Leonard Nimoy 1931 - 2015

For a long time Leonard Nimoy had disappeared more or less from my perception. Apart from short joy at seeing again when he appeared in the TV serial "Fringe", or in also from me with pleasure seen "Big Bang Theory". Quite clearly, there one bowed in spirit to the big old man of the nerdy television entertainment. Now however, where I find out that he has died where all news canals and Facebook with pictures and shock and affection start to fill, I have also sat down and have made clear to myself that there a piece of my childhood has said goodbye again. At the age of ten years my dad has woken me at night and has placed before the television, as a Neil Armstrong his famous first step on the moon has done; and of course was later then the first radiation of the Star Trek, at that time still on a small black-and-white television, an experience which has my life decisively marked. That trembling, those creeps when the small boy has recognized anyhow, how big, coldly, strangely and wonderfully the "universe" is, in it reminds I me, as if it had been yesterday.

The death Leonard Nimoys is a big, sad moment which one appreciates best of all, while one remembers the nice, cosmic moments which were given to one by the "most proud and worthiest Vulkan of all".

And after all he released ten records throughout the years with some classic songs.

RIP

Radio Birdman

Radio Birdman was a band from down under playing punk music when punk not really was born. Their main legacy was their towering influence over Australian Indie rock in the 1980s as well as The Saints. Today only a few fans know them and their output. For me they were a band that made a few very good albums and sadly they were forgotten. So enjoy these little gems.

Radio Birdman - Hand Of Law
Radio Birdman - Love Kills
Radio Birdman - Decent Into The Maelstrom

Inflammable Material - First Records That Impressed Me Much # 7

In 1980 Stiff Records released the first album by The Feelies 'Crazy Rhythms'. And it was a totally different sound to the other artists on this label. I first saw the record in my local record store and asked myself what is this? Four teenager playing another collage-rock? Because Stiff Records in normal manner doesn't publish any shitty music I asked the trader to give me a listen to this. From the first song on this album 'The Boy With The Perpetual Nervousness' I was caught by this band. The songs starts in near-silence, with just a click of wood percussion  until a guitar appears and the drums begin to play. From then on the band delivered eight more classics including a superb version of the Beatles' 'Everybody's got something to hide' much more faster than the original. The Feelies created their very own style. While everybody was focused on the two guitarists Mercer and Million I think the mastermind was Anton Fier. He plays the drums like I heard seldom before. He's able to play straight-up beats but aiming at a rumbling, strange punch that updates the Krautrock trance into giddier realms. It's still a timeless album that stood the test of time. And as Brian said a few days ago: watch out for their appearance in Jonathan Demme's 'Something Wild'.

The Feelies - Crazy Rhythms
The Feelies - Everybody's Got Something To Hide
The Feelies - Loveless Love
The Feelies - The Boy With The Perpetual Nervousness

Dirk rightly misses the best song on this album - here it is:

The Feelies - Fa Ci La

Everest

A few days ago Adam gave us the newest mix of Public Service Broadcasting and it was a so good stuff that I would like to add some more from their back works. It's the Leftside Wobble Mix of their song Everest. It's a smooth flowing song, with a good bass line and some guitars in the back. Maybe New Order could sound like this nowadays.

Twanging Tuesday # 53

One of the most covered songs in rock history might be the classic 'Summertime Blues' by Eddie Cochran. Only a few songs could reach the level he did in this song. Only three verses that tell everything about the hopeless feelings of the 50s childs. You can do anything but someone gives you a lesson about not agree to your ambitions. This video is live and raw and so is the quality. So please don't mind - it's true and awesome.

Another great version from this song was recorded by The Who while they played live on Isle of Wright. Listening to the power of this music makes me smile again all over the years. And Keith Moon was one of the most powerful drummer in history.

Another great version come by Joan Jett:

Feel The Lighning

Last week I found a new release by Dan Deacon, an American composer and electronic musician. The single in addition is called highly energetically loaded "Feel The Lighting". Besides, the song is one of the smoothest and most affectionate ones which he has thought up in his career up to now thus. Second-Hand-Disco-Beats, rattles and hum, breathed voices and the songs of the robots tell of things which one can understand only hard, but feel – yes, feel, this goes well.

From The In-Box

First artist this week is Ady Jados a Chicago based singer/songwriter with heavy influence by soul and blues music. Sometimes you can hear little reminiscences to her earlier works (playing guitar in punk and metal bands) in the way she uses her guitar. It's a good song to her raw voice according to this soulful and bluesy song with a raw edge.

