This is my favorite music video.

This is my favorite video.

This is my favorite thing.

I used to love Japanese music. Acts like Malice Mizer, Der En Grey, Gackt, and most horrible of all, X Japan. Oh, just thinking about them makes me want to curl up into a ball of shame.

But I recently stumbled upon an act I really like, Shugo Tokumaru. His songs are layered really nicely. With lots of goodies going on beside the melody.

Take a listen



and this, I just can't get enough of this video. Katamri without the ball.

Howdy,

How do you like to spend Christmas? With tinsel and trees and good cheer?

Or do you wake up at half passed whiskey and shave just a little too close around your throat?

If you are among the former. Then there ain't nothin' under the stars of heaven that can help you.

If you are among the latter. Then let Tom Waits and Peter Murphy croon their way into your vermiculited hearts.

I'll talk to you once I drown myself in bathtub gin.

::DOWNLOAD SOUND::

John Cale + Magritte = Love

If I accomplish one thing with this journal it will have been to expose more people to John Cale. This is about the 4th Cale video I have posted here. Just a great song to a slide show of Rene Magritte's art. You know Magritte, the guy with bowler hats and umbrellas.

Hi,

Autumn is my favorite season. It is the season that feels most like we are heading somewhere. The weather is still nice and it has a romantic feel to it, two people sharing something in spite of the winter oblivion ahead.

My voice of winter for music is depressing. Half the Tom Waits discography becomes too chipper to listen to. All jazz and classical music leaves my ears and it seems the only blues music I can stand is written by either blind men or those who sold their souls to the devil.

But autumn is different. It is facing that bleak winter but it is still stoic about it. Almost mystical.

Nick Drake was an Autumnal person. I wish I could post a home recording of him doing Hazy Jane from his first album, Brighter Later. His first two albums had lush, medieval arrangements accompanying Drake's expert fingering and foggy whisper voice. His third and final album had no such accompaniment and is a much finer album for it. Here is one of my favorites from it.



John Cale and Nico are enjoyable all year around. But their collaborations during autumn are especially good. I had wanted to post something from The Marble Index or Desertshore, but couldn't find anything with good sound quality. Nico covering My Funny Valentine did the job nicely. She sounds like Marline Dietrich soaked in heroin.



A song from the Marble Index I was able to find is John Cale covering Frozen Warnings. It was for the documentary Icon - Nico which came out in the 90's a decade after her death. I usually don't like piano covers of songs because it is so easy to make them much more melancholy. Tori Amos has made a career of making rock songs depressing with her fabroge voice and piano. But as John Cale wrote with Nico, did the production and arrangements I think he is allowed to. His cover makes Frozen Warnings a very different song but very much in the Autumn frame of mind



There is more I wanted to share, but I am limited to videos on youtube. So, you will just have to be content with what I gave you vultures.

Howdy,

I was looking to expand my blues knowledge a year or so ago when I was reading about Blind Willy Johnson. As a kid his mother rubbed lye in his eyes to get revenge on his father. He did survive childhood and married. But died alone of exposure in a rotten shack he was living in.

Now, one of his songs is on the Voyager spacecraft, reaching further and further distances from the earth. Perhaps intelligent life will find Voyager and they will hear one of the most beautiful expressions of humanity when they do.

Voyager Golden Record has an online copy of what must be the greatest mix tape ever made. In addition to Blind Willy Johnson it has Hindi music, pan pipe recording from the Solomon Islands, Bach, Mozart, Chuck Berry. The recording is immense!

One of my favorite surprises was Javanese Gamelan music. I was familiar with this style from a Japanese performing art group Genioh Yamashirogumi who achieved international fame for doing the soundtrack to the movie Akira. They are also famous for teaching themselves how to program MOOG synthesizers to play notes beyond our 12-tone scale. I thought Gamelan wouldn't sound the same without an armada of crazy MOOGs enhancing the sound only to realize that it was all about the Gamelan. Here is a video of such a Gamelan group.



For a bigger show, this is a children's performance group. It is 9 minutes long, but so freakin good!



But check out that golden record. You will be happy you did.

Hi,

Youtube still amazes me. One day it will occur to me to type in the name of a musician, show dog, novelty cigarette manufacturer, just to see what comes up. Well, today was Dan Deacon's day.

I have memories of Dan. He went to school with my friends. So, when i would see Dan I would be high or drunk, both, or carrying a length of PVC pipe covered in pipe insulation and duct tape. I saw Dan perform a handful of times, but man, it was freakin' awesome. An kinetic ham electronica genius.

Care to see a youtube result?



you will look for more, I know you will.