From: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org (loud-fans-digest) To: loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Subject: loud-fans-digest V7 #406 Reply-To: loud-fans@smoe.org Sender: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk loud-fans-digest Wednesday, May 28 2008 Volume 07 : Number 406 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [loud-fans] My notes on the first third (and yours?) ["Andrew Hamlin"] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 14:40:28 -0700 From: "Andrew Hamlin" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] My notes on the first third (and yours?) > Haven't heard any of your faves of '08 so far, Andy, but I've been wondering about 13th STAR: What's it like? How does it fit in the Fish/ Marillion canon? It's still my favorite record from this year, but I'm afraid I can't answer the canon question well. I tried RAINGODS WITH ZIPPOS back when that came out, eventually sold it, took a chance on 13TH STAR because of the buzz, and because I can sympathize with a man deserted by his fiance at approximately t-minus two weeks to the wedding. Listen to it if you can. A good many songs stem obviously from the obvious, but just as MISPLACED CHILDHOOD traced a long arc from the despondency of a single soul to a redemptive vision for the planet, 13TH STAR shifts from oppressive boredom to savagery to disbelief and hurt, and finally to some vision of a cure--without, admittedly, the finesse and structural integrity of the earlier work, but with enough power song by song to see it through. >And who the blazes are Pwrfl Power? Who the blazes *is*, actually. That would be Kazutaka Nomura, aka Nomura Kazutaka (the correct, i.e. Japanese, rendering of the name), aka Kaz, aka PWRFL POWER. As I mentioned before, if you turned Jonathan Richman Japanese, gave him classical guitar lessons, and then sent him to Seattle, he might have a reasonably similar sound. http://www.myspace.com/pwrflpower > The majority of my '08 faves should be familiar names on this list: > > * Joe Jackson's piano-centric RAIN is wonderful, I think, his best set of songs ever (although HEAVEN & HELL, his experiment in merging classical, Broadway, and rock into one kind of music, remains my favorite of his albums). Sound samples sound okay, although man oh man did he rip "Mercy Mercy Mercy" to make "The Uptown Train." Not the most horrible of crimes; Bauhaus' GO AWAY WHITE (another 2008 must-hear, says I) opens up with the "Taxman" riff, middle cleverly chopped out. > * Eric Matthews's THE IMAGINATION STAGE is absurdly lush, something like a talented Brian Wilson imitator arranging Steely Dan melodies, and is almost too much for me, but in that "almost" is the margin for a record that I'm enjoying immensely. Yeah, I can't quite remember why everybody hated Matthews years ago, but he's got those above bits spot on. Anybody try Neil Diamond's new one? Andy "Meanwhile Snow White held court, rolling her china-blue doll eyes open and shut and sometimes referring to her mirror as women do." - --Anne Sexton, from "Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs" ------------------------------ End of loud-fans-digest V7 #406 *******************************