Patti Smith Live at NYC's Webster Hall

After having remained off stage for several years, Patti Smith gave a great show in New York two days ago! For sure her energy, voice and commitment are still UNchanged!

Here is the setlist :

1. Redondo beach
2. Free money 
3. Birdland 
4. My bleakean year 
5. Play with fire 
6. Beneath the southern cross 
7. We three 
8. Peaceable kingdom 
9. Because the night 
10. Land - Gloria
11. People have the power  
12. Rock'n'roll nigger

As well as a video of one the songs:

And, last but not least a link to a recording of the shows's radio broadcoast made available - in mp3 and FLAC - by an enhusiastic listener!

And do not forget please : "People are the future. And the future is NOW!

Just discovered Tinariwen: a Tuareg bluesband

No miracle when it comes to the way I discovered them, but a big deal of musical magic as a well a big surprise for this guy who does not know much about so-called worldmusic.

So, on a row

• I very simply decided to give Tinariwen a try after reading an article in a Belgian magazine;
• magic is that I really like both albums I have found, that is one recorded in 2002 (The Radio Tisdas Sessions) and the other in 2009 (Imidiwan : Companions);
• the big surprise: I had no idea at all (shame on me) that Tuaregs had integrated blues - rock elements to produce their own musical style! 

Hoping you feel curious and eager to listen how they sound I just throw a few links here:

• Tinariwen's official website
• Samples of The Radio Tisdas Sessions at Amazon
• and of Imidiwan : Companions on the same website.

Enjoy and be suprized!

Discovered recently: Wooden Shjips

Better late than never, it is only recently that I discovered this San Francisco band called Wooden Shjips and their first album (well also titled Wooden Shjips), which dates back from ... 2007.

Their inspiration they obviously take from good old pschydelic rock and ... it works! Most tracks here exceed the now so usual 3 to 4 minutes duration and they rely on recepies like a somehow hypnotic drums - bass line. Then guitar riffs that draw lightnings and a voice that clearly evokes Jim Morrisson make the thing look completely like a heavily cloudy sky.

The atmosphere here reminds Great Ancients and - but this personnal - I feel glad that people dare continue playing like this in spite of the allmighty musical business and its formatting rules!

Two links:

• We ask you to rise (this album's fastest track) on YouTube
• Samples of the complete album at Amazon

When Led Zeppelin went experimental

Well, frankly, I feel kind of stiffness in my fingers just starting typing this post... One more post about Led Zeppelin when soooo much has been written already by soooo many different connoisseurs!

But, I started this blog with the intention of sharing about what I like and enjoy, so let us keep on typing!

 

I dare recommend listening to Led Zeppelin's BBC Sessions, a double CD published in 1997 under the guidance of Mister Jimmy Page himself. The first CD is a collection of radio sessions recorded for the BBC just after the band had released their first studio album. The second one consists in a live performance recorded in London in 1971, with songs from albums I to IV.

I officially am a Ben Harper fan!

Not that I belong to any “official” fan club, but I really like what he does veeeeeery much!

The first song I heard was Excuse Me Mister (from Fight for your Mind) and I got instantly interested. Then, I went on listening to the complete cd and got seduced. The next move was the double live cd Live from Mars and ... I have become a fan!

Live from Mars still is my favorite Ben Harper record. It brilliantly illustrates two very contrasted sides of Ben Harper’s musical talent.

On the first cd, he performs with his former band The Young Innocent Criminals. The songs are full of power, sometimes very electric (e.g. Glory & Consequence), even a bit chaotic (e.g. Woman in You). There are many great moments there, like Burn one Down, Excuse Me Mister and even a very good cover of Sexual Healing.

On the second cd, Ben Harper performs solo, playing different guitars. And this is the cd that gives one the opportunity to fully enjoy the voice, the lyrics and the superb guitar playing!

If you do not know Ben Harper yet, this double cd is a must!

