Nick Drake: why???

the u.k., i thought. My impression is that it didn't have any connotation over here (u.s.), so when people called sarah stuff or whatever 'twee' we just picked it up and ran with it as a neutral quasi-genre descriptor.
heh I've read 'twee as fuck' more than once, i have no excuse to be so fuzzy about such things.

xpost

I think of "twee" as being specifically associated with Sarah records, bands like Heavenly, Talulah Gosh or I guess even Belle & Sebastian. I normally don't like that kind of music, so to me it is pejorative. I don't think it has much to do with nationality, really.

Now is the time to confess, though, that what I dread even more than the term "twee" applied to Nick Drake is "emo". I do believe there are special torture chambers in hell for people who would call him that.

I didn't read the older parts of this thread earlie, but this:

No one wants Drake to turn out to the crowd and trying different things: his entire appeal is the way he stands in the corner with his back to you, clutching his guitar and mumbling mournfully. The whole point of listening is to somehow squeeze yourself between him and the corner walls, where you can hear him.

Is amazing. Nabisco, that is awesome, and spot on.

Yeah, I confess I'm a Nabsico fan, too. Amen.

So leave your house come into my shed
Please stop my world from raining through my head

Sigh. So lovely. So sad. So right.

I think the first time I heard "Road" off of Pink Moon was my awakening to quite how beautiful and powerful music can be.

Pretty much responsible for everything I've loved about music ever since.

"Road" is oftentimes my favorite Nick Drake song and is also proof that Nick Drake has the most incredible fingerpicking technique of anyone ever.

I can't make my thumb move like that.

"Road" is definitely some super badass guitar playing.

As for twee, the origin of the term as a musical descriptor is definitely British, but I've heard it used in the US.

I lived in England for a bit but I'm not sure I ever actually heard anyone say it over there. I believe that it may have started as a strictly pejorative term, but then so did "baroque." I think it's all about context, really. Some people love twee and some people hate it. I just think it's funny the way both groups seem to use the term without explanation and expect their audience to know whether they mean it as a compliment or an insult.

Dave Grohl, Heath Ledger and Norah Jones: why?

A forthcoming album celebrating the cult singer-songwriter will include controversial footage of the late Heath Ledger simulating suicide to Drake's Black Eyed Dog. Nice!

I'm sure the Drake family will be delighted, they've never accepted his death was suicide - but who cares what they think anyway, eh?

that footage in question is pretty cool. very sombre.

NJones did "Day is done" as the b-side to Nick Drake's own "River Man" single.

David Schulhof, co-founder and co-CEO of EverGreen Copyrights, made the announcement at the MidemNet conference this week. His company controls the US rights for several deceased artists, including Drake and Roy Orbison.
(...)

"Fans are willing to pay for (this) kind of product," Schulhof said, speaking of the tribute.

Blimey, tell it like it is or wot?

Saw the thread revive, read the exchanges at inception, and thought of the solo in Black Eyed Dog and then realised I'd already posted about it, so, here it is again:

I stand by what I said upthread, in that I love FFL pretty much whole, but only find other songs beyond that really compelling. I like Drake, and loved him, possibly, for a while when I was about 17.

Consistency or un-variation I don't see as a problem at all; in fact an artist exploring their aesthetic over a number of years and records is often very compelling.

Possibly the crux of Drake for me, and the moment which proves he's not just an emotional one-trick pony, is the miraculous, soaring, joyous (to me, at any rate) acoustic guitar solo which sears through the centre of "Black Eyed Dog"; possibly it's Drake's saddest tune, his most defeated - he certainly sounds to me as if he's crying as he sings it - and then this solo tears the song in two, elevates the mood incredibly, exposes blue skies where there was really only black before.

― Scik Mouthy, Friday, June 1, 2007 10:15 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder

A forthcoming album celebrating the cult singer-songwriter will include controversial footage of the late Heath Ledger simulating suicide to Drake's Black Eyed Dog

WTF! that's the strangest thing to put on a tribute album ever.

Are there any other songs that Ledger was filmed simulating suicide to? Is this something he did often?

that footage in question is pretty cool. very sombre.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/leicester/content/images/2006/10/19/dmu_head_in_hands_315x420.jpg

What was "the Ledge" listening to when he died, eh? Eh?

