Under The Influence

I watched a recent (political) interview with Peter Garrett the other day and it motivated me to listen to Midnight Oil again. Oils on the Water is currently the only album available through emusic so I figured I'd give it a shot. I didn't realise that it was a live album when I purchased it, luckily the recording is great.

Most of the material is unfamiliar to me but it was enjoyable nonetheless. I believe it's a recent reissue, with the original recording coming out before Beds are Burning and the like turned them into superstars. The Midnight Oil message is there loud and clear - forever challenging without being negative - it's nice.

All the tracks are massive rock master pieces. Oh, and the horns seriously kick ass.

I like covers. Covers are eventually going to be a key focus of this blog. Patti Smith does good covers.

I actually picked up on this album after hearing a few guys on the tube talking about it (thanks random strangers!). They were saying that the Tears For Fears cover was rubbish (mostly because Patti is meant to be harder than that). I happen to disagree. Every song on here is really nicely produced and there's a nice range of genres in the original material. There isn't such a great range of dynamics in the cover versions though. They're all set in a similar tone, a much mellower tone than we'd normally expect from Patti.

Another one of those bands that I could see coming when !!! dropped back in the day. I've always thought of the sound as being a push towards an updated version of The Clash. These guys do a pretty good job of it. Cool danceable grooves. The Van She Tech remix of Ice Cream is probably my favourite in terms of DJ material.

So I guess I lost track of what my plan is for this blog. Well actually, I still have a master plan but it's a tad ambitious to be executed at the moment.

It turns out that I listen to so much new music I'm completely losing track of what's in my collection. Even flicking through my itunes now I can see there's stuff in there I've listened to several times but can't think for the life of me what it sounds like. My hope is that by writting just a little something about each album as I listen to it I won't forget what it is so easily (damn my crap memory). So that's just what I'm going to do!

While digging through my albums today I stumbled across Morcheeba's very first album. Ahh, back when Morcheeba were good... really, really good. To be fair their following albums were actually ok but Big Calm has the dubious honour of being one of the most overplayed albums of all time.

Who Can You Trust? was a better album to begin with. Even the names 'Moog Island', 'Tape Loop' say more. It feels like raw stoned toying in an attic somewhere, before they had a reputation to live up to. I guess things have worked out pretty well really. Big Calm is like a sacrificial metal... soaking up the attention and leaving the old stuff untouched. Just the way I like it.

Anyway, it's tasty. Smooth vocals, lovely beats. Going to be perfect one afternoon this summer.

Oh my god. This must surely be some of the coolest guitar work ever.

Just watch a video of her to see for yourself how cool she is. Damn cool.

92 Benny Goodman tracks in my iTunes! time for something new. While digging around I stumbled across a reference to Fletcher Henderson as one of Goodman's influences.

It's pretty apparent within the first couple of seconds that there are some serious similarities here. Variety Stomp is one of my picks so far, really mean trumpet hook.

I think I might have an obsession... actually, I know I have an obsession. With over 5 hours worth of Benny Goodman clocked up in my iTunes count today there's really no hiding it.

Most of today's effort has been spent consuming his famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Concert. I have to admit that I know next to nothing about swing. In fact, this week was the first time I sat down and investigated it. A dozen random downloads from emusic later I'd decided that Benny sounded like he deserved more attention. Shows how naive I am really as it turns out that his 1938 Carnegie Hall Concert is considered one of the great events in music history. And I can see why.

The album I grabbed off emusic yesterday weighs in at 3.7 (?!) hours long (apparently it includes some 1944-47 stuff too) but I didn't feel bored at any point during the listen. These guys really know how to get the crowd going.

With the whole swing angle I was hoping to find more tracks like Kai Winding's Comin' Home Baby and I think I found one in Sing Sing Sing. Definitely going to dig around in the swing section a bit more this week.