ZZ Top MAY 28 1982
Westfalenhalle 1 Dortmund, Germany
Tour: El Loco-Motion Tour
Setlist:
Groovy Little Hippie Pad
I Thank You
Waitin' for the Bus
Jesus Just Left Chicago
I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide
Ten Foot Pole
I Love the Woman
I Believe I'll Dust My Broom
La Grange (with Sloppy Drunk Jam)
Tush
From the Youtube page:
“This is one of the coolest things. The great songwriter, John Prine setting up and performing an in my living room. His latest record, The Tree of Forgiveness is out of this world. The Strombo Show presents John Prine in an intimate performance from the House Of Strombo.”
Tracklisting:
Crazy Bone
Far From Me
Speed Of Sound And Loneliness
Sam Stone
Summer's End
Ramblin' Fever (Merle Haggard Cover)
Christmas In Prison
When I Get To Heaven
Caleb Nei bills himself as: “Washington DC Area Event & Cocktail Pianist,” usually playing “about 180 jazz dates each year throughout Virginia and Washington DC.”
Nei’s newest project Wordless Flight. “Emergence,” Nei’s first release under the new moniker is a collection of improvisations “Recorded on a felted upright piano, a Mason & Hamlin reed organ, and a collection of analog synths.” Nei says that “Emergence” is the first of several releases in this vein, with lots more music already recorded.
“Recorded in the early-morning hours before the family wakes,” Nei’s improvisations are meditative pieces walking the border between minimalism, new age age, and contemporary classical.
Opening track “Another Morning” is representative of the rest of the album in all of the good ways. Interesting melodies over ambient background noise unfolding and swirling up and around to greet the day before folding back into itself.
“Murmur” propels these themes forward, while “1997” begins to push into Ambient territory and “Landscape From A Bus” pulses with an Ambient loop and “Moored Boats” makes you wonder if this wasn’t an electronic album the whole time.
This is music created with the sun rise to fill your while day.
Volume 05 of some of Holiday at the Sea’s favorite 2020 music. I chose 75 albums this year and the playlists total 74 songs since “Microphones in 2020 by the Microphones” is 45 minutes long and I didn’t want to include the whole album as part of a mix.
Anyways, enjoy!
Tracklisting:
“Sam Sam” by Afriquoi
“Fight Am Finish” by Antibalas
“Tulips” by Archie Shepp, Raw Poetic & Damu the Fudgemunk
“Sixth Hammer” by the Budos Band
“Signs” by Eishan Ensemble
“Acoustic Storm Part One” by Elkhorn
“Further” by the Necks
“Wooden Flower” by Tambourinen
“Walkin’ In Rhythm” by Wet Tuna
“Snake Mouth” by Rob Noyes & Sam Moss
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Volume 04 of some of Holiday at the Sea’s favorite 2020 music. I chose 75 albums this year and the playlists total 74 songs since “Microphones in 2020 by the Microphones” is 45 minutes long and I didn’t want to include the whole album as part of a mix.
Anyways, enjoy!
Tracklisting:
“Solace” by Adrian Younge And Ali Shaheed Muhammad
“Theme For Cecil” by Idris Ackamoor and The Pyramids
“Venom” by The Heliocentrics
“Slow Bones” by Tony Allen & Hugh Masekela
“Eurasia” by Tengger
“Galaxy 1000” by Rob Mazurek and the Exploding Star Orchestra
“Two” by Joshua Massad & Dylan Aycock
“The Message Continues” by Nubya Garcia
“Makoma” by Onipa
“Ju$t” by Run The Jewels
“The Coming Of The Strange Ones” by Shabaka and the Ancestors
“Wet” by Shabazz Palaces
“No Talk Talk” by Les Freres Smith
“Strange To Explain” by Woods
“Go Away” by Jeff Parker
“Pray Up Stay Up” by Sault
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Volume 03 of some of Holiday at the Sea’s favorite 2020 music. I chose 75 albums this year and the playlists total 74 songs since “Microphones in 2020 by the Microphones” is 45 minutes long and I didn’t want to include the whole album as part of a mix.
