Trans-Europe Express

I was a sophmore in a Central Texas High School when I got Trans-Europe Express by Kraftwerk. It was beyond anything I had been listening to electronic music wise and I loved it. Such a distinguished gentleman cover too:

It opens with the lovely tones of "Europe Endless", the chant of Europe Endless Endless floats through my head whenever anyone pontificates about across the pond. The keyboard riff of "The Hall of Mirrors" is almost as good as the self aware lyrics :"Even the greatest stars discover/find/dislike/change/themselves (live their lives/fix their face) in the looking glass". My favorite Kraftwerk song of all time concludes side one, "Showroom Dummies", predating the whole we are the robot thang with "We are Showroom Dummies/We look around/And change our pose/We are showroom dummies." I had friend listen to that song at the time and go on a long voyage covering all that mannequins coming to life implies. Of course, I talked about the fabulous Twilight Zone episode where the woman finds out that she is a Showroom Dummy.

Side Two opens with title hit "Trans-Europe Express", my mind would wander across the countries in a train when ever I listened and stared at the album cover. I'm glad vinyl is back but the beauty that was the album cover before it all shrank (well there were cassettes and eight tracks) meant that sometimes there was deep thought about the images printed on that 12" square. All of side two just flows together, "Metal on Metal" is such an enduring theme that I always felt it was a continuation. Then "Franz Schubert" is a pleasant respite exploring the more classical side of electronic composing. And "Endless, Endless" rounds it out, less than a minute long it echoes the feel of the album; traveling across one's memories and reflected desires.

I just saw Kraftwerk perform in 3D tonight and it was an amazing experience. The first rock show ever where 3D glasses were required. The visuals were phenomenal and the jamming of four guys on keyboards was unparallelled. Their version of Trans-Europe Express/Metal on Metal was as transcendent as the rest of the show. For their first encore, they had their robots perform. It was better than the Hall of Presidents but not as the Country Bears. Still seeing Ralf as a robot tickled my soul and made me glad to alive in this time before it all gets______(fill in the blank). I convinced a friend to go who was not that familiar with Kraftwerk and I think it's safe to say he was Boing Boom Tschak Techno Popped away.

A Tab In The Ocean

Ah, Nektar. The first Nektar album I devoured was Remember The Future which was a full length record with just one song about a blind boy seeing through a birds eyes. I played that record over and over, alas more of side one than side two. The second record I heard was the circus themed Down To Earth and I would play "Fidgety Queen" ad nauseum. Both of these records were owned by my brother and I picked up my own copies in cut out bins where Nektar records were usually found back in the day. A Tab In The Ocean was my first purchase of an unheard Nektar record and it contained freaking "King of Twilight" one of the greatest quote unquote Prog rock songs ever. Plus it features art that is stunning:

Side one is the title track, all 17 minutes of "A Tab in the Ocean", and it's a classic starting with waves and organ building to a frantic theme, crescendo, guitar lead, distant voice until: "To the answer, to every question,Is it real, or just deception?" Side two starts with a heavy guitar riff until it the mellow organ holds the verse then rocks out up to the riff again. A very typical Nektar song structure and "Desolation Valley" has it all down to the lyrics...

Take a look around yourself and see what I see
Persecuted eyes, looking down on me
I can't take no more of what I took before
Help me please I'm falling down Desolation Valley now
Take a look around yourself and see what I see
Imagination merged with reality
You won't see no more like you did before
Watch yourself you're falling down

"Waves" follows almost as a quiet after theme with its soaring voice reminiscent of Floyd's Gig in the Sky but two years before Dark Side came out compete with spoken phrases just below ear level. That gives way to wah guitar of "Crying in the Dark", this song always creeps up on me with extended guitar work at the end. Just great to hear wah used differently. Then its the scream of melodic ahh ah ah ahh that opens album closer and hard rocker "King of Twilight" and I'm jumping around the room singing "Forty leaves I pay for freedom.For a chance to be free." It ends abruptly on the word free at its end. Love it! One of my life's regret is not being able to see them at Cheer Up Charlies a few years back when my legs decided to cease functioning. I schemed all I could in hopes of getting there but wheelchairs and open surgery wounds kinda put a kabosh on the whole idea. I tried to get as many people as I could to go including my brother who saw them in 1974 and my girlfriend who represented like she always does.

