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Front-Ranger:
I hope it is worth it for U, Gian! Give us a report, okay? Pix too.
In honor of Annie Proulx birthday today, I listened first to "Spiritual" by Pat Methany as I drove into work, and then to the Brokeback Mountain theme #3 that plays during the flashback scene of the dozy embrace. The two songs work really well together! There's just one thing about "Spiritual" that bothers me though. It sounds too similar to another famous song (which I won't mention just yet). Does anyone else feel that way??
Front-Ranger:
You been to Dodger Stadium, Gian? Cause I heard what they have in Dodger Stadium for boys like U--Rolling Stones!! Give us a report, plz, was it worth it??
Front-Ranger:
For some time, I have been meaning to write about the metallic sound of the Brokeback Mountain soundtrack, caused by the use of an acoustic and a pedal steel guitar. I was reading a review of the new book about Bob Dylan last night which reminded me of my need to talk about this. THe review is at http://www.newyorker.com/critics/content/articles/060904crbo_books and the end of it quotes from an interview he gave to Playboy in 1978:
--- Quote ---“The closest I ever got to the sound I hear in my mind was on individual bands in the ‘Blonde on Blonde’ album,” Dylan says. “It’s that thin, that wild mercury sound. It’s metallic and bright gold, with whatever that conjures up. That’s my particular sound.”
Was that wild mercury sound in “I Want You”?
Yeah, it was in “I Want You.” It was in a lot of that stuff. It was in the album before that, too.
“Highway 61 Revisited”?
Yeah. Also in “Bringing It All Back Home.” That’s the sound I’ve always heard. . . .
The period when you came out with “Highway 61” must have been exciting.
Those were exciting times. We were doing it before anybody knew we would—or could. We didn’t know what it was going to turn out to be. Nobody thought of it as folk-rock at the time. There were some people involved in it like The Byrds, and I remember Sonny and Cher and the Turtles and the early Rascals. It began coming out on the radio. I mean, I had a couple of hits in a row. That was the most I ever had in a row—two. The top ten was filled with that kind of sound—the Beatles, too—and it was exciting, those days were exciting. It was the sound of the streets. It still is. I symbolically hear that sound wherever I am.
You hear the sound of the street?
That ethereal twilight light, you know. It’s the sound of the street with the sunrays, the sun shining down at a particular time, on a particular type of building. A particular type of people walking on a particular type of street. It’s an outdoor sound that drifts even into open windows that you can hear. The sound of bells and distant railroad trains and arguments in apartment buildings and the clinking of silverware and knives and forks and beating with leather straps. It’s all—it’s all there. Just lack of a jackhammer, you know.
You mean if a jackhammer were—
Yeah, no jackhammer sounds, no airplane sounds. All pretty natural sounds. It’s water, you know water trickling down a brook. It’s light flowing through the . . .
Late-afternoon light?
No, it’s usually the crack of dawn. Music filters out to me in the crack of dawn.
The “jingle jangle morning”?
Right.
--- End quote ---
THere are metal references in the story too, which is one reason I think why Ang Lee chose the guitar sounds of Santaeolalla for the soundtrack. More on this later.
Front-Ranger:
Great story this a.m. about how Crosby, Stills, and Nash got together and the creation of "Our House" by Graham Nash about his home with Joni Mitchell.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5778064
Front-Ranger:
On my trip out west to meet Mel this past weekend I had the opportunity to listen to some new music. My daughter, Front-Ranger Jr., burned about 8 hours of music for me. The artists were Death Cab for Cutie, Sojan Dan, and the Shins. It was all good, and so I ordered Death Cab's latest CD, Transatlanticism, from Amazon. It's not Gustavo, but it's very interesting music.
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