Happy Birthday Donald Fagen

One of those musicians that accompanied me during the last decades will celebrate his 70th birthaday today. You might know him as the co-founder, lead singer and keyboardist of Steely Dan. Together with Walter Becker he made the sound of made the most outstanding albums in the early/late 70's. So many songs that still are in my memory was (co)-written by him. Their sound was so unique and the arrangements were so fabulous that you can listen to them still. Also his solo albums The Nightfly and Kamakiriad are also records I still listen with joy. I know that this is not everyone's cup of tea but he made songs/sounds that I used to listen to - mostly later at the evening.

So all the best to you Donald.

Some Hard Rock From Dublin?

During the last days I made an archival back up copy of my laptop on an external drive and I took a look on what's on my external drive. I got aware that I had a lot of albums by Thin Lizzy from the late 70's. It was a band that lots of folks could agree to in no way their musical preferences were. Thin Lizzy were Phil Lynott, playing the bass and having a great voice. After listening to their songs once again I have to admit that none of them lost it's fascination after all the years. It might be 40 years ago since they recorded this songs but I still like to listen to them.These songs are from their 1978 live double album Live and Dangerous, a classic in this genre.

Thin Lizzy - Emerald
Thin Lizzy - The Boys Are Back In Town
Thin Lizzy - Dancing In The Moonlight
Thin Lizzy - The Rocker

On The Country Side

A few days ago Lucinda Williams shuffled on my mobile phone once again and hit my taste like seldom before. I always loved her voice and her songs telling me short stories about the way of life that everybody can understand. So I checked out Spotify for more records by her and I was surprised how much she released during the last decades. Although I am not a huge fan of country music I always loved the great female voices of Emmylou Harris, Maria McKee and Linda Ronstadt. And in Mrs. Williams way the stories she told me in her songs. In this different way to my usual music taste it is good to finish the first working week of the year with Lucinda.

Lucinda Williams - Six Blocks Away
Lucinda Williams - Pineola
Lucinda Williams - Changed Locks
Lucinda Williams - Hang Down Your Head

Lalo Schifrin

Yesterday I wrote some little sentences about series and the music that belonged to them. After typing these words I remembered some famous soundtracks of the 70's. The music was written by Lalo Schifrin, an Argentinian born musician, composer and conductor who wrote so many soundtracks of movies we used to watch these days. Most of them are classics now and I still love this sound between funk, jazz, soul borrowings and rock. I grew up with his music and it is still worth to listen to them from time to time.

Fargo

After Christmas I accepted the Netflix offer of one month watching series for free to check out their offering. Just because I had the time and nothing else to do than watching TV and get my mind clear of all that came up to my mind. The first series that came to my mind was a recommendation of a close friend to visit. It was the series of a movie by the Coen brothers - Fargo, a movie I loved to watch years ago. Not knowing if the series has the quality and the atmosphere of the movie I was surprised that it was almost better than the original. During the last years I watched many series but I have to say that it was something special. An intelligent story, filled with fantastic characters and a lot of atmosphere in snowy Minnesota. Seldom saw Billy Bob Thornton acting as a hitman acting that nonchalant like in this series. It took me a few hours to watch the whole series but no minute was wasted. I also liked the soundtrack because it brought back some great songs that I almost forgot.

Ukraine Underground

You recognize that you are back in reality when you have to go to work. Today's my first day in office again after I went for holidays a few weeks ago. Like always after a break like this hundreds of emails waiting for me. For god's sake a lot of them are not necessary to be answered. So this first day will be not too stressful and a good way to start this working year - until the next break.

Today's music is by a band from Kiev, Ukraine that came to my ears shortly before my break. As far as I know they released their third album end of November and the title Schism is brilliant. And their music is non less than excellent. A mixture of shoegaze and noise rock, throbbing post-punk and new wave and atmospherically gothic influences.

Die 4 You

Hope everyone of you had a fantastic start into the new year that hopefully will be better than the last one in any way of politics, equality and fairness.

During the last weeks I didn't listen much to music as I used to do. But some day I remembered a song that fascinated me last year with it's gloomy atmosphere. Die 4 You is a song by Mike Hadreas aka Perfume Genius. He's a Seattle based musician and released his latest album about 6 months ago. Seldom heard an intensive song like this. There is long time only of Hadreas' voice which begs and sues and swears, while something which could have been once a piano or maybe also a guitar torments itself in the background still more than the voice. Then the sound space with furry tones and a bedroom beat fills, Hadreas sings „take your time“, however, hope refuses to die.