The Official Blog of the Grateful Web

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE DEAD KIND

I bought this boot at a flea market for an astounding 2 dollars. It was interesting to me because of the fact that it included Jerry's one time venture into the Close Encounters theme song( at least I think it was the only time he played it) In addition to my interest in music I also like Science Fiction and anytime the two come together makes it better to me. This is only the 3rd disc from the set(probably why I got it so cheap) Maybe someone can link me to the whole show.@192

http://rapidshare.com/files/93794446/3rdkind.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/93796264/3rdkind_pt2.rar
http://sharebee.com/40293b92
http://sharebee.com/8f183965

--- 24hrDejaVu

Kenny 'The Soundtrack Man' Loggins

Knocking Kenny Loggins is like knocking life. He was part of the solid gold yacht rock group, Loggins and Messina, he co-wrote What A Fool Believes and wrote, Footloose, I'm Alright and Danger Zone. He's great but some, well ok, most of his albums covers are astonishingly bad. Case in Point.

Charlie Gower, Tantramar

The Worlds Greatist Music Collectable is the Owner

Aha! A crazier vinyl maniac then moi!

Paul Mawhinney, the ultimate Vinyl Album PacRat, makes guys like me look like a 'PacAmeoba'. Faced with the exact same marriage dilemma, "Me or the Records", Paul did our fantasy, saved the marriage and got a warehouse. This could only happen in Pittsburgh, PA.

Why would anyone own aisles and aisles of Vinyl? To WALK THROUGH of course. Not necessarily listen to anything. Walk through, check out some album art, spray the mold patches. Soon of course, a hard drive will come out that can hold this entire collection in your pocket. Hopefully Paul unloads this before next week. The 'buyers' comments on ebay tell the cynical story.



I am working on the beer belly, but right now Paul's got me on all counts!

Thanks to Northern Comfort for posting about this.
See the auction on ebay.


Barney Moran
Grateful Word

Echo and the Bunnymen: Heaven Up Here

I have thousands of Vinyl from last century. My records are crammed in under the basement stairs, in the rafters of our garage, and in my basement back office of horrors.

What records do I take the time to look for and pull out to spin and burn to disk? Echo & the Bunnymen's 1981 Heaven up Here is one. Dark, driving, with Ian McCulloch's amazing vocals, and drummer Pete de Freitas unrelenting but don't stop percussion.

Echo is a 'great promise' band, with a few classics worth entry into the halls of rock, and a unique sound. Great Promise bands share these traits, giving glimpses of greatness but producing a mixed bag and not enough compared to icons who bang out years decades of work building upon greatness .

Great Promise bands are content to release albums with 'filler' songs, way below par with their best, and Echo does not escape this on Heaven Up Here. If the final track 'All I Want',  simply had been left out  this may have been their best, though  pundits and sales figures say their 1984 'Ocean Rain' was their best.

Like re-visiting a dark lover from the past; cruel, purple bags under the eyes, and delicious, Heaven Up Here is a pulsing dark loneliness I love to visit. My kids and wife hate it, that's also a good sign, and I'm forced to listen when commuting. Its dark, delicious, too rich chocolate you can't have often. Just a treat now and then....

  "All My Colours"

Flying
              And I know I'm not coming down
              You're trying
              But you know you must soon go down
              All my colours turn to clouds
              All my colours turn to clouds

            

Zimbo...

            

What d'you say
              When your heart's in pieces?
              How d'you play
              Those cards in sequence?
              That box you gave me burned nicely
              That box you gave me burned nicely

            

Zimbo...

            

Flying down
              Flying down
              All my colours turn to clouds...

            Hey, I've flown away
              Hey, I'm blown away

**

Echo and the Bunnymen have reformed ( 3 of the 4, Pete de Freitas was killed in a motorcycle accident), and they are selling out shows like the Royal Albert Hall this September, 2008, and close to releasing a new album. Tells me other old farts have been dusting off this vinyl in secret, under the stairs, like me.

Barney Moran
Grateful Word

Now You Hear It, Now You Don't

You may remember that Arcade Fire did some interactive stuff for the Neon Bible single a while back. Well they've got another interesting offering for the single, Black Mirror. It came out a week ago or so but you know, I'm a bit slow these days. It takes a while for the video to launch but it's worth the wait. This time though instead of altering the video via your interaction (as in the Neon Bible video) you alter the sound.

By pressing the numbers 1-6 on your keyboard you can cut out strings, vocals, backing vocals or whatever you like. It's quite interesting and it's nice to see bands and brands pushing people's expectations.

