Platinum Hit - Kara Dioguardi's new flop of a show and the disdane I have for those like it

So this morning I read an article on Yahoo news about the Bravo Network moving the TV show called Platinum Hit to Friday nights from Monday.  Well, I hadn't even heard of the show before I read that  article.  Admittedly I don't watch a lot of tv but at the same time, I don't live under a rock.  That said, I did watch the two clips in the article and I can tell you why the show is being moved to Friday, it sucks.  To sit and listen to the 2 and a half minute clip was painful.  If I had to listen to that for an hour I would slit my wrists.  Then the song that the writers of this article were gushing about, REALLY?  That song sucked.  I could only stand to listen to about a minute of it.  The song writing was worthless and the singing was annoying.  For anyone to wonder why the show is doing poorly just watch the clips.  I for one am so sick and tired of "reality" shows that I have gone from being an avid tv watcher to watching at most 1 tv show a week.  I guess I owe crappy television a thanks because I have found other things to do with my evenings.  I think that the music shows in general have cheapened the music industry.

I will admit to watching American Idol because every year they have 1 or 2 that I think have actual honest to goodness talent and just need to be discovered.  Usually they don't make it very far into the season because contrary to what the judges say about it being a talent contest, it is at the end of the day a popularity contest.  American Idol gives 15 minutes of fame to anyone who can (or can't carry a tune) regardless if they may or may not have any actual singing talent.  The show Platinum Hit tries to show how important the whole evolution of a song is.  I don't care how it is made, just write a song and sing it.  Too much drama and crap behind the scenes that I don't need to know about or care about.  Carol King, Burt Bacharach, Karen and John Carpenter never seemed to have all this drama and wrote some pretty amazing songs that have stood the test of time.  Most of the songs that I hear on the radio today will be forgotten within a year.

The music industry laments poor CD sales.  Well for crying out loud, most of the songs on the radio are from people that have a look but no talent.  How about we get back to the old days of music that was expertly crafted or at least well written and not for a stupid tv show.  As much as I love music, music executives should be locked in a room and forced to listen nonstop to the junk that they are responsible for signing to record deals.  They should be forced to watch the moronic tv shows that they churn out all in hopes of finding that next big thing.  Record labels have gotten lazy and arrogant.  Started in the 70s and has gotten worse every year.  You think things are bad now, wait another 10 more years.  Music won't be music any more.  Cancel this show and everyone like it.  For that matter, start cancelling all reality shows.  They are about as close to reality as Lady Gaga is to human.  Or, maybe this crap is the new reality.  Oh, and don't even get me started on the Disney teen pop star phenomenon but that will be a post all its own. 

Here is my playlist of well crafted songs (in no particular order) and the artists that sang them (not necessarily wrote them) that new songwriters can look at as templates.

John Lennon - Imagine
Simon and Garfunkle - Bridge Over Troubled Water
Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody
Josh Groban - You Rasied Me Up
Kathy Mattea - 18 Wheels and a Dozen Roses
Don McLean - American Pie
Aretha Franklin - Respect
The Carpenters - We've Only Just Begun
Carol King - I Feel the Earth Move
BJ Thomas - Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head
Bob Dylan - Like a Rolling Stone
Marvin Gaye - What's Goin' On
The Beatles - Hey Jude
Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit
Procol Harum - a Whiter Shade Of Pale
Sandy Denny - Who Knows Where the Time Goes
Daryl Hall & John Oates - Sara Smile
Led Zeppelin - Stairway to Heaven
Aerosmith - Dream On
Luther Vandross - A House Is Not A Home

So I have to settle an argument.

While extolling the virtues of vinyl over CD a friend of mine sent me a message on my facebook page saying that there was no way that a record could sound better than a CD.  The CD is so much cleaner and it doesn't wear out over time.  The music is more dynamic he says.  REALLY?  Well on 2 of those points I will concede, they are cleaner sounding.  In quiet passages on a CD you hear nothing and I mean nothing.  But, what if in those quiet passages you are supposed to hear something, maybe a singer taking a very dramatic soft breath or soft resonances of a guitar string that softly decays into the next note?  Sure if you don't take care of your vinyl you may also have some unwanted hiss from dust but keep them clean and take care of the needle  on your cartridge and that problem isn't such a problem.  He is right, records do wear out, that is a point I can't argue but the reality is that it takes thousands of plays for a record to wear out and I have indeed worn out records, few but I have worn some out.  That brings us to his point of CDs being more dynamic.  I scoff at this because simple physics tells us that this is impossible and the human ear can attest to it.

Now, about this dynamic thing.  Let us first take a look at the facts of a CD.  A digital signal chops up an analog signal into parts at 44,100 times per second.  It looks at each part to make sure that everything is the same.  CDs use 16 bit so each of those digital chops has to be one out of 65,536 (simple math here).  So that right there tells us that a digital recording isn't actually capturing the sound wave as originally played.  Don't believe me?  Listen to Pink Floyd's Time and take a listen to the drums on vinyl then the CD, you would be hard pressed to think that the CD is capturing the full tone of the drums.  Listen to Spyro Gyro's Morning Dance, same thing.  You lose so much of the steel drum that all you are left with is a high pitched mass of mess.  The vinyl recording you can hear the tone of the steel drum and the decay of each note but I digress.

