is not a single hint on rain in the lyrics...) by Robert Zimmerman, "Seems it never rains in Southern California" by Albert Hammond, "Why does it always rain on me" (because you're from Scotland, baby) by Travis, "Rain" by Christian Vedder (Creed), "Red Rain" by Peter Gabriel, "Rain" by Madonna Louise Ciccone and "She brings the rain" by Can, to name but a few. As so often, CRACKER have done (one of) the best jobs in the genre by naming a song "Another song about the rain"; from their self-titled first album (read on Cracker hp: "Self Titled. Some people persist in calling this album 'Brand'"), here it is, a fine song:
hio. It is loosely based on the Summertime Blues (at least the bass line on the Blue Cheer version). We know that there ain't no cure for the summertime blues, but the great David Thomas puts it as it is: "I don't need a cure, I need a final solution". I will become 52 this summer, and I am pretty much sure that there is no remnant of teenage angst to be found in my otherwise confused psyche. Nevertheless, the third part of the songs (from approx. 3:35 on) still sends shivers down my spine. I remember that my friend Bert once told me, when we were attending a Pere Ubu gig in Vienna, that it will be in a moment like that when we will die of a heart attack in our seventies. Hopefully, David Thomas keeps on performing for the next 20 years. Here is the final solution:
or other influences see the WP-article on Can, linked below), one of the first Krautrock bands ever. It is not necessary to write too much about CAN (follow the link to Wikipedia to learn more about them). I hold Jaki Liebezeit, born in the same year as my mother in law, to be a rather outstanding drummer. Here are no more than two songs from Ege Bamyasi Okraschoten, one of my favourite albums (although, currently, I do not own a copy of it; my birthday is August 29, btw), featuring singer ダモ鈴木, the best known song by the band, Spoon and the one I seem to like most on that album, Sing Swan Song:
habilitation at Humboldt University, and after that I had one night to spend in Berlin. I went into CC, and asked the man at the only table with one seat free, whether this was a free seat. He said, of course. After some time, he asked me about me, myself and what I did; I explained. He said: wait, there is that woman doing her thesis on Nietzsche whom I will meet afterwards, because I have been proof-reading it (the thesis, not the girl). I waited, she came, I fell in love (with Cafe Cinema). At exactly that time, there was this strike on Austrian Railways, and I could decide to got to Passau or stay in Berlin. Not a hard one; one more week in Berlin! From that day on, whenever I was in Berlin, I met those bunch of people loosely arranged around that woman in CC. The last two times in Berlin, that had changed, they were not there, not even the most peripherous figure among them. But it was exactly at Cafe Cinema at Hackesche Markt that I did hear a song by Sivert Høyem, Norwegian singer, for the first time in my life. And it was that one, really do like it, Northwind:
many other categories as well: it has been written by one of my favourite musicians, it is a track from one of my favourite albums, I listen to it when I'm sad and when I'm happy, I can dance to it, it reminds me of someone and somewhere. Although it is not from my childhood, at least it is from my puberty days, it is simply a great song: Out On the Weekend by Uncle Neil, from Harvest. When I was looking it up on UTube, I learned that Lady Gaga did a version of it.
alternative music from New Zealand swept over Europe. At roughly the same time, John Peel (person) did a midnight radio show in Austria (event #2; if I remember it correctly, once a month) that I have taped as often as I could. I first heard a track by Straitjacket Fits on that radio show, their wonderful cover-version of Leonard Cohen's "So Long Marianne".
had been located (somewhere: at the backside of the main university building in Vienna) and, among others, having listened to Straitjacket Fits' first album "Hail" and having bought it afterwards. Due to the strange kind of a system of memory I have, I remember, that Karl Bruckschwaiger (person #2), who had been working at that store during that time, told me, that a woman he knew who did not buy records frequently had decided to buy that one - this was his kind of an argument for the quality of the record. So the song also reminds me of Karl, a person I haven't met for a long time, and if so, only by chance.
career and instruments he can play) and Joe Lovano on the saxophone. Although they sometimes are joined by musicians like Charlie Haden, the set-up normally does not feature a bass-player. They have played tributes to Thelonious Monk (Motian has played with Monk at the beginning of his musical career) and done versions of other great compositions. Enjoy a live version of "From Time to Time", originally featured on the CD "200 + One":
l anthem this is called, although the singer is an US-American; to me still the best version of this song, whatever anybody else might pretend; and the song tells a story worth meditating; dedicated to lovely Pesendorferin, who will not have to read that blog entry in order to know and love this song and its message: here is Al Wilson's version of THE SNAKE, and I really would be happy if I could sing it..
es 8, 15 in the KJV). When it comes to melancholic moods, that shoud have their place in a funerary rite (where all the emotions and moods of one single life would ideally be represented in some way), Nick Drake is my first choice, the wonderful English singer, songwriter and musician who died in 1974 of an overdose of some anti-depressant. First, I post three tracks from his first album, Five Leaves Left, "Day is done", "Way to Blue", and "River Man":
