June 16, 2013

An antidote to everything swirling around us - Mister Rogers in a remix of “Garden of Your Mind” from PBS Digital Studios

May 20, 2013

Ray Manzarek, 1929-2013

thanks for the music

break on through to the other side

(Source: darkenergymatters)

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Filed under: the doors music 
May 12, 2013

See & hear the Jefferson Airplane perform “The House at Pooneil Corners,” as shot by Jean Luc Godard - recalls a bit of that impromptu Beatles concert on the roof.

Airplane co-founder Paul Kantner said in a 1986 interview, “Just for a while there, maybe for about 25 minutes in 1967, everything was perfect.”

Jefferson Airplane - House at Pooneil Corners - Manhattan Rooftop Concert (1968) (by beograund)

March 21, 2013

Happy Birthday #328, Mr. J.S. Bach.

Aria from Goldberg Variations 

(Source: kitty-en-classe, via kitty-en-classe)

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Filed under: Bach music 
March 18, 2013

The Beatles’ Please Please Me: Remaking a Classic!

For the 50th anniversary of the famous 12-hour session at Abbey Road which resulted in the Beatles’ iconic album Please Please Me, leading artists such as Stereophonics, Graham Coxon, Gabrielle Aplin, Joss Stone, Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook of Squeeze, Paul Carrack, Mick Hucknall and I Am Kloot attempt to record the same songs, in the same timescale, in the same studio. The results were captured in this BBC 4 program, presented by Stuart Maconie.

Among those paying their own tribute to the album’s success are Burt Bacharach and Guy Chambers, as well as people lucky enough to have been there 50 years ago telling the remarkable story of what happened that day, including engineer Richard Langham and Beatles’ press officer Tony Barrow.

The Beatles - 12 Hours To Please Me - BBC4 [02-15-2013] (by gosfanusa)

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Filed under: The Beatles music 
March 12, 2013

creepingirrelevance:  ʇopɹɐq ǝʇʇıƃıɹq

It’s a turn-down day.  Just give in to it and sing along.

(Source: marilyn-romy-brigitte, via hollyhocksandtulips)

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Filed under: music The Cyrkle 
March 9, 2013
You’re not a fan of the band unless you know the bass player’s name.
(For me, that would be Adam Schlesinger.)

You’re not a fan of the band unless you know the bass player’s name.

(For me, that would be Adam Schlesinger.)

March 6, 2013

Fountains Of Wayne - Someone’s Gonna Break Your Heart (by FountainsOfWayneVEVO)

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Filed under: music 
March 4, 2013

Fountains of Wayne - A Road Song (by FountainsOfWayneVEVO)

January 26, 2013
The Beatles Unplugged

This file has been online at YouTube since October 2012, so I hope it survives.

Not perfect tracks, but it’s so nice to hear the boys being the boys again…  a happy Revolution

Just when you thought that everything that could be said that was new, fresh, or unusual about the Beatles, along comes The Beatles: Unplugged, a bootleg CD so good that the folks at Apple and EMI ought to be kicking themselves for not thinking of it first. This disc (which is sort-of subtitled “The Kinfaun-Session,” referring to George Harrison’s Esher home) pulls together the 23 songs that Harrison, John Lennon, and Paul McCartney recorded as works-in-progress at Harrison’s home in May of 1968.

image

Most of what’s here was eventually heard either on The Beatles [White Album surfacing with new lyrics as &”A Jealous Guy,” etc.) or B-sides (&”What’s the New Mary Jane”), and on various bootlegs.

What makes this presentation better than most is that it’s part of that “digipak” bootleg series that’s been coming out of Europe since late 2000 and generally knocking listeners out with its quality. The production here is a match for any legitimate release, not just in sound quality but also the care that went into the selection, order, and editing of the tapes; there’s some hiss here and there, to be sure, and a few tracks are close to overload on the sound, but there’s nothing here that will make you jump to lower the volume or skip to the next cut — in fact, chances are most of the songs here will get repeated more than once.

