Well, what do you know? Another piece by Bert Jansch. They appear back to back because this list is arranged by duration. I will just tell you now, this is it for the Bert Jansch tunes, in case you thought all the music will be like this. Well, maybe it will and maybe it won't. You will find out tomorrow.
"Alman" is just ten seconds longer than "Birthday Blues" and it has a light cheery feel throughout.
favorite moment:
0:13, 0:33 - cool little jam up of notes, almost like a knot that gets tangled and untangled in an instant.
0:45, 1:04 - another nice little lick there.
As Nigel Tufnel would say, "nice simple lines, intertwining."
Bert Jansch was best known by me for the longest time as the guy who played "Blackwaterside", which Jimmy Page converted to "Black Mountain Side". It was too many years later when I finally discovered his other pieces. I am so glad that I was able to see him play live, too bad it was only once.
This is the sweetest album cover ever. The instrumental is also pretty darn sweet. Short and sweet. It consists of two equal length halves, one cheerful, and one sad. It's almost like "Well, what do you know? It's my birthday!" followed by "Well no one came to see me, but I have my puppy to cheer me up." I really love the moments when the low string and the higher strings are slightly out of sync, not played at exactly the same time. (Perhaps this is called something?)
favorite moments:
0:06 - cool little descending bass line.
Speed Racer is my favorite TV cartoon ever. The theme song always takes me back to watching this show after school at a friend's house in the fourth grade, so around 1976 or 1977. Sitting in front of the TV with an ice cream sandwich, I wondered what sort of adventures Speed and his family were going to have this time around.
The theme kicks off dramatically with a burst of horns and a clickety clicking cymbal and keyboard, followed by the sound of a race car revving its engine. Soon after, some happy mariachi-like horns play a rising flurry of notes and we are off into the main part of the song: "Here he comes, here comes Speed Racer, he's a demon on wheels...." A walking bass line and some light piano chords accompany the vocals at first, eventually joined by strummed guitar.
As this is the theme from a TV show, there are visuals going on as the music plays. Cars race around a track, morphing cartoonishly into each other as they take the turns. The wildest part during the opening occurs when a car crashes through a guard rail and careens into the air high above the track, above the cars still on the road, before falling away out of view and exploding in a massive fireball.
Memorable moments:
1:58 - "adventures waitin just aheaaaad..." So get ready kids!!
I will be posting 366 of my favorite music recordings, one per day, all year. This is the goal. Hopefully all the posts will include a youtube clip so you can listen. I am also going to write about why they appeal to me so much without getting into an extensive analysis of extraneous details. Some of the tunes are really popular, others are fairly obscure.
I hope you enjoy them! Thanks for listening and reading and please post, share, comment. Hooray!
There's that song by Steam called "Na Na Hey Hey(Kiss Him Goodbye)", a big one hit wonder from 1969 or so. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsaTElBljOE Played at White Sox games and elsewhere during sporting events as a taunt at the opposing team. Listen to this song when you get a moment. Pay particular attention to the drums. What's up with all the fills? I'm thinking, this guy is just chomping at the bit, waiting for his solo. But then...once the break shows up after 2:41 or so, it's like, dude, here's your chance to go full out off into the deep end and instead, well...it's a letdown, man. It's just the music from the verses with the vocals turned down. Studio trickery.
Here's the album cover: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaG2Acg8n60. Hey, what's with the thermometer? It's over 350 degrees!! Their manager stuck them in a sauna to try to sweat some more hits out of them. Seriously, would it be worth it to seek out any other songs by this band? I just listened to some samples on amazon, and there are at least two or three other songs that sound like this one. The other ones sound like the Foundations or Fifth Dimension. Here's a nice cover version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4e5hqzuudU0. Dude does a nice job. Even attempts the fills on his drum machine. Well, if I go any deeper into the story and music of Steam, I might suffer permanent damage to my mental state.
Uh-oh...A day later and I'm still at it. I feel OK so far. The story of Steam is really confusing! Briefly, the only album released by Steam is called Steam. The song titles are ultra-generic, "I've Gotta Make You Love Me", "Come On Back And Love Me", and "I'm The One Who Loves You". Must have been an inspiration for Air Supply. Anyway, where was I...let's talk about the 'band', for there were essentially two bands: one that recorded the songs for Mercury Records, and one that played the songs in public (and didn't care if they looked ridiculous on television). Studio Steam consisted of former members of the Chateaus, a group from Bridgeport, CT, who had recorded songs in the early 60s. I suppose as they were getting on in years and more refined and highbrow, they did not approve of Na Na being released as a single. They weren't too embarrassed to leave their names off the song credits, but decided to release the music under the name Steam. When surprise surprise, it became a hit, one of the Studio Steam members put together the fearless public face of Steam.
One of the songwriters, Paul Leka, has some other interesting production credits: 'Green Tambourine' for the Lemon Pipers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klYXLevbgq8 and 'Will You Be Staying After Sunday', or 'Will You be Staying on Monday' according to wikipedia, for a group called the Peppermint Rainbow: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9puwHRXo6Zo. As you can see, it's just one big 60s cheesefest everywhere you look! Outstanding. But that's enough of that.
