Archive for the ‘Music’ Category
March 27th, 2015 by Corey A. Edwards
I’ve been getting back into guitaring, as I like to say, and this has gotten me back into … looking back at things which have sprung before, unbidden from the instruments I torture.
Steamy Creamy Beanness is a musical idea I’d almost forgotten about – a bit of doggerel, a knock off – but I rather like this short edit of my initial concept combined with this silly, time-lapse video, here. Doop-de-doo … what else lies in these vaults, I wonder
Once again, please forgive the sound quality (much less the hamhanded playing) – this is recorded live onto boombox sometime in 2002.
For more of this kind of torture …
Tags: cae early noises collected, Guitar
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November 4th, 2013 by Corey A. Edwards
An old friend saw one of these videos and actually liked what he heard enough to send me a track of stuff *he’s* been working on – “It needs a solo.”
Whoa. Uh, I’m nowhere near ready for that!
That being said, I’m now very much itching to get my four-track repaired – and to start practicing out of my arpeggio book again.
Tags: Guitar, Guitar Improvisation, Live Music
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October 28th, 2013 by Corey A. Edwards
As I get back in the habit of playing every day, the more eager I get to start working once again on compositions – but my fingers aren’t sure enough, yet despite how quickly my version of “chops” returned.
So many things learned poorly, so many old habits back that need to be hammered away.
WORK!
Tags: Guitar, Guitar Improvisation, Live Music
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October 14th, 2013 by Corey A. Edwards
I’ve been playing guitar with varying degrees of seriousness, now, for almost 25 years.
Knowing that, you’d think I’d be way better at it than I am but the key part of that statement, above is “varying degrees of seriousness.”
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Tags: Guitar, Guitar Improvisation, Live Music
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May 13th, 2013 by Corey A. Edwards
It’s November, 2007 and at my suggestion, my 12 year-old daughter, Mel, is busy shoving wads of toilet paper into her ear canals.
It’s her first rock concert, you see, and we’ve already walked 20+ blocks from the ferry terminal in downtown Seattle to a place called “Neumos” and here I went and forgot the earplugs.
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Tags: Battles, Bronze Fawn, Live Music, Neumos, Pleasureboaters
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May 9th, 2013 by Corey A. Edwards
I’ve really been enjoying my record collection now that I have a new turntable (a Pro-Ject Debut Carbon – incredible value for the price) and, from time to time, have encountered a few aspects of listening to rekkids that you just don’t get with any other medium – especially with the now ubiquitous digital files!
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Tags: Audiophile, Bonny Prince Billy, Clear Vinyl, Coil, Pro-Ject Debut Carbon, Records, Robert Fripp, This Immortal Coil, Yaël Naim, Yann Tiersen
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April 22nd, 2013 by Corey A. Edwards
In early spring of this year, I returned to my hometown for a short visit with family and friends. During the visit, I managed to collect two recordings of my youth, one of which is the first, full-length, pop-music album I ever purchased: Blondie’s “Parallel Lines.”
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Tags: Audiophile, Blondie, Parallel Lines, Records, Sound, Van Halen
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April 15th, 2013 by Corey A. Edwards
In early spring of this year, I returned to my hometown for a short visit with family and friends. During the visit, I managed to collect two recordings of my youth, one of which is the album I can pinpoint as having been instrumental (*snicker*) in awakening my interest in sound.
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Tags: Audiophile, Avant Garde, Esquivel, Percussion In The Sky, Records, Sound, Werner Muller
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June 30th, 2012 by Corey A. Edwards
The last few months have seen my return to music creation at the cost of much else in my life. I remain obsessed with regaining – and then hopefully surpassing – all past musical endeavors and, as such, have spent much time in pouring through the audio diary I’ve kept (more off than on these last five years) since 1991.
Thinking quite correctly that the better bits would be at the end rather than the beginning, I started transferring the most recent tapes to digital and sifting through the resulting tracks for nuggets with which to kick start the practice and aim of my renewed passion.
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Tags: Bass, Guitar, Home Recording
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April 21st, 2012 by Corey A. Edwards
Back before you could steal music from the internet, you actually had to go to the effort to drive all of the way into town to shoplift it from a store. And if you were into vinyl, it was a bitch to get that shit under your shirt without anyone noticing.
Oh, record stores, how I miss your once, near ubiquity.
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Tags: Record Store Day, Records
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December 20th, 2011 by Corey A. Edwards
I stumbled across “MODULAR: Sonic Explorations” while hunting for an Eyvind Kang track on YouTube. Situations such as this make me reflect that, while I miss record stores terribly, dammit, I love the internet.
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Tags: Dan Phelps, Eyvind Kang, Matt Chamberlain, Modular Project, Nate Manny, Records, Viktor Krauss
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December 10th, 2011 by Corey A. Edwards
When I first heard about Yoshida Tatsuya’s “Ruins Alone,” a solo version of the band by its composer and drummer, I have to admit I was dubious. I guess I was expecting something along the lines of John French’s “O Solo Drumbo” – essentially Captain Beefheart songs stripped down to the drums. Interesting but … not necessarily something I listen to very often.
