The Doors - The End - Live at The Rock Scene Like It Is 1967

“The End” served as the finale for many of The Doors' most notable concerts. The lyrics are a combination of different variations sung during jam-style performances over several months at the Whiskey A Go Go nightclub in Los Angeles in 1966.
The song was famously used in the iconic opening scene of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 film Apocalypse Now, with images of the Vietnam War to the cinematic battle towards the end of the movie between Willard (Martin Sheen’s character) and Kurtz (Marlon Brando’s character).
In a 1969 interview with Rolling Stone, Morrison said the song means something different every time he listened to it: It started out as a simple good-bye song… Probably just to a girl, but I see how it could be a goodbye to a kind of childhood. I really don’t know. I think it’s sufficiently complex and universal in its imagery that it could be almost anything you want it to be.
Several musical influences are apparent in Robby Krieger’s composition of this song, including Chopin’s “Funeral March.”

Sometimes the pain is too much to examine, or even tolerate… That doesn’t make it evil, though – or necessarily dangerous. But people fear death even more than pain. It’s strange that they fear death. Life hurts a lot more than death. At the point of death, the pain is over. Yeah – I guess it is a friend…
Jim Morrison

He was giving voice in a rock ‘n’ roll setting to the Oedipus complex, at the time a widely discussed tendency in Freudian psychology. He wasn’t saying he wanted to do that to his own mom and dad. He was re-enacting a bit of Greek drama. It was theatre!
Ray Manzarek

A “Roman wilderness of pain” is a metaphor to describe situations that one struggles to overcome, or a bad experience that has to be dealt with. Morrison was heavily influenced by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who argued that over coming difficulty and dealing with struggles makes a person stronger and better.

This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end

Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I'll never look into your eyes again

Can you picture what will be?
So limitless and free
Desperately in need
Of some stranger's hand
In a desperate land

Lost in a Roman wilderness of pain
And all the children are insane
All the children are insane
Waiting for the summer rain

There's danger on the edge of town
Ride the King's Highway
Weird scenes inside the gold mine
Ride the highway west
Ride the snake, ride the snake
To the lake, the ancient lake
The snake, he's long, seven miles
Ride the snake
He's old and his skin is cold
The west is the best
Get here and we'll do the rest
The blue bus is calling us
Driver, where you taking us?

The killer awoke before dawn
He put his boots on
He took a face from the ancient gallery
And he walked on down the hall
He went into the room where his sister lived, and then he
Paid a visit to his brother, and then he
He walked on down the hall
And he came to a door
And he looked inside
"Father?" "Yes, son?" "I want to kill you"
"Mother? I want to..."

Come on baby, take a chance with us
And meet me at the back of the blue bus
Doin' a blue rug, on a blue bus

Come on yeah
Fuck, fuck, fuck yeah!
Come on baby, come on
Fuck me baby, fuck yeah
Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill

This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end

It hurts to set you free
But you'll never follow me
The end of laughter and soft lies
The end of nights we tried to die
This is the end

From: https://genius.com/The-doors-the-end-lyrics

Puscifer - A Singularity (Re-Imagined by Carina Round)

 Puscifer have now rolled out a fourth music video for the Carina Round reimagining of their track “A Singularity“. The alternative rock outfit, who are fronted by Tool/A Perfect Circle vocalist Maynard James Keenan, wound up with multiple videos for that reworked version of the song.
This latest clip was helmed by actor Yul Vazquez. Puscifer commented of his take: “Many of you know Yul Vazquez from one of his numerous TV roles (Severance, The Outsider, Russian Doll, etc.) but he’s also a talented photographer and painter. Yul lent his talents to our series of “A Singularity (Re-Imagined by Carina Round)” videos.
‘As an actor I have the opportunity to travel to incredible places and witness beautiful and often lonely things. I do my best to photograph these moments, the architecture, the shadow and light. I used some of this footage I’ve photographed all over the world for this track. But when Maynard revealed to me the source of these lyrics it altered the edit. The song now had far more emotional impact on me which sent me on my own journey and prompted me to include some very personal footage. It’s my contribution to a song about loss.'”
Further videos done by Odin Wadleigh and Keenan‘s daughter Lei Li are also lined up for this track. The song itself serves as a tribute to Keenan‘s late dog MiHo, with the man himself having previously stated: “On Oct. 7, 2021, I lost my Muse. Deadly Little MiHo lost her 2 year battle with pancreatitis and kidney disease. We thought we lost her in late 2019, so I panicked and wrote her this song. We were certain she was done for. But we were blessed with a second chance and a bit more time. I rarely share things like this. Too painful. But this one can’t be kept bottled up. As I have mentioned before, she has been hiding in most of my vocal tracks since 2005. She was either in or near the vocal booth every time I tracked. Her sigh, her bark, sniffle, sneeze. Her jingling collar. Her squeaky toys. Usually poorly timed.  From: https://www.theprp.com/2023/02/12/news/puscifer-release-fourth-music-video-for-carina-rounds-a-singularity-remix/

