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Blind Idiot God:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRD1jhxdpBI

Spock's Beard - The Light

Their stunning debut album, from 1995. This has been missing from my CD collection until yesterday, as it has apparently been in and out of print a couple of times. Just managed to score a reasonably priced CD of it via Amazon, from an indie record shop in CA.

Edit: Speaking of back-filling the CD collection, I came to the realization last night that our CD collection (I say "our" since my wife is actually the bigger fan of this band) is missing a couple of Brit metal classics, "Sin After Sin" and "British Steel" by Judas Priest. These have been duly ordered... Amazon Prime FTW!

The Correspondents - Fear & Delight (official) - excellent electro swing with nice lyrics, cute video.
Mogwai - Remurdered (official) - post-rock, maybe my favorite of theirs, a lengthy crescendo to a growling, droning climax. Let it shake the walls, feel it.
The Stranglers - Golden Brown (rdio, Spotify) - ah, heroin. Weird 80s English rock in fun stumbling 3/4 time with harpsichord backing and curious pitch. Vevo/UMG in their hatefulness hoard the delightful video (which can still be found).

And finally:

The Seatbelts - Digging My Potato (unofficial) - I've posted this before but it's among the best blues harp tunes ever recorded. Ryuichiro Senoh's plaintive opening marked the beginning of the sixth episode of Cowboy Bebop (Sympathy for the Devil), which was a bit of a departure from the rest of the show, a rare glimpse of pre-Gate Earth. Adam Gussow (he of Satan & Adam) broke the piece down in one of his last instructional videos (for the music/harmonica nerds among us).

Jeff Beck Group - Going Down

I give you Blind Idiot God. An absolute monster of a group and you prattle on about Spock's Beard. Now I love Jeff Beck and have been following him since the 60s but BIG is another thing. The last album was in 1987 and they have been sorely missed by some of us.

Oh well, pearls before swine, and all that.

PenGun wrote:

Oh well, pearls before swine, and all that.

I've got their first major label album, "These Things Too".

Elton John and Leon Russell - In The Hands Of Angels

Loggins & Messina - Back To Georgia

The crickets outside my window.

George Harrison - Ballad of Sir Frankie Crisp (Let It Roll)

Got Muse - Space Dementia stuck in my head from earlier. I like the intro and outro more than the main song though.

What It's Like by Everlast

This song touched me when I first heard it and it still does today. Few people truly understand what the song is about. It, however, gives glimpses of it for us that don't.

I'm liking the new Hands like Houses track 'I Am', very cool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvU3tamjyvE

Gladys Knight & The Pips - I've Got To Use My Imagination.

Djam Karet - Swamp Of Dreams

Heart - Dog and Butterfly (1978)

This is one of my favorite Heart albums. Their influences -- from Led Zeppelin to Joni Mitchell -- are worn proudly here. The closing track "Mistral Wind" is probably the best Zeppelin tribute they ever did without actually covering a Led Zep tune outright (which they've done many, many times in live performances). They're also not afraid to think a little outside the box; the first single "Straight On" was unlike anything they'd done before.

I consider D&B a high point before they started to lose their way; they came roaring back as a MTV-friendly (but musically less interesting) hit machine in the '80s, then faded out again until Jupiter's Darling (2004), which IMO is the high point of their later (and sadly, ignored by pretty much everyone) output.

On FM: One to One - Angel in my Pocket
Good old Canadian pop. What a wave of nostalgia. I used to hear this song like twice a day and man did it annoy the daylights out of me. Not anymore.

If you like rock and roll you have to check these guys out, worn out the disc this summer.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_iNGh7_QOs


The Temperance Movement

Some more rock and roll though with a decidedly heavier sound.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYd85Z2IiHU


Clutch

Blue Oyster Cult - Mirrors

I absolutely love this band, but this is one of their weaker albums, with many of the tracks being generic or blatantly derivative (and ultimately forgettable) pop-rock. The low point is probably "You're Not The One I Was Looking For" -- a plodding (and I really hope it was tongue-in-cheek...) knock-off of the Cars' "Just What I Needed". At least the opening cut "Dr Music" is catchy (though it sounds nothing at all like BOC), and "The Vigil" is pretty cool.

WTF were they thinking.

just brew it! wrote:

Blue Öyster Cult - WTF were they thinking.

The obvious?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFTFTXDOzAc

Yeah, yeah, yeah... to 99% of people they're just "that band with the song in the SNL cowbell skit".

OK, so we're on a bit of a BOC kick tonight. NP: Tyranny And Mutation

This is their second album and one of my favorites. Pre-dates "Don't Fear The Reaper" of cowbell fame by several years... no hit singles, but *this* is what BOC is about. Twisted, edgy stuff, especially by early 1970s standards. Not quite sure how to describe most of it... psychedelic horror boogie? By the closing track "Mistress Of The Salmon Salt (Quicklime Girl)" things get downright creepy.

Someone posted this on the FNT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUcmBI1D4lg

It's amusing.

just brew it! wrote:

*this* is what BOC is about.

I saw them live on 9/7/1986. The opening band was terrible but BOC sounded great.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

just brew it! wrote:

*this* is what BOC is about.

I saw them live on 9/7/1986. The opening band was terrible but BOC sounded great.

They've always been a great live act. They're still touring; I imagine they'll keep going until Eric or Donald (the two original guitarists/vocalists) drops dead.

Edit: And we're kicking off the day with one more BOC album, Secret Treaties (from 1974). Great stuff; with the possible exception of the silly, somewhat Spinal Tap-esque album opener "Career Of Evil" there's not a bad track here. The album closes with "Astronomy", which was later covered by Metallica on their "Garage Inc" album (and, unfortunately, also redone by BOC themselves on their 1988 train wreck of an album "Imaginos").

Traffic - Rainmaker

Schubert no 19 sonata. Nice and calming as background music. Good change from the stress I have from roommates and schoolwork and crap right now.

And right on the heels of my string of BOC posts, I discover that J.K. Rowling has just released a BOC-themed crime novel.

Too funny.

I got myself Full Moon Fever (Tom Petty) on CD, 'cause why not throw it in the order while buying parts for the car. And my god, Free Fallin' sounds so blissful, free, and clean (as it should be). The whole album, really - the songs just breathe, the little nuances are all there to be heard, etc. Talk about a way to show off quality audio equipment. (Not, you know, obnoxiously tuned subwoofers. Although I do have a downfiring sub, so my feet get to subtly feel the bass line on this album. ) The line levels never push the max, and it's the original master from 1989 (not "enhanced"/made louder). Retro art on the disc and all. Sounds worlds better than the same song on the anthology (compilation) album from 2000 - good songs there (although several of the albums are quite good), but loudness levels ruin it. Maybe I should grab copies of the individual albums (pretty cheap actually), and recompile it myself?

This just makes it even more apparent... you can have a 320kbps or lossless recording, but it doesn't mean s**t if you're going to smash up against the noise floor anyway. Ughh...