Music For Your Eyes

More Music For Your Eyes

2007-11-30T22:52:00.000+01:00

YouTube almost killed this blog, so please check my channel on YouTube.

The Madcap's Last Laugh

2007-05-15T17:06:00.000+02:00

To celebrate a very special event for every early Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett's fans, Music For Your Eyes is temporarily back.
Last week I passed a few days in London and I had the luck to assist to a tribute concert for Syd Barrett called Madcap's Last Laugh, organized by Pink Floyd's first producer Joe Boyd at the Barbican Theatre.
Surprisingly, among the many artists who paid a deeply felt homage to Syd by covering some of his songs, including Kevin Ayers, Robyn Hitchcock, Mike Heron, Damon Albarn...all of the four ex-Pink Floyd appeared! First Roger Waters played his own song Flickering Flame, then at the end of the show Gilmour, Wright and Mason joined to perform Arnold Layne. The audience was so excited, we all screamed for Waters to join the band too, but he had disappeared. My impression is that for personal reasons he feel "scared" or "ashamed" to play covers of Syd's songs.
Anyway, I take advantage of this event to post a very rare promo clip of Arnold Layne. It is not that famous video that I had already posted after Syd's death, on which the Floyds play with a mannequin, but another one that only recently has re-emerged on the internet. You can see it on YouTube too, but this is a hi-resolution and downloadable version, as usual.
Enjoy it!

Pink Floyd - Arnold Layne (rare promo clip 1967)

Password: http://musicforyoureyes.blogspot.com/

Goodbye

Adieu Adieu

2007-03-27T01:57:00.000+02:00

Prepare your handkerchief because this is a touching folk song performed by a great master, and it's my last goodbye too. I thought Adieu Adieu was an a appropriate title for the last post on this blog. I've already explained why I'm not going to update it anymore, anyway I'd really like to thank all of you who supported me and those who left nice comments. We spent more than an year together and it's been good to share this great music videos with you. If you like to keep in touch do not hesitate to e-mail me.

Se l'italiano è la vostra lingua ricordatevi di leggere le mie freddure zen e lasciare un commento se le trovate divertenti.

Richard Thompson - Adieu Adieu

No password this time

Adieu

Mirco

The Knights Of Fuzz

2007-02-20T00:32:00.000+01:00

The Knights Of Fuzz is the title of a very comprehensive guide to the garage and psychedelic music revival from 1980 to now, written by Timothy Gassen who is also the singer of a psyco-garage band called The Marshmallow Overcoat. The book has been later published on CD-ROM and then as a DVD-ROM, with lots of extra audio tracks and video footages. It is a good opportunity to know, hear and see more about a movement that never emerged from the underground but involved and still involves thousands of bands from all over the world.
I choose my two favourite clips included in the DVD, devoted to bands from the USA and Canada.
The Miracle Workers, as Timothy points out in his introduction, "stood head and shoulders above many of their garage brothers because of superior song-writing and a dynamic stage action". The clip combines an audio track, a marvellous garage-folk tune, from their 1985 album Inside Out with a concert footage from the same year.
I saw a compelling concert by this band in 1988 here in Italy. They had just released a killer album called Overdose, with an heavier sound influenced by the Stooges.
The Plasticland are one of the most talented and long-lived neo-psychedelic bands. They are from Milwakee but the roots of their sound are in the British psychedelia of the sixties, revisited with an original and brilliant style, as you can hear in Color Appreciation. The song has been published on single in 1981 and it still sounds great performed live twenty years after by these middle-aged men still wearing paisley shirts and colourful jackets.

Miracle Workers - You'll Know Why (1985)
Plasticland - Color Appreciation (2001)

Password: http://musicforyoureyes.blogspot.com/

Bye

Mirco

Naná Vasconcelos

2007-02-15T22:51:00.000+01:00

In the summer of '83 a nine days festival of music from the Brazilian state of Bahia was held in Rome, in the fascinating and ancient scenery of the Circo Massimo. The city of Salvador de Bahia itself is called by the Brazilians as "Roma negra" (black Rome), for the baroque style of his many churches and buildings and for being the ancient heart of the country, home of the Afro-brazilian culture.

Among the many artists that appeared there Naná Vasconcelos did an amazing performance.
Naná was born actually in Recife, capital of Pernambuco, another north-eastern state of Brazil, and it is known for being a virtuoso percussionist and for having played with a great number of both rock and jazz artists. The music of his solo works is closer to avantgarde-jazz and world music than to other typical Brazilian styles.
In Rome he hypnotyzed the audience playing an excerpt from Africadeus, the long instrumental track that gives the title to his debut album of 1972. Using only a berimbau, an instrument of the north-eastern Brazilian folklore, and his voice, he seems like a shaman that awakes and gives voice to ancestral spirits.
This performance, like many others from the festival, is included in the beautiful documentary Bahia De Todos Os Sambas, an Italo-Brazilian co-production. The clip has been ripped, with great difficulties (that's why I offer only this one), from a VHS released in Italy in the year 2000. I think the movie has been published on DVD only in Brazil.