Carina Round: Maynard’s vocal for this song is synonymously a sorrowful hymn and a siren of celebration. I wanted the main vocal and the bass and drums to be anchors in a sea of jubilant chaos. A kind of controlled cacophony of celebratory joy. Familiar, but a bit unnerving. Even Carla’s groove, so meticulous and powerful, sounds like it could derail into a delightful nervous breakdown at any point. The horns and saxes at the end are all moving together but somehow so loose, dispersing off into foam and then coming back together into one harmonious wave and then breaking off again, cascading. I feel excited when it’s over and like I want to get back on the ride. Birds, a charm of finches bookend the song. You can feel their energy. And within, there’s Maynard’s lone whistle, mimicking them. The one who keeps them alive and in turn draws his own life force. The synergy of composure and chaos in a dance reverence.  From: https://genius.com/Puscifer-a-singularity-re-imagined-by-carina-round-lyrics  

Ramona Falls - I Say Fever

Ramona Falls is beautiful. Seriously, check it out on Google Earth some time. A multi-tiered waterfall in a dark glen on the slopes of Mount Hood in Oregon, it's one of those endlessly photographable landforms that makes you want to be there any time you see a shot of it. As a sort of shorthand for the natural majesty of the Pacific Northwest, the name works well for Portland's Ramona Falls, aka Brent Knopf of Menomena and a huge cast of his friends. In fact, of the various Menomena side projects, this is the one that most matches that band in terms of both sound and quality, paying meticulous attention to sonic and compositional details to emerge with a record full of memorable surprises.
Sometimes it's just an unexpected element that mails a song all the way home, like the impromptu choir that suddenly emerges from the acoustic guitar and spaciously recorded drums of "Bellyfulla" or the unbelievably gorgeous violin part that shines like a vibrant light from the center of "Russia". The violin melody interacts with the chord sequence to grow more aching by the second and turns a decent song into one you can't forget. Knopf is piano player and programmer for Menomena, and he comes up with some wild stuff here, especially on "Always Right", where he sticks you with these bizarre, stuttering phrases for the odd-metered verses. It's offset by big choruses and a strange Eastern European-ish bridge with a carnivalesque atmosphere. More simple is "Boy Ant", a short piano instrumental with a sense of melody derived more from traditional European songs like "Edelweiss" than anything in contemporary pop sphere.
Any Menomena fan will recognize Knopf's voice, which is a delicate instrument-- it's not rangy, but he knows his capabilities and uses them. He gives himself a bit of electronic assistance on "I Say Fever", falling down a processing rabbit hole on the title refrain, which precipitates a sudden downpour of heavy guitar. Sleater-Kinney's Janet Weiss provides the song's pounding rhythmic floor, but Knopf's own piano gives it its funky stride. Knopf's solo songs share with Menomena an ear for contrast--"Going Once, Going Twice" swings between easy-flowing passages and lurching sections that build tension for the next rhythmic release.
Intuit, a word that nicely serves as a homophone for "Into It", works as a title for the album because it so neatly seems to describe the writing process-- very few of the odd shifts and unexpected turns in the songs sound contrived or forced. Down to the cover art, it feels like a strong echo of everything great about Knopf's primary band. There are no cut-outs or flipbooks, but Theo Ellsworth's elaborate, grotesque illustrations are worth taking in-- they're like a combination of Where the Wild Things Are, a fever dream, a pagan woodland ceremony, and a notebook doodle. The music is worth taking in, too, over and over again.  From: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/13418-intuit/

