General Music thread 4

[Mudlark @mudlark]

@winston  @whisht

Thanks. I did wonder afterwards whether I should have gone with the Dusty Springfield cover, which is a better quality recording … and it’s Dusty Springfield!  But perhaps it was best to stick with the original.

[Whisht @whisht]

For music to episodes, I have a rule for myself that I’ll only post stuff I actually have.
Which is kinda limiting for the episode The Story and The Engine, as I seem to have only one album of Nigerian music!
hey ho.

Luckily its kinda funky

;¬D

We’ll start with something mellow.
This (to my ears) kinda sounds like a Fleetwood Mac song, reinterpreted, reimagined and re….markable! Why yes, it’s Ku Mi Da Hankan by The Elcados.
(Sadly I cannot find any lyrics to these fine choons).
Here’s something much funkier (and a bit harder) called Kenimania by Mono Mono.

But the one I’ll embed is Odenigbo by The Wings.
According to the sleeve notes (hence why I try and find stuff I actually have!)

“Odenigbo is an adaptation of an Igbo folkloric tale about a legendary Igbo hero, and is an invitation to the women to dance.”

Which is nice.
(sorry its so scratchy! I can’t find a version from the CD I have!)

(if I hadn’t any Nigerian music I’d have gone with Tom Waits because… I often do!)
Tom Waits – Barber Shop

[Whisht @whisht]

Well, for the episode The Interstellar Song Contest, I’ll look forward to everyone posting their own favourite Eurovison Song Contest songs!

;¬D

Obv need at least a link to Buck’s Fizz – Making Your Mind Up.

But I’m going to post this one for this episode – maybe it’s also a bonkers theory…??!?

:¬D

Cold Cold Heart – Hank Williams

[ScaryB @scaryb]

I’ve missed this section! (And all the other bits on the forum!). I like working away, takes me to lovely places, but it doesn’t always fit in with Who schedules 😛

@mudlark – LOVE your Lesley Gore pick for Robot Revolution – just perfect (tho I admit to bias as it’s one of my all time faves). Thank you.

Thanks also to @whisht – always spot on.

This has just hit the Youtube channels, apparently by public demand, LOL)

WARNING – it’s an earworm and a half!! And will drive you NUTS 😀

[ScaryB @scaryb]

Reminds me a lot of this classic…

[winston @winston]

@scaryb    That is most definitely an ear worm. Think I will wait till the morning to watch but thanks for the links. This place is great to escape to , a happy, timey-wimey place.

stay scary

[Whisht @whisht]

@scaryb – that classic Muppet song is an Everest to the foothills (or bogs!) of Dugga Doo!

Thanks for it though as its wonderful!!

:¬D

[Whisht @whisht]

So – for music for Wish World, here’s a couple.

I have a few more that I may litter here during the week.
;¬)

But today I’ll just post two.
One for Conrad’sVision of a 50’s world where women knew their place.
{ahem}
[sadly too many songs to pick from!!]

And this, a song from someone at the time who was progressive at least in terms of how he supported race relations.
And it just goes to show how deceptively attractive our vision of the future would be if we were given the ability to wish…

Or this if you’re hankering for Tony Bennet’s album version.

[Whisht @whisht]

A couple more for Wish World.

Both are quite soothing (but not quite poppy-soothing!)

Some beautiful Sheila Chandra singing in her unique Folk/Indian inflected fusion

And some more fusion of styles from John McLaughlin and Zakir Hussain

[Whisht @whisht]

Today, just one song inspired by Wish World.

It sits alone as it really sums up some of the fairytale aspects.

And Disney!

“Oh that Clock! That killjoy!”

:¬D

Tomorrow or Friday, maybe something for the Doctor Who Unleashed’s Wish World episode…
;¬)

[ScaryB @scaryb]

@whisht – what an amazingly eclectic music collection you have <3

Great choices as always. And the last one even has the colour scheme!! (Blue/yellow/splashes of dark red)

And very fitting for 1950s Wish World.

