Oldies and Oldies.

 You know you're getting old when songs you heard as a teenager when they were released are used to advertise an oldies show.  An example is Hall and Oates' "I Can't Go For That."  Ironically that song is older than what were labelled rock and roll oldies when it came out.  In 1981 Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock" was only 27 years old.  As I write this "I Can't Go For That" is 40 years old.

I suppose to a long of younger people it does sound like an oldie, with its early '80s production.

How Did I See This?

YouTube sometimes recommends some surprising stuff that reminds me of my youth, like the following video.

Even before listening to it I thought that I knew the song.  Sure enough once it started playing it was obvious I did, as a mangled version of the chorus has occasionally popped into my head for over 30 years.

Righeira were an Italian duo of Stefano "Michael" Rota and Stefano "Johnson" Righi.  "No Tengo Dinero," " I have no money" in Spanish, was released in 1983.  It was produced by the La Bionda brothers, a successful Italian act from the '70s who had gotten into record production in the '80s.

I assume the version of this video I saw was the shorter 3 some minute version.  How I saw it is a real good question, as Spanish language dance tunes weren't exactly big on the Canadian charts in 1983.  I assume the catchy video caught the attention of some Canadian video show producer, who played it simply because it looked cool.  No doubt it got stuck in my memory because it was something unusual for Canadian TV in the '80s.

Warning, May Be Addictive.

If you're into guitars and other stringed instruments check out Jake Wildwood's blog.  He does instrument repair in Rochester, Vermont, and works on everything from 21st Century electric guitars to late 19th Century banjos.  Lots of cool instruments with lots of good pictures are featured.  But be warned, you might spend hours slowly going through the entries, because there is so much to look at.

Maybe I Shouldn't.

Recently I stumbled across the Stingray Retro channel on my cable box.  All they do is play old videos from the '80s and '90s, with the occasional early 2000s vid thrown in for variety.  But I'm starting to wonder if I should be watching it.  I'll be sitting there, see a video from the '80s, and suddenly find myself filled with a mix of nostalgia and melancholy.  I remember a bunch of those videos, having watched them when I was a teenager, and it just reminds me the late '80s were 30 years ago already.  It's also sad seeing someone like Michael Hutchence, knowing he died too young.

One thing that's odd is the poor quality of some of the oldest videos.  They look like they were taken off someone's old VHS cassettes.  Did they come out of the vault at Muchmusic or something? 

Another One Passes.

Yet another rock musician from the '60s and '70s has died.  Keith Emerson was 71.  Emerson first came to public attention with the band The Nice before forming Emerson, Lake, and Palmer with bassist Greg Lake and drummer Carl Palmer in 1970.  Although the instrument had already been used on pop recordings Emerson was an early advocate for synthesizers in rock music, touring with a Moog modular synthesizer from the band's earliest appearances. ELP were successful for a number of years, but were often the whipping boys for the excesses of the progressive rock genre they were one of the biggest bands in.  After their breakup in 1979 Emerson would go on to do a number of film soundtracks, such as for Sylvester Stallone's 1981 thriller Nighthawks.  He would reunite with Lake in Emerson, Lake, and Powell in 1986, with Palmer in 3 in 1989, and with a reunited ELP in 1991.

In tribute here's the title cut from their second album, Tarkus. 

"I Heard The News Today."

There is probably nothing novel I can add to the stream of stories and tributes you'll see today.  But there is no way I could let the death of veteran record producer George Martin pass without acknowledgement.  Along with figures such as Sam Phillips and Berry Gordy it's fair to say the musical world would be a much different place, and my life with it, without him.  Without Martin's open mind and creativity the Beatles would likely have been a much lesser group than they became.

But Martin did more than produce the Beatles.  He produced numerous comedy records in the 1950s and '60s, including for British comedy greats such as Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan.  He worked with numerous pop and rock musicians, including the Beatles' Liverpool contemporaries Gerry and the Pacemakers, '70s soft rockers America, and jazz saxophonist Paul Winter.  He also had connections to the James Bond films, producing the theme song to Goldfinger, and scoring Live and Let Die. 

The past few months have not been good for the world of pop and rock music, with several prominent figures dying.  Hopefully this is the last such death we'll see for a long time to come.

Today's Cassettes, December 29. 2015.

Boy, it's been a long time since I've done one of these.  But tonight I broke out the cassette boxes and pulled out a couple.

First off was Future Memories(Live on TV) by Swiss keyboardist Patrick Moraz.  Moraz is best known for his brief stint as keyboardist for Yes, appearing on their Relayer album, and for his much longer stint with the Moody Blues.  Here Moraz plays various keyboards solo.  However I'm a bit skeptical of the claim this is totally live.  It was recorded in 1978, and there sounds like there's too much going on at times for one keyboardist with two hands to be doing it all given the technology of the time.

Cassette number two was Nada & Dakwah.  Although it's credited to Indonesian dangdut singer Rhoma Irama only side one features his vocals.  The tracks on side two are sung by female singer Noer Halimah.  Irama is one of the big names in the dangdut style.

