I haven’t done a FRT in a while.
- Mogwai, “Kids Will be Skeletons”: a typical Mogwai
track; brilliant post-rock. - The Redneck Manifesto, “Bring Your Own Blood: more
post-rock in the same general vein as Mogwai. This one is a bit
up-tempo, with a very cool rythym. - Gogol Bordello, “Dub the Frequencies of Love: an Eastern
European gypsy punk band doing reggae. Insane, but very cool. - Tony Levin, “Beyond My Reach: A few years ago, the god
of the Chapman stick finally started recording some of his
own music. He’s got a surprisingly good voice. The album is
terrific, ranging from some solid prog tracks, to some fun pop tunes
to very well done ballads, like this one. Even in a mellow ballad
like this, he manages to work in some very impressive stick work. - Hawkwind, “Seven by Seven”: very old progressive/space
rock. I just recently discovered Hawkwind, and was very surprised. I
thought that I knew about all of the first wave of prog-rockers. And
yet, these guys are famous and influential, but I somehow totally
missed out on them. They’re utterly brilliant. They’ve got a lot of
the typcial hallmarks of the early proggers in their sound – there’s
some similarity to Van Der Graff Generator, early Genesis, Syd
Barret era Pink Floyd; but they’re got their own unique distinctive
sound within that style. Really great stuff. This is a very typical
Hawkwind track; lots of very spacy sounding stuff, against a
complex structure. Highly recommended. - IQ, “Red Dust Shadow”: from early prog-rock to neo-prog.
IQ is a neo-progressive band that got started around the same time
as Marillion. They’re led by a guy named Peter Nichols, who’s got a
voice that sounds a lot like Peter Gabriel. They’re a really
fantastic band. - Marillion, “Tumble Down the Years: more neo-progressive.
I’m a huge Marillion fan. I started listening to them back in 1985
or so, and I’ve been a continual fan ever since. This is a sweet
little romantic song from them. Typically for Marillion, even when
they do a poppy little sappy song, it’s got some beautiful structure
interesting harmonies, and great transitions. - Naftule’s Dream, “Free Klez”: Very radical experimental
Klezmer. Ornette Coleman meets Naftule Brandwien on acid. - Tony Trischka, “Celtic Melody: unaccompanied banjo
played by my former banjo teacher. (He’s also Bela Fleck’s banjo
teacher.) Amazing technique. No one can play the banjo like Tony –
when Tony’s on, not even Bela can match him. This is a medley
of a couple of very traditional Irish tunes, played with absolute
perfection. - IQ, “You Never Will: another IQ track, from the same
album as “Red Dust Shadow”.
Tony Levin and friends are great in concert, too. Good mix of his stuff plus covers of stuff he worked on in other bands like Crimson and Peter Gabriel. If he makes a tour (after current Crimson and other plans finish up), do try to catch him. He does smaller clubs (in DC he does Jaxx, which only holds about 200 or so), and loves autograph/photo sessions afterwords (unlike Crimson cohort Fripp).
Of course, given current gas prices, it may be a while before he can tour again…
Random trivia: Lemmy Kilmister was fired from Hawkwind and went on to form Motorhead (also the name of a Hawkwind song).
While I have a lot of GYBE!, Explosions in the Sky, Mono and Tarentel in my music library, the only thing I’ve heard from Mogwai is “Young Team”. Any suggestiong about where to go next?
Brian:
Pretty much everything by Mogwai is very good; they’re pretty consistent.
My favorite of their albums is “Mr. Beast”; I like it even better than “Young Team”.
I never understand the fuss about Young Team. Don’t get me wrong, terrific album. But their sound on Mr. Beast and Happy Songs for Happy People (which I consider together as one perfect double album rather than 2 perfect single ones…) is much more evolved and original.
Young Team doesn’t get to me the same way. Than again, I don’t think any album get to me like Mr. Beast and Happy Songs..
I like Pat Boone.
Damn, it is tough to troll a music list that has Mogwai in it!
I have the one Naftule record I’ve been able to find, and a bunch of Gogol Bordello, which (I admit) a graduating student pointed me towards. Being half-Russkie/Czech, and all jazz woodwind player, and raised on odd time signatures a la the Don Ellis Orchestra, I find music like this entrancing and stimulating.
I will end with this, then: Farmer’s Market, Boris Kovac and Balkan Beatbox.
Cheers!
The Motorhead -> Hawkwind connection has been mentioned, but I felt it relevant to note that I came upon them from the New Wave of British Heavy Metal direction, and never really considered them as prog rock in the same vain as Crimson or Floyd. I guess they’re close though.