Ghost Funk Orchestra - Eyes Of Love

 

 

Ghost Funk Orchestra is a retro-toned combo whose layered sound traverses a number of different styles including psychedelia, jazz, soul, R&B, and exotica. The band emerged from New York in the late 2010s under the leadership of producer/arranger Seth Applebaum. Initially an experimental recording project, Applebaum slowly built his endeavor into a dynamic live group supporting a series of small releases before making their label debut with 2019's A Song for Paul. With 2022's A New Kind of Love and 2024's A Trip to the Moon, their sound grew to include orchestral pop, lounge, and surf.
Known for his work with bands like the Mad Doctors and Mom Jeans, Applebaum started Ghost Funk Orchestra as a personal side project, alternately playing all of the instruments himself and borrowing musicians from various New York bands to capture the gritty, heavily reverbed mood-funk of early releases like 2014's The Haunt and 2016's Night Walker. The project grew into a live band the following year with a series of shows in New York and the vibey, self-released Something Evil. By this point, their sound had evolved to include a series of female vocalists and a horn section.
After signing with Colemine Records' Karma Chief imprint, Ghost Funk Orchestra made their full-length label debut with 2019's A Song for Paul. The group's next album, An Ode to Escapism, arrived in November 2020 and featured guest appearances by Julian Applebaum, Kam Franklin, and Sean Pastorok. On their cinematic third LP, 2022's A New Kind of Love, Applebaum steered the band's sound toward mid-century exotica and classic orchestral pop. From there, the Ghost Funk Orchestra's pastiche grew to include film music, surf, and dense, '70s-inspired funk on their deeply layered 2024 release A Trip to the Moon.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/ghost-funk-orchestra-mn0003776450#discography

School of Seven Bells - The Night

Like many bands before them, School of Seven Bells were born as the result of a late-night revelation. Benjamin Curtis connected with sisters Alejandra and Claudia Deheza in 2004 while their bands--Secret Machines and on!air!library!, respectively--were on tour. While watching PBS at 3am, Alejandra caught a show about the School of Seven Bells: a mythical South American pickpocket academy that may or may not have existed in the '80s. The idea of seven minds working as one appealed to her, as did the phrase's cryptic musicality, and a creative spark ignited.
By the end of 2006, Curtis and the Deheza sisters had completely disappeared into School of Seven Bells. From the outset, it was clear that the trio's music transcended the usual genre restrictions. Early recordings popped up on Sonic Cathedral, Table of Elements, and Suicide Squeeze, then Blonde Redhead tapped School of Seven Bells for a tour. Remixes came from Cocteau Twins' Robin Guthrie and Prefuse 73, whose "Class of 73 Bells," a re-imagining of SVIIB's "Iamundernodisguise," ended up on his 2007 album Preparations (Warp).
School of Seven Bells' music is full of tensions--Curtis' gentle guitars wrap around jagged beats; silky vocals hide behind grumpy, alien synthesizers--but the resulting songs are effortlessly cohesive, and insidiously catchy. Elements of dream-pop, Afrobeat, IDM, and 4AD's gauzier moments provide a constantly shifting frame for the Dehezas' lyrics, which they write as mysterious missives between the School's imaginary seven members. On their Ghostly debut, Alpinisms, we get the impression that the three seasoned musicians have taken up full-time residence in a dizzying fantasy world; they move freely within the realm of pickpockets and dreamers, composing a soundtrack according to their own odd, beautiful logic.  From: https://ghostly.com/artists/school-of-seven-bells

Strawbs - Queen Of Dreams

 

