Great albums, Music Calendar

August 13: Eels released beautiful freak in 1996

Eels-Beautiful_Freak-Frontal

Eels released their debut album, “beautiful freak” on this date in 1996. For me it was the soundtrack of fall 1996, a perfect sad pop-album, for sad Norwegian weather.

“Eccentric and quirky are the best ways to describe the Eels’ debut effort, Beautiful Freak. Concise pop tunes form the backbone of the album, yet tinges of despair and downright meanness surface just when you’ve been lulled into thinking this is another pop group, as titles like “My Beloved Monster,” “Your Lucky Day in Hell” and “Novocaine for the Soul” indicate.”
– Review by James Chrispell (allmusic)

Eels is a rock band, formed in California in 1995 by singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Mark Oliver Everett (son of famous physicist Hugh Everett III). Band members have changed across the years, both in the studio and on stage, making Everett the only official member for the most of the band’s work. Often filled with themes about family, death and lost love, Eels’ music straddles a range of genres, which is shown by the distinct musical style of every album. Since 1996, Eels has made eleven major studio releases, The Cautionary Tales of Mark Oliver Everett (2014) being their most recent release. 

Eels – Novocaine for the soul (live, Pinkpop 1997):

Continue reading August 13: Eels released beautiful freak in 1996 →

Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan video

Bob Dylan: I’ll Remember you, London, England 8 February 1990 (video)

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bob dylan london 1990

I’ll remember you
When I’ve forgotten all the rest
You to me were true
You to me were the best
When there is no more
You cut to the core
Quicker than anyone I knew
When I’m all alone
In the great unknown
I’ll remember you

We first hear the dying seconds of “You’re A Big Girl Now”, then a GREAT version of “I’ll Remember You” kicks in…

Hammersmith Odeon
London, England
8 February 1990

  • Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar)
  • G. E. Smith (guitar)
  • Tony Garnier (bass)
  • Christopher Parker (drums)

Continue reading Bob Dylan: I’ll Remember you, London, England 8 February 1990 (video) →

Music Calendar

August 12 in music history

August 12: Happy 65th Birthday Mark Knopfler (read more)

…. Actually we are soul mates. As far as guitar playing goes he never steps all over with fancy licks. Yeah, Mark was incredible. He helped make this record in a thousand ways, not only musically, which in itself would have been enough. Brilliant guy, I can’t say enough about him.
~Bob Dylan (Talking about Knopfler part in the making of “Infidels” – July 1983 to Martin Killer)

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The most celebrated British guitar hero to emerge in the 1970s and ’80s, Mark Knopfler rose to fame as the leader of Dire Straits, and his songwriting and incisive guitar work played a decisive role in making them an international success story. At a time when punk and new wave were making technique for its own sake seem irrelevant, and metal was taking the guitar solo in noisier and unpredictable directions, Knopfler’s clean but dexterous picking proved there was still room for traditionalism and chops in mainstream rock & roll.
~Mark Deming (allmusic.com)

  Mark Knopfler

 August 12: The late Buck Owens was born in 1929, 85 years ago (read more)

I like Buck Owens’ songs, he’s alright.
~Bob Dylan (to Nat Hentoff, autumn 1965)

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And I said, ‘Why not? It’s the truth! Why can’t I say I’m a Beatles fan?’ I used to get criticized for that.
~Buck Owens

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I’d like just to be remembered as a guy that came along and did his music, did his best and showed up on time, clean and ready to do the job, wrote a few songs, and had a hell of a time.
~Buck Owens

  buck-owens
 Porter Wayne Wagoner (August 12, 1927 – October 28, 2007) was a popular American country music singer known for his flashyNudie and Manuel suits and blond pompadour.In 1967, he introduced then-obscure singer DollyParton on his long-running television show, and they were a well-known vocal duo throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s.Known as Mr. Grand Ole Opry, Wagoner charted 81 singles from 1954–1983. He was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2002.  porter_wagoner
 August 12: Bob Dylan: The 8th and last New Morning recording session in 1970 (read more)

