What the hell is it with a 12 bar blues?

by Obnoxio the Clown

I have no idea why, but I am such a sucker for a 12 bar blues. I’m currently traversing approximately 12,000 songs on my iPod and rating them. Buried in there are a fair old number of blues tunes. Some of these I like and some of them I don’t, but I absolutely love any 12 bar blues.

From my dim and distant youth, I can also remember shipping over to a smoky nightclub every week for the blues night and loving everything, but especially loving 12 bar blues. From the simple, insistent, driving bass, the simple drumming, the discipline of the rhythm guitarist, the wailing inventiveness of the lead to the drawn-out climax of the song, I couldn’t get enough. And the 12 bar songs were always the jewels of the show for me, the other stuff was nice, but really it was just fluff, covering old standards like Route 66 were just to keep the some semi-commercial appeal in place.

So, the 12 bar blues: anyone know why it gives me such a thrill?

Rock vs. house

An interesting article from David Osler. Not sure I agree with his thesis, but not being a fan of house, I’m hardly an expert.

Anyway, go read.

Recommended by Obnoxio the Clown.

Decomposing composers

by Obnoxio the Clown

I’m trawling through my iPod at the moment, which is quite good fun: Mozart one minute, Peter Rauhofer the next. It was this strange pairing that left me struck by the similarity in visceral reaction I get from both some of my heaviest dance and some of my favourite classical music.

Bach and Mozart particularly had a talent of creating quite a driving beat, and I occasionally find myself almost “busting shapes” to Elvira Madigan or something equally unexpected.

Is it just me then?