Recommended to me by my new friend Spacepig – I’ve been listening to it off and on for a few days now……..and I must admit that its not really my cup of tea – which is a shame as I really wanted to like it.
The first track (BBC 1.3.73 as its called on soundike.com) is actually 3 tracks in 1 containing “The Lurcher,” “Kraut Rock” and “Do So,” – now this I do like. Starting with a funky drum and bass before some muted horns kick in then spiralling on and on and on like a tribe of nomads on their way to slaughter a couple of goats at midnight – good good stuff.
The rest of the album didn’t really do anything for me – its a bit too abstract and unstructured – I used to like some of the wierd stuff that Hawkwind and their associates like Robert calvert did – maybe I was younger and more easily impressed. Pitchfork sum it nicely by saying that the rest of the album like Party 9″ “is a disorienting piece of German radio broadcast spliced with what sounds like a game of ping-pong and a dog barking in the background. Then, some boogie-woogie piano comes in, and kids begin shouting, “Happy birthday to you!” in broken English. After that, “Party 10″ enters without a break, as a fanfare of sped-up trumpet enters along with something like a wet kazoo”.
Sorry Spacepig I did try and will try again especially with your other recomendations but apart from the first track I cant recommend it – what do others think? Do you like Faust – let me know.
Laughingdog
As a child/young teenager I used to faint a lot. About 5 seconds before you black out there’s a cacaphony of sounds and images before baff! you’re laid out horizontal and folks are reaching for the smelling salts.
Listening to Faut reminded me of that.
Sorry Spacepig!
Don’t apologise to me for it, I’m glad you are open minded enough to give it a go! What a boring world it would be if we all liked the same music. Personally, your description of it is exactly the kind of thing that would draw me to it in the first place!
If you think that one is a bit too freaked for you, then I don’t really recommend you dig much further, you’re not going to like them.
For my next recommendation, try Calexico. For a taster, go here:
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=calexico%20AND%20collection%3Aetree
I don’t know if you know this site or not, but it is rapidly becoming my favourite website. It’s crammed full of free & legal concerts to download. While you’re there, try some Acid Mothers Temple too. If you think Faust were weird you ain’t heard nothing yet!
I’d completely forgotten about the Internet Archive, thanks Spacepig!
I’m sure I’ve seen laughing dog’s son with one or more calexico’s albums although haven’t heard their music but I was cheered to see that they’re on the same page as The Frames
Just listened to a couple of random tracks (Not Even Stevie Nicks, Return of The Manta Ray) and liked it enough to bookmark for tomorrow for a better listen. Will also give Acid Mothers Temple (what a name!) a go too. But now, my bed is calling!
Calexico – good choice, good band – I have a few of their albums, kind of forget they exist until you hear the name then “wow” you remember how good they are.
Particularly like their collaboration with Iron and Wine - In the Reins
So Spacepig, what you listening to today? Of course I’m playing In the Reins ‘Prison on Route 41′ as I type this mmm just good.
FYI finished next months Music Mix – including ‘Hurry on Sundown’ you will be able to d/load on 1st Sept. Hopefully we’ll have more responses then – the stats are great with around 173 new visitors last week alone (41 of them returning) so it ain’t bad for a new blog.
By the way – I cant access the link for archive.org its blocked by my local telecom company Qtel – and I can’t argue with them as they employ me!
Oh oh! That’s an awkward one. Best idea would be to tell them you’re going to sack them if they don’t unblock it.
Really though, I can’t imagine why they would block it. Are you subject to oppressive censorship or something?
Why not send your address and I’ll post some downloads to you on a memory stick or CDs?
Hi Spacepig
We’re not really oppressed we just cant access some lovely western things like mikes apartment and The Archers – never mind. Thanks for offer of sending me stuff – let me check with my blog technician as I can download and upload things from her maybe she can fix it for you to send me stuff that way. What sort of stuff is on site?
There quite a good discussion on Amazon at mo – think you will like.
you may interested in some news on Faust
Have you seen them live?
Had a look at the link and, well , it’s interesting if you happen to live in the US of A. Unfortunately, I’m about 4,000 miles from there so I don’t think the budget will stretch that far just now.
Seen them live twice, first time in Aberdeen in 2005, second time here in Cork last year. I’ve seen hundreds of bands in my time, but these guys in concert are really something special. They have this thing for toys like jackhammers, industrial electric saws, explosions – you get the idea? There’s no doubt some good footage on youtube but I haven’t looked for ages. Oh, and they also play some music sometimes too!
The internet archive site is full of live concerts from bands such as Acid Mothers Temple, Country Joe McDonald, Calexico, and especially Grateful Dead (hundreds of them). There’s also a minefield of bands I haven’t heard of before so its sometimes good just to download something in the hope of finding something new and exciting. Last download I done was last night when I came across Gas Giant. Heard of them before, but never actually heard them – definitely worth a spare hour or so.
