Outer Music Diary

Tangerine Dream – Thief. 1981. This was T. Dream’s second soundtrack, and still at the point where it’s more of a self-contained album, rather than pure incidental music. From a soundtrack perspective, I would suspect this isn’t really that well put together, but as a fully realized album it’s actually held up well. I’ll be honest and state that I didn’t think it would make the cut. But it’s very much in the vein of “Tangram” and “Exit”. The electronic percussion is dated, but Edgar whipped out the guitar more here than usual, and that’s always a plus. Nice sequencer work too. I’ve had this since high school and it may go the count.

Pulse – s/t. 1972. About the biggest mystery to me on this release is the date. I don’t have the LP in front of me, but it’s hard to imagine this type of blues rock coming out so late. I like the heavy tone on the guitar and gruff voice. A lot of harmonica to sit through, which is one of my least favorite instruments. Album is better than it should be, as some of the tracks get lengthy and they’ll throw in a good idea or 2 (composition, instrumentation). Still, nothing to get overly excited about. A period piece.

The Second Coming – s/t. 1970. Old school horn rock on Mercury Records. I’m probably one of the world’s biggest horn rock fans, but it’s rare to find albums in this style with any kind of consistency. And The Second Coming is no exception. They’ll mix a brilliant 7 piece instrumental with simplistic blues and pop music. Their arrangements were a little tighter than most, and they actually allowed their guitar player to go in frenzied Terry Kath mode, which is what kept the early Chicago albums interesting (not to mention rocked out). Worth seeking out for fans of the style, but otherwise not much here to sway an opinion. Better than bands like Illustration, Rastus, Swallow and Big Foot. But Brainchild, McLuhan or Heaven they aren’t.

Marillion - Koln, Germany 7/21/91 WDR (DVD)

My interest in Marillion may have ended at some point anyway, but it definitely hit a wall around this time period with the release of Holidays in Eden. In revisiting Seasons’ End, I wasn’t surprised to find my nostalgic view of it to be erased and after watching this DVD, well mostly, I’m realizing that this is not the band for me. When my friend came over with his I Am Alan Partridge DVDs, I had no problem turning this off (probably in the encores somewhere) and putting it in the outpile. Songs like “Cover My Eyes,” “Incommunicado” and “Hooks In You” strike me as some of the smarmiest AOR bullshit ever written and even earlier Fish-sang pop hits like “Kayleigh” suffer from Steve Hogarth’s rock star (the posing, baring the chest etc) shtick. True, Marillion may have gone and reinvented themselves soon after but this era made it pretty certain I wouldn’t be there with them. Fans will obviously feel differently, especially with the near perfect quality and sound.

Project Object - The North Star, Philadelphia, PA 2/17/01 (2-3 of 3) (DVD)

Watched the first DVD of this show quite a long time ago, maybe before OM went blog. Featuring old Zappa musicians (like the wonderful Napoleon Murphy Brock) and new Zappa clones alike, this is a decent audience recording of the band going over the Zappa canon and doing a fair amount of justice to it. The somewhat static recording doesn’t really reward continued viewing, so treated it more like an audio. And it was a very good show, the band tightly moving through the repertoire.

Genesis - Piper Club, Rome 4/16/72 (DVD)
Genesis - Melody, French TV 2/12/74 (DVD)

Keeping up with all the various upgrades of Genesis videos is something of a pain especially since my interest in the band has waned over the years, from being a huge fan to finding it all just a bit too melodramatic for most of my current moods. These two clips come from a 2 DVD set that covers many of the early Genesis videos, however, of the three shows on the first DVD, the classic Belgian TV performance has been upgraded. The Melodie performance is pretty interesting given it’s basically Supper’s Ready and I Know What I Like, but the quality suffers a bit. Obviously of interest to those wanting to check out Peter Gabriel’s costumes. The Piper Club video (and I think I may have the full audio of this somewhere) is a lot shorter and went too quickly to really remark on except that it too was a little weak on the quality side.