Naná Vasconcelos - Africadeus (1983)

Password: http://musicforyoureyes.blogspot.com/

See you

Mirco

Il Mio Nuovo Blog

2007-02-09T21:58:00.000+01:00

Non ha nulla a che vedere con questo (che continuerà ancora per un poco, credo...), ma ne approfitto per farmi pubblicità.

101 Freddure Zen

Nella Cina del boom economico un monastero buddhista del XIII secolo è stato smontato e rimontato pezzo per pezzo, per permettere il passaggio di un' autostrada, rivelando fra le sue mura un prezioso manoscritto. Lo Zen Comico era una scuola iconoclasta che si riprometteva di risvegliare la mente dei discepoli attraverso la forma di comunicazione più immediata: la freddura.

S.F. Sorrow

2007-02-05T22:58:00.000+01:00

S.F. Sorrow by The Pretty Things is one of the most underrated rock albums, a masterpiece of the British psychedelic season. It's been the first rock-opera ever, it anticipated Tommy and even inspired Pete Townshend, but to me it sound much more brilliant than the Who's celebrated album.
Thirty years after its release The Pretty Things performed the whole album live for the first and only time in the legendary Abbey Road studios, in front of a few lucky people, where it had been recorded, almost contemporaneously with other milestones like Sergeant Pepper and Pink Floyd's The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. This historical concert has been recorded on CD, and later a DVD has been published too.
The band is joined by David Gilmour (ex-Pink Floyd, of course) on some tracks (you can see him on the second clip) and another old friend, Arthur Brown in the role of a narrator who helps telling the story of Sebastian F. Sorrow's life.
S.F. Sorrow is born again...and still sounds great!

Pretty Things - S.F. Sorrow Is Born (1998)
Pretty Things - Trust (1998)

Password: http://musicforyoureyes.blogspot.com/

Bye

Mirco

Kosmische Musik

2007-01-27T21:06:00.000+01:00

Klaus Schulze began as a drummer (and what a drummer! Just listen to him on the first Tangerine Dream's record or on the first Ash Ra Tempel's one), but on his solo career, that started in 1972 with Irrlicht, he became the wizard of synthesizers, creating his own evocative and grandiose style that made him the main pioneer of popular electronic music.

This video is one of the manies that have been braodcasted by the German WDR channel in the past August, during two long nights dedicated to the krautrock scene. It is part of a a TV concert of 1977, the long and hypnotic track is called For Barry Graves. Barry Graves was a popular German journalist and disk jockey, so maybe this tune was dedicated to him, maybe it has been played on his TV show...or probably both things are true.

Klaus appeares sitted on the floor, surrounded by a lot of keyboards and electronic devices; he has his back turned on the audience and there is a giant mirror above him reflecting his image.

The clip is certainly interesting not only for music lovers, but also for people interested in sound technology.

Italiano: Colgo l'occasione per ricordare il giornalismo rock creativo ed anticonvenzionale di Marco Lombardo Radice, il neuropsichiatra e scrittore legato agli ambienti dell'ultrasinistra, noto per aver scritto, assieme a Lidia Ravera, Porci Con Le Ali, il diario sessuo-politico di Rocco ed Antonia, e per aver ispirato il film Il Grande Cocomero. E' stato anche giornalista musicale per la rivista Muzak; anni fa ho trovato su di una bancarella una sua enciclopedia pop, la prima guida alla musica giovane scritta da un italiano (la prima edizione era del '74).
Il numero di artisti citati è notevole, considerato anche che all' epoca era difficile reperire molti dischi, qui da noi, ma oggi la lettura è interessante più che altro per lo stile "fricchettone", inspirato un po' al flusso di coscienza degli scrittori beat. Oggi suona datato forse, comunque era un bel tentativo di dare alla critica rock un suo stile autonomo, parte di quella che all' epoca ci si ostinava a chiamare "controcultura".
Vi trascrivo una parte della scheda su Klaus Schulze (al nostro piacevano soprattutto i suoni d'avanguardia):
"...la sua musica, espressa in quattro opere imperdibili, suites pazzesche, giochi sonori ossessivi ed ipnotici, riconduce al niente, all'ignoto, al sepolto, nascendo dal tutto, dal futuro, dal Kharma più vero dell'uomo ... ed in ciò è la purezza trascendentale, la cristallina intuizione di un uomo schivo dalla comunicazione di massa, vita a scorrere sul filo della vertigine elettroacustica, fino all'essenza purissima del SUONO, e non è questo il facile entusiasmarsi a livello infantile, piuttosto il riconoscere a questo artista una porzione di genio in più, che lo colloca al di là dei grandi nomi della musica contemporanea ... Schulze e John Cage, Schulze e Strawinsky, Schulze e Riley ... il disegno trova un prato d'erba colto sino in fondo e il prezzo stesso del pedaggio verso l'Infinito ... sono opere eccezionali ... "Cyborg" ed "Irrlicht", forse il dramma romantico della nostra generazione di freaks veri che sanno come vivere nello spazio del proprio cervello, nella consapevolezza della propria cosmogonia personale.
Quella di Schulze è una sinfonia unica, sconvolgente e libera, la cui appassionata e commossa tensione fluisce giusto dai terribili momenti dei nostri giorni ..."

