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Dave's Side One

Art of Listening Records

Talk about music, vinyl, classic rock, classic jazz, and whatever else comes to mind. Hosted by one of the founders of Art of Listening Records - Dave Gwilliam.

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S1 · E278
Today · 6 min
Why the Ending Feels Earned
Today Dave brings Rush’s Permanent Waves back to the turntable, not to repeat an earlier conversation, but to listen in a new way. Contrasting sections of a long composition establish an ending that has been prepared rather than merely added. THE LISTENING ASSIGNMENT Play all of “Natural Science.” Note the major sectional changes and ask whether the ending works without the journey. SIDE ONE SPIN What did you notice? Did the listening experiment change the way you hear the record? Tell us where you agree—or disagree.
S1 · E277
Yesterday · 6 min
The Guitar Solo That Tells a Story
Today Dave brings Eagles’s Hotel California back to the turntable, not to repeat an earlier conversation, but to listen in a new way. The closing guitar section moves from individual statements to a shared, harmonized resolution. THE LISTENING ASSIGNMENT Listen to the “Hotel California” guitar outro and identify the individual statements, responses, and final harmonized resolution. SIDE ONE SPIN What did you notice? Did the listening experiment change the way you hear the record? Tell us where you agree—or disagree.
S1 · E276
Thursday · 6 min
The Instrument That Doesn’t Sound Human
Today Dave brings Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy back to the turntable, not to repeat an earlier conversation, but to listen in a new way. Studio treatment changes the perceived identity of instruments and voices. THE LISTENING ASSIGNMENT Play “No Quarter” twice. On the second listen, focus on how keyboard and vocal treatments change your sense of distance and atmosphere. SIDE ONE SPIN What did you notice? Did the listening experiment change the way you hear the record? Tell us where you agree—or disagree.
S1 · E275
Wednesday · 6 min
Two Songs That Became One
Today Dave brings The Cars’ The Cars to the turntable Two consecutive tracks can form one listening memory without becoming one composition. THE LISTENING ASSIGNMENT Play “Moving in Stereo” directly into “All Mixed Up.” Later play the first track alone. What does your memory expect next? SIDE ONE SPIN What did you notice? Did the listening experiment change the way you hear the record? Tell us where you agree—or disagree.
S1 · E274
Tuesday · 6 min
When Does the Song Actually Begin?
When Does the Song Actually Begin? Today Dave brings Supertramp’s Even in the Quietest Moments... back to the turntable, not to repeat an earlier conversation, but to listen in a new way. Supertramp’s extended introduction makes us question where a composition starts. THE LISTENING ASSIGNMENT Play the complete “Fool’s Overture,” then restart at the point you think the song begins. Does the later music land differently? DAVE’S SIDE ONE SPIN What did you notice? Did the listening experiment change the way you hear the record? Tell us where you agree—or disagree.
S1 · E273
Monday · 5 min
The Music I Heard Before I Chose My Own
Today’s record is The Best of Al Hirt. The Best of Al Hirt (1965) played constantly in Dave’s childhood home. The album is the doorway; the memory is the subject. Before we build our taste, somebody else is already shaping our ears. In this episode we revisit the story, question what makes a record important, and offer a listening test you can try with your own collection. Side One Spin: What music played in your childhood home that you now hear differently?
S1 · E272
Sunday · 5 min
The Weight Room Had a Soundtrack
Today’s record is The Wall by Pink Floyd. In senior year 1979–80, The Wall was the soundtrack in the high-school weight room. Further details about who chose it or the equipment are not established. The album is the doorway; the memory is the subject. Some albums become the sound of a room before they become a subject of analysis. In this episode we revisit the story, question what makes a record important, and offer a listening test you can try with your own collection. Side One Spin: Which record takes you straight back to a place you used to spend time?
S1 · E271
October 17 · 6 min
The Album I Still Can’t Finish
Today’s record is Raised on Radio by Journey. Dave still struggles to finish Raised on Radio; it felt closer to a Steve Perry solo record than the Journey he knew. Learning Steve Smith and Ross Valory had been replaced during sessions intensified his reaction. The album is the doorway; the memory is the subject. Disappointment in an album can reveal how deeply a band mattered to you. In this episode we revisit the story, question what makes a record important, and offer a listening test you can try with your own collection. Side One Spin: What record made you realize you and a favorite band had changed in different directions?
S1 · E270
October 16 · 6 min
An Eight-Track in My Parents’ Station Wagon
Today’s record is Man of Miracles by Styx. In 1978 Dave listened to Man of Miracles on eight-track while riding to and from school in his parents’ station wagon. The album is the doorway; the memory is the subject. The setting can become inseparable from the music. In this episode we revisit the story, question what makes a record important, and offer a listening test you can try with your own collection. Side One Spin: What album immediately puts you back inside a particular car?
S1 · E269
October 15 · 6 min
The Box of Records That Never Made It Home
Today’s record is Kind of Blue by Miles Davis. During the 2006 move from Texas to Utah a box of vintage jazz records disappeared, including an early Kind of Blue pressing. The whereabouts remain unknown. The album is the doorway; the memory is the subject. What you miss is not just the object, but the listening life attached to it. In this episode we revisit the story, question what makes a record important, and offer a listening test you can try with your own collection. Side One Spin: What lost record would you want back, even if its market value were zero?
S1 · E268
October 14 · 5 min
The Record I Couldn’t Bring Home
Today’s record is Alive! by KISS. When Alive! was new, Dave worried about his parents’ reaction. He listened at friends’ houses and still does not own a copy. The album is the doorway; the memory is the subject. A record can become important even when it never enters your collection. In this episode we revisit the story, question what makes a record important, and offer a listening test you can try with your own collection. Side One Spin: Which record did you have to hear somewhere other than home?
