Tag: GentleSoul

Posted on

IT SHOULD BE LIKE A HALF AN HOUR VOLUME 17: I COULD LISTEN TO IT ALL DAY… round 1

Wake up and rock out!

I love music. I love listening to it, and singing, and I love going to see live music. I think if I were a single person with no one to be responsible for but myself, in a little house all-by-my-lonesome, I would play music a lot more often, and a lot louder.

I thought I might do some posts that don’t require quite as much explication/explanation, where I would just rattle off some songs I could listen to all day on repeat.

I have been told that, as a music lover, there are some odd things about me:

#1. If I love it, I want to hear it, over and over. I once played “Magic” by Pilot, for two solid hours (a 45 I’d pilfered from my friend) on my raggedy record player while in the Temple University dorms, in the middle of the day (who has classes from noon-3?) until another student showed up (and I was bouncing up and down on my bed at the time, as if it were a trampoline) and yelled at me to turn it the fuck off. It was… embarrassing. But that is 100% me; I cannot deny it. I no longer think beds are sturdy enough for adults to bounce on, but I could get that vibe again in a second.

#2. The second thing is that I can mix seemingly disparate music together. You will be able to tell when you take a look at today’s inaugural list (which, to be fair to #1, will start with Pilot). I am the same way with food. I am currently eating stir-fried cabbage for breakfast, with a big steaming cup of coffee with cream and sugar. I like strange tastes all in the same mouthful, or, as goes with this post, earful.

#3. I will merge songs in my head: two songs will become one the way I think of them. As an example, I often will sing, “Hotel California,” to the tune of, “If You Like Pina Coladas,” and use the chorus from the second instead of the “Hotel California” chorus. Try it. It is incredible. It’s my version of Laverne’s milk and Pepsi. If you are ever around me LIP, I will perform it for you, no charge. It works really well.

#4. I prefer vinyl. I am annoyed by vinyl, because you cannot make your own greatest hits like you can with a cassette tape or digital files, but I am addicted to the snap, crackle, pops. And there’s just something beautiful about an album. Us kids from the 70s, in the pre-MTV times, used to lock ourselves away with our crappy record players and our vinyl, and play side 1, and then side 2, or side A and then side B, and just pour over the album, look at all the liner notes, read the lyrics, check out all the band photos, basically memorize the thing. I could do that all night long. I still love it.

Okay, so lemme throw up ten today, and there’ll be more to come. What do these songs have in common? I could listen to each song, on its own, for literal hours, over and over, were I left to my own devices and my own schedule and life with no one around to annoy.

MAGIC!

Oh my gosh the lead singer is cute! I’m sorry world, but 1970s singers were the hottest… except for maybe Lenny Kravitz, and Bruno Mars. I love the strings in this, and I’m ready to hear it again, dormmates be dammed!

GOD SAVE THE QUEENS!


This was from a previous post, and, as it was already here, I’m including it in this list. What I had said last time was, “I need something like this right now. Something that feels punk, and resistant, and full of a big fuck you to oppressors everywhere.” Yep, still me; I’m still there, and, Vienna Vienna is not from the 1970s, but is pretty cute anyway. Can an old lady still find rock stars hot? It’s another thing I can’t seem to stop doing on repeat.

GOOD TIMES BAD TIMES


This is a live version, but I wanted one that showed the band, and not just an album cover and the music. Why? Because I’m still hoping to get trapped in an elevator for 12 hours with Robert Plant. I mean, come on. The guitar, the harmonies, the Plant… you could burn your fingers on this one.

TRYIN’ TO GET THE FEELING AGAIN

Apologies for making you break down and cry. Sometimes you gotta cry. But you sing your heart out while you’re doing it. I was so lucky to see Barry at the Hollywood Bowl in… 2011? He’s amazing, and so fun, and really talented. My brother, who played in a Rolling Stones cover band most of his life, liked Barry and introduced me to him when he gave me Barry Manilow II. It had “Mandy” on it, and “Avenue C,” and I was hooked. Love songs mixed with show tunes! What’s not to love?