Now I may have to go and suck some lemons to counterbalance all that sugary sweetness. LOL. 😛

[Whisht @whisht]

ha ha @scaryb – I’m not trying to be eclectic, just searching my library for song titles with appropriate words (if only I listened to lyrics!!!)

;¬D

Now, the Unleashed episode for Wish World showed how the crew were bitten to pieces by midges for that enchanted forest scene.
I felt for them, but instantly this ear-worm sprang to mind.
I never saw the video for it until today, and watching and listening to it is just weird!
So it goes as a link to Four Tet’s “No more mosquitoes”.
Honestly they do better stuff, but probably not better stuff about being tormented by mosquitoes.
:¬D

But for Wish World I thought I’d also drop this one here.
It’s Conrad’s perfect world. It’s close to midnight…

Tomorrow I promise some more uptempo stuff for Wish World.
Honest.

[Mudlark @mudlark]

@whisht

Interesting. Are there any songs about midges? Midges in my experience are a million times more pestiferous than mosquitos, because mosquitos at least do you the courtesy of injecting anaesthetic when they bite even if the bites itch later, and  they don’t generally tend to attack in battalions. I have very unpleasant memories of working late on an excavation near a body of water, maddened by what felt like millions of biting midges in my hair until I was ready to rip my scalp off.

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

@mudlark

Re: midges, Mrs Blenkinsop reminded me of this love poem which she used to teach back in the day, by Anthony Hecht.

 

[ScaryB @scaryb]

@whisht @mudlark

I watched Unleashed too, and I felt for the crew! Midges are really the worst, evil wee critturs.

Are there any songs about them?

Of course there are!! A bit on the cheesy side but here you go:

Scottish legend Kenneth McKellar (“the midges, the midges, I’m no gonny kidyes, with teeth like piranhas, they’ll drive ye bananas…)

And this one (from award winning Scottish singer songwriter Bob Strachan (who appeared on the Voice UK 2023)):

Comes with a warning from the singer:

Now as this song comes to an end I hope that you did laugh

And now I’m sure you’re thinking that I am pretty daft

But the thing that I find funny is not the smile upon your cheeks

It’s that this song’s got in your head… and now you’ll be singing it for weeks

[ScaryB @scaryb]

And one more – which is what I started looking for…

In honour of The Big O (Omega! (thanks @ps1l0v3y0u ), sung by the actual Big O (Orbison), from David Lynch’s Blue Velvet. In Dreams – lots of wishes and weirdness, with Dean Stockwell miming for very disturbed gangster Frank (Denis Hopper), the end visuals playing about with fantasy worlds and the ‘underverse’.

[ScaryB @scaryb]

@blenkinsopthebrave

That’s beautiful. Hadn’t come across Anthony Hecht before.

[Mudlark @mudlark]

@blenkinsopthebrave

Many thanks for that; I hadn’t come across it before and it’s lovely.  And yes, midges are best contemplated from a distance, dancing in columns in the sun.

@scaryb

😀  Well midges are admittedly one of the few downsides of the Scottish countryside, so I should have realised that it was the Scots if anyone who would come up with songs on the subject

[Whisht @whisht]

Lots of midges content to catch up on (will comment in a few days time).

Just a couple of hours to the finale, so will post my last one for Wish World.
Slightly ties to the Interstellar Song Contest (ABBA) and of course, The Rani.

;¬)

Oh and @pufferfish – I owe you massively!
You mentioned Yo La Tengo and I went to look for an appropriate song… only to find I hadn’t ripped the few albums of their’s I have, onto my Walkman!
Have fixed that now but have to rush off.
Will post a nice one of theirs when I get more time.

Thanks again!!

:¬)

[mind you – how many other albums have I not ripped!! :¬o ]

[Whisht @whisht]

The Reality War probably deserves quite a few songs, but I’ll put these first two here until I think harder.

These were ‘mentioned’ in the episode (as it were).

When Anita (Time Hotel) spies GatDoc dancing with Rogue, we hear Astor Piazzola’s Libertango.

(I think) when GatDoc sees Mel again there is a shout of “like a bad penny!”

