Entertainment For Lively Minds
Trust me, I'm a musical missionary
This afternoon I did a good thing. The world is now a slightly better place, and I like to think it's all down to me. Let me explain...
I was in HMV with my Italian friend Clemens. In the specialist music department the latest Folk Awards CD was parping over the tannoy and I explained the English folk music tradition to him. He told me he liked the song that was playing. I then saw a copy of Fairport Convention's Liege and Lief on sale for £4 and went off on a lengthy spiel extolling its virtues, during which I may have used the word 'seminal'. Such was the effectiveness of my patter that Clemens decided to buy it. My heart rejoiced, for my friend's life would be enriched and I could take full credit. Marvellous.
Please share your musical missionary moments...
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Wish I could be there...
...when Clemens first hears Come All Ye. If there's ever been a more 'call-to-arms' album opener, I haven't heard it.
I'm sure I'm not alone amongst the massive as something of a friends' go-to guy, so I've lost count of the number of turn-ons for which I've been responsible.
"I've lost count of the number of turn-ons
for which I've been responsible."
Oo-err missus.
cheers Tom
I thought I was going to spend my weekend recounting mine
"That'll do pig, that'll do".
*insert smile smiley*
"this guy knows everything about music"
Now, hands up here, I do bang on a lot about music I like and I like to match-make every now and again, but I was recently introduced to a friends new BF as "this is the guy who knows everything about music".
Which is nonsense. There's far, far too much of the stuff, for a start. I did get the lady in question turned o.....interested in a few of my own favourite albums, but it wasn't me that did it, it was the musicians.
I ended the evening telling them to check out Beth Jeans Houghton. Now I'm on the subject, wonder if they did......
Oh, and check out Grasscut on Spotify, do.
Grasscut
Nice choice.
Never heard of BJ Houghton until now, so thanks for that.
Int Music Brilliant!
Int Music Brilliant!
Am I right?
You're not wrong.
Got any tips, squire?
Got any tips, squire?
Erm...
...scratches head.
Jean-Luc Ponty's album Individual Choice is a bit of an analog-electro masterpice, with some fine fusion thrown in. No, really, it's lovely. Not on Spotify or YouTube, though.
You've probably heard the self-titled Wax Stag album? Made by an Iron Maiden-obsessed drummer from St Albans, but don't let that put you off.
See, LOADS of the stuff....
Not heard of either of those, so thanks. Wax Stag vid was most enjoyable.
Glad you like it...
...the album is superb.
You'll like this one ...
A friend of my brother-in-law is a DJ, in his late 20s, big into the dance music. A few years ago, in a moment of evangelical zeal, I gave him a vinyl LP, the greatest hits of a band he had never heard, called Steely Dan. Imagine hearing Steely Dan for the very first time ... who wouldn't want to do that again? I am pleased to report that 'Peg' became quite the floor-filler. And so spreads the word.
Funny...
... I became friends with a bloke when I moved to London in 97. He was a bit of a part-time DJ, playing only breakbeat-type stuff and only ever buying same. I took a box of tunes to a party at his place and played Kraftwerk's Numbers/Computerworld 2 and you could see him almost change colour on the spot. He's now utterly Kraftwerk-obsessed and, years later, I was best man at his wedding.
What I'd give to hear Steely Dan again for the first time. Oh!
I know!
I am so jealous of people who are about to hear records that I've loved for years for the first time. Funnily enough, when I was in Italy last year I was without music for the first month I was there. Eventually I bought a CD because I was going mad through tunes deprivation - it was The Royal Scam by the Dan. When I played Haitian Divorce it was like I'd never heard it before... it sounded so wonderful.
That sounds like a perfect scenario, Patrick
Come to think of it, despite being pretty-much Dan-obsessed since I first heard them in my teens in the early-80s, I didn't hear Gaucho until much, much later. Maybe as late as the mid-90s. I've no idea why I had some sort of block about that record, but hearing the title-track for the first time was almost religious and the album's probably now my favourite of theirs.
Only heard the erased song for the first time recently. My God, it's good.
As a longstanding Danorak
... I had read much about the Second Arrangement, but had never actually heard the track. Thank you so much for posting it! In spite of the poor sound quality, it's obvious that this would have been another jewel in the Goucho crown.
My own route into the Dan was being given a compilation tape (in 1989 or thereabouts) by a friend who told me: "If you think Danny Wilson are good, you'll need to check these guys out". And so it started.
New ears
Your mention of Haitian Divorce resonates with me because I have some camcorder footage of my daughter, who was then about 7, dancing around our lounge to that very song. She fell in love with the CD and would always say 'put Steely Dan on'. It gave me a fresh perspective, to imagine what it must sound like to a 7 year-old. She has moved on to more sophisticated music now, of course; Lady Gaga, Kesha etc
That's lovely, NIck...
