I'm back on a Dir en Grey nostalgia kick. Throw in a mix of SKALD, Nightwish, and Beth Crowley to shake it up a bit between though.

Going on with my obsession - Chris Isaacs’ Wicked Game covered by Diana Ankudinova. 
https://youtu.be/7jv-DQnf2UY

 

 

Watching Gensan Cup held last weekend. I thought Taichiro Yamakuma's SP was cool and googled his music

 

...and learned that ice can be a good soundboard.

 

 

I was listening Rolling Stones today, and then now I read the news that their drummer Charlie Watts has died today at the age of 80. He was the band's drummer in the past 58 years, him, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were the three members who were threre from the beginning, the others came later. Compared to Jagger and Richards he was more in the background, but his contribution to shaping the sound of the Stones was big. RIP.

 

 

 

2 hours ago, sallycinnamon said:

I was listening Rolling Stones today, and then now I read the news that their drummer Charlie Watts has died today at the age of 80. He was the band's drummer in the past 58 years, him, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were the three members who were threre from the beginning, the others came later. Compared to Jagger and Richards he was more in the background, but his contribution to shaping the sound of the Stones was big. RIP.

 

 

 

So bummed to hear about this today. The calm center is gone. So grateful to have had the opportunity to see the stones live on the no filters tour. 

Some music I listened to today

• The Soft Machine I (1968) full album (Canterbury's best jazz fusion band's great debut)
• Arctic Monkeys - Suck it and See (2011) full album (not their best but still an enjoyable listen in their strong catalogue)
• Compilation of alternative 1960s: 
  •  Over Under Sideways Down by The Yardbirds
  •  Tomorrow Never Knows by The Beatles (this is an 55 year old song but still sounds like something from the future)
  •  I'm Waiting for My Man by the Velvet Underground & Nico
  •  Piece of My Heart by Big Brother and the Holding Company
  •  Friday on my Mind by The Easybeats (Australia's best song in the 20th century)
  •  Light My Fire by The Doors (Ray Manzarek's organ playing is genius)
  •  Psychotic Reaction by Positively 13 o'clock (I haven't heard of them before)
  •  I'm Five Years Ahead of My Time by The Third Bardo (another obscure band I haven't heard of before)
  •  Turn! Turn! Turn! by The Byrds

It's been 20 years since the death of Aaliyah, I can't believe how time flies. I think the whole R&B-pop scene in the US would've been different had she been alive these past years. She was so talented, I think more talented than others that became really big (like Beyonce, Rihanna...). She was on the rise when she died at age 22.

This song still sounds fresh after all these years. I hope it will be reuploaded on Youtube, too, it had many millions of views.

 

 

Aaliyah was one of my favorite R&B singers back in the day. I loved her voice and attitude. I wish she was still around and continued singing and acting, taking full control of her own life and her creation...

 

Today I am listening to this song.

The singer/songwriter of the band died 12 years ago at the age of 29, so hearing the band's earlier works has always evoked sadness as well as nostalgia. However, today, the song sounds a bit different because we had the news that this song has made it into a music textbook for high schoolers. This is a song about young people at the end of mid-summer, so I found it kind of sweet that we had such news at the beginning of the end of summer (Yes, we are still experiencing heat here...) though I also wonder how this song would sound to the actual young people who may have spent the whole summer stuck in their home.

Here is my translation of the lyrics.

Spoiler

Wakamono no subete (All about the youth)

 

"The height of summer has peaked out,"

Said the weather forecaster on TV

Though I feel the city is still buzzing

restlessly

 

The chime telling us it is five in the evening

Somehow resonates within me today

I blur it with a convenient thing

That called "fate"

 

The time for the last fireworks has come for this summer as well

That I will keep looking back even after years

Will there be no chance? No, there will not

You will not be there, probably

If I see you, could I say?

I am closing my eyes and visualizing it

 

Having learned the promises of the world

Grown into a decent someone I will be there again

 

Another street light turned on

And I hurry home

Because I want to retrieve

The rest of the dream that has been broken off

 

The time for the last fireworks has come for this summer as well

That I will keep looking back even after years

Will there be no chance? No, there will not

You will not be there, probably

If I see you, could I say?

I am closing my eyes and visualizing it

 

I slowly start walking

Leaving my abrasion as it is

 

The time for the last fireworks has come for this summer as well

That I will keep looking back even after years

Will there be no chance? No, there will not

That was what I was thinking

OMG I am at a loss

I don't know what to say

 

When the last fireworks finished

Will we be different?

Now we are looking up at the same sky

 

Wow, ABBA are back with a new album after 40 years.

 

 

 

Other new songs are on their Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/OfficialABBA/videos

 

One of the songs Trusova will skate to in her free skate is I Wanna Be Your Dog, she chose the version in the film Cruella. This is the original version by The Stooges, back from 1970, cool stuff:

 

 

I love Rimsky-Korsakov's Sheherazade and today I've listened to the whole piece played by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. which was great. Now I'm listening Má vlast by Smetana from the same orchestra. 

Aside from my phone on shuffle if watched quite a bit of live recordings of epica in the last days so representative of that I'll post the Unchain Utopia performance they released of their YT channel from the live stream concert they did earlier this year

 

I've also listened Chopin's ballads 1-4, 19 waltzes and some nocturnes, this is my favourite