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Stuff we recommend ...
Kellie Cox .......Go there  She packs a whole ocean into one song. Beautiful.Pauline Alexander .......Go there  A voice that makes a crystal stream seem rather less pure.Peter Bradley Adams .......Go there  Americana tinged with intelligence and tons of atmosphere.Gemma Garmeson .......Go there  First she'll charm your socks off, then she'll tickle the toes off your feet.Sarah Jarosz .......Go there  New-old-timey music with a twist of ... something that will chage your mind about old timey music. |
Sam Amidon - search, open up your ears and listen. Thursday 6th May 2010 I'm not usually a fan of versions of traditional songs by artists who work in different genres. Classical musicians produce horrors akin to Dick Van Dykes cockney accent in Mary Poppins. Popular music and jazz singers give us anodyne performances that detract from rather than add to the source material. So listening to Sam Amidon's album "I See The Sign" was a bit of a risk for me. Messing about with traditional songs can be disasterous. And whilst I'm not sure I actually like it, at least it is interesting. Perhaps some tracks don't really work. The singing can be irritating. The arrangements which sound like they might have been done by the guy who did the score for an arty science fiction movie, can be intrusive. But overall this is an album that makes a real attempt to do something new and different with traditional source material. One track which stands out for me is the version of "Rain And Snow" which really does bring a new light to a song which been often played. Usually, it's done in old timey Appalachian style. Here, it's sparse, dark and confessional with something of the air of a mental hospital therapy session. And it adds a side of humanity to the song that doesn't come out much in the common rendering. Perhaps when I hear the album again other tracks will stand out for their own, different reasons. Wait and see. I doubt that I'll play this album a lot, but when I do, I suspect I'll start thinking anew about the way I perform songs myself. It will make others think as well I am sure. And that's certainly not a bad thing. You may not like it either, but it would be wise not to dismiss it without taking care to give it a good listen. 0 Comments posted... Post A Comment Visit Sam on MySpace Getting into gear again ..... Well, I've spent a load of time thinking about what to do with Virtual Open Mic. Even started working on a couple of different plans for it. But in the end it seemed the best thing to do was leave it alone and deal with anything else I was thinking of adding to the site over here. So from now on The Appendix will exist as and add-on to Virtual Open Mic where I can rant and rave, but hopefully start recommending and drawing attention to the music that I think is really cool and worth your attention. Of course I'll try and add some music in here too. 0 Comments posted... Post A Comment Junk mail .... Thursday 10th September 2009 Despite trying to ensure we tell people not to add us to our mailing list people do, usually without taking a blind bit of notice of what we're about. Can't be doing with that stuff. We ignore it, delete it. Don't mail us unless there's something you need to say to us particularly. Otherwise post an item here, or on our message board. 1 Comment posted... Post A Comment Open to you .... Sunday 26th July 2009 Well, it took us some time to get here, but now it's up to you. Since I doubt I'll have the time and inspiration to keep up posting stuff here, for the moment at least, I'm leaving it to you. We've added a message board as you can see and tried to make posting news items easy - though there's still a bit of work to be done on that yet. But from now on what's on the site is up to you. Take care of it, please. 0 Comments posted... Post A Comment Wax Lyrical Sunday Acoustic Night Sunday 26th July 2009 Formed in 2009 Wax Lyrical has quickly become one of London\'s favorite acoustic nights, held every Sunday in the rather lovely, Wax Jambu, a cocktail bar with an intresting range of beers and wines The night offers 4-5 featured acts every week, with good overall sound quality and lovely surroundings, its no wonder why this gig has quickly become a gig to be played amongst artist playing the London circuit. 0 Comments posted... Post A Comment Visit WAX LYRICAL View Older Posts |
And then they said ...
It is not classical music if the guy only finished writing it this afternoon. ............President Bartlett in "The West Wing" Never look at the trombones, it only encourages them. ............Richard Strauss An old fiddle player in Clare, referring to a very fast young player, said, "He'll be a good musician when he's too old to move that fast" ............ Only mediocrity can be trusted to be always at it's best. Genius must have lapses proportionate to triumphs. ............Max Beerbohm of Dan Leno Fools aren't born, Pongo, pretty girls make them in their spare time. ............From the film "101 Dalmations" |