Another musician has left us and this one is closer to home. Richard Burmer was an unassumingly brilliant artist and one of the original Southern California synthesists along with Steve Roach, Michael Stearns and Kevin Braheny. But Richard always had a stronger interest in melody, a dramatic flair in arrangements and a rhythmic vitality that…
Category: Reviews & Commentary
Reviews & Commentary
Pat Metheny with Anna Maria Jopek On YouTube
I feel behind the curve on this one, but someone on the XPN boards clued me into this cool video with Pat Metheny and Polish singer Anna Maria Jopek performing Metheny’s “Are You Going With Me” live. It’s a phenomenal version. I think she’s a pop singer turned jazz chanteuse, but she’s done at least…
Reviews & Commentary
Pip Pyle Passes: Legendary Progressive Rock drummer of Gong, National Health and Hatfield of the North
It was only a few months ago that I saw Pip Pyle driving behind a drum set at Nearfest, playing the first ever concert in American by Hatfield and the North. Pip was the pulse that drove you through the psychedelic journey’s of Gong and he was the rhythm shape shifter negotiating quantum rhythms in…
Reviews & Commentary
Lost Soundtracks: Mark Isham’s Invincible mauled by 70’s Hard Rock
If you were among those who made Invincible the number one movie the last two weekends in a row, then you may have noticed, buried somewhere between the Jim Croce, Ted Nugent and Bachman Turner Overdrive, a subtle and moving score by Mark Isham. He has two main themes in the film. One is a…
Reviews & Commentary
Human Beat Box-Lasse Gjertsen goes Hyperactive
I know all of you were tuned into the Teen Choice Awards recently so you might have caught this already, but in case you’er like most people over 15, you probably missed it. In researching some of the claims made by John Foxx in his recent Echoes interview, I stumbled across a myspace site that…
Reviews & Commentary
Loreena McKennitt Returns
It’s been nearly a decade since Loreena McKennitt’s last studio album, The Book of Secrets. But after some personal travails, including the death of her fiancé, she has returned with an album that picks up where Secrets left off. On An Ancient Muse, McKennitt is still mining middle eastern themes and creating exotic stories of…
Reviews & Commentary
John Foxx Today and a Quarter Century Back: Still Totally Wired After All These Years
Next week we’ll be running two features on John Foxx. He’s not a mainstream Echoes, artist, but he’s a musician whom I’ve admired for nearly 30 years now. We almost never do two part features, but John just has too many good things to say and I also wanted to give a retrospective profile and…
Reviews & Commentary
885 All Time Greatest Artists: From Eno to Shankar
How do you vote for the Ten Greatest Artists of all Time? Not just rock artists or contemporary artists or electronic artists, but ALL artists from ALL time. That’s the proposition put forward by Echoes affiliate WXPN in Philadelphia. Their frequency is 88.5 so they’ve been doing the 885 greatest, best, whatever over the last…
Reviews & Commentary
Arthur Lee Leaves the Planet to Find Love
Arthur Lee is the latest musician to leave the planet. The founder of the 60s psychedelic band, Love, died on August 3 of leukemia. His was 61. Lee wrote some great tunes, and played a mean guitar. Even Hendrix liked him and they played together on one song, “The Everlasting First.” Reportedly an eccentric and…
Reviews & Commentary
Farewell CD? Leo Abrahams & Patrick O’Hearn Join the On-Line Only Movement
The change is slowly, but surely happening. Music is moving off of physical mediums like the CD and into exclusive, on-line distribution. Yes, we all know about iTunes, Rhapsody etc. But artists are beginning to move into an exclusive on-line mode. Often this is simply a marketing and promotion move with big acts like those…