A playlist of songs that intrigued me from Sunday to Saturday. Week of 17 Apr 2022 to 23 Apr 2022.

WILT_2022-16

1. Crest Of A Wave – Rory Gallagher
2. In My Time of Dying – Led Zeppelin
3. Emotion Scroll yes/and
4. Evil – Cactus, Gene Paul, Jackson Howe
5. Boogie – UFO
6. Memphis – Faces
7. Restrictions – Cactus, Gene Paul, Jackson Howe
8. Bag Drag – Cactus
9. Situation – Josefus
10. Freelance Fiend – Leaf Hound
11. Superstition – Beck, Boggert, Apprice
12. Junior’s Wailing – Steamhammer
13. The Snake – The Pink Fairies
14. Freedom – Buffalo

Hyperlink to Spotify playlist: WILT_2022-16

Notes

Sundays just feel too lazy to write these entries sometimes.

I remember starting this week being curious about rock music from the late 60’s and 70’s. I proceeded to listen to a radio playlist generated from Led Zeppelin.

It has been pretty successful listening experience. A lot of new music surfaced for me, and it also reminded me of the difference in contemporary rock approach between the 60’s and the 2020’s. Music from the earlier period does sound freer, looser, and generally more relaxed. Yet, from hearing how the rock genre has developed in the last 60 years, you can see how pioneering some of these early bands were.

For example, Led Zeppelin’s In My Time of Dying really pushed what a blues-based rock band could do, offering an eleven minute masterpiece of hurricane drumming, stratospheric slide guitar playing, and foundational bassplaying, all glued with the natural charisma of Robert Plant wailing about mortality like a prophet in the wilderness.

I also got to discover UFO and Cactus, and through Cactus, the phenomenal bass playing of Tim Boggert. I think that’s another reason that draws me to this period of rock music, in that the arrangements that stand out to me, are those where musicians looked at their instruments and decided, “I’m not going to play what the radio’s telling me to play. I’m going to play the sounds I hear in my spirit.”

Because with the advent of amplification technology, everything about expression changed.

I also say this after attending a string quartet performance (which was brilliant by the way), and while the levels of musical virtuosity is there, and even the expression through performance, to have something amplified louder than what a speaker is supposed to contain, or lords over the thunderous applause of the audience, the amplified instrument commands thee kneel.