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Posted Sunday 20 June 2010 at 8:27 pm
Filed in: Music, Personal
Following my half-week of getting rid of stuff, we had a pretty busy weekend.
Yesterday we went up to San Francisco for a party/concert being thrown by Genentech, Debbi’s employer, for its employees. It was a benefit concert, part of a “giving back” program they’re doing this year. They rented out the ballpark (as they did for their Christmas party a couple of years ago), and had some surprise musical guests. We had a pretty good time (hey, free ballpark food!), but the music wasn’t really either of our tastes. Following an opening act by a former employee, the acts were Natasha Bedingfield (whom I’d never heard of, and who was an okay mix of pop, soul and hip-hop), The Fray (a straight-ahead alt-rock group who played one song I’d heard), and Counting Crows (the 90s alt-rock group whose early stuff I’d enjoyed, but they’re not among my favorites). As I’m more of a prog-rock guy, and Debbi’s a country gal, it wasn’t quite our thing. But it was a nice getaway day, and it’s the thought that counts, right?
Today we went for a bike ride through Shoreline park, having lunch at the Shoreline Cafe, and then ran some errands. And this evening I cooked dinner on the new grill I bought last week (a Weber Genesis E310). I assembled it over a couple of days late this past week, and this afternoon I hooked up the gas and ran through the tests in the manual to make sure there weren’t any leaks in any of the gas connections (I wonder how many people actually do this, or read the instructions at all, when they get a new grill?). I fired it up and it worked fine, so I grilled steak, asparagus, and red bell peppers for dinner, as well as some chicken for Debbi’s lunch salads this week. It went perfectly smoothly, and tested great, too! It should be a nice upgrade over my old Weber Q (which, to be fair, did a great job for me for seven years).
Now I need to figure out what to do with the one-and-a-half small propane canisters I have left over from my old grill.
Here are a couple of pictures of the new toy:
Posted Friday 26 June 2009 at 8:16 am
Filed in: Current Events, Music, Pop Culture
When I was a young teenager, Michael Jackson was almost inescapable: His music was on every pop radio station, and he was one of the darlings of MTV. His album Thriller was a generational advent, especially when the video for the title track showed up (it’s still influential today).
So I couldn’t help but pay attention to Michael Jackson as a teen. Despite this, I never bought any of his albums or singles. They were nice enough, but mostly not my thing. (Though to be fair, I did enjoy his music casually, especially the “Thriller” video.)
To be fair, Jackson at his best was better than dance-pop music (especially the synth-pop of the early 80s, which was largely execrable and which, unlike Jackson’s music, sounds even sillier today than it did then). It had some depth and complexity to go along with the rhythm and melody, and I think that’s what over the long haul separated him from most of his contemporaries. Jackson was also a showman, but what he brought were not just slick dance moves and a pretty face (although he brought those, too), but a sense of grown-up style atop his fundamental energy and enthusiasm. Really, all of this is perfectly captured in the cover to his album before Thriller, Off The Wall. Even in his later years, I think it’d be fair to say that Jackson was basically a big kid in an adult body.
Why do so many pop stars become so eccentric? Okay, everyone’s eccentric in their own way (look at me, for instance. No, on second thought, stop looking at me), but something about the rise to the top or the fall from the top seems to make these people nuttier than normal. Arguably Madonna and George Harrison’s eccentricities are more the result of the media coverage that they received, but consider Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson, who embraced their eccentricities and ultimately crafted their images around them, and then seemed to get stuck in a feedback loop of getting weirder as they’re farther removed from their peak.
(Aside: Elvis, The Beatles and Jacko are clearly the dominant pop stars of the 50s, 60s and 80s; who was the dominant star of the 70s? The Bee Gees? Somehow they don’t seem to be in the same class.)
Jackson’s later years became more spectacle than performance (his last album was released in 2001), but his death yesterday still reverberates (even though I’m still a little surprised at the number of passionate Jackson fans out there today). I can’t yet think of the music of my teen years as “golden oldies”, but Jackson’s passing is a big step towards making it so.
(Another reminiscence at Standing on the Shoulders of Giant Midgets.)
Posted Friday 16 January 2009 at 1:23 pm
Filed in: Music, Personal
Appropriately enough, on my after-lunch walk my iPod decided to play “Time” by Hootie and the Blowfish.
Posted Monday 24 December 2007 at 4:31 pm
Filed in: Progressive Rock
Progressive rock retailer The Laser’s Edge is having a Christmas sale, running from now through the end of the day tomorrow, Christmas day. (The Laser’s Edge is in New Jersey, so that’s probably midnight EST.) If progressive rock is your thing, I recommend running right over and buying some stuff.
I don’t write about my progressive rock interests as much as I’d hoped, but if you’re interested in checking out some of my favorites, I think you can’t go wrong with any of the following:
I’ve bought dozens of CDs from them over the years and have always been happy with their selection, prices, service and friendliness.
Posted Wednesday 29 November 2006 at 11:22 pm
Filed in: Progressive Rock
Huh. The iTunes Music Store has some introductory playlists for modern progressive rock that you can buy and download.
It’s a little strange that the lists contain no Spock’s Beard (which the iTMS does have) or Flower Kings (which it doesn’t). It seems like it focuses mainly on progressive metal. They may just be at the mercy of what’s available on the store, but it might also be the result of biases of whoever composed the list. Although to be fair there are a number of band listed with whom I’m unfamiliar, so maybe I shouldn’t talk.
