HONEYMOAN started in 2017, after a jam session of local Indie psych rock bands turned into something a little more. Two EP’s later, with another due February 21, and this four piece alternative pop group from Cape Town South Africa is making serious waves within indie music circles.
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I love songs that stick in my head and both HONEYMOAN’s “Sweating Gold” and “Still Here” won’t leave. They are future indie pop classics you don’t want to sleep on. 

When musical historians reflect upon the history of jazz and more specifically bebop, Charlie Parker’s name is one of the first to pop up. His work as a soloist and approach to the saxophone revolutionized jazz.

“Star Eyes” was written by Gene de Paul and Don Raye for the 1943 Red Skelton film I Dood it. It was originally performed by Helen O’Connell and Bob Eberly as an orchestral love song with sappy arrangements that any crooner would wait in line to sing. Parker’s version takes it to a darker place, of painful longing for that loving embrace. But don’t let his first adoring solo deceive you. Parker refuses to be upstaged by Miles Davis and Walter Bishop and at 2:37 we see his second solo stomp, dance, and tip toe magnificently all over their comparatively immature playing.
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By all accounts, Charlie Parker is considered the greatest saxophonist of all time and for good reason. His virtuosity, speed and control are still unmatched. He would spend fifteen hours a day playing, and every time I listen to him, it’s hard not to think of that, and how sad it is that we lost him so young.  

Last Tuesday we lost Neil Ellwood Peart. He was, from all accounts, one of the nice guys in the music business and considered one of the greatest drummers of all time. Like many of my friends growing up close to the Canadian border, I too grew up loving many Canadian bands, including Rush. 

One of the aspects of Peart’s brilliance was not his drumming, but his songwriting and moreover his ability as a lyricist. So many of Rush’s most popular songs, “Closer to The Heart,” “The Spirit of Radio,” “Freewill,” “Limelight,” “Subdivisions,” “New World Man,” and “Time Stand Still” were penned by him.
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Peart first appeared with Rush on their second album Fly by Night.  I chose the title track for this week’s song, not because it’s my favorite of his or theirs, but because it’s one of the first he wrote for the band, with lyrics that reflected upon his first trip away from home.