Tonight Sky remains one of my favorite and most curiously neglected albums of the last year. Hear why you should love this music tonight on Echoes.
Jason Holstrom has been on the Seattle music since the turn of the millennium playing in groups like Wonderful and United States of Electronica. But none of that music would prepare you for the serenely feel good vibrations of his project,Tonight Sky. He’s taken Beach Boys harmonies and sent them into electronica space. In Seattle, I surf the music ofTonight Skywith Jason Holstrom tonight on Echoes.
Tell me that this song doesn’t just make you feel good.
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Hear About Beach Boys, Ukuleles and Space Music with Tonight Sky in the Echoes Podcast.
Jason Holstrom in the Cabana
Jason Holstrom has been on the Seattle music since the turn of the millennium playing in groups like Wonderful and United States of Electronica. But none of that music would prepare you for the serenely feel good vibrations of his project,Tonight Sky. He’s taken Beach Boys harmonies and sent them into electronica space. In Seattle, I surf the music ofTonight Skywith Jason Holstrom. Hear it in the Echoes Podcast.
Tell me that this song doesn’t just make you feel good.
Join us on Facebookwhere you’ll get all the Echoes news so you won’t be left behind whenDead Can Danceappear on the show, Tangerine Dream tours or Brian Eno drops a new iPad album. Or Follow us on Twitter@echoesradio.
Now you can go Mobile with Echoes On-Line. Find out how you can listen to Echoes 24/7 wherever you are on your iPhone, iPad or Droid.
Jason Holstrom has been on the Seattle music since the turn of the millennium playing in groups like Wonderful and United States of Electronica. But none of that music would prepare you for the serenely feel good vibrations of his project,Tonight Sky. He’s taken Beach Boys harmonies and sent them into electronica space. In Seattle, I surf the music ofTonight Skywith Jason Holstrom.
Tell me that this song doesn’t just make you feel good.
Join us on Facebookwhere you’ll get all the Echoes news so you won’t be left behind whenDead Can Danceappear on the show, Tangerine Dream tours or Brian Eno drops a new iPad album. Or Follow us on Twitter@echoesradio.
Now you can go Mobile with Echoes On-Line. Find out how you can listen to Echoes 24/7 wherever you are on your iPhone, iPad or Droid.
Darkside is a duo from where else? Brooklyn. Electronic musician Nicolas Jaar and guitarist Dave Harrington spin out psychedelic electronica landscapes with moods that reference German avant-rockers, Can. Catch them live if you can. They did an amazing set at this year’s Mountain Oasis Electronic Music Summit.
Darkside’s expansive, partly improvised sound is a contrast and counterpart to Tonight Sky, a project put together by Jason Holstrom in Seattle. He combines Beach Boys-style harmonies with skyhook melodies and darker, electronica modes.
Join the Echoes CD of the Month Club now and you can put David Helping and Jon Jenkins’ Foundunder somebodies Christmas tree. It’s our December CD of the Month. You’ll get great CDs and help support Echoes at the same time. You can do it all right here.
Join us on Facebookwhere you’ll get all the Echoes news so you won’t be left behind whenDead Can Danceappear on the show, Tangerine Dream tours or Brian Eno drops a new iPad album. Or Follow us on Twitter@echoesradio.
Now you can go Mobile with Echoes On-Line. Find out how you can listen to Echoes 24/7 wherever you are on your iPhone, iPad or Droid.
Hear Ulrich Schnauss & Mark Peters Interview in theEchoes Podcast.
It’s been an Ulrich Schnauss year here at Echoes. He had a CD of the Month in February this year with A Long Way to Fall and we interviewed him as well. Then he played live for us in early September and now he’s back again. It turned out that when he came in to play live he also had a forthcoming album with guitarist Mark Peters from Engineers, and it just so happened that Peters was tagging along with Schnauss on tour. So I sat them down to talk about their music for an alternate reality.
Ulrich Schnauss is one of the icons of downtempo electronica with albums like A Strangely Isolated Place and A Long Way to Fall. Mark Peters is a bit less well known in this country. He has a band called Engineers in England who play a dreamy brand of shoegaze music. He and Ulrich Schnauss hit it off so well that Schnauss actually joined Engineers. But the two musicians have also released a pair of duet albums for guitar and electronics. Their latest is Tomorrow is Another Day.