Charlie Gower, Tantramar

24hrDejaVu: BASIC GARAGE MECHANICS 101

This the first volume of a series that will feature what I would say are the Basic songs that a true garage band would have learned from day one of their formation. There are 5 or 6 songs that almost all bands learned and included in their acts. These songs have been around forever and have been recorded by unknowns to the most popular musicians. They are performed in all kinds of different musical formats from Pop,Country,Punk,to Rock. But they were presented first by the Garage Bands around the world. G L O R I A one of the Greatest ( and most recorded) anthems of Garage Bands

http://rapidshare.com/files/89381121/Gloria_pt1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/89389227/Gloria_pt2.rar

-- 24hrDejaVu
http://24hourdejavu.blogspot.com/

Lullabyes introduces Rana to the blogosphere!

Dallas has a fairly decent "coffee-shop" music scene - with a couple of locations bringing in national and regional touring artists. I've always found that singer-songwriter shows at coffee shops are cozy, low-key and intimate. You get to sit about 6 feet from the artist as they sing their hearts out. That intimacy is one of those elements that tends to get lost as you move into larger venues.

For me, Opening Bell Coffee, in downtown Dallas is one of the best coffee shop venues I've ever been to. Its located in the basement area of a building that was renovated to become a series of condos, and is located about a block from the rest of the "southside" downtown music venues, the Palladium, the Loft, Gilley's and Poor Davids Pub.

In early 2007 I had a chance to catch Rana Mansour there - an intensely talented, Persian-America singer songwriter. With heavy jazz, pop and R&B leanings, Rana's voice and piano playing produce classic soulful tunes. Her voice is just addictive, powerful and near perfect. My humble opinion. Comparisons have been drawn to Fiona Apple and Alicia Keys. Thats probably right.

At this particular show, Rana was using the house piano, which had a very slight bar room/saloon type sound to it. It made for an interesting counter point to her jazzy songs. To record the show, we dangled a single mic over the piano along with a mic for her vocals. I've been really pleased for the results, with several of the tracks from the show getting heavy rotation around the house and on the iPOD (and Zune and Zen).

Here's her bio for those interested in her musical background.

Check out the studio version of 'Lose Control' and the live versions of 'Mistake' and 'Unfavorable Sign' below for a sample of her talents.

On a side note - theres no references to Rana Mansour on the Hype Machine, so let me say that Lullabyes is also pleased to introduce Rana to the blogosphere!

Studio MP3:
Lose Control

Live MP3 MP3s:
Intro
Somebody With You
Mistake
Lover
Autumn Leaves (Johnny Mercer)
Sweet Sadness
Lose Control
Show The Way (David Wilcox)
Unfavorable Sign
Bavar Kon (Googoosh)
Leaving Home
Don't Worry Baby
Lovesong (The Cure)

--- From Lullabyes
Read and hear about more grate, some undiscovered, artists on Lullabyes, http://www.lullabyes.net/blog/
Grateful Web Editors

Best of Times or Worst of Times for Radio? Both?

Stormy days for radio stations, swirling winds, thunderbolts of new technologies deliver audio bypassing the king of sound delivery: Radio. Within 'Radio', technologies like HD and Satellite fight to deliver a fractured audience what was traditional 'radio' just a few years ago.

Like Lear, some stations ignore this storm of technology: "Blow, wireless winds, and crack your cheeks; rage, blow. You cataracts and iPods, and hurricanoes and streaming websites, spout Till you have drench'd our broadcast towers, drown'd the cocks with the  DJ." Some radio owner's efforts to talk back at the storm may mean they have lost touch with reality. Perhaps, like Lear, some owner’s behavior worsens as the technological storm waxes. Like Lear they go mad or bankrupt – a tragic fall as an industry forgets its simple yet priceless commodity: Delivering live sound over airwaves.

There are a rare few who stand pat in the storm. See new opportunity in radio's ability to deliver live sound in a new age.

Mark Ramsey is one. On Hear 2.0, Mark Ramsey starts with a basic premise: love of sound. From this understanding Mark tackles issues confronting radio today. Hear2.0 is one of a two prong approach to enlightening radio station direction in exploiting strategies for new media and radio. The other prong, sister company, Mercury Radio Research,  provides strategic research of what people want and listen to in the sound delivery industry.

When my wife and I moved from the east coast in 1995, we left a vibrant 102.7 WNEW FM, a NYC icon of classic rock with classic rock DJ's. What we did not know is WNEW built its format from smaller stations like Boulder's 97.3 KBCO, which Mark played a role in last century.

In his book, Fresh Air: Marketing Guru's on Radio, Mark culls the best minds in today's marketing from OUTSIDE the radio space. Some from inside the Web 2.0 space (i.e. Seth Godin) as 'Thought Starters' to reflect on what radio is capable of in this new tech paradigm. As a Blog supporter & reader at Lijit (and a guy who works in the garage while the baseball game plays live over the radio), I connect to Mark Ramsey’s message of inclusion for radio in a Web 2.0 world.

Mark and the Gurus’s Mark assembles offer enlightened ideas to do just this. The question is will radio owners consider them as this new century goes top speed with media delivery? Or will they just bellow about on the heath?

