Songs for troubling times.

I can be a bit of a miserable git at times, and this is definitely one of those times. Music has always been my main go to for overcoming the melancholy. So what am I listening to as the world goes down the tubes?

Elbow/Sarah Brightman  - One Day Like This

I am a fan of Elbow, but this song always seemed tailor made for Sarah. A bit of a shame it appeared on the album where she ditched her regular producer making Dreamchaser her weakest album for a long time. Far better live, although too short. Elbow still do it best. Sarah tackles Barclay James Harvest's Hymn on her most recent album, and while I'm not the least bit religious that has all the uplifting qualities this could have done. 

Samantha James - Send It Out To The Universe

I have finally tracked down the 2CD editions of both of her albums and this still stands out as one of my favourite songs by one of my favourite singers. My friend Angela describes this as woo, woo stuff. Guilty as charged.

Over The Rhine  - Latter Days

This may sound like me wallowing in the gloom, and who's to say I'm not good at that. The words have always spoken to me, listen to them it is in fact one of the most uplifting songs I know. There are some great live versions on Archive.org with extended piano intros by Linford. It ends up sounding like a Chopin piano étude.

Van Morrison - Bright Side Of The Road

I bought Into The Music when it came out and this song can still raise mood and start a smile whenever I hear it. If it doesn't do the same for you perhaps check your pulse. The version of Philosophers Stone is also worth hearing but not a patch on this.

The other thing that I listen to a lot is the radio, but frankly I can't do too much news at the moment so podcasts and old comedy are what I'm listening to currently. Recommendations to follow.

It's the end of the world as we know it... maybe Bandcamp can save us.

I'm not going to bang on about C*******s because much like everyone else I could do with hearing about something else at some point just to avoid worrying myself into a frenzy.

So as there are some generous musicians making music available for free I'm going to post some of those, while also encouraging you to support the portals that provide the best return to artists whose livlehood has simply gone.

So to start off John McLaughlin has offered his wonderful new album with Shankar Mahadevan and Zakir Hussain "Is That So?" for free until the end of April though his Bandcamp page. If you like that then take the time to look at some of his other albums.


Speaking of Bandcamp they are waiving all their revenue share for the 20th March from Midnight to Midnight Pacific Time, which is 7am in the UK. Bandcamp are the best way of giving the maximum amount of your money to the artists at any time. Today it's even better. Learn more about Bandcamp's support here.

 

Speaking of supporting the artist, there is also the labels. MoonJune Records are a one man label who describe themselves as exploring progressive, Jazz, Rock, Avant and Ethno music. This is not as scary as it sounds and they have some well known artists, Soft Machine, Gong and others as well as some great people you will never have heard of. Try Dwiki Dharmawan for instance. They offer some name your own price compilations, which are great value. The booking agency that keeps the label afloat has unsurprisingly no business, so consider buying a few things from them today

MoonJune's Bandcamp page here

More on their plight at Sonic Perspectives here

That's all for now I'll leave you with a fab version of The Creator Has A Masterplan from McLaughlin and Santana. I certainly hope he does...

 

That Thing You Do

When the super 4 CD set of the Nuggets compilation came out in 1998 I read the notes by Lenny Kaye avidly. This was clearly a man with his finger on the pulse. He recommended some films including American Graffiti and a recent film I had never heard of called "That Thing You Do!". I googled, found a film that appeared to be a Tom Hanks vehicle but seemed to be generally well thought of. I watched and found a cracking film full of nostalgia (Hanks must have been just the right age to be there). The music was right, the featured song that gives the film its title was good piece of powerpop regardless of vintage. The cast were fine, if they weren't actually able to play there instruments it didn't show and overall it was an hour and a half well spent.

I've watched it every so often since then but it seems to have become a bit of a forgotten backwater of Hanks' career. If you haven't seen "That Thing You Do!" and you have any interest at all in the music scene of the sixties you should watch it. It's on Netflix in the UK at present as the extended cut which is mostly extra music.

I found the soundtrack album in a charity shop recently and that too is worth your attention. Anyway seek this little lost classic out and in the meantime here's the main attraction.

Unfashionable Music Alert

Sometimes, especially when you are stuck in traffic in Glasgow, as I was the other day, something noisy and upbeat is the only thing that will do.

AOR, Melodic Rock, whatever you want to call it has never been fashionable, but scratch the surface and you will find a lot of people admitting to listening as a "guilty pleasure". Why feel guilty about it? There is as much dross as any other genre but there are some great records both old and new waiting for you to sing along.

When The X Factor had a moment with Don't Stop Believing a few years ago (why it wasn't the winners single that year I don't know),  the Journey original shot up the charts. While Journey are far from my favourite band the song has most streamed/downloaded song status on many portals and in lots of countries.

Who should you be listening to and where do you find out about it?

Work Of Art. Four albums into their career, they have yet to produce anything below an 8 out of 10 record. Play this loud

 

Radioactive. I did a whole post on Tommy Denander a while ago. His name is a mark of quality and you should buy anything he is on. The Radioactive albums are his best though.

A recent album from a new band The Defiants, 'Zokusho' has been hailed as album of the year for 2019 in many quarters.

Terry Brock has appeared on some great albums, solo, with Strangeways and as a guest artist. This is one of his best songs.