A vinyl record is different, very different.  Each groove on a record is cut as an exact wave form of the original sound wave from the instrument or vocal.  If the microphone can pick it up it is cut into the original wax recording.  There is no chopping of the signal at all.  One thing that people often say when listening to vinyl after not hearing it for many years is how much more lifelike the music sounds.  How much fuller the tone is and how much more natural the bass is.  It is because the signal isn't being compared to a bit rate, the turntable is simply reproducing the note as the original wave form was recorded. 

DVD actually is getting closer to almost half of what music actually sounds like and well, it is a step in the right direction but even at 24 bit and a sampling rate of 193kHz it is still very very far off.  If you do the simple math, that is about 16,777,216 tiny little chops of information.  Still not really close to the actual sound wave.

In the end, it comes down to whether you want your music exactly as it was recorded or if you are satisfied with something close.  I prefer mine as recorded and apparently a lot of bands and musicians like their music as close to the original recording as well as more and more are releasing their new music on vinyl again.  Death Cab For Cutie, Jack Johnson, Norah Jones, Matt Costa, the Cars and Forever The Sickest Kids have recently released their new albums on vinyl.  Turntables, cartridges and needles haven't changed much in the past 50 years or so but the means by which bands master their music in the studio have and some of those changes do make a record sound more dynamic.  People laugh at me but I say that John Mayer's Room For Squares is one of the best sounding records that I have ever bought.  The bass on that record at lower volumes vibrates things on my desk across the room, you can actually hear the sweet decay each time the drummer hits his hi hat, you can actually hear the tone in each of the guitar strings and you can hear every breath that he takes before he sings.  Almost all of that is lost on CD, I know, I've played one over the other switching back and forth between CD and vinyl.  I'll offer this. Play Why Georgia and pay particular attention to the acoustic guitar.  Can you hear the woody resonance sound of the body of the guitar at the same time as hearing the tone in the strings?  Can you hear bass guitar coupling with the bass drum as separate instruments or does it sound like the bass drum and bass guitar are the same.  These are the details that are lost in the age of digital.  Compression is well, compressing the music and compression is never a good thing.

So that is my explanation of the difference between a CD and vinyl.  Oh, and don't even get me started on downloads.

Here are some new records that I think are worth the money.

John Mayer - No Room For Squares (every record collection should have this for the pure dynamics)
Matt Costa - Songs We Sing
The Cars - Move Like This
Death Cab For Cutie - Codes and Keys
Stereophonic - Decade In The Sun
Beck - Guerolito
G. Love - Fixin To Die
Forever The Sickest Kids - Forever The Sickest Kids (This record will shake your house apart!)
Paul Simon - So Beautiful or So What.  (of course if you are Paul Simon with limitless resources you will be able to make the best sounding vinyl.  This album is a must!)
Rufus Wainwright -  All Days Are Nights: Songs For Lulu
R.E.M. - Chronic Town
Force Family 5 - Dance or Die (my daughter came home from the Creation Festival with this one and while I'm not a big fan of the band itself, just not by style of music.  The record is recorded as well as any that I have heard in a long time.)

So there ya go!

Great music should be played on great equipment (vintage prefered!)

Ok so I have gotten several emails about what kind of stereo I use so I figure what the heck, I'll write about what I use and why.  First and foremost, I am a vinyl hound so my stereo is geared toward my records not CD.  In fact I don't even have a CD player hooked up to my stereo.  When I want to listen to CD I simply play it through my computer and an incredible speaker set.  I'll get to that later.

So, my stereo consists of a Sansui 1000x receiver, Dual 1237 turntable with an Ortofon 2M Blue cartridge and a pair of Fisher XP-66 speakers and this combination sounds simply amazing.  I have monster cable for all of my connections.

I picked the Sansui 1000x receiver because it can really drive the low end.  It has really nice circuitry.  It was the first non tubed receiver that Sansui ever built.  I always liked the sound of their tubed receivers but they are not as efficient and the tubes had a notoriously short life.  Even using Mullard tubes they tended to not last as long.  I also like the power of the Sansui 1000x.  I have people ask me all the time how much power my receiver has and I tell them that I have 28 watts per channel and they laugh.  The joke is on them though.  28 watts in a receiver that was built in 1971 is a lot different than anything that is built now.  My receiver has a pair of enormous caps that store a lot of power.  No tiny chip amp here.  This is real power.  Don't believe me, go ahead and touch one of those caps while the power is on and let me stand back and laugh.  The phono preamp section of the 1000x is very quiet as well.  You actually hear what the turntable is saying and nothing is getting lost in the circuitry.  Speaking of which, I am still amazed at how well designed the wiring inside is.  Everything has a purpose and a place.  It is obvious that a lot went into the design so there is no extra noise introduced into the output section.  Pull off the cover of a new receiver and ask yourself, where is the power and why is it so noisy.  The Sansui is simply the best sounding receiver I have ever owned.

