ON THIS DAY IN MUSIC: MARCH 2014

MARCH 1: "Dark Side Of The Moon" by Pink Floyd was released on this date in 1973. Happy 41st Anniversary!!!

"Mellow Gold" by Beck was released on this date in 1994. Happy 20th Anniversary!!!

Happy Birthday to the following artists:

Nik Kershaw, singer/songwriter, age 56

ROGER DALTREY, singer of The Who/actor, age 70

Harry Belafonte, singer/songwriter/actor/political activist, age 87

Glenn Miller (deceased) was born on this date in 1904.

MARCH 2: "A Wizard, A True Star" by Todd Rundgren was released on this date in 1973. Happy 41st Anniversary!!!

Happy Birthday to the following artists:

Chris Martin, singer/songwriter/guitarist/keyboardist of Coldplay, age 37

Method Man, rapper of Wu-Tang Clan and solo artist/actor, age 43

Jon Bon Jovi, singer/songwriter/guitarist of Bon Jovi/actor/philanthropist, age 52

Dale Bozzio, singer/songwriter of Missing Persons, age 59

Larry Carlton, guitarist, age 66

Karen Carpenter (deceased) was born on this date in 1950.

Lou Reed (deceased) was born on this date in 1942.

Desi Arnaz (deceased) was born on this date in 1917.

Kurt Weill (deceased) was born on this date in 1900.

MARCH 3: "Crystal Ball"/"The Truth" by Prince were both released on this date in 1998. Happy 16th Anniversary!!!

"The Power To Believe" by King Crimson was released on this date in 2003. Happy 11th Anniversary!!!

"Plastic Beach" by Gorillaz was released on this date in 2010. Happy 4th Anniversary!!!

Happy Birthday to the following artists:

Tone Loc, rapper/actor, age 48

Robyn Hitchcock, singer/songwriter/guitarist/multi-instrumentalist of 

Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians, The Soft Boys and solo artist, age 61

MARCH 4: "Pop" by U2 was released on this date in 1997. Happy 17th Anniversary!!!

Happy Birthday to the following artists:

Jason Newstead, bassist, formerly of Metallica, age 51

Chris Squire, bassist/songwriter/singer of Yes, age 66

Bobby Womack, singer/songwriter/guitarist, age 70

Howlin' Wolf (deceased) was born on this date in 1923.

MARCH 5: Happy Birthday to the following artists:

John Frusciante, guitarist/multi-instrumentalist of Red Hot Chili Peppers/ singer/songwriter/producer, age 44

Eddy Grant, singer/songwriter/guitarist, age 66

Andy Gibb (deceased) was born on this date in 1958.

Teena Marie (deceased) was born on this date in 1956. 

MARCH 6: "About Face" by David Gilmour was released on this date in 1984. Happy 30th Anniversary!!!

Happy Birthday to the following artists:

Phil Alvin, singer/guitarist of The Blasters, age 61

David Gilmour, singer/songwriter/guitarist/bassist/multi-instrumentalist 

of Pink Floyd and solo artist, age 66

Mary Wilson, vocalist of The Supremes, age 70

Wes Montgomery (deceased) was born on this date in 1923.

MARCH 7: "Young Americans" by David Bowie was released on this date in 1975. Happy 39th Anniversary!!!

Happy Birthday to the following artists:

Ernie Isley, guitarist/singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist of 

The Isley Brothers and solo artist, age 62

Peter Wolf, singer/songwriter of J. Geils Band and solo artist, age 68

Arthur Lee (deceased) was born on this date in 1945.

MARCH 8: "Queen II" by Queen was released on this date in 1974. Happy 40th Anniversary!!!!

"Collapse Into Now" by R.E.M was released on this date in 2011. Happy 3rd Anniversary!!!

"The Downward Spiral" by Nine Inch Nails was released on this date in 1994. Happy 20th Anniversary!!!

"Superunknown" by Soundgarden was released on this date in 1994. Happy 20th Anniversary!!!

"The Next Day" by David Bowie was released on this date in 2013. Happy 1st Anniversary!!!

Happy Birthday to the following artists:

Gaz Coombes, singer/songwriter/guitarist of Supergrass, age 38

Shawn Mullins, singer/songwriter/guitarist/solo artist and member of The Thorns, age 46

Gary Numan, singer/composer/musician, age 56

Randy Meisner, singer/songwriter/bassist/guitarist of Poco, The Eagles and solo artist, age 68

Mickey Dolenz, actor/singer/songwriter/drummer/guitarist of The Monkees and solo artist, age 69

MARCH 9: "Are You Gonna Go My Way" by Lenny Kravitz was released on this date in 1993. Happy 21st Anniversary!!!

"The Joshua Tree" by U2 was released on this date in 1987. Happy 27th Anniversary!!!

Happy Birthday to the following artists:

Robert Sledge, bassist of Ben Folds Five, age 46

Martin Fry, singer/songwriter/keyboardist of ABC, age 56

Robin Trower, songwriter/singer/guitarist of Procol Harum and solo artist, age 69

John Cale, singer/songwriter/producer/multi-instrumentalist/

co-founding member of The Velvet Underground, age 72

Ornette Coleman, composer/saxophonist/trumpeter, age 84

MARCH 10: Happy Birthday to the following artists:

Timbaland, producer/songwriter/rapper, age 42

Edie Brickell, singer/songwriter, age 48

Neneh Cherry, singer/songwriter/rapper/DJ, age 50

Jeff Ament, songwriter/bassist of Pearl Jam, age 51

Rick Rubin, producer, age 51

Tom Scholz, songwriter/guitarist/multi-instrumentalist/producer of Boston, age 67

MARCH 11: Happy Birthday to the following artists:

Pete Drodge, singer/songwriter/guitarist, age 45

Lisa Loeb, singer/songwriter/guitarist/author/actress, age 46

Andy Sturmer, singer/songwriter/drummer of Jellyfish, age 49

Bobby McFerren, vocalist/conductor, age 64

MARCH 12: "Out Of Time" by R.E.M. was released on this date in 1991. Happy 23rd Anniversary!!!

Happy 66th Birthday to James Taylor!!

MARCH 13: "The Bends" by Radiohead was released on this date in 1995. Happy 19th Anniversary!!!

Happy Birthday to the following artists:

Common, rapper/producer/actor, age 42

Terence Blanchard, trumpeter/composer/film composer, age 52

Adam Clayton, bassist of U2, age 54

MARCH 14: "From Langley Park To Memphis" by Prefab Sprout was released on this date in 1988. Happy 26th Anniversary!!!

Happy Birthday to Roger Powell, singer/songwriter/composer/pianist/keyboardist/synthesizer player/trumpeter/computer programmer/writer/member of Utopia and solo artist, age 65 

Happy Birthday to Quincy Jones, jazz trumpeter/

producer/arranger/composer/ television and film producer, age 81

MARCH 15: "Destroyer" by KISS was released on this date in 1976. Happy 38th Anniversary!!!

Happy Birthday to the following artists:

Terence Trent D'Arby, singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/producer, age 52

Ry Cooder, singer/songwriter/guitarist/producer//composer, age 67

Sly Stone, singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/leader of Sly and the Family Stone, age 71

Mike Love, singer/songwriter of The Beach Boys, age 73

Phil Lesh, bassist of The Grateful Dead, age 74

Charles Lloyd, saxophonist/composer, age 76

MARCH 16: "Face Danes" by The Who was released on this date in 1981. Happy 33rd Anniversary!!!

Happy Birthday to the following artists: 

Wolfgang Van Halen, bassist of Van Halen, age 23

Patty Griffin, singer/songwriter/guitarist, age 50

Flavor Flav of Public Enemy, age 55

Steve Marker, songwriter/guitarist/keyboardist/producer of 

Spooner, Firetown and Garbage, age 55

Nancy Wilson, songwriter/singer/guitarist of Heart/multi-instrumentalist and film composer, age 60

MARCH 17: "Black Celebration" by Depeche Mode was released on this date in 1986. Happy 28th Anniversary!!!

"Van Halen III" by Van Halen was released on this date in 1998. Happy 16th Anniversary!!!

Happy Birthday to the following artists:

Melissa Auf Der Muar, bassist/songwriter/singer of Hole, 

touring member of The Smashing Pumpkins, age 42

Billy Corgan, singer/songwriter/guitarist/keyboardist/multi-instrumentalist/producer of The Smashing Pumpkins, Zwan and solo artist, age 47

Michael Ivins, bassist of The Flaming Lips, age 51

John Sebastian, singer/songwriter/guitarist, age 70

Paul Kantner, singer/songwriter/guitarist of Jefferson Airplane & Jefferson Starship, age 73

Nat "King" Cole (deceased) was born on this date in 1919.

MARCH 18: Happy Birthday to the following artists:

Queen Latifah, rapper/singer/songwriter/producer/actress/television hostess, age 44

Jerry Cantrell, songwriter/guitarist/singer of Alice In Chains, age 48

Grant Hart, songwriter/singer/drummer/guitarist of Husker Du and solo artist, age 53

Bill Frisell, guitarist/composer/arranger, age 63

Charley Pride, singer/guitarist, age 76

Wilson Pickett (deceased) was born on this date in 1941.

MARCH 19: "Dressed To Kill" by KISS was released on this date in 1975. Happy 39th Anniversary!!!

"Violator" by Depeche Mode was released on this date in 1990. Happy 24th Anniversary!!!

MARCH 20: Happy Birthday to the following artists:

Jimmy Vaughan, guitarist/singer of The Fabulous Thunderbirds, age 63

 Carl Palmer, drummer of Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Asia, age 64

Lee "Scratch" Perry, legendary reggae producer, age 78

MARCH 21: "The Final Cut" by Pink Floyd was released on this date in 1983. Happy 31st Anniversary!!!

