Truth

No, this is not a post about Jeff Beck's first album (but has to be featured at this place during the next weeks). It is a song by Bristol's Wax Machine from their first album released a few days ago. It is the project of Lau Ro and Isobel Jones and I ask myself if it is a parody or a tribute to psychedelic hippie music. It is a kind of vintage psychedelia with support of a Jethro Tull flute and freaky folk vocals brewed together to an amazing sound by Kikagaku Moyo's Go Kurosawa. Truth is built on thick grinding bass riffs and guitar-driven folksiness and not too bad to start on Saturday.

It was 40 Years Ago

when Billy Joel released his fifth solo album The Stranger. Way back in time it was definitely not the music I used to listen to and I didn't knew anything about him. I remember the days when he came to my town to promote this record. There were a few gigs at this day in the late 70's I could choose. Fats Domino and Jethro Tull were opportunities to go but my local radio recommended Billy Joel as a hidden secret and an artist that could have a bright future. With no expectations I went to his concert in a small venue in Stuttgart and was surprised about him playing his songs with a lot of emotional and intensive voice. Just him and his piano made this evening very special. Seldom heard something very special live any more until now. Since then Billy Joel and his songs accompanied until now and I have to admit that I didn't featured him at this place until now. You might like him or not but he wrote and recorded one of the best and most personal love songs ever. It is time to feature songs from this record right now.

Billy Joel - Get It Right The First Time
Billy Joel - She's Always A Woman To Me
Billy Joel - Just The Way You Are

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.

That's What We Watched On TV Year Ago # 13

It sounds maybe funnily that I write about a series which one should assign to the genre children's program. I was a teen when I first saw the first episode and was fascinated from the actors and the story. Catweazle is an odd, goat-bearded, anglo-saxon sorcerer who lives in 1066 and tries to fly with the help of a magic drink from henbane, hemlock, thimble and buttercups in vain. Instead, he is catapulted on the run before England attacking norman lascivious for murder in the 1970s when he jumps a charm calling in a river and appears from a marshy pool again. Catweazle is amazed about the electric inventions of the modern civilisation whose innovations he holds for powerful magic. In the first relay he makes friends with the farmer's son Harold Bennet who helps him to get over the malices of the modern world. Catweazle's spell "Salmei, Dalmei, Adomei" with which he arranges a lot of mix-ups was as famous as his loyal companion, toad Touchwood in our time. For me and my friends this series was then simply a cult. Why - this we cannot understand any more. Maybe it is just due to the fact that Catweazle was just different as all other what was offered us at that time. It went even so far that a friend who was a big fan of the principal character Geoffrey Bayldon is called till this day Geoff.

And here's a song from 1974 by an artist that looks and acts alike Catweazle.