Category: Music

Live Metal, a blog that offers brief mentions of new metal music.

Better than YouTube’s algorithms, which leads me to Kalidia/Walk in Darkness no matter what I search for.

So I just got Diamante’s album American Dream:

I first heard Diamante in the song she sings with Bad Wolves, a band that the local rock station loves and whose new singles they play all the time:

Diamante, not so much.

But I picked up her previous album, Coming In Hot, based on liking what I saw on YouTube.

She’s got a more husky straight ahead rock voice and presentation than the usual symphonic metal songbirds I pick up. Husky, without going full dirty vocals a la Elli Berlin.

I vote “Ghost Myself” from the new album Most Likely To Appear On Brian J.’s Gym Playlist:

Also, she is pretty in a variety of hair colors.

Continue reading “Coming Soon To A Musical Balance Post Near You” →

So I mentioned that I recently bought Brenda Russell’s album Get Here amongst sixty or so other records at the Friends of the Library Book Sale a couple weeks ago. I didn’t recognize the name, but as I was spinning the platter tonight for the first time, it yanked me back.

Her biggest hit, “Piano in the Dark”, comes from this album.

Suddenly, I am back in the computer room–a, what, spare room or bedroom except it had the stairs to the basement in it–in our house down the gravel road. It’s summer, and I’m monkeying around on the Commodore 128, typing programs in from magazines or playing disks’ worth of games we downloaded from BBSes before moving to a house in a valley a mile or so off the state highway where we had a party line. In 1988. The songs from those two and a half years are somehow more vivid than from other periods in my life.

Then I heard her sing “Get Here”, the title track from the album, and I thought, That’s not quite right.

Because I remember the Oleta Adams cover, which charted much higher, a couple years later.

Suddenly, I’m in college, noodling around either on the Commodore 64 I bought from the later Goth King of St. Louis to take to school or on the old 286 that that my stepmother’s mother bought for $2000 with an employee discount at Sears and I repaid over the course of six months at minimum wage. Probably playing it on the stereo I bought from Iron Maiden poster Dave for $20 My mom says I should charge more because it’s a good stereo, so give me $5 more for the speakers in the days where WKTI played songs like this one and “I Wanna Be Rich” over and over again.

Well, that was certainly worth the dollar I paid for it.

When I pulled up the YouTube video for “Piano in the Dark”, YouTube queued up Breathe’s “Hands to Heaven” and Glenn Frey’s “You Belong to the City” as things to play next. I already have both on CD already, on All That Jazz and the Miami Vice soundtrack. Because I was into 80s pop in the 80s, and I’ve only gotten into LPs and R&B records (and R&B influenced pop) in the 21st century. Or because I’m a racist/misogynist. Maybe both.

In a post called simply Dignity, Severian says:

Karen Carpenter and Linda Ronstadt were always singers, but they were primarily folkies, and while Linda Ronstadt was really something back in her Stone Poneys days — yum! — her biggest hit with them (“Different Drum”) made it clear that she was not the one for you.

One might infer that Linda Ronstadt was not really something after her Stone Poney days (1966-1968). I beg to differ.
Continue reading “Wherein Brian J. Respectfully Disagrees With Severian” →

I just ordered an autographed CD from German band Null Positiv, navigating the site, the store, and the checkout process completely in German (which I do not speak) only then to discover a drop-down list in the footer that, whereupon the user selects English, displays the site completely translated.

At least I think I just ordered an autographed CD. I’m a little afraid to go back and see what I actually ordered.

Also, since this is a German band, I will likely rip the songs to my computer, unlike certain Russian autographed CDs I’ve bought.

By the way, here is some Null Positiv:

I am not sure what Elli Berlin is saying, but I do like the way she says it.

Gentle reader, the week was shaping up to be too busy for me to sneak off to the book sale this week on the north side of town. However, I rearranged some things on the sked so I could pop up for a brief visit on Wednesday afternoon.

I promised the boys I’d be in and out in an hour, and I really only focused on audio/visual materials. The number of records has dwindled from years past, now just a single table, but I managed to find something.