"Lullabies To Paralyze" by Queens Of The Stone Age was released on this date in 2005. Happy 9th Anniversary!!!

Happy Birthday to the following artists:

Slim Jim Phantom, drummer of The Stray Cats, age 53

Roger Hodgson, singer/songwriter/guitarist/keyboardist of Supertramp and solo artist, age 64

MARCH 22: "Please Please Me," the debut album by The Beatles was released on this date in 1963. Happy 51st Anniversary!!!

Happy Birthday to the following artists:

Susanne Sulley, singer of The Human League, age 51

Moe Berg, singer/songwriter/guitarist/producer of 

The Pursuit of Happiness and solo artist/author, age 55

Andrew Lloyd Webber, composer, age 66

George Benson, singer/songwriter/guitarist, age 71

Stephen Sondheim, composer/lyricist, age 84

MARCH 23: "Larks' Tongue In Aspic" by King Crimson was released on this date in 1973. Happy 41st Anniversary!!!

"Van Halen II" by Van Halen was released on this date in 1979. Happy 35th Anniversary!!!

"Dream Into Action" by Howard Jones was released on this date in 1985. Happy 29th Anniversary!!!

Happy Birthday to the following artists:

Abe Laboriel Jr., drummer for Paul McCartney/

singer, songwriter, multi-instumentalist as a solo artist, age 43 

Damon Albarn, singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/producer of 

Blur, Gorillaz and solo artist, age 46

Chaka Khan, singer/songwriter, age 61

Ric Ocasek, singer/songwriter/guitarist/multi-instrumentalist/producer of 

The Cars and solo artist, age 65

MARCH 24: "Diamond Hoo Ha" by Supergrass was released on this date in 2008. Happy 6th Anniversary!!!

"5150" by Van Halen was released on this date in 1986. Happy 28th Anniversary!!!

"The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads" by Talking Heads was released on this date in 

Happy Birthday to the following artists:

DJ Pasemaster Mase of De La Soul, age 44

 Nick Lowe, singer/songwriter/bassist/guitarist/solo artist/member of Rockpile/producer, age 65

Carol Kaye, bassist/session musician, age 79

MARCH 25: "Wings At The Speed Of Sound" by Paul McCartney and Wings was released on this date in 1976. Happy 38th Anniversary!!!

Happy Birthday to the following artists:

Elton John, singer/songwriter/composer/pianist, age 67

Aretha Franklin, singer/songwriter/pianist, age 72

MARCH 26: "Jailbreak" by Thin Lizzy was released on this date in 1976. Happy 38th Anniversary!!!

"Women And Children First" by Van Halen was released on this date in 1980. Happy 34th Anniversary!!!

"Gorillaz" by Gorillaz was released on this date in 2001. Happy 13th Anniversary!!!

Happy Birthday to the following artists:

James Iha, singer/songwriter/guitarist/producer/DJ/film composer/member of Tinted Windows and A Perfect Circle/solo artist/co-founder & former member of The Smashing Pumpkins, age 46

Steven Tyler, singer/songwriter of Aerosmith, age 66

Richard Tandy, keyboardist/singer of Electric Light Orchestra, age 66

Diana Ross, singer/producer/actress, age 70

 Teddy Pendergrass (deceased) was born on this date in 1950.

MARCH 27: Happy 64th Birthday to songwriter/composer/keyboardist/guitarist/singer/member of Genesis and solo artist, Tony Banks!!!

MARCH 28: "Duke" by Genesis was released on this date in 1980. Happy 34th Anniversary!!!

"The Division Bell" by Pink Floyd was released on this date in 1994. Happy 20th Anniversary!!!

"Houses Of The Holy" by Led Zeppelin was released on this date in 1972. Happy 41st Anniversary!!!

Happy Birthday to the following artists:

Lady Gaga, singer/songwriter/pianist/keyboardist/producer/dancer, age 28

Cheryl "Salt" James, rapper/actress/member of Salt N' Pepa, age 48

MARCH 29: "LOtUSFLOW3R/MPLS Sound" by Prince was released on this date in 2009. Happy 5th Anniversary!!!

"Starless And Bible Black" by King Crimson was released on this date in 1974. Happy 40th Anniversary!!!

"Guero" by Beck was released on this date in 2005. Happy 9th Anniversary!!!

"Breakfast In America" by Supertramp was released on this date in 1979. Happy 35th Anniversary!!!

Happy Birthday to the following artists:

Perry Farrell, singer/songwriter of Jane's Addiction/Porno For Pyros/creator of the Lollapalooza music festival, age 55

Vangelis, composer/multi-instrumentalist, age 71 

Patty Donahue (deceased) was born on this date in 1956.

MARCH 30: "Louder Than Bombs" by The Smiths was released on this date in 1987. Happy 27th Anniversary!!!

Happy Birthday to the following artists:

Norah Jones, singer/songwriter/pianist/guitarist, age 35

Tracy Chapman, singer/songwriter/guitarist, age 50

Eric Clapton, singer/songwriter/guitarist of The Yardbirds, Cream, 

Derek and the Dominoes, Blind Faith and solo artist, age 69

MARCH 31: "Presence" by Led Zeppelin was released on this date in 1976. Happy 38th Anniversary!!!

"London Town" by Paul McCartney and Wings was released on this date in 1978. Happy 36th Anniversary!!!

"Parade" by Prince and the Revolution was released on this date in 1986. Happy 28th Anniversary!!!

"Sign O' The Times" by Prince was released on this date in 1987. Happy 27th Anniversary!!!

Happy Birthday to Angus Young, songwriter/guitarist/co-founder of AC/DC, age 59

WSPC'S FAVORITE ALBUMS: "DUKE" GENESIS (1980)

"DUKE" (1980)
GENESIS
Music and Lyrics by Tony Banks, Phil Collins and Mike Rutherford
Produced by David Hentschel & Genesis
Released March 28, 1980

GENESIS:
Tony Banks: Piano, Keyboards, Synthesizers
Phil Collins: Lead Vocals, Backing Vocals, Drums, Percussion, Drum Programming
Mike Rutherford: Acoustic Guitars, Electric Guitars, Bass Guitars

March 27th marked the 64th birthday of Genesis keyboardist Tony Banks and in his honor on the mythical WSPC, I felt myself compelled to "play" a selection of music that forever altered my perceptions of what rock music could actually be. The track was the expansive, sweeping, sprawling, and downright cinematic and mostly instrumental suite "Duke's Travels/Duke's End" the closing selection from the album "Duke," which has now met its  34th Anniversary! But before I speak of the end, please allow me to go further backwards to the beginning.

My intense love for Genesis began sometime during my year in the 7th grade. On a whim I had purchased "Abacab" (released September 14, 1981). While I did listen to it often and enjoyed it very much, especially the sound of Phil Collins' drumming, it wasn't until I was introduced to "Duke," that album that preceded "Abacab" the year before, that my new journey in my musical education began. I was introduced to "Duke" in a most nondescript fashion yet it was also a cosmic one as that may have been one of the earliest times in my life when I realized that music does indeed often choose the listener and the communication between the listener and the art can arrive in the most mysterious ways, as if it was designed to happen in just that way. It was all so simply, really. I was sitting in my 7th grade Science class, daydreaming away, when the strains of Genesis' radio hit single "Misunderstanding" floated through my brain. It was not a song I particularly liked that much but when it came on the radio, I never changed the dial either, so I guess it was all a certain indifference. Anyhow, the song entered my brain and stayed with me from that slumberland of a class all the way through the rest of my school day, to the degree that I somehow found myself wanting to head to the record store to purchase the album. But there was a problem...

You see, Science was my worst subject in school. Even the thought of those days in those classes, often makes me return to a childlike sense of anxiety as I just did not have the aptitude for the material no matter how well it was presented, a quality that was seismically unacceptable to my parents, both educators (my Mother was a high school Science teacher) as well as people who had majored in the Sciences during their college days. I had (then) recently performed very poorly upon an exam and was doing just as poorly in the course overall, a transgression that my parents felt forced to punish me for by restricting my television viewing, no phone calls with friends during the week and also, there was the decree, "NO MORE RECORDS!!!" Hmmm...so how was I to obtain "Duke," the album which contained the song that was obviously travelling through the ether to meet me?

Well, they said "NO MORE RECORDS!!!"  But they didn't say anything about cassettes! And that's how "Duke" entered my life.

On the weekends, my restrictions were lifted so that felt to be a fair time to listen to "Duke" openly and in earnest for the first time (and I had so many albums by this point, I reasoned that there would be no way for my parents to possibly know everything I had and what it all sounded like to even know if it was a new purchase or not). I placed the cassette into the stereo cassette player and pressed "PLAY," fully unaware that my life was about to change forever.

"Duke" opens with a suite of songs that I did not initially recognize as a suite. The grand "Behind The Lines" opens the album as if the most spectacular fanfare ever written as oceans of Tony Banks' keyboards flowed through the speakers into my basement room with such unprecedented triumph. Phil Collins' drums entered into the scene like cannons, perfectly underscored by Mike Rutherford's rumbling bass guitar work and then, there was Rutherford's soaring guitar work that sailed overhead, feeling like birds in fight. It just all felt like clouds parting, the skies opening to reveal the most beautifully blazing sunshine ever witnessed. I think I first began to understand what the word "majestic" meant when I heard this music.

