Tip for viewing: the work is 21 minutes long. If you have a nice multi-media set-up this benefits from being toggled to full screen–the toggle is to the left of the audio level slider.
I made an HD DVD version and it looks glorious. This obviously is Flash pumped to the max.
Thanks to Leonardo Solaas. He programmed the online interactive-at-initiation art generator, Dreamlines. All the visuals are due to the artistry implicit in his visionary programming and how the program mixes in real-time images taken from the web.
If you manage to sit through the entire experiment, you’ll learn the keywords I used at the end.
Meanwhile, the dark ambient soundtrack uses an outtake of mine, Aspirational Slim Case.
1 Stone Roses – One Love 5:03
2 Quantic – Blackstone Rock 4:09
3 Eleventh Dream Day – Dream of a Sleeping Sheep 3:15
4 Radiohead – These Are My Twisted Words 5:31
5 Double Naught Spy Car – Someone’s Creeping In My Yard 5:20
6 Kings of Leon – Spiral Staircase 2:55
7 Ben Watt & Robert Wyatt – A Girl in Winter 03:43
8 Rain Parade – This Can’t Be Today 04:00
9 Grateful Dead – Cosmic Charlie 03:01
10 Henry Kaiser – Cold Rain And Snow 04:50
11 Kaleidescope – Taxim 11:23
12 Anton Fier – Bait And Switch 05:34
Mallard – Rockpalast 1974
13. Back On The Pavement 3:36
14. One Day Once 3:23
15. Reign Of Pain 4:39
16. A Piece Of Me 4:07
17. Mama Squeeze 4:08
There I was trying to figure out how to flesh out a CD started out with a 19 minute set from Captain Beefheart exiles Mallard. It was rendered 25 years ago and Mallard’s weird psych/pop isn’t much like anything around these days.
Eventually I started plucking post-rock and other stuff and ended up with the present comp. It hangs together as a 40 year longitudinal slice of post-rock and psych. (40 years given the presence of Kaleidescope and the Grateful Dead, circa 1969.)
It’s easy to peg records I really enjoyed last year. I’m not–usually–a very close listener. Sometimes I have to work to recognize something extraordinary. …usually, I don’t have to work hard at all.My own immediate ‘belly’ response is decisive in most cases.
When I auditioned Willie Nelson’s new recording with venerable Texas little big band Asleep At the Wheel, I wasn’t expecting the big upside. But then about six or so minutes into the experience I’m vibing to Fan It and realizing all-of-sudden-like, ‘this fantastic!’ No record last year plastered the smile on my soul like this one did.
Willie Nelson is legendary, iconic, all that, and his record last year Willie and the Wheel is simply one of the best records he’s ever made. (Willie & the Wheel home)
If you ask me what I found so pleasurable, I would tell you the record is just great singin’ and playin’ from beginning to end. Heck, it’s kind of like pairing Art Tatum with Ben Webster. You want some analysis to back my sense up? Come on!
Blog has been on hiatus due to technical problems with the hoster. This happened just as I was putting together my favorite tune o’ 2009 compendium. Such a task is formidible simply because I don;t go about my listening habit with much sense of what came out when, besides tracking the handful–no, two handfuls– of artists I follow closely.
Steve Lacy, (Wikipedia) who passed away in june, 2004, is one of those artists. In fact, I’d like to hear every note he ever played. (Steve Lacy @Senators.fr)
“I think records were just a little bubble through time and those who made a living from them for a while were lucky. There is no reason why anyone should have made so much money from selling records except that everything was right for this period of time. I always knew it would run out sooner or later. It couldn’t last, and now it’s running out. I don’t particularly care that it is and like the way things are going. The record age was just a blip. It was a bit like if you had a source of whale blubber in the 1840s and it could be used as fuel. Before gas came along, if you traded in whale blubber, you were the richest man on Earth. Then gas came along and you’d be stuck with your whale blubber. Sorry mate – history’s moving along. Recorded music equals whale blubber. Eventually, something else will replace it.”
Via a tip on the Pedal Steel Guitar forum, here a video of–I believe–Eddie Fulawka making a pedal steel guitar. At one point in the incredibly concise clip from the Discovery Channel’s How It’s Made, the narrator mentions that in getting the pick-up level, “There’s no room for error.”
Hmmm, there’s not a lot of room for error elsewhere. The modern pedal steel guitar is a wonder of craftsmanship, and with the top-of-the-line guitars, each is the product of a lot of handcraftsmanship.
1 Reverend Horton Heat – Jingle Bells 2:19
2 The Crystals – Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer 2:33
3 Byron Lee and The Dragonaires – Winter Wonderland 2:32
4 Lolas – Little Drummer Boy 3:17
5 Davie Allan & the Arrows – Frosty The Snowman 2:23
6 Smithereens – Christmas (I Remember) 3:35
7 NRBQ – Christmas Wish 2:49
8 Huey “Piano” Smith – All I Want For Christmas
(Is A Little Bit Of Music) 3:03
9 Redd Kross – Mary Christmas 3:32
10 The Chevelles – Come All Ye Faithful Surfer Girls 2:21
11 Beach Boys – The Man with All the Toys 1:30
12 George Jones & Tammy Wynette – Mr. & Mrs. Santa Claus 2:21
13 Fountains of Wayne – The Man In The Santa Suit 2:39
14 Loretta Lynn – To Heck With Ole Santa Claus 2:02
15 Lynyrd Skynyrd – Santa Claus Wants Some Lovin’ 3:37
16 The Ravens – Blue Christmas 1:57
17 Syd Straw – (I’m Always Touched By Your) Presents, Dear 3:49
18 Imperial Drag – Please Leave Me Home For Xmas 3:27
19 Bruce Springsteen – Merry Xmas (I Don’t Want To Fight Tonight) 4:29
20 Devil Dogs – I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday 3:39″ />
I Wish it Could Be Christmas Everyday – 2009 Holiday Mix by Dub Collision