The departure of Rick Wakeman didn't stop the Strawbs from fully embracing a sort of "symphonic folk" song, but it did shake the band's confidence - especially band leader Dave Cousins, whose feelings of betrayal at the time leak out in the lyrics to Tomorrow on here. Depressed by this turn of events, Cousins turned to the rest of the band members for songwriting support, but the end product is both extremely consistent and, what's more, conceptually cohesive, the album tracing the journey of an everyman protagonist from cradle to grave. Blue Weaver's keyboard style is less prone to showboating than Wakeman's, but arguably that's what was needed at this juncture - someone to provide keyboard textures whilst the other band members demonstrate their instrumental and vocal chops. The band absolutely needed to prove that there was more to them than Wakeman's technical virtuosity - some sectors of the music press thought that Wakeman leaving would spell the end of the band, which in retrospect seems crazy but considering what a major presence he was on From the Witchwood does kind of make sense. The group step up to the challenge admirably, play their hearts out, and sing beautifully - the harmonies on opening track Benedictus are simply divine. With a heavier dose of acoustic guitar than most prog bands of the time (aside from Jethro Tull), and a new willingness to get experimental - there's some really *strange* instrumental tracks on Queen of Dreams, Grave New World sees the band perfecting their own model of progressive music which is uniquely theirs. It might not be as complex as their competitors, but it's certainly powerful and emotionally moving - as on the best song on the disc, the harsh and biting New World. This album is the first real Strawbs classic.
It had been just during the promotion tour of their From The Witchwood album when Rick Wakeman decided to leave the band for joining Yes (which was understandable considering his big talents) actually without saying any word of farewell to them (which hadn't been that nice though). As if the remaining band members wanted to supply evidence that they can do very well without (not yet by then) keyboard wizard Rick they created their most ambitious (and arguably best) effort, the album here in review "Grave New World". It's a concept work reflecting the story of one man's life, from the cradle to the grave. The title is most obviously a hint to Aldous Huxley's famous novel and the fantastic cover art depicts William Blake's "Glad Day" painting. As Dave Cousins points out in the leaflet notes, Tony Visconti, who had produced their live album, was beginning to have an increasing influence on the band during onset of this record. Let me cite here his own words: "He was into martial arts, and encouraged me to read 'The Tibetan Book Of The Dead'. I even managed 'The Egyptian Book Of The Dead' - hence the quotes on the sleeve!" He also says there, that people were beginning to write the band off after Wakeman's demise but I think this album here had been the best prove that the Strawbs were still a great band. The opening track "Benedictus" being written when Wakeman left the band sets the tone for the whole album with its devotional and contemplative sound. Derek "Blue" Weaver took over the empty keyboard stool and he did an excellent job here I've to say. Cousins tells a mysterious story in the leaflet notes about how he came upon the words for the lyrics. He played the solo on his electric dulcimer with a steel through a fuzz box, and there are also two guest vocalists, Trevor Lucas and Anne Collins added here. After the short acoustic interlude "Hey Little Man" which supposed to tell the story about an older man giving advice to his young son, who probably didn't listen we have "Queen Of Dreams" which is the most experimental song they've ever done I'm quite sure. They used a play back in reverse of a recording of the guitar and first verse of the song for this track which provides a quite interesting psychedelic touch. Then there is "Heavy Disguise" written by John Ford and as well performed by him with a brass section played by the Robert Kirby Silver Band giving this track a nice special note. The rather bombastic but brilliant mellotron-laden "New World" is the next one and Dave Cousins tells about its creation that it had been written after he had seen a tv report about young kids in Belfast being asked to paint pictures in their art lessons, and many of them had painted soldiers lying dead in the gutter; what else to tell about such type of inspiration? After the nice acoustic folk song "The Flower,” comes the next big highlight on here with "Tomorrow" with a really great symphonic sound. The next two tracks are early songs from them of which the first one "On Growing Older" still fits quite well though sounding rather Byrds-alike (one of Cousins' big favs) whereas the pastiche to a very old English song "Ah Me, Ah My" sounds to me quite awkward and inappropriate. But the latter one is really the only redundant song of this album since the Eastern inspired "Is It Today,Lord?" with Richard Hudson on sitar and as well the final "The Journey's End" are very good tracks.

