Above the Vines - Glasswort

Here is a recent practice version of this song.

Here are the lyrics.
white stones
some kind of rubble piled over there
a river washed out a bridge
back in the day
when you weren’t here

among the ruins
fertile soil for your fingernails
every kind of seed
will grow for you

farm skin
not as dark as the soil
that’s as dark as your hair
you mostly keep to this down
city dreams are off somewhere
where school friends
glided to when you said good bye
in their cubicles
no one can see them cry

platform good byes
museum cafe smiles
liquid crystal skies

two winter melons
fit on your scooter back to town
a good day’s harvest
for grandma’s soup
on these trellises
hang a bounty that provides
a simple thing
don’t have to - there is no why

and they speed by
never surprised
above the vines
across your eyes

platform good byes
museum cafe smiles
liquid crystal skies

and they speed by
never surprised
above the vines
across your eyes

Bluestar - Seaside

[link] This album cover (pic below)

captures a theme that I've been wanting to work on with Glasswort, my new band. The aesthetics of industrial and post-industrial urban outskirts.  These are some of the settings that have affected me most deeply from my travels in Taiwan and my one trip to Japan.
 My song, Above the Vines is in this vein.

Silent Girl - Seaside

[link] These guys (and girls) have mastered the form. One of the signature motifs of this brand of SG is the contrast of the breathy high female vocals and the machine-coarse whirr of the guitar tracks.

Giggle and Blush - Seaside

[link] Great SG band from Indonesia.  I'll try to post more from them.

was gone for a while

Work and home stuff.  Things are OK.  But still busy.  So there will be a bit of a hole. I'll try to get back into it soon.
Thought for now: I find myself not wanting to have my consciousness taken over by a strong, serious movie.  Certainly not in a theater but for most stories, not anywhere right now. I need to keep it light and stay in control of the stories I consume.

a few more nine posts days

and I'll have made up for all the days I missed in the last month or so

a binge coming on

I think it's about time for me to pick up all of the Cocteau Twins CDs (used on amazon) and listen to them a lot for a month or so. If there was nothing else going on.  That's what I would do...

Ivo - Cocteau Twins

[link] Siouxsie and the Banshee were one of the Cocteau Twins influences and it really shows in some of the songs on their 1984 album "Treasure", including this song and Persephone.

Simple Minds - No Cure

[link] Amazing story I just read about.  This song was originally called "The Cocteau Twins" and the Simple Minds' (then called Johnny and the Self Abusers) fellow Scots named themselves after this song.  That's really really cool.

Cocteau Twins - The Itchy Glowbo Blow

[link] No one does arch-atmosphere like Cocteau Twins. It's sort of like Tolkein did for the genre of fantasy.  The Cocteau Twins invented the entirety of the "ethereal sound" that because such a huge pursuit in Shoegaze, lock, stock, and barrell, the beginning, the end, all of it.  This song is a superb example of this, but also, especially in the fade out figure at the end, there is pop in here.

Two other producers of the soundtrack of my youth

Jimmy Iovine and Bob Clearmountain.  These guys touched a whole lot of rock and pop that made it into my brain.

Psychedelic Furs - The Ghost in You

[link] 1984's "Mirror Moves" finds the Furs forging the smoothest and most sophisticated pop that they would probably ever make. The differences from their origins are on the same scale (to use an example from almost the same genre) as Bryan Ferry's Bete Noire era solo stuff compared to early Roxy Music. Instead of a xylophone, a synth provides the driving figure.  The vocals are more conventionally produced (but still signature Butler, the lyrics as well). The Furs of this era have an ability to evoke offbeat romantic desolation on a par with Ric Ocasek's best work the the Cars. Keith Forsey produces them here (after Todd Rundgren's trenchant production on the breakthrough Forever Now), placing them into the 80s pop Olympus alongside other Forsey Productions like Billy Idol and Simple Minds' "Don't You Forget About Me". I gotta say that Forsey certainly produced the soundtrack of my coming of age.

Psychedelic Furs - Love My Way

[link] This was the one.  The piece of pure alt.pop genius (before alt existed) that made the Furs a worldwide recognizable sound.  Probably the best use of xylophone in the history of pop. The chord structure is simple.  The genius is to mine such deep hooks out of pure simplicity in the chord progression and vocal line.  Butler's vocals actually become sort of velvety on top of the synthesizers here.  The atmosphere and very tightly focused signature emotiveness are also major achievements.

not much time for blogging

Things have been crazy busy, but I'll try to catch up.

[Glasswort] begins

In square brackets because it is only a placemarker name. Last Thursday, Steve, Laurel, and I got together and jammed a bit.  Darren couldn't make it but he hopes to come this Thursday.  Pretty exciting to be getting this underway.  Don't know exactly what we will sound like yet.  We need to work up a bunch of songs.

Psychedelic Furs - Only You and I

[link] 1982's "Forever Now" album is an enduring pop masterpiece. This is not one of the major hits but it's exemplary of the full set of gems that the Furs produced at the peak of their powers.  The bass hook is a singularity here.  It is quite literally a hook.
There was a 2002 reissue of this album with a version of "Alice's House" (from their next album "Mirror Moves"), which is great.

