And the nominations are... vintage!

the wonderful new editions of albums previously out 30 and more years ago are the reason why we - music fans - can keep listening to music. Forget the hype for the next new thing that english magazines and Mtv are trying to sell to you. The real deal is here, in the reissues of the (real) great albums.

And we also have to say how truly terrific are these new editions: tons of unreleased tracks, terrific booklets with photos and great articles, gorgeous packaging. Here where to invest your money.

2006 was pretty good: here some of the best stuff

The Allman Brothers Band- Eat A Peach De Luxe Edition.

The classic part live part in studio last album with Duane Allman is out now with a second cd with never released before live stuff from one of the greatest series of rock concerts ever, the ABB residence at the NYC Fillmore East in June 1971, the only missing tracks from that legendary series of shows already published. Real cosmic music.

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band - Hammersmith Odeon. London '75

If you can chose, chose the Born to Run 30th Anniversary Edition; in that case you wil get a dvd with this terrific performance, first time Bruce Springsteen was in Europe. This audio only version is worthwhile too: part beat poet, part jazz rocker, this Springsteen is far away from the Born in The Usa-Rambo hero. The real thing.

Grateful Dead - Fillmore West 1969

Another series of unreleased stuff from another legendary run of concerts, this time in San Francisco, at the peak of the psychdelic era. Three cds in a absolutely stunning gorgeous packaging: all the missing stuff from one of the best live album in history, Live/Dead. Dont you dare miss this one.

Gram Parsons - The Complete Reprise Sessions

He was the best american songwriter of the 70s and one of the greatest ever. This - again - terrific packaging have his two solo albums and a full cd of rarities, outtakes and demos from those sessions. A great booklet, great photos and some of the best american music ever from one of the greatest american voice ever. Probably reissue of the year.

Un Paese di cialtroni e cioccolatai

Altro che di santi e di navigatori. Per ottant'anni abbiamo dovuto finanziare con il nostro sangue un'azienda che in qualunque Paese civile sarebbe stata chiusa per manifesta incapacità aziendale, per ottant'anni abbiamo foraggiato questa fabbricchetta di (pessime) automobili torinese affinché i suoi dirigenti potessero farsi di cocaina e andare con i travestiti, con la minaccia che altrimenti "avrebbero messo gli operai sulla strada".

Per trent'anni gli sportivi hanno dovuto subire i furti, gli imbrogli, le minacce mafiose della società calcistica affiliata alla fabbrichetta di Torino.

Risultato? Una volta beccati con le mani nel sacco e giustamente condannati, adesso un po' alla volta a questa squadra calcistica (di ladri) stanno togliendo tutti i punti di penalizzazione. Altri otto ieri. Certo, senza questa squadra la serie A non funziona. Si perdono troppi i soldi.

Come diceva Bob Dylan, "I feel ashamed to live in a land where justice is a game".

Reduce

"È passato il secolo ventesimo, quello veloce e breve, dal '19 all'89. Doveva decretare nei fatti come da idee che l'hanno prodotto l'alba della libertà, a seguire il sol dell'Avvenire, l'uomo nuovo, la nuova umanità.
Eccolo: mattatoio abominevole in dimensione industriale,milioni e milioni a decine, di uomini e donne, vecchi e bambini, ridotti a fumo cremoso, fanghiglia viscida escrementizia e putrida. Tolto il soffio divino a questo si riduce l'uomo. Macello d'ogni speranza, illusione d'umana presupponenza. Su questo costruisce chi s'affida, contro Dio, all'uomo.
Nelle due dimensioni in dote alla modernità: il nazifascismo e il comunismo.
Alla post modernità: lo scientismo tecnologico genetico".

Giovanni Lindo Ferretti, da "Reduce". Mondadori.

Ps: il libro dell'anno.

And the winner is... still a long way

Ok, is mid October so is a little too early but I'm mostly trying to remember them all, counting them all, decide which one is very worthwhile then we will have the usual top 5 or something.

Let's start with these two

Various Artistis, Rogue's Gallery, Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs & Chanteys



this is a Hal Willner production of old songs, inspired by Johnny Depp carebbean film series. Wilner hilarious liner notes almost worthwhile the entire (double) album, but is the terrific versions of old pirate songs from people like Nick Cave, Lou Reed, Bryan Ferry, Robin Holcomb, Martin Carthy, Stan Ridgway, Bob Neuwirth, Lucinda Williams and yes... even Bobo that makes this a terrific listening.

Solomon Burke, Nashville



You wont expect the now old King of Soul Music singing country music? I wasnt too, but this is 30's country music, the real thing. And, tho Solom's voice is clearly a 'black' voice, the cross over is fascinating. Backed only by some acoustic guitars - sometime some drums - and some excellent vocalists like Emmylou Harris, Patty Loveless and Gillian Welch, this is a truly wonderful surprise.

Stay tuned for more nominations

Oh babe, truer words have not been spoken

The Who guitarist Pete Townshend has hit out at Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones for being too old to tour.

