Excuses, Excuses

  A long gap between posts I'm afraid. Brought on by the busyness of business, but there have been some goings on in music recently that I felt compelled to comment on so...

Bill Nelson

No secret that Bill is a huge favourite of mine. He is also someone who seems to reflect the ever increasing trend to stumble into the future focussed relentlessly on the past. He writes a regular journal on his website. the latest (as I write) is here. Bill is producing more and better work than he has ever done but is again being forced to revisit work that he regards as juvenalia - Be Bop Deluxe were a good band but a recent article in Shindig and doubtless the upcoming one he refers to in Classic Rock will pick over their bones and pass over the subsequent 40 years and hundreds of recordings with barely a nod. I sympathise with Bill and wish that he and other artists could be allowed the spotlight for their current work that it deserves.

I suspect (as from his comments I think Bill does as well) that the power of Facebook may have helped sell this event out in record time, and given that the Facebook groups that helped the sell out seem to have the same myopia about anything other than Be Bop Deluxe, then he may be right that there will be some disappointed fans clutching armfuls of 70s LPs to be signed. This means that many of his very loyal current following go without, me included. While I think some of the comments being expressed on the website message board are a little OTT, it would be nice for Bill to have a supportive crowd, especially if there is a question mark over him playing live again.

Over The Rhine

Another favourite. Sometime ago they did a a crowd funder covering three new albums. While I'm of the persuasion that would listen to Karin Bergquist sing a shopping list, I was pleased to see that there will be a new piano album from Linford included. I recently bought the only one of his earlier ones that I didn't have, "Unspoken Requests" and it's now a fixture on the iPod. If you don't know about Over The Rhine, catch up here. Hopefully more shows in the UK at some point. St Georges Hall in Bristol would be a great venue for them. HINT!

Steely Dan

Or the Donald Fagen band as it should really be now. While I could care less about current goings on, the hope that DF's chase for dollars will also include some expanded reissues and some more proper live albums, rather than bootleg radio shows, is on. As a side note Jazz Journal, which I read occasionally, but is very much stuck in 1966 made a comment in it's blurb for last months issue that Steely Dan had no place in a Jazz magazine. Oh come on! Surely we are past that! The irony that this comment was supporting an interview with guitarist Steve Khan (Aja, Gaucho) and that elsewhere in the magazine was a report on new interpretations of some of Donald's songs and a feature on Chris Potter, stalwart of the 90s band is clearly lost on whoever wrote that.

EMusic

I have winged about the demise of this once great service before, but have finally paused my membership to give it three months to get it's act together. Not going to happen I'm afraid but as most of my saved for later list disappeared months ago, and Frontiers Records vanished in September I struggled to use up my allocation last quarter. So bye bye EMusic, fun while it lasted.

There got that off my chest, back to work.