Suzanne Vega talks about melody

Another instalment of the Measure for Measure blog. This time Suzanne Vega talks about melody in her own unique way. As always, it is a beautiful piece.

This time accompany it by listening to Cracking on Last.fm

Interestingly one of my favourite melodies is Gipsy by her. Beautiful song! There are a number of versions on YouTube. I had never seen this one, it is over 20 years old from a German TV show and starts with Tom's Diner. Despite the obvious effects of the VCR on the video, Suzanne's voice is as clear as always!

My Favourite Albums of 2008

A number of bloggers are coming out with the list of favourite albums of 2008. The swear I'm not Paul blog has a link to some of them on this post. Here is mine, somewhat different from what you will find out there. When I started, I thought I would only be able to pick 2 or 3, but I had trouble stopping at 15. Here they are:

1. Asia - Phoenix. (The return of the original 80's supergroup lineup!)
2. Marillion - Happiness is the Road
3. The Raconteurs - Consolers for the Lonely (Check their wensite... pretty cool retro stuff)
   
4. Polar Bear - Polar Bear
5. Light Speed Champion - Falling of the Lavender Bridge
6. Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid
7. Lisa Hannigan - Sea Sew
8. Last Shadow Puppets - The Age of the Understatement
9. Aimee Mann - @#%&*! Smilers
10. Alanis Morissette - Flavors of Entaglement
11. Snow Patrol - A Hundred Million Suns
12. Fight Like Apes - Fight Like Apes and the Mistery of the Golden Medallion
13. Cat Power - Jukebox
14. Coldplay - Viva la vida
15. Curios - Closer

Not sure if these two count as they are live albums, which can be seen as greatest hits, but I sure liked them:

• Suzanne Vega - iTunes Live: London Festival '08
• The Police - Certifiable

As for the my favourite albums that I bought this year, they are a couple of old Porcupine Tree albums. I discovered PT last year, I am not sure how they flew under my radar for so long. But that's a story for a different day:

• Stupid Dream
• Lightbulb Sun

2008 has been a great year for music!

Suzanne Vega - Tom's Essay

One of the blogs I read on a regular basis is Measure for Measure, a blog published by the NY Times about how to write songs. One of the contributors is Suzanne Vega, who I have been a fan of for the last 21 years... ever since I heard Luka on the radio for the first time.

Her blog entry published yesterday talks about the song Tom's diner. It tells the story of the song the remixes and the MP3 algorithm. Not ony Suzanne is a great songwriter, she is also an excellent story teller. It really is a pleasure to read.

Incidentally, the new iTunes Live in London release has a very interesting version of the song where the esentially play the DNA arrangement rather than the usual a capella version of the song. The album itself is an excellent download as it is Suzanne Vega playing on a trio, which is quite unusual. I have seen her live with a four and a five piece band, and with a duo with her bass player only, but never as a trio. Excellent!

Behind the bass guitar - Duke Special in Dublin

Last Friday (August 22nd), Duke Special played in the National Concert Hall here in Dublin, I'm sorry I missed it!

Below is a link from Simon Little's Blog that gives a little view of what it means to be a "hired gun" with an established artist. Simon's main gig is currently with the Divine Comedy.

If you haven't checked Duke Special, do it now.

I'd be interested to hear any reviews of the show from the audience's point of view.

http://simonlittlebass.blogspot.com/2008/08/duke-special-dublin-dorchester-and.html

Enjoy!

New blogs added to my blog roll

I have just added a few blogs to my blog roll on the right. A couple of them are bass related:

• Simon Little's Blog. Simon is the current bass player with the Divine Comedy. He also has a podcast where he posts homemade solo bass songs. Check him out
• The Bass Guitar Blog. Self explanatory.

I also added a new blog about live music around dublin and new album reviews:

• I swear I'm not Paul.

Let me know if you know of any other blogs worth reading

Mike Scott's return to the west of Ireland

I just came across this really eloquent piece from Mike Scott (from the Waterboys) that describes his journey into the west of Ireland for a session with Sharon Shannon. It is a good read!

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=71722921&blogID=408851240