Psychedelic Furs - Into You Like a Train

[link] The Furs' 2nd album, 1981's "Talk Talk Talk" does not let off on the dark intensity and continues to produce on the brooding but infectious formula of the debut.  If there is a standout, this is the song, but overall it's a very even offering. The soaring pop highs that they would soon produce were not quite apparent yet, maybe just hinted at.

Psychedelic Furs - Imitation of Christ

[link] Felt like doing a bit of a Furs retrospective, so here is what I think is the most accomplished song off their 1980 debut album. They are considered to be of the post-punk period and Wikipedia says they are art-rock (worth a future investigation of this genre).  The punk edge is there in a couple of ways: Richard Butler's voice and the punkish melody line and lyrical arrangement. Their future high pop accomplishments are foreshadowed here.  On this album they are still getting their chops; like a good punk band, talent with instruments was not something they started with. But their songwriting and atmospheric strengths are clearly apparent throughout this song and the album as a whole.

Duke Jupiter - I'll Drink to You

[link] Since I'm in this time and genre tonight, here is a blast from my Rochester past.  Never saw these guys live but this song was on the radio for a while.  Local guys done good.

Robert Plant - Worse than Detroit

[link] Back to Plant. Going back to his first solo album. One of my biggest hard rock influences.  You really can't beat this live version. Towshend, Collins, Blunt, Woodroffe, and Martinez.  Hall of fame combo.

Honeymoon Suite - New Girl Now

[link] Same genre but much more of a euro new wave feel (a metal-pop manifestation of such). I like this song quite a bit.

Ratt - Round and Round

[link] Overplay helped this song become a cliche.  But boy is it ever a good rock song.  The hooks in verse and chorus, and the unexpected transitions between major and minor.  Genius.

Eyes on Fire - Blue Oyster Cult

[link] Since I'm on a hard rock kick.  This is from the Revolution by Night album (1983), which highlighted their strong pop instincts.  This song is a good example of that (and it is probably not a favorite of their more hard core old school hard rock fans).

Robert Plant - Hip to Hoo

[link] I really like the overall aesthetics of Plant's Shaken 'n' Stirred album.  Like the two before it, which are classics, he experimented with rock without worrying about stuff charting.

keyboard working

My midi keyboard and Yamaha rack synth got set up tonight and work fine.  The wireless midi transmitter that I use is missing its ad adapter for the transmitter, so I ordered a replacement on ebay.  Tomorrow three out of four of us will be meeting and hopefully everyone can make it next week.

Blue Six - Sweeter Love

[link] Never a bad time for some Blue Six. Good for either relaxing or for doing lab work to.

The Big Bang Theory

My dad has watched this show for a while, but I resisted getting into it for a long time.  Lately I've been watching it just before bedtime. It's often really funny.  A lot of talent in the writing and cast.

Rock the Casbah - the Clash

[link] Few songs from the 80s got as overplayed as this one.  But few have withstood time as well as  this song. It's bold, irreverent, quirky (that digital watch dixie thing), just a great pastiche of a bunch of cultural things that were rattling around at the time.  And I still have never figured out what it's really about. An excellent piece of pop music, as well, delivered with their signature nonchalance.

Two good introversion songs by Men at Work

Men at Work hit me at a formative time. These two songs in particular (even though one is their biggest hit and was massively overplayed) do a great job of expressing both the dilemma and the escape that introverts experience.

Who Can it Be Now
Upstairs in My House

These guys produced masterful pop. There had been major artists from Australia before, but until Men at Work, no one had so openly expressed their Australian-ness.

Getting the basement ready

Spent some time in the basement last night setting equipment up and seeing if stuff was still working. So far, both bass amps work (one is used for keyboards) and my bass (Hohner headless) still works well.  I have a bass effects box that was getting blinky a few year ago and I basically abandoned it.  I dusted it off and plugged it in (amazingly I had a working AC adapter for it, two of them actually; one must be for something else) and it works fairly well. The PA system is also set up and working.

Siouxsie and the Banshees - Happy House

[link] From 1980. Another of their most well known sounds.  There is a maturing melodicism here and even an approach to danceability, which was an overall trend in the emerging postpunk sound at the time as well. The gothic lines remain very strong.

Lines into Shoegaze

All of the following have been cited as having inputs into the first wave of Shoegaze, which happened in the late 80s, early 90s:

Cocteau Twins
My Bloody Valentine (maybe the first actual SG band)
Spacemen 3
Jesus and Mary Chain
The production style of Phil Spector (particularly his work with the Ramones, which directly leads into the sound of J&MC)

There are undoubtedly others but these are the influences I've seen cited.

Siouxsie and the Banshees - Hong Kong Garden

[link] From 1978, their first and still maybe most recognizable single. They were pretty much exact contemporaries with Bauhaus and should get equal credit for originating gothic rock. They also have a direct connection with the main line of British punk in the form of the Sex Pistols, with whom they shared personnel early on.

Spacemen 3 - Revolution

[link] From 1988.  Held by some to be one of the precursors of Shoegaze.  Certainly the unrestrained guitar sounds qualify. Here they are also carrying forward cores of punk and psychedelia.

