[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.