The Dual 1237 has been my favorite turntable (in a reasonable price range) since I bought my first one in 1978 at the Sight and Sound store at the PX in Heidelberg Germany.  When you look at the specs and listen to this turntable you can quickly realize that the specs don't tell the whole story.  The wow an flutter and Rumble is a little on the high side but when you listen to the music it adds to the fullness of the music I think.  I have eliminated a lot of the noise that is unwanted by upgrading the cartridge to the Ortofon Blue 2M.  The low end is very punchy and the highs are very clear and everything in the mid range sounds full and accurate.  One of my favorite records to listen to is Norah Jones because her smokey voice has so much timbre with this turntable cartridge combination that you would swear that you are sitting in a small club listening to her live.

So if you have a receiver and turntable you have to have a pair of speakers right?  I do and they are simply splendid.  The Fisher XP-66 speakers in my opinion are tough to beat.  When they were introduced in 1968 they were actually considered a bookshelf speaker.  Well, it would have had to have been a seriously large shelf because these babies are heavy and big.  I use them as floor speakers and they can really hit the low note.  The 12" woofers can shake a large room and when coupled with the power of the Sansui 1000x receiver have the ability to really get loud.  But, a deep bass driver means nothing unless the mids and highs are accurate and on the XP-66 they are.  The mid range is a big beefy 6" and the highs are from a 2 1/2 in tweeter.  With a 6" mid range it can produce nicely through the mid bass through the high mid since the crossovers are at 400 and 1000 hz.  Try that with modern speakers and you will have a frying pile of mess if you want to play something like Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon or Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy.  Everyone talks about how accurate and clear CDs are and how they are sonically better than vinyl.  Well, I would submit that if you play records through a stereo with a good turntable, good speakers and a well designed high current receiver it will blow away a CD as long as the record has been well taken care of and well cleaned.  The Fisher XP-66 speakers can do things in the low end that are unheard of without spending thousands of dollars.

Well, that is my stereo.  It is one that has given me probably thousands of hours of happy listening.  A receiver from 1971, a turntable from 1978 and a pair of speakers from 1968.  I still haven't heard a low cost stereo that would make me want to get rid of anything that I have.  Sure, replacing it with some Adcom and Magnepan and Creek Audio equipment would be really fun. Anyone's got a spare $10 grand ya wanna give me to do it?  I think that is the only way I'd get the kind of sound that would make me give up what I have now.

So, when it isn't practicable to listen to my records or something is only available on CD what do I listen to you may ask.  Well I have found that the CD in my laptop is more than adequate.  That with my iTunes and I am good to go.  I have though fallen in love with the Hercules XPS2.1 40 Slim speaker system.  The system consists of a really nice powered subwoofer and a pair of satellite speakers.  It has a great wired volume control with a headphone jack integrated into it so that you when you plug the speakers into the headphone jack on your computer you don't lose the ability to use headphones.  The volume control also has a line in so that you can plug your iPod into the speaker system.  I love that feature.  Well, back to the speakers.  The satellites are 8 watts each and the sub woofer is 16 watts (32 watts, 64 watts peak).  It is plenty of power for my music listening.  I have never made them bottom out.  I used to use a Cambridge Soundworks speaker system and I will admit that I used to bottom that out all the time.  I used to get so frustrated while listening to Charles Mingus' The Unique that I stopped listening to it on my computer and would have to run a cable from my computer to my stereo because the Cambridge just couldn't take the low end.  Listening to Swing Out Sister's Kaleidoscope World had similar results albeit for different reasons.  The mid range really gets a work out on that CD.  Corrine Drewery's voice is simply wonderful and fills the mid range and that is not something that small speakers can typically handle.  Her voice on most small speaker systems tends to flutter and sound flat because the speakers simply cannot reproduce her voice the way it should.  Here is a test, play Forever Blue on your speakers that are hooked up to your computer and then play that song through your stereo.  See the difference.  The only speakers that I have heard that haven't annoyed the crap out of me are the Hercules XPS 2.1 40 Slim speaker system.  Yes, the record sounds better on my stereo but I am actually happy with the way it sounds on my computer as well.  Not that looks really matter much to me but the XPS 2.1 speaker system looks great as well.  The satellites have a sleek look with a piano black looking finish.  Very classy looking,  The subwoofer looks like well, a sub woofer.  It is under my desk and out of sight so I really don't care what it looks like.  They could have done something a little cleaner looking there but like I said, mine us under my desk and out of sight.  I'm glad they put the money into the speakers and not the aesthetics.  Anyway, if you are looking for a great sounding speaker system pick up a pair of Hercules speakers.  They have a great selection depending on how much sound you want and how much you want to spend.  Here is a thought, I have also heard the XPS 101 and if you can spring for them, BUY THEM.  They are pretty incredible too!  Bottom line, I don't think that you can go wrong with anything that Hercules builds.  If you are so inclined go down to the bottom of this page and click on the Amazon.com link to get to Hercules.  They carry a lot of Hercules speaker systems and even their neat looking DJ deck.

So, there it is for those that have asked.  If you are going to listen to music, go vintage and get rid of that CD player.  If you are just to hooked on CDs, play them through your computer and get a speaker system from Hercules.

