… and I can't believe this got sent out with a typo that refers to Pauline Oliveros as a "pioneering experimental composter." That should obviously read "composer." My apologies to everyone!
You probably think my 'deep listening' albums would be from electronic artists. But I'm focusing on albums that transport me to a memory place, usually back in time. A time when music was fresh and exhilarating.
I'm no fan of nostalgia. But, for the purposes of this exercise, I think nostalgia is an important anchor — at least for me.
So I'm going to listen deeply to The Feelies' 'The Good Earth' (and, those who know me well are unsurprised). It brings me back to when I was discovering music on my own for the first time and getting excited about the imagined spaces — and feelings! — that the most basic of music can evoke. As soon as the first notes ring there are no troubles in the world — that's what this record does for me.
By the way, when I say "when music was fresh and exhilarating" I meant for me as a young person just starting to get into music. Overall, I very much think music can still be fresh and exhilarating!
Ok, I pray along... I'm supposed to be doing programming homework, but this is more fun so... I actually just did a musical autobiography looking back at all the lasting impressions over the years (you're in there)... so I'll just drop that and let you choose your own adventure:
00:01 Fur Elise
00:06 Rolling Stones - Can't get no satisfaction
00:10 Beatles - Yellow Submarine
00:14 Beach Boys - Good Vibrations
00:19 Patsy Cline - Crazy
00:22 Righteous Brothers - Unchained Melody
00:27 Roy Orbison - Only the Lonely
00:32 Michael Jackson - Bad
00:37 MC Hammer - Can't Touch This
00:43 Wu-tang Clan - Method Man
00:50 Nirvana - Drain You
00:56 Beck - Alcohol
01:01 Beastie Boys - Sure Shot
01:06 Jimi Hendrix - All Along the Watchtower
01:11 Dick Dale - Misirloo
01:14 311 - Grassroots
01:21 Cypress Hill - Illusions
01:28 Wu-tang Clan - Forever
01:35 Beck - Deadweight
01:41 Negativland & Seeland Records - Deconstructing Beck
01:48 Pink Floyd - Another Brick in the Wall
01:54 Jimi Hendrix - Electric Ladyland Ambience
02:04 Radiohead - Exit Music From a Film
02:09 Mix Master Mike - Anit-theft Device
02:15 Q-burns Abstract Message - Enter-Other
02:25 Tipsy - Trip Tease
02:30 Amon Tobin - Nightlife
02:38 Air - French Stuff
02:47 Jane's Addiction - Up the Beach
02:52 Banyan - Early Bird
02:55 Chemical Brothers - Sunshine Underground
03:07 Sasha & Digweed - Global Underground
03:18 Rabbit in the Moon - Floori.d.a.
03:28 Plastikman - Plasticity
03:40 Halo Varga - Future!
03:49 Chopin - Nocturnes
03:56 Stereolab - Captain Easychord
04:03 Les Baxter - Pool of Love
04:06 Esquivel - See it in Sound
04:13 Brian Eno - An Ending (Ascent)
04:19 People Like Us - Thermos Explorer
04:22 Luke Vibert's Nuggets
04:27 Barry 7's Connectors
04:34 Negativland - Big 10-8 Place
04:50 DJ Me DJ You - Rainbows & Robots
04:58 Faust - Giggy Smile
05:03 Can - All Gates Open
05:12 Kraftwerk - Tour de France
05:20 Psychic TV - Kitten Sparkles
05:30 The Orb - Pomme Fritz
05:41 Aphex Twin - Windowlicker
05:53 Autechre - Tapr
05:58 Squarepusher - Exploding Psychology
06:08 Miles Davis - Bitches Brew
06:30 Komet - Rausch
06:41 Amorphous Androgynous - Go Tell It to the Trees Egghead
06:46 Incredible String Band - Hangman's Beautiful Daughter
06:52 Animal Collective - Sung Tongs
06:56 Elliot Smith - From a Basement on the Hill
07:00 John Fahey - Sligo Creek Blues
07:06 Vetiver - Farther On
07:10 Joanna Newsom - Svetlana Sucks Lemons
07:17 Devendra Banhardt - Siobahn's Beard
07:21 Shirley & Spinoza - Double Rainbow Guy
07:28 Panda Bear - Take Pills
07:33 Sublime Frequenceies - Radio India
07:39 Paul Simon - Song for the Asking
07:44 Christopher Willits - Overlap 2006
07:55 Autistici - Attaching Softness to a Shell
08:00 Ryoji Ikeda - Dataplex
08:08 Grass Widow - Cut it Off!
