moon traveller herald

Yesterday would been my dad's 98th birthday! He grew up on Claybourne street in Dorchester. They took in renters so he and his brother slept in the living room. He never had his own room, leaving for the service before his brother - at about 35 - left to be married. I lived there a little while as a young child. The place is nice now, was nice then. Was not so nice when we visited during some bloody times in Boston. On clabourne street we went walking . We went down there one day and the old place was abandoned. the doors opened. Tires and refuse in the yard. Inside the house there was this strange disarray . But inside the house there was still this sense that all was well. And I could imagine my father feeding the coal furnace on a winter's morning. Or waxing the hall bannister on a summer's saturday. I could imagine because he described it, including the ravenous desire to be out playing immediately ball . 34 Claybourne on Google Maps.

On the eve of the Monarch's Marriage I watched a video. I cant recomend It Might Get Loud to any but the most in-the-wool electric guitar freak, but a few moments resonated for me. One: where Jimmy Page decribes his thrall and reacts listening to Shawnee Indian Link Wray's game changing Rumble. His eyes and movement [playing guitar on air along with Link] say most all of it. Describing Link and Rumble, Jimmy says, "Profound Attitude." The other: is Jack White making an electric diddley bow on a country cottage porch. Alsways fun to see good muscians interact, tho. Page for sure was the leader as he, White and U-2's The Edge met on the ground of the blues, is most of a handful of numbers. "Muddy had a soul with one string on the guitar." - Sunnyland Slim on Muddy Waters

In Keith Richards' " Life ," he offers much incisive musical commentary, especially about the blues. He definitely studied it at great length, but not like many British blues buffs… his reading is from a totally practical perspective. "Life" discusses "the magic art of guitar weaving" [p.145]. What he describes is his and Brian Jones' emersion in the Chicago Blues music of Jimmy Reed. That music in its best form was underpinned elegantly by the second guitar of Eddie "Don't Call Me Little" Taylor. It is very hard to discern the two guitar lines. But that is what Richards and Jones studied. They studied it carefully – in its simplicity and monotony – and focused on the two-guitar set-up, and the subtle, though 'primitive', interplay thereof. The basic blues guitar and the rock lead and rhythm guitar duo are pretty well known. It is killing what passes for blues these days as it uncreatively recreates itself years after the fact...

He came out of the Los Angeles desert like a Merc chopped and grueled on airplane fuel. Like Big Daddy Roth in a refrigerator graveyard. Put an apple on the head of an insect lawn trophy. Wore and intricate Troutmask replica, and blowed the tropical hotdog night blues til dawn. Heard the news this afternoon that Don Van Vliet was dead. Where do we find words for Capt. Beefheart's passing? I don't know more than to say what a great surrealist brilliant and unique! Saw him at Town Hall in N.Y . in early 1970s. I cannot think of a greater concert of rock music I ever saw. At that point it was rock for Beefheart - but counterpuntal and baroque unlike any other, at least up to that point. How big was he then? Well, Bob Seeger opened. Because of schoolmate Harry Duncan got to meet him - that was in the 70s. Very much an artist, constantly creating. Worrisome though too because he was always jumping around. Talking til dawn. Putting you on. Through Harry in a way the D...

At Moogfest, a North Carolina musical event honoring the work of analog electronic musical instrument pioneer Robert "Bob" Moog, there were many Korgs, Yamahas, and laptops loaded with Moog samples, writes able NY Times' critic Jon Pareles. One purpose of the event is to raise money for a Moogseum archiving the work of Moog, who died a few years ago. Neon Indian, Omar Souleyman, Van Dyke Parks and Devo were on hand. Pareles sets the scene. It is a glance at the reign of the once and future King d' Synthesizer Analogue: From their sometimes-unstable oscillators, filters and amplifiers, Moogs and other analog synthesizers produced sounds that more reliable digital synthesizers would not: buzzes, swoops, whooshes, scrapes, gurgles, screeches, burps, crackles and countless other onomatopoeia-worthy noises … Analog sounds are a funky corrective to sterile digital tones; colliding waveforms make a beautiful noise. New York born electrical engineer and physics PHd Bob Moog...

Jeff De Mark has a beautiful take on a great universal conflagarative event in our ongoing deracination. My mostly templative recollection is here .... This Wheels on Fire. They used to play it on the radio in Milwaukee. And the all of us got excited about that and wanted to go to the East... and for more Jeff DeMark...