music
purepedantry | April 16, 2007Thank you, Germany:
Passively listening to Mozart -- or indeed any other music you enjoy -- does not make you smarter. But more studies should be done to find out whether music lessons could raise your child's IQ in the long term, concludes a report analysing all the scientific literature on music and intelligence, which was published last week by the German research ministry.
The ministry commissioned the report -- surprisingly the first to systematically review the literature on the purported intelligence effect of music -- from a team of nine German neuroscientists, psychologists,…
oracknows | April 14, 2007It's been a long time since I saw something like this. I remember back in the 1980's, I saw an utterly hysterically funny series on a religious cable outlet about the evils of rock 'n' roll, complete with dire warnings about how rock 'n' roll was a one-way ticket straight to hell. Well, it turns out that they're still making such amusingly over-the-top videos. Some of the targets haven't changed, many have. These are parts 1 and 2 of a four part series. Part I reveals Satan's true conspiracy that is rock 'n' roll, particularly the evil of George Harrison's My Sweet Lord. So, check out Part 1…
goodmath | April 13, 2007 I've been swamped lately, learning to manage my new commute, and being overwhelmed by my new job. So I've been a bit lax about the blog; I've missed three weeks in a row for the friday pathological programming; and I haven't been posting my friday random tens. I don't have time to do a FPP post today, but I can at least inflict my strange tastes in music on you. Friday pathological programming will return next week.
Navan, "Ma Labousig Ar C'hoad": Navan is a wonderful traditional Irish
a capella group. I caught them being interviewed on NPR the week before St. Patrick's day, and…
aardvarchaeology | April 7, 2007I've made a long-overdue update to my psych-music web page. Have a look, lots of album recommendations! And I'm aware of new releases for myself to check out from the M Coast, Mars Volta, Minders and Of Montreal, so I guess I'll be adding more stuff shortly.
purepedantry | April 5, 2007Not to be outdone in ridiculousness by the younger generation, Keith Richards has admitted to inhaling his father's ashes:
Keith Richards has acknowledged consuming a raft of illegal substances in his time, but this may top them all.
In comments published Tuesday, the 63-year-old Rolling Stones guitarist said he had snorted his father's ashes mixed with cocaine.
"The strangest thing I've tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father," Richards was quoted as saying by British music magazine NME.
"He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn't…
aardvarchaeology | March 26, 2007
When I was twelve I bought my first LP, a synth-pop creation by a British band popular with middle-class teens at the time. Here are snippets of Martin Gore's lyrics to two of the songs.
You're feeling the boredom too
I'd gladly go with you
I'd put your leather boots on
I'd put your pretty dress on
...
You treat me like a dog
Get me down on my knees
We call it master and servant
I'm not sure at what age I became aware of kinky sex, but I think at the time I didn't quite understand what "playing Master and Servant" really meant. Other themes on Depeche Mode's 1984 album Some Great Reward are…
aardvarchaeology | March 19, 2007
I no longer listen much to the synth pop I loved in my teens. The artist that has perhaps dropped most dramatically in my affections is Jean-Michel Jarre, largely because I really dug him once. But I still listen to one of his albums with great pleasure: 1984's Zoolook.
This disc sounds as if the bombastic and sentimental Frenchman has been slipped something ergotoid in his coffee by the sound-effects crew from the first Star Wars movie and then herded into the studio, tailed by Laurie Anderson and two dozen Ewoks. After a spacey opening dirge, things pick up: extraterrestrial party animals…
aardvarchaeology | March 13, 2007
Dear Reader, are you at heart a shady character? Have you seen the seamy side of things? Is your outlook bleak? Is your appearance disreputable, your gaze shifty, your shirt unwashed, your hair style bedraggled? Are you familiar with spleen, anomie and ennui? Is your mother worried about you?
I mean, Dear Reader, do you miss Joy Division, early Sisters of Mercy, early Jesus & Mary Chain? Don't. Listen to Kurtz instead -- while reading Poe, Huysmans and Baudelaire.
The members of this unsigned Uppsala trio of decadents are all regular customers in the district misdemeanor court. Their…
aardvarchaeology | March 8, 2007I just realised that the lyrics of this traditional Swedish children's song read just like the recounting of a hallucinogen experience or a psychotic episode. Imagine a goggle-eyed grizzled old hippie buttonholing you at a vegetarian restaurant and forcing you, giggling, to listen to the story of his life-changing episode back in '68.
