XM Satellite Radio...Worth Every Penny

This, my friends, is why I LOVE XM Satellite Radio.
One of my top ten all-time favorite Bruce Springsteen songs, "Drive All Night", and one that I have NEVER heard on terrestrial radio in the 25+ years since it's release. Nothing but a three chord progression repeated for 7 or 8 minutes with no bridge and no real dynamic changes...just the sound of a man opening his heart and pledging it to his true love in a slow dance that you wish would never end. Factor in the exquisite, moaning wail of Clarence Clemons' tenor sax and you've got one of the most intense love songs ever recorded...raw and pure, a treasured memento of a priceless moment.
And it's right there on XM's Deep Tracks channel 40. Where else are you gonna hear it, unless you just happen to be listening to The River? It is truly a "deep track", tucked away on the 4th side of the LP's vinyl, towards the end of a 2-CD set that's already crammed with gems like "Independence Day", "Hungry Heart", "The Price You Pay", "Point Blank", and "Stolen Car", just to name a few. But, for me at least, "Drive All Night" is the album's capstone, the culmination of everything that preceeded it, melting it all down into a plea for the most basic of all human needs: love.
But I know that if I start rhapsodizing about The River it would consume much more time than I hope to spend on the computer today, and what I actually wanted to post about was XM Satellite Radio ...
I think I mentioned that I LOVE XM, didn't I? One look at the right side of this blog should be enough to make that evident. Those are my favorite XM channels, but by no means are they the only ones I listen to. There are over 65 commercial-free music options in a line-up of over 150 channels that XM offers.
I've had my XM gear since last December. Since that time it has dominated my listening and I can honestly say that I can count the times I've heard a song repeated on one hand...there are some channels that will put a song into rotation due to the format ("Top Hits"-type fare), but most of the genre channels have such deep catalogues to choose from that there's no need to play the same song again in a long time.
When I first got XM the monthly service fee was $9.99, and I felt that was more than reasonable. Of course, my luck being such as it is, the rates increased within the first few months after I subscribed. Now it costs $12.99 per month and you get the XM High Voltage channel and XM Online access thrown into the bargain. Truth be told, I could care less about XM High Voltage, which is nothing more than an outlet for their version of Howard Stern's schtick, the Opie & Anthony show. As for the XM Online, I've tried it out and it's pretty neat, with a couple of channels that aren't in the basic XM line-up, but if I'm listening to music while on the computer I guarantee it's through my hi-fi and not the puny little speakers hooked up to my computer. So as far as I'm concerned neither of the "added value" items they've given to make up for the rate hike are worth an extra penny. I'd have been much happier if they would have conjured up a couple more music channels...an IDM/Glitch/Experimental Electronic music channel would be great, or maybe a Praise & Worship Christian channel that would seperate that particular style from the glossy Christian pop/hits that it shares airspace with on The Fish...I could probably think of several options if I took the time to do it and thought they would actually listen to what I had to say.
Regardless, if I didn't think that XM was already worth the higher rate without ANY bonuses I might be complaining. As it stands, I feel that the music programming alone is well worth at least $12.99 ($9.99 was too good to last), and I'll no doubt hold my tongue until the inevitable hikes make it up to the 20 buck mark, at which point I will still pony up, but not without a fuss.

3.23.05 Playlist

Tonight I alphabetized my CD collection. It took about 4 hours from start to finish to organize 1,500 CDs, though I will admit that 1,000 were already in alphabetical order. The trick was getting the other 500 inserted into their proper places within the books.
While doing this chore I listened to the following:

Autechre Gantz Graf

One of Booth & Brown's more challenging pieces, I am very fond of the video of the title track (included on the DVD which comes packaged w/ this 3 song disc). Loses a bit of it's appeal without the visuals, but I haven't given it too many chances to work it's magic without them. Definately later-period Autechre stylings, only a bit more accessable than Confield.
The new Autechre album, Untilted is slated for an April 18th release, and since that IS my birthday, I know what I'll be listening to as I celebrate.


The Band Rock of Ages

Only played the second disc of the remastered version, which is full of performances from the concert that were never previously released, including some stellar tracks featuring Bob Dylan. Very good stuff.