...my wife resolutely refuses to countenance Steely Dan. So much of what I listen to sounds, to her, 'like fucking Al Jarreau'. I don't own any Jarreau records, however.
Great put down
if you were going to diss them though, that is just about the perfect put down: - 'like fucking Al Jarreau' - I think even B&F themselves would laugh at that one.
My younger sister did very well..
She used to like some of the stuff I played but got a bit confused with the Steely Dan / Blue Oyster Cult crossover. And somehow Toni Basil got in there as well.
She asked me if I could tape that "Mickey Don't Fear The Reaper" song for her..
Waiting to hear from the most recent one
After I had raved about Kevin Rowland's "My Beauty" on a thread here, badartdog was planning to buy it. I've had no feedback yet - calling badartdog !!
If he did buy it..
..wouldn't his purchase have trebled the sales?
It wasn't quite that unpopular
The wiki page said it sold less than 500 - I think that's unlikely as the last time it was discussed here, several of us identified ourselves as owners.
I don't think the cover helped - but it's a great album, brave and heartfelt.
hey there el
never got the damn thing! The seller withdrew it from auction when - i suspect - he realised it was going for much less than it was worth. Chiz.
Chiz indeed.
(you have mail)
Elusive
By Scott Matthews. Turned quite a few mates on to that. Imagine my surprise when his second album was shite....
My favourite
When bookselling my manager usually took charge of the CD player. Cue lots of Michael Buble, and other Michael Parkinson friendly acts.
Once in a while I would put one of my favourites on, though there are few that are suitable for bookshop browsing background music. Les Mysteres du Voix Bulgares went down particularly badly among the staff ('Not your wailing Bulgarian women again' was a typical response) but I did come across a customer standing underneath a speaker looking completely transported. He said, in a bit of a daze, that he had never heard anything so beautiful in his life and scurried of to HMV with my hastily written scrap of paper in his hand. I didn't even mind that he didn't stay to buy a book.
Nice little tale Gatz..
I've also benn known to do the old Marmite trick with this very ensemble as well.
Whoever it was around here
that recommended the Randy Newman box set. I got it for a very reasonable amount, played it, played it some more, still playing it. I knew a few of his songs, but I didn't now what I was missing. *Lifts cup of tea in salute.*
Elusive
By Scott Matthews. Turned quite a few mates on to that. Imagine my surprise when his second album was shite....
It was 2002.....
and i was given very short notice to travel from Glasgow to London on a business trip. Basically, I decided not to go but I needed an excuse . As the trip was in January during the Celtic Connections festival of music, I decided to buy tickets for whoever was playing in Glasgow Concert Hall that night and say I had a friend coming from afar to join me there. The artiste in question was was a guy from Bilbao called Kepa Junkera. He plays an instrument called the Trikitixa (diatonic accordion). What a find! I compared his playing to Jimi Hendrix the way he could bend notes, sustain moments of musical joy and just drag the most beautiful sounds out of his various little boxes. He had several band members including 2 guys who played the Txalaparta - a percussion instrument involving batons and lengths of wood (google it). Brilliant.
So, in a way, I was that missionary to myself and the friend who joined me that night. Kepa returned to CC for the next 3 years and I took different people to witness a master of his instrument. They were all stunned and the smile on my face each time just got bigger. Our man did not speak a word of English 2002 to 2005. He just played fabulous music.
http://www.kepajunkera.com/
Immediate reaction..
off to Youtube, loads on there, this one's relaxed and bluesy and celtic..
Ah, you're a good man Declan....
I enjoyed this so I did.
Not me but....
.. my mate found himself guiding George Michael through recordings of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony in Tower Records on Sunset Boulevard.
He also explained guacamole to Brian Eno at the Telluride Festival.
Boo Hewerdine - Baptist Hospital...
I got a kiss.
Try him with Unhalfbricking next and happiness will follow...
People tend to not
listen to what I say. Like the Queen thinks the world smells of fresh paint I think the world is constant embarassed silence and shoe shuffling.
I was round at my wife's
sister's house and my nephew (15 at the time) was there with a few of his mates. They were listening to The Strokes and generally being pencil-thin, drain-piped and moody. They were due to go into Manchester on the train so I offered to give them a lift to the station. By coincidence I happened to have Television's first album in one of the slots of the CD player.
Within 10 seconds of See No Evil starting there was a tap on my shoulder and the words "Who the f*** is this?" asked in a flabberghasted thrall. Suddenly I was the coolest uncle ever.
Nick Drake
A girl. It worked.
Did you assume
the musical missionary position?