So here’s Rory Gallagher Bad Penny

and no, this isn’t just me yearning for more of Capaldoc!
;¬)

[Whisht @whisht]

Actually, The Reality War didn’t spring as many songs as I thought it would.

Unreal by UNKLE (perhaps a song for Conrad??) but not really.

Maybe La Realite by Mariam and Amadou?
But not really either.

Nice songs but not really summing up the episode.
Maybe because the episode was a bit harder to corral into something a song can encompass!

Lyrically this works better but… is a bit ‘harsh’.
Jigsaw Feeling – Siouxsie and the Banshees.

This is maybe best for focussing on a character who I never really warmed to, but felt for in this episode.
Ruby, My Dear by Thelonious Monk
Pretty sure its Coleman Hawkins on sax.
Also, its from the album with the best cover evah.
Thelonious could easily have been an American Doctor.
Oh yes.
But tonally completely wrong for this finale, unless you want music to recover from the bombast to.

So, in the spirit of RTD2 I’ll simply choose a crowd pleaser, one I’m sure I’ve posted in the past (probably on The Day of The Doctor) and just throw my hands up and say “its what they wanted!”

:¬D

[Whisht @whisht]

Now, indulge me.

For the season overall, I was thinking of storytelling, myths, fairytales etc.
But then this track popped up on my walkman.
After laughing about how the hell did I have that in my collection, I thought that maybe this series was also about Utopias…

I haven’t given this too much thought in case it dissuaded me from sharing this.

And this I really must share.

Its really icky, itchy yet… beautiful and child’s dreamland/ fairytale.

[Whisht @whisht]

and just catching up on stuff…

@blenkinsopthebrave – A midges love poem!
Wow – great to hear poetry here.

@scaryb – oh god.
Dagga Doo is bad enough, but I now have a Kenneth McKellar ear-midge!
;¬)

Though “Och aye the midges” by Bob Strachan might live longer!

;¬D

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

Re RTD2 in general… Buzzcocks: ‘What do you know?’ What, after all, do we know?

https://www.bing.com/search?q=youtube+what+do+you+know+buzzcocks&pc=EMMX04&FORM=EMMXA2&mkt=en-gb

…except not sure that worked… dumb overwrought lyrics and great brass anyway

 

[Whisht @whisht]

Hey @ps1l0v3y0u

Nice choice!
I’ll link it here (btw I just paste the Url from YouTube and that embeds it.

There’s a way to link text [link button above the field we type in] that also can work.
eg for this live version.

;¬)

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@whisht

Thank you!

You know, I have managed it in the past. You get an update you can’t call t’internet yer own!

Anyway, how was that ever only a b side?

[janetteB @janetteb]

It has been rather a while since I posted in here so hopefully this works. Probably the best i can do. It won’t show up as a window however.

The kids pointed this out to me tonight and I had to share it.

cheers

Janette

[Whisht @whisht]

Hi all – apologies for lack of being here but I hope you and yours are all well.

There was nothing for me to riff off this Christmas so I’ll simply add these crowd pleasers and beg forgiveness.

To get the gallery onside, some Tom Waits – Christmas Card From a Hooker

Mention of a doctor by Little Feat

But for all of us binging on xmas films on the tv while filled (nicely) with turkey, and mince pies… a version of Doctor Zhivago.
The best version!

:¬)

I truly do hope all of you are well.
Take care

[winston @winston]

@whisht  Thank you for another year of great music, some I had forgotten about and some that bring on the feels. I can’t wait to see what you bring to us next. Music we didn’t know we needed at just the time we need it.

I hope the next year is all that you hope for.

stay sunny

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@thane16 @dentarthurdent

Sorry, made a mess of that last post… half measures really won’t do. But perhaps an in depth discussion of PF belongs here.

Richard Wright was probably the most original of the five core players and wrote off-beat pop songs with Syd Barrett. He tried to continue in the same vein after Syd left but encountered much resistance from Waters and Mason. There again, rather like late Yardbirds, the demands of the music market no longer reflected PF’s live show. Fortunately, Floyd didn’t attract the attention of Micky Most. However, like many bands in 68-69, they realised the despised Tin Pan Alley business was actually quite demanding; they didn’t have many songs and (as above) didn’t rate Rick’s.

