It’s Official – Today, The New York Times became the Onion – the headline reads :
“Study Links Drop in Test Scores to a Decline in Time Spent Reading”
And may we suggest:
“Music Linked to Instances of Listening”
It’s Official – Today, The New York Times became the Onion – the headline reads :
“Study Links Drop in Test Scores to a Decline in Time Spent Reading”
And may we suggest:
“Music Linked to Instances of Listening”
A couple weeks ago the Susquehanna Industrial Tool & Die Co. played a show at Banjo Jim’s. Hijinx ensued, as always, what was unusual was how much I liked the band following us – Swamp Cabbage. Strange because musically the two groups are as different as Hillbilly Boogie and Southern Boogie (or as the lads more accurately describe themselves “North Florida fatback boogaloo” which definitely puts them in a category distinct from the Marshall Tucker Band). Still, they had chops and ideas and funny lyrics and an endearing stage presence. Be astounded by their stagecraft when I tell you the high point for me was the cover of Edgar Winter’s stoner classic “Frankenstein”. You heard right folks, the entire epic composition rendered in full by guitar, bass and drums – and I liked it! Even when one particular section seemed to shade into the final rave up part of the Allman Brothers’ “Whipping Post”. I dug it.
Naturally, this intense experience got me thinking about how simultaneously boring / fascinating the original was back in the day. The album side that launched a thousand bong hits. Enjoy:
This all clearly is headed toward one inescapable theme – The Keytar: Scourge, or Menace?
Edgar was way out in front on this one. The Wikipedia notes what Winter rocked out on in the above video “was not a keytar—it was merely an ARP 2600 keyboard with a shoulder strap added.” MERELY!? We are ‘merely’ witnessing innovation, sir. The first commercially available synthesizer-on-a-guitar-strap was named the Moog Liberation. Elegant and apt moniker, hinting at a larger political movement that one day might shake the very foundations of civilization, the keytar did precisely as advertised – it liberated the keyboard player, freed him in the sense that now he could jump around like an idiot, just like that illiterate jackass with the guitar he’d been watching from the back of the stage all these years. Sadly, it quickly became evident that being the one guy who can read music doesn’t mean you necessarily qualify in the charismatic front man department. The keytar experiment came and went in the Eighties, thankfully. For those youngsters who are tempted by the current rebound in popularity of the keytar I say unto you: Here’s a guy who never needed to lug his ax all over the stage to get noticed.
I’ll leave you with a bit of contemporary comic genius from Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job. Absolutely no comment from me will add to your experience.
– Jonny
For more than 20 years now ARC has been setting aside singles and LPs, sheet music and CDs, all with space age themes. The goal is a gallery show, when we gets a gallery, titled, “Music of the Spheres.” What better time to highlight some of these gems than the 50th Sputnikary.
Appropriately, about the best song ever to emerge from the space race was the Equadores “Sputnik Dance,” done by an unidentified pickup band, perhaps studio musicians. This solid R&B dance number may represent their entire output. (and can someone send a check so we can start mounting soundclips?)
“Sputnik Dance” / “I’ll The One” // “A Vision” / Stay A Little Longer” Equadores. RCA, EPA-4286, no date.
Daddy-O’s may have panicked when they heard that blip overhead, but the kids just used it as a backbeat. Also-rans Sputnik singles include:
• “Sputnik (Satellite Girl)” / “Unfaithful One” Jerry Engler and the Four Ekkos, Brunswick, 55037,1957. Best name – those “ekkos” [sic] were described on the news in ’57 as, “the sound that will change the world.”
• “Sputnik (Pt. 1)” / “Sputnik (Pt. 2)” Lou Donaldson. Blue Note, 1713, 1957;
• “Shakedown “ / “The Sputnik Story” Bill Thomas. Cullman, 6402, 1958
• “I Don’t Want Nothing But Your Love “ / “Shake It Over, Sputnik” Billy Hogan. Vena, 101, 1958
• “Sputnik II” / “With This Ring” Al Barkle and the Tri-Tones. Vita, 173, 1958
• “Sputnik Three” / “Really, Really Baby” Buel Moore and the Garnets. Vita, 174, 1958
• “Sputniks and Mutniks” / “Dreaming” Ray Anderson. Starday, 342, 1958. Reference to Laika?
