Suggestions for me

[jvlgato]

Welcome to Johnsmith Music | Johnsmith Music

My wife discovered him on NPR. Nice slow folk rock guy from Wisconsin, a thoughtful song writer about life experiences. He is one of our favorite unknowns. My favorite is 'Hole in the Clouds.' In fact, I feel like having a listen now!

[blessingx]

The Lounge Lizards - Voice of Chunk (1989) - Very cool NYC jazz. Great stuff, it REALLY grows on you, so give it a chance.

Damn, forgot about them. Used to run a bakery and ended nearly every night for six months with red wine and their No Pain For Cakes blasting.

[boomana]

Perhaps any of these- MA Recordings

The three CDs on the first page are both sonically well done and a neat introduction of some of the music out there in the world. I have tried to coerce Todd Garfinkle to attend some of the CanJam and Head Case meets, one day I will succeed. He does high rez DLs and DVDs if you ever want to go that route in the future *cough-(JH16/3A)-cough*.

Really like and got all three. Thanks!

[mrarroyo]

Hi Vicky, Carl will try to see if you and Dom can meet (at his restaurant) for a late lunch sometime over the next couple of weeks. If you can make it let me know and I can bring an external USB HD with about 700 Jazz albums for you to try. Cheers.

[boomana]

We're talking on the weekend, right?

[CarlSeibert]

We were thinking of shamefully extending our lunch hours, but on the weekend would be OK by me, too. (My weekend being Friday and Saturday)

And I could bring an album or two on some kind of appropriate media, too.

I'd forgotten about the Lounge Lizards. I could have sworn I had one of their CDs. But I can't find them on my music server. A search is in order.

[boomana]

Sadly, I can't do that. I can do Saturdays, but not for a couple weeks.

[dsavitsk]

[mrarroyo]

Saturday is possible for me (not the weekend of July 24/25 since I will be in Fort Myers).

[aardvark baguette]

Chava Alberstein and the Klezmatics - The Well, maybe? Astor Piazzolla, anything he wrote. anything Zoltan Kodaly wrote. Madredeus is a Portuguese group i'm very fond of.

Never heard of Klezmatics before. Didnt find The Well where I looked, but I'm liking what else was available.

[faust3d]

Never heard of Klezmatics before. Didnt find The Well where I looked, but I'm liking what else was available.

Klezmatics are great! Also try Hasidic New Wave if you like them. I also dig Charming Hostess, a bit different flavor but fun neo-klezmer-folk whatever it is.

[Cankin]

How about some blues album?

Robert Cray - Strong Persuader

Cream - Wheels of Fire

[Yikes]

Vicky, Some of my favorite unknown albums:

Willie & Lobo "Between the Waters" CD Universe has samples at Willie & Lobo Between The Waters CD

Tin Hat Trio "Rodeo Eroded" Tougher to find to buy new but you can sample the music here Amazon.com: The Rodeo Eroded: Tin Hat Trio: MP3 Downloads

If you like "Rodeo Eroded" I probably have a spare disc floating arround (Original not burned)

Both albums offer exceptional sonics. The Rodeo Eroded is my go to disc for determining if a system has got Naturalness of tone. (Once you hear it on a good system you'll know what I mean.)

I'm generally not a fan of metal, most is recorded poorly and IMO musically uninspired. Some people classify them as metal, but I prefer Progressive metal, and if you haven't heard Tool's Undertow you haven't heard the best of the genre.

As far as Classical and Jazz goes I'd ask what you like, and how far afield you want to go?

[Torpedo]

Since the point is recommending some "desert island" recordings which we think you deserve, here go some:

Eva Cassidy - Live at The Blues Alley. You probably already own this recording, if not, get it. She's far from a cheesy singer.

Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers - Moanin'. Not sure if you're into jazz at all. In any case this is a terrific hard-bop album which might be a good starter.

Medeski, Martin & Wood - Radiolarians I. I like these guys, I could recommend any of their albums, but this is the one I'm listening to right now and is full of fun and good vibes

More later, it's lunch time.

[boomana]

You know, our tastes are so disparate that I'm hesitant to say anything, but have you heard any of these, and if so, what do you think: Maquiladora (especially Ritual of Hearts and What the Day Was Dreaming)? Calexico (The Black Light and Hot Rail)? Black Heart Procession (esp. 3)? The Devics (If You Forget Me..., My Beautiful Sinking Ship, The Stars at Saint Andrea)? In The Nursery, Hindle Wakes (warning: pretty much nothing else they've done is anything like this, so don't even bother)? Sigur Ros, ()? Cocteau Twins (anything, but Treasure and Heaven or Las Vegas are good places to start)? Dead Can Dance (Toward the Within)? Camille (Le Fil)? Lhasa, The Living Road? Keith Jarrett, Sun Bear? Mike Oldfield, The Killing FIelds?

I'm listening to If You Forget Me... right now, every once in a while, I go through a Devics mood where I have to play everything I have by them, repeatedly). I just can't imagine anyone not liking this, so I have to admit to not being very good at this.

If you like funny lyrics, some of my favorites are: Crack the Sky (sardonic, jaded, sarcastic; try "Robots for Ronnie", "Lighten Up McGraw", "Too Cold to be Cool"); Steve Kilbey/The Church (literate; "Limbo"); Momus (clever/funny, "The History of Sexual Jealousy, parts 17-24)"; bawdy to the extreme, "The Penis Song"); Voltaire (silly, "Brains", "The Vampire Club").

