Brain Damage: Pink Floyd Podcast

Lately I've been listening to some great Pink Floyd podcasts, from Brain Damage, a bi-weekly radio show / podcast. At that site you can download invididual clips, or I found it easy to subscribe to this podcast in iTunes via the link provided at the Brain Damage page at Podcast Alley.

What this radio show / podcast provides various with each approximately two-hour episode. Some are recent recordings from live David Gilmour events, others are classic concerts from the 1970s or whatnot. I've enjoyed hearing such things over the years, especially from the early to mid 1970s, as some of their live concerts from that period were awesome, and different enough from the studio recordings to make listening to each a unique experience.

The Cantina Band Theme on the Harp

Check out Creighton Griffiths playing the theme from the Star Wars Cantina Band on the Harp! Well done! I watched a few of the related videos listed here, and found these other two Cantina Band versions by others: on the Chapman Stick and on the Piano. My favorite is the harp though... he looks to be the youngest of the three (impressive!), plus I'm just a fan of the harp as an instrument anyway.

Music Recommendation: Two Songs by Sleepthief

The latest two songs that I've really taken a liking to, that I was introduced to via my personal Pandora station, are two songs by a group named Sleepthief. I had never heard of them before, but according to the Wikipedia entry about them, they are an American group who had their first album, Dawnseeker, in 2006. The entry also describes them as follows:

Sleepthief is most often compared to musical groups such as Delerium (in its output from the mid-1990s onward) and Balligomingo, which produce emotive, melodic, synthesized music with what is often described as New Age-influenced ethnic characteristics from other cultures. Also similar to these groups is Sleepthief's use of pop music-based song structures with performances by female singers: eleven vocalists contribute to The Dawnseeker, many of whom are established recording artists, and some having worked with the aforementioned groups previously.

Normally I'm not a huge fan of heavily-synthesized music, but I definitely like these two songs because they are a rich combination of female vocals, synthesizer effects, and other instruments (or so it seems to my untrained ear). Here are two YouTube videos where you can listen to the two songs I really like from this album:

• Eurydice - this is their lead single, and an official video I believe.
• Just Say It - I actually like this song even more. This isn't an official video though.

There are moments in that second song where there is a near perfect avalanche of sounds.

Pink Floyd Shoes

No kidding... Converse is coming out with Rock'n'Roll themed sneakers. Of course, I am most intrigued by the Pink Floyd versions -- see this article from Brain Damage discussing this. Other artists included in this line will be Grateful Dead, The Who, The Doors, Ozzy Osbourne, and Black Sabbath -- see this article for more info and photos.

Diamonds and Rust

The latest song that I've really taken a liking to, that I was introduced to via my personal Pandora station, is "Diamonds and Rust". Now, I vaguely remembered this song and of course it is from Joan Baez's 1975 album of the same name. (What I didn't remember at all is that Judas Priest did a version of this song on their 1977 album Sin After Sin."

But the version that Pandora introduced me to is from a group that is new to me: Blackthorn's Night. The wikipedia entry on Blackthorn's Night describes them as a "Renaissance-inspired folk-rock band". They have an official website here (warning: music starts to play automatically at this site!). I've heard clips of several of their songs, and I like their sound, so might try to get one of their albums from eBay sometime.

You can listen to their version of Diamonds and Rust via a video on YouTube.

RIP: Richard Wright (1943-2008)

Richard Wright, one of the founding members of Pink Floyd, died this past week after a battle with cancer. Here is an article with some info, and here is his Wikipedia entry. Wright played keyboards for the group, as well as background vocals. In addition, Wright was either composer or made significant composition contributions on many of my favorite Pink Floyd songs, including Echoes, Atom Heart Mother, Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Us and Them, and others.

Where the Hell is Matt?

Here is my seemingly obligatory post linking to the wildly popular "Where the Hell is Matt?" video on YouTube. I've seen earlier versions of this Matt-dancing-around-in-various-places-in-the-world video, but this one seems to be the most recent version, and is quite impressive in terms of the number of locations he has visited. And if you are wondering, as I was, about the song playing during the video, here is another video that uses the song ("Praan" by Garry Schyman) and currently has a comment with the following translation of the Bengali lyrics:
I will not easily forget
The life that stirs in my soul
Hidden amidst Death
That infinite Life

I hear you in the thunder
A simple tune
A tune to which I will arise (3x)

And in that storm of happiness
As your music plays in your mind
The whole wide world
Dances to your rhythm

Sleeping Sun

Another plug for Pandora.com here. I first blogged about this internet radio service here, and then again later here and here. In those various posts I have explained what Pandora is, and some of the music that I've been introduced to through my personal radio station programmed around Enya and songs that I find similar. These have included songs from numerous artists, from obvious ones like Clannad and other Celtic artists, to several songs from Sarah Brightman, to groups I had never heard of before such as Dargaard.

