10 three letter initialisms often used by certain rock bands

1. ELO (Electric Light Orchestra)
2. OMD (Orchestral Manouvres in the Dark)
3. ELP (Emerson,Lake and Palmer)
4. BTO (Bachman Turner Overdrive)
5. CCR (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
6. CSN(Y ) (Crosby, Stills, Nash (and Young))
7. AWB (Average White Band)
8. CCS (Collective Consciousness Society)
9. BAD (Big Audio Dynamite)
10. PIL (Public Image Limited)

365 Albums 166-180

1. Tarkus Emerson Lake & Palmer 1971
2. Gach Sgeul Julie Fowlis 2014
3. Cyclone Tangerine Dream 1978
4. Dancehall Sweethearts Horslips 1974
5. Not too late Norah Jones 2007
6. Eli Jan Akkerman & Kaz Lux 1976
7. Unicorn Tyrannosaurus Rex 1969
8. Guitar for Sale Jan Akkerman 1969
9. Hymns IV Page CXVI 2011*
10. Nice to have met you Thijs van Leer 1978
11. Two sides of Peter Banks Peter Banks 1973
12. In and Out of Focus Focus 1970
13. Always Gabrielle 2007
14. Aqua Edgar Froese 1974
15. Voyager Mike Oldfield 1997

365 Albums 61-75

1. Indelible Grace Side A Side B 2001 (Rerelease 2008)*
2. Revolver The Beatles 1966
3. Father of the Bride Vampire Weekend 2019
4. Scribbled in chalk Karine Polwart 2006
5. Diamond Life Sade 1984
6. Pictures at an Exhibition Emerson Lake and Palmer 1971
7. Fragile Yes 1972
8. Feels Like Home Norah Jones 2004
9. Solo Rick van der Linden 1981*
10. How to save a life The Fray 2006
11. The Home Concert 2008
12. Hommage aan Rogier van Otterloo Jacobs, van Leer, van Dijk, Jacobs 1990
13. Moving Waves Focus 1971
14. Les Deux Amis Les Deux Amis Plays Focus 1985*
15. Zooming into Focus Texel 2018

(* Suitable for Sunday playing IMHO)

365 Albums 1-15

I'm trying to listen to 365 albums this year. Here are 15 I've already listened to.

1. Argus Wishbone Ash 1972
2. Introspection Thijs van Leer 1972*
3. Aranjuez Jan Akkerman Claus Ogerman 1978*
4. T Rex T Rex 1970
5. Please please me The Beatles 1963
6. Guitars Mike Oldfield 1999
7. Heaven and Hell Vangelis 1975
8. Antarctica Vangelis 1983*
9. Titanium Flag Colin Harper 2017
10. Ekseption Ekseption 1969
11. Stratosfear Tangerine Dream 1976
12. American Pie Don McLean 1971
13. Hymns Page CXVI 2009*
14. Close to the Edge Yes 1972
15. Emerson Lake and Palmer Emerson Lake and Palmer 1970

(* Suitable for Sunday playing IMHO)

Death of Greg Lake

The death of Keith Emerson in March is followed now by the death of Greg Lake and just when his most famous song is being played everywhere. I love this arrangement of what is after all a partly anti-Christmas song and so in rather a strange place in some ways. I love Ian Anderson and his flute. Greg Lake once said "when you can buy anything you want and do anything you want, you soon discover that you don't actually want any of it".

Retro album "of the week" 37 Pictures at an Exhibition

I love the idea of this record, perhaps more than the album itself. A live album, it originally came out in 1971 but I didn't get a copy until some years later, first on vinyl then CD. What I like is the fact that this is classical music played live in the rock idiom to a raucous northern crowd.

Recorded at Newcastle City Hall the opening track of the album is played on a pipe organ installed in the City Hall in 1928. The drum roll connecting the opening track to the next was apparently there to give Keith Emerson time to get back to the main stage to perform.

The record company was understandably reluctant to release a classical suite as an album, and at first insisted it be released on their classical music label instead. For this reason it was shelved a little while but after the success of their second album, the label agreed to release it as a budget live album. There was also a video, which I've not seen but must check out. This is of another live performance in 1970 in the Lyceum (see here).

Being a live album, sometimes Emerson's voltage-controlled Moog oscillators went out of tune, due to humidity and temperature. The vocals are sometimes a bit shaky too.

The original album cover, commissioned William Neal who designed and painted every canvas, used a gatefold sleeve (much beloved of big seventies albums), depicting on the outside blank picture frames labelled with the titles of the pieces: "The Old Castle", "The Gnome", etc. The paintings were huge oil paintings full of ELP symbolism, like the Tarkus background in the "Hut" and the white dove embossed into the titanium white oil paint in "Promenade" (visible only on the original painting). On the inner sleeve, all of the paintings were revealed, but one remains blank: "Promenade". The musical piece by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky is not about a picture but represents a walk through a gallery. ELP do only four of the original 10 pieces.

All of the paintings were later hung at the Hammersmith Town Hall, London, and photographed by Keith Morris and Nigel Marlow.

I knew a boy in school, a Londoner who pronounced his surname Proe-bert. He was such an ELP fan he called his cat Emerson!

CM 06b Mussorgsky

Talk of ELP inevitably leads to Mussorgsky and Pictures at an exhibition. I put the video above together myself.

CM 06a Copland

Like much of my intake of classical music I got this via rock - Emerson Lake and Palmer in 1977. Copland produced his fanfare for the common man originally in 1943. Great music, great title.

RnR03 Nutrocker

I suppose messing around with the classics is just what people do. This version of Tchaikovsky's ballet piece The nutcracker appeared in 1962 and was performed by Kim Fawley and other session musicians. It is one of several attempts at this sort of thing, of which this is the best. The track gained a new lease of life in the seventies when Emerson, Lake and Palmer (whose whole career was based on this sort of thing) so appropriately used it as an encore to their famous live rendition of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition.

Holiday Gem 05

1. I believe in Father Christmas by Greg Lake on an Emerson Lake and Palmer EP.

This Greg Lake single first came out in 1975. Each Christmas that I heard it I was drawn to it. Then one Christmas I saw the 1995 EP with this and other tracks in a big record store. I didn't buy it at the time (I show restraint sometimes) but sent for it from Amazon another Christmas. It has 5 tracks - 2 versions of IBIFC, a version of Prokofiev's Troika (by Keith Emerson and the tune that provides the musical theme for IBIFC), Humbug (B-side of IBIFC single - delightful, jazzy, near-instrumental) and Nutrocker - encore from the ELP album of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition (based on Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker so a Christmas number too).

The second version of IBIFC is a stripped down ELP version of the masterful Greg Lake single. This latter track has everything going for it as a Christmas single. First you get a beautiful 12-string guitar, a pleasant voice singing a pleasant tune. Then there's a distant choir, sleigh bells, some sort of bell/horn synthesiser to give atmosphere. Next, as we approach the final minute, timpani start, a large choir, an orchestra, military drums - all moving to a dramatic and powerful close. These are what hit you at first. Then you realise that the words (by one Pete Sinfield) are totally cynical. Poor old Pete has seen through the whole sham. No snow - only rain; no Father Christmas and (for him) no Jesus either. He tries to rescue it by wishing everyone a hopeful Christmas and a brave new year. This is highly post-modern - a song that makes you feel all "Christmassy" but that points out that the whole thing is a sham. I do believe in "the Israelite" but moaning about Christmas and enjoying it at the same time is great fun.