Phish Breathes

You can laugh all you want only because people don't expect me to be a Phish fan. I actually think they are pretty damn good. For a four piece band they actually can play pretty good. Trey's guitar playing is spot on at times and Page's keyboard playing is better then most keyboard players out there. Same goes for the rhythm section. Mike Gordon and Jon Fishman are pretty good section on their own. Every once in a while I like their music. I have seen them a total of twenty times and each time was a bit different and was exciting to hear what new world they were going to go into. Their quirky covers were another fun adventures. Some nights they would do Led Zeppelin or the music for 2001. It was music that was exhausting, but fun.

The fun part of Phish is their fans. They are die hard. I have friends who have seen them more then I have, and will tell you each night was a new experience. I would take them over a lot of bands out there and if they went back to smaller shows I would go to see them in a heartbeat. Each adventure they would mix everything in their bag of tricks and make it sound fresh and new to me and countless others. I really think they play each night to someone who just started to be a Phish fan and that is okay by me.




My first Phish concerts started in 1992. I went along with a friend to see them in New York City. The night was magical at Madison Square Garden. They played for about three hours and it was draw dropping on what they would do each night. I went to back to back nights and no song was repeated nor was there a moment of no excitement. Each night that I saw them I noticed they really knew what they had planned out for us. My friend would turn to me excited telling me that it was great to hear this song live or that song live. It was at that moment that I loved what they did. I did not follow them, but I would get a ticket when they played close. I joined their mailing list. I would get a good crack at tickets and send in my money order and hope for the best. I got some good seats at every show. Then another friend would call me and tell me that I should go in with him. This included at one point twelve of us going to a Phish show. It was fun to enjoy the culture of Phish as well as the show. The friends I knew and still know are still into Phish. I still go every once in a while.

What I like about Phish is they make sure their fans are their for them. They do these festivals or even better they do Halloween shows where they play an album in it's entirety. In 1994 I was honored to see them do the Beatles White Album. They studied it very well. It was great to hear a wonderfully gifted set of musicians play the Beatles. Two years later I saw them do the Talking Heads. Each time I saw them I knew they had something there. It was fun to hear them go through song after song. Each moment was great.



When it cam to figure out what album by Phish I liked this is when it became tough. All their albums have something to exciting. They have a great song that is the hook or they have these really great instrumental breaks that are just well done. I decided to pick a Phish album that was part of my early life. I remember when the album came out. I was excited because it was new and because I was going to see them many times during this tour. I was seeing a lot of King Crimson at the time and I needed another band to see too. I was doing a lot of shows then and needed something less Progressive Rock and more like Phish.

The music on the album is not jammy like other Phish albums, The music is got well crafted Phish songs that really show to an average fan that they can make good music. Each song has a great little slice of their great musicianship. If you know Phish and just think another Grateful Dead then you don't have a full picture. Grateful Dead mixed a lot of Blues, Jazz, Folk, Bluegrass and anything they could think of. Phish is fusion and fun. It's wonderful to hear some great music. Enjoy!! I am sure this will convert you!

Beach Pet's

I know I been a little slow on certain artists on this blog. It's not that I don't like them, but It's hard to talk about them with people. They either love them or hate them and if they love them they know so much about them and can actually write a biography about them if you give them time. Their knowledge is great and wish I could retrieve facts such as that about these artists. I also like these artist they like, but I still feel a little apprehensive about talking about them because I know I will get a fact wrong or a story from their past wrong.

The band that always is has a long and interesting history is the Beach Boys. They were my fathers favorite band growing up. He was out of High School by the time they got popular, but he told me he religiously would buy their singles and their albums. He lived in the east all his life, but he loved the fact that the Beach Boys talked about carefree things and loved talking about what the life of a young adult was in California. He liked that the songs had a mini story to each of them and most of he liked that they had a song about his car he drove. "409" is about a a 1962 Impala 409. The car is a marvel. My dad bought this car new and added a few touches and the car would fly down the major and minor roads where he was brought up. This car had the quickness like no other. My father even told me he beat a 57 Chevy with a Corvette motor in it. Those are the stories of legend.



