Face the MUSIC!!!

  Talk about an album that changed my life in more ways than one...  I was thinking about this last night, how around 1994 my musical tastes took a major left turn away from alternative rock based offerings and instead headed straight into what was once called New Age music and then ultimately jazz, eventually even leading me into world music.  Michael Hedges was certainly a huge part of that left turn and I would have never seen it coming even just two years prior. As many of my stories go, this was an album that I originally picked up as part of the ol' Columbia House/BMG "get 10 CD's for a penny" routine which gave me the opportunity to try multiple albums with little to no commitment.  I remember perusing the catalog one day and seeing this album listed, a bit to my shock, and I remembered Michael Hedges' name from a Windham Hill video that a friend of mine was watching a few years earlier.  I recall seeing this semi crazy looking guy playing an acoustic gui...

  I can't think of an album that is more fitting of the title of "life changing" as that of Peter Gabriel 4, also known as "Security" in the states.  I would almost dare say that this is the album that made me take songwriting seriously and start dabbling in it in a more real sense, taking it out of the imagination realm and beginning to actually experiment, learn an instrument, work on my voice, etc. I could probably separate my life into two halves, one being "...before Genesis/Peter Gabriel" and "...after Genesis/Peter Gabriel".  Genesis will undoubtedly end up in this blog more than once but I've been fighting with myself about which album to start with, and that's a harder argument than you might think. Having said that, it took me awhile to dabble in the Peter Gabriel realm since there was something darker, more chilling, more real about Gabriel's work and presence in general versus the Phil Collins early 80's Genesis an...

  I know I've been neglecting this list, mainly just due to having way too much going on all at the same time and also fighting various fires.  I'll try to get back into the groove again because I do think this blog is fairly important on some level. Ah, the band called Yes...  You knew I'd mention them sooner or later, no?!  Talk about a band that can conjure up all kinds of feelings, from pure elation to absolute disgust, and so on.  A friend of mine's wife has a very classic comment about why she can't stand Yes and the reason is apparently "every note with them has to be perfect".  It's certainly a strange thing to hold against a band, mind you, but it is a decent example of how the feelings on the band run the gamut including the mildly bizarre. Personally, I've always loved them although it certainly took me a bit of time when I was young to be able to get my head around their music in general.  Being a child of the 80's, like many in my ...

  Here's an album that many people may not be familiar with.  It was almost like fate led me to find this one and I'm fairly sure if luck hadn't intervened that I would never have crossed paths with it.  Kim Fox just happened to be the opening act for Holly Cole, I believe, and a friend and I went to see her performance at the original Nita's Hideaway in Tempe, AZ.  My friend was a fan of Holly Cole and wanted to see her; I was (and remain) a bit so-so on Cole's work but I did sort of like the album she was touring for at the time, I believe "Dark Dear Heart", and I also had an appreciation for her Tom Waits cover song album.  Because of this, I agreed to go with him to the show. The old Nita's in Tempe was literally exactly that...a 'hideaway' or hole in the wall sort of place, and it was also somewhere that I frequented, seeing quite a few great performances there in the most intimate venue imaginable.  As usual, I went into the performance l...