just hanging around

The Stranglers in 1977. And here's this amazing take with John Peel:

from Combat Rock, the Clash 40 years ago

"Straight to Hell" and "Rock The Casbah"

Deep Purple Made in Japan, 50 years

"Made in Japan" is only one of the best albums ever, even 50 years after. The band was totally relaxed and did not consider their Japanese tour and its recording as important. That behavior turned the live recordings into the most perfect back then, even if they were supposedly produced cheaply. The band did not believe it would be a great album. So the title "Made in Japan" originally intended to be a reference to the cheap products made in the East. Back in 1972, Japan was only starting to spread its very good products into Europe, the Japanese industry would conquer and save some of the British labels only 8 years after, like it happened to Austin Rover Group and its cars designed by Honda. This double live album was intended to be produced only for the Japanese market but, somehow, it ended up being sold in the UK but very cheap, the same price as one LP. However, it became a big success and it was released worldwide.
This amazing and historical album was recorded on 15, 16 and 17 of August 1972 and it starts with these two songs: "Highway Star" and "Child in Time".


Unfortunately, only the sound is related to Japan. There are no good video recordings from these concerts in Japan and this footage came from the Danish tour five months before. Though Ian Gillan wears the same shirt with triangles he would use in Japan sometimes :)

wonderwall, or the wishing stone

On the last post I talked about the secret stories behind Supersonic, a song written by Noel Gallagher, one of my very favorite Oasis songs ever. The other very fave is Wonderwall, which I used to sing with my daughter. Below, Cat Marshall singing it to John Peel.

Again, no one would have a clue about what Noel is talking about if there weren't some explanations made later as James Hargreaves shows here:

This is a VERY long documentary but it's totally worth watching entirely.
Below, a very peculiar version from Noel himself.

Have a wonderful week :)

the hidden story of Supersonic

All music composers write songs with abstract stories mostly related to their hidden personal life experiences. It's the case of Noel Gallagher who made for his band Oasis, two of my favorite songs, "Supersonic" and "Wonderwall".
No one could ever get a clue that he's talking about being himself in a rush to write a song for the day next scheduled for studio recording and there were Elsa having a gas problem. Elsa was a farting doggie. And Noel's friend living "in a corner all alone under a waterfall, where nobody can see him, nobody can ever hear him call" is the constant traumatic memory of Noel himself who passed most of his youth defending himself from his terrifying father's aggressive and noisy behavior. However, Noel is not a saint, he considers himself a "bastard cat" while he thinks that the band's singer, his brother Liam, is a "bastard dog", the guy who acted like the bad guy in the band. Whatever happened with this amazing band, Noel is a great songwriter making some of the most stunning songs ever.
All this information and much more, is available by James Hargreaves in YouTube. James Hargreaves is a musician who is self making Noel and Oasis biographies to the point of Noel considering publicly that James is the "Oasis nerd". Anyway, I stepped accidentally by James channel on YouTube when I was searching for replacements for the gone Oasis videos in this blog. Many old videos were gone due to closing pages, or due to the non supported obsolete FlashVideo. So, hope you all enjoy this long decoding about "Supersonic". It's worth watching, really.

adventure's times

August is holidays and adventures time.

Jan Hammer composed on 1984 this "Crockett's Theme" also known as "Miami Vice Theme", for the kitschy crime drama television series Miami Vice. However, it's a beautiful composition even today.
It's a "song" composed for electronic instruments. But here's Jan Hammer playing it live with the help of the jazzy Tony Williams Group. Tony Williams is a jazz drummer best known for playing with Miles Davis during 5 years as with other notable jazz composers like Chet Baker and Herbie Hancock.