Z's Music Corner - Christmas Edition

[Z_TheWriter]

Marillion performing -- sort of -- "Wish You Were Here" by Pink Floyd at the 2003 Marillion Weekend Convention. Steve Rothery, Marillion's brilliant guitarist, explains the context in the Youtube comments:

Spontaneous sessions like that are so much fun. I was in a thrown together band for a comedy variety show. We would spend all day during the lead-up to the performances in a practice room with singers coming to practice their songs with us in shifts. On this day our drummer was sick, so one of the singers from the show substituted.

During a break, the drummer just started clicking his sticks - no idea what he was intending, if anything. The guitar player started the intro riff to Killing in the Name. The bassist just managed to turn his amp back on to come in on cue. I put down the trumpet and grabbed a mic. The other guitarist joined in when he came back from the bathroom.

When we were done, we found 2 singers who had hung around after their practice time, absolutely flabbergasted. "That song isn't in the show, that guy isn't even the normal drummer. How did you all know the song? How did you even know what song the others were playing!?"
The bassist shrugged and went, "It's Rage", as if it was the dumbest question ever.

 

[YmaOHyd]

Some of my favorite performances are either improv/jam sessions or just random thrown-together crap. The most fun I've had at a show was a Symphony X concert that ended with all five members of Symphony X, all six members of Epica and a few of the guys from Into Eternity having a balloon-and-drum-stick swordfight while Russell Allen sang the 'Odysseus slays the suitors' verse of "The Odyssey." That stuff is great.

 

[THBGato]

Have some brass!

Meute is a really cool Brass Band (brass instruments, saxophones, and percussion) from Germany, who arrange and play well known techno music in their style. You probably know this song already.

I already have this video on a playlist. Love it. Although it doesn't say so, I strongly suspect this was filmed at WOMAdelaide... which gets my hopes up that they'll play at WOMAD UK this summer (we have tickets already).

Brass Against

Also a big fan of these guys.

So if brass is the vibe my track for the day is:

Saw them at WOMAD about a decade ago, and they blew me away. So much energy, so many hooks. Such a thrill.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

Some of my favorite performances are either improv/jam sessions or just random thrown-together crap. The most fun I've had at a show was a Symphony X concert that ended with all five members of Symphony X, all six members of Epica and a few of the guys from Into Eternity having a balloon-and-drum-stick swordfight while Russell Allen sang the 'Odysseus slays the suitors' verse of "The Odyssey." That stuff is great.

Looks like they played several clubs around North America together in '08

 

[ADirtyPerv]

Love this thread. I write music into most of my stories somewhere, and I have a few that were inspired by specific songs.

My favorite live performance ever is The War on Drugs 'Under the Pressure'. The way the drummer just owns that song gives me chills.

 

[ADirtyPerv]

Also a big fan of these guys.

So if brass is the vibe my track for the day is:

Saw them at WOMAD about a decade ago, and they blew me away. So much energy, so many hooks. Such a thrill.

That was a fucking delight.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

Some of my favorite performances are either improv/jam sessions or just random thrown-together crap. The most fun I've had at a show was a Symphony X concert that ended with all five members of Symphony X, all six members of Epica and a few of the guys from Into Eternity having a balloon-and-drum-stick swordfight while Russell Allen sang the 'Odysseus slays the suitors' verse of "The Odyssey." That stuff is great.

Do you remember when and where this was?

 

[Djmac1031]

If you ever get the chance, go see this woman perform live.

I knew Alanis, of course, knew her big hits from the 90s etc. Always thought she was talented, but i was never HUGE into her.

Last summer my GF talked me into going to see Alanis live. And I was blown away by how amazing her performance was. The whole concert was magic, start to finish.

She doesn't just sound like she does on her albums. SHE SOUNDS BETTER LIVE.

 

[YmaOHyd]

Do you remember when and where this was?

JaxxRoxx in Springfield, Virginia, which I think is unfortunately closed now. And it was 2008; Simone Simmons from Epica had to sit out the tour after catching MRSA, so her vocal coach Amanda Somerville filled in. If I knew where the shirt was, I could find the date; I've got the tour shirt in one of these drawers somewhere.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

I see May 3rd at the Empire, but that only shows 2 of the 3 bands.

https://www.concertarchives.org/bands/epica?page=3&year=2008#concert-table

 

[KTrout23]

Another brassy entry. Morphine called their style of music 'low rock'; they were a three piece group with drums, baritone sax and a two-string slide bass. Occasionally the instruments were varied a bit to add piano, different saxophone sounds or other weird guitar variants like the two-guitar-string-one-bass-string tritar. Vocals are mostly crooned, and the whole thing has a depressive, murky, laid-back feel. Love it.

Unfortunately, bassist/singer Mark Sandman passed away in 1999 after suffering a heart attack on stage. Edit: more detail now that I'm not on my phone. Morphine were performing at the Nel Nome del Rock Festival in Palestrina, just south of Rome. It was 99 degrees (37 C) in the venue. Ten years later, the remaining members plus a new singer/bassist performed at the festival as "the Ever-Expanding Elastic Waste Band" before changing their name to Vapors of Morphine, after a quip at the expense of new singer Jeremy Lyons. They continue to tour today.

One of my favorites. I saw Morphine twice back in the day. Truly a unique band. I was really sad when Sandman died.

 

[YmaOHyd]

I see May 3rd at the Empire, but that only shows 2 of the 3 bands.

https://www.concertarchives.org/bands/epica?page=3&year=2008#concert-table

Probably wrong. Jaxx closed in the early 2010s, and the Empire shut its doors a decade ago, I think.