It was really funny
I've gotta laugh
This triangular old man came in
He wore wooden clogs and a birch-bark jacket
And a hat trimmed with sausage skin
He sat down on a stool in the kitchen
And pulled a harmonica out of his pocket
And started playing so everything…
oracknows | March 7, 2007
Believe it or not, the FCC is receiving a fair number of complaints over the Superbowl halftime show featuring His Purpleness, particularly the part where he did a bit of a phallic thing with his guitar (as if generations of rockers haven't done the whole guitar as wank-off thing since at least the 1960's--heck David Bowie used to simulate oral sex on Mick Ronson's guitar back in his Ziggy Stardust days, although I will concede that he never played the Superbowl). I mean, get a load of this complaint:
During Prince's rendition of Purple Rain, which I think is a really great song, there…
aardvarchaeology | March 7, 2007 Gruff Rhys, front man of trippy Welsh popsters The Super Furry Animals, released his second solo album back in January, Candylion. (Here's the promo site.) Its mellow quirky tunes will appeal to fans of the Furries. I particularly like the title track, "Beacon in the Darkness" and the hummable "The Court of King Arthur".
I keep an eye open for pop lyrics having to do with archaeology. Here and here, for example, are two songs about bog bodies. And on Candylion we find the following fine example, indicating that Mr Rhys has been watching Time Team:
The Court of King Arthur
By Gruff Rhys…
terrasig | February 25, 2007
You can see all the stars as you walk down Hollywood Boulevard,
Some that you recognise, some that you've hardly even heard of,
People who worked and suffered and struggled for fame,
Some who succeeded and some who suffered in vain.
Celluloid Heroes, The Kinks, 1972
Hat tip: Pharmagossip
aardvarchaeology | February 18, 2007
Last night my wife and I celebrated the Chinese New Year with friends. First we had an Asian buffet and a few hours of raucous karaoke, then we went to the Hootchy Kootchy Club (their spelling, not mine...).
The HK Club is a recurring cabaret and party in central Stockholm. The theme is nebulously defined as "burlesque", which in practice translated into a dominance of beautiful young femme dykes in immaculate 30s to 50s outfits. But the clientele was mixed as to age and orientation: the only notably under-represented demographic was young hetero guys. I for one didn't miss them: it meant…
oracknows | February 17, 2007As a diehard Lord of the Rings fan since around age 13, I have only one thing to say about this:
They're taking the hobbits to Isengard!
I bet you can't get this out of your head now, can you?
This guy couldn't:
goodmath | February 16, 2007
Frameshift, "Walking through Genetic Space": a track from an album inspired by the writings of Steven Jay Gould about genetics and evolution. The leader of the project is the lead singer of Dream Theater; the end result has a very DT like feeling to it. The album overall is quite good; bit this track is a slow ballad, and a ballad about genetics just doesn't really work.
Robert Fripp and David Sylvian, "Jean the Birdman": Fun, interesting piece of work, from a project that David Sylvian and Robert Fripp did a few years back. Sylvian's usual crooning voice, over his and Fripp's guitar work.…
omnibrain | February 15, 2007So cheezy....
Now for a classic....
And finally here's an entire site of children's songs rewritten to be about the brain.
And finally...a robot playing John Coltraine.
terrasig | February 11, 2007PharmGirl just called me into the living room to see the reunion of the defining band of my adolescence. Roxanne. Wow! Holy hell, is Stewart Copeland still an amazing drummer? Sting and Andy playing their original guitars.
Why do I feel like they have aged better than I?
aardvarchaeology | February 8, 2007
Robert Schneider, one of my favourite neopsychedelic musicians, has a new album out, this time with his main band again, The Apples in Stereo. His previous album Expo was issued in 2005 with The Marbles and is an excellent synth-driven yet lo-fi effort. Before that he did two non-psych albums in 2005 (with Ulysses) and 2002 (with the Apples) which didn't do much for me, so the last time the Apples released anything good was in 2000 with the radiant Discovery of a World Inside the Moone.
The new disc, New Magnetic Wonder, consists of no less than 24 songs recorded from late 2005 to late 2006…
aardvarchaeology | February 3, 2007
For about a week, the relentless riff from ZZ Top's 1973 hit song "La Grange" has been playing in my head. Such a great, great song, not least the powerful and exact drumming. And the vocals are really funny, with the singer sounding like a right old lecher.
So I got the album, Tres Hombres, and read up a little on ZZ Top. Like the Stones, they're the kind of great band you never think to get any records from, because they're all over rock radio anyway.
I was kind of stunned to find that the trio's members were 23, 24 and 24 in 1973. They must have looked pretty incongruous, three fresh-…
goodmath | February 2, 2007
Marillion, "Ocean Cloud": Long, wonderful piece of neo-prog rock from my favorite prog band.
Mogwai, "Acid Food": Mogwai is a brilliant post-rock group, leaning more towards
the rock than the classical. This is a slow track with vocals, with a very dark sound
to it. Very cool.
Trey Gunn Band, "Sozzle": Eh. Trey Gunn is a brilliant touch guitar player, but
as a composer, he's really pretty dull.
Pain of Salvation, "Lilium Cruentus (Deus Nova)": Another bit of neo-prog; PoS is a spinoff of the Flower Kings. This is off of a very strange album... It's a very
pretentious piece of…