I'm a plebeian ! (aka, the Tuesday listening thread)

[tentoze]

Another toonful week for me:

New to me stuff-

Jesse Sykes and Sweet Hereafter, Oh, My Girl. Super gothic Americana and that guitar player is amazing. Everyone should be listening.

Also, John Kay, Heretics and Privateers. To be honest, I thought Kay had long been relegated to the oldies tours, so when I heard about this one, I figgered what the heck- this is a good, if not great, album. Surprisingly tasty National resonator guitar blues throughout with socially topical lyrics. His voice has dropped a notch or two.

Concrete Blonde best of from Davey that I really like a lot. Another one of those zillions of great bands that I missed the 1st time through. HAven't gotten to the Walkabouts or the 1/2 gone comp yet, but I should have some listeneing time on the wk-end.

Also received a package from Stone this AM that I'm also looking forward to very much. Thanks, Stone- yrs is burned and just needs to get to the P.O. as soon as I can catch my breath.

And a small vinyl haul on Saturday that I was happy with:

Jethro Tull, Benefit

Jean-Luc Ponty, Imaginary Voyage

The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem In Concert

Eliza Gilkyson, Pilgrims- saw her on Austin City Limits several months ago and liked her voice.

Greatest Folk Singers of The Sixties- double album on Vanguard with too many to list- Ian & Sylvia, Doc Watson, Ramblin' Jack, Country Joe, Phil Ochs, John Hammond, etc, etc.

Phillip Glass, Songs From Liquid Days- with lyrics by Paul Simon, David Byrne, etc; vocals by Linda Ronstadt, The Roches.

Ry Cooder, Paradise and Lunch

Chuck Mangione, Children of Sanchez

All for now.

[Troy]

I played Booker T and the MGs "Melting Pot" about 12 times last week. Just a great, great, but very short album. "Chicken Pox" rocks.

Bozzio-Levin-Stevens- "Black Light Syndrome" is just amazing. To think it's all improvised just makes my head spin. I wish these guys would do a 3rd album.

Jordan Rudess "Feeding the Wheel" is an instrumental progmetal album that is mostly keyboard based. Some great meoments.

RPWL- "Trying to kiss the Sun". Not as good as "Stock", but still very enjoyable Pink Floyd style space pop.

Peter Gabriel 3 (melt). New wave art-rock. 5 stars.

Thomas Dolby "Golden Age of the Wireless". Dated as hell, but still, a pleasant listening experience. It's like every song off this thing was a single.

King Crimson "Thrak" is about as dense as I care to get. A very different album that came out of left field when it was released in the mid-90s. Groundbreaking spacejazz-metal.

Porcupine Tree "Stupid Dream" is this band at their most accessible.

Mike Keneally's "Dog". I have to say, that is exactly what it is. A Dog. Undisciplined (or seemingly so), shrill and ugly. Too much guitar density. Not enough melodic songcraft. But what's really missing for me is JOY. All his other albums are filled with this playfull exuberance and that utter "We are having the BEST time making this" vibe that is totally absent from this album. It feels labored and forced. Easily, the biggest disappointment in CD buying for me in YEARS.

[MasterCylinder]

Funny........right now I'm listening to DEMETRIO'S PROG COVERS - Vol. 4.

For the past week, I've also checked out these classics.................

Hackett -- Tokyo Tapes DVD
Heart -- Live DVD 2002, Seattle
Troy -- Poly Prog
Troy -- The Van Allen Belt
IQ -- Ever
IQ -- SubT
Porky Tree -- Stupid Dream
Satriani -- Surfing with the Alien

In addition, my new masterpiece, "ECONOBLIND".........I have heard various takes of this in the studio during the last few weeks.......it is getting to be redundant. I need to get the lead guitar tracks put down and then I will distribute to all.

Regards,
MC

[Stone]

A.C. Newman - The Slow Wonder
Man, I like this album. Catchy, well done pop. I'll be interested to hear what tentoze thinks of it.

Sodastream - A Minor Revival
So far not as good as the Practical Footwear EP, but it's got some great tunes.

Beatles - Revolver
Pulled this out after seeing a Beatles cover band play with the Grand Rapids Symphony on Fri. night. I have to say I was mightily impressed with their performance.

The Nastys - Old Wine, New Bottle EP
A local Grand Rapids band, that I would describe as down 'n' dirty rock 'n' roll, kind of in the vein of Hanoi Rocks and its ilk. Good stuff, actually.

Soul Asylum - Say What You Will Clarence . . .

Also listened to Jim C's You Can't Surf In Kansas comp after hearing a surf band called the Concussions on Fri night before the Beatles thing.

