Music

October-November Grindstone

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Okay, nose still on the grindstone and those few weeks previously mentioned might have multiplied under my nose.  I will post again in a few more weeks; the work is ongoing.  But time for another musical bit while I’m here …

Jimi Hendrix’s “Little Wing” has what I would call a melancholy structure, its minor chords resolve into major, every 10 bars cycling back through a move from darkness into light, like a sad mood going away.  Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan and many others have done a worthy job with it, but I think there is one version that stands above all others.  That would be Sting’s recording from 1987, which has probably the best guitar solo I’ve ever heard in my life, played by Hiram Bullock.

That’s on the album …Nothing Like the Sun (released 39 years ago this month), but I like to post live recordings, or at least music videos.  So here is Sting in concert from the same era, singing in Spanish and with guitarist Dominic Miller doing very well indeed:

December into January Post

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The time does fly at the end of the year, 2024 was no exception, and I hope that the holidays were restful for everyone.

I mentioned I was focusing on one script book section in particular back in November’s post.  I’m glad to say that that part is 98% done, and it’s the rest that I’m working on right now.  I’ll be back with another update in February.  Meanwhile, here’s a musical closer by two phenomenal guitarists:

Post-October Post

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The work goes on.  Getting the script book out in the fall was the plan, but it has stubbornly managed to not be complete.  Oh well, monthly updates will happen here until it’s all done and I can provide a definite release date.

Been working a lot on one section in particular, and it will be a big step toward being done when that part is completed.  I’ll be back in December, and let’s close this post with a great live performance by Rush of one of their best songs:

Hobbit Rock, Part V

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From postpunk, the hobbit rock thread can be traced onward to later in the same decade.  A mellow strain of alternative rock began to emerge in the mid-1980s, or so it seemed to some of us in America.  I suspect that in Britain, funnily enough, much British music seemed mainstream.  And this example, courtesy of Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, fits the jangly guitar sound that was more and more common then.

I like this song, and the banter at the end is amusing, but I’ve got another reason to like this video.  I can’t quite remember, yet I’m convinced that I owned Lloyd’s shirt in junior high school.

Bonus video: Back in 1968, Leonard Nimoy graced the world with this lighthearted ode to a hobbit.  This is not postpunk or alt rock, but it is quite literally hobbit rock.

Hobbit Rock, Part IV

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Another year, and blogging has been too infrequent around here.  There will clearly be much more Hobbit Rock work to be done in 2022.  In the meantime, here is an easy one.

As my previous Hobbit Rock post showed, all the Joy Division influence in northern England could not extinguish the Hobbit Rock flame.  Like a stubborn Viking invader, it merely moved north to Scotland and never left the island.  And here’s a further ‘80s Scottish example of Hobbit Rock to follow up “All About You” by Scars.  This is one that everyone knows, but here in a fantastic live performance:

Hobbit Rock, Part III

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While seeming like a staple of 70s prog that made its way into 80s hard rock, Hobbit Rock was pervasive enough in its quiet little way to live through punk rock and become part of the unique little pocket of time when there was something called postpunk. Only punk in sharing the DIY ethos, this was a sonic world of flanged and chorused guitars, heavy keyboard atmospherics and abstract and sometimes unsettled lyrics.

Scotland made an impressive contribution to postpunk, exemplified by the career of Simple Minds. Their first album an above average blend of Bowie/Roxy influences, they moved into moodier and more unique territory on a second album nourished by the postpunk currents then starting to flow. While Simple Minds would go on to a more streamlined sound and mass success, Scottish postpunk is also well-represented by the lesser known and short-lived band Scars.

And does Scottish postpunk relate to Hobbit Rock? Yes, indeed, it does, as this Scars song and video demonstrate. Four guys running together, a veritable fellowship, leaving their town and heading to a tower where some sort of evil awaits, while the song fluctuates between the brighter and more melancholy edges of longing.