Recent CD Purchases

El Vez · Post by **El Vez** » Fri Sep 02, 2005 2:10 pm

Aja is a pretty amazing piece of work. Outside of Gaucho, I don't think they have a single album to their credit that is less than very, very good.

bambooneedle · Post by **bambooneedle** » Fri Sep 02, 2005 2:18 pm

I thought that about Everything Must Go but it's worked itself pretty well into my head now.

bambooneedle · Post by **bambooneedle** » Fri Sep 02, 2005 2:41 pm

I propose a Tower Of The Dan. I'll send 'em out to each continent (that wants any). Maybe they can be passed on.

Help me chose the songs. Only songs from their official releases. I sort out an order later and it will be a 2CD job.

First choice: Glamour Profession from Gaucho.

Mr. Average · Post by **Mr. Average** » Fri Sep 02, 2005 4:11 pm

"Green Earrings" The Royal Scam

The Steve Gadd drum work on the song "Aja" from Aja make that song, with it's twisting and turning changes, one of my favorites. However, it loses to Green Earrings on the 'overly polished' coefficient, whatever that means...

so lacklustre · Post by **so lacklustre** » Fri Sep 02, 2005 4:25 pm

The Rakes - Capture/Release
Robert Wyatt - His Greatest Misses

Totally different albums but both great.

Post by **BlueChair** » Fri Sep 02, 2005 6:22 pm

Bootleg Series Vol. 7, more than any of the other Bootleg Series releases thus far is a For Fans Only affair. It's largely comprised of alternate takes... still, they put a huge smile on my face, particularly the Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde alternates. My favorite track is the alternate "Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again", which has a totally different groove/tempo. Some of the tracks are pretty weird, like Ramblin' Jack Elliott singing along on Take 1 of "Mr. Tambourine Man". But it's good fun, and considering how Dylan-obsesssed you are lately, Otis, I think you'll enjoy it.

bambooneedle · Post by **bambooneedle** » Fri Sep 02, 2005 11:47 pm

The Caves of Altamira
Any Major Dude Will Tell You
West Of Hollywood
Kid Charlemagne

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Mon Sep 05, 2005 6:30 pm

BlueChair wrote:But it's good fun, and considering how Dylan-obsesssed you are lately, Otis, I think you'll enjoy it.

I've calmed down a bit, but am hugely excited about it. Dylan is everywhere right now with commentary left, right and centre (e.g. yesterday's Observer's cultural events for the autumn) with this, the TV airing of the doc, the DVD, the Starbucks Gaslight thing (when's that on sale?), the tour hitting the UK again, etc. The latest Word has an article all about the film, looks good. Will get Vol. 7 in due course.

Post by **BlueChair** » Mon Sep 05, 2005 7:36 pm

As for the Sufjan Stevens disc... wow! I'm liking it more and more with every listen.. and maybe it's that I've listened to it on long drives in the car, but I don't find it too long.

Who Shot Sam? · Post by **Who Shot Sam?** » Mon Sep 05, 2005 10:32 pm

BlueChair wrote:As for the Sufjan Stevens disc... wow! I'm liking it more and more with every listen.. and maybe it's that I've listened to it on long drives in the car, but I don't find it too long.

It's definitely one of those discs that require a few spins (the range of sounds and instruments is really unusual), but it pays off in spades.

Post by **BlueChair** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 12:24 pm

Paul McCartney - Chaos And Creation In The Backyard

Can't comment yet on the music, because I spent my entire lunch break trying to import the damn thing into iTunes so I could put it on my iPod.

The music biz is going in some scary directions... I've bought allegedly copy-protected CDs before, but have always been able to import them into iTunes. With this one, you put it in the CD and a menu pops up giving you a variety of options including "Save files." So I went to that, and then it basically gives you the option of WMA (Windows Media Player) files at different resolutions. I figured I'd import them and then try to import them to iTunes that way. But no, it couldn't convert the WMA files to iTunes (AAC files) because they were copy-protected WMA files. For crying out loud!

I'm glad I have the option of listening to the CD on my regular CD player and in the car, but considering most of my music listening time is spent listening on my iPod, it really, really annoys me that the one purchasing the CD is the one being punished.