Anyways, enjoy!
Tracklisting:
“Houses of the Holy” by H.C. McEntire
“Low to the Bird” by Jamie Barnes
“It Gets Easier” by Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit
“Santa Monica (Through the Canyon)” by Pacific Range
“The 101” by Six Organs of Admittance
“Howard St. & The Beach Nov. 1988 After 11” by Califone
“Maestranza” by Fleet Foxes
“(Our Life Could Be Your Van)” by Garcia Peoples
“The Law Of Hospitality” by Waterless Hills
“Four Corners” by William Tyler
“Protest Song” by Bill Callahan
“Crystal Doorknob” by Lonnie Holley
“Landwerk 03” by Nathan Salsburg
“Love Is The Main Thing” by Fontaines D.C.
“Find You Ride” by Magik Markers
“Fadjamou” (Acoustic) by Oumou Sangaré
“St. Charles” by Throwing Muses
“Nenamev” by Tidiane Thiam
“Bon Bon” by Songhoy Blues
“Love Paste” by Sunwatchers
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Volume 02 of some of Holiday at the Sea’s favorite 2020 music. I chose 75 albums this year and the playlists total 74 songs since “Microphones in 2020 by the Microphones” is 45 minutes long and I didn’t want to include the whole album as part of a mix.
Anyways, enjoy!
Tracklisting:
“Single For The Summer” by Christian Lee Huston
“Off My Mind” by Hazel English
“Crimson Tide” by Destroyer
“NTE” by Buscabulla
“We Don't Smoke It No More” by Neil Young
“If The Truth Ever Shows Up” by David Nance
“Die Before You Live” by Sammy Brue
“Not Penny’s Boat” by Huntingtons
“Empty Bottle” by Rose City Band
“Out The Window” by Café Racer
“Nektar” by Kahil El'Zabar & David Murray
“Jams From The Sun (Part III)” by Oregon Space Trail of Jazz
“F&N” by 75 Dollar Bill
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I have this personal website compartmentalized because I realize that not every one of my friends is interested in exactly the same set of things that I am. And that’s not only “OK”, it’s beautiful.
However, I think everyone should love Lee “Scratch” Perry. If you’re not familiar with this brilliant artist, I suggest you get familiar with Google.
And I also suggest starting with this off-beat documentary: Lee Scratch Perry's Vision of Paradise | True Godfather of Reggae.
I was going through some old files on my computer the other day and I came across the art for a mix called “Hope Is A Mood More Than A Color”. I don’t remember making this mix but I do remember listening to it in the car.
I have racked my brain trying to remember the circumstances of putting together this mix and I can’t. Oh well, because the title and mood of the mix certainly seemed like they would be appropriate for the current coronavirus social distancing experiment. So, no matter where you currently find yourself on the social distancing scale, enjoy some music:
Tracklisting:
“Distress Signal” by Jeremy Casella
“Guess I’m Doing Fine” by Beck
“Don’t Be Sad” by Whiskeytown
“Fires” by David Ramirez
“Day O Day (Love So Free)” by Hiss Golden Messenger
Shelter From The Storm by Bob Dylan
“Wild Horses” by the Rolling Stones
“Everything (Overture")” by Chris Bathgate
“Hope” by Dirty Three
“Old Man’s Town” by the Hollands!
“Keep Your Head Up” by Ben Howard
“Headache” by Seryn
“Letting Go And Holding On” by Shawn Skinner and the Men of Reason
“Western States” by Matt Haeck
“Good Good End” by Waterdeep
Browse all the Holiday at the Sea playlists.
I have loved music for as long as I can remember, even though I have not talent at it myself (which I believe helps me appreciate those that do all the more). And I listen to a lot of different kinds of music. Many years ago, I went through a phase of really trying to expand my palate. During this phase, my friend and I used to refer to some music as “intentional listening.” In other words, you had to work to get through it. It required your attention and engagement. It also referred to a lot of music that our wives sometimes referred to as “racket.”