Robert Plant after Led Zeppelin: my top 3

If you happen to shout Robert Plant the forest will echo with … Led Zep! Nothing wrong or abnormal about that, I like them too!

Nevertheless this post is about part what Plant did after Led Zeppelin split. In other words, lots of albums - with ups and downs – which I shall not try to list or describe here (here is  a good wikipedia discography page).



The only things I want to do here is to share my top 3 with you...
 

Mighty ReArranger (2005, with Plant's
The Strange Sensation)

... and to provide you with Amazon samples links if you wish to discover these albums.

• Mighty ReArranger
• Fate of Nations
• Band of Joy
  
  
  
  
  
  

Fate of Nations (1993, solo)

Band of Joy (2010, with  a new group: Band of Joy)

This for my favorites! What are yours?

Izia higelin : Energy at its best!

Izia Higelin's first album

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This young lady is French and sings in English. She is the daughter of one my favorite French songwriters, Jacques Higelin.

She once defined herself during an interview as being spontaneous, free, energetic, kind of rebel and sometimes ... rough. And that is exactly the way her songs sound!


 

Josh T. Pearson - Last of The Country Gentlemen: brilliantly sepulchral!

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Beware if depressed ! (Warning: check!)

Josh T. Pearson -
Last of The Country Gentlemen

You now may discover the beauty of this precious album precious, as rare as a public confession of a dozen tracks.

An acoustic guitar, voice and text to express the inner tension between a kind of Christ like temptation ("I am off to save the world") and accepting ones own limitations ("You need a Saviour and I just am not HIM."), to say how much a human being can feel divine, but also restricted, yet resigned.

The tone is that of pure folk, slow and darkly mesmerizing, completely dominated by the voice and guitar. A record of great beauty, then, off the beaten track.

Samples available from Amazon

Sweetheart, I aint your christ, from YouTube :

Blues proposals

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No, no, no. I promise, I will not try to wrtie the history of blues, nor will I evoke its own sub styles or the many musical genres it has influenced!  This has already been done very well elsewhere, for example on wikipedia.

I prefer shortly introducing a few contemporary bluesmen I like very much.

Starting with Seasick Steve. Blues singer and guitarist, whose gravelly voice, guitar playing and rather rough sound most directly evoke the “idea” of what is called blues.


I suggest a not so old recording, which I consider very representative of his work: Man From Another Time.

Samples are available Amazon

It is only a few week ago that I discovered Napoleon Washington, thanks a music forum. This Swiss bluesman plays a much more "sophisticated" blues, somehow slicker, than his counterpart across the Atlantic.
 

His latest album - Mud & Grace - is listenable online on his own website.

Finally, I propose a band that plays electric blues, which sounds a bit "garage": The Black Keys.
 
Here is an Amazon link to sample tracks of the album by which I have discovered them: The Big Come Up

Frank Zappa : Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar, hmm well ...

Bottom of Form

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Frank Zappa undoubtedly was a controversial person. A huge guitarist, composer, producer; in turn cynical - perhaps even a little misanthropic - and an ardent real slayer of the Republican Party, he was. Frank Zappa preached total freedom of expression, a strong belief in the absurd, the benefits for transgression and the rule of music over all other means of 
expression and communication.

In spite of the latter, the man used to talk a lot, be it on stage or during interviews! I’d say that the following statement (from wikiquotes) is quite revealing:  :

I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.

Friday Night in San-Francisco - Di Meola, Mc Laughlin, De Lucia

What a beautiful meeting this is! Three giants playing together on stage on a certain Friday night in 1980 … and obviously getting along wonderfully well. The only criticism that might be done is the brevity of the record: I want more!

Of the three jazz guitarists performing here, it is the British John McLaughlin I know best. In addition to numerous solo albums and those recorded with his band The Mahavishnu Orchestra, McLaughlin also worked with Miles Davis, Carlos Santana and many others.

But what made him recognized as a true experimenter is the work he did with Ravi Shankar, for which he had to immerse in Indian music.


Samples on Amazon