Site Feed
“Mod Guitars are a part of the Waterstone guitar group, which was formed by Rob Singer, creating instruments that take inspiration from the 50s and 60s and picking up fans across the music spectrum, from classic rockers to today’s hip young things, including Sigur Ros and the excellent Tyde.”
Seen at Retro To Go
Read All About It
The Photoshop Roadmap has released a curious set of progressive rock logos and albums Photoshop brushes to download for free. This includes bands like King Crimson, Yes, Focus, Led Zeppelin, etc…
The web site has also featured a link to the article I wrote las year on the Top 10 Rock Band Logos at Intuitive Design’s blog.
“The M400 has been designed as an homage to the original MkII. Boasting many new features including a positively pressured cabinet, cycling optical failsafe, inching facilities, Azimuth alignable tape heads, (whatever they all may be!) and improved playing height, Streetly Electronics reckon it’s their best beast ever.”
Seen at DGM Live
Read All About It
“Another of the “High In-Fidelity” greeting card series of mock record covers. This one comically lists suggested song titles including: “Cocktails for Two”, “There’s a Tavern in the Town”, “Belly up to the Bar Boys”.”
Seen at LP Lover
Read All About It
“A veritable treasure trove of manuscripts are now available online. The Juilliard Manuscript Collection is a flash-based website with images of 99 manuscripts, and 8000 pages of high resolution scans of manuscripts by “famous” classical composers.”
Seen at Roger Bourland
Read All About It
I think harp is definitively my favorite instrument from the ones I play, but I’m not much of a guitar person myself. On the other hand my friend, guitarist Francisco Valdivia, he can play both instruments. Lately he keeps taking to me about antique guitar instruments and harps, so I just remembered this wonderful web site I found last year. A must see for lovers of curious instruments.
Seen at Kiddie Rekord King
Read All About It
“You can hardly miss this month’s i-D cover as Bjork is literally roaring at you with colour. I had no idea though she has been on the cover of i-D in total five times. I love how from her first cover, she looks so unbelievably fresh-faced and as each cover progresses, there’s a heavier mask applied, until the latest cover where she is literally colour-camoflaged.”
Seen at Style Bubble
I must be one of the few people who refuses to bury the analog technology forever. I still use a cassette recorder to do the phone interviews for The Marquee Club web site and of course I still keep a wonderful collection of music tapes from the 70’s. I have to admit, though, that I recently converted all of my own music recordings to digital, and the quailty loss in some of them was already pretty scary.
When I was ten, I used to go to school every day with a suitcase full of tapes and a tape player. I have wonderful memories of cassette tapes, but I must admit that it would have been more convenient to have an MP3 player at the time: I would have avoid some 2 kgs. of weight every day!
“The eject button on music tapes has been pressed for the last time. Currys, the biggest electronics retailer in Britain, will today announce that it is to stop selling cassette tapes - a move which sounds the death knell for the compilation tape, used by a generation of love-struck young men to woo their girlfriends.”
Seen at Telegraph.co.uk
Read All About It
A curious photo of Vangelis with his band The Papathanassiou Set in all their Greek splendour!
Vangelis formed the band in 1967, including vocalist Demis Roussos and drummer Lucas Sideras. A year later, the band left Greece and established in Paris, where they signed a record deal with Mercury records and changed the band’s name to Aphrodite’s Child. They recorded the albums ‘End of the World’, ‘It’s Five O’Clock’ and ‘666′.
Vangelis and Demis Rousos remained friends throughout the years. For Roussos, Vangelis arranged and produced two albums “Magic” (1977),”Ainsi soit-il” (1977), “Demis” (1982) which features a pop version of “Chariots of Fire” entitled “Race to the End”, and “Reflection” (1984).
We have just started a new blog called The Anachronic Herald which is a sort of blog of blogs where put all of our different blogs (Intuitive Designs, Intuitive Music, Atypical Shoes and The Marquee Club) together on it.
