Saturday, 16 October 2010

More Music - Namlook & Schulze, Bjork, Lou Reed

Recent listening has been dominated by the slow working through of the Pete Namlook and Klaus Schulze multi-cd project, Dark Side of the Moog. I was surprised to discover that I have over 50 recordings of both of these musicians! Highlights have included Careful with the AKS, Peter - Part VI with one of the great keyboard solos, and current favourite, Psychedelic Brunch Part III, a short piece of droning keyboards and which I current have on repeat on my PC as I write this, and am hearing for the twenty-something time today

Pete Namlook and Klaus Schulze
The Dark Side of the Moog project

I have also been watching a number of shows recorded from the Sky Arts Channel over the last few weeks. One highlight has been a live show by Bjork from the Volta tour. I am amazed how she has been able to drag her audience with her on her musical journey, to places I'm sure they would otherwise not have gone
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Bjork in Paris

Following on from my Warhol reading and documentary watching, I have moved on to Victor Bokris's biography of Lou Reed - an ex-Oxfordshire library copy that I acquired for £2. I had expected this to be a rather fawning book, but quite the opposite. Reed comes across as a deeply unpleasant person throughout.

Reed at a recent Metal Machine Trio show

Still Reed has been responsible for some of the greatest music of the last 50 years, so so what if he is not a particularly nice person? The other week I heard, for the first time in ages, Beth Gibbon's cover version of Candy says. I remember Linda once putting her head round the door to say how nice this sounded - but I suspect she hadn't really heard the words, or indeed know anything at all about Candy Darling.

Candy Darling - late 1960s

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