Some of my favorite analog albums:
Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
Norah Jones - Come Away With Me
Pete Townsend - White City
John Mayer - No room For Squares
Styx - The Grand Illusion
the Alan Parson Project - Tales of Mystery and Imagination
Sting - Nothing Like the Sun
U2 - War
The Tubes - Completion Backwards Principle 
Roger Hodgson - In the Eye Of the Storm
Toto - IV
Stereophonics - Decade In the Sun
Also, I don't have them yet but the Car's and Death Cab for Cutie are both supposed to sound as good as any record has ever sounded so as soon as I get them I will do a review.

Some of my favorite cds and digital media (for my Hercules speakers)
Maceo Parker - Roots Revisited
Mary Black - Babes In the Wood
Swing Out Sister - Kaleidoscope World (this CD should be included with every pair of Hercules Speakers.  It sounds almost as if it was mixed on their speakers!)
Mark Schultz - A Night Of Stories & Songs
Radiohead - Pablo Honey
Rod Stewart - Vagabond Heart
Bob Dylan - Oh Mercy
10,000 Maniacs - In My Tribe
The Verve - Urban Hymns
Traffic - Far From Home
Bee Gees - One
Barenaked Ladies - Maroon (make sure your neighbors aren't home and then crank this one up and makes sure that you don't have any breakables in a table near the sub woofer.  trust me on this one)

Happy Father's Day

This is one of the hardest days of the year for me but also one day that I like the most.  It is the hardest days because I always think back to times as a boy that I spent with my dad and that I can't spend father's day with him anymore since he passed away in 2005.  It is a great day because I think of my 3 wonderfully incredible daughters. One of the best father's days that I can remember was when my girls were small and we went to a part in Baltimore where we had a picnic and rode small trains all day.  I played with my girls and just had a day that will live with me always.  So, to all you dads out there, Happy Father's Day.  to all of you future dads, love your kids, have fun with them but always you are a dad first, friend second.  You will learn more about your kids that way.

To my dad that has passed on, Happy Father's Dad Pop!  I love and miss you!

A Father's Day Playlist:

Creed - With Arms Wide Open
Staind - Zoe Jane
Puddle of Mudd - Blurry
Black Stone Cherry - Things My Father Said
U2 - Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own
Alice In Chains - Rooster
Eric Clapton - My Father's Eyes
Queen - Father To Son
Mike and the Mechanics - In The Living Years
Neil Young - Old man

Music for the summertime

As a 12 year old kid I can remember sitting in by bedroom in Heidelberg Germany, listening to the Armed Forces Network (AFN) and thinking, man this music is the best ever.  And in all honesty I have to say that that summer I became acutely aware of some really great music from bands that I hadn't really ever listened to before.  I like to think of the summer of '77 as my musical awakening.  Not sure why that summer because I had been a bit of a music nerd for as long as I could remember.  I always sought refuge in music from the time I was very young.  That summer though was when I really noticed how music could affect emotions.  It was also the summer that my parents bought me my own first stereo.  A really cool Garrard stereo with an AM/FM radio,  turntable and cassette deck.  I went crazy that summer buying new records at the sight and sound shop at the PX and well, I was in heaven.  That summer also introduced me to the ability to record tapes.  What?  My favorite songs?  I got to pick what music I listened to in the order that I wanted to listen to it?  Are you kidding me?  I made tapes for friends almost daily.  That was amazing!  So my odyssey with playlists was born!

I think the thing that I always thought was great about AFN was that they tried to cover the largest spectrum of music listeners in their programing so you may have heard a song by Tom T Hall and the next song was by Chicago followed by Boogie Nights by Heatwave.  Many found that to be annoying, not me.  I loved the wide variety of music and to this day I can't help to think that it was an important foundation for my love of so many styles of music.  There were genre specific shows but they were after 5 in the afternoon and weekends.  I specifically remember one show that came on between 7 and 9.  I wish I could remember the guy because he was really good.  He played pop music and well, I liked pop music.  His show was where I first heard bands like Loggins and Messina, Firefall, England Dan and John Ford Coley, Mungo Jerry, King Harvest and Orleans.  Throw in a healthy dose of Hall and Oates, Elton John, Bread, Chicago and Jim Croce and you had the makings of a summer day with a fantastic soundtrack.  Writer Berthold Auerbach once wrote that "Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life." and I have always found that to be true.  I can have a bad day and listen to a song that changes the way that I am looking at that day.  I can go from being in a fowl mood to a happy mood by listening to a song.  Perhaps it is that that song reminded me of a time that was less stressful or a day where everything seemed to go right, what ever the reason, I can use music to change the feeling of a day.  Like knocking the dirt off the day.

