Category: Music

Another trip to Canterbury.

Another race, with Cliff Gallup on guitar. Gallup was one of Jeff Beck’s heroes.

Someday beef prices will be reasonable again.

I could easily have done a year of just Beatles covers. This is one of the more imaginative ones. Hyung-ki Joo covered this cover in his own fashion, but Berberian did it better.

I’ve heard Phil Keaggy twice in concert. The first time was with a band in an enormous Baptist church in downtown Wichita with classic bad acoustics — you could only hear half of what was played, but you heard that half twice. He still sounded pretty good. The second time was with just his acoustic guitar and a looper pedal in a proper auditorium. That sounded better. He doesn’t really need more than six strings and nine fingers.

Proto-metal for Walpurgisnacht. Gun’s 1968 album featured Roger Dean’s first cover.

They had bigger hits, but this is the one I liked.

The legendary pianist John Ogdon was known for playing titanic works such as the “Hammerklavier” sonata and Alkan’s “Symphony” for solo piano, but he also played smaller-scale pieces.

While most of the Bonzo Dog Band’s songs were written by either Neil Innes or Vivian Stanshall, trouser press virtuoso Roger Ruskin Spear was responsible for a few, including this one.

A little 21st-century Klezmer.

Although “Evil Woman” was their big hit, I liked this one better. This is the single version; the album version is marred by an interminable drum solo.

Guitarists get goofy.

Deaf School featured Bette Bright, Eric Shark, Enrico Cadillac and Rev. Max Ripple. Some of their tunes were almost as good as their names.

My other big show-off piano piece, though of course I never played it this well.

Years ago Byron Berline, Dan Crary and John Hickman were regulars at Winfield.

The 5,6,7,8’s version might be more familiar, but I like the original, too.

There are a surprisingly large number of flutists in prog rock, most of them better that Ian Anderson. Andrew Latimer, for instance.

This was one of my big show-off pieces back when my fingers were in shape, though I never played it anywhere near this well.

Ambitious prog rock epics with deep, incomprehensible lyrics are all very well, but sometimes you just want something to eat.

Compare this 1957 tune with Peter Green’s “Albatross” from eleven years later.