Computer Love by Kraftwerk

Some years ago, I was sitting in the café at work when a song came on over the radio. The hook contained a haunting guitar melody that I knew I had heard before, only I couldn’t place it. Half way into the song, I realized what it was, the same melody that had entranced me so many years before. The difference was that now I was hearing it on guitar as opposed to analog synthesizer, which was how I remembered it. It was the melody from Kraftwerk’s Computer Love. And, as I later learned, what I was listening to was not a cover of it, but the latest hit from Coldplay, Talk.

Of course I was indignant, how dare they steal somebody else’s melody and turn it into a top 40 hit for themselves? Had they no shame. I had to right this wrong, I started telling everyone who played, hummed or mentioned Coldplay that they had stolen that melody. And then, a few weeks later, I read an interview with them in which they explained where the melody came from and how they had used it with permission. I forgave them, I felt sufficiently righted. After all, they had only been as entranced with it as I had and felt compelled to quote it profusely throughout their song.

I’m not Kraftwerk’s biggest fan by any means. But I absolutely love this album. It’s hard to pick just one track to feature, so I chose to go with the obvious. Kraftwerk, clearly ahead of their time, created not only some innovative and impressive sounds and processes, but also some of the most beautiful melodies, elegant in their simplicity.

Today’s record high is “Computer Love” Kraftwerk”, from their 1988 album “Computer World.”

Before The Rain by Lee Oskar

I find that music, much like scent, has a fascinating ability to trigger very specific memories. There are moments in time that I can remember and almost relive in full detail, all because of a particular song or piece of music. Before The Rain, by Lee Oskar, is one of those songs for me.

My sister and I took swimming lessons for a number of years when we were very young. I’m not sure how young, but I might guess we were 5 and 7. We had swimming lessons and music school to keep us busy in the evenings, and a very committed and loving mother to chauffeur and wait for us. The earliest family car I have memory of was a white Dodge Dart, later we had a Volare. Both had cassette players and until we got to sit in the front seat, mom was the DJ.

Mom always had a number of mix tapes in the car, they were the soundtrack of our childhood. One of those tapes had Before The Rain on it, and somehow we aways ended up listening to that song on our way to swimming lessons. When I think of it, I can still feel the butterflies-in-the-stomach anxiety of having to go jump in the pool and swim laps for an hour when I’d rather be home doing something else. Of course I loved swimming once I was there, it was just the trip that I found so unsettling. But the music helped.

Time passed by, we got too old for mom to make us take swimming lessons, we now had a car with a CD player and we subjected mom to our own musical preferences.  Eventually this song seemed to vanish from my mind. Then a couple of years ago the tune popped back into my head, right out of the blue. It bugged me for days until I realized it was a song from my childhood, and soon enough all the feelings came rushing back. I could recall the melody perfectly, the groovy bass line, the electric piano with it’s rotating speaker sound… But I had no idea what the name of the song or the artist might be.

I called mom one day and hummed the tune into the telephone. She couldn’t remember it. I couldn’t believe it, after it had been drilled into our ears for what seemed like ages! Had I gotten my memories all mixed up? She thought about it for a while, a couple of days in fact, but all of her leads were turning up cold. I asked all kinds of friends whether they were familiar with the tune. Nobody had a clue. It was really beginning to frustrate me. Then I mentioned to my mom that I thought there may have been a harmonica involved and she knew immediately who it was, Lee Oskar, of course! She used to have the album, and I remember being perplexed by its cover artwork (so meta!).

Of course, I immediately found the track on iTunes and bought the MP3. At last, I was reunited with that beautifully haunting tune from my childhood. It was just as I remembered it. Much to my delight, I came across a mint copy of this record a few weeks ago at a record show in the ballroom of a hotel near Kansas City. I picked it up, knowing I would have to buy it no matter what the price. It was only a few bucks, but it was a treasure to me. And now, I’m reunited with this tune, in all its snap-crackle-pop vinyl glory!

So, here’s to childhood memories, to beautiful music and to loving, committed mothers!