Here is the latest song that I really like a lot that I've found through Pandora: "Sleeping Sun", by the Finnish symphony-power-metal group Nightwish. This group formed in 1996, and they've had several albums. You can learn more about them from their Wikipedia entry or their own website. For many years their lead vocalist was Tarja Turenen (see her Wikipedia entry or her own website). But she is no longer with the group, and while Anette Olzon, her replacement, also has a good voice, I think I prefer Tarja's (to my admittedly untrained ears, her voice seems richer, more haunting, more operatic).

To see and hear Tarja/Nightwish doing "Sleeping Sun", you can watch the two videos they produced for it on YouTube. The Sleeping Sun video I prefer has a medieval battle theme, while the other Sleeping Sun video depicts Finnish background scenes. The music is the same in both.

From the little sampling I've done on iTunes, much of their music sounds interesting to me, and worth further exploration, but only their song "Sleeping Sun" has really struck me as something I really like. The song dates back to 1999, but the version I heard on Pandora was from their 2005 compilation album Highest Hopes -- one version of which has a cover of Pink Floyd's "High Hopes" (which I've not yet heard)... a very interesting connection for me as a big Pink Floyd fan.

Slacker Radio

My friend Brandon recently recommended Slacker online radio as an alternative to Pandora. I find it a useful service, but I guess for now I still prefer Pandora. With Slacker, the service suggests similar artists based on your seed musicians. There is some good flexibility and options you can set, so I do like the service. But I think Pandora still has the advantage because it recommends and tailors the experience at the song-level, not the musician/group-level. At least, that is the way it seems to me based on my brief testing of Slacker. I'll probably stick with Pandora as my primary online radio service for now -- but I recommend to any readers that you give both a try!

Look Who's Singing Sweet Home Alabama

Check out this YouTube video of a Finnish rock group, with Russian backing choir, singing Lynyrd Skynyrd's classic rock hit Sweet Home Alabama. The outfits on the rockers -- shoes, hair, clothes -- is also, um, impressive. I'm not sure what is going on with the women dancing either. Here is the background info posted about this video:

The Leningrad Cowboys is a Finnish rock and roll band famous for its humorous songs and concerts featuring the Soviet Red Army Choir. Currently, the band has eleven Cowboys and two Leningrad Ladies. The songs, all somewhat influenced by polka and progressive rock, and performed in English, have themes such as 'vodka', 'tractors', 'rockets', and 'Genghis Khan', as well as folkloric Russian songs, rock and roll ballads and covers from bands as diverse as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Lynyrd Skynyrd, all with lots of humour.

The Red Army Choir (Choir Aleksandrov) is a performing ensemble that served as the official army choir of the former Soviet Union's Red Army. The choir consists of a male choir, an orchestra, and a dance ensemble. The songs they perform range from Russian folk tunes to Church hymns, operatic arias and popular music.In 1991, The Red Army Choir participated in Roger Waters' The Wall concert celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall. They performed an anti-war song "Bring the Boys Back Home".Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Red Army Choir has continued performing, entertaining audiences both inside and outside Russia.

Well, I guess this is one way to know who won the cold war.

The Pink Floyd Story: Which One's Pink?

Tonight I watched a great documentary about my favorite music group, Pink Floyd. It is available split up into six parts on YouTube, with this being the first part (see links here for the other parts). Although I'm not a Pink Floyd expert, I am pretty knowledgeable about the group, and I consider this to be a well-done 1-hour documentary. And of course it is chock full of great old video clips and photos of the group.

Favorite Songs from the 1990s

I've recently been watching the five-part VH1 countdown of the 100 Greatest Songs of the 90s. The complete list of 100 is available online here. I'm not entirely sure, but I think each artist could only appear once in this list, as there are no duplicates -- which would seem hard to believe if that wasn't a rule. So if I'm correct about that, this isn't a true top 100 list of songs, but it was still a fun thing to think about. Although they tried to build up some suspense during the countdown, I considered fairly obvious what song would be #1: Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit".

I was able to recognize most of the songs from this top 100 -- though some not by name alone. I can't say I like most of them. Here are the ones from this top 100 that I like enough to have in my playlists:

• 01. Nirvana "Smells Like Teen Spirit
• 10. Sinéad O'Connor "Nothing Compares 2 U"
• 11. Pearl Jam "Jeremy"
• 12. Alanis Morissette "You Oughta Know"
• 18. Metallica "Enter Sandman"
• 22. Beck "Loser"
• 25. Soundgarden "Black Hole Sun"
• 37. Green Day "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)"
• 49. Jewel "Who Will Save Your Soul"
• 50. Alice in Chains "Man in the Box"
• 62. Live "I Alone"
• 76. Blues Traveler "Run-Around"
• 86. The Cranberries "Linger"
• 91. Sarah McLachlan "Building a Mystery"

I kinda like "Shine" by Collective Soul, but I much prefer their "The World I Know", so if they had listed them with that song, then they'd be in the listing above. Also, there are a few songs from the Black album that I like better than "Enter Sandman", most notably "The Unforgiven", but I understand why that one gets listed. And ditto for Live, where I much prefer "Lightning Crashes" to the one listed for them.

There are many other fine artists from this top 100, who I like a couple of songs from each, but that I don't really listen to very often: U2, REM, Red Hot Chili Peppers, etc.

