From the Dervish's library...

Anyone whose been reading this blog over the last month or so knows I have been very busy at work and have gone through some stretches with not many posts...Throughout the month of December it seemed like I lived out of a suitcase, hitting L.A., Charlottesville, Toronto and a few days of shore leave in Florida...

All that travel gave me some time to catch up on some reading and I have to admit, I mostly kept it light.

After a fair bit of prodding from a guy at work I read Gene Simmons' first book, Kiss and Make-up. For the record: Surprisingly good. Gene's capable of not being a self-promoting idiot all of the time, and when he isn't he is a pretty sensitive, thoughtful person whose life story was pretty interesting even before he was in KISS. There are some tough things to read about certain members of the band, but if you are anything less than completely naive or starry-eyed in your interest in KISS, none of it will be particularly shocking. If you are looking for a book you could blow through on a long flight or over a weekend, this one's for you.

Now here is one that I couldn't resist when I saw it in my local used bookstore...Seb Hunter's Hell Bent for Leather: Confessions of a Heavy Metal Addict is the author's story of his journey from a pre-adolescent KISS and AC/DC fan in working-class England to full-blown hair metal fandom (and wanna-be) throughout the 80's and early and 90's. There is so much to like about this book - the author reminded me of myself and so many people I knew at different points...his hilarious glossary of the various metal sub-genres alone is worth the cover price. He's pretty spot-on with his pop culture commentary, too, especially Kurt Cobain's impact on the whole scene.

I received a small pile of books for xmas but if you have any music books (bios, business books, etc you want to recommend please let me know).

Happy New Year.

Burning Dervish Volume 8: David Crosby

One of my favorite records has long been Dave Crosby's If I Could Only Remember My Name. It's recently been remastered and reissued - marking my ownership of a third copy (LP, original CD issue and now this one!). I didn't have to fork out the loot this time because a buddy of mine was head's up about it and gave it to me for xmas.

Stephen Barncard, the original session engineer who has also overseen all subsequent releases of the album has some great session notes online here. It was a collaborative and fertile time in the Bay Area, with members of the various bands all dropping by each other's sessions and playing on each other's projects, in what came to be known as the Planet Earth Rock and Roll Orchestra. A typical track from this album would include Cros on guitar and vocals, with Garcia, Lesh, Billy and Mickey backing him. Beautiful. If you want to read more about the bands and records involved in , click here.

David Crosby is a stone cold hippy. He didn't go Hollywood, he went the other way around and left the Byrds and their LA scene for the Bay Area. He lived on his boat in Sausalito while he took enormous quantities of drugs, hung with the Dead and the Airplane, and wrote, co-wrote, sang and played on some phenomenal music in the late sixties and early seventies...the free love, guns, dope, jail time, reunion tours, good and bad records, environmentalism, sperm donation to Melissa Etheridge...it all adds up to an interestng cat who still talks like an idealist. Outraged, but hopeful...

This compilation requires two downloads and includes a bunch of stuff Cros has been involved with, from the Airplane to the various C/S/N/Y permutations - live tracks, too.

I love this music. It hits me on a real visceral, emotional level. These people were some of my original musical and cultural heroes. I really believed and believed in them. The songs about revolution, outer space, enlightenment, beautiful girls, sunny afternoons...I only wish I could feel the way these songs make me feel 24 hours a day.

Burning Dervish Volume 8: David Crosby
Download Part One
Download Part Two

The original albums some of these tracks appeared on can be found here.

way-back machine v55: Phish

...in New Haven, CT on this date in 1993 and Providence, RI on this date in '94...

Odd. This is the first time I noticed...I saw Phish two years in a row on the same date. Not weird in and of itself, just surprised I never realized it before today!

The era represented by these two shows coincides with my peak period of interest in the band. The first few records, and especially Rift, just blew me away. I always found their scene a little silly and I let that keep me away from the shows after a while...

