A Prison, A Garden, A Country Singer, A Snow Goose and A Camel

A far longer title that the post itself. Today I will be going up to Scotland and the other night I listened to "The Prison" by Michael Nesmith and the concept was that you read the book that comes with the album and the album is a soundtrack. The music stands on it's own but on the train up I am going to read this while listening to the album.

The general consensus is that Nesmith is a far better musician thatnauthor but that's a moot point as far as I'm concerned.

He followed the concept of "The Prison" up with "The Garden" which I am going to order after writing this very short piece. I'm not going to analyze or even tell you the story of these because I actually don't know. When I get back and have listened to both and read both books I will follow this up.

This concept was also used by Camel with Paul Gallico's "The Snow Goose" which I know a bit more about because I have done the read / listen thing with this, set in the wild, desolate Essex marshes and is an intense and moving tale about the relationship between a hunchback (Rhayader) and a young girl (Fritha) who nurse an injured bird and Rhayader's involvement in Dunkirk. It is very short and very moving and takes about the forty minutes which can be soundtracked by Camel's album based on the book. A fuller synopsis is available on Wiki here.

The weather is hot, England have been beaten, and the weekend is here so have a great Friday and a great weekend and do try to investigate these albums and books.

However I am not going to choose a song from the albums but another Michael Nesmith song "Some of Shelly's Blues".

Have a great day.

Turn This Crazy Bird Around

I switched on the radio this morning and that line came out of the speakers sung by Joni Mitchell singing "This Flight Tonight" from her album "Blue". I think my first introduction to this song was hearing Nazareth's excellent heavily rocked up version with Manny Charlton's ghostly guitar solo which I bought as a single, but was on their album "Loud'n'Proud".

Soon after Judas Priest did the same to "Diamonds and Rust" penned by Joan Baez on their "Sin After Sin" album although it doesn't have the intensity of the Nazareth cover.

But these are two iconic songwriters covered by two iconic metal bands and it is an excuse to play these songs.

These albums haven't been on my playlist as I have a few more racked up to listen to but last night I listened to "The Prison" by Michael Nesmith which I will dedicate a future post to.

A couple of weeks back I bought some vinyl on albumwas "Electric Warrior" by T. Rex with it's incredibly cool cover, and it came with a download code. Surprisingly I haven't got it on CD, so I decided to download the album and was surprised that it was in WAV rather than MP3 format resulting in significantly larger files but without sound loss. One of te songs was like 24Mb for a two minute song. That is 2.5 times the capacity of my first hard drive computer which I got from my friend Chris Brough. How times change.

Anyway enjoy all this, I'm off to Scotland for the weekend.

Walk On Gilded Splinters - #TenAlbumsInTenDays #3 - #9

I do find it amazing the amount of music that I have available to me, but I do keep going back to revisit old albums, but because they still sound incredible today. "Gris Gris" by Doctor John was something I missed in my teenage years but once I heard it's hypnotic gumbo voodoo tunery it's an album that has never left me.

I'm also doing  #TenAlbumsInTenDays which gives me another excuse to revisite enjoy and write about this stuff.

Similarly Captain Beefheart's "Trout Mask Replica" is another amazing epic piece that I did pick up as a teenager much to the chagrin on many of my Led Zeppelin / Bowie toting friends. This was several steps too far for them, as would have been "Gris Gris".

Rumour has it that Beefheart took the Magic Band into the desert and learned them to play from scratch. The album combines so many musical elements that if you don't approach it with an open mind you will not be able to appreciate the eclectic mix of brass, woodwind, free jazz, sea shanties, blues, garage rock and pure avant-garde. It is truly an experience and again, once you're in there you are truly in. You will never forget or fail to appreciate this masterpiece.

The back to the New Orleans Voodoo of Doctor John, The Night Tripper in full regalia for "Gris Gris". One song "I Walk On Gilded Splinters" has been widely covered by such luminaries as Cher, Marsha Hunt, Paul Weller and Humble Pie but that is just the grand finale of an album of seven amazing and hypnotic songs.

So really that has to be the song I leave you with but check out both these albums and the other versions of the song, you may love them.

A Wolf In Babylon

God it's hot, but I'm not complaining , it keeps the power bills down and makes walking into work pleasurable. Unfortunately I have to remain fully clothed so as not to frighten any living creature in my vicinity, so I am enjoying mytime at home where I can be on my own and therefore don't have to concentrate too much on my appearance.