I guess I was kinda surprised that Smashing Pumpkins and Stone Temple Pilots didn't make this list anywhere! And I like several songs from Ozzy from the 1990s... too bad he isn't included. And what about No Doubt's "Don't Speak"? And Creed's "My Own Prison"? And Queensryche's awesome 1990 hit "Silent Lucidity"! Oh the injustice! These are songs that I really like a lot, as they are included on my top favorites listing page. Oh well... I know I'm far from being an expert on 1990s music... I just know what I like.

Oh By the Way, Just Riding the Gravy Train!

Pink Floyd (official homepage, wikipedia entry) is my all-time favorite rock band. But I was quite disappointed to learn a few weeks ago that they are issuing yet another box set. This one is called "Oh By The Way", a lame but seemingly appropriate name for a box set that is nothing but a re-release of 14 major albums. While the box material itself looks interesting, there is no way I'm buying this for a huge chunk of money, since being a pretty big fan I naturally already have all of their CDs already.

Why can't they fix up some concert recordings from the 1970s, and put those out in a boxed set? That would be awesome, fans would drool over it, and they'd likely sell far more. At the very least, they wouldn't be open to the criticism that they are, uh... how shall I say it... "riding the gravy train"!

TuneGlue AudioMaps

The October 16 issue of PC Magazine had a sidebar noting the site TuneGlue as a "Best of the Internet". I checked it out, and it is pretty slick. It is a flash-based site that takes the name of a music group or artist as input, and then lets you get back various bits of information about them. The most interesting aspect is the audio-map feature, accessible by clicking the artist's circle and then clicking Expand. This locates six-related artists, from which you could then repeat the procedure several times to develop a music-map to see the relationships between the artists.

I did several tests of this and found it to be fairly accurate. I started with Enya, and found that many of the artists it said were one or two-level relationships with Enya are exactly the same artists that Pandora selects for me based on my interest in Enya.

The results for Pink Floyd were not very enlightening, as they included some of the biggest groups from the 60s and 70s (Beatles, Doors, Led Zep, etc.). But then when I tried Jethro Tull, I was pleased to see Pink Floyd as one of the six bands directly related.

I tried several other artists, with mixed results in my opinion. Then again, perhaps what I consider to be closely related artists and what the rest of the world does are not in close alignment!

I'll also note that the database seems to be pretty deep, as I looked up Dargaard and they were included, as is Stan Rogers a favorite of Susan's.

Pretty nifty site, and a good way to research new artists that you might want to check out!

Pandora Introduces Me To Dargaard

Another plug for Pandora.com here. I first blogged about this internet radio service here, and then again later here. The latest song that my "Enya-centered" radio station has introduced me to that I really like a lot is the depressingly-titled "In the Omnipresence of Death". It is by an Austrian group called Dargaard (for more info, see the Wikipedia entry about them, their website, and the Napalm Records promo page for them). It is from their 2001 album "The Dissolution of Eternity".

Unfortunately, iTunes doesn't have the song available yet. And Amazon doesn't provide clips from this album. But you can listen to a clip of just the beginning of it at the eMusic page for this album. The song begins with chimes with some haunting background voices. Then the song picks up the pace with female vocals and heavy what I assume are bass and timpani percussion. It returns to the chimes and then back again to the female voice with deep percussion, and some strings as well. And there are keyboards throughout (indeed, some of what I just described could be keyboard/synthesized for all I know).

Just another song I've come to really like a lot... and only through the wonder that is Pandora!

Finally, I've Joined the iPod People

Today my iPod Nano (8GB) arrived from Amazon. This is my first MP3 player, as I tend to be very slow to pick up the latest technologies when it comes to media and media players. I was slow to switch from tapes to CDs, slow to switch from VHS to DVD, and obviously I've been slow to switch from a CD-walkman player to an iPod. I finally decided to get one though, because the benefits just became to great to ignore. I have two primary uses in mind, as I'll use it while running (I purchased the Belkin Sports Sleeve that is intended to go with the iPod Nano to better enable this) and also at the office to listen to both music and podcasts. I don't travel often, but obviously it will come in handy when I do -- no more packing up a larger CD player and a CD case with a dozen or more CDs!

So far, so good. I have connected and sync'd up the 40 or so songs I had previously purchased from iTunes. Alas, the bulk of my music was recorded using Windows Media Player, so it will take some time to get it all switched over to iTunes and then onto the iPod. Fortunately, while some was recorded in windows media format, some was MP3 format, so that will help a bit I think.

Which song got the honor of being the first played for me on this device? "Call Me When You're Sober", by Evanescence -- arguably my favorite new song in several years.

My Enya-Centered Radio Station

I've blogged before about the wonderful site Pandora, a service provided by the so-called Music Genome Project. This is the online "radio" station (I hate referring to Internet music streaming sites as "radio", btw) that lets you indicate an artist or song (or a few) and then it will play songs that its search engine considers musically similar. As I've said before, this didn't work so well when I tried Pink Floyd or Jethro Tull, but I think that is because what I like about those groups is unique to those groups (or nearly so). But this approach works quite nicely for the one "station" I've created that I use regularly, namely my Enya-related collection of music. My intention here was to create a playlist that was heavy on Enya's music, but that included soothing music from other artists, mostly women vocalists, that is good to listen to as background music while working at my desk or reading. Doing a few searches at Pandora, its seems several other Enya fans have done exactly the same thing!