Ulrich Schnauss Live on Echoes
Highlights: Mark Peters on The Beach Boys: It hit me really hard when I was kind of first learning to play guitar at 15. And then I’d just become a super nut about it and every last bootleg, every little clip on YouTube, everything is just…and I think it’s just, you know, kind of a classical type complexity that’s just so interesting.
John Diliberto: You’re hardcore, aren’t you?
Mark Peters: Big time. Bit of a geek. Yeah, Ulrich’s got his head in his hands.
Ulrich Schnauss on altered states: That’s the point at the end of the day, like you’re trying to create something that doesn’t reflect the reality that surrounds you, but something that actually creates the opposite, a counterpoint to reality, an alternative or a utopia.
Hear Ulrich Schnauss and Mark Peters on the Echoes Podcast.
Think of the great artists you love on Echoes. Think of the informative interviews and exclusive live performances. Then, think of a world without Echoes. You can make sure that never happens by becoming a member of the Echoes Sound Circle.
Echoes is a non-profit 501(c3) organization just like your local public radio station. And all donations are tax deductible. You can support Echoes with a monthly donation that will barely disturb your credit card.
Hear Ulrich Schnauss & Mark Peters Interview Tonight on Echoes.
It’s been an Ulrich Schnauss year here at Echoes. He had a CD of the Month in February this year with A Long Way to Fall and we interviewed him as well. Then he played live for us in early September and now he’s back again. It turned out that when he came in to play live he also had a forthcoming album with guitarist Mark Peters from Engineers, and it just so happened that Peters was tagging along with Schnauss on tour. So I sat them down to talk about their music for an alternate reality.
Ulrich Schnauss is one of the icons of downtempo electronica with albums like A Strangely Isolated Place and A Long Way to Fall. Mark Peters is a bit less well known in this country. He has a band called Engineers in England who play a dreamy brand of shoegaze music. He and Ulrich Schnauss hit it off so well that Schnauss actually joined Engineers. But the two musicians have also released a pair of duet albums for guitar and electronics. Their latest is Tomorrow is Another Day.
Ulrich Schnauss Live on Echoes
Highlights: Mark Peters on The Beach Boys: It hit me really hard when I was kind of first learning to play guitar at 15. And then I’d just become a super nut about it and every last bootleg, every little clip on YouTube, everything is just…and I think it’s just, you know, kind of a classical type complexity that’s just so interesting.
John Dilibeto: You’re hardcore, aren’t you?
Mark Peters: Big time. Bit of a geek. Yeah, Ulrich’s got his head in his hands.
Ulrich Schnauss on altered states: That’s the point at the end of the day, like you’re trying to create something that doesn’t reflect the reality that surrounds you, but something that actually creates the opposite, a counterpoint to reality, an alternative or a utopia.
Hear Ulrich Schnauss and Mark Peters tonight on Echoes.
Think of the great artists you love on Echoes. Think of the informative interviews and exclusive live performances. Then, think of a world without Echoes. You can make sure that never happens by becoming a member of the Echoes Sound Circle.
Echoes is a non-profit 501(c3) organization just like your local public radio station. And all donations are tax deductible. You can support Echoes with a monthly donation that will barely disturb your credit card.
Every year Echoes affiliate WXPN, 88.5FM has listeners vote on their list of the Best885 whatever, albums, road songs, artists, etc. And every year they ask hosts to submit their top ten choices. This year, they’ve made the impossible task of listing the 885 Greatest Rock Songs. I mean, come on! This list could go on forever and the ten I finally selected for the list could change, and did, the minute after I submitted it. And what does “Greatest” mean? Am I making an objective evaluation of the songs I think have the most significance, impact, influence? Or am I simply picking the ten that rocked my socks?
With these best of lists, the tendency is always to go with the music that shaped you in your youth. The latest Alt-rock tune has a lot of trouble competing with a song that’s been in your DNA for 40 years or so. So I’ve tried, not very successfully to step back from that. The criterion I’ve wound up with is music that makes you stomp your feet, shake your head and flail your arms like the most embarrassing looking air-guitarist. It’s the sound screaming out the window of my mother’s 1970 yellow Comet riding up Rte 93 to Hampton Beach in the summer. It’s the songs that I still turn up whenever they come on the radio, even though some of them never come on the radio, but you know what I mean. In other words, when I think “Greatest Rock Songs” I think songs that rock. There’s no ballads, no heart-felt anthems. I’ve excluded much of the music that’s at the core of my existence, and I’ve left out artists like Siouxsie & the Banshees, Levitation, IAMX, The Horrors, Arcade Fire and The Black Angels, all of whom have gotten me through more cardio workouts than I care to mention, for no real good reason at all. And as I write this, I’m definitely having second thoughts about leaving out the Black Angels.