If you are using RSS feeds and you subscribe to The Anachronic Herald, you will get the latest post from all of our four blogs, so you can easily see whatever you feel like reading. Theremore, in The Anachronic Herald I’m going to eventually write some articles and I will include daily feeds or links from other web sites and news that I think are interesting, related with music, art, design, movies, photography, fashion, the future of this beautiful world and other stuff.
You can see the new blog at:
The Anachronic Herald
And this is the address to subscribe to RSS feeds:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheAnachronicHerald.com
Hope to see you around!
Today it’s the 7th anniversary of this web site. It’s been 7 years of sharing with you our ideas and recommendations about intesting and creative music, and seven years of fighting, hard work, changes and learning from our errors.
Intuitive Music has been constantly going through a process of improvement and expansion. I started this web site in April 2000 when I noticed the lack of a website in the internet where all the different forms and styles of alternative music would thrive together. So this new born baby started as an English language website by August 2001. By late 2001, the website went through the first metamorphosis to Flash technology and became an international portal featuring content for 3 different areas of the world: USA/Canada, Europe, and Spain/Southamerica.
In 2002, Naomi moved from Colorado, USA and joined the project to co-direct the web site bringing lots of changes and improvements. We met each other because of this web site and while sharing our passion for music and other things we decided we wanted to share our lives together, so today we are married and apart from Intuitive Music we also run the design firm Intuitive Designs.
In 2006, there was a new big change in the web site: different sections and different design, which is the way you can see it today. We wish we could keep this project for another 7 years, and we want to give thanks to all of the visitors, collaborators and supporters throughout these seven long years. Thank you!
Deborah Anderson and her father Jon Anderson are working together in several tracks for the forthcoming release of her coffee table book ‘Paperthin’, which will include her latest music works and a collection of photography inspired in the 1920’s.
Deborah has recently posted a track called “The Key” at her site in Myspace, in collaboration with Jon, which is a wonderful sample of her latest brilliant works. The song is part of an electronic music project called ‘Messertraum’, which features Andreas Dietrich Allen and Sebastian Arocha Morton from Berlin, plus the collaboration of J.B. Eckl from Outside, and Vikter Duplaix.
Deborah Anderson was born in London in 1970. She grew up surrounded with musicians and as a child she got used to see his father working at the garage studio at home. Her first professional experience was in 1979 when she collaborated singing a duet with her father in the album ‘Song of Seven’, which they also performed live at London’s Royal Albert Hall on December the 1st 1980. This was the first of numerous collaborations with her father, including guess vocals on the albums ‘Deseo’ (1994) and ‘Toltec’ (1996). In 1993, Deborah was also part of Jon Anderson’s band during the South American Tour.
Apart from her notorious musical talent, Deborah has turned into a wonderful photographer. After running a shop of vintage fashion in London, Deborah started almost by chance taking photographs of models to show her own collections. Today, she has worked for renowned magazines such as GQ, Elle and Cosmopolitan. Her photography and music are two sides of the same coin, both of them showing a rich world of sensitivity and sensuality. Her music, inspired in the personal search of her feelings and her personal identity in the spiritual world, creates a delicate world of deep emotions. Music that recognizes the relationship between the artist and the spiritual world and portraits a very personal universe, in the same manner as other brave female artists like Bjork, Kate Bush, Elizabeth Carpenter, Rachel Foster and Goldfrapp.
Deborah Anderson worked with the renowned electronic artist Alex Reece, including the release of the hit ‘Feel The Sunshine’. In 1998, she signed to Mo Wax label and she worked with some of the most talented artists in electronic music, including DJ Shadow, DJ Krush, Kruder and Dorfmeister, Le Tone, and Telepopmusik.