My results as of now are as follows. I've "approved" 55 songs as being ones I like -- so these get repeated now and then in the playlist. I've rejected 61 songs as being ones I don't like -- so these will never be played again on my "station". Then many more -- perhaps 100 or so -- have been played at least once and I didn't vote them up or down: either I was ambivalent at that point about them, or more often, I was just busy and didn't have time to stop what I was doing to click yeah or nay.

Of the 55 songs I've "approved", 18 are from Enya. Since I like every one of her songs, that is no surprise. And I hope it helps to reinforce to the system what I am looking for. The "Theme from Harry's Game", by Clannad, was an early and obvious song to be included in this playlist -- though for some reason it gets played an inordinate number of times (perhaps it has been approved by so many people out there that it gets weighted in the system a bit too much?). Then there is Annie Lennox's famous "No more 'I Love You's'", which I like enough to include in this playlist. There is one Loreena McKennit song ("Blacksmith") so far, and even one Crosby and Nash ("Where Will I Be?") which I was glad to hear as I really like CSNY of course. And then the song "May it Be", by Lisa Kelly (and also a version by Hayley Westenra), which is a song I know from one of the Lord of the Rings movies. Most of the other artists on my "approved" list have been new ones for me, which is great.

But the one new song that sticks out as one I really like a lot is from an artist I had heard of previously, but that I wasn't very familiar with: Sarah Brightman. Her song "Free" is incredible. I'm probably going to plunk down the 99 cents to buy it outright from iTunes. Her song "Beautiful" has also made my playlist.

A few arists have songs on both my approved and rejected listings so far. The aforementioned Annie Lennox is one, and the famous Yanni is another. A group called Secret Garden is also batting .500 for me so far. A few famous artists that have a tune on my reject list include Abba, Enigma, Heart, Linda Rondstadt, and Phil Collins.

Anyway, if you have broadband, are interested in expanding your musical interests, and have a specific idea for a playlist theme -- or just want to experiment with the suggestion system to see what happens -- then I strongly urge you to give Pandora a try!

Internet Radio on Life Support?

Is so-called "Internet Radio" on life-support? It seems that unless a new bi-partisan bill introduced in congress, the Internet Radio Equality Act from Jay Inslee (D) and Donald Manzullo (R), is passed by July 15th... well, a great many outstanding Internet music sites will quickly go bankrupt and be out of business. Most notably for me would be the harm this could cause Pandora, a service I have quickly grown to love, as my recent blog posting described.

See this article, and this one, and this one for info on the situation. More recently than any of these it was announced that the feared May 15th deadline was actually a July 15th deadline, so that gives the SaveNetRadio.org group and others time to fight to get the new bill passed. Doing so would essentially cancel the decision of the federal Copyright Royalty Board, which had determined to hike up fees for web streaming radio stations like Pandora and many others. The new fees are bizarre -- they are per song rather than based on profits (thereby treating streaming like downloading), and they are totally out of whack with (higher than) the fees charged statellite radio and traditional AM/FM radio.

A few comments... first, I wish that we didn't refer to sites like Pandora as "Internet Radio". I mean, "radio" is a particular technology. It isn't used by the Internet to stream music. Calling sites like Pandora "radio" is confusing and based on inessential similarities. Yes, it is similar in that the music (or other content) is streamed rather than downloaded permanently. So lets call such services Internet Streaming services or Music Streaming services or whatever. That is accurate -- calling them "radio" is confusing.

Second, how many people know much about the federal Copyright Royalty Board? That sounds like something out of a socialist or communist country! What are a bunch of government bureaucrats doing dictating to anyone what they must pay to other people for streaming copyrighted content? Can't the two parties involved contract with each other? I'm not in favor of theft of intellectual property -- but equally wrong is government intervention in the economy... and for the same reasons: both are violations of individual rights.

The third news item linked above has the following bit worth quoting here:

Anyone who spends more than an hour a day in a car -- and there a lot of you in Miami -- knows that commercial radio stations are horrid purveyors of mainstream schlock. Internet radio has made new artists, genres, and songs available to listeners all over the world. Artists have a new way to get their music out there, and small distributors have a way to wrangle in new customers.

Sites like Pandora, which uses the innovative Music Genome Project to create specialized radio stations for its six million users based on what they tell it about their musical tastes, are a blessing to music junkies everywhere.

"We can't continue, at the new rate we can’t sustain the service," said Pandora founder Tim Westergren from Washington D.C., where he is attending congressional hearings on the fee hike. "We are losing money now, even at the old rate, we were looking at another two years before we expected to be in the black."

If the new rates go into effect, and sites like Pandora and W305 shut down, it would be a huge loss for music lovers, and perhaps an even bigger blow to musicians struggling to get their music to the public. A lot of smaller, independent Internet stations may go underground and avoid paying licensing fees all together, Kalimi said.

