Steven Wilson: "Home Invasion" and "Regret #9" (live)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

From a Yahoo! / Live Nation broadcast, here are Steven Wilson and his awesome band performing "Home Invasion" and "Regret #9," two songs that work as one, both on Wilson's 2015 album Hand. Cannot. Erase. (to me, the Dark Side of the Moon of our time, and, like Pink Floyd's masterpiece, one of the greatest albums ever made -- perhaps the pinnacle of Wilson's career so far, including his time with Porcupine Tree), at The Wiltern in Los Angeles on June 13, 2015.

I saw Steven Wilson in Toronto on that tour, and "Regret #9" was certainly one of the highlights of what was a truly incredible show from start to finish. The back-to-back keyboard and guitar solos by Adam Holzman and Dave Kilminster, respectively, were simply astonishing, as they are here.

Enjoy!

The Pineapple Thief: "A Sense of Fear"

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Here's a great video from another of Kscope's great acts, The Pineapple Thief, a fantastic band that released the truly fantastic album Magnolia, which includes this song, last year.

This isn't the first time I've mentioned them here.

For The Pineapple Thief admirably covering Pink Floyd's "Money," see here.

For the song "All the Wars" (one of my favorites of 2012) by The Pineapple Thief, from their album of the same name, see here.

For the song "Frozen North" (one of my favorites of 2013) by The Pineapple Thief's Bruce Soord and Katatonia's Jonas Renkse, see here.

Enjoy!

The Receiver: "Transit"

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Wow, it's been a long time since I last posted anything. Other things going on, other priorities. Alas. But we're still here, we're still blogging, and, well, let's get back into it this Friday evening with some music.

Specifically, a song by The Receiver, a couple of brothers from Ohio, Casey and Jesse Cooper, who recently signed to my favorite label, Kscope (home of Steven Wilson, Porcupine Tree, Anathema, The Pineapple Thief, and Gazpacho, among others, the absolute best in "post-progressive" music).

The Receiver's new album is called All Burn, and this is one of the highlights.

Enjoy!

Gazpacho: "Golem" (live -- from Night of the Demon)

By Michael J.W. Stickings 

I'll start this post the same way I started my last two posts (here and here) about this incredible band:

One question I get a lot is, "What's your favorite band from Norway?" I always reply, "Gazpacho, of course. They're amazing. Not just my favourite Norwegian band but one of my favorite bands period. If you've never heard them, you're really missing out."

Okay, I've never gotten that question. But the rest is true.

I love Gazpacho more than ever.

They've released eight studio albums. The first three are good, if somewhat derivative (as they were still finding their voice), but the five since -- Night (2007), Tick Tock (2009), Missa Atropos (2010), March of Ghosts (2012), and Demon (2014) -- are simply astounding, each one a masterpiece, each one a brilliant conceptual work, all together marking this band, straddling themes and genres, as one of the leading voices in progressive, or more specifically post-progressive, music. This is the sort of run of excellence that puts them up there with Porcupine Tree and Anathema. Yes, they're that good.

Night of the Demon, a live CD/DVD recorded at the band's April 12, 2014 concert at De Boerderij in Zoetermeer, the Netherlands, was released last Monday. My copy is on the way, but from what I've heard -- including this track, from March of Ghosts, my favourite of their albums -- it's exceptional, as expected. And a new studio album is due this fall.

Seriously, get to know this band. Enjoy!

Gazpacho - Night of the Demon - Golem from Kscope on Vimeo.

Percy Sledge: "Take Time To Know Her" (1968)

By Richard Barry

R&B legend Percy Sledge died last week. He was best known for “When a Man Loves a Woman,” which topped the charts in 1966. He was 74.

"Take Time to Know Her"  was a single released in 1968 from an album of the same name. It reached No. 11, which made it his second highest charting song (US Hot 100).

Ron Hynes: “The St. John’s Waltz” (1997)

By Richard K. Barry

Just returned from St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, one of may favourite places to spend time.

"The St. John's Waltz" was written and performed by Ron Hynes, one of the best known singer-songwriters in Atlantic Canada, and across the country.

He's known by many for having written "Sonny's Dream," but that's only one of many gems he's created.

"The St. John's Waltz" is from Hynes 1997 album Face to the Gale.

 

(Cross-posted at Listening to Now.)

Jimmy Greenspoon, Three Dog Night keyboardist, dies at 67

By Richard K. Barry

Three Dog Night had three No. 1 singles between 1969 and 1972: “Mama Told Me (Not to Come),” “Joy to the World,” and “Black and White,” a song about racial equality written in 1954.