Now possibly a quartet

I have recruited a possible fourth person, a guitarist/vocalist, for the Glasswort project. We might get together as early as next Tuesday.  Hope we can.

Computer Magic - The End of Time

[link] Certain aspects of this song remind me of another New York art school artist (band) from almost 30 years previously: Book of Love.

Airiel - Sharron Apple

[link] For mainlining shoegaze into one's head, Airiel is a pretty good choice.  It has all the ingredients. This is among their earliest stuff, from 2003. It would fit in rather well with the main movement 10 years previously except for the smooth production. The beginning is a pretty good deconstruction of SG before the rhythm track gets assembled and the song gets going.

Fleetwood Mac - Sentimental Lady

[link] Here is the Fleetwood Mac version (earlier by a few years). I far prefer Welsh's own version but still, they do a pretty good job with it.

Bob Welch - Sentimental Lady

[link] Originally written for Fleetwood Mac who recorded it in 1972, Welch recorded his own version in 1977 and it was a major hit.  This is the only version I've heard and it is a core song of what I consder the "haunting" 70s sound that I personally am sentimental about. The sound is low key and wistful, especially the vocal. A, B, and C parts are all very strong hooks and could each support its own song. This is high pop songwriting.

new song

Looks like this band thing might happen.  So I need to write some new songs. Here's one I wrote today.

Above the Vines

Curve - Already Yours

[link] From their first album.  Hard-edged with a stronger vocal than most SG.  They eventually purified that sound and by 2001 were making alt rock that really is no longer SG (but still good).

The band idea has been proposed

and Steve and Darren are up for it.  Now we just need to find time (always the hard part).

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers - U Get Me High

[link] I haven't kept up with them too much in the past decade or so, this to me sounds like a return to their early, now classic, sound.  Crunching guitar coupled with rock organ. Petty has always been a great straight ahead rock song writer.  In my opinion his best stuff is with this Heartbreakers sound behind him, as opposed to the strummy Traveling Wilburys sound he favored in ca. the 90s.

Possibly a band solution on the horizon

It occurred to me while fitness walking today listening to DKFM. The best band situation might be a trio. The most efficient of the Wisconsin bands I was in were trios: Seed Pod 17: Eric, Matt, and me, and before that Rubber Curtain: Leslie, Matt, and Me. In the current case, we could even use the Police as the model because the prospective guitarist is an ambient player, much like Andy Summers, who could provide a lot of depth to the sound as well as solo on top of my keyboard-bass line and drums.  More soon, hopefully.  I haven't talked to the other two about this idea but they both have expressed recent interest in getting a band together.

Chrissie Hynde - Down the Wrong Way

[link] This is from her newly released solo album (which is her first). Great song with good hooks, although the chorus hook sounds a bit disjointed from the verse. Also, I was thinking she was being a bit over the top in the Neil Younginess when I heard it on the radio (WFDU). Turns out, Neil plays guitar on the song. So this wasn't an accident.

Lou Rawls - You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine

[link] Strangely enough, this is an essential song on the soundtrack of my childhood. #32 in the 1976 top 100.  When I think of this song, I think about playing with Matchbox cars.

Hall & Oates

These guys made a lot of great music.  Back in the 70s and early 80s you could crossover between pop and rock, especially with their funk influences very easily and a lot of bands did it.  Here are a few of my favorites of theirs:

Kiss on My List
You Make My Dreams
Private Eyes
Method of Modern Love
Adult Education
Out of Touch

Back to zero views

Had one view per day until 7-July but no we're back to zero.

Computer Magic - Running (Hiding Verson)

[link] This is in a current Lexus commercial but I may have heard it first on DKFM. It is a really superb song.

Talk Nerdy to Me

These are my people.

Gary Wright - Love is Alive

[link] This was the #10 song of 1976.  Has multiple hooks and seems to anticipate stuff like Steve Winwood's and Peter Gabriel's solo work, although they were both active at this time.

Bread - Lost Without Your Love

[link] Part of a subgenre of soft rock.  Really earnest ballads.  Manilow, Air Supply, and a whole bunch of others made songs like this. The composition, instrumentation, and production carry huge amounts of the thematic and narrative content even without the lyrics. The semi-happy little instrumental part is kind of weird in this one.

Boz Scaggs - Lido Shuffle

[link] This song was #74 from 1977.  This sound bridges Billy Joel and Elton John. I'm sure I've heard it hundreds of times in the background, but never really listened to it from beginning to end.

Just a Song Before I Go - Crosby Stills and Nash

This song was number 47 in the Top 100 of 1977. A prime example of slow rock from the 70s with their unparalleled harmony work. It's kind of a defining characteristic of my musical aesthetics that I came of (first) age during this time of a lot of ambivalent, melancholy, relationship-song, rock with country and folk influences.  Rock history documentaries tend to talk about the 70s as a time of recovery from the 60s.  There was a lot of disillusionment and people trying to get their lives straight from all the drugs and chaos.