Pandora: Create Your Own Radio Station

I'm sure there are many sites like this one, so I'm not claiming this is the best. But I just discovered Pandora.com this evening and it is quite slick in my opinion. You type in a musical artist, and it does some searching, and then plays music by that artist or by other artists that are similar.

I didn't have success with the first two I tried: Pink Floyd and Jethro Tull. What I like about these bands is I think hard to abstract away from their particular songs, so I'm not surprised that a database and some algorithms couldn't do it very well. In both cases, the songs they suggested I might like -- other than the ones by PF and JT themselves -- are not songs I like.

But it did work well when I tried Enya. Now her music is very unique: her voice is stunning and they layer it many times for an incredible effect. But aside from that, her music is a combination of celtic and "new age" instrumentals. And I don't just like the unique aspects of it, I also like these fairly common characteristics as well: gentle, rich "new age/celtic" pieces that are nice as background music while I'm read email, doing some programming, or whatever. And I'm very much interested in finding more music of this type, so I'm glad to have found the Pandora service.

Pink Floyd Cover Story

The April 5 issue of Rolling Stone magazine has a cover story about Pink Floyd (my all-time favorite music group), titled "Pink Floyd: How Madness and Excess Destroyed the Legendary Band." The online version of this article is only the first part, for the rest you'll have to get the print magazine it seems.

The article is pretty good I thought. While I am a big fan of their music, I'm not such a big fan that I'd be able to pinpoint inaccuracies in the presented historical information about the group -- so perhaps there are errors in the article. But to me it all seemed accurate and consistent with what I have read elsewhere. The article covers the early days of the band, their slow evolution, the massive success of Dark Side of the Moon, the "Waters" years of Animals, The Wall, and The Final Cut, and then briefly mentions the post-Waters years. Then it catches up to modern times, with a description of the unique reunion of Waters with the rest of the band in 2005 for a performance at Live-8, and then also the death last year of original band member Syd Barrett (see my brief blog entry on that).

One complaint I have about the article is the cover title/headline. Madness... yes, in the case of Barrett at least. But "Excess"? This makes it sound like they all abused drugs/alcohol/sex, like so many other rock bands have over the years.... and yet the article doesn't talk about this. I think more accurate, in the case of Pink Floyd, in addition to "Madness" would be something like "Professional Differences" or "Musical Differences" or even "Attitudes". That is certainly the sense one gets from the article, and that is in line with my understanding of their history prior to reading this article. I mean, Waters cared more about the lyrics -- telling the stories he wanted to tell in particular -- and Gilmour and others cared more about the instrumentals. That seemed to be a big issue for the band, not "excess", whatever that would mean for them exactly.

Also, I'll note that RollingStone has provided a cool mashup page of sorts, giving four examples from the famous Dark Side of the Moon and Wizard of Oz connection. For those who don't know, the idea (conspiracy theory?) is that if you watch the Wizard of Oz in sync with the Dark Side of the Moon album, there are some eerie coincidences (or... not just coincidences?). I'll admit three of these four are pretty odd... The first not so much, except she does balance on the fence and fall into the pen at just the right moment. Then the third one, the timing of "black" and "blue" are perfect, so that is neat. And the fourth one seems lame, until the very end with the heartbeat in the music. The second one I think is a stretch for sure: I see no obvious connection between the money sounds in the music and the fact that color is now appearing as she has landed in Oz... so what?! Overall, I still think what I always have on this matter -- that it is a very big stretch, that it is coincidence, and that it is easy to read things into something like this. I consider it much as I do the "prophecies" of Nostradamus -- which is to say I don't believe there is really anything to it at all. Until Roger, Nick, David, or Rick come out and SAY they timed the song to the movie on purpose, the evidence we have for any such claims is just not very strong at all.

Hello (I Love You)

No, not the classic Doors song. As nice as that song is, I'm here talking about a new song from Roger Waters, Hello (I love you), which apparently is used in the upcoming movie The Last Mimzy (scenes from the movie are used throughout the video).

I think this is a nice tune. There are several references back to classic Pink Floyd hits, and these will inevitably be applauded and criticized by fans depending on whether you think they are cool or corny (I kinda like them). But aside from that issue, I just think this is a nice song - it is rich sounding (for a rock song), and includes strings and other instruments typically not found in music from rock artists (apparently it was produced along with award-winning composer Howard Shore).

More New Led Zeppelin-Related Music Reviews

Well, at least "new" for me. I recently purchased three music items on eBay, all Led Zeppelin-related. Last year I created a page at my website where I rated my favorite songs from Led Zep and gave some added commentary. Since then I've blogged a few times on related CDs as I acquired them. So here are a few thoughts on each of these latest ones:

1. How the West Was Won - Led Zeppelin. First, this is a 3-CD set, so that is nice! Released in 2003, Jimmy Page describes them on the inside cover as follows: "While I was searching through the archives for visual and audio material for the Led Zeppelin DVD I re-discovered these 1972 performances from teh 25th June, LA Forum and 27th June, Long Beach Arena. This is Led Zeppelin at its best and an illustration of How The West Was Won."

