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[ 2 Comments ]Posted on November 6, 2009 by admin in Music
Friday, November 6th, 2009
Australian Tal Wilkenfeld started playing bass at 17, and at 23 is performing with jazz legends like Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, and Wayne Shorter.
My imaginary ultimate chick band is now nearly complete: Zoe Keating on cello, Kaki King on guitar, and now Tal Wilkenfeld on bass. If you haven’t heard this little punk from Australia play, get out some real speakers and check out her bass solo (playing live with Jeff Beck) in the clip at left. Her solo starts around 1:16. Even if you don’t like her playing, watching Jeff Beck bow and surrender repeatedly to a 23 year old bass player makes it all worth it. Unfortunately, Wilkenfeld’s been too busy playing with the likes of Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, and Wayne Shorter to release a CD since 2007′s Transformation
, which was recorded in just two days. Apparently this kind of accelerated activity is typical for her; she started playing guitar at 14, switched to bass at 17, and at 18 moved to the states and started the career that has her playing with jazz legends at 23. I can’t wait to hear how her career shapes up; for now the best way to keep up with what she’s sounding like is to peruse YouTube and catch clips of her live appearances. Her official site is here, but seems a little underdeveloped. Hopefully this is a side effect of the fact that she’s too busy defining who she is herself to get mis-packaged, as so often happens with female talent in the music industry. Read the rest of this entry »
[ Comments Off ]Posted on October 31, 2009 by admin in Music
Saturday, October 31st, 2009
Nothing.
Don’t look for Amazon or iTunes links in
your results with Google’s new music search |
Nothing. Well, there are good things about it, but nothing great. Frankly, Google’s really starting to get on my nerves. They have a little bit too much of that Lord of the Rings “One Ring to rule them all” thing going on. Yes, it’s kind of cool that if you search for a band or a song, you now suddenly have the ability to play it right there in your search results. The other touted features – like the ability to search lyrics and get the same results for instance – are so inconsistent that I’m surprised the best and brightest at Google decided to include them. And the omission of iTunes and Amazon from those clickable previews is a mixed bag; yes it’s great to see less monolithic companies being promoted, but the fact is that this is probably just Google’s way of launching their own monopoly. It will be interesting to see how that plays out; so far their key partners include Lala, Rhapsody, Pandora, Imeem, and MySpace. I personally buy all my digital music at either Amazon*
(which accounts for 10% of U.S. digital music sales) or iTunes (which accounts for 69% of U.S. digital music sales), and have no problem with that. If Google’s foray into the market generates competition and lower prices, or gives indy artists more exposure, excellent. If not, it’s just more search engine clutter, and another annoyingly distracting sales channel that benefits no-one. But don’t listen to me, try it yourself. Here’s a Read the rest of this entry »
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on October 25, 2009 by admin in Music
Sunday, October 25th, 2009
Moondog is probably the most famous street musician you never heard of.
Somehow I managed to listen to an exhaustive variety of music my entire life and not hear about the astounding genius of Moondog until yesterday. Chances are that like me, you’ve heard Moondog and not realized it. His song Stamping Ground
was used in The Big Lebowski
, and British DJ Mr. Scruff pretty much just added beats and speeded up the Moondog tune Bird’s Lament to create the club hit Get A Move On (clip featured here). Born Louis Thomas Hardin, Moondog’s life is as interesting and unusual as his music. A minister’s son, Moondog lost his sight at the age of 16, began studying music, and in his late 20′s moved to New York. For over 20 years he chose a life playing music on the streets, eventually becoming known as The Viking of 6th Avenue
. In spite of his unconventional lifestyle choice, Moondog worked with and/or was respected by such luminaries as Charlie Parker, Lester Young, Igor Stravinsky, Frank Zappa, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and Elvis Costello. His music ranges from the charmingly simplistic to the polyrythmically canonic, often utilizing very listenable but unusual meters. As Moondog himself is quoted as saying: “I’m not gonna die in 4/4 time“. Learn more about Moondog on the official site, and maybe search YouTube, there are lots of of audio-only clips available. Read the rest of this entry »
[ Comments Off ]Posted on October 19, 2009 by admin in Music
Monday, October 19th, 2009
Is there a clause in rock star contracts with the devil that says AND YOU HAVE TO BE FUGLY?
