#I’m in love with Robert Fripp

[ourshadowstallerthanoursoul]

Getting the led out - interview to JPJ

(by Gail Worley, Ink19 - April 26, 2002 - x)

This has to be THE interview. It's Jonesy's best interview I've found so far, so READ IT. You won't regret a single second spent reading it, I promise you.

I saw the interview you did with Jim DeRogatis at South By Southwest in 2000. In that interview you said – perhaps jokingly – that one of the reasons it took you so long to make your first solo album is that you don’t sing. 'The Thunderthief' has your first recorded vocals ever. Was singing on a record with no previous experience a scary thing for you?

Yes. I mean, I had to make sure I could sing well enough to put [the performance] on record, so it wasn’t totally scary, you know what I mean? I sort of crept up on it [laughs]. The scary thing was actually doing it live on stage the first night, in Nashville (when Jones opened for King Crimson on their last tour). That was scary. What I wanted to do was do three songs from 'Thunderthief'. We started with 'Leafy Meadows' and then I did 'Hoediddle' and then I did 'Freedom Song' – which is scary enough. However, I suddenly thought, "I can’t just sing one song" (two of these three songs are instrumentals). So I thought, I need another vocal [laughs]. I didn’t want to do anything else off 'The Thunderthief', so I, in my bravura, decided to sing 'That’s The Way'. Singing a Zeppelin song was even scarier, I can tell you.

I bet.

What I used to do on the tour before, I played an instrumental version of 'Going To California' on the mandolin, and I used to team [those two songs]. I would start with 'That’s The Way' – because I played those mandolin parts on the original record. [Hums the tune] Then I said, "You didn’t think I was going to sing, did you?" [Laughs] But this time I did it and I sang it, so people who went to both concerts thought it was some kind of a trick [laughs]. But it went down alright. Nobody killed me for it, ‘cause I can’t possibly sing it like Robert Plant. I don’t have that voice. But I did it in this other way, and it worked, but the first night I was terrified. Remembering words is the hard part. I put the lyrics on a music stand, so I couldn’t fuck it up. But I’m learning, I’m getting better.

How has working with a guy like Robert Fripp influenced your own writing and playing?

Well, I haven’t actually worked with him that much. The biggest connection is being on his label. [Long pause] I mean, when Zeppelin first started in 1969, and people would say, "What sort of band is it?" I used to say "progressive rock", because in those days it meant rock that progressed [laughs]. You know, it was a very literal term; "Well, you know, we’re trying to advance the form of it, and this is what we’re doing to make it go somewhere." But of course, that title came to have all sorts of different meanings. When it started to mean 'classic', that’s when I stopped saying it was progressive rock. But then we’d say it’s 'blues rock', because people love to label things. I didn’t really hear an awful lot of King Crimson [music], to be honest. But being on his label is great, mainly because of the fact that you get, obviously, total artistic freedom. There are no contracts, either. He really hates the music industry with a passion, and he’s not afraid of telling everybody [laughs] at every available opportunity, which is great. And the artist maintains the copyrights to all their material, so I just agree with him on that whole side, and I really like the way he approaches music, and musicians. He’s so passionate about everything and has a definite way that he wants to do it. It’s inspiring to know that people can say, "This is the way I want to do it!" and off he goes! He’s always kind of been around in the background, but the first time Fripp got my attention was when Brain Eno called me and asked if I knew a piano player who could do some avant garde piano. He asked if I knew anybody who could do some spacey sort of piano, and I couldn’t really think of anybody. I asked him to describe what he wanted and then I said, "Well, I can do that" [laughs]. Alright then, so I said, "What’s the track?" and he said, "Fripp’s doing a solo on it, and I want you to do the counterpart." So I went along, and it was just this rhythm track, and I played this sort of spacey piano. The next time I heard it, Fripp had put his guitar solo on afterwards, so there’s this sort of alien spacey piano and suddenly this guitar comes in like [makes sounds of cars crashing], and I was like, "Fuck! I wish I’d known he was doing that! Jesus Christ!" Like "Who is this guy?" [laughs] Then, when I met him, he was like [imitating Robert Fripp’s gentlemanly nature] "Oh, Hello John. How are you?" I’m thinking, "Now, this isn’t the same guy who was like [makes car crash noises] on that record?" But it was. And that’s what he did on "Leafy Meadows". He walked in and he puttered about and set his pedals up and had tea and cake and then he went, "Whaaaahh!!!!" [Laughs] I really like that. It’s quite a paradox. That’s what I like about Diamanda [Galas] as well. When you meet her she’s terribly nice and sweet. And then you see her sing and [makes exaggerated face of terror].

I had to smile when I saw that Nick Beggs plays the Chapman stick on the album, because I remember him as the bassist for Kajagoogoo. How do you go about finding the various players who are involved with your solo projects?

Well, on 'Zooma' I had Pete Thomas on drums and Trey Gunn on stick. I wanted a stick player because they think differently. They’re often bass players as well, and they just approach it differently. Plus, from a very practical point of view, in a trio, it’s great, because I’m a bass player and a keyboard player and I play quite a lot of lap steel in my show. If I’m doing bass, then [the stick player] can play all the lead parts. If I go to the keyboards, he can then switch to bass in mid-song, if necessary. So, it’s very practical and it means I haven’t got someone standing there with a guitar, who feels like, "Well I should be playing something, because I’m standing here" [laughs]. There’s loads of space in a trio – which is what was nice about Led Zeppelin, because when Robert wasn’t singing we were a trio. There’s loads of space and you can go anywhere you like. So, Trey Gunn was on that album and originally I had asked him to come out with me on the road, because the idea, of course, with 'Zooma' was to get out and play it. He was going to [come out with us], but then King Crimson had resurfaced and he said his first loyalty was to go with them. Then I asked Robert [Fripp] if he knew of another Chapman stick player, and he said [adopting Fripp’s accent], "Well you won't believe it, but Nick Beggs is a really good player." I went, "Nick Beggs from Kajagoogoo? ‘Too Shy’?" And he goes, "Yeah, try him out." So I did. Then I went through a few drummers and eventually Nick said, well, "Terl Bryant is a really good drummer." So he came on board and he was great, and their attitudes are just awesome. It’s a happy family, they call me 'Pater' [laughs]. But it really is just like a family on the road, it’s really sweet. And they’re just full-on, enthusiastic, 100% committed, and it’s great.

Will you be taking 'Thunderthief' on the road now that your tour opening for Crimson has passed?

Well, yes. We’re trying to get some dates together at the moment, to do 'The Thunderthief'. But the thing is, I’d like to headline again, because then I can do my long show with the keyboards and things. But I may have to open for somebody else, again, because we really need to play to more people. It’s just maddening. I mean, we can sell out Irving Plaza [mid-size venue in NYC], but there comes a point where that’s the biggest one we can sell out, because nobody knows us. Everybody comes to the show and goes away going [adopts American accent], "That was the greatest thing I’ve ever seen! It was fantastic!" and then they tell their friends and we get people going, "Wow, I wished I’d known he was playing there." We really just need to play to more people.

Here’s a quote from a review of 'The Thunderthief': "Since his days as a top sessioneer, his abilities as an arranger and multi-instrumentalist have equipped him to add musical finesse to any genre." That’s a pretty nice compliment. Is that part of the reason you’ve been attracted to such genre diverse projects? You know, from Cinderella to The Butthole Surfers?

