RN...


Always August - Black Pyramid LP (SST) 1986 and Always August - Largeness With Holes LP (SST) 1987



^It's August 16th today, seemed like a good day to pull these 2 out of my rock section. Don't you wish that it was Always August? Such a great month.

Mind you, I didn't plan on listening to this today, I'm sentimental but not that corny, I was just going thru my rock collection and I started at the "A" section.

This band is such an interesting excursion for it's label SST which I usually associate with Punk music, and this is quite far from punk. File under a fusion college hippy jam band, very free flowing, positive, with occasional solo musicians on sax duty or on trumpet along with your typical 4 piece rock band. This is not your average Birkenstock hacky sack hippy music, it's very progressive and way ahead of it's time in the late 80s and completely removed from the music that dominated the airwaves back then. Found this for almost nothing and sought out the second one since the first was so good. This is highly recommended for people who need to inject a little bit more of the laid back lighter side of fusion rock into their rock sections.

---

“Lesser artists borrow... great artists steal.” - Igor Stravinsky
OP OP Blog CDC
Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Beat Junkies Blog

^Listened to a couple tracks on youtube, not bad at all. I'd imagine they would've been interesting to see live. SST put out a lot of weird shit in the late 80s/early 90s. I used to trade tapes with a guy that had a bunch of albums by those types of bands (i.e. non-hc/punk SST stuff) but I haven't heard them in quite some time.

If you like psychedelic rock, try some of the old Screaming Trees stuff on SST (a really underrated group) Invisible Lantern and Buzz Factory are great albums. The stuff they did after that is very good as well, although quite a bit different.

---

[everydayambient.wordpress.com]

[www.instagram.com]

^I was gonna post the Youtube stuff but I thought it sounded kind of "ehh". Maybe it's just me but sometimes Youtube does nothing for me, probably because sometimes when I'm listening to music on Youtube i'm at work and too distracted to appreciate the mediocre streaming quality. Plus I didn't like the first song on the first album and I figured people would turn it off if I posted that entire album link because they are just as ADD as I am.

RE: Screaming Trees is one of those really good pre-grunge groups that kind of successfully dabbled in that Seattle sound without quite making it into the more mainstream stuff. They were lauded in my neck of the woods by people who liked Nirvana, PJ, STP, etc, partly because of their work with "Mad Season" but even before that they had some real fire.

Come to think of it, I should get an SST comp to get a bigger picture. That's a label where a comp would have more than enough good bands\songs to justify it's price.

---

“Lesser artists borrow... great artists steal.” - Igor Stravinsky
OP OP Blog CDC
Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Beat Junkies Blog

Right now...

Solomon: Concerto No.3 in C Minor, OP 37 LP (Seraphim) 1958



^One of the cleanest Classical records I own, and that really matters with classical since there are so may quiet parts.

Gradually I am beginning to truly appreciate all my classical records after I spin cleaned them. (Spun clean?) I am learning about composers that are incredible and how vast and how rich this music culture is. This was long before today's modern record label's iffy QC was passing warped records as good enough, it was a battle of labels to out QC each other.

Here's some classical labels I've learned to check for: (alphabetical)

• Angel
• Columbia Masterworks
• Concert Hall (old school, sometimes flawed but noteworthy)
• Epic (arguable, but pretty decent in a lot of cases)
• RCA Victor (Red Label) (Other labels too but I only have Red Label)
• Seraphim
• Time/Life (JUST FUCKING WITH YOU) (Although I guess they aren't horrible )
• Turnabout

There's a lot more but it's late.

So back to this record, looking at the cover, this dudes nose is as big as his brain is. Seriously, this is really wonderful, flawless, and refreshing.

Sometimes I like to end my listening sessions with some classical for that musical climax that really no other genre can touch. And on a personal tip it calms my mind after a few beers and gets me ready for a new day.

PSA: If you do not have a mint or NM condition classical record in your collection from (insert your favorite composer here) you have a void. It's a zen thing and IMHO there will always be a time when classical music will be the perfect selection.

---

“Lesser artists borrow... great artists steal.” - Igor Stravinsky
OP OP Blog CDC
Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Beat Junkies Blog

Quote
rchecka
I didn't like the first song on the first album and I figured people would turn it off if I posted that entire album link because they are just as ADD as I am.

This. Plus the first song was called Freedom Flight. I had pretty high expectations that had very little chance of being met.



I went back and listened to a couple more songs - track 3 (Pan's Lament) was where it started getting interesting for me. If I ever run across it cheap in the wild I might pick it up.