Quark,Strangeness and Charm

I was in high school , tenth grade first semester in Texas, when bought Quark, Strangeness And Charm by Hawkwind. It had a sci fi cover and sci fi titles amidst what looked like dead scientists.

I recognized the name Robert Calvert from the Nektar album Down To Earth, he was the ringmaster on their circus themed record. Robert Calvert lead me to meet some one in school who was carrying Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters under his arm. He got me a ticket to see the Sex Pistols in San Antonio on their fateful US tour, but I had to opt not to go since it was on a Sunday night and  my parents would have a fit if I came back after midnight. As it was they didn't play until 2 am and my friend dressed up as a SS officer (even though he is Jewish).

I was immediately taken by the first "Spirit of The Age":

I would've liked you to have been deep frozen too

And waiting still as fresh in your flesh for my return to Earth

But your father refused to sign the forms to freeze you

Let's see you'd be about 60 now

And long dead by the time I return to Earth

My time held dreams were full of you

As you were when I left, still underage

Your android replica is playing up again, it's no joke

When she comes she moans another's name

That's the spirit of the age

I am a clone, I am not alone

Every fiber of my flesh and bone is identical to the others

Everything I say is in the same tone

As my test tube brother's voice there is no choice between us

If you had ever seen us you'd rejoice in your uniqueness

And consider every weakness something special of your own

Being a clone I have no flaws to identify

Even this doggerel that pours from my pen

Has just been written by another twenty telepathic men

Oh, word for word, it says:

"Oh, for the wings of any bird, other than a battery hen"

Ah, the spirit of the age

That's the spirit of the age

Ah, the spirit of the age

That is the spirit of the age

Monkey Island

My brother was a big J.Geils Band fan, he really like their The Morning After and live Full House albums.  He played them a fair amount and would jump into my face and say "First I look at the Purse!". As an fourth grader I found that amusing. When he shared Monkey Island with me, it was to show how they had dropped the "J" from their name and lessened the blues basis of their music. I swallowed this album, staring at the black and white cover and pouring over the lyric sheet. When I found it in a store, I immediately bought my own copy.

"Surrender" starts it all with a full blown blues rock features Cissy Houston belting her lungs out in a duet with Peter Wolf. I also like the line "could it be mind over matter/or maybe you just can't see"."You 're the Only One" stills sounds like late seventies romance rock, it was a hit single. Although there isn't an objectionable song on the album, it is full of pop ditties.Their version of "I Do'" is freaking awesome for what it is a do wop number, but I enjoy the handclaps throughout, honky piano and horn arrangement. This is the first song that Magic Dick starts to rip on his harmonica; probably the J.Geils Band claim to the early east coast scene, They grab onto the Rolling Stones on "Somebody", always liked this film noir tale of a song (I realized I could take all mine/And skip off with theirs, too/I know I must be crazy/I'm bound to wake up dead/Somebody, somebody/Waitin' outside my back door/Somebody, somebody/Tryin' to even up the score). "I'm Falling " is another seventies typical rock ballad, remains catchy but I guess I wanted those cheezy songs without having it be something you would hear on the radio. It was a comfort food, this song ends with extended sax jam by Michael Brecker recalling that whole Asbury style.

Side two opens with epic "Monkey Island" from the long intro (it's a seven minute song) to spooky sounds of the verses to the all hail of the chorus.  Ah, how the imagery of the lyrics stuck with me like a Jim Thompson paperback.

No one could explain it

What went on that night

How every living thing

Just dropped out of sight

We watched them take the bodies

And row them back to shore

Nothing like that ever

Happened here before.