Barney Moran

Grateful Word

 

Naked City Latino

Few of Tinseltown’s directors, writers, cinematographers or creative minds - and certainly none of its soundtrack and television composers - turned a blind eye to opportunism in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Each location or genre came with its familiar set of musical formulas, moods, metaphors and cues. North African epics with their sweeping “Bolero”-style scores, caper movies with their saucy continental themes. And detective movies and crime dramas with their jazz.

The point, and the money, was in indulging audiences’ fantasies, not social realism. In the 1950s, the studios’ hipper soundtrack composers knew a good moment when they saw one. They seized upon the jazz phenomenon, bebop especially. Rippling piano chords registered looming danger. Heart-stopping moments of suspense were followed with lonesome saxophone reveries. Villains' exploits went hand-in-hand with screaming brass as inevitably as dangerous men would just as soon shoot you. Bop was sophisticated and gritty. Bop could be a bit menacing to those only comfortable with Swing-era big bands.

Consider Latin jazz part of the same commercial equation. Sometimes there were mambos done fairly accurately. Henry Mancini’s Touch of Evil was a masterpiece of the crime genre; the Machito Orchestra could have practically played its main theme. More often there were standard crime charts embossed with a spray of rhumba rhythms and Latin percussion. Leith Stevens’ Private Hell 36 had its “Havana Interlude,” Billy May’s Johnny Cool had its “Juan Coolisto,” Warren Barker’s 77 Sunset Strip had its “77 Sunset Strip Cha Cha,” Stanley Wilson’s Music From M Squad had its “Cha-Cha Club” and so forth.

Like bop, Latin jazz was urbane, if not a bit exotic, and Hollywood arrangers and composers plundered the genre and its popular appeal indiscriminately. Tito Puente’s thundering percussion, the cool vibes of Cal Tjader, the after-hours themes of George Shearing: all were colors to paint an impression of the urban jungle. Any time the hero wandered into El Barrio or across the border? Better cue those bongos. It was utter fantasia, of course, the Latin Quarter one more neighborhood in an artfully typecast Gotham.

1. Neil Lewis with his Quintet, Harlem Nocturn (Gee)
The immortal ”Harlem Nocturne” was conceived by Earle Hagen, who, before his prolific Hollywood career, worked as an arranger and trombonist in the big bands of the ‘30s. Hagen was behind loads of memorable soundtracks and television themes - The Andy Griffith Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, I Spy, Gomer Pyle, The Mod Squad, among others - but his ”Harlem Nocturne,” recorded in 1939 during a stint with the Ray Noble Orchestra, is the source of his enduring fame.

“Harlem Nocturne,” big band success and later R&B instrumental staple, was performed most famously in 1959 by New Jersey’s Viscounts (excerpt here), though hundreds of versions would be committed to record whenever high drama was needed. “Harlem Nocturne” is a crime soundtrack gold standard.

Little seems to be known about Neil Lewis, however, or his fine Latin version of the theme. If names are any indication, Lewis, along with Alfred “Alfredito” Levy and the Harlow brothers, was one of a few non-Latino New York City bandleaders to record in more authentic modes. Lewis recorded a total of four 45s, all released in the mid-‘50s for local labels, all excellent jazzy small-group mambos and cha chas. This would be his second of two 45s on the Gee label, both recorded in 1954.

Lewis’s version is where mood music meets the dissipated side of midnight, its most prominent feature the way it alternates the understated theme with a mambo-driven chorus. Kind of like you alternating whiskey with beer last night. Too bad you drank away all of next month’s rent.

--From Office Naps

Read the rest of DJ Little Danny's post covering Curtis Amy [Bongo Blue, Palomar] & The Embers, Peter Gunn Cha Cha [Wynne] at Office Naps. Good Luck with your Graduate Studies DJ Little Danny, and thanks for providing the best 45 review & mp3 site on the Web! -- Grateful Web Editors

Structures From Silence

 Steve Roach's seminal bridge from silence to a non wind wall of air breaking against and then around the listener back to silence again bears repeat reviewing over the years because it is timeless.

One definition of 'great' work, or genius, is when you discover it, you can't imagine life without it. Structures is one of the LP/CD's I cannot imagine not having available in life. Roach creates something beyond 'music', more a living space using non sound and return to sound in organic, non man made waves. Its as if Roach recorded something happening we did not know about, and then stuck his name on it. But no human could have actually made it.

I don't like to wax like this about any creation, but try and find a flaw in Structures From Silence, or anyone who hears it and does not like it. Structures leaves and returns, you can leave it on repeat all day long and most times not conciously know its playing, like the colors of  paint on the wall or the change in light over the course of the day. Don't expect anything, and you will get everything from Structures From Silence. Don't leave life without it.

Steve Roach
1984 Fortuna/Celestial Harmonies FOR-024 (CD)

1.	Reflections in Suspension		16:39
2.	Quiet Friend		13:15
3.	Structures From Silence		28:34

http://www.steveroach.com/Music/discography.php?item=96

Barney Moran
Grateful Word