October 19 - Apache

I think this is where my love for instrumentals started. The band was The Shadows, let by Hank Marvin, and they spawned a whole generation of guitar bands in Norway, all considered to be Shadow bands. All before my time, but very much becoming an influence, especially because my dad really liked them. The tunes were many... F.B.I., Atlantis, and Kon-Tiki, to name but a few, but none of them were as memorable as Apache from 1960. Hank Marvin's guitar tone is front and senter, Bruce Welch played acoustic guitar, Jet Harris played bass, and Tony Meehan was on drums. What I didn't know (provided that Wikipedia actually can be trusted), was that the one drum that is designed to sound Native American at the beginning and end (TAM-tam-tam-tam-TAM-tam-tam-tam) was played by none other than Cliff Richard. The Shadows emerged as Cliff Richard's backing band, but they quickly established themselves as a leading instrumental rock band. Not quite in the American surf tradition, although there are clear elements of it.

October 18 - YYZ

I think we're in a week of instrumentals, at least for the time being. I have been drawn to them for a long time, and while this wasn't the first one, this was definitely one of the most important ones in my formative years musically speaking. I have had the pleasure of seeing Rush twice, and both times they played this classic from 1980's Moving Pictures, one of my all time favorite albums. It is a complex song, starting with a riff built around a tritone (C-F#), which also is known as the devil's interval (or diabolus in musica), as it is 6 semitones wide. It is hard to work in harmonically, as it sounds dissonant - but as an opening riff, it really works well. The rest of the instrumental is hard rocking and filled with short fills by drums, bass, and guitar - and the live version on Exit... Stage Left has a great early drum solo by Neil Peart. While his solos have gotten more and more melodic and expressive, I still have a soft spot for the solo from YYZ. However, today is a day for the original studio version of this fabulous instrumental - quite possibly my favorite instrumental ever. Here is YYZ, named after the airport code for Toronto International Airport.

October 17 - Mládek

Not many of you will know today's song by its name, but you might have heard it as part of the promo for NBC sports. The trio Russian Circles has released six albums; their latest album, Guidance, was released earlier this year. They are able to play their compositions live through intricate use of looping pedals by guitarist Mike Sullivan, while Brian Cook on bass and Dave Turncrantz on drums comprise the rhythm section. Today's song, Mládek, is from their fourth album, Empros, from 2011.

October 16 - Nebulous Dawn

Today, I give you music for meditation and relaxation in my last krautrock stop for now. Tangerine Dream was led by Edgar Froese, and on their 1972 release Zeit (Time), he was joined by Christopher Frankie and Peter Baumann. The music is predominantly electronic, but guitar and cello can both be heard on this piece. Zeit is a double album with four movements, and today's song is the second movement: Nebulous Dawn.

October 15 - Schizophrenia

I really liked Sonic Youth. I still do, although their indefinite hiatus really looks like a breakup. In 1987, they released Sister, one of their early masterpieces. One of the centerpieces on that album owes at least quite a bit to krautrock and the motorik drumming, which Steve Shelley perfected. I will just let you listen without any further comment - Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore cowrote the song Schizophrenia.

October 14 - Hallogallo

I mentioned Porcupine Tree's version of Hallogallo yesterday, and it really showcases one of the key elements of the krautrock of the 70s, the drumming style/pattern known as motorik. The key was to keep a very basic drum pattern go with machine like precision, and this style of drumming was later adopted by seminal noise rock band Sonic Youth. Listen to the drums on the opening track of Neu!'s first album, simply called Neu! and the core elements of motorik drumming should be very, very apparent.

In 1971, Kraftwerk broke into two halves, with Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider maintaining Kraftwerk while drummer Klaus Dinger and guitarist Michael Rother started Neu! as a duo. The experimentation continued, but this time with a more traditional rock instrumentation, using drums, guitar, and bass. Hallogallo is a hypnotic track, very minimalistic, but well worth listening to in its entirety. You will be rewarded by the swirling guitars and layers of controlled feedback all on top of the very steady motorik drumming.

October 13 (Nobel Prize in Literature Edition) - Dignity

So it did happen this year. Robert Allen Zimmerman, better known as Bob Dylan (a surname he took after the poet Dylan Thomas) earned the Nobel Prize in Literature. I am very thrilled about that, not just because I like Bob Dylan's lyrics, but because it is an official recognition of lyrics in general and rock lyrics in particular as a literary genre. I have waited for this for about 25 years.

When I was a senior in high school, we all had to write a term paper in Norwegian (language arts) related to some sort of literature. I remember being very excited about what I wanted to write about, and when my teacher gave me the go ahead, I attacked the project with fervor. My term paper was called Rocketekster - Mer enn meningsløse fraser?, which translates into Rock Lyrics - More Than Meaningless Phrases?. I remember sweating over it, tracing the evolution of rock lyrics from the beginning to where they were in 1991. I used English lyrics, showing how Norwegian lyricists had followed the English tradition. My analyses were not sophisticated, but I am immensely proud of what I did then - and I am very happy for the recognition of this literary genre today. And while I don't think I used much of Bob Dylan's work in my term paper, but he was so clearly there even if it was in spirit. I remember writing about The Beatles, whose change in lyrics was greatly inspired by Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen, whose storytelling also can be traced back to Dylan, but I don't remember if I included Dylan himself (although it would be dereliction of duty to the genre if he wasn't included).

