Singles Released This Week Years Ago

 

One more journey to some songs from my musical education.

1967: The Kinks

1981: Talking Heads

1998: Madonna

1970: The Temptations

1982: ABC

1966: Wilson Pickett

1980: Roxy Music

1969: Joe Cocker

1974: Bad Company

1987: Suzanne Vega

Corner Shop

 

Welsh producer and DJ Alexander Paul Coe aka Sasha announced a compilation of electronic music a few weeks ago. He was influenced by acid house music and the Hacienda scene in Manchester and got critical respect for his remixes of songs by The Chemical Brothers, Madonna and Moby. His latest project was inspired by an Spotify-playlist called LUZoSCURA and with many other artists he made a compilation showing the possibilities of uniting different styles like breakbeat, ambient and melodies. This one is by himself and shows how good his project can work.

40 Records In 40 Years (27/40 - 2000)

Welcome to the new millennium and to a new employer. As I have already indicated last week I have got difficulties with my directors. To cut a long story short: he put the blame on me because he lost his face in front of all other employees. Because I would not longer stand any other chicaneries in the future I have already applied last year for a new job. With some connections I built up the last years I got a very good job in our capital Stuttgart. It was hard to leave the company and all my co-workers behind after 23 years. But I have also been glad about the new challenge. The first weeks were hard because it was all new and totally different. I used to work in a familiar bank and now I came to a bank that tried to work as a really big bank. Anyway, I did my best to get my position in this bank.

Christiane and I have grown together more and more and we decided to take a longer time out and go traveling to India for 5 weeks. We spent a lot of evenings to plan our vacation. I haven't been there before so it was a great surprise how it will be. I heard about the poorness, dirt and crowded places but I wanted it to see by myself. In fact that this is a very big country we decided to travel 'only' through the southern part of India, Kerala. And we wanted to travel by ourself - not with any guided and fully arranged tour. So we fixed the places we wanted to see not knowing how to get there. We traveled by bus, train and sometimes by a taxi and it worked easily. We have seen a beautiful and for Indian relations a rich country. Kerala produces the most of home vegetables in India and their number of illiterates is less than 20% because this region was civilized by Portugal. Impressed of a lot pictures and places we have seen we spent a week to relax on Goa, a place where the hippies went to in the late 60s. A few of them were still there but most of them toothless and stoned. When you sat at the beach at sundown you could hear sounds that my ears didn't knew before. So I was introduced to the Goa sound.

Not much records this year but it might be my fault because I listened much to old school jazz, funk and soul music this year:

• Radiohead - Kid A: More electronic sounds with influences of Krautrock and Jazz now on it now
• Phoenix - United: This summers record comes from France 
• Coldplay - Parachutes: This record is the reason why I listen to them still
• Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven: Canadian instrumental post rock - fantastic
• Steely Dan - Two Against Nature: They are back on the same high level
• Underworld - Everything, Everything: Just dancefloor but awesome
• Santana - Supernatural: His last good work

This are some songs from 2000 I remember very well:

Of course we went to the cinema this year again:

• The Perfect Storm: Fantastic novel and a congenial movie as well
• Gladiator: A good period movie
• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Martial art at it's best
• Billy Elliot: Great movie about a boy going his way
• Oh Brother, Where Art Though: The Coen brothers going to Homer's Odyssey 
• The Beach: I've been there
• High Fidelity: What are your top 5?
• Almost Famous: Movie about the Rock and Roll Circus
• Snatch: Crazy story with an excellent Brad Pitt and Vinnie Jones

Let's take a little look what happened in the rest of the world:

Pope John Paul II apologizes for wrongdoings by members of the Roman Catholic Church throughout the ages // Vladimir Putin is elected President of Russia // Civil war in Sierra Leone, Africa starts // The Tate Modern Gallery opens in London // At the Roskilde Festival 9 people die and 26 are injured on a set while Pearl Jam performs // France defeats Italy 2:1 after extra time in the final of the European Championship // The Russian submarine Kursk sinks in the Barents Sea, all 118 members on board die // Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon visits Temple Mount and Palestinian riots erupt 

