A Lark Ascending

Where's the fun in that? It's all about 'The Hunt'.

Amazed the BBC has kept so much! Their usual practice is to tape over/delete etc in order to make room for the latest Ant & Dec show. Sadly, they don't have the Sue Lawley programme with John Lee Hooker. Sue (in best BBC accent): "Now, in 19?? you had a hit with Boo-gee Chill-un..." Some of his choices would not please the Blues Puritans: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/desert-island-discs/castaway/34917e58#p0093pgz Gosh...you can even search on choices. Vic Reeves chose Henry Cow in 2003! And here's a study in 'artist' vanity: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/desert-island-discs/castaway/51ed3e16#p009y865 Not to be confused with: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/desert-island-discs/castaway/03573d56#p0093xhc

Sensitive? I'm really hurt by that!

Britain's longest garden?: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2018036/Is-Britains-weirdest-garden-Its-30ft-wide-quarters-mile-long--340-000.html?ito=feeds-newsxml As they said on the news this morning: "Darling, I'm just going to mow the lawn. I may be some time." (Apologies for linking you to the Daily Mail - this is one of their rare stories that does not come under 'the sky is about to fall in' category).

Not even...

The media that is now weeping for her also encouraged this celebrity excess. Kids in this sort of situation are expected to live the dangerous, rock'n roll lifestyle in order to be edgy. They all assume they are going to be Keith rather than Brian. The way the media used this woman's unfortunate life to provide copy crosses into another ugly story dominating the news at present.

I get the clear wallets online. Think it cost me about £20 for 1000 last time: This place is good for any Brits who take this path: http://www.jetmedia.co.uk/disk_wallets.htm

I cannot find my 'Legend: Bob Marley' anthology, for years my one reggae album. As a result it's never had a category of it's own. Bought a few reggae albums of late and want to get it into the new section. But it could be anywhere - pop/rock, World Music (Latin America) etc! This will worry me all summer.

But can you find things when you look along the shelves? I find the labelled "spines" of the jewel cases indispensable. I have a number of CD-Rs in slimline cases without visible titles on the spines and tend to pass these by when I should be aware of them. However, I speak as someone with fewer than 1,000 items. I moved across to PVC sleeves a few years back. Not as easy to find things - but you can make it easy by taking a few of your redundant jewel cases, sticking a label on the end, and using them as markers. Doesn't take long to find most things.

Jerry Gonzalez O know very well, Jazzjet - especially fond of his recent flamenco-related excursions. Saw Tyner with a later Latin band in the 90s at the Barbican - have the album from that tour. Dom I know but the others are unknown - I'm realising that Clare Fisher needs searching out. I've recently discovered how the internet can be my friend; using it for some of these OOP discs. Will explore, JS.

Pretty well the same up here - colder than would normally be expected. The usual settled weather pattern has not materialised this year and Atlantic fronts have prevailed. Sucks ! I'm on the summer break as of this evening. I demand 3 weeks sunshine so I can enjoy Sussex, Dorset and, eventually, Cornwall in all its glory! Things went tropical at Easter. The rainy season has shifted! Heard the farmers grumbling this morning on Farming Today - a few weeks back it was the dry spring, now it's too wet to get the barley in and another crop is growing alongside.

Oh, keep them coming. I'm genuinely interested. Played the Cesar 830 disc you recommended yesterday - great fun! Cuban really and just a bit 'funky-wah-wah' in places for me but the percussion was demonic.

I've seen that Caravan set, Aggie. I bought the remastered albums (with extra tracks) from a few years back and I think that will do me. I'm following the King Crimson upgrades because they have considerably better sound; but I think that new Caravan set will be a step too far for me. Interested in the reactions to the new 'Yes' album - I never enjoyed much after ToTO but (as mentioned above) really enjoyed Relayer in recent years. But the one I loved was 'Magnification' which was really strong song-wise and had all the instrumental flair of the 70s. Might take a chance on this.

'Bootleg' suggest 'illicit'. There's a 'cool' that hangs around illicit in many areas (soft drugs, booze during prohibition etc). I suspect that's the marketing angle. Suggests you're buying something not easy to get from behind a counter with a hint of danger about it. All without having to leave the house.

I imagine the thread title made more posters than me think about the criticism Emperor Joseph II was supposed to have made of Mozart - 'too many notes'. Nice explanation here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2004/jun/04/classicalmusicandopera Maybe it counts for Oscar too.