On the east side of the island

Not too far from the shore

There stood the old house

Of fifty years or more

All the doors and windows

Were locked inside and out

The fate of those trapped in there

Would never be found out.

There ain't no life on Monkey Island

No one cares and no one knows

The moon hangs out on Monkey Island

The night has dealt the final blow

The fish jumped from the water

And started walking home

The birds all started screaming

And dove into the foam

The night came out of nowhere

And then a quiet rain

Footsteps in the darkness

Down a half forgotten road.

This song has the classic rock sections and at the time I had first got this record it was all mine. It was not where most my friends were musically but I was weird since at the time I was listening to Sparks and Amon Duul II. I mean this album is the transition between the blues rock bar band J Geils and the "Centerfold" popsters and those who knew good tell. Their version of Louis Armstrong's "I'm Not Rough" is dixie done by a good studio band. "So Good" follows with more memphis horn pop rock. I like on this record how they put the rhythm guitar in one speaker for a lot of the breaks. I enjoy good use of stereo. Acoustic track "Wreckage" ends the album, It's so note perfect with its chorus of "Only few return/So only few will learn/About the wreckage along the way". This record helped me through early high school and is still a go to when I need a pop fix...it's my soda of choice.

In The City

The first 'punk' record I got was In The City by The Jam and I thought it sounded like early Who which I really liked at the time (still do)

In the city there's a thousand things, I want to say to you

But whenever I approach you, you make me look a fool

I wanna say, I wanna tell you

About the young ideas

But you turn them into fears

Nice Guys

One of the first 'Jazz by Choice' albums I got was Nice Guys by Art Ensemble of Chicago. I believed I choose it for its cover in the early eighties because I desired something I hadn't heard of that looked good. I was intrigued by the song titles and the studio picture on the back cover.

"Ja" opens with a flurry trumpet, clarinet & saxophone before settling in a slow single note groove with the bass moving  the rhythm around with whistle and random percussion. Two minutes in it turns into reggae song complete with vocals singing about "getting back to Jamaica". This goes on for about two more minutes then sax takes over and it  devolves back into its groove for the remaining four minutes. The title track "Nice Guys" is 1:40 of catchy meandering music beginning and ending with the phrase "I'm so nice". Always makes me smile when that voice comes on,I guess that's kind of the point, a little nodding humour.Whistles with percussion and faraway reeds opens "Folkus", totally sounding like being in woods if all creatures play jazz instruments with the saxes, trumpet imitating those pesky cicada bugs. I remember camping once in a forest in Arkansas where the cicadas were so loud they drowned everything else and made it very difficult to fall asleep. Like that night, the music drifts into an almost lullaby state with wind chimes and various ringing instruments with occasional growls bringing forth images of mammals until tribal drums take over. 

I liked side one it had good lowdown feel to it, but I always played side two more. It opened with bouncy but slurry "597-59". It had that squawking sax that I was getting into with the recordings of Coltrane and Coleman, it rocked out with long phrases taking a lot of breath. It ends with a bass lead with sparse accompaniment, more lead than the Mingus groove that was evident in side one. "CYP" is mostly reeds and sets a nice atmosphere across the room. I think I always liked how the bass ending of the first song lead into the floating world of wind instruments. It really sets up the bopping riff of "Dreaming of the Master", the eleven minute odyssey that ends the record. The dum-da-dah phrase goes on  eventually drifting out of focus 'like a dream'.. I remember putting this song on a couple of mix tapes and cutting it half with radio dial noise placing this particularly tight live version of "Stormy Weather" by Billie Holiday then radio dial noise back to "Dreaming of the Master". I have a fondness for cutting songs together on cassette tape unfortunately it's not nearly as fun on mix cds where analog finesse gives way to digital cut and paste. I once married two David Gilmour solo album songs where both choruses had "There's no way" phrase in it . I would go back and forth between the two songs at that phrase. One of the songs was a hit "There's no way out of here, when you come in you're in for good" and it frustrated my friends because I interrupted the sing along.

