Welcome to the first of a hap-hazard series of music blogs, mainly blurb about an artist or band, with some selected links to their work. None of them will be a definitive analysis, but I figure that those who want all the geek-tail will be buying the books, subscribing to the YouTube channel and know much more than me anyway.
To start, a little about my relationship with music. It’s an addiction in short. There is rarely a time when there is not something playing around me, often, but not always Radio Crimson.
My musical taste started in the mainstream; my first purchase was a single called ‘Tell Me When’ by the Applejacks. Please don’t click the link. I told my Mum it was a toss-up between that and the Dam Busters March. She was disappointed.
My first album was ‘In the Court of the Crimson King’. It was – and is – astounding. And unlike the Applejacks, King Crimson has remained alive and fascinating. More about them in the next blog.
In my pre-teenage years, it seemed that you had to choose between the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. I chose the Fab Four, the less dangerous route. Possibly this clannish, belonging thing gave into the formative years of my taste, the 1970s, where I became an adherent of Rock music, and a pompous rejecter of Pop.
Just last week, one of my oldest friends told me that I had ‘disdained’ him for buying ‘Tubular Bells’. I’m afraid this was rather typical of me, and 48 years late, I’ve apologised to him for being such a jerk. I also turned off Radio 1 when Motown music came on. See what I mean?
For the record, I now rather like Tubular Bells, which is like an eccentric old friend – and I love Motown.
I now think this grim tribalism robbed me of some terrific music and I have tried to repair the damage in Radio Crimson (est. 2013).
I found ‘Classic Rock’ stations rather predictable and a bit one-speed. And there were few that represented the increased eclecticism of my taste – Radio Paradise came closest. So Crimson is not like the stations you find on the broadcast radio dial. They normally adhere to a specific genre, certainly in the UK where their license is tied to one genre but in most countries in order to have a strong appeal to a clear audience group. Advertisers like this.
It means that listeners to Crimson will find themselves challenged. As I write, a Stevie Wonder track has just followed Esperanza Spalding. I quite like these jumps, reassuring me that we are doing something interesting and unusual, albeit not very commercial. But that’s ok, we take no ads or sponsorship, so there’s no voice in my ear demanding predictability.
Thanks for reading Blog#1 and please let me know your views / questions / requests / demands at info@radiocrimson.com