Marking Time

For my own personal edification, I'd like to discover any (relatively non-obscure) rock or pop songs with time signatures other than 4/4. I'm not necessarily talking prog rock pond scum stuff that changes meter every couple bars just because it can, but tunes with an actual melody that moves along for a significant period in 7/8 or whatever. I have a hard time "feeling" anything besides 4/4 or 3/4 (e.g. Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's "Mr. Bojangles") and wonder if I'm too old to improve my rhythm, so to speak. I know Dave Brubeck Quartet's "Take Five" and Jethro Tull's "Living In The Past" are supposed to be in 5/4, but untrained musician that I am, I get lost whenever I try to count the beats. One, two, many...

This may be a job for Blogcritics. Buffalo Springfield's "Down To The Wire" is an odd one; I know there's a 3/4 section, but the main verse has an unusual stop and start rhythm. IIRC, Fairport Convention's "Tam Lin" is supposed to have a variable number of beats per measure as Swarbrick, Mattacks and Thompson adjust their riffage to match the irregular traditional lyrics. Weirdnessabounds says the Toadies do a lot of stuff in weird time signatures, but I've never heard anything by them. I think Kenneth Newman used to claim he naturally falls into fives and/or sevens when he plays at the guitar, so maybe he can point me to some Gentle Giant or ELP or Genesis or something with an identifiable meter... King Crimson or Rush or somebody playing 13's over alternating sixes and sevens ain't quite what I'm looking for. At worst, I suppose I can study Brubeck's "Time Out" and "Time Further Out"...

All this comes out of the fact that we played a Tanzanian tune in 7/8 at church last week and none of us really internalized the rhythm very well. I'm not sure why, but the songs in 3/4 seem to come to me more easily than the others. It's not that I know how to waltz, it's just comfortable to strum. Perhaps there tend to be fewer chords per measure! (For some reason, the tang never did any new wave hard pop beat rock songs in anything but 4/4 back there in 1979-1981...)

UPDATE: Pink Floyd "Money" and Steeleye Span "Dark Eyed Sailor" have been mentioned as odd time signature tunes.

Also, while I'm making lists, I oughta recompile the old "Sunday Morning", "Monday Monday" "Tuesday Afternoon"... days-of-the-week song list, since I have no idea which floppy disc that's stored on anymore.

A Quick One

I've been working on slicing and dicing the Buckingham Nicks album into clean wav files so I can burn myself a CD of the damn thing. Unfortunately, I recorded it too hot and have about a hundred clipped peaks that I'm going through and editing by hand. Pain in the butt, but I'm too lazy to disconnect the stereo system and haul it over to the computer again. (That's only part of the story since I sold the source cassette to somebody on eBay already and would have to record my LP instead, which perhaps I will do someday, as well.) Nonetheless, it's time consuming, but I've always spent time tweaking aspects of music compilations that nobody but my own self will ever notice.

Also planning a CD-R for the sheepshead game Saturday. This is what I have so far:

Impressions: "People Get Ready"
Aliotta Haines Jeremiah: "Lake Shore Drive"
Cinerama: "Sly Curl"
Henry Mancini: "Theme From Romeo & Juliet"
Magic Lanterns: "One Night Stand"
Moody Blues: "Go Now"
Hombres: "Let It Out (Let It All Hang Out)"
Brooklyn Bridge: "Worst That Could Happen"
Brand X: "Nuclear Burn"
Spooner: "Photographs"
Kenny Rogers & First Edition: "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)"

I haven't quite determined what the theme of the compilation is, yet. Sequencing will be key to getting this load of nonsense to hang together. Who am I kidding, someone will be crying for a Springsteen disc before three songs are done... Okay, then, a defensive substitution:

David Bowie: "Growin' Up"
Easybeats: "Friday On My Mind"

...and so on.

Nothing Important Happened Last Month

I posted a Halloween Music article at Blogcritics and discovered that posting a List Of Things is a hot button for getting people to comment. Have to remember that.

Still playing Telecaster through my new Roland Cube 30 amp a couple times a week. (I guess buying that is one thing that happened last month.) I sold the Twin Reverb and spent some of the proceeds. I really like it. Much lighter than the Fender, plenty loud for my needs, a very nice selection of tones and effects easily accessible, and it looks good, too.

Hmm, not a lot to say today. This ain't much of a diary. A "crapblog" according to noted bass player weirdnessabounds. :-) Sheepshead game at BZ's bachelor pad this Saturday, and Sarah is Lady Macbeth the following weekend. Outside, the rain has stopped, but it's overcast, foggy, cool, and getting dark. I better post this now, and try to remember how to update the archive.

Now Playing: "Shadrack Chameleon", a Gear Fab CD release of a DIY indie recording from Iowa, 1973. It's not very good, but of historical interest, especially if you claim to enjoy both kinds of music!

"Famous Blue Raincoat" by Leonard Cohen
-----------------------------------------
It's four in the morning
the end of December
I'm writing you now
to see if you're better
New York was cold
but I like where I'm living
there's music on Clinton Street
all through the evening

I hear that you're building
your little house
deep in the desert
you're living for nothing now
I hope you're keeping
some kind of record

Yes and
Jane came by with a lock of your hair
she said that you gave it to her
that night that you planned to go clear
did you ever go clear?

The last time I saw you
you looked so much older
your famous blue raincoat
was torn at the shoulder
you'd been to the station
to meet every train
you came home alone
without Lili Marlene

You treated my woman
to a flake of your life
and when she came back
she was nobody's wife

well I see you
there with a rose in your teeth
just one more thin gypsy thief
I see Jane's awake now
she sends her regards

what can I tell you
my brother my killer
what can I possibly say
I guess that I miss you
I guess I forgive you
I'm glad you stood in my way

If you ever come by here
for Jane or for me
your enemy is sleeping now
and his woman is free

thanks for the trouble you took
from her eyes
I thought it was there for good
so I never tried

Jane came by with a lock of your hair
she said that you gave it to her
on the night that you planned to go clear

Sincerely, L Cohen

-----------------------------------------
This was coming out of the speakers in Ray's Liquor the other day.

They have Satellite Radio there for some reason. It's hard to believe it helps them sell more wine and beer and stuff, but at least there aren't commercials for competing businesses getting broadcast in their own store every couple minutes. To say nothing of the weather reports and traffic reports and "news" and other things their customers either already know or don't care about. So, every now and then I have to walk to the back of the store, behind the aisles with the plastic grapes overhead, and stand in front of a speaker between the security cameras and marvel at a song I haven't heard on the radio in 20 or 30 years.

Jennifer Warnes also did a fine version of this song, and named her album of Leonard Cohen covers after it. Jenny Sings Lenny was apparently the second choice.

Feels Like The First Time - or -
Today's Topic at the eBay Music Chat Board

The first CD's I bought were Zappa's Cruising With Ruben & the Jets and Renaissance In The Beginning, their first two albums with Annie Haslam on a single disc. I was keen to hear the new remix of the Zappa album, but I was most impressed by the bass content (both electric bass guitar and the piano) on the Renaissance.

The first two LP's I bought were Snoopy and His Friends the Royal Guardsmen and some time later, Alice's Restaurant. But, it was getting Deja Vu, Crosby Stills & Nash and Buffalo Springfield's Retrospective in one swell foop (from Record Club of America, York, PA) a year or so later that opened the floodgates.

I can't remember the first 45 I bought, but it might have been either "Sloop John B" or "Red Rubber Ball". The first 8-track I bought was Days Of Future Passed, but that occurred in the early 90's, so I suppose it has more in common with collecting Glass Insulators than assembling a Music Collection.

***

Man, the people at GEPR just don't get McKendree Spring. Writing about that group without having heard McKS 3 is truly lamentable. I wanted to say ignorant, but I'm being kind. Some groups only have one great album in them, and yes, if you have an aversion to folk/country you're probably better off sticking with obscure Italian neo-prog outfits.

Big eBay Score For Somebody

This LP sold for over $900 on eBay this week:

Mellow Candle [UK] Swaddling Songs (Deram 1972)

From the Gibraltar Encyclopedia of Progressive Rock:

Very nice female vocalist, she'll remind you of Annie Haslam of Renaissance or Sonja Kristina of Curved Air. The album falls squarely into a vague folk-prog category, with the vocals sounding very folksy, while the music varies over folk, psych, and progressive. Some nice piano is featured on many of the songs. Very nice if you like female vocals... lots of vocals. For me, sameness starts to creep in about half-way through.

I like folk-rock quite a bit but I've never heard any quite this busy! Something of a mix between Steeleye Span and Reniassance, this early 70's British band has really caught my attention. At first I didn't ever realize the traditional strains...I was so caught up in the keyboard/guitar work playing very *active* melodies across the vocals. And I must say that the vocalist (don't know her name) has one of the most lovely voices I've heard in quite some time. Her control is evident when she modulates pitch half an octave or more between words so smoothly. If there isn't a progressive-folk subdivision, maybe there should be. This is a truly virtuistic performance.

Looks like reissue LP's and Japanese CD's can be had for considerably less. Sounds like an interesting record. But I don't think I'll add it to my Wish List since I suspect it'd have to be well down on the Priority List of CD's I'd Order Off The Internet If I Had $100 A Week To Dispose Of In Such Manner.

Miscellany

***

Of course, Johnny Cash died this week too, so we weren't left hanging long wondering who would complete the "things happen in threes" trifecta. He sure does look like an American Icon on the cover of Time Magazine. Suitable For Framing. Glad to see Kris (I saw it spelled Chris somewhere) Kristofferson was at the funeral since I thought he was dead already. Guess I was thinking of Waylon. And if I go this week, Emmylou can sing at my funeral, too.

***

Today's Lileks quote (link to the left if you don't have it bookmarked):

To some left-wing green progressive do-gooder fundraisers: "I’m curious how you matched a phone number, a specific name, an address, and referenced a particular conversation. Because if the Justice Department did to you what you’ve done to us, your breakfast would be running down your pants leg."

***

P.J. O'Rourke interviewed in the Onion last week:

"I buy a tractor two years ago, and four-fifths of the tractor manual is about not tipping over, not raising the bucket high enough to hit high-tension wires... not killing yourself, basically. The tractor itself is covered with stickers: Don't put your hand in here. Don't put your dick in there. And in that manual, I found out - and it cost me a thousand dollars - that when the tractor is new, 10 hours into use of the tractor, you have to re-torque the lug nuts. If you don't, you will oval the holes. This is buried between the moron warnings. I never found it. I take the tractor in for its regular servicing, and they say my wheels are gone. A thousand dollars worth of wheels have to be replaced because I didn't re-torque after 10 hours. How am I supposed to know that? 'It's in the manual.' You fucking read that manual! You go through 40 pages of how not to tip over! Anyway, that's the world that we seem to be moving into."

Eight Simple Rules For Dating My Widow

ABC is apparently going to go ahead and continue the late John Ritter's sitcom without him. Well, of course, without him, the only other option is to cancel it. It won't be the first show to continue afer the central character leaves, of course. The Andy Griffith Show morphing into Mayberry RFD comes to mind, which is probably a clue as to when my peak TV watching years were. I suppose another option would be to use computer graphics to insert old footage of John into new scripts. Presumably this can now be executed more smoothly than Ed Wood's direction of the late Bela Lugosi in Plan 9 From Outer Space.

Anyway, this particular change will not affect my life in the slightest. No disrespect, but I never had any interest in Three's Company or anything else John Ritter did. The only thing that stops me from complete sneering disgust at people who get all excited talking about stupid 70's shows like The Brady Bunch is the memory of watching stupid 60's shows like My Favorite Martian, My Mother The Car, My Three Sons, et cetera, a few years previously. But get over it, people.

Ritter's death was evidently the result of "aorta dissection", which seems to be similar to, if not a synonym for, an "aortic aneurysm", which was my mother's cause of death back in 1964. I had an MRI a few years ago to make sure that my own ticker and major vessels showed no signs of any problem. None were found, and I have no reason to suspect any (besides family history), but I have my doubts that the high tech equipment and highly paid professionals involved in the procedure would have seen anything if a problem existed. Time will tell. At least I got to lie in a plastic tube in a flimsy gown for 20 minutes. And the insurance paid for most of it...

I'm A Bad Blogger

I never make note of the trail of links that lead me to stuff like this article in Esquire about the Photograph of the Falling Man.

And this one is the story of a guy who saved a lot of lives by starting to get people out of the south tower immediately after the north tower got hit, contrary to the Port Authority's official "stay put everything is under control" directive.

Saw some of that PBS WTC special the other day, too. I must be more accustomed to ignoring the editorial bias in Public Broadcasting reporting than this blogger. - "Take a drink every time you hear the word 'hubris'." Heh.

Warren Zevon 1947-2003

Since I don't subscribe to the New Ork Times, I'm happy to point you to a nice Warren Zevon article by someone who evidently does. Lots of death notices around the web today, but this January article has an interesting angle from a Dylan concert last October...