In all, the group had 21 singles making it to the Billboard Top 40.

Jimmy Greenspoon played keys, an essential part of the sound for Three Dog Night. He died of cancer last week, according to his agent, Chris Burke.

Let's listen to the group's song about racial equality, written in 1954 (by David I. Arkin and Earl Robinson), made a hit in 1972, and as relevant as ever today.

Presidential campaign theme songs: "We Take Care of Our Own" - Bruce Springsteen for Obama 2012

By Richard K. Barry

I'm not sure I knew this, but it seems to be the case that Springsteen's "We Take Care of Our Own" was played throughout Barack Obama's 2012 reelection campaign.

It was the first single from his album Wrecking Ball, debuted live on February 12, 2012 at the 54th Grammy Awards and was nominated for two Grammy Awards for Best Rock Performance and Best Rock Song.

Though it is a rather odd choice for a campaign song, as this comments from Songfacts suggests:

Much of the song's lyrical content appears to contradict its title. For instance Springsteen explicitly references America's lack of care for the Hurricane Katrina casualties. ("From the shotgun shack to the Super Dome/There ain't no help, the cavalry stayed home"). Springsteen clarified the song's message, during the unveiling of Wrecking Ball to the world's media at Sony Records' Paris headquarters. "The song asks the question that the rest of the record tries to answer which is, 'Do we?' - we often don't," he said.

I guess no one was listening to the lyrics all that closely.  As long as it's an up-tempo rocker and "The Boss" is singing it.

 

The theme to "I Love Lucy" (music by Eliot Daniel, words by Harold Adamson)

By Richard K. Barry

Eliot Daniel with Desi Arnaz

Although the iconic "I Love Lucy" sitcom had its original run in the 1950s, it was going strong in syndication when I was a little kid in the '60s. The theme song is still probably the most recognizable in its genre, at least for those of a certain age.

Lydia Hutchinson writes at American Songwriter:

On October 15, 1951, the very first episode of the I Love Lucy show aired on CBS and became the most watched TV show in the U.S. for four of its seven-year run. Fun trivia about the opening theme song is that during the first season the show opened with their sponsor Philip Morris’ animation of stick figure cartoons of Lucy and Desi climbing down a pack of Philip Morris cigarettes. It was scored with Ferde Grofé’s Jr. “The Grand Canyon Suite” theme (a composition from 1931).

From the second season onwards, the “I Love Lucy” signature tune we all know so well became the main theme, and one of the most recognizable pieces of music on the planet. It was written by composer Eliot Daniel who cranked it out in an afternoon as a favour to his old Coast Guard buddy Jess Oppenheimer, the show’s producer. Since Daniel still had another year under his exclusive contract to Fox, he asked Oppenheimer to keep his name out of it. Consequently his name does not appear on first or the second season TV credits for what became one of the most popular TV themes.

Fortunately for Daniel he did later get royalty credits along with the cheques that come with it.

I did not know, before reading Hutchinson's piece, that there are lyrics to the song, written by Harold Adamson. They appeared, performed by Ricky,  in an episode in season three in which Lucy thinks her birthday has been forgotten. 

Don't worry. Everything works out. Didn't it always?

Joni Mitchell: "Little Green" (1967)

By Richard K. Barry

Joni Mitchell is one of the finest singer/songwriters ever to strum a guitar, and that's not just my Canadian pride talking.

She wrote "Little Green" in 1967 and it appeared on her 1971 album Blue. It's about a daughter she gave up for adoption in 1965, when she was a struggling musician in Toronto.

Recently my wife, Marilyn Churley, published a book about her own experiences of giving a child up for adoption and then, many years later, being in a position as a member of Provincial Parliament in Ontario to help reform adoption disclosure laws.

In 1997, Mitchell was reunited with her daughter, Kilauren Gibb. Around the same time, Marilyn was reunited with her son Bill. Kilauren also worked with Marilyn on reforming adoption disclosure laws in Ontario.

Marilyn's book is called "Shameless, which is available at Between the Lines press. 




(Cross-posted at Listening to Now.)

Three great Springsteen covers: "The Ghost of Tom Joad" by Rage Against the Machine, "Racing in the Street" by Patty Griffin, and "Mansion on the Hill" by The National

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(Ah, my on-and-off blogging hiatus continues. Not much new content here recently. But let's get back into it this evening with some music.)