Cosmico!

Klaus Schulze - For Barry Graves (1977)

Password: http://musicforyoureyes.blogspot.com/

A presto

Mirco

John Martyn In 2004

2007-01-23T23:13:00.000+01:00

2004 saw the unexpected return on the scene of John Martyn, one of the most inspired and prolific British songwriters, not so famous as he'd deserve. Surprisingly On The Cobbles is one of his best records since the early seventies, a collection of touching and refined folk-jazz tunes that he recorded with some prestigious friends, like the ex-Pentangle Danny Thompson, also present on these videos, on bass. It's been a sort of artistic redemption from life's tribulations: John had just recovered from a long hospitalization, his right leg had been amputated because of an infection caused by diabetes.
The illnesses and the abuse of alcohol left their signs, he looks so old and fat that you'll hardly recognize him, but his voice and his amazing tecnique on the guitar didn't change.
Here he is guest of Jools Holland on his musical show on BBC, for a brilliant live performance.
One For The Road is one of the ten songs included on his last album, while Johnny Too Bad is taken from Grace & Danger, released in 1980.

John Martyn - One For The Road (2004)
John Martyn - Johnny Too Bad (2004)

Password: http://musicforyoureyes.blogspot.com/

See you soon

Mirco

Love With Arthur Lee

2007-01-18T22:40:00.000+01:00

Before he died for leukemia in the past August, Arthur Lee, the leader of the legendary sixties' Californian band Love, found the time to obtain some of the success that was missing from his life since a long time.
He had passed through a long troubled period, culminated with almost six years of prison for illegal possesion of a firearm, from the fall of '96 till December 2001. After he got out he started touring again with a band called Love With Arthur Lee, accompanied by members of the Los Angeles' neo-psychedelic band Baby Lemonade. Arthur and these very good musicians began performig live in its integrity the 1967 album Forever Changes, that wrote the name Love into the rock history book. In 2003 they played all over the world, obtaining an enthusiastic acclaim by audience and critics. The tour is documented by a CD and a DVD.
On November that year they appeared on the BBC 2 program Later...With Jools Holland for another brilliant gig, joined also by a string and horn section, to reproduce the lush arrangements of these old songs.
The videos are very big, but the quality is as good as a DVD.
This post is dedicated not only to Arthur, but also to Bryan MacLean, the other singer and composer of Love (he wrote Alone Again Or) who died on the Christmas day of '98.

Love With Arthur Lee - Alone Again Or (2003)
Love With Arthur Lee - Maybe The People Would Be The Times Or Between Clark And Hilldale (2003)

Password: http://musicforyoureyes.blogspot.com/

Bye

Mirco

Starsailor

2007-01-13T22:43:00.000+01:00

Today Music For Your Eyes offers a full concert that Tim Buckley performed in 1970 for a program called Boboquivari, on the Los Angeles TV channel KCET.
In those days he was at the peak of the most experimental phase of his career, four of the six songs he played are included on his mysterious and touching masterpiece Starsailor. Unfortunately this record is out of print now.
Tim is accompanied by a band of four musicians, including a trumpet player, that leads us into strange territories, closer to free jazz than to folk-rock. Tim himself uses his extraordinary voice as an instrument.
This is the tracklist:

1) I Woke Up
2) Come Here Woman
3) Blue Melody
4) Moulin Rouge
5) Venice Beach
6) Jungle Fire

The songs are played with no interruptions, as one long suite.
I have converted this 27 minutes video into a 160 Mb DivX file, and splitted it in two parts with WinRAR.
Unzip this archive to know how to download it.

