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Music That Makes Me Thankful That I Met Conservatives
I joined Ricochet for a simple reason; they were putting out a product worth supporting. Rob Long’s pitches about the content behind the paywall left me unconvinced – sorry, Rob. I can’t recall how long it was before I begin lurking around the right Feed, but I know where I first started participating: Ricochet’s “What Are Listening To” group. My little experience with conservatives growing up left me with the impression that these people don’t care much about art – or art people are interested in, anyway. I still don’t think I’m wrong about the right as a whole, but I guess Ricochet isn’t all that normal.
Here is some of the great pop music that I’d likely have never encountered had I not joined this site. (I’m intentionally excluding the excellent tunes I’ve heard since Clifford Brown decided to gift us with this Group Writing theme.)
I decided against embarrassing the ones who showed me these gems. You know who you are. How about the rest of Ricochet? Has anything been added to the soundtrack of your life from the members you’ve met? Anything you think the rest of us might not have heard?
I’m listening…
Published in Group Writing
I believe it was @judgemental who reminded us all of the musical masterwork that is Yakety Sax:
I think it was Rudert that turned me on
to Kontrust
I think I’ve fallen in love with the shamisen player.
I said I wouldn’t embarrass anybody, but I got give a shout out to @dontillman. We simply can’t have a music post without the master.
That’s Wagakki Band
I believe someone here introduced me to this cover of an old song:
Well, okay. So this is music that I’ve discovered from Ricochet and that I’ve really, really appreciated.
The first is Andrea Motis and Joan Chamorro’s group, “Lullaby of Birdland”:
It’s a George Shearing classic, a bit more uptempo than Ella or Sarah do it.
I love the extended piano intro with the full-tilt counterpoint off of the song’s main theme. (How often do you hear jazz counterpoint?) And Andrea’s vocal entrance is so solid. You just know that there was a running gag during rehearsals, with the piano getting more atonal and rhythmically weird, trying to throw her off. Utterly charming. The solos are all great.
Good to know. Unfortunately those characters on the YouTube channel are just gorgeous scribble to me.
Whoa!
Honesty, I’ve never cared for the original. But that was awesome.
Keep ‘me coming! I bet you know some stuff we don’t.
Chinese classical guitarist Xuefei Yang. She’s incredibly skilled, she embraces many musical genres, and she’s very inventive.
Here she’s playing the famous Bach 1st Prelude. But that’s a harpsichord piece, and it’s not really playable on guitar. For one thing, it’s intended for a pretty wide reach. So she works around that.
She transposes it to A so she can let the open strings ring out. She also play a lot of harmonics in the beginning, for that etherial sound. She uses a 7-string guitar (!!!) with the 7th string tuned to a low, low A. You don’t hear it until the 2:00 minute mark. This lets her cover the range.
Shearing wrote it for the owner of the Birdland club, itself named for Charlie Parker who frequently played there.
Ooooh. Lovely!
Alright, I’m going to bed soon.
Do your worst, west coasters!
More recently, Steely Dan’s “West of Hollywood”.
I’m a Steely Dan fan, but I hadn’t heard any of the newer stuff.
I love the unusual rhythmic tuplets in the melody, the sneering vocals, the drums that sound like a train going down a track, the sax solo that goes on and on, the cool changes behind it, the weird lyrics, and the bass playing that is so smooth.
Breaks my heart that they are roughly 50% gone.
Who you callin’ a West-Coaster? I’m a North-Coaster (well, not by birth or culture, but…).
Last Winter I think it was @garymcvey but apologies if it was someone else wrote a post about Vince Gueraldi which lead me to the Charlie Brown Christmas album. I’d never heard of him before but it got played almost constantly here last Christmas.
Golden age Korean psych-folk rock from Kim Jung Mi and Shin Joong Hyun, who is basically the Dylan, Hendrix and Brian Wilson of K-rock.
“Beautiful Mountains and Rivers”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajo3jQjKBjQ
That kind of thing is right up my alley!
Ack! There was no PIT activity so I figured you were sleeping.
It’s probably more accurate that we consider ourselves “peninsularians” or something. Or is there already a word for that?
I love it too. Thanks for giving it a go! Her record “Now” is a great album.
My theme song: Don Henley’s I will Not Go Quietly
https://youtu.be/31ScvWcEHaE
I can never figure how to get Youtube embed codes to work here!
This might be on our end right now. I’ve noticed a lot of videos in the past few hours that look like proper links but aren’t embedded.
Good time to have that as theme!
I’ve heard the name but hadn’t ever given a listen. I’ll have to check out more. Ricochet rocks!
This is one of my favorite Motown songs, but I don’t know it to be that popular. If you’re speakers aren’t great, I recommend headphones; you don’t want miss Jamerson on the bass.
If there is, you asked the right Ricoman.