Today’s record high is “Before The Rain” by Lee Oskar from his 1978 album, Before The Rain. I would like to dedicate it to my mom, Joyce.

Presence Of The Lord by Blind Faith

 Today, in honor of Father’s Day, I’m dedicating this song to my dad. I picked up this record by Blind Faith and bought only because I knew it would be something my dad would like. There’s only one song on it that I was familiar with, and I hadn’t even heard the original version of it. My first memory of Presence Of The Lord was Glen Kaiser’s recording of it. I remember my dad explaining that it was actually an Eric Clapton song and that he used to listen to it when it was first recorded.

At that point, my only knowledge of Eric Clapton was Tears In Heaven, from his Unplugged album. I couldn’t believe the same Eric Clapton had written and recorded this song, which to me was so rocking, but also so spiritual. And then, a few months ago I found this record, saw that Presence Of The Lord was on it, and knew I’d have to get it. As you can hear, it is not in the best condition, but I find the cracks and pops add a lot of warmth and character to the experience anyway. This is a great record by an all-star band (Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, Steve Winwood and Ric Grech) and I think of my dad every time I play it. Happy Father’s Day!

Today’s record high is “Presence Of The Lord” by Blind Faith from their 1969, self-titled debut.

Zobi La Mouche by Les Negresses Vertes

Ceux qui lisent la Bible en ouvrant la bouche sont des jolies cibles, des gobeurs de mouches.

I was so happy to find this album at Zebedee’s a few weeks ago. While I had known about Les Negresses Vertes, I had never actually owned any of their music. “Mlah” is their debut album, and the copy I bought is one of those “promotional use only” copies that get sold and resold regardless of what the little gold stamp says.

As an added bonus, this came with a three page letter (on Sire Records letterhead) about the band’s beginnings and their debut album. It is a fascinating piece of press kit memorabilia from the time before iTunes, EPKs and Facebook.

“Zobi La Mouche” is the second track off of side A, following a brief musical interlude. I find it to be a great song to start off the weekend. But let me quote from the enclosed letter, “With lyrics rich in humor, they sing of life’s eternal problems in a language which is very much their own. Their songs are rooted in the musical traditions of Algeria, Memphis, Seville and the Parisian suburbs.” My remedial French revealed the humor to which the letter alluded. This is, after all, a song about a fly. Not just any fly, a fly named Zobi!

So here you have it…

Today’s record high is “Zobi La Mouche” by Les Negresses Vertes, from their 1989 debut “Mlah.”

The Marrying Kind by Dollar Fox

A quick glance at my collection will reveal that I don’t listen to a lot of new music. With my radio perpetually tuned to NPR and my desire to catch up on all the music I missed out on while growing up on a steady diet of contemporary Christian music, I just don’t have the wherewithal to keep up with all the hip and cool music people are listening to these days. But I can’t resist a good, story-telling song and The Marrying Kind (recorded and released just last year!) is just that.

A few years ago I played a singer-songwriter show at a tiny bar here in Kansas City. Tommy Donoho played after me that night. I had never heard of him, but  his honest, unpretentious voice and his short-story-like lyrics immediately grabbed my attention. That was the first time I heard The Marrying Kind. Since then, Tommy put together a merry band of music makers, now popularly known as Dollar Fox, and released Close to Home. I got to see them live a couple of months ago and what a great show it was. That was the second time I heard The Marrying Kind.

There’s something about this song that really brings this album close to home for me. Perhaps it’s the fact that I left home only to find myself terribly homesick. Maybe it’s because I used to write home a lot during my first few years away. Or maybe it’s that things didn’t end up being quite what I expected them to be once I got to this big, shiny, new country. I’m not sure, what I do know is that the line, “…around here, the winters last forever. The wind can steal your soul and do you harm. The ice that clouds the streets can harden up your heart and make you long for someone else you’re not…” could very well be the caption for a photo of me arriving in Oklahoma City during that terrible winter of 1997.