Coldplay A Rush Of Blood To The Head

I'm not a huge Coldplay fan, but this album is excellent. I have their debut, Parachutes, but I never seem to want to listen to it. If ever I'm in the mood for this brand of post-modern guitar jangle I always pull out A Rush Of Blood..., and it never fails to get my head to bobbin', if you know what I mean. Most folks like to compare Coldplay to Radiohead, but I hear much more of a U2 influence throughout this album.

Okay...it's almost 3:00 in the morning and I have messed around with these blogs almost all day. I need to go to bed and try to get some sleep.

Tangerine Dream's Holistic Trippin' Mechanisms

In one of my more recent electronic meditations I found my spirit disconnected from my body long enough to get lost in a deep, dark sea of confusion. From a distance I could hear the sound of a fog-horn calling, screaming from it's belly for purpose.

My soul flittered and flopped like a fish just popped out of the water, from hither to yon and on and on, back and forth, up and down, here, there and everywhere. This is how it is when I'm immersed completely within my electronic meditations.

Waiting patiently for the day when electronic medications become a reality to compliment our electronic meditations. That will be the day when the world as we know it will cease to exist...that small push into a new definition of existence, facilitated and first imagined during a freemason's electronic meditations...we will find our souls tunneling through miles of cable to find rest in cyberspace, our memories preserved, our senses intact, our minds as sharp as ever they were, our intellect and reason a precious gift to the computer-generated construction that will have to substitute for flesh and blood as a home for YOU, just for now, until the Washing and the re-entry to begin it all again.

Electronic meditation # 38,786,453: The sky implodes around me, swirling through a vacuum that sucks the whole thing down into a hole in my head where I'd always pictured my "Third Eye" as being, now horrified to discover no eye whatsoever, only a portal to the other side of a deep abyss waiting to suck in and re-assemble the world, to regenerate with hacked changes the patterns left unrecognized and therefore capable of producing bliss. When it's all dragged down as deep as it can go, I'm left with nothing but what I've stuffed into my head the last 42 years.

And that had better be enough, someone said.

Electronic Meditation Tip-of-the-Day: Tangerine Dreams are only officially considered "Tangerine Dreams" when accompanied by the music of Tangerine Dream, preferably the freaked out early stuff, like Electronic Meditation.
So, like, check it out...The other day I'm driving down the road and there's this SUV in front of me. Nice looking set o' wheels if you ask me, but a gas guzzlin' son of a gun. Electronic Meditation is playing in the car stereo and I notice a sign on the back of the SUV that read: "Official Tribble Extermination Vehicle". Then I started thinking about how a friend of mine had defined human beings in general as "Glorified Pattern Recognition Machines (GPRMs)". I thought this was interesting enough, and I supposed that the GPRM driving the SUV in front of me was maybe just a little TOO much of a Star Trek fan. It was at this point that I made a concentrated effort to put some distance between myself and the SUV and to switch off the Tangerine Dream CD in the player before being completely overcome with the desire to wreck the car by forcing it into the next available telephone pole. Something about mixing electronic meditation with driving just did not mix well with me, that was all I could figure. So I tossed the CD out of the car...

...Where it landed on the side of the road, unharmed, and was noticed and picked up by the 86th driver to come upon it from behind me.

The person who snagged it put it in his CD player immediately, intrigued by a band calling themselves Tangerine Dream, and already infatuated with the concept of meditation enhanced by the use of electronics.

That was the last mistake he ever made...

The sounds assembled and sequenced by Mr. Froese and his Tangerine Dream co-horts were of such an eerie nature that the guy found himself totally freaking out as he drove down the highway, his eyeballs growing larger in their sockets, his nose dripping a fluorescent pink snot. A nervous breakdown behind the wheel of his late model Chrysler Plymouth automobile with Pioneer CD player currently pumping electronic meditations to the public at large, or at least to those soon to be gathered round it's wreckage at the site of another telephone pole...

So, you say that Pink Floyd just ain't "out there" enough for you? Hawkwind leaves you high and dry? You say you're a rocket man burning out his fuse up there alone? You say you need some music that's gonna provide a suitable soundscape for the dark recesses of space you plan to explore in the coming months with your eyes closed? Well, my friend, you need yourself some Tangerine Dream, and more to the point, you need to get yo self the hook up to some electronic meditation. I think you'll find that enlightenment comes much quicker with this type of electronic meditation than with the standard nonstop chanting of "Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare" or even the powerful "Om Mani Padme Hum"...

