A Bloy and his Blog

Very sad news in the music world today. South African reggae musician Lucky Dube was shot dead in an attempted carjacking.

Lucky Dube’s music was just a joy to listen to. His beautiful tenor voice singing along with those reggae rhythms was something special. True to reggae traditions, his songs often had a strong social message, singing against things like apartheid, social injustice, violence and crime, and the epidemic of AIDS. The folks who run Lucky Dube’s website wrote “the death of Lucky Dube leaves a great void in the music industry, as 25 years of music suddenly ends in tragedy.”

read the rest of: Lucky Dube, 1964-2007

I’ve been looking forward to seeing Ryan Adams in concert since I first heard his outstanding release, Gold back in 2001. Last night that six year wait was over, when Ryan Adams and the Cardinals played a sold-out show at Madison’s Barrymore Theatre.

The band started the concert with a amazingly tight version of “Goodnight Rose.” Toward the end of the song, they jammed a bit, started fading out and sang the word “goodnight” in an almost mantra-like manner. I expected the song to continue to fade out and finish, when the band crescendoed and launched into the final chorus of the song. Wow! This is going to be good, I thought.

read the rest of: Ryan Adams and the Cardinals in concert

For you Neil Young fans out there, That Truncheon Thing (an excellent music blog) has posted a bootleg of Neil Young’s Chrome Dreams.

Chrome Dreams is described as “one of those great lost albums, from the further reaches of rock history, that never saw the light of day, except to boot collectors.”

This particular bootleg also includes a “select batch of bonus cuts to give you a further taste of just how creative Neil was during this fertile period” (the mid 1970’s).

Definitely worth downloading. Share and enjoy.

I’ve been to five concerts of the band Wilco, and every time I see them, they never disappoint. Perhaps my fondness for their music clouds my judgment, but with each concert I go to, they seem to get better and better. Last night, I was at Madison’s Overture Center where Wilco performed an outstanding show to a sold-out theater.

The band touched on every album from their career last night, playing more tunes from their back catalog than I expected. Some of the best songs of the night were older ones: “Too Far Apart” from their first album, A.M., and “I Got You (At the End of the Century)” from Being There. I also enjoyed the songs from my favorite Wilco disc, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot: “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart,” “War On War,” and “Jesus, Etc.”

read the rest of: Wilco’s live shows keep getting better

Boxer, the newest release from The National, is one of those albums where the melodies linger in your brain long after the music has stopped playing. Maybe it’s the lead singer’s, soothing baritone, maybe it’s the dreamy, atmospheric sound the band has. “Green Gloves” is a perfect example of both.

read the rest of: Boxer by The National

Ryan Adams new disc, Easy Tiger, has been out for a few weeks now, and it’s been in heavy rotation for me. Prior to this CD, Ryan Adams was releasing music at a very quick pace (three hit and miss albums in about a seven month period). Adams and his band, the Cardinals, took their time with Easy Tiger (it’s been a year and a half since the last release), and the result is the most solid Ryan Adams disc since 2001’s Gold.

The albums starts off with “Goodnight Rose,” a rocking promise of the good music to come.

read the rest of: Ryan Adams: Easy Tiger

Several months ago I started linking to sample MP3 files, when I write about music I’m listening to. Since then I’ve been looking for a simple way to add a Flash player to stream those files right from the page. Today I found a post by someone who discovered the Google player used in Gmail can be used on any website.

Update, July 13: It seems Google has changed the parameters of the player and it no longer works properly. The good news is I have found a decent player which I can install on this site.

read the rest of: Streaming MP3 files