Category Working Music

Everyone Says Bye

At one time, Bowie was pretty much the biggest rock star on the planet, yet he never lost the ability to laugh at himself, and could still write and perform songs as personal as this. RIP, Mr. David Bowie — the coolest dude who ever was.

 



A Kaleidoscope Of Mathematics

With the passing of troubled, yet undeniably genius John F. Nash, I felt like sharing this opening track to the movie ‘A Beautiful Mind’ by James Horner. Soundtracks are fast becoming a lost art, sadly, but inspiring works like this still pop up now and again to fire the imagination.

If you have not seen the movie, a Ron Howard rendering of Nash’s life as a Nobel Prize-winning mathmetician who struggled with schizophrenia for many years, I highly recommend it. In fact, you should watch it at least twice to really appreciate the nuances in the plot and the acting.

If you enjoyed this, seek out the rest of the soundtrack — you won’t be disappointed!

Lip-Synching FTW!

Anyone who knows me at all will have known that it wouldn’t be long before I posted something from the early ’80s! (Boy, that was a convoluted thought.) For those of you who weren’t around at that time, well, you missed out on something truly special, musically-speaking. The early ’80s was, and is, a treasure trove of so many wonderful songs and bands that it still pays dividends today, even thirty years later.

One of the bands I completely missed back in those days was Altered Images, led by the lovely waif from Scotland, Clare Grogan. Probably best known for “Happy Birthday” (included in one of the first scenes of Sixteen Candles), they weren’t around for too long, only putting out an EP and three albums, but during that time managed to run the gamut from punk beginnings to synth-and-bass New Wave. Here is a tune from their last album, sung “live” on Top Of The Pops, ca. 1983.

Yes, it is cliche to say that every song from the time had a saxophone break in it — though most did, ha! — but how many can you say had a trumpet solo? This next song did, and a heartbreakingly lovely one at that. Easily my favorite Altered Images tune, and a lovely but sad way for their career to end, as they broke up after this album (“Bite”) came out. Ach, but we miss ya, lassie!

Working Man Music

Starting up a new quasi-reoccurring post category here on Diamond Mind, for “local viewing” only, not dissemination. “Working Music”, which will be exactly what it says — tunes listened to while working away at doing the terrific things we do. Been delaying it for a while as I pondered where to begin, and it finally hit me that “Working Man” by Rush would be uber-fitting for a first selection.

So, here you go — a 1974 performance by Geddy, Alex, and then-drummer John Rutsey at Laura Secord Secondary School in St. Catharines, Ontario. I’ll even dedicate this first post to a “young” man by the name of Jim Weatherford, wherever he may be. Jim was a junior-high buddy and the first person to introduce me to Rush, though it was a couple of years later, when “All The World’s A Stage” came out. Man, we were young then! As are these guys — I swear Geddy is wearing braces in this vid! Enjoy.


And all credit goes to the YouTube uploader, Concordbeltcreation2. You should check out his channel — he has some awesome vids going all the way back to Danny & The Juniors. I’m sure I will be reposting some of them in the future…