This week's 120 minute, 26 track cornucopia of sound brings you a tribute to one of the all time greats of the guitar, Dick Wagner, who passed away on Wednesday. You are also being provided with a goodly number of number one hit singles, after last week's surfeit of difficult sounds. But we've not abandoned difficult altogether - there are some cracking examples of new prog, far out jazz and weird electronics on offer, along with some John Cage and some ambience from our very own Cloudland Blue Quartet...
Indeed, it's so good, Mr Quartet could be seen punching the air as he was transported through the wilds of East Lothian in his chauffeur driven limousine...
...also this week, this...
...was created by light entering the CBQ camera...
You have around five weeks to download, at which point this podcast will become stream only via the Mixcloud player below - I am also gradually adding the back catalogue of deleted weekly podcasts to Mixcloud - a slow laborious process - I still have around ten to sort...
You can play this Cloudland Blue Podcast in iTunes by clicking on the "subscribe" button on the player...
You can download the podcasts by clicking on the "download" button on the player...
Or try the Mixcloud Player - it does seem to show up on Apple devices (which Podcast Machine does not seem to do) - you can only stream from this, not download...
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Press play (on either player) and away we go...
Alice Cooper - School's Out 3:31
from "School's Out"
We start this week with three number one singles - the first is my all time favourite UK number one, a summer classic, which, 42 years ago around this time, captured the imagination of a 13 year old not yet Mr CBQ and finally, after some dabbling, turned him on to music for the rest of his life...
Elvis Presley - (Now And Then There's) A Fool Such As I 2:42
from "50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong"
Next is what, for many a year, I believed was the UK's number one on the day I was born. A great track from the King of Rock'n'Roll. It was only comparatively recently that I realised the honour of my natal chart topper went not to this but to Buddy Holly's "It Doesn't Matter Anymore" - not to worry, because, it doesn't really matter...
Cheryl Cole - Crazy Stupid Love 4:07
from "Only Human"
And here's the current number one as I publish this week's playlist - from the lady who carries on the torch for the mighty Girls Aloud. A brilliant piece of pop which seems to take a few pointers from the glorious sound of Swiss electro merchants, Yello...
Vivaldi - Concerto for 2 Violins in G Major, RV 516, I. Allegro molto 3:51
from "Vivaldi: Concerti "Alla Rustica""
At one point, our upcoming London trip was to have featured our witnessing a concert during which this piece would be played. Excellent though it is...
Max Jury - Christian Eyes 3:52
from "Christian Eyes" (Single)
...we have opted instead to witness a performance by Des Moines, Iowa singer-songwriter Max Jury - he only has three songs available at present as far as I could find and this is one of them. Great voice - recently supported Lana del Rey apparently...
Searchlights - A Day In The Rain 7:39
from "Searchlights"
Another new discovery this week was this band from Wisconsin. More young men producing what might well be the future of progressive rock...
Happy Apple - Who Is Your Midwest Representation? 4:33
from "Back at Lawrence, March 26, 2011"
Bad Plus drummer Dave King's trio Happy Apple, who actually date from pre Bad Plus days returned to their roots in 2011 with a concert which is available track by track on Youtube. This is an audience recording I believe but the quality is still pretty good and the playing is palpably flammable...
Alpha Male Tea Part - Taste Like Dog 4:26
from "Real Ale and Model Rail"
Two tracks from one of this year's best new discoveries for Mr CBQ, Leeds based Alpha Male Tea Party...
The Everly Brothers - Cathy's Clown 2:22
from "A Date with the Everly Brothers"
...sandwich another number one single, this time from 1960 and one which I've only recently begun to recognise the excellence of...
Alpha Male Tea Party - Reach For The Stars Kid But Don't Blame Me If It Makes You Miserable 4:20
from "Droids"
...the second AMTP track, which comes from the album they released just a few weeks ago and which bodes extremely well for both their future and indeed the future of math rock/prog rock or whatever the hell you want to pigeon hole it as. For me it's just great music...
Brahms - Sextet In B Flat, Op. 18 - 3. Scherzo, Allegro Molto 3:07
from "Brahms: The String Sextets"
A classical interlude now. The first piece comes from one of seven CDs which arrived at Crispycat Towers on Thursday - no doubt some of the others will feature next week. This sextet has made me think perhaps I ought to be searching out more of the configuration...
Reimann - Auf dem Weg, Satz 2 5:57
from "Reimann: Piano Works (Complete)"
Some superb angular contemporary piano music from the pen of Aribert Reimann, a comparatively new discovery for my classical collection. This album has been featured in these playlists before but I make no apology for trying to get you into it again...
Hertel - Concerto in A minor for bassoon and orchestra (3rd movement) 4:32
from "Bassoon Concertos"
Another new arrival, earlier in the week, was this disc of bassoon concertos by five composers - Vivaldi, JC Bach and some lesser known works by Hertel, Hargrave and Graupner...