[richmon]

Four hour car ride to Nearfest and a handful of new disc's purchased there begat this..
Daniel Gauthier 'above the storm' ..nice melodic guitary songs, voice takes a little getting used to, but this has all the signs of being a regular in the rotation.
Seven Reizh 'strinkadenn ys' - stunningly good. If you like Mostly Autumn, you'll love this. Better songwriting, better female vox and finer guitar playing than MA, in that Celtic-y rock style.
Fields 'S/t' - early keys based hard prog, I'm a sucker for this style. Excellent.
Djam KIaret 'a night for baku' --I went cautious with this band since like King Crim they change from album to album. This is a winner in the KC Red kinda way. Ser Goot.
Nice Beaver 'on dry land' -yet another guitary, melodic vocals song based stuff. He likes it!
Yezda Urfa 'sacred baboon' - complex and Echolyn like. Will take a few listens methunks.
...pretty good, not great.
Rare Bird 'as your mind flys by' - an old favorite, in that hard prog, keyboard dominant style.
Chalky Dust's 'things I played the night we broke up' - a brooding, melancholy, morose gem. Everytime I play this I think 'this is in my RR comp hall of fame'. Well done DC.
Kington Wall 'Kingston Wall II' - why didn't this hit me right away? Excellent guitar work. Good songs, fine disc.
The Tubes 'Then and now' -a best of.. several goodies, in that goofy style of theirs.
King Crimson 'the power to believe' - their best in years.

[Jim Clark]

Concrete Blonde best of from Davey that I really like a lot. Another one of those zillions of great bands that I missed the 1st time through. HAven't gotten to the Walkabouts or the 1/2 gone comp yet, but I should have some listeneing time on the wk-end.

Would be curious to know what you think about the Walkabouts. I've had that CD on my wish list for a little while but haven't found the motivation to purchase it yet. Whenever you find the time...

jc

[Davey]

Joy Division - Unknown Plasures
Just got this one last week and listened a few times so far. Not quite sure why I waited so long since I've had Closer for ages on vinyl and love it. At one point I was looking for a nice Factory vinyl original of this too but never found one. Everyone talks about it so much as one of the best rock albums ever that it almost seemed like I already had it. And I had heard songs from it over the years and was planning to probably pick up the box set, but as I said in allears' New Purchases thread, I had a VISA $10 gift card due to self-destruct soon and needed to buy something and how many CDs can you get signed, sealed and delivered to your door for less than $10? Well, I guess there's a bunch, but not many I wanted all that much until I came across this one. $9.97....and worth every penny! It is a pretty amazing album and as mad rhetorik says, Shadowplay is a knockout. Kind of thin sounding compared to how ballsy Closer sounds on my vinyl, so guess I might have to still get an original one of these days. I still think Closer is the best of their two albums, but when the music is this good it becomes only a minor distinction. So how does the box set sound compared to these early CDs? Mine is the Qwest/Warners Bros US release.

The Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers
Borrowed this CD from the library since I only have it on one of those zipper-fronted LPs that doesn't live in the same state as me right now, and wow, I had kind of forgotten how great it is. Sometimes it just might be the best Stones album.

Bunch of David Kilgour (Sugar Mouth, Heavy Eights, A Feather In The Engine)
All good but that Heavy Eights is the shiz, man.

Bunch of Concrete Blonde (Bloodletting, Walking In London, Mexican Moon)
All good but that Mexican Moon is the shiz, man.

Pretty & Twisted
This Johnette (Concrete Blonde) and Marc Moreland (Wall of Voodoo) project gets knocked around a lot by fans but I always kind of liked it. Maybe not enough to recommend it to anyone (although it's oop you can still find them for very cheap used, me thinks) but some of the songs are very good, with the forlorn "Souvenir" being one of a handful of my favorite Johnette songs. Unfortunately, the CD is hampered by a few songs that aren't very good and a haphazard sequencing.

Woven Hand
Side project of 16 Horsepower frontman David Edwards that gives him the freedom to raise even more religious fervor than his "normal" bandmates will allow. I love it. Supposed to be another installment on the horizon.

Tim Buckley - Hello & Goodbye

Willard Grant Conspiracy - Regard The End

Devendra Banhart - Rejoicing In The Hands

Head of Femur - Ringodom or Proctor

And for Jimmy, the Walkabouts I sent to tentoze is a copy of their OOP 1996 masterpiece, the covers album titled Satisfied Mind, in a digipak on Germany's Glitterhouse label. Just a beautiful, mostly acoustic country-folk-whatever collection, but spiced with some electronics. Don't know where you can buy it nowadays and had no idea you would be interested or I woulda thrown a copy in with your Half Gone comp. Oh well, some of you may recall the haunting, lap steel-driven rendition of the Carter Family's "The Storms Are On The Ocean" that I put on my Twilight comp from this CD....