Jennifer Warnes - Right Time of the Night

Was taking a look at the Billboard Top 100 of 1977. This song was #34. I've always really liked it. She has a great country-pop voice. There's a lot of pop sophistication in both the verse and the chorus.  And the transition between the last line of the verse and the chorus is very nice. The song was written by Peter McCann, who wrote for a lot of 70s and 80s artists. The song kind of runs out of steam in the C part and the end, but that's sort of typical for pop songs of the period.  Just an idea or two, not too much else.

Beautiful Noise

I really want to see this movie about SG.

Kool & the Gang - Too Hot

[link] Top 40 radio played the hell out of this song.  I remember hating it for a while.  But now it's sort of a welcome blast from the past.  It holds up pretty well.
Here's another one I can say the same thing about (I really truly hated this song when it came out)
The Spinners - Working My Way Back To You

Blonde Redhead - Elephant Woman

[link] Although I hear these guys a lot on DKFM, the SG element is only a part of their sound.  As I said in the previous post, there is a more complex element in the songwriting and melodicism. Characteristic of the more retro sounds of the late 90s and oughts in alternative music. Bordering on 60-era jazziness.

Blonde Redhead - 23

[link] Begun in 1993 and still going these days, on 4AD, this band seems a very fitting standard bearer for SG into the future. Vocally, Kazu Makino is multidimensional, having all the standard qualities of a SG female vocalist in spades, along with a more complex 90s alt.rock sensibility, which can be heard in this track.

SIANspheric - Static

[link] I really like the main guitar riff and its variants.  That's where there's a lot of room for many subtle novelties in this genre.  And these guys have capitalized on that here. Aspects of the vocal track are experimental-ish as well. This sound takes me back to the 90s. These guys are Canadian and were active in the late 90s. I would call this High Shoegaze. A sort of perfection of at least some aspects of the original form.

Difference Engine - Simon's Day

[link] Couldn't find any info on this band but they are Kitchens of Distinction-ey. Even in the 90s, the name was a bit of an obvious band name. Proggy in the mixture of time signatures.

Kind of yearning for D&D

It would be great to have a weekly (or even monthly) D&D game (or board game night with Avalon Hill games and the like).  Probably still multiple years away given my current situation.  But I'd like to get back to that (after multiple decades of not having it) eventually.

Airiel - Funerals

[link] Airiel captures the large and magnificent space that SG outlines. The slight unconventionality in the rhythm track and the synthy nu-gaze elements label this material as a significant part of the more recent vanguard. The downtempo sets an ambitious agenda for this canvas as thick swaths of sound are slathered on.

Curve - the Coast is Clear

[link] Straight ahead driving shoegaze rock. Traditional rock chords. A polished later generation that was inspired by the 80s and early 90s stuff but also captured mainstream alt.rock trends (yes I know that is a bit of an oxymoron).

No interest in Glasswort so far

The intro page only has a couple of hits.  I'll probably put the solicitation up once per month on craigslist and the other site and see what happens.

These two should have made my top 100

Sisters of Mercy
Pat Benatar

the list still needs a bit of reworking

another absence

Queen.  Was exposed to them plenty in my youth. Outside "Play the Game" and maybe one or two others, they never did much for me.  Much too orchestral for my liking. I will stipulate that they were/are virtuoso musicians.  Just not among my favorites.

absence of the Beatles

The Beatles are notably absent from that list.  The fact is that they are not a direct influence on my songwriting or musical tastes and I have not listened to them very much (I do not listen to them by choice, ever).  There are probably a bunch of their songs that I have never heard.

There are quite a few other absences that many people would consider glaring, as well.

51-100

(in alphabetical order)

808 State

A-ha

ABBA

Ace of Base

Altered Images

B-52's, the

Bangles, the

Bertoia

Blondie

Browne, Jackson

Buggles, the

Collins, Phil

Costello, Elvis

Dead or Alive

Deep Forest

Def Leppard

Depeche Mode

Dillon Fence

Dire Straits

English Beat, the

Everything But the Girl

Gabriel, Peter

Genesis

Go-Betweens, the

Great Train Robbery, the

Hall & Oates

Idol, Billy

Innocence Mission

Kraftwerk

Lauper, Cyndi

Lemonheads, the

Madonna

Midnight Oil

Missing Persons

Naked Eyes

O'Connor, Sinead

Prince

Rolling Stones, the

Sad Lovers and Giants

Scorpions, the

Scritti Politti

Sherbs, the

Shriekback

Siouxsie and the Banshees

Stewart, John

Style Council, the

Sundays, the

Townshend, Pete

Wang Chung

Yes

My 50 favorite bands/artists

(in alphabetical order; I did this for the Glasswort project)
(bold = the most important influences)

Big Country

Book of Love

Cars, the

Catherine Wheel

Church, the

Clash, the

Cocteau Twins, the

Cranberries, the

Cure, the

Devo

Dolby, Thomas

Duran Duran

Eurythmics, the

Ferry, Bryan

Fixx, the

Go Go's, the

Journey

Lush

Men at Work

Men without Hats

Morrissey

My Bloody Valentine

New Order

Nicks, Stevie

Pale Saints, the

Petty, Tom &the Heartbreakers

Pixies, the

Plant, Robert

Police, the

Prefab Sprout

Pretenders, the

Psychedelic Furs, the

Public Image Limited

R.E.M.

