Talk about timing! Just as I set off on this little blogging adventure, one of my favorite bands (Cargoe) is releasing a new album. Three of the four legs are there--- Bill Phillips, Max Wisley and Tim Benton--- Steve Thornbrugh making up the fourth and evidently producing as well. No, I haven't heard it yet (samples are available on Cargoe's Facebook page--- click on 'Cargoe' above), but you can bet I will. I have been a fan since I found them in the early seventies and wrote this little piece about them, should you desire to know more. Colleagues of Big Star and other Memphis bands during the Ardent years. House band at The Machine in Tulsa in the late sixties, along with Steamer's Trunk. Ready to break big when the music industry and life kicked them in the nuts. Luckily, it didn't break them completely. They're back, much older and wiser, and ready to give it another go. Watch for updates.
OPHELIA HOPE.....
You can place this under the heading of 'What? Not again!', because people who have visited my website or has slogged through my Facebook postings have probably heard it enough, but I won't be satisfied until every manjack who has ever made a comment about music not being what it used to be hears this. Every time I pull this CD from the stacks, to quote Yogi Berra, "it is deja vu all over again." It makes me laugh and gives me faith in mankind once again, and I lose it all too often. It is unique. It is, in its way, magnificent. I found the album while scrounging through cdBaby's 'new arrivals' and followed it up. From Norway, with roots in England, Australia and Italy as well. I won't go into details here, but feel free to read my review here.
INSTANT REPLAY.....
I listen to music... all the time. I have since I was a kid. To me, it is an adventure every bit as important and exciting as cinema is to a movie buff and baseball and football and basketball are to the American sports nut. I turn over rocks to find things which have that something special which separates the chaff from the wheat. I love it when people turn me on to music I might have missed or respond to something I pass along to them. I call this blog Indie Musicology because it is a learning experience and an archeological dig as well as a musical anthropological study. I hope it is not about ego, but music. I know that in my past, I introduced some music as "look what I found." If I do this right, it will be more "listen to this." And one way to do it right is to list the albums I am reviewing and/or looking forward to. Here is this week's list:
HEARTSFIELD/Here I am... Heartsfield is one of those bands I discovered early and never let go. Out of the Chicago area. They blew me away with their self-titled first album in 1973, with their slight twang on a rock theme. They were colleagues of my favorite country rock bands of the day (Cowboy, Pure Prairie League, et. al.), could bring the house down with smokin' rock and could charm a cat out of a tree with their harmonies (I saw them at The Troubadour in '75 and was enthralled when they finished a set with a six-part a capella version of 21st Century Schizoid Man... I'm kidding! I just wanted to see if you were paying attention!). Actually, I don't remember the song, but it was beautiful and masterfully performed.
So Dick Reck, executive producer, sent me the new CD along with notification that Perry Jordan, who has been carrying the Heartsfield flag for decades, had medical problems. His heart evidently had beat in an odd time signature and Perry has hung up the guitar for a short time. I wish him the best of recoveries and am sure he will be back. In the meantime, I am listening to Here I Am and digging it. When the right words come, a review will follow.
GEORGIAN COMPANY.....
I spent a good portion of last year's Christmas season listening to Georgian Company's Side A EP. There was a lot to like. There will be even more when they release Side B later this year. They're out of Austin, have the slightest of country bent and are deceptively good. It's the little things. Like the background vocals on From Day To Day (After a Storm). But that's getting ahead of myself. You can check them out by clicking on this.
FUTURE POSTS.....
They will not all be specific--- at least as regards music. I have been in the music business for years and have watched the Major Labels place themselves in a totally untenable position. I have watched musicians work their asses off with varying degrees of success. And I am currently watching people argue about the way things were or should be instead of accepting what is. I will make comment now and again, and maybe give insight. Mostly, though, I will concentrate on the music. I will try, as I always have, to find what is worthy and the artists who deserve. I've always said that it's about the music. If I should stray from that, let me know, because music is a wondrous thing and ego has little if no place. Except maybe for the artist.
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