Deborah has been collecting a set of exquisite electronic and vocal music pieces that announce her forthcoming work as one of the most interesting and touching musical works today. Jon Anderson is currently working hand by hand with her in new material for her album. Let’s not forget that Jon is married to Jane Anderson, who has often collaborated on vocals in several solo albums, and he is also the father of another two talented people: Damion Anderson, singer of the rock band Zen State, and Jade Anderson who is a reputed pop singer today and has a successful solo album out, ‘Dive Deeper’.
Hawkwind will be remembered as the pioneers of space rock music in the early 70’s but curiously they also pioneered the nudity on stage when they added an exuberant dancer called Stacia to their shows.
Stacia debuted with Hawkwind at Glastonbury Festival in June 1971, after she had seen the band at the legendary Isle of Wight festival. Soon later, after a concert near her home town in Exeter, she was invited to a rehearsal where she just started dancing nude to the music. This way, she probably became the first woman to dance nude on stage in the history of rock music. For Hawkind, rather than an erotic show this was just another way of expression for their visionary universe. Stacia said to a music newspaper:‘People watching did not regard it as a sexual thing. Hawkwind don’t attract that type of audience. They reacted to my dancing as an expression of freedom… Somebody once approached me to do a pornographic film - I reacted quite violently - not physically, but verbally. I would never contemplate anything like that’.
Despite of Stacia’s artistic intentions, probably the world was still not ready for that. As soon as the word spread about this tall woman dancing on stage and showing her breasts, the band’s audience was looking more like a bunch of teenagers looking for a peep-show. This was a big deception for Stacia, she just had a different conception about her art: ‘My dancing is an expression of what I feel about the music. The Japanese do it - it’s a form of expression and miming. Most men look upon me as a sexual challenge, especially in the States where, to my mind, the only real groupies exist.’
Eventually, she decided to cover her body with a collection of fantastic costumes. The sad thing is that today, 35 years later, the world would never accept or understand the art of this modern Isadora Duncan because it would be taken as pornography. And in addition, her naked figure probably wouldn’t please the cannons of beauty imposed by the modern society and the media.
Stacia left Hawkwind in August 1975 but her pioneering performances became a tradition in the band and many other dancers and mimes joined them on stage throughout the years, including Tony Crerar, Miss Renee, Phyllis, Jane Issac, Kris Tait, Julie Murray, Bridgett Wishart, Liam Yates and Michelle Gaskill.
Did you know that the voice of the famous android R2D2 from Star Wars movies was created with a synthesizer? The sounds were created using an ARP 2600 semi-modular system synthesizer by Ben Burtt, who also did most of the famous sound effects at Skywalker Sound. For the R2D2 voice, Burtt used several samplings from whistles, human vocalizations and water pipes.
Ben Burtt also created the infamous voice of Darth Vader, as well as effects such as the laser gun blasts and the lightsaber. For this last one he combined the sound from simplex projectors with interference sounds that he created with a TV picture tube while waving the microphones over a speaker.
Ben Burtt was born in Syracuse, New York, and earned a college degree in Physics. He started working with George Lucas in 1975 and has won four Academy Awards for Sound and Sound Effects Editing for the films ‘Star Wars’, ‘E.T.’, ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’, and ‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’. He also worked in the sound design for other movies, such as ‘The Dark Crystal’, ‘Niagara’, ‘Willow’, ‘Alien’, and ‘Howard the Duck’.
The ARP 2600 is credited to be one of the best synthesizers built during the 70’s and only about 3,000 units were produced. Some reputed artists who used this synthesizer are Stevie Wonder, Tony Banks, Patrick Moraz, Rick Wakeman, Vince Clarke, Pete Townshend, Joy Division, Jean Michel Jarre, Front Line Assembly and Weather Report.
A curious picture of guitarist Jimmy Page at the theremin live during Led Zeppelin’s concert at Kezar Stadium, New York, 1973.
