We are back in the 21st century today as this piece is in part about a recent personal resentment but more so an admiration of mine.
If you aren’t already familiar with today’s featured artist let me introduce you to one of my favorite musical findings in recent year; the blues and roots rocker duo from Atlanta, Georgia Larkin Poe.
Continue reading “Ch. #12 – “Getting down to the Georgia clay””
As I was hazily going through my feeds on various social media platforms during a lazy Sunday last week I stumbled on the saddening news that “The King of the Surf Guitar”, Dick Dale, had just passed away 81 years old.
Although I think that most of you who are reading this have probably heard my choice of song of the week, the Surf Rock classic “Miserlou“, in various context I would think that the name Dick Dale likely doesn’t ring a bell or doesn’t mean much to you. And I don’t fault you for it; he only had a brief period in the limelight and didn’t put out a whole lot of records or song during his career. But much like Buddy Holly a few years before him, despite the short period in the spotlight he left a lasting impression on the development of Rock and popular music, both artistically and technologically.
Therefore I’m penning this week’s piece in tribute to Dick Dale and to tell you why he and his legacy matters in the history of Rock and Roll.
I’m going to go full meta today as I’m going to elaborate on the very title of this blog by trying to answer on the humble question; Why I’m rambling in B-flat?
That’s a two part question where the first part, the “rambling” part, I have already answered in the “About” page of this blog. Therefore I’m not going to go any deeper into that. Rather what I want to delve into is the second part of the question, the “B-flat” part.
So what’s the deal with B-flat? Well, first and foremost it’s a cute little riff on my first name, Bernhard. Secondly, and much more interestingly, it’s a historical reference to the early days of Rock and Roll and Pop music. To get us to that time and place in musical history we’ll be looking at Chuck Berry‘s Rock and Roll classic and firestarter “Johnny B. Goode”.
This week I have no cute story or interesting factoid to convey. No fuzz or feathers, just highlighting a sweet new song from an awesome band.
That band in question would be The Black Keys, as last week Blues and Rock aficionados were blessed as the Blue Rock stalwarts released their first new music in almost 5 years in form of the dropped single “Lo/Hi”.
Recently I was thinking about early memories I have about listening to and interacting with music and subsequently having it impacting my life. There are many fond, nostalgic memories to be sure. If I go back as far as my mind and my memories allows it I end up with two memories related to music which I can’t to this day determine which is chronologically the first memory, so they have to co-share the “first” title. I wish today to narrate about one of them and the song behind it, “Sleeping in My Car” by Roxette.
It’s new music alert this week as I’m putting the spotlight on of Blues music brightest names these days, namingly guitar wizard Gary Clark Jr. and his new record “This Land” that came out just the other day as I’m writing this.
For those of you who are living east of the Atlantic Ocean Gary Clark Jr. may not be a familiar name but it’s a different story on the west side of the pond. As this recent piece by Rolling Stone narrates in the last better part of a decade Gary has established himself as the heir apparent of Blues music by many heavy names of yore, such as Buddy Guy and Jimmie Vaughan, and been called “the future” by former President of the United States Barack Obama, who invited him twice during his presidency to play at the White House.
The Blues man persona and “merely” stepping in the shoes of the Blues greats of yesterday is however an idea that Gary isn’t very comfortable with settling with. And “This Land” is an expression of that unconformity.
Continue reading “Ch. #7 – “From past to present to past to present””
One of the most touted and prolific new names in rock music in the last few years is the indie rock sensation from “Down Under“, Courtney Barnett. And I think that for good reason; she is certainly not your regular rock star.
Many of her songs are about topics and themes that is so foreign to what your otherwise “rank and file” rock songs are about. Also the mood and appearance in how she present her songs and herself is also strikingly different to also what most of us generally associate with “rock music”.
Finally, and it pain me that I actually feel it’s worth pointing this out, she is a women. If you look back at the big rock acts of the last 60-ish years or so and even compare to the active big acts of today you see a past and present that is heavily slanted toward the male side. The latter however may soon be about to change.
Last Sunday, on February 3rd, it was 60 years ago to the day which has been known to as “The Day the Music Died” since Don McLean famously referred to the event of this day as such in his 1971 song epic “American Pie”. On this day a small airplane carrying many of the famous stalwarts of the early days of rock and roll crashed in a corn field near Clear Lake, Iowa. The passengers included J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson, Ritchie Valens and Charles Hardin Holley. The later more commonly known as Buddy Holly.
This week I’m starting what I think will be a theme and a topic I will return to multiple times through out this year; namely the year 1994. And the reason; that year was an amazing year for music, at least in retrospect. A year that also happens to be quite nicely rounded to being 25 years ago this year.
As I’m writing this I’m a grass widow as my girlfriend has run of to see a First Aid Kit concert, ergo the inspirational source of this week’s installment of the blog.
I have for a long time been fascinated by the Swedish sister duo of Klara & Johanna Söderberg that makes out First Aid Kit. And it’s not their amazing musicianship, which is enough of a source to be fascinated and mesmerized about; it’s how they have been able to obtain and keep the popularity that they have.
Rambling in B-flat 