Dec 312011
Sounds of the Hall in roughly 33 1/3 minutes!
In this week’s New Year’s Eve edition of Saturday Night Shut-In a prednisone-fueled Mr. Moderator makes up for any previous episode in which you wished he would have talked more. He covers some of his favorite releases of 2011, reveals Pete Townshend‘s career path not quite taken, and announces Rock Town Hall’s 2011 Townsperson of the Year. This is the ultimate shut-in edition. Listen at the risk of your own sense of self-esteem!
[audio:https://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/RTH-Saturday-Night-Shut-In-60.mp3|titles=RTH Saturday Night Shut-In, episode 60][Note: The Rock Town Hall feed will enable you to easily download Saturday Night Shut-In episodes to your digital music player. In fact, you can even set your iTunes to search for an automatic download of each week’s podcast.]
Top notch episode Mr. Mod.
Robert Wyatt and Phil Manzanera on the same SNS episode? Careful, Mr. Mod – you’re going to be tagged a progster if you keep this up. Hearing Wyatt in particular was a pleasant surprise.
Wyatt’s Rock Bottom is an absolutely stunning album that ranks very high on prog lists as well as on my personal “desert island” list. It was recorded not long after Wyatt became permanently paralyzed from the waist down – he fell out of a fourth-story window during a drunken party in mid-1973. The album of “drones and songs” (Wyatt’s words) that followed is both intense and quietly compelling. Melodies with simple, spare beauty are woven together with darkly menacing and fierce passages. Though none of the tunes make reference to his accident and Wyatt subsequently claimed that many of the songs were written before the terrible event, I can’t help but think that the record reflects a pained and slightly deranged frame of mind that comes from a traumatic and life-altering injury. Someone thoughtfully posted the entire album on Youtube and here’s the link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l2YIdDX5hQ&feature=fvwrel
Give Rock Bottom a listen if you’re at all up to a musical challenge. I give it six stars.
I’ve really struggled with Robert Wyatt’s music over the years, and have probably listened to about half of his recorded output since his accident, but found all of it almost completely unlistenable, yet I read interviews with him in which he is an extraordinarily intelligent, aware, thoughtful man with an ingrained decency that cuts through everything which has happened to him and that is going on around him. Whenever he releases a record I force myself to listen to it, even though experience tells me that I will not like it, just because I am intrigued by the man, and happy that he survived his accident and is still alive and well among us. He is probably top of my list of people that I think I would enjoy sitting down and having a cup of tea with. Top bloke.
Wyatt’s output has been really spotty throughout his long career, and I don’t like most of his albums. For the most part, he’s been best as a “guest” vocalist and/or musician on other people’s records. However, Rock Bottom is his one true masterpiece.
I’m listening to Rock Bottom now on Spotify. (They have a good amount of Wyatt, including an entire boxed set). It’s very interesting, like a mix of mellow ’70s prog (the quiet bits on Gabriel-era Genesis records) and Eno. An intriguing listen, if a bit impenetrable, but I’ll probably be investigating further.
You’ve hit the nail on the head for how I hear this album, Oats. Why couldn’t early Genesis settle down and make a record like this one? It’s a weird album, but good for the right mood.
Mod, happy new year and bless your little heart for being one other person in this world who finds South Park and the people behind it absolutely unfunny and repugnant. I hate that crap.
We’ve got to fight the power, misterioso! Can you believe sammymaudlin once threatened to take the site down over our disagreements on that show?
I can, inasmuch as I know many otherwise good people who derive amusement from South Park and other creations from the same nitwits. Given the choice, I’m not sure but I might opt for an Adam Sandler marathon.