Posted on 06/01/2020 8:47:22 PM PDT by Viking2002
This is my first vanity post, so bear with me. I just think a lot of us need to decompress from this COVID-19 donnybrook, the whole current state of civil upheaval, the so-called 'peaceful' riots, shootings, and lootings, and sundry other manufactured irritants in our lives. I, for one, retreat to music, either from CD or online playlists, and was wondering: what are you currently listening to that is lessening your bile and lowering your blood pressure? Is it rock, classical, country, pop, chamber, ambient, opera, electronica? Who are your favorite artists in any given genre? Are they a known quantity, or a more obscure artiste toiling away in the background? Feel free to post your faves without criticism, to share amongst each other. I think we all have found hidden gems that others of us have never heard, but will enlighten.
Bkmrk
The Cathedrals.
The Oak Ridge Boys.
Martina McBride.
Deborah Newton (my husband’s ex secretary who cut a great gospel CD)
“Burn Notice.”
The old TV show? I loved that show.
That’s the one. It’s on Hulu now.
bttt
The 40th Anniversary reissue of “Permanent Waves” by Rush. Besides the album, it also includes 12 live songs from their 1980 tour (I saw them 3 times on that tour.)
Still waiting for the CDs, but thanks to Amazon, I was able to download the MP3s using their “Auto-Rip,” plus the music is available for me to listen on-line in my library.
Mark
My favorites are typically classic 70s rock, along with progressive rock (Yes, Genesis/Peter Gabriel, Rush, Pink Floyd, Todd Rundgren/Utopia.)
I also LOVE female vocalists, particularly if they're in Prog... Kate Bush is my #1. Renaissance is another. Animal Logic, Evenessence, Tori Amos, Jewel, Happy Rhodes.
I just LOVE watching YouTube where young people today are discovering 50 year old music and are completely blown away.
In my case, I recently "discovered" a band on YouTube from the early 70s called "Fanny." An all-female band, they were AMAZING! If you love 70s rock, you'll love them. David Bowie and Lowell George were fans of theirs (and invited them to open for them on tour.) Had I been born 3 or 4 years earlier, I would have heard them at the time. At their height, I was only 10, but by 13 I was so into Rock and Roll. I must have seen them when they performed on the Sonny & Cher show, but I don't remember it. I was just too young.
Mark
Yeah. Tina does it the best.
I’m roughly the same age, born in `62, and while I got to see a lot of really amazing concerts, there were so many more bands that I loved that I never got to see. The thing that I miss most of all was how affordable going to a concert was. When I was in high school, tickets were always less than $20, and a local radio station would often bring regional acts to town for “102 cent concerts.” While video are nowhere near as good as attending the live show, Rush DOES have a number of really great live concert videos on DVD and BluRay.
There’s an old saying about performers, and when a performer gives their all, that called “Leaving it all on the stage.” Rush gave their absolute all to every performance. They credit a part of that to their early touring days, opening for Kiss. Say what you will about Kiss, they wanted their audiences leaving the show feeling that they had more than gotten their money’s worth, and Rush was the same. Leaving a Rush show, I always felt both exhilarated and exhausted.
For sheer energy, don’t miss Rush, Live in Rio. It was around the 30th anniversary of Rush, and they visited Brazil for the first time, and they were really knocked out by the response. Search YouTube for YYZ and RIO, you won’t be dissapointed, but the entire concert was amazing.
Over the years I’ve seen Rush between 15 and 20 times (I lost count.) My very first rock concert was Rush’s “A Farewell to Kings” tour, and my last Rush concert was their R-40 performance in Kansas City. I had planned it to be my last concert, bookends to my “concert-going” career. But then I had another chance to see Yes on the 50th anniversary tour, as well as ARW, so I went to see both.
Again, there are plenty of live videos of Rush, and many other bands... I only saw Pink Floyd once (The Wall, in 1980) but never got to see Genesis. I went to a Queen concert, and it was incredible. What may be the best concert I ever attended was Paul Simom’s Graceland tour at Radio City Music call. I’ve seen Yes 5 times, but also had tickets for 3 other shows that were cancelled (including the show in KC where a week or two before the concert, the roof of the arena caved in.)
I hope to be able to see Steve Hackett’s Genesis Revisited next year, and hope I’ll someday get to see Jeff Back.
BTW, if you have Amazon Prime, be sure to check out the AMAZING live concert of “Jeff Beck, Playing This Week Live @ Ronnie Scott’s” as well as The Band’s “The Last Waltz” and Talking Heads “Stop Making Sense!” All 3 (and more) are available free right now on Prime.
Mark
70’s = GREAT concerts! Rainbow and Gamma in a small Syracuse theatre...second row seat..twenty feet from Ritchie Blackmore AND Ronnie Montrose on the same night!
Life During Wartime by the Talking Heads
Heard of a van that is loaded with weapons
Packed up and ready to go
Heard of some grave sites, out by the highway
A place where nobody knows
The sound of gunfire, off in the distance
I’m getting used to it now
Lived in a brownstone, lived in the ghetto
I’ve lived all over this town
[Chorus 1]
This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco
This ain’t no fooling around
No time for dancing, or lovey dovey
I ain’t got time for that now
[Verse 2]
Transmit the message, to the receiver
Hope for an answer some day
I got three passports, a couple of visas
You don’t even know my real name
High on a hillside, the trucks are loading
Everything’s ready to roll
I sleep in the daytime, I work in the nighttime
I might not ever get home
That’s a good one, right there.
I’ve gotten to appreciate Yes, Rush, King Crimson, and other prog bands more, now that I’m getting older. There’s a level of musicianship and virtuosity there that you don’t find in open chord, meat and potatoes rock bands. Being a headbanger/CanRocker/EuroRocker was fun in the day, but it stopped being fun and died off because it became a parody of itself. It didn’t help that grunge showed up; scruffy, morose, shoe-gazing, angst-driven, flannel-wearing Seattleites having existential crises put to music. And always in a minor key. Just kill yourself already, will ya? LOL Music got somewhat better after grunge finally died a merciful death, but by then I was expanding my musical horizons, other genres not even remotely related to rock. At one juncture in his youth, my late father was an tenor understudy at the New York Met in the 50’s, and was called up to the stage for several nights because the lead in that role was sick, so I was exposed to many different things growing up: opera, symphonic, chamber. He was a big Lanza and Pavoratti fan; I even attended a standing room only Pavoratti concert at the old arena in Landover, MD. I had a great time in spite of myself. He got me turned on to a lot of it; I, conversely, got him into certain things from Queen to Queensryche! LOL I really want to start catching the godfathers of rock before they call it a day and take their place on Mount Olympus: KISS, Deep Purple, ZZ Top, Styx........the silver lining with this whole coronavirus affair is that so many of these tours (farewell and otherwise) have been postponed, some until summer of next year. Gives me a little more time to plan things out.
bttt
Joni Mitchell - Hejira (particular emphasis on “Amelia”)
Very nice 15-minute video on why this song (Amelia) is simply extraordinary...by a fellow musician
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r45L38Eyhpw
Bought this album over forty years ago. And I’m a drummer. I liked the song “Coyote’’.
Interesting comment since there’s not to much drumming on the album.
In my opinion, Joni Mitchell is one the greatest modern songwriters and “Hejira” is her masterpiece. Amazing musical/chord structure, harmonies and lyrics that are rich in imagery.
The great Larry Carlton’s guitar is exquisite and even Joni’s rhythm guitar’s complex chords is quite impressive.
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