Not quite sure what Amazon discussion you’re referring to, what’s the subject? I have been joining in one or two recently, but I have to be careful what I say on there because of my work so usually my comments are a bit restrained.
My latest recommendation for a band to look out for – Colour Haze – a bunch of crazy stoned Germans, but the music they play (stoner rock) deserves a much wider audience.
And as for what I’m listening to at the moment – for the first time in about six months, today through the door I got a new faust CD (for a change). This time its Kleine Welt, a live one from 2006. Will report on it once I’ve digested it – but I’m sure you won’t like it. Through the day I’ve had on some much more chilled stuff, Donovan, Jethro Tull and John Martyn. I tend to take it easy when I’m at work so I can hype it up come night time.
Before I go – just had a thought. Remember I told you I went to see Nik Turner with his jazz band? Well I shot a couple of videos and put them on youtube. Its the first time I had used my camera for shooting video and the video isn’t very good (well its awful to tell you the truth) but the music has come up OK.
You can check them out here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5Vx0lfzwrE
&
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPtCkXQFi94
Let me know what you think.
Thanks for link – its much more sort of big band than I expected. Good sound quality sounds like a good night – is that you dancing in front of camera on 2nd link?
On the same page as your video is Roger Waters ‘Comfortably Numb’ great song but bad performance – why he need 2 drummers, 4 guitarists, 3 back-up singers etc. etc. etc. Plus I know this aint disco music but surely some of the band could have moved a little!!
The link for the Amazon discussion is highlighted in red – do you work for them?
Listening to Colour Haze ‘Moon’ – you’re right they deserve a wider audience – mmm I like.
Will investigate more – cheers
aaah not available on my usual sources – will have to wait 4 weeks for delivery from Amazon
Glad you enjoyed the music, I’ve put a couple more videos up, take a look when you get a chance. And I am happy to confirm that that is definitely NOT me dancing on the clip. That’s one of our local nutters, but hey, he’s enjoying himself so that’s all that really matters isn’t it? Be assured that that night I was on the other end of the camera so there’s no footage of me (that I know of). Somewhere there’s a clip where Mrs Spacepig appears, I’m going to have to trawl through them and find it. I’ll let you know when I locate it and post it too – but I won’t tell her.
I agree 100% with your comments on the Roger Waters clip. That was taken the year before I arrived in Cork so I wasn’t at that gig. Only time I seen Pink Floyd was when they first done The Wall. 1980 I think. I went to Edinburgh to see them and that was awe inspiring, much better than what you seen in that clip.
I must have been having a blonde moment when I tried to find the Amazon discussion you were linking to! Of course, I have seen it. I am of the opinion that quality will always be more important than quantity. I do have a healthy collection of about 2,500 on CD and maybe another thousand or so on hard drive. Plus Mrs Spacepig has about another 500 from before we met. Occasionally she nags me to clear out and sell off the ones I never listen to – but it never happens. I always get to thinking that I’ll regret the selling once its gone. Funny thing is, she never offers to clear out her own, even though some of them we both have.
And yes, I do work for Amazon, but I would appreciate it if you didn’t mention that on the Amazon website. Whilst I am happy to offer anyone advice through the forum, if they have a genuine problem we really need them to contact us directly to ensure that the problem is registered, monitored and dealt with properly.
I don’t have the Colour Haze CD you have ordered (yet). I have a holiday coming up in two weeks time so I’m trying to save money for that and I’ll get it once I’m back. What I’ve heard of it though sounds as good as the ones I do have so it’s certainly on the list. I have also just ordered the new release of Hawkwind’s Levitation so I better ease up before Mrs Spacepig’s suspicions are aroused.
While you’re waiting for it to arrive i’ll provide another suggestion: Try some Siena Root, especially their first one, A New Day Dawning. Not sure how easy it is to find these days but well worthwhile tracking down.
And I’m still waiting for you guys to suggest some Arabic music for me to try out. Come on, there must be some music there which deserves to be heard over here.
Arabic Music!!! mmm thats a hard one – the locals dont create much that you or I would enjoy. Its basically very traditional music with mostly drums, a sort of sitar and chants – fabulous if seen at a wedding or suhoor but not really appreciated on CD. Any local bands that are here are either Western expats pretending they’re Eric Clapton or Philipino thrash metal/funk/pop – not a nice combination.
Apart from Dunestock, mentioned on an earlier post, we have had Bryan Adams visit (not a bad night), Akon, Enrique Iglasias and other rap/pop artists. The young locals love their American rapstas and try to emulate them in the desert or highways here – quite funny really unless your camping in the desert and a BOOM BOOM BOOM SHAKER SHAKER BOOM BOOM drives past at a million decibels.
Again thanks for musical recommedations, will order A New Day Dawning from Amazon as my son is returning soon and can bring with him – like your review to.