Knifeworld - I Can Teach You How To Lose A Fight 5:14
from "The Unravelling"
Impressive use of woodwind in the line up of this proggy band with a very English style of singing indeed - reminiscent of Caravan or Hatfield and the North. Not my favourite kind of vocalising but the music carries it well, meaning Knifeworld made the cut this week. Do you see what I did there?
FKA twigs - Two Weeks 4:08
from "LP1"
New discoveries are coming thick and fast these days in Crispyworld and this, from erstwhile Jessie J dancer FKA ("formerly known as") twigs (name dispute apparently) particularly impressed. OK it's no "Price Tag" but this album shows inventiveness in spades which is missing in similar quantities from the output of the young Gloucestershire lady's erstwhile employer...
TAUK - Mindshift 6:07
from "Collisions"
And before we hit the run in and the Dick Wagner tribute, we have this New York four piece who have just released their second LP of sparkling funky/proggy/fusion filled instrumentals - well worth your exploration if this is the sort of thing that floats your proverbial boat...
The Bad Plus - Prehensile Dream 8:13
from "Suspicious Activity?"
Last Saturday I attended the last night of a short European tour by my very favourite jazz band The Bad Plus and this was one of the pieces played. Written by bassist Reid Anderson, whose original version I also partook of this week, the BP's take on this beautiful tune is top notch and takes the composition onto a higher plane. Very nearly transcendental I do believe in fact...
Avicii - Wake Me Up 4:11
from "True"
Time for one last number one and a tune which my dearly missed old chum Jamie Frain brought to the party when we were revamping our Capital Models covers sets around this time last year. This tune will forever remind me of my old musical sparring partner...
Cloudland Blue Quartet - Terminal II (Short) 3:02
from "Twenty Four Paintings (Short Details)"
...a sparring partner who would probably have very much disapproved of what the Exec Producer advises "is not really music" - the latest upcoming output from Cloudland Blue Quartet. This piece derives from sounds recorded in an airport and in a railway station...
Cage - Five2 (1991) 4:50
from "Numbers Pieces"
I was however boosted this week when the EP also used her "not really music" epithet when adjudging the goodness or otherwise of John Cage's "Numbers" (including, of course, intentional silent passages). Putting me in the same (non-musical) bracket as the Cagemeister was no bad thing in my book...
Talvihorros - The Two Great Lights 4:19
from "And It Was So"
Maintaining the mood set by Mr Cage and Mr Quartet, we have a piece from Denovali cohort Talvihorros which much impressed when it popped up out of nowhere on the old shuffleplay and so, had to be included in the final 26 choices for today...
Roger Waters - What God Wants, Part III 4:08
from "Amused To Death"
This gem of a song, complete with OTT guitar work from Jeff Beck is one of my fave Pink Floyd related pieces of all. Hard to believe that someone as brilliant as Roger Waters has hardly produced a note on new music now in over twenty years...
Dick Wagner - Motor City Showdown 6:10
from "Richard Wagner"
These last four tracks serve as a tribute (or perhaps even an introduction) to the talents of Dick Wagner. The first piece is the closer from a rare solo outing (and ripped from vinyl) from the perennial rock'n'roll side man who was Bob Ezrin's go to guitar slinger back in the seventies, gracing albums by Alice Cooper, Lou Reed and Peter Gabriel...
Lou Reed - Rock n Roll 10:21
from "Rock 'N' Roll Animal"
Feted by many as one of the all time greatest live albums and the one that kind of saved Lou Reed from the dumpster that beckoned to his faltering career following the then much misunderstood "Berlin" album (on which Wagner also played), "Rock'n'Roll Animal" closed with this cover of the Velvet Underground classic, which takes the song to a frankly different (better?) place. Wagner is in the right channel, his long time sparring partner Steve Hunter is on the left...
Alice Cooper - Wake Me Gently 5:04
from "Alice Cooper Goes To Hell"
Having played (uncredited in the main) on the Cooper group's "School's Out", "Billion Dollar Babies" and "Muscle of Love", Wagner co-wrote much of the material on Alice Cooper's initial solo output, including the classic "Only Women Bleed". This is from the Coop's second LP and features a theme taken from the coda of "Motor City Showdown". Wagner returned to write with Cooper intermittently over the years and indeed one of his ballads graced Alice's last album "Welcome 2 My Nightmare" in 2011...
The Frost - Fifteen Hundred Miles (Through The Eye Of A Beatle) 3:39
from "Through The Eyes Of Love"
The final track is by Wagner's first "real" band The Frost who, before getting as far as the studio, featured one Billy Joel on keys. I bought this album on a trip to New York back in 1999 (nearly thirty years after its release) and it's remained a fave ever since. Dick Wagner - what a guy...
OK that's it for another week, thanks for listening - I hope you enjoy the music and will come back again next week for more...
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