Music Discussion

[RedRaven]

starting this thread so we can debate all things Musical, good and the Bad bands, albums, songs. Personally i love music in many many different styles and genres
Anything from the Jazz greats to odd, quirky and dark electronica, from Classical piano pieces to the Heavyest, fastest and most brutal Thrash metal. along with splashes from the likes of Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd, Classic Motown, Blues Legends, Rap stars like BDP etc etc etc..... you get the point.
So share with us what musics pull at your soul and make you tingle but also whats your idea of ear-pollution? what music would you abolish for the good of us all :-X   

[PZ]

How about Dan Hicks and his Hot Licks?  This group is definitely one to play to the family during road outings if you hate your kids  ;D

[Art Blade]

LOL  :-X

Good music? FUNK! from the early 70s that is  ;D All Rhythm, brass, percussion and a nasty bass :)
Else: Deep House, Minimal, Electronica, Acid Jazz. Chill out lounge music, space techno, Club music.
Sometimes: Opera (live) (hehe)
Turn-off: Heavy Metal, Rock, Country.

[Fiach]

Although I have a wide taste in music, I tend to lean towards the "heavier" end of the spectrum.

My current favourite band is The Supersuckers, sort of punk country and western band, yup is does w@&k .

I do tend to plunder my old record collection from time to time, to savour some of my past delights, in no particular order :

Blue Oyster Cult, Wishbone Ash, Emmerson Lake and Palmer, Yes, Thin Lizzy, Rory Gallagher, Lynyrd Skynyrd etc.

I was particularly fond on the "grunge" scene, I loved Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and Nirvana.

I'm fond of some C/W artists, Johnny Cash (probably the person I would have loved to meet most irl, if I got the chance), Kris Kristofferson, Don Williams, Jim Reeves, Marty Robbins to name a few.

To my mind, there are only two kinds of music, Good and Bad

I'm incredibly lucky, my kids love Supersuckers and Blue Oyster Cult, so road trips are not really a hardship for me ...... not so for Mrs Fiach though  :-[  8)

[Art Blade]

hehe, I like these "Spaceboy and Spacekid" or "Fiach and Mrs Fiach" lol  :-X

[PZ]

I just saw an advertisement for a new movie called "astrokid" - a new animation that looked like a superman spin-off - I wonder if spaceboy might want to change his name  ;D

[Art Blade]

funny, one anagram of astrokid is "dart is ok" LOL

[PZ]

hahahahahaaaaa.....  :-X :-X :-X

[spaceboy]

ah, no name change I guess.  It's been too long.  My boy has seen you guys call him spacekid and he wants to use it for his online eventually...I'm sure by then he'll want to be deathmonkey or something like that

Regarding music: I like the props for Johnny Cash from Fiach above lol

Anyways, my taste in music varies widely except for any real rap/hip-hop, dance, or too heavy of "metal".

Favorites include:
Van Morrison
John Hiatt
The Black Crowes
Jack Johnson
Matthew Sweet
Lenny Kravitz
Stevie Ray Vaughan
Smashing Pumpkins (obviously)
Hank Williams Jr.
Rush
All classic rock like Led Zeppelin, the Stones, Pink Floyd etc. etc. etc.

Guilty Pleasure:  The Cure

Somewhat obscure likes:  The Subdudes (first 3 albums only), Indigenous

Also I like good soundtracks like the Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Star Wars, and inFAMOUS!  Amon Tobin made an excellent soundtrack for inFAMOUS.  Still listen to it at least 3 times per week - gotta love those crazy Brazilians  ;)

Cheers buds!

[PZ]

A few favorites:

• Live
• Nickelback
• Creed
• Matchbox 20
• Oasis
• Linkin Park
• Garth Brooks
• 2Pac
  

[JRD]

Oh man, where do I begin?!?!?!
Great seeing names like Rory Gallagher, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Blue Oyster Cult... on my list too

All great R`n`R classics are always with me... Stones, Hendrix, Santana, Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Grand Funk Railroad, Allman Bros, David Bowie............ more recently Govt Mule... they sound oldies but are here now!

New stuff like Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Jane`s Addiction, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Audioslave and the former Rage Against the Machine, Temple of the Dog......
80`s stuff like The Cure, Jesus and Mary Chain, Echo and the Bunnymen, Siouxie and the Banshees, Bauhaus, Joy Division, Sisters of Mercy, The Cult...

Noisy stuff like Dead Kennedys, Ramones, Iggy Pop, Stoogies, The Clash, Mudhoney, MC5... discovered one band recently - Gogol Bordello... wow... they are noisy  ;D

All the blues you can come up with from Robert Johnson to Stevie Ray Vaughan, from Muddy Waters to Robert Cray... Buddy Guy, B.B. King... stir it all, add a taste of Eric Clapton... serve hot, please!

Jazz too is on my list, starting with the great Miles Davis, but also John Coltrane, Oscar Peterson, Thelonious Monk,
Not to forget those beautyful ladies like Billie Hollyday, Etta James, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald and those bland girls trying to follow their steps like Amy Winehouse, Joss Stone...

Can`t forget where I`m from... Brazil is one rich country for music, my OWG friends... to name a few
Samba (the good old stuff, not the crappy samba they do nowadays): Cartola, Demonios da Garoa...
MPB (Musica Popular Brasileira): Tom Jobin, Gilberto Gil (our minister for the culture!!!), Novos Baianos, Tim Maia, Caetano Veloso, Marisa Monte, Elza Soares, Ceu...
Baden Powell, an outsanding guitar player (believe me, he`s Brazilian)

Crappy stuf I`d ban from the world...
I`d dig a deep, real deep cove and place Britney Spears and all boy bands down there. Fill it with whatever plays on MTV more than once a day and pick a few names in Brazil I better not even mention so I don`t have to wash my mouth...

That`s all I can think for now...  ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

[JRD]

@RedRaven

latest Metallica album (Death Magnetic) is in my opinion a brilliant collection of songs, with All Nightmare Long and Unforgiven III being my favourite 2.
JRD - you say they have sold out, how/why do you think this ? (not trying to provoke an argument in any way but would like to hear your reasons, had a couple of discussions with friends who thought St Anger was terrible, where as i find it an interesting step for them musically, (would not have Death Magnetic without St Anger). And after all they have been putting songs together since '81 and they cant keep doing Master of Puppets/Ride the Lightning over and over again, 28 years is along time in anyones book.
Look forward to hearing your view :-X

Just saw your post there, will reply here...

After the Black Album (which I dislike, btw) Metallica was doing music to play in radios and MTV, they were still heavy, but yet soft, if you know what I mean.
Load and Reload are just OK imo, there are some good songs here and there, but as a whole, it`s too weak... not Metallica after this period, but a different band with the same name.
I know they can`t do Kill`em All and Ride the Lightning all the time, but hey... THAT`s METALLICA MATE, that`s what I`m looking for when I buy their records, the band that made Fade to Black... I want to see Lars punching the Drums, Kirk smashing the strings... That`s ok to try new stuff.. but keep to your roots... the Garage Days........
St Anger is a come back for sure and very welcome... The new one I don`t know quite well yet, but I know it`s great Metallica stuff... THEY`RE BACK MATE, THEY`RE BACK woooooohooooooooo

[fragger]

Geez, doesn't anyone go for Abba and the Bay City Rollers? (sticks own finger down throat)

I love anything if its melodic. I just rediscovered Rick Wakeman, found a DVD of one of his Journey to the Centre of the Earth tour stops which was filmed in Melbourne in 1975, it's terrific.

Other 70's era prog-rock type stuff that I like are Emerson Lake and Palmer, some of Yes, some of Hawkwind.

There are some cool Aussie bands I like such as Cold Chisel, Rose Tattoo and the Black Sorrows, these are probably unknown outside Oz though. Pity.

Apart from them, I like (in no particular order):
Robben Ford (this guy teaches blues guitarists how to play, he wrote the book)
Santana (seen him 7 times in concert now)
Tommy Emmanuel (another Oz guy, superb guitarist)
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Blue Oyster Cult
Led Zeppelin (though not all of their stuff)
Deep Purple (ditto)
Doobie Brothers (only their older stuff, before they went all up-market)
Allman Bros.
The Band
B.B. King
Actually, too many to go into here. I like older, guitar-oriented stuff, as you've probably gathered. But I also like some older jazz and swing stuff - Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and I reckon Ella Fitzgerald had the best female singing voice ever.

Major dislikes:
Rap, Rap, Rap. We all know what that rhymes with...
The absolute plethora of Britney-like girl singers who are all so depressingly alike in their pitiful attempts to be "sexy" and who come out of the wookwork like termites with timber allergies
Any band with "boys" in their title
Poofy 80's bands ala "Aha"

[spaceboy]

This is going to be a great reference thread for me to check out some of your guys recommendations, great idea to start this one.  :-X  This is especially true for the more local or obscure bands you guys list.  Keep it up if you think of any others.  It seems most of our mainstream tastes are quite aligned - go figure - you guys seem like allright chaps  ;)

For me what happens is once I get "into" an artist or band I wind up having to get all of their back catalog (if I'm continuing to enjoy what I hear)- can get expensive but used CDs are a help sometimes.  I hate paying nearly as much for a digital download if for a couple bucks more I can have the actual CD, rip it myself and always have the ability to re-rip it if needed.

Oh, and I forgot to add to my list;

Mark Knopfler/Dire Straits

His last few solo albums have been magnificent and no you won't be getting radio heavy Dire Straits sounds from him now.  This stuff is like "Portobello Belle" rather than "I want my MTV" which I skip over when listening to the DS greatest hits album.

[Art Blade]

I like that Jazz stuff too, as the singers/bands mentioned by fragger. Not so much into free Jazz (seen JRD mention John Coltrane, I got this album "live at Newport") but more into swing. Other names I got music from on LP (yeah, vinyl): Thelonius Monk, Fats Domino (he had a sign on his piano reading "don't feed fats" hehe), Luis Armstrong, Miles Davis, Gerry Mulligan (best white black Saxophonist I believe) and many more.

[RedRaven]

its great to see such diversity and yet similarities coming up. Dug out some of my CD's other day and top of the pile was NEUROSIS, (from west coast USA) and as soon as first track started i was lost till the album ended, very very heavy yet not like regular Thrash/Heavy metal. The album is Times Of Grace, and its so well putt together and performed, very dramatic sculpted sounds from sweet piano to crushing  riffs. They really put knew life into a usually static genre - probably not most peoples cup of tea but really worth a look. Check the two links below for 2 great examples.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puG607ho7TY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaxNnoKrK9o

[Fiach]

Saw Neurosis on their Silver in Blood tour, bought the Album and CD at the gig, the artwork was awesome, I have couple of other CD's too of them, Enemy of the sun and Souls at Zero, an awesome band, man that was what? in the 80's? Are they still around?

Temple of the Dog, They were great, Eddie Veddar and Chris Cornell on vocals, what a line up, that album was a tribute to the lead singer in Motherlovebone, he died of a heroin overdose, Lift the crowd up and some other song was about him iirc.

Nice to see the goths getting some mentions, I love SoM, Cult and Bauhaus.

What an eclectic bunch of old farts we are :)

[RedRaven]

Neurosis are still going, along with side project Tribes of Neurot & a few others. The artwork/visual presentation is top-notch. Times of Grace was first thing ever heard of them (released 1999) and it still blows me away. 2002 they released "A Sun that Never Sets", can also be got as a DVD with a video for each song from the album - Stones from the Sky is Epic (bottom link from previous post). Never been able to see them live as they hardly ever visit UK.

Chris Cornel is a very under-rated singer/musician. really like some of Soundgardens stuff.

But as for 'Goth', was getting into it until i heard a few Ministry tracks in a night club.
Thieves (mind is a terrible thing to taste) and Stigmata (land of rape and honey) totally re-directed my attention. Then came N.W.O. and that sealed the deal for me.
Oddly enough though possibly my favourite track by them is a cover of Lay Lady Lay (Bob Dylan) from Filth Pig. Excellent piano start and the whole track is done with feeling. Strongly recommend it. (even to those who dislike metal).

Oh..... the other dust covered gem i pulled out from CD pile is Meshuggah - Destroy Erase Improve (1994) realy good heavy thrash from scandanavia. They are almost
like a Thrash-metal/Jazz crossover in the way the use odd time signitures and syncopation. And live they can hold it all together too so its actual talent not just digital editing.

[JRD]

... speaking of which, a few other names crossed my mind:
- Suicidal tendencies
- Infectious grooves
- Living Color
- Alice in Chains (how could I forget those guys??)
- Motorhead... HELL YEAH... Dirty M.F.... the Ace of Spades !!!!

[mandru]

These days I really spend a lot more time Playing music than playing music.

Crap! That even confused me.  :P

I've played electric bass for the last 20+ years involved in a small music ministry that has over time called a few different christian fellowships home and at times we've had as many as ten band members but then again for a lot of the time as few as two.

I was basically drawn into it as the leader of our band (acoustic guitar and vocals) was my A.A. sponsor first. He was country and I was an aging veteran cosmic rocker and when we quit pushing against each other and started playing together it just clicked.

Now he and I fight about other things. He would like our current group to be a great copy band and will bring in a new song on CD. Where he wants to play it over and over 8 times so we can all hear our parts and how it's "supposed" to be played, around the 3rd play through I'll start complaining that if it's worth learning then we need to take it and make it our own. Pump it up. Improve it. Make it jump!

Sometimes I win that fight and sometimes he bullies his way through but I still drive and push from the back and often drag the other musicians along with me, him included, once he hears his part in what it could become. I've kinda learned to suggest something once and then if I wait long enough he'll think it was his idea, so I end up getting my way.

But I'm sure more than enough on that.

Moody Blues' Days of Future Past was probably my first real encounter with the potential of the synthesizer. Their invention and implementation of the mellotron in that album started for me a long love of music based on the synth and grabbed up anything I could find that brought synths to the foreground.

I spent hundreds of hours with Tangerine Dream's Rubicon remastered onto both sides of an hour long cassette and a player that could autoflip to continuous play and actually got to see them in concert with a choreographed laser light show. As a bonus Triumvirate was their warm up band and they played their (then) recently released Spartacus. To this day it was one of my favorite top 10 live concerts.

In the 80's here in the US things went disco.  :D

So my interests drifted over to Europe and Techno which was I guess basically the same thing but at least I didn't have to put up with K.C. and his Play That Funky Music. I guess I just don't have a funky bone to appreciate it.

I've fortunately lived long enough to see technology catch up to me. The cost of the gear that Tangerine Dream and others like Jean Michel Jarre (whose Oxygene IV I will still find myself humming in distracted moments) used to produce their music was easily in the quarter million dollar range and so far beyond my reach that I could as easily hope to jump to the moon.

Within the last 3 years I've come across a couple free use downloads on the internet. One called Audacity used for mixing sound tracks and mastering audio and the other Psycle.

Psycle is step sequencer/controller that comes with a load of prepackaged synths and effects like echos, delays, samplers (if I want the sound of kettle drums as played with a shotgun all I have to do is record a sample and feed it in)  reverbs, and such. It also has an open architecture to allow additional VSTi engines to be plugged in to expand its capabilities.

So from my point of view it takes that earlier .25 mill worth of gear that was so far beyond my reach and dropped it free right into my lap for being a good boy! I mean how else can I explain it? *heh heh*

I've been able to take some of that old dream and put together an albums worth of instrumental sound tracking and even apply for and secure the copyright on it and once I can scrape up the $100 and get a non-expiring copy of the KarmaFX VSTi a super useful synth engine I've got another album's worth of material already brewing.

I'll never sell any of it, I'm just not that marketable and I'm doing it pretty much for my own amusement but it's nice to just be able to say now, that I can do it.

[Art Blade]

I've read your post with great interest, mandru. It is funny how much of what you wrote could have been me writing it :) I fully understand what you meant by "playing music instead of playing music" :) Not wanting to rewrite your post (well, apart from I have a funky bone), I just skip that.

