mountain masala

Creator, Companion, Comforter

I thought I'd offer this up again for Trinity Sunday. Tune: Morning Has Broken.

God of Creation
Gentle life-giver
Present at birth, and
all through our days
Author of sunrise
Song in the night sky
Here in this place, we
offer our praise

Jesus, Companion
teacher and healer
friend of the grieving,
suffering, the poor
Stand with your people
whisper among us
promise of mercy
goodness for all

Spirit of Comfort
blow through Creation
stir up new life, breathe
peace through our world
Healer of hearts, and
hope for tomorrow
weave all our sorrows
into new dawn

Here we give thanks for
life in its fullness
blessings received
your gifts to us all
Make us a people
filled with compassion
selflessly giving
serving your world

Make sure you break the lines as shown above or the metre doesnt work. Trust me.

(c) Craig Mitchell, 2010. May be copied for non-commercial use with attribution.

Bearded Gypsy Band

Ellen is playing drums with Bearded Gypsy Band. Here are a couple of recent performances. Go to the website - they're palying in a town near you (Ellen is sharing drum duties so she's not at every gig though).

 

new music

have come across some really excellent music in the last month.... all worth a listen.

"Mid Air" - Paul Buchanan - the former lead singer of The Blue Nile offers an intimate, chilled, piano-driven album that sounds very much like Peter Gabriel's recent work. lovely

"Songs Without Words" - Paul Armfield - gentle folky baritone. very pleasant.

"So What" - Jerry Garcia and Dave Grisman - the late Dead man and the jazz mandolin player recorded a whole bunch of tunes that Grisman has been releasing. brilliant folky jazz tunes.

"Oh Fortune" - Dan Mangan - Canadian singer-songwriter - has just won Canadian best alternative album and best new artist awards. Don't know who he sounds like, but he's brilliant.

"The Very Vest of Etta James" - Etta James - yeah!

"Quill" - Bison - cinematic 'chamber folk' for those who like The Decemberists - pay what you like over at NoiseTrade.

"Moonfire' - Boy and Bear - yeah I finally decided to get on the bandwagon. get a free track here.

"Last" - The Unthanks - I'm really into English folk music at the moment.

Plus some early Neil Young, who I finally acquired a taster for, and some Keith Jarrett - classical and ambient works.

Seven Stories Reunion

Quite an exceptional evening at The Gov last night at the reunion of Seven Stories, which was more like a Westbourne Park UC reunion! Despite not having played together for a long time, the band was incredibly tight and played a superb set - pretty much all of their first album and quite a few off their second, along with "I Still Believe" and "The Walls Came Down" by The Call, staple covers from the old days. And "Love Will Tear Us Apart" by Joy Division to close. The band's material is still so strong, and lyrically relevant too, a credit to Andrew Tanner's songwriting abilities. And his charisma still carries the performance. It certainly helps that all of these guys still play a lot of live music.

Here are some snippets. [These are excerpts of songs for which I do not own copyright, posted for the purpose of review.]

It was wonderful to catch up with a whole bunch of people that we hadnt seen since 1985, and few others that we rarely get to see. So many creative people doing music, arts, drama, etc from that time. It's also sobering when you meet people who you thought you knew well and they vaguely remember you, or in one case not at all, even though we worked together... Quite a generational reunion from a certain place and time. I'm feeling all nostalgic today.

They've now put live clips from The Gov's fixed camera setup on Youtube here.

new music

a new month and new music from emusic.com, plus a couple of other bits. I'm not sure what's happening to me but this is pretty eclectic.

"Concerto of the Greater Sea" - Joseph Tawadros - an Egyptian-Australian oud and violin virtuoso and composer. this is a collaboration with Richard Tongetti and the Australian Chamber Orchetra. fabulous classical music with a middle eastern flavour

"Conversations with Christian" - Christian McBride - American virtuoso double bass player doing duets with jazz greats (inc Chick Corea) and the likes of Sting, Angelique Kidjo

"The Good Feeling" - Christian McBride Big Band - see above but with a big band!

"A Little Extreme" - Benji Hughes - like crossing Paul Williams with Badly Drawn Boy...

