Cerebral

I noticed today that I have been quite negligent in introducing new music.  I write about bands and videos and concerts gone by, but what is it that I’m listening to right now?  I’ve compiled a list of current artists that have caught my attention that you might have never heard.  Of course, being the visual learner you are I’m including some youtube links to kill your bandwidth.  Enjoy!

Here’s what’s currently spinning on my hard drive:

The Violet Burning!

They’ve been one of my favorite bands since the early 90s with one of the most unique frontmen in the industry.  Michael Pritzl’s voice takes some getting used to, but after a bit you can’t imagine the band sounding any different.   Interesting story… I was at a music festival in Illinois in 1995 and had just talked to a friend the night before about how I wished I could catch a Violet’s concert, but being a somewhat obscure band from LA I guessed it wasn’t meant to be.  I was walking from one tent to the other during the hot afternoon.  There were little groups of amateur performers scattered everywhere.  But off the path a bit I could hear someone playing a Violet’s cover.  They sounded really good!  I walked over to see.  I was entirely shocked and overcome with joy when I saw Michael Pritzl and some members of The Prayer Chain performing beside a van with about 20 kids standing around!  Just an impromptu jam.  They played for about 20 minutes.  I can remember thinking over and over how I must have been dreaming or else hallucinating after being awake for the last 40+ hours of the festival.  But it was one of the most memorable concert experiences of my life.  Afterward I got to tell Michael how cool I thought he was.  You can see me now blabbering on and making him feel completely uncomfortable.  Later I would front a band that would do two Violet’s covers.  They have out a much more current album (which is supposed to be why I’m writing this post) but I found this song on youtube and felt you should give it a go.  The name of this song is As I Am.  It’s about being accepted for who you are — naturally.  This version is 8 minutes long and was shot at that same festival in 2000 by some guy in the crowd.  The girl on the right isn’t actually part of the band, she was just singing the harmony.  The audio isn’t the best and there are better videos to be found around the net, but there’s just something about this song.  You don’t have to watch the whole thing, especially since whoever was holding the camera seems to have been distracted at several points, but I find it a gorgeous piece of music.

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Sugar and the Raw!

I’m glad I can say that they’re current again.  They’re having a reunion show at Juanitas in Little Rock on Sept. 29.  For $8 you not only get in… you also get their new CD!!!  This is a local band with a really tight sound.  I can’t find any video footage of them, but click on the link above to their myspace page and a music player will pop up.  I think you’ll like it.

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All That Remains!

Not an obscure band in the least, but probably something you don’t listen to very often.  Be warned, they’re up for MTV Headbanger’s Ball Band of the Year.  So why would I want you to listen to them?  Because of the drummer.  He’s unbelievable.  Make sure you have a good sound system so you can hear just how awesome he is.  Just released last month, this is their most commercially friendly single, so looking for their other offerings will probably hurt your ears.

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Missy Higgins!

I’ll end with an artist I consider to be a female version of Sting (you can argue that in the comments).  I can’t believe I haven’t written about her before this.  I’ve been completely captivated by her voice, music, and lyrics since I first heard her during the Live Earth concerts back in July.  She’s Australian, and anyone who reads this blog knows how much I love the Aussie music scene, so that just makes it that much better.  I’m not one who likes love songs, unrequited or otherwise, but somehow they sound right coming from her — especially when she isn’t afraid to use words like ‘scrupulous’.    I just can’t say enough nice things about her, so I’ll let her video speak for me.  This is Where I Stood.

BTW, this is one of three official videos for this song. I like this one best.

After watching this one, you might want to check out the videos for Ten Days, Steer, Greed For Your Love, and The Special Two.  I know, too many options and you won’t choose any.  Look, she’s had a lot of hits on the other side of the world.  These are only a fraction of her videos.  Well, pick that last one at least!

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I’d like for you guys to also recommend some bands.  They don’t have to sound like the ones I’ve posted here, or even like anyone else at all.  I’m just always looking for things I should be listening to.  Got a suggestion?  Post it in the comments!

Well, this one goes to 11

So this post is all about old recordings of live concerts — for free!

You all know Midnight Oil is my all-time favorite band.  Hands down.  Their separation is 2003 killed me.  I got to see one of their final concerts.  With the demise of the band we get a bit of a win-fall.  Bootlegs!  Not illegal copies of studio releases; recordings of concerts.  They are usually considered illegal for trading, but last week one of the members of the Powderworks group (the unofficial fan base for the band) contacted the old MO office and got permission from their manager, Gary Morris, for us to trade concert recordings.  Yay!!!  He said that as long as it stayed within our group it was okay.  And no money is to ever change hands.  That’s what’s so cool about them.  They know that our little group stood by them through every endeavor, and that our love for their music and philosophies goes beyond simple collecting.  I personally own about 15-20 concerts on cassette tape and digital formats, but there are some who have way over 100.  Already the trading has begun on the list.  We’ll see if any of the gems I’m interested in gets offered.  :o)

Also this week, I’ve discovered a website called Wolfgang’s Vault.  They have a ton of recorded concerts from last month all the way back to the 60s — all for your free listening pleasure!  You do have to sign up, but I haven’t received any spam from them yet.  They’re adding new shows every week, so hopefully some of the other obscure bands I listen to will get a bump.  If you go over there, make sure you check out this concert by U2 at Boston’s Orpheum in 1983.  The performance of October is haunting.  [wow.  I just realized how bad of a pun that was.  REALLY not intentional!]