In the meantime, I'm normally against illegally downloading music, but rest assured if I can find this one online I'm downloading it. After all, I already paid for the CD.

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 2:01 pm

Quite right. It's absurd. It made me laugh to find I could easily write Bowie copy-controlled tracks to CD via iTunes having been unable to with my previous CD-writer, so of course the miserable bastards have not got wise to it as it makes a mockery of copy-controlling. The refusal of big business to accept that huge numbers of consumers use iTunes shows why they deserve to have their throats slit.

Who Shot Sam? · Post by **Who Shot Sam?** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 6:35 pm

Not sure where to put this, but I know that Arcade Fire has been discussed on this thread, so this makes as much sense as anything. Bowie playing "Queen Bitch" with Arcade Fire - I'd pay to see that!

Salon.com
Concert Review: Arcade Fire

Going into Thursday night's Arcade Fire show in Central Park -- part of this year's CMJ music festival -- expectations were almost impossibly high. What with the buzz from their appearance at the Leeds Festival in the U.K. at the end of August, which a lot of people called the best rock show they'd ever seen, and David Bowie's recent endorsement of the band, there was a general buzz in the air that a lot of people had arrived fully ready not just to see a rock show but a Rock Event.
Arcade Fire play a beautiful, cast-iron filigree kind of music -- delicate and strong, vulnerable and assured. Their debut full-length album, "Funeral" -- they released an eight-song demo EP in 2003 -- was one of the most adored albums of 2004, earning the highest levels of praise from indie music blogs to mainstream magazines like Rolling Stone. It's a heartfelt but decidedly nonsentimental rumination on childhood, memory and loss, made up of jaggedly disparate musical parts, and listening to it is like witnessing a gorgeous three-masted galleon being conjured up from a heap of old scrap. For music so full of instruments -- seven or eight people are usually performing at once -- it manages to remain expansive and open, the melody always clear and unfettered. Tin-can guitars mix with layers of rusty violin, accordion and piano over the solid iron core of bass and drums, the whole ensemble leaping from quiet melodies to stomping, almost anthemic rock -- often within the same song. It all somehow still manages to be familiar while sounding like nothing else you've ever heard.

The live show at Central Park's SummerStage brought a lot of the album's strengths into even greater relief. The crescendos were thunderous, the quiet moments as fragile as gossamer. While the band had some early trouble with equipment and was occasionally at odds with the crowd -- New York rock-show-goers are notoriously reticent -- they managed to craft a show that somehow built from song to song into a perfectly explosive ending. The band, all dressed in black, has that kind of easy stage presence so many performers find elusive -- they're tight without being polished, reckless without being sloppy, assured without being pretentious. They opened with "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)," the first track off the album, and followed with a few others from "Funeral" before playing "Cold Wind" (written for the "Six Feet Under" soundtrack) and turning to a few songs from the earlier EP. These middle numbers -- despite mostly being as strong as anything from "Funeral" -- left a lot of the crowd at a loss, but the energy started building again as they shifted into "Backseat," the emotional center of "Funeral," with the audience dropping into stunned silence and holding their collective breath as Régine Chassagne, pianist, co-lead vocalist and wife to guitarist/singer Win Butler, carried on a cappella at the song's end. The band shifted into the staccato beat high energy of "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)" and melted directly into "Rebellion (Lies)" to close the first part of the show.

After the requisite long applause, they took the stage again, and Butler announced they'd be doing a David Bowie song. At that, a grinning, impish Bowie did himself appear, dashingly ablaze in a white suit and matching fedora, to lead the band through "Queen Bitch." Like much of Arcade Fire's music, it was a surprising yet somehow perfect matching, and elevated the night into what felt like historic status. As a nearly full moon broke through the clouds, the audience came out of the semislumber that held them through most of the show and starting dancing. And there was still higher to go: "Wake Up" as a grand finale, with Butler and Bowie, both clearly responding now to the audience, trading verses and then signing together through the song's soaring refrain to perch in a final, touching and climactic moment on the line "You better look out below!"