I almost always like to hear live performances of my favorite rock artists from years gone by, as each one is a slightly varied take on the studio recordings that I love and have memorized. The year 1972 means that material on these CDs would mostly be from their first four albums only, and so it is, though a few items from The Houses of the Holy were also performed.

The first CD has a great version of "Stairway to Heaven", though it would be hard for Led Zep themselves to not do a good version of that one! And the inclusion of "Over The Hills and Far Away" was a nice surprise.

The second CD has a really long version of "Dazed and Confused" (25:25, compared with 6:28 for studio recording). It is actually a medley though, and includes a version of "The Crunge". Some of the guitar work and the bass beat at the beginning reminds me of Black Sabbath in some ways. Then a long version of "Moby Dick" (19:20, compared with 4:20 for the original) is also included, with a really long Bonham drum solo of course. Good stuff!

The third CD starts with a long medley piece that begins with "Whole Lotta Love". They launch right into this one full blast, and at about 2:00 in it gets really cosmic sounding, even more than the standard recording does. The medley has a few songs, and even ends with a cover of Gene Pitney's famous "Hello Mary Lou".

Overall there are only 18 tracks on the 3 CDs, but as I said, some are quite long. For a Led Zep fan, I consider this set to be a must!

2. Walking into Clarksdale - Jimmy Page and Robert Plant. Released in 1998, I somehow had missed this one until now. I found the 12 tracks on this one to be quite nice overall. I can't say I dislike any of them. The first song, "Shining in the Light", is easily my favorite from this album. I guess a second favorite would be "Most High", but there are many nice songs here. I do recommend this for Led Zep fans.

3. Mighty Rearranger - Robert Plant. Released in 2005, I also hadn't noticed this one's release. I don't like it as well as Clarksdale, though again, I didn't really dislike any particular song. None jump out at me as ones to add to a playlist though. Diehard fans would have to have it of course, but everyone else can probably pass on this one in my opinion.

The String Quartet Tribute to Led Zeppelin

I recently purchased (on eBay, of course) the The String Quartet Tribute to Led Zeppelin (Amazon link). This is actually one of two CDs in the String Quartet Tribute series that focus on the music of Led Zep. I liked this one enought that I'll probably get the second one eventually as well.

Exactly what the title suggests, this is a string quartet (with a few other instruments or sound effects used occasionally) performing classic songs from Led Zep, sometimes in shortened forms.
The CD has 11 tracks. I found Dazed and Confused to be a bit annoying. It would be unfair to expect much of any tribute to Stairway to Heaven, but this one is acceptable (it starts out quite beautifully). The version of Going to California is not bad, and ditto for No Quarter and The Ocean. The versions of Moby Dick, Carouselambra, and Whole Lotta Love are each much shorter than the originals. Moby Dick is only one minute 20 seconds, and is rather spooky sounding -- it has chanting voices in the background. And Whole Lotta Love is a wild combination of strings and special effects that really imitate voices singing the lyrics.

Favorite Soothing Music from Rock Artists

I've added a third page to the "Favorites" section at my website. This one details a music playlist that I have compiled over the years, that I listen to pretty regularly. This collection of 23 songs are what I consider "soothing" music, but they are all from artists who are not known for this kind of thing at all. Included are songs from Black Sabbath; Crosby, Still, and Nash; The Doors; Jethro Tull; Led Zeppelin; Neil Young; Robert Plant; Queensryche; Simon and Garfunkel; Smashing Pumpkins; Steve Miller Band. Can you guess the songs?

The only group or artist excluded from the list is Pink Floyd -- because there are so many good songs from them that fit this category, I have a separate, similar playlist for those... which I'll get up on the site someday as well.

Schoolhouse Rock

There was a brief blurb in my local paper today about School House Rock! -- the series of 3-minute educational, musical cartoons that aired on Saturday morning TV from 1973-1985 . You can now buy the complete set of these on DVD. What amazed me was that there were 46 of these shorts! Since I grew up during the era that these played, like millions of other American kids these were a part of my childhood education. But when I tried to remember them, I could only think of a handful -- no where near 46 of them:

• I'm a Bill
• Electricity, Electricity
• The Preamble
• Elbow Room (about manifest destiny)
• The Great American Melting Pot
• Lolly, Lolly, Lolly get your Adverbs here
• Conjunction Junction

I didn't remember any of the math ones! See the Wikipedia entry for a complete list and lots of good background info and trivia. See also this website which provides some info and has .wav files for many of them.

The Wonder that is iTunes, plus Three More Favorites

Since MSN Music closed shop recently, I've switched to iTunes. Like with MSN Music, I have so far just used iTunes to download single songs for 99 cents each -- songs that are favorites but that I don't want to buy the entire album CD to get. So I've been filling in the gaps in my music collection over the past week, and at this point I can think of very few songs that I know I really like and that I don't have on CD or computer. The iTunes collection is not perfect -- like competitors, it is missing some key bands like Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, and others. But it is VERY extensive nonetheless -- and not just for music of course, as you can download thousands of TV episodes from a wide range of series for just $1.99 each. And the user interface is very easy to get used to. For many readers the above was no doubt quite boring, as I know I'm just getting caught up with the wonder that is iTunes -- I'm in that "kid in the candy store" phase. It'll pass soon...

