Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#381 in the Series) is Roy Buchanan, You’re Not Alone. Many of you are aware of Roy Buchanan. In fact, we’ve featured him once before.  You probably know him as this guitar slinging blues player with the fastest licks in the business. This would be true, but this album is a little different.  Yes, he still plays those killer notes.  The music still has some blues base to it, but this was still quite different. OK, what makes it different? Firstly, Roy tackles some pretty well known cover tunes on this record. He plays Neil Young’s” Down By the River” and Joe Walsh’s “Turn to Stone.”  Another interesting aspect here was the use...

As composer, guitarist and vocalist for the band Citadel, Rejyna’s sonic work ranges from searing to serene.  Her lyrics and vocals present phonic ponderings and philosophical premises that contemplate dreams and inner intuition as the source for true peace and happiness.  Rejyna often strays from standard song structure, such as using silence as a chorus, or putting two or three short songs into one interwoven full-length piece, straying from 4/4 whenever a chance presents.  The harmonic interplay and moods are intended to match lyrics and guitar phrasings to the message of the song. Taking time to return to her hometown for some overdue reunions presented Rejyna the opportunity to play some solo acoustic sets.  She put together a set...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#348 in the Series) is Neil Young, Trans. Neil Young, Trans.  Love it _____, Hate It_____ You tell me.  I don’t believe that there was ever a more polarizing Neil Young album than Trans. I know people that absolutely love this effort. I know people that can’t stand it. I feel that Neil loved that! What makes people react this way?  Maybe you haven’t heard this album.  What caused the spilt reaction was mainly due to one thing.  That one thing was the vocoder.  What is a vocoder? I guess you could say it was the grandfather to today’s auto-tuner. Trans had nine tunes in all. Five of those nine had Neil’s vocal...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#343 in the Series) is Ministy, Twitch Ministry was quite the big deal in Chicagoland in the early 80s. They released a number singles and EPs while still a club band.  Some of them got them some nice air-play.  It was big news when they signed with Arista and and in 1983 when they pumped out their debut album, With Sympathy?  Supposedly, band leader Alain Jourgensen was never happy with that album.  Maybe he was trying to tell us something with that title?  Me, I loved With Sympathy. I don’t think they ever released a better album. After its release, Jourgensen had an ugly break up with Arista. He turned Ministry into a...

Today’s Cool Album Of the Day (#298 in the Series) Is Robert Fripp, Exposure. Robert Fripp had a plan in the late 70s. He wanted to have three albums released as a ‘Trilogy.’ They would be related releases and would share musicians, producers, song writers, etc.  Not completely, but there would be enough overlapping to show the plan that Fripp had in his head. Besides Sacred Songs, the second album would have been Peter Gabriel’s second solo album, or as you may know it as ‘Scratches.’  We’ll be featuring that album soon enough. The third installment of the trilogy would be this one, Robert Fripp’s Exposure.  Daryl Hall adds some great vocals on tracks like “North Star” and “You Burn...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#197 in the Series) is Focus, Moving Waves. Focus was a Dutch seventies band that featured the keyboards and vocals of Thijs van Leer and the wonderful guitar work of guitarist Jan Akkerman.  The other two band members were Cyriel Havermans on bass and Pierre van der Linden on drums. Their second album was titled Focus II. Here in the United States it was known as Moving Waves. Moving Waves included one of the most original hits songs in US history, of course that would be “Hocus Pocus.” The music was quite experimental sounding even without a yodeling falsetto based vocal track. This was head of its time when this was released in...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day is Laurie Anderson, “Big Science.” I’ve always liked musicians that try and do something differently. But I loved musicians that do something differently and actually come up with good music! There IS a difference!! Laurie Anderson can really be ‘out there’ sometimes. But she has a vision and can bring it to life. Some would refer to her as a ‘minimalist.’ Feel free if pigeonholing is your thing. Big Science was her first release and I believe, still her most popular. It was released in 1982 and featured the eight minute haunting track, ‘O Superman (For Massenet).’ She later went on to do some more interesting works with the likes of Peter Gabriel...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day is Kraftwerk, “Autobahn.” Another one of those classic albums that side one was the title track and nothing else. Hailing from Germany, Kraftwerk “Autobahn” was mainly a synthesizer album. It did include a bit of flute, guitar and violin but not that much. It was released in 1974. The title track was 22 minutes in length. A chopped up three minute version was released as a single and actually made it to #25 on the Billboard charts in the States. Did you ever have this album? Personnel Ralf Hütter – vocals, electronics. Florian Schneider – vocals, electronics. Klaus Röder – violin, guitar. Wolfgang Flür – percussion. Track listing Side one “Autobahn” (“Motorway”) (Ralf Hütter, Florian Schneider, Emil Schult) – 22:42 Side two...

  Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Under Heavy Manners” by Robert Fripp with David Byrne After the demise of King Crimson in 1974, Robert Fripp spent several years laying low before entering a period of high activity from 1977-1980, resulting in some of his most interesting collaborations. Starting in 1977, Fripp joined Brian Eno in Germany to add guitar parts to David Bowie’s “Heroes.”  This was followed by Fripp’s production of albums for Daryl Hall (Sacred Songs), Peter Gabriel (his second album with the “Scratch” cover) and the eponymously titled album by The Roches, plus sessions with an amalgam of like-minded artists including Peter Hammill (of Van Der Graaf Generator), Brian Eno, Blondie (on Parallel Lines),...