After listening to Edgar Froese's "Aqua" I decided to put on "Wolf City" by Amon Duul II complete with it's winged sphinx cover (see here)designed by Falk U-Rogner, the band's keyboard player ,  From the opener "Surrounded By Stars" this album does not have a dud moment. The lyrics my be a little out at times but English is not their primary language and when they sing in german on "Deutsch Nepal" they sound supremely confident. I played it through twice and could have kept going, but I do realise that I can put it on whenever I want.

I then put on it's predecessor, "Carnival In Babylon" and at first I wasn't too taken with it. It's more pastoral in feel and while I think all the songs are in roghly 4/4 time the introduction of tablas and eastern percussion draws you into it. On the second play I was rehooked all the songs just held me and I could just listen to both these albums for a very very long time.

These are just two albums from the excellent Amon Duul back catalog and after "Vive LA Trance" they seemed to lose their way, but hit back remarkably with their last release "Duulirium"

So I've gone for "Deutsch Nepal" with some Ralph Bakshi animation which may be from his "Lord of The Rings", powerful stuff.

Sleep well.

Real Head or Artificial Head?

Been slightly worried as a few nights I've been so tired I've had to go to bed at nine. I'm up at six most mornings, sometimes earlier so that should give me nine hours sleep which should be more than enough, but I was under the impression that the older you got the less sleep you got.

Today I wasn't feeling exactly energetic but for one reason or another I've ended up doing 18K steps, the most this month, which i sjustover six miles. Included in that is mowing my lawn and trimming some of the wild edges of the garden resulting in a full brown bin.

Yesterday I listened to "Aqua" by Edgar Froese with it's artificial head recording and while it sounded fine, I wasn't exactly blown away. The title track consists of running water with some electronic sounds weaving in and out and eventually this becomes hypnotically excellent, great music for walking theough green parks to and just the sort for relaxing your mind. I was impressed enough to order the Edgar Froese "Virgin Years" and stick my copy of "Aqua" on Discogs here.

The thing is there's lots of other songs and pieces that have made better use of stereo options and one of the best is still "May This Be Love" from Jimi Hendrix's debut "Are You Experienced" apparently used in the film "Singles". Stick on your headphones and experience this for your self. YOu dontneed an artificial head for this, a real one will do just fine.

Enjoy my friends.

My Artificial Head

Apparently, yesterday was the Summer Solstice, the longest day, and the days get shorter from now on until the Winter Solstice. F Paul Wilson's "Nightworld" has a premise where the days keep getting shorter in the culmination of his "Adversary" series which started with "The Keep" which was made into a film directed by Michael Mann and featuring Sir Ian McKellen which is worth a watch although not a classic.

It turns out that TangerinDream did the soundtrack and my last post was German rock orientated, and caused me to load a lot of German rock on to my phone to listen on my walk to work. One of these albums was Edgar Froese's "Aqua" his first solo album outside of Tangerine Dream and at the time it used an "artificial head" recording process developed by, among others, Gunther Brunschen, more of which you can read about here.

It was supposed to give a more realistic aural experience but was more of a marketing point, but you had to listen to this recording and in the end it was just a decent electronic record.

I am tempted by the Froese solo box set though I actually have a copy of "Aqua" and I will be listening to it on the way to work today.

The sun is shining the sky is blue so should be a good walk in.

I am always surprised how so many different things can be related, but again that's part of the rich tapestry of life. Have a brilliant Friday every one.

Dancing With Lemmings #TenAlbumsInTenDays #3 - #2

I think my first exposure to Amon Duul II was hearing "Race From Here To Your Ears" on a UA compilation, "All Good Clean Fun". There was a lot of good stuff on there such as Man's "Daughter of The Fireplace" but this album made me want to hear the albums that the individual songs had come from and hearing "Race From Here To Your Ears" (Part of "Restless Skylight Transistor Child" that made up side two of th eoriginal albumthen seeing the cover of "Dance of the Lemmings" (or "Tanz Der Lemminge" which I think is the correct German original title)

 The album also drew me into what was loosely termed Krautrock but also made me realisethat music could sound much different to our normal western blues and rock and roll concept of rock. From this I went on to Tangerine Dream, Can, Kraftwerk and Faust as well as other less well known bands and all these now how a place in my music collection.

These days people equate German Music with Kraftwerk, and while not wanting to diminish their importance there is far more to German rock and progressive music than them, but they deserve their success and recognition.

So with that I will look out on the very light night sky of the longest day.

Sleep well, tomorrow is Friday.