And then, Genesis continued to play, and play, and play with such speed, precision and joy and yet, I was so confused by it all. I mean-how come there was no singing yet? I mean, the song had propelled itself for a full two and a half minutes before Phil Collins' voice ever enters the mix and I was just surprised already that you could actually have a song where there was no singing for that long. I mean, really, there are complete Beatles' songs that last for two and a half minutes and here was this one whose opening was longer than the opening to Led Zeppelin's immortal "Stairway To Heaven." It just felt to be so impossible but there it was, so majestically so.  The trio then settles into a powerful groove, allowing Collins to at last enter the scene. To this day, don't even ask me what this song is all about as the lyrics about the narrator who "held the book so tightly" in his hands who eventually asks, "Can't you see me? I'm slipping away," has always confounded me. But, somehow they connected through the open, powerful empathy in Collins' voice and the majesty of the music that surrounded it.

"Behind The Lines," which continues for another three full minutes fades away, as a minimal drum machine beat fades itself in, as if suggesting that we are entering a new scene in an audio film. Minimal piano notes reveal themselves subtlety, as if walking in an empty church or auditorium. Rutherford's equally subtle guitars enter as well and then more of Banks' quietly enveloping keyboards, thus making what I was hearing rhythmically trace inducing. The slowly builds itself upwards, Collins' real drums blasting to the front of the mix and again, over two minutes into the song, Collins' singing brings us "Duchess," a song about the rise and fall of a female pop idol, the pressure of fame and the consequences faced when the artists begin to second guess themselves and perform for everyone except themselves and their muse. The melancholy of the song was prevalent and again, the music overall was sweeping and I felt submerged into this awesome, epic sound and like waves that hit the beach shorelines and then travel backwards towards the sea, "Duchess" disconnects itself back to its' most minimal elements and then segueing into the album's brief third track "Guide Vocal," which brings the first thirteen plus minutes to a most pensive close.

The pause between those first three songs and the album's fourth selection, the spectacularly booming "Man Of Our Times" was just long enough for me to question, "What was that?!" Dear readers and listeners, I have to explain to you that by the time I had heard "Duke" for the first time, my musical horizons were only really beginning to broaden as most of my life was listening to AM rock radio. While I had heard Rush by this point and had already held a love for Led Zeppelin, everything I listened to was fairly easily digestible and therefore understandable. There was music I liked and loved and conversely, there was music I already knew that I didn't like. But for the music that actually forced me to confront what I thought music could actually be, well, that was a rarity at that time. I, of course, had The Beatles but even so, their songcraft was so genius, they could take the most esoteric surroundings and make then entirely accessible. Only Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk" (released October 12, 1979) confused me so profoundly that it took me nearly ten years after receiving it for me to even begin to appreciate it. And Pink Floyd's "The Wall" (released November 30, 1979) blew my head part so completely that the affect was terrifying and also over time, I slowly found myself accepting it, and loving it to this day.

All of that being said, what I was hearing on Genesis' "Duke" was completely foreign to me. It seemed to be breakage every conceivable rule in the rock music book...and even so, isn't rock and roll completely about breaking rules? The band itself was comprised of three members, when you typically saw four. There were the song lengths, which were epic. The keyboards seemed to be driving every song while the guitars and basses, usually the predominant drivers, were more supportive and atmospheric.

Then, of course, there were the drums, which were pushed to the front of the mix, which was also quite unusual (and therefore, so incredibly AMAZING as I was/am a drummer). And then, there was the presence of Phil Collins himself, a figure who very quickly became a hero to me. While his playing was a profound influence upon me and also opened the door for me to hear other landmark rock and roll drummers of that time and era like John Bonham, Keith Moon, Stewart Copeland and most certainly Neil Peart, Phil Collins was the first drummer since Ringo Starr to touch me on an almost primal level as he completely re-defined what a drummer, the musician who consistently receives the least respect, could actually be. Here was was, this man who shared my last name who was not only the drummer (and a monstrous, left-handed one at that, with a sound that was uniquely his own), but the frontman, the lead singer and a songwriter. This was unheard of to me and the inspiration was revolutionary for my senses.

"Misunderstanding" followed "Man Of Our Times" and showcased Collins as a lyricist, a most heartfelt one at that as he chronicles the heartbreaking tale within the song's title. And then side one concludes with the track "Heathaze," a song I tend to always emotionally link to the warm winds that accompany late Spring especially as lyrics of trees and the warm wash of Banks' enveloping keyboards carries and drifts you as if on a languid, lonely, wistful breeze.

Side two opens with the powerfully chugging power pop smash "Turn It On Again," a song that I had heard and loved but did not know was Genesis. What followed that slice of greatness is a passage of music that just floored me again and again and again.

While Genesis increasingly became targets for the prevalence of love songs and ballads on their albums, one must realize that their ballads were also ones that were some of the finest that you could hear. These were love songs that were truly romantic but also songs that carried an almost (and again) primal sense of yearning, longing, hopefulness, and sometimes, unbearable sadness. How all of that was conveyed to my then 12 year old heart, I have mo idea but again, the music chose me and it hit me right where I lived even though I had not yet lived through the emotions the songs themselves took me through. "Alone Tonight" is gorgeously conceived and performed loneliness and the devastating "Please Don't Ask," about the aftermath of Collins' (first) divorce, is one of the best love songs I have heard to this day ("Oh I can remember when it was easy to say, 'I love you.'/But things have changed since then, now I really can't say if I still do. But, I can try...").

Augmenting those selections were tracks that were expansive to the point of being nearly indescribable--or at least, I just did not understand and could not believe what I was hearing, that this music was even possible at all. There was the symphonic "Cul-De-Sac," which feels like a full Mozart styled orchestral piece in five minutes but the album's final 11 minutes, the aforementioned "Duke's Travels/Duke End," that was the undeniable jaw dropper.

The song opens with synthetic, nearly atonal washes of ambient sounds. Banks' keyboards, complimented by Collins' splash cymbals provides the scene, which soon phases in Collins' tribal drumming and the song's first movement in earnest. What follows is the three members of Genesis locked deep inside a musical escapade that was, and remains, so phenomenal in its scope, reach and sheer transcendence that I still get chills listening to it and tears almost spring to my eyes at its sheer beauty. It is a piece of music that needs to be fully heard to be understood if you have not heard it for yourselves. There is just nothing quite like it as the songs just flows from movement to movement, tempo changes to even more tempo changes, builds upwards and upwards as if the music itself will once again pierce the sky open. Tony Banks' keyboards are the sound of elevation and revelation. Mike Rutherford's guitars sound like the rays of the sun itself and Phil Collins drums...those DRUMS...just so spectacular is their sound, delivery and deliverance. The song then somehow and effortlessly, Collins' singing returns and weaves in the lyrics from "Guide Vocal," settles downwards into a more meditative and contemplative section provided by mournful piano and a tiny quiet keyboard flute sounding pause just to bring us back to the album's "Behind The Lines" fanfare theme for the ending victorious moments that feel like nothing short of spiritual exhalation.

My mouth was agape for the entire time as I listened for music itself had changed.

Genesis was the band who truly opened the door to a new musical world for me. As I poured over "Duke" constantly, that album not only led me to the remainder of their catalog at that time, their music led me to further explore the Music of Pink Floyd, Rush and Led Zeppelin while also opening the door to The Who, the world of progressive rock and the bands Yes and King Crimson in particular, and even furthermore into fusion and finally jazz music, much to the endless delight of my Father, a jazz aficionado. Genesis' "Duke" was the album that forced me to pay closer attention to the craft of learning a instrument and following that craft to the point of individual proficiency where the musical can somehow place such a personal stamp upon their chosen instrument that the listener will be able to identify the performer just by how the instrument in question is played.

Genesis' "Duke" was the album that taught me to keep dreaming BIG. To carve out my own path, whatever it may be, with commitment, talent and an always opened heart. It is an album of endless possibilities and sublime wonderment, supreme musicianship and stunning songwriting. It rocks and serves the soul as well as the body and I have never heard another album that was quite like it ever since.
  
Dear readers and listeners, I love and treasure Genesis' "Duke" with all of my being so completely through a very simple reason: This album is the sound of my life changing.

WSPC'S FAVORITE ALBUMS: "SIGN O' THE TIMES" PRINCE (1987)

"SIGN O' THE TIMES" (1987)
PRINCE
Produced, Arranged, Composed and Performed by Prince

All music and lyrics by Prince except...
"Starfish And Coffee" lyrics by Prince and Susannah Melvoin
"Slow Love" lyrics by Prince and Carol Davis
"It's Gonna Be A Beautiful Night" music composed by Prince, Dr. Fink and Eric Leeds

All vocals and instruments by Prince except...
Orchestra Composed and Arranged by Claire Fischer
Eric Leeds: Saxophone
Atlanta Bliss: Trumpet
and additional contributions from Susannah Melvoin, Wendy Melvion, Lisa Coleman and The Revolution

Released March 31, 1987

While I know that I have expressed the following sentiment to you, please do not even allow the suggestion that the repetition has dulled its emphasis to enter into your mind. That being said, I now say (again) to you that I have long and often wondered what it would have been like to have experienced great works of art, be it movies, literature or, in this case, music, right at the point in which the works of art in question entered into the world.

What was it like to have been witness to The Beatles' evolution as it was happening? Or how about David Bowie's? I have often asked my Father about the musical evolution of Miles Davis as he has been a fan from nearly the very beginning of Davis' career and experienced all of the musical shifts and changes right as they happened. While I was either not a part of the world or just too young to begin to comprehend the music of The Beatles, David Bowie, Miles Davis and countless others of musicians I have long admired and loved, I am so thrilled and thankful that I can say that I was witness to seismic musical changes and transformations of one of our greatest and most idiosyncratic artists during a period which was absolutely perfect for me to experience them. The artist is Prince, the period occurred during my teenage years and the album I am so honored to celebrate at this time is his 1987 masterpiece, the double album "Sign O' The Times," a release that is just abut to reach its 27th Anniversary!! This is truly one of those pop cultural milestones that especially blows my mind apart as I distinctly remember the day that album entered my life and the experience of hearing it for the very first time so vividly and I can recall it instantly.