[Laughing] Cinderella…

Oh come on, I love Cinderella.

Yeah, they were alright. The drummer owns a bus company now. Yeah, it’s all the same to me. As long as it’s good [music] I don’t care what it is. I mean, I’ve done classical composition and string quartets and [sighs] I don’t really care what it is. If somebody asks me to do something and I don’t know how to do it, I’ll find out.

In a criticism of the song 'Angry Angry', one reviewer said that you were "Always too accomplished to achieve something so off the cuff." I guess you’d call that a back-handed compliment.

Yeah, he didn’t get it. The Brits don’t like 'Angry Angry'. For a start, they understand the accent [I sing that song in], which they hate, ‘cause it’s "music hall", basically, is what it is – like a vaudeville accent. And they don’t like it because I think they think I’m taking the piss out of punk, which I’m not. I don’t do parody at all. It’s actually terribly prosaic, how it all happened, but music is just like that for me, basically. 'Angry Angry' is at the speed it is because I heard Adam Bomb (Pink Gibson from NY based rock band, Get Animal, who plays guitar on this song) play at the Borderline in London and I immediately heard what I wanted him to do [on the record]. I went back into the studio and put a riff down, which was on bass, mandolin, and drum machine which was [sings hyper-speed riff from song], at that speed. I got it to play for three minutes, just that riff, and then I wrote the song and thought, "Now, what do I do with it?" It was at that tempo and had that intensity and the phrase 'Angry Angry' just came to me, so I wrote the lyrics from there. And I had to do it in that voice because it sounds stupid any other way [laughs]. But the Brits hate it. They think I’m trying to be something that I’m not.

Oh, those Brits are so serious about everything.

Well, you haven’t met the Germans. They’ll go right into anything and find all the symbolism and the lot.

'Ice Fishing at Night' is a really beautiful song with some dark lyrics. What inspired you to write that song?

Well, I didn’t write the lyrics. They came with 'The Thunderthief'.

What does that mean?

What happened was, halfway through what was basically going to be an instrumental album, but was also a continuation from 'Zooma', I decided it’d be really nice to have voices [laughs]. As I’ve said before, I didn’t want to get a guest vocalist in, for a couple of reasons actually. One is that I know that I’d forget what I was doing and work on producing them, whoever the vocalist was. I would immediately turn into a producer and it would go somewhere else. The other reason is that, being a bass player, I don’t actually have a distinctive sound. I mean, some people will listen to a record and go, "Oh yeah, that’s a John Paul Jones record", but if you just heard one song in isolation, [you couldn’t tell]. Like, if you’re Santana, that record he did, every time he hits that guitar you know that’s Santana. It’s what he does. He doesn’t do anything else except for that sound. I don’t have that, because of the instruments I play. I thought, guest vocalists will only dilute that and just diffuse it even more. I decided, "I’m going to try and sing myself." Then I thought, "well, I’ve got nothing to sing." Then I was thinking that I don’t want to become a singer and a songwriter all at the same time. One thing at a time, you know? So, I knew Peter Blegvad, he’s a singer/songwriter, and a cartoonist as well – he did the album cover. He’s got a weird way of looking at things; just a strange, twisted sort of dark view. I thought he’d be the ideal person to write some lyrics. I asked him, "Have you got any lyrics that you haven’t got music to? Any lyrics just laying around?" He had about four songs that he gave me and I picked up 'The Thunderthief' and 'Ice Fishing at Night' and set them to music, and basically, just experimented with singing to see whether I liked what I did. I thought I could work with these songs and I could sing enough to do what I wanted to do. I don’t have a great technique or a great voice, but as long as I could convince myself that it sounded alright, then it would be OK… which is how I do everything [laughs]. You know, I’m not a great technician on any instrument, but as long as I can convince myself that it sounds real, then I’ll do it. I sang those two songs and then I thought, "well I can’t just sing two songs" [laughs]… I think like this all the time… it’s boring really. "You can’t just have two songs… how about trying to do some more?" Now that I know I can sing, I’ll try and write some lyrics and see how easy that is. So, I learned another trick. I discovered, like many people I’m sure have, that with the onset of the computer, I enjoyed writing emails. And since I enjoyed composing emails, I thought, "I wonder if it works for writing lyrics?" [Laughs] I tired writing some lyrics on the computer and – sure enough – I wrote three songs in an hour… one of which was 'Angry Angry'. I thought, "this is fun!" I could finally master the song form on the next album, ‘cause there’s no rules, you see? It’s great!

You make it up as you go along.

Absolutely, you get away with it yet again. [Laughing] I’ve had a lot of encouragement, but at the beginning of 'Zoom'a I thought, "They’re all going to go, 'it’s boring!'"

You’ve influenced so any modern rock bassists, from Tom Hamilton and John Deacon of Queen to Krist Novoselic and Flea. It’s almost like, if you drew it all as a Family Tree, you’d be the father of rock bass playing. What’s that like?

Well, it’s just that they haven’t bothered to look further than me. I mean, I’m just lower down the food chain than somebody else is. It just depends on how far you want to go back, really. It’s very nice, it’s very flattering… but I’m imparting stuff that I probably learned from James Jamison and [Donald] 'Duck' Dunn and Charles Mingus. But it’s very nice [to hear that I’ve influenced somebody]. I met some guy in New Orleans on the last tour and he says, "You probably don’t remember me but I came to see you with my Dad when I was 12 years old. You really influenced me and you got me playing the bass and you told me I should practice." He was, like, in his twenties now. I asked him if he was still playing and he said yes, he was the principal bass for the New Orleans Philharmonic Symphony [laughs]. Right! Nice to meet you!

How did it happen that 'Rock & Roll' is now the theme music for a Cadillac commercial?

Ah! Because they asked us if they could use it [laughs]. Cadillac’s kind of a romantic thing – for Englishmen, especially. You think, "Pink Cadillac", and it was Elvis’s car, and it’s a Limo and it just has this aura. I don’t know whether it’s the same in America; probably not, because you have them over here all the time – you’ve lived with them [laughs]. I can see a Cadillac now, and it’s BIG, with big fins and whitewall tires. But they asked us if they could use the song, and they didn’t get it for nothing. And why not?

Do all three of you – you and Jimmy and Robert – all have to make a decision like that? It’s not like Page did it when you weren’t looking?

No, all three of us make those decisions.

Well, on one had, you can think, "Classic car, classic song", but it does kind of bother me that I hear The Who’s 'Bargain' now and instantly think of a car commercial.

Well, yeah… I haven’t actually seen the commercial yet.

Before Led Zeppelin ever came into being, you had a successful career as a session musician and arranger. How much of Zeppelin’s unique sound is owed to your work on the arrangements?

Eh… some. But then it’s equally the way Bonham approached the drums and it really was a group effort. Even if the original idea wasn’t a group effort, the final thing was a group effort. It really was, more than any band I was involved in. It was never like the songwriter ruled the band. Robert wrote the lyrics last, usually.

But there wasn’t any other band that sounded like Led Zeppelin, and there never has been since. That’s kind of a big deal when you think about it. Especially now, in this day of everybody sounding like everyone else.

