Music: Two Sleepers

[John Feeney]

I can only find so much music I really like in the mainstream stuff. So I like prospecting for lesser known artists whose work really does it for me. Here are a couple of sleeper CDs I’ve found in the last year:

Kevin Bowe and the Okemah Prophets -- “Restoration”

I didn’t expect much from this CD. My musician bro-in-law gave it to me. Bowe is his friend. What I expected was just another local level, unremarkable band. What I heard was an opening song that’s right up there with the very best “roots rock” out there. “Sault Ste. Marie" is a melodic powerhouse with wonderfully evocative lyrics. I hear it received a good deal of airplay in the Minnesota area. The whole CD deserved much more. Many of the other songs are truly solid, well written pieces. If you like your rock with a stiff dose of country-blues grit you should like this CD. I’m told Bowe, who had turned mostly to song writing for other artists, was recently offered a 4 CD contract to by a Dutch recording company. So we should be hearing more from the Okemah Prophets. Good thing. Here are the amazon reviews and samples. (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00004SUGG/qid=1054192261/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/002-4559364-4598422?v=glance&s=music)

Mike Ireland and Holler -- “Try Again”

I learned of this album on the website of a San Fransisco DJ who explores a lot of obscure country and alt country music. It contains a kind of simple, exceptionally well done brand of country music. Some say it sounds like country music of the ‘70s. I’m not sure I agree, but it certainly doesn’t sound like anything else being made today. The melodies are appealing and the lyrics well written. But this CD has had a strange effect on me. As good as it, little on it really, really grabs me. Yet I probably find myself grabbing it more than any other CD to take with me in the car. It’s like a comfortable, if not so exciting friend you just like having around. And it's definitely a grower.

Ireland sings with an Ozark twang which I’ve grown to like, and sings of things like returning to the small town where he grew up to see the “Walmart now, where we used to walk through fields and shacks.” His band is solid, never over the top. This is definitely a CD to try if you’re looking for something country but different. Here are the samples on CD Universe. (http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?style=MUSIC&pid=3507231&cart=14670 6320) They usually have more and better samples than amazon. Here are the amazon reviews. (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000066AM6/qid=1054194454/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/002-4559364-4598422)

[Ray Zee]

thanks john, for the music reviews and places to here an excerp. thats great.

but for me i like bird songs or waterfalls for my sleeper music. rock and roll will keep me awake. to each his own i guess.

[Bill Murphy]

Soundtrack to 24 Hour Party People, I'm telling ya. Wait'll ya hear The Durutti Column /forums/images/icons/cool.gif , or the Chemical Bros remix of New Order's Here To Stay, or the all-star jam on Joy Division's New Dawn Fades. And I normally hate remixes & all-star jams. Plus, the Sex Pistols & the Clash never sounded better than they do here. Awesome liner notes.

Might as well get the Psychedelic Furs remastered Forever Now while you're about it. Fantastic album to begin with, wonderful remaster job & liner notes, two great B-sides & two great alternate versions also on it. And I normally hate B-sides & alternate versions. /forums/images/icons/wink.gif

Two best CD's I've heard since Tool's Aenemia, although it ain't exactly new material, of course; just mainly unheard.

Get ON it, son! /forums/images/icons/laugh.gif

[John Feeney]

Well now, I can appreciate some of that stuff. I like a bit o' The Clash. Used to have one of their albums. That all star London Calling performance on whatever awards show that was, was great. Some of the other groups on the Party People Cd are bit too hard punk for my taste, but others are cool, hearkening back to the '80s, as are the Psych. Furs. Tool, though, is a bit hard edged for me. I hear some of their music is excellent in a trance-inducing way -- with their drum virtuoso. Overall a mite extreme for me though.

Still, I could at any point go through a phase where Tool would be just the ticket. I go through music phases. It's just that my recent phase hase been more Country than Rock. I'll have to snap out of it a little though and get into a more pop-jazzy mode as Steely Dan has a new one ("Everything Must Go") coming out June 10. They're an all time favorite, and from bits I've heard this one sounds superb.

[John Feeney]

Ray, you must use one of those sound machines from Sharper image then. They make bird sounds, streams, waterfalls, wind in the trees, etc. Well, maybe you go the natural route up there in MT in the summer and just open the window. Are sounds through the window CD quality though??

[Cyrus]

I'm thinking that, what with all the drawlin' and the twangin' heard 'round America's poker rooms, the followers of C&W music should be thinking of themselves as the best poker players. It is possible that they are.

This is a list of poker ability ranked according to music preferences :

<ul type="square">1. Country &amp; Western

2. Easy Listening

3. Classical (only dead composers)

4. Ethnic (think Asian)

5. Jazz (non BeBop)

6. Rhythm &amp; Blues (60s, 70s)

7. Soft Rock &amp; Country Rock

8. Hard Rock

9. Punk Rock

10. Atonal (Stockhausen and beyond)[/list]

Maybe #4 should be a bit lower.