I got:

• He’s Not Heavy, He’s My Tuba by the New York Brass Quintet.
• Casino by Al Di Meola. I think Al Di Meola will be an excellent name for a cat.
• Jackie Gleason presents Music To Remember Her. I think I already have it, but I spent a buck just in case not.
• Zither South of the Border by Ruth Welcome. I am surprised combining the zither with the mariachi lite music of the 1960s did not end the universe as we know it.
• Disguise by Chuck Mangione. You know, that guy from that one animated series. I’ve already forgotten which one he appeared in.
• The Magic Flute of Herbie Mann. Hey, I might have made light of Super Mann when I got it, but I like Herbie Mann.
• Carmina Buruna performed by the Bavarian Radio Orchestra and Chorus.
• Love’s Lines, Angles and Rhymes by the Fifth Dimension.
• No Other Love by Perry Como.
• Dreamer’s Holiday by Perry Como.
• Get Here by Brenda Russell.
• Snowflakes Are Dancing by Tomita, apparently a Japanese composer and synth player, so this is likely to sound like some fusion jazz.
• Pictures At An Exhibition by Tomita.
• Firebird by Tomita. I bought all they had in case I like him.
• Baroque Christmas Cantatas. To add more religious music to the mix come Christmastime.
• Ballads of the Green Berets by SSgt. Barry Sadler. This was a big deal when it came out.
• A Couple of Song & Dance Men by Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire. Some show tunes that they made, but not anything from Holiday Inn.
• High Fidelity by Lena Horne and Phil Moore and Orchestra. I only mention Phil Moore and Orchestra because they also back Crosby and Astaire on the previous record.
• Virtuoso by Liona Boyd, whose Persona I already own. This is classical guitar music, so David Gilmour is unlikely to appear.
• Champagne Jam by Atlanta Rhythm Section.
• The 20th Century Bassoon because I need to update my bassoon music.
• Three Bassoon Concerti: Works by Vivaldi, J.C. Bach, and Graupner. Which does not update my bassoon music.
• Jean-Pierre Rampal Plays Johann Sebastian Bach. He’s no Herbie Mann, but he plays classical flute.
• Born on a Friday by Cleo Laine.
• Baroque Brass by the Eastern Brass Quartet.
• Arabesque: Music from the Film Score by Henry Mancini. I saw this a couple years ago because it had Sophia Loren in it, and Gregory Peck, I guess.
• Billy Holiday: The Original Authentic Recordings/”Piano Man” Bobby Tucker Tells The Lady Day Story. Purportedly collection of live Billie Holiday recordings. How did this one slip through last night? And the Lena Horne? Don’t kids know who these women are?
• The Illinois Brass Quartet.
• Poet’s Gold, a collection of poems read by Helen Hayes, Raymond Massey, and Thomas Mitchell. Produced by Raymond Massey. The guy who played Gail Wynand in The Fountainhead and John Brown in The Santa Fe Trail?
• Cocktail Time with Frankie Carle. I might have this one, too, but it was only a buck, so why not take it to make sure?
• Reaching for the World by Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes.
• The One and Only Jimmy Durante. a 1949 10″ LP.
• Music for Horns by the Horn Club of Los Angeles.
• Look To Your Heart by Perry Como.
• Little Jazz Duets.
• The Springfield Symphony Presents a collection of movements.
• A Song For You by The Carpenters. Okay, I’m really, really not into the 70s folk sound, but Karen Carpenter’s voice has hooked me.
• Antonio Soler: Six Concerti for Two Keyboards.
• Your Guy Lombardo Medley Vol. 2.
• A Very Merry Christmas Volume IV. I picked it up because it has a song by Aretha Franklin on it (she does “Winter Wonderland”).
• The Hits of Benny Goldman.
• At the Candlelight Cafe by the Three Suns. I have quite the collection of their work these days.
• Jazz Meets The Folk Song by the Paul Winter Sextet. Again, as with the south of the border zither, this should have annihilated life as we know it. Scientists are still working to understand why it did not. Or did it?
• A Portrait of Melba by Melba Moore. I think I passed over another one of her records for some reason. Probably because I did now know I picked this one up already in my berserker buying frenzy.
• Seasons by Bing Crosby. As with the Crosby and Astaire album, it’s an older Bing Crosby. According to the back, this is the last Bing Crosby record.
• Najee’s Theme by Najee.