Somewhere along the line during those musical excursions, I came across Pauline Oliveros and the idea of “Deep Listening” and that changed things for me. The idea of “intentional listening” implies forcing one’s self to listen. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re actually engaging with the music itself, just getting through it. In hindsight, “intentional hearing” or “intentional music” might have been better descriptors of what I was doing during that phase. I was certainly expanding my musical horizons to include things like free jazz, drone, “freak-folk” and lots of other stuff like that, but I’m not sure how much I gleaned.
As Oliveros points out “We know more about hearing than listening.” I was hearing a lot of challenging music but I’m not sure I was up to the challenge. Oliveros describes “Deep Listening as a way of listening in every possible way to everything possible to hear no matter what you are doing. Such intense listening includes the sounds of daily life, of nature, of one's own thoughts as well as musical sounds.” If you are interested in hearing Oliveros explain some of this a bit further herself, you might want to watch her TED talk: ‘The difference between hearing and listening.’ Oliveros points out in that TED talk:
“Scientists can measure what happens in the ear. Measuring listening is another matter, as it is involves subjectivity. We confuse hearing with listening . . .
. . . I differentiate to hear and to listen. To hear is the physical means that enables perception. To listen is to give attention attention to what is perceived, both acoustically and psychologically.”
Like any skill, Deep Listening requires practice, patience and persistence. But it also has its payoffs that not everyone can understand. I still listen to all kinds of music and I often find myself at odds with family who does not. Much modern music requires very little of its hearers; certainly not deep listening. It is packaged in tiny shiny nuggets and treated as a product. As much as I wish my family loved the same music that I do, they will often come home and say things like “What are you listening to?!” This is no slight to them. But it doesn’t fit their expectations. They are not practicing Deep Listening (which is not to say that everyone who does will enjoy the same music).
It should come as no surprise, then, that three of my favorite albums so far this year require a listener’s participation. They ask for engagement and while they can be simply “heard,” each album opens itself up further and further with each “listening.” These three albums are wildly different from one another, but I think of them as kindred souls in the pursuit of Deep Listening.
75 Dollar Bill: I Was Real
75 Dollar Bill is the core duo of Rick Brown who plays the plywood crate and homemade horns, and Che Chen, who plays microtonal guitar. Sometimes as just the duo and oftentimes with a revolving cast of guest musicians, 75 Dollar Bill plays hypnotic drone/trance/desert-blues/rock that swirls in and out of itself, often in long-form pieces. The unconventional percussion patterns and guitar tunings may be a bit jarring for some, but once you allow yourself to dive in, the songs are somehow primal, guttural, meditative, and joyous all at once.
Album opener ‘Every Last Coffee or Tea’ originally appeared on 2011’s Cassette and is presented here with an expanded lineup, laying out a fine template for what to expect from the rest of the album. Starting off with washes of viola drone, jangling bells, and minimal, searching percussion, the guitar plucks about, finding its place, and then everyone locks into the groove. And the groove is undeniable. Listeners might be reminded of Malian Blues, Saharan Desert rock, and/or Thai psychedelic rock. 75 Dollar Bill’s music certainly includes elements of all of those things but it is somehow more than the sum of its parts.
‘Tetuzi Akiyama’ (named after Japanese guitarist, violinist, and instrument-maker) further shows that Deep Listening can have a good beat that you can dance to. Swirling, repeated patterns build upon driving percussion, continually moving us forward until stopping abruptly, opening to the drones of the title track without jarring the listener. It’s all part of the same musical journey, tied together by Brown and Chen’s interplay.
The album drones and grooves. It challenges and rewards, inviting listeners to confront their preconceptions without ever coming across as pretentious. 75 Dollar Bill’s music invites listeners to cross borders, including genre, and find the sounds underneath. It is at once transcendent and immediate.
