Today’s stack of CDs:
Acid Mothers Temple and the Melting Paraiso U.F.O., Electric Heavyland
Antipop Consortium, Antipop vs. Matthew Shipp
Art Ensemble of Chicago, Americans Swinging in Paris
John Coltrane, In Europe, Disc One
Dimmu Borgir, Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia
Farmersmanual, Explorers We
Opeth, Deliverance
Cecil Taylor, Conquistador!
Yes, Yessongs
I bought the two-disc version of Jimi Hendrix’s Blue Wild Angel: Jimi Hendrix Live at the Isle of Wight on Tuesday, as my final CD purchase of 2005. I haven’t finished listening to it yet, but so far it’s…well, it’s pretty ordinary. In a way, it’s kind of cool to know that The Greatest Human To Ever Finger A Fretboard had off nights just like any other musician. To take but one example, did “Machine Gun” really need to be 22 minutes long? And did it need a drum solo? No, and no. There’s some typically fine music on the double-disc, but overall it really doesn’t show Hendrix in the best possible light. Some of his run-throughs of “classic” tunes like “Purple Haze” are perfunctory, a fact which shouldn’t surprise anybody; he’d been playing the song for four years at that point—anyone would have gotten bored with it. I’m not sure this is a concert that should have been edited down to a single “highlights” disc the way it has been, though—it seems to me that Hendrix’s divine status virtually demands that his stuff be heard in full, fuck-ups, toss-offs and all. But I know most people only want the good stuff. So maybe they should stay away from Blue Wild Angel entirely.
It’s important to start a new year off right. So I’m spending today listening to the first six Black Sabbath albums, in order.
Black Sabbath Lyrics
Released: February 13, 1970 - A Friday, no less!
1. Black Sabbath (6:16)
2. The Wizard (4:18)
3. Wasp, Behind the Wall of Sleep, Basically, N.I.B. (10:40)
4. Wicked World (4:42) / Evil Woman (3:22)
5. A Bit of Finger, Sleeping Village, Warning (14:20)
