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.

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. They usually have more and better samples than amazon. Here are the amazon reviews.

[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 [img]/forums/images/icons/cool.gif[/img] , 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. [img]/forums/images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

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! [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]

[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 [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

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/a...electionId=784

Mark