Category: Music

Art asked what I thought of the recent “definitive 200” album list produced by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I suspect that my response will be the same as everyone else: disappointment and incredulity. Lots of “How could they not include XYZ?!”, mixed with a few “What’s THAT piece of junk doing there?.
So yes, there are a bunch of albums that I consider “definitive” that aren’t included, and I can’t really see how they could have been overlooked. (I’ve listed a few below.) But going beyond my own preferences, there are some other problems.
First is the superstar effect. Albums from five artists – the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and Bob Dylan – make up 10% of the entire list. Yes, I know that this is supposed to be the list of definitive albums, not of definitive artists, but even so… this concentration reinforces the sense that the list reflects a relatively narrow perspective (in taste and time).
Second, it’s really unfortunate that several entire genres have been overlooked. There’s no folk music. The entire punk phenomenon is reduced to one album (and that one is filed under “Rock”!). What about “jam bands”? There’s no Phish, no Blues Traveler, and the Grateful Dead is (mis)represented by one studio album. There’s nothing from the diverse world of electronica – no ambient, no deep house, no jungle; nothing by Orbital or John Digweed, or Underworld, or the Orb. No industrial. Only one reggae. (On the other hand, there are 17 rap albums and 7 “adult contemporary”.) It’s these categorical omissions that really expose the failure of the project.
Let me finish by listing a few of my own “How could they not include…” candidates. I’ll limit myself to five. Yes, these are all oldies – but then it takes a while for an album to achieve definitive status. (I’m amazed that the list includes several 2004 releases.) Anyway, none of these should be controversial:

• “Forever Changes” by Love
• “The Velvet Underground & Nico” by the Velvet Underground
• “Electric Ladyland” by the Jimi Hendrix Experience
• “The Future” by Leonard Cohen
• “Hot Rats” by Frank Zappa

I just ran the usual randomization process to get iTunes to give me a “Random 10” list, and it came up with what is probably the most obscure collection ever. I though of redoing it, but what the heck… there’s no shame in collecting obscure music. So here we go:

• “Geronimo” by Yann Tiersen (from Black Session)
• “Look At The Stars” by Weatherman (from Angel Beach Ambient Waves)
• “Her Majesty’s Trusted Food Taster” by The Tear Garden (from Crystal Mass)
• “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” by Style Council (from The Collection…)
• “Musica” by S.O.M. featuring Barbara Mendes (from Buzzin’ Fly Vol.1)
• “The Sound Of Crying” by Prefab Sprout (from A Life Of Surprises)
• “Forbidden City” by Electronic (from Raise The Pressure)
• “You Can Judge A Book By Its Cover” by Saint Etienne (from the U.S. version of Tales From Turnpike House)
• “Coinleach Glas An Fhomair” by Clannad (from Past Present)
• “Pressure Us (Junior Dub)” by Sunscreem (from the Pressure Us single)

There are actually some gorgeous tracks here. The Tear Garden is a collaboration between Skinny Puppy and the Legendary Pink Dots, and the combination works really well. Electronic was a short-lived Johnny Marr project, with occasional help from the Pet Shop Boys. And as for “Musica”… What happened was that I recently checked iTunes to find out what I’d been listening to, and I found that a couple of albums had unusually high play counts. One was the Faithless masterpiece “No Roots” (no surprise there), but the other was the “Buzzin’ Fly Vol.2” mix from Ben Watt (of Everything But The Girl). Interesting! I decided to buy the other two CDs in the Buzzin’ Fly collection, and I’ve been really satisfied with the results. Each offers a truly relaxing groove… good music for flying, or walking through the park, or IM-ing, or blogging.

For fellow Al Stewart fans: Krysia Kocjan died a couple of weeks ago. She worked with Al on a number of his albums, from “Past, Present and Future” to “Indian Summer”. Listen to her work on Al’s Live At The Roxy (the CD reissue of the live tracks from “Indian Summer”).

