PS's music blog (for want of a better name!)

my current droollist

2005-08-26T14:37:00.000-04:00

These are the songs that I'm currently drooling over:

Hollow Years - Once in a livetime version - John Petrucci
This version is totally different from the studio version of the song. This whole album is a classic, but this song's the best. John Petrucci's distinctive way in which he plays the acoustic guitar is most prominent in this song. The guitar intro at the start of the song sounds more like mandolin than guitar. The lead solo is also on acoustic guitar, and its as good as it can ever get.

Going to california - Led zeppelin
The only instrument in this song is an acoustic guitar and a mandolin. Robert Plant's voice in this song is just genius. The chorus line :
"Seems that the wrath of the gods
Got a punch on the nose and it started to flow
I think I might be sinking."
thats the highlight of the song. The way Plant sings this line is simply genius. He proves yet again in this song that he's the best rock vocalist ever.

From Hark to Hendrix - Neil Young
The song is a tribute to two greatest guitarists, Hark Marvin (lead guitarist of Shadows - one of the greatest instrumental rock bands) and Jimi Hendrix. Pleasant feelgood song. The harmonica in the song is just mindblowing.

Crossposted in rfc9000

Mark Knopfler

2005-06-30T03:01:00.000-04:00

Just back from the Knopfler concert. Its 3 in the night so pardon my drowsiness if it shows up!
Dire Straits has long been my favourite alltime band and Mark Knopfler is one of my favourite musicians of all time. And today I got the chance to watch him live, so it was a cool occasion.
The venue was different in many ways, I've never before been to a rock concert of this kind. The venue was Radio City at NYC,

which happens to be a proper indoor auditorium, and we had seat numbers and the crowd was dignified and quiet, hardly the kind you see at rock concerts. Lot of essential elements of a rock concert were missing today, like pushing your way to the front of the crowd right next to the stage, headbanging, singing out aloud to the lyrics of the song.. Nonetheless the fact that it was Mark Knopfler live made up for all else. On to the concert itself.

The opening act was a Elvis-style guitarist-singer called Bap Kennedy, and another guy who played the slide guitar.

They played for half an hour and they were very mediocre. Still there was no booing from the crowd. This is just one example of the kind of crowd that was there today. Usually in rock concerts, opening acts are meant to be booed, even if they were amazingly talented. Antaragni (my favourite local band at Bangalore) got booed when they opened for Deep Purple at Bangalore. And today we had this mediocre band opening for none other than Mark Knopfler and yet getting applauses. Anyways, on to the real concert.

The guitar god finally made his entrance around 8:45, and started right away with Why Aye man. Unfortunately I already knew the song list that was to be performed today. There's a certain unpredictability and excitement involved in waiting for the next song and guessing what it could be, which was missing today. And my other crib is that I knew in advance that they were not going to play Tunnel of Love. Somehow Mark Knopfler seems to have this soft corner for his newer non-Dire Straits songs, and it was evident today. Let me describe the concert song by song, in order (I might have missed a song or two though).

Why Aye Man:
Uptempo song to start the show. But a Dire Straits song would have been a better opener. Didnt really have the effect of swinging the crowd to action. And the song was just like the album-version, no improvisation.

Walk of Life:
Now this is the kind of song that infuses adrenalin into the audience. Knopfler promptly changed his guitar for this song, throughout the concert he was changing guitars, with atleast 5 different guitars in all. For this song he picked a red stereotypical guitar.

But again, the song was not all that long, and no improvisation.

What It Is:
This song is my favourite among the non-Dire Straits songs of his. His version today was peppy with a bit of an extended solo.

Sailing to Philadelphia:
I think this is one rare song in which Mark Knopfler really sings, he actually croons in this song. Normally he just talks in his songs, his guitar does all the singing for him. This song was one rare extreme where he actually sings. The other extreme I think is exemplified in Private Investigations where he literally just talks. (He didnt play Private Investigations today BTW). Good piano in this song.

After this song there was a brief piano interlude which was amazing but I could not recognize that the song was ...

Romeo and Juliet:
After that amazing piano intro, the song was played in the normal way. This song is my third favourite Dire Straits number (after Brothers in Arms and Tunnel of Love). This song today was one of the highlights. He changed his guitar again for this song.