• “Sputnik” / “Hiding My Tears (With A Smile)” The Teen-Clefs. Dice, 98/99, 1959.
• “Sputnik Number Two” / “Buddies With The Blues” Bobby Bare. Fratenity. 848, 1959
• “Rock Old Sputnik” / “I’m Falling In Love” Nelson Young. Lucky, 002, 1958
• “Motha Goose Breaks Loose” / “Sputnik ‘69” Hannibal. Pan World, 521, 1960
• “Lowenbrau Laendler “ / “Sputnik Polka” Ernie Reck. Soma, 1093, no date
Space, and the implied “who’s out there and why?” remains one of the dominant themes of man’s inquiry into the nature of the universe and his place in it. Composers throughout history have been fascinated by both the physical and metaphysical aspects of this inquiry, with both cosmic and comic results. The Gods are in heaven and every song of praise, chant and two-hundred strong chorus is an attempt to join them. As science bought us closer, new mythologies stirred the imagination through literature, films and recorded sound. Going into space was our latest, greatest adventure; imagining space our longest running fiction; HAL has replaced Icarus, yet we still name the ships, “Apollo.”
Oh, by the way, “Outer Space,” if it was on the ground, you could drive there in under an hour. (our atmosphere ends at the Kármán line, about 100 km or 62 miles).
Beyond old saws like, “The Planets,” classical highlights include John Morgan’s “Atomic Journeys/Nukes In Space”, the Soviet “Constellation of Gagarin, and Terry Riley’s NASA commissioned work, “Sun Rings.” Even Laurie Anderson pulled a stint as NASA’s resident composer.
Jazz has used ‘Space’ as a title source for ‘mood’ recordings, to tie together concept albums, to toy with electronics or as a model for disjointed ways of working, like Sun Ra’s many hand drawn and colored covers; including, “Space is the Place”, Maynard Ferguson’s Battlestar Galactica, and the first time Duke Ellington sang on record, “Moon Maiden.”
And where would we be without Ziggy Stardust (David Bowie), Rocketman (Elton John), that Space Cowboy and Moondog? “Flying Saucers” by Dicky Goodman, with a narrative spliced between tag lines from current pop hits, represented a pioneering use of samples. Don’t get me started on Vangelis or Pink Floyd. Best outfits go to the pre-Devo, Spotnicks!
Did you prefer “Mr. Spaceman” by the Byrds or “Mr. Spaceman” by the Holy Modal Rounders? By the way there are 12 minor planets named for rock stars, including Jerry Garcia and Frank Zappa.
Astronauts turned out to be real music nuts, with Neil Armstrong admitting he carried Les Baxter’s “Music Out of the Moon” onboard America’s first orbiter. Bet he wished he had taken the moon-babe along instead…
Astronauts who played music in space with instruments they snuck aboard include Aleksandr Laveikin, Ron McNair, Jean-Loup Chretien and Susan Helms. Apollo astronaut Eugene Cernan was the last man ever to set foot on the moon. But another thing no one remembers is that in 1987 he sang along with the Up With People crowd on “Moon Rider.”
Yes, once again, as we drift through time, and green turns to brown, its the soothing T-Rex sound of “Celebrate Summer” that prepares us for the shock of Jackie Gleason’s raucous “Autumn Leaves”.
T.Rex. “Celebrate Summer” / “Ride My Wheeles” EMI, MARC 18, 45rpm, 7″ single, 1977
vs
Jackie Gleason. conducting “Autumn Leaves” / “Can This Be Love” // OO! What You Do To Me” / “After My Laughter Came Tears” Capitol promotional record, white label, EAP 1-674, 45rpm, 7″ “album”, no date.