This is a quirky album, from a Dylan not pointing a way for anyone, but from a great artist remaining at his work knowingly in the face of not being creatively on top form in the phenomenal way he had been in the period 1964–68.Warm and abiding, it sounds better and better as the years go by.
~Michael Gray (The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia

  bob dylan new morning
 Old Ways is the fourteenth studio album by Canadian musician Neil Young, released August 12, 1985. Young refers to this album in interviews as Old Ways II, as he had originally planned to release a country album titled Old Ways in 1983. Geffen objected to this, asking Young for a “rock ‘n roll” album, which Young would give them in the form of Everybody’s Rockin’. Old Ways I would have contained many still-unreleased songs, one of which was “Depression Blues”, which appeared on Young’s Geffen-era compilation Lucky Thirteen.  Oldways

Spotify Playlist – August 12
Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan video

Bob Dylan: I Don’t Believe You (SALWNHM), London, England 6 February 1990 (video)

Bob Dylan London 1990

I can’t understand
She let go of my hand
An’ left me here facing the wall
I’d sure like t’ know
Why she did go
But I can’t get close t’ her at all
Though we kissed through the wild blazing nighttime
She said she would never forget
But now mornin’s clear
It’s like I ain’t here
She just acts like we never have met

Hammersmith Odeon
London, England
6 February 1990

  • Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar)
  • G. E. Smith (guitar)
  • Tony Garnier (bass)
  • Christopher Parker (drums)

Continue reading Bob Dylan: I Don’t Believe You (SALWNHM), London, England 6 February 1990 (video) →

Music Calendar

August 11 in music history

August 11: Charlie Sexton is 46 Happy Birthday (read more)

Charles Wayne Sexton (born August 11, 1968) is an American guitarist, singer and songwriter best known for the 1985 hit “Beat’s So Lonely” and as the guitarist for Bob Dylan‘s backing band from 1999 to 2002 and since 2009. His style of playing has varied and he has been associated with artists in the blues, folk, rock and punk genres.

  charlie sexton2
 Shel Talmy (born August 11, 1937 in Chicago, Illinois, United States) is an American record producer, songwriter, arranger best known for his work in London with The Who and The Kinks in the 1960s, with a role in many other English bands including Cat Stevens and Pentangle. Talmy arranged and produced hits such as “You Really Got Me” by The Kinks, “My Generation” by The Who, and “Friday on My Mind” by the Easybeats.  He also played guitar or tambourine on some of his productions.  Shel Talmy 06
 New Skin for the Old Ceremony (released August 11, 1974) is the fourth studio album by Leonard Cohen. On this album, he begins to evolve away from the rawer sound of his earlier albums, with violas, mandolins, banjos, guitars, percussion and other instruments giving the album a more orchestrated (but nevertheless spare) sound. The album is silver in the UK, but never entered the Billboard Top 200.A remastered CD was released in 1995 and in 2009 it was included in Hallelujah – The Essential Leonard Cohen Album Collection, an 8-CD box set issued by Sony Music in the Netherlands.  new skin for old ceremony
 Bob Dylan overdubbed “Joey” @ Studio E, Columbia Recording Studios, New York City, New York – 11 August 1975.  Bob_Dylan-Desire-Frontal
 Joe Jackson (born David Ian Jackson, 11 August 1954, Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire) is an English musician and singer-songwriter now living in Berlin, whose five Grammy Award nominations span from 1979 to 2001. He is probably best known for the 1979 hit song and first single “Is She Really Going Out with Him?”, which still gets extensive US FM radio airplay; for his 1982 hit, “Steppin’ Out”; and for his 1984 success with “You Can’t Get What You Want (Till You Know What You Want)”.  Joe-Jackson

Spotify Playlist – August 11