Σάββατο 30 Σεπτεμβρίου 2023
Questa porta è una delle porte più antiche del mondo situata nel Pantheon a Roma, fu costruita nel 118-126 d.C., durante il tempo dell'imperatore Adriano. Il cancello è costituito da due ali, ciascuna ala è in bronzo massiccio e pesa 8,5 tonnellate, è alta 7,6 metri e larga 2,3 metri. Sebbene le ali siano estremamente pesanti, sono così bilanciate che possono essere facilmente aperte e chiuse da una sola persona. È anche una delle uniche due porte al mondo la cui serratura, risalente a quasi 2000 anni fa, funziona ancora. La sensazione che si prova quando ci si trova davanti a questo imponente portone antico è indescrivibile e incredibilmente commovente. La cultura romana è straordinaria e diversa da qualsiasi altra! Non c'è nessun altro paese al mondo che racchiuda tanta cultura, storia e bellezza quanto l'Italia
ON THIS DATE (54 YEARS AGO) September 30, 1969 - Rare Earth: Get Ready is released # ALL THINGS MUSIC PLUS+ 5/5 # Allmusic 4.5/5 stars Get Ready is the second studio album by Rare Earth, released on September 30, 1969. It reached #12 on the Billboard 200 Top LPs & Tapes chart and #4 on the Billboard Top R&B LPs chart. The title track reached #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and #20 on the R&B chart. Rare Earth put their album together quickly in the Motown studio on West Grand Boulevard, recording from 2am to 8am for five nights in June 1969. In addition to “Get Ready,” they cut versions of Traffic’s “Feelin’ Alright” and of “Tobacco Road,” a John D, Loudermilk number which originally began life as a country tune. “We had so many great songs that it was hard to pick the ones to record,” recalled Rare Earth lead singer/drummer Pete Rivera in his autobiography, Born To Wander. “We had always gotten a really strong crowd response from it,” Rivera added about “Get Ready,” but noted that their rock rendering was “decidedly different” from the Temptations original. “It seemed to appeal to both white and black audiences on so many levels.” It also required no more than two takes in the studio. “About four minutes into the first take, we screwed up and started again,” he wrote. “When a song is 21 minutes long, you usually don’t take it again for a while.” (For more on Rare Earth, read here.) That 21-minute marathon occupied all of the second side of the album. But it didn’t attract much attention until Motown released a three-minute edit as a single, when R&B radio stations in several cities began playing it. “The brothers and sisters loved the tune,” recalled Rivera. “Motown promotion men had no trouble getting it on R&B radio.” Months earlier, when Get Ready was released, the record company pressed up the first 5,000 vinyl copies with a die-cut, semi-circular LP jacket. "What you'll hear on these two sides will be Rare Earth music - put together and perfected through tireless hours on stages, on the road, and in the recording studio."- John Small, cover notes __________ RECORD WORLD, October 25, 1969 GET READY RARE EARTH-Rare Earth RS 507. Get ready for this. There is one side devoted to the group's funky and never tiring "Get Ready." The boys like the contemporary blues and show that they're masters of it on this album debut. The jacket, rounded at the top, is a new label policy. __________ BILLBOARD, November 1, 1969 - Special Merit Picks RARE EARTH-Get Ready. Rare Earth RS 507 (S) Motown, the first and last word in the pop - soul market, is out to do the same in rock. Their Rare Earth label, featuring distinct packaging to mark the youth - appeal diskery from the rest of rock, gets its feet wet with the label's namesake group, Rare Earth. The Detroit quintet offers steady, but imitative rock, showing their electric credentials on a side -long version of the Temptations' "Get Ready," as well as covers of Traffic's "Feelin' Alright' and Savoy Brown's "Train to Nowhere." A competent beginning for a future rock competitor. Promising groups include the Pretty Things and Love Sculpture from England. TRACKS: Side one 1. "Magic Key" (Gil Bridges, Kenny Folcik) - 3:57 2. "Tobacco Road" (John D. Loudermilk) - 7:11 3. "Feelin' Alright" (Dave Mason) - 5:03 4. "In Bed" (Lynn Henderson, Tom Baird, Wes Henderson) - 3:01 5. "Train to Nowhere" (Kim Simmonds, Chris Youlden) - 3:23 Side two 1. "Get Ready" (William "Smokey" Robinson 21:30 #rareearth