And with your new sonically-enhanced enlightenment you will come to the realization that all the atrocities committed with electronics throughout the ages are finally and completely atoned for through the rainbow-washed dulcet tones of Tangerine Dream.

JAC's Top 5 Male Country Vocalists of All Time

My father, who hated the rock and roll that I grew up listening to and loving, used to tell me that one day, when I was older, I would develop a love for country and western music. He also believed that I would eventually "grow out" of that noisy rock 'n' roll.
I can't say that a lot of what passes for rock music these days is to my tastes (Good Charlotte, A Simple Plan, Linkin Park, the list goes on, I can't stand 'em), but I still enjoy the rock that I grew up with, so he was wrong on that count...
But he was on the money with the prediction that I would one day appreciate and very much enjoy country music. And of course the songs and artists I love the most are the ones he was talking about, the ones he loved with a passion, the "classic country legends". There are quite a few of the newer country acts that I like, but very few hold a candle to the established C&W megastars of the 60's, 70's and 80's. And the worst of the lot, like Big and Rich and Shania Twain are worse than any of the crap rock groups on TRL.
Even though I did focus primarilly on rock until my mid-teens (when I branched out into classical and jazz), I was nevertheless exposed to LOTS of country music, because my dad listened to it exclusively all of his life. So even though I claimed to hate it all those years, I nevertheless gained a familiarity with the artists and their songs which allowed me to recognize them by their voices and styles.
I guess you could say that, by default, I have a rich background in country music, so I have decided to list here the top 5 male country singers of all time, as far as I'm concerned. These are the ones that come to mind immediately when I consider the topic. And, of course, this is entirely subjective...I realize that C&W fans more knowledgable than I would likely say that I should have included Hank Williams and/or Johnny Cash in the place of one or the other of my choices. I love Hank and Johnny, too, but to my ears, these five are the tops:

George Jones
No-Show Jones was my father's absolute, hands down favourite country singer of them all, so I admit to some bias in this choice. Nevertheless, there's no denying the rich, expressive quality of the man's singing voice. I will never forget the day when my dad and I were watching an HBO concert that showcased Jones and turning around to see him in tears. I was still a teenage brat (I was only watching because Elvis Costello was featured in a duet with George and I wanted to see that), but I really gained a deep respect for George Jones and the power of his voice that day. It doesn't get much better than "He Stopped Loving Her Today"...

Porter Wagoner
Another of my father's favourites (I might as well just say right now that all 5 of my choices were probably among my dad's Top 10 of all time)...Porter doesn't get the kind of radio airplay on "Pure Country" stations these days like the others in this list do, and I have no idea why not. He holds his own with the cream of the crop. And who can resist those Nudie suits that he and his band, the Wagon Masters, used to wear? Wagoner is responsible for one of the most bizarre country songs of all time, "The Rubber Room", about a hellish experience in a psych ward. For that alone I give Porter Wagoner the "thumbs up", but even a cursory listening to his body of work should convince you that he is one of the greatest. And just in case you didn't know, Dolly Parton wrote her biggest song, "I Will Always Love You" for Porter. Sometimes it gives me the creeps when I hear Whitney Houston doing that song and imagine Whitney singing it to Porter...but that's just me...

Merle Haggard
Not only one of the greatest country singers of all time, but also one of the genre's most prolific and talented songwriters. Merle was in San Quentin prison when Johnny Cash performed there and was inspired to write and perform country music when he was released. To say that he was successful in this quest would be a gross understatement. Songs like "Sing Me Back Home", "Silver Wings" and "Today I Started Loving Her Again" will forever be regarded as country standards, sung by countless honky tonk bands in dive bars. The songs are so good that you don't even have to be a good singer to get away with doing them, but Merle Haggard has the voice that puts them over the top. There's a playful quality to Hag's voice that is endearing, and it seems like it just gets better with age.

Waylon Jennings
The late, great Waylon Jennings was the one singer in the "Outlaw Country" stable who sounded exactly like what you'd expect an outlaw to sound like: rough, tough, edgy, mischevious...and he didn't care what anyone thought about the fact that he "never could toe the mark, never could walk the line". He was an outlaw, fer cryin' out loud, you shouldn't EXPECT him to! The combination of his voice with Willie Nelson's was the catalyst that propelled "Outlaw Country" into the history books. Listen to "Ramblin' Man" and "Waymore's Blues" and you'll hear the sound of the country.