Red Rider

Replacements, the

Sade

Saga

Simple Minds

Smiths, the

Stewart, Al

Sugarcubes, the

Talk Talk

Talking Heads, the

Three O'Clock, the

Til Tuesday

U2

Ultra Vivid Scene

Van Halen

Zebra

New band recruitment project

I've been wanting to form a new band for a while.  I decided to look online for local musicians.  I haven't made a post yet (craigs list and one other site).  I thought I would set up a web page to direct inquiries to.
http://glasswortli.blogspot.com/
This will link to some Megachild and other stuff as well as provide information about me and my musical influences.

Duran Duran - The Reflex

[link] When I saw this video for the first time, I wanted to be a rock star.

The Breeders - Cannonball

[link] Another iconic song by an iconic band during an iconic time for alternative music, the early-mid 90s. This was pretty ubiquitous for a while on college radio and even in the mainstream a little.  Kim Deal continues innovations she started in the Pixies.  It's amazing that a lot of people never "discovered" the Pixies until almost a cultural generation later.  Those of us listening to college radio knew and appreciated them when their stuff was coming out, as well as the material of the various bands that spawned from their members.

The Shins - Phantom Limb

[link] Every once in a while all the hipsters in the alternative music world, get something right.  In the case of this song (and the more I hear, this band), everyone loves it.  It's all about the chord progressions and the transitions between them. The change to the major right in the middle of the main progression is an innovation.  Pretty rare to find novelty in chord progression hooks.

Garage band for iPad

Since my successful but brief foray into garage band a couple weeks ago, I am interested in seeing if I can use it successfully on the iPad.  Am downloading but don't know if I will have time to mess with it any time soon.  I will update the blog with any progress.

House

There's a ton of >1 hr long house mixes of all subtypes on youtube.  Here is one.  Fun listens.

acid house

Found an interesting very short video (from MTV) on the history of Acid House.

Tourist - Your Girl

[link] This was linked to the previous video. Really interesting use of autotune and various other effects. Very smoothly textural. The background synth is soothing. I definitely am interested in exploring their other stuff after hearing this.  Sort of a modern equivalent to Scritti Politti in how they stretch a dance pop sound of the times to a synthetic sound that seems very forward looking.

Metronomy - The Bay

[link] This was linked to the Horrors video in youtube but is quite different.  Synth dance pop.  The first thing I thought of was Pet Shop Boys but there are a lot of other influences in terms of the vocals and lyrical arrangement in here as well, all of similar ilk. You can hear twinges of the Buggles, John Astley, Soft Cell, and the Human League in here as well.

The Horrors - Sea Within a Sea

[link] Abstract, atmospheric alt rock.  The imagery in this video reminds me a bit of some early Simple Minds album covers.  Sort of celebrates the ruin and emptiness of international style architecture and its aesthetic trappings. The sound harks back to early 80s postpunk. The break has some great experimental guitar noises that really expand the impact of the song, after which some Kraftwerk influence comes in.

M83 - Teen Angst

[link] Pulsing and synthy. Not much of a rhythm track except for a creshendoing snare that fades behind the synthwash and vocal air. Definitely a statement about the synth sounds (if I were more of an aficionado I'd know which model and voice it was).

Pale Saints - Sight of You

[link] In my view one of the founders of SG and the 4AD sound that is synonymous with the main thread of late 80s early 90s SG (the first generation of SG). Still a pretty strong postpunk styling.  The vocal has not yet gone completely behind (or wisping above) the guitar noise wall.

Hurrah! - If Love Could Kill

[link] A blast from my mid 80s days listening to WBER in Rochester.  Very sweet alternative pop.

Ivy - Get Enough

[link] Their first single.  From 1994.  This type of sound dominated college radio in that ear.  And I'm nostalgic as hell about it. I had two great stations to listen to: WXDU and WXYC and things were going well with my research. I had recently met the future Mrs. T.  We had it all ahead of us then.

Ivy - Don't Believe a Word

[link] Bouncy poppy shoegaze in the line with early mid Lush and Pale Saints, although brighter than the latter (Cocteau Twins and Sundays comparisons also very valid).

Kitchens of Distinction - The 3rd Time We Opened the Capsule

[link] The kitchens are classic SG, providing a smooth but very drivingly noisy guitar and rhythm bass with the simultaneously urgent and somewhat soothing vocals of Patrick Fitzgerald.  Their Wikipedia page mentions that they have gotten back together and are working on new material.  That's great.

Thievery Corporation - Saudade

[link] Some internet friends were discussing this band.  Very relaxing to listen to. Overlaps with the contemporary/latin jazz side of ambient that I listen to at work.  Really nice.

Boards of Canada - Zoetrope

[link] Contemplative.  Nearly ambient. Stripped down to a synth track; the throbbing is there.

School of Seven Bells - Half Asleep

[link] The Cocteau Twins influence can be heard pretty directly in this. Maybe it's just a New York thing but I can also hear some Laurie Anderson in this.

