Several years ago, well to be a little more accurate back in 2007 I read Linwood Barclay’s first Zack Walker novel Bad Move That book came to mind when I read the first line of Book 34 for 2013 Barclay’s latest thriller A Tap on the Window
Yesterday, the Safari listened to the prog rock band Osta LCVE’s latest release Good Morning Dystopia. Biographical data on the band is limited but from what I can piece together the two main members of the band are first, Tobias Geberth, who is the vocalist, guitarist, bassist, and keyboardist. Tobias appears to be the ” leader of the band”! The second member of the band is Leon Ackermann who plays drums and other percussion instruments. Other players include: Florian Hauss Piano on “Red Sky”, Gregor Nicolai – Bass on “Fragile Freedom” and Sarah Gretsch – Vocals on “Alaska”. The group is from Germany and their music is listed as Art Rock and Neo Prog! The C in the name represents the unfinished O in Love. Their website says this about the band:
So this afternoon’s soundtrack will be the new album from Kara Grainger Shiver & Sigh. Here’s some background from Amazon.com
Australia native, now Los Angeles based, Kara Grainger first picked up the guitar at age 12. She started performing in the late ’90s as lead vocalist and guitarist with the successful Sydney-based blues outfit, Papa Lips. With her brother, acclaimed harmonica player Mitch Grainger, Kara and Papa Lips enjoyed a quintessentially Australian experience. Fuelled by national ABC Radio play for their two albums, “Harmony” and “High Time Now,” the band toured up and down the sun drenched beach towns of Australia’s east coast in an old Tarago van. They blew away audiences, soaked up the outdoor lifestyle, and notched up experience at all the significant blues and folk festivals along the way. In 2006, Kara signed to Australia’s Craving Records as a solo artist who encouraged her to go to the United States to record the album. In 2008 she moved to Los Angeles, but continued to split her time between LA and Australia. Her debut CD, 2008’s “Grand and Green River” received first prize in the IAP awards in Austin, Texas and also was in the top 40 Americana charts for over 34 weeks. In 2011, she released “LA Blues” Read More.
Ok so maybe I have to reconsider my approach to music listening when it comes to Prog Rock. Typically, I listen to an album and then go and find out about the artist and their music. With Prog Rock I think it is most time wise to visit their site and read about the album BEFORE listening! You see many prog rock artist don’t create songs, they create albums many times concept albums and even when it’s not a concept album the tracks often are based on something!! This became clear with my latest listen, On a Dark and Stormy Night from the band Shadow Circus. Now if I had read Madeleine L’Engle’s classic fantasy novel, A Wrinkle in Time. I would have known that the title of the album is actually from the book and that would have given me a clue that the album is based on the book. Anyway on the first several listens, I enjoyed the music, after going to Wikipedia and reading a synopsis of the book I went back and listened to the album again I liked it even more! And check this out from their website – they’re from New Jersey!
The other night when I was reviewing the East Coast Music Association 2013 Awards, several of the nominees were familiar. One of the familiar artists was Dave Gunning. I don’t remember when I came across his name, but I remember listening to his 2009 release We’re All Leaving. I remember I enjoyed it, but evidently it was one of those albums that I may have listened to all too briefly, and as I listen to it now, I can’t figure out why?? Because what I hear is great. Anyway Dave was nominated in several categories and “These Hands” a song he co-wrote with George Canyon was awarded Song of the Year at the 2013 East Coast Music Awards! Here’ some awards that he’s won…..
The other day I was reviewing the Weekly Jazz Chart and there at No 19 just below Dr Lonnie Smith was an Brian Lynch and his latest album Unsung Heroes Vol. 2. The tagline on the album is “a tribute to underappreciated trumpet masters” sounds like my kind of album! I went to Spotify found the album sat back and listened to some damn good trumpet playing. So now I needed to find out some more about Brian Lynch a trumpeter that I have not come across yet! From Wikipedia…
Yesterday I noted that at number 8 on the Prog Archives list of best albums over the last few years is A Tower Of Silence by the Australian neo-prog band Anubis. I gave it a quick listen and it sounded like something I would like, so I put it on the iPhone and gave it a more thorough listen this morning. I put it on as I was shopping in Target this morning and I really liked what I heard. We had been in the store for about 40 minutes or so we were ready to leave so I thought I’d check as to where I was on the album – I was all the way to track FOUR! I hadn’t noticed that the opening track “The Passing Bell” – was in typical ProgRock fashion was over 17 minutes long!
Ok so when I started this blog, my thoughts were to write about the music that I’ve listened to over the years and the books that I read. Well, as the site developed it started to morph into more of Edward explores new roots music, bur I still stayed within the general Americana genre which includes, folk, bluegrass, Americana, and blues with a little jazz and New Age thrown in. Then I started to spread out and include some prog rock, and I found that I really like that genre. Next came jazz and explorations of that genre has fascinated me. Over the last year I’ve discovered many new jazz artists that I really like. Now I’ve expanded into World Music and more New Age, yikes!! Over the last month or so I’ve started another site FreeWheelin’ Music Safari to have a place to chronicle these new explorations. The reason for that is, I don’t know how many people are as diverse in the their musical tastes. Do people who like prog rock like folk and bluegrass, I doubt it,Conversely do people who are fans of New Age like twangy Americana, again, I don’t think so. So from this point forward. Me, Myself, Music and Mysteries will return to its roots and go back to mostly twangy music. I will have a link at both sites directing readers to the other site, if they ARE as eclectic in their tastes as I am!! I will do my best to keep both sites going ( I think I’ll just have headphones surgically implanted)