Dire Wolves Just Exactly Perfect Sisters Band: Grow Towards The Light
Often known simply as Dire Wolves, welcome to the musical universe revolving around San Fransisco’s Jeffrey Alexander. The musical collectives makes music their website introduces as:
“a sound of ecstatic improvisation, each member documenting coordinate points in the higher dimensions of cosmic free-rock. The music lies somewhere near the nebulous intersection of psych, kosmische beat and spiritual jazz. These are exploratory journeys, transportive trance-based experiments in vertical listening, totally collaborative and often forming spontaneous compositions. The focus is more about feeling than any specific approach to playing. Psychic rock for the mind and body: breathe deep and grow towards that light, dig.”
That’s about as an apt a description as one is likely to come up with. Consisting of an often rotating lineup, the newest album ‘Grow Towards The Light’ finds the group including vocalist Georgia Carbone who sings in an invented language which accentuates the notion that this music is “more about feeling than any specific approach to playing.” There is a visceral nature to the trance-like tunes, driven by almost-tribal, immediate percussion and flourishes of of violin and skronking saxophones (courtesy of Sunwatchers Jeff Tobias) the music builds on repeated rhythms evoking both Krautrock and hippie fireside drum circles all at once without sounding contradictory or lost. This is confident music chasing a mood as much as technical precision.
The music comes in pulsating waves and sometimes resembles “freak folk,” sometimes “free jazz,” sometimes Krautfolk (is there such a thing?) and yet always sounds immediate and urgent without being stressful or repetitive. The soaring vocals float above the earthy rhythms and the violin and saxophone sometimes jar you back to reality and sometimes help transport you into the ether.
The longing search of spiritual jazz lies at the center of what Dire Wolves are about and may help us tune in to their frequency, but this is not a jazz record, even if it is a spiritual record. With an album title of ‘Grow Towards the Light’ and song titles like ‘Every Step is BIrth,’ and ‘Crack in the Cosmic Axis,’ Dire Wolves remind us that, with those for ears to hear, even wordless music (as we recognize it; this is not quite instrumental music because there are vocals) can still be a soundtrack for the journey of discovery for those willing to listen.
Joshua Abrams And Natural Information Society: Mandatory Reality
Another musical collective featuring a rotating cast of players, the core of this one features prolific and influential Chicago bassist and guimbri (a three-stringed percussive African bass) player Joshua Abrams. Having played with the Square Roots (later becoming the Roots), Tortoise, and Fred Anderson among many others, Abrams has centered his newest ensemble around the “ecstatic minimalism” of repeated guimbri patterns and assorted accompaniment. The band’s most recent release, the sprawling 81-minute (with none of them wasted) Mandatory Reality consists of four long-form pieces (the shortest of which is just over six minutes) proves not only the necessity but the joy of “Deep Listening.”
Like other minimalist music, the music pulses with slowly repeating but slowly unfolding patterns that transport the listener from one place to another almost imperceptibly, requiring attention and patience, but there is also a sense of yearning towards something (shared ecstatic experience?) the us from losing interest. The gradual tempo shifts reflect the rise and fall of the deep ocean more than the crashing of the waves on the shore. But you have to be willing to travel to get there. The music requires focus but never seems tedious. It music shimmers with hypnotic waves and the long-form pieces call attention to the spaces between as much as the notes being played themselves.
These slowly unfolding pieces stand not only as a testament to Deep Listening, but to the idea that we are more than our schedules. We needn’t always feel rushed, and when we do, this music asks us to pause, take some deep breaths and pay attention; to listen and not just hear. There is much detail and beauty that may initially escape us if we’re not paying attention.
As Oliveros urges: “I invite you to take a moment now to notice what you are hearing and to expand your listening to continually include more.”
Visit Pauline Oliveros’ official website.
Support 75 Dollar Bill at Bandcamp.
Purchase 75 Dollar Bill’s music at Amazon.
Listen to "Beni Said" by 75 Dollar Bill from the album 2016 album Wood / Metal / Plastic / Pattern / Rhythm / Rock on Episode 07 of the Global Elite Music Radio Podcast Supershow.