Sultans of Swing:
One classic followed by another. This is the song that brought the crowd to its feet. The extended lead, though not as good as some other versions he has performed earlier, was mesmerizing nonetheless. This song has special significance to me as its the first Dire Straits song that I ever heard, some 8 years back. (After this song I had heard Money for Nothing and Walk of Life, but it was a while (2nd year of undergrad) when I really got into this band). At the end of this song the applause was just awesome. Shows that this is easily the crowd favourite song.

This song was followed by a whole lot of non-Dire Straits songs, the first one I havent heard before, the next was Song for Sunny Liston, followed by Rudiger. Rudiger had some amazing keyboards. That was followed by another unheard song which was followed by Speedway to Nazareth. This song is just an ok song, but it features an amazing drum solo in the middle of the song, and the extended lead at the end by Knopfler is reminiscent of the good old Dire Straits classics, esp Telegraph Road.
The next song was Boom, Like that. The song is about Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonalds, and I feel its a pretty strange theme to base a song on. Anywayz..

Telegraph Road:
This was the real highlight of the whole concert. The song went on for a good ~10 minutes, and featured an amazing piano solo, and a heavily improvized guitar solo by Knopfler. Easily the pick of the night, the energy in this song was tremendous, and for a 55 year old it was just amazing! At the end of the song, the audience was just on their feet.

After this song Knopfler did a brief walking-away act but before the crowd really shouted for an encore he was back, so what follows I dont know if it can be called an encore.

Brothers in Arms:
This is my favourite Dire Straits song. The guitaring in this song is just amazingly intense, it feels like he is speaking through his guitar. His guitaring style in this song is very atypical of him, its more David Gilmour style guitaring, slow yet intense. He did a bit of an extended lead but not that long. But it was still quite electrifying!

Money for Nothing:
This song featured a lot of improvizations, I heard a solo in the middle of this song which I have never heard before in any of his concerts. By the end of this song the mood among the audience had reached a high.

So Far Away:
Another classic. But sadly he did not play it that long and it sounded just like the album version.

Shangri-la:
Hardly a song that befits a position as last song in a Mark Knopfler concert. But again, it just shows his soft corner for his recent albums, and considering this current tour of his is called Shangri-la, we cant complain. The song was good, but not half as good as the songs just before it.

Sadly the concert came to an end with this song. I was quite surprised, rather shocked that the audience did not even shout for an encore. If they did, Im sure he'd have played Local Hero, a perfect concert closing song, but sadly that was not to be!

Nonetheless the concert was an amazing experience, and for hardcore fans of Dire Straits, just the oppotunity to see the guitar god in person is equivalent to ecstacy. And thats just the ecstacy I got to experience today.

I took a whole lot of cool videos of the concert but uploading them shall happen some other day.

After the concert we went to this cool Forrest Gump-themed restaurant called Bubba Gump.

The menu card there was in the shape of a pingpong bat. And there was this board that said Run Forrest Run

and if we upturned it, it would read Stop Forrest Stop,

which is an indication for the waiter to come to our table.
Pretty cool restaurant.
And now I must stop as its late in the night and I got to go to work tomorrow.

Crossposted in rfc9000

looking fwd to Mark Knopfler - the guitar god

2005-06-29T00:29:00.000-04:00

Its been a while since I blogged here.
Since my last blog, I went for the Machine concert at NYC. The Machine is a Pink Floyd cover band, and unlike many other cover bands (like Australian Pink Floyd) their hallmark is improvisation. They played a lot of Syd Barrett, a song from Animals (Dogs) and the highlight of the concert was this amazing version of "Set the controls for the heart of the sun", the song lasted around 16 mins, and it was sheer psychedelic. Apart from that all the regular ones were there. The concert started with Shine on you crazy diamond, followed by Welcome to the Machine. Other songs I can recollect (the concert was more than a month back) are Comfortably Numb, Mother, Wish you were here, Hey you, Coming back to like, Run like hell (that was an encore).
In all a pretty good experience.

