Friday Random Ten, June 27

I haven't done a FRT in a while.

  1. Mogwai, "Kids Will be Skeletons": a typical Mogwai
    track; brilliant post-rock.
  2. The Redneck Manifesto, "Bring Your Own Blood: more
    post-rock in the same general vein as Mogwai. This one is a bit
    up-tempo, with a very cool rythym.
  3. Gogol Bordello, "Dub the Frequencies of Love: an Eastern
    European gypsy punk band doing reggae. Insane, but very cool.
  4. Tony Levin, "Beyond My Reach: A few years ago, the god
    of the Chapman stick finally started recording some of his
    own music. He's got a surprisingly good voice. The album is
    terrific, ranging from some solid prog tracks, to some fun pop tunes
    to very well done ballads, like this one. Even in a mellow ballad
    like this, he manages to work in some very impressive stick work.
  5. Hawkwind, "Seven by Seven": very old progressive/space
    rock. I just recently discovered Hawkwind, and was very surprised. I
    thought that I knew about all of the first wave of prog-rockers. And
    yet, these guys are famous and influential, but I somehow totally
    missed out on them. They're utterly brilliant. They've got a lot of
    the typcial hallmarks of the early proggers in their sound - there's
    some similarity to Van Der Graff Generator, early Genesis, Syd
    Barret era Pink Floyd; but they're got their own unique distinctive
    sound within that style. Really great stuff. This is a very typical
    Hawkwind track; lots of very spacy sounding stuff, against a
    complex structure. Highly recommended.
  6. IQ, "Red Dust Shadow": from early prog-rock to neo-prog.
    IQ is a neo-progressive band that got started around the same time
    as Marillion. They're led by a guy named Peter Nichols, who's got a
    voice that sounds a lot like Peter Gabriel. They're a really
    fantastic band.
  7. Marillion, "Tumble Down the Years: more neo-progressive.
    I'm a huge Marillion fan. I started listening to them back in 1985
    or so, and I've been a continual fan ever since. This is a sweet
    little romantic song from them. Typically for Marillion, even when
    they do a poppy little sappy song, it's got some beautiful structure
    interesting harmonies, and great transitions.
  8. Naftule's Dream, "Free Klez": Very radical experimental
    Klezmer. Ornette Coleman meets Naftule Brandwien on acid.
  9. Tony Trischka, "Celtic Melody: unaccompanied banjo
    played by my former banjo teacher. (He's also Bela Fleck's banjo
    teacher.) Amazing technique. No one can play the banjo like Tony -
    when Tony's on, not even Bela can match him. This is a medley
    of a couple of very traditional Irish tunes, played with absolute
    perfection.
  10. IQ, "You Never Will: another IQ track, from the same
    album as "Red Dust Shadow".
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Porcupine Tree, "Kneel and Disconnect": New Porcupine Tree! It's always great to get new stuff from these guys. It's good, but it's not up to the quality of their last two albums. (But given that their last two were utterly amazing, that's not much of a criticism.) Mind Games, "Royalty in…

Tony Levin and friends are great in concert, too. Good mix of his stuff plus covers of stuff he worked on in other bands like Crimson and Peter Gabriel. If he makes a tour (after current Crimson and other plans finish up), do try to catch him. He does smaller clubs (in DC he does Jaxx, which only holds about 200 or so), and loves autograph/photo sessions afterwords (unlike Crimson cohort Fripp).

Of course, given current gas prices, it may be a while before he can tour again...

By Joe Shelby (not verified) on 27 Jun 2008 #permalink

Random trivia: Lemmy Kilmister was fired from Hawkwind and went on to form Motorhead (also the name of a Hawkwind song).

While I have a lot of GYBE!, Explosions in the Sky, Mono and Tarentel in my music library, the only thing I've heard from Mogwai is "Young Team". Any suggestiong about where to go next?

Brian:

Pretty much everything by Mogwai is very good; they're pretty consistent.

My favorite of their albums is "Mr. Beast"; I like it even better than "Young Team".

I never understand the fuss about Young Team. Don't get me wrong, terrific album. But their sound on Mr. Beast and Happy Songs for Happy People (which I consider together as one perfect double album rather than 2 perfect single ones...) is much more evolved and original.
Young Team doesn't get to me the same way. Than again, I don't think any album get to me like Mr. Beast and Happy Songs..

By Eyal Ben David (not verified) on 27 Jun 2008 #permalink

I like Pat Boone.

Damn, it is tough to troll a music list that has Mogwai in it!

By BobbyEarle (not verified) on 29 Jun 2008 #permalink

I have the one Naftule record I've been able to find, and a bunch of Gogol Bordello, which (I admit) a graduating student pointed me towards. Being half-Russkie/Czech, and all jazz woodwind player, and raised on odd time signatures a la the Don Ellis Orchestra, I find music like this entrancing and stimulating.

I will end with this, then: Farmer's Market, Boris Kovac and Balkan Beatbox.

Cheers!

The Motorhead -> Hawkwind connection has been mentioned, but I felt it relevant to note that I came upon them from the New Wave of British Heavy Metal direction, and never really considered them as prog rock in the same vain as Crimson or Floyd. I guess they're close though.