All told, that’s 46 records. On Saturday, it would have only cost $23, but I’m busy Saturday.

My major scores, by my lights, are the Liona Boyd, Lena Horne, and Chuck Mangione albums. I hope I like the Tomita and some of the other things I took fliers on, including the unknown to me soul/R&B titles.

After picking through the records, I hit the videocassette collection. Videocassettes were fifty cents each. On Saturday, they would only be a quarter. I might be tempted to go up there on Sunday and throw what remains into a couple of bags.

But I got the following:

• Three tapes/six episodes of Route 66. Considering how close I am to it, I should probably familiarize myself with the program, ainna?
• Two Marx Brothers films, Duck Soup and Horse Feathers.
• Bachelor Party. I have not seen this in forever.
• Farewell, My Lovely with Robert Mitchum as Marlowe. I’ve got The Big Sleep with Mitchum, I’m think, but I am not sure I have seen this.
• Casino Royale, the James Bond spoofish film from the 1960s. Did they have a copy of the Jimmy Bond Casino Royale? Yes!
• Zulu with Michael Caine.
• Gladiator with Russell Crowe. I saw that in the theaters when I was working my second technical writing position back in the 20th century. I don’t think I’ve seen it since.
• Frantic, which was Harrison Ford doing Taken before Liam Neeson did.

I didn’t even look at the DVDs as my boys’ patience was running short, as was my promise to them to be in and out in an hour.

I did pick up a single audio book, Seven Bad Ideas: How Mainstream Economists Have Damaged America and the World by Jeff Madrick. It’s from 2014, and boy howdee I expect it to have predicted some things from 2021. Probably things I disagreed with when listening to On Thinking Like An Economist: A Guide To Rational Decision Making. I also picked up four bundles of chapbooks that I have yet to unbind to see what I’ve got.

So I was sad to not find any Barbara McNair; I thought surely I would trip over some now that I knew to look for it, but no. Also, no Fluegel Knights. All of the Herb Alpert I already own. No new-to-me Eydie Gorme (only one album, Don’t Go To Stranger, in the boxes).

Still, a good hunt, especially if two conditions are met: I like one of the new-to-me artists, and my beautiful wife is pleased with the brass selections.

Likelihood of my return on Sunday, bag day: 33%. Which is higher than it was a when I started the post.

You know, it might be worth it all to go back to 1995 and tell all the riot grrrls that Ani DiFranco….

has long hair in the 21st century:

I nipped this picture from the Milwaukee Daily Dammit, Gannett! gallery 61 Headliners You Can See At Summerfest 2021 which apparently this year will be held in September and not June and July.

In the terms of Full Disclosure, I am pretty sure I have seen Ani DiFranco in concert more times than I have seen most bands not called The Class of ’62 Surf Boys and probably only surpassed by the Springfield Symphony Orchestra.

I can’t help but note that at a minimum 30% of the acts in the gallery would have been in a similar gallery in 1994.

So on one of my work email accounts, I’ve been testing links to YouTube videos with the normal symphonic heavy metal things (as I mentioned), and so it presented me with the work of Olivia Holt:

A Disney and other things actress.

She’s a little poppy for either my metal or jazz tastes.

Clearly, Google thinks I share musical tastes with the revered Charles Hill. While we have some overlap, no.

Well, no; one can only wonder what the woman behind the LP How To Make Your Husband A Sultan: Belly Dance with Özel Türkbaş would think of this:

I certainly like the music more than the traditional Middle Eastern belly dances.

Apparently, Diana Bastet, probably not her real name, has videos stretching back ten years with dances to various songs with various degrees of production effort as well as some belly dancing workouts. The About page on YouTube says she performs at festivals, but certainly not church festivals, and probably not on this side of the pond.

