Nobody’s listenin to Wilson Phillips, ABBA, Neil Diamond????

As they say, listening to ABBA is like getting hit in the head with IKEA furniture. You appreciate the crafstmanship, but it hurts.

Interesting stuff. I added a Marais bass viola piece as a heart-starter warm-up, (Chaconne en rondeau, for viola da gambe & continuo in G major (Pièces de viole, Book II, No. 82)), hoping (likely in vain) that it will put some sorely needed tone in my otherwise pedestrian pavement pounding.

Thanks.

Listening to country mostly these days. Top 10 tracks from my iPod:

1. Angel Flight – Radney Foster
2. I Love My Old Bird Dog – Crossin Dixon
3. Red Light – David Nail
4. Living For The Night – George Strait
5. Stupid Boy – Keith Urban
6. Daddies and Daughters – Lee Roy Parnell
7. Beautiful Wreck – Shawn Mullins
8. Sara Smile – Jimmy Wayne (song 1st written & performed by Hall & Oates)
9. Arlington – Trace Adkins
10. Man Of The House – Chuck Wicks

Nobody’s listenin to Wilson Phillips, ABBA, Neil Diamond???? Somebody paid for those Mansions…

OK, I’ll get wild & crazy and throw in some Bangles or Go Gos every once in a while

Afrânio: Maria Gadú

Thanks for that. It’s nice.

-Robert Earl Keen, “The Rose Hotel”
-Jim Lauderdale, “Honey Songs”
-Wink Keziah, “Hard Times”
-Buddy and Julie Miller, “Written in Chalk”
-Hot Club of Cowtown, “Wishful Thinking”
-The Long Ryders, “Two Fisted Tales”
And lots of 80s alt rock on Rhapsody

I know that one. I saw it on ESPN, the Highlights of the Gods…

Reverend Horton Heat – Full Custom Gospel Sounds of…
Reverend Horton Heat – Revival
Vampire Weekend
Johnny Cash Mix
Janes Addiction – Nothing’s Shocking
Red Hot Chili Peppers – Californication and Stadium Arcadium
Queens of the Stone Age – Era Vulgeris

I like Krommer very much, actually, but he’s mainly a wind composer, and I’m a string player, so our paths don’t cross much, so to speak.

And there’s not only “such a thing as a bassoon quartet,” but there’s many such things, so the term is ambiguous. Four bassoons make a marvelous sound, and there’s some legit music for the combo. Prokofiev wrote a Scherzo for four bassoons; Peter Schickele (the guy behind P.D.Q. Bach) wrote Last Tango in Bayreuth for the same ensemble, and it’s as funny as any of his PDQ music — imagine the opening of Tristan all on bassoons, to a tango rhythm, with the Act 3 Prelude from Lohengrin as trio section . . .

Then there’s bassoon ‘n’ strings, which is usually violin/viola/cello (that’s what, say, Devienne uses), so that Krommer’s ditching the violin for another viola is seriously outside-the-box. It makes for a rich, growly, mid-register-heavy ensemble sound, which of course is the way we violists like it, even when we don’t get to play. There are Marin Marais suites for three viols (great recording by a group called Les voix humaines, on the Atma label, another recent acquisition); I thought of transcribing these, but none of the parts really work on the viola.

Les Baricades Mistérieuses

I knew I left something out! We have a recently-acquired piano in the house, and my husband has been working on this one, a favorite of ours, so it’s constantly in my head, and I’ve revisited the two recordings we have (Verlet and Borgstede). A marvelous piece. Fisk of course is a guitarist, so I don’t know what he’s done with it, but it ought to work well on guitar.

(If you read music, do try to get a look at the way Couperin actually notated Les Baricades Mistérieuses; it’s . . . striking. IANAKP (I am not a keyboard player), but I don’t know of any other 18th-c. piece that instructs you so insistently and yet so elegantly about when you’re allowed to lift your fingers up. “Mysterious barricades,” indeed.)

- Flying Burrito Brothers: The Gilded Palace of Sin
- Baroness: The Blue Record
- Fleet Foxes: Fleet Foxes
- John Coltrane: Blue Train
- Katatonia: Night is the New Day
- The Decembrists: The Hazards of Love
- Zac Brown Band: The Foundation
- Gustav Mahler: Symphony 5 in C-Sharp Minor
- Christy Moore: Smoke and Strong Whiskey
- Beastie Boys: Paul’s Boutique
- Rush: Hold Your Fire
- J.S. Bach: Osteroratorium BWV 249
- Iron Maiden: Powerslave
- King Crimson: In the Court of the Crimson King
- Lady Antebellum: Lady Antebellum
- Walter Trout: Full Circle
- Sondheim’s Into the Woods
- The Kinks: The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society
- Amon Amarth: Twilight of the Thunder God

Primitive Streak – subdudes
Live at Tipitina’s – Neville Brothers
John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers featuring Eric Clapton – [self titled]
Sweet Forgiveness – Bonnie Raitt

But then, I’m a heathen.