Lemmy, 1945-2015.

I wasn't a Motorhead fan, but I couldn't let his death pass without acknowledging it.  It wasn't a huge surprise, since reports of his poor health had been circulating for a good while, and as the man himself sang he didn't want to live forever.  Unfortunately we're going to be seeing more and more of that generation of rock musicians passing away in the next few years.

A New Christmas Horror.

I don't know about where you are,  but in Saskatoon the malls have already started playing Christmas music.  As a result I heard a new horror the other day.  A dance version of "The Little Drummer Boy."

Whoever came up with that version,  you should be ashamed of yourself.

There Was More.

German singer Peter Schilling is a classic example of a one hit wonder(internationally at least).  His 1983 single "Major Tom(Coming Home)" was a major hit in various markets, including Canada and the US.  Nothing else Schilling released had any international impact.  But of course, being recorded in the album era, the song was part of an album, Error in the System.   "I Have No Desire" was another song on the album, and it's quite catchy.  The lyrics seem just as relevant in our era of 24 hour media saturation as they did in during the Cold War tensions of the early '80s.

The early and mid '80s were a good time to be a German group, with acts such as Trio, the Scorpions, Nena, and Alphaville making an international splash.  You could also include American Tony Carey as well, as his albums, under his own name and as Planet P Project, were recorded in West Germany with mainly German musicians.

To Close Out The Month.

Here's a piece of library music from one Steve Gray to mellow you out.  The Bruton Music library album it comes from is even called Relax.

Taylor Swift, The Next Merzbow?

Taylor Swift hit the Canadian iTunes chart this week with an 8 second clip of white noise.  Her record company is claiming this release was an accident.  Me, I think she's just testing the waters.  Soon, she'll be releasing albums of power electronics with Patty Waters style vocals, just watch.

There Are So Many Questions That Need To Be Answered.

Unfortunately many of them never will be.  For example, why have Mick Jagger and Iggy Pop never done a song together?

Cans-celled.

Uggh.  The left side on my Sony headphones has gone dead.  I assume the cord has just been stepped on or run over by my chair wheels one too many times.   I doubt I can take the earpiece apart to get at the wires, so it looks like a new pair is in my future.  They were just a cheap 50 buck or whatever pair, but they've served me well as I sat in front of my computer listening to hours of music every day.  I'm not even sure how old they are, as I have no idea what year I bought them. 

Accumulation.

Boy, do I ever have a lot of CDs in my bedroom.  I was just rehousing them, and I know I have more than I thought.  And that's on top of what I have elsewhere in the house. But I know that my collection is small compared to those of others.  In any case I really need to listen to them, instead of listening to MP3s on the computer.

You Can Keep "Bohemian Rapsody..."

...this is a superior Queen tune.

Today's Cassette, October 31, 2012,

Seems I'll get one more post in before month's end.  And it's a long overdue return of the Today's Cassette feature.

In the Sanyo tonight is Across The Universe, the major label debut by Minneapolis indie rockers Trip Shakespeare.  I'd read an article or two about them just before or just after they were signed, but it was some years later when I picked this one up from a cutout bin someplace.  The case even has a notch cut out of it, a sign it actually was a cutout, as opposed to a store just clearing out old stock.  Apparently the band were less than pleased with the final result, and it only sold 33 thousand copies.  The band would do 2 more albums for A&M before the label dropped them.  Guitarist/keyboardist Dan Wilson and bassist John Munson would later be members of Semisonic, who had a hit in 1999 (wow, it's that long ago) with "Closing Time."

Mark And Lou?

So, I'm sitting here listening to the Fall's 1990 album Extricate.  It was the first or second CD I bought way back in 1990, and it still plays.  I probably haven't listened to it in 15 or 20 years.  But it got me thinking.  What would happen if you put Lou Reed and Mark E. Smith in the same room with some instruments?    A songwriting collaboration?  Violence?  Smith has written some Lou Reed-ish lyrics, but Reed has never written something like "Arms Control Poseur."  I suspect their egos coming into contact would not be a good thing.

So Much Music...

...so little time to listen to it.  Someone could send me 10 recordings a day, every day, and I'm sure I'd never run out of things to listen to.

This is one of the things I was listening to tonight, the late jazz drummer Rashied Ali in a duet with a guitarist I was previously unaware of, Michael Bocian.  This reminds me I need to listen to some of the stuff in my current collection that I haven't in a long time.

I Question His Taste.

I must say I'm a bit disappointed with Mike Wilner after what I heard on today's Blue Jays pre game show on the Blue Jays Radio Network.  Today's Blue Jays-Orioles game is in a rain delay.  Over the PA system they apparently were playing "Here Comes The Rain Again" by the Eurythmics.  Wilner claimed it was the worst song of the 1980s.  Seriously?  Worse than some of the third rate hair metal that charted?  Or the more egregious of the schmaltzly power ballads that were so popular?  I don't think so, Mr. Wilmer.