What are you Listening to right now?

[robin3mj]

Another Irish legend gone this year.

[BBB]

I saw Spoon and The War on Drugs. Fantastic gig, but possibly Spoon could have played for a bit longer.

[72gmc]

I saw Spoon and The War on Drugs. Fantastic gig, but possibly Spoon could have played for a bit longer.

I think I'd say that even if Spoon played long enough. Great band.

[robin3mj]

I saw Emmylou Harris in DC last week and got to meet her for a minute.
Not quite full recompense for skipping the U2 show I had tickets for in Vegas last month with some childhood friends, but it’s a decent consolation.

[BBB]

I think I'd say that even if Spoon played long enough. Great band.

The show times were advertised as 7.40pm for Spoon and 9.00pm for WoD. Spoon started after 7.40 and probably played for 45 minutes. If that. They were great. WoD started after 9pm and played for 1.30. There must have been an 11pm hard stop for the venue and they probably could have swung out one more song. Never mind. It was a great night out.

[bironi]

Please put this post where you may.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...witter-thread/

thank you,
By

[72gmc]

Literally right now.

[72gmc]

Happy holidays all … these are not holiday tunes, just lovely day tunes.

[Bob Ross]

As usual, Peter Gabriel's studio recordings reward attentive listening...and with his latest single (first recording of new original music in 20 years!) he offers even more ear candy by releasing two different mixes, one by Tchad Blake and one by Spike Stent

Gabriel's complete i/o album was finally released this month, so I bought it and have enjoyed listening to it start-to-finish. I am both grateful, and slightly disappointed.

On the one hand, it rewards deep listening the way any/all Peter Gabriel albums do. Brilliant musicianship, stellar fidelity supported by innovative engineering/production, unique sounds, provocative lyrics, even a catchy hook here and there...

But on the other hand, I find myself wondering why it took 20 years to get here. i/o sounds like it could have been released a year after UP, his last album of new original material which came out in 2002. The only thing i/o offers that doesn't appear on UP is the orchestra...which also appeared on his Scratch My Back albums from 2010.

Still glad to have a new addition to my CD collection...it's been years since I bought a new album!

[Marvinlungwitz]

I’ve been listening to i/o a lot the last couple of weeks, too.

Personal trivia that you may find semi-interesting: My first rock concert was Genesis (Selling England by the Pound) with Gabriel as the front man/singer. My boyhood buddy that I was with was Jon Poneman (Sub Pop Records guy).

Untitled by Marvin Lungwitz, on Flickr

Also: I’m pretty sure the opening act was The Ozark Mountain Daredevils.

[72gmc]

I’m only a listener, but Peter always seemed to have a lot more going on than music to me. It’s like his music has to filter through the density of the rest of him, for however long that takes.

[lumpy]

I'm reading Bill Janovitz's book Leon Russell: The Master of Space and Time's Journey Through Rock and Roll History, and I'm listening to a mammoth Spotify playlist Janovitz put together of songs Russell worked on and other artists' covers of Russell's songs. By mammoth, I mean over 24 hours. Some of it is of only historical interest, but a lot of it is really fun and new to me. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3H...5wai0oVQGhtKQJ

[robin3mj]

Just finished Jeff Tweedy’s latest book and working through both the sings he mentions and on another Wilco kick as well.

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/b...y-jeff-tweedy/

[BBB]

[Caleb Evenson]

Spring of 2009, I worked and built ramps at the Mankato, MN skatepark under my manager and friend who was from Sioux Falls, SD. He introduced me to Starfucker's ST debut album, and I had no idea I'd love them forever. I saw them live at Doug Fir in PDX late that year, and couldn't believe how much the young ladies went nuts for them in their bath robes. I only went to the show to see We All Have Hooks for Hands, a band from SD that I've known through friends and college classes. Now Starfucker goes by STRFKR or something like that, after ditching Pyramid, a PR-based name, about a decade ago.

Anyway, one of the band members is from Sioux Falls, SD, so that's why my punk rock skateboardin' friend knew of them right away. Now I'm listening to their beautiful song "Holly". The whole album is awesome, so give it a listen if you haven't.

.

[Caleb Evenson]

Kevin, a yogi from Iowa, introduced me to Radio Phnom Penh when I worked at Bullseye Glass in PDX in '09. It's still one of my favorites, hence I'm listening to it now:

[bironi]

A trip back to 1982 to remember who did this pop tune.
Worth the trip back.



This one is better.



Alright the second video is more flash, the first has the better sound version.

[Bob Ross]

A trip back to 1982 to remember who did this pop tune.
Worth the trip back.

XTC is a weird band in my personal listening history...through no fault of their own, I certainly think their music is clever and exquisitely well-crafted and catchy etc. ...but more because of how different it is from all the other music that I've liked that has prompted other people to recommend XTC to me.

This first started back in the very early 1980s when I was still an undergraduate at music school.
During my teenage years I was mostly listening to archetypal 1970s British prog-rock (e.g., Yes, King Crimson, Gentle Giant) and nascent jazz-rock fusion (e.g., Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return To Forever, Weather Report). Plus lots of Beatles, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin... and some Classical music.
By the early 1980s though I was getting really into certain pop/New Wave/post-punk bands...definitely not all of them though, there were only some that seemed to "hide" the depth and sophistication I had enjoyed in the prog and fusion bands within seemingly stripped down pop songs...e.g., The Police, Talking Heads, Peter Gabriel, Romeo Void, Missing Persons, the Adrian Belew-era of King Crimson, etc.

And nearly all my college buddies had similar musical tastes and personal listening histories: They started with prog-rock and fusion, then gravitated to Police/Talking Heads-type pop.

And so -- here's the part that to this day I don't get -- all my college buddies who had a similar tastes and personal listening histories all said "Oh, you must love XTC!"

:shrugs:

Well, I didn't "love" XTC at the time. I probably still don't, though I do respect them immensely. The thing I genuinely don't get is how XTC fits into the aesthetic I just described. I don't hear any connection between XTC's music and Police/Talking Heads-by-way-of-1970s-prog-rock-or-jazz-fusion.

And yet it wasn't just my undergraduate buddies who thought I would like XTC: Folks throughout my life, even recently, once they hear about the music I grew up with, assume that I must also like XTC!

It's inexplicable. And uncanny.

[72gmc]

XTC is unusually think-y pop music in my mind. Prog pop? Not at all like They Might Be Giants, but also like They Might Be Giants in a way.

I'm right there with your 80s preferences, Bob. My friend gave me Synchronicity on cassette in 1983 and changed my world.

[bironi]

I had a roommate who did a student dj gig at UW at the time of this tune. I called quite frequently for this request. I admit that I like some of their other tunes, but none hangs like this one.
It did prompt me to watch a couple related video interviews with Todd Rundgren and another by Andy Patridge.
Both interesting, but conflicting as well.

I have similar tastes for the most part, I think this band hit hard times at just the wrong time.