Looking it up, it's because of a venue discrepancy. The Epica/Symphony X show is listed as May 3 at the Empire, and Into Eternity listed as Jaxx: https://www.concertarchives.org/venues/jaxx-nightclub?page=3#concert-table

Jaxx was the venue's name at the time; it became the Empire in... 2011? 2012? Something like that. So yeah, probably the May 3 2008 show. Russell Allen from Symphony X threw big handfuls of lunchmeat at the crowd during Epica's set and Amanda told the crowd it was because he had a little tiny penis.

 

[Z_TheWriter]

Alright, time for something from my home country. Olivia by Rasmus Seebach

This song tells the story of Olivia, an unhappy party girl the singer knew. She'll get drunk and dance with you all night, but will never let anyone in. "She goes for another dance and another shot. Whatever keeps the tears at bay"

Rasmus Seebach, a fairly popular pop artist himself, is the son of one of the most famous and prolific Danish pop singers, Tommy Seebach. Rasmus' music generally isn't my scene, but this song speaks to me.

Towards the end, the singer goes: "I hope there will be something of Olivia left. One day, when the party is over, and she wakes up. But tonight, she says 'Come take me all the way out where the dreams never end, and never let me wake. Come give me yet another of your wild, sleepless nights, and dance under the moon.' I think of Olivia. I still think of Olivia."

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Also a big fan of these guys.

So if brass is the vibe my track for the day is:

Oh hell yeah! Leo P is one of the most talented and charismatic musicians ever. You see his BBC Proms performance?

 

[Bamagan]

Ever heard of bardcore? It's the fantastic fusion of medieval European music with modern songs. Here's Lady Gaga if she'd been an actual Lady in days of yore. The cover artist has a lot of other amazing stuff, too.

 

[alohadave]

How about bardcore in classical latin:

 

[Candy_Kane54]

Sometimes a cover can put a whole new take on a popular song ...

 

[THBGato]

An instrumental cover of one of the bangiest bangers ever to bang...

I see your Avicii cover and raise you this:

Leo P is one of the most talented and charismatic musicians ever. You see his BBC Proms performance?

Only on YouTube, not live sadly.

 

[YmaOHyd]

Al Stewart isn't the best singer ever. He's not the best guitar player, either. But he may be the best lyricist I've heard. He was part of the British folk revival in the 1960s and '70s, though his most famous music is folk-rock at best, or pop/rock. He sorta drifts through the history of that era -- knew Yoko before Lennon, played at the first Glastonbury, collaborated with Jimmy Page, roommates with Paul Simon, first mainstream release to use the word 'fucking' -- without ever hitting the stratospheric heights of many of his collaborators and contemporaries.

His most well-known song is "Year of the Cat", which for my money has the most lyrically exquisite opening verse in music:

On a morning from a Bogart movie
In a country where they turn back time
You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre
Contemplating a crime

The cocaine holiday of "Carol," the cold, damp transit camp from "Roads to Moscow," the ghost-man who sails among the clouds in "On the Border" -- my favorite, personally, is "Running Man":

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Al Stewart isn't the best singer ever. He's not the best guitar player, either. But he may be the best lyricist I've heard. He was part of the British folk revival in the 1960s and '70s, though his most famous music is folk-rock at best, or pop/rock. He sorta drifts through the history of that era -- knew Yoko before Lennon, played at the first Glastonbury, collaborated with Jimmy Page, roommates with Paul Simon, first mainstream release to use the word 'fucking' -- without ever hitting the stratospheric heights of many of his collaborators and contemporaries.

His most well-known song is "Year of the Cat", which for my money has the most lyrically exquisite opening verse in music:

On a morning from a Bogart movie
In a country where they turn back time
You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre
Contemplating a crime

The cocaine holiday of "Carol," the cold, damp transit camp from "Roads to Moscow," the ghost-man who sails among the clouds in "On the Border" -- my favorite, personally, is "Running Man":

I'm partial to Fields of France.



His flying jacket still has her perfume
Memories of the night
Play across his mind
High above the fields of France

 

[Z_TheWriter]

Let's get a bit weirder, Tombo in 7/4:

This song is by Brazilian drummer Airto Moreira. If it feels slightly confusing to listen to, this is because of the time signature. Most of the music you're used to is in 4/4 (Shake It Off - Taylor Swift, Baby Shark) or sometimes 3/4 (Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, The Times They Are A-Changin' by Bob Dylan). This means that in each measure (a way to divide a song into small similar pieces) there are 3 or 4 of what we call quarter notes. This is comfortable, we are used to it, our ears and senses of rhythm can easily make sense of it.

This song is written in 7/4, so 7 quarter notes to a measure. This makes it feel like something (the 8th quarter note) is constantly missing. If you count along, you may find yourself going 1--2--3--4-1--2... This is because you're counting at half speed, so the 4 you're counting is actually the 7th and nonexistent 8th notes, thus making 4 half as long as the others.

When the samba drums start, the time signature changes to a more familiar 4/4 for a while, but then goes back to 7/4.

 

[HyunnaPark]

Another punk cover of an already great song. This one is "Anyway You Want It" done by punk band Rise Against (song originally by Journey, and it's one of my all-time faves). Some of the tone of the original remains, although the song is approached as a punk song. When he sings certain lyrics, there's an aggression to his singing that I really like because the original was so light and fun that the vocals change the song to something a little more complex than the original.

The video features a very athletic guy doing some really amazing parkour.

 

[alohadave]

A novelty song

 

[Bamagan]

In the spirit of comedic music, here's a song composed entirely of puns.

 

[HotCosmo]

Introducing a new version of a Spanish classic:

 

[THBGato]

My recommendation for the day. Combines wacky lyrics with an infectious groove:

Try to say this line quickly: Ken Dodd's dad's dog's dead on the tele