Nor were they as competent as their peers at improv. So they experimented: programatic music… the soundtrack albums (More, Obscured By Clouds, Zabriskae Point would eventually lead to elements of Dark Side), solo-writing (Ummagumma), orchestral collaboration with Ron Geesin (Atom Heart), and semi improvised programmed development (Meddle). They also spent an inordinate amount of time playing squash. The songs generally got longer.

And Roger eventually took over. Prior to that they produced some fascinating music… and made money too!

But it was The Dark Side got them on Learjets.

[winston @winston]

@ps1l0v3y0u  @dentarthurdent  @thane16     I was about 14 yrs old when my bestie called me on the phone(avocado green and attached to the wall) to announce the purchase of a new album. I went over to her house where we holed up in the basement bent over her portable record player and heard Dark side of the Moon for the 1st time. The 1st time of hundreds till we knew every word of every song on both sides of the album. Now whenever I hear any of the songs I am pulled back into that basement with my friend ,singing and giggling. Falling in love with Pink Floyd and beyond. It was a gateway album for us.

Isn’t music wonderful?

stay in tune

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@winston Your experience with ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ was similar to mine with ‘Pulse’ (which just happened to incorporate the whole of DSOTM as the second half, although the musical arrangements were different in many places).

In fact I’ve noticed there are many different versions of tracks on the Net, some official, some bootleg from various concerts, but all of them different. This goes for Pink Floyd and also Dire Straits, the other band I’m most familiar with, but I assume it goes for other bands as well. So much so that if I want to nominate my favourite track I have to also include the time and place of the performance.

I suppose they must have ‘composed’ and rehearsed each different variation before each tour. Though how the performers manage to make the music sound fresh and vital on the fifteenth consecutive night is something I’m in awe of.

@ps1l0v3y0u My familiarity with Pink Floyd is mostly post-Wall, post-Dark Side i.e. the Gilmour era. Though I keep meaning to dip into earlier Floyd but never find the time. I have wondered how much of the many, many variations in tracks over the years were improvised ‘on the night’. Probably not a lot, considering the precisely choreographed lighting effects.

@thane16 Thanks for that. I have actually come to notice and appreciate a full harmonious backing to musical pieces more over the years. (I’m still struggling to find the correct words 🙂

As an aside, it baffles me how we can ever ‘hear’ music. That is, if I load an MP3, into a visual editor like Audacity, I can stretch it out to see the individual ‘sine’ waves. (Actually a Fourier series). What you are seeing is the totality of the sound that hits your ears. But how the brain can take that complicated mush and separate out and recognise individual tones, sometimes even to the extent of recognising a particular singer by their voice, I find quite incredible. The mental effect music can have is less difficult to follow, that’s just psychology, which everyone knows is deep juju.    🙂

Vision is much easier to understand (he says, with Dunning-Kruger in full force)

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@dentarthurdent

Improv. Always fun to pontificate on something you never have a chance of doing…

Miles Davies could obviously improv and knew many fine musicians who could achieve exactly what he wanted. He also said he wanted to form a rock band because they made lots of money and the music was simple.

That is improv in rock and jazz is normally three/four musicians comping along while another shows their special moves. In any case, even the free sections consist of memorised phrases with some variation and occasionally altered sequencing. In the case of Cream the improvs do seem to have been truly ‘free’ but only because all three players were soloing simultaneously and loudly for inordinately long periods: I’m sure this was a result of Jack Bruce refusing to compose with Clapton and Baker, and so taking the lion share of the royalties.

Otherwise, the extension of rock songs after 67 was mostly about solos. Gilmour and Wright could do that of course. But this still didn’t solve PF’s issue about coming up with written material… in their opinion. Actually even Ummagumma is original, but they could and did do better. They obviously wanted to compose in a ‘non tin pan alley’ manner. Was that because of Soft Machine, Zappa and Crimson?

What they couldn’t hack was ensemble improv. Waters and Mason couldn’t read music and had to design ‘architectural charts’ to illustrate their ideas. PF collectively did well when responding to a pre-existing idea… like a film. Though they didn’t always appreciate the nervousness exhibited by the directors.

When it came to Meddle they composed independently in sections according to predetermined ideas and moods, then eventually knocked it together to write ‘Echoes.’ This is the song which starts with the sonar ‘ping’ of a piano fed through a Leslie cabinet, includes a nightmarish ‘whalesong’ section achieved by plugging a wah-wah pedal in incorrectly, and finishes with a white-noise sheppard/tone. Waters thought they should have sued Andrew Lloyd Webber over the theme of Phantom of the Opera. But this was in the 80’s: he had no money, had fallen with the band, and both they and ALW had probably lifted the same theme from a classical third party.

Early Floyd…

‘Piper’ is quirky literate pop songs + a bit of Space Rock.

‘Saucer’ has Remember a Day, my favourite Wright song, but the title track is a bit much. Perhaps I should listen to it again.

‘More’ is surprisingly good… some excellent straight forward songs.

‘Ummagumma’ is exceedingly uneven. Generally listeners favour the live disc.

IMHO ‘Atom Heart Mother’ is great: even, or especially, Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast.

‘Meddle’ might be just as good but it’s let down by a couple of duff songs at the end of side one.

‘Obscured by Clouds’ is as good as More. Interesting pygmy choir!

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@ps1l0v3y0u Thanks. That’s a lot to digest.

The reason I mentioned ‘improv’ was sparked by ‘On the Turning Away’. That has four sung verses, followed by nine guitar solo ‘verses’ (not sure what to call them, I expect there’s a word for them). Except that sometimes there’s eleven in the solo, or even thirteen. (There are plenty of videos on Youtube to choose from). I haven’t listened attentively to see if the backing is doing more than just ‘keeping the beat’, but I suspect they are.

You’ve reminded me to go looking on Youtube for earlier Floyd works. (So much easier these days when one doesn’t have to physically visit a record store or tolerate the vagaries of radio DJ’s!)

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@dentarthurdent

Yes. That’s enough Floyd.

Spotify is also excellent for sampling the unknown, just exceedingly parsimonious to the artist. I must listen to ‘On the Turning Away.’

If you are venturing into ‘The Tube’, there was an excellent BBC (?) compilation of Floyd films from Arnold Layne (I think) through to The Wall.

The Dave Gilmour‘s tribute to Rick Wright on Jools Holland, ‘Remember a Day’, was very moving.

[syzygy @thane16]

@winston oh, I love that!! We had a wall phone which I forever chatted on ensuring no one could call my parents at night! Ours was mango yellow. 😀

I remember a good friend across the street pulling out some Dylan & Cold Chisel (Cheap Wine, Forever Now), the latter which I’d never heard before (my parents were notorious haters of rock) & playing them in their attic late at night. We had to stick our heads close to the speaker to not wake the parents.

@ps1l0v3y0u @dentarthurdent generally, a solo section is called an instrumental verse when it matches harmony or form but a more general term, if it matches the length or style of the music, is instrumental break. I liked On The Turning Away but it’s been years since I gave it a listen? I’ll have to pull out that CD. I’m sure it’s buried in the foundations of our son’s room! 👿

Thank you for bringing up these lovely memories. Music is so intense that way. I’ve heard it’s called a Reminiscence Bump but I don’t know that term?

Puro.

 

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@thane16 @dentarthurdent

instrumental verse…

The Beatles did it with Yer Blues, unintentionally: maybe the engineer failed to plug in the vocal lead for the last verse or something (you can just hear Lennon on the background).

Starless by Crimson has a 3 verse ‘1st movement’. Sonata and through-composed are the two default positions for Crimso. Apart from improv. In this case, there’s a VERY odd third theme (in 13/8), with a lead guitar ostinato and extraordinarily percussion, before a final ‘workout’ including the first melody and the verse played by a cors anglais, I think.

 

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