I love Bruce Springsteen, and one of the things I'm doing right now is compiling the best covers of Springsteen songs. Needless to say, there are a lot of Springsteen covers, a lot that are good and a lot that are not good. Some are mediocre, some are just atrocious. Some are merely impersonations, with nothing new to add, some uncover something hidden in the song or otherwise focus on a certain part of it, a certain element, bringing a new twist to it, a new sound -- think,  for example, of Rage Against the Machine's take on "The Ghost of Tom Joad" (my favourite Springsteen song) emphasizing the angry, rebellious, aggressively political streak that didn't stand out in the original acoustic version, a new, much harder version that sounds unlike Springsteen altogether, but a version that obviously hit on one of the truths of that song, as the new, updated version of by Springsteen himself, first live and last year released on High Hopes, lies somewhere in between the original and the Rage version, with Rage guitarist Tom Morello, now a member of The E Street Band, singing it as a duet with Bruce and working his mind-boggling magic with his instrument.

Of course, taking a song in a completely new direction can be a good thing or a bad thing. Some of these covers make no sense and seem forced, but some show just how incredible a songwriter Bruce is, just how universal his songs are, how adaptable they are to alternate interpretations. This doesn't work with everyone. Some singers/bands just don't lend themselves to being covered. I would argue that Pink Floyd, my favourite band, is one of them. There have been efforts, including bluegrass and reggae efforts, but these are at best interesting and at worst insulting, and while there are certainly a few exceptions, Pink Floyd covers tend to be nothing more than pointless impersonations. Listen to anything by a Pink Floyd "tribute" band. The good ones are fine, I suppose, but there's nothing like Pink Floyd, and the tributes are bland, if sincere.

I could go on and on, but let's get back to the point here. Bruce Springsteen is immensely coverable, and of course he has a massive catalogue of songs from which to choose. Just check out the covers they play on Sirius's E Street Radio. For a fantastic full-album effort, check out Dead Man's Town, a "tribute," but so much more, to Born in the U.S.A. -- highlights include the title track, by Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires; "I'm on Fire," by Low; "Glory Days," by Justin Townes Earle; and "Dancing in the Dark," by Nicole Atkins. Or check out lists like this one, and go track some down.

Speaking of "I'm on Fire," that's the widely-covered song that has inspired some of the best covers, including those by Catherine Feeny and Bat for Lashes (like many of Springsteen's songs, it lends itself well to being covered by women), and, yes, Low, and it's also been covered really well by the likes of Johnny Cash, Heather Nova, Mumford & Sons, Keith Urban, Whitehorse, and Passenger. Even the version by John Mayer is really good. Yes, it's just that kind of song.

But let's turn to a few others now, as examples of just how good Springsteen covers can be. Along with Rage's "Tom Joad," here are "Racing in the Street" by Patty Griffin (who also does a fantastic version of "Stolen Car" on her album 1000 Kisses -- her original stuff is awesome, but with that voice and guitar she's just made to do Springsteen covers) and "Mansion on the Hill" by The National (who also seem made to do Springsteen covers alongside their great original work).

I hope you enjoy them. But do go out and search out some others. If you love Bruce like I do, it's a great way to expand your appreciation of his brilliance. And to encounter some really great music in its own right, by some really great artists.

The Mangione Brothers Sextet - "Something Different" (1960)

By Richard K. Barry

Though Chuck Mangione would become an international superstar in the 1970s with smooth jazz mega-hits like "Feels So Good," and "Chase the Clouds Away," he started out as a bebop trumpeter in the Dizzy Gillespie tradition. 

While Chuck was studying at the Eastman School, he and his brother Gap (keyboards) co-led a bop group called The Jazz Brothers, which recorded several albums for the Jazzland label. 

About this 1960 album called The Jazz Brothers, and on which this tune below appears,  Scott Yanow at AllMusic writes this was "not only the debut recording of trumpeter Chuck Mangione but is the first appearance on record by tenor saxophonist Sal Nistico and pianist Gap Mangione. Drummer Roy McCurdy; altoist Larry Combs and bassist Bill Saunders complete the group." 

Good players earlier in the process. 

I can't blame Mr. Mangione for wanting to make a good living from his music, and I'm not necessarily down on smooth jazz, it's just nice to know he can really cook when he wants to.

The group recorded two more albums, and then moved on. 



(Cross-posted at Listening to Now.)