Though I have always loved the Dead so much more, it is impossible to deny (even if it is irrelevant) that the music Phish was making during this era was so far ahead of where the Dead where at this point. I don't think it was just the drugs or death of Brent, either. In fact, I think it speaks to exactly why it makes so much sense for Phish to have split up - it is simply too difficult to create music at this high of a level for 20, 30 40 years or more, especially with the same people. I think Phish, and certainly Trey, knew that. The dedication to the lifestyle and the time necessary to constantly play and rehearse is what I think undermined the Dead - and Phish when they tried to come back from their first haitus.

This music is not like that of the older blues guys who often show up in a town and use a local pick-up band, or the jazz cats who play from a well-defined songbook and whose material is easily charted. I think that's why a lot of the classic rock bands can keep doing it - they get a good bandleader, hot backing band and/or group of side players to rehearse for a few weeks, then come in for the last few days before a tour starts and off they go. There is still a pretty high level of commitment (imagine what it takes to be Mick & Keith, I don't care what you say, at that age it cannot be easy) but the music itself does not demand what improvisational rock does. So combine a commitment to excellence, the stress of supporting a business organization, drugs, family and bandmates and its a wonder any of these bands last more than a few years. In fact, look at the new breed of jambands. Will any of them really be around in 5, 10, 15 years? Its just too hard...

I am posting a lot of music today. Big chunks of the first and second sets from the New Haven show, the middle of the first set from the Providence show, and ending with what is one of the most famous 35 minutes of live Phish: the David Bowie that started the second set of the Providence show...There is a lot of great music in these downloads. I hope you have time to check it all out and will let me know what you think.

Cheers.

Highlights found in Set I and Set II
from Veteran's Memorial Coliseum, New Haven, CT, December 29, 1993
Highlights from Set I and the (in)famous David Bowie
from Providence Civic Center, Providence, RI, December 29, 1994

Burning Dervish Volume Seven

Another great gift I received this year was a paperback of Oscar Zeta Acosta's The Revolt of the Cockroach People.

Zeta is most popularly known as the "fat Samoan lawyer" in Hunter Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. In real life, he was a leader in the Chicano "Brown Power" movement. This book is his fictionalized memoir (part two, actually) of his time in East LA defending Chicano militants and leading The Revolution...

I have long been interested in post-WWII American History and especially the late '50s thru mid '70s. This book represents a great piece of that history. I have a few dozen songs I want to string together, from Willie Bobo, Mongo Santamaria, Cymande and others that conjure up a Chicano, urban vibe for me. This first Latino compilation is a little less militant but I hope you dig it - and please let me know if you read the book and what you think of it.

Download Burning Dervish Volume Seven: Music inspired by the Cockroach People

The original albums some of these tracks appeared on can be found here.

Get any gifts of music?

I have not finished trading presents with everyone on my list but I did get a couple of CD gems already, the first of which I am posting an MP3 from...

My first experience with Simon Shaheen was his 1991 CD of the music of Mohamed Abdel Wahab, one of the most important songwriters and musicians in modern Middle Eastern music. Several years later I managed to catch him live at a festival on the Yale campus where he both performed and spoke, discussing the oud, his own musical upbringing and the music of Persia and Arabia. I was somewhat disappointed by his Blue Flame CD, initially thinking it was a total pandering to the NPR crowd, though it has grown on me over the years (as I have joined the NPR crowd, perhaps...).

The disc I received the other day, though, was one I somehow missed out on when it first came out. It is more traditional, in the spirit of his Mohamed Abdel Wahab release and while I am still digging into it, I wanted to post this one MP3 for you. I am sure more tracks from the CD will surface on my mixes in 2007. Enjoy.

Simon Shaheen: Sama'i Farahfaza
from Turath: Masterworks of the Middle East

Let's laugh at KISS...

...it's fun, easy and today we do it in honor of Peter Criss, on this, his ahem, 62nd birthday...

Can older be better?