New Music Mix ready and will be available soon – album of the month is Joe Henry ‘Blood from Stars’ which is just great
Laughing Dog
spacepig, could you tell me which browser you prefer to use (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, etc.?) and which operating system (Windows XP, Vista? Mac?) – am just scribbling some “how-to” notes for the ftp
Hi Liefste zus,
Just got time for a quick update (I’m at work right now).
I use Firefox, although Spacepig junior keeps telling me to change to Chrome. I just haven’t got around to looking at it yet.
And I run Windows XP, mainly because I know it works (usually) and I live by the adage, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!!
Will get back to the happy canine tonight!
Great, thanks spacepig. Himself will send you some notes when he gets a chance.
(I’ve moved mostly to Chrome for browsing but use Firefox for webdev stuff because there are some great tools that aren’t available yet in Chrome. But Chrome is much faster than FF, imho.)
Agreed Chrome is the faster of the 2, While Firefox does have the extensions i’ve not missed them and Chrome Inspector is absolutely fantastic, real easy off the cuff HTML editing
Hi Mr. Spacepig Junior – thanks for posting (although I not really understand what you say – but Liefste zus will)
What bands/artists are you listening to now – Mr Spacepig Senior has recommended some crackers to me already – are you into similar stuff?
Just listened to some of their stuff last night on myspace – what is going on here? Cant unerstand what you enjoy – I like my music to be around 4minutes long with a couple of verses a catchy chorus and someone who can sing lyrics that I can understand and mean something to me.
Liked what Liefste zus said about them though nice 1
As a child/young teenager I used to faint a lot. About 5 seconds before you black out there’s a cacaphony of sounds and images before baff! you’re laid out horizontal and folks are reaching for the smelling salts.
Listening to Faut reminded me of that
Well well little Sinful person, so you’re stuck with the typical music industry mogul’s image of perfection? A short burst of nonsensical pap, easily digested then discarded when the next money making scheme comes along.
On this site you will find people who, fortunately, consider music as somewhat more than a disposable item or a passing fad. People who, rather than use music as a distraction or a background accessory, actually invest time, money and not a little heartache in our exploration of that wonderful world of pure musical genius, obviously stumbling across some crap on the way.
I have learned through experience that the best music and deepest emotion cannot be presented within a standard 3 or 4 minute time-frame, that in order to fully express and understand the experience, the musician needs to throw away the constraints imposed by the industry and instead concentrate on his/her craft. The listener likewise must invest as much time and diligence in exploring the presentation as is necessary to understand explicitly what he/she has been offered to scrutinise. Do you think Beethoven, Wagner, Miles Davis or Jimi Hendrix thought as they were composing their masterpieces ‘oh oh, I’ve reached 4 minutes, gonna have to cut it there or the listener will lose it’ ?
Luckily for each of these true geniuses, people who understand music don’t need the typical verse, chorus, verse, chorus monotony which you appear to cherish so much.
With reference to your language restriction problem: You may not realise this yet, but there are many more languages than English, and, believe it or not, there are very many talented bands and artists who prefer to sing in their native tongues. Now, in no way at all am I fluent in German, although I do know a little bit and I am fortunate in that Mrs Spacepig is German. But that does not stop me appreciating not only Faust, but also bands such as Guru Guru, Einsturzende Neubaten and Amon Duul. And not only German bands either, try the likes of Buena Vista Social Club, Rodrigo y Gabriella, even Salif Keita. Not a word of English between them, but that doesn’t prevent them being music well worth investigating. You may have noticed on other posts I have been asking for recommendations of Arabic bands which may be interesting, but I speak hardly a word of Arabic. To me how the music sounds can be as important as what is being said.
Finally, I have said elsewhere that I accept that Faust are not going to be to everyone’s liking. This was never their intention. But I defy anyone to say that they have taken the obvious path to stardom as so many other present day bands have done. They have copied no one and always done their own thing. Whether you like it or not is not important, what is important is that you appreciate the fact that they have expressed originality in everything they have done.
So, if need be, stick to the Gobshitte Twins and mourn their (temporary) passing for a while. Hopefully if you can open up and do a bit of exploring, you will soon forget them as the passing fad that they really were.
Woah stop calm down Mr. Pig – you going na bit OTT I think
I only said that it was not for me – I did try believe me for about 10 mins i tried but it all made no sense. When I siad I like my songs to be 4 mins I meant that I like the basic way of songs – what wrong with that. Some of the best bands and songs have said all they want to say in 4 mins.
Mr. Dog has been more helpful and recommended some bands, I bought Ben Harper ‘Life on Mars enjoyed that and will buy more next week – so I am trying.
Don’t take it personally Sinner, I love a good rant now and then (I’m just a grumpy old man at heart).
While you’re at Ben harper, just scroll down a little bit and you’ll find Roy Harper. Recommend you try some of his and see what you think.