Tír Na HiFi

I know re Miles Davis Paul there will be no regrets sure even mp3 over youtube sounds great. Will investigate Can also.

Two glorious performances from Frank Zappa, both showcasing his extraordinary guitar playing.  Both tracks originally appeared on his wonderful Joe's Garage album.  This is among his most moving and heartfelt music in my opinion.  It remains one of life's great pleasures to listen to this man play guitar.  You won't hear any empty virtuosic shredding, but you will witness a clarity of thought and a depth of feeling that is rare.  Zappa continues to be remembered for the wrong reasons and it is forgotten just how good he was as a musician. Watch this.

It will be very interesting to see how the latest incarnation of King Crimson manifests itself.  A front line of three drummers and the word is that Fripp will take a more active role with this line-up.  The return of Mel Collins on saxophones and Jakko Jakszyk on vocals and guitar after the 2011 album, A Scarcity of Miracles, indicates that that album will form a broad template for the sound of the new Crimson incarnation.  Perhaps the greatest surprise is the absence of Adrian Belew but Belew has forged ahead himself in recent years with a fantastic new group.  Here they are in a live performance in Germany in 2008.  There's an interesting story behind the bassist and drummer.  Rather than recruit experienced session musicians, he opted to work with students at a music school in Philadephia where he was spending some time as a visiting professor, and the Slick siblings were recommended to him as the school's best students.  The bassist, Julie Slick, is a real find and it will be very interesting to see what direction her career will take her in. She is currently dividing her time between the Belew Power Trio and the Fripp-sanctioned Crimson Project.




Here is some superb footage of Belew recorded live in concert with Talking Heads in 1980.  Three of the band's best songs from their finest work, Remain in Light, here performed with a sense of frenetic excitement and breathless intensity that is quite something to behold.  The TV direction is very wayward but the sense of a live occasion is astonishingly vivid and very present.  You really get the sense that these scorched earth grooves could easily fade out into infinity.  The beat goes ever on.

Rockpalast continues? Belew on his own I aint sure about always found him a bit too much.
Could never understand how THeads removed the long intro to Crosseyed and Painless on the rerelease of the expanded 'The Name of This Band is Talking Heads'. Best intro to a song ever imho this rockpalast version is better recorded. Nigel as David Byrne advised on the intro to one of the tracks 'If you dance you might understand the words better'

Just to see how David Byrne has changed a little as he gets older but still delivers something a little bit different in concert. Remain in Light track. Unusual for a sedate French studio audience to give decent applause after a performance.

Just in case some might think I am a little tunnel visioned on David Byrne!
Think Mister Devoto nails this on Jools Holland.

tony wrote:Just to see how David Byrne has changed a little as he gets older but still delivers something a little bit different in concert. Remain in Light track. Unusual for a sedate French studio audience to give decent applause after a performance.

Great clips, Tony.  On the subject of the Talking Heads Rockpalast footage from Dortmund in 1980, it is better recorded than the Rome concert, but I think there's just that bit more wild energy at the Rome concert.  I don't believe that this ever received an official release and I would love to see it remastered and issued.

With regards to the omission of the introduction to Crosseyed and Painless on the reissue of The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads, I personally can't understand it.  It dilutes the intensity of the actual performance.  I believe Byrne also had reservations about the performance of Cities on Stop Making Sense.

Finally, that's a great clip from French TV in 2009.  I love the Ride, Rise, Roar concert film and found the choreography wonderfully inspired.  Not at all as slick as you would find in a big-budget production, the modern dance adds a human dimension to the performance in the way it seems to respond entirely naturally to the music.

This is very, very good.  Laurel Halo performing at St. John-at-Hackney in London earlier this year.  Ms.  Halo was originally the subject of a very interesting cover story in The Wire last November and I've been listening to her Chance of Rain album and absorbing everything available online but this is the finest expression of her work yet.  There are some other sets on Youtube but they are presented in club environments with their concomitant distractions but the church ambience of St. John's coupled with an attentive and appreciative audience enable her to produce something that I feel is the truest indication of her original talent to date.  The single-minded focus and concentration on her face is worth noting - she is utterly locked into her music and, as the piece ends, we see the briefest of nods as she shuts down and puts away her gear.  The music and nothing but the music.  It will be very interesting to see where she goes from here.

mcq wrote:This is very, very good.  Laurel Halo performing at St. John-at-Hackney in London earlier this year.  Ms.  Halo was originally the subject of a very interesting cover story in The Wire last November and I've been listening to her Chance of Rain album and absorbing everything available online but this is the finest expression of her work yet.  There are some other sets on Youtube but they are presented in club environments with their concomitant distractions but the church ambience of St. John's coupled with an attentive and appreciative audience enable her to produce something that I feel is the truest indication of her original talent to date.  The single-minded focus and concentration on her face is worth noting - she is utterly locked into her music and, as the piece ends, we see the briefest of nods as she shuts down and puts away her gear.  The music and nothing but the music.  It will be very interesting to see where she goes from here.

Glad somebody's paying attention! +1

Don't have any of her stuff just yet simply because my interest lies with other artists doing the same type of music so I haven't got round to Laurel yet. Give me a minute I'll see if I can dig out some of the other people referred to above. This kind of 'improv' especially in the electronic domain never ceases to give me untold pleasure. I'll NEVER tire of this.....

Paul,

Here's two for starters. One is fairly well known (his Old News archive series is astonishing!) the other less so.....Enjoy!







http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joDTBhYm ... ata_player






http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKiTY2mu ... ata_player