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Album Review: Helplessness Blues by Fleet Foxes

May 30

Posted by Mike in Music | No Comments

Helplessness Blues by Fleet Foxes | An Album Review from Mikepedia

A gorgeous album cover that you can stare at existentially while you listen to the music.

Preface/Disclaimer: I am not intensely informed on the genre that this album falls into (Indie Folk is my best estimation).  Jazz, Funk, Rock, and Blues are the primary genres in which I carry the most listening preference and performing experience (I’m not trying to boast here because my actual performing experience is nothing everything to sneeze at.)  But with that being said, I do enjoy meaningful music made by talented people in any genre.  It seems to me that Fleet Foxes’ Helplessness Blues fall perfectly in that category.  So this is less a review about the impact and change that Helplessness Blues brings to the Indie Folk movement and more a review that focuses on what this album means to me — what I like about it and what I don’t like about it.

Helplessness Blues is Fleet Foxes’ second full length album. (The first was self-titled Fleet Foxes) Legend has it that the band had a hard time arriving at the final cut of this album.  Initial recordings of most of these tracks were scrapped as Robin Pecknold (lead singer/songwriter) and the band listened to the demos, sighed mournfully, then exclaimed “DO OVER!”.  In my opinion the band Read the rest of this entry »

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Jazz Appreciation 101

Nov 3

Posted by Mike in Jazz, Music | No Comments

I love music.  When I’m looking for deep, brain stimulating, beautiful music I look to Jazz.  To me jazz isn’t a genre, it’s a medium.  With jazz, the music is all that matters.  It’s very hard to put into words what it is that jazz “does for me”, but I’m confident that it’s in the solos.  The band cuts back, and a single player is revealed; put upon the pedestal for the discerning listener to enjoy.  Much of current music hides the talented instrumentalists and puts an auto tuned vocal melody at the forefront, which is basically the opposite of what honest music should be.

It took me several years to understand jazz, and to be able to enjoy it for what it’s supposed to be.  As a saxophone player in middle school and high school I was always reading how jazz is the holy grail of music, but I would buy a jazz CD (my first was Cannonball Adderley’s “Somethin’ Else”) and it would seem boring to me.  So I would come back to the CD a few weeks later and try to absorb it again with no luck.  I tried this casually for probably 5 or 6 years, but I always knew that I wasn’t catching all of what was there.  Eventually it clicked with me, and it was like a whole new world was opened up.  I wish I could put into words what the realization was, but I can’t.  It’s like all of the sudden my brain was able to function in an entirely different way.  It’s like jazz exists in a different dimension, and for the longest time I was only hearing the echoes that made it into this dimension.  Sub par metaphors aside, my point is that jazz connects with me in a way that no other music can, and it’s sad to see how far it has fallen from the public eye.  Once treated as a fine art, jazz has slowly but steadily been becoming just an old musical style.

But, to whoever is reading this blog, there is hope!  If you have a mind for music, you can appreciate the sheer beauty of what jazz has to offer.  I highly recommend buying a copy of Kind of Blue.  Aside from being the best selling jazz album of all time, Kind of Blue is one of the more accessible albums I have come across.  One must be patient, and absorb what the artists are saying through their instruments.  Check out the examples I’ve included in this post as well.  Just try to close your eyes and listen to the music.

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End of a Music Drought

Oct 23

Posted by Mike in Jazz, Music, Saxophone | No Comments

Time is of the Essence by Michael Brecker

Time is of the Essence by Michael Brecker

For the last few weeks I’ve  been experiencing what is know as a “musical drought”.  It feels like it’s been awhile since a picked up a new CD that I really liked; something that has broadened my horizons, impressed me, etc… Thankfully, this has come to an end.

Enter Michael Brecker.  I put on his Time is of the Essence album and I’m blown away.  I can honestly say I’ve never heard a sax player with chops like this.  He has such control in his harmonics and everything else he does, its just plainly evident that he spent a ton of time in the shed.  He can shoot off runs and patterns that would probably take me months just to be able to play a little bit.

It’s a shame he passed away as young as he did, as selfish as it sounds I wish I could have seen him live.  Anyways for what it’s worth I know for sure that I will be buying some more of his stuff and probably writing about it.