[BLAUGRANA]

Watching The Virgin Suicides and this came on.

[BLAUGRANA]

Bit of a deeper cut from Bowie today. Bowie is one of my all time faves and has quite the catalog. Not the deep cut I originally had in mind, but love this one.

[BLAUGRANA]

I listened to my fair share of Blur back in the day. In fact, after seeing them in Chicago with a friend back in the day we nearly met Damon Albarn in a bar in Chicago, but he was out of it at that point in the evening, though he was still able to play a piano. Anyway, never really listened to Gorillaz much though I… appreciated I guess their “new” sound and Albarn’s ability to “reinvent” himself. Of course Fleetwood Mac are pretty legendary if you ask me. I was somewhat surprised by this one, but I do like it.

[BLAUGRANA]

Sub Pop is a smaller record label out of Seattle, Washington. If I’m correct, I think they were the first label to sign Nirvana. As a record company, they’re still very grunge/Seattle in… I guess how they present themselves. That said, they have a lot of different artists with different sounds and they get a lot of up and coming artists before they move on to bigger labels. When I was buying more vinyl I’d get a lot of their releases from bands that I liked. They would always do a “loser” edition of the records on vinyl, always on some variant of colored vinyl. They’re now worth notably more than what I paid for them which is always nice.

After a while of figuring out that I liked my fair share of Sub Pop artists, I started looking at some of their bands and discovered Beach House. Sub Pop lets you listen to at least some tracks initially and then I think full albums upon release. So I listened to a little Beach House and quite liked them. So I bought their latest release at the time, which I believe was their second, Teen Dream. They broke immediately after and subsequently have released only a few more albums since, but some excellent stuff to be sure. I hadn’t listened to them in a quite a while, then heard this the other day. So glad I did.

[BLAUGRANA]

james wrote:

I was music surfing on YouTube this evening and came across this beautiful piece of music. Back in the 80’s my dad listened to a radio program on the weekends on KPCC (Pasadena City College public radio) in Los Angeles. My dad listed to it mostly for the marches. The host was a Hungarian born, German speaker Tibor Paul. He spoke some English but mostly German in a raspy voice. I remember hearing this music on that program and I think he played it at the end of his broadcast because it stuck in my memory. If you saw the film “American Sniper”, this is the music at the end. Yeah, I cried during that scene. My dad passed away in September and of course this brought back a flood of memories, especially of the music my dad liked to listen to.

That’s great James, and somewhat timely. My father is a big horns fan, particularly the trumpet. I surprised him with Canadian Brass tickets a few years back now and he loved it. Growing up I took on an instrument, and it was the trumpet that was essentially pushed on me. Never went to far with it.

I said timely as Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers is doing the media circuit rounds for his new album, a trumpet/jazz albumm. I know he was on Kimmel and I heard an interview with him on NPR this morning.

[BLAUGRANA]

2 for Tuesday on this Wednesday March 25th. I liked Travis more in the past, but still appreciate plenty of their tracks. And they’re another band from Scotland that always seems to amaze me that there are so many I like from there.

12 Memories came out around the second Iraq War if I’m not mistaken. I remember going down to Chicago to see them and their tour bus was all decked out for the album. Album had plenty of anti-war sentiments and direct/not-so direct messages aimed at Tony Blair. Amazing how far we’ve come, or should say regressed?

Re-Offender is may favorite track on the album and seemingly one of the more straight forward pop songs. Peace The Fuck Out obviously different. The fade out of the track with the crowd chanting the title of the track was a recording of Celtic supporters back then. Anyway, too bad we can’t force leaders to do exactly that. Instead, I’d be willing to bet the US will have ground troops in Iran on Friday/Saturday and likely before Monday.

[BLAUGRANA]

It’s two for Tuesday, so don’t @ me people! I’m definitely an REM fan and know quite a bit of their catalog, but still have room to explore their 80s work some more. For me they are probably underrated these days, perhaps somewhat forgotten? Still, for me one of the top American acts with a good two decades of work. I think the above tracks show off both their 80s side and then their 90s side, though I’d say Monster was probably a bit more an effort to sound 90s than Automatic For The People.

21315 wrote:

this was a great show

JAMES! Great shout. You may remember I already posted this (actually James, you should remember all of my posts) back when I posted “Runaway”. I remember the show, but don’t think I watched too much of it as I wasn’t even a teen yet. Anyway, it’s streaming on some free apps like Tubi and Ploto so I may need to give it a look. BIG Dennis Farina fan already for his work in Guy Ritchie’s Snatch and the HBO adaptation of Richard Russo’s Empire Falls with Paul Newman, Farina and a hot of other actors.

[BLAUGRANA]

Andy Shauf is another Canadian musician who from what I’ve heard I like, but that’s not much at all. Still he has a few good tracks and Neon Skyline of the same titled album is one of them. 1980s Paul Simon vibes a bit. I like the story in this one as my favorite going out days were generally to a smaller local bar. The Skyline is (was?) apparently a real bar in Toronto that some folks apparently sought out after this track.

• This reply was modified 2 months, 3 weeks ago by BLAUGRANA.

[BLAUGRANA]

james wrote:

and speaking of great tv show theme music …

Great choice James. I was nearly going to choose, but it just missed the cut largely to my never having seen the show. Visual part of the show’s intro was nice too.

[BLAUGRANA]

Ryan Adama is pretty amazing as a musician if you ask me (sounds a bit of a dick though). His catalog is pretty crazy and I haven’t checked anything from him in at least a decade. Quite versatile, he’s had a bit of a country ting at times, of course old school country and not whatever it is today. I also hear some Dead here, especially at the end, which is something I’ve mentioned before when I posted “Easy Plateau”. This is now the third song from him I’m posting. Quite the storytelling track, but it also sounds great. I remember a year or three after this album came out you could get it on vinyl at Amazon for $8-9 all day long.

• This reply was modified 2 months, 3 weeks ago by BLAUGRANA.

[BLAUGRANA]

I recently rewatched T2: Trainspotting as I believe it goes by, or the decades later sequel to Trainspotting. Good film and while I think some works should just be left alone (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood for example, but I’ll reserve judgement and either way that will stand on it’s own), this was a fine “conclusion”.

Trainspotting was never my favorite film, quite frankly too gritty for me to “love” it, but it was quite good and I have a copy of it. The soundtrack for it was quite big back when the film came out such that they did a second soundtrack that had tracks that weren’t even in the film.

I’ll cheat today and do a “two for Tuesday” both from Trainspotting. First is probably really predictable, but I’ll go with Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life”. I’ll put the opening sequence of the film in it and then the track. Wouldn’t say I have a “lust for life” right now, but I’m not one who ever gets depressed and generally have a glass half full mindset. This song definitely can get me up though.

I need to explore more of Iggy and The Stooges. I’ll just add that I saw an interview with him years ago where he said he saw The Doors live and how big an influence Jim Morrison was. Different sound, but you can see some of the influence in him as a performer if you ask me.

Moving on to another track that is in some ways quite opposite. So imperfect it might just be perfect? Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day”.

[BLAUGRANA]

I’ve been thinking of some anti-war anthems lately and then tonight I watched Spike Lee’s Da Five Bloods and this song came on. It was big back during the Vietnam, just one of many US military actions that led to no good. Not sure what they originally intended for the track, but I suspect it because something else and is one of many great songs to come from that era. Anyway, too much bad shit in this World that maybe it is indeed time for the reign of man to come to an end.

[BLAUGRANA]

I always wonder if there’s going to be an upset in these Cup Finals. Just like JR last season, great work getting there Xavi. Congrats PP on the win!

[BLAUGRANA]

Probably not the song you’d expect to follow up a week of 80s music, but this track for all intents and purposes followed up the 80s. Not muy favorite by the band, but I still definitely like and the band. I was in High School when it came out. I picked up the album right away even though nobody else seemed to be listening to it straight away. My friends had me turned on to Classic Rock, so I didn’t listen to it so much in the moment even though I liked it. Anyway, the sound and the video speak volumes ushering in the 90s after what the 80s were.

[BLAUGRANA]

Last track for 80s week and I’ll go with Simple Minds’ “Don’t You Forget About Me”. Arguably the seminal track of the 80s, it also featured at the end of the one the decade’s best films The Breakfast Club.

[Author]

Posts