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The Friday Five: May 18, 2012

Get your filthy hands off my Friday Five.

P.O.D. - “Bullet the Blue Sky” (The Fundamental Elements of Souththown, 1999)
Very respectable cover of this U2 number that has more of the energy of the Rattle and Hum version than the one from The Joshua Tree.

Beastie Boys - “So What’cha Want” (Check Your Head, 1992)
A couple of weeks late, but still a very fitting tribute to Adam “MCA” Yauch. As I mentioned recently on my blog, I had not previously delved very deeply into the Beasties’ catalog, so I have spent a bit of time getting acquainted with their newer material and reacquainted with some of their older stuff. Along the way I have gained a deeper appreciation for the guys’ musical abilities, on this album especially.

Jimmy Page & the Black Crowes - “You Shook Me” (Live at the Greek, 2000)
The Crowes do their best Led Zed impression with the man himself. Nice.

Pink Floyd - “Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert” (The Final Cut, 1983)
Political filler from what was essentially a Roger Waters solo album.

King’s X - “Danger Zone” (Black Like Sunday, 2003)
Black Like Sunday is a reworking and reimagining of old (some of it pre-King’s X) material, much of which previously had never seen the light of day outside live performances. Overall the album is very spotty, and while this is not one of my favorites, I can find very little to dislike or complain about when it comes to King’s X.

The Friday Five: January 20, 2012

You don’t need to be a fortune teller with a crystal ball to know it’s time for the Friday Five with IckMusic!

KISS - “Hooked on Rock and Roll” (1972 KISS/Lips Demos)
Demo that is, ironically, from back before KISS became a real rock ‘n’ roll band. Bop-shoo-bop, shoo-bop-bop-shoo-bop?! Seriously, best as I can tell, the collection of demos from which this comes was actually from Peter’s pre-Wicked Lester (and by extension, pre-KISS) band Lips.

Pink Floyd - “Goodbye Blue Sky” (The Wall, 1979)
“Look mummy, there’s an aeroplane up in the sky.”

KISS - “Black Diamond” (Alive!, 1975)
Considering today is Paul Stanley’s 60th birthday, it’s fitting that iTunes picked another KISS tune (maybe I should have made it an all-KISS playlist?). It’s hard to believe I was only 5 when this album came out, and I wish I had a nickel for every time I played guitar on a tennis racket pretending to be either Ace or Gene. Alive! is very nearly a perfect live album (overdubbing accusations aside) and contains the now definitive versions of their early hits (at least for the songs from the self-titled debut). Peter’s vocals on “Black Diamond” really make the song for me. I wish I could have frozen time for KISS at this moment right here.

Sugar - “Fortune Teller” (Copper Blue, 1992)
Though I was aware of Hüsker Dü in the 80s through a couple of mail-order SST compilation cassettes, I somehow missed out on Bob Mould’s excellent 90s output with Sugar. I guess I was too wrapped up with college, Anthrax, the burgeoning grunge scene, and MTV. I’m grateful that a co-worker introduced me to Sugar around 1999, a point in time where I was probably more prepared to appreciate it.

The Police - “Can’t Stand Losing You” (Message in a Box: The Complete Recordings, 1993)
A repeat from my January 6 Friday Five. Looks like my iTunes has a bit of a Police crush lately. At least it picked a good song.

I was just a child then, now I’m only a man
Pink Floyd - “Your Possible Pasts,” The Final Cut, 1983

Tell Me Is Something Eluding You, Sunshine?

Roger Waters and Foo Fighters perform “In the Flesh?” on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon is currently in the middle of a week-long tribute to Pink Floyd, celebrating the band’s history with performances of Floyd tunes by artists like Pearl Jam and Dierks Bentley and appearances by Nick Mason and Roger Waters. Tuesday’s show featured a spot-on performance of “In the Flesh?,” the opening track of the landmark album The Wall, by the Foo Fighters and Waters himself.

Enjoy!

Wish We Were Here


Join In The Studio’s Redbeard as he celebrates the 35th anniversary of Pink Floyd’s “musical postcard from the edge” Wish You Were Here. In this episode, Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Nick Mason, and the late Richard Wright recall the circumstances surrounding the recording of the 1975 follow-up to The Dark Side of the Moon. With the band growing increasingly dysfunctional and its members drifting further apart, it’s no surprise that their remembrances of this time period are quite different, with Gilmour, Mason, and Wright recollecting that they had felt like a band, while Waters recounts, “already the rot had set in.”

Wish You Were Here serves as much as a commentary and indictment on the greed and insincerity of the music industry as it does as a tribute to former “fallen” frontman Syd Barrett and the absence felt by his withdrawal from the band and those around him.

Listen as the members talk about the music business, Barrett’s influence, the writing and recording process, as well as some in-studio mishaps. Enjoy!

Wish You Were Here. No, Really, I Do.

Well, it appears that Pink Floyd’s EMI output between 1973’s Dark Side of the Moon and 1994’s The Division Bell is no longer available from online music retailers like iTunes because the band’s contract with EMI expired on June 30. Their earlier works prior to Dark Side of the Moon were covered under a different EMI contract, which means you can still purchase those albums in digital form, but unless the Floyd signs a new deal with EMI or enters into a contract with another distributor, classics like Animals, The Wall, and Wish You Were Here could disappear forever once EMI’s stock of physical media runs out.

Pink Floyd has been shopping around for a new home for their entire catalog for over a year now, but apparently they haven’t found the right match yet.

Looks like I might just need to go out and purchase the CDs while I still can.

Via Mac OS Ken via Gibson via the Associated Press.

Minimalist Album Art

Speaking of Hipgnosis album art, Adobe design manager Ty Lettau has created a series of famous album covers redesigned in a minimalist form. My favorite of the group is the above redesign of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, designed—as many of the Floyd covers were—by Hipgnosis. Other favorites are the redesigns of KISS’ Dynasty and Metallica’s Master of Puppets (neither are Hipgnosis designs, by the way).

While you’re checking out Ty’s work at Flickr, take a look at his brilliant Cartoon Star Wars set.

Credit where credit is due—via Sleevage.

This Man Designed 80% Of Your Album Collection

photo of Storm Thorgerson

From Pink Floyd to Led Zeppelin to Peter Gabriel to the Scorpions, famed graphic designer Storm Thorgerson, along with the design group Hipgnosis that he founded in 1968 with Aubrey Powell, has been responsible for the art of some of the most iconic album covers in history.

In the latest installment of The Rock and Roll Geek Show, Michael Butler sits down with Thorgerson at the Lovers of Covers gallery show at the San Francisco Art Exchange to discuss his work on some of Michael’s favorite album covers.

A good listen as always.