Page is one of the most notorious rock musicians who brought to the big audiences the sound of the electronic instrument invented by Leon Theremin in 1920. Unlike other musicians, Page found a new dimension to the instrument by producing a sort of atmospheric effects instead of as a soloist instrument. A nice sample of his the theremin playing can be seen at Led Zeppelin’s film ‘The Song Remains The Same’.
Just a few months after I posted the news on the death of the renowed bassist and vocalist Boz Burrell, with great sadness I have to announce the death of another member from the same line-up of King Crimson. Drummer Ian Wallace died last Thursday, 22nd of February 2007, at the age of 60, after several months of fight with an esophageal cancer. He was one of the finest drummers in the history of rock music.
Born in Bury, England, on September the 29th, 1946, Ian Wallace started his musical career when he formed a school band in Bury called The Jaguars, where he was also the lead singer. Soon later he joined The Warriors, a local band from Accrington, Lancashire, which featured Tony Anderson and Jon Anderson (later of Yes) on vocals, Rod Hill (guitar), Mike Brereton (guitar), and David Foster (bass) later of Badger. With The Warriors, Wallace played for 18 months in clubs in Germany and Denmark. He later moved to Copenhagen to join Big Sound for a period of six months. For a while, several ex-members from both bands, The Warriors and Big Sound, were sharing a flat in London’s Fulham with the members from the first Yes line-up. Actually, Ian Wallace got to replace Bill Bruford on drums on one gig when he fell sick. During the late 60’s, Big Sound made a name in London as backing band and working to Sandie Shaw, The Marbles, David Garrick, Marv Johnson, Lou Christie, and many others. Wallace later joined Vivian Stanshall’s Bonzo Dog Band, and later The World.
In 1971, Ian wallace was invited to join the new version of King Crimson to record the album “Islands”, released in December 1971, which remains as one of the most remarkable albums in the band’s career. In May 1972, after differences with Robert Fripp and coinciding with the end of an American tour, Ian Wallace decided to leave King Crimson along with sax player Mel Collins andbass/vocalist Boz Burrell, and the three of them stayed on in the United States to play with bluesman Alexis Korner’s band Snape.
During the following years, Wallace became a reputable studio musician and worked to reputed artists such as Peter Frampton in 1975 and Ry Cooder in 1979. In 1978, Wallace he was invited to join Bob Dylan’s band, which provided an big reputation to his career. He was later selected by drummer Don Henley to take over the drum chair for three of his solo tours through the ’80s and ’90s.
During the forthcoming years, Wallace worked to some of the most renowned music artists, including Chuck Berry, Little Richard, George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Bo Diddley, Roy Orbison, Alvin Lee, Jon Anderson, Keith Emerson, Crosby Stills and Nash, Joe Walsh, Brian Eno, Larry Coryell, John Fogerty, Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, Steve Marriott, Bonnie Raitt, Badger, Al Kooper, Glen Frey, Tim Buckley, Lonnie Mack, Billy Joel, Otis Spann, Sting, Steve Winwood Bob Seger, Jimmy Buffett, Robben Ford, Linda Ronstadt, Warren Zevon, and Jackson Browne.
For a while, Wallace formed a curious band called in Los Angeles called The Teabags, which featured Peter Banks (ex-Yes), Jackie Lomax (ex-Badger), David Mansfield, Kim Gardner (ex-Creation), Graham Bell (ex-Sweet).
In 1993, he joined Procol Harum on tour. He also occasionally joined The Traveling Wilburys and in 2004, Wallace formed the 21st Century Schizoid Band, a revision of King Crimson, featuring Mel Collins, Ian Wallace, Jakko M. Jakszyk, Ian McDonald and Peter Giles. The band toured live, releasing the live album ‘Pictures Of A City’ in March 2006.
In 2005, Ian Wallace formed the The Crimson Jazz Trio, along with bassist Tim Landers and pianist Jody Nardone, playing jazz interpretations of the band favorites and releasing ‘The King Crimson Songbook, Volume One’.