One other thing I really like a lot about iTunes are the dozens of so-called Essentials collections. These are listings of the best songs from particular artists and groups -- across all genres. This is a great way to fill in the gaps in your music collection! And they also have Genre-based collections, with some top songs from various artists in each category. Also very useful, and good way to sample a new musical genre that you might or might not enjoy. As always, you can listen to 20-30 second clips of each song in each list.

Lastly on the topic of favorite music... I've added three more songs to my "Other Favorite Rock/Pop Music" page. This is an odd grouping, but here they are:

• The Gambler, by Kenny Rogers (1978)
• One Night in Bangkok, by Murray Head (1984)
• Call Me When You're Sober, by Evanescence (2006)

The first two here get a 3 rating out of 10, while the Evanescence tune gets the higher 2 rating. And it is the only post-2000 song in my list at this time.

White and Nerdy

A few weeks ago I saw the hilarious Weird Al Yankovic video "White and Nerdy". This a must see. He manages to cram in so many great cultural references into one song, and it goes by so fast... if you're like me, you'll have to watch it a few times to get them all. It reminds me of Mystery Science Theatre 3K in that respect, as they too would pepper each movie episode with so many references, it was nearly impossible to catch them all (let alone understand them all).

My favorite line from this video isn't even one of his explicit jokes: "Although its apparent I'm just too white and nerdy". Just his use of "apparent" at that point in the song/video is excellent.

Evanescence and Hinder

As regular readers know, I almost never post a blog entry like this one... but bear with me as I'm making an exception. I hope you'll get value from it.

In the past few weeks I have twice been flipping channels and came upon VH1 only to be amazed that I actually liked what was playing. I know, I know... I'm getting old. I did just turn 33 a few weeks ago, afterall...

In both cases, I then tracked down the video online, and it wasn't a couple of fluke moments. I really do like these two songs. And I like their videos. That is very rare for me -- to rate both a song and its video highly. And on top of that, I am not at all knowledgeable of contemporary hit music. I couldn't name you more than three songs released in the past year (well, excluding these two I am talking about now). I don't know any of the new groups or arists, and that is true going back 5-10 years even. My knowledge of 1990s music is hit and miss -- there are some groups I definitely liked a lot, but my main favorites are from the 1960s and 70s (Pink Floyd, Led Zep, Jethro Tull, etc.). My point being that I am not at all "hip to what the kids are listening to these days", if you get my drift. And from what I have heard, I wouldn't like much of it... but then I find a few gems...

So without any further ado, here are the two that I am so impressed by... click on the link to launch the video and full song in a separate window, courtesty of MTV (you'll see a couple of very brief ads first):

1. "Call Me When You're Sober", by Evanescence
I don't know much about this group. They are an American group, and have been around a few years... somewhat "Gothic Rock" I guess. I really like the choreography of this video (towards the end, on the steps, and then the final table scene!). And the lead singer (Amy Lee) has a great voice in this one. And they use piano, which I like to see in rock groups. See the Wikipedia entry on them for more info.

2. "Lips of an Angel", by Hinder
I like the choreography switching from the phone coversation to the band playing. And the lead singer, Austin Winkler, seems like a combination of Joe Cocker (for arm movements when singing -- he is very passionate) and Steven Tyler of Aerosmith. This songs also seems like a nice return to solid rock from yesteryear. See the Wikipedia entry on them for more info.

And in both of these songs the lyrics are about relationship problems -- something I long grew tired of as rock song themes! And yet I really like these two songs. The rare exceptions to my general rule I guess...

Your mileage will no doubt vary here, but if you watch these videos and like them, I'd be interesting in hearing about it.

Led Zeppelin BBC Sessions

I recently purchased (on eBay, of course) the Led Zeppelin BBC Sessions (2-cd set). This is a compilation album released in 1997. The first CD has 14 tracks from three BBC radio broadcasts, and the second CD has 10 tracks from a 1971 concert in London. Most of the songs are versions of ones that made it onto standard Zeppelin studio albums, but a few are other pieces. The blues influence on Zeppelin is very evident in this collection. (See the Wikipedia entry for more info.)

For Zeppelin fans, I definitely think this set is a worthwhile buy. I guess my favorites from this set would be What Is And What Should Never Be from CD 1, and then Stairway to Heaven, Going to California, and That's the Way from CD 2.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

We visited the Cleveland area this past week, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was of course one of the things we saw. I had never been there before, so I am glad I was able to see it. I think it is definitely worth a visit if you are in the area, or if you can combine it with various other events in Ohio. It is packed with memorabilia and exhibits, so it takes the better part of the day to tour it. Here are some comments I have:

• Having had discussions about Rock music with my friend David Ross just before going on this trip, and us both lamenting the fact that Jethro Tull was not yet voted into the Hall, it was more than a little ironic to hear... that's right... Aqualung blaring out of the external speakers as we approached the building. That just didn't seem right at all. I think they should only play songs from artists that are actually in the hall of fame!
  