-- Scott Lamb

I also loved the use of "Queen Bitch" at the end of "The Life Aquatic" - very cool closing sequence!

selfmademug · Post by **selfmademug** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 6:52 pm

Dang. Thanks for posting that. It's things like that that make me remember that New York is the center of the Universe (go ahead, get offended). PS, totally agree about the end of Life Aquatic.

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 7:11 pm

Wow, I don't think I've ever heard a recording of Bowie doing Queen Bitch live apart from on Bowie at the Beeb. Stormwarning? (Where's he gone?) Sounds great. Must see if it's easily findable. Am just off to listen to Funeral, coincidentally.

Who Shot Sam? · Post by **Who Shot Sam?** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 10:15 pm

There are several pics of the event up on the Arcade Fire web site. Here's one of them:

Great to see Bowie back on stage after his health scare.

Extreme Honey · Post by **Extreme Honey** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 11:32 pm

I like Bowie. Question: Is he still Bi?? (I would suspect you kinda lose it after a while).

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 2:24 am

Not for about 30 years, I imagine. Dedicated to a happy life of celibate monogamy, it would appear. Nice photo, will have to check out more.

Haven't been following the Bowie news of late, but if I'd been in New York, and looking at http://www.bowiewonderworld.com/bowienews/news.htm, I could have got along to see this! Funnily enough my parents were in NY on the night - guess they didn't make it. Bowie also appeared on Fashion Rocks a few nights before, playing Life On Mars with Mike Garson, and also Five Years with Arcade Fire backing, which I can easily imagine the sound of. Need to track these down!

selfmademug · Post by **selfmademug** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 10:44 am

Celibate? As in I-might-be-celibate-as-a-lifestyle-choice-but-I-might-also-just-be-shitting-you-Morrissey celibate? I missed that. How old is his yongest kid (named Jack*, same as mine, I think)?

Ha-- funny mistake, as I see his youngest is a girl (b. 2000), with a name more or less the same as mine, not my son's!

stormwarning · Post by **stormwarning** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 11:07 am

Damn, I was on 58th St & 9th on Thursday night, about one block from the park. I think I'll always be a Nearly Man.

Queen Bitch? It was a regular on the '76 tour and had a few plays on the 97 tour. He also played it on the 2003 tour - of which Otis has a copy ! DB's most famous bootleg "The Thin White Duke" (NY 1976) was for years published without Queen Bitch, but in recent years this song, plus Waiting For The Man, are included.

Otis - did I send you the DVD of Bowie's 50th Birthday Bash? He duets with Lou Reed on QB.

Post by **BlueChair** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 11:09 am

Extreme Honey wrote:I like Bowie. Question: Is he still Bi?? (I would suspect you kinda lose it after a while).

You don't lose a sexual preference, but I imagine he is devoted to his wife Iman.

miss buenos aires · Post by **miss buenos aires** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 12:20 pm

selfmademug wrote:Celibate? As in I-might-be-celibate-as-a-lifestyle-choice-but-I-might-also-just-be-shitting-you-Morrissey celibate? I missed that. How old is his yongest kid (named Jack*, same as mine, I think)?

Ha-- funny mistake, as I see his youngest is a girl (b. 2000), with a name more or less the same as mine, not my son's!

My friend worked at her day camp; apparently she's a cool little girl, and gorgeous to boot, unsurprisingly.

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 7:55 pm

God knows why I wrote 'celibate monogamy'! Contradiction in terms. Perhaps I meant 'celebrity monogamy'! Or 'celebrated monogamy'.

I knew as I typed that Storm was going to upbraid me for forgetting that he played QB both on the 2003 tour and at the 50th bash with Louis, which yes you did most kindly send. 'The King of New York himself' or the like.

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 7:56 pm

BlueChair wrote:You don't lose a sexual preference, but I imagine he is devoted to his wife Iman.

Although with Bowie it was debatable whether the Bi thing was part of a persona, a costume.

selfmademug · Post by **selfmademug** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 10:41 pm

Otis Westinghouse wrote:'celibate monogamy'... Contradiction in terms.

Oh how I wish that were true. Otherwise the last three years of my marriage would not have existed....