Then once we went to this place called Fat Tuesday at Ottawa, Canada, where this pianist duo was performing (along with an acoustic guitarist), one of them was 60+ yrs old and the other looked <20. All the songs they played were requests from audience, and the songlist looked just like my normal WinAmp playlist. Bands like CCR, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Counting Crowes, Coldplay, there were all kinds of bands, even What a wonderful world by Louis Armstrong, and they even did a polka version of Eminem's Lose Yourself! Pretty good repertoire I must say, considering it was all impromptu.

Tomorrow I'll be going to watch Mark Knopfler playing at NYC, am pretty excited. He's one of my alltime favourite musicians, and can't wait to watch him perform in person!
More tomorrow after the concert....

artistfacts/wikipedia update

2005-05-20T00:24:00.000-04:00

Its been a while since I blogged here. Was totally busy with exams, freer now, so should blog more in the coming days...

Check out my article on Doors at www.artistfacts.com - http://www.artistfacts.com/test/article1.lasso?id=3
It was just a blog entry of mine, which I conveniently converted to an article :)

Also I added the following pages in wikipedia which were hitherto conspicuous by their absence:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kadri_Gopalnath
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hariharan_%28singer%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadaka

Rock n Roll

2005-03-27T13:22:00.000-05:00

Been listening to some good ol' Chuck Berry/Buddy Holly/Everly Brothers/CCR
This song by Bob Seger best summarizes my mood at the moment..

Just take those old records off the shelf
I’ll sit and listen to ’em by myself
Today’s music aln ’t got the same soul
I like that old time rock ’n’ roll
Don’t try to take me to a disco
You’ll never even get me out on the
In ten minutes I’ll be late for the door
I like that old time rock’n’ roll

Still like that old time rock’n’ roll
That kind of music just soothes the soul
I reminisce about the days of old
With that old time rock ’n’ roll
Won’t go to hear them play a tango
I’d rather hear some blues or funky old soul
There’s only sure way to get me to go
Start playing old time rock ’n’ roll
Call me a relic, call me what you will
Say I’m old-fashioned, say I’m over the hill
Today’ music ain’t got the same soul
I like that old time rock ’n’ roll

Still like that old time rock’n’ roll
That kind of music just soothes the soul
I reminisce about the days of old
With that old time rock ’n’ roll

Other similarly themed songs that I can think of..
- Rock n Roll Music - Chuck Berry
- Rock n Roll (Been a long time) - Led Zeppelin
- I love Rock n Roll - Joan Jett
- Its only Rock n Roll (But I like it) - Rolling Stones

Sad Lisa

2005-03-25T11:22:00.000-05:00

The latest song that has me all mesmerized is this song by Cat Stevens called Sad Lisa.

It is a total contrast to my other favourite Cat Stevens song, "Morning Has Broken". While that song was all about joy and happiness, this one's a sad song, a real tear-jerker.

The song starts with just piano and vocals, and after a while there's some very mild guitaring, and piano is the essense of the song. Towards the end there's a haunting violin solo, which so beautifully gels with the rest of the song.

Only a genius like Cat Stevens can come up with such masterpieces!

Lyrics of the song:

She hangs her head and cries on my shirt.
She must be hurt very badly.
Tell me what's making you sadly?
Open your door, don't hide in the dark.
You're lost in the dark, you can trust me.
'Cause you know that's how it must be.

Lisa Lisa, sad Lisa Lisa.

Her eyes like windows, tricklin' rain
Upon her pain getting deeper.
Though my love wants to relieve her.
She walks alone from wall to wall.
Lost in a hall, she can't hear me.
Though I know she likes to be near me.

Lisa Lisa, sad Lisa Lisa.

She sits in a corner by the door.
There must be more I can tell her.
If she really wants me to help her.
I'll do what I can to show her the way.
And maybe one day I will free her.
Though I know no one can see her.

Lisa Lisa, sad Lisa Lisa.

Yanni

2005-03-21T19:57:00.000-05:00

Lately I've been tripping over some old favourite Yanni songs of mine.
I didn't have much of a Yanni collection out here, but then a week back I got myself a RealRhapsody subscription, and since then its been an amazing journey into some childhood favourite artists. RealRhapsody, for those who haven't heard about it, is this amazing software which, for a modest subscription, lets you play any song streaming from its huge database of almost all songs/artists with pretty good sound quality. Its somewhat like Raaga is to Hindi/Tamil, only it spans all languages, genres...

