Hoping all RZers are in good health and coping with the quarantine (not a 'lock down', which is just an an un-helpful media preferred term). Borrowing an idea from the Super Deluxe Edition website, as a means of keeping good mental health in these anxious times, what are people playing to pass the time? Not fussed if it's psych compliant, just wondered what speaks to you strongly in such a situation as we are all in. So far, I've been catching up on recent purchases. With my wife and daughter at home as well, it's a strictly through the headphones and an old CD Walkman exercise at the moment:
Monochrome Set - Little Noises 5 x CD set on Cherry Pop - Quintessentially English guitar pop band's 1990s output, sublime lyrics and trebly guitar.
System of A Down 5 x cd set. 1998-2005 US/Armenian nu metalers, very good (and musically articualte) for inwardly venting frustration through!
A Band For All Seasons 4 x CD set (disc 1 played so far). New (or enlarged) neo-psych stylings on Fruts de Mar. It's an expansion of the 3 x LP version from two years ago. Good variety of stuff on Disc 1 which is all I've managed so far and only £15 inc post UK.
Simple MInds - Best of 3 x CD set.Nice way to sample their long and winding road. I've got all the albums too but this is a nice way to randomly access them.
Toyah - Solo CD box set. This lady has a great range of styles and approaches to music. This needs listening to again soon, there's so much in it.
Next up - The Return of The Tokoloshe Men 6 x CD south African 64-71 set - Crawling Up A Hill 3 x cd set of 60s Blues rock on Grapefruit and the reissued Tears For Fears 'The Hurting' box set.
I may have written elsewhere here that a short whiles ago the local used record store here went belly-up and he put a couple crates of lps out for free. I picked about 50 lps - stuff I consider "low-riders". Artists I don't particularly like which I hope to trade off at the flea market (when that opens up again.)
Well there were at least 10 Gordon Lightfoot titles I took.
I always rated Lightfoot highly -which is big praise from Wallace since Wallace generally ABHORS the entire Canadian music scene and artists/bands. But, somehow , I only had the one "best of" lp in the collectro (which I got from one of them old bookclub get-ten-lps-free deals as a kid.)
So I've been inundated in Lightfoot of late and really enjoying it.
I can only think of maybe 5 ABSOLUTELY PERFECK songs . (Just now only Nick Drake's "Northern Sky" comes to mind.)
Well now I have a new one to add: "Affair On Eigth Avenue".
Wallace can't put a finger on exactly HOW Lightfoot's lyrics are striking a chord. (Unlike, say Dylan, his lyrics are not intellectual or even profound.) I guess its the sheer direct honesty ...and somehow this sad mystery.
For example, from "The Canadian Railroad Trilogy":
"There was a time in this fair land when the railroad did not run,
When the wild majestic mountains stood alone amongst the sun.
Long before the white man and long before the wheel,
WHEN THE GREEN DARK FOREST WAS TOO SILENT TO BE REAL."
That never fails to hit me....and I start to cry.
I like to think some of Lightfoot's lyrics are like Oscar Wilde's short stories - deceptively simple...yet very memorable.