I found this video because one of the applications I am testing now allows you to link to YouTube videos, and of course, I’m linking to symphonic metal videos.

I did not use any of Bastet’s work as test data, however.

You can see more of Ms. Bastet in motion on YouTube. I have added some photos, which are strangely not blurry, below the fold.

Continue reading “Özel Türkbaş Warned Me There’d Be Videos Like This” →

Richard Marx wrote the song “Dance With My Father” for Luther Vandross.

I thought I had mentioned but apparently have not that this song touched me very deeply when I heard it earlier in the century. I think I heard it first right after my first son was born, so I almost wept not only because I lost my father fairly early in my adulthood, but because I knew that someday I would leave my sons behind, and they would hopefully feel the same about me.

I listen to it at my own risk.

It’s from the 2003 album of the same name.

The article about Richard Marx touts his new memoir coming out, and it sounds kind of appealing. I’ll have to watch for it. Although I don’t tend to go through the show biz books at the church sales, so I’ll likely have to find it at a garage sale. Although I don’t tend to go to garage sales very often. Well, I have enough to read anyway.

See also: Songs of Fatherhood.

Taylor Swift shatters vinyl sales record with ‘Evermore’:

The pop superstar charted a new peak in modern-era vinyl sales — as more music fans turned to vintage records during the pandemic.

The vinyl edition of Swift’s album “Evermore” shattered the US record for largest vinyl album sales in a single week, according to Billboard.

It sold more than 40,000 copies just three days after its May 28 release — already surpassing the biggest single-week sales record since MRC Data began tracking in 1991.

The title had previously been held by Jack White’s “Lazaretto,” which sold 40,000 copies in the week after it launched in June 2014.

Everything is a new record.

Because history got rebooted around the end of the 20th century, and everything is now unprecedented and record-breaking.

Back in about 1990, when I learned that Milli Vanilli was not really Rob and Fab (after having seen them at Summerfest where they had problems playing the vocal tracks and were delayed several times–yes, with Dave), I thought, huh, someone made that music–they should release a CD with the real vocalists.

Now, in an article about the death of one of the real vocalists, I see they did:

Farian attempted to repackage the group as The Real Milli Vanilli, to feature the actual singers on Milli Vanilli recordings, namely Davis and Brad Howell, 77. Their album “The Moment of Truth” made rounds in Europe, Asia and South America, but the band never again reached the fame launched by Pilatus, who died in 1998 at 33, and Morvan, 55.

Maybe I should….

… Maybe not.

Given that the record was bigger in Europe than stateside, I guess I’ll have to wait until I go to a European garage sale to pick it up.

I mentioned that I got a copy of Özel Türkbaş’s album How To Make Your Husband A Sultan: Belly Dance with Özel Türkbaş this weekend.

I know, you’re saying, Did he buy this album because he likes to sample music in foreign languages, and this one was only fifty cents, or did he buy this album because it has a Pretty Woman on the Cover (PWoC)? The answer is yes.

The record comes from 1972 which is (counts his rings) forty-nine years ago. It includes some Turkish/Arabic music and a small booklet that includes basic belly dancing directions (swing your hips in time to the music, turn your hands parallel to the ground, bend backwards, wear finger cymbals, basically). I certainly couldn’t do it based on the books; heaven knows I need to take martial arts classes for almost a decade to gain basic competency in body control. Besides, if I wanted to learn belly dancing, I would talk to my cousin, one of the pretty ones, who is a belly dancer and a yoga instructor (one of the benefits of the large family: A cousin for every conversation). But, of course, I’m the husband in my personal situation, so I am the sultanee in the scientific formula and/or recipe.

At any rate, although Özel passed away in 2012, her family keeps alive an official Website offering her bio and theoretically a shop with merchandise, although that link doesn’t currently work. So maybe the site is not being kept alive but instead has a prepaid hosting plan lasting some years. I expect that’s what will happen with me some day, gentle reader.

But I digress. The site and YouTube have a video of her appearance on the Dinah Shore show where she belly dances and then cooks a meal:

She wrote a cookbook and owned a restaurant with her husband at some point.

I’ll drop some stills of Mrs. Türkbaş below the fold.

