Mark W Tiedemann

Category: Music

Coming Up On…

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

Every writing project comes to a point when it crowds everything else into smaller and smaller spaces, mainly of time.  Right now I’m 3/4 of the way through what I’m currently working on. As a result, my reading has slowed to a crawl (I’ve been taking far too long to get through an ARC that is really good—review to come) and I’m barely keeping up with everything else.

Donna has spent the weekend in Iowa with her sister, leaving me to wallow in potential bachelor disorder.  But I’ve managed to keep the place not only clean, but straightened out a few things. …

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Banks Passing

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

One of the founding members of a band I have loved and followed since I first heard them over 44 years ago has died.

Peters Banks  was the original guitarist for Yes.  As noted in the obituary, he recorded the first two albums with them before being asked to leave, to be replaced by Steve Howe.

The video below is from 2007 and shows a performance by Banks of a piece from his first solo album, Two Sides of Peter Banks, which was released in 1973.

I have written elsewhere about the peculiarity of certain musicians within certain milieu. …

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Favorite (To Me) Posts of the Year

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

I’ve never done this before, assuming a certain shelf life to what I write here, but maybe I’ll start.  Now, this is completely self-indulgent, so you are warned.  Here are my personal favorites of the Distal Muses for 2012:

2012

The Last One

Narratives And The American Landscape

Music On A Saturday Night

Le Guin Again

Honor and Duty

Petty Stuff, Harlan Ellison, and Therbligs

The Golden (Silver?) Good Ol’ Days

Reflections On The 4th of July: A Personal Statement

Jon Lord, Deep Purple, Legacies

Gravity

Longer Tomorrows

Rights

Meanwhile

Post Thanks

 

I’ll leave December alone.  The last one is, I think, appropriate to end the overview.…

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2012

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

I was never so glad to see an election done than this past one.  The only comparable year in my experience was 1968 and I can’t honestly say that comparison is viscerally valid, as I was 13 most of that year, 14 right before the election, and most of the issues washed over me leaving me unfazed.  But ’68 was the year of Nixon and Humphrey and George Wallace, Vietnam, the Counter Culture and the Anti-War Movement, and a resurgent Republican Party in opposition to LBJ’s Great Society.  I sensed the acrimony, the bitterness, the ugliness, but most of it made no real sense. …

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I Love Jazz

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

We had a treat recently and I wanted to share a bit of it.

I like jazz.

No, that’s not accurate.  I love jazz.  So imagine my delight to be asked to work an event at our local jazz spot, Jazz At The Bistro, selling copies of John Pizzarelli’s new memoir, World On A String, for Left Bank Books, during his quartet’s Saturday night performance.

There is something about live jazz that just goes right into me.  A good group of masterful musicians, having a conversation on stage, it’s just magic.  Pizzarelli is one of the best guitarists in the business and frankly, I didn’t fully appreciate just how good he is till this event.…

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Jon Lord, Deep Purple, Legacies

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

I said I’d do a longer piece on Jon Lord, so.

In the aftermath of his death, I bought a couple of old Deep Purple cds I never had. By old I mean from the Sixties. The Book of Taliesyn, Shades of Deep Purple, Deep Purple. These three albums, the band’s first, were recorded with what is known as the Mark I line-up, which did not include Ian Gillan, who became the most recognizable voice of the band in the Seventies, during their most successful period.

What is fascinating now, in retrospect, is just how much a shift they made after they fired Rod Evans (vocals) and Nick Simper (bass).*…

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who did we think we were?

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

Jon Lord died yesterday.  He was 71.

Don’t know who Jon Lord was?  Pity.  But, then, you probably do, even if the name doesn’t evoke anything.

Jon Lord was the keyboardist for Deep Purple, the hard rock band that made music history in the early 1970s for their loudness, their energy, and their instrumental dexterity, especially Jon Lord’s who regularly threw in passages from Bach or Beethoven or Scarlatti in the middle of heavy, driving blues-based rock tunes.

Then there were the songs themselves—Hush, Wring That Neck, Kentucky Woman, Child In Time, Highway Star, Space Truckin’, My Woman From Tokyo…and of course Smoke On TheWater.…

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More Music

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

I wish I had recordings.  Sometimes, these monthly jam sessions just turn out sweet.

I don’t have much to say about this past Saturday night’s coffeehouse other than everyone had a good time and we had some surprising performances.  So rather than try to recapture the musicality, I offer a few images.

Bob is a multitalented player, whose skill I envy.  A pleasant surprise was his daughter, Diane, showing up, who turned out (not very surprisingly) to be musically adept as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The guy on the right is one of my oldest friends, Tom. …

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Embassytown Aurality

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

I don’t post music videos normally, but I thought this was exceptional. It’s music based on China Mieville’s truly excellent novel, Embassytown, which I urge everyone to get, read, immerse yourselves in. This novel goes on my list of “novels to be used to teach science fiction” along with a handful of others. Enjoy.

…

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Music On A Saturday Night

Posted on By Mark Tiedemann

Storms apparently kept a lot of people away. A shame.  The monthly gathering at the New Covenant Methodist Church on Bellerive happened anyway, a St. Patrick’s Day session complete with a pot of corned beef, and the limited audience enjoyed an evening of good music delivered by people who were having an enormous amount of fun.

More fun than I’m used to having inside a church.

I’ve been attending these now for almost five years.  Maybe longer, someone would have to check.  When I began, these open mic sessions offered nearly 80% karaoke, of variable quality.  Rich and Annette (Annette more forcefully—though Annette’s “forceful” comes across with the glee of a 12-year-old wanting to share a puppy) had been on me to come play. …

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