So what do you do when you are down to the last 35 gigabytes on your 4TB drive? KEEP DOWNLOADING OF COURSE! Hooked up with a guy sharing his live Rush collection over a DC++ hub. Filling in some very long sought after gaps thanks to his immense kindness (he has to leave his computer on for me to be able to download. I'm in South Carolina. He's in Vancouver). Cool stuff!
Clapton/Derek/Cream has to be the artist I've seen/read the most about but have never actually bothered to listen to. Of course I know Layla, Cocaine and Tears in Heaven and the Cream stuff, but that's it.
He's got to be the wackest artist that's actually kind of good, or else the best artist that's kind of wack
In case you don't know, Ken Burns documentary Country starts up Saturday night. It has the massive staging of Jazz which was a 10-parter. It starts around 1885 and moves on through, covering every aspect of the genre and its spawns: americana that seeped from country into rockabilly, country rock, country blues etc. It should be very informative. I'm taking a look at the Jazz doc soon, which I missed in 2001. What was it about Leeds University? It sure brought out the best in live performances from 1970-73 that I know of, and no doubt carried the magic of the Fillmores 'across the pond'. Some of my favorite releases that were recorded live at Leeds includes this one, The Stones from '71 and Bob Marley and the Wailers from '73. It gets no better as these performances are incendiary blow outs... perfect in every way. I've got to give my Give Me Strength box some heft this evening, included of which is the expanded EC Was Here. The box is a bit of an unheralded release but is a good one all the same. I certainly hope you enjoy the show. Doyle Bramhall II should be a treat if he's playing with Clapton, heck of a guitar slinger. NP... his first three studio records; finishing the book on Warren Zevon: Desperado of Los Angeles, a good read focusing almost exclusively on the music, the studio recordings, and the writing, and live shows. A very interesting character who was very much his own guy, that bridged the transition phase between 70's and 80's LA... the real desperado of that scene if there ever was one, and was 'one hell of a everything' regarding the music. Touring with Jackson Browne or fronting X, The Blasters, it didn't matter, he would have fit right in.
Right now it's Soft Machine from 2/28/71, Live at Henie Onstad Art Centre. They're ripping the venue apart.
Maybe I shouldn't have done that. If you like it, please buy it and give the musicians due deference. I should add that it hits a new level at 12:16. The bass player, Hugh Hopper is no longer with us and he is missed.
Sneakers - Nonsequitur of Silence Collector’s Choice CD A section from the Allmusic review: To put it mildly, this is a big deal, the first real comp of one of the legendary forgotten bands, and Nonsequitur of Silence does more than satisfy the cult who long waited for this reissue: it will convert non-believers, too. This almost feels as long ago, if not more so, than the Beatles and British Invasion that fueled the Sneakers; the group’s homemade replicas of ringing ‘60s guitar pop hinted toward punk, new wave, jangle pop, and ultimately indie rock, but lacked all of the stylized self-absorption that followed as well. Like Big Star before them, the Sneakers were pop obsessives recording in a blissful vacuum, obsessed with the past but not living with it, so their recordings have a twitchy vitality that remains bracing and fresh years later. The music on Nonsequitur of Silence may belong to a cult, but it’s an important one, acting as the bridge between Big Star and R.E.M., pointing the way to such latter-day popsters as Guided by Voices and the Elephant 6 collective, too. Nevertheless, the best way to think of the Sneakers is not in terms of history, but rather, as a band that produced some brilliant power pop during their brief period together, pure pop that remains purely pleasurable all these years later and has never been better heard than it is here. Nonsequitur of Silence - Sneakers | Songs, Reviews, Credits | AllMusic
After pretty much a 100% Friday that completely destroyed the odds of a bad Friday 13, I decided to go with some americana from several time periods, blues too. In a little anticipation of Ken Burn's Country Music documentary Sunday night (not Sat'd as I previously mentioned), I had to go with it. The Cowboy Junkies do Vic Chestnut in a soaring, atmospheric, despairing classic of songs, the FBB always sounds great, and Farther Along ( a compilation of the first two lps) is one of the better-sounding of the cd releases, Muddy Waters and Johnny Winter kicked off the morning with a rousing Mannish Boy, which did more wake-up damage than the beverage--a great live lp of blues. Java up...
Clapton is the most fantastic of the moderately boring rockers. Put another way, you can be medium boring and very successful so long as you are also fantastic. This is the one I have now. Yet another original CD that was in my collection chucked for a remaster. I've never done a comparison, so I don't know the issues. But if people are complaining because it doesn't sound like the vinyl, I give that opinion no quarter. I think I had the vinyl at one point! I know I did because I was hard into Moving Pictures and this one before I ever bought a CD. Anyway, I just put Signals on, my '97 CD rip, and I'm ashamed at how much I'm enjoying it. I really wish I thought this was terrible and unlistenable.
We shall say that he's an exciting rocker that's dull as dirt, or the most excruciatingly boring music with never a dull moment...
He put a reggae beat under "Tears In Heaven" the other night, but didn't really play it as a reggae number. Obviously "Row Jimmy" inspired. What more could one reasonably ask? Clapton is the Jerry-ist of performers bearing no musical resemblance to Jerry. What I find confusing is that he obviously feels the need to play "Tears In Heaven," but not "Deserted Cities Of The Heart."
So much Clapton h8 on here today. Amazing. Anybody ever heard of the groups the Cream ? Derek and the Dominoes ? Blind Faith ? Early solo Clap . . . ok I went too far with that last one.
It decreased the sadness quotient of the song a bit, which is probably the point, so many years and a whole new family later.