Today's track-of-the-week has a puzzling title. It might be the end of one sentence and the beginning of the next: "... hear. You can see ...". It could be a spelling mistake: "Here, you can see ...". Or it might be another example of the curse of autocorrect. And that gives me a problem. What…Read more Hear You Can See
Try!
When I see the word "try" my first thought is always the famous saying, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again". Then there's W. C. Fields' rather more realistic and much more entertaining slant, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about…Read more Try!
In Disequilibrium
"Well, it's all topsy-turvy", sings Peter Hammill as his second collaboration with Isildurs Bane starts to swing. "Everything's turned upside-down", he continues as In Disequilibrium, part 1 kicks off their latest album. It's the first section of a three-part title track, and it sets us up nicely for 45 minutes of good, old-fashioned symphonic prog…Read more In Disequilibrium
Nothing But a Fool
The members of Joy Division had agreed that the band would not perform under that name should any one of them leave. So, when their singer Ian Curtis took his own life in 1980, the dark post-punk group morphed into New Order. The band soon evolved more of a dance-rock sound, closer to new wave…Read more Nothing But a Fool
Eleuthera
The fingers of fate are long and bony. They reach into the mind to turn up thoughts that you never imagined could be there. And so it was the other day when I revisited a post that appeared in my Hubzilla feed a few months ago. The post was headed "Eleuthera", Stockholm - Monty Alexander,…Read more Eleuthera
Talvin Singh
In rehearsal, 2009 There we were, round at a mate's house listening to his excellent hi-fi, when he selected a track from his extensive collection and announced the artist as Talvin Singh, OBE. (That's Order of the British Empire for those of you outside the UK.) Embarrassingly, I had to admit that I had never…Read more Talvin Singh
Marscape
Marscape is, effectively, a prequel to the early Brand X albums. It's the Robin Lumley and Jack Lancaster input to Unorthodox Behaviour and Moroccan Roll. If you pay attention, you can hear all four permanent members of the 1970s line-up of Brand X in this Marscape; some of the tunes were carried over to the…Read more Marscape
Avalanche
It doesn't take much to trigger an avalanche. Sometimes a fresh fall of snow or the warmth of the rising sun on a mountain slope is enough. In this case, though, it was just a brief entry on a social media feed - barely more than a link to this YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASjn1Z83g9c Aimee Mann…Read more Avalanche
Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
When the Crotchety Kid picked up a bass guitar at the beginning of the seventies, he was completely ignorant of harmonic structure. As a first step to composing bass lines, he bought and read a book in the Teach Yourself series. Those books had distinctive yellow and blue covers, which served as a stamp of…Read more Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
Grandbrothers
The grand piano usually leads a solitary life. It rarely teams up with other instruments, especially electronic ones. So, the intimate connection between Erol Sarp's grand and Lukas Vogel's electric hammers and dampers may be unique. Together, Sarp and Vogel are Grandbrothers. Sarp is a classically-trained jazz pianist; Vogel is an electronics engineer who builds…Read more Grandbrothers
Crotchety Man 