Bert Jansch is the interviewee on this week’s My Life on CD. I’m a big fan of Jansch, and this interview is fantastic because he is vitually monosyllabic — poor Tracey Macloed works for every word she gets out of him. Reminds me of the great Wogan interview with James Bolam in which Bolam sat in complete silence, apparently dumbstruck by the situation (and Wogan, masterfully, filled in all the gaps).
From the category archives:
Music
I went to see The Opera Project's production of Cosi Fan Tutte last night at Bristol’s Tobacco Factory . I wasn’t sure quite what to expect, since my previous experience of the venue had been for the excellent Shakespeare productions there, rather than for anything musical. The theatre is very small and the audience entirely surrounds the “stage”. Anyway, it worked marvellously. Musically, of course, it wasn’t going to be on a par with Covent Garden or the Met since only a very small orchestra could possibly fit in the space. But dramatically it was tremendous with the players in very immediate contact with the audience. The singing was pretty good, but Richard Studer’s very colloquial English translation of the libretto — “You’re winding me up!” etc — and the unfussiness of the production made for a very engaging evening.
Norman Geras’s greatest jazz albums poll is up. I managed to vote for just one in the top 15, Ellington’s Newport album. There’s rightly a lot of Coltrane in there, but, disappointingly, my own top pick, his Live at the Village Vanguard didn’t make it.
The third line of the latest Powderfinger album is:
You’re swollen like a lexicon.
If that’s the best they can come up with it seems to imply not swollen at all.
By the way, the album isn’t particularly good. If you were going to buy it because you’re still hoping they can recapture the quality of their early work, save your dollars and be spared some disappointment.
Tom posted a few days ago on fifteen great jazz albums; I’m ashamed to state that I know next to nothing about jazz – or classical music. My tastes tend to be more lowbrow – rock, pop, some country, and lots of experimental electronic music. In that spirit, I’ll offer a list of five of my favourite quasi-obscure albums. Only quasi-obscure, mind you; you should be able to find all of this stuff in yer local Tower if the spirit moves you.
If you want to keep buying music without supporting the RIAA (now most famous for suing 12 year olds) it’s worth checking out RIAA Radar, which provides some lists of which albums are not released by members of the RIAA. For a good sample of what’s available, here’s their list of the top 100 non-RIAA albums on Amazon. There’s some good stuff on there, including recent albums by Múm, the New Pornographers (my favourite album of the year to date), Warren Zevon, Super Furry Animals, Neutral Milk Hotel, the Shins, the Waifs and many more.
Thanks to Virulent Memes for the link.
Norman Geras is running another of his music-related polls, this one on readers’ nominations for their top 15 jazz albums.
The music industry claims the download pirates are killing music. So how bad would things be if the music industry died? John Holbo paints a plausible picture.
because the Pixies are getting back together.
In April, the legendary Pixies will reunite for the first time in over a decade. The notoriously quarrelsome quartet have buried the hatchet, clearing the way for all four original members to hop onstage together for a world tour, according to a spokesperson for the band.
If all goes as planned, the triumphant return of one of the most influential rock bands of the late ’80s might also be followed by a new studio album, the source said. The band has not yet gotten together to begin rehearsing for the tour, but, given their ugly breakup in 1993, the announcement is one of the most unlikely and anticipated reunions in the history of indie rock.
Best band ever. I couldn’t be more delighted.
(link via TMFTML)
It’s sad to read that Ian Macdonald, the music critic, has died.
Macdonald deserves the description ‘music critic’ rather than the more workaday ‘rock journalist’, in my view, simply on the strength of his extraordinary book Revolution in the Head: The Beatles and The Sixties.