Here’s another Peter Gabriel rarity, a song called “Animal Nation” he evidently played on his 2003 tour.
Posts Tagged ‘Music’
Peter Gabriel Friday: “Animal Nation”
Friday, October 14th, 2011Shoegazer Sunday: Asobi Seksu’s “Stay”
Sunday, October 9th, 2011Recently I’ve been getting into the band Asobi Seksu which, despite the name, is based in New York. Their first two albums, the self-titled debut and Citrus, are both worthy of interest. “Stay” is off the first album:
The first time I listened to it, I thought it too lounge jazzish, but at about the 3:20 mark, one of the most awesome shoegazer guitar solos ever kicks in.
Other Asobi Seksu tracks worth checking out are “Thursday” and “Walk on the Moon.”
Shoegazer Sunday: Slowdive’s Shine
Sunday, October 2nd, 2011So I’ve been meaning to do some sort of comprehensive post on my love of obscure Shoegazer bands. But instead of one big post, I’ve decided to start parceling out little nuggets of Shoegazer goodness every Sunday.
If you’re unfamiliar with Shoegazer music, think of reverb-and-sustain-drenched guitars backing songs drifting between the poles of rock, pop, and ambient, with a little prog and psychedelia thrown in for good measure.
We start off with Slowdive, which is actually one of the least obscure shoegazer bands out there. I first heard “Catch the Breeze” on WHFS the one year I spent in the DC area. (Actually. WHFS was one of the few things that didn’t suck about living up there.) Later on I picked up Just for a Day, which I’ve always thought of as the definitive Shoegazer album. (I’ve never been able to get into My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless, despite my best intentions. Maybe it’s the screechy, annoyingly high-pitched sounds scattered on many of the tracks. Or maybe it’s the sonic quality that sounds like someone recorded the entire thing in a bathtub on a Realistic cassette recorder after they’d dropped it down a stairwell a few times using factory-second Certron tapes.) Of the songs off that, “Primal” has long been my favorite, as it has a perfect, wistful descending chord progression at the start. But I haven’t found a good video for that.
Instead, here’s “Shine.” This is a pre-Just For a Day songs off one of their early EPs.
Interestingly enough, there’s another fine Shoegazer song called “Shine” (also not available as an embeddable video) from the short-lived band Lowsundays. I prefer the short version off the Projekt Spring 2001 Sampler.
Peter Gabriel Friday: Myst IV Version of “Curtains”
Friday, September 30th, 2011Here’s a version of “Curtains” Gabriel did for the game Myst IV.
This version is available on iTunes, but only off a compilation album for a foundation supporting Transcendental Meditation. Since I hated my parents dragging me off to TM as a child (it was the 70s; normally rational people did crap like that then…), I’m going to have to pass.
I’ve seen some people claiming that the original version of “Curtains” itself is unreleased, which is not true, since it was included on the CD single of “Big Time.”
Moogfest
Sunday, August 14th, 2011If I were in Asheville, NC the weekend of October 28-30, I would totally go to Moogfest. In addition to Brian Eno, it’s a veritable feast of Prog Rock goodness, including Tangerine Dream, M83, and half of King Crimson in the form of the Adrian Belew Power Trio.
Since M83 may be unfamiliar to many readers, here’s them doing “We Own the Sky:”
The Return of the Giant Hogweed
Wednesday, July 6th, 2011It’s clogging up New York state, but mainly I’m posting this as an excuse to post a video of one of my favorite Peter Gabriel-era Genesis songs, “The Return of the Giant Hogweed.”
And no video, but here’s a cleaner-sounding, kick-ass live version from a BBC performance:
Long Interview With Brian Eno
Sunday, June 5th, 2011Don Webb alerted me to this long interview with legendary musician/ composer/innovator Brian Eno on (of all places) Al Jazeera:
Lots of fascinating information on his background, such as collecting music from American airbases near his childhood home (and only later realizing that almost all the music he collected was from black musicians), having a grandfather who lived in a converted church repairing early mechanical musical instruments (“they were the synthesizers of 1910”), and the birth of ambient music coming from listening to a too-quiet record of harp music while he was convalescing in the hospital.
At one point he talks about trying to figure out what an Arab song he heard on short wave was, and it turns out to be Farid Al-Atrache’ “Hebeena Hebeena.” Since it was slightly hard to figure out what he was saying (Ferry De La Trash?), I tracked down a YouTube version of the track:
Supper’s Ready (or, Music for an Apocalypse)
Saturday, May 21st, 2011Everyone else is doing it, might as well hop aboard the “I Don’t Believe In the Rapture, But Here Are Some Snarky Blog Posts” bandwagon. Which brings up the question of what music is best for an apocalypse.
Putting aside the blindingly obvious choice of REM’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I feel Fine),” my favorite apocalyptic song has always been Genesis’ 23-minute long art-rock epic “Supper’s Ready,” the ending of which is a pretty literal description of the rapture. Plus it lets me continue the recent Peter Gabriel trend.
So here’s not one, not two, but four full length complete lives versions of the song. Some of the videos are slideshows and the sound quality varies, but some of Steve Hackett’s swoops and slides still give me chills.
This one is a very rare live concert video of the entire song:
Finally, this is not the entire song, as it includes several different snippets of various songs, but it also features live concert footage and the end of the song:
As a bonus, here’s an animated Tony Banks describing how the song came together:
Water Falling From the Sky
Thursday, May 12th, 2011Attention Austinites: That wet stuff falling from the sky is called “rain.” I know you may not have seen these in some time, but it’s a naturally occurring phenomena.
It should also help ease our extreme drought.
In celebration, here’s Ladysmith Black Mombazo with “Rain, Rain, Beautiful Rain.”