Top Ten FB Album Challenge Part 3

Day 3.

            Rush: Power Windows.

            This was the first album of theirs to come out while I was actively in their thrall. Some people hated this record, that is their loss.

            To me it was an instant classic.

            “Better the pride that resides in a citizen of the world, than the pride that divides when a colorful rag is unfurled.” –That is one of my favorite bits of Rush lyrics right there. It comes from Territories. I deeply agree with that sentiment.

            Mystic Rhythms is a psychedelic classic with expansive lyrics. The thudding drum intro is entrancing. MTV used to play a video of Mystic Rythms which was directed by one of the Devo dudes.

            Here’s the video

            All the jams in Marathon make the song like a fine wine for the ears.

            Production wise this is a wonderfully crisply brightly sounding affair which matches the material perfectly.

            Lyrically Neal did some sharp, deft, writing. Consider this rail against conformity in Grand Designs, “Swimming against the stream, life in two dimensions is a mass production scheme.” Brilliant.

            The Power Windows tour was the first time I ever saw them thanks to my good friend Paul Armstrong. We went to the show on the old party bus from the store Stairway to Heaven in Boston, it was crazy.

            The Clockwork Angels tour was fantastic because they played a good chunk of Power Windows on that tour. Grand Designs even got a spin.

            I’ve heard all these songs live except for Emotion Detector, which I believe was never performed in concert.

            My personal connection to this album is that I never, ever get bored or tired of hearing it. If anything as time goes along, I like it even more.

Your Rush fan,

Count Robot

Top Ten FB Album Challenge Part 2

            Day 2.

            Rush: Moving Pictures

            What can I say about this album from my favorite band?

            The production is densely layered. Rush’s playing is just at an amazing level. Using Permanent Waves as a springboard from this record their writing is sharply crystallized packing a visceral punch.

            When I first heard this album it was already a few years in the rearview mirror, but that didn’t matter. The freshness of the album still resonated to me and in many ways whenever I listen to it there is a feeling of joy as if it’s a welcome familiar friend.

            How well do I know this album? Whenever I get any piece of new stereo equipment this is my go to album for testing it out. I know how this album should sound no matter what type of speaker/headphone it’s blasting through.

            In a snide review of Moving Pictures someone once suggested no one ever listens to side 2.

            Wrong!

            When I had the cassette of this stellar album I always listened to both sides back to back in order. Once the CD came out, if anything the track that would be skipped was often Limelight but now I appreciate it as a great lead into the astonishing rise fall epic the Camera Eye. What a beautiful song contrasting two cities. Witch Hunt is a howl of horror. True horror. First its witches, communists, terrorists… “Quick to anger, slow to understand.”

            Another thing going for Moving Pictures is that it is a well-sequenced album. Just a spot on classic. Never have I tired of listening to this record.

            On the Time Machine tour, Rush played this entire album in order. That was worth the ticket price alone.

            My personal connection to this album is that it is insanely amazing.

Here is the legend:

Yours in fantastic albums from Canada,

Count Robot

Top Ten FB Album Challenge Part 1

            Most of you have probably heard of the top 10-album challenge thing on the social media spheres, it’s primarily on Fakebook.

            Yours truly was nominated and did it. A real friend on the site, Laura Clifford of the great cable show, Reeling: The Movie Review Show, nominated me. Another real life friend Mike Langlie of the incredible toy piano band, Twink suggested that I do an essay on each of my choices; so here it is on this here blog.

            The way I viewed this challenge is believe it or not they aren’t necessarily my favorite albums of all time, but rather they are records that came at a formative time of my musical experiencing life and have stood the test of time, consistently staying in orbit of my tune conciousness as well as being in the stereo often enough to be on this list. The albums are listed in the order that they were placed in on FB, which is to say merely in the order that they occurred to me; not at all in order of how much I dig them.

            So having given you that entire foreground, let’s proceed.

            Day 1.

            Tangerine Dream: Zeit.

            This isn’t a standard musical album; it’s a pure experience. At time’s in the double album’s worth of tracks, it’s not even music, it’s pure sounds. Unearthly, unhumanistic, strange, creepy, shape shifting sounds, this thing is all that and more.

            It has only four tracks. Each of which consumed an album side back in the day. There are distorted cellos, an early Moog synth, distorted organs, and sounds no other human probably ever made. All of this blends through an amorphous filter of gurgling soundscapes that wash through the conciousness.

            This is the soundtrack to a dream.

            Upon my first listening to this record I knew that there was something that beautifully defied reason bursting into my ears.