"Beat the Devil and Carry a Rail" - Noam Pikelny - he plays the banjo and they call this nu-wave bluegrass. really. you heard it here first.

"Mad Rush: Solo Piano Music of Philip Glass" - Sally Whitwell - yes, THAT Philip Glass. this won the 2011 ARIA for Best Classical Album. think Michael Nyman but different.

OK, I bought an emusic booster pack last month too.  when you get 6 albums for the price of one occasionally you do that.

"Sweetheart of the Sun" - The Bangles - new album produced by Matthew Sweet who is all over this album. a guilty pleasure. I do like Sweet and Hoffs covers work too.

"The Real Thing" - Kate Walsh - gorgeous English folk, like Kate Rusby.

"LIttle Dragon" - Little Dragon - Swedish electronic, female vocalist, umm... jazzy, dancey, chilled.. interesting. a bit of everything.

"Dave Alvin: The Best of the Hightone Years" - Dave Alvin - roosty folky rocky country bluesy legend. the girls call it "Dad music". I love it.

"Dropped Pianos" - Tim Hecker - ambient piano and other stuff

"Things We Lost in the Fire" - Low - early album from these American who do nice alty things to rock music

on Noisetrade

"The Noisetrade Sampler" - Amy Ray - yes, from the Indigo Girls - and pay what you want.

on iTunes

"Old Ideas" - Leonard Cohen - pure magic. proof that less is more.

"Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea" and "To Bring You My Love" - PJ Harvey - I know. I should already have these. I apologise. "Let England Shake" made me finally start listening!

"I'll Never Get Out of This world Alive" - Steve Earle - somehow i hadnt got around to buying this... his latest.

And on CD...

"Little Revolutions 2" and "Under the Dark Cloth" - Duke Special - the irish dreadlocked vaudevillian pianist songwriter aka Peter Green

"El Camino" - The Black Keys - nuff said

"The Best of Leo Kottke" - Leo Kottke - saw this double CD from my youth on sale in Blackwood. I still remember every note.

"Let Love In" - Nick Cave - saw it on sale...

 

 

 

bluegrass at the spiegeltent

our first night at the Adelaide Fringe's Garden of Unearthly Delights last night, with two concerts at the wonderful Spiegeltent. lovely, lovely venue. magical. crap seats.

the amazing abigail washburn. i do love a lady who plays a banjo and sings. i have her first two albums. she majored in chinese language and was then going to study chinese law, but heard a recording of Doc Watson playing the banjo and changed her plans! her current musical collaborator is kai welch - he played guitar, keyboard and trumpet exceedingly well. abigail has worked with bela fleck and toured china at least twice, and some of her songs are quite wonderful bluegrass-chinese type songs (musically and lyrically). they were great together.

the highlight later in the night was Chris Hillman, formerly of The Byrds, Flying Burrito Brothers, Manassas, Desert Rose Band, and much more, amd Herb Pedersen (whose solo album I have on vinyl, and who has backed most of the people in the business). Chris played mandolin and Martin and Herb played Martin and pretty much second man (I wished he'd done some pickin'). It was just sublime. Chris would say "Herb sang a duet with Emmylou (Harris) on her first hit single" and then they'd play it. And then he'd say "Gram Parsons and I wrote this song together" and then they'd play it. Or "here's a song from when I was in Stephen Stills' Manassas". Of course they played Byrds songs too. some of their other originals, along with some trad folk.

Chris played nice mandolin. The audience was mainly balding and grey men...

I'm not really a country music guy. I love the Eagles but Gram Parsons is more of a cerebral exercise for me. I can analyse it but I don't get it.  Some of Emmylou's stuff I love and some is just country music....

its was an exceptional set, only spoiled by the guy behind me who tapped his foot on my chair out of time for the whole hour. I kept wanting to turn around, but apart from the fact that I never do that kind of thing, he was obviously enjoying it so much!

 

 

new music

yep, a new month of emusic and noisetrade albums plus a couple that i paid proper money for....actually the emusic albums are $6 each and I gifted myself a few after Christmas... I have to say that Uncut Magazine is a great source for finding new stuff. and NoiseTrade is so excellent. BTW I'm telling you where I got them from. they're probably all on iTunes...