Tim Buckley live at Boboquivari (1970)

Password: http://musicforyoureyes.blogspot.com/

See you

Mirco

Sei Still, Wisse ICH BIN

2007-01-08T21:44:00.000+01:00

Florian Fricke, the leader and composer of Popol Vuh, was deeply interested in cinema and in the spirituality that's behind any religion.
In 1981 he had already written the soundtrack for many Werner Herzog's movies, then he decided to direct one by himself, inspired by some books of the Old Testament. Sei Still, Wisse ICH BIN (Be In Peace, I AM The Messiah) had been filmed in the magical landscape of the Sinai Desert, near the Dead Sea and the Moses' Mountain, that was still thought to be the Sinai Mountain (the real Sinai Mountain has been identified in 1983 in Egypt).
By that time no one released the movie, only the soundtrack, played by Popol Vuh and perfectly produced by Klaus Schulze, was published on Schulze's own label Innovative Communication. It is one of Popol Vuh's best albums, on which the band is joined by the Choir Ensemble of the Bavarian Opera. The vocals play a main role, with a "mantric" effect, and the sound seems often inspired by Tibetan sacred music.
Ten years later Sei Still, Wisse ICH BIN has finally been published on VHS, then reissued in '96 by the French label Spalax with the title Sinai Desert. At this moment it is out of print again.
These are two excerpts from the movie, a perfect combination of very evocative sounds and very evocative images. Curiously the part of the Messiah is played by a girl, Vera Von Lehndorf, who wears a false beard.
The audio track Wehe Khorazin has been used also on the soundtrack of Herzog's Fitzcarraldo.

Popol Vuh - Wehe Khorazin (1981)
Popol Vuh - Geimensam Tranken Sie Den Wein (1981)

Password: http://musicforyoureyes.blogspot.com/

I'm a little late but I wish you all a happy new year

Mirco

Suonare La Voce

2006-12-18T00:14:00.000+01:00

We celebrate one year of Music For Your Eyes with two clips that are not exactly "vintage rock music videos". Demetrio Stratos is remembered as the singer of the Italian group Area but he has also been a researcher of the expressive possibilities of the voice. His solo records give an example of how he brought the voice beyond the limits of language and of any musical style. Unfortunately Demetrio died in 1979, at the age of 34, and no one had the capacity and the courage to continue on his same path.

These clips are taken from the recently released DVD Suonare La Voce (playing the voice), that contains some precious footages from the seventies. You can preview them both on YouTube; the second one is a vocal version of a traditional Greek song (Stratos had Greek origins) that was also in the Area's repertoire.

If you understand Italian you will also hear from Demetrio some interesting explanations about the reasons and methods of his research. You have to hear to believe the things he was able to do with his voice, words just can't describe. At a certain point of this documentary he says "we want to abolish the word", so...

More Demetrio Stratos' music can be heard on this page of the UBUWEB site.

Demetrio Stratos - Flautofonie Ed Altro

Demetrio Stratos - Cometa Rossa

Password: http://musicforyoureyes.blogspot.com/

Ciao

Mirco

Grateful Dead

2006-12-10T18:41:00.000+01:00

As I found some interesting stuff, I'm back with a new post, sooner than I expected.
Robert Nelson is a Californian underground filmaker who met the Grateful Dead in their earlier days, when they were still experimenting the effects of LSD in creating and listening to music, in those famous Acid Tests. In this eight-minutes experimental film, that shows the Dead during one of those jams in 1967, Nelson provides some visual effects that help creating an experience similar to a lysergic trip. The audio track consists of parts of some songs from their first self-titled LP, performed live. A much more detailed description of the film can be read here.
To balance the strangeness of this video here's also a more "normal" clip of the Dead performing at the Beat Club in the spring of 1972. They had left the experimentations behind to play a more conventional music influenced by folk and blues, but with their very unique style, as we can hear also in this beautiful Bob Weir's composition, that appeared later that year in the triple LP set documenting their tour in the old continent. The fine psychedelic artwork of their first records appears on the background of the musicians, making this clip even more attractive.

Grateful Dead (a film by Robert Nelson, 1967)
Grateful Dead - One More Saturday Night (1972)

Password: http://musicforyoureyes.blogspot.com/

The image above is from the back cover of an Italian fanzine of the nineties called Magic Fuzz, on which I used to write. Jerry Garcia had just died and this beautiful picture was deadicated to him by an illustrator called Sergio Varbella. I haven't seen him in years, wherever he is I hope he doesn't mind if I showed it on the internet.

Bye

Mirco

Openers

2006-12-01T00:07:00.000+01:00

You've probably realized that I love the music of this man: Roky Erickson. One of the reason why Roki appears here again is because these clips are not on YouTube yet, and one of the reason why the number of visits to this blog have diminished in the last months is because YouTube is getting more and more popular and huger.

The perfomance from which these videos are taken was broadcasted on an Austin cable TV channel in 1985, it is called Openers like a poems' book that Roky wrote while he was in the Rusk state mental hospital. He plays in a very intimate situation, him alone with his acoustic guitar in a TV studio. The set is made of eight songs, six of them are previously unreleased and prove how good he is in composing and playing also some touching love songs, not only in singing about scary and evil creatures. Here you can clearly hear how he has been influenced by Dylan and Buddy Holly.

It looks like someone put a digital camera in front of the TV screen, but the quality is pretty good.

