Washed Out

The last few weeks have been quite hectic for me, with a move into a new house. Things are finally feeling settled and luckily I had some good toonz to get me through the painstaking task of putting together furniture.

I have been fixated lately on a band that unfortunately has no back catalog. I've had to scour the inter-tubes to collect what little content that is available at the moment.

Washed out is Ernest Greene, a fella from Georgia that basically has a sound that lives up to his alias. The music has a warm summer quality to it that I just can't seem to shake.

Enjoy!

Washed Out - New Theory

Washed Out - You'll See It

My Ride to the Blues

Little did I know when I began my musical journey so long ago that I would be on a train ride strait to the blues. For years I thought of the blues along with country, depressing slow mundane and generally not worth the time of day. As time has gone on and I've realized how important it is in all forms of music and I've taken the time to delve into the details a lot further over the years.

One of the only truly American musical art forms, blues music spawned rock-and-roll, rhythm and blues, soul and even rap. The sound that originated in Mississippi's cotton fields and juke joints is like no other, and when played well creates a feeling that is hard to find anywhere else across the musical plain.

It took me many years to truly begin to enjoy "roots" blues such as Muddy Waters, BB King, Howlin' Wolf, Big Mama Thornton etc. My love for the blues guitar started with more traditional classic rock legends just as Led Zeppelin, The Yardbirds, The Animals, Fleetwood Mac, Cream and The Rolling Stones.

I've attached tracks from four true legends. This is truly as smooth as the guitar gets as far as I can tell. Something about each of these tracks just gets me right in the gut.

Enjoy.

Jimi Hendrix - Red House (Are You Experienced 1967)

Eric Clapton - Old Love (Unplugged 1992)

Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble - Little Wing (The Sky is Crying 1991)

Led Zeppelin - Since Ive Been Loving You (Led Zeppelin III 1970)

The Cure - The Unheralded Gem that is Bloodflowers

Bloodflowers, an album released in 2000, billed as the third part of a trilogy begun with Pornography and continued with Disintegration is in my opinion one of the most underrated albums ever produced. Bloodflowers boasts all of the Cure's signatures: lazy melodies, gloomy lyrics, classic Smith vocals, and long running times which at first sounds bad, but are what makes The Cure who they are. Though it does not boast classic hits like its brother album Disintegration (Pictures of You, Love Song, Fascination Street etc.) it is front to back truly excellent.

Bloodflowers has never been critically acclaimed as an album, and in a way I can see where these negatives are coming from. The songs do tend to blend, and you often do check to see if the track has changed from one to the next, but all the while the groove and feel never lets up. In my opinion in this case that’s a positive. The album has a purpose, and from the beginning with Out of the World, and the amazing Watching Me Fall strait through to my two favorite finishing songs 39 and Bloodflowers it feels like there is a point to be made.

I’ve attached a few of my favorite gems from this album. Enjoy.

Sorry for the hiatus – it’s good to be back.

The Cure - Watching Me Fall

The Cure - Maybe Someday

The Cure - 39