Thao & The Get Down Stay Down: "We the Common (for Valerie Bolden)," "Move," and "The Feeling Kind"

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I'd never heard of Thao Nguyen, nor of Thao & The Get Down Stay Down, until I saw her, and them, on Austin City Limits this weekend.

I'm now a fan.

And I highly recommend you check her, and them, out, including their most recent album, 2013's We the Common.

Here are "We the Common (for Valerie Bolden)," inspired by one of the women Thao met through her volunteer work for the California Coalition for Women Prisoners, from ACL, "Move," a web exclusive from the ACL performance, and the official video for "The Feeling Kind," the latter two also from We the Common.

Nordic Giants on Kscope

By Michael J.W. Stickings

One of the most recent signings to Kscope, the great label that is home to Porcupine Tree, Steven Wilson, Anathema, Gazpacho, The Pineapple Thief, and others, is Nordic Giants, a post-rock duo similar in sound to, or in a way a combination of, Sigur Ros and God is an Astronaut (though they're experimental enough to defy easy comparisons and have very much developed a sound, and style, of their own).

Kscope will be releasing the band's latest two EPs, Build Seas and Dismantle Suns (both initially self-released in October 2013), as a single LP on November 17, with a new album scheduled for early next year, but you can also find their 2010 debut EP, A Tree as Old as Me, on iTunes and elsewhere -- it's definitely worth checking out.

Here's a preview from Kscope:


And here's a clip from a show (and they're noted for their astonishing multi-media performances) at Miss Peapod's in Falmouth, Cornwall, England:

A preview of the forthcoming Steven Wilson album

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As you may have seen, we haven't been posting much lately. Suffice it to say, we've been busy, and preoccupied with other things. But we'll try to keep up the blogging now and then, so stay tuned -- and, you never know, we may turn our collective attention back to this blog before too long. In the meantime, some sporadic posting...

And so why not, this Saturday evening, turn not to political commentary but to music, so much a part of this blog as well, and specifically to one of the best of the very best, Steven Wilson (about whom I've written before on several occasions), whose next solo album (with the amazing band he's had for most of his recent "solo" career) is set to be released next February.

Count me incredibly excited. His first three solo albums -- Insurgentes, Grace for Drowning, and The Raven That Refused to Sing (and Other Stories) -- got progressively better, one after the other, though it's very close for the last two and I'm actually quite partial to Grace, though they're all fantastic and I prefer not to rank them. But where Insurgentes is very much a Porcupine Tree-style album, and not as distinctly solo, and where Grace is a bit all over the place, The Raven is a cohesive masterpiece of the prog rock genre, in many ways a quite retro, '70s-style album, but also post-prog given its vision and breadth, and very much a towering rock album by any standard.

And now Wilson is saying that his forthcoming album is a combination of all his solo work, maybe all his work. Which would be pretty impressive, for sure, but I have no doubt it'll be magnificent -- and what's certain is that it will be another leap forward for Wilson, who never does the same thing but prefers to keep challenging himself and, with each new work, breaking free from his own past.

Here's a short film, by frequent collaborator Lasse Hoile, of Wilson and his band recording the new album at AIR Studios in London. Enjoy!

Steven Wilson at AIR Studios, London - September 2014 from Kscope on Vimeo.

Lunatic Soul: "Cold"

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Here's a track off the forthcoming album, its fourth, by Lunatic Soul, Walking on a Flashlight Beam.

Lunatic Soul is the solo project (known for its lack of electric guitars) of Riverside singer and bassist Mariusz Duda (no relation that I'm aware of to Lucas Duda of the New York Mets, currently lighting it up on my fantasy team).

So basically, this is a song off an album by the lead member of a band that is often compared to Pink Floyd and Porcupine Tree, being released by my favourite label, Kscope.

It doesn't get much better than that.

Welcome to the world of Polish post-prog.

Enjoy!

Lunatic Soul - Cold (from Walking on a Flashlight Beam) from Kscope on Vimeo.

Progressive Music Classics: "This Funeral is for the Wrong Corpse" by The Mekons

By Marc McDonald 

(Ed. note: Here's another installment of Marc's ongoing series. For the full series, check out his site. -- MJWS)


Welcome to another edition of Progressive Music Classics, a salute to left-leaning music that champions the cause of working-class people around the world.

The narrative of the Rich & Powerful and the corporate media was simple back in the day. When the Soviet Union died, we were told, socialism died. End of story.