Ruins is primarily known as a Japanese drum and bass unit, cranking out heavy, hard to categorize, start and stop on a dime, jazz/prog/avant-garde music fit for weirdoids like myself.
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Tags: Records, Skin Graft, Yoshida Tatsuya
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November 26th, 2011 by Corey A. Edwards
I fell in love with music very early on in life but, as with the visual arts, never really caught the bug to create any myself until well past said age.
In 1989, I began work as a security guard and there met Bruce Norton, an amateur blues guitarist. In casual conversation with him, I voiced the guitar-playing pipe-dream most young men of our culture have and he assured me that the dream could be realized. In short order, he sold me a guitar and showed me a few tips and tricks.
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Tags: Avant Garde, Bass, Guitar, Home Recording, Tom Waits
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July 8th, 2011 by Corey A. Edwards
Brian Eno, in collaboration with poet Rick Holland, released a new album called “Drums Between The Bells” this 4th of July, giving me more than one reason to revel in noise.
Diverse in scope, “Drums Between The Bells” features numerous approaches to the sound poem, a form Eno has been experimenting with since the release of “Dead Finks Don’t Talk” on his first solo album “Here Come the Warm Jets,” in 1973.
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Tags: Brian Eno, Drums Between The Bells, Rick Holland
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December 1st, 2010 by Corey A. Edwards
So, I am a good little donkey: dutifully ordering Frank Zappa releases when they are announced and in as timely a fashion as finances allow.
This latest, a 3-cd set of live recordings from performances at London’s Hammersmith Odeon in 1978, I was able to nab at preorder – joy!
Somehow, however, the company that handles the sales sent my CD to an old address, long-since sans forwarding.
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Tags: Frank Zappa, Hammersmith Odeon, United States Post Office, USPS
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April 26th, 2009 by Corey A. Edwards
Thanks to a post on alt.fan.frank-zappa, I was made aware of an excellent, 3-part documentary series on CBC Radio 2 about Frank Zappa called I am all Day and Night: The Music of Frank Zappa by Philip Coulter (it’s about half way down the page).
This amazing series allows tons of insight into Frank, his vision, and his process, revealed through in-depth interviews with Gail Zappa, Ruth Underwood, Arthur Barrow, Bruce Fowler, Warren Cuccurullo, Steve Vai, and The Man, himself via a previously unreleased, 1992 CBC interview; what better way for a Zappa fan to spend three hours?
There are some other real gems on the page as well: programs on Paul Bley, Daniel Lanois, Don Thompson, and many more. Very cool stuff – check it out!
(trying to figure out how to collect the Zappa content as I type this – the Ruth Underwood bits alone are priceless)
Tags: CBC, Frank Zappa
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January 5th, 2009 by Corey A. Edwards
I first stumbled across The Monks of Doom in the late 90’s while on an Edward Gorey tear via eBay.
The Monks of Doom were one of the few groups that had put Gorey’s mad genius to music at the time. When I realized that the same group had also covered Syd Barrett and Frank Zappa – on the same disc! – I just about swallowed my gum: here was a group of musicians speaking to people like … me! Wow!
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Tags: Lyrics, The Monks of Doom
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December 23rd, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
The mystery is solved: according to a coworker, the corporation I am presently employed by and whom is also in control of the songs I hear while under said employ, is using The Bellamy Brothers song “Let Your Love Flow” as the background music in a televised advertising campaign.
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Tags: Christmas, Corporations, The Bellamy Brothers
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December 22nd, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
I feel like I am in a time warp.
A little more than 12 months ago, I was starting out as the creative director for a perfect-bound, glossy-paper magazine; a salaried professional.
Sure, the magazine was ridiculously small but we produced a product that made people think we were a lot larger than we were. The quality of the paper, the pictures, the subject matter, the clean layout; surely it was upward for both myself and the magazine.
Heh heh … right.
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Tags: Christmas, Corporations, The Bellamy Brothers
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December 21st, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
The first time I was ever made aware of Frank Zappa, it was 1985 or so and I was shopping for records (cassettes, actually) at a surprisingly decent mall store in Fort Collins, Colorado.
One of the employees, a doughy, little nebbish of a guy named “Ralph,” if I’m not mistaken, engaged me in a conversation regarding the actions of the Parents Music Resource Center, which had only recently succeeded in plastering the following graphic all over parts of America’s pop-culture:
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Tags: Frank Zappa, The Mothers
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December 15th, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
Around five years ago I went through a phase of interest in “Outsider Music:” music composed and performed by folks who know exactly what they’re doing, even if no one else does.
This is music that is not purposefully strange, such as the kind of thing Frank Zappa might do, but music that is pure in its difference because the source isn’t consciously attempting to be odd. (Irwin Chusid’s “Songs In The Key Of Z” book and accompanying cd’s are a wonderful intro to the concept)
Daniel Johnston is one of the more famous purveyors of this “outsider music,” most of his songs containing an accessible pop strain that distracts you from his psychosis and often somewhat broken, lo-fi delivery.