October 13 · 5 min
The Night We Took On “Tom Sawyer”
Today’s record is Moving Pictures by Rush. 1981 University of Utah Mayfest Dave’s band tackled Tom Sawyer, believed they might have been first local cover; played it successfully; group split six months later. The album is the doorway; the memory is the subject. The record became a test of what the band could do together. In this episode we revisit the story, question what makes a record important, and offer a listening test you can try with your own collection. Side One Spin: What does it take for a band to earn one unforgettable night?
S1 · E266
October 12 · 5 min
The Album I Recommend Isn’t My Favorite Album
Dave’s favorite Triumph album is Just a Game, but it is not the record he would recommend first to a new listener. That job goes to Allied Forces. This episode closes Week 15 by separating two questions music fans often treat as identical: “What is your favorite?” and “Where should I start?” A personal favorite reflects years of relationship and context; a good recommendation considers the listener standing at the entrance. Using two Triumph albums, Dave argues that recommendation is not ranking—it is choosing the right doorway.
S1 · E265
October 10 · 5 min
Knowing the Part Isn’t the Same as Knowing What Makes It Work
Joe Walsh’s “Rocky Mountain Way” sounds direct because the record makes its choices feel inevitable. The recognizable riff is only one layer. Attack, space, groove, tone, dynamics and the rhythm section all shape what the part actually does. Even the famous talk-box passage works because the track has already established a musical world for that new texture to enter. In this episode, Dave uses his current experience learning the song to ask what musicians really mean when they say they have learned a part. Is it enough to know the notes and changes? Or does learning the song require understanding how hard to hit, how long to ring, where to leave space, how to sit against the beat and how the part relates to everyone else? This is not an argument that every listener needs to analyze a rock song to enjoy it. It is an argument that the details we call “feel” stop being small details the moment we try to reproduce the performance. The part tells us what to play. The record tells us what the part is supposed to do. SIDE ONE SPIN: What song did you think you knew until you tried to play it? Give me the artist, song, your instrument, and the thing that turned out not to be written in the notes.
S1 · E264
October 10 · 5 min
A Band’s Voice Isn’t Always the Singer
Before a vocalist sings a single word on Toto’s 1978 debut, “Child’s Anthem” has already established a recognizable musical identity. This episode expands the idea of a band’s “voice” beyond the singer and into instrumental tone, arrangement, rhythm, production and sonic palette. Dave uses Toto—and briefly the keyboard identity of Lyle Mays with the Pat Metheny Group—to ask what actually makes a band recognizable. Sometimes the singer carries the song while the band’s deeper fingerprint is already present underneath.
S1 · E263
October 9 · 5 min
Side Two Doesn’t Have to Beat Side One
Side One of Pat Benatar’s Crimes of Passion is undeniably powerful, but Dave rarely skips anything on the album. In this episode, he argues that Side Two does not have to defeat Side One in order to succeed. With deeper cuts, changing textures and Benatar’s cover of Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights,” the second half broadens the record rather than simply repeating its opening attack. The question is not which side wins. It is whether the second side gives you a reason to turn the record over—and what it contributes once you do.
S1 · E262
October 8 · 5 min
You Can Love an Album and Still Skip a Song
Dave loves Styx’s Cornerstone—and regularly skips “Babe” and “First Time.” In this episode Dave asks whether loving an album really requires unconditional loyalty to every song. Vinyl listening can reward complete-side immersion and respect for sequencing, but a long relationship with a record can also become selective and personal. The point is not that Dave’s skips are correct. The point is that listening closely enough to know where your attention changes may be more meaningful than performing loyalty to the whole record.
S1 · E261
October 7 · 5 min
Sometimes the Best Song Is the One That Doesn’t Belong
“Sweet Virginia” changes the atmosphere of Exile on Main St., and that is exactly why Dave loves it. Dave challenges the idea that album cohesion requires every song to share the same sonic uniform. A stylistic outlier can interrupt an album—but it can also reveal how large the album’s identity really is. Using the Rolling Stones’ country-blues detour as the test case, this episode asks listeners to distinguish between difference that feels random and difference that adds character, contrast and dimension.
S1 · E260
October 6 · 6 min
What Does a Band Owe You After a Huge Album?
After Rumours, Fleetwood Mac could have made the safest follow-up imaginable. Instead, Tusk challenged the very idea of what a successful band should do next. Dave compares commercially successful follow-ups from Styx, Kansas and Boston with records that took a more artistically risky path, then asks a deceptively difficult question: what does a band owe its audience after a blockbuster? This isn’t an argument that change is always better. It’s an argument that commercial continuity and artistic courage are different measures—and that a follow-up album deserves to be heard as a choice, not merely as a sales result.
S1 · E259
October 5 · 5 min
The Record Collection That Showed Me What a Record Collection Could Be
In 1979-1980, Dave spent time in the basement of his friend Wendy's house, where her father had a B&O stereo, JBL speakers, and an estimated 2,500 to 3,000 LPs. Beatles, Rolling Stones, Cream, Eric Clapton, Frank Zappa - if Dave and his friends could think of it, there was a good chance it was on the shelf. Wendy's dad supervised because they were kids, but otherwise he let them explore. They sat among the records, chose what interested them, played air guitar and drums, and sang along at raucous volume - especially to "Cocaine" from the Eric Clapton live album. He didn't turn the collection into a lesson. Access was the lesson. This episode closes Stories Week with the memory of encountering a collection large enough to suggest a lifetime of listening still ahead. Side One Spin: Who first opened a record collection to you, and what did you discover there?

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