The ever-popular "Currently Listening" thread

*evilly grins*

YES! The Evil PitchFork Of Flame would be quite appropriate.

Thank you

Wha? I didn't call her a prom queen. I was just pointing out that her request not to call her a drag queen was a little off. I's a good boy, I is. No pitchforks for me, thank you.

I've been listening to "Symphony X - The Divine Wings of Tragedy" a lot recently. It's a great album, and the title track is especially good (a 20 minute epic). It is some sort of progressive metal, I suppose, but I'd heartily recommend it to anyone!

Ive heard some Symphony X, it's pretty good stuff IMHO.

Im stuck in Penumbra's - Seclusion cd again.

Too extreme and screamy beauty/beast symphonic metal for most, but I cant help but love it. I love "Enclosed", one of the best dramatic gothic metal B&B duets ever!

http://www.myspace.com/penumbrarocks

Strange how tangents take you from one thing to another ... I was listening to the Namlook stuff and it triggered a thought to pull out my old Who Quadrophenia CD and drop it on my iPod.

So I did ... listened to it through on my commute to and from work yesterday, it was nice ... don't know if/when I'll listen again, though.

EVERYONE deserves a little fork now and then, even the good. . .SPECIALLY. . .the good boys.

...


Well, I am back to my normal jazz listening ways ... with what I consider to be the greatest composition in recent years, the Pat Metheny Group's "The Way Up" a 68 minute wonderful piece that often blurs the boundaries between composition and improvisation. Very listenable, very good stuff.

I dont know why, but classic rock, once the staple of my musical life, grates on me terribly now. I cant stand it. Perhaps part of it is Wayne and Garths fault. The sight of them with those idiot looks on their faces headbanging away to Bohemian Rhapsody ruined that song for me for all time. They destroyed the underlying badness, for lack of a better term, of hard rock. That and those stupid Burger King and car commercials, playing their awful commercials to the tune of once-beloved hard rock anthems. Music is by it's very nature a commercial endeavor, but it's finally hit it's zenith. At least for me, "Rock is Dead". My little attempt at a Nietzche-ism there, tho I cant take credit really, I think it was Marilyn Manson who said it first.

That's by no means the core of my disenchantment, just an aspect of it. I'd say the heart of my disdain for all things classic rock is just being hammered with it for so long, it's just too familiar. Familiarity breeds contempt. If I ever hear Iron Man or Stairway to Heaven again, it'll be too soon. And if I ever hear "Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo" again, so help me God, youll probably see me on the evening news.

Just thought I'd go on a drunken tear about that. I dont drink much, but when I do, i need to ramble a bit. Listening to The Cure!

xSamhainx said:

Music is by it's very nature a commercial endeavor, but it's finally hit it's zenith.

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Maybe in the rock / pop world, but don't forget that there is a vast world in which music is primarily an *artistic* creation, where the motivating factors for starting are not 'getting chicks' or 'being famous'.

xSamhainx said:

At least for me, "Rock is Dead". My little attempt at a Nietzche-ism there, tho I cant take credit really, I think it was Marilyn Manson who said it first. ... Listening to The Cure!

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Let's not forget 'Long Live Rock'

And where is the irony about you saying Rock Is Dead ... and then listening to the Cure, yet another revival band ...

txa1265 said:

And where is the irony about you saying Rock Is Dead ... and then listening to the Cure, yet another revival band ...

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You're going to have to define your terms here, Mike, cuz I certainly wouldn't pull "revival" out of the hat to describe Bob and the boys.

yeah thats rather confusing though i doubt mike meant it as an insult. while i'm not a huge fan of the the cure i do really enjoy a good lot of their work. they were great too at coachella 2004. by the way there are some of their videos on youtube that are quite good and you might not have seen as my fiance hadn't seen them and they are her favourite band.

txa1265 said:

Maybe in the rock / pop world, but don't forget that there is a vast world in which music is primarily an *artistic* creation, where the motivating factors for starting are not 'getting chicks' or 'being famous'.
Let's not forget 'Long Live Rock'
And where is the irony about you saying Rock Is Dead ... and then listening to the Cure, yet another revival band ...

Click to expand...

I should have said "popular music" when I spoke of it being by it's very nature, a commercial endeavor.

As far as The Cure goes, I think that there's a big difference between them and say, the Eagles, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, or some other classic rock icons such as that. Their style, their overall tone and mood. Their following is nothing like the average Joe Six Pack that hoists his lighter during Free Bird at a Skynard concert. That's because theyre different, theyre not classic rock fossils. They arent the textbook standards of rock that you can flip thru the dials of any major city and within the hour, most likely hear a song by them. Every jukebox doesnt have a Cure cd in it, every neighborhood corner bar isnt playing them. The Cure is still "alternative" music to this very day, not until we're old fogeys will it possibly be played in sports stadiums between innings.