This is one of the records that helped me understand the brilliance of Eric Dolphy, someone I was unaware of until my roommates in the 38th street house turned me onto. For sure it was the first non conventional quintet (if you call Miles, Mingus, Ornette, etc. conventional) and the first ECM label record. There was a time for awhile that if I ran across something on the ECM label I would buy it. I did same with any Factory Benelux or Les Disques du Crépuscule releases. Label obsession is an interesting thing, I find people do it for a lot of reggae labels like Trojan or the fabulous European Recommended Records. It will be fun to re explore this concept as I dig further into the shelves.

In 1987 at the Carver Center in San Antonio I saw Art Ensemble of Chicago perform the history of music "Ancient to the Future" and it was a mindblowing performance with costumes and rudimentary instruments resembling caveman rhythms progressing all the way up to modified futuristic horns. Further cementing my fondness for them as I eagerly consumed their records about Africa and urban dwelling. It's  leading me down that You Tube hole as I try to remember the name of a particular song I liked as I click on video after another saying no that's not it, click, no, next one, hmmm...

Other Voices

Well you asked how much I love you
Why do ships with sails love the wind?
And will I be thinking of you
Will I ever pass this way again
I'll be returning some day
Until then, please don't ask me my direction
Let my tracks be buried in the sea
'Cause to wander is my infection
'Till the four winds bring you back to me

Don't count your memories
Think of me as just a dream
Just like this melody, I sing






SO....The first Doors album I ever bought and probably heard full length was Other Voices which was released three months after Jim Morrison's death and does not feature him or his lyrics. Ray and Robbie do the vocals and the arrangements are of a lighter fare than L.A. Woman. Needless to say when my older brother heard and saw this record he was taken aback said it was the Civil War without Ulysses S. Grant. I was young and had only just started to build my record collection so I played this album a lot. The album opens with "In The Eye Of The Sun" which has Ray singing as close to Jim's style as he can get and features organ rhythm and typical Krieger guitar lead in an opposite stereo mix. Listening now it does sound like The Doors of the past but Ray can't help singing within the beat not like the poet could have sang it. Robbie sings "Variety is the Spice of Life" and its pretty much a barn burner with a boogie woogie feel, very typical of the early seventies with its Dr. John sensibilities. The seven minute plus "Ships w/ Sails" is a great Doors song that I know the lyrics so well I decided to preface them to this blog. I can hear the echo of the poet in the strained voice, a bit of longing for the baritone from the tenor. God, I played this record a lot in Junior High, I am so surprised how well this Elektra vinyl has aged...still clean and deep, wow. Side one ends with "Tightrope Ride" (Watch out, don't fall! Careful, don't slip!), another blues influenced pounding organ song featuring nice clean guitar riffs yet not as well developed as one would hope. I played Ships so much and then this song would come on and I would hesitate to flip the record. But I had to, I had to hear "I'm Horny, I'm Stoned", I was a teenager after all.

Supposedly side two opener "Down on the Farm" was written for the previous album and it does seem to fit although it sounds very Moody Blues like on the verse (Don’t need none today/Master’s gone away/His mind has gone astray) then like The Band on the chorus (Gonna run a rainbow ragged/Ask the mountain men, they’ve had it/City life’s a real bad habit). The piano pulses in and the guitar attacks and the ubiquitous "I'm Horny, I'm Stoned" starts and I am dancing around the room. I can't help it, here's the lyrics:

Well I'm tired, I'm nervous, I'm bored, I'm stoned
Don't you know life ain't so easy when you're on your own
I'm lonely, I'm ugly, I'm horny, I'm cold
Don't you know life ain't so easy when you're on your own
Leaving home
Well I got ripped off, wiped out, I got burned
Don't you know life ain't so easy when you're on your own
I feel my mind is shaking out of place
I look like a truck ran over my face
The doctor says I'm not a hopeless case
I really want to join the human race
Well I got ripped off, wiped out, I got burned
Don't you know life ain't so easy when you're on your own
Well I'm tired, I'm nervous, I'm bored, I'm stoned
Don't you know life ain't so easy when you're on your own
Leaving home, on your own
On your own