That’s because people in bands these days always listen to the same music. They all start a band because they all like U2 or they all like Pearl Jam. Consequently, their field of reference is very narrow. Our field of reference was huge. Page and I were very hard working session musicians, and when you walk into a session it can be absolutely anything. Country and western, to Champion Jack Dupree, to Englebert Humperdink, to a big band session. You walk through that door and you don’t know; it could really be anything [laughs]. You name it, I’ve done it. I played weddings, I’ve played Bar Mitzvahs, I’ve done Irish weddings, Jewish weddings, Greek weddings, Italian weddings. I can play it all. Musicians these days, they don’t seem to do that anymore, and bring it all into the mix. Bonzo used to like soul music and knew the words to every Chi-Lites record, ever [laughs]. He was the biggest Smokey Robinson fan, he was into Motown, he loved The Beatles and James Brown. I was into all that soul music, jazz, and classical. Robert was really into blues and all the rock stuff and doo-wop. Page had all these other interests. It was just a huge range of influences, you could go here or there or this way or that. And that’s what I do now, with this music.

What was the dynamic like between you and John Bonham as a rock rhythm section?

Well, we weren’t like a lot of rock rhythm sections, we swung like a bastard! [laughs] Groove was extremely important in Zeppelin and it wasn’t in a lot of those bands [that were popular at the same time]. It was extremely important, which is what, to me, made the band [so great]. We used to have a lot of women at our concerts – and I loved having women at our concerts because they’d dance. [Laughing] It’s great, because the guys stand there with their arms folded and the girls are dancing. Zeppelin was great because it was music you could dance to, and you can’t say that about too many rock bands.

How did your work with Diamanda Galas on her record 'The Sporting Life' and its subsequent tour, end up affecting your own career?

Oh, wow, she’s my favorite piano player. She’s just very inspiring as an artist, she’s very passionate, very committed, always knows what she wants to do. I have several other things to thank her for; she got me playing steel guitar again, which I hadn’t done for years. She saw it in the studio and said "What’s that?" And I said, "Steel guitar", "I want to hear it." So we put it on one of her songs and we did two songs with it in her shows. It was good because it gave me some sort of "high voice" as well as being in the back playing bass. And I thought, "this is a way I can work, this is a way I can actually do a solo show without being a bass player and having other people take over all the fun stuff."

Didn’t she also inspire you to start playing live again?

Yes, she did. I mean… somebody actually said, I think this was a German interview, [the journalist] said that he thought that these records – this is interesting – that 'The Thunderthief' was the third record in a trilogy, starting with Diamanda’s record. And in fact, he’s right in that way, because that was the first time I’d tried using that sort of riff, drums and voice. A lot of people didn’t like it, but to me it was blindingly obvious. I couldn’t see why nobody had thought of it before, especially with her voice, because she has all that range and passion. Plus, her lyrics are great! These homicidal love songs are wonderful [laughs]. She came along with, "Hide the knives, baby’s insane!" [laughs]. 'Skotoseme', that first track [on 'The Sporting Life'], she did it in one take. Me and the engineer were shaking at the end of it, and she just went [adopting a woman’s voice] "Is that OK? I’m going to get myself some coffee" [laughing]. When someone suggested we work together, I could hear it all in my head. I just went [snaps fingers], "I know what we’re going to do as well." I sent her these riffs, to New York, and she sent back some ideas. Then she just turned up and stayed for two months, and we made the record. It was just brilliant. I thought, "This is great! We can do what we like again." I was just so inspired. Then she also told me – cause she’s collaborated with everybody as well – that she’d said in interviews, when they’d say, "Well, why don’t you collaborate anymore?" She’d say, "Well, I’ve put effort into everybody else’s music. If I’m going to put that much effort into music, it’s going to be my own." And I went, "Yeah!" [laughs].

She kinda scares me, to tell you the truth.

She scares us all! That’s the fun part. But she’s so committed to her music. She’s just having fun. She was great on stage one time, [laughs] there was that perfect moment in this theater in Chicago, she was there at the front of the stage and – you know how everybody shouts out song titles? – a little voice comes up in this slight lull between songs and goes "Song Remains the Same!" And she just looked at him and she goes [makes malevolent face], "No, it doesn’t, motherfucker." [Laughing] You could see the crowd part.

As a way of wrapping this up, I surely don’t have to tell you this, but thinking about how Led Zeppelin always gets the nod as the greatest hard rock or metal band of all time – on VH1 shows or magazine polls, or radio countdowns or whatever – do you think the endurance and greatness of the Led Zeppelin legend has much to do with the fact that you guys called it quits after John Bonham died, while you were still a hot item?

[Pauses] I suppose with hindsight, maybe that did have something to do with it. I mean, there was no point in carrying on, it would be a different band, because no John Bonham, no Led Zeppelin, it’s as simple as that. He was so integral, to have gotten someone else would have made it more of a tribute band, if you were playing Led Zeppelin songs, because anyone else would have to be in his shadow all the time. However, he died at a time when there was like a new lease on life, a new awakening in Zeppelin. Punk had severely embarrassed us [laughs]. We’d stripped down and just went, [shrugs] "Oh, OK, right. This is over, off we go again." It was a very hopeful time, despite the darkness of having lost John. That was terrible. So, yes, [had he not died] we would have gone on and… who knows what would have happened.

[construkction]

[INTRO POST !!]

Hello !! This is a sideblog of mine (go follow me on my main .postal-on-my-dude) where I only post about being Diavolo and kinning from JoJo.

I have a lot more info on my other blog but I’ll just keep it brief here /silly

[Warnings/BYF]

I post about gore a lot

I have (highly suspected) ASPD and professionally diagnosed autism

I’m not well mentally. I do not need comfort

If we’re sourcies I wont hold anything against you for canon :3

The deathloop and jokes about it make me uncomfortable to think or hear about, but you can bring it up

In addition to being fictionkin, I’m also alterhuman !!

I say kys and make death threats as a joke

I make fun of friends and moots in a loving way, so if that makes you uncomfortable feel free to leave lmao

[Dni and Big Interests]

DNI if TERF/radfem, radfem/radqueer, endo system supporter, anti communist or anarchist, pro para, proship/comship/anti-anti, truscum/transmed, and anti neopronouns and xenogenders. Also if you claim to have delusional attachments and relate them to the kin community in any way DNI as well ^_^

My common interests are gore, corpse decomposition, true crime (I’m not one of the annoying ones though I swear), cannibalism, forensic biology, SCP, Slenderverse, Homestuck, Undertale, Bugbo, The Magnus Archives, Moral Orel, internet horror, rabbit holes, King Crimson, Robert Fripp, Progressive Rock, and other stuff too.

And thats about all ^_^

[christarfield]

sorry Robert Fripp but i love burning cds. I’m not paying money for all of that

[krispyweiss]

Where’s the Golden Earring? In the “Sunday Lunch” Kitchen Sink, Perhaps

Radar?

Check.

Love?

Uh-huh.

Golden earring?

Yes.

And no.

New episode of “Sunday Lunch?”

Totally.

In which Toyah Willcox and Robert Fripp play Golden Earring’s not-forgotten song and Brenda Lee is nowhere to be seen.

Or heard.

Just Toyah. And Robert. And something else coming on strong.

“Ooh, I’m picking up BBC,” says she, wielding an antenna.

“I’d believe anything from this kitchen,” sayeth he.

5/28/23

[emoishcatgirlfriend]

Thanks for the lime on my pic!!!😉 Your page is awesome! I’m a musician too! Not full time sadly! Who is your favorite guitarist? Cute feet too!😊

No problem nwn 🖤 Thanks!