If you want to hear some more brilliant acoustic stuff, with some lyrics that are actually taken from the Openers' poems, I suggest you to listen to the rough but beautiful demos included in the album Never Say Goodbye, a collection of unreleased songs, mostly from the early seventies.

Roky Erickson - When You Get Delighted (1985)

Roky Erickson - To Think (1985)

Password: http://musicforyoureyes.blogspot.com/

After almost one year I think it is normal not to be so enthusiast as in the beginning, I've also seen most of my old files deleted due to a long period of inactivity (this means that no one has downloaded them). This blog will remain on-line, but I'm not sure if or when I will continue. I won't certainly update it so frequently as I used to.

See you soon?

Mirco

Third Ear Band

2006-11-25T22:29:00.000+01:00

This very rare video has been gifted to me some months ago by my friend Baz, from the UK. I have no idea of what he's doing now, he disappeared from the web, but I hope he is ok.

If there is a band whose music can really be called "magic" this is the Third Ear Band. They started in the London underground scene, with the name of Giant Sun Trolley, experimenting their own fusion of western and eastern music, in those glorious days of 1967. It's been because of an accident - part of their instruments had been stolen - that they became an acoustic band, and discovered the secret formula of the most evocative and hypnotic sound ever, combining indian raga, celtic and mediterranean folk, free-jazz, atonal avantgarde and minimal classical music.

The "progressive" label Harvest had the courage to release two memorable albums between 1969 and 1970: Alchemy and Third Ear Band (also known as "Elements"), followed by an interesting soundtrack for Roman Polansky's movie Macbeth.

As written on the sleeve notes of Alchemy: Words cannot describe this ecstatic dance of sound, or explain the alchemical repetiton seeking and sometimes finding archetypal formes, elements and rhythms.

After the second album the strings players Richard Coff and Ursula Smith left the band, so the percussionist Glen Sweeney and Paul Minns, a fantastic oboist, joined by Paul Buckmaster on bass, decided to try to become a more accessible "pop group", after they met the guitarist and singer Denim Bridges. They worked on an album called The Dragon Wakes, that never saw the light, played on a couple of BBC radio sessions, and did a brief tour in Europe, during which they also performed at the Beat Club.

This is, as far as I know, their only video available, with a line-up that they called the Third Ear "Big" Band, including also another percussionist whose identity is unknown to me. I haven't found any informations about him even on the biography written by the Italian musical journalist Luca Ferrari.

This unreleased tune is much more conventional than their early recordings, a mellow folk-rock that still sounds enchanting anyway, Minns' work on oboe in particular is great, as ever.

I have to say that the clip is a little frustrating as you don't get to see the musicians very well, they appear as small figures with giant incense sticks in front of them and the front cover of their second album on the backgorund; the idea was probably to make them look as little devotional statues.

My dream to see the Third Ear Band back became true thanks to Luca Ferrari, who was able to find Glen Sweeney and convince him to reform the band. Between the late eightes and early nineties, with different line-ups that for brief periods included also Paul Minns and then Ursula Smith, they recorded three more records for the label Materiali Sonori and played some concerts, bringing back some of the old magic.

This post is dedicated with gratitude to Paul Minns and Glen Sweeney, who died, respectively in 1997 and in 2005.

Third Ear Band - Hyde Park (1970)

Password: http://musicforyoureyes.blogspot.com/

See you

Mirco

Steve Hillage

2006-11-16T00:15:00.000+01:00

Steve Hillage is a great guitar player, the hippiest among the musicians that emerged from the Canterbury scene. He recorded some fine psychedelic music in the late sixties with the bands Khan and Arzachel, then he ended up playing for some time with another group of freaks: the Gong.
The spacey jazz-rock music of his first solo works, in the second half of the seventies, certainly owes much to the typical Gong sound, with the addiction of a very interesting use of electronic keyboards. There are three keyboard players in these clips, Miquette Giraudy on sinthesizer offers a very important contribution to the band, she had already played with the innovative Tonto's Expanding Head Band and with Todd Rundgren.
These two jams are taken from the German Rockpalast festival of March 1977. Salmon Song is from his first, and maybe also his best record Fish Rising, from 1975, while the cover of Donovan's Hurdy Gurdy Man appeared on the second one L, produced by Todd Rundgren in '76.
Hillage disappeared from the scene for about a decade, then he returned in the early nineties with a totally new style: a trippy electronic trance music. He and Miquette Giraudy play now as duo called System 7.

