Alright! Looks like it's time for my very own vanity item. Feel free to join in whatever tangent I'm on at the moment, or change the subject entirely. I have rather varied musicial tastes, and I'm always keen on learning more.22 responses total.
I guess it's about time I thawed this item and starting my blabbing about music. My latest musical obsession began earlier this Winter, when I heard two different Early Music ensembles perform "Ladino Love Songs," or what is known as Sephardic music. I was immediately drawn to the poetry of the lyrics, which I could recognise as a dialect of Spanish. This contradiction of the language with the music reminiscent of Arabic and Jewish music kept me fascinated and eager to hear more. I've done several Internet searches, and finally bought the boxed set entitled "The Sephardic Experience," produced by an Australian group called The Renaissance Players. Next on my list is a 1999 release by an Israeli named Etty Ben-Zaken called "Ladino Love Songs" (Ladino being the language these Spanish Jews spoke before their expulsion, and still do today in Morocco, Syria and other places.). I'd be interested in hearing other suggestions.
While waiting on the SXSW on-air performances to continue, I switched to the "Flashback Lunch" on the genX station. This was the first day I heard songs from 1991 being played on a retro programme. The songs I heard were: King Missile, "Detachable Penis" (from 1991) Peter Gabriel, "Shock the Monkey" (1982, I think) School of Fish, "3 Strange Days" (a favourite of mine, from 1991) Talking Heads, "Psycho Killer" (um, I'm pretty sure this was '77 (-; ) Just because something is 10 years old, does that make it retro?
It does if your target demographic is people who were in high school ten years ago.
(like me.)
My current musical obsession seems to have shifted again since the last time
I posted here. I still listen to the odd Sephardic love song, and I did
finally obtain Etty Ben-Zaken's CD. I still like the mediaeval instrumentation
of which The Renaissance Player make use a little more than Ms. Ben-Zaken's
somewhat more contemporary arrangements, but her version of "La Novia
Destrenza El Pelo" ("The Bride unfastens her braids," which goes on to state,
"And the Knight faints") sings to the soul.
school of fish! detachable penis! yes!!!!!!!!
What a fun song. I don't remember hearing it much when it was first released, only (I think) once at the Western Washington state fair. 1991 was the year I was living in a dorm with a bunch of *old* hippies, and consequently, it's also the year I "discovered" a lot of jam bands, and psychedelic rock. A few months ago I indulged in yet another Spanish music online purchasing adventure. I think that might have been mentioned over the Celtic item, when I bought the NACIONES CELTAS compilations. I just can't seem to get enough of this Ibero-Celtic type of music now. These are groups like Milladoiro and Llan de Cubel, from the regions of Galicia & Asturias in the Northwest of Spain. On the 9-disc compilation, there are many groups that are seldom seen in stores locally, like (to list some of the stand-outs for me): the amazing female vocalist Uxia, and a group called Chouteira on which she sings and plays tamborine, the asturian piper Xuacu Amieva (who played on The Chieftains' SANTIAGO CD), and also the incomparable voice of Marta Arbas, who contributes vocals for Xuacu Amieva, the group Xareu Folk, and Ubin(~)a, among others. So, there's a rich source of music that appeals to me, and I've recently found a few dollars to spend, and have been trying to locate some of the Spanish groups found on these compilations. I've found a fairly decent selection at the online music department of the El Cortes Ingles website < http://musica.elcorteingles.es > with prices that seem like a bargain, until the shipping to North America is calculated at the very end. After finalising, I ended up paying an average of $14.70 per CD, including shipping. Many of the discs have short RealAudio samples of each song.