ON THIS DATE (38 YEARS AGO) September 30, 1985 – Tom Waits: Rain Dogs is released. # ALL THINGS MUSIC PLUS+ 4.5/5 # Allmusic 5/5 stars # Rolling Stone (see original review below) Rain Dogs is the ninth album by Tom Waits, released on September 30, 1985. It reached #188 on the Billboard 200 Top Albums chart, and #29 on the UK Albums chart. In 1989, it was ranked #21 on the Rolling Stone list of the "100 greatest albums of the 1980s." In 2003, the album was ranked #397 on the magazine's list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". A loose concept album about "the urban dispossessed" of New York City, Rain Dogs is generally considered the middle album of a trilogy that includes Swordfishtrombones and Franks Wild Years. The album, which includes appearances by guitarists Keith Richards and Marc Ribot, is noted for its broad spectrum of musical styles and genres, described by Rolling Stone as merging "Kurt Weill, pre-rock integrity from old dirty blues, [and] the elegiac melancholy of New Orleans funeral brass, into a singularly idiosyncratic American style." Waits wrote the majority of the album in a two month stint in the fall of 1984 in a basement room at the corner of Washington and Horatio Streets in Manhattan. According to Waits, it was: “kind of a rough area, Lower Manhattan between Canal and 14th street, just about a block from the river ... It was a good place for me to work. Very quiet, except for the water coming through the pipes every now and then. Sort of like being in a vault.” In preparation for the album, Waits recorded street sounds and other ambient noises on a cassette recorder in order to get the sound of the city that would be the album's subject matter. A wide range of instruments were employed to achieve the album's sound, including marimba, accordion, double bass, trombone, and banjo, indicating the many different musical directions spread across Rain Dogs. Coming as it did in the mid 1980s—when most musicians depended on synthesizers, drum machines, and studio techniques to create their music—the album is notable for its organic sound, and the means by which it was achieved. Waits, discussing his mistrust of then fashionable studio techniques, said: “If I want a sound, I usually feel better if I've chased it and killed it, skinned it and cooked it. Most things you can get with a button nowadays. So if I was trying for a certain drum sound, my engineer would say: "Oh, for Christ's sake, why are we wasting our time? Let's just hit this little cup with a stick here, sample something (take a drum sound from another record) and make it bigger in the mix, don't worry about it." I'd say, "No, I would rather go in the bathroom and hit the door with a piece of two-by-four very hard." Waits also stated that "if we couldn't get the right sound out of the drum set we'd get a chest of drawers in the bathroom and bang it real hard with a two-by-four," such that "the sounds become your own." Rain Dogs marked the first time that Waits worked with guitarist Marc Ribot, who was impressed by Waits' unusual studio presence: “Rain Dogs was my first major label type recording, and I thought everybody made records the way Tom makes records. ... I've learned since that it's a very original and individual way of producing. As producer apart from himself as writer and singer and guitar player he brings in his ideas, but he's very open to sounds that suddenly and accidentally occur in the studio. I remember one verbal instruction being, "Play it like a midget's bar mitzvah."” Ribot also recalls how the band would not rehearse the songs before