{"id":10856,"date":"2010-11-30T14:34:44","date_gmt":"2010-11-30T18:34:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/?p=10856"},"modified":"2010-11-30T14:34:44","modified_gmt":"2010-11-30T18:34:44","slug":"listening-to-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/?p=10856","title":{"rendered":"Listening To..."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/images\/smallrecords\/millie.jpg\" width=200 align=right><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>David Bowie - Hunky Dory<\/b> - The only song I really knew from this one was \"Changes\", so I didn't really know what to expect from the rest of it. I'd heard his early stuff was folky, singer-songwritery, so I kindof thought it would be low-key and not really Ziggy-esque. Well, sur<i>prize<\/i>! It sounds pretty much exactly like Ziggy, but with the strut and swagger turned down a couple of notches. So, that's cool. I finally got to hear the original \"Quicksand\", which I'd only known from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=dc7NQyEy2Vg\">Dinosaur Jr's (excellent) cover<\/a> - which also incorporates the flamenco guitar bit from Hunky Dory's \"Andy Warhol\" as the intro. Also cool. I like it. It's nice to hear something that sounds like Ziggy without having to listen to the great, but overplayed, Ziggy again.<br \/>\nThree laquos: &laquo;&laquo;&laquo;<\/p>\n<li><b>Neil Young - Le Noise<\/b>. This is a recording made by someone who loves the sound of electric guitars. There are a couple of acoustic things, but most of the songs sound like he plugged his guitar into a fuzz box then plugged that straight into the recorder - a huge, dry, chunky roar. Sometimes he adds some phase effects, or a chorus or whatever. And over that, he sings about war, drugs, how the White Man killed everything, etc. - stuff he often sings about. But it's just vocals and guitars. And it sounds like he probably recorded it quickly, without a big studio - a basement recording maybe. The electric playing is loose and spontaneous, the guitar sounds are raw, the mixes are funky, demo-quality. It's like hearing Neil's version of the kind of thing amateur musicians all over the world do all the time. A couple of the songs are pretty good, especially the acoustic <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=skJddbSJQjA\">\"Love And War\"<\/a>. But mostly it's just interesting, to me.<br \/>\nTwo laquos: &laquo;&laquo;<\/p>\n<li><b>Cee Lo Green - The Lady Killer<\/b>. I bought it on great reviews, but aside from that hyper-catchy \"Fuck You\" song and maybe the 70's-throwback \"Satisfied\", it's just not my thing. I'm just not a fan of the modern R&B.<br \/>\nOne laquos: &laquo;<\/p>\n<li><b>Beth Gibbons & Rustin Man - Out Of Season<\/b>. Beth Gibbons is the distinctively witchy voiced singer for the trip-hop group Portishead, and she did this record back in 02, while Portishead was on hiatus. Here, instead of doing the beat-based, electronic thing, she went for more traditional styles: jazz standards, Nick Drake-ish folk, R&B. Still, Gibbons' voice and the darkness of the songs (lots of hushed, slow, minor key things) and their arrangements keep things solidly on the eerie side.<br \/>\nThree laquos: &laquo;&laquo;&laquo;<\/p>\n<li><b>Stereolab - Not Music<\/b>. I like Stereolab, but I honestly can't tell their albums apart. Except for \"Dots And Loops\", which was the first one I ever bought, they all just blend together. At best, I can distinguish their early stuff (which rocked a bit) from their later stuff (which is much smoother). And this could be any of their later records. Though I know it just came out, it feels like I might already own this. I can't tell.<br \/>\nTwo laquos: &laquo;&laquo;<\/p>\n<li><b>Deerhunter - Halcyon Days<\/b>. Thank you, commenters, for alerting me to this band. Within 30 seconds, I was thinking that this was the sound I wish Rogue Wave had evolved into. Take the psych-folk that RW used to have and break it down a bit, add more space, add some effects and a touch of electronics, but don't add any sugar. Take away sweetness, in fact. Love it.<br \/>\nFour laquos: &laquo;&laquo;&laquo;\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>David Bowie - Hunky Dory - The only song I really knew from this one was \"Changes\", so I didn't really know what to expect from the rest of it. I'd heard his early stuff was folky, singer-songwritery, so I kindof thought it would be low-key and not really Ziggy-esque. Well, surprize! It sounds pretty [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-listening-to"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10856\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}