Coming back to Yanni, what I like best about him is the way he gets the best out of both classical and popular music with his compositions. He's easily one of the most talented contemporary composers. What befuddled me was when I read somewhere that he is a completely self-taught musician and was never taught music formally ever in his life! Woah.. thats some natural talent.. ain't that amazing..

My personal favourite album of his is In The Mirror. All my favourite songs are in that album - In the Mirror, Love for Life, One Man's Dream, End of August...
But my favourite Yanni song was, till a short while age, unnamed. I never knew the name of the track, just had it on MP3 and it was called Track04.mp3. Thanks to RL, I finally found out the name of the song, its November Sky, from the album If I could tell you.

I tend to like his piano-based pieces more than the orchestra ones, though the latter has more mass appeal, songs like Santorini, Within Attraction, Aria. Two songs from the Live at Acropolis album that I dote are Keys to Imagination and Nostalgia, which can be categorized as midway between piano-based and orchestra-based. Even now the violin towards the end of Nostalgia gives me the goosebumps..

Here's some general trivia that I found about Yanni:
- His Live at the Acropolis was the #2 top selling music video of all time. I'm wondering which is #1, is it Pulse? is it Alchemy? Woodstock? ... anyone knows?
- As I said before, Yanni it seems is a completely self-taught musician. Hard though it is to believe, he cannot read or write music. According to wikipedia, he composes his pieces in a shorthand form of his own devising.
- In his childhood he dreamt of being a Olympic swimmer.
- Initially he started with playing rock-n-roll and even had a rock band back in college.
- He got his BA in Psychology from University of Minnesota.
- Despite not becoming a Psychologist, he is credited with preventing atleast one suicide with his music.

Come Sail Away

2005-03-17T16:52:00.000-05:00

I first heard this song by Styx called Come Sail Away years ago on a friend's assorted tape. Recently I rediscovered this song. The past two days am just totally hooked on to this song.
Its a six minute song, but the first 2 and half minutes is just mindboggingly amazing.. In fact I've cropped the first 2:25 mins using GoldWave into another file and been playing it on Repeat continuously!
Amazing keys, good vocals, nice melody. The second part of the song, though, is contrastingly different to the starting. It picks up pace and starts to sound like any other good ol' rock n roll song. I would have loved if Styx had continued the song on the same tempo as the first 2 and half minutes!
Does anyone of you have a live or extended or acoustic version of this song? Let me know...

PS: This song also came in a Southpark episode sometime back.

launchcast plus

2005-03-08T15:04:00.000-05:00

The past couple of days, in case you saw me on Yahoo messenger, you would have noticed that I have been listening to launchcast all day.
Of late a lot of my development work has been in Windows, so I could get back to my favourite IDE Source Insight :) Also now I can listen to Launch music.
Got myself a Launchcast Plus subscription for a month, its just 4 bucks and its definitely worth the money. Unlimited skipping and no ads, these two features are enough to justify 4 bucks. And also you can select a better bitrate, and ratings are more granular, then there are things like influences and moods, pretty neat features. My only crib being, they dont support Linux :(
http://music.yahoo.com/launchcast/station.asp?u=1230291203
This is my Launch station, and it's a Rocking one, I can assure you!

