So the latest list of Rock and Hall of Fame inductees has been announced, and in addition to recognizing the edgy hard-rock shredding of Joan Baez, they inducted Pearl Jam, Journey, ELO and personal favorite Yes, which I listened to a lot of in high school and college (along with Genesis, Jethro Tull, King Crimson, etc.).
In celebration, here’s “Starship Trooper” accompanied by a montage of eye candy, including some of the Roger Dean variety.
For a little seasonal cheer, enjoy Crocodiles & Dum Dum Girls “Merry Xmas, Baby (Please Don’t Die)”.
Tears Run Rings have a new album, In Surges, out this month, and “Belly Up” is off of it.
Musician Greg Lake, of Emerson, Lake and Palmer and King Crimson fame, has died.
In my youth I drove my parent’s old 8-track equipped Dodge Monaco, with The Best of Emerson Lake and Palmer one of the few 8-track albums I possessed and thus in very heavy rotation. (Among the annoyances: All but 10 seconds of “Tiger in a Spotlight” was on one track, and then a KERTHUNK for the very end.) I never saw one of their elaborate live shows, but I did had tickets for the Austin leg of the Emerson Lake and Powell tour before it was cancelled.
Here’s the obligatory Emerson, Lake and Palmer track:
Alas, there does not seem to be a full version of the original “In the Court of the Crimson King” on YouTube, or that would be here as well…
Bleach were a short-lived Ipswich band during the first bloom of Shoegaze who out a few EPs then broke up. Here’s “Seeing.”
(Hat tip: Primal Music Blog’s Twitter feed.)
Japanese babY [CIC] hails from Krasnodar, Russia. Here they are with a live version of “Твое солнце.” No, I don’t know how to pronounce that. The sound’s a little raw, as you might expect from a live club recording, but the riffs are tasty.
Influences seem to be Jesus and Mary Chain, Sigur Ros, and maybe just a tiny hint of Laibach.
For your Sunday dose of Shoegaze, here’s Burning House’s “If You Won’t”:
(Hat tip: Sounds Better With Reverb.)
For your Sunday-before-Halloween dose of Shoegaze, here’s Curve’s “Horror Head”:
New York City-based Dead Leaf Echo was another band at the Luscious Heaven shoegaze event last Saturday. Here they are with “So.Wrong”: