, as "Rock and Roll" fits far better with the songs on Loaded than with those of their 1969 effort. The song itself is driven by a brilliantly simple three-chord progression, making it a song that even the most novice guitar player could easily master. This uncomplicated musical approach is certainly one of the keys to the songs' appeal, and yet it also reflects the universal nature of the music which is being referred to in the lyrics. However, "Rock and Roll" also features The Velvet Underground's signature gritty, stripped down sound, and it provided a very stark musical contrast to nearly everything else that was being released at the time. While both Lou Reed and Sterling Morrison provide stunning guitar work throughout the song, one of the key aspects that sets both the song and album apart from the rest of the bands' work is the fact that drummer Maureen Tucker is not present. At this point, Tucker was gone from the band due to having a child, and throughout Loaded, the percussion is handled by a number of different people. Regardless, "Rock and Roll" presents an absolutely amazing groove, and it remains one of the most irresistible rock anthems ever recorded.  From: http://thedailyguru.blogspot.com/2010/03/march-4-velvet-underground-rock-and.html

Bent Knee - Catch Light

 #Bent Knee #progressive rock #art rock #industrial #baroque pop #avant-garde #music video

Bent Knee was formed at Boston's Berklee College of Music by Courtney Swain (Vocals), Ben Levin (Guitar) and Vince Welch (Production and Sound Design) out of a love of the epic and grand and has influences of Psych, Baroque Pop and Avant-Jazz. Their eponymous debut CD was released in 2011 and is mostly a study of Courtney Swain’s sultry voice, which sounds like an angry Shirley Manson (Garbage), fighting for attention from Ben Levin’s occasionally crunchy and frequently sporadic guitar. Their second album, 'Shiny Eyed Babies', released in 2014 was more of a full band effort with the addition of, Chris Baum (Violin), Jessica Kion (Bass) and Gavin Wallace-Ailsworth (Drums) and has a more diverse feel to it with jazzier moments, alternating with the starker sound of the first album. Fans of Tori Amos may enjoy Bent Knee as would fans of distinctive female driven, stark music.  From: https://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=9175

When you think of a band made up of musicians who met at a prestigious music school, a certain image may come to mind. A group of highly skilled artists, hunched over their respective instruments in utter concentration, spooling out complex notes and unorthodox time signatures, producing music of tremendous difficulty and seriousness.
In the case of Bent Knee, you can put your preconceived notions to rest. Yes, all six members of the Boston-based band met while studying at the Berklee College of Music. Yes, they’re all tremendously talented musicians. But while their music may contain a multitude of music theory complexity, it can also be accessible, funky, tender, vulnerable, head-banging, and heavy on guilty-pleasure pop/rock tropes. Bent Knee’s latest album, You Know What They Mean, weaves together everything that made their four previous albums equal parts jaw-dropping and, dare I say, fun. For a band so good at smashing boundaries, they’ve managed to find a few more to tear down this time around.
Produced by their multi-instrumentalist/sound designer Vince Welch, the album is a typical Bent Knee stew of styles and dynamics. What they managed to achieve this time around is a remarkable sense of coherence between all the songs. Despite the music’s range, the songs literally flow together with little to no space between the tracks. It results in something of a throwback to the days of progressive rock concept albums. Labelling Bent Knee as prog rock, incidentally, is not entirely off the mark. They get a good deal of press in prog publications. But there are also plenty of avant-garde touches, art rock, bits and pieces of jazz (they’re Berklee grads, after all), as well as good old-fashioned metal, thanks in part to the pummeling riffs of guitarist Ben Levin.  From: https://www.popmatters.com/bent-knee-you-know-what-2640907574.html

Rosalie Cunningham - Ride On My Bike

 #Rosalie Cunningham #ex-Purson #psychedelic rock #art rock #neo-psychedelia #hard rock #singer-songwriter #music video

Rosalie Cunningham: The Soundtrack Of My Life

Singer-songwriter Rosalie Cunningham picks her records, artists and gigs of lasting significance, and reveals why Stackridge might be better than Genesis.

Having started out as a teenager with Ipso Facto in the late noughties, singer-songwriter Rosalie Cunningham emerged as the guiding force of Purson. The band’s billowy psych-prog sustained itself for two essential studio albums before Cunningham called time in 2017. She’s since embarked on a grippingly eclectic solo career. Her latest album, Two Piece Puzzle, is rich, dark, playful and wonderfully adventurous. We really wouldn’t expect anything less.

The first music I Remember hearing

I was exposed to a lot of cool music growing up, because my dad was a musician. But the first song I remember, when I was about three or four, was Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Grows) by Edison Lighthouse. I don’t know if it’s because the character in the song had a similar name to me, but something just sort of stuck.

The first song I performed live

My first proper gig was an underage rock night when I was thirteen. We did a short set, mostly covers, and a couple of very primitive songs that I’d tried to write. We opened with 20th Century Boy by T. Rex. The guys in the band were quite a bit older than me and were into punk, so we also played Ever Fallen In Love by Buzzcocks and something by The Misfits.

The singer

Different styles mean different favourites for me. As a frontman and singer, Freddie Mercury was just the best. When it comes to rock/soul, I’d say Steve Marriott. And for female vocalists it has to be Sandy Denny. She’s got such a rich voice, but I also love the vulnerability of it.

The songwriter

Lennon and McCartney are way above everyone else on the top tier, then it’s Bowie. He was so idiosyncratic and wrote so many great classics. He’s definitely a massive influence on me. Even if you strip him right back to just an acoustic guitar and vocal, the songs are still just as good.

The guitar hero

Mick Ronson’s signature sound had so much attitude, it was so badass. I think it’s just the best guitar sound there is. Musically, as an arranger, he was ridiculously intelligent too, which a lot of lead guitarists aren’t really known for. He was incredibly humble and understated in that sense. But when you listen to anything he was involved with, it’s quite clear he was a genius.

The greatest album of all time

My favourite Beatles album changes quite regularly, but I think Abbey Road, as a sort of final statement, is a masterpiece. It stands separate from the others. It’s so far ahead of its time, but it’s also completely timeless. My dad used to do music journalism for the live industry, and I actually met Paul McCartney backstage on his American tour in 2004, when I was fourteen. I freaked the fuck out, I couldn’t speak at all. I sat next to him eating lunch, for about an hour.

The best record I've made

I’m proud of all the Purson stuff and my first solo album, but I have to say the new one [Two Piece Puzzle], don’t I? The best is always the latest.

The worst record I've made

Ipso Facto was my first sort of proper professional band. We never actually did an album, though, just a bunch of singles. And none of them were very good. It’s charming in a way, but it’s like having an old diary from when you were a teenager out on display on the internet. It’s so embarrassing. I was far too young to be in the public eye.

The most underrated band ever

Stackridge made some incredible albums in the seventies, particularly The Man In The Bowler Hat, which was produced by George Martin. If you like theatrical, psychedelic prog, it’s genius. I’d rate it above a lot of Genesis’s stuff. I had absolutely no idea that Stackridge were uncool, so maybe that’s why they’re underrated.

The best live album

In terms of heavy rock bands, I love Deep Purple the most, probably because of the organ sound. They were really on fire with Made In Japan. That noise coming out of the speakers is like going on a ride. It blows your head off. It’s just kind of outrageous.

My guilty pleasure

I have a soft spot for musicals. I’ll stick on the Grease soundtrack and sing along with all the different parts, which drives Rosco [Wilson, her partner] absolutely mad, because he hates it.

My Saturday night party song

Rosco and I haven’t been going out much lately, but we stay in and have party nights indoors. We always put on Down In Mexico by The Coasters and that’s when the party starts. It gets us dancing around the living room.

The song that makes me cry

Howlin’ Rain’s Strange Thunder is a really moving song. The subject matter is about suicide anyway, but it’s actually the way that the song progresses, musically, that causes this tidal wave of emotion by the end. It gets me every time. There’s also an Elvis one, If I Can Dream, that really moves me whenever I hear it.

The song I want played at my funeral

I’d have to go for Gotta Get Up by Harry Nilsson, because the lyrics – taken in that context against a sort of upbeat melody – would be a nice little black comedy moment to end on.

From: https://www.loudersound.com/features/rosalie-cunningham-the-soundtrack-of-my-life

Pink Floyd - Matilda Mother

 #Pink Floyd #Syd Barrett #Roger Waters #psychedelic rock #British psychedelia #progressive rock #art rock #space rock #experimental rock #blues rock #1960s

The original members of Pink Floyd met in an architectural college. The band started as a blues band. Later, under Syd Barrett's leadership, they played music that was psychedelic in style. After Barrett left the band, they started to play longer and more complicated songs, and to play at a lot of colleges and universities. Soon, they were famous as studio musicians who loved to experiment with music. On the album Atom Heart Mother, from 1970, they used a brass band and a choir. They used a lot of things to make their concerts interesting to watch. They had a round movie screen on the stage. They would show videos on the screen when they played. They also used lighting and lasers in a much fancier way than many bands do. They also had big balloon puppets. The most famous is in the shape of a pig, which first appeared on the cover for their album, Animals. The pig has since become a symbol of Pink Floyd. Another symbol that reminds people of Pink Floyd is a prism with light shining through it. This was on the cover of Dark Side of the Moon, one of their most popular albums.  From: https://kids.kiddle.co/Pink_Floyd

By the spring of 1967, Pink Floyd was at the forefront of the psychedelic rock movement that was pushing its way into mainstream popular culture. Fronted by lead guitarist and songwriter Syd Barrett, and including bassist Roger Waters, drummer Nick Mason and organist Richard Wright, the band cracked the Top 20 in the United Kingdom with their catchy debut single, "Arnold Layne." In May 1967, they made an indelible impression with the Games for May concert at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall, featuring a quadraphonic sound system, dazzling light show and bubble-generating machine. The band was fueled by the creativity of its frontman, known for his cryptic lyrics that mixed mysticism and wordplay, and an experimental guitar style that made use of echo machines and other distortions. Sadly, the same forces that drove Barrett to artistic breakthroughs also led him down the path of self-destruction, leaving him exiled from the group shortly after they arrived on the charts and rendering him a cautionary tale as Pink Floyd became one of the biggest bands in the world.  From: https://www.biography.com/news/syd-barrett-pink-floyd

Beck - Devil's Haircut

 #Beck #alternative rock #folk rock #anti-folk #psychedelia #lo-fi #art rock #indie rock #underground rock #experimental #electronic rock #1990s

American musician Beck is a difficult artist to define. With a career that spans four decades, Beck’s music has encompassed every genre imaginable, including folk, funk, soul, hip-hop, electronic, alt-rock, country, and psychedelia. Unhindered by the expectations set upon him by previous releases, Beck has released 14 studio albums, each showcasing a distinct crevice of his creative identity.  From: https://happymag.tv/best-of-beck/

Beck himself has talked about the meaning of "Devils Haircut" on a few occasions. In one interview, he claimed that it was "a really simplistic metaphor for the evil of vanity". He said of the song: I don't know if I ever had any youthful purity, but I can understand that you might be tempted to make commercial shit and compromise to do it. I try not to compromise on anything. I think we associate becoming an adult with compromise. Maybe that's what the devil is. In "Devils Haircut", that was the scenario. I imagined Stagger Lee... I thought, what if this guy showed up now in 1996... I thought of using him as a Rumpelstiltskin figure, this Lazarus figure to comment on where we've ended up as people. What would he make of materialism and greed and ideals of beauty and perfection? His reaction would be, "Whoa, this is disturbing shit".  From: https://songmeanings.com/songs/view/9579/

Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Take A Pebble

 #Emerson, Lake & Palmer #Kieth Emerson #Greg Lake #Carl Palmer #progressive rock #symphonic prog #art rock #hard rock #classical music #jazz rock #blues rock #electronic #modern classical #keyboard driven #1970s #post-The Nice #post-King Crimson #post-Atomic Rooster #Beat-Club

Emerson, Lake and Palmer were one of Rock & Roll's earliest supergroups who were formed from members of three already successful bands, The Nice, King Crimson and Atomic Rooster. The Nice had enjoyed several minor hits and were beginning to build a following in the United States, gaining attention for their wild stage show that was a showcase for keyboard wizard, Keith Emerson. King Crimson had risen to fame after their debut album "The Court Of The Crimson King" had caught on with Underground Rock lovers. The amazingly tight LP had brought the band from obscurity to a major concert attraction in the UK, Europe and America in just a few months.
In the Summer and Fall of 1969, the two groups shared the bill at two major concerts in England. Inner turmoil had already begun to tear King Crimson apart and Keith Emerson was feeling that he'd taken The Nice as far as it would go. During a sound check, King Crimson's bassist, Greg Lake began to jam with Keith Emerson. After some discussion, the pair came away with the feeling that it was time to move on from their current bands. The final live performance for the original King Crimson took place on December 16th and the band returned home. The group still had contractual obligations and were desperately trying to re-build King Crimson with Greg Lake still at the forefront. Although he had already made up his mind to leave, Lake did stick around long enough to finish a second album, using studio musicians to fill in for band members who had already split. The album, called "In The Wake Of Poseidon", was released in March of 1970 and featured Lake singing on just three tracks. King Crimson made one final appearance on the BBC TV show, Top Of The Pops with Greg Lake on an acoustic guitar, later the same month.
Two weeks later, Britain's New Musical Express ran the headline: "Keith Emerson and Greg Lake to form new group", while the pair were busy holding auditions for a third member. Several drummers were considered, spoken to, or auditioned; among them were Coliseum's Jon Hiseman, Cream's Ginger Baker, as well as Mitch Mitchell from The Jimi Hendrix Experience. It was Cream's manager, Robert Stigwood, who suggested Carl Palmer, a 20 year old drummer who had worked with Atomic Rooster and The Crazy World of Arthur Brown. After a pair of auditions, Palmer was hired. Although Emerson wanted to keep the project a keyboard-bass-drums trio, there were serious talks about adding Jimi Hendrix to the line up. A jam session was set up with Hendrix for late summer, 1970, but Jimi died before it came together. The rumors of the potential band with Hendrix did leak out to the British music press, who began running articles saying the band would be called "Hendrix, Emerson, Lake & Palmer" or HELP for short. Before they even had an album out, the band began playing shows. Although most ELP fans believe their first gig was at the massive three day long Isle Of Wight Pop Music Festival on August 29th, the band has since revealed that their first gig actually took place six days earlier at a 3000 seat hall in Plymouth Guildhall. According to Lake, the band was paid $500. The show that ELP played at the Isle of Wight was spectacular. Keith Emerson played the Hammond organ, piano, and his custom Moog synthesizer. Since their first album had not yet been released, the audience was not familiar with their music, but responded with thunderous applause nonetheless.  From: https://www.classicbands.com/elp.html

The Move - Brontosaurus

 #The Move #Roy Wood #Jeff Lynne #psychedelic rock #blues rock #hard rock #British psychedelia #pop rock #art rock #proto-prog #1960s

The Move’s "Brontosaurus" is some Heaaavy blues sludge with ridiculously on point lyrics in regards to what rock once was (a dance music) to what was coming (slow, loud and drugged up music). The riff is a fucking monster; you can practically smoke the fucking thing. Halfway through, the song double times into a rock & roll rave up (Roy Wood really liked to juxtapose 50's rock with acid sludge - see also Wizzard) with a slop fuzz slide solo that melts your speakers. Both proto-metal AND proto-glam rock.  From: https://rateyourmusic.com/release/single/the-move/brontosaurus-lightning-never-strikes-twice/

An exceptionally dynamic and controversial stage act, The Move’s live performances have been remembered for stunning musicianship and frenzied demolitions of televisions, instruments and stages with an axe, chopping a Cadillac to pieces at London’s Roundhouse and inciting a riot which alarmed headline act The Who (the stage had to be rebuilt…). Even the famous Marquee Club was not safe. During a performance of ‘Fire Brigade’, the stage was set alight, resulting in the Soho district being jammed with fire engines. So shocking and fiery were The Move live, that for a while, the group were banned from every theatre in the UK and Europe, a decade before the Sex Pistols’ similar punk rock antics. They even threatened Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s government with the furore surrounding the promotional campaign for ‘Flowers In The Rain’. The single reached no. 2 in the UK charts but Wilson sued manager Tony Secunda and The Move in the High Court and all royalties were paid to charities of Wilson’s choice, a ruling still in place today. As songwriter Roy Wood says, it’s less for murder.  From: http://bettyloumusic.com/themovebiography.htm

Alice Cooper - Billion Dollar Babies

 #Alice Cooper #hard rock #heavy metal #shock rock #glam rock #art rock #classic rock #glam metal #garage rock #1970s

The title track off of Alice Cooper’s most successful album up to that point, ‘Billion Dollar Babies’ presents the dangers of overindulgence. The background falsetto is provided by Scottish singer/songwriter, Donovan. In spite of the oftentimes comically distorted and grotesque subject matter throughout the album, Cooper says that Chuck Berry provided the bulk of his inspiration while making the album: “Berry was my favorite lyricist. When I first heard something like ‘Nadine,’ or ‘Maybelline,’ I understood those songs told a story. As the lyrics went along, you really got a picture of what was going on. He took the girl out; he couldn’t get his seat belt off – things like that. I always wanted to write three-minute stories that were funny, or maybe not just funny, but also dramatic. The idea was to compact everything into three minutes, which is really hard to do.” 

Donovan, during a post-show interview, on adding lyrics to Cooper’s ‘Billion Dollar Babies’: “Alice was downstairs and I was upstairs at Morgan Studios when he was doing ‘Billion Dollar Babies’, I had heard this track and he asked me to put a vocal on it and I said ‘Sure. But it’s so big and so bouncy and so loud, I think I’m going to have to get into a falsetto!’ No one believed it was me!”  

From: https://genius.com/Alice-cooper-billion-dollar-babies-lyrics

The Velvet Underground - I'm Waiting For The Man

 #The Velvet Underground #Lou Reed #John Cale #Nico #experimental rock #art rock #avant-garde #proto-punk #Andy Warhol

American rock band The Velvet Underground released "I'm Waiting for the Man" in 1967 on their debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico. Like many of the band's other songs, "I'm Waiting for the Man" focuses on the dark underbelly of life in New York City. The track, written by singer Lou Reed, tells the story of a man in New York traveling to Harlem to meet his drug dealer, who is never referred to as anything other than "the man" in the song. He brings $26 uptown, where he stops at a brownstone at the intersection of Lexington Avenue and 125th Street, which is currently the home of a 4/5/6 subway station. ("Up to Lexington, 1-2-5"). The Velvet Underground were one of the first groups to openly write songs about drug use and its catastrophic consequences (heroin, in the case of "I'm Waiting for the Man"). The accounts often came from the personal experiences of the band members.  From: https://www.musicbanter.com/lyrics/Velvet-Underground-I-m-Waiting-for-the-Man.html

Jethro Tull - A New Day Yesterday

 #Jethro Tull #Ian Anderson #progressive rock #folk rock #hard rock #blues rock #English folk rock #art rock #classic rock #progressive folk #1970s

Much of the Stand Up album is about Ian resenting the constant travel and work-load of being a rock star. This song talks about how he's constantly away from his new girlfriend (and future ex-wife), Jeanine.

"It was a new day yesterday but it's an old day now"

It was kind of thrilling not knowing when or how long the two would see each other, but now it's growing old and Ian just wants to be with his new love.

"Oh I had to leave today just when I thought I'd found you"

Even when the two are together, it's an all-too-brief moment as Ian has to go back on the road again.

From: https://songmeanings.com/songs/view/3530822107858514097

Jethro Tull (baptised 30 March 1674 – 21 February 1741) was an English agriculturist from Berkshire who helped to bring about the British Agricultural Revolution of the 18th century. He perfected a horse-drawn seed drill in 1701 that economically sowed the seeds in neat rows, and later developed a horse-drawn hoe. Tull's methods were adopted by many landowners and helped to provide the basis for modern agriculture. Influenced by the early Age of Enlightenment, he is considered to be one of the early proponents of a scientific – and especially empirical – approach to agriculture. He helped transform agricultural practices by inventing or improving numerous implements. Tull made early advances in planting crops with his invention of the seed drill – a mechanical seeder that sowed efficiently at the correct depth and spacing and then covered the seed so that it could grow. Before the introduction of the seed drill, the common practice was to plant seeds by broadcasting (evenly throwing) them across the ground by hand on the prepared soil and then lightly harrowing the soil to bury the seeds to the correct depth.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jethro_Tull_(agriculturist)

Bjork - Wanderlust

 #Bjork #art rock #avant-garde #experimental #electronica #alternative rock #glitch pop #psychedelia #trip-hop #neo-classical #singer-songwriter #ex-Sugarcubes #Icelandic #animated music video

Video production team Encyclopedia Pictura created the mind-boggling 3D video for Bjork's new single "Wanderlust".

Dazed Digital: What is Encyclopedia Pictura?
Isaiah Saxon: Right now Encyclopedia Pictura is Sean Hellfritsch and me, working together to make movies, often in collaboration with artists Daren Rabinovitch and Vanessa Waring. Soon it will be more people, working not just on movies, but on augmented reality applications and practical magic.

DD: How was it working with Bjork?
IS: Bjork is very tapped in. She assumed a position of support and generosity with us rather than a position of creative oversight. Her energy and focus were so strong that it pushed us to take this project on with a tremendous amount of mythological weight and tunnel vision enthusiasm.

DD: What's the basic concept of the video?
IS: Bjork is an archetypal nomad, shepherding giant yaks through the Mountains. She does hydromancy to decide whether to take them down a river or not. A second self, the Painbody Backpack, sprouts from her like a growth and then engages her in an action play which displays their relationship. The force which compelled Bjork to go down river begins to manifest itself in Bjork's head and in the physical world. This character, the Rivergod, is a transcendental attractor which pulls her into the future.

DD: How long did the video take to create? What was the hardest aspect?
IS: The video took nine months from concept art to us being pulled - kicking and screaming - from our computers. Sean had to become a 3D expert and build a 3D camera system and playback box and pioneer lots of DIY processes. For me the hardest aspect was trying to achieve an immersive, complete, and very specific aesthetic - because the only thing in the video that isn't hand crafted is bjork's face, hands, and feet. I used my own hands everyday but also worked with over 50 key artists to achieve the forms and textures of this world. We tried to lodge ideas into the forms and use the patterns and textures of these forms to transmit meaning to the viewer.

DD: What made you want to work with 3D in the age of YouTube?
IS: Well, firstly let me get out the news that 3D doesn't work on YouTube because of heavy color compression, which is what anaglyph 3D glasses rely on for decoding the 3D properly. A lot of people watch 3D on YouTube without knowing that they are actually looking at something that is way screwed up, or 'ghosted' in stereoscopic jargon. Secondly, why 3D? Because we see the ultimate transcendental function of art as "expanding the realms of direct experience." 3D allows a film to be more like direct experience and less detached and seperate from how we organically percieve. Right now technology is still trying to create better home viewing solutions (anaglyph sucks), but theatrically it’s already there. Because we are trying to touch people the best we can, we don't take into consideration the unfortunate current quality standards set by PooTube (or more accurately, the bandwidth limitations of today), but this will all be changing very soon.

From: https://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/296/1/creating-bjorks-wanderlust-video

XTC - Respectable Street

 #XTC #new wave #post-punk #progressive pop #art rock #pop rock #baroque pop #art punk #power pop #psychedelic pop #orchestral pop #1980s #1990s

The 1980 release Black Sea represents the last stand of the punchy, angular new wave that had won XTC strong critical and college radio support. Still arranging with an ear toward the stage they'd soon retire from, they continued working in the Drums and Wires style that had christened their previous release. Black Sea brims with XTC trademarks: engaging guitar hooks, cleverly rendered lyrics, and frenetic, creative melodicism. The material represents the pinnacle of XTC's early incarnation - a counterpoint to contemporary punk imbued with style, rhythmic punch, and melodic charm.  From: https://www.roughtrade.com/us/product/xtc/black-sea-1/vinyl-lp

Respectable Street

Andy Partridge: “Actually inspired by my neighbour who spends half her life banging on the wall should I so much as sneeze. Not knocking people who have ‘respectable’ ideals (I know I must have a few), more of a song of people with double or hypocritical values. You know the sort, blind drunk one night, church the next. Or the mother who urges her daughter to go out and have fun dear, isn't abortion wonderful. If their daughter got pregnant they would beat her senseless.”

Andy: “The BBC felt the lyrics on the song on Black Sea would upset people. They asked if I could rewrite it and, being a good boy, I did. Contraception became ‘child prevention’ and abortion became ‘absorption’. Still they wouldn't play it. Here's that old peoples, pre-chewed version.”

Andy: “The A&R man decided the BBC wouldn't play this with words like ‘abortion’ and ‘contraception’, so he took out all the words he didn't like. It wasn't a big hit, though, because the BBC still didn't play it. A couple of bands have covered it, and they always get the chords wrong. The second one's a seventh, formed from the E-string up. They always miss it.”
Dave Gregory: “It's not really a guitarist's chord, that one.”
Andy: “Nope, but it's a Partsy one.”

From: http://chalkhills.org/reelbyreal/s_RespectableStreet.html

Tool - Prison Sex

 #Tool #alternative metal #art rock #progressive metal #progressive rock #experimental rock #post-metal #animated music video #stop-motion

“When we got signed by Zoo Records in 1992, the most important thing for us was to have creative control,” Tool guitarist and art director Adam Jones emphasized in a 2008 interview. “We went, ‘OK, if we take less money can we have control of the music?’ And the label went, ‘Yeah, no problem!’ And we said, ‘If we take even less money can we have final say over the videos.’ And they went, ‘Sure.’” At the time, Adam was working in Hollywood on set design, make-up and special effects for big-budget movies, including Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Jurassic Park. He wanted to be able to use his movie-making acumen to create strange, imaginative clips that were more like short films than conventional music videos.
The stop-motion animation in the band’s weird and wonderful second video, Sober, turned many MTV viewers on to Tool, but it was the even more unsettling follow-up, Prison Sex, that truly showcased Adam’s cinematic skills. But the creation of the clip was far from effortless. When people from Zoo first saw the treatment, they asked Adam not to make another thematic stop-motion video, especially if it didn’t star the band members. “There was a lot of banging heads with the record company, because they still wanted to do things in the traditional way,” Adam said. “They’d go, ‘Well, if you’re not gonna be in your video, we’re not gonna pay for it.’ And we’d say, ‘What do you mean? We’re supposed to have creative control.’ It was typical, slimy shit, but in the end they gave in.”
Frontman Maynard James Keenan wrote Prison Sex about the tragic cycle of domestic abuse; people who are sexually molested when they’re young are far more likely to become abusers themselves later in life than those who were never abused. In the first verse, Maynard sings, ‘I’ve got my hands bound, and my head down and my eyes closed/And my throat’s wide open’, introducing the topic in no uncertain terms. In the lines after the bridge, the victim becomes the assailant: ‘I have found some kind of temporary sanity in this/Shit, blood, and cum on my hands/I’ve come round full circle.’
Adam, who directed the Prison Sex video, captured the menacing and horrific tone of Maynard’s lyrics by using dark visual metaphors about being physically and mentally dismantled and then abandoned. The clip contained no graphic violence or sex. Instead, the stop-motion animation used monstrous creatures, which wouldn’t be out of place in a Tim Burton film, to convey manipulation, confinement, abuse and hopelessness. The Prison Sex video features a sinuous, sadistic female black leather creature that taunts, terrorizes and maims a legless marble robot she keeps in a cement drawer. At one point in the video, the robot sees a wasp buzzing around and traps it in a bottle, suggesting that he, too, is now capable of cruelty.  From: https://www.loudersound.com/features/tool-prison-sex-story-behind-song 

Patti Smith - Frederick

 #Patti Smith #art punk #proto-punk #art rock #hard rock #new wave #alternative rock #singer-songwriter #1970s

Punk rock's poet laureate Patti Smith ranks among the most ambitious, unconventional, and challenging rock & rollers of all time. When she emerged in the '70s, Smith's music was hailed as the most exciting fusion of rock and poetry since Bob Dylan's heyday. With her androgynous, visual presentation echoing her unabashedly intellectual and uncompromising songwriting, Smith followed her muse wherever it took her, from structured rock songs to free-form experimentalism. Her most avant-garde outings, such as 1975's Horses and the following year's Radio Ethiopia, borrowed improvisation and interplay from free jazz, but remained firmly rooted in primal three-chord rock & roll. A regular at CBGB's during New York punk's early days, the artiness and the raw musicianship of her work had a major impact on the movement among contemporaries and followers alike. As boundary-pushing as her music could be, Smith nevertheless scored a hit in the Bruce Springsteen collaboration "Because the Night" from 1978's Easter, which, like 1979's Wave, offered a slightly more polished version of her sound. When she returned to music following a lengthy hiatus and the death of her husband, Fred "Sonic" Smith, her work was sometimes subtler and more meditative, as on 1996's Gone Again, but rock was still a fiery, vital part of albums like 2000's Gung Ho and 2012's Banga.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/patti-smith-mn0000747445/biography

By 1979, Patti Smith was in a relationship with Fred “Sonic” Smith of Detroit garage rock legends The MC5, and “Frederick” is one of the most beautifully pure love songs of its era; a sense of euphoric joy leaping from the speakers set to a classic rock melody that clings to the memory magnetically. It’s so vivid, the fact that Smith turned her back on music for a decade afterwards, choosing blissful domesticity and motherhood over life on the road, should have come as no surprise.  From: https://www.loudersound.com/features/patti-smith-every-album-ranked-from-worst-to-best  

Guerilla Toss - Dose Rate

#Guerilla Toss #neo-psychedelia #art rock #noise rock #experimental rock #space rock #indie rock #electronic #no wave #post-rock #music video

GT Ultra is the second full length album by Guerilla Toss on DFA Records. The album demonstrates a remarkable shift in sound, musicianship and songwriting, without ever giving up the unhinged quality that made their earlier recordings so exciting. The album title GT Ultra is a clever nod to ‘Project MK Ultra’, the government sponsored experiments using new experimental drugs to explore mind control, torture and forced confessions, often with LSD as their drug of choice. These tests lasted from the mid 1950’s-1960’s, but with a new administration in the white house, government sponsored torture is fresh again on many minds. The songs on the album ricochet back and forth between hyper bouncy pop and deeper darker longer, more nuanced tracks. Peter Negroponte’s drumming, always a major highlight for the band, are in full force once again, this time bringing a Nassau/Compass Point feel to many tracks, like the classic recordings of Grace Jones and Talking Heads.  Kassie Carlson’s vocals and lyrics are both more personal and more cryptic than ever. But you can hear every word this time, and there is a lyric sheet. As preferred, the meaning is within the listener. It is a dream state record for sure, meant to take you along on a similar vibe that the band has been tripping on these past few years, filled with an insistence to “hydrate, gyrate, think straight, no weight”, all the while under the influence of golden beams of orange sunshine, glimmering glitter and kaleidoscopic bursts. It is no mistake the album is wrapped in vintage blotter acid, created by legendary LSD archivist and artist Mark McCloud and The Institute of Illegal Images, based out of San Francisco.  From: https://guerillatoss.bandcamp.com/album/gt-ultra

Queen Adreena - Suck

 #Queen Adrena #Katie Jane Garside #alternative rock #noise rock #indie rock #art rock #punk metal #gothic rock

Queen Adreena’s music is clearly unwholesome and conveys a feeling of gruesome schizophrenia. In my review of their excellent previous album entitled Drink me, I depicted the ex-Daisy Chainsaw’s music as, let me quote myself and have a swollen head, “on the one hand, urgent, noisy, fast and visceral punk songs in which Katie Jane Garside yells, shrieks and gives the impression of scarcely waking up from a terrible nightmare; and on the other hand, slow, poisonous atmospheric songs in which KJG’s unhealthy voice spreads its wings of depression. If you’ve never heard her voice, try to imagine Bjork performing ‘Army of Me’ completely stoned and trying to imitate Lydia Lunch. Add a punctual raucous tone due to helium inhaling and alcohol abuse,and you might have an idea of what her voice sounds like.”
What else other than drug addiction, unstable re-habs, alcohol abuse, and twisted minds can have possibly led Crispin Gray and Katie Jane Garside to play such a dubious music which really epitomize schizophrenia? When she stops yelling, shrieking and venting her rage or madness upon the listener, when she whispers or pants or just sings, KJ Garside’s changing child-like voice offers insane deliveries which, backed up by cryptic lyrics, sound like little girls’ nightmares (‘Pull Me Under’, ‘Join The Dots’, ‘Childproof’). There is certainly a child related theme in the lyrics but I do not dare analyse it, lest I become completely mad.  From: http://onlyangels.free.fr/reviews/q/queen_adreena/the_butcher_and_the_butterfly.htm

Grace Jones - Corporate Cannibal

 #Grace Jones #R&B #new wave #art rock #electronic #industrial #post-punk #post-disco #actress #performance artist #Jamaican #music video

The Corporate Cannibal video is in black and white, and the only images that appear on the screen are those of Grace Jones’ face and upper body, black against a white background. But Jones’ figure is subject to all sorts of electronic distortions. The most common effect is one of elongation: her face is stretched upwards, as if she had an impossibly long forehead, as if her notorious late-80s flattop haircut had somehow expanded beyond all dimensions. Or else, her entire body in silhouette is thinned out, gracile (if that isn’t too much of a pun), and almost insectoid. The image also bends and fractures: her mouth stretches alarmingly, her eyes bulge out and expand across the screen like some sort of toxic stain. And sometimes Jones’ figure multiplies into two or three distorted, and imperfectly separated, clones. Nothing remains steady for more than a few seconds; the screen is continually morphing, and everything is so stylized and disrupted that we don’t get a very good sense of what Jones actually looks like today. Her facial features remain somewhat recognizable — Grace Jones has never looked like anyone else - and at a few moments, we get a brief almost undistorted close-up of her eyes, nose, and mouth - but there is something monstrous as well about this individuated “faciality”; and in any case it is gone almost before we have had the time to take it in.  From: http://www.shaviro.com/Blog/?p=653

The Mars Volta - Take The Veil Cerpin Taxt

#The Mars Volta #progressive rock #experimental rock #psychedelic rock #jazz rock #math rock #art rock #post-hardcore

When Mars Volta member Jeremy Ward died shortly before the release of their debut album, some heartlessly snickered about the relevance of a "sound manipulator" passing on. After all, it's not like the guy was playing a guitar or bass, right? But after forging numerous times through the dense De-Loused in the Comatorium, the severity of the loss screams blatantly; The Mars Volta focus most of their energy on sound manipulation. Watery vocals, phased synths, reverbed guitars, reversed bongos, and countless other dub twiddlings drench each busy, triathlon-long song. Ward is the second person close to The Mars Volta who has died. Julio Venegas, a close friend of the band's, committed suicide in 1996, and as the media has repeatedly pointed out, De-Loused in the Comatorium is supposed to be a chronicle of his life and death. This is a monumental case of the media blindly reviewing off their press kits - there's absolutely no way of gleaning this story/idea/topic/concept/whatever in the hilariously awful, sub-Burroughs, refrigerator-magnet montage of dark PSAT words that make up this album. The song titles - “Drunkship of Lanterns", "Televators", "Take the Veil Cerpin Taxt" - merely hint at Comatorium's purblind "poetry." Follow Venegas' footsteps as he makes his "ritual contrition asphyxiation half mast commute through umbilical blisters and boxcar cadavers!" Weep while he's "rowing shit smells for the dead"* before the "pinkeye fountain"* and "three half-eaten corneas!" At least I think that's what happened. The only sensible summation of Venegas' demise seems to be that he proclaimed, "Now I'm lost," then "searched" for "something" for a "long time," then cried "Is anybody there," and finally "took" the ol' "veil cerpin taxt." Huh. Reprinting these lyrics in the liner notes might have helped to clarify the story, but that could as easily have ruined the experience - dissecting the cryptic babble is half (or more) of the fun. These lyrics, like At the Drive In's before them, are pure stream-of-consciousness.  From: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/5117-de-loused-in-the-comatorium/

The Claypool Lennon Delirium - Cricket and the Genie

#The Claypool Lennon Delirium #Les Claypool #Sean Lennon #psychedelic rock #art rock #experimental rock #progressive rock #alternative rock #neo-psychedelia #ex-Primus #ex-The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger

Two worlds have collided, and what glorious and odd worlds they are. After a successful summer tour, pairing Primus with Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger, the two bandleaders, Les Claypool and Sean Lennon, have decided to combine their abstract talents into a project called The Claypool Lennon Delirium. “Sean is a musical mutant after my own heart,” said Claypool. “He definitely reflects his genetics - not just the sensibilities of his dad but also the abstract perspective and unique approach of his mother. It makes for a glorious freak stew.” After some impromptu, backstage jams and an epic live sit-in on Primus’s psychedelic opus, “Southbound Pachyderm,” Claypool approached Lennon about doing a recording project. “I was trying to wrangle up an Oysterhead reunion since Primus was taking a rest for 2016 but the planets just wouldn’t align for that,” said Claypool. “I don’t like sitting around, so when Sean said he didn’t have plans for this next year, we started kicking around the notion of making an old-school, psychedelic/prog record. Next thing I know, he’s staying in my guesthouse, drinking my vino and banging on my drums.” Lennon responded, “I told Les that I was Neil Diamond’s nephew. I think that is what really sold him on the idea of working with me.” Over the course of six weeks or so, the two wrote and recorded a total of ten songs with both of them sharing various vocal and instrumental responsibilities, going beyond their core instruments of bass and guitar. Claypool explained, “Usually I play the drums and percussion on my records but Sean has such a different feel than I do, it just made more sense for him to man the kit on most of the tunes on this project. I took the helm at my old vintage API console and let him bang away. He was happy as a piggy rolling in shit every time he grabbed the sticks. His drumming is like a cross between Ringo and Nick Mason. But I think folks will be most surprised by what a monster guitar player he is, especially when you prod him a bit.”  From: http://theclaypoollennondelirium.com/

Muse - Feeling Good

#Muse #alternative rock #progressive rock #space rock #hard rock #art rock #electronic rock #alternative metal #The Roar of the Greasepaint-The Smell of the Crowd

Songwriter Leslie Bricusse died in October 2021 at the age of 90. Bricusse was responsible for some of the most memorable songs of the 20th Century. He wrote the lyrics to the James Bond themes Goldfinger and You Only Live Twice, composed Talk To The Animals from the musical Dr. Doolittle and with his frequent collaborator Anthony Newley, wrote the song Pure Imagination from Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory. With Newley, the songwriter was also responsible for one of Muse's most memorable tracks - Feeling Good. The band recorded a version of the song for their 2001 album Origin Of Symmetry and it’s gone on to be a rock classic. But it almost didn’t happen, as Matt Bellamy has revealed.
“We didn’t do any covers at all,” he said. “We’d all been in covers bands when we were younger, so we wanted to do our own music.” However, the version of Feeling Good by Nina Simone caught Bellamy’s ear. “My girlfriend at the time,” he recalls, “her favourite artist was Nina Simone, and she was listening to it all the time. I kept hearing that song Feeling Good and I just thought, with Chris’s distorted bass line, that could be really good.” The track was chosen as the penultimate track on Origin Of Symmetry, and was considered strong enough to form a double A-sided single with Hyper Music in November 2001.
But Nina Simone wasn’t the first artist to record Feeling Good. In fact, it’s a show-stopping number from a Broadway musical. Feeling Good was written by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse for their 1964 production The Roar Of The Greasepaint-The Smell Of The Crowd, which opened in Nottingham in the summer of 1964 and transferred to Broadway in 1965. Newley was an interesting character, having been a pop singer and actor and a huge influence on a young David Bowie. The Roar Of The Greasepaint-The Smell Of The Crowd is a strange piece: the main characters are “Sir” and “Cocky”. Sir is taking Cocky through the Game of Life, but the younger, less inexperienced man always comes a cropper.
The musical had a hit with Tony Bennett’s take on Who Can I Turn To and the barn-storming number The Joker later became known as the theme tune to the Aussie TV comedy Kath & Kim. One of the key moments come when the two are arguing over the rules of “The Game” and a new character, a black man, steps forward and wins the game behind their backs. He sings Feeling Good as an expression of triumph over the oppression of the other characters. The song was first performed by actor Cy Grant and then by Gilbert Price in the Broadway run. In the hands of jazz singer and civil rights activist Nina Simone, Feeling Good became a powerful anthem for the times. Simone recorded the track for her album I Put A Spell On You in June 1965, and the version became for many the definitive reading of the song, that is, until Muse came along.  From: https://www.radiox.co.uk/artists/muse/why-did-muse-cover-feeling-good/