Sergei Prokofiev - Piano Concerto No. 3 in C (1921)

I gave my ex-GF the Miles Davis autobiography for her birthday because I wanted to read it, and I recently took it back for myself, also because I wanted to read it. In this autobiography, Miles refers to Prokofiev as a "bad motherfucker who was terrible" or something like that, which is absolutely, unequivocally true. This shit is fucking bad.

If you read any of these words that I write in this bloggie, you should understand by now that variation on a theme is one of my favorite things. And hearing the twists and turns that a godhead freak of nature genius like Prokofiev can weave from a single musical idea is unreal. In Andantino con Variazoni, things eventually head down a bleak, somber path before activity returns to the music; this time, the orchestra plays with the theme while the piano dances chromatically in the background. My god does that smell good.

Infinite recombinations mimic the cause and effect decision trees that we use to imagine the future.

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Barbecue Bob - Chocolate to the Bone

This is not the cold haunting of Skip James. This is motherfucking Barbecue Bob, motherfuckers, and he too is a guitar freak. Chords are practically eliminated on many of these recordings, and we are instead treated with BBQ's slide trickery. Check out Mississippi Blues, where he mostly follows the vocal melody before concluding the phrase with his trademark VI V VI I (also prevalent in Chocolate to the Bone that reappears in Jacksonville Blues).

I love the idea of having a catchphrase-style lick: Michael Jackson's "hee hee hee", Unleashed's first bar of all of their mosh parts. What a cool thing - if you can think of more share that shit in the comments.

Atlanta Moan is another great example of this tangy bastard following his voice with his guitar and inserting sparse chording as a driving backbeat - then jumping quickly into leads to transition from chord to chord in the 12 bar structure. Super secret family recipe lookin-ass.

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Skip James - The Complete Early Recordings

You might have a misconception that the blues is just a bunch of dorks knowing the pentatonic scale at each other. I know I held that misconception for quite awhile since my dad mostly just listened to lots of Eric Clapton, a prime pentatonic scale-knower. Fortunately, I dug deeper at some point, and Skip James was the first pre-electric blues that I heard. Definitely one of those goosebump moments, as these songs proceeded to fucking haunt my past, present and future.

There is something in these songs that I've discussed before on this blog, but in reference to black metal or hip-hop: a certain type of elitist melancholy that I can't quite put into words. Fortunately, a famous author has made a novel about this feeling. Unfortunately, I am illiterate so I don't know what this novel is called.

You guys are familiar with the 12-bar blues whether you know it or not. Just listen to any rock song from the 50s. That chord progression right there is it. These songs are structured in phrases of a certain number of bars rather than in verses and choruses - Jesus is a Mighty Good Leader is a great example, as the song is just the same phrase repeated with slight variations in lyrics. Get a feel for the phrases, and then pay attention to the flourishes that Skip throws in because the dude is fucking good at guitar. And he sounds like a ghost.

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