Category: Episodes

594. William Ackerman

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(August 2024) Episode 594 is WILLIAM ACKERMAN. As the founder of the Windham Hill label, Ackerman played a big role in popularizing New Age music (the pastoral side of it). As I mentioned in the George Winston episode, I had a Windham Hill phase in the 1980s, which included Ackerman’s guitar offerings, but hadn’t visited the stuff in decades. Ackerman’s work embodies the duality of New Age music: it can be beautiful and relax and transport you, but it can also be cloying and vapid. As an example of the former, his song “Visiting” takes me to a happy place as it reminds me of the High Sierra backcountry hikes I did as a youth. Ackerman’s earlier recordings are more spare, showing his guitar skills. The later works add lushness and layers of instrumentation more typical of what you’d expect from a New Age playlist.

Favorite album: Childhood and Memory

Favorite song: Visiting

Compared to expectations: same

Recommendation: As an acoustic guitar guy, I enjoyed returning to his work more than to Winston. I recommend the first 5 or so albums, for the reason mentioned above.

593. Jean-Luc Ponty

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(August 2024) Episode 593 is JEAN-LUC PONTY. I came to French-born Ponty through his work with Frank Zappa, notably Hot Rats. That’s the reason I list his album of Zappa interpretations as my favorite, although not his best. I do love me some jazz violin (especially Django Reinhardt collaborator Stéphane Grappelli, with whom Ponty collaborated). Much of Ponty’s recordings are classified as jazz fusion, a genre that tends to repulse me (likely due to being over-exposed to it by high school jazz bandmates). But Ponty’s treatment of the genre is generally digestible and often enjoyable.

Favorite album: King Kong: Jean-Luc Ponty Plays the Music of Frank Zappa

Favorite original album: Imaginary Voyage

Favorite collaboration album: Violin Summit with Stuff Smith, Stephane Grappelli, Svend Asmussen

Favorite song: Stay with Me

Compared to expectations: same

Recommendation: His mid-70s albums are his best, although those are heavy fusion. The early albums are closer to regular jazz and have their own charm.

592. Church of Misery

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(August 2024) Episode 592 of the “opus project” is CHURCH OF MISERY, a doom/stoner metal band from Japan, and a damn fine one. Tons of heavy loud low fuzz. Their Black Sabbath-philia is clear not just in their sound but in their album covers (see below). They are also distinctive in dedicating their song titles and lyrics to serial killers and mass murderers. I have a preference their earlier, more stoner-ish material (late 90s/early 00s) to the later up-tempo offerings.

Favorite album: Master of Brutality

Favorite song:  El Padrino (Adolfo De Jesus Constanzo)

Compared to expectations: ↑

Recommendation: It is an acquired taste, but I love this stuff.

591. Martha and the Vandellas

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(August 2024) Episode 591 is MARTHA AND THE VANDELLAS. Given that I dig the 60s girl group sound and with my wider explorations of Motown, it is surprising I haven’t gotten to Marth Reeves and her colleagues (who rotated over their dozen recording years) before now. Their hits “Dancing in the Streets,” “Nowhere to Run” and “Heatwave” are imprinted in our culture. It’s good stuff. Although if I have to choose among the girl groups I prefer the New York-based ones (Shangri-Las, Crystals, etc.).  The group lasted through the early 70s, providing for an evolution of their sound into the more funky soul of the time (I love), a good example of which is “Easily Persuaded.”

Favorite album: Dance Party

Favorite song:  Nowhere to Run

Compared to expectations: same

Recommendation: A best-of will satisfy.

590. Sarah Gibson

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(August 2024) Episode 590 of the “opus project” is SARAH GIBSON, a contemporary American composer who sadly died of cancer last month at the age of 38. Her primary instrument was piano, but she also composed for chamber and voice. She was just starting to get going on larger orchestral pieces. The instrumentation is conventional but she dabbled in experimentation (like tapping the piano strings). Her compositions could be brightly lyrical or eerily moody.