My music is mainly for running, so my latest iPod playlist starts like this (and gets even better):

Jingle Bells – Earl Scruggs (hey, it’s the season)
Road Runner – Microwave Dave & the Nukes (beep beep)
Green Onions (live) – Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
François Couperin: Les Baricades Mistérieuses – Eliot Fisk (thanks Patsy, for this suggestion)
I’m Walking – Carl Perkins

There’s some really intriguing stuff on this page. I’m looking forward to browsing.

Also yesterday broke out the Marian Anderson/William Primrose recording of the Brahms “viola songs.” And today, probably my own Christmas favorites — the Tallis Scholars’ “Christmas Motets and Carols,” an old Regensburger Domspatzen album of (mostly) old German Christmas music, a few other things.

Moonsorrow – Suden Uni (A Wolf’s Dream) (2001)
Korpklaani – Spirit of the Forest (2003)
Elvis Costello – This Year’s Model (1978)
Amanda Palmer – Who Killed Amanda Palmer? (2008)
Charles Mingus – Mingus Ah Um (1959)
Emperor – Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk (1997)
Muse – Black Holes and Revelations (2006)

1. Bobby Emmett: Learning Love (power pop circa 1978)
2. Willie Nile: House of a Thousand Guitars (longtime NY singer-songwriter)
3. Jeff Larson: Heart of the Valley (SoCal singer-songwriter)
4. Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit: self-titled (ex-Drive By Truckers front man)
5. Ad Vanderveen: Faithful to Love (Dutch singer-songwriter)

I’ve also been listening to a lot of Josh Ritter and Flogging Molly, but they did not produce albums this year.

The Who – Live at Leeds (Deluxe Edition)

ZZ Top – Tejas and Tres Hombres

1. Bright Mississippi – Allan Toussaint

2. Willie and the Wheel-Willie Nelson

3. Written in Chalk-Buddy and Julie Miller

4. Man of Somebody’s Dreams- Chris Gaffney tribute

5. Mountain Soul II-Patty Loveless

6. Get Lucky-Mark Knopfler

7. Lucky One-Raul Malo

8. Dave Alvin and the Guilty Women

9. Blood and Smoke-Tom Russell

10. Shadow on the Ground-James Hand

11. Potato Hole-Booker T

12. American Saturday Night-Brad Paisley

13. Pynandi-Chango Spasiuk

14. Los Lobos Does Disney-Los Lobos

15. The Fall-Norah Jones

16. Songs My Dad Loved-Ricky Skaggs

17. Together Through Life-Bob Dylan

18. Blue Ridge Rangers Ride Again-John Fogerty

19. The List-Roseanne Cash

20. Wishful Thinking-Hot Club of Cowtown

Various – A Very Special Christmas
Queensryche – Operation Mindcrime
KJ52 – KJ52 Television
Lecrae – After the Music Stops and Rebel
Casting Crowns – Lifesong, Peace on Earth, The Altar and the Door, When the Whole World Hears
Warren Zevon – The Wind
Nickel Creek – Nickel Creek
Alison Krauss – A Hundred Miles or More
Alison Krauss & Union Station – Live
Tobymac – Welcome to Diverse City
and, for the munchkins,
John Denver and the Muppets – A Christmas Together
Veggie Tales – A Very Veggie Christmas

I particularly like “In a Manner of Speaking” and “Wishing”

Rush, “Snakes and Arrows”
Indigo Girls, “All that We Let In”
Barenaked Ladies, “Barenaked Ladies are Me”
Live, “The Distance to Here”
Frank Sinatra, “Sinatra at the Sands”

In the car, I’ve been playing

Steely Dan, “Katy Lied”
Dave Matthews Band, “Crash”
Tragically Hip, “We are the Same”
Steely Dan, “Two Against Nature”
The Who, “Quadrophenia”

and the obligatory classical and jazz:

Artur Rubenstein, Rachmaninoff 2nd Piano Concerto
John Coltrane, “My Favorite Things”