Wobbly - Live 99 > 01 ("MP3 only," 2002)

(In lieu of cover art, the man himself, doing what he does on this collection)

Wobbly, pseudonym of Jon Liedecker. I found out about him through his collaborations with Matmos. The latter were playing in Baltimore a lot when I lived there, and Wobbly would come to town to perform with them or by himself. Always great stuff, a master of doing only what he does, I think. I got this CD-R from him after one of his solo performances at Floristree in B-more, after asking if he "had anything to sell me." $5 CD-R with hand-written title and no liner-notes: totally worth it.

Tracklist:

1 - 11: Untitled, as far as I know... 

Highlights: Track 3 for sure. Take the journey!

ENJOY

King Crimson - Red (1974)

I'll start by saying that I recently upgraded my iPod in a big way. My portable music device went from a borrowed 8 GB Touch (Thanks, Lorraine!) to my very own 160 GB Classic; in short, from a listening range that only allowed a sampling of very current interests to a veritable hard drive in my pocket! All to say that the process of uploading all this music has given me quite a purchase on my listening patterns over the past few years. 

Conclusion: I don't listen to rock music.

I mean, this isn't entirely true, as I certainly listen to all that spills over into and communicates with the world of "rock" (whatever that means): the genealogy from African to blues to jazz, pop, dance, electronic, reggae, the wonderful world of krautrock... and yes, of course rock. 

But I guess what I'm saying is that, as opposed to my middle/high school/college years, I do very little rocking-out to distorted guitars, bass and drums in the tradition format/timbre/etc... This gap, now apparent to me, leaves me wanting something, but what? 

So I'm going down somewhat familiar roads, checking out things that I missed the first time around. Red by King Crimson might not be the most representative "rock" record, and, breaking the unspoken rules I internally mumbled to myself while restarting this blog, it's not a vinyl rip... oh well. It does rock. The first notes of the title track should convince you of that if you haven't heard it before.

I've been falling in love with Mr. Fripp's guitar again, be it those smooth solo runs on "Golden Hours" off  Another Green World or his layers on Evening Star. He'll be popping up here again, no doubt.

Tracks:

1. Red

2. Fallen Angel

3. One More Red Nightmare

4. Providence

5. Starless

More info here

Listen here

Various - Soweto Never Sleeps: Classic Female Zulu Jive (Shanachie, 1986)

A beautiful selection of "mbaqanga" music from South Africa. These ladies really know how to jive. I won't recreate the track listing as some eBay seller was kind enough to upload the back cover, my (Sotho? Zulu?) is a little rusty. I like the English translations, esp.

NO END TO MUSIC

a.k.a. the mantra for this blog.

Two tracks I particularly love are "Wozani Mahipi" and "Akulaiwa Esoweto", both of which are on the excellent Next Stop...Soweto collection. That's a must buy right there, which I originally discovered on the superb and now sadly link-defunct Big Head Stevenson blog. Go there anyway and get inspired before it's gone for good.

And, as Irene and the Sweet Melodians say best, "LET THE WEEKEND COME"...

(now)