In March of 1987, I was 18 years old and in the final stretches of my Senior year of high school. I had already been accepted into the University Of Wisconsin-Madison for the fall and was truly just biding my time until graduation just a few short months later as many of my classes completed for the school year early to accommodate the plethora of my Senior classmates who opted to pursue a "Senior Project" of their choice to finish out the year, a project that I could not even think of one idea to pursue on my own. So, with most of my friends completely off campus and classes finished, I spent my time writing and editing on the school newspaper The Midway, playing drums for the annual school outdoor theater production (that year featured a rock version of Shakespeare's "As You Like It"), and wandering around the University of Chicago campus, soaking in collegiate life, mentally and spiritually preparing myself for the changes that were due to arrive. It was a time of transformation...

For Prince, that very same period was a time of transformation, although it seemed that he was constantly within some mode of shape shifting. While I had outright rejected him in my slightly younger years, throughout my high school years, I embraced the musical vision of Prince immediately upon seeing the film "Purple Rain" (1984) on its opening weekend and continued to follow it with a vengeance from that point afterwards. After seeing that film countless times and listening to its accompanying album over and again, I found myself immersed in his first double album masterpiece, the darkly synthetic "1999" (released October 27, 1982) even moreso. What essentially became as much of a teenage tradition/rite of passage for me as the annual release of each John Hughes film, each Spring after "Purple Rain" found a new Prince album revealed to the world, and my life in particular.  When I was 16, it was "Around The World In A Day" (released April 22, 1985). When I was 17, it was "Parade" (released March 31, 1986). And in between, there were all of the b-side singles, side projects and pseudonym releases on which he wrote, produced and played most to all of the instruments upon including "The Family" (released August 19, 1985) and Shelia E.'s "Romance 1600" (released August 26, 1985).

This unbelievable mountain of music gave me a musical education of which I had not yet experienced as my rock and roll leanings were then severely pushed towards the funk and furthermore, Price often found left me scratching my head in confusion as his musical (and visual) changes arrived so quickly that by the time I had wrapped my head around one incarnation, the next one had just arrived, sending me reeling all over again. At some point during this period, I had realized that perhaps this experience between myself and the music of Prince was akin to what others experienced as they heard The Beatles grow, change and evolve so rapidly and completely in such a short space of time. And then, I realized that Prince was no mere pop idol with androgynous leanings and guitar heroics. He was a musician's musician. He was the consummate artist for all times. He was my Beatles!

By 1987, Prince was quite possibly at his most prolific, inventive and restlessly creative as well as transformative. His second motion picture, the black and white, 1940's inspired, directorial debut project "Under The Cherry Moon" (1986) was a critical and box office bomb. He had disbanded his backing group of musicians, famously known as The Revolution. And he had begun and ceased a series of new album projects including one double album entitled "The Dream Factory," which was to feature the writing/recording nucleus of himself, and his (then) closest musical compatriots Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman; "Roadhouse Garden," what would have presumably been the final album credited to The Revolution; "Camille," a collection of eight songs featuring his new titular androgynous character; and then, there was "Crystal Ball," a triple album that began as "The Dream Factory."

Since his second movie had failed to ignite the box office as "Purple Rain" had accomplished and his album sales had begun to dwindle, plus the added pressure of the African-American radio community's increasing confusion and frustration with his musical evolution, which had seemingly abandoned funk and soul (i.e. black elements) for more ornate, psychedelic (i.e. white elements), Prince truly had something to prove. And he was to do it on his own terms.

The first shot was the arrival of the album "8" (released January 21, 1987), a collection of eight jazz/fusion instrumentals attributed to the mysterious band Madhouse, and adorned with an album cover starring a busty model and no credits whatsoever (it would soon be revealed that the "band" consisted of saxophonist Eric Leeds and Prince on everything else). Then, arrived some promotional advertisements featuring the color scheme of peach and black and the increasingly bizarre, androgynous images of a bespectacled figure who looked almost exactly like Prince but clearly possessed a female figure. And then, in March, it finally arrived..."Sign O' The Times," a double album culled from all of the album projects Prince had been working on, almost entirely solo, and bursting at the seams with feverish creativity.

Returning to my Beatles comparisons, "Sign O' The Times," on  my very first listen, made me think of The Beatles' self titled album, now forever known as "The White Album" (released November 27, 1968), as Prince's work is a kaleidoscopic hodge podge/patchwork quilt of an album, where essentially no two songs sound alike, giving you a listening experience where you cannot fathom what could possibly arrive next. I purchased the album on the Friday evening on the week the album was released with my pocket wages from my allowance and my paycheck from high school library duties and returned home, as soon as I was able, to listen. Now with all of the previous Prince albums, as I stated, I was typically hit with copious amounts of head scratching as I could not quite figure out where he was coming from or what he was doing. Yet, for some unbeknownst reason at that time, a reason that I now think had something to do with us both existing in some sort of stage of metamorphosis, the full four sided experience of "Sign O' The Times" connected with me instantly (he had me just with the gorgeous album cover--pictured above) and to a point of becoming and a near out of body event.

Side One begins with the title track that unlike the stadium rock and roll of "Purple Rain" or any of the magical mystery detours of "Around The World In A Day" and "Parade," is a sobering slice of skeletal deep purple funk that would not sound out of place on a Curtis Mayfield or Sly Stone album. With the albums very first lyrics, we already know that the fireworks and fantasy of previous albums have been distinctly replaced with dark, journalistic musings on the turbulence of the present and every day. "In France a skinny man died from a big disease with a little name/By chance his girlfriend came across a needle and soon she did the same," Prince begins and then continues his song with references to gang violence, drug addiction, poverty, the explosion of the Challenger from the previous year, natural disasters, nuclear nightmares and somehow, after all of this end times doom, Prince concludes with hopeful notions of falling in love, getting married and having a son called Nate. For a figure who had clearly presented himself as being otherworldly, this opening song gave us all an opportunity to see that he was indeed very much of the same world in which we existed and that he was indeed paying attention. The song seemed to signal to us that he was a figure who was possibly maturing and looking outward as much as he continued to look inwards. At this time, Prince was 29 years old, on the very cusp of ending a decade to just enter into a new one and the song "Sign O' The Times" seemed to represent that very door of life which he was just about to walk through.

The audible crowd sounds and European ambulance sirens in the distance phase "Sign O' The Times" into   the album's second track, the buoyant and dizzyingly executed "Play In The Sunshine," which sounds as if it has merged a Chuck Berry beat with Frank Zappa's sonics down to the dancing percussion mallets on the vibes. And then, with the abrupt sound of the needle scratching against vinyl and a harshly shouted "SHUT UP, ALREADY! DAMN!!," the James Brown pastiche "Housequake," with brass section performed by Atlanta Bliss and the aforementioned Eric Leeds, and also the first to feature the "Camille" character on the album (Prince's voice sped up), is the latest curve ball in an album that has only unfolded for the duration of perhaps 10 minutes. What I remember so vividly at this precise moment is that I instinctively grabbed my nearby drum sticks as this song began to "play" along with everything that I was hearing and it then struck me as more than fitting that the album cover displays a gorgeous yellow drum set just waiting to be played.

For everything that has ever been written about Prince's skills as a guitarist, very little has ever been written about his skills as a drummer and Prince is indeed a spectacular drummer. As with the guitar, the bass and all manner of keyboards and synthesizers, Prince truly understand the instruments and functions of drums and percussion to a complete degree, so much so, that when he utilizes drum machines, he is able to program beats and patterns unlike anyone that I have ever heard before. Prince has the uncanny ability to truly make the synthetic sound so completely organic that you can almost hear sticks hitting the drum heads even when there are none. For his productions and especially throughout the entirety of "Sign O' The Times," Prince shifts back and forth from full drum programs to live drums to tracks where some drums are indeed live and then combined with some that are programmed, making the entire percussion tracks the very kind that can only ever exist within Prince songs--another inventive tool in creating his own musical language.

For "Housequake," it is if he has taken everything he ever learned from James Brown and how to manipulate rhythm and beats and then, he proceeded to essentially re-invent the wheel! Just listen to the bass drum beats of "Housequake," a song about a great new dance that Prince (or do I mean Camille) has devised and is only to happy to teach you but as he says, the rhythms and dance movements are so inverted that when he says "U can't follow it," you can only fall down laughing as you understand just how right and just how far ahead of the curve he is on every conceivable level as he has essentially prefigured all of the jaw dropping beats the hip hop genre would devise far into the future from this album...just as figures such as Madlib, DJ Shadow and the late, great J Dilla have accomplished. Just a sensational piece of work.

Even more sensational is the side's closing track "The Ballad Of Dorothy Parker," not the celebrated acerbic writer but a tall, fine night shift waitress on the Promenade with dish water blonde hair who receives a lot of tips for her services. In a strange way, the track is somewhat reminiscent of The Beatles' "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)," not in sound but in subject matter as both tracks deal with a clandestine affair in a seductively muted atmosphere. The song, to this day, just blows my mind as it feels as if it is a song that arrived fully formed from out of the ether, untouched by any influences whatsoever and Prince was blessed to be the conduit to bring it to life. While the influences of soul, funk and jazz (as well as a Joni Mitchell reference) are prevalent, it just possesses a quality that again demonstrates how Prince became one of those rare artists who eventually took everything that influenced them and transformed it in such a way to invent their own musical language and with "The Ballad Of Dorothy Parker," what we are hearing is nothing more or less than "Prince music."