As for the guitarist, hard to pick just one. I really like Mike Oldfield, I think he's underated as a player, just like Frank Zappa. I like Roine Stolt, founder of The Flower Kings, as well. Robert Fripp from King Crimson is also one of my inspirations, and even if not as technical, I love the way Steven Wilson plays. Those are the ones that I know great part of their work and actively follow, though, since my main instrument are the keyboards, I pay more attention to keyboardists xP. Who are your favorites?

Also, thanks u///u. If I'm honest, I'd like to show them more but since my blog is a little more focused on music and aesthetic stuff I feel it's not as appropriate and I don't want people to see something they may not be expecting. Idk, maybe I'm overthinking haha.

[mr-craig]

Since there was no response to those music asks I posted the other day, here’s all my answers anyway, just for the hell of it.

Your favourite album opener: Perhaps my favourite album of all time is Pony Express Record, by Shudder to Think. The opening track, Hit Liquor, is surely one of the boldest, weirdest ways to start a major label rock album. A single snare, then you’re hit by some of the gnarliest, most dissonant chords of the ‘90s. It took time for this album to grow on me, but now there’s no getting rid of it. And with this for an opening track, the album sets a very clear mission statement — which it lives up to. (Honourable mentions to So What by Miles Davis, Giant Steps by John Coltrane, Better Git It In Your Soul by Charles Mingus, Sea Song by Robert Wyatt, The Perfect Me by Deerhoof, All I Want by Joni Mitchell, Uncontrollable Urge by Devo, and so many more I could name if I was able to browse my collection as I write this.)

A song starting with the same first letter as your first name: Absenter, by Jawbox. (This is the 7” single version, not the redone version for the album. I had that single, but I sold it along with the rest of my vinyl collection when I moved. It’s one of only a few things I used to have on vinyl that I can’t seem to get a digital copy of. That and a Robert Fripp album that goes for silly money on CD these days.)

A song outside of your usual genre: I don’t really have one “usual” genre (as evidenced by my answers). That said, I’m generally not a follower of mainstream pop, but Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen is irresistible.

A song that reminds you of your favourite season: I like the transitional seasons — spring, when the winter is thawing and nature comes back to life; and autumn, when the leaves turn all those beautiful colours. (And, not entirely coincidentally, when the temperature is more moderate, neither sweltering nor freezing.) For spring I’ll say April in Paris, played here by Thelonious Monk. For autumn, it’s gotta be Autumn Leaves, particularly this version by Cannonball Adderley.

A song from a lifelong favourite artist: I first became a fan of the Beatles at age 9. Nearly 30 years later, I still love their music. Picking the artist is a no-brainer. The specific song, however… Because of the memories of singing it in harmony with my Mum, I’ll say Nowhere Man.

Your current “on repeat” song: Literally the only songs I play on repeat are my own when I’m working on them. Generally I prefer to listen to whole albums. The same song twice in a row annoys me unless I’m in work mode. (STAR STUFF OUT NOW ON BANDCAMP.)

A song your friend introduced you to that you ended up loving: My friend Den and I have a running joke that it takes me at least 5 years to start liking his recommendations. For example, he showed me Break Up Your Band by Chavez one day. Years later I re-played it and went “oh, actually this is amazing”, bought all their music (all two of their albums…) and became an ardent fan. (The music sounds like so obviously my kind of thing, I don’t know why I didn’t just love it immediately. My reactions are slow, okay?) A more recent example, my friend Mike got me to appreciate Peg by Steely Dan (after he pointed out how it was sampled by De La Soul in Eye Know). I had always written them off as airless, slick, MOR crap. Turns out they’re actually fun. (Slick still stands though, but turns out it’s a good slick.)

A song that speaks the words you couldn’t say: I Think It’s Going to Rain Today, by Randy Newman. (Especially the solo performance from his Songbook album.) It stirs up a deep sadness in me, a melancholy too strong and too deep for words.

A song that captures your aesthetic: Do I even have an aesthetic? If I do it’s probably normcore or something. I don’t like to call attention to myself visually. I’m not sure that’s captured in a song, at least not one I can think of.

A song about the place where you live: I’m not sure there are many songs about my specific little town, but my nearest city (Oxford) has inspired a few. Strange Ones, by Oxford’s own Supergrass, is inspired by the Cowley Road, where some of my favourite music venues and shops are/were.

A song by an international artist: Everybody is an international artist, are they not? 🤔 But to pick an artist who is from somewhere other than the UK (where I’m from) or the US (the most over-represented country in my collection) and who sings in a language I don’t speak — the brilliant Juana Molina is from Argentina, and Eras is a particularly excellent song.

A song you can scream all the words to: I don’t have the lung capacity for screaming, but I know all the words to a fair few songs. (Though I can be quite forgetful on stage, ahem…) How about A New England, by Billy Bragg?

A reboot of a song/songs you already loved (remix, mashup, acoustic, etc.): I’m not sure I fully understand this question, I’ve never heard a song called a reboot in my life. Does this include cover versions? I’m going to assume it does. So, a cover version I like while also liking the original… Stevie Wonder’s version of We Can Work It Out, originally by the Beatles.

A song with the name of a place in the title: California, by Joni Mitchell. This is a live performance from the BBC in 1970. If you only click one of these links, make it this one.

A song that reminds you of travelling: I spent the first 20-something years of my life compulsively listening to music on headphones whenever I was in the car, so certain albums remind me of certain times, places, trips… I remember listening to Joanna Newsom’s first album while on a family holiday in Scotland, watching the hillsides go past the window. The Sprout and the Bean is my favourite track from that album. (Still can’t get my head around the fact she’s married to Andy Samberg!) Also Secrets by Mission of Burma reminds me of watching raindrops crawl up the windscreen while we drove along the motorway in the rain. I can’t remember the destination or the year, just that image.

Your favourite childhood song: I’m not sure I could pick — but according to my parents, the first thing they ever heard me sing along to was Hip To Be Square, by Huey Lewis and the News.

A song that reminds you of a good time: Seeing the Bad Plus with Wendy Lewis in 2010 remains the best gig I’ve ever attended. I still remember the moment after they’d just played Radio Cure (originally by Wilco) and my dear friend Alan (sadly now departed) turned to me and said a single, awestruck word: “Amazing.” It truly was.

A song that reminds you of a bad time: I was listening to Fuck This Band by Mclusky when my car was hit head-on by another car mistiming their overtaking manoeuvre. That was pretty bad. (“Fun” fact: My headphones flew off but my glasses stayed on.)

A song from an artist whose old music you enjoy more than their new music: Honestly that’s most artists up to a point. But to name a band I adored as a teen, but who I’ve completely ignored since they reformed… Stand Inside Your Love, by Smashing Pumpkins. (From the last officially released album they made that I bothered with.)

A song that empowers you: I empower my own damn self.

A song from a local artist: Snow, by my lovely friends in Lucy Leave.

A song you related to in the past and present, but for different reasons: No idea how to answer this one, sorry. (I guess the obvious answer would be Father and Son, by Cat Stevens, but I could relate to both sides at any given moment, so…) Instead, how about a song I liked for a long time, but didn’t relate to until later? Dead of Winter, by Eels, written by the singer about losing his mother to cancer. Always a touching song, but my teenage self had no idea how much I would relate to it when, almost 20 years later, I lost my Mum to cancer too.

Your favourite cheesy pop song: I think I already mentioned Call Me Maybe. Cheesiness is subjective (and it’s generally not a quality I appreciate, even in detached irony)…. But damn this is such a charming song.