Browse previous posts featuring 75 Dollar Bill.
Visit the Dire Wolves official site
Support the band at Bandcamp
Follow the band on Facebook
Follow Dire Wolves on Twitter.
Purchase Dire Wolves music at Amazon.
Browse previous posts featuring Dire Wolves.
Visit Joshua Abrams and Natural Information Society’s official website.
Support Joshua Abrams and Natural Information Society at Bandcamp.
Purchase Joshua Abrams and Natural Information Society’s music at Amazon.
Listen to “Maroon Dune” by Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society (From the 2017 album Simultonality) on Episode 43 of The Global Elite Music Radio Podcast Supershow.
Browse previous posts featuring Joshua Abrams And Natural Information Society.
I keep thinking about what it means that Wilco titled their 11th album ‘Ode to Joy’.
The album often finds Jeff Tweedy in a reflective, even meditative, if not somber state. The topics aren’t exactly what you’d bring up at a dinner party (Or, if you did, most people wouldn’t invite you back).
Whether being startled out of staring at the knives in the kitchen drawer by the sound of the front door ringing through his guitar against the wall (‘Bright Leaves’), or feeling his blood run cold at the passing through of the sad ideas of losing a loved one (‘White Wooden Cross’). But if Tweedy is stuck inside his head, at least he lets us know what he’s thinking about. Life is hard. Relationships are hard and sometimes a person just feels stuck. I’m not sure I can change. I’m not sure you can change, but somehow, deep down, I know it’s all worth it, even if I don’t know why.
It’s a meditative, spacious record that doesn’t work as background noise. It is best heard either through headphones or really loud. It’s a record that asks for and rewards your attention. It’s not a big rock record but neither is it a quiet folk record. Anchored by Glenn Kotche’s skittering percussion, the record traffics in restraint (every guitar is denied) and asks you to immerse yourself. Largely eschewing cymbals, the album feels is initially jarring because it leaves out the high/bright splashes we’ve come to expect from so many records. It leaves us looking up in places we didn’t expect.
If relationships are the currency of life, then Tweedy understands that sometimes the account feels overdrawn. Relationships often feel more taxing than anything else. The album opens with Tweedy lamenting “I don’t like the way you’re treating me” and recognizes that sometimes when we argue, we’re not even sure which side we’re on, we’re just stuck in relational holding patterns that feel like we can never change (‘Bright Leaves’). So much so, that Tweedy recognizes that “Deep inside everyone hides some of the time” (‘Everyone Hides’).
But what happens when we’re tired of hiding? That seems to be a theme Tweedy is interested in exploring. Sometimes we know we’re stuck. Sometimes we know we’re not helpful and we certainly know that we don’t have the solution, even if we’re convinced that one exists. The album opener ends with the blunt statement: “You never change,” forcing us to ask whether we are prisoners of our own nature. Are we doomed to unhappy lives with unfulfilling relationships? Tweedy picks up this thread in ‘One And A Half Stars’, singing:
“There is no mother like pain
I'm left with only my desire to change
So what I stay in bed all day?
I can't escape my domain”
Even if we want to change, it feels like we can’t escape our natures or our circumtances.
But for all the isolation Tweedy might feel, there is also the notion that we cannot live alone, even when it frustrates us. Tweedy says in ‘One And A Half Stars’: “You mean too much to me I'm angry I could need so much.” Even when he is alone, he is/we are tied to those who have come before us (‘Before Us’) and we’ve got family “out there” (‘Empty Corner’). We all feel alone and yet we are all tied together.
This sense of what to make of our need for others is a theme throughout the record. ‘White Wooden Cross’ finds Tweedy again in his thoughts, but this time wondering to what he would do if a white wooden cross on the side of road meant that he had lost someone dear to him; even someone he’s angry that he needs. Even when we feel weighed down by our relationships, we’re not sure we would want to be without them.