The Dread are from Chicago as well but totally different. The are influenced by East Coast HipHop and combine this with elements of rock and reggae. Out comes a heavy song, with a very good flow, massive guitars and harmonies. Like Cypress Hill would sound like when they get rid of the bong.

The Dread - The Grateful Dread

In this series I featured some bands from Canada. Most of them I would add to folk or blues. This band is different to them. Benskuba describe their music as a high energy, guitar-driven sound with a big emphasis on groove and melody. And it's all in this well written and arranged song and they play a little funky guitar. Well done.

Every Age

José Gonzales is back with a new record after seven years. Born as the son of Argentine emigrants in Sweden he released a couple of records since 2003. In the farthest sense one can call him a simple singer/songwriter. What I like is his finger-picking guitar that reminds me on Nick Drake or Elliot Smith and a the meditative touch in his music. His songs are slow, soft, smooth but never dull. One of those I like to listen to on Sunday morning.

That he can do it in another way you can listen to this. It's a downtempo song added with a good groove, little guitar licks and a superb saxophone:

And that he's not afraid to make some cover versions shows this track originally by Massive Attack:

Baby's On Fire

I believe each of you has experienced at least once that by chance a song appeared and then you could not be able to ban it from your head. This happened to me these days when Brian Eno's 'Baby's On Fire' shuffled up my mobile phone on the way to work. This song was released in 1973 on Eno's first album 'Here come the warm jets' and it is a superb collaboration with Robert Fripp's guitar playing. It is a masterpiece of that so called era of art-/glam rock. When Eno left Roxy Music he started to create electronic sounds with very different kind of musicians. And he continued until now. I don't like everything he released but a lot of his stuff was ahead of his time. Sometimes it is good to back 40 or more years in music to enjoy that old songs and be surprised how good they work still. And they can't be wrong when some young dudes make a remix out of it.

Brian Eno - Baby's On Fire




Live with Kevin Ayers, John Cale and Nico:

Battle With God

Maybe one of the finest female voices in rock/pop comes from Sweden these days. Many artists try to express their very own feeling for sound in their music. One of them is Jenny Wilson - an artist that works in music business for a long time. Now she's becoming successful in Sweden with her latest album 'Demand The Impossible'. She's got the skills to move in very different kind of genres. Sometimes she's in to pop, then into a special kind of TripHop and than to switch into urban club sounds. Her latest album was released in Sweden two years ago - now we got the chance to listen to it. Not the worst thing that this country can give to us.

Hold On To Your Dreams

I came home last evening after having some drinks with my co-workers for the last day of carnival and opened up a new bottle of red wine for a last drink before going to sleep. I searched my hard drive for something that fits to my mood and found that wonderful collaboration by Jah Wobble, Holger Czukai and The Edge. It's a fantastic mixture of good grooves, hold back guitars and a bass that is still present but not overloaded.

Twanging Tuesday # 52

This one's a classic tune from 1956 - almost 60 years ago but still a song you can listen to and get your memories sorted from years long gone by. This song is one of those who accompanied me for ages. Enjoy this classic tune and have a good time.

Gene Vincent - Be-Bop-A-Lu-La

From The In-Box

From Houston, Texas, arrived some fresh music. My first thought was 'Just another bluesy country band' or 'another singer/songwriter with a melancholic whiny voice'. But none of them is true. Keeton Coffman is that kind of songwriter which isn't too much involved in that folk sound. His music is also influenced by Americana and Indie-sounds. The songs come along with very good arrangements, laid back drums and over and over again very nice guitar licks are sprinkled. Over all is his fantastic voice: remarkable, very expressive and far away from shouting. If he would get enough airplay he and his songs might get great.

Another town but in the same state. Austin gives us Take Us To Tomorrow. Prog-rock in combination with Alternative guitars make a very own sound. While the band lose themselves on the quicker pieces often in improvisations they show us with the ballad Crustecean their skills. After starting with some guitar pick bass and drums appear to push this song forward.




The last one new artist for this week is Public Light, a project Sam Osheroff from Seattle stands behind. Another singer that is deep int the traditional singer-songwriter genre but with a very own voice that leads you to a relaxed time to listen. I like his deep voice much. It is some kind of laid back easy going sound I prefer riding in an open car along narrow streets in late spring.

