Category: Music

Because I’m not the only one who’s going to suffer!

You’re welcome.

One of the unexpected perks of my job is finding music left in the CD ROM drives while re-imaging the PCs of employees who have left the company. Most of the time what I find is trash, but occasionally I run across something that I find interesting enough to listen to all the way through and become quite enchanted with.

Most recently it’s been Miles Davis’ Blue Miles.

Despite my long-time love of jazz, Mr. Davis has never really been on my radar. This album however, may provide the impetus to explore his music further. It’s proving to be my favorite morning commute soundtrack—especially since the local jazz station is in another one of their seemingly never-ending fund drives.

Music can do wonders to improve one’s mood.

Back in the day, this album—along with Constance Demby’s Novus Magnificat—was one of the quintessential “New Age” recordings in my collection. I first bought it on cassette tape and nearly wore it out on many a late Friday night drive from Phoenix to Tucson while dating my second partner, Bernie.

I bought it on CD after we moved to San Francisco, but like so many other recordings over the years, it was either lost, loaned and never returned, stolen, or sold.

I stumbled across it on iTunes the other day and thought “What the hell…you’ve wasted $20 on worse,” and downloaded both volume 1 and volume 2.

When I started listening, I was immediately transported back to what seemed like a much simpler, far more innocent point in my life, and as those familiar notes washed over me, I felt my blood pressure immediately go down and I entered what I can only describe as a very happy warm-and-fuzzy place. I suppose anyone hearing this for the first time in 2013 would think it’s just so much electronic schlock, but after all these years, it can still play me, and while I can never regain the innocence of my 20s and 30s, the music allowed me to at least reconnect—if only briefly—with a part of me that used to believe in magic.

I’m not talking about magic as in “now you see it, now you don’t,” but rather the simple wonder of the Universe and belief in something bigger than myself; something I used to consciously feel while living in San Francisco but seem to have lost during the intervening decades.

I’d really like to have that part of me back and cast off this bitter old queen persona that seems to have taken over of late…

Some of my coming-of-age music. I can still listen to Live again and again without ever tiring of it. Absolute perfection.

The other night I was watching a documentary about the life and times of Sir Elton John, and as they were reeling off all his albums, I noticed that they completely skipped over one of my personal favorites, his eleventh studio release, Blue Moves.

Even at the time it came out, the two-disk Blue Moves was considered a bit of an anomaly, and as I recall the critics were unerwhelmed. It was Elton’s first release on his own label (Rocket Records) and contained many strictly instrumental cuts, which was unusual for EJ. It also wasn’t the “classic” Elton John sound we’d all come to know and love, but it in retrospect—having begun with Rock of the Westies—it was the sound he was moving toward.

It garnered one hit single: Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word.

I personally consider it one of his best, and most under-appreciated albums.

My favorite high-energy cuts are Crazy Water (I love to crank this one in the car), One Horse Town, Boogie Pilgrim,  and Bite Your Lip (Get Up and Dance). Elton is quite soulful on Someone’s Final Song and If There’s a God In Heaven (What’s He Waiting For?). Elton’s fun, indomitable story telling talent is highlighted in Shoulder Holster.

But you know what the strongest memory this album invokes? The time I had recorded it onto one of those notorious 120-minute cassettes that should never have been used for anything, and the cassette player in truck ate it while I was out running around one afternoon with my friend Steve.

Here are a couple photos from that afternoon…

I’ve been a fan of the Pet Shop Boys since Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots of Money) and the Please album first hit the airwaves back in 1986. In fact, that CD provided the soundtrack of my life when I first moved to San Francisco and will always hold a special place in my heart because of it. (Two Divided by Zero will forever be tied to a memory of driving over the Bay Bridge on a foggy August morning for a job interview in Oakland.) Over the years, I’ve always eagerly looked forward to each new release, and when Yes popped on the scene a few years ago I was ecstatic. I thought it was one of their best albums ever.

So you can imagine the anticipation I had for Elysium. Could they top—or at least equal—the genius of Yes?

Sadly, no. Not even close.

I believe “underwhelming” is a good description of how I feel about Elysium, their latest release. The tempo and lyrics seem to reflect a pair of artists who are realizing that not only are they not 25 and the life of the party any more, but also that they’ve passed through middle age and now find themselves wondering what they’ve actually accomplished. I’ve listened to the album several times, and—with the exception of Memory of the Future, which sort of reminds me of Ben and I—I just can’t get into it. It’s all downtempo, agonizingly navel-contemplating, and ultimately (which is a horrible thing to tell an artist) forgettable.

WHERE are the upbeat dance tunes laced with biting social commentary? Where is this album’s Sodom and Gomorrah Show or even I’m With Stupid?

But after a string of incredible hits that span the last twenty six years, I’ll grant that even the Pet Shop Boys are allowed a stinker now and then…

Especially after a few of today’s earlier posts…

Don’t get me wrong, I luvs me my iPod somethin’ fierce. It literally holds my entire music collection (12,700 items and counting). But there is something wonderfully organic about the experience of listening to music on vinyl that digital will never be able to reproduce.

I’m so happy to have been able to live through the “big iron” period of audio equipment in the 1970s. It was truly something amazing.

I only wish my hearing was still as good as it was back then. Getting old sucks on so many levels.

I pulled a random record from the shelf tonight, ending up with Dead or Alive’s Rip It Up. It was a fun, but not completely satisfying experience, so I moved on to Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, an album meant to be heard on vinyl—loud—through headphones.

This is one of a very few remixes in many years that gets me all smiley inside and makes me feel like a 25 year old again.

[soundcloud]http://soundcloud.com/flylife-lgbt/lets-have-a-kiki-almighty-club[/soundcloud]

Via.

This song still brings tears of joy to my eyes…

I used to sing the lyric, “Don’t put another dick through that glory hole, I don’t wanna suck those cocks no more.” Weird Al isn’t the only one who can change song lyrics, y’know. I always thought it would’ve made a great video.

Having originally come from a classical music background, I of course loved this back in the day. Who knew Stravinsky could go disco?