What I've Listened to the Past Week

Thursday - Thursday was close to a day without music - it was "Jump Day" for going to Phoenix, and on arrival I went more or less straight to the company Stockholders' Meeting, and from there to the "light dinner" reception, and then off to bed. I don't recall hearing even background music during any of this. However, driving to the airport in the morning, I did have The Dark Side of the Moog 5 - Psychedelic Brunch in the CD player.

Friday - More company meetings, more lack of music. However, that evening, we were split into groups and bused to different restaurants across the city. I wound up going to a place in Scottsdale called Cowboy Ciao, and we all had a pretty good time. Place seemed like something of a meat market - lots of well dressed couples at tables, lots more mixed singles eating at a long bar. It dawned on us over dessert, however, that we all wanted to stay out a little bit later, and realizing that there was no way that the bus driver was going to leave without us (what was he going to do - drive back empty handed? "I don't know where they went?"), we decided we were in charge and that we would walk over to a little old bar known to one in our party. Even though I wasn't drinking, I kept egging everyone else further along - "Sure, we can stay out all night if we want to!" Well, we wound up in The Rusty Nail, an outrageously overcrowded country & western bar, with a band playing mere inches away from our eardrums and a tiny little dance floor that shouldn't have held more than maybe two couples, but was somehow accommodating a dozen. So Friday night, I listened to a lot of my all-time favorite country and southern rock hits, from Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound to Sweet Home Alabama to You're the Reason Our Children Are Ugly. They even played some western swing - I'm not sure, but I think I remember them covering Big Balls in Cowtown. But eventually I showed my age when the bus finally found us and I joined the group getting on, leaving three behind still dancing on the floor - three Brits to be exact.

Saturday - I'm not sure what happened later Friday night ("What happens in Scottsdale stays in Scottsdale"), but the next morning, one of the Brits, the fairest one to be sure, was carrying a yellow rose with her all day. Lonesome Cowboy Burt must have struck again. Most of the day we were back into the meetings, but we finally got a break between 2 and 6 and I wandered and explored around the Biltmore to indistinct strains of Top 40 music from unidentified radios and speakers.

Sunday - Sunday was my "play day" in AZ, and as I blogged before, I rented a car and headed out to Sedona after a brief drive through Tempe to check out the college girls. Driving between Phoenix and Sedona, down into basins and up over ranges, I kept getting and losing radio signals, but never found anything particularly interesting. I heard "classic rock," "Christian rock," some uninspired hip-hop, some tepid Tejana, and a lot of talk, but nothing that kept my attention. I couldn't even find any new age music in Sedona on a Sunday afternoon! (not that I particularly wanted to). When I finally got onto the two-lanes up in the mountains, it was a relief to just turn the radio off and unroll the window, and listen to my rented Grand Prix cut through the cool mountain air.

Monday - Another Jump Day, this time in reverse, PHX to ATL. The only music was once again back in my own car, where the CD changer had by now advanced to The Dark Side of the Moon 6 - The Final DAT.

Tuesday and Wednesday - On The Dark Side of the Moog 6 - The Final DAT, Namlook and Schulze return to dancefloor trance music. The first three tracks feature bass drums at something like 150 bpm. The first two tracks are in an elegiac style, with Part I featuring cool sound morphing and whispering vocals, but by Part III it all gets a little hectic. In Part IV (the TDSOTM CDs don't have separate, distinct tracks, but are broken into individual parts or segments for ease of listening), Bill Laswell finally brings the sub-bass, soft chords, cinematic vocals, Namlook's guitar and percussion sounds all together, and Part V is an epic 24 minutes with no beats at all.

The Dark Side of the Moog 7 - Obscured by Klaus (best title in the series), starts us off with a nice dark sequence, which provides Schulze with the basis for his trademark deep chords to enter. The sequence gradually becomes more intense and rhythmic as the chords continue and eventually segues into Part II, and the sequence continues, with crescendos and percussion loops entering. Part III is an ambient 18-minute soundscape, and as the end approaches, the sequence from the end of Part I/beginning of Part II slithers up from behind every so sneakily and segues into Part IV, a variation on Part II, modulated some and with brighter analog tones, then back to a more faithful rendition of Part II. Part V is a Mellotron interlude, nice as far as Mellotron interludes go. Part VI closes the CD with a darker ambient soundscape than Part III, with a bit of piano to give the finale a nice, sad color.