Amazon.com essential recording
It's hard to believe the Walkabouts have been making records for 15 years. They've built a solid following in Europe, but are almost completely unknown in the states. The sound of their seventh full length release is hard to pin down: traditional country, folk, alternative rock, some R&B touches, all played with an inspired amateurishness, and delivered in the rough, muted vocals of songwriter Chris Eckman and the smooth soprano and cello of Carla Torgerson. These 13 songs are all covers, from the standard title cut, to Patti Smith, Nick Lowe, and Johnny Rivers songs, as well as the Charlie Rich beauty "Feel Like Going Home." Should be a real find for fans of Whiskeytown and Uncle Tupelo. --Roy Francis Kasten

Click for Pictures: Inside Digi-pak Rear Digi-pak

EDIT: Oh yeah, while I'm here might as well mention that I checked out from the library and watched some very cool movies in the last week too. Late to the party as usual, but watched Spirited Away (colossal DVD, loved it), Metropolis (very nicely done and as Troy said in another thread, some cool jazz backing throughout), Amelie (thought this would be kind of cheesy but it was really enjoyable and the lead actress is pretty adorable) and Ghosts In The Shell (which I'd already seen a couple years ago but watched it again). More DVDs than I've probably ever watched in a week before with a bunch more trickling in on hold at the library.

EDIT 2.0: Wow, just checked and I've got SIX dvds waiting for me to pick em up at the library. Frida, Daredevil, The Royal Tenenbaums, Go Fish and a coupla others I've seen before but love. Cool. I feel like a little boy again

[Dusty Chalk]

Got the older two Lali Puna albums, and they are pretty darn good, too.

Basement Jaxx, Kish Kash -- awesome! Booty-shaking to the extreme (maybe not quite as much so as Underworld, but still...), plus an absolute A-list of vocalists.

Listening to Legendary Pink Dots right now -- they are so awesome. They've got that patient space-rock thing absolutely down.

The new Secret Chiefs 3 is bizarro-land.

Echostar -- hey, Chrisnz, you heard this? I think you'd like...

Sigur Rós -- new one, did someone mention this and I miss it? Melikes...

Boom-Bip -- check out this list of remixers: Four Tet, Mogwai, Lali Puna, Clouddead, Venetian Snares, Boards of Canada. Yet it's the Peel Session track I like the most.

[chrisnz]

Got the older two Lali Puna albums, and they are pretty darn good, too.

Basement Jaxx, Kish Kash -- awesome! Booty-shaking to the extreme (maybe not quite as much so as Underworld, but still...), plus an absolute A-list of vocalists.

Listening to Legendary Pink Dots right now -- they are so awesome. They've got that patient space-rock thing absolutely down.

The new Secret Chiefs 3 is bizarro-land.

Echostar -- hey, Chrisnz, you heard this? I think you'd like...

Sigur Rós -- new one, did someone mention this and I miss it? Melikes...

Boom-Bip -- check out this list of remixers: Four Tet, Mogwai, Lali Puna, Clouddead, Venetian Snares, Boards of Canada. Yet it's the Peel Session track I like the most.

Thanks for the heads up on the Echostar, Dusty. It does sound like something I'd go for.

Just ordered the Boom Bip album - Corymb that you mentioned and a couple of DJ Shadow treats - In Tune And On Time DVD and Camel Bobsled Race.

Didn't even know Sigur Ros had a new one out!

Thanks, Chris.

[ForeverAutumn]

Also, John Kay, Heretics and Privateers. To be honest, I thought Kay had long been relegated to the oldies tours, so when I heard about this one, I figgered what the heck- this is a good, if not great, album. Surprisingly tasty National resonator guitar blues throughout with socially topical lyrics. His voice has dropped a notch or two.

Are the songs on this disk well diversified in style? What I mean by that is...does it all sound the same?

Kay was on a local morning show last week and played a couple of songs off of this new disk. The first song had me yelling to my husband, "come listen to this! It's excellent!". I was ready to go out and buy the CD later that same day. The second song, however, had us wondering where the first song ended and the second song began, they sounded so much the same. As good as the songs were, I was concerned that all the songs sounded the same, which can make for a pretty boring listen.

Was it, perhaps, just a bad choice of the two songs? I don't know which songs they were.

[tentoze]

Are the songs on this disk well diversified in style? What I mean by that is...does it all sound the same?

Kay was on a local morning show last week and played a couple of songs off of this new disk. The first song had me yelling to my husband, "come listen to this! It's excellent!". I was ready to go out and buy the CD later that same day. The second song, however, had us wondering where the first song ended and the second song began, they sounded so much the same. As good as the songs were, I was concerned that all the songs sounded the same, which can make for a pretty boring listen.

Was it, perhaps, just a bad choice of the two songs? I don't know which songs they were.

FA,

They do tend to run together stylistically, IMO. It's all acoustic-blues based stuff- with the resonator guitars up front. I like it, and was kinda surprised at how rooted in Delta blues the songs all are, cuzI sure never heard any of that influence in the classic Steppenwolf days. Lyrically, Kay hasn't lost any of the fire that was stoked on Monster, as far as railing at the flawed foreign and social policies of his adopted country's government. I'd give it a 3 grins out of five.



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