Category: Music

A bit of gooey sentimentality from NRBQ for those who like that sort of thing….

An approximation of surf music by the Japanese counterpart of Dick Dale.

Rubinstein was my favorite pianist when I was first investigating classical music, particularly for Chopin, but also for Brahms.

A tune about grungy hamsters, vengeful lobsters, spiders and sponges, if I am interpreting the English parts of the macaronic lyrics properly.

It’s surprisingly difficult to find videos of off-track music from 1980 to 2005, even when an album had a Roger Dean cover. That was before YouTube, but too recently for the recordings to be of antiquarian interest. Consequently there is very little available to represent such eccentric bands as Birdsongs of the Mesozoic, and few of their earlier recordings are available there. BotM is classified as “RIO/Avant-Prog” at Prog Archives. Unlike most artists in that classification, they are generally fairly pleasant and not difficult to listen to, though not remotely radio-friendly.

Today’s chemistry lesson, courtesy of the McGarrigles.

Something to annoy Andy Edwards. VDGG epitomized all that was dark, dramatic and pretentious about prog rock. I like them anyway, though I wish Peter Hammill had sung in a language other than English so I could better ignore the lyrics.

Another Winfield fingerstyle winner.

Time for some Klezmer.

Some twelve tone-lite from Ron Jarzombek. This track — I hesitate to call it a “tune” — is constructed from four suspended chords that combined include all twelve tones.

Something a bit different today: a look Yunchan Lim’s Chopin Etudes and the changing styles of Chopin playing over the years.

Something to annoy all the NBCs at Severian’s place.

Time for some accordion music. This polka might be a bit tricky to dance to.

The Bayou Renaissance Man recently mentioned the Canadian “euthanasia polka.” I’m not aware of that particular tune, but there is a “Euthanasia Waltz” from the first Brand X album. See if you can guess who the drummer is without looking it up. I guarantee that you’ve heard him.

The visuals are false advertising: Ann Heymann’s wire-strung harp sounds very different than the nylon-stung ones pictured in the video.

A bit of psychedelia from 1968.

Heron’s backing band on this tune was “Tommy and the Bijoux.” For months after I first heard this I looked for more of their music. Later I discovered that I had most of their records in my library already, and possibly you do, too.

The music of the “Touhou Project” series of video games has inspired an astonishing amount of fan music in nearly every style. Here’s a suite of Touhou music arranged for masked string quartet.

A tune by Yoko Kanno, sung by Akino Arai.

Andy “Thunderclap” Newman may have played the piano as if he wore boxing gloves, but here Williams Albright and Bolcom put something a little more forceful on the pianist’s hands.