Many years ago, when Chris was an undergraduate at U.C. Santa Cruz, I would often take some time off from a business trip to Silicon Valley and scoot over Highway 17 to visit him in Santa Cruz. On one of these occasions, we were walking down Pacific Avenue when we encountered a street musician, playing an extraordinarily small piano and singing songs that just hooked you in and made you smile. His name was Jonny Hahn. He was selling a CD of his music, called “3657“, and I bought a copy before we moved on. I thought nothing more of it, but over the years I found myself listening to the songs and wondering what had happened to him. But I didn’t wonder too hard: it felt like one of those ephemeral moments that you look back on and then let go.

And then today I was shopping for kitchenware in Sur La Table on Pine Street, right next to the Public Market, and as I came out of the shop I heard a familiar piano style. It was Jonny Hahn. I went and listened to him, and after he’d finished a piece we talked a bit. He’s a Seattle resident, and plays most of the year by the Public Market. He remembered that visit to Santa Cruz; he said that he’d always enjoyed going there because of the good vibe he got off the ocean, but recently the city authorities had made life impossible for street musicians, so he’d stopped going.
I bought four of his CDs: two of what he described as “very political” songs – “Thinking without a permit” and “Don’t feed the corporations” – and two of solo piano pieces – “Lost in the Inzone” and “Collage”. Lovely stuff. You can hear his music for yourself at CDBaby, and also at the iTunes Music Store.
But even though the CDs are really good, I know I’ll be heading back to the Public Market, because I prefer listening to Jonny in his natural setting. What a delightful rediscovery. Maybe ephemeral isn’t always what it seems.
UPDATE: From Richard McDougall‘s gallery: Jonny “in his natural setting”….

Via my old schoolfriend Paul Smith, here’s a piece on Dave Ling‘s blog about the forthcoming Porcupine Tree album. Since I can’t see any way to get a permalink to the specific entry, I’m going to quote the relevant paragraph in full:

Yesterday morning I trundled along to Abbey Road Studios for a preview of Porcupine Tree’s forthcoming album, ‘Fear Of A Blank Planet’ in glorious 5.1 surround sound. Before the playback began, band leader Steven Wilson informed the gathered throng that the album is one “continuous piece of music” that lasts for around 53 minutes, explaining that most CDs these days are way too long to hold the listener’s attention. “It’s a very intense album”, he warned, adding that it includes no potential singles – something that hardly seemed to bother representatives from the quartet’s new label Roadrunner Records. And why should it? The album is simply stunning from start to finish; elaborately conceived, brilliantly orchestrated and executed with consummate sophistication. The track that will surely generate most attention is ‘Anesthetize’, which at 17 mins and 42 seconds long features a guitar solo from Rush’s Alex Lifeson. Robert Fripp of King Crimson also offers guest soundscape guitar effects to the penultimate song ‘Way Out Of Here’. But, believe me, the whole album is a stroke of genius.

Amazon.co.uk isn’t showing it as available for pre-order just yet, but according to the PT website it should be out in April. And just to tantalize us still more, “It’s likely that both the stereo CD and 5.1 surround sound DVDA will be packaged together as standard.” Mmm!!

For all Al fans out there: all of Al’s albums are being reissued with bonus tracks. Every one. They should be available in May-June. I think I have them all, but the remastering is likely to make me go for an update….
UPDATE: They may be out as soon as February – we’re getting conflicting information. And there are 32 bonus tracks altogether, and I know that there are some I don’t have, so…

I had planned to get up this morning and write a blog piece about the wonderful Al Stewart show that I attended in Bellevue last night. However when I woke up I realized that my “dream match” was on TV – Arsenal vs. Manchester United. Two great teams, both on top of their game. (I don’t follow one particular team, but I really like Arsenal, Manchester United, and Liverpool.) So blogging has had to wait until half time (i.e. now). At this point it’s scoreless, but the action has been spellbinding.
As for the Al Stewart show, here’s the setlist, taken from the Al mailing list:
Dave Nachmanoff
=====
GEORGE’S CORNER
JUDAS KISS
EL NINO
THE LOYALIST
Al Stewart with Dave Nachmanoff
=========
HOUSE OF CLOCKS
MR LEAR
PALACE OF VERSAILLES
ON THE BORDER
MARION THE CHATELEINE
NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNICH
MERLIN’S TIME
PRINCESS OLIVIA
BROADWAY HOTEL
(intermission)
PAINT BY NUMBERS
THE DARK & THE ROLLING SEA
MIDAS SHADOW
FIELDS OF FRANCE — Dave on piano
THE COLDEST WINTER IN MEMORY — Dave on piano
SOHO (NEEDLESS TO SAY)
YEAR OF THE CAT — intro by Dave on piano, then a key change for the rest of it on guitars!
END OF THE DAY
OK, I’ve got to get back to the second half of the match. More later.
UPDATE: What a wonderful game. The final: Arsenal 2, Manchester United 1. Excellent goals from Rooney and Van Persie, then a confident winner from Thierry Henry 2 minutes into stoppage time. (And of course Chelsea will be really glad about this after their drubbing by Liverpool yesterday.)