Hmmm. I haven't been very talkative so far this year. I'll try to remedy that. Some recent thoughts: My best friend is coming to Austin for this years SXSW music festival, so I went to the website < www.sxsw.com/music > to get a general idea of what'll be happening. Looks like the keynote speaker will be Robbie Robertson, and he's supposed to have a newly-restored print of The Band's farewell performance, THE LAST WALTZ (directed by Martin Scorsese), that will be screened during the music conference. The Really Interesting Thing (at least to me) is the interview with Hillary Rosen, President & CEO of the RIAA. I'm very curious about that, mostly to see how she handles the crowd. There's just a whole bunch of bands/performers on the invited list, including several from SE Michigan, so I'll type the few names that I'm interested in: Neil Finn, Katell Keineg, Better Than Ezra, Starsailor, Marcy Playground (?? Had no idea they were still around), along with Austin's old-standbys like Stephen Bruton, The Damnations, Michael Fracasso, Jon Dee Graham, Jimmy LaFave, La Tribu, Abra Moore, Pushmonkey, Reckless Kelly, etc. etc. The groups I saw from MI are: Binary Star (Ypsilanti), Mogue Doyle (A2), Robert Bradley's Blackwater Surprise (love that name; have no idea about the band) among several others from detroit. March 13-17 for the music part of the festival. The 15th Old Settler's Music Festival, which began as a bluegrass fest in a North Austin suburb, moves to Camp Ben McCulloch in the wildflower-strewn Hill Country this year, 19-21 April. yeah, I'm way early on this one, but I'm excited about the line-up. Bruce Hornsby, Michelle Shocked, Del McCoury, Peter Rowan, Darden Smith, among the big names, and Texas guitar-god Monte Montgomery, Terri Hendrix, Caroline Herring, and that 8-year-old banjo picker Ryan Holladay, Railroad Earth, and many more. This is gonna be my birthday present to myself this year. I'm taking a bluegrass vacation. < http://www.bluegrassfestival.com/ > if anyone else is interested. :)
Western Washington state fair? Where are you from, Mickey, or rather, where have you lived?
I was born and raised in Texas, Cap'n Jack, but I spent one season working on Mt. Rainier in 1991. We made the run to Puyallup quite a bit that Summer. <grin>
"Pull Y'all Up"?
More like "pew-whale-up" for some reason..
I usually heard it said "pew-AL-up" and that's how I say it. Neat place, great fair.
from what I remember, I think Mickey's right. I understand it's a nice area, although I haven't been there yet, oddly enough.
South by Southwest 2002 kicked off today in Austin. This year is the first time that I'll be going to see some of the official SxSW shows, and I must say I'm excited about it, especially after attending the 20th annual Austin Music Awards earlier. It was an entertaining night of Austin music, to say the very least. A sketchy synopsis: First band intro'd promptly at 8pm --- The Snobs. They were 14-year olds, screaming and pounding on their instruments. At first I had to wonder, but they turned out to be a fun start. After some awards (which I didn't bother to make notes of, unfortunately. There on the web somewhere, I suspect), next up was the ever-changeable Super Girls. These women were a highlight of the evening for me, featuring Gretchen Phillips, who I hadn't seen since Two Nice Girls. I am strange, though --- "Austin" music has to include lesbian rockers, IMO. They brought out go-go dancers, then dancers in drag, then Patrice Pike (ex-Sister Seven and playing really nice roots-rock with a group called The Black Box Rebellion) and then an amazing woman from Nashville who's name I didn't catch but who sang a neat song about Austin. There were several other antics with Super Girl, but I'll skim over those. More awards (everything from country to conjunto, hip-hop to strings) and then a neat band about which I want to find out more, called Spoon. There were a strange sort of pop, sounding very British with a Hammond organ, guitar bass and drums. Theirs was a very short set, and I think the crowd wanted more from Spoon. Sixpence None the Richer played next, and I wanted to like them more, but I just couldn't ignore the crappy sound. I hope to see their show later in the weekend. Yet more awards, and Texas Music Hall of Fame inductees, including a special one with the late "Mambo" John Traynor's mother accepting on his behalf. Then, another heartwarming tribute to Champ Hood, was passed on last November. His fiddle playin' son is in a combo calling themselves South Austin Jug Band, and they brought out Toni Price to help 'em with some of Champ's songs, and then the big names started to appear when Lyle Lovett came out with them to pay his tribute to Champ Hood. Final awards (yay!) and then Ray Benson and Asleep at the Wheel came out for an all-star jam with Lyle, Jimmie Vaughan, and ... oh! That old-time fiddler from the Texas Playboys who lives in Dipping Springs now. I can't remember his name now, but he was damn good. Johnny Gimble, that's it. All in all, a great start to the experience. I was pleased that my companions, one of which has never been to Austin and is a musician, enjoyed the evening and were amazed at the support for the "scene." It really grows on ya, I've found. :)
I'll just mention that damn, I miss Two Nice Girls. None of the solo spinoff stuff I ever heard was as appealing.
