Soundtracks of our life 1

[Spookrijder]

While playing "Vision Creation Newsun" by Boredoms, a fantastic psyche-percussive journey of a record, I was looking at each booklets, digipacks and so on of albums I've borrowed today at my local library . Another classic :

> "Perpetuum Mobile" by Eint?rzende Neubauten, their last opus.
> "Over the sun" by ShannonWright, her last opus as well, except the one with Yann Tiersen.
> Charles and the White Trash European Blues Connection, that's the name of the band from our local hero Arno, or his essay in playing garage blues/rock.
> "Any Minute Now" by Soulwax, if there's a belgian band which could create a international hype, it's them. Already famous through 2 Many Djs.
> "Stoke" by Philip Jeck, on Touch, so yes, that's electronic, that's experimental, that's abstract. Philip Jeck plays turntables.
> "escondida" by Jolie Holland, me curious.
> "is a woman" by Lambchop, finally found that!

[barrett]

Damn it Spook man youre so priviliged with all that great music down at the local library.(wheres the lucky git smiley?).
At my local library (local being 16 miles away),the only sound stuff theyve got is audio books....

On rotation at my gaff are "- The album leaf - In a safe place - and The Chemical Brothersnew one [ush the button...wonderful albums both.....
and occasionally TWIS gets a look in 0 round about midnight.

[Spookrijder]

Enjoying "The Ideal Crash" by dEUS... once again

[puce]

Today driving home from Utrecht to Dordrecht, I listened to Nikka Costa. (Everybody got their something) Not really spectacular, but will do in the car. Wondering if she ever released a cd afterwards. Before that album. she actually did, I think she was 11 or so.. I have this old compilation album with a track of her and a picture on it, where she looks very young. Have to locate that album to listen more carefull to the particular track.

It was On my own, she was vey popular in Italy when she was a child .

[Spookrijder]

I'm already at my fourth album today

Eating breakfast with "For every solution, there's a problem" by Lee Hazlewood, unreleased tracks in a very Leonard Cohen similar ways out on City Slang.

Then enjoyed HUGELY "The Swimming Hour" by Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire, I begin slowly to be that guy's fan. Chicago singer/songwriter/violinist Andrew Bird updates the traditions of small group swing, German Leider and New Orleans jazz, mixing gypsy, folk and rock elements into his distinctive style. But there's nothing so rootsy as it seems and there are moment when Bird makes me think of some acoustic and more joyous Jeff Buckley with support from Jon Brion or Van Dyke Parks.
Yesterday, I played his even better and quite melancholic "Weather Systems", which is to me one of the big highlight of 2004. My signature comes from that album.

Then Giant Sand "is all over the map", the last one, and the only album of the band I haven't bought eyes closed since about 1988, and I was wrong for Howe Gelb, here without Joey Burns and John Convertino (Calexico) is in great shape. Funny I realize that to me D?c and Howe Gelb could be one person, dunno why. Included a hilarious version of Sex Pistols' "Anarchy in the U.K." sung by Howe's daughter, now 15, and retitled "Anarchistic Bolshevistic Cowboy Bundle" .

Now in my headphones, my spouse is sleeping, the extravagant masterpiece "Yerself is Steam" by Mercury Rev, one of the most brilliant yet mad debut albums ever with "The piper at the gates of dawn" by Pink Floyd and "Parables of arable land" by The Red Crayola.


----------------------
"We're keeping busy, yeah we're bleeding stones
With our machinations and palindromes
Anything but hear the voice that says we're basically alone"

[*]

Funny I realize that to me D?c and Howe Gelb could be one person, dunno why.

thanks for that! i wish i was a bit more like him, certainly in terms of productivity!

as a side note, he has an album featuring members of the Danish band that Franck brought to our attention, under byen. he plays in denmark and a couple of ub-ers play with him onstage.

i wouldn't mind getting band together with ub's bass player. cool in every sense. but that's another story

what did i listen to today? nothin' so far.

actually that's not true. 3 songs on my mp3 player while i was out - 'new grass' by talk talk, a bach fugue and 'burning the city' by bark psychosis. i'm so predictable!