Lyrically, the song carries a certain arcane poetry that does take some deciphering with its talk about a "violent room," "an affliction brought on by a witch's curse" and so on. But I do think that overall, the track was beginning to showcase Prince's growing maturity as a man, especially in regards to his relationships with women. Where in "Raspberry Beret," his lover was described as not being "too bright," Dorothy Parker quite represents the individual he has grown to find himself seeking as he wants "someone with a quicker wit" than his own. As the song continues, and our narrator has found himself in a space away from the aforementioned violent room and submerged in a bubble bath while still wearing his pants, he exits the tub to change in Dorothy's presence but "she didn't see the movie/cuz she hadn't read the book first," possibly a metaphor for not engaging in a sexual act without the presence of love and trust first.

The emotional evolution of Prince (or at least his persona) plays a major role throughout "Sign O' The Times," especially when compared to the albums prior to this one. Yes, we still have tracks that feel like updates of the dark carnal funk of the "1999" album like the brooding "IT," with its propulsive, churning, repetitive drums, percussive orchestral samples, moody keyboards and left field guitar sonics and also on the spectacular "Hot Thing," which features a blazing Maceo Parker-ish saxophone work by Eric Leeds, an instantly catchy synthesizer hook that sounds like a long night in a sinister Asian themed brothel and vocal harmonics that suggest something from The Beatles' "Revolver" album.

But then, we have his ballads, which are some of the finest he has ever written. This is an especially high-water mark of course, considering the countless ballads Prince has composed over the past 36 years but they are indeed some of his most endearing and enduring selections because, I feel, that these are not just "ballads," these are love songs expressed from the inside out in their full emotional complexity and honesty. To think, this was the man who wanted to do nothing more than "Jack U Off." But on "Sign O' The Times," he delivers a breathtaking standard entitled "Slow Love," splendidly presented and augmented with the late Claire Fischer's orchestra, on which he declares that the intimacy is "so much better when we take our time." And on the nearly seven minute guitar epic "I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man," our narrator rejects a female suitor with the classic chorus, "Baby, don't waste your time/I know what's on your mind/I may be qualified 4 a one night stand/But I could never take the place of your man."

Also evolving from the past and even more powerful is the sparse, striking "Forever In My Life," on which Prince nakedly and so vulnerably sings a capella, accompanied only by a heartbeat paced drum machine, on which he proclaims that "I never imagined that love would rain on me/And make me want 2 settle down/Baby, it's true, I think I do/And I just wanna tell U that I wanna with U." And then, there's the album's closing track, the extraordinary, six minute-plus "Adore," which glides on Prince's peerless falsetto, a slow jam snap, flawless Duke Ellington flow courtesy of Eric Leeds and Atlanta Bliss' horns and again the sheer honest emotion that pours from your speakers and lifts your soul. "Without U, there is no me/There is no me without U," he sings in a tone that asserts that he actually means the words that he is singing. And the track concludes, before a choir of multi-tracked vocals spiraling into the air, "4 all time I am with U/And U are with me." And again, to think, this is from the man who once lasciviously sang, "Let's Pretend We're Married."

But it is not all hearts and flowers on "Sign O' The Times," especially when Prince's alter ego Camille "takes over" lead vocals. While "U Got The Look," a duet with Sheena Easton and powered by Shelia E.'s drums and percussion, and swaggers in from the same neighborhood as "IT" and "Hot Thing," the Middle eastern flavored "Strange Relationship" explores demonstrably messier emotional waters. "I guess U know me well, I don't like Winter/But I seem 2 get a kick out of doing U cold," our narrator confesses nonchalantly. Those messier emotional waters only grow deeper as the song continues, depicting the affairs we sometimes get ourselves entangled with against all better judgement to the degree that we may not even understand why we are involved in them in the first place. "I came and took your love, I took your body/I took all the self respect U had/I took U 4 a ride and baby, I'm sorry/The more U love me the more it makes me mad." 

Yet, in an album that is bursting at the seams with audacious moments and songs, there was nothing more audacious than "If I Was Your Girlfriend," which on first listen could seem to be the most bizarre slab of psycho-sexual disorder but is actually quite profound and almost seems as if Prince showing a bit of himself behind the veil of personas and identities. The song begins with the sound of an orchestra warming up and the beginnings of an organ playing wedding music before it is all abruptly halted and transformed into a gloomy mood piece with subtle and slightly menacing bass guitar and churning drum beats that sound like a slowing, bruised and broken heartbeat, suggesting that the romantic bliss has all fallen apart and shattered completely. The androgyny of the song featuring Prince as Camille singing to a woman in a song with this title arrives immediately with the song's first line, which certainly confused the hell out of me when I first heard it: "If I was your girlfriend, would U remember 2 tell me all the things U forgot when I was your man?" Huh, what?? 

Soon, however, all becomes clear as the song becomes a plea for an intimacy that only seems to exist within the closeness of friends rather than romantic partners and where those lines are drawn are lines that constantly shift and blur leaving Camille (or is it Prince) completely dilapidated, especially as his vocal performance becomes more desperate. Just listen to how he stretches the word, "Pleee-eee-eeee-eee-eeese!!" at one point, almost sounding distorted. And the line, "If I was your one and only friend/Would U run 2 me if somebody hurt U/Even if that somebody was me?/Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be" is possibly one of the most devastating and truthfully painful lines he has ever composed. Just take a moment and allow those words to sink in. It's fine, I'll wait...Yeah. We've ALL been there haven't we?

"If I Was Your Girlfriend" is a dark song of love and loss and Prince just nails the desire of obtaining that ultimate sense of intimacy with the one you cherish the most but unfortunately, you are the one left unrequited with such a precise perceptiveness that the song feels tremendously lived in. The song's provocative ending sequence where Camille (or again, is it Prince) confronts the woman and spirals through a series of questions that are by turns pleading, pathetic, accusatory, seductive, and challenging and all the while we know he is on the losing end of the discussion.

"Is it really necessary 4 me 2 go out of the room
just because U wanna undress?
I mean, we don't have 2 make children 2 make love
And then, we don't have 2 make love 2 have an orgasm
Your body's what I'm all about
Can I see U?
I'll show U
Why not?
U can think it's because I'm your friend I'll do it 4 U
Of course I'll undress in front of U!
And when I'm naked, what shall I do?
How can I make U see that it's cool?
Can't U just trust me?
If I was your girlfriend U could
Oh, yeah, I think so..."

It is a sequence that is just...oh well...masturbatory and still filled with such anger, retribution, hopelessness, confusion and a supreme heartache that it almost feels too personal to even be listening to. It is a four minute and fifty four second masterpiece that will undoubtedly leave you wondering what exactly does silence look like.

And to think even after all of the above, "Sign O' The Times" also features the garage rock spiritual hymn "The Cross," the psychedelic children's song "Starfish And Coffee," which features a terrific backwards snare drum effect phased from one speaker to the other and finally, the nine minute "It's Gonna Be A Beautiful Night," a track recorded live in Paris during the final performance by The Revolution.

From nearly the very beginning of the album all the way through sides two, three and four, I was completely hypnotized and existed transfixed during the entirety of listening to "Sign O' The Times" for the very first time. My drum sticks never stopped moving for the duration and I simply wanted nothing whatsoever to break the spell that Prince had weaved into my basement room to such a captivating degree. It was truly rare for me to have been so enraptured from the start as far as Prince albums were concerned as they did (and still do) tend to take some time for the music and myself to get to know each other. But this album...this album connected and carried me through the remainder of my high school days, the full summer and my transition to college with such comfort, security and I really think, the courage and ability to make my next life transition and face it on my own terms...just as Prince was accomplishing by taking his art back into himself again just for the purpose of moving forwards.

With the mountains of music that Prince has released over the years, I always return to this album as being my absolute favorite that he has ever made. It is an album of such daring, bravery, consistent surprises, and an unfiltered, unrepentant, and downright fearless creativity, the likes of which I feel that I have rarely experienced on quite this level right as it was happening. I truly feel blessed to have just been in the world with the very consciousness to appreciate and receive this one-of-a-kind musical message and triumphant artistic statement so fully and completely.

And if anyone younger than myself were to ask me what it was like to have heard "Sign O' The Times" for the first time, all I would have to do would be to point them right to this posting. Dear readers and listeners, it was so good, that I wish I could hear it for the first time all over again.

A RESPITE FROM THE NOISE OF LIFE: "MORNING PHASE" BECK

"MORNING PHASE"
BECK
Produced by Beck
Released February 25, 2014

"You need to build an ability to just be yourself and not be doing something. That's what the phones are taking away, is the ability to just sit there. That's being a person. Because underneath everything in your life there is that thing, that empty—forever empty. That knowledge that it's all for nothing and that you're alone. It's down there...And sometimes when things clear away, you're not watching anything, you're in your car, and you start going, 'oh no, here it comes. That I'm alone.' It's starts to visit on you. Just this sadness. Life is tremendously sad, just by being in it...Just be sad. Just let the sadness, stand in the way of it, and let it hit you like a truck...And I let it come, and I just started to feel 'oh my God,'and I pulled over and I just cried like a bitch. I cried so much. And it was beautiful. Sadness is poetic. You're lucky to live sad moments. And then I had happy feelings. Because when you let yourself feel sad, your body has antibodies, it has happiness that comes rushing in to meet the sadness. So I was grateful to feel sad, and then I met it with true, profound happiness. It was such a trip."
-Louis CK

I love that collection of quotes from comedian Louis CK, as he recounted on Conan O'Brien's late night talk show as I truly believe he hit upon a profound societal truth pertaining to our collective experience in the 21st century. We are a society that seems to be incapable of living without some sense of distraction, some signals or signs that are always jockeying for our attention and in a lot of cases, some signals or signs that are ultimately self-validating. We are a busier society than ever as 24 hours truly do not seem to be enough to accomplish all that we need to, let alone provide us with the time to achieve what we wish to. We are pulled in every conceivable direction by all manner of people and tasks and I honestly cannot tell you how many times that I have heard from others, as well as uttering the same sentiments to myself, about how we all wish that we could be detached from it all, to find some sense of aloneness, some solitude, some space away from the persistent noise of life long enough to re-group, recharge and perhaps to even give us the energy to re-connect to the world. But as Louis CK also brilliantly explains, are we a society that is truly willing to allow ourselves to have that aloneness for what emotions would that time without distractions unearth and could we handle them once they arrived?

