The ever-popular "Currently Listening" thread

Well well well, I'm back... and here is my 'review'. Report. Whatever.
We visited a concert on Saturday/Sunday which featured three bands, two of which I knew I liked... but as usual, the openers stole my heart.
The show as a whole was a mess... a real mess. A beautiful location, great music, but organization was extremely shoddy.
The first band to play were Coppelius (linking to two videos here). I knew two of their EPs and thus I was sure I wouldn't be disappointed - but these boys rock. Coppelius are a very entertaining and exciting stage act. They play what they call 'Chamber Core' or 'Heavy Wood': Iron Maiden covers and their own comopisitions - with drums, bass, cello and two clarinets, the latter being the lead instruments. I was so excited by their performance - and the stage show on the old video is nothing compared to the wacky stuff they did on Saturday - I bought a Coppelius band shirt (last band shirt I bought was Alice in Chains in... hmmm... '92?). They also continued to play their stage act after the show which lead to a very funny incident with my friend Hashimoto.
Anyway, they left us enthusiastic... and the next act came on stage asking us what she was expected to do here (she had watched the opening performance, too). A good question. Neuland is the solo project of Anna from medieval folk act Schandmaul. While Anna is a talented violinist, she and her support played 'real' chamber music which calmed the audience down instantly. Instead of listening to the music, people started to talk to each other or left for the foyer.
The next act was Letzte Instanz, originally a Nu-Metal-formation. They turned folk rock at some time in their career and do sound a lot like Schandmaul now.
Unfortunately, they were on their '"White Tour", featuring their acoustic album. The album is fantastic, they played for nearly two hours, but as it was another real chamber performance, nothing happened on stage (strings sat on their chairs and the singer stood stock-still), so again, many peole left for the foyer (and I bought another Coppelius shirt). Anna Katharina and Letzte Instanz are good acts, but they had deserved their own show, especially since LI played for over two hours, so when the final act Tanzwut appeared on stage, it was Sunday morning already. Tanzwut are a side project of Corvus Corax (some of you may know CC as they contributed to the Gothic 3 soundtrack... besides, they were the mentors of In Extremo who some of you may remember from Gothic 1), they partied on stage for hours, and their show was very, very entertaing. We had to leave early, though, because we had another date to attend in the morning... sigh.
Had the people who organized this event split the show in two (Coppelius/Tanzwut and Anna/LI), things would have been a lot better.

That must have been some show, Jaz. Thanks for sharing an experience I would otherwise never even have known existed. I agree(after listening to the clips) that whoever combined those acts that way needs to put down the crack pipe.

I really liked all the different sounds--never heard anything quite like any of them. The violinist was extremely impressive--but so was Coppelius. Definitely worth the shirt purchase, I'd say. Maybe even a small tatoo.

When I know a little more German, I may be able to order some of this.


As for me, listening to a little Alice--NOT in Chains...

Poison

Wouldn't have expected that from you. Not really much of an Alice fan, but I've always loved that song. Actually, that whole album was pretty good. Kinda throwaway power pop, but it worked well.

Not that I'd ever notice, being married and all, but that brunette is really hot. From the shoulders UP, even, since I certainly wouldn't have dreamed of looking anywhere else. I might have to watch that again...for the music of course.

You're appreciation of art for art's sake is deep, dte.

I like a lot of what I think you youngsters call the Hair Bands. Fond of Ac/Dc(did they have hair?), Blue Oyster Cult and so forth--but I don't think I get quite the same buzz from them now sitting here sipping herbal tea. Tend to get a headache after about fifteen minutes.

Mrs. dte is the hair band expert. Being a married woman, she (naturally) is more than happy to discuss Bon Jovi's leather pants at length while threatening to scratch out my eyeballs for noting that independent and intelligent young brunette in the Poison video. I think she likes the music, too.

Gosh--not Bon Jovi--they're like, babies--I mean fine for a sweet young thing like mrs dte, but kinda like Hannah Montana for me. I do understand her logic, of course. Bon Jovi's leather pants and their contents exist on a seperate plane from the trampy looking little brunette.

I'm so old I just don't know your slang, so I wiki'd hair bands-- sorry, NOT what I had in mind---only some of the 70's guys that are listed as an influence maybe

The genre took influence heavily from 1970s glam rock and heavy metal bands and some influenced by punk, with large sections taking influence from the likes of AC/DC, Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Kiss, New York Dolls, Queen, Sweet, Van Halen, Slade, Mott the Hoople, T.Rex, Judas Priest and others.

Click to expand...

Though there are several in there I could drop, like Kiss and several I've never heard of, like New York Dolls(???).

Nah, the bands I like wore old blue jeans that nobody pre-tore or pre-faded for them, tee-shirts with obscure sayings or bizarre african import jackets, and could play forty minute guitar solos and make you like it...you know--like the Floyd. We've had that discussion.