Calexico's third record Hot Rail was a great step forward in their career. Sure they played that sound before but now they added horns and violins in their sound. As I was a kid I used to watch a lot of western movies and I loved when the gunman hit the saloon and saw a Mariachi band playing. Dressed up in their suits and big sombreros the played their Mexican instrumental songs and mostly added with a trombone. These pictures comes to my sense when I listen to Calexico. Named by a town in California they play a kind of desert rock (often called Americana but I don't like this classification) with a lot of influence by the Mariachi sound. It is one of these records I have chosen when I had to drive a long distance. There are less records that are so relaxed and cool as this one. The songs slowly develop from easy, almost monotonous rhythms and quiet melodies. Partially these are rather sound collages than songs. Every movement solidifies, the thoughts become pleasantly sluggish. Only the Mariachi inserts rouse the listener over and over again briefly to let feel him, however, immediately that he has mounted again only of one fates Morgana. I know a similar mood from "Siesta" by Miles Davis.

Calexico - Ballade of Cable Hogue

Calexico - Crystal Frontier

Calexico - Drenched

Calexico - Dia De Los Muertos

Calexico - Chach (Tasha Bundy Remix)

40 Records In 40 Years (25/40 - 1998)

In 1998 was one year which had a basic incision in my life. As I have already indicated in the last post of this series, a final decision has liked. Me and Kerstin decided to go separate ways.We didn't made it easy to decide but I didn't want to move away from my native country to follow my wife to hers. She got more and more homesick to her family and the way of living. It isn't that Cologne was more attractive but she missed the Rhenish way of life so much. It was decisive also that our daughter should be sent to school and we both agreed that it better to make a cut right now than to deliver it on the back of our children. I remember when we sat together for evenings talking about all our options, drinking and having tears in each other eyes. And finally we have separated in friendship and love to allow it to everybody to start a new happy and contented life. The hardest thing was to explain it to the kids because in their age they cannot understand the reasons for separating. Although I have mourned about the loss of the children of the deepest heart, we both had to tell them about a new nice world in which they will live in future. So we packed the things together and moved them to their parents house in spring. I started to sell the house and found me a nice apartment in my hometown and contacted people I haven't seen for long years. Suddenly I recognized that I was back in my older life as a free man with less responsibility, however, also more desire in the life.

In this time I spent a lot of time listening to my old records and looking for the new ones that was released this year.

• Air - Moon Safari: Superb record made in France
• The Notwist - Shrink: German arty new rock music
• Massive Attack - Mezzanine: Another fantastic record
• Tortoise - TNT: Even their second record is great
• Two Lone Swordsmen - Stay Down: First time I recognized the great Andrew Weatherall
• Madonna - Ray Of Light: Maybe her last good record
• Boards Of Canada - Music Has The Right To Children: New great sounds from Scotland 
• Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Carry On: A compilation of great songs and voices
• Robbie Williams - I've Been Expecting You: Perfect pop - nothing more or less

A few well known songs that I listen to this year:

Here are some movies that are worth to remember:

• Saving Private Ryan: Steven Spielberg shows us the real World War II
• Life Is Beautiful: It is hard to explain a KZ as a playground to your son
• American History X: Shocking that this could happen in the United States
• The Big Lebowski: One of my favorite movies. No one is cooler than The Dude
• The Celebration: Wonderful Drama about lifelong lies
• Run Lola Run: Every Story has three sides. Fantastic!
• The Truman Show: Are we real or are we in a show?

Somethings that happened in the world:

More massacres in Algeria // Suharto resigns after 32 years as President of Indonesia // India and Pakistan testing nuclear weapons // The second Congo war begins - 3.900.000 people are killed until it ends in 2003 // Hugo Chavez is elected as President of Venezuela // Pol Pot dies in Cambodia // Marc Dutroux a Belgian child abuser and child murder escapes from prison // The era Kohl ends in Germany after 16 year; Gerhard Schröder is elected to the new chancellor // France is the new FIFA World Cup champion // Kaiserslautern becomes as the first promoted team this years champion in the German Bundesliga

