Back To The Music
Week from Monday 11th March 2024 - Gosh! I've missed MUSIC all the time I was staying at the HOTEL DEL QA. Not so much as a piped daytime selection could be found to tickle my ears, so I was left with the EARWORMS in my own head for company for a month (mostly a couple of bars of Zappa and something else I couldn't place...). I now hope to make up for it!
The latest addition to the CAN live releases is of course STUPENDOUS, and a fitting tribute to the recently departed DAMO SUZUKI. But I was slightly disappointed to find that it is a show that I ALREADY HAVE in its entirety, having appeared on a ('semi-official' and equal in quality) CD in the late nineties. The one with the rather obvious picture of a hand holding a tin can on the front. So after all the anticipation I DIDN'T purchase the 'new' download, but nevertheless I've been playing my old copy to death...
I compiled and burned the one-hundred-and-sixty-second volume of my ongoing "HOT TICKLES" mixtape CDs (mostly of KING CRIMSON-related artistes), including a longish MARKUS REUTER segué and the total musical content of Episode 87 of "LIVE FROM DARYL'S HOUSE", featuring the reunion of DARYL HALL and ROBERT FRIPP. Rough and ready, but thrilling...
I'm finally getting around to tackling the latest ZAPPA 'box set'. As I mentioned before, I didn't purchase this one in physical form but opted for a download, as "OVER NITE SENSATION" is by no means my favourite Zappa-platter. It's still good music, but lyrically that was a period when Zappa's cutting satire gave way to crowd-pleasing smut, which hasn't dated at all well, in my opinion. But now I can compile my OWN selective 'LISTENING DISCS' and miss out some of the stuff that I don't care for (you know the ones!)
I had to venture out during the week to visit the health centre, hobbling to the bus stop on a borrowed stick. I paid my first visit to a CHARITY SHOP for the first time this year. I went in search of a suitable cane of my own, but instead came out with a JOE ZAWINUL seedydisk for one of your earth pounds - my first physical musical purchase since last SUMMER, don'tcha know!!??! It's a goody too, very much in the typical Syndicate style, with Joe's strange noodly synth lines to the fore and featuring collaborating artists from the music we like to call 'WORLD'...
I also found time for some entire multi-album LIVE sets by YES and R.E.M. ("Songs From Tsongas" and "Live In Dublin" respectively). I must confess that I found R.E.M. to be the more exciting listen these days. (In both cases, the vocals are really up front in the mix. I prefer my gibberish to be more muted.)
'NEW DISCOVERY' TIME!!... I never paid much heed to the music of ANTONÍN DVOȒÁK before now. Obviously, I knew his "Going Home" tune that he wrote for the Hovis adverts (joke!) and some of his String Quartets I quite liked when heard on the radio... But I hadn't been aware of his glorious oratorio "STABAT MATER". Listening to it on the wireless after dark, with the BERLIN PHILHARMONIC and assembled singists powering through what sounded like an epic performance, has fair turned me on (man!). Somehow, the music is both dark AND colourful, beautiful textures and some cracking tunes along the way. DAMN GOOD RADIO anyway. I think this might be the year that I finally 'GET' choral music! (...consults The Big Black Paperback of Penguin's for recommended recordings...)
The latest addition to the CAN live releases is of course STUPENDOUS, and a fitting tribute to the recently departed DAMO SUZUKI. But I was slightly disappointed to find that it is a show that I ALREADY HAVE in its entirety, having appeared on a ('semi-official' and equal in quality) CD in the late nineties. The one with the rather obvious picture of a hand holding a tin can on the front. So after all the anticipation I DIDN'T purchase the 'new' download, but nevertheless I've been playing my old copy to death...
I compiled and burned the one-hundred-and-sixty-second volume of my ongoing "HOT TICKLES" mixtape CDs (mostly of KING CRIMSON-related artistes), including a longish MARKUS REUTER segué and the total musical content of Episode 87 of "LIVE FROM DARYL'S HOUSE", featuring the reunion of DARYL HALL and ROBERT FRIPP. Rough and ready, but thrilling...
I'm finally getting around to tackling the latest ZAPPA 'box set'. As I mentioned before, I didn't purchase this one in physical form but opted for a download, as "OVER NITE SENSATION" is by no means my favourite Zappa-platter. It's still good music, but lyrically that was a period when Zappa's cutting satire gave way to crowd-pleasing smut, which hasn't dated at all well, in my opinion. But now I can compile my OWN selective 'LISTENING DISCS' and miss out some of the stuff that I don't care for (you know the ones!)
I had to venture out during the week to visit the health centre, hobbling to the bus stop on a borrowed stick. I paid my first visit to a CHARITY SHOP for the first time this year. I went in search of a suitable cane of my own, but instead came out with a JOE ZAWINUL seedydisk for one of your earth pounds - my first physical musical purchase since last SUMMER, don'tcha know!!??! It's a goody too, very much in the typical Syndicate style, with Joe's strange noodly synth lines to the fore and featuring collaborating artists from the music we like to call 'WORLD'...
I also found time for some entire multi-album LIVE sets by YES and R.E.M. ("Songs From Tsongas" and "Live In Dublin" respectively). I must confess that I found R.E.M. to be the more exciting listen these days. (In both cases, the vocals are really up front in the mix. I prefer my gibberish to be more muted.)
'NEW DISCOVERY' TIME!!... I never paid much heed to the music of ANTONÍN DVOȒÁK before now. Obviously, I knew his "Going Home" tune that he wrote for the Hovis adverts (joke!) and some of his String Quartets I quite liked when heard on the radio... But I hadn't been aware of his glorious oratorio "STABAT MATER". Listening to it on the wireless after dark, with the BERLIN PHILHARMONIC and assembled singists powering through what sounded like an epic performance, has fair turned me on (man!). Somehow, the music is both dark AND colourful, beautiful textures and some cracking tunes along the way. DAMN GOOD RADIO anyway. I think this might be the year that I finally 'GET' choral music! (...consults The Big Black Paperback of Penguin's for recommended recordings...)
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