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Tags: Daniel Johnston, Lyrics
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December 8th, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
I go back and forth on Adrian Belew: some of the music he has put out is absolutely brilliant, other things are a real affront to my ears.
I do have a pretty good way of figuring out, before hearing a piece of his, whether I’ll like it or not: If it’s instrumental, I’m interested. If it has lyrics, I’m extremely wary. (of course, that’s my attitude with music, in general) That being said, the man can write the occasional set of lyrics that work for me. This week’s song is such.
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Tags: Adrian Belew, Lyrics
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December 1st, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
I was introduced to Beck’s music in 1994 by a wack southerner named Aaron via a promo EP he’d scored entitled: “Loser.”
The soon-to-be-famous title track had yet to gain the rotation that would propel its author to stardom and the opinions of most who heard it at the time were that it was a goofy knock-off that would fade as quickly as it had arrived.
Aaron was not so sure.
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Tags: Beck, Lyrics
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November 24th, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
One of my friends writes songs that kind of sneak up on me from time to time and clonk me in the head. It takes a while for them to spring their trap on me.
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Tags: Chris Gunn, Low Ones, Lyrics
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November 18th, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
Okay, I just listened all of the way through the Durutti Column’s The Guitar and Other Machines album again (for the first time in forever, if you ignore the times my ipod has randomly spit out bits of it) and I think I’ve finally come to the conclusion that it’s actually pretty darned good, if dated.
In any case, it’s better than the Washington State Unemployment Board hold music (a sappy, soapy, female vocal version of Aerosmith’s “Dream On”) presently pumping into my earbud …
Tags: Durutti Column, Vini Reilly
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November 18th, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
I was turned onto the Durutti Column some 15 years or so ago by an over-eager clerk at Wax Trax in Denver. I was looking for something new and, rattling off the music I was already a fan of, said clerk latched onto the name Robert Fripp.
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Tags: Durutti Column, Lyrics, Vini Reilly
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November 13th, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
This’ll firmly mark me as a nerd (who, me???) but I’ve long felt that one of the most successful set of antidrug lyrics ever written, though they claim that’s not necessarily what the song is about, is They Might Be Giants’ Spiraling Shape.
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Tags: Lyrics, They Might Be Giants
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November 7th, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
Considering the week’s turn of events, these lyrics, which I love, seem radically inappropriate but when I think of myself and those like me whose natural tendency is to doubt hope (in truth a kind of insulation against disappointment, an emotion that, of late, I’ve had my fill), I think we can use a song like this to remind us that we are as ridiculous (if not more so) as those whom we disparage for displaying an emotion that we are too often too afraid to allow in ourselves.
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Tags: Andrew Brenner, Lyrics, Steve Beresford
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November 3rd, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
(I’ve had hundreds of ideas over the years and, due to finances or sheer laziness, have only attempted a few of them. As I dribble slowly towards quietus, it is time I quit holding so close to my chest the ones I am likely to never be able to attempt)
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Tags: Creativity
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November 2nd, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
Jimmy Carl Black, drummer for the original Mothers Of Invention, was more than just another Zappa sideman, fronting and playing an integral role in numerous other groups and recordings and gaining a reputation as a remarkable artist in his own right.
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Tags: Frank Zappa, Jimmy Carl Black
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October 2nd, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
There is an ugly, seemingly pointless closet (except for the fact that any storage is good storage in a place this small when you own as much silly garbage as I do) that sat gaping and stupid, like a mouth-breather’s maw, at the back of my new flat’s living room.
Now I could just pinch whatever sub-architect decided this was a good place for a closet but there you have it: a monstrous, ugly coat closet right there at the back of the main room where you’re most likely to do your entertaining. How lovely.
So what to do? I don’t own that many coats. Okay, I could fill it with mannequins but that’s beside the point.
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Tags: Collecting, Construction, DIY, media
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September 12th, 2008 by Corey A. Edwards
I don’t know about you, but I don’t have a hell of a lot to reminisce about.
My youth was a dull and relatively uneventful series of non-starts and pathetic dreaming that led to little until far later but despite this, I can still look back on it and, with a little help, get a quick taste of something pretty good – and a great way for me to do this is through song.
If my life has one common thread, it’s the importance music plays in it.
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Tags: Autobiography, Blue Oyster Cult, Heavy Metal
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October 1st, 2006 by Corey A. Edwards
this blog began as a section on my site called “Infinite Diarrhea” which I took down very shortly after starting it because … people were reading it. This, in turn, was causing problems in my already failing marriage …
I was shopping at a grocery store last night – Safeway – when a sudden sound caught my ear. I was so startled I almost dropped my wieners.
Over the intercom system, faint but audible: ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’ by the Ramones.
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Tags: Elderly, Grocery Store, Shopping
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