I bought Close to Home at the show and since then I’ve listened to The Marrying Kind for the third, fourth, twelfth time. The whole album is great and it comes in a variety of handsome covers (some are even handmade). The album was pressed in black vinyl and white vinyl, and they are randomly packaged, so you get to be surprised when you buy your own copy (and you really should). In the video below, you’ll see that I got lucky.

As it turns out, I did end up being the marrying kind and settling down (quite happily, if I do say so myself). But that’s a story for another day.

Today’s record high is “The Marrying Kind” by Dollar Fox, from their 2010 debut album, “Close To Home.”

Angelitos Negros by Roberta Flack

While at college, my sister Christy and I shared a car, an apartment and a good deal of homesickness. We were also discovering (re-discovering in her case) jazz classics. We were both in the jazz band at school and in a band of our own outside of school. She was the pianist and vocalist, I was the bassist.

One day I picked up a cassette tape at my trusty used music shop. It was Roberta Flack’s First Take. I didn’t know anything about her, but her tape was in the Jazz section and on the cover you could see her hunched over the piano while in the background a ghostly figure of a bassist (Ron Carter, whose “Paying Dues” books I had been studying) loomed ominously. This is one of those cases in which I bought the album for its cover, it made me think of my sister’s and my situation, a touch of melancholy and homesickness.

Over the next year or so, we would wear out that tape so much that I don’t even remember where it ended up. One of our favorite tunes off it is “Angelitos Negros,” which starts out with Ron Carter’s heart-wrenching bass solo, beautifully setting the mood for Flack’s mournful and somewhat indignant vocals.

Following is my translation of the lyrics by Venezuelan poet, Andrés Eloy Blanco. The poem was set to music by Mexican composer Manuel Álvarez Maciste.

Painter, you were born in my land with a foreign paintbrush.
Painter, you follow the path of so many old painters.

Even though the Virgin is white, paint her some black angels.
For all the good black people, they go to heaven, too.

Painter, if you paint with love, why must you hold their color in contempt?
You know well that up in heaven, God loves them, too.

Painter, painting niche saints, if there is a soul in your body,
then why did you forget the black people while painting your paintings.

Every time you paint churches, you paint beautiful angels,
but you never remembered to paint a black angel.

Today’s record high is “Angelitos Negros” by Roberta Flack, from her 1969 debut album, “First Take.”

So What by Miles Davis

This entry was written by Emily Akins from Everything Begins With an E.

When I was a kid I had a tape that my brother made me. Well, I had several tapes that my brother made me, including one called “Phoebe’s First Real Tape” which included a pseudonym for me and “real” music to replace whatever it was I was listening to then, which he had deemed inferior. I have no memory of what was on that tape (nor can I recall why he called me “Phoebe”). But that’s not the tape in question just now. The tape in question just now is the Miles Davis album Kind of Blue, which Damon copied for me in full on one single cassette, and which I listened to over and over and over and over and over and over again.

I’m not knowledgeable enough to articulate with any accuracy this album’s significance in the world of music, without just quoting Wikipedia directly, which you can simply read for yourself. But I do know a lot about how important it was to me; this album was as influential in my tiny world as it was in the big world. I listened to it at home in my bedroom in the house we grew up in. I listened to it in my Walkman in car trips to Texas with my parents. I listened to it in my Walkman on youth group trips on big noisy buses full of teenagers with pillows. I listened to it at home in the other bedroom that I moved into when Damon had long since moved out. I listened to it in my car when I got a drivers license. I bought it on CD and listened to it in my college dorm. I transferred it to my iPod when I finally got one of those. And now like an almost-full circle that is missing the very first link, I am listening to it on vinyl in all its original glory, thanks to Sergio.

Which is not to say that Kind of Blue, like a loyal friend, was there during important times in my life or something trite like that. No, that’s not what I want to say. What I want to say is that way back in the beginning, Kind of Blue somehow shaped the way that I hear music or listen to music or experience music. My ears – or whatever it is deep inside of me that receives the sound coming in through my ears – conformed to the shape of each of the songs on this album. So that for over a span of many years, each time I listen to it, even unto this day, something – everything – just clicks into place.