More than that, I think any of 10 tunes by The Rolling Stones could be on this list: “Satisfaction,” “Get off of My Cloud,” “Mothers Little Helper,” Street Fighting Man,” “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” “Sympathy for the Devil,” “Citadel,” “19th Nervous Breakdown,” “The Last Time,” “Let’s Spend the Night Together.” Done. But as lists go, that would be boring . Nevertheless, the Stones are at the top with a predictable selection, but one that I think is unassailable.
John Diliberto’s Greatest Rock Songs
(At Least for Today)
1 The Rolling Stones – “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”
There is no doubt about this one. One of the greatest riffs in rock., ever. It’s the perfect encapsulation of angst, aggravation and frustration.
2 The Beach Boys – “Good Vibrations”
No doubt about this one either. A miniature symphony chorale. If you don’t feel good at the end of this song, you need your meds adjusted immediately.
3 The Kinks – “You Really Got Me”
Someone recently put forth this question, The Kinks or The Clash. My answer was, the Kinks created the greatest rock riff ever in this song and there is no Clash without the Kinks.
4 Steppenwolf – “Born to Be Wild”
I do like those tunes with heavy riffs and here’s another one. But it’s also a song that crystallized the wild abandon of the late 60s and coined the term, “heavy metal.” We are all “easy riders” with our minds blown when you hear this song.
5 Jimi Hendrix – “Purple Haze”
Another seminal riff and a song that screamed freedom of the mind. ‘Scuse me while I kiss the sky.” Hendrix’s guitar attack alone changed rock forever. And it changed me as well.
6 Electric Prunes – “I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)”
Another great psychedelic pop excursion from 1966 and an early introduction for me to electronic music with something called a Bigsby wiggle stick combined with massive fuzz tone and feedback going backwards to create that vibrating drone. There’s a reason why it’s the first track on Nuggets. And it wasn’t until years later that I realized they were emulating the sound of dragging on a joint on the fadeout.
7 Nirvana – “Smells Like Teen Spirit”
The apotheosis of grunge. This is the “I’m Eighteen” of the grunge generation, a timeless song of angst that will resonate for generations.
8 Ultravox – “Fear in the Western World”
I could’ve picked the Sex Pistol’s “Holiday in the Sun” but I went with this paranoid high-octane rocket-to-oblivion screed from Ultravox which should rightfully be paired with “Distant Smile,” the song it segues into on the album, Ha-Ha-Ha.
9 Guns ‘n’ Roses – “Welcome to the Jungle”
In many ways, Guns ‘n’ Roses isn’t my thing, but like Ultravox and Nirvana, this always seemed to be the perfect dystopian hellride, like Clockwork Orange on a Harley.
10 The Dandy Warhols – “Not If you Were the Last Junkie On Earth”
So many Dandy’s tunes could be on this list, but I picked this crank-up-the- volume ode to Anton Newcombe of The Brian Jonestown Massacre.
These are my picks and I’m not stickin’ to ’em. Ask me tomorrow and except for the Top 4, everything could change. You make your own choices for XPN’s 885 Greatest Rock Songs.
You can see videos for all my selections at the end
Now you can go Mobile with Echoes On-Line. Find out how you can listen to Echoes 24/7 wherever you are on your iPhone, iPad or Droid.
Join us on Facebookwhere you’ll get all the Echoes news so you won’t be left behind Dead Can Dance appear on the show, Tangerine Dream tours, or Brian Eno releases a new CD.
The Beach Boys reunited for the Grammys and are currently readying a new album and tour. I was a Beach Boys fan. The first single I ever bought was “Help Me, Rhonda.” Actually, my grandmother bought it for me while we shopped at Grants Department store in Wilmington, Mass. Although I think Pet Sounds is the most overrated album ever, “Good Vibrations” vies with the Stones’ “Satisfaction” as the best single ever.