Ian Wallace also released the solo albums “Take A Train” (1999) and more recently “Happiness With Minimal Side Effects” (2003). For the last few months, Ian fought esophageal cancer and in the last weeks, his condition deteriorated rapidly despite the regime of chemotherapy and other interventions. In a communication at Ian Wallace official website, Ian’s wife Margie has stated: ‘It breaks my heart to tell you all that Ian left us this morning. He slept through the night and was, to my mind, very comfortable. He was still fighting I asked him to let go and fly away…and he did.’ King Crimson’s official web site is currently publishing personal tributes from the band’s members on his memory. He will be remembered as one of the most remarkable rock and jazz drummers of all times having some of the most impressive careers ever.
Lethargy are a Spanish duo formed by Mayte Cruz and Julio Tomé which has earned an international reputation as one of the top electro pop European acts. With two albums and a couple of remixes EPs out, Lethargy have recently released their latest work “Electric Cabaret”, an EP including new studio material. The new tracks are powerful cocktail of vocal synth pop and EBM, influenced by the classical German electro sound and the strength of alternative punk rock.
Mayte and Julio talked to Intuitive Music about their recommendations.
- My first musical influence:
Mayte: My older brothers used to fill up the house with vinyl, LPs and singles. At home, the musical taste was more open than in the typical Spanish families because we were living in Germany for about five years, that’s were I was born. So I would remark the Pink Floyd albums from my brothers, but my first influence from anybody else was Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love”.
Julio: Living in the Basque Country it’s very determinative. The first thing I remember is to listen to local rock bands, so I would mention Itoiz as one of the first influences, just because at home it used to be played all of the time.
- The album that changed my life:
Mayte: There’s more than one, but there’s a particular song that made me move to London to finish my schooling when I was a teenager: The Clash “London Calling”. There were many other songs throughout the time.
Julio: Without a doubt The Cramps “Psychodelic Jungle”. I liked the songs from their former albums but with this one they became my favorite band.
- The album I fell in love listening to:
Mayte: Ultravox “Vienna”, but the truth is that I just fell in love with the song.
Julio: The Cramps “Human Fly”
- My last music discovery:
Mayte: She Wants Revenge, a completely recommendable Californian duo. The release on Perfect Kiss records.
Julio: The British band The Horrors. They’re nothing new to me but the stuff they’re trying to resurface it’s perfect for these times. The funny thing is that they haven’t even released any album and they have lots of fans, including myself.
- My best experience with another musician:
Mayte and Julio: Apart from the complicity and connection working with my partner Julio, we have had a lot of great experiences with other bands: with Miguel from Digital 21 while writing a guitar part sitting at our bed; David Kano from Cycle singing a duet with me en the ultimate version of “Koolthing”; with Luki from Side Effects; with Femme Fatale at her old studio, having a thousand beers…
- Recommended album of my career:
Mayte: That’s a hard question. Talking about other people’s music is easier for me. Each stage has it’s own charm and each album reflects a lived moment, so I like them all because is just part of my life and my creation. But I always feel identified the most with the latest work. Sometimes when I listen to an old work I think: ‘This was really good’. So it’s better to have them all so you can choose.
Julio: I’m never 100% happy about the finished work. Anyhow, I’m usually most interested in whatever I’m doing in this moment.
- Recommended track remixed by me:
Mayte and Julio: We are very happy with the versions we did of The Cure’s “Pictures of You” and Airboforcen’s “Not Unique”.
- Recommended remix of my song:
Mayte: David Kano “You May Be”.
Julio: Ruben Montesco “Insomniac’s Red Room”
- Recommended album that influenced me while doing “Electric Cabaret”:
Mayte: When we’re working in new songs we don’t listen to much music. And I’m personally so eclectic that my influences can include things as different as Grace Jones remixed by DJ Hell, X Lover, Ella Fitzgerald and Chavela Vargas. Quite a mix!
