![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Fascinating, Captain.
Oct. 17th, 2015 08:25 amMy wife turned me on to an unusual Scottish group called The Easy Club. Their blurb on Amazon describes them thusly: "Easy Club was formed by four musicians who had been playing together in Edinburgh’s legendary folk pub, Sandy Bell’s Bar in 1982. The Easy Club name comes from an eighteenth century Edinburgh drinking club which had been opposed to the union between Scotland and England.
The idea of The Easy Club was to explore new possibilities in Scottish music, by bringing in influences from more modern music such as jazz and early pop. The band saw that traditional musicians were inevitably influenced in some way by the culture of their own era. The Easy Club were happy to embrace modern styles and ideas, because this is the way that traditions develop naturally. It’s actually unnatural, in their opinion, to try to play music in a ‘historical’ manner, as this usually results in a fossilised, ‘heritage’ culture instead of on that is living and breathing.
The band found that they could bring Scottish music and swing rhythms together very successfully, in a way that sounded completely natural. They even found a quotation from the Duke Ellington, who apparently said that "There are only two types of music – jazz and Scottish music." The Easy Club went on to develop its signature style of ultra-swingy Scottish traditional music."
Pretty cool stuff, swing/jazz/folk. They were short-lived, formed in '82 and dissolving around '89. I read that they've released three albums, but I've only been able to identify two: Skirlie Beat and Chance Or Design. My wife already had the latter, so I ordered the former last week.
And now for something completely different.
I've been a fan of Devo for a long time. Back around '90 I was in San Jose doing a massive solo drive from Phoenix to San Jose up to Portland then back to Phoenix via Twin Falls, Idaho (2700 miles, Google Map.) All to attend an anime convention and take a vacation (and it was a very good vacation). Anyway, whilst in San Jose, I stopped in a music store. They had a dozen copies of a Devo album that I'd never heard of, it was called the E-Z Listening Disc. Apparently someone commented to Mark Mothersbaugh that "You never have to worry about someone recording Muzak versions of your music! Yuk yuk."
So Mothersbaugh wrote an album of 19 cuts, all E-Z listening. I am listening to it right now, and it's quite amusing, I think it will probably be a regular on my iPhone for listening at work, I think it's good background music.
Well, the problem is that I didn't buy it in San Jose, and I hadn't seen it since. Sure enough, it's available on Amazon, but for an utterly ridiculous price, on the order of $50! Well, I am a patient man, and eventually someone listed a used copy for $12 or so. I snagged it toot sweet.
(It is definitely my longest solo driving trip, and it was my longest driving trip until 2012 when my wife and I drove 7,000 miles in 7 weeks. The Google map doesn't show you the whole route, but basically we just went back to New Mexico after Milwaukee.)
What do these albums have in common, truly alternative alternative and jazz/swing/folk?
They came out in the same year, 1987.
I am amused.
The idea of The Easy Club was to explore new possibilities in Scottish music, by bringing in influences from more modern music such as jazz and early pop. The band saw that traditional musicians were inevitably influenced in some way by the culture of their own era. The Easy Club were happy to embrace modern styles and ideas, because this is the way that traditions develop naturally. It’s actually unnatural, in their opinion, to try to play music in a ‘historical’ manner, as this usually results in a fossilised, ‘heritage’ culture instead of on that is living and breathing.
The band found that they could bring Scottish music and swing rhythms together very successfully, in a way that sounded completely natural. They even found a quotation from the Duke Ellington, who apparently said that "There are only two types of music – jazz and Scottish music." The Easy Club went on to develop its signature style of ultra-swingy Scottish traditional music."
Pretty cool stuff, swing/jazz/folk. They were short-lived, formed in '82 and dissolving around '89. I read that they've released three albums, but I've only been able to identify two: Skirlie Beat and Chance Or Design. My wife already had the latter, so I ordered the former last week.
And now for something completely different.
I've been a fan of Devo for a long time. Back around '90 I was in San Jose doing a massive solo drive from Phoenix to San Jose up to Portland then back to Phoenix via Twin Falls, Idaho (2700 miles, Google Map.) All to attend an anime convention and take a vacation (and it was a very good vacation). Anyway, whilst in San Jose, I stopped in a music store. They had a dozen copies of a Devo album that I'd never heard of, it was called the E-Z Listening Disc. Apparently someone commented to Mark Mothersbaugh that "You never have to worry about someone recording Muzak versions of your music! Yuk yuk."
So Mothersbaugh wrote an album of 19 cuts, all E-Z listening. I am listening to it right now, and it's quite amusing, I think it will probably be a regular on my iPhone for listening at work, I think it's good background music.
Well, the problem is that I didn't buy it in San Jose, and I hadn't seen it since. Sure enough, it's available on Amazon, but for an utterly ridiculous price, on the order of $50! Well, I am a patient man, and eventually someone listed a used copy for $12 or so. I snagged it toot sweet.
(It is definitely my longest solo driving trip, and it was my longest driving trip until 2012 when my wife and I drove 7,000 miles in 7 weeks. The Google map doesn't show you the whole route, but basically we just went back to New Mexico after Milwaukee.)
What do these albums have in common, truly alternative alternative and jazz/swing/folk?
They came out in the same year, 1987.
I am amused.
