Perfect Sound Forever magazine- February 2021 issue

[Jason Gross]

Greetings,

In the latest issue of Perfect Sound Forever <http://www.furious.com/perfect/index0221.html>, you'll find (among other things):


2020 PSF MUSIC POLL
See what our writers liked and if you agree with any of it. You might discover some great new music (or not).

ASSEMBLED MULTITUDE
Heavy rock via large 70s studio band by Kurt Wildermuth
"Here's a pop-rock trivia question: In 1969, The Who released its so-called rock opera, Tommy. The next year, the "Overture" from Tommy became a Billboard Top 20 single. However, the hit version of that instrumental was not by The Who! Who was it by? You're forgiven if the name doesn't come to you, or if the answer doesn't ring bells. Over the decades, The Assembled Multitude has gone from having its moment to being adrift in time."

ROBBIE BASHO
Folk guitarist's many sides via box set by Richie Unterberger
"The unnervingly eclectic, mysterious acoustic guitar maestro Robbie Basho released more than a dozen albums before his 1986 death without attracting anything larger than a small if avid cult following. More than half a dozen live albums were posthumously issued, and nearly an hour of early-'70's outtakes appeared in early 2020 on Real Gone's Songs of the Great Mystery. Could there really be that much more worth hearing? And is there enough of an audience to justify the release of a five-disc set of previously unreleased Basho tapes?"

CLASSICAL CANON
Call it 'baroque,'romantic' instead?, book excerpt by Gregg Wager
"No one can really say how much the new and improved appreciation of "early music" really influences today’s musicians and new composers. Still, one of the new research conventions to arise in light of resurrecting the old music are categories for the history of Western music divided neatly into eras with not only the names “Medieval” and “Renaissance,” but “Baroque,” “Classical” and “Romantic” as well. These rubrics of historical eras have their advantages, once learned by heart. Then again, they also confuse."

CRAZY HORSE
Interview with drummer Ralph Molina by John Wisniewski
"Through all of Young's rollercoaster career, Molina has been one of the few constants. And having created decades of amazing, timeless music, Molina has been an important part of musical history. While Young (who he refers to as 'the big guy') has done his share of interviews, the Crazy Horse mainstay hasn't been heard from nearly enough. So, in the words of James Brown, it's time to give the drummer some."

THE FALL
Interview with co-founder Martin Bramah (Blue Orchids) by John Wisniewski
"While a craggily guy named MES (RIP) is almost always now seen as the not-so-cheery face of the Fall, the fact is that early on, they really were a band and not just him and your granny on bongos, as he once joked. When the band started up in the mid-'70's, there were five actual individuals who made up the band and just a singer and a back-up group. Guitarist Martin Braham was one of the founders of the Fall and on the group's 1979 debut LP, he co-wrote most of the songs with said MES and would later go on to form the Blue Orchids."

LUC FERRARI
French composer improvs in the 70s by Daniel Barbiero
"Where does one go after having spent the better part of the 1950's and 1960's running through the experimental musics of the time--serial composition, musique concrete, composing for tape and acoustic instruments, pure electronic composition? For French composer Luc Ferrari (1929-2005), the place to go in the 1970s was the open, elastically-bounded territory of improvisation."

A GRANDFATHER'S MUSIC
Bonding over classic rock by Peter Crigler
"On Thursday, December 3, 2020, I lost my 87-year-old grandfather, Philip Henry Pierce. He had been suffering from dementia for quite some time and had been in a nursing facility for almost two years. This isn't a 'woe is me' sort of thing. I just decided to take the time and remember the man that I knew, a music fan who did his best to open my horizons and find something different than what I was already listening to."

THE JADES
Fiction- '60's garage rock antics by Jim Rader
""Alright, guys, let's do ‘Money'," Junior seethed; he used the funky R&B standard to vent his frustration, singing the "dirty" version: "See that girl all dressed in black/ She makes a living on her back", etc. We played "Money" for ourselves, achieving a saturnine transcendence over the "nothing" gig. The dirty song over, the crowd looked drunker, the catering staff looked half-drunk, Clark and I slightly drunk, The Viscounts sober, cool as cucumbers. Despite our earlier ill will toward their singer, they had listened to us and even clapped at the end."

MOODY BLUES
Timothy Leary's (not?) dead by David Chirko
"The Moody Blues were enamoured with Timothy Leary - advocate of psychedelic, or psychodysleptic, drugs, such as LSD, psilocybin, marijuana, and mescaline. It was November of 1969 during a love-in with the Jefferson Airplane at Elysian Park in Los Angeles which "...brought them face to face with the subject of Legend Of A Mind, when...Leary turned up with a train of followers. As the band started...the song, Leary sprang...to the stage...rattling a tambourine..." Later, they all embraced. This began a camaraderie that endured until Leary's passing."

VAN MORRISON
How he reached his Wavelength by Pat Thomas
"Despite being mainly recorded in England - Wavelength was thematically Van's most American album. This album would mark the beginning of a spiritual quest for decades to come reflected in his songs and behind the scenes in his personal life."

PETIT BISCUIT
How a dance hit became a personal anthem by Daniel Hess
"The song that has stuck with me for the latter part of my adult life to date has to be "Sunset Lover" by Petit Biscuit. Turning the questions above on myself, I can wonder why and maybe think that "it's amazing" but that's too easy. Considering the factors that led to this song becoming so prevalent in my life since I first discovered,. I'm pretty sure my story of the perfect tune has at least some parallels to your own song."

SYD STRAW
More than just a pretty voice by Kurt Wildermuth
"It is a truth universally acknowledged that the pop-rock-folk-country artist Syd Straw is a gifted singer. By "universally," I mean within the small but beautiful world of people who've heard her sing, whether live, on her own recordings, or on her guest appearances. As we'll see, Straw has pipes, but she doesn't have a signature approach. She sings in service of the song."

VINYL ANACHRONIST
Record Player Time Machines by Marc Phillips
"Every great jazz remaster I've truly loved doesn't make its way into my heart because it is a sonic spectacular. I fall in love for one reason: the recording is an open, unique window into a historical event. It isn't perfect. It is, instead, a time machine. I've chosen three recent jazz remasters that illustrate this point."

WHISTLING
In movies & cartoons by bart plantenga
"The most ominous whistling ever heard is found on movie soundtracks. When you hear the whistling (mixed with yodeled wails) on Morricone's spaghetti western soundtracks you feel it stretching across an endless moment where time sounds mockingly boundless, and meets the desert wind at the horizon. Whistling has fascinated me since my childhood when my father regularly whistled an unknown melody. It offered him focus, calm, and - upon completion - an upbeat spring-bird whistle of personal fix-it triumph. I finally got the hang of it. This curiosity remained dormant until quite recently."


We also have a Spotify playlist with most of the artists above here:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6ICxa6SJlFqSFQNhWAlEXG?si=UuPJzYw-RSqO6l1bNGZiAQ

We're always looking for good writers and/or ideas so let us know if you have anything to share.

See you online,
Jason