I hope to get the rest of the SXSW notes typed up soon, but I had to mention this URL right now. http://www.crtvg.es/cgi-bin/rtg/verultimosdirectos.asp?id=18 That should load an archive of live concerts produced by the Galician Radio/TV company, featuring several local groups and/or singers. Each group gets to play almost an entire concert --- 10-14 songs. Here's a list of who's archived there: Berroguetto / Susana Seivane / Maria do Ceo / Los Piratas / Mutenrohi / Alboka / Kepa Junkera & a couple more that I don't recognise. Caveat: The streams are only available in .asx (windows media) format
Hey Mickey! Write a few words about the concerts by Michelle Shocked and Del McCoury, please?
Oh, yeah! Thanks for the reminder, Ken. I'm also supposed to be finishing the big SXSW recap. Yikes. I saw Michelle Shocked and Del McCoury (and Darden Smith, who played first) at the Old Settler's Music Festival (mentioned in resp:8 above) on opening night, Friday. It was a beautiful night for music, and a wonderful new venue for this festival, at the Salt Lick Pavilion in Driftwood, Texas ... right at 20 miles from my house. The Salt Lick BBQ joint built a wonderful outdoor venue next to the restaurant, which is just down the road from Camp Ben McCullough (which used to be the largest Confederate camp holding reunions until the last veterans died in 1946 ... now it's just splendid little hill country county park, nestled on Onion Creek --- the part of it that's not polluted yet). I can't do much for a full review of the music itself, but I would recommend each and every one of these performers, most heartily. It was the best five & a half hours of music I've heard since mid-March. :) All three acts put on a terrific performance on stage --- or so I noticed. I was transported by the music, right from the start. It had been a long week, and a horrible Friday at work, so I was ready to relax and be entertained, not to scribble notes about the songs or even really think about what I was hearing --- don't know if that'll make any sense, but there's my excuse. :) Darden Smith has a new album out in the stores, by now. It's called SUNFLOWER, and it's a bit of a return to roots for him, I thought. He is definitely in the Texas singer-songwriter genre, a storyteller. All the songs seemed to capture a mood, and tell a story at the same time. The first single that I've been hearing on the radio "Satellite" is really good, and I loved hearing him sing the chorus live. It was a perfect warm-up to Del McCoury & the boys. These guys are simply amazing, and so smooth on stage. Most of the material they're playing is from DEL AND THE BOYS, a CD that came out in 2001. I'm not familiar enough with their back catalog to say if the songs I didn't recognise were early or new ones. Whichever, they were obviously extremely comfortable with the material. I just can't get over their tight playing. It was a sight to hear and behold. They're doing a version of "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" that is incredible. It's like Del's voice was made for that song, or something. Please do try and remember to see their performance of some of this material on "Austin City Limits" ... it'll be repeated in 13 July on most PBS stations. There's some samples available at: http://www.delmccouryband.com/index.cfm By this time, after the hill country refreshments :), I was completely blissed-out. This was the first time I'd be seeing Michelle Shocked since 1989, since she had cancelled on me during her Arkansas Traveller tour. She appeared to be "with us" and really entertained the crowd with lots of stories and banter. The horn section that she has supporting this new album DEEP NATURAL is incredible, though I don't even remember what name she was calling them. Just thinking back as I write this makes me need to hear this album ... I didn't get to pick up a copy from her merchandising people at the show --- way too big of a crowd, and I couldn't deal. I just love what's she's doing now --- it's yet another side of her, and really well thought out and put out there. Hey, I learned that her performance on KCRW's "Morning Becomes Eclectic" programme has been archived on their website. If it's anything like the hour sing sang for KGSR, locally, I recommend trying that. When she sang "Come A Long Way" with that horn arrangement, it was complete bliss for me. Next thing I knew, the "midnight march" had started to the campground, and I chided myself for not bringing the tent and floated over the aquifer back home.
Driving back to the office from lunch, listening to KGSR, I heard them play some "new music" from HEM, "Half Acre" --- from their wonderful CD, RABBIT SONGS. My love for this radio station has been re-affirmed. :)
I'm all geeked at the moment since my Roseanne Cash CD, RULES OF TRAVEL, came in the mail today. I "won" it by being the one of the first 65 responses to a broadcast e-mail from Austin City Limits. I think she's done a great job on this one. There are duets with Sheryl Crow, Steve Earle, Teddy Thompson, and Johnny Cash. Oh, they also sent 3 round bumperstickers that read: "Austin City Limits - Original American Music since 1975" and a neat gate-fold printed anthology of their first 28 seasons.
Oh cool! I'm glad to hear you got something neat. Do review the album.
You have several choices: