In an effort to overcome my long standing distaste for the Rolling Stones, I have decided to listen to and review their albums (from 1968-1972) over at One Album in 120 Seconds. In the least I will learn to appreciate the Stones while familiarizing myself with their best records; in the best I will rock out.

The first in this four week to be posted Monday series is 1968’s Beggars Banquet. You can check it out here.

My busy streak continues. I am wrapping up my Fulbright application and work is a non-stop madhouse as I continue to develop a system for training our sixty-plus clients on a new web interface for moderating transactions.

Anyway, I found the time to make some small improvements to the site. Aside from adding a link to the deceased Knock Twice Radio in the sidebar, I have added some more ‘browsing’ music to the Sounds of Knock Twice (SoKT). These three instrumentals combined — Mirror Image, Tubular Bells, part 1, and an excerpt of the Koln Concert, part 1–total about an hour in length. I have already discussed the Oldfield composition on this site and the Clem Alford jam is a recent acquisition courtesy of the Clandestine Sound Lab.  The real treat of the set, though, is the excerpt from the Keith Jarrett concert, which amazingly is entirely improvised. A perfect marriage where the process is the end result.

To listen to the entire Jarrett performance,  visit Knock Twice Radio and listen to the show that I hosted for March 4, 2007.

From One Album in 120 Seconds.

Then, Mozart’s Requiem:

Now, Either Orchestra’s More Beautiful Than Death:

One of my favorite song/albums of all times is Tubular Bells. Comprised of 50 or so instrumental minutes, the entire composition was written and performed (mostly) by Mike Oldfield — an early accomplishment for multi-track recording.

I don’t remember specifically when I started listening to the album, though I am sure I got a hold of my father’s copy at least 12 years ago. In that time I both listened to the record for entertainment and used it as a tool. While the various melodies and moods of Tubular Bells became my perfect sound track to many of my mental movies and the comic book story X-Cutioner’s Song; these same musical components become so ingrained in my mind that by listening to the music and allowing my subconscious to trace the sounds, I was better able to focus while studying and writing throughout high-school and college.

Since this is getting dangerously close to the type of musical review I am speaking out against here, just let me say that Mike in Korea recently sent me an email linking to a 1975 live performance of Tubular Bells (Part 1). I really enjoyed this rendition. Not only is the bass more present in the mix it but it also sounds a lot gnarlier. The tone on the Fenders and the other instruments are also a little off from the original recording, which is great because it imbues the already rocking performance with a new edge.

W hat more can I say? Not much… just listen to the performance:

Or watch it here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

I have this nasty tendency to subscribe to RSS and podcast feeds, then never listen to or read the content. My Google.Homepage functions like a cemetery with every changing epigraphs. Some of these originate from Web pages that I view daily at their home URL, so the redundancy is well, useless. Other feeds are memorials to my many regular but short lived edicts. “I really am going to follow baseball this year! And real simple syndication will keep me on top of my game!” Still other feeds I subscribe to merely as a self-contained outward facing fan club.

For the last reason I subscribed to the feed for The Aural Times, back in march of 2006. At the time I was an intern reporter and absolutely tired of reading the same news story again, and again, and again, each time the only difference being the byline. That frustration drew me immediately to The Aural Times, where the promise that “We sing the news so you don’t have to” was too good to pass up.

In short, editor Josh Millard would eek out the most redundant details from those iterative news stories and plop the facts into an equally generic music. In the least Millard’s work is the equivalent of a musical snack. Short on substance, but providing enough rhythm and energy to keep one engage throughout the workday.

continue reading "Joyous Returnings."