Dayglo Daydreams

     Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells is an album for any Progressive Rock lover. It has a nice neoclassical sound alongside nice intricate guitar work, and good usage of organ and synthesizer. If you like your music short and simple, you may not like Tubular Bells, but I would suggest listening anyway, because it is good to broaden horizons, and challenge the ideas one has regarding music.      The record starts out with some interesting and intricate piano lines. It is later joined by a doubling synthesizer. This helps solidify this melody. I think the repetitiveness of this line helps make a complex piece like this catchy. It boggles the mind that a complex melody could be catchy, or an odd rhythm could be groovy, but progressive rock shows us that this is all possible, just listen to the album.      There is a great moment on this album where synth and (I assume) acoustic guitar come together and then there is a crescendo then electric guitar. Normally I would comment on the di

     Magma does not write music for the casual listener. Magma does not write normal music for normal people. They writer serious, abnormal music for abnormal people. The powerful jazz rock of Magma is in direct contrast to the easy-going jazz fusion of Weather Report. If you like your music heavy and energetic instead of languid and mellow, then you will like Magma. Though their ensemble on this album only consists of 8 players (more of a chamber ensemble than a symphonic orchestra) they make up for that by playing with a sort of symphonic heaviness, that is slow, loud, and emphatic.      1001 Centigrades was released in April 1971 by Phillips Studio. It is Magma’s 2 nd album. The first track on this album is 21 minutes (again, this isn’t for the casual music listener) and is written by Christian Vander . The second track is 11 minutes and is written by Teddy Lasry. T he third track is 8 minutes and is written by Francois Cahen . Although this band is based in France, the album

  Weather Report was a jazz fusion band that started in 1970. The album I am reviewing, Black Market was released in 1976. The album was produced by Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter. I think it had something to do with my environment, and the albums I have reviewed before, but this is the first album that actively irritated me. The ballads and the slower moments in general made me want to fall to sleep. Some of the tracks went on too long. This is not to say there is no good music on this album. There is. It simply needed streamlining and a stronger sense of energy behind it. The starting track off of this album is good. There is a generally sunny groove at the beginning of this album. It is lead of by the fretless bass of Jaco Pastorius, the machine-gun delivery of his notes later on in the track are also noteworthy. The warm analog keys and synths of Zawinul are also strong and pleasant in this album overall. Another unique aspect of this track is the odd meter groove that happens

     Wire is a London Art Punk outfit. In addition to the standard four piece band they have a piano and synthesizer player. The album that we are reviewing was released on September 8th, in 1978.      The songs were written either by guitarist and vocalist Colin Newman, guitarist B.C. Guilbert, or bassist and vocalist Lewis (yes, he is only credited with one name).      The thing that makes Wire an art punk band rather than a regular punk band is their de-emphasis on the classic stuff of punk, that is drinking, fighting, and defying authority, and the emphasis is instead on strange lyrics and the usage of synthesizer, and guitar or studio effects.      The first track off of side two Mercy is a stand-out track with its dark sounding ominous bass. The brooding atmosphere on this track is excellent. It reminds me of London Calling because the dark imagery of disaster used in both songs. In one “London is drowning, and I live by the river”, in Mercy it isin the other “...snow storms for

 The Review for Chairs Missing by Wire will be coming in today.

  If you are willing to go into a movie called Laser Mission knowing no lasers will be fired during the movie, Laser Mission is an okay movie. Maybe I am biased because I like low budget action films. Maybe I'm biased because there are worse films with worse acting (Samurai Cop anyone?). This movie has some cheesy acting, some ludicrous action, some cliched plot twists, and bad accents but it is an alright movie to get your buddies together and have a fun time . (spoiler warning ahead) The plot of Laser Mission is that the African Hope Diamond has been stolen by the Soviets who are in Africa. They are after a scientist played by Ernst Borgnine. (big spoiler ahead). It is revealed that that diamond if touched by a laser will trigger a nuclear weapon (how is anyone's guess). The CIA hires a mercenary played by Brandon Lee to stop the soviets and their mercenaries. The soviets capture Borgnine and it is the job of Lee's character to rescue Borgnine and get the crystal from