The Doors

2005-03-05T14:05:00.000-05:00

"If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear as it is, infinite"
Jim Morrison, way back during his college days, once heard this quote somewhere, and that was when he and his pal at UCLA, Rick Manzarek were discussing forming a band. And thus was born Doors.
Most music fans will agree that the 60's was the most influencial decade of music ever, and one of the most influencial bands of that era was Doors. In the midst of all the British Invasion, this was one original American group.
The band started in 1965, and it virtually was dead in 1971 along with the death of Jim Morrison. In its short lifetime of just about 6 years, the band stamped its indelible mark on the future course of rock'n'roll music for years and years to come.
Despite all the hype and aura surrounding Jim Morrison, it was Ray Manzarek who was largely responsible for the Doors' different musical sound. The unique blend of rock, blues, jazz, classics and poetry was so trademark of them.
Jim Morrison was just a songwriter and vocalist, did not play any instruments, and was almost always stoned in concerts and recordings and did more harm to the repute of the band than good. Numerous times he got arrested for indecent exposure on the screen, once he was arrested for having sex backstage during a concert with a young girl. Numerous times he would be stoned during a concert and the other band members would have to take over from him. Hardly a man who deserves the adulation that he has earned. And in fact fate did take its toll on him when one fine day in 1971 his girlfriend found him dead in his bathtub, quite presumably of a drug overdose. His death was quite controversial, there were endless speculations over how he died. There was no autopsy performed on his body before he was buried. His girlfriend later admitted that she was the one who introduced him to drugs, and because he had a fear of needles, she was the one who injected him his last fatal dose! And a couple of years later she herself died of a drug overdose.

Ray Manzarek is, in my view, the most talented keyboardist in rock music ever. And apart from keyboards, he was multifariously talented. When the group started out, Morrison was very shy. As a result, Manzarek had to sing on a lot of the songs. Also very often Morrison would get stoned just before a concert, and Manzarek had to take up the mantle. His keyboard playing was most innovative. In many songs he would play the organ on one keyboard and bass on another keyboard simultaneously. Some of his keyboard leads like Light my Fire would put any lead guitarist to shame. And Robby Krieger's guitaring would blend so well with his keyboarding. Krieger had quite a distinctive guitaring style, unlike usual rock guitarists, he was mild and subdued, willingly giving the limelight to Manzarek.

On to my favourite Doors songs:

Riders on the Storm: My favourite. Manzarek is simply exhilarating in this song. Most amazing piano, well complemented by Krieger on guitar. This was the last song Jim Morrison recorded before his death.

Light my Fire: Signature song of the band. The best keyboards extended leads ever on a song. Keyboarding just cant get much better than this song.

Roadhouse blues: This song has an amazing bluesy feel to it. It came out of a random jam session where they were just experimenting with playing some blues. Beautiful juxtaposition of organs and guitars. The kind of song that just gets on to you with repeated listening.

Break on through to the other side: This was the first song on The Doors first album, and also their first single. A typically trademark Doors song, with amazing bass.

People are Strange: Another typical Doors song. Legend goes that Jim Morrison was depressed and went to Robbie Krieger's house, they went to a canyon to watch a sunset, at which time Jim realized he was depressed because "if you're strange, people are strange." He then wrote the rest of the lyrics of this song.

Hello, I love you: This song also has a funny anecdote to go with it. While Morrison and Manzarek were walking on the beach in California, they passed an African-American girl, and Morrison wrote the lyrics to this song in a single night, referring to the girl as the "dusky jewel". The music of this song is quite similar to The Kinks' "All Day And All Of The Night". In fact I think either the Kinks sued them, or they contemplated suing them and the Doors had to pay royalties to the Kinks.

Love her Madly: This one is a very mushy song. It was written by Robbie Krieger. It is about the numerous times his girlfriend threatened to leave him.

Love me Two Times: Again Robbie Krieger wrote the lyrics. There might be some reference, though very indirect, in the song about American soldiers going to Vietnam. Or it could even just mean a lustful innuendo. Nonetheless the song is extremely groovy and the guitaring is more pronounced than in any other Doors song IMHO.

LA Woman: Morrison recorded the vocals to this song in the studio bathroom to get a fuller sound. The words "Mr. Mojo Risin'" in the song are an anagram for "Jim Morrison"

Other noteworthy songs - Waiting for the Sun, The End, Strange Days, Spanish Caravan, Alabama Song...

And those of you who thought Doors were dead with Jim Morrison in 71, Ray Manzarek is still alive and rocking. He with Krieger and others in 2002 created a new band called The Doors 21st Century. There was a movie in 91 by Oliver Stone called The Doors where Val Kilmer played Jim Morrison. Its an extremely sad movie about drugs. Ray Manzarek is planning to release a movie in 2005 called Riders on the Storm.

But then those 6 years from 65 to 71 was the golden era of rock-n-roll, and Doors shall live on in the hearts and CD players of millions of their fans for ever.