Meet On The Ledge?

Fleetwood Mac, "The Ledge"

http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/1673/tedroslz8.jpg

"Close to the Ledit"

"Hey, what'd you do last night?"

"We decided to stay home-- wound up watching footage of Heath Ledger simulating suicide to Nick Drake's 'Black Eyed Dog'."

"Cool, what a nice way to celebrate the memory of Nick"

I'm holding out for:

Heath Ledger Simulating Suicide to the Music of Nick Drake: The Criterion Collection

yeah i was WEIRDED out by the news (i wrote that gruniad article) but uh edited out all my joke-joke-jokes after reflection on the whole er suicide angle.

There isn't anything about this thing that doesn't make me want to puke.

words fail me, what a sick world.

that footage in question is pretty cool. very sombre.

I was expecting farcial slapstick.

a bunch of unrehearsed session musicians trying to accompany a man who obviously knows his own songs pretty well is never a recipe for success

http://www.cluas.com/indie-music/Portals/0/Blog/Files/14/151/Astral%20Weeks.jpg

http://squirrelthing.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/MD_AnnouncePage_wText.png

cool!

it is going to rock SO HARD.
actually i think there's some recordings of her singing in one of the drake documentaries, and it's pretty nice stuff, you can tell that she influenced nick quite a bit. sort of seems like releasing something by the dude's mom would be the ultimate in barrel scraping, but i am curious to hear it.

ian macdonald's essay on drake is classic.

oh here's a radio show about her: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/spinning/2012/apr/22/

There's a couple of tracks on "Family Tree" she sings on.

This is the missing link in the Nick Drake Story” (Joe Boyd)

We are pleased to announce the release of a privately-pressed CD plus a collection of poems by Molly Drake, Nick Drake’s mother.

Some of you will be aware of her songs having watched the film A Skin Too Few or having bought the compilation album Family Tree.

It is due the response from this exposure that we feel the time may be right to release some more material.

Molly Drake wrote and performed songs just for herself, her friends and her family. She did not seek publication for them or for her poems, which seem to have been deeply personal observations. Fortunately, for us, her husband made amateur recordings of her songs on tapes that have lain dormant for 60 years.

The sound quality of the recordings reflects their home-made nature as well as the age of the magnetic tape. Though they have been repaired and made listenable to, the recordings have not been over-restored, since we feel that the sound quality is an integral part of this first experience of Molly’s music. The entire recording was engineered by John Wood, Nick Drake’s friend, engineer and co-producer of Pink Moon.

The 19 songs include How Wild The Wind Blows, I Remember, Poor Mum and Do You Ever Remember?

The CD comes with a 70 page booklet containing 45 poems housed in a card portfolio.

This initial edition is only available here:

www.alimentation.cc/nick_drake/cds/molly-drake.html

http://www.alimentation.cc/nick_drake/cds/molly-drake.html

so much drake action - http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/aug/06/nick-drake-book-unreleased-recordings
peel version of cello song is great, tho maybe it should be called flute song now?
and this! http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/aug/03/nick-drake-rare-tapes-auction-beverley-martyn

and i wrote this thing too! http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/395-invisible-hits-the-unreleased-nick-drake/

Excellent, tylerw!

man that Peel "Three Hours" is so so nice. feel so bad that dude could not find a way through.

What's the sound quality like?

£35 for the normal version might well be pricey but fair

£150 for the 10" single and the fancy version?

Think I'll hang on for the illegal download or whatever

"Road" is oftentimes my favorite Nick Drake song and is also proof that Nick Drake has the most incredible fingerpicking technique of anyone ever.
― Curt1s Stephens, Saturday, June 2, 2007 4:23 PM (7 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is accurate. did he use three fingers in addition to his thumb? trying to wrap my mind around some of his patterns... pretty mindblowing stuff

i think i've read that nick used his right pinky at times

that would make sense. his thumb also sounds good at repeatedly striking the same string. would be hard if you're like me and used to octave-style string patterns.

so clean and droney. i love it. and this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IevsddOcJ7o