I WAS DOIN’ ALLRIGHT

Sadly I cannot find a performance video of this one, but damn it’s good. This whole record is freaking amazing. Get it. Play it. It’ll make you feel like you’re walking on air.

I CAN’T BELIEVE

Tony Trischka and Skyline… the fabulous Dede Wyland on lead vocals. My boyfriend at the time was heavily into playing his mandolin, so we went to a lot of Bluegrass concerts. Sometimes I think Country music, the kind I grew up on, has lost its way, but not Bluegrass. I dearly love every Skyline concert we went to, and all their songs. I wish they were still together. I mean just listen to the instrumental section in the middle, and then Dede’s voice comes soaring back in like a bird. Wow.

COMME UN AVION SANS AILES

You won’t have heard of this, because you didn’t have Corrine Soler come and stay with you for two weeks in high school, but I did. And she brought me Poemes Rock by Charlelie Couture, which remains one of my top ten albums in my collection. I love it completely and treasure it dearly. If I was rushing out of the house due to natural disaster, I hope I’d remember to grab it, because I bet it is irreplaceable. You’ve probably long-since stopped reading this post, but you should hit play on this one. It’s surprising.

FUNKY MONKS

Funnily enough, one of my favorite of their songs appears to be one they rarely perform. Good-on the kid who requested it. I freaking love it.

KISS THEM FOR ME

Thought I’d finish off with two women. Siouxsie was one of my idols when I was in college. She’s incredibly beautiful, talented, and this song… what a delightful ear worm. It feels off-the-beat to me, but what do I know, but it is that off-kilter feel that it has that I cannot get enough of.

TOM’S DINER

No controversy here. Probably the entire world likes this one. This is a live version though. Badass.

Hopefully it won’t take me this long to come back with another bunch. I’d love to hear what you think about this set.

xo~ Di

Posted on

IT SHOULD BE LIKE A HALF AN HOUR VOLUME 15: MY NEW FAVORITE BAND

Wake up and rock out!

I love finding music I would not normally find.
This musician, from Los Angeles, calls the music glimmer rock.
All I know is that it is fantastic and over too quickly.

God save the queens!


I need something like this right now. Something that feels punk, and resistant, and full of a big fuck you to oppressors everywhere.

Duh, weirdos who want to go back to 1950, it’s not the conservative spending goals we dislike, it’s the hate and cruelty you seem to so enjoy.

Well, I don’t enjoy it. So god save the queens! Let’s play it again!


Try this one too!


Everything’s fine, when it’s clearly not.

Another sweet tune:

Truly, some people are not happy about things changing.

Well, not me. I may not get everything that’s below me in age, but I am here for it.

Here is an article on the Wonderland EP.

You should probably buy the EP, by the way. I did. All the cool weirdos did. I am here for the weirdos.

And, dammit, save the queens!

Hang tough all the wonderful DEI people, the women, the immigrants, the LGBTQii+, and all the allies too!
I don’t know how we’re going to get out of this mess, but I do believe we will.

Or we’ll move.

Buy a copy of Vienna Vienna’s soon to be hit song “God Save the Queens” and the EP Wonderland!

Posted on

IT SHOULD BE LIKE A HALF AN HOUR VOLUME 14: I’M IN YOU

Sexy Frampton

I cannot believe how long it has been since I last did one of these posts.

Well, I’m back baby.

Again.

Listen, let this be a bit of information for all you scribblers of any sorts, you can always go back to it. You are the rules, so hop back in.

I got the vinyl going today, sitting at my desk with the front door open to let in the Los Angeles version of chilly weather. It’s delightful.

I rearranged my “office” a few weeks ago, and now the record player is right up against my desk. Let me get you a photo:

Oh, mama, lookie who is there, just looking at me. He’s positively smoldering at the sight of me! I honestly don’t know if I’m worthy. But he seems to think so.