A song from a soundtrack (musical, movie, video game etc): I Know Things Now, from the original Broadway cast recording of Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods. I could’ve picked so many Sondheim songs, I’m not sure why this was the first through the door of my imagination… but I’ll take it.

The song currently stuck in your head (or the song you’re listening to right now): I’m currently listening to Igor Stravinsky’s Petrushka, performed by the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by Pierre Boulez.

A song that taught you a lesson: James K. Polk, by They Might Be Giants, taught me about the political career of James K. Polk, eleventh president of the USA. “In 1844, the Democrats were split…”

An instrumental song: How about an entire instrumental album? Live From A Shark Cage, by Papa M (aka David Pajo). I’m particularly fond of Arundel, but the whole album is beautifully sombre, understated, and well worth your while.

A song you always skipped, but ended up loving it once you listened to it: When I first got Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band on cassette when I was a kid, I always wound on past “that weird Indian-sounding one” at the start of side two. Now I’d say Within You Without You is one of my favourite tracks on the album. It always pays to relisten to the skippable tracks every few years, your opinion may have changed. (Doubt I’ll ever love Don’t Pass Me By, though…)

Your favourite album closer: Another tough question but the one that springs to mind is In Your Eyes, by Peter Gabriel, the last track of So… as long as you’re not listening to the original vinyl version, which had a different tracklist to the CD because of reasons.

Your all-time favourite song: I have absolutely no idea how to judge that. But perhaps the song that has come to mean most to me is Rainbow Connection. I’ve been performing my own cover of the song for years, to the point that it feels like “mine”. My friends Ben and Poppy shared their first dance to it at their wedding, which was a great honour. And my Mum chose it to play at her funeral. There are songs I might think are technically better, but nothing will be as meaningful to me personally.

[amelioid]

I love king crimson so much and you know what Robert Fripp has earned whatever the hell it is he’s been doing lately, I’m not exactly sure.

[toyahinterviews]

TOYAH AND ROBERT ON VECTIS RADIO, ISLE OF WIGHT WITH NIK AND KIEREN 18.6.2023

KIEREN THOMSON: We’re in the quite a wet marquee, on Sunday afternoon. Myself and Nick are speaking to the amazing Toyah Willcox and Robert Fripp. Good afternoon TOYAH: Hello! How are you? KIEREN: I'm very well. How are you? TOYAH: We're good! We’re pretty high spirited at the moment, which is fantastic ROBERT: Superb audience. I very much enjoyed playing. I was in the mood to rock out today and I think got the chance to do so TOYAH: Yes, we're a guitar band and the audience totally got it, which was lovely. We saw people, who looked as if they travelled from all over the world. Robert is really big in Japan and (to Robert) you didn't see this but I think most of the front row had come from Japan see you (laughs) ROBERT: Ah! TOYAH: I get to see these things ROBERT: You see, I'm really focused on my wife, the playing and the band. Toyah interacts directly with the audience for me. It would distract me from my counting and the next bars. So I listen to my wife afterwards and she tells me whether we went down or not NIK ATTFIELD: You've always had such an amazing energy on stage. I saw you many years ago and you were such an influence on my young life. I'm so amazed. It's brilliant that you guys are together - TOYAH: That I can still move! (laughs) NIK: No, not at all. It's so brilliant that you're still bringing new things musically etc. You performing together came about because of lockdown? TOYAH: Lockdown was so successful for us with the “Sunday Lunch” brand (on YouTube) Over 111 million people visiting. We're touring the “Sunday Lunch” in October. We’re playing music that we feel plays us. This is music we grew up with. Music we love   We discovered through “Sunday Lunch” that the audience loves it too. So we're going out on the road doing classics that really fire us up. We're having as much a party as the audience is     NIK: Which is amazing, great fun. Do you think if it hadn't been for “Sunday Lunch” you would've ever done this together? 

TOYAH: No

ROBERT: I don’t think so, no

NIK: You’ve got one of the most famous marriages in rock and roll. You've been together a long time and had a lot of time apart, I imagine, travelling the world in your separate careers

TOYAH: I think we’d still be having time apart if it wasn't for lockdown. Robert is on the road at least three times a year. I work mainly UK, some parts of Europe but we're never in the same country

NIK: So a great opportunity to bring you together and see that talent together

ROBERT: (shouts) Yeah! Yeah! Did I sound enthusiastic? Yeah!

NIK: Yeah, absolutely!

KIEREN: You're doing “Paranoid”, “Are You Gonna Go My Way". An amazing track “Rebel Yell”

ROBERT: Oh, there’s a few you haven’t heard yet

TOYAH: “Enter Sandman”, "Kashmir”. We didn't have long enough today  

KIEREN: You've got the tour, the opportunity to do a little bit more. You're playing around the UK. You're excited to do that? TOYAH: Yeah KIEREN: Maybe less wet? TOYAH: Glastonbury next Sunday KIEREN: In a more wet month TOYAH: Yeah, but we're in a tent. Then October is the “Sunday Lunch” tour. So we're optimistic NIK: Thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure to meet you. And we just love you on Vectis Radio TOYAH: Thank you ROBERT: Thank you LISTEN to the interview HERE

[ringofripp]

Sorry for not posting in so long… I still love Robert Fripp so don’t worry!

[desertsquiet]

Top 5 music collaborations?

5) George Harrison & Bob Dylan

I think you’ll appreciate this pick. In my experience, a songwriting collaboration between two very big names doesn’t necessarily mean a good song will come out of it, but clearly this is not the case. The perfect song to open a perfect album.

4) David Bowie, Brian Eno, Robert Fripp

David Bowie and Brian Eno’s “Berlin trilogy” is one of the most famous and rightly celebrated musical collaborations we’ve ever had. I could have chosen many different tracks from all three of those albums, but here yet another musical giant gets added to the mix. Robert Fripp’s beyond iconic guitar tone (and riff) help make this song the experimental pop masterpiece it is.

3) Peter Gabriel & Kate Bush

This endlessly touching, beautifully written Peter Gabriel song wouldn’t quite have the same power if it wasn’t for Kate’s almost whispered, pleading vocals on the chorus. Gives me chills every single time. Two of my very favorite 80s artists coming together to produce some magic.

2) Nick Cave & P.J. Harvey

I’ll admit I’m not very familiar with P.J. Harvey’s music but the pair she and Nick make (I believe they were actually dating at the time) is just too good to be true! So wonderfully creepy, dark and sexy at the same time. And of course their beautiful duet should be on a murder ballad based on a folk traditional. Love it. Relationship goals 😂

1) Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris

How shocking, I know. The more I listen to Emmylou Harris, the more she is a mystery to me. How can someone with such a strong, distinctive lead voice also be one the best harmony singers that ever lived? I want to mention that this album was supposed to be credited to “Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris” and have a picture of them together on the cover. Gram’s widow Gretchen was so jealous of their relationship she had Emmylou removed from the credits and replaced the photo with one just of Gram. Nice try. What she couldn’t do, however, was deny the musical fireworks these two created every time they sang together.

[thegoddessofdarknessan]

Progvember 24

Oh, I’ve been waiting for this one alright. My own freakishly insane monster of a Prog supergroup. My love for keyboards and Japanese prog is gonna be on full display. And while I’m at it, why not create many supergroups!?