Continue reading “Strangely, It Is Not An Album About Middle Eastern Court Politics” →

Well, all right, I don’t know that guy, but I see his face on a lot of record covers here at Nogglestead.

One of my current projects is hunting down an article in Newsweek from the mid-1970s. I don’t know the year. I don’t know the month. So I’m accruing some old magazines to try to find it.

In one issue from 1975, as I was flipping through the magazine looking for the article, I came across a picture and story about Herb Alpert:

He seems to be a good guy, and he goes way back being a good guy.

He recently posted on Facebook the question, “Who would you like to see in concert when things are normal?” or something like that. To be honest, I would very much like to see him in concert again, although I should probably have to travel to do it.

We went to the fairgrounds on Saturday, which is half price day at the semi-annual book sale, and I managed to find a few records. By Saturday, or perhaps all week, they were down to something like twelve or sixteen boxes/crates of records, which is less than half of what they often have on the dollar records side, but I still managed to pick up a few.

The gleanings include:

• The Baja Marimba Band Rides Again by the Baja Marimba Band. I think I already have this one, but at 50 cents per, I got it just in case I did not.
• Pete Fountain’s Crescent City by Pete Fountain
• Fowl Play by the Baja Marimba Band. I bought several by this band, as you will see.
• Environments: Totally New Concepts in Sound Disc 8, a soundscape record with Wood-Masted Sailboat and A Country Stream.
• Environments: Totally New Concepts in Sound Disc 4, with Ultimate Thunderstorm (no word on if it’s almost as good as Passion Storm, but time will tell) and Gentle Rain in a Pine Forest. To be honest, I am not sure when I will actually listen to these.
• Saxaphone Christmas from Nashville
• Melanie by Melanie. There were several copies.
• When You Hear Lou, You’ve Heart It All by Lou Rawls. Several Lou Rawls records available. Where were R&B fans all week?
• Coming Out by the Manhattan Transfer.
• Vocalese by the Manhattan Transfer. To be honest, I’m not the biggest fan, but who can pass them up at fifty cents?
• So Rare by Boots Randolph. It must be true; I haven’t seen this record before.
• A Very Merry Christmas Volume 3, a compilation.
• “Do we need any more Christmas records?” my beautiful wife asked, and the woman counting the platters got to Christmas Disco by P.K. & The Sound Explosion. Not any more!
• The Best of Chuck Mangione by Chuck Mangione, a two record set. Since I started collecting Mangione after Christmas, I have been fortunate to find so many.
• Breezin’ by George Benson. I have this one already, but I think mine skips.
• Freetime by Spyro Gyra.
• Space by George Benson.
• Beyond the Blue Horizon by George Benson.
• Jukin’ by the Manhattan Transfer and Gene Pistilli.
• Pure Gold Benny Goldman.
• The Best of Tommy Dorsey by Tommy Dorsey.
• Shirley Bassey Is Really “Something” by Shirley Bassey. Jeez, what one does under the influence of a single Mark Steyn column from likely a decade ago.
• The Dukes of Dixieland featuring Pete Fountain.
• The Best of Henry Mancini Volume 3
• This Is Al Hirt by Al Hirt. Not a big fan of the Dixieland jazz sound, but, hey, fifty cents.
• Pronto Monto by Kate and Anna McGarrigle. Which apparently is Canadian folk rock from the 1970s and not a novelty record.
• Close-Up by Jackie Gleason. My lead over you in number of Jackie Gleason records grows.
• The Genius of Jean-Pierre Rampal, the flutist.
• Heart to Heart by David Sanborn. Lots of good light jazz to be had, and I have it now.
• White Christmas by Pat Boone. Can one have too many Christmas records? I think not! Although I do not buy all of them I see, as they’re plentiful at book sales. And of all the records, they look to be the most heavily used and abused, but that could be because the children are allowed to put them on, and something like Lou Rawls and David Sanborn goes on the record player when Mommy and Daddy are alone after the children have gone to bed–and how would you feel about a little brother or sister?
• Steve Miller K.C. Big Band, apparently a big band from Kansas City. Worth fifty cents, or consider it the GO half of BOGO for a dollar.