However, their new single is just out and one has to think, this is the best we get after 20 years? “That’s Why God Made Radio” the title track to their forthcoming CD, is a soporific sedative of banal sentiment that harkens neither to their golden years of surf music nor their high-water mark of “Good Vibrations.” The harmonies are still there and the voices, perhaps startlingly, unchanged. Is there a Dorian Gray 45 RPM single in their attic that is disintegrating for their sins? Unless Brian Wilson works some magic on their new album, it looks to be another aging rock band chucking up product for sale.
Here’s a promo video that is pretty unsatisfying although it overs a few tantalizing behind-the-scenes snippets.
For some good Vibrations hear Thierry David’s Stellar Connection. It’s the Echoes CD of the Month for April. You can enjoy great music like this by by becoming a member of the Echoes CD of the Month Club. Follow the link and see what you’ve been missing.
Join us on Facebookwhere you’ll get all the Echoes news.
But none of that music would prepare you for the serenely feel good vibrations of his project,Tonight Sky. He’s taken Beach Boys harmonies and sent them into electronica space. In Seattle, I surf the music of Tonight Sky with Jason Holstrom tonight on Echoes.
Join us on Facebook where you’ll get all the Echoes news so you won’t be left behind when Dead Can Dance appear on the show, Tangerine Dream tours or Brian Eno drops a new iPad album. Or Follow us on Twitter@echoesradio.
The Echoes Blog 
10 Greatest Rock Songs
August 7, 2012John Diliberto’s Greatest Rock Songs
(At Least for Today)
1 The Rolling Stones – “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”
There is no doubt about this one. One of the greatest riffs in rock., ever. It’s the perfect encapsulation of angst, aggravation and frustration.
No doubt about this one either. A miniature symphony chorale. If you don’t feel good at the end of this song, you need your meds adjusted immediately.
3 The Kinks – “You Really Got Me”
Someone recently put forth this question, The Kinks or The Clash. My answer was, the Kinks created the greatest rock riff ever in this song and there is no Clash without the Kinks.
4 Steppenwolf – “Born to Be Wild”
I do like those tunes with heavy riffs and here’s another one. But it’s also a song that crystallized the wild abandon of the late 60s and coined the term, “heavy metal.” We are all “easy riders” with our minds blown when you hear this song.
5 Jimi Hendrix – “Purple Haze”
Another seminal riff and a song that screamed freedom of the mind. ‘Scuse me while I kiss the sky.” Hendrix’s guitar attack alone changed rock forever. And it changed me as well.
Another great psychedelic pop excursion from 1966 and an early introduction for me to electronic music with something called a Bigsby wiggle stick combined with massive fuzz tone and feedback going backwards to create that vibrating drone. There’s a reason why it’s the first track on Nuggets. And it wasn’t until years later that I realized they were emulating the sound of dragging on a joint on the fadeout.
7 Nirvana – “Smells Like Teen Spirit”
The apotheosis of grunge. This is the “I’m Eighteen” of the grunge generation, a timeless song of angst that will resonate for generations.
I could’ve picked the Sex Pistol’s “Holiday in the Sun” but I went with this paranoid high-octane rocket-to-oblivion screed from Ultravox which should rightfully be paired with “Distant Smile,” the song it segues into on the album, Ha-Ha-Ha.
9 Guns ‘n’ Roses – “Welcome to the Jungle”
In many ways, Guns ‘n’ Roses isn’t my thing, but like Ultravox and Nirvana, this always seemed to be the perfect dystopian hellride, like Clockwork Orange on a Harley.
So many Dandy’s tunes could be on this list, but I picked this crank-up-the- volume ode to Anton Newcombe of The Brian Jonestown Massacre.
These are my picks and I’m not stickin’ to ’em. Ask me tomorrow and except for the Top 4, everything could change. You make your own choices for XPN’s 885 Greatest Rock Songs.
You can see videos for all my selections at the end
~© 2012 John Diliberto ((( echoes )))
Now you can go Mobile with Echoes On-Line. Find out how you can listen to Echoes 24/7 wherever you are on your iPhone, iPad or Droid.
Join us on Facebook where you’ll get all the Echoes news so you won’t be left behind Dead Can Dance appear on the show, Tangerine Dream tours, or Brian Eno releases a new CD.
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Tags:Beach Boys, Dandy Warhols, Electric Prunes, Kinks, Nirvana, Nuggets
Posted in Reviews & Commentary | 4 Comments »