Today’s Your Birthday – Happy Birthday to You – Oliver Edward Karn!!

Sleeping OliverOk so today is PI Day at 4:52 AM Oliver EDWARD  Karn, son of Andrew Karn and Meaghan Reess Karn was born!! After being called to the hospital at around 10 PM on the 13th when the birth seemed imminent Oliver had other ideas and thought that it would be a good idea if Grammie and Grandpa, Aunt Elizabeth and Lauren got a chance to enjoy the ambiance of the ER at Inspira Medical Center (formerly Underwood Hospital) in Woodbury, NJ. Now while we did enjoy the show that included two very strange gender confusing people. One of which uttered the phrase “I feel like killing someone”” just moments before coming over and standing near us! He/She also had spent the prior one and a half hours in the women’s restroom doing who knows what? Well, maybe the security and staff personnel,  who kept going back and forth wearing gloves and carrying bags did, but I didn’t,  While the wandering black he/she who was evidently being allowed to wait for a bus in the ER grabbed a wheelchair and blanket shrouded herself and went to sleep. The guard woke her at 5 telling her the buses would be running again and she’d have to leave!! Read More

Jazz from NYC Saxophonist Jeff Hackworth – Soul to Go!

So this morning’s soundtrack was Soul To Go!, the latest release from New York City tenor saxophonist, Jeff Hackworth. Currently, the album is #35 and climbing on the JazzWeek Jazz Chart. Hackworth began his musical journey playing countless gigs in the smokey clubs in his hometown of Buffalo,New York. While he played in many blues and R&B bands it was the organ trio scene that he always gravitated towards. Read More

This Day in Music – Brewer & Shipley's "One Toke Over the Line" Enters the Charts!!

So on this day in 1971 Brewer & Shipley’s “One Toke Over the Line” entered the charts and eventually spent 14 weeks on the charts, and climbed all the way to # 10 during April 1971 (#5 in Canada). I always knew those Canadians knew good music!! Anyway here’s a post I wrote about Brewer & Shipley a while back and I’ll update it with the fact that at the 2014 Folk Alliance International Conference in Kansas City the Spirit of Folk Award. Check it out here! From: July 2012….. Many times artists come into our world spend a little time, while their music because a part of our lives, and then drift away. Many times the thoughts of those artists evoke certain memories of the times and places we were when we listened to their music. One such band or rather duo that fits that description for me is Brewer and Shipley (more at Wikipedia). The duo was a part of my life in my college years and if my memory serves me right I even saw them live at the University of Florida. But since that time, I haven’t heard or thought much about them every once in a while the lyrics of “One Toke Over the Line” creeps onto the iPod in my mind. Somewhere along the way I lost the vinyl for Tarkio Road and I think I had the track of Weeds When I checked out their website today, I see they still are performing and that their début album Down in LA has been released on CD by Cherry Records in the UK. I also see a few albums released after my college years that I’ll have to check out! I know a couple of years ago I checked out Mike Brewer’s release Retro Man and enjoyed it! I also saw some news when I checked their site.  Mike and Scarlett’s house was destroyed when a tornado ripped through Powersite, Mo. in February of this year. You can see the destruction here . They were in the house and made it to th bathroom where they survived!  Mike says they will  eventually rebuild on Scarlett’s mountain! Ok computer just crashed, so let’s wrap it up with some morning music from Brewer & Shipley

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New Prog from French Avantgarde Metallers – Ethersens – Your Wandering Ghost

ETHERSENS is a Experimental/Post Metal or as they describe themselves on their website “French Avantgarde metallers” from Midi-Pyrénées, France. The core of what was to become Ethersens came together around 2001 when guitarists Johan Bourrut and Mickael André decided to form a band.The idea of a band, moved a step closer to being a reality when drummer Stephane Nestiri joined them in 2002. After several members moved in and out of the band, in 2003, the line-up stabilized when Fred (bass) and Stephan (vocals) joined the band. Because all the members of the band had experience with other bands they proceeded straight to album making (didn’t pass go, didn’t collect 200 dollars) Their debut album Ordinary Days was recorded between 2005 and 2006 but wasn’t released on Scarlet Records until 2008. The album was well received and the band set out on a five-year quest to record their sophomore album, Read More

Prog Rotation Part 2 – Eclectic Prog from Texas’ Herd of Instinct – Conjure!

