Sam Prekop - Who's Your New Professor (2005)

I remember buying this album. *Gasp* Andy bought something?

Yes. In 2005 I was half-assing my way through community college, living at home, and not doing much.

I remember forgoing Border's (which in the town I grew up in was the sole source for anything remotely "indie rock") for Everyday Music. You see, I had worked a crazy job the summer prior, making a lot of money for a kid just weeks outta high school with no work experience. And I blew almost all that money on cd's and other things I didn't need.

I'd had some Sea and Cake albums on my computer at the time ("Oui", "Nassau" and "One Bedroom") and though I never really listened to them, I decided that Sam Prekop's album was one that I was going to buy on that trip. (I'm unsure, but the other might have been Fiery Furnace's "Blueberry Boat")

Prekop's voice is so likable, the smoothness of his music so enjoyable, I immediately fell in love with the record. It was around this time that my mom and I got close and I accompanied her on some of her sales trips for work. The cd that I brought along that we both enjoyed a lot was this. Fond memories of driving to the beach with "Who's Your New Professor" just capturing the serenity of the Oregon Coastal passages.

It's not the best album ever, but it's one that I come back to every so often. Today was one of those days.

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David Ruffin - Who I Am (Better Rip)

The link to Who I Am in the David Ruffin post is for an album that is ripped at a decent quality, but is obviously not up to par with the rest. This is the remastered one, which sounds a bit better. You'd be smart to download this, because it's probably the solo album of his I listen to the most.

Link Removed by DMCA - Let me know if you want it. Son of Zamboni has it too.

The Ruffin Brothers - I Am My Brother's Keeper (1970)

Album is ripped from a vinyl source and while the quality is decent enough, there a couple pops and a bit of muddiness. Nothing too distracting and if you have a decent enough system, it will sound pretty great.

Pretty decent album by two of the best vocalists Motown ever produced, who just happened to be brothers. Not great by any means, but some of the covers are a lot of fun.

I don't know what to say, if you like either of them I guess you should try it. The highlight for me is "Didn't I Blow Your Mind" which is just one of my favorite soul songs ever, no matter who's singing it (even NKOTB)

Enjoy.

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David Ruffin Megapost

A few weeks ago I got on this huge Temptations kick and was listening to all Temptations related things for like 2 weeks. In the process, I happened to upload every David Ruffin album to hipinion, and though that was a while ago, I figured I might as well just post them here too, enjoy the man.

My Whole World Ended (1969)


Feelin' Good (1969)


David Ruffin (1973)


Me N' Rock N' Roll Are Here To Stay (1974)


Who I Am (1975)


Everything's Coming Up Love (1976)


In My Stride (1977)


Gentleman Ruffin (1980)


David - The Unreleased Album (2004 issue, originally 1971)


Apparently I'm missing "Doin' His Thing" which I can't find any info on anywhere anyway. I'm also missing "So Soon We Change" which was his first record on Warner Bros. (Gentleman Ruffin being his second). And I don't have the record he put out with Eddie Kendricks. I do however have the record put out with his brother, Jimmy, which I will likely post in the next day or so.

Baby Grandmothers - Baby Grandmothers (1968)

Awesome Swedish heavy psychedelic music from perhaps the best year in rock history. I'm not gonna relay the history of the band or anything, but just describe what it sounds like. Basically this band is the antecedent of the sound that the currently "popular" Dungen imitates, which is even more evidenced by the fact that the album was remastered/re-released a few years ago on Dungen's label Subliminal Sounds.

If none of this makes sense to you, think of this: Long-haired blond dudes, attacking you with long guitar solos, few words that make any sense to you, alternating between heavy and soft, but not doing anything too technical (this isn't no god damn prog record). However, one song is just over 16 minutes, and the other over 19, and these are in the middle of the album. What's interesting is that while the length of these tracks may seem overkill (I feel this sometimes), the album doesn't really "drag" on. The tracks are that length to establish the feeling, and they do it pretty damn well.

It's not the most inventive record ever, but it's definitely a solid psychedelic record and one that was once a lost treasure but has now seen the light of day in many circles. Enjoy it.

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2:22 (A Mix)

Here's my mix of songs that are 2:22 long. It's just a zip folder of mp3s but here is the tracklist. Mostly tried to keep it halfway consistent throughout and applicable for some sort of social gathering (not that anyone is going to listen to this in that way) but I think it's pretty good. 30 songs, though I guess I should have narrowed it to 22. silly me. it's almost all rock n roll, soul, country/rockabilly and a couple punkish songs. Some of the mp3s come out as 2:23, but they are actually 2:22 in length when they play. Itunes is just weird sometimes. again, i didn't retag because i just did this pretty quick for fun, so if you add these files to your itunes or whatever, just add them to a playlist in this order.

1. bullion - i just wasn't made for these times
2. al green - ride sally ride (single edit)
3. rufus thomas - i think i made a boo boo
4. jr. walker & the all-stars - do the boomerang
5. them - just a little bit
6. herbie duncan - hot lips baby
7. boyd bennett - move
8. patsy cline - stop, look & listen
9. speedy west & jimmy bryant - old joe clark
10. meat puppets - buckethead
11. blondie - hanging on the telephone
12. the clean - billy two
13. the rolling stones - rip this joint
14. johnny thunders & heartbreakers - baby talk
15. lizzy mercier descloux - wawa
16. the rumblers - clap hands
17. james bell & the turner brothers - the funky buzzard
18. the bar-kays - soul finger
19. sly & the family stone - everyday people
20. the soul seven - the cissy's thang
21. mel & tim - ain't love wonderful
22. the pretty things - there will never be another day
23. the animals - baby let me take you home
24. lightnin' hopkins - my little kewpie doll (bad boogie)
25. johnny cash - blistered
26. wanda jackson - tongue tied
27. the troggs - come now
28. the kinks - animals in the zoo
29. billy nichols - london social degree
30. the beatles - no reply

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Tarun Bhattacharya - Kirvani (1996)

Picked this up during one of my many visits to the university library. Didn't really expect much based on the gaudy cover, but it's pretty fantastic. Obviously, I don't know much about the musicians or anything else, so I'll type up the liner notes, which give light to it. Bear with me.