Julio: I think nothing at all. I don’t listen to any music lately and whenever I do it it doesn’t have much to do with the music I write.
- Recommended Myspace band:
Mayte: Equitant, to whom I knew throughout Intuitive Music and now we are good friends.
Julio: Ulterior, without a doubt. I visit their Myspace page every once in a while to listen to their music. Mayte was lucky enough to see one of their concerts in London last December. I’m so jealous!
Advent are a progressive rock band from New Jersey with a strong influence from bands like Gentle Giant with an amazing dose of musicianship. Their music features wonderful choirs in the style of old English renaissance music throughout beautiful and developed instrumental passages. Their latest album ‘Cantus Firmus” was featured in Intuitive Music’s list of Best Albums of 2006.
Alan Benjamin, Henry Ptak and Mark Ptak talked to Intuitive Music about his different influences and music recommendations.
- My last discovery album:
Alan: I’d have to say that Kenso’s new studio album ‘Utsuroi Yuku Mono’ is at the top of my list of recent acquisitions. I’ve been a huge fan of the band ever since I first heard a few samples of their (self-titled) third album back in 1989. And, over time, developed some amazing friendships that led to my role as US liaison for the band and Shunji Saegusa recording ‘Ramblin’ Sailor’ with us in early 2005. In addition to being a wonderful person, his bass playing is spectacular. While every Kenso album has significant merits, Utsuroi Yuku Mono is probably the band’s most challenging and dense effort to date. There’s so much going on that it’s taking quite a while to fully sink in, but every listen just gets better and better.
Henry: Roger Joseph Manning’s ‘The Land of Pure Imagination’, I think. Actually, it was Mark who discovered this album and first played it for me. The only thing I ‘discovered’ was that I liked it enough to order my own copy, which my daughter has since hijacked (laughs). Wonderful record. Self-described by Manning as power pop, it’s so much more than that Imho. Great vocals, great songs, great arrangements, and great production. Humor, resignation, nostalgia, and a surprising and disarming innocence, at moments when you least expect it. Not one I would have expected to enjoy as much as I now do, but then that’s been the pattern with me. I remember having the same initial reaction to both Procol Harum and Gentle Giant on first hearing.
- The song I always wanted to cover:
Alan: That’s a tough question. Having made a living in a cover band when I was fairly young (18-19) I kind of burned out on playing cover material a long time ago. However, as Advent was deciding upon which Gentle Giant material to cover for the band’s second tribute recording (after recording ‘BITB’ for the independent, Internet-based Gentle Giant Tracks project), I remember feeling very strongly about wanting to tackle ‘For Nobody’. We’d already decided to have a go at ‘Experience’ and my initial feeling was that the two songs would not really be compatible as a medley, but Henry was able to compose an amazingly clever segue to get us from one song to the other, so we ended up recording this (medley) for Mellow Records’ Giant for a Life tribute (although an incomplete, preliminary mix was used as a result of a tight deadline). I must say that covering all that Gentle Giant material was particularly fun.
- The song that always makes me cry:
Alan: Although I rarely break out into a full cry, a few of the pieces/sections that are always good for a strong emotional response (chills, tearing up, etc.):
The very end of the coda from Banco Del Mutuo Soccorso’s ‘Di Terra’ (the final cut)
‘Never the Same’ by Echolyn, from ‘As the World’.
‘Three Friends’ by Gentle Giant, from the album of the same title.
‘Tea for One’ by Kevin Gilbert, from ‘Thud’.
‘Iho’ by Maria Kalaniemi, from the album of the same title.
The reprise of the ‘B section’ from Pekka Pohjola’s ‘Imppu’s Tango’, from his ‘Urban Tango’ album, where the part previously played by mandolin is transformed and played on electric guitar.
‘Step into Easter’ by Mr. Sirius, from ‘Barren Dream’.
‘Labyrinth’ by Kit Watkins, from his solo album of the same title.