[Rick Nebiolo]

ray,

you live out in the woods and you play "bird songs or waterfalls" for sleeper music? that is really weird /forums/images/icons/grin.gif

anyway, i am weird so i have about a dozen nature sounds CDs (including waterfalls) and crank one all night long. otherwise, i'd have to listen to the sound of amtrak as it goes by every hour or so.

~ rick

[Rick Nebiolo]

John,

didn't see your post above before i responded to ray on essentially the same thought. i have a decent stereo in the bedroom and found a lot of good nature sounds CDs for sleeping although sometimes i listen to certain types of classical. sleeping is tough for the nuerotic.

regards,

rick

[Ray Zee]

well, truthfully, i sleep like a rock and do not need any help. but lately a big wild tom turkey seems to come by the window at daybreak every morning and starts gobbling. he is loud and wakes me up.

[Mark Heide]

John,

I rarely listen to any popular music since my college days. That's basically because the repetition is annoying. I do listen to alot of noisy and experimental modern classical like John Cage, Pierre Boulez, Henry Cowell, Wolfgang Rihm, etc.

But, if you want a classical music CD that is completely relaxing with music by American composers I suggest "Music For Quiet Listening" Vol. 1 the Eastman-Rochester Orchestra conducted by Howard Hanson.

The following is a quote from the CD insert:

"In 1953 Mr. Benjamin offered to Howard Hanson, director of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, funds for the establishment of an annual prize in composition, to be called the Edward B. Benjamin Award for Restful Music. Dr. Hanson appointed a committe of judges from his Compositon faculty, and this jury was responsible in each subsquent year for choosing a composition written by one of the student composers at the School that seemed best to introduce restfulness in the listener."

Here's a link for sound samples but you can probably buy it at Borders or Tower for less:

http://www.iclassics.com/iclassics/album.jsp?selectionId=784

Mark

[Mark Heide]

Ray,

That's an easy problem to take care of. Just kill it and let me know when you want me over for dinner.

Mark

[Ray Zee]

mark, i like the turkey but next time a skunk comes by i will take your suggestion.

[Mark Heide]

Ray,

Looking forward to having dinner. /forums/images/icons/smirk.gif

Mark

[John Feeney]

The samples sound very nice, Mark. You do realize though that when I said "sleepers" I just meant "unnoticed." /forums/images/icons/crazy.gif

I only listen to a bit of classical, but did by a best of Copeland CD not long ago. I think the only problem with classical is that it doesn't use enough steel guitar. /forums/images/icons/wink.gif /forums/images/icons/tongue.gif

[Mark Heide]

John,

Actually, this music fits both categories. Most of the composers on that CD are now either university professors or retired. The only person on that CD that is well known is Ron Nelson for his concert band music for high schools and the military. So, the piece on that CD by him is out of character for what he usually does.

If you want something with electric guitars, try Seth Josel's Long Distance on CRI. He does a piece by James Tenney called Water On The Mountain...Fire In Heaven for six electric guitars. The rest of the CD is classical guitar music by modern composers. The company that made this CD, CRI (Composers Recordings, Inc.) went out of business this year due to lack of funding. The whole CRI catalog is being liquidated by www.qualiton.com (http://www.qualiton.com) for $3.50 each title.

Good Luck

Mark

[Cyrus]

"I do listen to a lot of noisy and experimental modern classical like John Cage, Pierre Boulez, Henry Cowell, Wolfgang Rihm, etc."

You realize, of course, where that puts you in terms of poker ability, according to my list.

[John Cole]

Mark,

For relaxation, I often turn to Reich's Drumming turned up loud on headphones. I feel like I'm having an MRI done--a not unpleasant experience.

John

[John Cole]

Cyrus,

One performer who "played" 3'33'' called it the most intense performance of his life.

John

[Mark Heide]

Cyrus

The correct title is 4'33" for that composition. Cage wrote that composition to emphasize that silence was just as important as sound. When that piece is performed, it requires that a piece of sounding music is performed before and after. By placing a long silence between pieces, it emphasizes the drama between the ending of the first piece and the beginning of the second. You should notice that this frequently happens in good movie soundtracks. Where there is dead silence, especially in a thriller, and then the music starts to play. Lastly, Cage wrote an exact time for performance, to require the performer and audience to notice the silence, and that it was not just any silence, but his.

I'm surprised that you equate a composer like Stockhausen with the term Atonal. Stockhausen was part of the Avant-Guard movement of the 1950's and his compostion Gruppen for 2 orchestras actually contains music with a tonal center, but not in the traditional sense of say Brahms. Most people I know equate Atonal with the 12-tone-row music of Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern from the early 20th century. I would think that mathematically inclined people would like the concept behind 12-tone-row music since it required solving matricies for variation of the row, so I would put this type of music at the top of your list for Sklansky type poker players.

