Dick Chainey

Every day I will try to post an offering from my extensive knowledge of weird and troubling music.

Here's a good start, I think:

Dick Chainey

The Resident's My Window is outside of their "normal" fare, if normal is concept that can be applied to any Residents' song.

Deal4Fuji

Trakhak

Dick Chainey

In the spirit of Butlerian Jihad, here is a tribute to the computing power of the unaided human mind:


group: Dawn of Midi
title: "Atlas"

ParkerTorres23

That song is the favorite song of my best friend. He just loves it

Dick Chainey

The bass guitar is typically considered a part of the rhythm section. I mean you would never use the base to deliver a long searing melodic solo. Would you?

Dick Chainey

Ima get medieval on yo ass with a wicked nasty tromba marina


Alleluia / Quia ergo femina (Hildegard von Bingen, 12th century)

Dick Chainey

Artist: Gastr del Sol
Album: Serpentine Similar (1993)
Title: Ursus Arctos Wonderfilis

ThermionicScott 

I'm always happy to see the Residents getting some love.

Trakhak

Got your long searing melodic bass solo right here:

Dick Chainey

Elliott Carter, last of the great 20th century composers, wrote "Sound Fields" as he approached his 100th birthday. Listen to this piece and feel the icy grip of death as it closes round your throat.

Stadjer

Objectively maybe, but since it's one of the few tracks on Trout Mask Replica that can be listened as regular songs, my personal perception is that it's not weird at all.

Stadjer

Talking about troubled minds...the band completely lost it when the singer got healthy mentally.

Dick Chainey

I was hoping for a TMR remaster that would clear up the muddy sound and reveal more details of the instrumental parts. Especially in songs like Frownland, with its crazy rhythmic independence between the individual musicians.

Dick Chainey

Roky Erickson, leader of the 13th Floor Elevators, was a pioneer of the 60s Austin pyschedelic scene. He battled personal demons of paranoid schizophrenia, institutionalization, electroconvulsive therapy, and numerous legal/contractual quagmires. "Beginning in the 1980s, Erickson developed a years-long obsession with the mail, often spending hours poring over random junk mail he received and writing to solicitors and celebrities (dead or living). He was arrested in 1989 on charges of mail theft for gathering up mail from the mailboxes of neighbors who had moved; Erickson collected the mail and taped it to the walls of his bedroom."

During periods of relative clarity, he was able to continue producing fascinating and disturbing music.

You Tube

Artist: Roky Erickson and The Aliens
Album: The Evil One (1974)
Song; Two Headed Dog (Red Temple Prayer)

tyrion

Music:


Poetry:


(can't find a video that shows up here, but it's Charles Bukowski "The Shoelace")

zandoval 

1980-1981... While civilians were embracing "The Empire Strikes Back" and recovering from Hinkley's shoot out with the president, the cold war was brewing badly. Russia was burning up villages in Afghanistan and we talked. Us in the military were totally confused as to where we were going and even where we came from. Much of our field equipment had been left in Panama or the Philippines and pay and promotions were at an all time low as we talked. Carter's do more with less policy had failed. Ragan was in the processes of pulling us out of the quagmire but really we had no idea if it would work. Many called it just elephant talk but the tune was catchy and led us out of a witches weep...

tyrion

"weird music for troubled minds" is Fred Lane's middle name.

Stadjer

I like Beefheart the most when his madness condenses into regular songs with him doing melodic singing. The Spotlight Kid, Clear Spot, Shiny Beast, Doc at the radar station to a lesser exend. TMR simply needed to be but except for a couple of songs I don't enjoy it much. I like the weird but without the structure and relative regularity it tends to shut me out.

rm -rf

Ornette Coleman: Lonely Woman from The Shape of Jazz to Come (1959)

wikipedia: Coleman had a unique approach to pitch as well. His use of microtonal intervals was central to his sound, and he even went as far as to suggest that the same pitch should sound different when played in different contexts, stating that "jazz is the only music in which the same note can be played night after night, but differently each time"

Deal4Fuji

I was more focused on the troubled mind aspect of this thread with the neo-natzi themed works of Death in June. Moving towards the weird, early analog synthesizer pioneer Isao Tomita combines the weird with the beautiful in his adaptation of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition

Dick Chainey

I certainly understand this. My first encounter with Beefheart was the album "Lick My Decals Off, Baby" when it was issued in 72 if memory serves. (Yes, I'm that old.) Even that album was equal parts adulation and utter repulsion. And TMR is tougher to appreciate by far. For simple enjoyment "Clear Spot" is my go to.

Dick Chainey

A perfect storm of weird: Howard Shore, Ornette Coleman, and David Cronenberg

Dick Chainey

The late Stephen Scott (d 2021) founded the Bowed Piano Ensemble in 1977 at Colorado College, and composed a body of music for his unique vision. For a time they toured and performed extensively, until the ensemble was disbanded after Scott's retirement.

I love this piece, not just because it's weird, but because it's quite startlingly beautiful music. The sound palette created by this ensemble sounds like nothing else.


"The "soft bows" consist of several strands of fishing line, and the "rigid bows" are tongue depressors with horse hair affixed. The damper pedal is wedged so that the piano is a big resonant box. To play at the keyboard, then, there are specially made mutes for individual pitches. The bows and keyboard don't (can't) play the same pitches at the same time."

Filmed at Packard Hall, Colorado College on September 11th 1999.

BTW, if you liked the above, this CD is worth owning:
Stephen Scott – Minerva's Web / The Tears Of Niobe
Label: New Albion – NA026 CD Format: CD, Album Country: US Released: 1990 Genre: Classical Style: Contemporary