- The artist (alive) I’d like to work with:
Alan: Another tough question (especially when trying to narrow it down to just one), but I’d have to go with my good friend Ken Watson. Having fallen in love with a few samples I originally heard from his ‘Assembly’ album back in the early 1990s, my tireless search for a copy of the (then very rare) LP turned into a very special friendship. In addition to being an extremely talented (and severely underrated) composer and guitarist, our respective musical tastes are remarkably close to identical, which is really incredible given the depth, breadth, and overall intricacy involved. Ken and I have actually discussed the idea of working together at some point, which is something I really hope we can pull off before too long.
- The concert I always wanted to attend:
Alan: The one that immediately comes to mind is the Frank Zappa show where ‘Be-Bop Tango’ of the ‘Old Jazzmen’s Church’ was recorded for the ‘Roxy & Elsewhere’ album. One of my biggest regrets was never catching Zappa live, but the experience of living through that ‘Bebop Tango’ experience in person would have been especially rewarding. Not that I would really have fully appreciated it fully at the tender age of 10 or so, but it just seems like such a special event on record.
Henry: Well, since you didn’t specify a timeline, that leaves me a very wide range for interpretation. Hmm, let’s see…. I think I’d have liked to see The Beatles in some rare setting where you could actually hear what they were doing, probably after their Hamburg and Cavern days. The ‘… the rest of you just rattle your jewelry’ concert would be high on my list of first choices. The Nice, anytime, anywhere, with or without David O’List, and Rare Bird, in its original line-up (the first two albums). Also, the early Genesis club dates, when they were Charisma Label’s stable-mates with the aforementioned pair of bands.
I would have liked to have seen a few of the giants of romantic era pianism in whatever settings (probably the Parisian salons) they premiered their new works. Chopin, Schumann, and especially Liszt, just to see if he really lived up to the hype, both for pianistic ability and for the tremendous personal charisma he was reputed to have been capable of communicating to his audience. More recently, I would say Rachmaninoff, Ravel, Busoni, and Joseph Hofmann would have been on my must-see list, along with Paderewski, again as much for his Lisztian flare for showbiz as for his playing.
Certainly Art Tatum (again anytime, anywhere) and any of a number of greats from jazz’s golden era as well.
And finally, on a more sardonic note, the 1913 Paris premiere of Stravinsky’s ‘Rite of Spring’. I hear that was a real mess.
- Recommended progressive rock album:
Alan: Just one? (again) Argh! OK, I guess I’ll have to go with first instinct and select Música Urbana’s glorious (self-titled) debut album from 1976. What a gem! An incredibly inspired mix of jazz-rock fusion, sometimes remarkably Canterbury-like, especially for a band from Barcelona, classical, and almost RIO-like playfulness/experimentalism, all with a particularly beautiful Spanish flavor. Outstanding compositions, arrangements, and performances all the way around!
Henry: Tough call. I’d better go with initial gut instincts or I’ll be here all day. Probably Genesis’ ‘Selling England by the Pound’, ‘A Trick of the Tail’, and ‘Wind & Wuthering’. Gentle Giant’s ‘Free Hand’, ‘Interview’, and ‘In A Glass House’. And King Crimson’s ‘Lizard’. I’d better stop here.
- Recommended “Renaissance Music” album:
Henry: This is not a question I can nail down to a simple ‘favorite Yes album’ type of answer. It would have to include a multitude of recordings with several (or more) brilliant performances of works by well-known Renaissance composers. I would say this group would include performances of works by Giovanni Gabrieli (Canzoni, particularly Sonata Pian’e Forte), Monteverdi (Antiphonal Music), Susato (6 Dances), and so on by brass groups such as Canadian Brass and the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble. For English Renaissance music, any fine recordings of works by William Byrd, Thomas Tallis, Antony Holborne, Taverner, Morley, and so on for brass or choral music.