• The Magic of Zamfir, the master of the pan flute.
• Don’t Give Up by Brass Impact Singers. Apparently, the band from the Ozark Bible College and no relation to Walter Kime’s band.
• Tell Them by Brass Impact Singers. Both discs are collections of gospel/hymns, so I can play them on Sunday mornings when I have misplaced my Swedish Gospel Singers record. Which is often.
• Life Is Music by The Ritchie Family.
• No Time To Lose by Andrae Crouch. R&B?
• For Animals Only by the Baja Marimba Band.
• Christmas Time in Carol and Song with Leontyne Price and Arthur Fiedler, but most importantly with special guests Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme. So this is worth the whole trip.
• Christmas Joy by George Melachrino and His Orchestra. Okay, maybe I did buy several Christmas records, but most of them were by artists that I already accumulate. And Pat Boone. And disco.
• The Christmas Sound of Music, a Collector’s Limited Edition from B.F. Goodrich. From when people got Christmas records from their tire store. I got this because it has Ella Fitzgerald on the cover, and I have not found her Christmas work in the wild otherwise.
• In Flight by George Benson.
• How To Make Your Husband A Sultan: Belly Dance with Özel Türkbaş. “No pressure,” I said to my beautiful when it passed through the counter’s hands. I don’t think she saw what it was.
• Beautiful Noise by Neil Diamond. You really don’t see Neil Diamond records in the wild for as popular as he was. Or maybe dealers are coming through before half price day and snapping them up.
• Waitress in a Donut Shop by Maria Muldaur. The influence of Charles Hill lives on. Also, on a trivia note, I saw when I searched Kate and Anna McGarrigal (above) that Kate provides some background vocals on one of the songs.
• Sketches by Skitch by Skitch Henderson and His Orchestra. I have no idea what this is, but the young man looks very earnest on the cover.
• Their Shining Hour by the Dorsey Brothers.
• Saxsational by Boots Randolph.
• Bits and Pieces by Rod McKuen. You can always find some Rod McKuen at these things.
• The Magic of the Melachrino Strings.
• Flutes Front & Center by Ray Rasch and the Pipers 10. Pretty sure I already have it, but for fifty cents, I picked it up in case not.
• Spark of Love by Lenny Williams. Looks to be R&B. Sometimes, I like to take a flyer on buying some artist I’ve never heard of; sometimes, I really, really like them and get a bunch. Which would be a sad thing if I really like this, as I am pretty sure I have never seen other works by the artist. Of course, now that I have this one, I will probably see them all over, kind of like Phoebe Snow (whose debut album I could have had a third copy of for a buck, further bringing down the average cost of them, but I demurred).
• Too Much! by a very young Lou Rawls.
• Is It Still Good To Ya by Ashford and Simpson.

Whew. That’s 53 new records/2-record sets that I somehow have to jam into my record shelves. The console stereo has a little bunker that can hold maybe ten or twenty; it looks like I’ll have to make use of it.

Best of all, the total cost here was like $30, or less than a silly lark of a handicraft.

Where one links to a humor piece entitled AN FAQ ABOUT YOUR NEW BIRTH CONTROL: THE MUSIC OF RUSH and one feels compelled to add:

In case you’ve never heard of Rush, you really should. Seriously, love ’em or hate ’em, you’re incomplete if you haven’t heard at least a few of their songs.

What a world we now live in!

(Side note: The three Rush songs on my gym playlist: “Fly By Night”, “Roll the Bones”, and “Dreamline”–coincidentally, what 97 QFM was playing in 1991, when Roll the Bones was something of a comeback album even though the band had not really been away.)

I have given my oldest son a number of Pink Floyd albums (The Wall, Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here) for Christmas to hopefully helpfully forestall the day when one has to explain which one’s Pink. (The lad asked me the other day, “Waters or Gilmour?” probably to like the opposite one better–teenagers!)

I know, that’s two music posts in a row. But, c’mon, man, you’re not here for the hot takes on news and politics, ainna?