But let's celebrate Dylan's prize. I believe it is well deserved, and I think that the song I picked will demonstrate that. I included the lyrics below the video, just so you can read them for yourself, because they do read as poetry. Here is to Bob Dylan and his Dignity.

Dignity

Written by: Bob Dylan

Fat man lookin’ in a blade of steel
Thin man lookin’ at his last meal
Hollow man lookin’ in a cottonfield
For dignity

Wise man lookin’ in a blade of grass
Young man lookin’ in the shadows that pass
Poor man lookin’ through painted glass
For dignity

Somebody got murdered on New Year’s Eve
Somebody said dignity was the first to leave
I went into the city, went into the town
Went into the land of the midnight sun

Searchin’ high, searchin’ low
Searchin’ everywhere I know
Askin’ the cops wherever I go
Have you seen dignity?

Blind man breakin’ out of a trance
Puts both his hands in the pockets of chance
Hopin’ to find one circumstance
Of dignity

I went to the wedding of Mary Lou
She said, “I don’t want nobody see me talkin’ to you”
Said she could get killed if she told me what she knew
About dignity

I went down where the vultures feed
I would’ve gone deeper, but there wasn’t any need
Heard the tongues of angels and the tongues of men
Wasn’t any difference to me

Chilly wind sharp as a razor blade
House on fire, debts unpaid
Gonna stand at the window, gonna ask the maid
Have you seen dignity?

Drinkin’ man listens to the voice he hears
In a crowded room full of covered-up mirrors
Lookin’ into the lost forgotten years
For dignity


Met Prince Phillip at the home of the blues
Said he’d give me information if his name wasn’t used
He wanted money up front, said he was abused
By dignity

Footprints runnin’ ’cross the silver sand
Steps goin’ down into tattoo land
I met the sons of darkness and the sons of light
In the bordertowns of despair

Got no place to fade, got no coat
I’m on the rollin’ river in a jerkin’ boat
Tryin’ to read a note somebody wrote
About dignity

Sick man lookin’ for the doctor’s cure
Lookin’ at his hands for the lines that were
And into every masterpiece of literature
For dignity

Englishman stranded in the blackheart wind
Combin’ his hair back, his future looks thin
Bites the bullet and he looks within
For dignity

Someone showed me a picture and I just laughed
Dignity never been photographed
I went into the red, went into the black
Into the valley of dry bone dreams

So many roads, so much at stake
So many dead ends, I’m at the edge of the lake
Sometimes I wonder what it’s gonna take
To find dignity

Copyright © 1991 by Special Rider Music

October 13 - Radioactivity

I finally found an opening for some serious krautrock. The title of yesterday's song, Radioactive Toy, provides the link to Kraftwerk (Powerstation) and the title track from their 1975 album Radioactivity. I still remember the very first time I heard Kraftwerk. I was listening to the radio show For Those About To Rock, hosted by Jan Olav Gjersvoll, when they opened the evening with playing Trans Europa Express. I was not a fan. At all. However, as time went on, I had to admit that I couldn't get it out of my head.

A few years later, I bought a copy of the British music magazine Q, and it included a tape called Drive. It was a wonderful compilation of songs that are great for listening while driving, and it included a song by Kraftwerk called The Model. I was getting intrigued. Then krautrock was referenced more and more by Motorpsycho, so I finally broke down and purchased The Mix, a compilation of some of their best known songs edited together, and that's where I first discovered the song Radioactivity. I have since explored both Kraftwerk and krautrock a little bit more - it did help that Porcupine Tree also did a cover version of Neu!'s Hallogallo, and I am liking what I find.

Defining krautrock, however, is a little bit more difficult. I think that the easiest way to talk about it is in the sense of it being a very experimental music scene in Germany in the 1970s. Yes, the roots can be traced back to the 60s, and yes, there are still krautrock bands today, but they were in many way the German reaction to the prog rock movement of the 70s. It was initially thought of as a derogatory term in the music press, but it was quickly embraced by the bands in what became more of a musical movement.

Like I said, they were very experimental, with massive use of new electronic instruments, especially synthesizers, but many of the bands still had a very traditional organic backdrop with drums and bass. This blend is very apparent in a lot of Kraftwerk's music, although on Radioactivity, the drums are sounding like they have been heavily treated and synthesized. The melody to me is infectious, but the mood of the song is really shining with a very radioactive glow...

October 12 - Radioactive Toy

There are some songs that just find their way to your mind and stick. Sometimes, that's really bad - when you just can't seem to shake a song you really don't like (Motorpsycho called those songs nerve tattoos, which to me really is a good description of it). However, sometimes those songs are the "ins" to an otherwise great album that it just takes a little while to get into. For me, Porcupine Tree's On The Sunday Of Life is an example of that kind of an album. After the intro, Music For The Head, the next song is Jupiter Island, and while it is an ok song, it's naiveté and cheesy drum machine sound is a little too much for me to really get hooked. So on my first listen to this album, I had it on in the background, and it was largely ignored until I reached the 8th track, and at that point, something really clicked. The song was Radioactive Toy, and it has a soothing quality that gets broken up by a rather noisy guitar riff - and for those of you who have been reading what I have to say about music and what I look for, you will recognize this as my need for contrast that I so often come back to.

October 11 - Deliverance

I have a goto song for when I really need to get some aggression out. Well, actually, I have several, but a lot of them are just not long enough. At 13:36, this one song by Opeth really does the trick for me, though - and it has enough quiet sections to calm me down a little before the epic final four minutes (starting at 9:38). This song is the title track on their 2002 album, and I keep getting blown away by it. Deliverance.