going to record; rather, Waits would play them the songs on an acoustic guitar in the studio. “He had this ratty old hollow body, and he would spell out the grooves. It wasn't a mechanical kind of recording at all. He has a very individual guitar style he sort of slaps the strings with his thumb ... He let me do what I heard, there was a lot of freedom. If it wasn't going in a direction he liked, he'd make suggestions. But there's damn few ideas I've had which haven't happened on the first or second take.” The album marks the first time Waits recorded with guitarist Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones. As to the reasons for getting Richards involved, and concerning their working relationship in the studio, Waits said: “There was something in there that I thought he would understand. I picked out a couple of songs that I thought he would understand and he did. He's got a great voice and he's just a great spirit in the studio. He's very spontaneous, he moves like some kind of animal. I was trying to explain "Big Black Mariah" and finally I started to move in a certain way and he said, "Oh, why didn't you do that to begin with? Now I know what you're talking about." It's like animal instinct.” COVER The cover photograph is one of a series taken by the Swedish photographer Anders Petersen at Café Lehmitz (a café near the Hamburg red-light boulevard Reeperbahn) in the late 1960s. The man and woman depicted on the cover are called Rose and Lily. The cover-text resembles - in placement and font - Elvis Presley's self-titled debut album, as well as The Clash's London Calling. The European version of the cover features red rather than blue text, as in the former albums. __________ ORIGINAL ROLLING STONE REVIEW Tom Waits' biggest problem has always been a tendency to romanticize the abyss. His claustrophobic night world -- peopled with crusty old salts, whores with hearts of gold and three-time losers -- is all margins and no center, a sentimental never land where grotesqueness isn't merely accepted -- it's a badge of authenticity and hipness. Predictably, Rain Dogs, Waits' first LP since 1983's Swordfish trombones, indulges these flaws too generously. Dramatic bohemian rhapsodies on insanity, deformity, night, rain and irretrievable loss crop up here frequently enough to satisfy even the most demanding middle-class seeker of the edge. A handful of tracks emerge, however, from this nineteen-song, fifty-minute-plus mélange (sprawl being one of the perils of self-production) to take a place among the best work Waits has done. Prominent among these are the plaintive, accordion-tinged ballad "Time"; the nursery-rhyme-like Dr. John homage "Clap Hands"; "Downtown Train," featuring G.E. Smith's lovely, lyrical guitar; "Union Square," where Keith Richards' energetic rocking rescues Waits' bluesy affectations; and the countryish "Blind Love," which teams Keef (who also contributes some wailing background vocals straight out of the Appalachians) on guitar with Robert Quine. When you add to these the touching "Hang Down Your Head" (cowritten by Waits' Jersey-girl wife, Kathleen Brennan) and the straight, spare blues of "Gun Street Girl," you have the core of what could have been the most consistent and wide-ranging record Waits ever made. But Rain Dogs insists on nosing its way around the barrooms and back alleys Waits has so often visited before. Until Waits can leash that impulse more successfully, he'll have to be content to remain on the margins with his subjects. ~ Anthony DeCurtis (November 21, 1985) TRACKS: All songs written and composed by Tom Waits except where noted. Side one 1. "Singapore" - 2:46 2. "Clap Hands" - 3:47 3. "Cemetery Polka" - 1:51 4. "Jockey Full of Bourbon" - 2:45 5. "Tango Till They're Sore" - 2:49 6. "Big Black Mariah" - 2:44 7. "Diamonds & Gold" - 2:31 8. "Hang Down Your Head" (Kathleen Brennan, Waits) - 2:32 9. "Time" – 3:55 Side two 1. "Rain Dogs" - 2:56 2. "Midtown" (instrumental) - 1:00 3. "9th & Hennepin" - 1:58 4. "Gun Street Girl" - 4:37 5. "Union Square" - 2:24 6. "Blind Love" - 4:18 7. "Walking Spanish" - 3:05 8. "Downtown Train" - 3:53 9. "Bride of Rain Dog" (instrumental) - 1:07 10. "Anywhere I Lay My Head" - 2:48 #tomwaits
