Non-Classical Music Listening Thread!

[SimonNZ]

I've had the New Penguin Book Of English Folk Songs since it came out in 2014, but only today learn they put out a cd of a selection of the songs.

Its been a nice evening of listening to a song then pausing to read the notes from the book then moving to the next.

[SimonNZ]

wonderful late 70s madness

[foxandpeng]

Hanging Garden
The Garden

Finnish melodic death/doom. Utter quality.

[Christo]

Hanging Garden
The Garden

Finnish melodic death/doom. Utter quality.

Nice tip: never heard them before, but like them from the start! 

[San Antone]

I've had the New Penguin Book Of English Folk Songs since it came out in 2014, but only today learn they put out a cd of a selection of the songs.

Its been a nice evening of listening to a song then pausing to read the notes from the book then moving to the next.

I'm glad you posted about this - I listened to it today (Spotify) and found it to be really valuable. I am not familiar with the Penguin Book of English Folk Songs, but am familiar with the Childs ballad song collection and have several recordings of those.

My favorite kind of music is what Greil Marcus has called Old, Weird America generally, old time ballads found e.g. on the Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music, but also the basis for old time music and by extension bluegrass, and country music.

You probably already know that the Harry Smith Anthology was released in 1952 and was a major influence on the folk revival of the '50s and '60s, and a resource which Bob Dylan used to compile his early repertory and continued to draw on for the rest of his career.

[SimonNZ]

I'm glad you posted about this - I listened to it today (Spotify) and found it to be really valuable. I am not familiar with the Penguin Book of English Folk Songs, but am familiar with the Childs ballad song collection and have several recordings of those.

My favorite kind of music is what Greil Marcus has called Old, Weird America generally, old time ballads found e.g. on the Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music, but also the basis for old time music and by extension bluegrass, and country music.

You probably already know that the Harry Smith Anthology was released in 1952 and was a major influence on the folk revival of the '50s and '60s, and a resource which Bob Dylan used to compile his early repertory and continued to draw on for the rest of his career.

I still remember the excitement of learning about the Harry Smith anthology in Greil Marcus' book Invisible Republic (in a chapter called "The Old, Weird America") and rushing out to order the set immediately after.

For a month or longer I'd have five of the six discs on full random play and listened to almost nothing else.




Huh. And just now I learn that the original Penguin Book of English Folk Songs - the one edited by Vaughan Williams - also had an album of selections:

[San Antone]

I still remember the excitement of learning about the Harry Smith anthology in Greil Marcus' book Invisible Republic (in a chapter called "The Old, Weird America") and rushing out to order the set immediately after.

For a month or longer I'd have five of the six discs on full random play and listened to almost nothing else.

The was the book I originally had, but when it was updated and re-issued it was retitled Old, Weird America (which is what is on my Kindle).  When I first bought the book the Basement Tapes were only found as bootleg cassette tapes, which I dutifully bought.  Of course since then, and when the book was reprinted, the multi-CD set official release of all the songs would soon be released.

I consider the Basement Tapes to be if not, among, the best work Bob Dylan and the Band did.

[drogulus]

     The family that slays together

 

[steve ridgway]

Various – The In-Kraut

Genre: Jazz, Rock, Funk / Soul, Pop
Style: Soul-Jazz, Big Band, Pop Rock, Schlager, Easy Listening, Psychedelic Rock, Krautrock, Beat

Kitsch and over the top but rather groovy .

[Iota]

The family that slays together

 

Ha, enjoyed that! As they clearly did too! That boy just seems too young to be able to drum like that!   
 
I saw Deep Purple at the Rainbow Theatre in London when I was thirteen. As a result of that concert they got into the 1974 Guinness Book of records for being the loudest band in the world!

[drogulus]

I saw Deep Purple at the Rainbow Theatre in London when I was thirteen. As a result of that concert they got into the 1974 Guinness Book of records for being the loudest band in the world!

    Blackmore played his Strat though a pair of Marshall Majors (200 watts ea.)

[ultralinear]

I saw Deep Purple at the Rainbow Theatre in London when I was thirteen. As a result of that concert they got into the 1974 Guinness Book of records for being the loudest band in the world!

I saw them in 1971 in the dining hall of Sheffield University Students Union, from which all tables and chairs had been removed so the audience sat on the floor while the band played on a makeshift platform against the end wall.  I would have been about 4 or 5 rows back - in about the same place where I also saw The Who perform on their "Live At Leeds" tour.  Couldn't say which was louder - beyond a certain point comparisons become meaningless - but loud it certainly was.

[drogulus]

    Yahhh Baybee!!!

[drogulus]

I saw them in 1971 in the dining hall of Sheffield University Students Union, from which all tables and chairs had been removed so the audience sat on the floor while the band played on a makeshift platform against the end wall.  I would have been about 4 or 5 rows back - in about the same place where I also saw The Who perform on their "Live At Leeds" tour.  Couldn't say which was louder - beyond a certain point comparisons become meaningless - but loud it certainly was.

    Trust me, there's nothing as loud as 3 Hiwatt Custom 100s with the volume at noon like Townshend played them. I had one (a DR103) with a custom cab with 6 Greenbacks. I only turned it up a couple of times and I thought I was gonna die!

[steve ridgway]

Yahhh Baybee!!!

A superb performance for musicians of any age! I was only listening to the tune yesterday afternoon .

[AnotherSpin]

I heard The Who were pushing the limits when it came to volume.

But of course, it wasn't just about being loud — sound quality mattered too. In the early '70s, the Grateful Dead changed the game with their Wall of Sound setup: 500+ JBL speakers, 50+ Electrovoice tweeters, and McIntosh amps. The whole thing stood 10 meters tall, weighed around 70 tons, and used some pretty wild tech — like phase-separated mics placed 180 degrees apart to kill feedback, and active crossovers that split the signal into four frequency bands before amplification. That helped cut down distortion.

Phil Lesh's bass guitar was on another level — each string had its own mic, amp path, and even its own set of speakers. Seriously. It was nuts. The sound was amazing, but the whole thing was a nightmare to manage: took 48 hours to set up, speakers kept blowing out, and it was just too much to maintain. They dropped it by '75. Still, the ideas behind it — multichannel setups, clean sound separation — basically laid the groundwork for the modern stadium systems we have today.

[drogulus]

     The Wall of Sound was a giant hifi system that served for both instrument amplification and PA. They also used dual out of phase microphones for noise cancelling.

[AnotherSpin]

The Wall of Sound was a giant hifi system that served for both instrument amplification and PA. They also used dual out of phase microphones for noise cancelling.

Beautiful shot of Jerry Garcia from 1973.

[T. D.]

[T. D.]