Brandenburg Concerto III by J.S. Bach

Bach has long been my favorite composer and the baroque my favorite period. From time to time I have enjoyed a few classical and romantic composers and I have even dabbled a little bit in modern music. But I always come back to Bach. Whether it’s his organ music, choral works or concertos; something about the disciplined symmetry and structure of his music really moves me.

I have owned a variety of recordings of the Brandenburg Concertos, and when I recently got back into vinyl, I knew I would have to find a good specimen. How pleased I was to discover the recording of the Brandenburgs by the Concentus Musicus Wien, conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt. Recorded in 1964, this record sounds so full of life and spirit. I cannot imagine that a better recording could be made today, even with all our newfangled technology.

The Concentus Musicus plays baroque works with period instruments and the accompanying booklet is chock full of information, notes, photos and illustrations. Most of the material is written in German, so I can only guess at what it says, but the photos of the instruments and musicians (in session) are quite lovely.

This double LP is a delightful box set that will long be one of my prized possessions, and this interpretation of the Brandenburg Concerto III has quickly become my favorite yet. If I close my eyes, I can almost imagine that the musicians are right here, in my living room.

Today’s record high is “Brandenburg Concerto III” by J.S. Bach, from the Concentus Musicus Wien 1964 recording conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt.

Pink’s Song by Richard Wright

Richard Wright died at around the same time that my obsession with Pink Floyd was being rekindled. I remember being heartbroken at the death of such a young and talented musician who always seemed to me the gentlest one in the band.

But I was also terribly saddened on a personal (and why not, selfish) level, by what this meant: that I would never see Pink Floyd live. Not too long before Wright’s passing, the four had made their peace for a magical night at Live 8 and rumors of a reunion tour had started to spread. But alas, it was not to be.

For my birthday this year, my friend Jonathan gave me a copy of Wright’s first solo effort, Wet Dream. It’s a modest, introverted and emotional album…much like I imagine Wright to have been. Pink’s Song is an ode to a friend who has left, and although it doesn’t say it in the liner notes, you have to imagine it is about Syd Barrett. When the flute comes in, I can almost see the Piper at the Gates…

Listening to this song, I can’t help but think of how the words seem to apply to Wright himself… “Patiently, you watched us play parts you’d seen before. Even then, we sometimes asked what you keep us for.” I wonder if that’s what it was like when Waters threw him out of the band during The Wall, or when he didn’t appear in the band photo or the sessions for A Momentary Lapse of Reason. The song, hauntingly enough, ends with Wright singing, “Let me go, I cannot stay. Let me go, I must not stay.”

Rest in peace, Richard William Wright.

Today’s record high is “Pink’s Song” by Richard Wright from his 1978 album, Wet Dream.

Shine On You Crazy Diamond by Pink Floyd

Wish You Were Here is perhaps my favorite Pink Floyd album. My friend Jake knew this and gave me a copy he found on Record Store Day 2010, a little over a year ago. I had no way to play it back then, so I put it in one of those nifty LP frames and admired the awesome Hipgnosis album cover at work every day. I had to wait almost a year before I could finally listen to it.

But that’s the thing with Pink Floyd, their best songs require time and patience. You can’t just put this album on and go about your day with it playing in the background. Shine On You Crazy Diamond is a track that demands your attention. You can get through two Top 40 songs before the first line of the verse ever arrives, “Remember when you were young?” But the listener is not bothered by this expenditure of time. On the contrary, he would be quite content to have David Gilmour’s four haunting guitar notes on repeat for a couple of hours.

The other songs on this album are really good, too. There’s the ever popular, “Wish You Were Here,” and the super groovy “Have a Cigar.” But there is something mesmerizing about “Shine On…” The old story about the perturbed Crazy Diamond himself, Syd Barrett, (complete with shaved head and eyebrows) showing up during the recording of this album probably doesn’t hurt either.