• “Night Comes On” by Leonard Cohen (from Various Positions) I’ve been listening to lots of Leonard Cohen recently.
• “Suzanne” by Judy Collins (from Colors Of The Day)
• “The Ballad Of Ron And Popo” by the Legendary Pink Dots (from Chemical Playschool Volume 9) Just to prove I don’t usually edit these lists: this is probably the most obscure and inaccessible track of all 398 LPD tracks in my library – and that’s saying something!
• “Dan Solo (Album Edit)” by Groove Armada (from Northern Star) Bossa nova groove…
• “In Formaldehyde” by Porcupine Tree (from Recordings) Interesting… this is a really nice (7/10) track that I tend to overlook, because it’s in the middle of an album of stunning tracks, all 9/10 or 10/10.
• “Flatlands” by Delerium (from Semantic Spaces) I was discussing Delerium with Hannah just now… I like Semantic Spaces, but it’s a bit too Enigma-like to really stand out…. She recommends Chimera to see what Rhys Fulber and Bill Leeb are really doing with this project.
• “Fly Like An Eagle” by the Steve Miller Band (from King Biscuit Flower Hour Presents…) I prefer Steve Miller’s earlier work – from Children Of The Future to Number 5, but this is a good live version of his biggest hit.
• “All The Roadrunning” by Mark Knopfler & Emmylou Harris (from All The Roadrunning)
• “Step” by Patrick O’Hearn (from THe Private Music Of Patrick O’Hearn)
• “The Weeping Song” by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (from The Best Of Nick Cave) I bought this album years ago, but I still feel that I haven’t got into it yet. I’m not sure what I need to do to make contact, but several friends assure me that it’s worth the effort.

I haven’t done a Random 10 for quite a while, so here’s the first of the New Year. iTunes delivered a fairly conventional list this time, including several that are hard not to sing along with. (Specifically, those by Janis, Bruce, Kirsty, Paula, and Love.)

• “Life of Surprises” by Prefab Sprout (from A Life of Surprises) [How apposite for the last 12 months of my life!]
• “Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?” by Paula Cole (from This Fire)
• “Trip And Glide” by Love & Rockets (from Hot Trip To Heaven)
• “Gather Round” by Love (from Out There)
• “Me And Bobby McGee” by Janis Joplin (from 18 Essential Songs)
• “We Never Change” by Coldplay (from Parachutes)
• “Dancing In The Dark” by Bruce Springsteen (from Greatest Hits)
• “Mean Mr. Mustard” by The Beatles (from Abbey Road)
• “You Don’t Even Know Me” by Al Stewart (from Orange)
• “He’s On The Beach” by Kirsty MacColl (from Galore)

I arrived at the Town Hall at 6:30 for the pre-concert talk before the Tallis Scholars recital…. only to find out that the consort is delayed en route. It’s now 8:30, the organizers have arranged an impromptu buffet reception, and if we’re lucky the concert will get underway by 9 or 9:30. But everyone seems cool, no-one is demanding their money back, everybody is just getting to know each other. I just phoned Chris, and he reported that their performance in Berkeley last night was excellent. They’re supposed to be doing the same setlist.

We just got an announcement; they are “passing Safeco Field”, so they should be here soon.

This feels very different from Boston….

UPDATE: The concert started at 9; it’s now the intermission. Apparently the delay was due to a 5-hour repair to the plane in Oakland – and then when they tried to push back, the jetway jammed!

But enough irrelevancy. The Tye Missa Western Wynde was just glorious. Well worth waiting for.