Steve Hillage - The Salmon Song (1977)
Steve Hillage - Hurdy Gurdy Man (1977)

Password: http://musicforyoureyes.blogspot.com/

Bye

Mirco

Glastonbury Fayre 1971

2006-11-01T00:18:00.000+01:00

Though only 7.000 people went to see it, the Glastonbury Fayre Festival of 1971, held in coincindence with the summer solstice, is a legendary event in the history of British free festivals. The organizer Andrew Kerr was much more interested in mysticism than in getting rich with rock music. He had the idea to make a giant wooden pyramidal stage, that took eight days to be built, to concentrate the energy of the solstice. I don't know if it was because of the pyramid, but an atmosphere of magic and harmony made the festival really special, as can be seen in the documentary directed by Peter Neal. The artists appearing on this movie are: Arthur Brown, Melanie, Terry Reid, Fairport Convention, Family, Quintessence, Traffic. Unfortunately the exibitions of other musicians like David Bowie, Edgar Broughton Band, Gong, Pink Fairies, Gilberto Gil, Hawkwind, Mighty Baby, Brinsley Schwarz are not shown. Of course is worth looking also at the spontaneous happenings among the audience.

The two perfomances I chose are really compelling. The Fairport Convention plays a very loud, fast, almost frantic version of Dirty Linen, a traditional also present on their album Full House, one of the best folk-rock record ever.

The Traffic closed their concert of June 22 with an irresistible Gimme Some Loving, the famous song that a very young Steve Winwood composed when he still was in the Spencer Davis Group. On this occasion the band is joined by some African percussionists.

Both these songs are impossible to be listened to while remaining sitted on a chair.

A triple LP set, complete with a booklet and a poster, including songs from this festival and others gifted by various bands, was published in a limited edition of 5.000 copies. If someone who owns a copy of this record would be so kind to upload it somewhere I'd be very grateful.

If you can read Italian, you will find more informations about the festival and the record on this page.

Added on November 12: In the comments you can find the links to download the album, kindly uploaded by my Brazilian friend Carlos. Thank you!

Fairport Convention - Dirty Linen (1971)

Traffic - Gimme Some Loving (1971)

Password: http://musicforyoureyes.blogspot.com/

See you soon

Mirco

Man

2006-10-27T22:46:00.000+02:00

An historical band from Wales that, though it never reached a big success, is still on the road and can count on a cult-following, as proved by this very rich and detailed official website.
Since their debut in 1969 with the album Revelation, on whose cover they apperaed naked, several years before the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Man have been considered as a crossover between progressive rock and west coast psychedelia. Their friendship with John Cipollina, the legendary axeman of Quicksilver Messenger Service, is testified by the 1975 live album Maximum Darkness. Concerts are the ideal context for Man's music, a band that, through many changes in its line-up, is always been a sort of "open space" for musical improvisation.
In the beginning they received more attention in other European countries like Germany or France, so it's no surprise that they appeared two times at the Beat Club.
2.30 Definetely is a compelling rock-blues, an instrumental tune that never appeared on any official album. Would The Christians... is a long track taken from their third self-titled album, another great instrumental piece. It has an evocative atmosphere with reminiscenses of Pink Floyd, and a strange noisy electronic coda. Both these perfomances are included on a bootleg called Yesterdays Papers. Check their website for more informations about these records, and much more.

Man - 2.30 Definitely (1969)
Man - Would The Christians Wait Five Minutes? The Lions Are Having A Draw (1971)

Password: http://musicforyoureyes.blogspot.com/

Cheers

Mirco

Round To The Stars

2006-10-20T15:45:00.000+02:00

Another post about my favourite German band, this time we explore another side of their sound. In 1972 Amon Düül II released a couple of albums on which they had been able to use their experimentations to compose shorter and more accessible songs, with brilliant results, right before they became a too commercial band, very different from the old freaks' commune.

The first video is a promo clip for the single version of All The Years Round, a song included on Carnival In Babylon, that, thanks to John Peel, had been played several times on British radio. It is a wonderful psych-folk song, on which Renate Knaup's shrill falsetto vocals play a main role, with the typical Amon Düül II's gothic atmosphere. The clip is very beautiful and evocative too, it reminds of the imaginative artwork they used for their albums' covers.

I found this video in mpeg format with a size of more than 200 Mb; to reduce it I've converted it into a wmv file of just 60 Mb, with almost the same quality. You can preview it with Real Player here, I think it was also included as a bonus on some CD re-release, but I'm not sure.

Surrounded By The Stars is the opening track of Wolf City, another fascinating ballad, that here is played live in 1975, with one of the best performance I ever heard by Renate.

This last clip is one of many old German rock videos that the TV channel WDR had the good idea to get back from the archives recently.

Amon Düül II - All The Years Round (1972)

Amon Düül II - Surrounded By The Stars (1975)

Password: http://musicforyoureyes.blogspot.com/

See You

Mirco

dErailRoaDed

2006-10-17T22:13:00.000+02:00

I think that the best way to introduce in a few lines Larry "Wild Man" Fischer is to copy the sleeve notes of the Derailroaded DVD, hoping also to encourage you to try and see this brilliant documentary about the cult-artist:

"de-rail-road-ed (di ral’rod ed) 1. pt.; a neologism; one man’s psycholinguistic and schizo-musical metaphor for derailed, to have caused a train, mind or life to go off the tracks. 2. proper noun; an 86 minute documentary feature.