ON THIS DATE (38 YEARS AGO) September 30, 1985 – Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble: Soul to Soul is released. # ALL THINGS MUSIC PLUS+ 4.5/5 # Allmusic 3/5 stars # Rolling Stone (see original review below) Soul to Soul is the third studio album by Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, released on September 30, 1985. It reached #34 on the Billboard 200 Top LP's chart. Recording sessions took place between March and May 1985 at the Dallas Sound Lab in Dallas, Texas. Vaughan wrote four of Soul to Soul's ten tracks; two songs were released as singles. On Soul to Soul Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble are joined by keyboardist Reese Wynans whose contributions gives it a funkier edge than its two predecessors. Vaughan was always respectful of his roots and this time out he chose to included covers of songs by Hank Ballard ("Look At Little Sister"), Earl King ("Come On [Part III]") and Willie Dixon ("You'll Be Mine"). Even on songs he'd written himself, the Texas guitar slinger can be heard channeling Albert King's high-bent, string-squeezing technique on "Ain't Gone 'N' Give Up On Love," while a Jimi Hendrix-like combo of squalling leads and wah-wah-soaked rhythm playing saturate the infectious title track. Wynans fattened up the trio's sound and his use of Hammond organ is a perfect compliment to the Grant Green-like touch Vaughan gave to Eddie Harris' "Gone Home." "Change It" takes on an insistent edge as Wynan's organ swirls around SRV's crunching riffs. The bonus tracks include a 1989 interview with Timothy White along with the Slim Harpo-flavored "Slip Slidin' Slim" and a monster medley of Hendrix's "Little Wing/Third Stone From The Sun." __________ ORIGINAL ROLLING STONE REVIEW Three albums on, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble stand at the crossroads. There's enough evidence on Soul to Soul to suggest that there's some life left in their blues-rock pastiche; it's also possible that they've run out of gas. Like George Thorogood, Vaughan has achieved considerable success by presenting some of America's richest music in diluted form. This album's cover versions (with nothing as obvious or gratuitous as Couldn't Stand the Weather's reworking of Jimi Hendrix' "Voodoo Chile") will bring songs by Hank Ballard and Willie Dixon to the larger audience they deserve. Vaughan's original compositions are as superfluous as Thorogood's, but his singing has greatly improved, and the addition of keyboard player Reese Wynans to the power-trio format fills out the sound without adding much clutter to it. These gains are genuine, but they're also limited. Vaughan's downfall is his refusal to marry his roots commitment with any kind of pop sense: song structure is continually abandoned in favor of open-ended jams. Maybe next time an outside producer, such as Don Gehman (John Mellencamp, the Blasters) or Joe Boyd (Richard Thompson, R.E.M.), could impose some structure and tighten Vaughan and Double Trouble's sound, bringing it into 1985 without draining it of its integrity. ~ Jimmy Guterman (November 7, 1985) TRACKS: All songs were written by Stevie Ray Vaughan, except where noted. Side one "Say What!" – 5:23 "Lookin' Out the Window" (Doyle Bramhall) – 2:48 "Look at Little Sister" (Hank Ballard) – 3:08 "Ain't Gone 'n' Give Up on Love" – 6:07 "Gone Home" (Eddie Harris) – 3:07 Side two "Change It" (Bramhall) – 3:57 "You'll Be Mine" (Willie Dixon) – 3:46 "Empty Arms" – 3:03 "Come On (Part III)" (Earl King) – 4:31 "Life Without You" – 4:18 #stevierayvaughan
Παρασκευή 29 Σεπτεμβρίου 2023
