Neoton Familia - Hegyirabló, Santa Maria

“Hegyirabló” is a rather fascinating song, with its back-and-forth methodology and the singing of a man with one of the lowest and most resonating voices I've heard pretty much everywhere. The voice sounds like it's at the bottom of a swimming pool filled with delicious molasses and is surfacing to breathe every now and then. The supplemental strings and brass add a pleasant roundness to the song, as do the parts with several people singing in unison. The constant bass drum gives “Hegyirabló” a pleasant constantness, and the way that both the vocals and the other melodic segments of the song arrive in chunks on the beats makes the whole composition sound like the heartbeat of the Earth Mother.

You can listen to “Hegyirabló” here.

You must remove the downloaded file from your computer within 24 hours. It is only a sample of a track which you can purchase on a CD. The author of this site cannot be held responsible for the misuse or copyright violation of this song as enforced by any given country's laws.

“Santa Maria” is another Neoton Familia favorite of mine. It too has back-and-forth singing as well as mulitple people singing in unison, both aspects of vocals that I am particularly fond of in music. The melody is rather simple and somewhat monotonous much of the time, causing it to in some ways take a back seat to the excellent bass line. That bass line is one of the grooviest and addictive bass lines to be found, and when coupled with the simple yet effective drum beat, forms a driving force that propels the song along its fantastic way. The chorus, where the only words are “Santa Maria”, is musically pleasing and fun to listen too. The violin instrumental about halfway through is quite beautiful as well. Overall, “Santa Maria” is an awesome song in the original sense of the word.

You can listen to “Santa Maria” here.

You must remove the downloaded file from your computer within 24 hours. It is only a sample of a track which you can purchase on a CD. The author of this site cannot be held responsible for the misuse or copyright violation of this song as enforced by any given country's laws.

Dylan Live!

Last night, I was able to see the one, the only, Bob Dylan in concert! The concert was held Assembly Hall in Bloomington. While Assembly Hall is a great building, I was disappointed that the concert was not held in the Indiana University Auditorium. If you have ever seen a concert at the IU auditorium, you understand my disappointment. The IU auditorium is an amazing place to experience a concert. I remember the first time I walked into the IU auditorium. By eyes grew large, my mouth dropped open, and I was awestruck. I was hoping for this to happen again when seeing Dylan; but overall, Assembly Hall a decent concert atmosphere.

Due to hectic traffic, I missed the first opening act Amos Lee. However, I did arrive in time to catch Elvis Costello. Costello performed an acoustic act by himself, and simply brought the house down. He came out rocking with the song "(The Angels Want to Wear My) Red Shoes". There was a good variety of songs, switching between upbeat rockers and slow ballads, such as his hit song "Allison". Costello interacted with the audience quite a bit, by talking between almost every song. He told stories about his children, previous wives, and Governor Arnold Schwarchenegger. Since he was playing at Indiana University, he said at one point, "I hope you all kick some ass tomorrow in your football game against Penn State." After some cheers from the audience, he replied with, "I have no idea what that means, they just told me to say that." Overall, Costello was a great 2nd opener.

Now this was my third time seeing Dylan live. The first time seeing him was a bit of a disappointment, due to the fact that he was on the side of the stage, not even facing the audience, or playing his guitar. This time around, Dylan's performance was much better. He played guitar for his first 4-5 songs, and actually played in the middle of the stage. He has a great backing band, who rocked and jammed on "Ballad of a Thin Man", "Highway 61 Revisited", and "Summer Days". Four songs came from his most recent album Modern Times, which were all performed well. An interesting thing to note was that Dylan's most famous songs, "All Along the Watchtower" and "Like A Rolling Stone", which are both regulars in his live performance, were both omitted from this concert. A song that caught be by surprise was "Blowin' in the Wind". It was the second song of the encore, and I didn't even recognize it until almost a minute into the song. The song was sped up, and had a country sort of twang to it.

Overall, the concert was very enjoyable. I look forward to seeing Dylan live again in concert, after seeing him live, the same goes for Elvis Costello. While I'm sure Dylan's live show is not up to the level it used to be, it was still great a music legend and my favorite artist perform live.

Neoton Familia

Another great band from Hungary is Neoton Familia, and one of my favorite bands as well, up there in the top tier where all are so great that a number one cannot be determined. In fact, one of the best CDs I ever owned was Napraforgó, which I bought when I went to Hungary. I conclude that Napraforgó means sunflower in Hungarian, judging by all the sunflowers that show up in Google Images when I search it, as well as the big sunflower on the cover of the CD case. I was quite upset when I lost it a year later, but luckily I always copy all the tracks to my computer as soon as I can when I obtain a new CD. A lot of their music sounds rather yellow or brown, and usually a happy feeling emanates from most of the songs. Neoton Familia is apparently Hungarian for The Newton Family, so I suppose that its many members are all in the same family. It is hard to find information about them, but I can tell you that they are mostly from the 70's. Their musical style is a sort of vaguely disco-like sort of somewhat early 80's rock in a way. In other words, it sounds like nearly every song is about “this is how the world is, isn't it great?”. Sometimes when my friends hear my playing Neoton Familia, they tell me, “Goggin, there is a reason that this type of music went out of style.” Well, I do not see why I should care that the music I like is not “in style”. Any music that is good music is always in style here in Gogginland.

My favorite Neoton Familia songs:

• Don Quijote
• Egy Huszas Eleg
• Egy Kicsit Szemtelen
• Forrófejű Lány
• Ha Szombat Este Táncol
• Hegyirabló
• Nyár Van
• Robinson
• Santa Maria
• Szia! (Helló!)
• Tini Dal
• Visz a Hajó, Fúj a Szél

As you can see by this bountiful list, Neoton Familia really rocks old Goggin's socks. You may look forward to reading more about some specific songs, what are perhaps the best of the best, when you tune in next time.

Groovehouse

Groovehouse is a mystery. What dear old Goggin means by such a statement is that although there are several Groovehouse music videos on YouTube, the small amount of information available on the Internet, mostly from their own website, is all in Hungarian, which I cannot read. What I can tell you, dear reader, is that Groovehouse is from Hungary, is still active, and that the names of the two members may or may not be Miki and Zsolti. There seems to be a fair amount of quality electronica from Hungary, and Groovehouse is the best that I've heard. A lot of their music sounds black and purple, a result of the strong bass and the particular synth sounds they use. I also like the way that the language of the lyrics sounds, perhaps because of the flowing vowels, and because I do not know what any of the words mean, it becomes easier to hear the vocals more as another instrument of the music and less as just words on top of the music. It is important in good music that the vocals contribute to the overall composition as one of the instruments and not as fundamentally unnecessary words that add no true value to the song, no matter what language the lyrics are in.

My favorite Groovehouse songs, although I haven't heard very many:

• Álom
• Vándor
• Olla-Olla
• Szívvel Lélekkel

Vándor is a good example of what Groovehouse sounds like. It has a muscular beat and bass, setting a good foundation for the vocals and the rather subtle instruments. The piano counter-melody adds a very beautiful touch to the song. If I knew what the words of the song meant, the video would probably make more sense, but already I can tell that it has something to do with a bad man in medieval times, a hero man, some sort of creepy wizard man, and an ornate princess lady. The sound of Vándor fits the feel of many hundreds of years ago quite well, despite its modern sound.