I'd be curious what fraction of that is already familiar to you, not just the number, but which ones, and whether or not you like them.

Well, it took me three days to investigate just this post, though haven't even bothered with the funny lyrics section yet.

Dusty, I'm familiar with the Sigur Ros on down, but I had never even heard of the Devics, and really liked all three cds you mentioned from the samples I heard (I didn't like the other cds they had available). I was able to buy My Beautiful Sinking Ship, and The Stars at Saint Andrea, but cannot find If You Forget Me outside of MP3 downloads. If anyone bumps into this cd on their musical wanderings, let me know. I also liked the Hindle Wakes.

[diebenkorn]

Hopefully not to deuschy. Maybe somebody else may like this.

[Dusty Chalk]

...cannot find If You Forget Me outside of MP3 downloads.

Yeah, sorry, can't help you -- ran into the same problem myself, the only reason I have a copy is because they were selling it at their show when I saw them open for Black Heart Procession and Calexico. Yeah, that was a night. I didn't even know they were playing. I practically exploded when I found out (I always see Calexico whenever they play, and BHP were just icing on the cake). My friend thought I was having a seizure. After their act, we went to the merch table, and my friend bought all their CD's, and I bought the one or two that I was missing (need to find my copy of Buxom as well). I was gushing about how all their albums are great, and I just get into these moods where all I want to do is listen to everything of theirs either chronologically, or random, or something else, when all of a sudden I realized I was saying all of this within earshot of the singer (whom I now know as Sara Lov), and got all embarrassed and, "...I hope I didn't say anything" (as in, wrong), and both she and my friend said, "oh no, not at all" practically verbatim in unison.

I kind of lump Hindle Wakes with Rachel's in that neo-classical genre.

Oh, and: not always, just sometimes, I rock. Glad you liked.

[Asr]

Along the lines of prog rock I haven't seen Porcupine Tree mentioned yet. Definitely not bouncy-happy, wimp rock, or wispy-voiced. I'd recommend starting with In Absentia.

Also Vicki, do you like trip-hop? My 1st recommendation in that genre would be Massive Attack and their Mezzanine CD - though my 2nd favorite CD of theirs is now Heligoland.

[Asr]

...ran out of time for an edit, so here's a continuation post. Some more rock & metal I might add:

- A Perfect Circle

- Disturbed

- Iced Earth

- In Flames

- Symphony X

And given the metal bands you mentioned earlier I noticed some parallels to Peter's library on Last.fm, here's his page: Iron_Dreamer. I've found it pretty useful myself to discover more metal. Quite a few other folks here also use Last.fm, I regularly check out everyone who has an account there. MUST HAVE MOAR MUZAK!!!

[CarlSeibert]

I've got that Eva Cassidy album. I can put it on a hard drive and bring it along to spin if we get together with Miguel.

I'm so bummed that Lala is hit down. It made checking out new music so easy.

[Torpedo]

From another thread I've seen you (Boomana) already know "a bit" about MMW Also that you're exploring a big deal of "new" to me bands. If you want to investigate into jazz, maybe "classic", perhaps funky or whatever, let's know, there're lots of great albums to listen. Do you like Hammond B3 based jazz?

Now a couple of recommendations:

Bebo and Cigala - L

[guzziguy]

Now a couple of recommendations:

Bebo and Cigala - L

[Iron_Dreamer]

If you've never heard Infected Mushroom, I highly suggest you check them out. I would start with BP Empire or IM the Supervisor. To simply call their music trance is an understatement of grand proportions.

Also look heavily into Diablo Swing Orchestra. Either of their albums would suffice, though I think the second is a touch better than the first. Metal is only one of the several bases of their sound, which is eclectic and engrossing.

Finally you might also like Virgin Steele. I'd start out with either of their "Marriage of Heaven and Hell" or "Book of Atreus" albums. Definitely not your average metal, but they actually sport some good lyrics, non-cheesy orchestrations, and excellent performance all-around.

[Dusty Chalk]

Sun Kil Moon, April

[boomana]

Vicky, Some of my favorite unknown albums:

Willie & Lobo "Between the Waters" CD Universe has samples at Willie & Lobo Between The Waters CD

Tin Hat Trio "Rodeo Eroded" Tougher to find to buy new but you can sample the music here Amazon.com: The Rodeo Eroded: Tin Hat Trio: MP3 Downloads

If you like "Rodeo Eroded" I probably have a spare disc floating arround (Original not burned)

Both albums offer exceptional sonics. The Rodeo Eroded is my go to disc for determining if a system has got Naturalness of tone. (Once you hear it on a good system you'll know what I mean.)

I'm generally not a fan of metal, most is recorded poorly and IMO musically uninspired. Some people classify them as metal, but I prefer Progressive metal, and if you haven't heard Tool's Undertow you haven't heard the best of the genre.

As far as Classical and Jazz goes I'd ask what you like, and how far afield you want to go?

Ethan, I checked out a few Willie & Lobo CDs, and liked them, but they seemed a bit slick for my taste, so I picked up the Live in Concert and am enjoying it right now.

I have The Rodeo Eroded, but forgot about it completely, so thanks.

So, I'm still making it through the suggestions in this thread, but mostly listening to a lot of what I picked up the past month and liking almost all.