Happy Holidays, from Klaus Schulze and Beyond Beyond is Beyond! Klaus didn’t really say that so don’t quote me.
But thanks to our friends at SPV Records, BBiB has a few copies of two different new Klaus Schulze 3-CD box sets to giveaway to you!
Through these stunning box sets, the ear becomes reacquainted with the vast expanse of Schulze music from its earliest beginnings right up and into its modern incarnations, robust with the now-patented lengthy irises, numerous kaleidoscopic events, and still-innovative breadth of tonalities that have become the artist’s stock-in-trade.
Enter to win one of these killer box sets:
…by Tweeting this post
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…or by commenting below
Contest will end December 24, 2010 and winners will be notified by December 28. U.S. entries only please. Can’t ship outta the States!
Cheers and Good Luck!
Hey dudes,
Tune in to Beyond Beyond is Beyond on Thursday, two days before what would have been John Lennon’s 70th birthday, and find out how to enter to win the new Gimme Some Truth 4-CD box set! I have one box to giveaway to one lucky listener.
Happy Birthday and Rest In Peace, John!
- Imagine Peace
- Gimme Some Truth box on Amazon
- East Village Radio
- Beyond Beyond is Beyond archive page
Thanks to the awesome folks at Rhino Handmade, I’ve got a couple of these bad boys to giveaway this week on Beyond Beyond is Beyond. So tune in to East Village Radio Thursday at noon (eastern time) for your chance to score some killer FUDGE!
“Don’t take no shit from anybody” announced Billy Joel to a mid-80’s concert audience in Cincinnati that included my now-estranged father. My dad recited the Joel quote to me the day after the show and thought it was just the coolest thing ever spoken; obviously he (and Billy Joel) felt like they were taking too much shit from people. Billy Joel speaks to the blue collar working man in a very musically-sophisticated way, and perhaps Joel’s biggest, most profound statement ever was his 1977 album, The Stranger. Sony Legacy Records has just put together an amazing 30th Anniversary box set edition of The Stranger, and it has me floored.
In my early teens, I don’t think I understood what my father liked about Billy Joel, but I always have memories of hearing it in his car on the way to the movies or the drive-thru pony keg (a Cincinnati thing). But my appreciation for Billy Joel’s music has grown exponentially in the past 10 years, accelerated by such life-changing events as falling in love, moving to New York, getting married, and becoming the ‘grown-up’ that I am now (though some might argue that). I grew up hearing Joel’s unique songs, not really ‘getting it’, but knowing that there was something special going on there.
My wife and I have been immersed in the Sony Legacy 30th Anniversary box set of The Stranger for the last couple weeks, and it has been very pleasing. First of all, what a great package! It contains a remastered version of the original album, another CD featuring a live Carnegie Hall show from the summer of 1977 just after the album’s release, a DVD with an 11-song performance recorded for the BBC’s The Old Grey Whistle Test, two live promo videos, and a 30-minute ‘making of’ documentary with new interviews with Billy Joel and Phil Ramone. But wait! There’s more: a foldout poster for the sold-out Carnegie Hall shows, a replica of Joel’s songwriting notebook for the album complete with food stains and scratched out lyrics, and a book with tons of photos and great liner notes from Rolling Stone’s best music writer/lover, David Fricke.
Something really struck me as I skimmed through the songwriting notebook where Joel lists all the diverse acts that he has opened for up to 1977…Bill Withers, J. Geils Band, Yes, Taj Mahal, Linda Ronstadt, the Eagles, Kinky Friedman, Jeff Beck, John Sebastian, Janis Ian, Seals & Crofts, Anne Murray, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Stevie Wonder, and Olivia Newton-John, to name quite a few. It really had me thinking about just how different an artist Billy Joel is…not quite cut out for classic rock radio (Joel’s music is a classic rock radio no-no), not quite the classic crooner (like Franky and Deano), not really the typical singer/songwriter of the era (James Taylor, Dan Fogleberg), and not quite flamboyant showtunes-man (a la Manilow), yet all these things are somehow wrapped up in his own unique style. It’s almost like he created his own genre.
In the early 1960′s , as popular music underwent its huge catharsis, it was not just the kids in the front rooms with their cheap guitars that would make it a force to be reckoned with. A lot of Jazz musos were crossing over, experimenting with the singles and album market that was growing almost daily. One such jazz player was a certain Jack Bruce. A jazz bassist in his teens, Bruce was playing for Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated by 1962, though on double bass. It was here he met Ginger Baker, and they went on to play with The Graham Bond Organisation, where Bruce finally succumbed to the lure of the Electric Bass. However the legendary hostility between him and Ginger soon brought proceedings to a close, and he joined John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, where he first played with Eric Clapton. After a stint with Manfred Mann, playing on several hits, he made his career-defining move, forming the ultimate power trio with Baker and Clapton; Cream. It was in the two short years between 66 and 68 that Bruce cemented his reputation as one of the greatest and most influential bassist/vocalists of all-time, his Gibson EB-3 bass becoming almost iconic. His fluid bass lines, almost solos in their own right, and rich, timbred vocals, singing the fantastical lyrics of Pete Brown, ensure that he’s still worshiped to this day.
His fondness for the Power trio never waned, and he experimented with it in several line-ups, including West, Bruce and Laing, (featuring ex-Mountain men Corky Laing and Leslie West) and BBM (Bruce, Baker and Moore, featuring the Irish guitar legend).
Following an almost fatal liver transplant, he returned triumphantly to the stage with Cream for the Albert Hall reunion concerts in 2005.
Recommended: Sunshine of Your Love – an iconic riff, a great vocal. I Feel Free – Classic Bruce!
West, Bruce and Laing: Why Dontcha? – A forgotten classic
And a note from Newm: It is certainly worth mentioning that our good friends at Esoteric Recordings in England have just released an amazing career-spanning Jack Bruce box set called Can You Follow, and having heard it, it’s absolutely brilliant. It’s got stuff that he’s done with Alexis Korner, Graham Bond, Cream, West Bruce & Laing, solo, Eric Clapton & The Powerhouse, Zappa, Manfred Mann, and more.