For me summertime is my favorite time to kick back and listen to music.  My playlists in the summertime always seem to be about just kicking back with friends under a cool shade tree or along a river bank and just enjoying the day.  Summertime always seems to be so carefree.  As an dad I love watching my daughters in the summertime just go about their lives.  Days where everything seems so important yet not.  Where they get out of bed at 10 or 11 in the morning (or later!).  Days were they just don't care what they do that day.  It is like time stands still.  I get to hear them talk about music and while they may not be as into music as I was at their age, they still have music they love.  I can hear them talking about their music on iTunes or concerts they want to go to but best of all they are sharing what they like together the same way that I and my brother did 34 summers ago.  My daughters and I have the same discussions that I had with my dad.  That is usually about how the music I had as a kid was so much better than what they have now!  I am sure that 34 years from now, they will have the same discussions where they talk about how much better the music was when they were kids and so on and so on.  Summertime is good for starting those discussions.  

So, what would your favorite summertime playlist be?  One of mine is below.  Enjoy your summer.  Enjoy your music and for heavens sake, share it with your friends.


Here is one of my summertime playlists!


Firefall - You Are the Woman
Orleans - Dance With Me
Looking Glass - Brandy
B.W. Stevenson - My Maria
Sammy Johns - Chevy Van
Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds - Don't Pull Your Love
The Grass Roots - Sooner or Later
The Lovin' Spoonful - Do You Believe In Magic
Pablo Cruise - Whatcha Gonna Do
Hall & Oates - Rich Girl
Wings - Silly Love Songs
Bread - Everything I Own
England Dan& John Ford Coley - I'd Really Love to See You Tonight
Starland Vocal Band - Afternoon Delight
Al Stewart - Year of the Cat
Manfred Mann's Earth Band - Blinded By the Light
Electrick Light Orchestra - Sweet Talkin' Woman
10cc - The Things We Do For Love
Chicago - Beginnings

So, Freshlyground. You really need to take a listen to them. You do, trust me.

In life there are times where we stumble across something that makes us sit back and say, Wow!  That is pretty cool.  In 2004 a friend of mine had such a moment.  He was in South Africa and came back with a CD of a band that he had seen and as he put it, "Dunny, you have to listen to these guys.  mark my words they are going to be BIG.  They will play in front of the world someday!" he said.  Well, he was right, they played with Shakira literally in front of the world last year.  The band of which I am speaking is the South African Afro Pop band Freshlyground.  I will admit to copying  their CD from him but only because I had no idea how to get my own copy.  I did finally break down and buy my own from their website this year.  It was well worth it!

So, Freshlyground.  What a breath of fresh air in a stagnant music industry.   Maybe it is because they are from half way around the world, maybe it is because they have such diverse talents within their band, or maybe it is because they have taken control over what they want to present to their fans.  Whatever it is it simply works.  It did take some getting used to that they do sing in their native tongue on some of their songs and since I don't speak their language I have no idea what it is they are talking about but I can say, in those instances everything still just works and since everyone in the band is a seriously talented musician so you will find yourself wrapped up in their intoxicatingly smooth groove.  Much of their music is sung in English but English, Afroasiatic, Nilo Saharan, Austronesian, French or whatever they choose to sing in it is worth listening to.

While Zolani is the lead singer and the face of the band, every piece of the band is crucial to their success.  Kyla Rose plays violin and when combined with Simon Attwell on the flute and sax the stage is set for some of the most lush and vibrant musical passages you will ever hear in pop music of any kind.  Those three  in and of themselves would make me want to buy a ticket to one of their shows but lest we leave out guitarist Shaggy Sheepers and keyboardist Julio "Gugs" Sigauque we would not have some of the most impressive intertwined guitar and keyboard work I have ever heard.  These two simply make good music great music.  Seeing these 5 on stage would be worth every penny of the cost of admission but, then we would leave out one of the most impressive rhythm sections I have heard in the last 25 or 30 years.  Josh Hawks is without question one of the best bass players I have ever listened to.  The funny thing is, when you listen to Freshlyground you don't really realize how good he is because he stays within the song but listen very closely to the low rumble that is Josh Hawks and you will start to get an idea that this is a man that has mastered his craft.  I would compare him to Stanley Jordan or Abe Laboriel or even Charlie Biddle.  I know they are all very different bassists but Josh is in that kind of league.  Listening to him transitioning through his notes so smoothly and effortlessly is like watching a F1 race car driver shift gears at 200 miles per hour in tight traffic.  One mistake and everything falls apart really quickly.  The bump and thump of the band is Peter Cohen.  As a drummer myself I always notice the drums in every song first.  As good a bassist as Josh Hawks is, Peter Cohen is that kind of drummer too.  There are 4 drummers that I hold up as the pinnacle of their craft.  The late Jeff Porcaro and the late Carlos Vega,  Steve Gadd and Jim Keltner.  Those four drummers have set the standard for perfection.  Well, I have to add a fifth.  Peter Cohen should be in that group.  He possesses impeccable time,  full and complete mastery over his drum kit and is so incredibly creative when coming up with new grooves.  He can combine some of the coolest afro grooves with common rudiments to create a pulse for a song that you won't expect.  Just when you think that you have figured out the groove, Peter has the ability to switch to a whole other level of pulse.  You never really know what he is going to come up with.  That to me is the mark of a truly special drummer.  He is technically one of the best I have ever heard but sometimes technical drummers come across as robotic, you could never say that about him.  I mentioned Zolani but let me tell you about her.  She is not just one of the best female vocalists of the past 20 years in pop music but one of the best vocalists period.  Her voice is strong but still very feminine.  She can pull you in on a song like Father Please where you can literally the pain in her voice singing about a father leaving and then get you up and dancing and having a good time with a song like Fire is Low.   Her voice can soar into ranges that can stop a show or take it down a notch that turns a song over to the band.  Zolani could sing the phone book to me and I would pay to see her do it.  