The music of the Beach Boys told those kind of stories too. They talked about the Beach, Surfin, girls and cars. These stories were fun and quite unique but they were wonderful little three minute ditties. I could talk about the friendly little war between Brian Wilson and the Beatles, but that is what the internet and good history is for. I want to talk about my experience with the Beach Boys. My experience was going through my fathers albums. I had no prior knowledge about them for a while. I wanted to hear them, but my dad would only play the hits. I was not sure if I liked it or not. I liked what I heard, but I wanted to hear and know more. I asked my father and he only knew about the albums that were full of the surf sound. He had one from 1967 called Wild Honey and he did not like it at all. It had no focus he said and it was just odd.

I took my chances with that and decided to explore some more. I went after most of that music from that era and really liked it. It was not about their early stuff it was more about the time that they were in. It gave some moments of greatness, but it also showed their maturity as a band. One day I went to my local record store and saw a Beach Boys album neither my father or I had in our collections. It was called Pet Sounds. The story of Pet Sounds was clear and the lore about it was great. The guy at the record store did a great job educating a young and naive kid such as myself about the history of the album. I decided to pick it up. It was a near mint mono mix and I grabbed it without really know much about it. Yea, that my sound odd to you, but I was a 17 year old kid who knew nothing except what his father had in his collection. When I got home I put it on the turntable and was so involved with this album. The music was fresh and wonderful. I loved every song from start to finish. Why was this not talked about before? Why was this album not even in my father's collection?



The music was more then a welcome addition to the growing collection of mine. It showed a few things in my collection. One thing it showed I can listen to just more then King Crimson and the Beatles. It showed that there is great music out there still to be heard. The music was wonderful and really fresh to my ears. After a few listens I put the album away and bought the CD. The CD had great notes on the history of it and helped with great understanding to the learned person such as myself why this album I was holding is one of the best ever.

Massively influential upon its release (although it was a relatively low seller compared to their previous LPs), it immediately vaunted the band into the top level of rock innovators among the intelligentsia, especially in Britain, where it was a much bigger hit. (AM) That describes it well. To me it was an album that opened my eyes to so much more. I am glad that I actually got a chance to hear this for myself without someone going totally nuts over it and hounding me how great this album is in the history of Rock and Roll. I know it's great and when I first heard it I can see why. The album is wonderfully fresh and to new ears it will be something they will remember for a long time. The music is timeless and for that it should be in everyone's collection. If you own it, play it again. If you don't, get it and hear why this album is the one. Classic in every sense. Enjoy!!

Wouldn't it be nice if we were older
Then we wouldn't have to wait so long
And wouldn't it be nice to live together
In the kind of world where we belong

You know its gonna make it that much better
When we can say goodnight and stay together

Wouldn't it be nice if we could wake up
In the morning when the day is new
And after having spent the day together
Hold each other close the whole night through

The happy times together we've been spending
I wish that every kiss was never ending
Oh Wouldn't it be nice

Songs For Jack

The first time I heard a Jack Bruce solo album was when I was in college my second time around and I was looking for ideas when a friend of mine handed me a Jack Bruce box set of his music. I knew about his solo albums, but did not actually pay attention to them. I really though honestly the star of Cream was Eric Clapton. It was always Clapton this and Clapton that. I liked Ginger Baker because of his work with Bill Frisell and Fela Kuti. I really did not give Jack Bruce the recognition that he deserved. When I looked at my Cream Box set I realized that Eric was great, but the greater was Jack Bruce. He wrote most of the songs on the Cream albums. He co-wrote their two famous hits "White Room" and "Sunshine of Your Love." Jack's writing was on most of the Cream albums. His music was wonderfully done and he really is the brains behind one of the best super groups.

The music is really not bluesy like Cream albums but a sound like Jazzy and with Chris Spedding and John Marshall on guitar and drums the album has keeps that Jazzy tone. Both Spedding and Marshall made careers out of not doing the money maker and playing on all kinds of session work in these kinds of settings. Jon Hiseman also provides drums too and his different twist adds also to a well balanced different album. It really shows how great they are on most of the songs. I saw this box set and really regret not getting it then when I really like what I hear now. The horns make the album and it is really so much different from those Cream albums because it shows that Jack Bruce could be different then the rest of the Cream. His lyrics are quite good and you can tell right away that he wants to be heard more then most. Songs like "Never Tell Your Mother She's Out of Tune" and "Theme For An Imaginary Western" are really great. "Theme..." was a minor hit for Mountain.



