Sound Tribe Sector 9

Peter Pans Lemonade Stand January 30, 2009 From Rick Clogston

Mon, 04 May 2009 21:25:00 GMT

http://panstand.blogspot.com/ Friday, January 30, 2009 Local Phenomenon The other day I was in a record store. Strike that; there is no such thing any more. CD store, I suppose, although they’re getting fairly rare. Anyway, this one was in Tilton at the Tanger Outlet. Music For A Song, it’s called. I was browsing through the CDs and came across a stack of discs by Jim Tyrrell. He’s a local artist, and I’m proud to say a good friend of mine. It was really great to see Jim’s face looking up at me out of a rack of CDs. I don’t know if he’ll ever be seen anywhere else, but he certainly deserves to be. Very talented musician and songwriter, and I highly recommend that you get yourself a copy of his disc at your nearest record store . . . or whatever they’re called nowadays. There’s even a link to his blog right over there, no not there, yeah, right . . . right THERE. There’s two reasons his CD is on sale at Music For A Song. One is that Jim is very talented. The other is that he’s driven. I think he still harbors dreams of one day being a big star. Not only can he play, sing, and write, but he works very hard on his craft. And even if he never gets to sell his CDs anywhere else, you can bet you’re going to get a quality product. For myself, at the ripe old age of 53, I’m no longer worried about hitting the big time. That ship has sailed. No worries. Hey, at this point if I did get offered a record contract I couldn’t afford to take it. No way could I quit my job and go on the road. You know what the odds are of a new artist breaking through and having a hit? They’re astronomical. For every Dave Matthews, or Michael Jackson, or Hannah Montana, there’s a hundred – maybe a thousand – people that somebody thought was worthy of a record contract that sell three or four hundred copies and disappear without a trace. That doesn’t stop me, though. I just flat love to write and play, and I’m going to keep right on doing it. And I know plenty of other very talented people who keep doing it, too. Here are some of them. http://www.abandcalledspike.com/?mpf=frame is for A Band Called Spike. If you like your rock hard, this is the place to go. What would you call this stuff? Punk metal? That’s probably pretty close. To tell you the truth, I don’t listen to a lot of this kind of music, but they do it very well. Jim Alger www.jimalger.com , the band’s guitarist and vocalist, is a very old friend of mine, but even that wouldn’t get him mentioned here. The reason I’m mentioning him and them is that they’re very, very good. The other day I put in the live DVD I have of them, and it’s great. Even though I don’t make this variety of music my first choice, they are compelling. They’re based in Massachusetts. http://www.myspace.com/cobaltbluevt will get you to the myspace page of the best damned blues band in New England, Cobalt Blue. These guys rock. I’ve seen them as a 3-piece and a 5-piece. I also have their CD, which is excellent, and I mean that. I have a number of CDs and cassettes by friends and acquaintances that I never listen to. Sorry, but a lot of that kind of thing simply isn’t that good. Sometimes there are good reasons that somebody doesn’t get signed, y’know. But Cobalt Blue’s CD is on my player regularly. The whole band is great, but the guy that most impresses me is the guitarist, Mike Bottiggi. He’s a graduate of the Hendrix/SRV school, but takes it to his own place. He also is a tube amp rebuilder/fixer/toaster who’s got the tone that comes right out of the ground and straight up your spine. You cannot listen to this guy and not be moved. They are based in Northern Vermont, and are worth travelling for. A good musician needs a good instrument, right? If you’re a guitarist, like I am, you owe it to yourself to check out Green Mountain Guitars at http://www.greenmountainguitars.com/index1.html Glen DeRusha makes some of the best acoustic guitars I’ve ever played, and it is my goal to one day own one. Check out some of his craftsmanship at this site. Or better yet, get yourself over to Bradford, Vermont and see them first hand. Believe it or not, Glen loves to have people drop by and play his instruments, or even just hang around and talk guitars and music. He even lets me do it! What a guy!

Album of the Year plus nuggets you may have missed

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 23:50:00 GMT

My Album of the Year in 2008

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds-Dig Lazarus Dig

Here are some runners up:

Porcupine Tree-Nil Recurring and We Lost the Skyline
Beardfish-Sleeping in Traffic Part 2
Drive By Truckers-Brighter Than Creations Dark
Flower Kings-Sum of No Evil
GutterTwins-Saturnalia
Mudcrutch
Fish-13 Star
California Guitar Trio-Echos
3-The End is Begun
Kamalot-Ghost Opera

Live
Genesis-Live in Europe 2007
Rush-Snakes and Arrows Live
Joe Bonamassa-Live
Kraftwerk-Min-Max
Matt Roehr-Uhad 2 B There
Opeth-The Roundhouse Tapes

New Band Debut

Pure Reason Revolution
The Answer
Back Door Slam

Reissue:
King Crimson-Condensed 21st Century Guide
Peter Hammil-Black Box

Real Spacey:

Secret Machines 3
Sound Tribe Sector 9-Peaceblaster
No Man-Schoolyard Ghosts

The total out there album of the year is

Pelican-City of Echoes
and anything by SUNN

Joe Strummer-The Future Is Unwritten

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 00:40:00 GMT

I will say this first and at least set it up. Anyone that witnessed the Clash in there prime knows why the passion for Joe Strummer will always survive and he is the true eccence of the "real" punk. I loved this film because it was filmed around a campfire (mostly). Julien Temple gets it right as candid as it is. Joe Strummer is the real deal and he is something. The footage is vintage in parts and brings a unique perspective to the man from ex-band mates to numerous celebs. After seeing this flick it reminded me of the "danger" of this kind of rock. I saw the Clash many times and there was always a sense of anything could happen at anytime. I loved it. Wether driving down to Asbury Park (then seeing my friend Eddie from Braintree, who I had no idea would be there also) or to Bonds in New York City. That brings us to a great Clash story I have. One of the cancelled shows in New York was re-scheduled and I got to go by some twists of fate. I had my tickets and couldn't go because of my weekend shift that I couldn't get out of. The tickets I had for months now had to go to one of my buddies at work and there was no shortage on getting rid of them. Everyone wanted to go to Bonds in June 1981 because the Clash were it, the real deal. My friends leave for New York with the Clash blasting and me thinking "those bastards have my dam tickets and I got shit". Things change rapidly when they got back. They got locked out of the shows and had the re-sheduled tickets for the next Saturdays (my weekend off) afternoon show to accomadate the crowds. Needless to say "those bastards" handed me the Clash gold as they were called. Now the three of us who were screwed out of the show were now on our way. My friend Herbie (who knew NYC extremely well) , Danny, and I head down to the shows in my 72 Duster. Clash at Bonds or Bust. It was gloreous. The ride was half the fun. 2 pm at Bonds in NYCity we find out these shows are just for the kids that got screwed out of the over-sell. We wait drinking only apple juice or cherry colas because the night before the place had every drop of booze consumed as our bartender informed us. I had seen the Clash before but they were on a mission and they were totally on. Before the show started I noticed that there only 250 or so people all milling around and then the Clash come in ripping. Standing in the front row for this kind of shit was as intense as it gets, it was a spectacle. It didn't matter if there where only 250 there or a packed house of a couple of thousand you were going to get the real deal right in you face. What a buzz. The Clash were relentless. Joe Strummer was golden telling all of us thanks for coming. "Washington Bullets" was full of Clash propaganda at the end and I was drained. 6pm in the evening we walk out on to the busy New York streets not believing what we just saw. I remember to this day returning like heros to our fellow Clash brethern and blasting the Clash for weeks. I had a huge Clash from Bonds subway poster that took up a wall in my apartment and it was always a conversation piece

Sound Tribe Sector 9 STS9-Peacemaker

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 23:36:52 GMT

Well here is the first blog on music and bands. I have waited to do this until I had some time to absorb some new and different material. Sound Tribe Sector 9 had caught my ear awhile ago when I heard there disc "Artifact" from 2004 and thought it was interesting electronica music. I love bands like Tangerine Dream, the Orb, and the like and I am always looking for more in that vain. That brings us to there new disc "Peacemaker". "Matameme" the third song on the disc is brilliant. Taking very cool elements of prog and bringing it up a notch with extremely nifty samples and sound effects that would be ultra cool in a club atmosphere. The disc rolls along very Tangerine Dream-ish at times which is not a problem. "Shock Doctrine" has a Pink Floyd-Depeche Mode feel that rapidly crosses many areas into the bliss of "The Spectacle" that is as spaced out as it gets in electronica. "Beyond Right Now" could have been on a Flaming Lips disc (it throws more depth into the album) and fits perfect after "Regeneration" with it's moving on to the next move segement. "The Fog" is to StS9 , as "The Waiting Room" is to Genesis's "Lamb Lies Down on Broadway". Haven't heard anything like it in years and it is influenced by early Syd Barrett Pink Floyd which I dig allot. "Hidden Hand, Hidden Fist" has a quality that has grown on me with repeated listenings to be very grand and extremely full of textured keyboards. The guitars are crisp echoed and reverbed while what sounds like a full bodied up-right bass lays down some top notch grooves. "The Last 50,000 years" is low key durge that leads to "Empire" a wandering jewel still full of soaring keyboards that are at times just that soaring. The drums are not my favorite though, sounding very drum machine-ish (then again this is electronica) so not to mind. This one is very spacey at times also. "The New Soma" is just an out for a stroll kinda of tune that brings you into "Oh Little Brain" the pop song on the disc? I love the ending as it fades off into the abyss. "Late For Work" plays light and easy. "Squishface" includes an adaptation of Ballade Four:Casa Grande by Gill Glover Johns/ Beethoven's Bust which rounds out the disc in all it's glory. I enjoy this disc on a good long drive and reading the Sunday paper. Some would think of it as "background" music, there is way to much more to it than that. Sure it can be laid back but there is lot going on and some subtle jems here that should not be overlooked. Enjoy Sts9 there different and hail from Santa Cruz, California http://sts9.com/