Poor Shane MacGowan of the Pogues
almost always tops these lists |
The other day a friend and I were talking about Robin Trower, who – while a legendary and seminal rock guitarist – is not what you would call conventionally handsome. When I listened to him as a teen, I never really thought about this; there’s a pretty good chance that I was under the influence of something or making out with chicks at the time. But this got my friend and I thinking: is there some clause when rock stars sign their contracts with the Devil that says “but you have to be ugly in that rock star kind of way“? As I sought ideas for a list of ugly musicians, I realized a few things. First of all, as a musician who’s not exactly adorable himself, I should be careful here. Perhaps more importantly, there’s a lot of truth in expressions like “love is blind” or “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. For instance, while the average person would likely say that Tom Waits is a little on the ugly side, don’t say this to his fans. A friend of mine who worships Waits nearly smashed me over the head with a bourbon bottle when I suggested his name for the list. And on the inverse, Madonna almost universally ranks in the top ten on these sorts of lists, usually with an explanation about inner beauty being important. I’m also one of the worst people to address this topic; I mean, I think Sandra Bernhard is hot, for cryin’ out loud. Regardless of who you think is ugly, I think the PopCrunch article Rock’s Aging Sex Icons Need To Quit Already is on the mark when they point out that no-one wants to see grandpa running around in spandex. I mean c’mon, Eddie Van Halen, you look like you’re wearing a damn colostomy bag! Who would you add to the list? Read the rest of this entry »
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on October 13, 2009 by admin in Music
Tuesday, October 13th, 2009
How friend helped me let go of my shame and rediscover the genius of Electric Light Orchestra.
 
This Album Cover Looks Really
Cool If You’re Sixteen & Stoned |
Thanks to the fact that my photographer friend Terry recently admitted publicly that he had been listening to Electric Light Orchestra, I can finally slither out of my little closet of shame and confess: I think ELO is one of the most amazing pop bands of the seventies. As long as Jeff Lynne’s hair isn’t blocking the sound (now I remember why Phil Spector’s hair looked so familiar a couple of years ago), any listener would probably acknowledge that tracks from albums like On The Third Day (1973), Eldorado
(1974), Face The Music
(1975), A New World Record
(1976), and Out Of The Blue (1977) not only formed part of the tragic soundtrack of the early teen years for some of us, but also hold up surprisingly well today. For me the rediscovery of ELO started when I used Pandora for the first time a few months ago, and typed ELO as a sort of random test of Pandora’s capabilities. I was surprised a little by Pandora’s ability to spew out an interesting playlist based on entering a slightly forgotten band, but I was more surprised at how great the songs still sound. And a little embarrassed at my secret guilty pleasure. If you were alive and cognizant in 1976/1977, you might have experienced the same trauma that I did: while punk was in it’s early gestation, amazing double albums of SuperPop like ELO’s “Out of the Blue” and Stevie Wonder’s Songs In The Key Of Life
were saturating the airwaves. That was a tough year or two; you might find yourself trying to hide your canary yellow hair and Clash albums so you could date the nice Catholic chick who was still playing KC & The Sunshine Band, Peter Frampton, or the BeeGees. Hearing these ELO songs after not hearing them for literally decades was a little unsettling; suddenly I was pining over Carol [REDACTED], Jeanne [REDACTED], and Kathy [REDACTED] and sloppy first kisses all over again. In fact, I just relived my whole heartbreaking relationship with Helen [REDACTED] by listening to Strange Magic
and Evil Woman
back-to-back. I’m gonna go cry in my room beneath my Farrah Fawcett poster now. Read the rest of this entry »