George Strait
Strait is the "new kid on the block" of my list, even though he's been releasing pure country for well over 20 years. He's also the only one who still sells out arena concerts and has big hit songs in the charts consistantly, but that's not what qualifies him for my list. He is, plain and simple, the incarnation of practically everything about country music that I find enjoyable and entertaining. "Amarillo by Morning", "The Chair", "Cheyenne", the list of his excellent songs is a very long one, and each is infused with Strait's expressive baritone that sounds like it was honed around the campfire after a long hard day of cattle rustlin'. His only crime, as far as I can see, is that he was the one who inspired Garth Brooks to begin singing...Oh well, I don't hold that against him.

Sun Kil Moon...Kozelek's Ghosts Escape Fire

Sun Kil Moon...Ghosts Of The Great Highway
(2003, Jetset Records, TWA 53)

Sun Kil Moon mastermind Mark Kozelek kicks off the album Ghosts Of The Great Highway with a boxing reference. "Cassius Clay", he says, "was hated more than Sonny Liston". This he states matter-of- factly, as if it's a foregone conclusion. Then he moves into more subjective territory, allowing that some like Judas Priest guitarist K.K. Downing more than his Priest co-hort Glenn Tipton, and that, among those with a preference, Jim Nabors is sometimes favoured over Bobby Vinton.

Boxing legends, heavy metal axemen and easy-listening music crooners...what in the world do they have in common?

Kozelek fills us in..."I like 'em all," he sings.

And that's Mark Kozelek for you. An enigmatic, mixed-bag of a songwriter who is impossible to pin down. Just when you think he's perfected slo-core mope-rock with the Red House Painters he throws out Songs From A Blue Guitar, basically a solo album (none of the other RHP members were involved) and featuring an extremely repetitive distortion drenched droner, "Make Like Paper", which would have sounded perfectly at home on the loudest Neil Young/Crazy Horse LP never released. On that same album he managed to throw in references to Young's "Cortez The Killer" and Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" in a lengthy cover of Paul McCartney's "Silly Love Songs" that bore even less resemblance to the original than Johnny Cash's reworking of "Rusty Cage" did to Soundgarden's blueprint. And if that weren't enough to convince you that Kozelek was out to confound his core audience, perhaps the head-bangin', fist-pumpin' version of Yes' "Long Distance Runaround" will do? Or maybe the gorgeous version of The Cars' "All Mixed Up" that makes the original sound contrived, turning it into a genuinely passionate, heart- rending ballad...

Kozelek followed Songs For A Blue Guitar with another Red House Painters album (this one featuring all but one original member), the bittersweet Old Ramon. Then he dropped two solo EPs (one of which consisted entirely of old Bon Scott- era AC/DC songs re-cast as tender folkie ballads...did I mention that Kozelek has a knack for absurdity?) and a lackluster but well-intentioned limited edition live LP (White Christmas Live).

So I wouldn't blame those RHP fans who fell in love with their first self- titled album (aka Rollercoaster) for maybe feeling like Kozelek had alienated himself somewhat from the very ones who put him on the map, as it were. After all, it's a long way from the dulcet tones of "Grace Cathedral Park" to the stripped-down starkness of his arrangement of "If You Want Blood".

But somehow I doubt that he lost too many true believers, because with the exception of his beautifully poetic lyrics, the man's greatest asset is his voice, pure, crystalline and melancholic. It's the kind of voice that bleeds passion, that exudes feeling, that sometimes, when it hits you just right, is almost cruel in it's ability to pierce through the hardened heart to elicit emotions not generally shared with everyone. Private sentiment, sheltered and barricaded, seeps through like blood on a thin white sheet at the sound of Mark Kozelek's singing.

Would it surprise you to know that Kozelek, he of the beguiling, angelic voice and intimate, sonnet-like lyrics, is a hardcore boxing fan?

Indeed, he is, and that brings us back to Ghosts Of The Great Highway, his most recent album using the moniker of Sun Kil Moon (though it features ex-members of Red House Painters, Black Lab & American Music Club, most Kozelek devotees focus primarily on his contribution, since all songs were written and arranged by him and his signature is stamped upon every moment).