Freshlyground has released four CDs and all are very good.  I think that it must be getting just about time for a greatest hits  because they have become a hit making machine.  2003 brought us Jika Jika.  I really like Train Love, Ocean Floor, Castles in The Sky and Mali. 2004 added my favorite of their CDs, Nomvula.  This is one of those CDs that I can put on and let play.  Every song is really good.  I Am the Man, Nomvula, Vanish, I'd Like, Doo be Doo, Human Angels and Mowbray Kaap are all songs that tell stories and to be honest, FG will tell a story whether you like it or not.  Some of what they have to say may make some people squirm a little.  They are great story tellers though.  Love this CD.  In 2007 they released Ma'Cheri.  While they have always been exceptional musicians, this CD seems to take their talent to another level.  The first song on the CD is  the title track and it adds a great sounding brass section.  What a great way to kick off the party!  In addition to the title track it adds several great songs to what is a fantastic body of work.  Desire is a really great song about relationships.  I have to say, Pot Belly is one seriously great song.  It should be the anthem for everyone that isn't a size 0 and starving themselves to get smaller.  You should head over to You Tube to watch the video.  You will enjoy it.  I love this song on so many levels.  Baby Tonight is probably one of my 3 favorite FG songs.  I love the groove in this song.  Can't understand it but I still love it.  Had Pink Confetti  been released in the US I can't help that it would have been a hit.  It has everything that the US radio market loves.  A nice beat, catchy lyrics, and a really nice chorus with a hook.  I like this song a lot too.  Zulu Lounge takes me back like 25 years or so.  I feel like I should be wearing a turtle neck smoking a pipe while talking to my friends Buffy and Biff.  I guess the best way to describe this song is just that it is so dang smooth.  This brings us to their most current CD, Radio Africa.  I really like this one a lot.  It has everything.  Love songs, political songs, pop songs, rock songs, soul songs  and all that crammed into one CD.  They could not have picked a better song than Moto to start off with.  It is exactly what I would picture as a South African sound.  the Fire is Low is the next song.  You can't escape this songs hook.  I challenge you to try to get away from its infectious beat.  This song is one of the best relationship songs I think that I have ever heard.  You can't help but be pulled into all of the layers of this song.  The 3rd song, the Dream of Love is another one of those songs that comes with a message  but they are so adept at mixing great lyrics with fantastic musicianship that you get walloped  by the message without even realizing it.  Babe In Silence is such a powerful song.  I would encourage you to take a hard listen to this song.  Chicken to Change takes on political turmoil in Africa in a way that is funny and lighthearted.  Listening to the song in the CD does not do it justice though you simply have to watch the video on You Tube.  I got such a good laugh out of that video, you will too.  Reminds me of Land of Genesis' video Land of Confusion back in the 80s.  Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu playing dominos is priceless.  Love the puppets!  I guess  what most people that think they know Freshlyground think is their music is the work they did with Shakira for the Fifa World Cup.  Waka Waka took the world by storm and it does show their versatility but please, please, please  don't base what you know of Freshlyground on that song.  It was a fun and with the added star power of Shakira FG did get some much needed exposure around the world but to get a really good idea of what they are I really hope that you would take a listen to them playing their music.  

Finding Freshlyground music is not the easiest thing to do.  You would think that being a Sony recording artist it would be easy to walk into an HH Gregg or Best Buy and pick up a CD.  Nope, best way is to download it from their website at www.freshlyground.com.  You should also take a look at their videos on You Tube, they have their own channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/freshlygroundsa.  Here is the best news though.  They are getting ready to embark on a North American tour.  They will be traipsing across the US and Canada in June and July so the best way to hear them is to see them live.  I am looking forward to their show at the Black Cat in Washington DC on July 2nd.  

I hope that Freshlyground is well received here in the US.  Their music is a fresh departure from the over produced, teen driven, angst rock, and entitlement pop that we are stuck with in the US.  Perhaps if more bands like this were available to listeners in the states, people may actually want to buy music again.

Freshlyground Playlist:

Train Love

Ocean Floor

Castles in The Sky

Mali.

Nomvula

 Vanish

 I'd Like

 Doo be Doo

 Human Angels

Mowbray Kaap

Ma'Cheri

Desire

Pot Belly

Baby Tonight

Pink Confetti

Zulu Lounge

Moto

Fire is Low

Dream of Love

Babe In Silence

Chicken to Change

For those on facebook, why not check out their page and friend them so you can keep up with what is going on.  http://www.facebook.com/freshlygroundsa

Life's Playlist

I will try to do something with this blog post that will show what music has meant to  me over the years and why.  I believe that there are songs in everyone's life that represent a moment.  I call these songs my life playlist.  They are songs with a deeper meaning.  These are songs that I can remember exactly what I was doing, everything about the moment that I heard them and even now, years later in most cases they still emote the same feelings today as they did then.  So, here is my life playlist.  Let me know what songs are on yours.