The other instrumental prog rock band that has been in my listening rotation over the last week or so is the Texas eclectic prog band Herd of Instinct. I have listened to their second release Conjure. The band’s self-titled first release was released in 2011 and was four years in the making. Flashback to 2007 – Wow- that was a long trip – the band 99 Names of  God had disbanded after ten years on the Texas Music scene as an Art Rock band – yeah right?? How do you get beer drinking into that music! But I digress back to 2007 where drummer Jason Spralin and WARR Guitarist Mark Cook are trying to form a new band. Soon they joined forces with ex-Nervewerks guitarist Mike Davison and got down to work!!  Four years later they produced that self titled album (hum about two times as long as the gestation period of the elephant) Anyway, critics praised the album and comparisons were made to King Crimson. The band’s music is drawn from a variety of influences including: multi-cultural music, literary clues, Horror and cinematic film scores, and obscure elements of Rock, Avant-garde, Electronic, Prog, and Psychedelic music. (Horror films and Psychedelic music may survive on the Texas Music scene, no wait – psychedelic music is that hippie music!) Read More

Mandolin Picker Jethro Burns born March 10, 1920!

 Jethro Burns of Homer & Jethro one helluva good mandolin picker!!

On this day in March 10th in 1920 “Jethro”Burns was born in north Georgia. When he was young his family moved to,Tennessee Since Jethro passed away in 1989, many of you young whippersnappers may not know of him, but Jethro was a fantastic mandolin player and one-half of the country musical comedy team of Homer & Jethro. Homer’s real name was Henry D Haynes and they started performing together in 1936! From Wikipedia: Read More

Crossover Prog from Canada’s AsZension – Biosphere!

One of the albums that has been in my prog rock listening rotation over the past several days is Biosphere the sophomore release from the Canadian Crossover Prog band AsZension. The band is currently a studio-based band but there are plans to make it a live band. The band was founded by multi-instrumentalist Kevin Thiessen after he completed his studies in Contemporary Music and Technology, audio engineering, production and guitar at Selkirk College in Nelson B.C. After finishing his studies Thiessen set out to find like-minded musicians. First he met and then added guitarist and engineer Calvin Shiu, a martial arts practitioner and at the time, a recording arts student at the University of Lethbridge to the band. Shiu brought with him  his ”Shamisen”, a Japanese fretless lutelike instrument. This led to inspire Thiessen to use more world instruments in his miusic. In today’s recording era this is accomplished through “Virtual instrument technology or Vst’s. The final member of the band drummer Kyle Sheppard was an easy choice for the band since he had worked with Thiessen and was a life-long friend of Shiu’s. Their self-titled debut album won rave reviews and was nominated for Best Début Record at the 2012 ”Prog Awards” The Web World Awards dedicated to Progressive Rock. Read More

This Day in Music Happy Birthday to Austria’s “Chet Baker” Michaela Rabitsch!!

Today March 8th Austria’s only and top female jazz trumpet player Michaela Rabitsch celebrates her ?????? birthday, Michaela is a singer, composer and is called a modern-day female Chet Baker by the US magazine Jazzscene!! She calls Weyer, Oberosterreich, Austria her hometown and currently Vienna is home. She has started her musical journey at 7 studying classical violin, at 14 she moved to Vienna to continue her studies. She switched to trumpet and studies for jazz- and popular music at the Bruckner conservatory Linz (now Anton Bruckner private University) with Ingrid Jensen, Peter Tuscher and classical trumpet with Fritz Handlbaue. Over the years she has played in a variety of groups and individuals. Most recently she has concentrated on her own compositions played together in quartet or duo with Robert Pawlik. They have released to CDs as a duo Moods and their latest release Voyages. This afternoon I downloaded Voyages and gave it a listen – this is one terrific duo! According to their website: Read More