Allan Holdsworth quartet

Music for a Sunday morning. One of my favorite guitarists: A. Holdsworth. Never plays a tune in his repertoire the same way.

R.I.P. Whitney Houston

A beautiful voice sings no more!



The Ultimate Whitney Houston Playlist

Current listening

Ashokan Farewell : Here played by Mark O'Connor.



Background on the composition from Wikipedia.

Why do I like this band?

Lacuna Coil!

This Sunday morning listening

Simple Gifts: Shaker Chants and Spirituals

A little Tin Machine in the morning.

Ah yes a little Tin Machine rattling in the morning. Bowie rules!

Rare Emerson, Lake & Palmer

Oh what the heck! A little more Jeff Beck

Why Jeff Beck is God!

Jeff Beck always a pleasure: Goodbye Pork Pie Hat/Brush With The Blues

The absolutely sweet Stevie Nicks and FM

Steve Nicks is telling the techonologically-driven world to stop. Computers are taking over our kids. She has a point.

Meanwhile here's a clip from the age of cassettes and vinyl, a time devoid of IPod consumption!


Hat tip: Hit&Run

Song for a Day

The always wonderful Annie Haslem performs Michael Oldfield's "Moonlight Shadow."

Freddie Hubbard, R.I.P.

A great man with the trumpet has passed away. More here. And a delightful clip here:

Going Nico on you

Velvet Underground covered.

Hat tip: ChicagoBoyz

Unplugged: Wakeman does Bowie

The always phenomenal Rick Wakeman reprising David Bowie's "Life on Mars" of which he wrote the piano part.

Hat tip: Notes From The Underground

Currently listenting to: King Crimson - Sus tayn Z

King Crimson - Sus tayn Z
It came with an aphorism: "Avoid celebrity."

Not "O Superman" but "O say can you see.."

O Laurie Anderson, let me sing your praises! Deconstructing the national anthem...

Currently listening to..

Heavenly.

Now playing...Marin Marais

Delightful after dinner music.

Marin Marias, French composer and viol player, had time for more than music. According to Wikipedia, Marin Marais married Catherine d'Amicourt in 1676 and had 19 children together. Wow!

My longtime favorite after hearing it for the first time on WCRB-FM years ago is the title ttrack from Sonnerie de Sainte Genevieve du Mont.

Random Reference

Sometimes the reviews are more memorable than the albums. Vincent Gallo reviewing King Crimson sticks in my mind.

I bought with my own money, well money I stole, my first Beatle album in 1967. The Beatles were the perfect band for a seven-year-old to get interested in music, rock music. By the way, I never liked hippies, I hate hippies, especially pot smoking hippies. Marijuana and socialism were the evils of the twentieth century.

Read the whole review. It says more about the artist Gallo than the band at hand. And that's not a bad thing.

Viva Patti Smith; The sea of possibilities

I think her album Easter is one of the greatest rock records ever. Others stick with Horses, her debut.

Here she is writing about her induction into the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame. I probably disagree with a lot of her politics and even some of her aesthetic sensibility (see the near idiotic failure of Radio Ethopia). But undeniably she's always been a sincere innovator bringing raw poetry to rock.

Her modesty in crediting her late husband the legendary Fred Sonic Smith is heartfelt.

My late husband, Fred Sonic Smith, then of Detroit’s MC5, was a part of the brotherhood instrumental in forging a revolution: seeking to save the world with love and the electric guitar. He created aural autonomy yet did not have the constitution to survive all the complexities of existence.

Before he died, in the winter of 1994, he counseled me to continue working. He believed that one day I would be recognized for my efforts and though I protested, he quietly asked me to accept what was bestowed — gracefully — in his name.

Today I will join R.E.M., the Ronettes, Van Halen and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. On the eve of this event I asked myself many questions. Should an artist working within the revolutionary landscape of rock accept laurels from an institution? Should laurels be offered? Am I a worthy recipient?

I have wrestled with these questions and my conscience leads me back to Fred and those like him — the maverick souls who may never be afforded such honors. Thus in his name I will accept with gratitude. Fred Sonic Smith was of the people, and I am none but him: one who has loved rock ’n’ roll and crawled from the ranks to the stage, to salute history and plant seeds for the erratic magic landscape of the new guard.

Because its members will be the guardians of our cultural voice. The Internet is their CBGB. Their territory is global. They will dictate how they want to create and disseminate their work. They will, in time, make breathless changes in our political process. They have the technology to unite and create a new party, to be vigilant in their choice of candidates, unfettered by corporate pressure. Their potential power to form and reform is unprecedented.