” Mid Week Pop Tranquilizer and Lounge ”

01. Moby - The Rain Falls and the Sky Shudders
Songs 1993-1998 (2000)
02. Moondog - fog on the hudson (425 west 57th street)
On the Streets Of New York (Decca/Mars, 1953)
03. Biosphere - Tranquilizer
Microgravity (1992)
04. Pizzicato Five – Catchy
Made in USA (1994)
05. Saint Etienne – Been So Long
Good Humor (1998)
06. Andras Fox – Gettin’ into you
(unreleased, 2009)
07. Ralph Myerz and the Jack Herren Band – L.I.P.S.T.I.C.K.
Your new best friends (2004)

note: Something lite since I can’t seem to concentrate searching the net. It’s a bit of repeat and re-doing past favorite. Think mid-week evening lounge. And I really need to work on the big list before Moka is chasing me with a baseball bat. k. brb.

image: atduskgreg

…. She dives into the lake and comes up with her head covered in muck and great kelpy strands of green pond slime – and beaming in a way that practically radiates out over the face of the lake and the desert. She has surfaced euphoric -
‘Ooooooh! It sparkles!’
-Pulling her long strands of slime-slithering hair outward with her hands and grokking and freaking over it -
‘Ooooooh! It sparkles!’
-The beads of water on her slime strands are like diamonds to her, and everybody feels her feeling at once, even Sandy -
‘Ooooooh! It sparkles!’
Tom Wolfe, ‘The Electric Kool-aid Acid test’, pg. 72

1. Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson – We Almost Lost Detroit
‘Bridges’ LP, 1977
2. Theo Parrish – Summertime is Here
‘Parallel Dimensions’, Sound Signature records, 2001
3. yU – Fine
‘Before Taxes’, 2008
4. Moodymann – Don’t you want my love
‘Forevernevermore’, Peacefrog, 2000
5. Andres (feat. Tracy Vox & KDJ) - Sing About it
‘Andres II’ Mahoghani Music, 2009
6. Andras Fox – Gettin’ into You
unreleased
7. Trus’me – War
‘Working Nights’, Prime Numbers, 2008

This list reflects what consistently sits in my record crate. A warm up set of sorts, the list contains slow grooves, loops and samples. Gil Scott said that he could always count on Lady Day and John Coltrane to wash his troubles away. As for me, I can always count on Moody and Theo.

pic: authors – thanks to Gabby Santos, a most excellent musician & poser, and Morgan, whose shoot I piggybacked on.

Serious music, for comparative purposes, may be thus characterized: Every detail derives its musical sense from the concrete totality of the piece which, in turn, consists of the life relationship of the details and never of a mere enforcement of a musical scheme. For example, in the introduction of the first movement of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony the second theme (in C-major) gets its true meaning only from the context. Only through the whole does it acquire its particular lyrical and expressive quality — that is, a whole built up of its very contrast with the cantus firmus-like character of the first theme. Taken in isolation the second theme would be disrobed to insignificance. Another example may be found in the beginning of the recapitulation over the pedal point of the first movement of Beethoven’s “Appassionata”. By following the preceding outburst it achieves the utmost dramatic momentum. By omitting the exposition and development and starting with this repetition, all is lost. – Adorno, On popular music.

” Adorno doesn’t know what he is talking about. ”

01. Alarm Will Sound - blue calx
Acoustica (Cantaloupe, 2005)
02. Björk - Ambergris March
The Music form Drawing Restraint 9 (2005)
03. Medeski Martin And Wood – Bloody Oil
End Of The World Party (Just In Case) (2004)
04. Matmos - Roses And Teeth For Ludwig Wittgenstein
The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of a Beast (2006)
05. The Third Eye Foundation – stone cold said so
Little Lost Soul (Merge Records, 2000)
06. Alva Noto – u_07
Unitxt (Raster Music, 2008)
07. Björk - Hearts & Bones
Unreleased (2001)
08. Cujo – Traffic
Adventures in Foam (Shadow Records, 1996)
09. Plug – 7.10
Drum n Bass for Papa (1997)
10. Hauschka – Old Man Playing Boules
Room To Expand (Fat Cat, 2007)

note: Eat DnB Adorno. I for one would argue what Adorno think is popular music is simply his limited perception of postwar swing and popular big bands, with which he tries to make generalized view what pop music is about. But then again, he wrote it in 1947. Modern recording pop music haven’t truly begun. At any rate, above are pieces that so called “serious music” from Adorno era couldn’t possibly pull. Frequency range, instrumentation, relationship of ‘concrete totality’ vs. detail (or whatever he wants to call it. Could it be that what he called ‘concrete totality’ is simply a degree of frame? a perception in size that could involve anywhere between a single note to involved entire piece. IMO, the current difference between Adorno so called ‘serious’ music vs. pop is simply instrumentation. A lot of today’s pop music has fairly elaborate ‘structure’, more so than 18th century pieces. For eg. Miles Davis’ Kind of Blues uses far more elaborate system than single modal pieces. Coltrane or Ornette Coleman certainly have something to say in that area. In electronic department, IDM is devoted to explore rhythm structure that is nearly impossible to do on traditional instrument. Above all, reliance of chord and melody is completely inverted in Drum n Bass. Even the most avant-garde ‘serious music’ still relies on instrument that produces “standard” pitch with tone pattern, instead of any permutation of frequency and sonic shape.