Hank Mobley and Bob Brookmeyer have appeared in that Capitol Vaults series over here too.

What a great track! Fits perfectly with this thread. And the album is an E-music! Thanks, Jazzjet! Just listened to this, which fits the bill:

I still think the major reason for the vaulting ambition of that era was the wider post-war sense of 'anything is possible' and that naive belief that you could remake the world. It probably also reflected the relative affluence (in the West) of that era and the sense that the good times were only going to get better. As those dreams soured - with Vietnam, Watergate, the big economic let downs (oil crisis etc), the realisation that most of the great promises (socialism, communism, hippyism, various religious cults) not only failed to deliver but produced new levels of corruption - so the optimism soured. You see it in the nihilism that set in at the end of the 70s and the me-ism of the 80s. In the world of popular musics aspiration became suspect; keep it simple, keep it direct, don't get ideas above your station. One of the reasons I've so enjoyed Porcupine Tree is because they don't accept that pop/rock music must be something close to the street that any band can play after learning a few chords. That vaulting ambition is there again!

I never got that far with Floyd! Can imagine reacting the same way! Once the greatest crime in pop/rock became 'pretentiousness' (what I'd always seen as ambition), lyrics reverted to direct statements.

Lyrics have never been central for me either...it's more that I've always found corny or over-soppy lyrics a distraction. 'Semolina pilchards, climbing up the Eiffel Tower' might not be the height of profundity; but 'She Loves You, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah' is far more likely to interfere with my enjoyment (or 'You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one..'. I can happily sail through a double LP of Jon Anderson's lyrical burbling without having my enjoyment of the the music impaired; If he was singing 'I love you and you love me and we all live in a coconut tree' I'd be less enthralled. Classic example of this is Sandy Denny - her first solo album had typically Dylan-influenced allusiveness. No idea what the songs are about but I like that uncertainty. With each successive album she became more direct, romantic, confessional. I find those albums increasingly difficult to enjoy as a whole.

Pop music was just a background thing for me in '65 (I was only 10!) but I remember being struck by the Beatles tunes and The Byrd's Mr Tambourine Man'. In retrospect its the date where the Beatles start to get really interesting for me; and the whole pop thing starts to get harmonically more adventurous and more ambiguous lyrically (the Dylan factor kicking in).

I love the final paragraph on that link. How many musicians would pick the late 60s/early 70s as 'the golden period of music'? When it comes to pop/rock the late 50s, mid-60s and late 70s are the fashionable choices. I'm in complete agreement with that time period. 1967-1976 or thereabouts for me. Never equalled, never surpassed...of course Wilson seems to be singlehandedly trying to change that and it makes me very happy. My golden time too. But I've always assumed its because I was between 13-21 in those years! Think I'd push it back to '65, though.

How do you associate a 1950s drink with 70s instrumentation and production values? To address the question: Martini's were still being drunk in the 1970s. Adverts were also being made about them (I vaguely recall stacking bottles of Martini on shelves in supermarkets I worked in during the early 70s). Bossa type music was used in the UK in the 60s and 70s to market this stuff, conjuring up an image of wealth, jet-set life, sophistication. I distinctly recall the early 60s adverts (which must have coincided with the Bossa craze) and wondering (at 9) if my future involved lolling around on boats off the south coast of France, surrounded by women in bikinis (it didn't). There's a certain sound in the 70s music I'm talking about which immediately throws up those same images. Maybe it's just my brain that's wired that way. No particular judgement being made on the music. I love the overall sound - it's just that sometimes the rhythms can get too regular, sometimes the sweetness a bit cloying for my tastes. But identifying the point where the bliss crosses to the beginnings of queeziness is not easy - I don't think the distance is that great. And just in case anyone is feeling peckish: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bossanova-Martini-Lounge-and-Restaurant/102641161039?sk=wall&filter=12

I love the final paragraph on that link. How many musicians would pick the late 60s/early 70s as 'the golden period of music'? When it comes to pop/rock the late 50s, mid-60s and late 70s are the fashionable choices.

That's how I remember it - I bought it for a few years in the late 70s. Quite surprised to see Mike Stern on the cover. Warren Vaché was more their style (no axe to grind against the latter, by the way!).