"If" - Bill Ryder-Jones - former lead guitarist for The Coral makes a lush, orchestral, cinematic album. gorgeous. on iTunes.

"The Lighthouse and The Whaler" - The Lighthouse and The Whaler - donation music on NoiseTrade here. folky, croony, lovely.

"The Sound of His Own Voice" - John Wesley Harding (aka Wesley Stace) - we discovered him while in the US and I love his early work. He had a folky period and now this star-studded album of treats. on YepRoc. (hmmm.. why is their website down today of all days...)

"Gentle Stream" - The Amazing - Swedish band that sounds like 70's east coast USA psych-folk rock with a jazzy drummer.... emusic.com

"Awkward Annie" - Kate Rusby - sublime English folk singer. I wish she'd played River Song in Dr Who and sung... emusic.com

"A New Day Yesterday" - Joe Bonamassa - have heard of this American blues guitar virtuoso but just plugged into him. emusic.com

"Variete" - Marc Almond - yes THE Marc Almond from Soft Cell. Campy, theatrical, melancholic. I love it. emusic.com

"Yesterday and Today" - The Field - another album by these remarkable Swedish electronic whizzes. listen to them.  please. emusic.com

"Take No Thought For Tomorrow" - White Heath - Scottish mob who do a sort of theatrical rock thing. i mean The Decemberists meets Jethro Tull, or maybe Queen meets Sting meets... err.... Bob Evans... emusic.com

Leonard Cohen tribute by En Boca De - featuring Jackson Browne, kd lang, Nick Cave, Lambchop, Suzanne Vega.... emusic.com

"Live on San Francisco" - Marketa Irglova - co-star of "Once" and former co-memebr of The Swell Season. no more to be said, really. donationware on NoiseTrade.

"Quincy Jones Gold" - Quincy Jones. no I will not explain. go and get a musical education. emusic.com

"Open the Door" - Pentangle - iconic English folk group.... emusic.com

"Man With a Love Song" - James Hill - FANTASTIC ukulele album. I LOVE IT! iTunes

"Kensington Blues" - Jack Rose - stellar acoustic guitarist. think John Fahey etc... emusic.com

"Season of the Sparks" - Adrian Crowley - What? another brooding, melancholy baritone? yeah.... so good. emusic.com

and a couple of old Tom Waits albums and Roxy Music albums ... "Velociraptor" by Kasabian...iTunes...

I think that's it. pray for me...

listening to...

a new month/year and some new albums, mainly courtesy of www.emusic.com, but a couple on the Christmas list as well...

"Bon Iver" - Bon Iver - quite sublime. no wonder they were calling this THE album of 2011

"White Light" - Gene Clark - early solo album from one of the Byrds. Folk-country songwriting genius

"Distilled" - Stuart McCallum - noodling from the guitarist for Cinematic Orchestra

"Revelation Road" - Shelby Lynne - OK its country music, but there's a lot of spiritual stuff going on here, grief and loss...

"Songs Without Words" - Paul Armfield - wonderful singer/songwriter stuff

"When I Fall In Love" - Mehldau & Rossy Trio - piano-based jazz from a world talent - Brad Mehldau

"Citadel Band" - Loney Dear - a bit Decemberists, a bit Arcade Fire, a bit something else. fab.

"Vine" - Chris Cheek - saxophonist and composer's jazz combo

"Colour of the Trap" - Miles Kane - 60's style pop-rock from 1/2 of The Last Shadow Puppets (the other 1/2 being Alex Turner from Arctic Monkeys)

"I'm Having Fun Now" - Jenny and Jonny - Jenny Lewis and partner do sensational pop!

"Let England Shake" - PJ Harvey - another 'best album of 2011'!

"Untitled #23" - The Church - seeing as I didnt get to the gig. One of their best!

Plus yesterday I found at JB Hi-Fi packs of 5 albums for $20 - so I bought Tom Waits and George Benson. I thought I'd play them alternately but it's messing with my head!

This lot will keep me going for a while.

 

 

 

travel guitars

thinking about one of these for my suitcase...

soundtrack music

listening to the soundtrack for the US version of "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. i do love a good soundtrack... it does seem more winter's night music than a sunny day at the beach though.