Wagner: Siegfried's Tod und Trauermarsch

Klaus Tennstedt's peerless interpretation.

Taraf de haidouks: Cantec de dragoste ca la Roata

Taraful din Clejani - Cantec de dragoste ca la Roata
Uploaded by ploaie_calda

This is fantastic.

Dead Kennedys: Rawhide

There's always one blog that gets neglected when I get busy. Sorry about that: I've been pontificating about music over here.

Anyway, Tuesday is nostalgia day; so here's the Dead Kennedys and a bunch of midgets doing Rawhide. A firm favourite of yesteryear (well, sometime in the 80s anyway).

George Formby: With my Little Stick of Blackpool Rock

"It's nice to have a nibble at it now and again..."

Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra: Love Theme from the Godfather

Astonishing. Perservere until the applause is over and the music starts.

Camper van Beethoven: Take the Skinheads Bowling

"Had a dream - I wanted to lick your knees."

Ah, fine memories. They could release this today and it'd be more popular than it was then.

Scriabin: Etude Op. 8 No. 2/ Deux Poèmes

I've not posted for a couple of days, so instead of talking rubbish about things you don't care about, why not let this Scriabin melt on your ears? It's played with the caress of Ivo Pogorelić.

Hindemith: "Minimax" I

I'm not feeling light-hearted today. Still, this will raise a smile in those who find this sort of thing amusing...

Miles Davis & John Coltrane: So What

The battery in my laptop is about to run out and I need to get dressed. So here's a work of genius that needs no introduction.

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Stepan Pasicznyk (Ludwig): Ridna Maty Moya

Stepan was the accordionist with The Ukrainians, a band I particular admire for their take on various Smiths songs (see EP below). As you'll see and hear, he's a guitarist too.

Ridna Maty Moya is a glorious song though, and beautifully played. As Stepan says in his notes:

Imagine a lonely mother in a remote Ukrainian village listening to this song on a crackly old bit of vinyl on her old Soviet era gramophone player as the last child to leave home sings along to it in a far away land.

It's amazingly easy to do, even if (in this particular video clip) Stepan bears a slightly unnerving resemblance to the Godfather's Luca Brasi.

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Fields of the Nephilim: Last Exit for the Lost

Fields of the Nephilim. The goth band from Stevenage. Beloved of adolescents in small market towns across the land. I used to mope about in Lincolnshire and listen to them in my black-painted room. I even went to see them twice, once in Peterborough and once in Cambridge. I was so cool.

These days I wouldn't listen to the Nephs for fun. Though, if it's any consolation to them, I once named a cat after the drummer, Nod, and I still have a sneaking affection for the song above.

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