  
• Although I enjoyed touring the hall, a couple of knocks on it are that it wasn't made very clear what the process for induction was, or even exactly how they define Rock and Roll as such. They do a good job of describing what it is not, in that they have a nice section that pays tribute to the early influences on RnR. And I know it would be difficult and controversial to attempt a definition of the genre (see the Wikipedia entry, and the impressive list of rock sub-genres), but still... I felt that was missing. Perhaps I missed some important plaque or display that did these things though -- there is a lot there to take in. Here is a brief bit of info on the induction process, from their website:
  
  

  "Artists become eligible for induction 25 years after the release of their first record. Criteria include the influence and significance of the artist’s contributions to the development and perpetuation of rock and roll.
  
  The Foundation’s nominating committee, composed of rock and roll historians, selects
  nominees each year in the Performer category. Ballots are then sent to an international voting body of about 1,000 rock experts. Those performers who receive the highest number of votes, and more than 50 percent of the vote, are inducted. The Foundation generally inducts five to seven performers each year."

• The 1-hour long video about the inductees was quite good. The seating was horrible (metal benches with no backs), but the video was good. As that video (presumably) gets longer and longer each year, they'll really need to improve the seating! But they showed interesting soundbites and music clips of each performer and the others included in the Hall. (This video is the equivalent of the plaques for each member of the the Baseball Hall of Fame.)
  
  
• All of the other exhibits varied in how interesting they were to me, but overall, it was quite interesting indeed. And like other Halls of Fame, they include historical memorabilia from far more artists than just those officially inducted.
  
  
• As for comments on who is not yet included, obviously I consider Jethro Tull's absence to be a travesty. They have been eligible since 1993, so who knows if they'll ever make it now. They are a unique group: longevity even through significant band member changes (with Ian Anderson and Martin Barre being the constants), unique music across several rock sub-genres, Ian Anderson's incredible use of the flute, and so on. See the Jethro Tull Wikipedia entry for info.
  


• Beyond that, I don't have any huge objections to who is in so far. And even the order of how they have entered seems fairly reasonable to me (started in 1986). I like the fact that The Beatles didn't make it in until the third year, which allowed the Hall to have a good set of "early" rock and rollers before the era of the bands really begins to enter. The 2006 class includes two favorites of mine, Black Sabbath and Lynyrd Skynyrd.
  


• It is interesting to consider the artists who are included both as part of a group and as soloists. This includes at least John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison (The Beatles), Paul Simon (Simon and Garfunkel), and Eric Clapton (Cream and The Yardbirds). I think Ozzy Osbourne (Black Sabbath) might also make it one day as well.
  
  
• Who else will be included in the future? Obviously Madonna. And R.E.M. And Nirvana. And Metallica. Off the top of my head, others that I think are very likely to be enshrined include Guns 'n Roses, KISS, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Van Halen, Rush, Beck, Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam, Genesis, Green Day, and possibly Deep Purple, Moody Blues, Dire Straits, Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots, ... and with any luck... Jethro Tull.

Favorites List: Led Zeppelin songs

In June I posted my first list of "favorites": a sortable list of a few dozen of my favorite pop/rock songs from all artists except Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Led Zeppelin, and Enya.

I've now created a second "favorites" list... this one is for my favorite Led Zeppelin songs.

I find these to be fun projects, so more such favorites lists for music, movies, art, and so on will be created in the future.

RIP: Roger (Syd) Barrett (1946-2006)

As Pink Floyd is my all-time favorite rock/pop group, I was saddened to hear of the death of Syd Barrett, one of the founders of the band back in the 1960s. Although he was only with the band at the very beginning, his influence lingered, and several of PF's later great songs either were inspired by him or were about him (e.g., Shine On You Crazy Diamond).

For more information about him, see the Wikipedia entry, the article written by Syd's sister Rosemary, and this article over at AllMusic. There is some interesting info in all three.

Some of My Favorite Rock/Pop Songs

Over time I'll be compiling and posting to my personal website various lists of my "favorites": music, movies, art, and so on. The first I posted tonight, a sortable list of a few dozen of my favorite pop/rock songs from all artists except a few that will later have separate listings (my top favorites which are Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Led Zeppelin, Enya). The table is sortable by song, artist, or year. The songs are rating on a 1-10 scale, with 1 being best. Only those that I consider a 1, 2, or 3 are included so far. There is a good mix here: 1960s-1990s, from Harry Chapin and Simon and Garfunkel to Metallica and Ozzy.

I also included Wikipedia links to those songs that have their own entries (most already do!). And for four songs, I included some comments of my own below the listing.

The Daily Improvisation

Thanks to Diana Hsieh's blog for introducing me to Eric Barnhill's innovative blog, The Daily Improvisation. Here classical pianist Eric Barnhill provides a new improvised piece of music every few days. You can download each song in MP3 format. I've now done so and listened to all of them; although he just started this blog earlier this year, he has already posted 27 pieces. He is very talented... it is hard to believe these are all improvisations!