No, come to think of it, the Cure could never be played in such a venue ='.'=

That's what I mean, it's different. I still have to give props to The Doors tho, I can always listen to them. "Riders on the Storm", I'll hoist the proverbial lighter to that one. Nothing like driving late night down a long stretch of highway, alone, listening to that song. I do like the Doors ='.'=

dteowner said:

You're going to have to define your terms here, Mike, cuz I certainly wouldn't pull "revival" out of the hat to describe Bob and the boys.

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General apology - I was thinking of INXS and their 'reality show singer' revival ...

And here I thought we were leading into an intelligent conversation about music genres... Crud.

Bit of a curveball from me today:
"Sophia" by Cruxshadows

Crüxshadows?
Not my cup of tea at all - I find their stuff extremely boring, but they seem to be the latest fad among teenage kids over here. Might have to do with Rogue. No no, please give me the Deathstars instead... anytime.

Speaking of which, I went to a local Goth club last night, and this time they didn't have a motto as usual (when some style or other is featured... say, Industrial or Electro or Medieval). To satisfy the patrons who whore different shades of black, they played music ranging from Feindflug's boom-boom-boom to Type O Negative's 'Best of Toilet' gargle songs, with a sprinkling of punky crap in between. The Fashion SWAT (thank you, somethingawful.com) was somewhat disappointed, too... watching a clumsy beanstalk in a patent suit iron his way across the dancefloor to just about anything was not that engrossing, either.
Not my best night. I'll visit a themed party next time.

Been listening to Deep Purple lately, particulary the album which goes by the name of "Purpendicular" -- great stuff! Blues-y hard rock describes it, I reckon... again, would recommend to anyone!

I had heard neither Cruxshadows or Deathstars prior to your post Jaz.
Listening to both of them, Id have to say that I feel the same initially, deathstars>cruxshadows. Eventually tho, I feel that in the long run I would most likely come to like Crux better. I'm a sucker for violin in modern music, and the fact that this Rogue character sounds like Peter Murphy makes me think that I very well may have a crux cd in my collection one of these days.

the old gothic drama FTW every time ='.'=

Definitely hear the Peter Murphy vibe as well. Stumbled on them over at Projekt.com while looking for a release date for Tearwave. You really ought to wander over there, Sammy (actually, there's some medieval stuff that Jaz might like, too). There's a lot of stuff that you'll hate, but there might be the occasional thing to suit as well. I actually figured Cruxshadows would be too electronic for your taste.

I like electronic as long as it's not the totally minimalist dance stuff. You know, one beat with a little hook now and then, and some sound clip repeated over and over again. Music itself is repetitive, and industrial tends to be very repetitive and bleak minimalist at times, but techno is just repetitious simpleton overkill. I feel like my intelligence is being drained as I listen to it. I was in some bar the other night and techno was going, and a beat with some guy simply saying the words "down to the store" were repeated so many times during this song, it made me feel nuts. I just wanted it to end. I felt like putting my head thru a wall. I seriously couldnt stand it, I started feeling like freakin Travis Bickle or something.

Might as well be listening to some ultra-minimalist noise crap like Merzbow, where it's a five minute "song" which consists of a bunch of static and what sounds like someone scraping old paint off the exterior of their house. That's just me tho. I need a little bit of ingenuity, complexity, some purpose in my music beyond simply listening to sound as a distraction. It has to sound like something that I cannot do myself, something which I'm on some level admiring.

Then again, techno is dance music, youre not supposed to be sitting down listening to it. It has a purpose indeed, it just isnt a purpose that I'm looking for. Needless to say, I've never been much of a dancer. With four paws going, seems I'm always stepping on someone's toes. As for Merzbow's purpose, I have no goddamn clue what the purpose of that is. I thought I was weird and listen to some flaky stuff, but whoever it is that listens to that shit flat out scares me.

I actually have some Yanni in my collection, believe it or not!

Oh, if you like to be scar(r)ed by noise, try Weena Morloch .
Personally, I like Techno (not the kiddy stuff, though). When I go to a disco, I expect to be thrown across the floor by the bass. When it comes to extreme couching at home, I prefer to listen to other sorts of music... Jackson 5, Ralph Vaughn Williams, Schandmaul, Rob Dougan... you name it.