In this shocking and sensitive musical journey through the thunderstorms of the mind of paranoid-schizophrenic Larry “Wild Man” Fischer, we follow his discordant encounters in the music business. Institutionalized at 16 after attacking his mother with a knife, Fischer wandered the mean streets of L.A. singing his unique brand of songs for 10¢ each to passersby. He was discovered by Frank Zappa, with whom he cut his first record album, including the enduring dada rock classic ‘Merry Go Round’. A precursor to punk, Fischer became an underground club and concert favourite, earning him the title of "godfather of outsider music." Over the course of his 40 year career, Fischer has performed constantly, is the first artist ever recorded on Rhino Records, was featured on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, had a top hit in the UK Pop Charts with ‘Go To Rhino Records’, which featured in John Peel’s Festive Fifty 1976, was the subject of his own comic book, was a mainstay on The Dr Demento Show , and even sang a duet with the late Rosemary Clooney.

Extensive archival footage from Fischer’s early days, including his TV and club performances, trace his life from neglected child to tortured genius. We visit him at home, follow him on the streets, and speak with those who over the years witnessed – and survived – his erratic behavior: his family, his doctor, and industry professionals including Frank and Gail Zappa, Weird Al Yankovic, Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo, Solomon Burke, Dr. Demento, and Barnes and Barnes. You will be moved, amazed, repelled, and ultimately come to know what it is like to be profoundly DERAILROADED."

Fischer recorded four LP's plus a live album with Smegma. The double album An Evening With Wild Man Fischer, produced by Zappa in '68, has never been re-released. All the music he recorded for Rhino Records, most of it perfectly produced by Barbes & Barnes, had been gathered on the Fischer King box set, that is no longer available too. It looks like all you can buy is Wildmania, the number 1 album in Rhino's catalogue.

The movie, that hopefully will arouse some interest around Fischer's music, is very dramatic. Like Crumb, the documentary about the famous underground cartoonist and his family, it proves how some of the most sincere and intense artistical expressions can come from a diseased mind. Larry is a manic depressive paranoid-schizophrenic, and this brought a lot of suffering in his life.

One of the most interesting extras featured on the DVD is an amazing animation by the great illustrator Pat Moriarity, based on the song The Bouillabasse, that exposes effectively Larry's obsessions.

Check out this post on PCL LinkDump for more infos about Wild Man Fischer, and also to download two of his albums!

Wild Man Fischer - The Bouillabaisse (animation by Pat Moriarity)

Password: http://musicforyoureyes.blogspot.com/

Bye

Mirco

The Incredible String Band In 1968

2006-10-12T22:26:00.000+02:00

For this precious clip we all must thank Milan Zivancevic, a good friend from Serbia that sometimes posts comments here using the nick "123". He's been so kind to burn and send me a copy of a DVD with many rare videos by The Incredible String Band, including also parts of their performance at the Woodstock festival.
In 1968 the so-called hippy/underground (counter)culture was at the peak of its creativity, and so were Robin Williamson and Mike Heron, whose band has been one of the most creative and imaginative of that era. These two amazing songwriters and musicians were guests at the Julie Felix TV show in that year, to perform a couple of fascinating tunes. The Half Remarkable Question, written by Robin, is a quiet and meditative song; as Robin sings and plays the guitar, Mike shows his skill in playing the sitar. The song is from the double album Wee Tam And The Big Huge, whose two records are also available separately, as they had been originally published in the USA.
Painting Box, composed by Mike, is one of my favourite songs by them, taken from The 5.000 Spirits Or The Layers Of The Onion, also considered by myself, and many others, as one their best albums. Julie Felix herself joins the duo on acoustic guitar and backing vocals, making this version truly delightful, a special gem for every fans.
For some reasons, ripping this clip has been quite difficult, please excuse me if in the last minute the audio is a little bit out of synch, I hope you'll enjoy it just the same. I'm waiting for your comments.

Incredible String Band - The Half Remarkable Question/Painting Box (1968)

Password: http://musicforyoureyes.blogspot.com/

See you next time

Mirco

Parco Lambro 1976

2006-10-06T19:07:00.000+02:00

I've been asked several times to upload some Italian clips. Sincerely I'm not a big fan of the musical scene of my country, also it's not very easy to find some old videos.

The movie Nudi Verso La Follia, directed by Angelo Rastelli in 2004, documents a memorable event: the sixth Re Nudo Pop Festival of June 1976 - Re Nudo was an underground magazine - that was held in a park near Milan called Parco Lambro. The Re Nudo Pop Festivals were also called "feste del proletariato giovanile", proletarian youth's parties. The Italian underground movement mixed the hippy counter-culture with the political revolutionary ideals of the radical left. The sixth edition of the festival was the most popular, several thousands of people from all over the country reached the Parco Lambro, but unfortunately it was also the last one. In the late seventies the contradictions, the heavy drugs and the violent degeneration of the political and social tensions brought to the death of the movement.

