Tommi Tikka
A Short Obsession With Time – The People The Poet
22 May 2018
Time isn’t the main thing. It’s the only thing.
– Miles Davis
Indeed it is. And we will get to the importance of time in a little bit, while discussing The People The Poet’s excellent new album A Short Obsession With Time, but let’s first take a look at what I’ve written about the two singles preceding the new record:
Clarity – Ellipsis
22 May 2018
Long, long time ago in Mexico, I woke up on a beach in Puerto Vallarta. My head was hurting and I was nauseous. I had gone south of the border to have some fun, to take a break from my complex, draining life but instead, I had taken it upon myself to attempt to drown my sorrows in drink. And just like the old joke goes, the bastards had learned to swim…
Let’s Lie Here For A While – Lynz Crichton
15 May 2018
There is no cure for love other than marriage.
– Irish proverb
A long time ago in London, as I was walking down King’s Road, I was approached by this lady who said that if I gave her a few minutes of my time, she could open my eyes in the matters of love. She was gorgeous. And no, she was not a streetwalker. Rather, she claimed to be part of a research group and asked me to follow her to this courtyard to fill out a questionnaire. The idea was that she would then create a love profile for me…
Waiting – Tyler Boone
6 May 2018
Growing up, relationships in general made very little sense to me. They were something that adults engaged themselves in, while I was busy getting in trouble at school or teasing my little brother. In my early adulthood, when I knew slightly more about the art of coexisting in close quarters with another person, I looked at relationships from a different point of view. I felt they were very complex and I had a hard time understanding the logic behind most of them…
All It’s Done – Elastic Band
29 April 2018
Do you remember a time when music was interesting, psychedelic and yet, at the same time fun? It’s hard, isn’t it? Perhaps because this marriage of psychedelia and fun is not that common – at least not anymore. You’d have to go back to the music made in the late sixties or early seventies to find a larger pool of it relatively easily. By the way, if you do, check out tracks such as Procol Harum’s “Good Captain Clack” or “Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite!” by the Beatles, as they are fantastic songs and productions. And if you don’t much like the music made in the sixties, don’t worry, there is another way to find out what I am talking about. Just google the Spanish Elastic Band’s fantastic single “All It’s Done” and give it a spin.
Elastic Band’s press release characterizes the group like this:
Their songs are sonic collages that use daring tricks as a means to intertwine decades, genres, trends and frequencies. This is done to reach unexpected musical destinations. With songs that could style-wise be described as leftovers from the 20th century, this duo is attempting to create 21st century pop. Their new album celebrates love, friendship and positive attitude, as reflected by the cover by Camille Perkins.
When The Levee Breaks – Led Zeppelin
9 April 2018
The following is a statement issued by Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones on December 4, 1980 – two months after drummer John Bonham’s death.
We wish it to be known, that the loss of our dear friend and the deep respect we have for his family, together with the deep sense of undivided harmony felt by ourselves and our manager, have led us to decide that we could not continue as we were…
Philosopher – Observer Effect
3 April 2018
Truth is…indie bands like us aren’t in it for the money, we just want to know there’s a few people out there nodding their head to our stuff.
The above is a direct quote from the web pages of Observer Effect, a folk-rock group from Brisbane, Australia, who sent me a link to their new single “Philosopher” through Twitter. I clicked on it, had a listen and loved what I was hearing:…
Gold Dust – Ted Russet
26 March 2018
A little more than a decade ago, a self-proclaimed Japanese scientist called Masaru Emoto conducted a series of tests on water. One part of his experiment consisted of placing tap water in a glass and exposing it to different words. To put this in a more simple way: He spoke to a glass of water. After this, Emoto froze the water he’d been conversing with and studied how the water crystals looked…
Coles Corner – Richard Hawley
20 March 2018
Since Frank Sinatra is well-known for mistakenly introducing ”Something” as his favorite Lennon–McCartney composition during his live shows (it’s written by another Beatle, George Harrison), it is therefore only fair that I introduce ”Coles Corner” as my favorite Frank Sinatra tune…
Kids On The Corner – The People The Poet
13 March 2018
When I was about ten or eleven, our family was between houses for a few months. During this time, we lived in an apartment building close to the new neighborhood. I remember that time rather well due to the couple living next door to us. The reason for my vivid recollection of them is that they fought all the time – day in, day out. However, it wasn’t just the screaming and fighting that made them so memorable. It was that they both threw things out the window in the heat of the fight. As a matter of fact, my friends and I used to joke about them. We called the guy “Terminator” and the woman Sarah (as in the movie Terminator)…
Better Man – Robbie Williams
6 March 2018
New Year’s Eve 2000 is burned on my mind for two reasons. Firstly, my brother came to Chicago to celebrate it with me. This resulted in a New Year’s party that neither one of us has any recollection of. It wasn’t exactly like the movie “Hangover” but close enough. Secondly, and more importantly, New Year’s Day 2001 was the first time ever I heard Robbie Williams’ ”Better Man.”
The Modern World – The Modern World
27 February 2018
It’s very hard to explain the eighties to someone who either wasn’t alive then or isn’t old enough to remember it. After all, this was the decade when the computer was named the man of the year by Time Magazine, John Lennon was shot, Pac-Man was released, MTV was launched, Prince Charles married Diana, the Chernobyl nuclear reactor exploded, the Berlin Wall was torn down, the Cold War was slowly coming to an end and most of the music world went crazy with synthesizers and electric drums…