The Santur
An Indian adaptation of a stringed instrument found in Iran, turkey and elsewhere in the Middle East, the santur resembles a western hammered dulcimer, and is known technically as a box zither. The instrument contains up to one hundred strings and was developed and popularized on the Indian concert stage single-handedly by the Kashmiri musician Shivkumar Sharma, who remains the senior practitioner today. The challenge of the fixed pitch santur is to capture, as far as possible, a musical style based on traditional vocal music. Continuing the tradition of adaptation, Tarun has made some modifications to his instrument in both structure and technique.

Musical Influences
Tarun's own music education illustrates a multidirectional flow of diverse influences. Surrounded as he was by music (both is parents played the sitar) he began by playing tabla, the predominant percussion instrument of North India. As his interest in santur developed, he studied with his father's teacher, Calcutta's Pandit Dulal Roy, knowna s a performer on santur and the rare jaltarang (a series of water-tuned china bowls). Finally, Tarun chose as his ultimate mentor the world renowned Pandit Ravi Shankar, the sitarist who in turn had studied with legendary Ustad Allaudin Khan (1862-1972). Allaudin Khan performed on the sarod, but he was an exceptionally versatile musician who taught more than a generation of India's senior masters on a variety of instruments.

This Recording
The performances on this CD include two South Indian (Carnatic) ragas played in North Indian style: Kirvani and Hamsa Dhwani. The Northern and Southern traditions share common historical and theoretical roots; both are based on ragas (melodic structures) and talas (rhythmic structures), but each is distinctly different in performance style, musical instruments, and ornamentation.

Track 1: Rag Kirvani
Rag Kirvani is the first selection, and its scale is the same as the western harmonic minor scale - seven notes, with flatted third and sixth. The first sounds we hear are a series of two-note chords innovatively plucked with the fingernails. These are followed by a downward cascading strumming on the full scale which introduces a brief alap, or non-rhythmic introduction. Following the crispness of his plucked notes, Tarun's continuous light hammering on the strings draws out the melody of the alap almost in a whisper. In developing the lower octave, Tarun demonstrates his innovative use of variable pitch: he has added a lower string to the instrument which he presses down and releases with one hand to create glides and sliding sounds otherwise impossible on the santur. In the continua-alap, Tarun explores the harmonic characteristic of Kirvani, often skipping notes in a type of arpeggio structure which recurs throughout the performance.
After an alap of approximately nine minutes which ascends all the way up to the top of the third octave, Tarun introduces a composition (gat) in a medium japtal rhythmic cycle (10 beats counted as 3-2-3-2). Bikram Ghosh (son of the renowned tabla master Shankar Ghosh) introduces the tala with a subtle and delightful improvisation which emphasizes the fluidity of the variably-pitched left hand drum, or bayan. The two performers, Tarun in the lead, then proceed to blend aspects of the raga with the assymetry of the tala in a sensitive and dramatic interaction. Tarun sometimes tempers bright tones by damping (lightly touching the strings) with the free hand. Both musicians, in their respective and joint improvisations, reveal their exceptional virtuosity and youthful energy.
Beginning at around nineteen and a half minutes, the performers begin the conclusion of the raga with a fast gat in tintal (sixteen beats), and a vigorous dialogue in the techniques known as sath sangat (playing the same complex rhythmic patterns together) and saval-javab (question and answer), in which one performer echoes the improvisations of the other. Once again, Tarun fully explores the tonal colors of the santur with a combination of open, muted, delicate and vigorous sounds, striking with the santur's delicate twin hammers. One of the final stages of the performance is the climactic section known as jhala, in which a sort of floating melody line is alternated with a rapid repeated striking of the tonic/drone strings.
A final saval-javab brings Rag Kirvani to its final jhala, and concludes with a thundering chakardar tihai, a cadential rhythmic pattern of three subdivisions which is repeated three times in closure.

As is customary in North Indian music after an extended performance of a serious raga, the musicians conclude with light classical pieces:

Track 2: Misra Anandi
The second piece is Misra Anandi, equivalent to the western major scale with a romantic ornamentation of a full range of accidental notes. A brief alap introduces a lyrical composition in the eight-beat tala known as kaharva. A final alap-like structure recounts the basic melodic structure of the raga.

Track 3: Folk Tune From Assam
The third piece is a beautiful Assamese folk tune, played in a scale parallel to a western major scale and with a light-hearted six-beat rhythm (tala) known as dadra.

Track 4: Rag Hamsa Dhwani
The recording concludes with a brief rendition of Rag Hamsa Dhwani, a pentatonic Carnatic raga. The scale does not use the fourth and sixth notes, and the remaining notes are played in the western major scale. After a brief alap, the musicians share a composition in medium fast ektal, a twelve-beat cycle. The variations here are simple and more traditional than those in the opening raga, and after a simple tihai, Tarun concludes this recording with a refined, sweet and gentle ending.

Awesome. Enjoy.

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