Coaltar of the Deepers - Aquarian Age

[link] Fast and has a heavy slickness. It's a high speed train. Or a city with all its moving parts moving both past and through you.

Pretenders - Waste Not Want Not

[link] The masterful yet simple rhythm section riffs the Pretenders used are second to none in how good they sound. And the chorus of this song is something absolutely heavenly.

Harmonica

I bought a cheap set of harmonicas a year or two ago but never did anything with them.  Got them out yesterday and messed around with them (in a holder; I don't know what you call those things that go around your neck) while playing uke.  I probably won't ever be able to do much more on one than breath in and out and modulate it up and down a little bit, but it was pretty fun and adds a bit of depth to a jam.

A Sunny Day in Glascow - 5:15 Train

[link] This is an intensely atmospheric deconstruction of a swath of new-wavish 2 chord progression rock through a Cocteau Twinsy filter and a few layers of translucent and aging plastic.  It should smell like old burlap or ozone or something.

Maps - You Don't Know Her Name

[link] The chorus of this song is a dream pop anthem. Creepy gothy video. All around, a very substantial musical and conceptual statement.

Mahogany - Supervitesse

[link] This is # 11 on the list I linked below. Upbeat and just about cheerful. The sweet site of nu-gaze. Harks back to a lot of late 70s - early 80s postpunk.

Found a great Nu-Gaze list

aka Electronic Shoegaze, here.

Here are the top 10 on the list (a couple of these are whole albums)

Slow Dive    In Mind   
Chapterhouse    Epsilon Phase   
Seefeel    Quique   
Cocteau Twins    Feet-like fins   
All Natural Lemon & Lime Flavors    Your Imagination   
Manual    Summer Haze   
Casino Versus Japan    Where To?/What For?   
Ulrich Schnauss    On My Own  
M83    Run Into Flowers
The Radio Dept.    Worst Taste in Music

When to play Hearthstone

I'm finding that I can't play Hearthstone when there are any distractions.  I need to think and concentrate on it. Which means late night is basically the only time I can do it.  It's interesting that Hearthstone is in the genre of card games like Magic: the Gathering.  All the physical versions of these games require that at least two people get together.  So, a minimum level of sociality.  Hearthstone can be played by complete loners (and probably is a lot).

Alison's Halo - Dozen

[link] What SG/Dreampop is all about. Whispy lyrics on top of complex noisy guitar chords, with tightly controlled mayhem breaks.  Hooky throughout. The guitar noise is both a scuptor's medium and a sculptor's tool. It has a coming and going fury like nature.

Scritti Politti - Wood Beez

[link] Always a good time for some Scritti Politti.  This is 1985-86 for me. My freshman dorm room.  Studying in the art history library (good place to get a table and very quiet).

Negativland - Christianity is Stupid

[link] A audio sampling classic.  The rhythm track is really good underneath the samples.

Aztec Camera - Oblivious

[link] I always liked this bouncy little new wave classic.

Hearthstone

This is the digital CCG (collectible card game) from Blizzard based in the World of Warcraft universe.  I never got into either Magic the Gathering or similar card games.  I also wasn't interested in WoW, although I loved the real time strategy game Warcraft that came before WoW.  Hearthstone is very difficult for beginners but I am having a lot of fun with it.  The battles are lively and challenging (I lose more than 2 out of 3). There are 9 different heroes to play, each with a special ability and a set of special cards (that you have to earn gradually). I won't be spending any money on the game, but I go against players who do, so that's an extra challenge.

The Rave-Ups - Positively Lost Me

[link] Terrific song and terrific scene from a favorite movie from my youth.

808 State - Pacific State

[link] Described on youtube as a "seminal chillout anthem".  I think it was in the Cool World sound track, along with some other popular tracks in the rave scene, which was big at the time (turn of the decade 1980s-1990s).

name

The name Insomnia Semaphore was one I made up around 2006 when I was having trouble sleeping.  I was wondering whether it was a sign of something.  A major health problem (my autoimmune disease) showed up in 2007 (it might have already been there in 2006) but this was a coincidence, I'm sure.

Insomnia Semaphore - Project 061614

[link] GarageBand's recent version is a lot more user friendly than I remember the first version was.  I decided to mess around with it today for the first time. I had no instruments in my office. I still have a lot to figure out, but it was pretty fun.  I thought this first little thing turned out a bit 808 State-esque.

Bo Diddley

Bo Diddley in an interview (on PBS's The History of Rock and Roll series) said he played the guitar like a drummer. I have thought exactly the same thing about playing the bass and ukes. Bo appears to be my 50s predecessor (along with Buddy Holly).

Dzihan and Kamien - Just You and I

[link] One of many happy finds thanks to Groove Salad on soma FM. Very atmospheric and world beat. I can't find where the audio sample comes from.  Sounds like classic Hollywood. If I had to guess I'd say some famous movie couple like Bogey and Bacall.

Current favorite band name (of my own devising)

Right now if I were to start a band, I'd want to call it PONKTB.  Which stands for Product of No Known Terrestrial Biosphere.  This is a reference to the William Gibson short story "Hinterlands", which is about the first human contact with an alien civilization.

