7 posts tagged “elo”

Holy crap, a TNP cover of an ELO song!!!  They're no Jeff and Kelly, sure, but this is still a freakin sweet cover...  Okay, next I'd like to see them do "Waterfall" and maybe "Shangri-La."  No, forget that, they would do an AMAZING "Nightrider."

Well, my 70's obsession may be running down.  Yesterday on the Greyhound after not having listened to my iPod since Friday I discovered that the first thing I wanted to hear was not ELO but The Concretes, and this morning I woke up with the Beirut song Scenic World playing in my head.  It's been a good ride.  I'm definitely not done with ELO, though, although I may do you a favor and stop blogging about them.  One last song, though...

Rain Is Falling

Electric Light Orchestra

Time

Electric Light Orchestra

And can I just say how much I love this album artwork?  Also the line:

Looking from this window
A thousand rivers running past my door

I don't know why... kinda reminds me of the Bessie Smith song "Backwater Blues" in a weird way.

Back Water Blues (Bessie Smith Song)

Dinah Washington

First Issue: The Dinah Washington Story (The Original Recordings)

Dinah Washington

I have been becoming a fan of 70's music more and more over the years, slowly but surely.  And it seems like every year I go though a period of listening to almost nothing but 70's music, then I'll sort of shake my head and get back to the present.  A couple of years ago I was bent on collecting every Queen studio album (which I did), last year I was super into George Harrison's solo work, and of course right now I'm in the thick of a crazy ELO obsession.  Even when I'm working, the kids and I listen almost exclusively to the classic rock XM radio station.  Hey, they seem to like it; the baby really started to get his groove on last week listening to the Badfinger song "Day After Day"!  Anyway, to continue in this 70's theme today I bought the album "Hank Wilson's Back" by Leon Russell.  I already have a few of his albums, plus the one he collaborated on with Willie Nelson, but last week I had the urge to hear his version of "Goodnight Irene," so I ordered the CD (all we had in the store were his more recent albums, where he looks like Santa Claus). 

Goodnight Irene

Leon Russell

Hank Wilson's Back

Leon Russell

I just picked up the EP Galaxy of the Lost yesterday, by Lightspeed Champion.  I have to admit I had been a little leery of him because he is just so WEIRD looking, but he kept popping up on the same blogs that Patrick appeared on, so I gave it.  And how pleased was I?  This is great stuff, and the icing on the cake was the cover of Xanadu as the last song on the EP.  Considering my latest obsession, the timing on that one is almost eerie...

Xanadu

Lightspeed Champion

Galaxy of the Lost

Lightspeed Champion

Also, on the Patrick front, I finally got around to burning the alternate version of "Secret Garden" onto a cd and re-importing it, so I can finally share this little piece of joy here!  I personally love it a lot more than the album version, and although I have a physical copy of the Magic Position single, this song only appeared on the iTunes version of the EP.  ACH!  iTunes is a blessing but also such a pain!  Anyway...

Augustin / Secret Garden (2)

Patrick Wolf

The Magic Position

Patrick Wolf

So my current fixation on ELO is a little unusual, I guess, although it's not unusual for me to completely immerse myself in things that I am interested in.  I was thinking the other day that ELO is a bit like Queen in the theatricality and being over the top, dramatic, etc.  So that probably explains a lot.  Anyway, the first time I saw this vid I was kind of appalled and grossed out, but as I could have expected I came around and now I can't stop watching it... I guess I have developed more of a tolerance for disco-sounding music in general.  Even so, I still kind of can't believe that I actually like this song.  But... there it is.

On Saturday Andrew and I drove out to Walnut Creek in a rented Zipcar, and all I can say is I remembered exactly why I moved away.  I had some kind of morbid curiosity to run into old friends of mine from high school, but the only guy I saw that I recognized was the brother of a guy I had English with in junior year.  Let down.  I told Andrew, though, that I was kind of surprised to see everything the same as it was six years ago.  As if the entire East Bay should have ceased to exist once I was no longer living there.  Anyway, after that we drove to Berkeley and had lunch at Smart Alec's on Telegraph.  As we were walking to the car afterward, Andrew asked if the street had changed, but I think the weird feeling came from the fact that nothing about it had changed at all.  I mean, if my high school self had been there on Saturday, she would probably have thought it was still really cool.  But enough about the East Bay, oh my god it was so BORING out there!  I had brought a Swedish pop cd for us to listen to in the car, and after we had listened to it about five times through I started hankering for the most recent cd I've bought....... The Best of ELO!  I know that's kind of a weird thing to have just bought out of nowhere, but this all started way back on that day that I was listening to my George Harrison cds.  I went home that day and ordered the Concert For George DVD, having been inspired by some clips on YouTube.  When that arrived I watched it obsessively for several days, and a week later I had been persuaded by Jeff Lynne's contribution to the show to order the ELO cd.  I had never heard of him or ELO before, but I thought his voice was great (and the Grizzly Adams look is super cool too!). 

Strange Magic

Electric Light Orchestra

Strange Magic: The Best of Electric Light Orchestra

Electric Light Orchestra