A lot of good artists took part to this four day event, but I think that the more interesting sequences of the movie are the ones that show what happened among the audience. Anyway, this is a musical blog, so here are a couple of musical clips.

Eugenio Finardi is a talented rock songwriter who released some very good albums in those years, with the important contribution of some great musicians from his same label, the historical Cramps Records, like Alberto Camerini or members of Area. His style was quite tough and angry, his most famous song has the eloquent title La Musica Ribelle - the rebel music - but this is a fine catchy ballad dedicated to the radio; some interesting indipendent radio channels were born here in that period, this was composed originally as a music spot for Radio Popolare. The song sounds almost as a country-rock, it was included on his second album Sugo, maybe his best one.

The group Area, that performed at the end of the festival, did a very peculiar experiment with the audience. They unrolled two naked electrical wires from Patrizio Fariselli's synthesizer to the people. As the instrument played a random sequence of sounds they invited the people to touch the wires and touch one another, to increase the resistance and make the tonality of the sounds higher. This weird instrumental track was called Il Caos, and it was the introduction to another version of L'Internazionale, the socialist international workers' hymn. Unfortunately we don't hear Demetrio Stratos' voice. A very good article in English about this amazing band can be read on this blog.

In the nineties Re Nudo re-appeared as a sort of new-age magazine. The times they are a-changin'.

Eugenio Finardi - La Radio (1976)

Area - Il Caos/L' Internazionale (1976)

Password: http://musicforyoureyes.blogspot.com/

Ciao

Mirco

Surrender To Jonathan

2006-10-01T18:30:00.000+02:00

Listening to a Jonathan Richman's record is always a secure remedy against bad temper, not only because of his talent in composing infectious melodies (does anybody remember an eight minutes live version of Ice Cream Man?), but you can also clearly feel how much he enjoys living and communicating through his music. This is why seeing Jonathan in concert is an even more exciting and funny experience, as proved also by a DVD called Take Me To The Plaza, that shows a performance at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, in December 2002. Accompanied only by himself on acoustic guitar and Tommy Larkins on a basic drums kit (Tommy is the same guy that appears with Jonathan on the movie There's Something About Mary), he offers an hour of great entertainment. Many of the songs are taken from the 2001 CD Her Mistery Not Of High Heels And Eye Shadow, that I've sincerely never heard, so I choosed a couple of older classic tunes. Pablo Picasso is from his earlier pre-punk period with the Modern Lovers, the song had been covered also by the Modern Lovers' producer John Cale, while I Was Dancing At The Lesbian Bar comes from the album I, Jonathan.

Mentioning the title of another of his records, all you have to do is Surrender To Jonathan.

Jonathan Richman - Pablo Picasso/I Was Dancing In The Lesbian Bar (2002)

Password: http://musicforyoureyes.blogspot.com/

A presto

Mirco

Phil Ochs

2006-09-24T01:39:00.000+02:00

First of all I'd like to thank Rosa Mannen from Sweden, who ripped these clips, shared them on the web and allowed me to upload them here.
In the early sixties Phil Ochs was a very promising folk singer of the Greenwich Village scene, like his friend/enemy Bob Dylan. He probably hadn't got the same poetic talent as Dylan, just a beautiful voice, a guitar to accompany his biting or tender ballads, and a great urge to communicate. He never stopped being commited as a militant for peace, and this costed him the censorship of the medias and even some troubles with the FBI. He was present at the famous Democratic Convention of 1968 in Chicago, and he was arrested along with many other protesters.
When he started recording "pop" music, he did it with very original and refined arrangements, like in the album Pleasures Of The Harbor, on which the song Crucifixion is included. Unfortunately the clip of this tune is incomplete, but it is so good, and also quite difficult to find, that I decided to upload it just the same.
I Ain't Marching Anymore is his "almost famous" song, the anti-war hymn that the people always expected him to sing.
The videos are from an appearance at the Swedish TV in 1969.
Phil committed suicide in 1976. Thirty years after his death, his songs don't sound so dated to me...unfortunately.

Abot Crucifixion Phil said: "It's a song about Christ-killing, how all America and even, especially, New York loves to create heroes to moralize to them and then kill them violently, bloodily and dig the death so much, every detail of the death. It's a song about Jesus Christ. It's called The Crucifixion. It's a song about Kennedy. And maybe a song about Dylan."

In fact it was not about Dylan, it was about John Lennon, but Phil couldn't know it because, when he wrote the song, Lennon wasn't living in New York yet.

Phil Ochs - I Ain't Marching Anymore (1969)
Phil Ochs - Crucifixion (1969)

Password: http://musicforyoureyes.blogspot.com/

See you soon

Mirco