Supergroup 1 – Onslaught

-Keith Emerson (ELP) – Keyboards

-Keiko Kumagai (Ars Nova [JAP]) – Keyboards

-Nobuo Endoh (Social Tension) – Keyboards

-Toshio Egawa (Gerard [JAP]) – Keyboards

-Jannick Top (Magma) – Bass

-Christian Vander (Magma) – Drums

What’s better than four absolute keyboard juggernauts going ham on Hammonds and synths, while one of the best rhythm sections in Prog backs them up? I imagine the four keyboardists taking turns at soloing to their maximum capacity; the menacing aura of Jannick Top’s bass and Keiko Kumagai’s synths, the virtuosity and epic nature of Keith Emerson and Nobuo Endoh’s playing, the gigaton rhythms and meteorite-like soloing of Christian Vander… This would just be my personal heaven of a supergroup.

Supergroup 2 – Rotten Hyacinth

-Robert Fripp (King Crimson) – Guitar

-Suma Kunio (Bi Kyo Ran) – Guitar

-Nicklas Berg (Morte Macabre) – Bass

-Tozé Almeida (Tantra [POR]) – Drums, Percussion

Robert Fripp and Robert Fripp but japanese, these two guitarists are pretty similar, and are both absolutely god-like. Trying to find a rhythm section that would fit, I found Nicklas Berg, an awesome guitarist, with some of the most inspiring riffs I’ve heard since Jannick Top compositions graced my ears. To finish it all, I found Tozé Almeida to be a good choice, great grooves to accompany the bass, and absolutely masterful playing, matching the guitarists in intensity and madness.

Supergroup 3 – Rugh Di Ëktah

-Alain Ballaud (Shub Niggurath) – Bass

-Jean-Luc Hervé (Shub Niggurath) – Piano, Organ, Harmonium

-Kirt Rust (Weidorje) – Drums

-Jean-Luc Manderlier (Magma) – Piano, Organ

-Takahiro Hizutani (Happy Family) – Guitar

-Himiko Paganotti (Magma) – Vocals

-Antoine Paganotti (Magma) – Vocals

With a name like “The Goddess Of Darkness”, I just couldn’t resist making a Zeuhl band. Starting with the band that has made, quite literally, the darkest music I have ever heard in my entire life, Shub-Niggurath; especially the bassist and keyboardist, who work with each other perfectly to create the musical equivalent of opening the gates of hell (especially in one of my favorite songs, Cabine 67). But I decided that it was better to stray away a little from the avant-garde genre, and go back to a more comprehensible Zeuhl, therefore I picked Kirt Rust, for his simplistic yet powerful drumming, perfect to complete the rhythm section, along Takahiro Hizutani’s crunchy and violent guitar. Not enough power, not enough darkness… Needing more Zeuhl, I turned to the classics, Magma. I chose the keyboardist from the timeless MDK, who, to me, strikes a good balance between the elements I am looking for. To finally seal the deal, I added two of Magma’s vocalists; vocals are a staple of french Zeuhl, after all.

Oh, by the way, Rugh Di Ëktah is Kobaïan for “Crush the Hero”, I gotta be edgy like that.

Supergroup 4 – Polar Easterlies

-Thijs Van Leer (Focus) – Keyboards, Flute

-Attila Kollár (Solaris [HUN]) – Keyboards, Flute

-Kazuhiro Miyatake (Pageant) – Flute, Acoustic Guitar

-Hiroko Nagai (Pageant) – Vocals

-Mike Sergeant (Quarteto 1111) – Bass

-Ramon Galarza (José Cid) – Drums

Whew, after the insanity of the three previous bands, here’s one to catch a little break. I remembered calm and beautiful songs by Focus, like Janis, Love Remembered; by Solaris, like Ha Felszáll a Köd, Moment Of Truth… But a two man band making cute little songs isn’t interesting enough, therefore I decided to have some symphonic Prog members join in. I chose Pageant members, because I couldn’t resist having a third flute (I almost added a fourth flute, but calmed down), as well as one of my favorite vocalists ever, Hiroko Nagai, adding an incredible epic atmosphere to any composition. Now I just had to complete the band, therefore I looked for the thing I love most after japanese Prog: portuguese Prog. I looked no further than the bassist on my favorite song ever, Cantamos Pessoas Vivas, and the drummer on an album my nerdy-sci-fi-loving-self can’t resist listening to over and over.

And here we go, that’s all of them. Handpicking musicians and throwing them in a blender together sure is fun. I try to make it so every band sort of made sense, but I didn’t care that much for realism; having a good time dreaming is fun.

[doomedandstoned]

NOTHING IS REAL

Interview by Reek of STOOM

This week we meet the fellow behind those kick-ass riffs we've been feasting on lo these many years: Mr. NOTHING IS REAL himself!

The Los Angeles based one-man band (dare I say composer?) is taking the medium of doom and metal itself to new, imaginative heights. It's something evident in all of his albums, each of which experiments with striking concepts buttressed by deep and imaginative choices in instrumentation and style.

Check out his latest work, 'Transmissions Of The Unearthly' (2021), which was released just this week -- featuring drummer Jeremy Lauria -- as Reeky chats it up with the man, the myth, the legend...Nothing Is Real.   (Billy)

Transmissions Of The Unearthly by Nothing Is Real

You're a proficient multi-instrumentalist. Tell me about your musical background.

I have been playing guitar since I was 8. I originally wanted to play bass because I thought it was the "heaviest" instrument. I soon found I wanted the extra strings and options available on guitar and took lessons until about 16. My teacher dropped me because of my marijuana and drug use (I should have heeded his warnings). I was very much into psych and experimental at the time, but gradually started getting into heavier doom and black metal stuff. I feel I can play any genre of music at this point in my life.

Who were your main influences and how did you come to be writing avantgarde music?

I think the first people that really influenced me as a 14 or 15 year old kid, when I was starting to really write my own songs and play in bands, were Robert Fripp of King Crimson, Larry LaLonde of Primus, and Omar of The Mars Volta. The dissonant and bizarre notations they would use were things I had just not ever heard any other guitarists do and it really opened my mind to stretching what was done traditionally on a guitar. Those "weird" and bizarre notes really resonated with me and that level of dissonance and strangeness is something I hold dear to my heart when composing music. John Coltrane was also a huge influence on me back then from his Love Supreme work onwards. From there, I have delved into the much more weird world of avant garde metal and classical music, but those left the longest impression on me as a developing musician.

How do you perform live? Do you use a constant pool of go-to artists or is it purely improvised?

Nothing is Real has still yet to ever play live. However this newest album Transmissions of the Unearthly was recorded live and completely improvised with a great drummer in my area so we may be seeing some live shows on the horizon. I think each show or tour would have to focus on one particular album due to the huge variety of sounds and tunings that I implement on each record (none really are alike).

Only The Wicked Are Pure by Nothing Is Real

How do you think N.I.R. fits into the Underground?

I wanted to carve a unique path with Nothing Is Real. My main goal for this project was to be able to have the ultimate freedom to do whatever the fuck I want with no limits and that is exactly what I have done. However if I had to "fit" it into the underground it is always bordering doom in some element or another. I would also categorize it as firmly avant-garde or prog due to the wide scope of sounds and long song lengths.

Do you have any favourite instruments?

