I hope you all had a good
Thanksgiving weekend, even if it may have been hard to distance yourself from
your loved ones to keep them safe. I
enjoyed my Zoom calls with my family and spending time in person with my Mom,
my extended family talked about sports, them mostly talking about the football
games of the day while I brought up the Mariners. The Mariners recently made even more of a
bargain with outfielder Jarred Kelenic, acquired from the New York Mets after
the 2018 season, knocking on the door to join the big-league roster next
season, while Robinson Cano, who he was acquired for, got suspended for all of
next season for testing positive for a PED substance. Couple that with 2020 Rookie of the Year Kyle
Lewis and the Mariners are starting to look incredibly exciting and fun.
Last week saw the
highly-anticipated (at least by me) release of Plastic Hearts by Miley
Cyrus. While it wasn’t as amazing as
Younger Now, the Hard Rock, kick-butt, alpha-woman attitude of the album was
great and it felt like with these two albums she might have fulfilled two of
her goals in her old autobiography; make a country album and make a metal
album. The duets with Billy Idol and
Joan Jett were especially good and there was also a great passionate song
called “Never Be Me.” She also performed
on an Amazon.com Christmas special on the first, where she at least sang
“Midnight Sky” and “Last Christmas,” dressed like an awesome combination of
Joan Jett and Rob Halford.
Seattle-area Lesbian
singer-songwriter Mary Lambert also released her EP “Happy Holigays” which had
a beautiful rendition of Ave Maria and a cute original piece called “Christmas
Cookies” about how her partner bakes cookies, she eats them, then while she
sleeps, her partner adds sprinkles to make sure she’ll eat the rest. Aside from new music, I am playing Christmas
Carols more and more around my apartment with lots of renditions from a large
variety of artists. I have a Spotify
Playlist I modified to be more like a Christmas/Other Winter Holidays Music
Radio Station (There are some Hannukah songs in the playlist, so it feels fair
to mention that it isn’t JUST Christmas music) that I play often and a smaller,
more personal version on my phone of music I actually own/have purchased over
the years.
I also recently found a small compilation album called "Christmas in the Northwest Vol. 3" which features an original song by Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart and a nice rendition of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" by the Steve Miller Band (Steve Miller lives in Friday Harbor in the San Juan Islands and has property in Idaho). I found both songs to be enjoyable classic rock Christmas songs, as well as rediscovering elsewhere Bruce Springsteen's 1975 live performance of "Santa Claus is Comin' To Town," which sounds like it was a key inspiration on Miley Cyrus' version of the song in 2008, which wouldn't be too surprising, Billy Ray is a big fan of The Boss. As such, I've been listening to a lot of Christmas music in the last week and it's helped untie the knots of bitterness and cynicism that have been building up this whole year and made me more appreciative of where I am and what I have.
Here are the releases for this
week, though there only seem to be releases this week, next week and the week
after, and even then, not too many.
Blackmore’s
Night-Here We Come A-Caroling: After a few live albums, singles and a
collaboration with William Shatner, legendary guitarist Ritchie Blackmore is
back on the lute with his wife Candice Night for a Christmas EP. While it’s disappointing to imagine that we
may not hear his dominating Stratocaster sounds again, half the EP has already
been released and it is a soothing and relaxing piece of work, which is kind of
needed at this point in time.
Eric
Clapton-Stand and Deliver: A single written by Van Morrison, who wrote and sang
“Brown Eyed Girl.” I got paid yesterday
and was able to check out some of Clapton’s work on his Crossroads Guitar
Festival Album and he did an amazing job, it was great to hear he still has it
as recently as last year. He played with
Peter Frampton on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” which he did the solo for the
original version, as well, played a version of “Layla” with John Mayer and
Doyle Bramhall II and a cover of Prince’s “Purple Rain” with “Ensemble,” which
reminded me that on my Twitter, the day Prince died, everyone from Billy Ray
Cyrus to Bayley of the WWE mourned him, showing just how powerful and
influential music can be. Billy Ray even
said “The rain’s coming down and it looks kind of Purple to me.”
Steve
Lukather-Serpent Soul: The second single from the Toto guitarist’s upcoming
album, due out February 26th, which, for me, looks like the busiest
weekend yet in the new year for new album releases. Lukather is an incredible guitar talent who
has collaborated with Joe Lynn Turner (former Deep Purple/Rainbow singer), Dug
Pinnick, Sammy Hagar, Simpsons cast member Harry Shearer as his Spinal Tap
persona Derek Smalls and Ringo Starr as part of his All-Starr Band. He also seems very influenced by the late
George Harrison, as Toto will play “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” often in
concert and his collaboration with Dug Pinnick was a hard rock cover of “Taxman.” The first single for this album, “Run To Me,”
featured Ringo Starr on drums and current Toto lead singer Joseph Williams, who
is releasing a solo album featuring Steve Lukather on multiple tracks on the
same day.
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