Death, loss, failed relationships, the inability to change our circumstances; they are all present. And it’s not just relationships that seem to weigh Tweedy down. The album addresses riots, never-ending wars, the inability to change ourselves (or others), and self-deception. It’s not just inter-personal relationships that get us down because Society is made up of relationships. It’s all about us. We’re all in this together. And sometimes it feels like society is a mess. It’s easy to think in depressing terms. Vice says “The music is weary.” Vulture chooses the word “glum” while NPR says the album has a “heavy atmosphere.”
But the beauty here is that there is beauty to be found at all.
The full Vice quote reads: “The music is weary, but it's also the prettiest entry in the Chicago outfit's vast discography, one that synthesizes every era of the band's career into something forward-thinking and essential.” As my friend Jason Woodbury points out at Pitchfork, Tweedy “populates the album with surprise flashes of brightness, too. These are love songs about possibilities and the way our vision may be limited by our vantage point.” This leaves us to ask: “What might a shift in position reveal?” What if we don’t give in to despair?
I keep thinking about what it means that Wilco titled their 11th album ‘Ode to Joy’.
Of course there is the reference to Friedrich Schiller’s poem which was co-opted by Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 9”, whose opening stanza reads:
“Joy! A spark of fire from heaven, Daughter from Elysium, Drunk with fire we dare to enter, Holy One, inside your shrine. Your magic power binds together, What we by custom wrench apart, All men will emerge as brothers, Where you rest your gentle wings.”
There are certainly repeated themes if you read Schiller’s poem and listen to Wilco’s album, but we are all products of our times and I can’t help but wish that Tweedy meant more than literary allusion here. He looks frustration in the eye and chooses not to blink. These are difficult times. People are choosing politics over family. Our current president seems more intent on dividing than uniting. May of us feel alone.
And yet, in spite of it all, despite how hard it all is, Tweedy chooses not to give in to despair or hopelessness. He’s still got a desire to change that we should all hold on to. After all, society doesn’t change if individuals don’t change.. And there are things still worth believing in and fighting for. He sings on ‘Hold Me Anyway’:
Are we all in love just because?
No! I think it's poetry and magic
Something too big to have a name
And when you get it right it's still tragic
And when you die who's to blame?
Did you think everything would be okay?
Even knowing that it all feels tragic and it might not turn out okay, love is “poetry and magic, something too big to have a name.” Even when things don’t make sense, “Love is Everywhere,” and it’s power can be frightening (‘Love Is Everywhere’)"“
So many things I do
I can't explain to you
Right now, right now
Love is everywhere
Right now, I'm frightened how
Love is here, beware
In ‘One And A Half Stars’, Tweedy admits that he is worried about the way we’re all living. But he doesn’t respond with anger. He doesn’t give up. Instead, he says: “I'm worried about the way we're all living, and this is my love song.” He responds with a “love song.” He responds with love. Even when it doesn’t come naturally and certainly doesn’t come easy.
Love ties us all together. Love brings us out of ourselves into community. We are bound together for good or for ill, so why not choose joy even if those we are tied to don’t? We can name our shortcomings and we can acknowledge other people’s failings, but we’re all in this together.
The tension between individual and community seems to lie at the heart of ‘Ode to Joy.” On ‘Before Us’, Tweedy knows that even when he is physically alone, he belongs to those that came “before us’ and that we are part of a lineage. We are part of a community. This theme is repeated throughout the album, most notably in the closing track ‘Empty Corner’. Even if you don’t care, “You've got family out there.” Family transcend circumstances. Love ties us together. There is always reason to choose joy. Especially when things seem their bleakest.
Relationships, immediate and far are what make the world go around, even if no none likes it. We can’t escape this, so we have a choice. We’re left with only our own desire to change (‘One And A Half Stars’) and maybe that’s the point of this record. Things suck. But what are we going to do about it? What will each of us choose? Maybe, the best that we can hope for is to declare with Tweedy: “I tried, in my way, to love everyone'“ (‘Quiet Amplifier’). What more would you ask of your neighbor in difficult times?
It takes maturity to own our faults and name our difficulties. It takes wisdom to choose joy anyways.