The history is important because this album is one of the most unique fusions of jazz with pop and contains less emphasis on the blues, a genre so essential to Bruce's career. The music is fresh and different then what you expect from a man who was in Cream. The elements of cello, guitar, bass, horns and drums is uniquely different. Jack Bruce proves too all of us that he was unique to this world. If you hear this now compared to back in 1969 you can tell that it is a bit dated, but it still sounds very fresh and interesting. I did not quite get what he was aiming for, but now I get it. I like it and to me Jack Bruce is wonderfully different to all the heavy Psychedelic that was out then.

Even an old out-take from Cream's Disraeli Gears shows up on this album and it's a quite different interpretation. "Weird of Hermiston" could have been added, but more then likely got outvoted by Clapton and Baker. You can tell his ideas were there even back in 1967. He was brought up well working with Alex Korner and his Bluesy/Jazzy sound. He would continue this trend with a lot of his solo albums. His next one in 1971 was Things We Like was really like jazz with full of Post Bop and Free Jazz and guest John McLaughlin that is where things start to take shape.



Jack Bruce is a unique individual and his music is more then enough to digest. His stuff for the longest time stayed out of my sight, but I am glad that I got acquainted with his music. He should be listened to and show have a voice. People should not remember his for his Cream contributions but other great things as well. A lyric sheet is enclosed and displays the serious nature of this project. It is picture perfect in construction, performance, and presentation. Enjoy this album and I am sure you too will be telling your friends about how great he is with high praise. Enjoy!!!

Roger Keith Syd Barrett Laughing

I really love you and I mean you
the star above you, crystal blue
Well, oh baby, my hairs on end about you...
I wouldn't see you and I love to
I fly above you, yes I do
well, oh baby, my hairs on end about you...

Floating, bumping, noses dodge a tooth
the fins a luminous
fangs all 'round the clown
is dark below the boulders hiding all
the sunlight's good for us
'Cause we're the fishes and all we do
the move about is all we do
well, oh baby, my hairs on end about you...

Floating, bumping, noses dodge a tooth
the fins a luminous
fangs all 'round the clown
is dark below the boulders hiding all
the sunlight's good for us
'Cause we're the fishes and all we do
the move about is all we do
well, oh baby, my hairs on end about you...

I really love you and I mean you
the star above you, crystal blue
Well, oh baby, my hairs on end about you...



Those lyrics above are from the opening song from Syd's first album Madcap Laughs. The album is quite amazing. My first Pink Floyd listen was from when Syd was in the band. It might be three short years, but those years are the most important years of the band. I would listen to Dark Side of the Moon and tell myself that I need to start from the beginning. When I asked the uneducated question the record store guy what should I start with, I got a person who handed me two CD's the first was Piper At The Gates Of Dawn and Madcap Laughs. He told me the first was Pink Floyd's first album and the other is the former leader of Pink Floyd's first solo album. Each have a great place in the musical lexicon and should be studied and listened to with great study. He sounded like a History professor who told me that If I study this then I will know all I need to understand about the history of the world. I am glad I listened.

The mystic of Syd Barrett was the fact that his lyrics and his voice carried the world of Pink Floyd. These wonderful understandings taught me that there was a side of music that was not happy, even though the music from this period was something that was full of Psychedelic roots and even the culture was the same way. The back story of Syd Barrett was a man who escaped any way he could, but his music and words was genius. When we lost him a few years back in 2006 we lost a person who was a man not easy to understand, but a man who if you knew him well enough through his music was someone who was much smarter then the average musician of the time.



I picked up these two recommendations and listened with quite intent. It was a far different sound then the first Pink Floyd album I got introduced to. I knew that I had to really listen hard to this music to understand what was going on. My time with this was great because I realized that the music that was being presented was a bit more on the side of classic. This classic sound was not talked about in great detail in music books I read. They only gave a brief explanation of his music and kind of lumped it into the rest of the Psychedelic genre. It was sad looking back on it, because his music was a bit of that but it was very personal. Syd Barrett was using music and acid to run away from something. It just happened that his music was part of a very interesting time period in pop culture.

In a way his music reached far beyond the simple and got more and more complex. His music was a very close observation of the world. The music I loved his first person thoughts and observations. He was important to me because of his highly creative nature. Syd would be a person who (if I was around then) would be an artist I would follow. There are artist today that think Syd is quite important as well. People like Robyn Hitchcock really praise his music. It's wonderful that we had this genius on this planet. The sad thing is there is so much unreleased material from working with Pink Floyd and his solo work that needs to be put out.