The album references professional boxers in no less than 4 of it's most powerful songs, including the opener, "Glenn Tipton". It's a subdued introduction to an album that covers quite a bit of stylistic territory...an acoustic number remeniscent of the late John Denver's early work, but with a bizarre lyrical twist---after lamenting a lost father and a late friend, waxing poetic on the inevitability of change, the narrator goes on to confess, "I buried my first victim when I was nineteen, went through her bedroom and the pockets of her jeans". There, he says, "(I) found her letters that said so many things that really hurt me bad." And even though he insists that he's "never breathed her name again", he still concedes, "I like to dream about what could have been"... "Sunshine On My Shoulder" this AIN'T!

"Glenn Tipton" is actually a logical choice to begin this album, as it most resembles the solo work Kozelek has done on his Badman Recordings projects Rock And Roll Singer and What's Next To The Moon, more or less providing a sense of closure to that aspect of his work, at least at this point in time, clearing the way for the more lush soundscapes that follow.

Long-time Red House Painters fans who pine for the melancholy arpeggios of their seminal albums will likely think their wish has been granted with the subdued "Carry Me Ohio". Indeed, this is the closest to the formative "RHP sound" Kozelek has come since his departure from the 4AD label. Melodically simple, the intensity builds throughout the song with the addition of more instruments and more distortion (though distortion, as it is used here, is anything but noisy).

"Carry Me Ohio" is a love song that acknowledges a potential soulmate but bemoans a state of affairs that seems to sabotage any attempt to reciprocate affection, for whatever reason. "Sorry that I could never love you back, I could never care enough in these last days", Kozelek apologizes, while at the same time offering up the admission, "Can't count all the lovers I've burned through, so why do I still burn for you? I can't say". The chorus is a prayer to "heal her soul, and carry her my angel, Ohio", sung in a lilting falsetto that sends shivers down the spine. Glockenspiel and guitar bell-tones waft through the song like a soft breeze on calm waters. It's a mournful affair that longs for "words long gone" and "the star I just don't see anymore", but it's obvious that the real loss is the ability to love and to allow oneself to be loved in return...

The tranquility, however, is shattered with the sound of loud electric guitars as the next song, "Salvador Sanchez", blares from the speakers. Sorry, old-school RHP fans, but the nostalgia was short-lived. And as far as I'm concerned that's just fine, because "Salvador Sanchez" is one of the most moving and powerful songs Mark Kozelek has ever written and recorded. Once again he has channeled Neil Young & Crazy Horse with uncanny success in this loping peon to Latin American boxers who "fell by leather, all alone but bound together". Now I don't pretend to know the slightest thing about boxing and it's colourful history, but this song makes the subject seem so alluring that I'm almost tempted to delve into it.

Kozelek describes the song's namesake as a "sweet warrior, pure magic matador". He then proceeds to sing of several other fighters, including Pancho Villa and Gozo of the Phillipines (who I personally had never heard of until now, but no doubt they are long lost kings of "the Ring"). One he describes as "crying for suns lost on distant shores" until his opponent "struck him, delivered him". You can almost see the blood flying in a black-and-white slow motion instant replay.

The grunge of "Salvador Sanchez" fades out and gives way to a series of three delicate, pastoral pieces that benefit from lovely, unobtrusive string arrangements. "Last Tide"/"Floating" and "Gentle Moon" are the kind of songs that sound as if they were written especially to showcase the fragile, lovelorn quality of Kozelek's voice. He's proven many times in the past that he's capable of writing incredibly poetic lyrics, and the words to "Last Tide" are likely no exception, but his diction is so slurred here, almost mumbled, that they are barely decipherable. You'd think that would be a drawback, but no, it adds an elusive charm to the number (much like early R.E.M. and everything by Sigur Ros, you find yourself so caught up in the music that you don't even really care what the words are, or if it even has "real words").

When "Last Tide" segues into "Floating" the lyrics become more audible, but they're more or less just a repeated mantra of "Come to me my love, One more night, Come on" with a few variations. Still, it winds things down sweetly and leaves the listener wanting more of the same...

Which is exactly what you get. "Gentle Moon", like "Last Tide", is enhanced by a string quartet and delicate acoustic guitar picking, with a chiming, minimalistic electric guitar ringing a two-note pattern that adds a shimmering radiance throughout. The lyrics are mumbled again, quite difficult to decipher except in the chorus: "Our souls escape fire, they rise higher...Gentle moon, find them soon". I'm guilty of using the adjective "beautiful" way too much when I try to describe music that affects me like this does, but what else can I say? "Beautiful" fits "Gentle Moon" to a tee.

