Miscellaneous thoughts on politics, people, math, science and other cool (if sometimes frustrating) stuff from somewhere near my favorite coffee shop.
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Satur80's: Horslips
I first heard Horslips on a trip cross-country, while staying in Medford, OR- also, my first visit to this wonderful state. When I got back to the Cleveland area, I tracked down their album, "Book of Invasions," which had this song. While tracking down this clip, I found that they were still playing as recently as last year. Kinda like Jethro Tull, but more Celtic, more flute-centric, and more power rock. An obscure group that in a fairer world would have received more attention.
There's a live version here from 2011; I'm impressed with their polish playing live, but the sound quality/recording is too muddy for me to take.
Boy, this is strange. I was typing something about Caldwell's Rum in Newburyport, MA and their connection to the U.S. slave trade. I apparently hit some key combination that brought me here.
ReplyDeleteThat's not the strange part. The strange part is that I'm pretty sure I have that album on vinyl! The woman I lived with between 1978 and 1981 had a friend who was in the music biz. Said friend gave here several copies of the album and I wound up with one of them. I ain't got the time to dig through the boxes of stuff that are stored in the crawlspace under the eaves, at the moment, but I'll check back if/when I find it.
I liked Horslips and never could understand why others didn't.
Are you familar with Ceili Rain? They're not, IIRC, a lot like Horslips but they were a good listen.
I had a few friends back near Cleveland who really disliked this album, so the group is clearly not universally recognized as good. At the same time, an indie music dealer seemed very surprised and pleased that I recognized and liked the group, so my taste is not unusual. I'm not sure I even have a copy of the album anymore, but I've only had it on vinyl, and a taped copy I made.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with music is that there is just so much of it out there and so few bands were actually recorded back in the 60's and 70's (or earlier) with the ones that WERE recorded being the only history of some styles. I attended some great concerts back then that were simply not preserved and the bands are long gone.
ReplyDeleteThe subject of guitar playing came up over at "Dispatches from the culture wars" (Free Thought Blogs) and made a comment, there, which turned into a new post at my house.
Cheers