And speaking of choral music, there’s nothing that compares with the Latin Mass settings of Tomas Luis de Victoria, especially ‘O Quam Gloriosum’, ‘Ave Maris Stella’, and ‘O Magnum Mysterium’. And almost anything by Palestrina and Josquin des Pres. In fact, the one absolutely ‘perfect album’ I could recommend here is a recording on Hyperion of the Westminster Cathedral Choir under the direction of David Hill performing de ‘Victoria’s Ave Maris Stella’ and ‘O Quam Gloriosum’. It is absolutely out of this world, and you can take that however you like.
- Recommended album that influenced me/us while doing ‘Cantus Firmus’:
Alan: There really wasn’t any particular album which provided direct influence from my perspective. However, there were a few times when I consciously gravitated toward what I felt was a Brian May reference point, particularly when it came to approaching some of the harmonized guitars and the first section where electric guitar appears in ‘Remembering When’ (although the latter somehow ended up with more of a Wishbone Ash vibe by the time all was said and done).
Henry: Take all of my other feedback (from all the previous questions above), add to it a few sources of American and British Isles folk music, a pinch of New Orleans music, especially the piano playing of Dr. John, and the writings of G.K. Chesterton, especially ‘The Everlasting Man’, and that’s about it.
Mark: While I love listening to lots of choral works, the album that probably influenced me most personally, from a vocal perspective anyway, during work on ‘Cantus Firmus’ was Nando Lauria’s ‘Points Of View’. There are some wonderful little a cappella things happening in that album and the harmonies are just beautiful. Actually the whole album is great as well. I remember playing it for Henry and he remarked that it would be nice to try to do something vocally on the album. A short time later he had played me a working version of ‘GK Contramundum’, which was originally going to have instruments behind the second verse. But after having listened to it with only the vocals completed, we liked it enough to keep it as an a cappella piece. A lot of people like to associate ‘GKC’ with Gentle Giant but, in my mind, I was hoping that we’d be able to construct something that was as interesting harmonically as, say, Lauria’s ‘Episode: Prelude’.
- My MysPace band/artist recommendation:
Alan: There are so many great MySpace music sites out there that it’s hard to choose. Off the top of my head, though, a few great choices:
Jean Pascal Boffo
Polyethylene Pet/+1 (Kimara Sajn)
Stars In Battledress
Súld
Lyle Workman
- My YouTube music video recommendation:
Alan: Although my tastes tend to shy away from the popular, I’ll make an exception here and put in a good word for ‘The Simpsons vs. Star Trek’ by Culture Killer. In addition to being both clever and fun, it always puts a smile on my face.
From a more “serious” standpoint, I suppose that the full-band rendition of ‘Chicken’ by Mats/Morgan is quite nice as well. Man, those guys smoke live!
Back row, left to right: Graham Field (Rare Bird), John Anthony (producer), Tony Banks (Genesis), Anthony Phillips (Genesis), Mike Rutherford (Genesis), Glen Colson (Charisma Label), Howard Werth (Audience), Keith Gemmell (Audience), Trevor Williams (Audience), Peter Hammill (VDGG), Mark Ashton (Rare Bird), Lee Jackson (Jackson Heights).
Front row, left to right:Hugh Banton (VDGG), Steve Gould (Rare Bird) , David Kaffinetti (Rare Bird), ? , Peter Gabriel (Genesis), Nic Potter (VDGG), Guy Evans (VDGG), Charlie Harcourt (Jackson Heights), ?.
This is another curious picture that I recently found. It’s a family picture from the New Musical Express magazine showing three of the best bands signed to Charisma Label Records during the 70’s: Genesis, Van Der Graaf Generator, Rare Bird, Jackson Heights and Audience. The picture was taken before a concert featuring the four bands at London’s Royal Festival Hall on the 1st of June 1970.
I couldn’t figure out who is who in the picture, I have some question marks on them. If you can, help me complete their names!