Public Light - Dismemberment

Handsome

By surfing the Internet I found a new release by the London based band The Vaccines. They was hyped a few years ago as the next big thing to come and vanished as soon as they appeared. Now they are back with a new single from their upcoming album. The single has become again thus a stroppy, boisterous garage pop number, with handclaps, aggressive bass, shabbily and snotty played guitar and wonderful hooks.

Have a good week, whatever you do and wherever you are.

If it doesn't work here's the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ke5MA4_Tck

I Love You, Honeybear

These days Josh Tillman aka Father John Misty released his second album. He former played drums by The Fleet Foxes. While his first album was marked more of the classical rock he has clearly turned back on his topical album the tempo. His songs were more influenced by the Laurel Canyon-Westcoast sound and classical singer/songwriter attitudes. All in all he has a remarkable voice that reminds me in it's tenderness to Harry Nilsson. And that's not too bad.

The Foreign Corresondent Returns - Stories About German (Rock) Music # 50

The will be the last post in this series. As said, I couldn't imagine that this series continued until now. I offered you a big bunch of music that was made by German musicians - in a lot of different styles all over the last 40 years. How to finish this series? That was the question I asked myself a lot of times. Should I feature my favorite artist, album, song or what ever? Finally I decided to none of them. Let me show you some artists/songs that came out the last years or maybe long time ago. All of them mean a lot to me in any way. So thank you for following me during the last year in this series. And I'm sure the foreign correspondent will return again if there is something new that is worth listening to.

A New Kind Of Water

This Heat is one of those forgotten bands from the late 70s/early 80s. They weren't popular at all because their music was everything but easy listening. And it's hard to describe their music. Pitchfork once wrote about them:

This Heat's sound was something like a confrontation of prog, free-jazz and contemporary electronic music (think early Stockhausen, not Kraftwerk). They often get lumped into the post-punk (or even just "punk") camp, for no better reason other than they started at the same time. They certainly sounded as if they were angry about something, and taking a glance at the lyric sheet for this album (and you'd better, as often the vocals seem more musical element than communicative force), they had fairly intense political/social statements to make-- though pinning down their position is often as hard as pinning down their sound. In any case, they were "progressive" in the literal sense of the word, and though they came up with the first wave of punk, they didn't really sound like anyone else of the time (save a few other English radicals like Henry Cow or Art Bears, occasionally).

Sure, some kind of music that may hurt. But didn't the Frank Zappa or Captain Beefheart hurt us as well?

Kingdom Of Love

A few days ago I grabbed out an old record that I didn't play for long time. It was the last record by The Soft Boys before they split. It's wonderful to hear it again. For me The Soft Boys are the missing link between post-punk and neo-psychedelia. Great songs with a big touch of old style psychedelic sounds added with superb harmonies and a forward driving guitar in the back of their songs. 'Underwater Moonlight' was a milestone in the late 70s and you can listen to it still with joy.

The Soft Boys - Kingdom Of Love
The Soft Boys - Underwater Moonlight

Bad Desire

Today's music is from a band located in Salt Lake City, Utah, a city I combine with the Mormons, Winter Olympics 2002, the actress Roseanne Barr and the serial killer Gary Ridgway. I don't know any band from this city and I noticed Secret Abilities by visiting Sad Man's Tongue. It's a pretty cool band playing a rough kind of Rock 'n' Roll with heavy guitars and a lot of dirt in their sound. A pleasure to listen to.

Lost U

Another remarkable electronic comes from Denmark. Esben Anderssen and his project Rangleklods stands for a contemporary definition of TripHop, House and sampling. I like this kind of music that makes me wish that this winter will come to an end.

Soon Come Soon

Edinburgh gave us another new and fantastic band: Young Fathers. I didn't heard from them until I got the news that they was the this years winner of the Mercury Prize. Young Fathers are a trio that make a seldom heard combination of HipHop, undefinable electronic sounds, reminiscences to industrial and some aerial grooves. All in all a sound worth to give a listen.

'Soon Come Soon' is their latest release and non-album track.


'War' is from their price winning record 'Dead'.

The Foreign Corresondent Returns - Stories About German (Rock) Music # 49

This series run since almost one year and it was a great fun to show you some German artists that made a very good music during the last 40 years. I tried to show you the kind of music German musicians were able to do. But like every series it has to come to an end. The last band I would like to introduce is M. Walking On The Water. It's a band that was formed in Krefeld, a bigger town close to Düsseldorf in the middle of Germany. They were an Indie-band I liked very much when they released their records. A very own sound according to bands like The Woodentops and other bands in this genre. In 1993 they released an EP called 'Pictures of an Exhibitionist' covering old hits by King Crimson, Genesis, Jethro Tull, Caravan, Yes and Deep Purple. Not the ordinary songs to cover and in their interpretation something special.