Band names somebody already thought of

Here are a few what I think are pretty good band names that I thought of over the years that were already in use:
Telefauna
Good Against Remotes
Flothru
the Cinnamon Imperials

Martha and the Muffins - Echo Beach

[link] Since I live in a town called Sound Beach and one of the main roads here is called Echo Ave., I think about this awesome song quite a bit.

The March Violets - Turn to the Sky

[link] Great song that I got expose to on the Some Kind of Wonderful Soundtrack. Multiple hooks. This was on my own mid-late 80s soundtrack.  Takes me right back there.

Eurythmics - Here Comes the Rain Again

[link] Good song for today.  Or any day.

Pez

I was vaguely aware of but never really exposed to Pez as a youth.  In the past couple of years I've been thoroughly exposed to the technology of Pez dispensers.  I have to say, I am extremely unimpressed. I always assumed there was a quick way to get them out of the packaging and into the dispenser. I was wrong.  It wouldn't be that hard to do. Just cast the candies with a narrow connection between each adjacent piece and design the packaging so that they can be easily taken out as one piece.  Once in the dispenser, have it dispense (or maybe just give it a slight bang on a surface) so that the connections would break.

A Clockwork Orange

I never read the book or saw the Kubric movie adaptation (or any adaptation) but I've read the plot summary.  I've always avoided this kind of story.  Why sit through such unpleasantness?  What is the point? There's more art in the world than one person could ever partake in multiple lifetimes, so why spend any time with such a violent and nihilistic story? I don't get it.  And it actually bothers me that A Clockwork Orange has garnered so much popularity and cultural fame. What the hell is wrong with people? Seriously. Even Burgess repudiated the story in the 80s and said he wished he never wrote it.

Journeyquest

More fun stuff from the gang that made the Gamers movies.

Keyboards in Italo-house

[link] Interesting video on the keyboard sounds in Italo-house music. I have a lot of these downstairs.

Luke - Deep Into Forest

[link] Unlike Japan, where Shoegaze is thriving, not much comes up on youtube searching for "China Shoegaze".  This was one of the only things that turned up. It's not too SG-ey.  But it's OK. Slightly proggy near-metal ballad.

Band room

Our unfinished basement is (was) also known as the band room.  When I'm down there taking care of storage or other things, the dusty basement smell always says "good" to my brain.  Band jams were a tremendous escape and release.  It's been several years since any music was played down there, even just by me alone.  I really miss those days.

Cyberspace

Gibsonian Cyberspace hasn't happened yet.  The direct neural interface is a pretty big barrier, although I understand people are working on it.  Everything still has to go through the retina.  Google Glass is the next phase of that.  Also, the idea that you could surf through cyberspace and see stacks of data, not the data itself, but that a certain company would have a certain sized stack and that different companies/entities have different sized stacks, is also something that any real version of cyberspace is not likely to reveal (because that is information just like the data itself). The internet is opaque to its users.  Not to hackers of course.

Zero readership

According to the hit counter, this blog has had zero readers since May 13. Nevertheless, I blog on...

Neuromancer

Neuromancer, by William Gibson, is the original cyberpunk novel. I'm a big partial to his short stories that are compiled in Burning Chrome, and the sequel to Neuromancer, Count Zero, is also a favorite of mine.  But I was looking up a character and had occasion to read the beginning of Neurmancer (for probably the 8th or 9th time) today.  It's a bit dated but I really like his pacing, decription and most of the poetics. It left a huge impression on me when I was about 16. I never read it as dystopian (and Gibson in interviews has said he doesn't think of his Sprawl stories as that either). His characters strive for positions of mastery, of coolness itself. That's what I was striving for as a teenage, and perhaps now, as well.

The Other Ones - We are What we Are

[link] I went for this in a big way in 1987.  Sort of a one hit wonder, but they, like many bands that hit the pop charts in the 80s, were unique. Great video, too.

The Screaming Blue Messiahs - I Wanna Be a Flinstone

[link] I love the look and flippantness of these guys. And they have some really good songs. 

Act - Snobbery and Decay

[link] A blast from the mid 80s.  This was part of my early education in alternative pop, largely via WBER and WRUR in Rochester and later WXDU and WXYC in NC. There was also a high school station in Rochester WIRQ that at that time played alternative music.  I see on Wikipedia that they are still around but I don't know what format they are. They use to say that they were "broadcasting live from the North coast of America".

Yukari - 8PM

[link] Another dreamy gem from her 2012 album Echo.  The album is on iTunes.  Will be buying it.

Yukari - Hang On

[link] Has some similarities to Yule but seems more wide open in some ways. The vocal is turned down a bit low but has more going on than the other song. Interesting that she doesn't seem to be wearing headphones or earbuds.  She must just have ambient speakers (and the recording will be coming directly off the mixer). This is like watching a painter.

Freeez - I.O.U.

[link] The 80s were awesome.

Yukari - Marginal Man

[link] This one is slower than Yule, which I posted in December. I really like her dissonant melody lines. The whole aspect here is that of a prodigal artist who is working at something deep that she is passionate about. Huge respect and admiration from this blogger.