            This album has been well traveled throughout my life. It was the soundtrack to many Halloweens worth of handing candy out to the kids with it blaring through open windows giving them a freak out as they received treats. The album is still played regularly during late night writing sessions. The atmospheres greatly helped to shape the Dracula novel I’ve been constructing. One Halloween at the long gone amazing Middle Eastern bakery/coffee shop/restaurant the Crescent Dragon we used this album as the soundtrack to the silent movie Nosferatu as we heckled the film. A friend told me about listening to this album in black room with a head full of LSD; it’s hard to imagine that not being a life changing experience.

            Here is a link to the album. Listen to it and allow it to change your perceptions of what music can be.

Yours in sounds beyond the human race,

Count Robot

Count Robot’s 3 favorite albums of 2017

OK so we’re well into 2018 and I have finally have this list up. As Ministry and Ed Wood would say, “So what?” Would it help if I told you that I probably already have one favorite for the 2018 list? No? Well then read this list or don’t.

3. Analog Missionary: Arc

Really great to see the long silent Analog Missionary become active again. I’ve really enjoyed this bands wonderful music. Welcome back!

Peace is one of the most creative songs crafted in 2017. For that song alone the album hit number three. This song blends so many insane elements together it transcends the genres of Bollywood, early 80’s prog rock, 90’s prog rock, New Wave, Psychedelia, and a twinge of Goth.

The classic sounds of Analog Missionary are still there but are given a newfound fire. I have the feeling if they put out another album soon it’ll be the best they’ve ever done.

https://analogmissionary.bandcamp.com/releases

2. Twink: Wide Eyed Wild Ride

Joy! Joyful dancing stuffed animals in a magic forest toy piano jam. Yeah, that’s what I hear in this record. It’s a party of fluffy awesome. Tunes that just bop out of the electronic corners and crash into your soul.

Another year, another amazing Twink album. So many great releases come out of this project that it’s mind blowing. Wild Eyed Wild Ride races to the top as one of the best Twink albums ever which is why it’s so easy for it to make the top 3 this year.

Another fantastic album cover and a beautiful vinyl release as well. Twink forever!

https://toypianoband.bandcamp.com/

1.    Blackfield: V

This is their second best album. Their best being the first Blackfield album. Wonderfully orchestrated strings sweep across this record. From the opening score to the crashing end with the ocean sweeping throughout the album. Amazing songs that feel nostalgic yet fully planted in the present.

“I’m a Lonely Soul” is a trance inducing loop of a song that is smart enough not to overstay its welcome. One thing I adore about this album is that it’s 40ish minutes. It lasts just long enough for you to think, wow that was brilliant then its gone in the ocean.

Family Man has a rocking biting guitar kick. A dig at the straight life but yet a love for it at the same time with fantastic hooks. A perfect example of a pure wonderful pop rock song.

Avi and Steve have done it again.

Musically yours,

Count Robot

3/31/18

Less than You

Less than You

I’m not sure that I know how to be human. Sure, sure I’ve been among your kind for almost six hundred years but there are things that confuse me.

            I wish I could be a good person. They’re many among your kind that do so many positive deeds.

            Yet others are opposed to a better way.

            Let me site some specific occurrences that leave me baffled as to how to emotionally orient myself.

            There are those beautiful women that give their charms to those who deserve it most.

            A little boy smiles at a passerby.

            A tender woman singing for no discernable reason.

            How do I respond? My dear pretty human friend, how would you react?

            Do tell me please.

            I don’t understand what it is to feel right.

Yours in writing from a void of self-avoidance,

Count Robot

Record Store Day 2017

Yes, Record Store Day is a way back in the rearview mirror.

But there’s little doubt that you’re not asking what did Count Robot get for Record Store Day?

Well we hit a couple of stores and I wound up with London Fog by The Doors.

For those who haven’t heard about this release it’s a record/cd of the very first gig by the Doors.

Is it good? Well if you’re a real Doors fan, its essential. If you’re a casual fan, skip it.

It’s great to hear them play many covers and a couple of solid originals to a crowd that is eating it up.

Go forth and dig it.

Yours in deep listening,

Count Robot

Beauty is beauty

Beauty is beauty

Playboy beauty meant something once

Now there’s a vapid desire to allure with nothing to bare

Nothing of beauty to show

In days before there was modernistic Grecian artistic beauty of female form

Women as art is beautiful infinite magic

Sell boredom and nothing

You lost the scene because of a narrowing vision of blonde implanted artifice perfection, but only to an eye so dull

Once up a time there was a story in every photo

Now there’s boring

Yours in art loving,

Count Robot