This will be almost the end of this little series. Next week I'll make a mash-up of German songs that mean a lot to me. It might be distressed but that is even my musical background the time I got older.

Red Sun

These days a song shuffled on my mobile phone I didn't listen to a long time. Back home I grabbed out the album 'In The Spanish Cave' by Thin White Rope. It's a record that was released in 1988 and I bought it on recommendation by my local record store and because I loved the cover showing a skeleton in front of a ship wreck. The music on this record I would describe as Americana or desert rock. A steady rhythm group on bass and drums were added with distorted guitars and a singer that sometimes sings like it would be the last time. All in all a record I forgot and I was grateful to found this record in my collection.

Thin White Rope - Red Sun
Thin White Rope - Astronomy

Adventures In A Yorkshire Landscape

Are you in for a little prog-rock on Thursday? Today's track is from Be-Bop Deluxe, a band that was very popular in the late 70s/early 80s with a a touch of great piano passages and dueling guitar solos. It is a band that made for me sophisticated music. More from the brain than from the stomach. After all these years it's good to listen to them again.

Enjoy

Drinking In My Sunday Dress

I'm not a huge fan of country music but I always loved good voices and great songs in this genre. Although I'm not a great expert in this genre there some artists and songs that are very close to me. One of them is Maria McKee. I noticed her back in the early 80s when she came around with her band Lone Justice and gave us that pure and raw cow-punk sound. Since then I followed her career and was surprised many times about her ability to write great songs. So she wrote 'A good heart', a smash hit by Feargal Sharkey, and 'Show me heaven' that was a hit from the movie 'Days of Thunder'. I love her for the ballads she wrote and sung but today I want to introduce you a song that's got more power in it. It's an uptempo song in which she tells us about the time she has to spent until her love comes around. NME has written once about her: Their voice can take up it with the breakable passion of Patsy Cline, the glowing soul of Aretha Franklin and powerful blues of Janis Joplin, No more words to add.

Maria McKee - Drinking In My Sunday Dress

Twanging Tuesday # 52

Another song by an almost unknown Rockabilly band. The Pinstripes are a German band trying to keep this kind of music alive. I don't know much about them but got the information that I missed their concert in Stuttgart a few weeks ago. So enjoy this song

Death

Listen to Viet Cong, a new band from Alberta, reminds me on the glorious 80s. Stylistically it is everything held in grey. Everything what sounds possibly bleak, dreary and hopelessly was added together to a sound to create it rushes so properly and scratches to play then all these groups: Joy Division, Bauhaus, Suicide, Shoegazer-Indie, as well as the usual in the meantime Krautrock and Industrial loans. But they are worth to be listened. Especially 'Death' - a 12 minute excursion in guitar sound. Sometimes slow, sometimes fast and not a dull moment.

Viet Cong - Death

From The In-Box

A lot of new music arrived last week from across the Atlantic ocean. Mostly based on blues and folk roots but there was some real good stuff within. So let's start with an artist that impressed me much. Norine Braun, located in Vancouver, Canada. It's a wonderful mixture of blues/roots rock, influenced by Patti Smith and Nick Cave. If you think that this kind of genre is dying you ought to listen to her songs that live by her powerful voice that is close to soul. Norine is blessed with so much talent you won't find very often nowadays.

Another artist from Canada is William Kollin and his project Europa's Ocean. He describes his music with following words My sound is crafted with harmonically rich synth pads, strong piano melody and my goal is create ethereal sonic landscapes with supernal reverb and huge stereo delay. Mixing accoustic and electronic instruments to create a new nuance of deep atmospheric music. I am really not much in ambient music but this music fits to todays weather - cold and full of snow.



Terry Easton from Clearmont, California brings us back to the times when Leo Kottke was famous. It's a long time ago when I used to listen to finger style guitarists. He incorporate this techniques with bottleneck slide which yields a unique listening experience.

Terry Easton - Claremont 2:05 p.m.

Scott Fab from Michigan showed up with an emphatic indie rock song that have everything a song should from this genre should have: a good melody, wailing guitars and a voice where you can feel the pain the singer must have.

Scott Fab - Waiting