Posted Thursday 16 November 2006 at 4:47 pm
Filed in: Music
TIME magazine’s list of the 100 greatest and most influential albums. At least they have the right attitude in compiling the list:
So here’s how we chose the albums for the All-TIME 100. We researched and listened and agonized until we had a list of the greatest and most influential records ever – and then everyone complained because there was no Pink Floyd on it. And that’s exactly how it should be. We hope you’ll treat the All-TIME 100 as a great musical parlor game. Read and listen to the arguments for the selections, then tell us what we missed or got wrong. Or even possibly what we got right.
One obvious objection is that there are no albums from before the 1950s, which means that the oldest (for instance) jazz album on the list is Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue. No Ellington or Armstrong? (It’s not a list from the last 50 years, since there are two Frank Sinatra albums on the list from before 1956.)
Rather than critique the selections, here are the albums on the list that I own:
- Fleetwood Mac, Rumours (1977)
- Stevie Wonder, Songs in the Key of Life (1976)
- Elton John, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (1973)
- Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin IV (1971)
- Carole King, Tapestry (1971)
- The Who, Who’s Next (1971)
- Simon and Garfunkel, Bridge Over Troubled Water (1970)
- The Beatles, Abbey Road (1969)
- The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)
- The Beatles, Revolver (1966)
- The Beatles, Rubber Soul (1965)
- John Coltrane, A Love Supreme (1964)
- Miles Davis, Kind of Blue (1959)
No, I don’t own a copy of The Beatles (The White Album) – other than “Back in the USSR”, I don’t really like it.
As you might guess the list above is not exactly representative of my musical tastes. You can see that my tastes diverge considerably from the popular and artistic mainstream around the beginning of punk.
For other lists, there’s Rolling Stone’s 500 greatest albums list, or the 1987 top 100 rock ‘n’ roll albums list (the book of which I own and which turned me on to several good groups, such as Roxy Music).
Posted Tuesday 14 November 2006 at 6:14 pm
Filed in: Progressive Rock, Reviews
Tags: Marillion
This is the album that set me on my current vector of progressive rock fandom.
I’d been a fan of Marillion in the 80s, having enjoyed the albums with Fish as the vocalist, but I felt they’d kind of lost their way with Brave. Meanwhile, I’d become less interested in popular music during the 1990s, and by the late 90s most of my music purchases were jazz. But all that changed when I found This Strange Engine in the used bin.
This album is widely disliked by Marillion fans, which I don’t understand at all since it seems more like the much-revered Fish-era albums than any other album produced during Steve Hogarth’s tenure as vocalist. Its arrangements and performances are tight and strong, with clear melodies and a great sound texture. The main complaint I hear is that it’s somehow more pop and less prog than earlier albums, yet it certainly seems no more pop to me than Misplaced Childhood or Clutching at Straws (both great albums). Neo-progressive groups like Marillion are all about fusing pop and prog anyway, and This Strange Engine is neo-prog at its best.
The album is bookended by two longer songs, which are also the standout tracks of the album: “Man of the Thousand Faces” is a really cool song whose first half is primarily acoustic – driven by guitar, piano and Hogarth’s vocals – and then segues into a loud, electric section, which chugs along to the sound of Pete Trewevas’ bass guitar. I’m not the biggest fan of Hogarth’s vocal style, but he has a strength and clarity on this track that really carries the song.
The title track closes the album. It’s reminiscent of Marillion’s earliest albums when keyboardist Mark Kelly would from time to time just be turned loose on his synthesizer, and he has a great solo here, as well as some of his more distinctive work mixed into the arrangement. I don’t think he’s ever sounded as good on the albums after this one. It opens with Hogarth speaking quietly over the opening notes before opening up into the initial melody, but it’s one of those prog tracks which cascades from one movement to the next across brief transitional moments, a common structure for a prog track but one which I know many people used to standard pop music structures find jarring or even pointless. Me, I love it, as it gives the band space for more ideas and more freedom to express those ideas. It ends with a repetitive melody which starts quietly and builds to the song’s climax, in much the same manner as the first track.
If “This Strange Engine” – the track – has a flaw, it’s that the last 15 minutes is dead air followed by a brief, pointless bit of laughter. I edited that part out when I loaded it into my MP3 library.
(I am, in general, not very attentive to lyrics when I listen to music. To me, the vocals are simply another instrument, and a lyric needs to have some je-ne-sais-quoi to grab my attention. Although the lyrics – generally by Hogarth or by lyricist John Helmer – are interesting at times, usually I just register that they seem evocative, which underscores the imaginative and often epic quality which I appreciate in progressive rock. So don’t look for insightful comments on the lyrics here – it’s the music that I enjoy.)
I tend to think of the other tracks as being shorter pieces sandwiched between these two monsters, but some of them are nearly as long as the 7-1/2 minute running time of “Man of a Thousand Faces”.
The up-tempo songs are a lot of fun: “80 Days” is a pretty straightforward song which maybe explains the pop leanings that some fans don’t like about this album. On the other hand, “An Accidental Man” is a nifty, up-tempo track with droning vocals over a neat guitar riff. The lyrics have a sharp feel which give the track an additional edge. “Hope For the Future” has a vaguely caribbean sound and some punchy horn backing, and is just fun to hear.
“One Fine Day” is a slower, melancholy track with some nice melodies – including a solid guitar solo – which I enjoy when the mood strikes me. “Memory of Water” is the other slow track, almost a cappella, which doesn’t have much in the way of melody and isn’t really my cup of tea. “Estonia” seems to be the best-loved track on the album by many other fans. I think it’s pretty good, very atmospheric, with moody synth work by Kelly and some nifty (what sounds like) Mandolin backing as well.
I never get tired of listening to this album. It may not be perfect, but its high are very high, and most of it is quite strong. If you know me and ever wonder what I enjoy about progressive rock, a lot of it is right here: Long tracks that develop one or more musical ideas at length and in depth, and complex, engaging arrangements.
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