08:12 Colleen - Golden Morning Breaks
08:16 Ragtime Fingerstyle Guitar Lessons
08:19 Devil Makes Three - Beneath the Piano
08:24 Paul Simon - Papa Hobo
08:29 Blind Blake - West Coast Blues
08:34 Dirty Projectors - Obscure Wisdom
08:37 Joanna Newsom - You & Me Bess
08:45 Fruit Bats - Hobo Girl
08:50 Fela Kuti - Black President
08:59 Lee "Scratch" Perry
09:04 Seth Troxler - BBC Essential Mix 2011
09:28 Beethoven - 6th Symphony
09:44 Bach - Brandenburg Concertos
There is a ten hour recording of me discussing all this, available on request.
Thanks again, Michael. I really appreciate your doing this week after week. It's a huge bright spot in my now dismal Saturday mornings. Sometimes it reads like your pulling great ideas out of my scrambled and overworked brain and organizing them into something coherent and entertaining as hell. Not that I want to take any credit for what you are doing, it is just uncanny how much our deep thoughts about the business of music align. Of course, I am not a brilliant artist such as yourself just a survivor from some golden era of music that never really existed so I appreciate what you do all that much more. Ok, enough with gushing platitudes, a big thanks to you will suffice and on to what I am really here for - dialoguing...
1. No shame in name dropping the Beatles, any musician of a certain age is going to have some sort of connection to them. It's inevitable just like "stealing" arrangements and chord progressions. I never really realized how much Ziggy Stardust was just a bald faced rip off of the Alice Cooper Band's Killer album until I did some deep listening yesterday. It didn't change how much I felt about either artist (both get big hearts) but made me think more about the cosmic ether from which we are all drawing from for inspiration. There are only so many notes and arrangements and we are all tapped into the same engine that makes them go.
2. I was born with a defective aural nerve that allows me to hear the separation of frequency bands better than most humans. It has it's downside, I can hear hi-pitched whining sounds like the old VHF and UHF frequencies and they can be quite painful. The upside, I can hear all of the different sounds going in music and discern them the same way a cook can tell the spices in someone else's meal just by taste. I have been able to do this for as long as I can remember so deep listening has been a huge part of my life for almost all of it. As a result, I have intimate relationships with much of my collection. Today I plan to dig into some spiritual music - Bill Evans' Sunday the Village Vanguard and John Coltrane's Ole. In times of crisis, I always look to jazz to calm my head because it so much easier to slip into that deep listening mindset that works just like Calgon taking you away -at least for me.
3. When I was a profession writer, Jonty was the only journalist who would ever criticize my work - in a positive and professional way. I was surprised that even read my work, because I consider myself mostly a hack with a hamfisted approach to writing and he was a real writer. He told me that I sounded like I enjoyed hearing my own voice in my writing and that voice was often funny. He suggested I was probably better suited to writing comedy about music than churning out online content week in week out. Sorry Jonty, I never got around to that but i really appreciated the notes of encouragement. He was a sweetheart and I will miss him.
Thanks for doing what you do and I look forward to a lot more installments of Ringo Dreams of Lawn Care in the not so bright future ahead...
I love these comments, so thanks for that first of all. And then thanks for your kind words. It means a lot that I'm a part of starting your weekend on a decent footing.
It's weird, but The Beatles didn't play a part in the title. Someday I'll write about how I wasn't exposed to rock n' roll classics until high school, and at that point, I was immediately into new wave … so I don't think I heard a full Beatles album until I was like 17 or 18. Wild, eh? Like most of my titles, this one jumped into my head, and I thought it was cute and enigmatic, so I went with it. And it looks like it stays (for now). Your interpretation is excellent, and it's one of many interpretations, which is another reason I dig the title.
I've been rediscovering jazz … listened to loads of it back in the day (had a loose association with Sam Rivers back in the day, actually played 'turntable and tape delay' with his trio once). Recently watched the Miles Davis doc The Birth of Cool (recommended!), and now I'm on a renewed jazz kick. Adding your two 'deep listening' albums to the queue.
That's a lovely anecdote about Jonty. Thank you for sharing.