In 1991, it was clearly time to bury Das Kapital in the landfill and embrace capitalism. The End of History, as Francis Fukuyama put it, was upon us.

However, a strange thing happened along the way to socialism's funeral.

First of all, decades of unregulated, brutal, dog-eat-dog "free" markets led to a spectacular growing divide between the classes. The Top One Percent saw its fortunes (and political influence) soar. The Middle Class pretty much died. And the poor grew vastly in number.

Once again, a lot of people started asking the question, "Is capitalism really the best system we can come up with?"

And the ideas of Karl Marx once again began to be debated. In fact, one of the surprise bestsellers of this year was Capital in the Twenty-First Century by French economist Thomas Piketty. It was an eye-opening book that basically served to update Marx's observations with current data.

Amazingly, for a relatively dry academic book, Capital soared to the top of the bestseller lists. Even the The Financial Times (hardly a lefty newspaper) had kind words to say about Piketty's book and admitted that he had raised important points.

It's clear that Piketty hit a nerve and raised important points about the failures of unregulated capitalism.

But wait a minute: haven't we already been through this whole debate before? Didn't socialism die back in 1991? Weren't we told that capitalism was the only way forward?

Well, actually no.

As the British band The Mekons pointed out in their classic 1991 song, what was buried with the Soviet Union wasn't the real deal anyway. As The Mekons put it: "This Funeral is For the Wrong Corpse." 

They're queuing up to dance on Socialism's grave,

This is my testimony,

a dinosaur's confession,

but how can something really be dead,

when it hasn't even happened?

Booker T. & the M.G.s - "Green Onions"

By Richard K. Barry

"Green Onions" arrived in 1962. It's a classic R&B instrumental hit by Booker T. & the M.G.s - of course. It has to be one of the most obvious 12 bar blues in the history of that configuration, with a signature Hammond organ riff thrown in. As sometimes happens, it was originally the B-side of another tune called "Behave Yourself" but was reissued as an A-side when it was clear it would catch on. And then there was an album called Green Onions.

As AllMusic correctly points out, the song has been a part of oldies radio play forever and of many a set list for bar bands over the years. 

And the Wiki adds this:

In the 1960s, as members of the house band of Stax Records, [Booker T. & the M.G.s] played on hundreds of recordings by artists such as Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, Bill Withers, Sam & Dave, Carla and Rufus Thomas and Johnnie Taylor. As originators of the unique Stax sound, the group was one of the most prolific, respected, and imitated of their era. By the mid-1960s, bands on both sides of the Atlantic were trying to sound like Booker T. & the M.G.'s.

Many people will also know that two early members of the group, Steve Cropper and Donald "Duck" Dunn, were a part of the backup band in the 1980 hit feature film The Blues Brothers.

Got the tune stuck in my head tonight for some reason. 

Shawn Colvin and Alison Krauss: "The Boxer" (a Simon & Garfunkel cover)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Here's a really great cover of a really great song by a couple of really great singers/musicians:


But it can't quite match this:

The Pineapple Thief: "Money" (a Pink Floyd cover)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As you may know, I love Pink Floyd. Like, a lot. More than anything else in music. But what I don't like, probably because I love Pink Floyd so much, are covers of Pink Floyd songs. As a general rule, I loathe them.

Mostly it's because I'm an originalist, a purist. If I want to hear Pink Floyd, I'll listen to Pink Floyd doing a Pink Floyd song. Period. But it's also because most of the people who do Pink Floyd covers just don't seem to get Pink Floyd. And for someone like me for whom each and every Pink Floyd song is loaded with intense meaning, for someone like me who respects Pink Floyd so much, that's just not acceptable.

But there are exceptions. Not many of them, but a few. And one of them is by a band I like a lot, The Pineapple Thief, one of Kscope's awesome roster of post-prog acts along with the likes of Porcupine Tree, Anathema, and Gazpacho, three bands that for me are in that next tier after Pink Floyd (along with The Beatles). And I think this works, this respectful but also distinctive cover of "Money" (admittedly, not one of my favourite Pink Floyd songs, not even close), because the guys in The Pineapple Thief also love and admire Pink Floyd, because, yes, they get Pink Floyd. And I like them even more for that.

(If you don't know The Pineapple Thief, you're really missing out. I highly recommend you check them out, including their new album, Magnolia, set to be released on September 15.)

So here it is, Pink Floyd's "Money" as covered by The Pineapple Thief, from a Mojo magazine cover version of Dark Side of the Moon. Enjoy!