On an early Saturday morning, immediately after a week long blast of wild winter weather including ice storms, rain, and even periods of thunder snow, plus copious amounts of shoveling, re-shoveling and re-shoveling plus all of the daily responsibilities of life which all seemed to pile up skywards due to all of that aforementioned wild, winter weather, I was driving around my fair city performing some minor errands when I slid "Morning Phase," the latest album from Beck, his first release in almost six years, into the CD player. Little did I know what I was in for...

By now, I am certain that you have all heard or read that Beck's "Morning Phase" is a supremely warm, welcoming, beguiling, airy experience, an assessment to which I wholeheartedly agree. But I also do believe that it is an album of quiet melancholy, where emotional turbulence underpins the sonic peacefulness. It is as if Beck has figured out how to transform the likes of Buffalo Springfield's elegant track "Expecting To Fly" from the "Buffalo Springfield Again" album (released October 30, 1967), into a sophisticated song cycle that is completely enveloping from the album's first few seconds, which arrives in a near wall of mournful strings, orchestrated by Beck's Father, David Campbell.

As the opening string laden intro entitled "Cycle" segues into the beautiful "Morning," I was instantly disarmed emotionally and quickly discovered that this new album is really not one designed to be listened to in the company of others. It is an album designed to be an intimate conversation between yourself and the music. It is an album designed to be listened to and fully experienced without distractions, without computers or televisions or any devices that begin with the letter "I," without any bleeps or blips or flashing lights from your Smartphones or any voices in your ears other than the sound of Beck's, who supplies his strongest singing to date with this release as his lead vocals are enveloped by his gorgeously multi-tracked harmony vocals which "ooh" and "aaah" into the ether as if they exist as an existential sigh.

Much has also been written about how "Morning Phase" functions as a quasi-sequel to Beck's wrenching masterpiece "Sea Change" (released September 24, 2002) and with that assessment, I also wholeheartedly agree. I remember when I first heard that album how I was instantly struck, to a sobering degree, by the unabashed sincerity of the album as well as the unquestionable heartbreak that inspired it. Unlike the albums previous to it, "Sea Change" really did not contain Beck's trademark and near hallucinogenic sonic flash or head spinning lyrical puzzles. It was an album of pure unadulterated emotion that connected so powerfully that I began to wonder why Beck just didn't make every album like that one. But if he had, then we wouldn't have received "Guero" (released March 29, 2005), "The Information" (released October 3, 2006), and "Modern Guilt" (released July 8, 2008), all terrific albums that have expanded Beck's musical palate wondrously.

On "Morning Phase," we return to the same sonic landscape as "Sea Change" as the hallucinogenic sonic flash has been considerably dialed down as any hints of psychedelic touches are gentle, muted and subtle. Additionally, there are also no head spinning lyrical puzzles to speak of. It is an album, once again, of that sincere and pure unadulterated emotion. As with several of his past releases, Beck, in addition to his own multi-instrumentalist skills, is again working with his core team of musical compatriots, including guitarist Smokey Hormel, drummer Joey Waronker, bassist Justin Meldal-Johnsen, the great keyboardist Roger Joseph Manning Jr. and guitarist Jason Falkner (a great artist in his own right) and this time, has even added the legendary bassist Stanley Clarke into the mix. And again, like "Sea Change,"  the album's secret weapon arrives in the form of Beck's own Father, David Campbell. Where Campbell's stunning string arrangements on "Sea Change" seemed to emulate the type of turbulent orchestral backdrops we heard on Elton John's "Madman Across The Water" (released November 5, 1971). For "Morning Phase," the mournful strings seemed to remind me of elements of what Jon Brion achieved with his nearly emotionally paralyzing film score to Paul Thomas Anderson's "Magnolia" (1999), as the orchestra makes your heart stop on the proverbial dime every time they appear throughout the album.

On a more conceptual level is where the two albums separate. Where "Sea Change" found itself in the maelstrom of emotional turmoil brought on by the devastating end of a long term relationship, "Morning Phase" finds itself long in its aftermath, perhaps even long past more emotional upheavals or even after the passing of a long, dark night. Here is where I think Beck's album can even serve as the unofficial third section of an unofficial music trilogy with Broken Bells' "After The Disco" (released January 31, 2014) serving as the first part with music to serve as the soundtrack of sad lonely nights walking home alone, and The Flaming Lips' "The Terror" (released April 1, 2013) serving as the second installment, the crippling dark night of the soul. "Morning Phase" represents a new day's dawning, where the pain is still present but maybe less sharp and the hurts are slowly fading as the sun rises. While all three albums have seemed to pinpoint a certain 21st century malaise, and even Beck himself sings "I'm so tired of being alone" at the opening of the selection "Blue Moon," "Morning Phase" is certainly the most hopeful of the three, as it slowly finds the inexplicable solitude necessary to provide a state of inner healing and motivation to forge ahead.

"Woke up this morning/From a long night in the storm," Beck begins in the album's first lyrical tack "Morning." "Looked up this morning./Saw the roses full of thorns/Mountains are falling/They don't have nowhere to go/The ocean's a diamond/That only shines when you're alone." Those opening lines, sung over a slow motion beat and an acoustic guitar that sounds as if it was lifted from the back of Neil Young's pickup truck circa 1971, sets the stage for the entire album, which functions as a near continuous acoustic/symphonic piece that just happens to be divided up into songs. Perhaps as meditations presented to himself as well as to all of us listening, Beck captures, in one track after another, an emotional fragility the listener does not have to provide any work on their own to discover. These are not songs that you have to learn or get to know in order to enjoy their luxuriousness and emotional palate. "Morning Phase" is an album of directness, making for music that instantaneously meets you right where you are beautifully and effortlessly.

The album continues with the cool summer morning breeze of "Heart Is A Drum,"  as Beck attempts to finds ways to release himself from the pains of life as a necessity to keep moving forwards himself as life and time stops for no one. Like the album's music itself, Beck sings, "I need to find someone to show me how to play it slow/And just let it go." And let it go he does on "Say Goodbye" ("Sort it out and let it burn/Empty out and empty drawer/In my pockets there's nothing more") and "Unforgiven" as Beck finds himself driving far away "into the afterglow," the very unknown place where the music, and the downbeats in particular, phase themselves into.

The tone poem "Wave" is the album's stunning and voluminous centerpiece as it contains nothing more than Beck's voice surrounded by an increasing surge of David Campbell's strings signifying the point when being alone and facing down the beast of sadness becomes a flood of emotion at its most overwhelming. "Isolation," Beck intones and repeats several times as the strings swirl, surround and eventually sweep Beck, and all of us away.

From this point, "Morning Phase" seems to find Beck attempting to find his way back from the sadness, the despair hoping to reconnect again in tracks like "Don't Let It Go," the sublime "Blackbird Chain" ("I'll never, never, never, never, never, never refuse you."), the atmospheric "Turn Away" ("The wall that love divides/Between waking and slumber/Turn away") and the country and western influenced "Country Down."

The gorgeously elegiac "Waking Light" closes the album on a triumphant note as the winding chords and ascending musical patterns feel to to mirror that of the sight and feelings experienced when observing a full sunrise and the sense of possibility that arrives with the start of a new day. The night has been long and arduous but life goes on and in the case of this album, so does Beck ...and so shall we as well.

"Morning Phase" is as it sounds, an album for the morning, and decidedly not the afternoon or night, as it is meant for the period in which are minds are not as clouded or cluttered with the noise of life. In fact, "Morning Phase" is designed to help all of us take some time away from the noise of life as it is an album that represents the sound of rejuvenation, rebirth and reawakening, a process I believe that we all tend to experience while in the throes of solitude. But what I feel that we can all experience together regarding this work is the celebration of an artist like Beck and the collective blessings we have knowing that an artist of his talent, skill and empathy is here among us at this very point in our collective existence, writing songs and sharing them with us.

Whatever emotions you experience while listening to this album, I urge you to confront them fully and to just allow them and your full selves to just...be. To be in the moment, the sadness, the release, and the reconstruction.

And let Beck's miraculous album provide you with the soundtrack. 

THE MUSIC OF 2014: PART ONE

"EP2"
PIXIES
Produced by Gil Norton
Released January 3, 2014
The musical year of 2014 began with exuberant, brute force but don't let the power chords and insistent cowbell in the opening moments of the Pixies' "EP2," fool you for the skies of the new year are darkening indeed.  For those who felt that 2013's "EP1" was perhaps a tad too sedate, I feel that "EP2," the second in a series of planned digital/vinyl releases, should do the trick nicely as the first track, "Blue Eyed Hexe" is precisely the roaring Pixies track that should bring a sense of familiarity to the proceedings while also blazing a new path forwards. Bandleader/songwriter/singer/guitarist Black Francis immediately returns to his status as one of the most unhinged sounding men in alternative rock as he intones about "vivisection" and a "goat of lust" at the beginning of the song and ends the track with his patented primal screams. The four track "EP2" continues into those menacing corners with the spooky, witchy "Magdalena," and the gloriously sorrowful farewell of "Greens and Blues." But it is the apocalyptic warnings contained in the closing track "Snakes" that truly get under your skin. "Snakes/Are coming to your town/In tunnels underground/Some travelling overground/A plague for our mistakes/They'll be right next to you/Snakes up against me too/There'll be nothing to do/When the rattle shakes," goes the chorus and if the metaphorical end times are imminent, then the Pixies have provided the soundtrack.