Hair bands? I really like what we over here called 'poser bands' back in the days.... some of the earlier 'hair bands' as per wiki definition. I didn't even care for the music as long as the guys wore lipstick and spandex and looked androgynous . No wonder I like the Deathstars nowadays.

From your definition, you seem to like the type of rock bands my boss loves.

My family has been really into Audio Day Dream, the recent record from last year's American Idol #2 Blake Lewis. He was actually the only person I ever had genuine enjoyment listening to on the show since he has cool 'beat box' skills. The CD is OK, some catchy stuff mixed in with some beat box stuff ... it will be interesting to see what he does on his own.

I don't think this has sold very well - like everything else from Idol folks recently. Perhaps that is why the show is now stacked with pros, now unknowns, and why the judges now say 'if you haven't tried to make it already you don't belong here'.

I've been casually keeping up with the show, Mike, and I gotta say, I still don't think a lot of them are worth the "These are the best in the show ever" hype. In fact, apart from one or two, I say the guys aren't even worth watching. 'Course I am pretty biased toward the ladies! My music collection is chock full of female artists, solo and groups, whereas I don't listen to male artists unless they front a rock band. Period.

....Oh, wait... there's Seal. I kinda like his stuff. And I have more than one Sting album. But other than that, what I said before!!

I comment on it at GamerDad's GamingWithChildren blog

Which is interesting since my music tends to run more in the arhythmic and atonal ... so watching a pop music competition is definitely all about the family experience for me!

Just discovered Nik Bartsch's Ronin - Holon - I get the AllMusic alerts and search for new stuff, and seldom find anything. But this is pretty cool stuff. Nice avant feel, with a minimalist flair and some cool grooves. I found it on both iTunes and Amazon, but since Amazon was $1 less, I went that way I might pick up the earlier release called 'Stoa' by the group as well.

Just bought Au Revoir Simone's "Bird of Music" off ebay.

Was listening to samples of The Raveonettes after reading a decent review about them. Their music isn't really working for me, but maybe somebody here will like it...
http://www.theraveonettes.com/

After a couple listens, I've decided that ARS is a pretty good cd. A couple filler tracks, but that's to be expected. I don't think I could listen to it over and over like some cds I've got. It's just too twee to obsess on. I think you'll like it, Jabber.

How could I have missed this ...

Divine Divinity Soundtrack

I *LOVE* the Divine Divinity music! When I found the 7 tracks they made available I downloaded them and they've been on my iPod ever since. But I was looking around the other night and found that on Kirill Pokrovskyy's homepage he has the *entire* thing - all 43 songs ... really cool stuff.

How about a little Britpop?
"Thrilled" by The Hollow Men

I've found an old love on youtube: guano apes with both Lord of the Boards and Open your eyes

A classic 80's anthem for today. It's amazing to me how well this song holds up after almost 25 years. Our music was just so darn happy back in the day. Blame Kurt Cobain for ending an era and bringing anger to music.
"Magic" by The Cars

Rick Ocasek looks like Dana Carvey doing an impersonation of him in that video

Funny, being from the Boston area, I heard so much of the Cars, Boston and J. Giels back then that I thought I would never want to hear them again ... but that was fun. I then watched 'Drive', another nice song of theirs ... and it is amazing to think that Ocasek married Paulina Porizkova ... I mean, he was voted 'one of the top 100 unsexiest men alive' at one point

OK, how about a little retro anthem collection? A few songs that never fail to make me turn up the volume:
"Lunatic Fringe" by Red Rider (what a horrible video!)
"Let's Go Crazy" by Prince
"Round and Round" by Ratt (a surprisingly good video)
"Goody Two Shoes" by Adam and the Ants
"She's Tight" by Cheap Trick
"Message of Love" by The Pretenders (I hate audio/video mismatch, but it's the best I could do)
"Find Your Way Back" by Jefferson Starship (real video appears to be MIA)
"Baker Street" by Gerry Rafferty (lousy but informative fan video)
"Shadows of the Night" by Pat Benatar
"Cars" by Gary Numan

Good little collection of fogey nostalgia

Forgot about Uncle Milty in the Ratt video!

As for Cheap Trick, they were pretty much done by then. Aside from the obvious ones, I liked Surrender (played it with a rock band I was in back then)

As for Prince, I don't know what his songs are about half the time, but I always got a clear message from his stuff back then - "I'm 5-foot nuthin', weight about 95 pounds and wear 6" heels, I like hot looking women and they like me quite a bit as well. I write some really cool songs and can play the hell out of this here guitar!"

Some other interesting stuff - Herbie Hancock's Rockit original video and from the Grammy's in '84.