Guitar is my main instrument, so I must say I love it dearly just due to my knowledge of the fretboard. However, I really love drums and feel they are hugely important in any energetic or heavy music. I also love piano and keys due to the huge range of emotions and sounds they can convey. I'm definitely partial to the saxophone as well due to its incredibly vocal nature, and bass is an underrated and immensely important instrument for a band. I really just love music as a whole and anything that can move me emotionally with its sound.

How long did the album take to complete and master?

Transmissions was recorded live over the course of two days completely improvised with myself and my guest drummer Jeremiah. I ran two massive amp stacks at once and Jeremiah had a massive beastly kit and somehow we perfectly clicked and were able to spontaneously write these songs. The hard part came later when I had to cut up these massive sessions into specific songs and relearn everything to overlay bass and backing and lead guitars to it. That with the vocals, lyrics and mixing took 2-3 months, most likely -- longer than it takes me on most albums (this was daily work of at least four hours.) After I had my final mix I sent it to my good friend Will at Dead Air Studios, who churned out an amazing master in less than 2 weeks. This is the first time I have had a Nothing is Real album mastered and I am very happy with the results.

What's next in the pipeline?

I work on so much stuff it is honestly hard to keep track of it all at this point. I can say I have just started writing for the next Nothing is Real album, and I have written two songs. I am trying to take my time, because I am getting an amazing custom amplifier from Science Amplification that I am dying to use on these songs. However, I am a very impatient person so we will have to see how that goes. I am planning to continue the live drummer trend and use Jeremiah and my friend Jared, both whom I've worked with extensively with two drummers on the album -- one for the proggy and slow parts and one for heavier and more metal-oriented parts. I also aim to employ a wide variety of synthesizers and soundscapes on this album so I am very excited to see how it turns out.

Which album is your particular favourite and why?

This is so hard for me to choose, because each album is a completely different concept, theme, and all. I have to say I love them all for achieving what they set out to do. I do feel the composition and atmosphere on Symphony Mysterium has to be objectively the best due to the thought put into it. However, Give Me Your Energy has a special place in my heart due to being my first, and that many of the songs were very powerful being written at a time of great transition and self-exploration for me when I was in rehab getting clean from my decade-long heroin addiction. Those songs will be close to my heart forever.

I want to thank everyone who has supported Nothing Is Real either recently or like you, Reek, since the beginning. Music is my greatest passion and it blows my mind that people actually enjoy the bizarre shit I come up with. Thank you all!

Symphony Mysterium by Nothing Is Real

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[ryanhamiltonwalsh]

“Hammond” - The Roches

File Under: But What Is The Song Actually About?

Released by Warner Brothers in 1979, the song features stunning sisterly blood harmonies and the most perfectly out-of-place Fripp guitar solo of all time. Lyrically, the song seems to present a parental warning to their (mostly) grown children & the children’s rebuke, but the specifics of the song are never quite explained. Where is Hammond and why is it a path to the wrong track? Here’s what I found:

In 1970, Maggie and Terre attended Paul Simon’s songwriting seminar at NYU. Two years later, they called him up and asked to audition for him. Simon was impressed enough to have them sing backup on There Goes Rhymin’ Simon, and he also introduced them to his lawyer, who negotiated an album deal with Columbia. Seductive Reasoning, an interesting, uneven record, which had four producers, was released in 1975 to resounding public indifference.

Devastated, Maggie and Terre retreated for several months to a friend’s kung-fu temple in Hammond, Louisiana, where, in Maggie’s words, “a lot of people went to learn how to beat people up.” When the temple dissolved, they drifted back north and into performing again. - Rolling Stone

Huh. Well, that’s unexpected, right? Louisiana? A Kung Fu Temple?

Suzzy Roche to Slate in 2020:

I mean, the song is a story, but, well, imagine Terre had met this guy who had a Kung Fu temple, as you do in Hammond, Louisiana.

And by the time I was was down there, when I arrived in the middle of the night by Greyhound bus, I realized quickly it was an abandoned telephone company building. And there were all these guys there who were studying Kung Fu. And us and Maggie and I had jobs at a truck stop and Terry was working at the Magnolia Diner. And I really cannot tell you how strange it was, is very extreme. But needless to say, my parents were not terribly thrilled about the whole thing. And I think that that song, the Hammond song, has to do with that.

Terre weighs in:

“We were humiliated,” Terre added. “We wanted to get out of the whole situation. We had a friend in Hammond, Louisiana, who was running a Kung Fu school. We gave up our apartment and told the record company, ‘We’re not going to promote the record anymore; we’re going away for a while.’ This was two weeks after the record came out. Maggie wrote the ‘Hammond Song’ about the whole experience.”

Cursory searches for more information about this Kung Fu temple in an abandoned telephone company building yielded nothing. Same with Magnolia Diner. So what about the town itself? Hammond highlights from its Wikipedia entry:

The city is named for Peter Hammond (1798–1870), the surname anglicized from Peter av Hammerdal (Peter of Hammerdal) — a Swedish immigrant who first settled the area around 1818.

During the Civil War, the city was a shoe-making center for the Confederate States Army.

The city later became a shipping point for strawberries, so a plaque downtown gave it the title of "Strawberry Capital of America."

During World War II, the Hammond Airport (now Hammond Northshore Regional Airport) served as a detention camp for prisoners of war from Nazi Germany.

The city was the home base for production of the first season of the NBC television series In the Heat of the Night, starring Carroll O'Connor.

Shoes, strawberries, and Nazis. Got it. Ok, so how did Fripp get involved? His own account from August, 1979:

RF: Originally, I'd been in..., I visited The Kitchen Arts and Video Center in Soho and John Rockwell was there, the critic from The New York Times. He introduced himself and I said... would he recommend anyone I should go and see? And he said, "Go and see The Roches." So I went to see The Roches at The Bottom Line not long aftrewards, they were there a few days later. Fell in love immediately, remarkably impressed. Since they were obviously so talented and seemed to be fairly innocent, I sensed that they were good canidates for being ripped, so I made one or two phone calls to make sure their affairs were being taken care of, which they were, and expressed interest in producing them should this arise. The Roches, for their part, felt that they needn't look for a producer, that when the producer came along, he would look for them. So eventually, I was interviewed by them for the job. They really gave me a grueling two hours, in which they said nothing. They simply said nothing.

RG: Just drilling you with questions?

RF: No, they said nothing. They just sat there and said nothing.

Delightfully strange. Terre says some King Crimson fans didn’t appreciate Fripp producing a folk act:

We were at that point every music career gets to where the honeymoon was over. The Roches had burst onto the music scene in 1979 with a shower of press infatuation rarely accorded a folk group. The unlikely pairing of King Crimson’s Robert Fripp, with his hard-driving English art rock, and the three singing sisters from New Jersey had caught the attention of music writers even before the album was released. Liz Rosenberg, our publicist at Warner Brothers, told us the press was calling her for interviews. She told us this was extremely unusual.

When the actual record came out, the momentum accelerated. The sound of three fairly soft voices and three acoustic guitars, with songs about waitress jobs, commuter trains and longing to be accepted by your parents,                    issued forth into the 1970s climate of disco fever like a drop of powerful medicine into a compromised bloodstream. Fripp, in an interview, put forth that people don’t realize gentle music can be revolutionary.      

Some of his fans were upset that he’d traded in bombastic male music for lily-white warbling so delicate you had to turn up the dial to hear it. “The Roches” was No. 1 on The New York Times’s list of the year’s best albums. We were on our way.

Cristgau loved it. Marcus hated it.