From: https://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=2897

Pizzicato Five - Sweet Soul Review

 “Imagine every great record you’ve ever heard stuck in a blender overlaid with the most experimental heavy metal guitar you’ve never heard combined with the most outstanding montage of video clips you can’t imagine plus super-adorable camp fashions, all synthesized through a demented Japanese consumerist impression of America. Then try to imagine something better than that...” These are some of the words I wrote nearly 20 years ago about Pizzicato Five’s San Francisco stop on the Tokyo-based group’s first US/European tour. Even looking back today, I still think about my initial 1995 encounter with P5 as one of the most startling, fully realized concerts I’ve ever experienced, and their records remain among my most beloved.
Pizzicato Five were many things, but never ordinary. They’d started in the mid-’80s as an easy listening quintet, switched vocalists to favor smooth plastic soul, discovered samplers around the time their third (and defining) singer Maki Nomiya arrived in 1990, then morphed into a dance/pop-art/retro-futurist act that pulled from just about every musical genre and aesthetic movement since the mid-20th century. By the time leading American indie rock label Matador Records introduced them internationally with the 1994 samplers Five by Five and Made in USA, P5 was only two, the absurdly productive songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/producer Yasuharu Konishi the sole original member. When the act called it quits in 2001, Pizzicato Five had released 14 studio albums, at least that number of compilations, about as many EPs, and every kind of single conceivable.
When popular music was at its bleakest and most monochromatic, Pizzicato Five were neon-hued and eclectic. Their international arrival occurred between the sudden deaths of Kurt Cobain and Tupac Shakur, figureheads of the grunge and gangsta rap that defined American music in the ’90s. Even house music – severed by this point from its gay and black roots – was straighter, whiter, less melodic, and more formulaic. The resulting electronica was hailed as “the new rock” while Britpop reintroduced previously retired orthodoxies. Although the ’90s featured more successful women rockers than any other decade, the era’s sensibility remained traditionally male – loud, brash, barbaric. Even the guitars were often downtuned to sound more ominous and growling. Juxtaposed against the furious flannel-clad sasquatches of the Pacific Northwest, P5’s worldly, feminine lightheartedness was even more refreshing than it would be today. “I don’t like dark, brooding music – I don’t understand the purpose of it,” Konishi mused during a 1996 interview I conducted with the pair that went unpublished until now. Intrigued by my concert review, the band merely wanted to meet the American critic who they felt understood them. “I don’t think music should reflect reality. I think music should be more of a magical entity, something that lets you escape from reality.”
P5 found inspiration in both the sunniest and most radical qualities of the ’60s. “I have three superstars: Godard, Warhol, and Maki,” Konishi told Puncture. As P5’s vocalist, Maki was unrelentingly cheery and extraordinarily composed, as if she were biologically incapable of striking an unflattering pose or emitting a wayward note. A professional model before, during, and after her P5 reign, Nomiya was rail-thin like the face of ’60s Swinging London, Twiggy: Pizzicato Five’s most internationally popular song, “Twiggy Twiggy/Twiggy vs. James Bond” was a souped up 1991 remake of a track on her 1981 solo album that streamlined and simplified its source material with a caffeinated, sample-invigorated arrangement that would serve as the prototype for most P5 to come.
Like early Warhol superstars Baby Jane Holzer and Edie Sedgwick, Nomiya exuded larger-than-life glamour: In the mode of subsequent Factory graduates like Mary Woronov, she was a beautiful woman presenting herself like a drag queen imitating a faded Hollywood starlet. Her favored fabrics were vintage and synthetic; her wigs even more fake. In the video to “Sweet Soul Revue”, she struck moves like Jagger while radiating the poise of Hepburn before morphing into a Pan Am-esque flight attendant.
Even more than the early De La Soul and Deee-Lite records that almost certainly provoked their initial Maki-era shift, P5 were vigorously post-modern: A Pizzicato jam might feature astoundingly accurate pastiches of the vocal and orchestral arrangements from baroque pop acts like the Fifth Dimension and the Left Banke, discothèque breakbeats played live and continuously at double time, and hip-hop production techniques that recall Godard’s jump cuts. Occasionally the guitar got harsh, but sophisticatedly so: Bravo Komatsu – the guitarist who temporarily replaced founding member Keitarō Takanami on the 1995 tour – could wail on his instrument while flaunting enviable chops: Check out the virtuoso surf-metal spew he shoots over prerecorded “Twiggy Twiggy” tracks while Konishi dances the Frug on UK music show The Word.  From: https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2014/11/pizzicato-five-feature