Steve Perry - Oh Sherry

[link] Of course for high rock vocals, no one did it better than Steve Perry. His formula for this song and a lot of the late Journey hits really grew on me and has stood the test of time with my listening. His composition/arrangement achieved a lot of atmosphere. And he knows hooks.

Your Love - The Outfield

[link] Always loved these guys, especially this song.  Great high vocal, both in lead and harmony. It's a pretty simple pop formula done in a rock format.  But there are good breaks here.  Well arranged and produced.

The Romantics - Talking in Your Sleep

[link] My favorite song of theirs.  Really tight and slick roots rock.  Saw these guys live in the summer of 1984 in Rochester.  They put on a good show in light drizzle.

The Left Banke - Walk Away Renee

The previous link led me to this, which has some beautiful attempted harmonies.  I'll chalk it up to the limited production available at the time that prevented the vocal tracks from sounding as polished as we would expect today.

The Piglets - Johnny Reggae

This 1971 novelty song was linked to Una Paloma Blanca on youtube.  Interesting.

Jonathan King - Una Paloma Blanca

[link] This was a huge pop hit in 1975.  Ubiquitous on the radio for a while.  Then it completely disappeared. Probably understandably.

A song walk through Youtube

Everything But the Girl - Driving

Aztec Camera - Crying Scene

Men at Work - Hard Luck Story

Thomas Dolby - I Live in a Suitcase

Great live version. One of my favorite from Astronauts and Heretics, his last (now quite some time ago) regular album. Signature atmosphere with the moving baseline against high end doodles and washes. Nice music for traveling alone through airports and hotels. Very Gibsonian as well.

Stuff I never got into...

Twin Peaks (or anything by David Lynch except for Dune, which I would have gotten into no matter who directed it)
the X-files
Fargo
the Simpsons
South Park
Family Guy (although it can be amusing when it isn't being disgusting)

that's all I can think of for now (there's plenty more I'm sure)...

Foreigner - Urgent

[link] These guys were at the center of the mainstream hard rock sound of the late 70s/early 80s.  The sound was characterized by high hard male vocals, driving guitars (but keyboards also contributed to the sound) and fairly simple song structures. I was in a record store (one of the two at Eastview Mall in Victor, NY - one was Record Theatre and I forgot what the other one was) when I first heard this and I immediately bought the 45 rpm single.  My friend Scott was into the whole album (Foreign 4), which got heavy airplay on the radio stations we listened to (96 WCMF and 92 WMJQ - which went to country a few years later). The keyboards in this song were what did it for me (much later found out they were played by Thomas Dolby on the studio track).

Missing Persons - Mental Hopscotch

[link] One of their early singles and one of my favorites. Really really great song.  Very hard driving synth pop with tight, skilled drum and guitar work. Excellently produced.

Missing Persons - I Can't Think About Dancing

[link] From 1986, one of their last singles. I listened to this a lot in spring 1989, the last semester I was in college. It's a departure from their early singles, which were really innovative.  Here, they are going for a pop dance sound.  It works for me, but the nostalgia factor is strong for me.  That was an intensely lived semester.

King of the Road - Roger Miller

Here's Roger Miller's original studio version, a classic.
Here's a live version by R.E.M. (similar to their version on Dead Letter Office, which I always liked).
I recently learned the song and if I get some time I'll record a version.

Men at Work - I Can See it In Your Eyes

[link] These guys were so great.  I was just randomly reminded of this song. Brings back high school in the early 80s for me. I might try to learn this one for the uke.

Derp

This word has proliferated in the political blogs I read.  I'm gradually coming to an understanding of what people mean by it.  Here is an interesting definition:
English has no word for "the constant, repetitive reiteration of strong priors". Yet it is a well-known phenomenon in the world of punditry, debate, and public affairs. On Twitter, we call it "derp".

This couches the term in Bayesian statistics, which has taken over many parts of the scientific data world in recent decades. It's also related to the term: Conventional Wisdom, in particular when CW is exactly wrong about the world. Which, in American politics, is frequent.

The Police - Secret Journey

The Police were my original favorite band.  Each member brought a different and critical influence to their sound, a sound that has never been replicated since.
Secret Journey is one of my favorites of theirs and Ghost in the Machine was my original favorite album.
I ran across these demos of the song (I and II) on youtube.  Really interesting, both with respect to the song itself but also as demos. The demos I've made with bands are not that different, in fidelity, from this. The demos use a drum machine instead of Copeland. They are possibly Sting-only products.

Bertoia - Color of Sound

One change I'm making in our new digs is that when I write about a song, the artist will appear first and the title second in the title of the post. More of the world seems to do it this way so it may help avoid confusion in some cases.

This blog will continue to be a big fan of Shoegaze, specifically Japanese Shoegaze, and in particular, Bertoia.

The new home of On Songs

Hi Folks. We lost the admin password for On Songs, so we're moving to a new blog name. On Songs will continue to stay up and the archives will still be accessible there.
I'll be asking Old Grimy to join us over here.
And my friend Darren will also be co-blogging.
Now back to the songs (and other stuff)...