A harpsichord opens "Wandering Musician" which could of been song from the big pink yet once again the vocal struggles to have conviction. But this song has some nice interplay between percussion and guitar along with piano. Percussion is forefront in "Hang Onto To Your Life", then electric piano, then that guitar punctuation - what a good band this was. This song ends the album strongly being the most jammy of all the tracks, really like it when Ray gets all wizardly on the keys. When I finally heard other Door albums (of course I had heard the radio songs still I was more familiar with Jose Feliciano's Light My Fire since he was on TV performing it what seemed like a weekly basis), Other Voices faded from my repertoire although I would still play Horny and Ships for friends and curious onlookers. Yes my Doors education was flawed starting at the wrong point in time, Still like many of the records I will discuss this holds a certain charm in my heart, the faint memory of a seventh grader listening to records in the basement while playing pool or cleaning up after the damn cat (oh I love and miss you Skippy).

Indiscreet

I found a few albums under a built in drawer in our house in Minnesota where I spent my grade school/Junior High years. The ones that stood out were Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon, Bachman-Turner Overdrive's first album and Sparks Propaganda. Exposure to Sparks changed my life like records often do when you're young and searching for something to grasp upon. I bought every album of Sparks I could find and continue to do so today. The first one I got was in a cut out bin and it was Indiscreet, their 1975 follow up to Propaganda. Produced by Tony Visconti it was a total array of different musical styles starting with piano handclaps multiple vocals of "Hospitality on Parade", a song about the Service Industry and its roots in indentured servitude that takes three minutes before an electric guitar appears and rocks to the finish. "But I want a better selection/It's larger but poorer outside" goes "Happy Hunting Ground"  a ditty about art of picking up (It's fair, fair game inside) and returning again the next day for fresh game. By the time the classic pun of "Without Using Hands" and its plot of a bombing at the Ritz (Only the manager suffered but at least his face looks swell/The manager is going to live his entire life without using hand) you relish in its power with its whisper away ending chant of without using hands. Then it's full on marching band of "Get In The Swing" and quick conversation with God (Hello down there/This is your creator with a brief questionnaire/Hello up there/I don't have time for questionnaires). A string quartet plays "Under the Table with Her" because "Diner for twelve is now dinner for ten/Because I'm under the table with her. I would sing "How Are You Getting Home?" as I walked home from school, it was such a rocker that I could sing it with abandon. It seemed to be a sequel of sorts to "Thanks But No Thanks" from Propaganda about stranger danger.
Silliness starts side two with "Pineapple" (fulfills every need) but really it spouts the benefits of this wonder fruit (Ship some to the Alpine Skiing Team). "Tits" is another game changer in my world a song about confronting an affair via a bar conversation (Drink Harry Drink/Until we can't see no more) and it's harpsichord refrain of "How well I know Tits were once a source of fun and games at home/But now she says tits are only there to feed our little Joe so that he'll grow into a man". This song opened my eyes to plots in songs which made me really chew into The Who's Tommy. "It Ain't 1918" has a 1920's feel to it yet it's about the mob not allowing self expression (It ain't 1918 for us or for you/If we can't enjoy it then neither will you). Makes think now about all the hipsters with their civil war haircuts and coiffed clothes, what a mob that turned out to be...it's a no end in sight like the lumberjack plaids of the grunge years. I really love the music of "The Lady is Lingering" from the guitar lines to the drums so much that used to call one of my best friends LingerLi. "You'll love it I know it/I know what you like" says "In The Future" a song that should a been a hit but breaks into falsetto and scared everyone before the advent of disco. It ends abruptly into the 1930's stylings of "Looks,Looks,Looks" with hilarious fashion line "Spot her error". The Mael brothers who are Sparks were Sears catalogue models when they were children so they have a keen sense of fashion if to a fault. Ron the keyboardist had a hitler mustache and Russel the singer a long curled mane of black hair. The album ends strong with "Miss the Start, Miss the End" , you know this couple who believe "They don't need the total picture/Just a drawing of each other/Hung inside their bungalow/Where wondrous things are discovered" with us being this ones who "must see how it all starts and ends/And tell them what they missed once again". This is one of my favorite Sparks records partly because of when I got it but mainly because this was the final record with Trevor White on guitar whose contribution became clearer after he wasn't in the band. Sparks has gone through many metamorphoses, I remember buying Number One Song in Heaven and being in shock with it's 'I Feel Love' Giorgio Moroder production. Sparks like the Swans define a certain time in my life and since both bands continue to produce I continue to continue (to be continued).

