The Music: Jeff Lynne’s Armchair Theatre
Jeff Levine is one of those artists that you can’t help but recognize , if he has been involved with a recording on any level. As an example, his work with Tom Petty on “Full Moon Fever”, or any of the Traveling Willburys”, or George Harrison’s later work. (Notably , “I’ve got my mind set on you”. Simply put, I have always considered Jeff Lynne to be a production genius.
This particular disk, has been out of print for some time. It’s still available on Ebay, Amazon, and so on. It did fairly well in England, as I understand it, but not very well here in the states. Our loss. It should be pointed out, that the album does sound a lot like ELO, only from the standpoint of the production values not the instrumentation. Lynne has always had a tendency to use over dubbing and other studio tricks in a particular way, that produced a sound that was unique to him. It should also be pointed out that a good amount of his sound comes from his voice, which lends itself rather nicely to multilayer recordings. Still, the resulting sounds from an instrumentation standpoint, are quite different, and frankly enjoyable for it being a bit of a change.
The overall feel is very much relaxed and very basic and structure if not in implementation. Perhaps part of the reason for that is the majority of the album was recorded in various rooms in his house. That relaxed image is furthered by the addition of a couple of standards, most notably “September song” which is thrown together in an almost casual fashion, for Lynne. One almost envisions that the song was included as a nod to the days when Lynne was playing in the various dives and Pali’s in the England of his youth.
Reccomended.
Personal favorite from the Album changes from day to day, but I like “Lift Me Up” a great deal, for both the song and the vocal arrangements.
* No, Tom, we’re not lost. Say rather that we have returned to reality in large part. Reality being something that Cindy Sheehan has very little grasp on. All at the implications of that statement 11, since it will, anyway.
* Hey Kevin: Shaddap, Kevin.
Just stop it.
Look; Sullivan’s griping about social security is one of the things he’s done right. granted, that his bitch is that the government isn’t going to take care of him, as opposed to the whole design of socialist security…. But his comments, particularly as compared to the tripe usually comes up with, Fairly REEK with reality. It’s something that Sullivan very seldom engages in. I can understand, however, why you would have problems with it.
The fact of the matter is that Social Security is not going to be there for us when we retire. Period.
* One thing I noticed about Google, over the weekend, and probably should have mentioned it, is that they made no mention, no nod of respect, no acknowledgement at all of Memorial Day. When you see such pages making such great efforts to put graphics up to announce “talk like a pirate day ” you would think that simple acknowledgement of Memorial Day, would be part of the act.
LGF notes the same problem and offers some nice artwork to solve the problem, and some responses to the lame excuses they offered to explain the omission.
* I’ve been making note, the last few evenings, of the events down in Venezuela, where are Hugo Chavez has closed down a television station for opposing him. McQ is noting the same thing, and has some thoughts.
Allow me to point out, that there are many here in the states, who have yet to learn what the Venezuelans are learning just now; there is no such thing as getting back your freedom of speech, without a revolution. It’s true; there are large numbers of protesters every night, but there is no leader. As a result, the anti Chavez movement, will wither and die, alas!!. Chavez and his thugs are also the ones with all the guns, you see.
Now, about this “Fairness Doctrine”….
* Over at Reason Mag David Weigel note that Cynthia McKinney is running for President. Among her platform planks is “impeachment of the president”. Ummmm Yeah, OK, Cindy, thanks for checking in.
Tags: BitsBlog, Nightly Ramble
