Mysterious Universe Band | Musician/band

Mysterious Universe Band

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25.01.2022 MUSICAL UNIVERSE Mysterious Universe interests and influences. Like its near-contemporary Mull Of Kintyre, Moonlight Shadow is a modern pop hit with the timeless feel of folksong. Maggie Reilly’s crystalline vocals and Mike Oldfield’s excellent guitar solo cast a magical, musical spell. It also somehow evokes that fantastic old school poetry staple The Highwayman (‘the moon was a ghostly galleon’ and so forth). The dream-like video (owls, forests, staircases) depicts a duel but the lyrics suggest murder by a fugitive or some deadly appointment-gone-wrong. Who knows? Atmosphere is king here. Breathe!

25.01.2022 MUSICAL UNIVERSE Mysterious Universe interests & influences: Cyber-stumbling upon this clip recently was a serendipitous and nostalgic revelation, defining a glorious tune inhabiting me anonymously for many moons - long after the subsidence of its media ubiquity. An English folk tune published in 1701, Portsmouth was revived in 1923 by Ralph Vaughan Williams for his Sea Songs suite and became this hit single for Mike Oldfield in 1976.

24.01.2022 Just thought I’d share this glimpse into how Mysterious Universe are spending this gig-scant year that went viral. Here’s a casual snap of us pickin’ those scales, tryin’ on new stage costumes and rehearsin’ new tunes (with a little help from our friends).

24.01.2022 MUSICAL UNIVERSE Mysterious Universe interests and influences. Who says a guitar ain’t percussion? Bukka White proves otherwise in this amazing rendition of his Aberdeen Mississippi Blues, crackling away with that superb slide sound. Keith Richards once said of John Lee Hooker, ‘That’s heavy metal; that’s armour.’ And I'm sure Keith would agree, so's this! I like the knitted vest, too, by the way.

24.01.2022 MUSICAL UNIVERSE: Mysterious Universe welcomes the discovery, on Venus, of a gas which on Earth is always a sign of life, only produced by microbes or industrial process. Have we ‘unearthed’ the Venusians at last? Answers remain cloudy, but Shocking Blue had this to say on Venus some time ago. The longhorn guitar is out of this world, anyhow.

21.01.2022 Damned decent of you, Band Camp! Starts about now eastern time in Oz, and Mysterious Universe are of course in the BC orbit...

19.01.2022 MUSICAL UNIVERSE Mysterious Universe interests & influences: Louis Armstrong’s superlative What A Wonderful World, one of the 20th century’s truly great songs methinks, a perfect union of melody and sentiment, so very affecting in its joyous, life-affirming sincerity (and gloriously bereft of the irony too many filmmakers lumber it with when sticking it in their soundtracks). Here’s Louis live in 1967.

19.01.2022 MUSICAL UNIVERSE Mysterious Universe interests & influences: The Black Plague, from the wildly loopy post-Animals Animals (i.e. Eric Burdon & The Animals, the straightforward name being their only straightforward feature). Few have gone so far beyond the outer limits of outthereness without tripping up on self-consciousness or irony. Bonus: at 5:39 the humorous whimsy (or is it whimsy humour?) of San Franciscan Nights.

17.01.2022 MUSICAL UNIVERSE Mysterious Universe interests & influences. Here’s a cheery foot-stomper! Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs do the Salty Dog Blues with their matchless bluegrass band. Now I don’t know what a salty dog is, but I'll forsake googling for once and let it be what it will be. It can be all sorts of things at once if you like. It sounds good anyhow!

17.01.2022 MUSICAL UNIVERSE Mysterious Universe interests & influences: The Kinks do Last of the Steam Powered Trains on TV in 1969. What kind of train would you be? If that ever pops up as one of those pestilent social media quizzes, Ray Davies has his answer ready. This superb neo-luddite rallying call is also a jovial take on the trains-ience of things. It’s all relative, of course; weren’t steam trains the newfangled horrors that Wordsworth railed against back in the day? The riff is from Howlin’ Wolf’s Smokestack Lightning, and also often appears in See, See Rider. Bonus: at 4.10 you get Picture Book, a Village Green LP highlight!

12.01.2022 MUSICAL UNIVERSE Mysterious Universe interests & influences: Nick Cave’s Nature Boy, a song so true and grand, a moving tribute to things true and important with a driving alt rock sound and a chorus that blooms with wonder.

11.01.2022 MUSICAL UNIVERSE Slade’s Mama We’re All Crazy Now, because 2020 is officially indeed, indubitably the year the world went insane. Now, partial as Mysterious Universe may be to glam’s pageantry and boogie-rock buffoonery, we will never abide bad spelling. Nice hat, Noddy, but ‘crazee’? ‘Weer’?? It just won’t do, matey. After class, write out fifty times

10.01.2022 This Friday (September 4th) ain't just the 1,544th anniversary of the end of the Roman Empire. It's also Bandcamp's Revenue Share Waive Day - a noble Bandcamp gesture to help musicians affected by the pandemic, which is just about every last one of us. So hop on over to Bandcamp and check out Mysterious Universe's dirt-cheap sonic offerings! https://mysteriousuniverse.bandcamp.com/

10.01.2022 MUSICAL UNIVERSE Mysterious Universe interests & influences: Whiter Shade Of Pale. Procol Harum’s one truly immortal song. The Bach-infused organ melody and elusive words combine to remarkably dreamlike, timeless, floating effect. Many an armchair expert has tried to tell us what it all means, but a literal meaning wasn’t lyricist Keith Reid’s intention; as he told Uncut magazine (Feb 08): ‘I was trying to conjure a mood I wasn’t trying to be mysterious, I was trying to be evocative.’ Also, to quash the usual cliche about the wellsprings of 60s psychedelia: ‘It was influenced by books, not drugs.’

07.01.2022 MUSICAL UNIVERSE Mysterious Universe interests & influences: The Warumpi Band’s first single Jailanguru Pakarnu (1983) with its excellent and unpretentious video. The Warumpis hailed from Papunya way out in the Western Desert and this jaunty Chuck Berryesque toetapper, sung in Luritja the title means ‘out from jail’ was the first rock song recorded in an Aboriginal language, an irresistible rejuvenation of trad rock'n'roll with innovation, flair and personal expression.