Music: What are you listening to today?
In the spirit of the books and movies threads, here's one to talk about what you're listening to lately and what you have discovered. Tell us if you like it, what it reminds you of, anything you like, short or not, simple or not.
Like the books thread, I'd ask that we keep it mostly to stuff we are listening to or going to listen to soon, or have just finished listening to (that is, like a log more than a resume).
Below is my first entry.
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Bonnie Raitt, by Bonnie Raitt.
My understanding is that this was her first record, which she made when she was 21. Nine out of the eleven songs are covers; the two she wrote are "Thank You" and "Finest Loving Man," and both are good.
I really liked this album. Bonnie's voice is much sweeter here than I've heard her before, and very warm, traveling between notes more fluently, and not yet as raspy sounding as it became. (Which I also like in its own way.) Despite the sweetness of her voice she manages to put some heart into the bluesy material, and sings with what sounds like a real love for the lyrics. It's great to hear someone who doesn't just walk through lyrics. She sounds like she really thought and felt her way through the songs. Many of the most gifted and popular singers out there don't, winding up leaving a lot of a song's power still on the table, so to speak.*
From an Amazon.com review:
Bonnie wrote two of the songs here (Thank you, Finest loving man) but relied mainly on covers, beginning with a cover of Bluebird (written by Stephen Stills, famous as a member first of Buffalo Springfield then of Crosby Stills and Nash). One of Bonnie's major influences, Sippie Wallace, is represented by two songs (Mighty tight woman, Women be wise) while Bonnie also covers Any day woman (Paul Siebel), Walking blues (Robert Johnson) and Since I fell for you (Bud Johnson) among others.
I really enjoyed Walking Blues a lot and wanted to hear it immediately again, but decided to let the rest of the album play out instead of interrupting its flow. The album is good enough that I think I'm going to listen to it again.
By the way, it's in the Rhapsody's catalogue, if you have that service. It's also at Amazon, and the MP3 256kbps download is on sale there for $2.99. You can listen to samples there too.
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*This reminds me of a biography of John Denver that I saw on PBS the other day. I'm not a big Denver fan, but the biography was so good that this is the second time I felt compelled to watch it. Anyway, in it his manager said that at a particular concert Denver sounded exceptionally good, and it seemed like the audience noticed it. His manager recalls saying something like, "Your voice was incredible today. How did you do it?" Denver replied that he was trying to do what he learned from Placido Domingo when they worked together. He said he was amazed by how deep Domingo's art was; he didn't just sing a line, but put the right emotion into it word by word. If he was going to sing about a piece of steel, his voice would sound like steel. Every line was emotionally full, clear, and precise.
I got a bit of a feeling of that in this Raitt album. Raitt very much inhabited those songs when she sang. Unlike some spoiled divas, the newly emergent Raitt got across the feeling that she was glad to be there.
MOVE OVER by Janis Joplin
I'm going to steal a youtube-comment: "This is what happens when you don't give them chocolate."
Opening act.
And introducing...
Broken YouTube LinkSaw pre-Budokan release Cheap Trick in a Hartford warehouse bar nine days after the show from this video. Had an edgy garage band type feel. They were captivating.
Caught them post-Budokan a little less than a year later in the Providence Civic Center. They were ok, but didn't have the same impact; felt more packaged. That Hartford show, however, remains among my personal live rock performance favorites.
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Joy Division...
Saw pre-Budokan release Cheap Trick in a Hartford warehouse bar nine days after the show from this video. Had an edgy garage band type feel. They were captivating.
Caught them post-Budokan a little less than a year later in the Providence Civic Center. They were ok, but didn't have the same impact; felt more packaged. That Hartford show, however, remains among my personal live rock performance favorites.
Such a great band. I only got to see them once, but it was at Lollapalooza '96 and not nearly as cool as the first show you mentioned. Joey Ramone came out and sang "Surrender" with them though, so that was pretty cool.
Saw pre-Budokan release Cheap Trick in a Hartford warehouse bar nine days after the show from this video. Had an edgy garage band type feel. They were captivating.
Caught them post-Budokan a little less than a year later in the Providence Civic Center. They were ok, but didn't have the same impact; felt more packaged. That Hartford show, however, remains among my personal live rock performance favorites.
thank you for the reminder, been ages since i heard that
they're like the uncles of influence for primus and nirvana
you're quite a bit younger but they help you sneak away after thanksgiving dinner and listen to music in their room
Youtube keeps spamming me with Babymetal-videos these days (and it probably doesn't help that I keep clicking on them).
Here I'm mostly wondering about how the audience at their concerts are given enough room to actually get down on their knees to worship.
spending time in the midwest and surprised to hear lots of black driven country music
even more surprised to find myself enjoying it as i generally don't like country music nor the stereotypical black genres
thank you for the reminder, been ages since i heard that
they're like the uncles of influence for primus and nirvana
you're quite a bit younger but they help you sneak away after thanksgiving dinner and listen to music in their room
Nirvana influence, I can feel that; never thought of them impacting Primus until you mentioned it; kinda makes me want to delve into the Cheap Trick deeper catalog a bit.
Speaking of Primus influencers, consider....
The Residents are not for the faint of heart.
once again i thank the alogods
saw little feat live before realizing who they were or or the true depth of their discography
at that time probably didn't appreciate the breadth of blues spirit as much as i might now
once again i thank the alogods
saw little feat live before realizing who they were or or the true depth of their discography
at that time probably didn't appreciate the breadth of blues spirit as much as i might now
Caught Little Feat a single time, 1978 in Springfield... Exceptional live.
From the Mothers to Feat to producing the Dead to session work, like below - Lowell George was a f*****g beast.
TEAM S·E·B!
If you don't like this one, then firstly don't blame me - blame rickroll who got me hooked on Suki and caused youtube to spam me with her videos. Direct all your hate and vitriol their way.
But secondly, and I say this as a friend who cares about you, there may be something seriously wrong with you and you should seek help.
Phil Lesh, RIP.
When I was tired and broken, the Grateful Dead were around some corner waiting to meet me...
I love this song - Meatloafs performance here is far from his best and seems a little uncoordinated, at least in the first half, but his voice is solid as ever.
The rest of the band here more than makes up for any issues though - Aspen Miller is obviously a goddess. I don't know who the blonde is but I know she's awesome.
Revisiting this one as I feel Meatloafs uncoordinated performance needs addressing.
I'm mostly talking about how he did the back-and-forth during the 'defective' sequence as in the video above he was dragging out his vocals way to much and ruined the dynamic in the 'question'-'defective'-'answer'.
This one does that part perfectly:
Also - as much as I love Aspen Miller, I'm beginning to realize that Patti Russo was probably the One.
We never used to have Halloween. Now it goes on all week.