Oh What A Night - Frankie Valli and the 4 Seasons - It was 1976 and my family had just moved to Heidelberg Germany.  At the time I had thought of that year as the best of my life to that point and that summer was the best summer ever.  From the minute we landed at Ramstine Air Force Base I felt like I was home.  I was born in Heidelberg  just 9 years and 8 months earlier but so much had happened in those 9 years.  That summer, everything seemed to be just right.  My dad, stepmother, sister (just months old at the time) and I had gone to the Heidelberg Rod and Gun club and we were having dinner when I heard Oh What A Night by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons on the Jukebox.  Maybe it was because everything seemed to be going so well after a several very stressful years or maybe it was just the song itself.  That song just sounded GREAT.  Every time I hear that song, I think back to the Heidelberg Rod and Gun Club.  Oh What a Night.....

Suspicious Minds - Elvis - In August 1971 Los Angeles music was about as diverse as its population was at the time.  Elvis was playing on the radio alongside Jefferson Airplane, The Carpenters, Jimi Hendrix and the Monkees.  I remember my dad taking off a day from work (he was sick cough cough) so that he and I could spend our first day together just hanging out since he returned from Vietnam.   My dad was an Army recruiter in Los Angeles (in 1971 California, he was stressed).  We took the day and went to Disneyland and it is a memory that will forever be etched in my head.  We had so much fun and to this day I can remember almost everything about it.  It was later in the evening when we started home and as we drove the freeway back to our house in Long Beach Elvis Pressley's Suspicious Minds came on the radio and I remember singing it loudly with my dad.  He kept singing, I called you a tramp.  I loved every second of that four and a half minute song that day and not so much because of the song as much as the memory of that day.  For the year that my dad was in Vietnam I worried every day that he would be killed.  Now, that day, I had him back and we were singing an Elvis song as loud as we wanted to sing it after spending a day at Disneyland.   My dad wanted to spend a day with me enough to play "hooky" from work to do it.  Singing off key and my dad egging me on was simply a memory that I will carry all of the days of my life.

Wildfire - Michael Martin Murphy - In June of 1975 my parents decided that it would be great for me to visit my grandparents for 2 months.  Here is the logistical problem with that statement; we were in Fort Leonard Wood Missouri, they were in Lock Haven Pennsylvania.  The solution, fly Kevin to PA to be with the grandparents right? Nope!  We are going to put Kevin on a Continental Trailways bus in St Louis and the grandparents would pick up this almost 10 year old in Harrisburg Pennsylvania.  Back then it sounded perfectly fine and I will say, it was the coolest trip I have ever taken.  I was on an adventure that NONE of my friends had ever even thought of.  I had no idea that every inch of that trip was planned and people were calling from stops along the way to let my parents know all was well.  I didn't find that out until many years later.  It didn't matter.  I was on an adventure.  I remember sitting behind the bus driver and wide awake in the middle of the night, the radio was on low so that only he and I could hear it.  Michael Martin Murphy's Wildfire came on the radio somewhere along the way and from that moment it would be come my favorite song of all time.  I still think about that trip all of the time.  That bus ride that was only a little more than a day.  All of the stops along the way.  Watching out the window at the countryside going by.  My parents hundreds of miles behind me, my grandparents hundreds of miles ahead of me.  I was there by myself at 9 years old.  I got to make decisions for myself, what to eat at whatever choke and puke we stopped at, if I wanted to buy something with my money I could just do it without asking for permission.  I was on my own.  I remember the next morning we stopped at a bus stop somewhere in Indiana I think and I saw a stuffed black horse and I had to have it.  I named it Wildfire and it was a part of me for many many years.  Like the song, at 9 years old I was trying to figure out life, what was important and what everything meant.  I never did figure out that part but to this day, that song makes me think of the summer of 1975.  I'm not sure that I have ever had a summer like that since.  Maybe I never will but when I hear Wildfire, at least I still have the memories.

Heartlight - Kenny Loggins - This song is just one of those that made me feel good at a time when I was terribly confused by life.  In the fall of 1982 I was a junior in high school and we were assigned a research paper.  Me being really horrible at writing and research procrastinated until the last possible minute.  There was trouble swirling around my parents marriage and I just hated being at home.  They fought constantly and so when it came to being home long enough to work on a paper, well I just didn't want to.  So the weekend before the paper was due I was working furiously on my paper about Kent State.  Wow, what a heavy subject to try to tackle while everything else seemed to be going to hell in a hand basket.  I turned on the radio so that I could get a break and just breathe.  Kent State made me so very sad because it was all so senseless.  My parents fighting all of the time was so senseless.  Everything seemed so senseless.  After all, either the Russians or the US was going to shoot nukes at each other and we were all going to be wiped from the planet.  Well, back to the radio, Kenny Loggins' Heartlight came on and the first line of the song instantly made me feel good, "I like the Love, and I like the peaceful."  WOW!  At that moment I had no idea that that could exist.  Love and peaceful?! All at once.  Well, I talked my neighbor into driving over to Penguin Feather records and tapes in Woodbridge so that I could buy that record.  To this day when something gets me down I will often pull out that album and play this song.  How can you not like a song that starts off with I like the love, I like the peaceful.  There is power in that.  A healing power, an idea of hope.  