Favorite piece: warp and weft

Compared to expectations: ↑

Recommendation: I felt a weird connection to the pieces, perhaps of lament for her lost potential, and a sadness for someone I never met.

589. Accept

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(July 2024) Episode 589 of the “opus project” is ACCEPT. Accept was my entry into heavy metal, when a high school classmate gave me a mix tape of metal bands (it also included “Whiplash” which was my initiation into Metallica.) The song was “Fast as a Shark.” The children’s song, the record scratch, the scream, the thrash, the double pedals, the hooks, the fills, the lightning guitar solo – that song has EVERYTHING. Unfortunately, that (still) amazing song was the exception, not the rule. While some of their earlier stuff resembled Judas Priest (that’s a good thing), most of the rest is banal headbanging, which bores me. And there’s a lot: 17 albums up to the present year. But their influence on speed and thrash metal will always stand.

Favorite album: Restless and Wild

Favorite song:  Fast as a Shark

Compared to expectations: ↓

Recommendation: Restless and Wild and Balls to the Wall are the only albums you need to know.

588. Gustav Holst

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(July 2024) Episode 588 is GUSTAV HOLST. He’s best known for “The Planets,” both for its own inherent power and grace, but also for its wide influence on 20th century music, including rock, and especially on John Williams’ Star Wars themes. (It was inspired by astrological rather than astronomical ideas.) His compositions cover a big range, from opera to orchestral and lots of choral (secular and church). The other thing he’s known for is incorporating themes from English folk music and Indian mythology.

Favourite piece: The Planets

Favourite movement: Mars

Compared to expectations: same

Recommendation: The Planets is the best thing.

587. Marmalade

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(July 2024) Episode 587 is MARMALADE. I did this episode solely for my fathomless adoration of “I See the Rain,” one of my favorite psychedelic songs of all time (I’m still trying to figure out what they’re doing with the two bass guitars on it). But you may recognize them for their radio-friendly soft rock hit “Reflections of My Life,” or their unremarkable cover of “Ob-la-di-ob-la-da.” This Scottish act started out as the Gaylords with several beat singles in the mid-1960, then some psychedelia, before settling into a respectable run of soft rock/power pop recordings through the early 70s, followed by obscure albums in the late 70s/early 80s that aren’t worth searching for. Their best work was not organized onto proper albums so I don’t list a favourite.

Favourite album: n/a (try the Very Best of Marmalade as a greatest hits album)

Favourite song: I See the Rain

Compared to expectations: ↓

Recommendation: A greatest hits album is more than enough.

586. Big Bill Broonzy

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(July 2024) Episode 586 is BIG BILL BROONZY. He was among the early generation of recorded country blues guitarist/singers, and his interests and influence were as wide as they are under-acknowledged. His name pops up in many places, as a progenitor of the electric Chicago blues, in the folk revival, and the popularization of blues and folk in Europe, including crucially in the UK. He delved into ragtime, country, folk, jazz-inflected songs and spirituals. Not surprisingly, given my previous episodes, my favorites are the early acoustic guitar blues numbers.

Favorite album: Do That Guitar Rag

Favorite song: I Can’t Be Satisfied

Compared to expectations: ↑

Recommendation: There are a ton of collections and anthologies out there. For the early guitar work, I recommend Do That Guitar Rag or The Young Big Bill Broonzy

585. The Feelies

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(July 2024) Episode 585 is THE FEELIES. Their first album Crazy Rhythms (1980) is a gem of post-punk nerdy angular rock. But everything after that bores me. I suspect this opinion will alienate me from some peers. It is obvious they take inspiration from the Velvet Underground and Lou Reed (confirmed in a decent VU cover album released last year). And sometimes you hear wisps of Sonic Youth and Yo La Tengo in the pulses. But my immense love for those three bands does not translate to The Feelies. I don’t mind jangly guitars in the right context, but a lot of The Feelies feels like just jangling for jangling’s sake.

Favorite album: Crazy Rhythms        

Favorite song: Loveless Love

Compared to expectations: ↓

Recommendation: Just Crazy Rhythms