Και διαλυμένη και αποικία… Πρεσβείες, ΜΜΕ και μηχανισμοί καθοδηγούν ανοιχτά το πολιτικό σκηνικό ● Χειρισμοί ενόψει εξελίξεων σε γεωπολιτικά και ελληνοτουρκικά θέματα ● Καταστροφών συνέχεια για τη χώρα και τις υποδομές της, χαμόγελα για τους μεγαλοεργολάβους ● Αχτίδα φωτός η προσφορά και η αλληλοβοήθεια 📰 Στον Δρόμο που κυκλοφορεί το Σάββατο 30 Σεπτεμβρίου... - https://mailchi.mp/9fd6c4e58c3d/30
Venite a brindare alla salute del popolo fiorentino con il vino della Rùfina! Domani si celebra un rito antico, l'offerta del vino del contado alla Signoria di Firenze: l'immenso e cigolante Carro Matto attraversa il centro di Firenze per essere benedetto e poi offerto alla Signoria. --> https://www.feelflorence.it/it/node/27824 E la festa continua alla Rufina con il Bacco Artigiano! --> https://www.feelflorence.it/it/node/26954 ___ #aroundflorence [Foto: Giulio Monasta] [ Città di Firenze Comune di Rufina Consorzio Chianti Rufina ]
Mais qui a fait ça ? Les punaises de lit paraissent bien devenir la bête noire du gouvernement, peu avant les JO 2024. Elles ne sont pas une nouveauté hélas, mais risquent fort d'être dissuasives pour de futurs visiteurs, et de véhiculer une image encore plus dégradée de la France à l'étranger. Cerveaux non disponibles
Ai sogni, ai sognatori e agli audaci A tutti gli illusi, a quelli che parlano al vento. Ai pazzi per amore, ai visionari, a coloro che darebbero la vita per realizzare un sogno. Ai reietti, ai respinti, agli esclusi. Ai folli veri o presunti. Agli uomini di cuore, a coloro che si ostinano a credere nel sentimento puro. A tutti quelli che ancora si commuovono. Un omaggio ai grandi slanci, alle idee e ai sogni. A chi non si arrende mai, a chi viene deriso e giudicato. Ai poeti del quotidiano. Ai “vincibili” dunque, e anche agli sconfitti che sono pronti a risorgere e a combattere di nuovo. Agli eroi dimenticati e ai vagabondi. A chi dopo aver combattuto e perso per i propri ideali, ancora si sente invincibile. A chi non ha paura di dire quello che pensa. A chi ha fatto il giro del mondo e a chi un giorno lo farà. A chi non vuol distinguere tra realtà e finzione. A tutti i cavalieri erranti. In qualche modo, forse è giusto e ci sta bene… a tutti i teatranti. Miguel de Cervantes, “Don Chisciotte”. Un giorno come oggi, ma dell'anno 1547, nasceva MIGUEL DE CERVANTES Romanziere, poeta e soldato spagnolo Alcalá de Henares, 29 settembre 1547 – Madrid, 23 aprile 1616
Quando gli Stati Uniti non riuscirono a sconfiggere i nostri antenati in combattimento, iniziarono ad attaccare il nostro parente, il Buffalo. Il Buffalo (bisonte americano) ci ha fornito cibo, vestiti, strumenti, riparo, armi e altro ancora. Tuttavia, dopo che gli Stati Uniti furono sconfitti dai Lakota, Cheyenne del Nord e Arapaho del Nord nella Guerra di Nuvola Rossa (1866-1868), decisero che l'uccisione dei Bufali era l'unico modo per fermare i Nativi che si rifiutavano di vivere nelle riserve. Il colonnello Richard Dodge scrisse nel 1867, mentre era di stanza nelle Black Hills: "Ogni bufalo morto è un indiano andato". Si stima che una volta c'erano fino a 60 milioni di bufali negli Stati Uniti. Tuttavia, dal 1870 al 1874 furono uccisi sette milioni e mezzo di bufali. Nel 1884 negli Stati Uniti erano rimasti solo 325 bisonti selvatici. Una volta che i Buffalo se ne furono andati dalle pianure, siamo diventati dipendenti dal governo degli Stati Uniti per quanto riguarda le riserve. Hanno poi cercato di estinguere la nostra cultura prendendo i nostri figli dai loro genitori e mettendoli in collegi "Kill the Indian, Save the Man". Sia il nostro modo di vivere che i nostri parenti, i bufali, erano vicini all'estinzione. Ora ci sono oltre 500mila bufali negli Stati Uniti. Lontano da dove erano una volta, ma di nuovo sulla via della crescita. Allo stesso modo, come popolo Lakota, stiamo tornando al linguaggio, agli stili di vita e alla spiritualità. Potremmo essere lontani da dove eravamo una volta, ma stiamo assistendo a una rivitalizzazione della via Lakota nelle nostre comunità. Risorgeremo dalle ceneri della colonizzazione e dell'assimilazione più forti che mai!
Πέμπτη 28 Σεπτεμβρίου 2023
Τετάρτη 27 Σεπτεμβρίου 2023
ON THIS DATE (53 YEARS AGO) September 27, 1970 – The Velvet Underground: Loaded is released. # ALL THINGS MUSIC PLUS+ 4.5/5 # Allmusic 5/5 # Rolling Stone (see original review below) Loaded is the fourth album by The Velvet Underground, released on September 27, 1970. It did not chart at the time of release. It was the final album recorded featuring Lou Reed, though he had departed from the band shortly before the album's release. Loaded was a commercial effort aimed at radio play, another step away from the Warhol-influenced days. The album's title refers to Atlantic's request that the band produce an album "loaded with hits". Doug Yule said, "On Loaded there was a big push to produce a hit single, there was that mentality, which one of these is a single, how does it sound when we cut it down to 3.5 minutes, so that was a major topic for the group at that point. And I think that the third album to a great extent shows a lot of that in that a lot of those songs were designed as singles and if you listen to them you can hear the derivation, like this is sort of a Phil Spector-ish kind of song, or this is that type of person song." Reed was critical of the album's final mix. He left the Velvet Underground on August 23, 1970 but Loaded wasn't released until three months later, in November. After its release, Reed discovered that the album had been re-edited and resequenced without his consent. One of Reed's sore points resulting from that unauthorized re-editing was that the "heavenly wine and roses" melody was cut out of "Sweet Jane". In the original recording, this part was intended to provide a perfectly flowing bridge to a full-fledged plagal cadence two-chord version of the chorus (earlier choruses in the song have a 4-chord riff). In Reed's initial solo performances, he would include the verse (see for instance American Poet), until 1973, when he would routinely leave that verse out, as the bridge fits less well in a more hard-rock version (as heard for instance on Rock 'n' Roll Animal). However, the post-Reed, Doug Yule-led Velvets always performed the song with the verse re-inserted. A career-spanning retrospective of Reed's recordings with the Velvet Underground and as a solo artist, NYC Man (The Ultimate Collection 1967–2003), which Reed compiled himself, uses the shorter version. Reed also felt snubbed by being listed third in the credits on the album; and by the large photo of Yule playing piano; and by all the songwriting credits improperly going to the band, rather than Reed himself. Newer releases have satisfied many of Reed's concerns—he now is properly acknowledged as the sole songwriter for the album; he is listed at the top of the band line-up, and since the 1995 box set Peel Slowly and See, another mix is available, restoring "Sweet Jane", "Rock and Roll" and "New Age" to the full-length versions Reed had originally penned. The album does not feature Velvet Underground stalwart drummer Maureen Tucker, as she was pregnant at the time (she is still credited on the album sleeve, however). Drumming duties were performed mainly by bassist Doug Yule, recording engineer Adrian Barber and Doug Yule's brother Billy. Lou Reed has commented that "Loaded didn’t have Maureen on it, and that’s a lot of people’s favorite Velvet Underground record, so we can’t get too lost in the mystique of the Velvet Underground...It’s still called a Velvet Underground record. But what it really is something else."[citation needed] Sterling Morrison had strong feelings about Yule's increased presence on Loaded, saying "The album came out okay, as far as production it’s the best, but it would have been better if it had real good Lou vocals on all the tracks." Doug Yule claimed that "Lou leaned on me a lot in terms of musical support and vocal arrangements. I did a lot on Loaded. It sort of devolved down to the Lou and Yule recreational recording." __________ ORIGINAL ROLLING STONE REVIEW Lou Reed has always steadfastly maintained that he Velvet Underground were just another Long Island rock 'n' roll band, but in the past, he really couldn't be blamed much if people didn't care to take him seriously. With a reputation based around such non-American Bandstand masterpieces as "Heroin" and "Sister Ray," not to mention a large avant-garde following which tended to downplay the Velvets' more Top-40 roots, the group certainly didn't come off as your usual rock'em-sock'em