Came across a pretty interesting blog post this morning on the Dial "M" for Musicology blog...It was written in response to something the author read asking readers to "Name any rock musician whose recorded work maintained an equal level of relevance and impact throughout his/her career -- let alone became deeper or richer."

I won't blow the punchline and tell you the artists that cases are made for, if only because I'd like to drive you over to their site to check out some of the other articles, too.

Click here for the permalink to the post I am talking about. Would love to hear what you think about his picks and what yours would be...

Back on the road for work through next Tuesday so posts will continue to be spotty.

way-back machine v54: Zero

...in Hartford, CT on this date in 1993...

I really loved these guys throughout the early/mid-90s...either they petered out around the turn of the century, I lost touch with them, or both. I recently heard they reunited earlier this year and are now back to touring pretty regularly, though they've yet to do a proper East Coast run it seems...

Over the years Zero's been made up of players from many Bay-area bands, including Quicksilver, Hot Tuna, Grateful Dead, Legion of Mary and others. Robert Hunter has been their primary lyricist. They definitely have the Bay-area vibe, but I almost think of them as old guy music. Its the same crowd that goes to see Hot Tuna or the Jayhawks...older music fans, with a hippy/biker slant...microbrew kinda crowd.

Don't let that stop you from giving them a listen - and let me know if you've seen them since they've been back together...

Zero: Gregg's Egg's
from the Blue Star Cafe, Hartford, CT, December 11, 1993

way-back machine v53: King Crimson

...in New Haven, CT on this date in 2001...

This was the second and last time (so far) that I saw King Crimson. I would pretty much move any mountain I have to in order to see them if they come around again.

John Paul Jones was the opening act for this show and he was over the top, it was such a treat to see him. But the Crimson...oh man, Adrian Belew is just an animal. You can hear him hollering at the band on today's MP3. He's just so into it...

I've been offline most of the week, traveling for work. I have a ton of catching-up to do in the real world so I'll leave you with the MP3...

King Crimson: Theela Hun Ginjeet
from the Palace Theatre, New Haven, CT, December 9, 2001

way-back machine v52: Third Rail

...in New York City on this date in 1997...

This was a great band. Through a friend I was able to get a cassette copy of their studio album a good two years or more before it came out. Never did find out why it took so long to see the light of day...

The line-up was James Blood Ulmer on guitar and vocals, Amina Claudine Myers on organ and vocals, Bernie Worrell on keys, Jerome "Bigfoot" Brailey on drums and Bill Laswell on bass. We are talking futuristic space-funk with a side of Chicago blues and soul.

The show is a bit more sloppy than the record but I never thought they'd play live so none of that mattered to me. Despite a record full of very cool originals, the MP3 I am posting is Amina's simmering cover of Portishead's Glory Box. Enjoy.

Third Rail: Glory Box
from the Knitting Factory, New York, NY, December 5, 1997

way-back machine v51: Yes

...in Hartford, CT on this date in 1987...

I feel like I saw these guys either a tour or two too late or a tour or two too early, given the line-ups they came around with in the 90s...

This tour was pretty heavy on the 80s-era stuff, which didn't bother me a bit. I actually think 90215 is one of the more interesting pop albums made - really strange that it was a hit when you think about. Magnificent production, but the songs are really bizarre for mainstream hits. The reviews of the remastered version are making me think I need to rush right out and get a copy. I've never owned it on any format other than LP and its always sounded so good...

So this tour was for the follow-up record, Big Generator. I don't remember liking the record all that much but again, the reviews on Amazon have me thinking a re-visit is in order.

I really like a lot of the pop music put out by the 70's prog guys. Only King Crimson and Renaissance really hold up for me in their more pure prog incarnations, for the rest I will take 80s-era Yes and even Asia. I am oftentimes more impressed by the skill displayed in writing a 3 or 4 minute pop hit than in a 15 minute laser light show epic...

The two MP3s I am offering up from this show highlight two of the track from 90215 they played this night. Enjoy.

Yes: Hold On and Changes
from Civic Center, Hartford, CT, December 3, 1987