Townshend, who famously penned the line "I hope I die before I get old' from the band's most famous hit 'My Generation', insists it is time musicians from the 60s packed away their instruments and called it a day.

The 61-year-old rocker says he wouldn't pay money to go and see Dylan or any of his other contemporise from the decade play live, and insists he wouldn't even go and watch his own band if he was a fan because they are past it.

Townshend - who has just completed a world tour with his original The Who bandmate Roger Daltrey - fumed to Britain's Daily Express newspaper: "I don't think the big bands are going to be able to do this much longer, I really don't. I don't want to go out and see Bob Dylan. I don't want to go and see The Stones.I dont want to go to see Crosby, Stills and Nash. I wouldn't pay money to go and see The Who, not even with new songs. It all makes me sick and I mean that in an ageist way.'

Townshend claims he very rarely sees many teenagers at Who concerts and insists the band only still manage to sell out stadiums because of their loyal older fans who grew up with them.

He explained: "People say, 'Oh I went to see The Rolling Stones concert there were lots of young people there.' But it's not young kids. Once. They come once. There are a lot of people who come and see bands like The Who once just for the experience.'

Reflections on life

“In the soothing softness of the modern world, the mass of traditional rules which gave consistency to life broke up as the frozen surface of a stream breaks up in spring… Thanks to the progress of technology, the greater part of the restraints imposed on us by the cosmos have disappeared and, along with them, the creative personal effort which those restraints demanded… The frontiers of good and evil have vanished in a mist of ideologies, whims, and appetites… As everyone knows, few observations and much discussion are conductive to error; much observation and little discussion to truth”.

Alexis Carrel - nobel prize

Sign on the cross (or the world according to John Lennon)

sometime 'imagin-ation' get over the reality. sometime viceversa.

The other day an hostess for the British Airways was suspended from work and now could get fired because she was wearing a little cross on her neck. Thats against the law of BA: you cant wear any kind of jewelry, they says. Bullshit. You cant wear a cross because you are flying to some islamic country, you might offend the islamic passengers, you will offend the atheist passengers etc etc.

Remember John? 'Imagine no religion... and the world will be as one'.

Sure. A world where you have to hide your face and who you really are "to live in peace". The world according to John Lennon is already a reality.

A black eyed dog he called at my door

And if one day you should see me in the crowd
Lend a hand and lift me
To your place in the cloud



Now I'm darker than the deepest sea
Just hand me down, give me a place to be.
And I was strong, strong in the sun
I thought I'd see
when day is done
Now I'm weaker than
the palest blue
Oh, so weak in this need for you.



Do you curse where you come from,
Do you swear in the night

I was born to love no one
No one to love me
Only the wind in the long green grass
The frost in a broken tree
I was made to love magic

Tomorrow is a long time - demo

Imagine: a song about nothing

John Lennon said that Imagine might have been the manifesto of the Communist Party. Interesting. To me this song could be the reason why Richard Hell wrote Blank Generation. Only that Hell song is way much better: angry songs says a lot more.
Imagine is a terribile song. Not musically, of course. John Lennon was a musical genius. Is the lyrics that are scaring like hell. The world Lennon is imagining is a blank world, where there is nothing. A world where we are all the same. No difference, no history, no religions, no heaven, nothing of nothing. Surely there will be peace that way: the same peace you get from the kiss of death. When you are asking for nothing, you have a problem. A world where, in order to survive, you better forget who you are. Is from a song like Imagine that the idea of 'multiculturalism' as a big blank space came out. It makes me think of George Orwell’s 1984. The fact that this song is still today the hymn of every good political correct liberal and pacifists, said a lot.
This song reflect in a perfect way what the western world is become since the days when John Lennon wrote this song. A world where there is nothing anymore to live and to die for, where forgetting about life is better than trying to live.
How ironic that a song like Blowin’ in the Wind by Bob Dylan is today almost forgot. Bob was asking the meaning of life, John was simply surrending to life.
Or maybe he was right when he said that Imagine could be the manifesto of the Communist Party: nothing wrong with that, but then somebody made of this song what this song is not.

maybe we ain't that young anymore, show a little faith, there's magic in the night

"This little light of mine I'm gonna let it shine, everyday
On Monday he gave me the gift of love
On Tuesday peace came from above
On Wednesday he told be to have more faith
On Thursday he gave me a little more grace
On Friday he told me just to watch and pray
On Saturday he told me just what to say
On Sunday he gave me the power divine
Just to let my little light shine"

the year of the Cat take 3

'Greenfields, Golden Sands' (on the new upcoming album) is a never-released song he wrote in 1968 and which might have found its way on to Mona Bone Jakon. "Good songs never die", Yusuf says "(...) Most of the songs are inspired by the urge to raise human consciusness and seek to find a better world or make one" he reasons. "In that respect, you can definitely see a clear stream between some of the old songs of the idealistic 60s and 70s and the new"

An Other Cup is truly a great album.