The music of todays composers is not publicized in the United States as has been previously done prior to the 1980s. Most of the PBS television and radio stations do not play music by todays composers. But, I can tell you that you can probably refer to it as post-avant-guard or post-moderism and even more global in nature. Take Steve Riech's Drumming which is a combination of utilizing the serial techniques of Schoenberg and African drumming. This is just the tip of the iceberg. The music of todays composers is usually based on a combination of styles that occurred mainly in the 20th century, but combining them in different ways.

Mark

[Mark Heide]

John,

I like listening to Steve Riech's music when driving on road trips. It's loud enough not to get drowned out with road noise, plus it seems to hypnotize me and makes the time fly by.

Mark

[Cyrus]

Greetings, Mark.

"The correct title is 4'33" for that composition."

Thanks for the correction. I would not want you to think that I skip the last minute! /forums/images/icons/cool.gif

Thanks for your commentary, as well: most informative. For my money, the Cage piece is literally one of a kind; it can actually be performed only live : the audience is engaged into a hyper-conscious perception of the performance's physical environment, including the ambient sounds, the smells, the whole package, and does the same to the performer. (Notice absence of brackets in last word.) I am certain that whoever said what John Cole quoted was not being clever at all ("The most intense performance of my career").

"Surprised that you equate a composer like Stockhausen with the term Atonal."

Well, I cannot think of any term that more immediately denotes the avant-guard movement of the 20th century in music than 'atonal'. I stand by my description of that music category for want of a better one -- and I'm looking forward to having you prove me wrong about the ranking of the poker ability of its aficionados!

The thread brought back memories. I had met once in person but briefly Iannis Xenakis (to all the people who saw High Fidelity and chuckled at Jack Black's T-shirt : No, not that Yanni!) but never managed to meet Yannis Christou, atonal music's glory boy, who naturally died young. I have also seen one live performance of Xenakis, an accomplished architect and mathematician (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1576470792/qid=1054452822/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-0088231-9927877?v=glance&amp;s=books) -- and I missed one that actually never happened: Xenakis was setting up his equipment in a leftist-controlled university in the early 70s, and he had of course Marshall amps and IBM computers set up, prominently displaying their logos. A shout went up "Down with American imperialism!" and soon the auditorium was in pandemonium. Xenakis didn't flinch but as calmly as he had set up, he dismantled his equipment carefully and left the stage without speaking once.

The left part of Xenakis' face was mangled and scalped, and he avoided, out of narcissism, to be photographed from that side. (The fool, he didn't know that that was his beautiful side!) The scarring came about from his time in the Greek Resistance against the Nazi occupation, when Xenakis was with the (communist and leftist) guerillas. Xenakis had taken a grenade too close, if I recall correctly. In other words, Xenakis had actually walked the walk, when the times called for it.

That was one great lesson to me, reading it in the papers, about dignity and about individual freedom and about the blindness to which fanaticism, even righteous fanaticism, can lead.

--Cyrus

PS : I was enticed to listen to Boulez from Frank Zappa citing him among his favorite composers in his interviews. Then I saw the French TV documentary about him preparing a piece and explaining at the same time what was going on.

[Mark Heide]

Cyrus,

Here's a link to a CD with John Cage's 4'33" with sound samples:

http://www.towerrecords.com/product.aspx?pfid=1070911

The best description I can give a listener when listening to Iannis Xenakis' music is to think what architecture would actually sound like. You could classify this as atonal also, but it's really just density of blocks of sound scupltured into masses that could resemble architecture.

By the way, I have not heard of Yannis Christou or any recording by him, but would be interested if you have any links to sites that have information on him.

Pierre Boulez was part of that same group of composers and was known as a total serialist. Anyway, here is what I think is one of his best CDs (with sound samples):

http://www.towerrecords.com/product.aspx?pfid=1915367

Here's a link to some sound samples that cover a majority of 20th century composers, and I think would be a good introduction to modern music:

http://www.towerrecords.com/product.aspx?pfid=1909671


Mark

[Cyrus]

"Here's a link to a CD with John Cage's 4'33" with sound samples."

Hmmm. Sound samples of 4' 33'' of silence. I'm clicking. /forums/images/icons/cool.gif

About Christou: The spelling defeats the search engines! The name is spelled variously as Yannis, Yanni, Janni, Jani, Ianni, etc. They are all acceptable spellings in English.

Check out the Jani Christou website (http://www.janichristou.org/), it might interest you.

And thanks for the CD pointers.

--Cyrus

[Mark Heide]

Cyrus,

Thanks for the name correction. I found a record company that records his music. After listening to Pheonix Music I would not classify him as Atonal, because it has a repetitive bass motif that firmly defines the tonal center, but the violins do play a tone row, so you could classify it as serial. Here's a link:

http://www.sirius.gr/diskography/album_details_eng.asp?AlbumID=293

Thanks.

Mark