"AFTER THE DISCO"
BROKEN BELLS
Produced by Danger Mouse
Released February 4, 2014
The sophomore full length album from the two man collective made up of James Mercer from The Shins and producer/Gnarls Barkley member Brian Burton, otherwise known as Danger Mouse, is another piece of 2014 music that is seemingly designed to represent a societal hangover from the high partying atmosphere of 2013, as represented by the likes of Daft Punk and Justin Timberlake's mega selling albums. "After The Disco" sounds precisely like its title, a collection of melancholic songs filled with downbeats and the feeling of many sad late night walks home as resented through Mercers empathetic vocals and the richly warm synthetic sheen. That said, the album is not a depressing affair as all of the songs themselves are highly melodic, tuneful, completely ear catching and all filtered through crisp, clean production and a hybrid of hip hop/indie rock/New Wave and 1960's girl group references. Most certainly, there are elements of 1970s disco, which can be head in the vaguely Bee Gee's nod "Holding On For Life." But I think the real sonic surprises can be found in the album's six minute plus opening track "Perfect World," the slinky "The Remains Of Rock And Roll" which curls around your ears luxuriously and the more forceful and almost Black Keys' influenced "Leave It Alone."

"ATLAS"

REAL ESTATE

Produced by Tom Schick

Released March 4, 2014

My introduction to the band Real Estate arrived through an impulse purchase of the band's second album "Days" (released October 18, 2011) at a local record store three years ago. I cannot even begin to tell you what album I had planned to purchase initially as Real Estate's dreamy guitar pop launched itself to the forefront of my attention, and each year since, every Spring, I tend to bring the album out of the archives as the music sounds like a new warmth arriving on the breeze and grass begins its gradual shift from dormancy to lushly green. With the arrival of the band's third album "Atlas," the once three man band has now expanded to five full members, yet none of the sound has grown to become remotely bloated. Quite the contrary, "Atlas" warmly occupies that very head space that exists between the states of waking and dreaming, the precise mid-point when you realize that you are falling slowly into slumber but you are still somewhat aware of the world around you. That is not to say that Real Estate is a band that can be called "boring." Despite its very relaxed sound, the songs are intricately composed and performed with interlocking guitar lines that suggest a considerably less aggressive/avant garde King Crimson and also make me think of the band as an updated version of the type of mesmerizing guitar work you might hear in The Byrds, early R.E.M. or through some 1980's British alternative pop. At the time of this writing, I have listened to the album in full just two times so far but the effect is instantaneously appealing and just awaiting the next warm, sunshine filled day for me to allow the music to flow from my car windows out into the Springtime air.

WSPC'S FAVORITE ALBUMS: "ORANGES & LEMONS" XTC (1989)

"ORANGES & LEMONS" (1989)
XTC
All music and lyrics by Andy Partridge except...
"King For A Day,""One Of The Millions," and "Cynical Days," 
all music and lyrics by Colin Moulding
Produced by Paul Fox and XTC
Released February 27, 1989

XTC:
Andy Partridge: Lead Vocals, Backing Vocals, Acoustic Guitars, Electric Guitars
Colin Moulding: Lead Vocals, Backing Vocals, Bass Guitars, Acoustic Guitars 
Dave Gregory: Acoustic Guitars, Electric Guitars, Piano, Keyboards, Synthesizers
with
Pat Mastelotto: Drums, Percussion, Electronic Percussion
Mark Isham: Trumpet

After such a brutally and unforgivably long winter, it is time to bring in the sunshine!

Have you ever been so anxious to hear a new piece of music from a long cherished artists that the anticipation is almost overcoming? As you could gather, I have experienced that very sensation more times than I could possibly recount to you. But in the case of the album that I am about to celebrate and commemorate, just shortly after the official 25th anniversary of its release, my anticipation completely took me over and practically seeped into my dreams as I could not wait to hear it.

The band is XTC. Hailing from the town of Swindon, England, XTC entered our public musical consciousness via the New Wave scene of the late 1970's and early 1980's, under the dual songwriting leadership of guitarist/singer Andy Partridge and bassist/singer Colin Moulding and featured a musical palate that combined herky jerky post-punk rock rhythms with a hugely melodic soundscape and a extraordinary literary slant to their lyrics that is so sadly missing from music currently. After experiencing a few band line-up changes and the severe trauma brought on by Andy Partridge's crippling stage fright, XTC retired from touring entirely in 1982 yet for the following twenty three years of their career, XTC became a studio band creating increasingly lush, endlessly creative, richly timeless and, as far as I am concerned, flat out essential albums for anyone's music collection time and time again to great critical acclaim but unfortunately to low album sales and chart positions aside from a few minor hit singles like "Making Plans For Nigel," "Senses Working Overtime," and "Life Begins At The Hop." Their 1989 release "Oranges & Lemons" grandly sits near the very tip-top of their hugely impressive discography and I am so honored to celebrate it for you at this time.

XTC entered my life quite auspiciously at the age of 13 and via a once close Middle School companion named Naomi Spector. I honestly do not exactly remember how we first met and she did eventually transfer away from my school early in High School but for a couple of years, she and I somehow became extremely close friends. Naomi was precisely the type of girl my parents did not approve of and she annoyed them to no end, a point they quite often made clear to me in no uncertain terms, a friction that did cause considerable tension at home. Naomi was aggressive and more than a little persistent. We would talk on the phone for hours on end and within seconds of hanging up, she would call me right back, thus angering my parents even more. Naomi did tend to have a flair for the dramatic as well and she was a person who seemed to be so left of center from my friends and most definitely myself. She was so far ahead of me in terms of music and film having heard and seen many things that I had not even considered to expose myself to yet. She was much more "worldly" than I (as much as one can be worldly at the age of 12) through her overall attitude, frequent excursions into harsh profanities even with adults present, and she was one of the few people I knew at that time who was being raised by a single parent and was often left to her own devices, an aspect which did lend her quite a bit of mystery for me. And still, with her freckles, lushly flowing red hair and soft facial features, there was a tenderness she often revealed to me during quieter moments as we spent copious amounts of time together doing nothing after school as I awaited my Mom's arrival to take me home...and only then would Naomi typically leave school and presumably return to her home. Naomi and I were never "boyfriend/girlfriend" but I do wonder if we could have been. On school bus field trips, we often sat together holding hands and Naomi was also the girl who gave me my very first kiss (of course something she had already experienced at her previous school).

Sometime in 1982, Naomi gave me two gifts that altered my life forever. There was, of course, the aforementioned first kiss, and on my 13th birthday, she gave me the XTC album "Black Sea" (released September 12, 1980) as a present. Both gifts scrambled my brains, albeit in completely different ways as the reaction of one was immediate gratifying while the other took years to fully resonate. If I only knew where she was today, I would graciously thank her for both.    

I had never even heard of XTC before she placed the record album into my hands and truth be told, while listening to the "Black Sea" album for the first time, I discovered that XTC was indeed quite a bit like Naomi herself. They were left of center alright, defiantly so. While I did like the overall attack of their crash of guitars and pounding drums, XTC sounded more abrasive than I was accustomed to, and frankly, it was to the point of being almost bratty. Andy Patridge's howling vocal delivery was conducted through a flurry of lyrics that were either presented passionately or if he were in the throes of some sort of seizure. On very first listen, I just did not get it. I frankly didn't even like it. And I could not understand why Naomi thought I would like this band in the first place. But, as it often was between herself and I, she proved herself to be right once again but the realization took quite a bit of time.

I listened to "Black Sea" intermittently over the next few years, finding myself eventually charmed by songs like "Towers Of London," "Sgt. Rock (Is Going To Help Me)" and "No Language In Our Lungs." Additionally, I did catch more XTC songs here and there when my radio listening graduated to Chicago's peerless WXRT-FM, but my second official introduction to the band arrived during my first year of college in 1987. During that time, my entire world was completely overtaken by the musical legacy of Todd Rundgren as his music provided me with my personal soundtrack and I was purchasing practically anything that had his name on it. This of course led me to XTC's most celebrated album "Skylarking" (released October 27, 1986), a gorgeous song cycle that Rundgren produced and is also quite infamous for the inclusion of the surprise b-side college radio smash hit "Dear God,"which eventually ended up replacing the track "Mermaid Smiled" on the album in subsequent editions. Furthermore, much has already been written about the behind the scenes turmoil in the making of the album as Rundgren and Andy Partridge clashed so frequently and powerfully that it has taken many years for Partridge to concede and realize that Rundgren's skills and suggestions helped XTC achieved the glory that is "Skylarking."

As with "Black Sea," I just did not quite get "Skylarking" upon first listen but the album was decidedly less abrasive, even more overtly melodic and the equally overt "Beatle-esque" qualities were certainly a draw. And slowly but surely, I began to succumb to its succulent beauty, and ultimately, what the beauty of XTC actually was in its entirety. I eventually poured over the album and that experience led me to the sonic boom that was "Chips From The Chocolate Fireball," which XTC released in August 1987 under the pseudonym of The Dukes Of Stratosphear. Collecting the 1985 EP "25 O'Clock" and the full album "Psonic Psunspot," The Dukes Of Stratosphear finds XTC in full blown psychedelia as they combine their own influences with those of 1967 era Beatles, Beach Boys, The Kinks, Pink Floyd and whatever else they could think of into a phantasmagorical musical stew that blew my head apart and I listened to CONSTANTLY!!! I played tracks from it on my radio show as often as I was able and I pestered my friends with it, as I could not believe the glory that I was hearing and I wanted everyone to hear what I was hearing too!