The seventh track on the album, "Lily And Parrots", is the weakest, in my humble opinion, though I've read that the label was pushing it as a potential single when the album first came out around this time last year, with indie radio play and all. Perhaps it's my own personal taste that keeps me from appreciating the tune, but the hard rock stylings just don't ring true and sound completely out of place in the grand scheme of the album. I've listened to Ghosts Of The Great Highway at least a hundred times since it was released and I can honestly say that I've skipped over "Lily And Parrots" at least 90% of the time. And the thing is, it's NOT a bad song...there's an acoustic version tacked on at the end of White Christmas Live, as a bonus track, and it's quite nice actually. But the arrangement here sinks it.

Once again I must reiterate that this is my own personal opinion of the song...I've read many people praising it as one of Kozelek's best "rockers" on fan websites and e- mail groups. Needless to say, I disagree...I've also read reviews that pan "Salvador Sanchez" as the album's low point, and that just confounds me cuz it's the song I always crank up and sing along with. Different strokes, indeed.
Then again maybe another reason I skip "Lily And Parrots" is because by this time I'm ready to experience the centerpiece of Ghosts Of The Great Highway, the sprawling 14-minute epic "Duk Koo Kim".

The song is yet another ode to a prizefighter, this time an elegy to Korean contender Duk Koo Kim, who was killed by blows sustained in a boxing match with Ray Mancini (by the way, Mancini himself has been the subject of his own song, "'Boom Boom' Mancini" by Warren Zevon, which also mentions Duk Koo Kim). But to be honest, it's not really so much about Duk Koo Kim as it is a reflection on immortality and the love that allows us to face the inevitable, that we come to need every bit as much as the air we breathe.

Kozelek sings of watching a film of the Mancini/Kim fight and being deeply touched by the sight of the "boy from Seoul" laying alone in the square, "without face, without crown". "The angel who looked upon", he observes, "never came down". The sheer intensity of such a moment causes him to consider the seeming randomness of death, and he muses, "You never know what day could pick you... out of the air, out of nowhere".

Earlier in the song he sang of being woken from a dream the same night as he watched the fight film. It's not apparent if this sleep followed or preceeded the images of Duk Koo Kim's fatal loss, which he's witnessed on the screen. The dreams (or is it a single dream?) do seem inspired by something disturbing. In them he watches a typhoon from the roof of his house, "bringing the clouds down to the sea, making the world look gray and alone, taking all light from view". He also dreams of being "lost in war", unable to feel his feet or hands, knowing that he was dying, "but an angel came down", he says, "and brought me back to you". The same angel, perhaps, who looked upon the broken body of Duk Koo Kim, but chose not to descend for him.

It just seems to me that the tragedy of Duk Koo Kim is the inspiration for these reflections on death and how the Grim Reaper could care less about his victim's ambitions, aspirations or anything else he might have going for himself in life. And in the face of all these hard thoughts Kozelek comes around to a simple invocation, "Come to me once more my love, show me love I've never known...sing to me once more my love, words from your younger years"...
I've never been all that good at discerning the "meaning" of a song, and the interpretations that I've just shared may be wildly off the mark (pardon the pun), but then again, I'm not sure that it matters whether or not I really "get" it, because what I DO "get" is a flood of feeling as I listen to "Duk Koo Kim", and that's really what music is primarilly about, isn't it?

It took several hearings before the song really sank in for me, and I'm sure it's sheer length will be daunting to some, but there is no doubt in my mind that "Duk Koo Kim" is the awesome highlight of Ghosts Of The Great Highway. There's really no way to adequately follow it, but there are two more tracks left, and in their own way they underscore the impact of all that came before them.
"Si Paloma" is an instrumental track with a Latin American feel that sort of breezes along like a soft afterglow. Then the album concludes with "Pancho Villa", which is nothing more than "Salvador Sanchez" stolen from Crazy Horse and re-cast into a setting more akin to "Last Tide" and "Gentle Moon". It's a bit disarming when you first realize that it's the same song, because the arrangement totally alters the feel, but Mark Kozelek has been doing this ever since the beginning of his career with his own material ("Mistress", "New Jersey", "Have You Forgotten") and with others' work (Simon & Garfunkel's "I Am A Rock", the batch of AC/DC covers and even Francis Scott Key's "Star Spangled Banner"). This tactic, for the most part, has yielded striking results, and "Pancho Villa" is no exception. It reminds you of all that came before it and makes you want to listen again.

