tracers and little demons

Portrait of the artist as a Google Image search

Peter Gabriel, Peter Gabriel (or 2 or "scratch")
Daryl Hall, Sacred Songs
Robert Fripp, Exposure (YouTube playlist, embedded below)

To Peter Gabriel: Once my friends and I spraypainted a logo one of us made for your name on the undeveloped cul-de-sac street behind the neighborhood. We had to make one up because you didn't have one, or even name your albums until So came out. We never thought about it, or I never did, but that was a cool move on your part. The second of those is a lovely, delicate rope bridge strung between the sweaty headiness of the 70s and the cold, plastic charm that would take hold in the 80s.


Peter Gabriel, "Mother of Violence"

Also, somebody on Facebook thinks it is your birthday and I know it to be Feb 15 because we one afternoon made a joke about it being on the "ides of February" which isn't much of a joke, but I don't know how to tell the guy without making the joke worse. So, happy birthday!

According to Wikipedia, This album was originally intended as part of a loose trilogy with Robert Fripp's Exposure and Daryl Hall's Sacred Songs (all three albums were produced by Fripp) and it's been decades since I heard the former and never since the latter so here's a plan for the day.


Daryl Hall, "Babs and Bads". It's very 70s/80s stacatto-strut dated but stick with this one; it goes some weird places come the 3:30 mark, a 'lude interlude, if you will. Daryl's soul-filled blue eye blinks back to life like nothing happened, like a total professional, crooning through the tracers and little demons tugging at his blazer tails.


Robert Fripp, Exposure. YouTube playlists are the new cassette without that impatient 45 minute wait in some friend's bedroom waiting for the album to finish.