I have thrown away all that expensive stuff such as Cubase and I discovered a free tool for making music called MadTracker. You can feed it sounds you created or ripped off a CD or extracted from any media, or recorded yourself, and make it an instrument. You then can apply various effects to it and edit that sound snippet inside MadTracker, and on top you can add VST plug-ins, too. Like that you can create all styles of music and experiment with it, creating new sounds and compose new songs. Like you, I do it for myself and perhaps some friends who have a couple of my tunes on a couple of CDs :)

[mandru]

Not wanting to rewrite your post (well, apart from I have a funky bone)


-And-

I discovered a free tool for making music called MadTracker. You can feed it sounds you created or ripped off a CD or extracted from any media, or recorded yourself, and make it an instrument - and on top you can add VST plug-ins, too.

-And-

Like you, I do it for myself and perhaps some friends who have a couple of my tunes on a couple of CDs :)

Apart from the funky bone you do sound like me  ;D

I'll have to look mad tracker up, sounds cool.  :-X

Being a musician, it's not always pretty or even really socially acceptable but it would be easier to give up a leg than stop playing.

[Art Blade]

hehe :) I even had the same "shock" regarding synthesizers, back in like 1972/73 I heard the first electronic music, you know, those analog synths the size of a tank... I was SO impressed I decided to get one some day. Ever since I dreamt of making music without having to play an actual instrument any more, I created music on my C64 (lol) and I had the first Creative Labs SoundBlaster in my early PCs... man, was I happy to be able to create synthesized music with a PC (midi)... I remember my first KORG and YAMAHA... and PropellerHead's "ReBirth" for the PC, wow... :)

Check this link if you want to space out, mandru:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFfSdCizlDY

(Space: Magic Fly - 1977) by the way, I got the original album on vinyl here  ;D

[Fiach]

... speaking of which, a few other names crossed my mind:
- Suicidal tendencies
- Infectious grooves
- Living Color
- Alice in Chains (how could I forget those guys??)
- Motorhead... HELL YEAH... Dirty M.F.... the Ace of Spades !!!!

Suicidal Tendencies were great, Send me your money and Institutionilized were great tracks! Infectious Grooves were a spin off I think, The did a cover of Immigrant Song (Led Zep) which I liked alot. I rember Sarsippius Ark (sp?), man he was funny!

Living Color I liked their first couple of albums, couldnt get into the red covered one, but Cult of Personality et al were great songs.

AiC released a new album a few weeks ago (Black gives way to Blue), they have a new singer and its pretty good too, if you never heard Layne sing with them, you would rate it very highly.

Motorhead, I remember getting their first album (on the back it said "Play loud or dont bother", they wern't kidding :)

[mandru]

I remember my first KORG and YAMAHA... and PropellerHead's "ReBirth" for the PC, wow... :)

My synth was a Moog Micro. It was a single oscillator but evolved enough there was no fiddling around with patch cords. I loved the exercise of mentally visualizing a sound and then with all settings at zero dialing it to where I thought it lived before touching the keyboard to see how close I could get, which actually has served me pretty well now that I'm using the KarmaFX VSTi which is virtually modular and simulates connecting sound modules with patch cords. A giant leap forwards and we land in the past (heh heh).

I've been to a couple Blueman Group concerts in Las Vegas and anyone that pulls the harp out of a grand piano and plays it with a huge mallet gets my admiration. Look up Blueman Teenage Wasteland (try to find a copy not shot with someone's cell phone).

My wife always reserves center front row balcony seats and both times we've been intercepted at the approach to the stairs and ushered to the elevator. Then we've been met at the top by a theater employee to escort us to our seats. It's either that we're being mistaken for celebs and getting the VIP treatment or they are looking at our age and don't want one of us stroking out on the climb up the stairs.  :P


Art, I can only respond to your cool link with:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZaLkfvQ714

Oh, and Fiach,

Motorhead, I remember getting their first album (on the back it said "Play loud or dont bother", they wern't kidding :)

I find that true with most music.

I like it loud enough that if I stand with my muscles loose the bass knocks me around so it looks like I'm dancing!  :P