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Saturday, December 27, 2014

Parking a blog...




Readers with a discerning eye - or at least readers capable of performing date calculations - may have noticed that fresh content has been somewhat… sporadic around here. Sad to say, that’s what happens when two book projects, multiple musical efforts, and a host of Internet-related assignments all barge their way to the top of the prioritization list. My interest in the LOUDFASTBLOGS network subjects remains keen, so revitalization is just a question of time. How soon? Time itself will tell. But keep an eye out here - as Joe Strummer once wrote, the future is unwritten…

Saturday, June 21, 2014

My review of the 2014 Led Zeppelin I, II, and III Remasters/Hi-Resolution Downloads




If you are going to sing a verse like this, full of dread and apocalyptic fury:

The hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new lands
To fight the horde,
Singing and crying: "Valhalla, I am coming!"



...your band had better not suck. 

They did not.



Friday, June 20, 2014

Ruminating on Rubber Soul

This morning I listened to the 1965 album Rubber Soul by The Beatles (you may have heard of them). Curious album title, that…

Rubber Soul cover, US stereo edition.

From the vantage point of 2014 it’s easy to take this collection of music as something that seems to have always existed – but it’s more interesting to put it in the perspective of where in the band’s career timeline it was created.

While the songs generally credited to Paul McCartney remain focused on matters romantic – and masterful displays of pop-craft they often are – John Lennon’s words begin to show the first signs of a new direction for the band and a changing attitude for him. “Norwegian Wood” brings a much more adult take on relationship complexities than the cut-and-dry characterizations that inhabited earlier songs. And in “The Word,” when Lennon announced “Now that I know what I feel must be right, I'm here to show everybody the light,” he set a course that he would follow for the rest of his life.

The band recording Rubber Soul.


George Harrison displays a darker lyrical approach as well, noting in “Think for Yourself” that “I left you far behind, the ruins of the life that you have in mind.”


The shimmering production and spirited performances that abound in Rubber Soul seem like a seamless and logical progression from the album’s predecessor, Help!, arriving quickly on its heels. But the album also offered clues that things were changing. No one could have imagined just how much.



The blog awakens...



...after extended slumber.