It’s a lot like listening to an “unplugged” version of The Beatles (even re-creating The Beatles [White Album on this disc — just to cite one example — is as good as the released one, only brighter, and, if you will, bouncier, as the trio has unbridled fun with the lyric, the beat, and the rhymes without the need to pump up the wattage or the seriousness of it all; if the finished song is John Lennon’s message to the world about politics, hate, and manipulation of the Beatles, this is his handwritten draft of that message, with all of his momentary digressions and mental edits left in. McCartney and Harrison’s songs are just as well represented, and the only thing missing is a contribution by Ringo Starr, who didn’t participate in these recordings.

The curious element is that it’s the hard-rocking songs — “Yer Blues” and “Back in the USSR” come off the best, even though they’re the most different from the finished versions; the demo of “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” is just as entertaining, as the trio plunges headfirst into reggae armed with just their guitars and some good intentions. As the notes point out, whatever stresses the group may have been experiencing as a formal entity, the three guitarists had some productive and harmonious sessions and they still sounded as cool, creative, and cutting edge as they ever did.

I wish they had not tagged on the last two tracks

“Spiritual Regeneration” the Beatles/Beach Boys ode to the Maharishi (which segues into the Beatles’ birthday greeting to Mike Love) and a somewhat less-entertaining, informal, acoustic medley of traditional songs, all tracks recorded in India.                Bruce Eder, Rovi

0:00 Intro
0:15 Cry Baby Cry
2:42 Child of Nature
5:25 The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill
8:15 I’m So Tired
11:24 Yer Blues
15:00 Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey
18:00 What’s the New Mary Jane
20:39 Revolution
24:49 While My Guitar Gently Weeps
27:29 Circles
29:47 Sour Milk Sea
33:22 Not Guilty
36:36 Piggies
38:42 Julia
42:47 Blackbird
45:02 Rocky Raccoon
47:49 Back in the U.S.S.R
50:50 Honey Pie
52:54 Mother Nature’s Son
55:09 Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
58:08 Junk
1:00:46 Dear Prudence
1:05:27 Sexy Sadie
1:07:52 Spiritual Regeneration
1:10:22 Spiritual Christmas

January 18, 2013
Elvis

Elvis

(via nickdrake)

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Filed under: music 
January 14, 2013

Chuck Berry telling Keith Richards how to play the guitar. I’m surprised Keith didn’t punch him or walk out. 

”..Leave the amp as I set it! That’s my amp and I’m setting it the way i wish it!…That’s the way Chuck Berry plays it, you understand?!”

From the documentary “Hail! Hail! Rock n Roll!” by Taylor Hackford

(Source: youtube.com)

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Filed under: music 
January 11, 2013
David Bowie Celebrates 66th Birthday with First New Song in a Decade

Bowie’s new album The Next Day comes out in March, but a single, “Where Are We Now?,” is available to download on iTunes. The song is lovely and melancholy, as is the accompanying video, shot by artist Tony Oursler.

Bowie, officially in his late 60s, is in a nostalgic mood. The video is set in a cluttered artist’s studio dominated by projected images of Berlin in the late 1970s. The video is alternately inscrutable (who is the woman whose face shares the two-headed puppet with Bowie while he sings?) and reflective. The old Berlin footage, it turns out, is from Bowie’s old neighborhood where he once shared an apartment with Iggy Pop. Bowie moved to West Berlin in 1976 and recorded his Berlin trilogy—Low, Heroes and Lodger—with producer Tony Visconti.

If the video version at the link doesn’t play for you, find an alternate version here.

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Filed under: music 
January 9, 2013

Time-lapse video of the Phoebe Mermouse illustration from my cousin Eric and Joanna Johnson’s children’s book, Phoebe’s Birthday.

Eric spends about 80 hours on each illustration, seen here compressed into just 80 seconds.

Original music written and performed by Eric, who likes to draw at night.

January 5, 2013
Bruce, 40 Years On

It was 40 years ago today that 23-year-old Bruce Springsteen released his debut album. It was called Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J., N.J. (1973) and it was billed as a solo album, even though it featured many musicians who would later become members of Springsteen’s E Street Band.

The album had been recorded in a week, in one of the cheapest studios in New York City. It wasn’t a huge hit — it sold about 25,000 copies during its first year — but it got good reviews. Robert Christgau, writing for Creem magazine, said: “This boy has a lot more of the Dylan spirit than John Prine. His songs are filled with the absurdist energy and heart on sleeve pretension that made Dylan a genius instead of a talent.”

http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2013/01/05

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