Take care in your part of this madcap world and I look forward to continuing the discussion.
an update on the results on Bandcamp's (and its artists') big day → https://daily.bandcamp.com/features/update-on-fridays-campaign-to-support-artists-during-the-covid-19-pandemic
… and I can't believe this got sent out with a typo that refers to Pauline Oliveros as a "pioneering experimental composter." That should obviously read "composer." My apologies to everyone!
You probably think my 'deep listening' albums would be from electronic artists. But I'm focusing on albums that transport me to a memory place, usually back in time. A time when music was fresh and exhilarating.
I'm no fan of nostalgia. But, for the purposes of this exercise, I think nostalgia is an important anchor — at least for me.
So I'm going to listen deeply to The Feelies' 'The Good Earth' (and, those who know me well are unsurprised). It brings me back to when I was discovering music on my own for the first time and getting excited about the imagined spaces — and feelings! — that the most basic of music can evoke. As soon as the first notes ring there are no troubles in the world — that's what this record does for me.
By the way, when I say "when music was fresh and exhilarating" I meant for me as a young person just starting to get into music. Overall, I very much think music can still be fresh and exhilarating!
Ok, I pray along... I'm supposed to be doing programming homework, but this is more fun so... I actually just did a musical autobiography looking back at all the lasting impressions over the years (you're in there)... so I'll just drop that and let you choose your own adventure:
00:01 Fur Elise
00:06 Rolling Stones - Can't get no satisfaction
00:10 Beatles - Yellow Submarine
00:14 Beach Boys - Good Vibrations
00:19 Patsy Cline - Crazy
00:22 Righteous Brothers - Unchained Melody
00:27 Roy Orbison - Only the Lonely
00:32 Michael Jackson - Bad
00:37 MC Hammer - Can't Touch This
00:43 Wu-tang Clan - Method Man
00:50 Nirvana - Drain You
00:56 Beck - Alcohol
01:01 Beastie Boys - Sure Shot
01:06 Jimi Hendrix - All Along the Watchtower
01:11 Dick Dale - Misirloo
01:14 311 - Grassroots
01:21 Cypress Hill - Illusions
01:28 Wu-tang Clan - Forever
01:35 Beck - Deadweight
01:41 Negativland & Seeland Records - Deconstructing Beck
01:48 Pink Floyd - Another Brick in the Wall
01:54 Jimi Hendrix - Electric Ladyland Ambience
02:04 Radiohead - Exit Music From a Film
02:09 Mix Master Mike - Anit-theft Device
02:15 Q-burns Abstract Message - Enter-Other
02:25 Tipsy - Trip Tease
02:30 Amon Tobin - Nightlife
02:38 Air - French Stuff
02:47 Jane's Addiction - Up the Beach
02:52 Banyan - Early Bird
02:55 Chemical Brothers - Sunshine Underground
03:07 Sasha & Digweed - Global Underground
03:18 Rabbit in the Moon - Floori.d.a.
03:28 Plastikman - Plasticity
03:40 Halo Varga - Future!
03:49 Chopin - Nocturnes
03:56 Stereolab - Captain Easychord
04:03 Les Baxter - Pool of Love
04:06 Esquivel - See it in Sound
04:13 Brian Eno - An Ending (Ascent)
04:19 People Like Us - Thermos Explorer
04:22 Luke Vibert's Nuggets
04:27 Barry 7's Connectors
04:34 Negativland - Big 10-8 Place
04:50 DJ Me DJ You - Rainbows & Robots
04:58 Faust - Giggy Smile
05:03 Can - All Gates Open
05:12 Kraftwerk - Tour de France
05:20 Psychic TV - Kitten Sparkles
05:30 The Orb - Pomme Fritz
05:41 Aphex Twin - Windowlicker
05:53 Autechre - Tapr
05:58 Squarepusher - Exploding Psychology
06:08 Miles Davis - Bitches Brew
06:30 Komet - Rausch
06:41 Amorphous Androgynous - Go Tell It to the Trees Egghead
06:46 Incredible String Band - Hangman's Beautiful Daughter
06:52 Animal Collective - Sung Tongs
06:56 Elliot Smith - From a Basement on the Hill
07:00 John Fahey - Sligo Creek Blues
07:06 Vetiver - Farther On
07:10 Joanna Newsom - Svetlana Sucks Lemons
07:17 Devendra Banhardt - Siobahn's Beard
07:21 Shirley & Spinoza - Double Rainbow Guy
07:28 Panda Bear - Take Pills
07:33 Sublime Frequenceies - Radio India
07:39 Paul Simon - Song for the Asking
07:44 Christopher Willits - Overlap 2006
07:55 Autistici - Attaching Softness to a Shell
08:00 Ryoji Ikeda - Dataplex
08:08 Grass Widow - Cut it Off!