Hopefully that has whetted your appetite so where can you learn more? Best magazine by far is Fireworks. There is usually a free digital copy to be had of a back issue here, so give it a try.

Rob Evan's AOR Underground appears in Powerplay magazine, which is a bit more heavy metal focused than Fireworks but still worth a read. He is also on Facebook here.

Melodic Rock, run from Australia by Andrew McNeice is the best online portal, lots of reviews and news.

And that is AOR/Melodic Rock. Way more to it than Journey, Toto, or Giant. If you like a good tune then this is the genre for you, and one that gets a lot of play on the iPod, especially in the car.

CD vs Vinyl (again)

If you don't read the Super Deluxe Edition blog then you should. As well as all the latest releases, editor Paul Sinclair always has an interesting comment on the state of the industry.

This week he has posted on the format wars, and I'm pleased to say agrees with my opinion that the vinyl revival is over hyped and that CD is in fact king.

Read it HERE and subscribe to his newsletter which is a good source of though provoking views.

Giving snobbery the Byrd.

As you may have noticed music snobbery is rife. Extremists shouting in support of their thing, and ready to leap to social media to tell you why your thing is rubbish. I'm not getting into the is X or Y artist Prog debate here because, frankly, I have a life.   

The 70s output of Blue Note Records has been seen, mostly by those for whom Jazz froze in 1962, as way inferior to the "heyday" of the 50s and 60s. My taste in Jazz was largely informed by The Kyle Cathie book 'Jazz on CD' by John Fordham. This introduced me to Hank Mobley, Lee Morgan and many others. What it skipped over was anything that crossed over into fusion, funk or rock. Bill Bruford's excellent Earthworks was dismissed, more seriously so was Miles Davis after 1969. The Mahavishnu Orchestra got a brief mention under John McLaughlin, who himself only merited a 20 word bio and 1 album suggestion, from 1969. Even in the mid 90s there was a healthy cd reissue market so that's not an excuse.

So, until very recently I missed out on the 1970's at Blue Note. I picked up Donald Byrd's 'Street Lady' at a charity shop, and it's great. If you are of the view that Fender killed Jazz with their Rhodes Piano and Precision Bass then try this, and the rest of the Mizell Brothers' productions for Blue Note, and other labels. A friend then reminded me about Quantic Soul Orchestra and introduced me to guitarist Wilbert Longmire, who doesn't rate a Wikipedia entry it seems, but try his 'Sunny Side Up' album. Jazz Funk, or Fusion, or whatever has therefore entered my life giving me something new to look out for. The couple of compilations I have bought suggest the quality is much higher than my previous prejudice would have allowed for. Why Steely Dan never found Longmire I'm not sure he would have fitted them like a glove.

Now, on second thoughts I am getting into the Prog or not thing. The doyen of Prog writers, Sid Smith, has recently pointed out on Twitter some of the hypocrisy surrounding the magazine of the same name, as well as the lack of actual progression in much of the music that calls itself "Progressive". By the numbers Genesis and Pink Floyd retreads do seem to dominate, but that doesn't mean there isn't some good music within the rough confines of Prog. Prog Magazine itself seems to be less worried about the definition than their readers, embracing everything from material that is closer to Folk to electronic music of the Tangerine Dream type.

Duke Ellington is credited with saying "There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind". The rest of the quote from an article called 'Where Is Jazz Going?' in Music Journal from 1962 is ... "the only yardstick by which the result should be judged is simply that of how it sounds. If it sounds good it's successful; if it doesn't it has failed." For me the definition extends far enough to include, if it makes you feel good it doesn't matter what label it carries or what other people think of it.

Keep right on 'til the end of the year.

2019 has come and gone, and with it music releases that I found and missed. As usual this is about the stuff I picked up on this year rather then what was actually released in 2019. 

Lonely Robot: John Mitchell's trilogy concluded this year with 'Under Stars' following Please Come Home (2015) and The Big Dream (2017). If you like updated traditional style Prog Rock then this is for you. Good tunes, good playing and enough "modern" to stand apart from the 70s pastiches.

Jazz has had a bit of an off year for me. With much of Jazz Journal's website disappearing behind a paywall, and off cuts of Miles and Coltrane being touted as earth shattering events I'm struggling to find much to recommend. However The Comet is Coming. 

Work Of Art are an AOR/Melodic Rock group who in a parallel universe are the biggest band in the world. While still not quite equaling the highs of second album 'In Progress' 'Exhibits' is still the best of a cracking year of releases from genre leading label Frontiers. I'm going to be talking in detail about this unfashionable corner of music soon so will save some more suggestions for then.

I've done a couple of round ups of what I was listening to as the year went on, in September and March. My views remain pretty much unchanged on those records, although I may be a little less harsh on the Miles Davis disc having listened some more, still not a classic though. I did a review of the Americana world, which has had a classic year HERE. Visit my colleagues Jonathan and Helen's opinions on 2019 as well, clearly more music to pick up on in 2020. In fact read the whole of Americana UK from top to bottom.

One artist I have rather lost track of this year is Bill Nelson. His new website is slow to load, hard to navigate and thus I have largely stopped visiting. The forum is not the lively place it once was, and judging by the number of off topic posts those who do post are not finding anything to discuss in Bill's recent work.

Thanks for continuing to read my ramblings. The first couple of months topics are already planned, so let's see whats out there...