Action House combination. Well, it now turns out that Reed was right all along, and the most surprising thing about the change in the group is that there has been no real change at all. Loaded is merely a refinement of the Velvet Underground's music as it has grown through the course of their past three albums, and if by this time around they seem like a tight version of your local neighborhood rockers, you only have to go back to their first release and listen to things like "I'm Waiting For The Man" and the "Hitch-Hike"-influenced "There She Goes Again" for any answers. And yet, though the Velvet Underground on Loaded are more loose and straightforward than we've yet seen them, there is an undercurrent to the album that makes it more than any mere collection of good-time cuts. Lou Reed's music has always concerned itself with the problem of salvation, whether it be through drugs and decadence (The Velvet Underground and Nico), or pseudo-religious symbolism ("Jesus," "I'm Beginning To See The Light"). Now, however, it's as it he's decided to come on back where he most belongs: Standing on the corner Suitcase in my hand Jack is in his corset, Jane is in her vest And me, I'm in a rock 'n' roll band ... And once stated, the Velvets return to their theme again and again, clearly delighted with the freedom such a declaration gives them. Each cut on the album, regardless of its other merits, first and foremost a celebration of the spirit of rock 'n' roll, all pounded home as straight and true as an arrow. "Head Held High" is the kind of joyous shouter that just begs to be played at top volume, "Train Round The Bend" should satisfy all you hard blues fanatics out there, while "Lonesome Cowboy Bill" deserves a hallowed place on your favorite AM station. If Atlantic fails to get a Top 40 hit out of any of these, especially the last, they might think well of overhauling their entire corporate set-up. Commercial potential not-withstanding, Loaded also shows off some of the incredible finesse that Lou Reed has developed over the years as a songwriter, especially in terms of lyrics. It's always struck me as strange that no one has ever attempted to record any of the Velvets' material, though it must be admitted that its previously bizarre nature probably tended to frighten many people off, but there should be no excuse with the present album. Building from chord progressions that are simple innovations on old familiars, Reed constructs a series of little stories, filling them with a cast of characters that came from somewhere down everybody's block, each put together with a kind of inexorable logic that takes you from beginning to end with an ease that almost speaks of no movement at all. In "New Age," for instance, he opens with what must be one of the strangest lines that have ever graced a rock 'n' roll song: "Can I have your autograph?' / He said to the fat blonde actress" — and from there, mingles cliche ("Something's got a hold on me/And I don't know what") with poignant little details about marble showers and Robert Mitchum, all combined into one of the most beautiful "love" songs to be heard in a while. Instead of taking the song through the standard verse-chrous-verse that might have been expected, the arrangement builds through three separate sections, each following perfectly on the heels of the last, culminating in a rush that takes you out beyond the boundaries of the song into the very grooves of the record itself. And then there's "Rock and Roll," which tells the story of Ginny who was "just five years old," playing with the dials of her radio until she turned "on a New York station and she couldn't be-lieve what she heard at all." Or "Sweet Jane," possibly the Velvets' finest song since the cataclysmic "Sister Ray": "Ridin' in a Stutz-Bearcat, Jim," says Reed in the midst of a vocal performance which would put Mick Jagger to shame, "You know those were different times/The poets they studied rules of verse/And the ladies, they rolled their eyes." You can talk all you want about your rock poets, but I can't think of many who could come close to matching that. In fact, there's so much variety on the album that you could go through any number of the cuts and pick out much the same things, those extra little touches that make each one special and able to stand up in its own right. "Who Loves The Sun," a bouncy little number which opens up the record, closes with a few "Bah-bah-ba-bah's" that