And so, as Sun Kil Moon, Mark Kozelek has outdone himself. All that there is to love in his work with Red House Painters as well as his solo efforts are here in abundance, along with something extra...something I can't quite describe, but which takes his music to a new level. I'm still not sure what any of it has to do with ghosts or a "great highway", but I do know this: Ghosts Of The Great Highway has proven to be the perfect soundtrack for those long road trips I've frequently embarked upon in the last year since I've had this album, so maybe it has something to do with that?

I kinda let this blog go when I left the Mad Laugh back in late December of last year...it had turned into a journal of my experiences with the band. Of course, that had never been the original goal of the blog when I first started it a year earlier, long before I'd joined the group. At that point I was content to pontificate about the music I happened to be listening to on any given day. But I started up another blog with a musical theme, which was to be an experiment in "team-blogging", and the good old Listening Room turned into the afore-mentioned Mad Laugh diary, then was abandoned completely.

I've jumped back into the blogosphere with a blog called Nausea & Bliss, which is more or less a somewhat bizarre photoblog at this point, but may eventually morph into an outlet for creative writing and other such means of expression. The team blog, which was called RSdotcom Champions Music Club, has been inactive for quite awhile and I plan on deleting it soon. With that out of the way, I intend to resuscitate the Listening Room. I want to bring it back more in line with it's original purpose (music blah blah blah), but then again, truth be told, I don't listen to as much music as I used to, so I may post some other stuff as well.
At any rate, I doubt too many people will ever read any of it, so I'll stop with all the formalities.

The next few posts will be pulled from the RSdotcom Champions Music Club blog, saved from oblivion before I delete it. They are basically written as "reviews" (though a couple are not yer typical music reviews, more like tributes to Lester Bangs' style, ie. my attempts to emulate his style). I hope you enjoy them.

Live Aid...After All These Years

I spent all of July 1985 away from a television and so I missed what is very likely the most significant rock concert of all time, Bob Geldof's love offering to the Ethiopians, Live Aid. I read all about it in Rolling Stone and for 20 years I have regretted that I didn't have a chance to witness it. I thought I never would, since Geldof was adamant about the thing never being re-broadcast...
But alas, there is still a need in that region of Africa, and so Geldof has agreed to release all the footage that still exists of the show (the vast majority of both shows at Wembley and at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia) along with music videos of Band-Aid, USA for Africa and several other Live Aid related performances and footage, on 4 DVDs totalling over 10 hours of history to re-visit.
And boy, is there a cornucopia of top acts...U2's breakthrough performances of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and (especially) "Bad", David Bowie looking spry and healthy, The Who's Roger Daltry forgetting the lyrics to the bridge of "Won't Get Fooled Again" (yes, I couldn't believe it, either), Bob Dylan backed by Keith Richards and Ron Wood (with more than one acoustic guitar out of tune), Paul McCartney turning "Let It Be" into a hymn for the starving Africans, Teddy Pendergrass singing from his wheelchair in his first live performance since a car wreck left him parapalegic, Ozzy Osbourne fronting Black Sabbath for the first time since they parted ways, Eric Clapton launching into the most blistering version of "Layla" since recording it with Derek & the Dominoes (w/Nicky Hopkins playing that beautiful piano coda), Madonna looking relatively innocent belting out "Holiday" and "Into the Groove" during the exciting birth pangs of her career, Phil Collins flying on the Concord from his performance in England so he could also perform in America (in case you're wondering, he did "Against All Odds" in Britain and "In The Air Tonight" across the pond, as well as backing up Sting on vocals and Eric Clapton on drums...his work on "White Room" is a testament to his gift as a drummer), Mick Jagger getting frisky with Tina Turner to the point of actually removing his shirt, and just SO MUCH MORE. Worth the price of admission just to stare at Tom Petty's mutton chops, but then again, with the proceeds from the sale of the DVD going directly to the Band Aid trust, you don't have to be a die-hard music afficianado to feel good about slapping down the $30 asked for this bona fide essential.
I cannot reccomend the Live Aid DVD highly enough...I only wish that it had been released to satisfy the demand of music lovers worldwide, and not because the money is still needed in Africa... At any rate, there you are. Just let me know what you think of it when you've had a chance to ingest all 10 hours...