Lou Reed Singing Walk on the Wild Side and Interviewed by Australien Journalists

Watch this video with underground rock star Lou Reed performing his hit Walk on the Wild Side and being interviewed by the australian press. I think everybodey knows the tune since it has been aired by radio stations from all over the world for several decades now. It has a kind of minimalistic melody while in this version the guitar plays a little bit more than just the usual simple chord progression.
The interview is hilarious. Lou Reed limits himself to very short answers like ‘yes’, ‘no’, and ‘I don’t know’ and responding even in a contradictory way. He knows who he is and what he represents …

Holly came from miami f.l.a.
Hitch-hiked her way across the U.S.A.

Plucked her eyebrows on the way
Shaved her leg and then he was a she
She says, hey babe, take a walk on the wild side
Said, hey honey, take a walk on the wild side

Candy came from out on the island
In the backroom she was everybodys darling

But she never lost her head
Even when she was given head
She says, hey babe, take a walk on the wild side
Said, hey babe, take a walk on the wild side
And the coloured girls go

Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo
Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo
…

Little Joe never once gave it away
Everybody had to pay and pay

A hustle here and a hustle there
New York city is the place where they said
Hey babe, take a walk on the wild side
I said hey Joe, take a walk on the wild side

Sugar plum fairy came and hit the streets
Lookin for soul food and a place to eat

Went to the Apollo
You should have seen him go go go
They said, hey sugar, take a walk on the wild side
I said, hey babe, take a walk on the wild side
All right, huh

Jackie is just speeding away
Thought she was James Dean for a day

Then I guess she had to crash
Valium would have helped that dash
She said, hey babe, take a walk on the wild side
I said, hey honey, take a walk on the wild side
And the coloured girls say

Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo
Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo
…

Well, Lou Reed obvoiusly does some variations on the lyrics when performing live on stage, but his eventual alterations don’t really change the meaning of the song.

Composer Arnold Schönberg in an Interview about Art and Music

In this video clip you can see some images of Arnold Schönberg’s paintings and personal photos while he is being interviewed about different issues.
Arnold Schönberg belonged to the painting school called Blauer Reiter together with Vladimir Kadinsky and other famous painters. However, Schönberg decided to concentrate on music. In this interview he explains how this happened.
Arnold Schönberg is a very important comoser and can be considered as the logical conclusion of western classical concert music that began with the gregorian choir music with it’s monophonic melodies that could be ‘completed’ initially only with octaves and fifths, since these harmonies are sounding very much the same and music was not for embellishment of the church service itself but for the praising of god. Attention should not be distrated from this goal and music should be no reason to attend the services. One by one, the other 11 notes that exist in between the octave – according to western tuning – where ‘admitted’ in the compositions of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and the rest of the classical composers. By the time Arnold Schönberg appeared on the music scene, every single note could be present in a composition and this meant to Schönberg and a few others that classical music had come to an end and that the logical evolution asked for atonal music, music without the conventional tonal centers that resulted from the rules of harmony.
In the background sound of the interview, you can listen to some compositions by Arnold Schönberg (Who also was one of rock musician Frank Zappa‘s favourite composers).

John Coltrane interview from 1960

John Coltrane talks about his favourite musicians and what he likes most of his own work. This video is a jewel since it presents John Coltrane in an interview expressing his ideas about the music he is performing instead of playing his saxophone or flute. The pictures of the movie are the front covers of John Cotrane’s records.
John Coltrane talks about the instrument tone he would like to improve and on getting things to the lyrical level, about his favourite musicians Sonny Rollins and Dexter Gordon, about Blue Train as his favourite album, about tradition, about his work with the Miles Davis Quintet, the group John Coltrane was playing in when this interview was recorded.

Robert Fripp about his reasons for leaving King Crimson

Watch this video of an interview with guitar player Robert Fripp from the british band King Crimson. Here Robert is talking about the reasons why he left King Crimson in 1974. It seems that freedom and education are strong topics for Robert Fripp and that he didn’t see them anymore in the band. But listen to the master himself.
This is an interview taped around 1980 in Santa Monica, CA at what once was called Theta Cable in the early days of public access.
Fortunately Robert Fripp returned to King Crimson later on. Check for a video of the band playing to see how this guy treats the guitar together with Bill Bruford on the drums.

Music is more than words!

Many people need to listen to the lyrics when they listen to music. Instrumental music is not their thing. That is ok but it really misses the whole point of music: a medium to communicate without words. When lyrics are involved, then these lyrics take over in the listener’s mind. Most people like a particular song just because of the words …
But music has always been more and we dare to assure that the origin of music were not the words but some kind of sound, maybe rhythmically repeated. In this case percussions or drums might have been the first musical instruments. Or maybe the wind was blowing over an ’empty’ bone of some hunted and eaten animal, producing a whistling tone. Playing around with this bone, a possible predecessor of the flute, man(kind) found out that sounds can be produced by blowing into a tube of some kind. Or maybe the string of the arrow produced sound that seemed interesting as a sound to the hunters, who knows if percussions, wind instruments or strings have been the first musical instruments?
This blog will have a section about musical instruments of the world. Whenever possible, these musical instruments will be presented to the public through video clips where the instruments are played and/or commented.

Another section will treat musicians doing what they do best: playing their instruments, both as solo performers and in the context of their band of orchestra. The musicians and bands will be presented depending on the genre or style of music they perform. One of the reasons we like blogs are the tags, they will allow the readers of our blog to navigate through our world of music by musician’s name, genre / style, period, geographical region, size of orchestra, instruments played, place of performance and many more that we hope will be helpfull for our readers.

The artists and musicians interview video clips will be another category of the Music and Video Guide. Understand your favourite musicias better and get insight into their way of thinking about the music and other issues. After all, musicians are citizens too.