As the year comes to an end, I thought I'd write about a couple of my favorite musical moments from the past 12 months. First, "Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon," the new album from Devendra Banhart. For my money, Devendra is quite simply the most interesting young artist making music today. His previous album, "Cripple Crow" is a psychedelic/folk/rock/Tropicalismo masterpiece. "Smokey" continues in the same vein, but is even more eclectic (if that's possible.) "Seahorse," my all-time favorite Devendra song, is an 8 minute, 3 movement nearly impossible to describe melange of folk, jazz, psychedelia and freak out rock reminiscent of both Dave Brubeck's "Blue Rondo" and Quicksilver Messenger Service at their John Cippolina "Happy Trails" best. This is eclectic stuff, and not for everyone--but if you have adventurous taste and this sounds interesting, RUN, DON'T WALK to get this album and "Cripple Crow." If you're not sure, go to iTunes and check out the snippets from these albums. Great great stuff. And if you are a fan of live music, definitely catch Devendra and his wonderful band at one of their shows. They are absolutely fantastic (check Youtube for the proof !)
On another front, I just finished watching the DVD "Amazing Journey: The Story of The Who" and loved it. This documentary was co-directed by Murray Lerner, the celebrated documentarian who's films of Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festivals were just released. One of the producers, Nigel Sinclair, produced "No Direction Home," the Bob Dylan documentary directed by Martin Scorsese (if you haven't seen this, stop reading here, go to Amazon, and buy it immediately.) "Amazing Journey" is beautifully researched, shot and edited, and has loads of never before seen footage including the High Numbers live (!) at the Railway Hotel, London in 1965. I've seen a lot of Who footage and know a great deal about their history, but learned quite a bit from this exceptionally well done doc. Needless to say, if you're into the Who, you need this. It comes packaged as a 3 CD box set with a live Who concert from Chicago 1979 and a second film titled "Amazing Journey: Six Quick Ones" (made up of 6 short films.) I haven't watched these yet, but I would absolutely buy the three just on the strength of the main film.
That's it for now. I hope everyone out there has a great holiday, thanks for reading the blog, and all my best for the new year and beyond ! Jeff.
No comments:
Post a Comment