Lastly, since I can’t seem to find any concert footage of the late, great FSF, I’m embedding this video from youtube.  So here it is, The Sound by Further Seems Forever.

This isn’t exactly a live show, but I remember the call for audience members when the video for The Sound was shot.  Back then Jason Gleason was the vocalist.  He took the place of Chris Carrabba of Dashboard Confessional fame.   But where Jason went, nobody knows.  Not even the band.  Seriously.  One day he didn’t show up for practice.  The band tried calling to make sure he was okay.  Then they went to his apartment — nobody there.  After a couple of weeks MIA his manager calls up and tells them to stop looking for him and to sever all ties.  So odd.  IMO he had the best voice of any rock artist at the time.  I know I would drive a 1000 miles just to hear him belt out Pagan Poetry again!  Of course, I’d also drive a 1000 miles to watch a reunion show of original members Chad, Steve, Nick, and Josh.  I played this great game with them over pizza one night called “Kill Yourself”.  Maybe I’ll tell you about it someday…

Something Old, Something New

So it looks like my all-time favorite band, Midnight Oil, is releasing re-masters of their entire catalogue!  That’s 17 albums!  Here’s what their website says…

According to Jim Moginie who has been busy overseeing the project, revisiting original tapes and working with producers Nick Launay and Warne Livesey to ensure that everything sounds as good as it can;

“a lot of these [older] records were made for vinyl, so a lot of the frequencies were cut out because there were certain sounds you couldn’t put on records. This was a good chance to get them back up to scratch, because now we can make them as loud and big sounding as [we] want, with all the added depth using the original master tapes. It’s the audiophile nerd side of us that accounts for some of that.”

This is amazingly awesome for me.  I bought each of their albums on cassette tape up until the 90s when I got a CD player.  I literally played some of them to death.  Once I started collecting everything on CD I would occassionally find one of their older albums in the “great price” bin.  Sometimes I would grab two of these so I could give one away.

I’ve been intending to write a full day’s worth of reading on my love affair with the Oils, but just simply haven’t had the time.  If you’ve never been a true fan of something — completely passionate about a hero, a motivator, an artist — you cannot comprehend what these guys meant to me.  These albums had so much to say.  I couldn’t listen without questioning my own politics and ethics.

I had the good fortune of seeing them in Kansas City in 2002, just months before they broke up.  The show was incredible.  They played songs from recent albums, but also gave us some real treats with a few selections from their early (angry) years.  They even played one I thought I’d never hear live, Brave Faces.  [Flower people were so beautiful, but straight and loud’s the way!] They played the night before in St. Louis.  I had thoughts of going but then, for a lot of reasons, I didn’t.  I still really regret that decision because they finished that show with Lucky Country, another song I never thought I’d hear live.  To get you into the feel of this band, here’s the performance of Lucky Country at MTV Unplugged.  You’re going to want to watch all the way to the end of the video.  Good stuff!  Oh, and you might want some lyrics to go with it.

(The guy playing the slide is Jim Moginie, the fella who’s quoted above.)

Brian Cox, Headbanger

Dr. Brian Cox is quite famous in Europe.  He’s kinda like the Neil Tyson of the BBC.  This is a commercial that promotes his new documentary on Time.  The guy on the left is the former keyboardist for The Talking Heads.  I love this!

Plus, here’s some footage from his documentary with him lip syncing.  FTW, can you tell me which songs he could’ve chosen to make himself appear cooler?

Pagan Poetry

Sometimes I find myself obsessing over a single song. It’s not like simply having a song stuck in your head — I get to the point of frantically searching the web looking for different live versions and remixes and covers of the song by other bands and whatever else might give me my fix.

Tonight I kept repeating this line to myself:

On the surface simplicity

But in the darkest pit in me

is pagan poetry.

I couldn’t get it out. These are lyrics from the song Pagan Poetry from Bjork’s album, Vespertine. What brought this on was I was testing out some new recording software and listening to my slacker channel when it randomly picked this song. I had more tests to run on the software, but it was too late. I spent the better part of an hour scouring YouTube for live performances from various venues. Even found an *awesome* live version from Letterman (he’s an absolute idiot sometimes) that I was going to post here, and then I found this:

YouTube is definitely my friend. This is a video that some people created as an experiment. It has some decent compositing with really bad effects, but the spirit of the video comes through. I think it would be a lot of fun to make one of these with friends someday.

Bjork really is a polarizing artist, with her odd stage presence and non-standard musical style (who puts a harp in a rock song?). For most every listener she’s either amazing or annoying, but that’s what makes any artist stand out. If you sound unoriginal then is the music coming from inside you or from your environment? What I love most about her is her deeply moving lyrics. You should go here, click on Vespertine and then Pagan Poetry, and read along with the video. Trust me, you won’t understand her without doing this. And since this post started out with the lyrics getting stuck in my head, I feel I should point you toward them. Enjoy.

[BTW, if you look up the original video to this song you may be surprised to discover that MTV banned it for a reason. You’ve been warned!]