NOTE: although I wrote this on Sept 3, it did not post correctly so repost but I will do my thirty album thirty days duty.

On Parole

Last night Lemmy sang for the last time in Austin, even if he gets better he will not pass this way again. I assign ringtones to friends so I will answer the phone and more than one has had the opening track "Motorhead" from On Parole as their special pick-me-up. I was in a Down mood was thinking I would play a punk record, but Lemmy wouldn't leave my thoughts. As you get older more people you like get sick and die, I am still not convinced of the value of existence in diminished capacity. Yet I have risen from my own ashes so to speak so from that standpoint my bias is unwarranted. I chose On Parole because as much as I needed some Lemmy, Larry Wallis's guitar work catches a moment in time never revisited. The effortless but not metal laden lead on "Iron Horse-Born to Lose" cheers my sensibilities. That opening track of "Motorhead" has so many lines I repeat: " I can't get enough/You know it's righteous stuff" & "I should be tired/All I am is wired/Ain't felt this good for an hour".

"Stop me now before I kill myself, Stop me before I kill somebody else!" is the bridge on the second and title track "On Parole", this is some toe tappin' sing along stuff but not as much as the chorus "I am vi-vi-vi-vibrator" of the third track "Vibrator" (Straight and true and all for you/I'm so eager to please/Stick with me and I'll keep you free/From any nasty disease). I always have fond memories of the first time you come across one when you're in a new relationship, a combination of awkward moment vs. glee for normalcy and a sex drive. Of course, "Iron Horse" is that requisite motorbike song, ubiquitous in seventies rock.

Side Two starts with one of my favorite Pink Fairies song "City Kids", singing along with "I'm always around" & "We know that it's wrong". But like the song says 'it won't be long' and alas it leads into the weakest track of the record "Fools" even though it is a rage against the industry (Managers and agents out there / Are ya listening? Good / They take your money, break your soul). A couple of originally on Hawkwind albums songs follow with more straight forward space rock versions of "The Watcher" & "Lost Johnny" which sandwich Motown cover "Leaving Here", a song I've always sung along with no matter who does it. The Watcher has been covered well over the years of course I am partial to the ST 37 version, it is truly one the themes that all sci fi things need (We are looking in on you now/What do you think you can do now?/You're very small from way out here/The last thing you will feel is fear). Ending with "Lost Johnny"its lyrics hit close to home with its Berlin street life scenario so much that I feel no need at this time to divulge why.

The needle picks up, I want to write more, you know talk about my feelings and recount the many Motorhead concerts I've seen over the decades. Friends who joined me, friends who are now their own Lost Johnnies, you know go walking in the park, reminiscing. or Talk about a job interview I went to today where I knew half way through that it probably wasn't going to be a good fit yet they moved me up the tier to a second interview. I could do the job and probably make lots of money but it just didn't give that warm fuzzy and by the end of the interview we both felt something was off. I've grown use to concrete answers due to my detail getting on previous jobs and don't particularly want to be told you'll figure it out when I ask a straight forward question about procedures. I need more than that, but right now I need more Lemmy so I gotta go digital and play Bad Magic. It's Motorhead's latest and it features a killer cover of "Sympathy For The Devil" because what's puzzling you is the nature of my game.