The album featured a rather unorthodox recording process, in which Syd would provide a backing track of his own singing accompanied by acoustic guitar, over which the session musicians would overdub the rest of the arrangement. However, Syd's playing and singing were highly erratic and unpredictable—he skipped or added beats and bars seemingly at random, or otherwise he would strum on a single chord for a long time before unexpectedly reverting back to the main portion of the song. Syd would not allow the musicians to rehearse or re-record their overdubs, insisting that they sounded fine. After several months of intermittent recording, the album was finally deemed complete. (AM)

If anyone who loves the early Pink Floyd like I do, then this is the place to start. His genius is written in every song. The music itself is very good. It has a few guests on it including two Pink Floyd people; Roger Waters and David Gilmour. Three Soft Machine people too, including Hugh Hopper, Mike Ratledge and Robert Wyatt. If you want to have fun with great music then start here. The music of Syd Barrett should be looked a bit closely and this is the best place to start. Enjoy! I hope that this listen will give you more of understanding what early Floyd was all about. Enjoy!

Funny As Shit!!!!

There is an art of being funny. You can be funny, but can you be funny whatever you say or do. Can you look at the news and things around you and make people laugh. My best friend was funny, he was pretty good at making people laugh and he did it for a short while. It's a tough racket trying to be a comedian you have to figure out the energy of the crowd that your trying to entertain and you also have to be lively in discussion and also on what is going on around you. There were nights that he was right on and had the crowd in the palm of his hands and on other nights they would laugh, but would not "kill them with laughter" as he put it.

When I would go with him to shows he would kind of tell me what his routine for the night was, and at the end of the night if the show went well, then we kept the same formula. If the night was good, but not great we would change or add things. He wanted me to be honest and tell the truth about his comic stand up. We would listen to the tapes of his shows and I would get an idea where he went different from the night before where he was good. We also listened to other comedians and figure out how their formula was successful. People like Richard Pryor and George Carlin were the heavy ones we would listen to. One day My best friend and I went to see a stand up show by a friend of his. My best friend was handed a tape by a guy named Bill Hicks. His friend told us that he was "Funny as Shit."



On the way home instead of talking about how the show went and how we can learn from what his friend did, we decided to put the tape in of Bill Hicks. We did not know what to expect and honestly we never heard of him before and did not know what to expect. After the first part of the tape we were in tears we were laughing so hard. The ideas that he told the audience and the stuff he would come up with was really great. We noticed that he took things in his own personal reflection and really make it sound comical. Some of his one-liners were always worth repeating.

Stand up was always tough to do. The stand up today is not as exciting as it was long time ago. A lot of stand up tries to be politically correct or just less sensitive then in years past. Bill just went and attacked. He attacked the first George Bush and he attacked the war on drugs and he attacked non smokers. He had fun at every bodies expense. His quotes on the tape were always worth repeating. We thought really anything he said was funny. Both my best friend and I always looked out for any stand up he put out. Few years after loving his stand up he died. There was an article in GQ that really hit both my best friend and I. We loved the appreciation and looked forward to archival stuff to come out.



Bill Hicks was a genius. His comedy was the stuff that will be talked about for years to come. They recently put out a retrospective that I have not gotten yet and I will soon. It really goes over a comic who was really ahead of his time and who could make me laugh like no other person could. Bill was a man who spoke the truth and will always resonate with me and no matter how dated it might sound, it will always be ahead of it's time. His CD's are always great. I chose his second album because that is where I started, but any of his stuff is fun and tearfully funny. Enjoy!!

Marion Brown And A Georgia Faun

There are reasons why I love music. Some of it is pure emotion and some of it is just the great talent that is out there. To me the music of some artist is just a love for whatever they create is just priceless and magical. The first time I hear some of these artist I know for a fact that I will be a fan for life. I listen to Jazz people like Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Miles Davis and I know that these people are quite gifted and are above the par of anyone else. Sometimes I hear them and realize that what they do is very creative and always wonder when is a good time to reflect on how their genius works.