08:12 Colleen - Golden Morning Breaks
08:16 Ragtime Fingerstyle Guitar Lessons
08:19 Devil Makes Three - Beneath the Piano
08:24 Paul Simon - Papa Hobo
08:29 Blind Blake - West Coast Blues
08:34 Dirty Projectors - Obscure Wisdom
08:37 Joanna Newsom - You & Me Bess
08:45 Fruit Bats - Hobo Girl
08:50 Fela Kuti - Black President
08:59 Lee "Scratch" Perry
09:04 Seth Troxler - BBC Essential Mix 2011
09:28 Beethoven - 6th Symphony
09:44 Bach - Brandenburg Concertos
There is a ten hour recording of me discussing all this, available on request.
SALUTE !
Nice one with Cahuacho
Thank you! 🎧
Thanks again, Michael. I really appreciate your doing this week after week. It's a huge bright spot in my now dismal Saturday mornings. Sometimes it reads like your pulling great ideas out of my scrambled and overworked brain and organizing them into something coherent and entertaining as hell. Not that I want to take any credit for what you are doing, it is just uncanny how much our deep thoughts about the business of music align. Of course, I am not a brilliant artist such as yourself just a survivor from some golden era of music that never really existed so I appreciate what you do all that much more. Ok, enough with gushing platitudes, a big thanks to you will suffice and on to what I am really here for - dialoguing...
1. No shame in name dropping the Beatles, any musician of a certain age is going to have some sort of connection to them. It's inevitable just like "stealing" arrangements and chord progressions. I never really realized how much Ziggy Stardust was just a bald faced rip off of the Alice Cooper Band's Killer album until I did some deep listening yesterday. It didn't change how much I felt about either artist (both get big hearts) but made me think more about the cosmic ether from which we are all drawing from for inspiration. There are only so many notes and arrangements and we are all tapped into the same engine that makes them go.
2. I was born with a defective aural nerve that allows me to hear the separation of frequency bands better than most humans. It has it's downside, I can hear hi-pitched whining sounds like the old VHF and UHF frequencies and they can be quite painful. The upside, I can hear all of the different sounds going in music and discern them the same way a cook can tell the spices in someone else's meal just by taste. I have been able to do this for as long as I can remember so deep listening has been a huge part of my life for almost all of it. As a result, I have intimate relationships with much of my collection. Today I plan to dig into some spiritual music - Bill Evans' Sunday the Village Vanguard and John Coltrane's Ole. In times of crisis, I always look to jazz to calm my head because it so much easier to slip into that deep listening mindset that works just like Calgon taking you away -at least for me.
3. When I was a profession writer, Jonty was the only journalist who would ever criticize my work - in a positive and professional way. I was surprised that even read my work, because I consider myself mostly a hack with a hamfisted approach to writing and he was a real writer. He told me that I sounded like I enjoyed hearing my own voice in my writing and that voice was often funny. He suggested I was probably better suited to writing comedy about music than churning out online content week in week out. Sorry Jonty, I never got around to that but i really appreciated the notes of encouragement. He was a sweetheart and I will miss him.
Thanks for doing what you do and I look forward to a lot more installments of Ringo Dreams of Lawn Care in the not so bright future ahead...
I love these comments, so thanks for that first of all. And then thanks for your kind words. It means a lot that I'm a part of starting your weekend on a decent footing.
It's weird, but The Beatles didn't play a part in the title. Someday I'll write about how I wasn't exposed to rock n' roll classics until high school, and at that point, I was immediately into new wave … so I don't think I heard a full Beatles album until I was like 17 or 18. Wild, eh? Like most of my titles, this one jumped into my head, and I thought it was cute and enigmatic, so I went with it. And it looks like it stays (for now). Your interpretation is excellent, and it's one of many interpretations, which is another reason I dig the title.
I've been rediscovering jazz … listened to loads of it back in the day (had a loose association with Sam Rivers back in the day, actually played 'turntable and tape delay' with his trio once). Recently watched the Miles Davis doc The Birth of Cool (recommended!), and now I'm on a renewed jazz kick. Adding your two 'deep listening' albums to the queue.
That's a lovely anecdote about Jonty. Thank you for sharing.
Take care in your part of this madcap world and I look forward to continuing the discussion.