Chameleon In The Shadow Of The Night

I asked Linda to choose a shelf, then say when to stop my fingertips as I moved across my album spines and chose

Peter Hammill - Chameleon In The Shadow Of The Night

I've loved Peter Hammill since I first heard him sing "I Smile Like Chicago" on Robert Fripp's Exposure. This is his 1973 solo album (his second out of 37 so far)and features many of his Van Der Graaf Generator bandmates. I own all of his output so it has been awhile since I have listened to this record so busy keeping up with his prolificness am I. "German Overalls" opens side one, it's all about the band being stuck in Mannheim without money and features random stereo voices and noises that create a sense of tripping about the streets. "Slender Threads" reflects on a former lover whose picture is in the paper protesting and how he never really got it (I'm an author and an actor too; you're a model in the zoo. I'm just thinking on which side of the bars I am looking through.). A lot of Peter's solo work is totally self reflective, "Rock and Role" starts rocking for the first time on the record with a turn on promoters and the such (Wait for the Liemaker; he comes again and sinks his barbs through honesty.). The piano riff at the beginning of "In The End" is figaro like in its simplicity and its opening lyrics of "I promise you, I won't leave a clue;no tell-tale remark,no print from my shoe." leave me in such a fugue state as his character goes down a deep hole (the rainbow's end is hemmed with knives).

I flip the record thinking about past conversations, situations,and life's complications. Regret pushes up and I push it back down again, there is never time for that crap...what a waste of thought that rabbit hole is. As if on cue, "What's It Worth?" starts and with its dark redemption tone I feel a bit better. The ethereal dreaming of "East To Slip Away" washes over me as I notice my fingers pause over the keyboard. Sure, I've been reviewing this album but I've also been listening and though part of all of this is to reflect it sure is wonderful to be distracted and taken away by song. I guess that's why music has always been such a big part of my life. Why I own hundreds of cds and thousands of albums. By the time "Dropping The Torch" is halfway through I am thinking (I've lost the course of my adventures, all the things I meant to do are lost) it could be worse ... often say that now that I've experienced what 'worse' can really be as if suffering, grief, and pain give you a leg up on it all. It ends with my favorite line of the record;"Time ever moves more slowly, life gets more lonely and less real.". Of course then my mind is blown by the "(In The) Black Room/The Tower" suite that concludes side two (I'm a traveller, unraveller, I only live through pain, shame, and change) with its acid casualty on display that brings forth images of 'rats run, snake coils, fathers, spiders, mud boils, children' and in my mind castles which needs no explanation whatsoever.
My father thought that Peter's voice was at time times too guttural (especially with VDGG), but on 'Chameleon in the Shadow of the Night' his voice at times reaches angelic tones. Still he screams enough that my father would have found fault. Isn't that the way with us all? Fault finding at every turn, twisting our heads in hopes of looking behind and forward at the same time, getting mad when we can't, getting even madder when no else can either. Why can't we have hindsight before we need it?  Why can't the world be as we want it to be yet not too defined that we get bored by the beauty of the every day?  I don't know where I'm going with this blog, although I would be lying if I said I didn't have a clue of what's to come.  I know what's ahead and the only variable is the album choice from day to day as this whole thing snowballs. Or maybe not.  To be truthful one never can tell.

I looked back on the lyric quotes and certain words and thoughts pop out. How much of that is of the author and how much of that is of the reader or in this case the listener?

Beginning to see the -----

So begins My 30 ways hath September blogging---

The purpose seems to be to reflect on the past by reviewing music, books, places and things that appear too have some sort of tangent meaning.  The first part is to pull an album off the shelf , play it, then blog about it and all that its existence entails in my personal world...