I’m In You, the album you see there, is a very underrated album. First of all, 1970s albums that are less hard-rock, but still rock, have that sort of high-pitched, lightly plucked sound that I think of sort of orginating with Jefferson Airplane, like “Love, Lovely Love.” It comes across as a spring sound to my ears. So if you think of The Beach Boys and etc. as the sound of summer, Frampton could win for sound of spring, because he does that soft, twang guitar and laid back sound I just love. I grew up in Philly, where I always think the best season is spring, because it’s cool but not humid. Fall can be too hot and humid even as the leaves change, or freezing cold, but spring is delightful, and, I think, from the 70s to now, has probably shortened by a month or so as summer heats up sooner each year, in my anecdotal experience. If you’re lucky enough to live in Los Angeles you are luck to have that humidty-free, winter-is-not-here-to-stay feeling from, typically, November through July. July, August, and September, unless you’re on the Westside, you’re going to want to be indoors and as naked as possible, but the rest of the year you can float along on this light jacket daytime weather that turns to sweater weather at night, and it’s fantastic. IT makes me get a feeling in my skin that I’m young, that life is full of possibility, that the air smells of flowers. It makes me come alive. Like Frampton.

For this post I want to highlight not a single song per se, but the whole of I’m In You. The album has the gentle vibe of spring weather, full of possibility, but also chill. I want to highlight a song that really hasn’t ever gotten the attention it deserves: “St. Thomas (Don’t You Know How I Feel).”

I could argue that Frampton, who wrote “Do You Feel Like I Feel,” was a bit obsessed with the word feel, because he uses it at least 14 times in this song, but that just makes this song easier to sing along to. The point is not the lyrics. The point is the vibe. This song is a feeling more than a message. There’s a fantastic solo in the middle. And Frampton is a great guitar player. It’s a gentle rocking of a song. Take a listen and see if it doesn’t make you think of spring.

Did your blood pressure just drop five points? You know it did.

Of course, we cannot go forward without mentioning the title track. “I’m In You.”

“I don’t care where I go when I’m with you
When I cry you don’t laugh cause you know me

I’m in you 
You’re in me
You gave me the love, the love that I never had

You and I don’t pretend; we make love
I can’t feel anymore than I’m singing”

And what I always just loved about this song, aside from the idea of me and Frampton being in each other, was the opening line, “I don’t care where I go when I’m with you,” that also ends the song, but I’m gonna make the guess that the final word of the song is “with” and the “you” is not sung, but played by the guitar, which is super cool, and makes it more emotional. It ends on that high note. Frampton seems to be merging the physical with the sound. It’s working for me:

Those 70s guys, damn:

How great was that? So chill.

I have to point out one more song on the album that I have never been able to get enough of, “Signed Sealed and Delivered.”

It’s a Stevie Wodner song, in case you didn’t know, and I am a huge Stevie fan from his 60s and 70s catalogue, and I love this song by Stevie, but I also loved the cover by Frampton. (By the way, my last “it should be half an hour” post was on the Red Hot Chili Peppers who also covered Steve beautifully: “Higher Ground.”)

But, back to Frampton:

I saw this comment on YouTube:

Peter Frampton’s 1977 – “Signed, Sealed, Delivered … I’m Yours” – on his album I’m in You. His version also contains instrumental elements from Wonder’s hit “For Once in My Life” Mick Jagger is featured on backing vocals. Frampton’s version was released as a single. Motown Soul delivered from England’s Peter Frampton. With this re-make of the Classic Stevie Wonder Hit, Frampton topped The Billboard “Hot 100” at #18, and #13 on the Cashbox Top 100, also #13 in Canada.

So, today, as I enjoy the “Punxsutawney Phil Was Wrong” feel of the great Los Angeles weather, I want to offer you the thought to give Frampton a listen. You think The Beach Boys own that nice-weather vibe, but spring is better than summer any day, and Frampton is a great ride you may have missed.

Check out his Tiny Desk concert too:

I don’t know Frampton, but his whole vibe is “gentle soul,” and I love that about him.

Enjoy….