So, never fear my fair readers. Pop music is still annoyingly novel as ever if it wants to.

image: poportis

Jerk is a method of cooking meats that comes from the original inhabitants of Jamaica, the Arawaks. They roasted meats over fires of pimento wood from the allspice tree. Pimento wood gave a distinctive flavor to the meat and is still used for jerk grilling in Jamaica. Jerk marinades and rubs are often quite spicy with Scotch bonnet peppers. Recipes vary widely, but true jerk seasoning contains allspice. This recipe is for chicken, but pork, goat and even fish are also jerked. [Recipes].

” TGIF! ”

01. Laurel Aitken – Baba kill me goat (a line)
The pioneer of Jamaican music (Reggar Retro, 2000)
02. Derrick Morgan – The Great Musical Battle
DJ Spooky Presents: In Fine Style: 50,000 Volts Of Trojan Records (2006)
03. Dave Brubeck – It’s a raggy waltz (live)
The Very Best of Dave Brubeck (2000)
04. Laurel Aitken – Come back Jeannie
The pioneer of Jamaican music (Reggar Retro, 2000)
05. U-Roy – Dynamic Fashion Way
DJ Spooky Presents: In Fine Style: 50,000 Volts Of Trojan Records (2006)
06. The Skatalites – Eastern Rock
Return of The Big Guns (1984)

note: Fun little list for Friday and weekend. Ska and early Jamaican music by Laurel Aitken. Shake your feet and go have a really nice spicy lunch. :D In the meantime, the reason MdM program has been all over the place and sparse, well… Moka is battling her gigantic list. It’s monsterous, I think it ate her. And I am fairly useless at the moment, have been listening to too many rock albums. My head explodes. So relax and enjoy the little posts while we sort things out.

image: fightingtheboss

I sprinted two blocks from my vehicle’s perch above the roaring Schuylkill River into the dry refuge of the Church just in time for Uzeda. Though they looked like your parents (even your parents’ parents- these Sicilians have been kicking it off-time rhythms and angular guitar style for the better part of two decades), Uzeda, in a verb, rocked. The drummer played the part of straight man, slamming out serious halting rhythms, while the bassist never once let his smile slip. He was the cheeriest Sicilian I’ve ever seen at the Church. The singer stood and shook with every howl, punctuating many words with some punches to the sky. Their guitarist spent as much time ripping shards of guitar noises from his aluminum axe as he did with mouth wide open in mock roar. Though they performed a bit of long set, Uzeda won over a crowd hungry for a rare Shellac appearance. September 3, 2009.

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” Note on indie sound. No.1. ”

01. Nina Nastasia – The Same Day
The Blackened Air (Touch & Go Records, 2002)
02. Sonic Youth – Rain on Tin
St Murray St. (2002)
03. Uzeda – I’m Getting Older
Waters (Touch & Go Records, 1993)
04. Shellac – The Admiral
At Action Park (Touch & Go Records, 1994)
05. The Jesus Lizard – The Art Of Self-Defense
Liar (Touch & Go Records, 1992)
06. Pearl Jam – Do The Evolution
Yield (1998)
07. Pearl Jam – Black
Benaroya Hall: October 22nd 2003 (Ten Club, 2004)

note: The Grand side of Indie. This series of list is about my oversize wish, to listen to a genre as it was created by group of musician and make a note of it as it happens. Of course I and most of us can’t be anywhere near the place where people work and first create the sound. So next best thing is sitting down, listening and making note. Maybe somebody else can make something out of the little information.

Remember around the time when you wish somebody give you a pointer where to begin with rock? Well, this is my way of compiling notes, maybe leading to a ‘best of’ series for favorite post punk rock. I always thought there is something grand in them. Images created by the technicians, visionary, avant-garde and artists. These names has the aura of minor deity in my universe. They create sound that seems to not only make me obsessed, but affecting a key artists and sound around them. So here is a bigger than previous attempt to explore indie rock sound, starting with post-punk. These albums make up the basic sound of what I post.Anyway, it’s fall, time for more serious project. Moving forward, trying to find the soul and future sound of indie rock.

image: bartvandamme
see also: This Is Indie Rock/Sweet No.1 Wiki: Sonic Youth, Pearl Jam, Shellac, Uzeda.