"Make my nipples hard, let's go"! This input sentence of Danielle Brisebois directly with the entrance in the CD describes what happens while hearing this CD: Creeps! And if we are honest: When did we have the last time creeps while hearing music?? That's what I thought when I first listened to this record. Gregg Alexander was the leading figure behind The New Radicals. Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too is one of these records walking on the narrow burr between perfect pop music and pure kitsch. What it makes it worth to listen are his screaming song, the crashing guitars, these catchy, almost in a kitschy way mainstream to seeming ones. This album contains cool good mood wrecks directly beside soulful ballads of this decade. I think it was the right record at the right time this year. After all I have to say that this record is a very underrated diamond in this genre.

The New Radicals - Someday We'll Know
The New Radicals - Crying Like a Church on Monday
The New Radicals - You Get What You Give
The New Radicals - Mother We Just Can't Get Enough

40 Records In 40 Years (22/40 - 1995)

When I look back to this year I see the horrible pictures of the thousand dead Bosnian who was slaughtered in the Srebrenica massacre. Compared to my personal life I have to say that I stay in paradise. All is well an peaceful: I live in a comfortable house, have two young kids and a wife I love and no need to cry about lost or killed persons I used to life with. So this was a year in my life that was very quiet. Just doing my regular job and watching the kids getting older. I spent the most of the time with my kids or we went to visit my parents in law near Cologne and I have to say that it was just a good year.

Records that impressed me much in 1995:

• Goldie - Timeless: My entrance into Drum and Bass
• Tricky - Maxinquaye: Trip Hop at it's best
• Neil Young - Mirrorball: The old man together with Pearl Jam
• Pulp - Different Class: This album is the reason why I listen to them for ages
• Scott Walker - Tilt: Great songs in a bleak, forlon and funereal mood
• Leftfield - Leftism: House music at it's best
• Black Grape - It's great when you're straight .... yeah!: Underrated record

Some movies that I saw in these days:

• Seven:
• Braveheart:
• Outbreak:
• Smoke:
• The Usual Suspects:
• Desperado:
• Get Shorty:
• 12 Monkeys:
• Dead Men Walking:

What happened in the rest of the world:

A UN tribunal on human rights violations in the Balkans charges 21 Bosnian Serbcommanders with genocide and crime against humanity // Three far-right National Front activists kill an 17 year old Comorian kid living in France // Barings bank collapses after broke Nick Leeson loses 1.4 billion USD by speculating on the Tokyo Stock Exchange // Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system // Oklahoma city bombing kills 169 people including kids // Jacques Chirac gets elected president in France // Srebrenica massacre: Units of the Army of the Republika Srpska under the command of general Ratko Mladic enter Srebrenica with little resistance from Dutch peacekeepers of the UN Protection Force, going to kill thousands of Bosniak men and boys and rape many women // Miguel Indurain wins the Tour de France for the fifth time.

A year with very good records and new sounds and it's hard to pick out one record. I decided to choose Long Fin Killies first record Houdini. I am liking this odd gem of a record. I seldom have heard something like this before. If you can imagine A.R. Kane, Cockteau Twins, Slowdive and early Krautrock on one record - than try this one. Long Fin Killie was a Scottish experimental rock / post-rock band and released three records on Too Pure label. The first thing that came to my mind was: 'Damn, this drummer is a genius' The band is amazing - so amazing that I kind of wish, there were no vocals. Sunderland bubbles on like Morrissey. The odd thin, though, is that the vocals are pretty sporatic and there are noc choruses as a majority of other songs in post-rock style. All in all it's a distinct sound with emphasizing the bass and using offbeat percussion and violins as a garnish. There are hypnotic passages where guitars, percussion and violin circle like spray around the rhythmic booming waves of the booming waves of the ball. One of the highlights was posted last year - it's the brilliant moment when on The head of Dead Surfers, Mark E. Smith (a label mate of the band) joins the vocals.

Long Fin Killie - (A) Man Ray
Long Fin Killie - Flower Carrier
Long Fin Killie - Homo Erectus
Long Fin Killie - How I Blew It With Houdini
Long Fin Killie - The Heads Of Dead Surfers