are reminiscent of the "doo-doo-wah's" which graced "Candy Says" on The Velvet Underground. "Cool It Down" quotes admirably from Lee Dorsey's "Workin' In a Coal Mine," while "I Found A Reason" contains a recitation straight out of any classic Fifties slow song. There's even a Velvets' hymn to close things out in the properly devotional way: "When you ain't got nothing," they sing in letter-perfect four part harmony, "You ain't got nuthin' at all ..." Yet as a good as Loaded is (and as far as I'm concerned, it's easily one of the best albums to show up this or any year), there are some minor problems which tend to take away from its overall achievement. Namely, and whether it's the fault of the mix or the production is hard to say, it feels as if many of the harder songs on the album lack punch. The group as a whole performs well — Sterling Morrison's lead guitar is unerringly good (especially on the rave-up within "Oh, Sweet Nuthin' "), while Doug Yule's bass work frames each of the songs nicely — but it seems that something has been lost in the transfer of their material to tape. Perhaps the explanation lies in the fact that Loaded was recorded before the Velvets undertook a summer-long engagement in the upstairs room at Max's Kansas City. There, playing five nights a week on what can only be called their home field, it was inevitable that their approach to the tunes on the album would change, become more refined and pointed as the group settled into what they were doing, giving them time to stretch out and expand upon each of the separate pieces. Brigid Polk, a New York artist whose mediums are the Polaroid camera and the Sony cassette machine, has a series of tapes from those performances, and I would say without exaggeration that the music contained on them is some of the finest rock 'n' roll that has been played in many a year. On a small stage, surrounded by a mass of dancing bodies (and when was the last time you saw that), the Velvets fulfilled all of their early promise, taking even those classics which they had put aside for so long (such as "Heroin" and "Sunday Morning") and turning them out in newer, somehow brighter clothes. It was a homecoming, in more ways than one, and there are few who were there that will soon forget it. At this point, unfortunately, it remains to be seen whether such a thing will ever happen again. Due to a near-textbook case of management hassles, Lou Reed left the group toward the end of the Max's engagement, and though there is a possibility of a reconciliation at some future date, the present situation doesn't look promising. In the meantime, the Velvets have added ex-Lost bass player Walter Powers to their number and are currently rehearsing for a tour. Reed, however, has always been the focal point of the group, the one who wrote their songs and provided their magic, and it is doubtful whether they can overcome his loss. None of which can detract from any of the power and beauty contained in Loaded. In the midst of Reed's tale of five-year-old Ginny, he notes that, "Despite all the amputations, you know you could just go out and dance to a rock and roll station." And that, I guess, is what it's always been about. ~ Lenny Kaye (December 14, 1970) TRACKS: All songs written by Lou Reed except "Ride into the Sun", written by Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison, and Maureen Tucker. Side one "Who Loves the Sun" – 2:45 "Sweet Jane" – 3:18 "Rock & Roll" – 4:44 "Cool It Down" – 3:06 "New Age" – 4:39 Side two "Head Held High" – 2:58 "Lonesome Cowboy Bill" – 2:45 "I Found a Reason" – 4:17 "Train Round the Bend" – 3:22 "Oh! Sweet Nuthin'" – 7:29 #velvetunderground
PURTROPPO QUESTA PAGINA SARA' GRADITA SOLO AI 'COMPAGNI' INTELLIGENTI DOTATI DI SENSO DELL'UMORISMO E DI AUTOIRONIA...CONFIDIAMO MOLTI ! 🙂 🙂 Una delle 60 tavole illustrate che 'condiscono' le 5.000 voci del nostro WIKIBOLARIO, vaccabolario illustrato della lingua italiana. Sotto, un simpatico ricordo:: Zap stava schizzando in diretta le falci e martello su una lavagna da conferenze alla fiera del libro di Roma Eur quando, proprio mentre stava disegnando 'COMPAGNO FASSINO', si è materializzato Fassino alle sue spalle. Dopo un momento di imbarazzo , mio, è scoppiato in una sghignazzata. Credo la prima volta che l'abbiamo visto ridere, poi ha comprato il libro e se lo è fatto dedicare con una vignetta! 🙂 ZAP & IDA
Τρίτη 26 Σεπτεμβρίου 2023
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