Recently the music of Federal Duck crawled out of the recesses of my memory causing me to go to YouTube--my standby for digging up the music from my past. Sure enough, the whole Federal Duck album can be found there. As I listened to these songs that I hadn't heard in years, I was transported to that time many years ago when as a college student I would spend many an hour in the basement of my parents' house listening to record albums.
This album is a rather odd duck, if you'll pardon the pun--one to which I have felt strangely drawn like many somewhat peculiar albums I have in my collection. I initially picked it up in the cut-out bin of some forgotten store. It had been marked down from 99 cents to 49 cents. I always love a bargain.
Some of the tunes are endearing novelty songs and crazy jazzy excursions that at times border on annoying, where other tunes are sad pschedelia. For me it is the music of dreams or dreaming. This may be partly because the music is the sound of a younger day in my life. In its genre, this is the exemplary sound of the late 60s--a hallucinogenic soundtrack of solitude and angst.
I've gotten a lot of listening pleasure out of this album that I'd give a five star rating if I were reviewing it by Amazon standards. Searching the internet I found that the CD version of this album is no longer in print, but CD and LP copies can be found in the $100 range. I guess I'm not the only one who appreciates this album.
The song that I've used in this post, "Tomorrow Waits For Today", plaints with a cascading piano riff and a shimmery electronic organ behind a melancholy vocal. A hypnotic drum line drives the music. The song reflects on the passage of time in its most mundane sense giving the inevitability of growing old a resigned melodic sigh. This is late night sorrow music or listening for a lonely Sunday afternoon.
And indeed tomorrow does wait for today in all that we do. The Blogging from A to Z Challenge is a month away, but we have today for the time being. Now is the time to be putting out the call for more to join us is this grand blogging event.
It's also time to be getting your ducks in a row so to speak. I've got my posts lined up for this blog, A Faraway View. During April my theme will be "Dream Music A to Z". I will be covering songs, artists, composers, and music styles that are suggestive of dreams to me. They may be songs about dreams or music that puts me in a dreamy state of mind.
Like I've done in today's post, I will offer a video selection that you can listen to if you wish. It's all optional--nothing will play automatically. I encourage you to at least listen to part of each selection as you may discover some music with which you are unfamiliar and may actually enjoy.
In preparation, during the month of March my topics on this blog will all be related to music and dreams. I hope you will enjoy this two month series dealing with two topics that interest me: music and dreams.
I love music so it will be a pleasure to visit here.
ReplyDeleteStill getting over jet lag. Why does a lovely vacation get spoilt by jetlag beats me.
Have a good day.
Yvonne.
Tomorrow does indeed wait for today but there is another interesting phenomenom....have you ever had today paralysed by tomorrow (or rather the expectation of tomorrow) so that you actually lose today and experience two tomorrows?
ReplyDeleteI must have been sitting under a rock as I never heard of Federal Duck. Love the name! :)
ReplyDeleteThis is a great song! I can't believe A to Z is only a month away! I " put out the call" again today! Julie
ReplyDeleteWe're looking forward to the AtoZ Challenge here! I'll be blogging about the background to my stories, and Victor will be blogging about something dear to a guineapig's heart - his stomach, i.e. food! We'll be coming back here from http://jemimapett.wordpress.com and http://guineapigging.wordpress.com. Look forward to seeing you again!
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting, as I was listening to this tune it made me want to go sleep so I could have me a really groovy dream! Can't wait to read your A to A posts. I have been putting the word out in the blog frog forums to try and get some more peeps :)
ReplyDeleteUniversal Gibberish
BOIDMAN ~
ReplyDeleteA double surprise:
1) That you could mention a band I had never even HEARD OF! I didn't think there could possibly be a band from the late '60s and 1970s that I'd never even read about or heard mentioned anywhere!
2) That I liked the song so much! This was a great piece of Jazz-Rock/Psychedelia!
I was just listening to some Traffic a few minutes ago (a band you and I both really dig) which reminded me that you had posted some song here by a band I'd not heard of, and I had been intending for days to return here and listen to it.
So I walked out of the room with Traffic playing and into this room to hear "Federal Duck". I could hear both bands playing at once, which was kind of interesting since both could be labeled 1960s Jazz-Rock/Psychedelia (and with Traffic you'd have to work the word "Folk" in there somehow also).
Anyway, this was a real surprise because the song had a cool, hypnotic melody propelled by some good musicianship... and yet I'd never even heard of "Federal Duck". How can that be?!
Did any of the Federal Duck band members go on to have notable or even semi-notable careers as solo artists or with any other band(s) that I might have heard of, a la Steve Winwood and Dave Mason from Traffic?
~ D-FensDogg
'Loyal American Underground'
Yvonne -- Jet lag? I'm suffering from comment lag.
ReplyDeleteDelores -- This does kind of sound familiar.
Paula -- Hardly anyone ever heard of Federal Duck.
Julie -- Keep on calling!
Jemima -- Happy to have you with us.
Anna -- Lot's of dream music to come.
StMc --'m so glad that you enjoyed this tune. The entire album can be found on YouTube--it's a weird mix, but my sort of thing. And sadly they only had one album. The only member that did much of anything else was banjoist George Stavis, but he didn't get much recognition.
Humorist Dave Barry made a claim to have been part of the band but there is no credit on the album citing him. I'm wondering if it was just a shtick he concocted because the band name sounds funny and it made for a funny story.
Watch the dream blog in April for more strange stuff that you may want to way in on, as well as not so strange stuff that I'd like to hear your thoughts on my including it as dream music.
Thanks for the comments
Lee