It’s snowing as I type this1, and the temperatures will soon be subzero. I’m impatient to hear the voices of spring.
Author: Don
Tune of the day #156
Presenting “Django Johnny.”
Tune of the day #155
The Sadistic Mika Band were the first Japanese band to tour Great Britain, and were influenced the likes of Marc Bolan and David Bowie. Every website discussing them has a different explanation of their name, none of them convincing.
Tune of the day #154
Jon Hiseman’s Colosseum in their early days.
Tune of the day #153
Enrique Granados‘s 1911 Goyescas is one of the two great suites of Spanish piano music. (Albeniz’ Iberia is the other one.) Granados was killed in 1916 when the boat he was crossing the English Channel on was torpedoed by a German U-boat.
Tune of the day #152
A spooky tune from 1962. Pentangle covered it several years later.
Tune of the day #151
An example of Japanese “group sounds” from 1968. The bass player, Masayoshi “Louis” Kabe, would later turn up as “Glue” in Speed, Glue & Shinki.
Tune of the day #150
A simple tune in a characteristically straightforward arrangement by Gentle Giant.
Tune of the day #149
“Ma mère l’oye” began as a piano duet for children. Ravel subsequently orchestrated it, which is the version here. Joe Walsh recorded his own version of the introductory “Pavanne.”
Tune of the day #148
Members of The Blues Project joined with fiddler Richard Greene, a Bill Monroe alumnus, and a few other musicians to form Sea Train (two words). Their 1969 self-titled debut had possibly the worst cover of any album — it wasn’t even ugly2 — and it sold miserably. I’ve never met anyone other than myself who bought a copy. This is a pity, because it was a fully-realized example of progressive rock, intricate, complicated and ambitious. It’s almost completely forgotten. Sea Train is not even mentioned on Prog Archives.
The band subsequently underwent personnel changes, altered their name to “Seatrain,” and came to George Martin’s attention. The resulting album was better-produced and easier to listen to, and it yielded a small hit, but it was less interesting than the one that preceded it.3
Tune of the day #147
The music of yokai metal band Onmyouza is mostly a Japanese echo of the NWoBHM, but they occasionally pause the mayhem for a moment for Kuroneko to sing a ballad.
Today’s quote
A trillion here, a trillion there. Sooner or later, you’re talking about fake money.
Tune of the day #146
Gary Moore may have been the homeliest of the Great Guitarists, but that didn’t matter when he played this homage to Roy Buchanan.
(The live version is better, and it’s originally what I had here. However, that video is no longer available, grr.)
Memo to Dr. Robert Malone
Before posting that perfect picture, take a close look at it.
Tune of the day #145
This early Roy Wood tune was the first song played on Britain’s Radio 1.
Administrative note
I’ve added the category “Fake art” for posts that include machine-made pictures I’ve concocted. While writing prompts is a tricky art, I can’t claim credit for the execution of those prompts. The images are not really mine, and they’re not really art, pretty though they may be.
Tune of the day #144
Some space music: the final piece of George Crumb’s Makrokosmos I. The score is below if you would like to play along.
Tune of the day #143
Written by Ross Bagdasarian, a.k.a. “David Seville,” and William Saroyan, and first recorded in 1951 by Rosemary Clooney, who hated it. Dan Hicks installed the trampoline.
Tune of the day #142
Some Elvenmusic composed by Anton Brejestovski.
Blackbirds
It’s the second day of February, when I and perhaps a few other bloggers post a favorite poem. Here’s some easy Wallace Stevens.
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.
VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?
VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.
IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.
XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.
XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.
XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.