And that represents the bulk of relevant information I could find on “Hammond.”

I’ll add that I appreciate how the song is aware that it’s a song (a sub-genre I try to keep a running list of) and how it seems to serve as direct communication to The Roches’ actual parents. I wonder if they ever gave their daughters an answer or told them they were ok?

Do your eyes have an answer To this song of mine They say we meet again On down the line Where is on down the line How far away? Tell me I'm okay

The combination of a folk song structure, three part harmony, and a prog-rock guitar solo suggests a new kind of musical genre that never quite got off the ground. I wish there was more music that could live comfortably next to this song.

Please reach out to me if you ran the Kung Fu temple in an abandoned telephone company in Hammond, Louisiana. I have questions.

[dustedmagazine]

Jandek — Fort Worth Saturday (Corwood Industries)

You never know just what’s coming on a Jandek live album, of which there are now many. “I’ll keep a-walkin’, to myself I’m talkin’ …” It’s a bit of a stretch to posit that the Corwood rep has anything so prosaic as a sense of humor, especially as he’s laying down something somewhere between a belt and a moan on this Fort Worth concert from 2007. That said, there is some sly fun hanging just over the head of “Southern Blues” that also finds its way through the whole performance.

Has there been a study of the lyrical themes the Corwood poet revisits? Dystopian tableau in retrospect, restless travelogue through dystopian tableau, both in retrospect, courtly love song and its dejected opposite, beatified nature scenes and conversational fragments, with himself or otherwise, pervade his musings in a way that’s not quite story, not quite poem, not quite stream of consciousness and also, somehow, all of the above. This concert opens with a jovial kind of frame narrative, a party invitation from the Baroness of Lynchburg. The temptation is to see it as bordering on wish fulfilment, but why? It could simply be a fleeting vision of fountains, gardens and star-infused dancing. Does it all need to be doom and gloom? If Bob Dylan could slip a knock-knock joke into Love and Theft, why can’t the rep have a bit of fun? It can get subtle. Just listen to the way he sings the word “blues” at 3:21 into that second track! It’s going to end with a nice blues scale, it’s just got to, and then it doesn’t, kind of like Robert Fripp’s solo on the studio version of “21st Century Schizoid Man,” where he does everything to avoid the blues that drenches his concert performances. If the rep leaves the blues fans hanging on that gesture, his bandmates do not, especially the always wonderful Susan Alcorn, who slides and glides in, through, around and outside of each moment. The rep even injects a bit of snark into his declamation, later in the concert: “Don’t you leave no dirt round he-ah!” If the standard angst via confrontation is closer to what is required, no worries. Just head over to “Time Traveler” to dig deep into pantomime struggle, gender confusion and the loss of financial security — metaphorical of course — that it brings.

The gigging bands the rep pulls together are never less than fascinating and often inspiring, as is this one. Alcorn and stringsman Ralph White interact with subtle beauty on “Your Mysteries,” as they do throughout, and White’s banjo adds a cheekily percussive layer to Ryan Williams’ bass and Will Johnson’s drums as they set up a rock-solid groove ala Beefheart. The sound is excellent, as always with Jandek concerts. Every one of these performance documents has been at least fascinating, and many have been a real treat to hear, this one being no exception!  

Marc Medwin

[sinmv]

Frank Zappa and Robert Fripp?

frank:

Yikes, I Don’t See The Appeal || Not My Type || He’s Alright || I See The Appeal But I’m Different™ || Cute But On Alternating Wednesdays || He Has A Kind Face And That’s Good Enough || Pretty || Gorgeous || I— I Love? We Don’t Deserve Him. || gender. ||

bobert:

Yikes, I Don’t See The Appeal || Not My Type || He’s Alright || I See The Appeal But I’m Different™ || Cute But On Alternating Wednesdays || He Has A Kind Face And That’s Good Enough || pretty || Gorgeous || I— I Love? We Don’t Deserve Him.

[jazzmusician2]

The Best Guitarists Of All Time

Thinking of a rundown of the best guitarists ever can be a difficult assignment, as it is normal very emotional and thinking about that there are numerous types to browse like blues, jazz, rock, funk and old style. Discussing old style, the main guitarist that rings a bell is Andre Segovia. He was known as the "Expert of Classical Guitar". Moving from the traditional domain to wanderer jazz and flamenco, Paco De Lucia and Django Reinhardt ring a bell. I understand that I am bouncing around a considerable amount (posting the best guitarists is a bit of a continuous flow exercise) and I need to cover whatever number of my top picks here as could be expected under the circumstances.

I was vigorously impacted by the jazz combination guitarists of the seventies and eighties by craftsmen like Al Di Meola, John McLaughlin, Steve Morse, John Scofeild, Eric Johnson, Jeff Beck, Alan Holdsworth and Scott Henderson. In the straight-ahead jazz guitarist  world, a couple of my top choices are Wes Montgomery, Les Paul, Pat Martino, Joe Pass, Howard Roberts and obviously one of my untouched top choices: George Benson who later moved over to the Smooth Jazz and Pop Music world.

George began in his profession playing straight-ahead and bebop and was highlighted in the gathering of the incredible jazz organist, Jack Mc Duff'. He later proceeded to record a few independent collections with extraordinary achievement and is perhaps the most perceived and canvassed guitarists in jazz. One of George Benson's long-lasting melodic accomplices is Earl Klugh, who is an expert of the nylon string jazz styling. Charlie Christian was a jazz guitar pioneer who affected large numbers of the jazz guitar symbols including George Benson and Wes Montgomery! Wes Montgomery was a genuine melodic virtuoso, which as I would see it, could be the best jazz guitarist ever!

On the stone side of things, we have Jimi Hendrix, who was a genuine pioneer and significantly affected guitar players of a wide range of classifications and styles right up 'til today. I likewise need to make reference to Jimmy Page, Carlos Santana, Robert Fripp, Steve Howe, Richie Blackmore, Eric Clapton (who could likewise be viewed as a bluesman), Steve Vai and Joe Satriani. I could in a real sense go through a long stretch of time accumulating a rundown of the best stone guitarists and still not have the option to show them all!

I'm likewise an extraordinary enthusiast of the Los Angeles and New York studio meeting guitarists who played a wide range of styles and in different melodic circumstances. Larry Carlton is known as the expert of meeting work and was most popular for playing on notorious accounts with Steely Dan, The Crusaders and for TV shows like Hill Street Blues. Furthermore, Steve Lukather and Michael Landau were the top meeting guitarists on the LA studio scene in the eighties and nineties are still out there visiting and destroying the guitar neck! Another extraordinary studio guitarist (and one of my undisputed top choices) is Buzzy Feiten who has been performing as of late in Bette Midler's show in Las Vegas.

Another of my unsurpassed most loved guitarists has played the LA jazz, funk and combination studio scene for quite a long time and all the more as of late the blues scene. I'm discussing the unparalleled Robben Ford. I can't leave out the blues, which is the foundation of the greater part of the advanced guitar styles. Driving the way for different blues guitarists were any semblance of BB King, Buddy Guy, Albert King, Albert Collins, Freddy King, the rundown continues endlessly. I likewise need to recognize the bosses of blues guitar from the Mississippi Delta region that established the framework for present day blues, rock, R&B and soul music, however there are simply beyond any reasonable amount to list here! I feel that I may need to compose a subsequent article covering more incredible guitarists and any kinds that I might have forgotten about.