Last week we lost a genius. His name is Marion Brown. Marion was part of a lot of circles. His saxophone reached many different Jazz worlds. Some of it was Post Bop, other times it was Avant-Garde and other times it was Free Jazz. He may not be up there with the people I mentioned above but he was quite revolutionary. To me Marion was a genius just like those Jazz musicians. His music had the heart and soul of anyone out there. He will be missed and his music should and will be talked about forever.



Difficult as it may be for younger listeners to believe, there was a time when ECM released adventurous improvised music. Back near its inception in the early '70s, the label issued a wide variety and decent number of challenging avant-garde recordings that represented some of the most forward-looking musical thinkers of the time. Marion was one of those forward thinkers and this album includes other who thought the same way he did. The group of people on this album are wonderful musicians in there own right and do contribute music that is fresh and the reason ECM gets the recognition that they deserve. ECM was famous for this wonderful and fresh music just like Impulse, ESP or Atlantic. There are reasons why my obsession with ECM is so deep. They made some great stuff.

Marion's album is a benchmark of why ECM is so damn great. There are only two tracks on the CD, but each has it's own identity and meaning. While the first and title track is more percussive, the second is traditional and ahead of it's time. The second does more exploring then the first, but that's where Marion shows his maturity as a musician and that in turn has the people backing him act the same way. The effect is more eerie and spiritually infused than the preceding piece, with keening, bowed cymbals and deep pulses from the lower clarinet family. It gradually builds to something of a frenzy, but in an unforced manner that shows it to be merely another approach to the territory explored earlier.



Marion will be missed, but not his music. The man's genius is in most of the music that is out there. Listen for yourself and you will understand the passion and the gift that Marion had for his music. This music was a gift for us, not only to listen to, but for people to understand how great some of this music really is. The other day I put two of his CD's in my car and really understood how great this music should be talked about and listened with new ears. Take a chance yourself and I am sure you will feel the same. Enjoy!! Marion RIP, thanks!!

Sheryl Crow's Self

Don't laugh, but I think that Sheryl Crow's second album is pretty damn good. The music is so much better then the first and it' a bit experimental too. What she did is keep her root music in the forefront and then added loops, noises, and weird sounds to make it a very interesting album. This mix of all these things created an album that is not mentioned as a popular Sheryl Crow album. I remember it came out and people thought it was a pretty good album, but at the end of that year in 1996 on a best of the year music list NPR called it one the best of the year. I liked the music. At this point I really ignored a lot of popular music by then and to hear something like this really made me want to hear what she had to say and also to see all this oddness work on an album.

By this time I saw her three times and each time was actually pretty good. You could sense improvement from her and from her band. The music was very cool and her vocals very strong. Her lyrics were very smart and well versed. I remember going to see her in 1997 and with the new CD in my hand I could see these songs transform into actually really something great. My female vocal music was lacking, but she got me into more female music at that time then I have ever explored. Songs like "Everyday Is A Winding Road" and "The Book" are wonderful songs and quite addicting. The album is one of the most creative albums to come out of 1996.



The music of Sheryl Crow is simple, but you know sometimes that is great. Throughout the record, Crow spins out wild, nearly incomprehensible stream-of-consciousness lyrics, dropping celebrity names and products every chance she gets ("drinking Falstaff beer/Mercedes Ruehl and a rented Leer"). Often, these litanies don't necessarily add up to anything specific, but they're a perfect match for the mess of rock, blues, alt-rock, country, folk, and lite hip-hop loops that dominate the record.(AM) The fun thing about Sheryl Crow is when you see her live, she takes some of these songs and rearranged them to make them sound very fresh and new. I saw her three times and only one setting was a music for the masses type show. She stuck to her formula and did what she had to do, but the club shows were completely different.



Once I do a rare thing and go for some pop thing and really express that some stuff is actually pretty good. When she was the peak of her popular her music was all over the place. Even stations I did not even listen to were playing her music. I caught on to her by seeing her and hearing the overplayed first album. What was interesting back when she first started she did club dates. Now if you were playing everywhere you be in a big state like an open venue. Her club dates were wonderful and not crowded. She got to be herself and make these sound unique in a rare time. I wish that this kind of idea still worked with the music company where original music is not over hyped.

If you need to fix your "Pop Music" collection then you should start here. Listen to this album, it's got I think three hit songs. It's okay though these songs are not played much. You can still play this album and reflect how much she was a talent. Listen and enjoy. This music still is fresh as when it was put out in 1996. Enjoy!!