The Books of Bokonon

I am posting a track from Herbie Hancock and Foday Musa Suso's 1985 LP, Village Life. The whole LP is worth listening to, especially for fans of Herbie Hancock and world music more broadly. This track embodies the LP's fusion of electric jazz and Zambian folk music and a bit of the Griot tradition.    Before Progress Pond had a bunch of technical difficulties, I would post a weekly Cafe and Lounge feature on Wednesdays each week. For now, I am not able to do so, but I have my own blog, so I can indulge in some music that way. I started the series in part as a response to a more nationalistic and populist turn I was seeing even among lefties after the Trump election of 2016, as a way of saying I don't dig on building cultural walls - quite the opposite, really. So yes, I can throw down the gauntlet with some tunes (some chill, some with considerably more volume), to express a fundamental part of my value system. Cheers, everyone, and Happy New Year.

A great cover of a great David Bowie song:

I remember this one from my early teens. Ian Hunter was known as a member of Mott the Hoople (who were a big deal a bit before my time, but I like their music all the same, thank you). And of course Mick Ronson was one of the greats on the guitar, as well as a very talented producer in his own right. Cheers!

Here's another classic: This band was in class all by itself.

This video is from archived footage from a film student's project. Wire is playing this song, it appears, but the audio comes from a different gig around the same time. It still works for my purposes. I will always have a soft spot for 1970s punk, as that sub-genre has been influencing rock and pop music ever since. Wire has broken up and reformed a few times since they started in 1976, but each time they always have something new to say. Respect.

I always preferred this cover to the original.

 

 Here is some footage of Kraftwerk prior to their breakthrough hit LP Autobahn :

Today would have been my dad's birthday. He would have been 91. He passed away last year, and as anyone who has lost a loved one understands, the grieving process goes on for a while. I often find late spring (which was when he died) and October (it marks his birthday and my parents' wedding anniversary) to be somewhat difficult months. Don't worry. I function well enough. I just feel low-energy and melancholy more than anything else. I tend to gravitate towards more contemplative musical pieces when I put on a CD or stream music on YouTube or Spotify during those particular periods.  I credit my dad with turning me on to a lot of what I think of as culture. I began reading philosophy books at an early age because he had quite a nice collection and they were within easy reach. There's something to be said for Stoicism, I learned. I also got turned on to history books, including oral histories. And of course my dad was a huge fan of British comedies, which were readily a...

 

I remember hearing Lunatic Fringe on one of the local radio stations in the Sacramento area sometime in the early autumn of 1981. That keyboard intro was haunting. The steel guitar solo was inspired enough by some of David Gilmour's work that this song could almost be mistaken for a Pink Floyd outtake. I say almost because Tom Cochrane has a very distinct vocal style. I probably gravitated toward this song as a then-15-year-old because of the lyrics, which had a noticeable anti-fascist/anti-Nazi flavor. As someone who had become aware that where I lived at the time had a noticeable neo-Nazi problem, those lyrics hit hard. The lyrics are just as relevant over four decades later. As it turns out, Tom Cochrane wrote this song out of concern about a rise in neo-Nazi activity that he was noticing in the late 1970s. Musically, it holds up nicely and lyrically it's as timely as ever. Here's the promo video: I'm also going to include an interview he sat for a few years ago whe...

During the years I hosted a radio show for KPSU (now regrettably defunct), this track by Matthew Shipp was on my rotation: I'll give you the Pitchfork review from around the time nu-bop was released. The blend of electronic music and avant-garde jazz is truly sublime.

In this case when I use the adjective rare it has less to do with the footage of this interview being difficult to find and more that he almost never did public appearances by this point in his career. Like any recording artist, he was undoubtedly expected to promote his new album, Climate of Hunter , and the first single off the album, Track 3 .  So, what you will see is a brief interview followed by the video for the new single. The question about whether or not he missed fame definitely amused him, and he responded with some dry humor I deeply appreciate. Same with his response to the interviewer's characterization of his new album as a comeback. This was not a man who, now middle-aged, aspired to appear on the cover of GQ , Vanity Fair , or Rolling Stone or SPIN . He would have certainly fit in just fine. He just didn't need that sort of fame nor did he want it. Nor does he come across as reclusive. Rather he comes across as a person who is content to go to the market or p...

This is the title track for the Walker Brothers' last LP, Nite Flights . If, back in the day, you were to hear this song on the radio, you might be forgiven for mistaking this track for a David Bowie recording. Fun fact: David Bowie would cover this song 15 years later. The first half of the Nite Flights LP is strictly Scott Walker-written songs, in which he also is the lead vocalist. This is the LP that marks Scott's explicit shift from fairly mainstream pop to increasingly experimental and challenging recordings.  Although the second half of the LP is a bit less intense than Scott's half, the LP makes for a very cohesive listen, and one bearing repeated listening. There are always bound to be recording artists and LPs that just don't quite catch on. This is one of those LPs, and the Walker Brothers had already had their moment in the spotlight a decade prior. Most of the tracks on this album could have charted, with the right promotion. I believe the record company t...

Now that's not a title you'd normally expect to see for a song on an LP released by a very popular pop singer who had grown accustomed to hit singles and LPs in the UK throughout the course of the 1960s. Scott Walker was not your ordinary pop singer or songwriter. The Old Man's Back Again was the 7th song from 1969's Scott 4 LP. The subject matter itself was bleak. The year before this song was released, the Czechoslovakian government's efforts to offer some liberalized reforms for its citizens were crushed by the invasion of Soviet and Warsaw Pact tanks, thus reinstalling the old Stalinist approach to communism with all of the repression that comes with it. This is a song about hope crushed. Try playing that at a wedding reception.  This was a song written by a bassist for a bassist. The prominent bass line (one very much of the late 1960s) drives this song. The orchestral arrangements almost remind me of Ennio Morricone's work around that time. If used in the ...

I'll tell you a story about an obscure song that grabbed my attention earlier this year, and would not let go. Late last November, I purchased a new (to me) 2021 Prius. When I realized it connected seamlessly with my current cell phone, I finally relented and got a Spotify subscription. In other words, I finally followed my kids' footsteps. Unlike my kids, I immediately added whole LPs to my library, rather than playlists. The stuff I listen to is old-school enough that there might be 30-40 minutes of time for any one LP. And once an album is finished on Spotify, you'll find yourself immediately subject to whatever algorithm Spotify uses. One day, as I was on a commute, an LP finished up. I was probably listening to Television's Marquee Moon or The Patti Smith Group's Radio Ethiopia (two LPs I enjoy), when the last song ended and the algorithm did its thing. One of the first songs offered to me by the algorithm gods was a song called 30 Century Man by Scott Walke...