[Spookrijder]

So let's be unpredictable

For the Dutch guys here around, and there are "plenty of nothing, nothing is plenty for me"

While eating, I put on "So far so good, The Best of" Mathilde Santing, a class singer with some weak originals and strong covers, among others "We could send letters" (Roddy Frame), "Is there any way out of this dream" and "Broken bicycles" (Tom Waits), "CLose Watch" (John Cale). Then it was the turn of "The lady wants to know" by Laura Fygi, the typical Casino singer with blown up empty version of classical Jobim like "Corcovado", "Dindi", "Triste", "How insensitive"... gimme back Frank Sinatra . I wanted to puke after three songs and put on the classiest of all, the real thing : Julie London and "The choicest of Cole Porter" and I feel slightly better .

[*]

So let's be unpredictable

you're much better than me at that christian! and i don't have a mediath?que to pillage every week, so i can't keep pace with the new acquisitions!

at the moment i'm listening to... the sound of my fridge and the occasional car on the street outside. a bit of john cagien 'ambient listening'!

[Spookrijder]

John Cage, D?c that's too intellectual for me

[*]

John Cage, D?c that's too intellectual for me

i never got around to reading 'silence'. if i ever do, then i'll tell how intellectual it is... or not!

[whatis]

i have Silence, by John Cage. got a bit broke after buying that.

if you want, i'll dictate some more passages..i think i did do that in CQD, bore the hell out of everyone...

[Spookrijder]

No, not me, Coral
But seriously, it's one of the books I really want to read. We can discuss long about John Cage's music/non music, but I consider the guy as a true genius. His influences on any kind of music style can't be underestimated. I won't be surprised to hear that a band like Labradford has been influenced by him, for example. And close to any free improvisators are influenced by his ideas. But okay!

Just finished : "Summerteeth" by Wilco and I like that band more and more. I find their "Yankee Foxtrot Hotel" a pure jewel. Has anyone heard their last "A ghost is born"? It seems rather calm. That title suits me perfectly .

[whatis]

NICHI NICHI KORE KO NICHI: EVERY DAY IS A BEAUTIFUL DAY

What if I ask thirty-two questions?
What if I stop asking now and then?
Will that make things clear?
Is communication something made clear?
What is communication?
Music, what does it communicate?
Is what's clear to me clear to you?
Is music just sounds?
Then what does it communicate?
Is a truck passing by music?
If I can see it, do I have to hear it too?
If I don't hear it, does it still communicate?
If while I see it I can't hear it, but hear something else, say an egg-beater, because I'm inside looking out, does the truck communicate or the egg-beater, which communicates?
Which is more musical, a truck passing by a factory or a truck passing by a music school?
Are the people inside the school musical and the ones outside unmusical?
Do you know what I mean when I say inside the school?
Are sounds just sounds or are they Beethoven?
People aren't sounds, are they?

[sound world]

Cage was not an intellectual,Spook.
'Silence' is full of wise and funny philosophical meanderingds and experimental stances-such as the one Coral has posted.
And also some -lots!!-of hilarious anecdotes
If you're interested in music,what it is and what its function is,'Silence ' is mandatory reading.

[Spookrijder]

Ah Dave, I was kidding, of course, and what I replied after is what I think about him. I don't think John Cage was an intellectual, but he was no doubt a thinker, a guy who thought differently than the ordinary, some kind of enlighten maverick. His thoughts can't be underestimated.

Musically, my problem with him is that it looks like he never really applied his ideas to his own music, besides his music is not always very interesting to listen to. Musicians like Keith Tippett, Keith Rowe or Luc Ferrari are closer to his own concepts.

Yesterday, to end the day, I played "Wende" by Ran Blake and I am still under the charms of solo piano and surely still fond of Ran Blake's style and compositions.