This was the point where I realized more than ever what XTC was all about and what gifted songwriters and musicians they happened to be, so seemingly untouchable that they were truly in a class of their own making. And this very realization, many years in the making, made me more prepared than ever for whatever musical project would arrive next.

On the morning of Tuesday, February 27, 1989, I was sitting in my English class located in Science Hall, enduring another fatuous lecture from my verbally flatulent Professor, just counting the minutes until class was over and I could race to the now defunct Discount Records on State Street the moment they opened and purchase XTC's (then) next musical statement, "Oranges & Lemons." When I arrived at the store and held the CD in my hands, the sight of the "Yellow Submarine" inspired artwork of the cover just enlivened my every synapse and I could not get back to my dorm room fast enough to hear it--that is if my roommate did not have his portable CD player with him. Thankfully, upon entering the room, I saw that his CD player was sitting silently upon our desk. I tuned in the stereo, inserted the disc and pressed "PLAY."

Dear readers and listeners, I want to impress upon you as best as I am possibly able, that XTC's "Oranges & Lemons" is the perfect antidote to a long and harsh winter as it is a sunshine filled bouncing ball of perfectly produced and executed psychedelic pop that not only picks up from where The Beatles left off circa 1968, but it is also a timeless work that not only confirmed this album as being one of the very best of the 1980's, but also that XTC was unquestionably one of the finest bands the New Wave/post-punk rock era ever produced. "Oranges & Lemons" opens with three tracks so warmly euphoric that they are almost powerful enough to summon the first crocuses to spring forth through the frozen wintry ground by sheer force of will. But it was the first 19 seconds of the album that made my head spin around so brilliantly that I had to hear it again before I could move forwards.

The spectacular sonic swirl of "Garden Of Earthly Delights" begins the album and opens with what sounds like the din and bells from a Middle Eastern bazaar and then explodes into a furiously paced "Welcome to Earth" ode that is a pastiche of accelerated percussion, DEEP bass, and a guitar solo that sounds as if it is flying on its own magic carpet. It is a song that commands you to rise to your feet and dance...that is, if you can keep up with it, before it eventually settles down into a coda that conjures a stroll through pastoral India.

"The Mayor Of Simpleton" is the album's glorious second track, a love song so blissful, so beautifully written, so humorous and heart lifting that it plasters a smile upon your face by its first notes. Andy Partridge's songwriting gifts could not be more evident as he utilizes a severely clever literary wit to present a tale of a young suitor who has "Never been near a university/Never took a paper or a learned degree" and is unable to "Get past the covers of your books profound" trying to win his enchanted crush's heart. I truly dare you to find a song more delightfully rapturous than this one as you will fall in love with this song just as we hope the intended young lass falls for the song's narrator when he sings "Well I don't know how to tell the weight of the sun/And of Mathematics, well I want none/And I may be the Mayor Of Simpleton but I know one thing/And that's I love you." 

Colin Moulding steps up to the plate for the album's outstanding third track "King For A Day." While Moulding is not as prolific as Partridge and typically possesses fewer songs per XTC album, he is entirely about quality over quantity as his songs can stand toe to toe with Partridge's any day of the week. "King For A Day" takes a shuffle groove, a guitar line that bounces from speaker to speaker, and kind of updates Tears For Fears' "Everybody Wants To Rule The World" to create a song where dark subject matter can be transformed into pure musical gold that is infectiously joyous to hear while thought provoking and speaks to the spirit. It is a song that you can sing along with instantaneously as its melodies will plaster themselves to your brain.

Over the course of 60 full minutes, "Oranges  Lemons" simply continued to reveal itself as one of the great double album as the sheer breadth of material keeps you captivated for every second of every song. Andy Partridge's "Lennon-esque" acerbic wit and bile comes to the surface in the anti-war "Here Comes President Kill Again," and the overly political "Across This Antheap" and "Scarecrow People." And he is able to miraculously shape shift his songwriting gifts to serve up the acoustic funk of "Poor Skeleton Steps Out," the enormously moving Father/son reconciliation "Hold Me My Daddy," the near lounge jazz of "Miniature Sun" and even the either touching or cheerfully puerile "Pink Thing," which could be read as an ode to a new born son or an ode to his own...ahem...member ("When I stroke your head I feel a hundred heartbeats high")!

Colin Moulding's remaining two tracks on the album are equally magnificent. The extraordinary "One Of The Millions" has got to be the jauntiest song I've heard about crippling insecurity and emotional paralysis as it see-saws along through "Magical Mystery Tour" sonics courtesy of the cyclical guitars, Mark Isham's trumpets, the surround sound drums and percussion and Moulding's bass guitar work which practically leapfrogs through the entire track. On the flipside, the melancholic"Cynical Days," featuring Dave Gregory's empathetic keyboard washes and Mark Isham's despondent trumpet, gracefully cements the sorrowful lyrics with stunning sophistication.

The album concludes with "Chalkhills And Children," a track that sounds as luxurious as anything Brian Wilson conceived during The Beach Boys' "SMiLE" era. It is a soaring tune that explores the transportive power of imagination and how life's responsibilities and one's family provide the gentle anchors to keep us grounded. With the repeated refrain of  "Even I never know where I go when my eyes are closed," the "Oranges & Lemons" album fades, floats and drifts off into the ether like a child's balloon lost in the clouds.

Dear readers and listeners, after hearing this album for 25 years now, it just strikes me more and more how masterful a band XTC actually was and how shameful that they never really saw their day in the sun as richly as they deserved. Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding proved themselves as masterful songwriters and musicians and Dave Gregory, while not a songwriter, showed that he was the band's crucial secret weapon as his elegant arrangements, keyboard word and blistering guitar heroics elevated absolutely every single song to its highest peaks. Augmented for this album by Drummer, session musician and (then) future member of King Crimson, Pat Mastelotto performed valiantly and with an elasticity that was purely athletic and attaining Mark Isham, a formidable musician and composer in his own right, for his brass work must have been some sort of coup.

I believe that every album possesses a story and certainly not one exclusively limited to the musicians, producers and the songs themselves. The best albums convey and hold stories that extend outward to the listeners that cherish them and my story contained with "Oranges And Lemons" has remained as powerful as it was when I listened to it the first time. As I hold the CD right now, it is as if there is a certain set of memories contained within my DNA that instantly spring to life. I have already recounted to you the day I purchased the album. But even afterwards, literally just one day after purchasing it, I came down with a nasty cold that kept me from my classes and my most generous roommate, left his CD player in our room so I could keep listening to the album, which I did, on repeat, all day long for I loved it so much. It is an album that has enriched me, enlivened me, uplifted me, and has filled me with the dreamlike hope that great music can quite possibly change the world.

XTC's "Oranges & Lemons" is an unorthodox, idiosyncratic, unconventional and quintessentially British album that is also dynamically melodic, wholly accessible and completely universal. For those of you who have heard this album, you already understand everything that I have described. But for those of you who have not heard it, I urge you to seek it out and play it loudly and summon the warmth of spring to fully arrive, if not in actual temperatures and the sight of green grass but in terms of your spirit. For I can guarantee, once you hear tracks like the utopian anthem "Merely A Man," with its thunderous bass, propulsive drums, soulful guitars and "Penny Lane" influenced trumpets, you will feel as if you are in the center of a parade even if there is no one else around. Or even better yet, there's "The Loving," which seemingly resurrects Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band for a return performance, and Andy Partridge announces "The loving's COMING!!!!" Man, you believe it!!!! You truly believe!!!!

WSPC SESSION NOTES FOR MARCH 2014

FROM THE DJ's STUDIO DESK:

It is time for Synesthesia to receive some well deserved attention.

Due to all of the pre-Academy Award activity that was especially prevalent upon my companion blogsite Savage Cinema, Synesthesia was not able to receive the attention that it deeply needed last month. Now just so you are aware as to how I orchestrate Synesthesia, throughout the entirety of the month, I play songs and selections on the mythical WSPC radio station, which then all flows into the creation of the official playlist which is always posted as the final entry of the month. Additionally, the "On This Day In Music" feature is consistently worked on throughout the month, generally on a daily basis, and by month's end, that is posted as well. Aside from those features, this site did not receive any other material aside from my Zappa Plays Zappa concert experiences, and if that had not occurred, the past month would have been especially scant indeed.

This month, I sincerely hope to remedy this situation on a number of fronts. I would like to share with you my thoughts about the new album from Beck. If I am able, I would also love to feature a posting about some of 2014's newest music from Pixies and Broken Bells, and I also had another posting swimming around my brain concerning some ground breaking film scores that I love to listen to, but we'll see about that as the month tends to fly pas me quicker than I am able to realize.

What I would love to share with you the most this month are postings about two, or possibly three, albums that I hold so very dear to me and were all released in the early months of their respective release years. For now, I will keep those titles secret as I don't wish to promise something that I am unable to deliver but my intent is to try my best and get those out into the world and if you have not heard those albums, to perhaps inspire you to check them out for yourselves.

And so, and even at this very late hour during which I am writing to you, I wish for you to grab your instruments with me. To cue up your vinyl, cassettes, and CDs. To grab your headphones and surround yourself with your most favorite music...

...and as always...PLAY LOUD!!!!!!