Lodi  -  CCR - This song just makes me happy.  Not for the message in the song, nah not that at all.  I just remember that as we moved from Long Beach California to Ft Leonard Wood Missouri I was sitting in the front seat of our green1969 Volkswagon station wagon in the middle of the night with my dad driving, my stepmother and brother in the backseat asleep talking to my dad about the silliest stuff and then Lodi came on the radio somewhere in Arizona.  I knew my dad liked that song a lot.  He was a big CCR fan and I knew that he particularly liked that song.  Then he told me about when he was in Vietnam he would stare at the stars in the middle of the night out in the jungle and think about me and my brother and wonder what we were doing.  He told me that that song was the last song that he had heard when he left Da Nang on the Armed Forces Network when he was waiting to come home and then there we were, listening to it together.  In December of 2004 my dad told me that he heard Lodi on the radio while he was driving to the supermarket and had to pull over to the side of the road and listen to it.  He said that he thought about the night that we listened to it on our way east and then he asked me if I remembered that night.  I told him I thought about that night all the time.  My dad passed away about a month later.  Lodi will be our song always.

The Leader of the Band - Dan Fogelberg - This song is the song that epitomizes me and my dad.  My dad was, is and will always be my hero.  I think of all that he accomplished in his life and there are times that I don't think that I have measured up.  Then I remember times that he would say that he just expected me to be who I was meant to be.  That would be determined by the steps I took along my journey.  My dad was always a tough guy but I know that there were times in his life that he had been hurt and hurt deeply but I think that it was during those times that I saw how courageous and strong he was.  My dad was one of the most kind people you would ever meet.  He never had a harsh word for anyone and would even defend those that had done wrong by him.  I will never forget as a little kid living in Long Beach California he and I walking in downtown Los Angeles when a few hippies started to heckle him.  They called him vile names.  And then, one poured his drink on my dad.  Keep in mind that I was about 6 years old and was standing next to him.  The guys obviously were trying to draw him into a fight.  He just simply said that he understood why they hated the military.  He said that he understood that it represented everything they disliked.  It represented men and women doing more for others than themselves.  He said that the memories of friends that he lost to snipers bullets and bombs and fire were worth every insult accusation or (while wiping the drink from his face) someone pouring their drink on me.  Those memories of his friends were worth 30 seconds of dealing with those guys.  I realized at that moment that my dad had something that so many others didn't.  He had character, at the time I didn't know what character was but now as an adult, I know it when I see it.  My dad's blood runs through me and I think often that my life has been a poor attempt to imitate the man.  I am just a living legacy of the leader of the band.   

Bridge Over Troubled Water - Simon and Garfunkle - May of 1992 was very tough for me.  I had just had to go through a medical discharge review from the Navy that I dearly loved and then a week later, my dear Grandmother died.  I kind of expected it because I had seen her in April and she wasn't looking very good.  After the funeral we all met at my Aunt Cindy's house and then went down to the river and out on her boat for the day.  It was late in the day, the radio was on we were all just chatting, remembering Gram and the good times (there were so many) and Simon and Garfunkle came on the radio.  I was never a real big fan of theirs.  Not that I disliked them, more that I just never really listened to them.  A Bridge Over Troubled Waters  started playing and we all got very quiet.  I think that everyone was just listening to the words to the song but before I knew it we (about 10 of us) were singing along to the song together.  I realized that as we were all singing together, we were indeed singing about Gram.  She was our bridge over troubled water.  For me it was all the calls I would make to her when my parents were having troubles and she would make everything seem ok.  It was when I came to visit her and sitting with her and just talking.  It was knowing that Gram always seemed to make things ok.   If you need a friend, I'm sailing right behind, like a bridge over troubled water, I will ease your mind, like a bridge over troubled water, I will ease your mind."  She always did ease my mind.  That song will always be Gram's song.

Crocodile Rock - Elton John - Sunday September 22, 1974.  I had just had my 9th birthday and my family was going to the St Louis Cardinals versus the Chicago Cubs.  I couldn't wait to see that game.  My favorite pitcher, Bob Gibson was going to be on the mound, Lou Brock was chasing the single season  stolen base record and we had seats that were close enough that I could see everything that ted Simmons was doing behind the plate.  I was in heaven.  Everything worked as planned, the Cardinals won 6-5. Lou Brock stole 2 bases, Ted Simmons hit a home run and while Bob Gibson didn't get the win (Al Hrabosky did) he pitched a great game and didn't get a loss.  On the ride home Elton John's Crocodile Rock came on the radio and I remember bouncing around in the back seat singing that song, bouncing off of my brother and just having a really fun time.  My brother who was almost always stoic and serious even was having fun.  Our parents were in the front seat just laughing and having a fun time with it.  It was one of the great birthdays that I ever had.  Anytime I hear that song I can't help but smile and think baseball!