Art is the music we make from the bewildered cry of being alive. ~Maria Popova
11 Jan 2025 Leave a comment
in Video of the Week Tags: muse
Shortly after their 2009 album The Resistance debuted atop the Italian charts, Muse were invited to appear on an Italian daytime TV show.
When the band learned the show wasn’t set up to let them sing live and they’d have to lip sync, they decided to, as drummer Dom Howard put it, “arse about”.
Howard took over lead, uh, vocals and bass while front man Matt Bellamy sat in rather unconvincingly on drums. Bassist Chris Wolstenholme moved to keyboard and guitar.
The resistance, indeed.
11 Jan 2025 Leave a comment
in Video of the Week Tags: eric clapton
08 Jan 2025 Leave a comment
in Songs You May Have Missed Tags: british folk, forest, tudor lodge
Tudor Lodge: “Forest” (1971)
There’s a reason collectors will pay steep prices for reissues of now-obscure British folk from the late ’60’s and early ’70’s. And there’s a reason specialty labels strive to keep it in print.
Seldom does contemporary pop offer a whiff of this rustic, pastoral style of music of bygone days. There haven’t been enough Belle & Sebastians to scratch this particular itch.
But if the frantic pace, economic uncertainty and political chaos of the 21st century have you seeking respite in the sound of simpler times and greener, quieter places, then this trio of John Stannard, Lyndon Green and Ann Steuart may offer the antidote you need.
Evoking early Strawbs, Heron, The Sallyangie, or Donovan, circa 1967–and continuing in some form well into the current century like most of those acts–Tudor Lodge sing songs that evoke idyllic summer scenes from other centuries.
While the American folkies were protesting war, their English counterparts simply escaped into the past.
Tudor Lodge welcomes you, road-weary guest. And this blog offers many other ancient winding paths to explore:
08 Jan 2025 Leave a comment
in Video of the Week Tags: harry nilsson, son of schmilsson
WARNING: EXPLICIT LANGUAGE
07 Jan 2025 Leave a comment
in Songs You May Have Missed Tags: manu chao, me llaman calle
Manu Chao: “Me Llaman Calle” (2007)
If you don’t know how to pronounce the name of French-born Spanish musician Manu Chao, you can just call him by his birth name, José Manuel Tomás Arturo Chao Ortega, which is nearly as long as the list of languages he sings in–French, Spanish, English, Italian, Arabic, Catalan, Galician, Portuguese, and Greek.
His multicultural musical mix swings between party, politics and protest. But even when the song is sad, the music celebrates.
Translation:
They Call Me Street
They call me street/stepping on the concrete/the rebellious and so lost girl
they call me street/street of the night/street of the day
they call me street/I’m going so tiredly/I’m going so vacantly/like a little machine for the grand city
they call me street/I get into your car/they call me street/I should be happy
tired street, empty street/of so much love
I’m going to the street below/I’m going to the street above/I wont back down/not even for life
they call me street/and that is my pride/I know one day I’ll arrive/I know one day my luck will come
one day it’ll look for me/at the exit a good man/giving his life without paying/my heart isn’t for rent
they call me street(2x)
suffering street/depressed street/from so much love
they call me street/most quiet street/they call me street without a future/they call me street without an exit/they call me street/most quiet street
for the women of life/rise below/sink above/like a little machine for the grand city
they call me street (2x)
suffered street/depressed street/from so much love
they call me street/most quiet street/they always call me/no matter what the hour
they call me beautiful/always at the wrong time/they call me bitch/and princess
they call me street/it’s my nobility/they call me street/suffered street, lost street/of so much love
07 Jan 2025 Leave a comment
in Songs You May Have Missed Tags: billy strings, gild the lily
Billy Strings: “Gild the Lily” (2024)
On his sprawling, 20-track double album Highway Prayers Billy Strings stretches the boundaries of traditional music in appealing fashion, mixing fast-picked bluegrass workouts with more laid-back fare such as the reflective “Gild the Lily”.
Every Moment Has A Song 