Amruthavarshini

2005-03-04T13:33:00.000-05:00

"Thoongatha vizhigal rendu" is one of my favourite Ilayaraja songs. In keeping with my recent frenzy for learning Carnatic music, I found out the raaga that this song is based on, it is Amruthavarshini.
The raga goes like S G3 M2 P N3 S - S N3 P M2 G3 S

I found a gamut of songs in this ragam on MusicIndiaOnline. Notable among them is a song called Anandamrita performed by Ravi Kiran on the chitra veena (gottuvadhyam - a fretless version of veena/sitar). Another amazing number is an RTP (ragam thanam pallavi) in Amruthavarshini played by U Srinivas. I feel if I want to understand a raga completely, the best way to do that would be to listen to an RTP by U Srinivas on mandolin.
Then there's a song sung by Nityashree called Enai Nee Maravade which bears a very distinct resemblance to Thoongatha Vizhigal (obviously because they are based on the same ragam, but then being a newbie to Carnatic music, I find such things quite fascinating).
An interesting number I found was a song played by Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan on violin called Varsha Ritu, its got great violins and also some interesting background vocals. Out of curiosity about the title of the song, I googled more and found out that it is believed that singing the ragam Amruthavarshini with devotion can bring in rain to the earth. There have been numerous occasions where musicians would gather in a temple singing various kritis all in this ragam, and invariable a few days later there would be rain. Pretty interesting!
In fact this anecdote which dates back to Ramayana is even more interesting. When Ravana set fire to Hanuman’s tail, he set fire to the entire Lanka. How was the fire put out? Legend has it that Ravana played the Amruthavarshini raga on his Veena and brought forth rain.

Whoa, that was a whole lot of interesting stuff I found about this one ragam! Next time I listen to "Thoongatha Vizhigal" I will do so with a whole new perspective...

first post

2005-03-03T14:26:00.000-05:00

I have been noticing of late that my blog has been meandering over every topic under the sun, and though such meandering is the essence of any blog, i did realize that I need to bring in some kind of order into my thoughtstream.
Here's my first attempt. In this blog, I'm just purely going to ramble about anything related to music. Probably, soon I will start in similar spirit, a blog on computer science stuff, and yet another one on motoracing.
I guess this much is enough for a first post.
Or maybe I could talk a bit about my music taste in general.
To sum it up I love any thing melodious. To be more specific, I like the following genres of music (not in order of preference) -
English:
classic rock, soft rock, basically songs with a lot of guitar and/or piano, also other unconventional instruments like saxophone, pan pipe, flute.
Representative bands that I like:
Classic Rock - Doors (btw Ray Manzarek is my favourite musician), Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd, Beatles, The Who, Dire Straits, Dream Theater, Metallica
Soft Rock - Cat Stevens, Simon and Garfunkel, John Denver, CCR, Eagles, Bob Dylan
guitar instrumental - Jimi Hendrix, Joe Satriani, Yngwie Malmsteen, John Petrucci, Eric Johnson
Tamil:
tamil film melodies, invariably composed by one of these two maestros, Ilayaraja or AR Rahman. Ilayaraja without doubt is the king of melodies, Rahman OTOH is more famous for rhythm than melody, nonetheless he has composed some of the most haunting melodies. Of late I have been reading the Carnatic Raga theory, and learning some ragas, and I realize that most of the most haunting melodies by Ilaiyaraja are based on some raaga or the other. It is fascinating to see how well he has adapted these ragas to popular masses' taste.
Hindi Film oldies - I love Mukesh's pathos-filled voice, Rafi's romantic voice, and Kishore's versatility, and Lata the nightingale and to a lesser extent Asha's sensuous voice. My famous music director is SD Burman, the king of melodies closely followed by Shankar Jaikishen, perhaps because of his heavy use of piano in his songs.
Carnatic - This is one genre I have begun to explore only recently, nonetheless I find it to be the most amazing form of music. I really regret the fact that I never got to learn this amazing form of music formally, my primary teacher has just been the Internet (thanks wikipedia for the amazing articles, and musicindiaonline for the great collection of music!)
This pretty much sums my favourite genres of music.
And now I can conclude this post and move on...