Category: Music

Don’t know why I liked this so much. Maybe it’s because it’s such an off-the-wall rendition of such a well-known composition.

I couldn’t embed the video (bastards!) but if you click on the image you’ll be taken to the YouTube source.

OMG…this.

After not hearing it for many, many years, Akhnaten has been my commute soundtrack for the past few days and has reminded me that even though all the negative aspects of who I was prior to my cancer battle ideed sloughed off and died, some of the things that still send my soul quivering are very much alive and well.

Even after all this time (I first heard Akhnaten in 1988 and I doubt I’ve listened to it in full since we moved to Denver), it still gives me goosebumps.

But then I am an admitted Philip Glass fanboy. I first became acquainted with his work by way of the Koyaanisqatsi soundtrack back in the mid 1980s, and was immediately hooked on his minimalism. In my journeys I have known only two other souls who shared that Glass love; one was a neighbor in San Francisco who turned me on to Satyagraha—a piece of music which was later to become my muse—and another a dear friend who is sadly no longer with us.

While the entire opera is a slice of heaven that easily transports me away from my daily life, three cuts especially stand out. The first is the final scene of Act I, The Window of Appearances:

The Window of Appearances will forever be burned in my memory as playing while driving back to Phoenix one night after an evening of astrophotography an hour north of town.

The other two are Scenes 1 and 2 from Act II, The Temple and Akhnaten and Nefertiti:

I especially like the love poem recited in Akhnaten and Nefertiti…

(Recited by the Scribe and then sung in Egyptian by Akhnaten and Nefertiti, it is a love poem found in a royal mummy of the Armarna period, from Journal of Egyptian Archæology, translated by Sir Alan Gardiner):

I breathe the sweet breath
Which comes forth from thy mouth.
I behold thy beauty every day.
It is my desire
That I may be rejuvenated
With life through love
Of thee.

Sesenet neftu nedjem
Per em rek
Peteri nefruk em menet
Ta-i nehet sedj emi
Kheruk nedjem en mehit
Renpu ha-i em ankh
en mertuk.

Give me thy hands, holding thy spirit.
that I may receive it and may live by it.
Call thou upon my name unto eternity
And it shall never fail.

Di-ek eni awik kher ka-ek
Shesepi su ankhi yemef
I ashek reni er heh
Ben hehif em rek

A gift from a friend. It’s really growing on me.

My first exposure to Bette was (as to be expected) shortly after I came out. I was hanging around with the guy who had been my “first time” (another story for another time) a few weeks afterward in his dorm room one afternoon, and he pulled out Live at Last.

I’d never even heard of Bette Midler (remember, this was 1976 and she wasn’t the household name she is now), and admittedly I wasn’t wowed by what I’d heard (other than the Sophie Tucker jokes), but he let me borrow the album—along with his copy of Bette Midler.  I gave them both an extended listen but still wasn’t impressed. It wasn’t until many years later that I finally got Bette.

In the intervening years, I’ve followed Miss M through her highs and lows, her various albums, movies, incarnations and reinventions and have loved every minute.  With It’s the Girls, it seems she’s gotten back to her roots and it sounds good.

…whenever I hear this

I am transported back to 1977 and a warm, sun-dappled autumn afternoon in my dorm room in Kaibab-Huachuca Hall at the University of Arizona.

The 12″ 45 rpm single was pressed on red vinyl and when it was new, smelled of strawberries.

And from there the trip down memory lane invariably leads to these:

“And you thought it was over…no, no, no…”

This one wasn’t pressed on colored vinyl (at least not the copy I had), but to this day I swear it smelled of poppers when it was first opened.

The cut Violation was the soundtrack for the first time I slow danced with another guy. I was so disappointed that I could never find a translucent pink vinyl copy of the record all the DJs seemed to have—until nearly 30 years later. And it was only a few short years ago that my friend Kevin (of The Lisp fame) provided me with a definitive translation of all the lesbian making out that was going on in the song.

It was the summer of “I Feel Love,” but eventually all my favorite cuts from the album were on the A-Side.

Still one of my all-time favorite records. Rumor at the time was the costumes cost thousands. I find that very hard to believe now.

…with Donna Summer’s MacArthur Park Suite blasting in the headphones and I realized that the recruiter I met with earlier today wasn’t even alive when I was dancing to this in the clubs.

And then I realized that Ben wasn’t either.

I feel so old sometimes…

I stumbled across this a few months ago while searching for the soundtrack from the film of the same name. Imagine my surprise when I discovered this is so good it could actually be soundtrack music. It’s not; it’s from a genre—epica—that I’d never heard of, but one I have immediately taken a liking to.

I don’t remember ever hearing this back in the day, but Ben introduced me to it a few weeks ago and I now love it. Unfortunately, last night I had one of those fitful nights of sleep, and every time I woke up it was blaring at angelic volume in my head.

Enjoy.

For those of a certain age, this set will bring tears of joy to your eyes.

(Via)

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…