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Well, if it is not totally apparent, I have moved (again) and finally consolidated my writing to my own domain, zeruch.net.
It is not just music, but for those that liked what I wrote about before, you can always filter by section.
If 50 Cent is even remotely serious (actually I think his threat to leave the game if he gets outsold is just to scare young, stupid fans into actually buying vs. downloading his upcoming waste of audible signal), we may actually have a chance of removing this slightly overvalued moniker from the pop landscape.
And thats a good thing.
I picked this because I recently was listening to some Gavin Harrison instructional material on subdividing beats, and because their latest album,
, is fast becoming my favorite Porcupine Tree album.
I Wear the Face
1984
Their sophomore album, Welcome to the Real World, was a certifiable pillar of mid-80s AOR, but the two official albums preceding and following it were both limited-interest affairs (oddly enough, I think their unreleased fourth album, Pull, is their best).
This is by far their most cringeworthy album, and the last one I would recommend to people wanting to either get into this band, or the period. If you are a Pat Mastellotto completist, it might be worth about 12 seconds of ear time, but thats it. If you heard this, you would have no idea how the guy would eventually end up playing with the Sugarcubes, King Crimson and KTU.
This time with the staggeringly obvious -- she steals songs. She is really starting to epitomize the kind of shameless marketing of "counterculture" as consumer-friendly drivel.
So, while the author does not really push the fact that Angelo Moore tends towards hyperbole and outright fantasy, I do love the idea of a Fishbone, Living Colour, Bad Brains triple bill.
Like he says...help make it happen.
And now, one album each:
Dream Theater side projects = ok to pretty good
Dream theater = fair to muddling (and thats being kind).
I caught Meshell for the fourth time last week (and the first at the Independent, a venue where I last was to see Tack>>Head and saw N'Dea Davenport and Kudu back when it was called The Justice League).
As with all the other times, she surprises, and she thrills. The more I see her, the more in awe I am of how much the woman is capable of, and sad that most of the record public doesn't know that. She seems to be following her muse into ever more varied territory, and following a pattern of not having a pattern. Her most visible material has been deeply rooted in funk and soul and hip-hop, but her capacity to morph, absorb and transform everything she touches into something inherently Meshellesque is something to behold. Case in point, her show this time around was almost completely new material from her Article 3 EP, some as-yet unreleased material, a token dip into her own back catalog with the extended take of Free My Heart, and a Joy Division cover that far surpassed the original.
Yes, Meshell Ndegeocello did a Joy Division tune. And did it damn well.
If I had to describe this show, it was Meshell on a serious Post-Punk tip. But she was not just aping stylistic conventions as much as absorbed the general aesthetic and married it to a melodicism and a pastiche of her other musical faces into something that would not be out of place on tour with Bloc Party or Davis Sylvian or Seal.
Breathtaking.
Her band, as with all her bands, was top notch. The only name I was familiar with was her keyboardist Jason Lindner, whose own jazzier solo work is worth seeking out on its own merits. Bassist Mark Kelly (no relation to Marillion keyboardist of the same name that I can tell) was a monster, and his interlocking work with Meshell was a bass-lovers utopia. Meshell has the same bad habit as Prince and Steve Coleman, in that she continues to always have a topline monster in the drum throne. She went from Gene lake (Screaming Headless Torsos, Steve Coleman), to Chris Dave (Pat Metheny, Mint Condition) and now one Charles Haynes, who can pummel, prod and pull the beat in all manner of directions.
