Saturday, 14 April, will see the centenary of the sinking of the Titanic. There is little need for me to go into the story of that most famous of all maritime disasters. Movies will be shown on TV (including a new mini-series), the History Channel will take time off from Nazis, aliens and truckers to provide all sorts of perspectives, and all kinds of background and new insights will be offered in newspaper, magazine and Internet articles. So, here I add to the saturation with a mix of songs about maritime disasters, including several that record the sinking [...]
500 Miles kennt man aus dem Singunterricht oder aus der Pfadi. 900 Miles ist der ältere Bruder des Traditionals, dessen Ursprung in die Pionierzeit der Eisenbahn zurückreicht. Die Distanz von 500 Meilen scheint in der Popgeschichte das Mass aller Dinge zu sein. The Proclaimers haben 1988 mit "(I'm Gonna Walk) 500 Miles" eine Liebeserklärung geschrieben, die Pub-Besucher bis heute zu Ausgelassenheit animiert. Lange zuvor hat man in der Folkszene von Greenwich Village das Heimweh aus einer Distanz von 500 Meilen besungen. "500 Miles" wurde in frühen 60er-Jahre populär [...]
Apparently there is an honest difference of opinion revolving around the question of whether it is worse to be visited by a big load of snow or fall victim to an ice storm. As someone who resides in an area that is currently experiencing the latter, I'm learning toward siding with ice as the scariest problem. Please don't misunderstand - I have all the sympathy in the world for folks who are buried under a lot of snow. But here's the thing: for someone like me who is fortunate enough to be able to stay home, warm [...]
Yesterday Wordpress deactivated my blog at halfhearteddude.wordpress.com. It's their service I'm using for free, and they were fair enough not to delete all content (as Blogger have done), so I'm not really that outraged at them — though it would be nice to know who my accusers are. The e-mail from WP refers only to a DMCA complaint. One! The blog was zapped just four days after I posted a candid analysis of Old Blue Shades' twattery. The timing may be coincidental, or not. The notion that Bozo's boys might have leapt into action [...]
It's always fascinated me how, as social animals who can both project future possibilities and mutate our environment to our benefit, we're nonetheless driven to make peace with our own foibles, accommodate small stumbling blocks, and work around difficulties otherwise solvable and surmountable. A case in point: the 9 key on my laptop keyboard has been broken since last winter, and - as removing the key cap to clean underneath it proved ineffective - I have been forced to conclude that there is something electronically awry here, somewhere in the circuitry. [...]
This is from a 1958 release called Cisco Houston Sings American Folk Songs. MP3 File yousendit
Cisco Houston: Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos) Lyrics by Woody Guthrie. [ purchase ] Joni Mitchell is one of my favorite songwriters, but she has one big weakness. She does not know how to write a political song. This shows up especially in her later work. She certainly is passionate about some issues, but her anger gets in the way of her craft, and she winds up with rants instead of songs. In this, she is hardly alone. Before I go any [...]
Here's a post that I didn't get around to over at Star Maker Machine... Sail Away - Randy Newman "In America youll get food to eat Won't have to run through the jungle And scuff up your feet You'll just sing about Jesus and drink wine all day It's great to be an American. Ain't no lion or tiger - ain't no mamba snake Just the sweet watermelon and the buckwheat cake. Everybody is as happy as a man can be Climb aboard, little wog - sail away with me." The song Sail Away is [...]
When I played train songs a while back, I was reminded of Cisco and this song. I didn't have it so I went shopping. My visits to Smithsonian Folkways remind me of a kid left to her own devices in a candy store. I never buy one thing: I buy many. On this trip, I bought this album, Cisco Houston: 900 Miles and Other R.R. Songs, and three more. The nuns would call Smithsonian Folkways my occasion for sin! MP3 File
I doubt there's room for everything I could write about Cisco Houston. He became itinerant during the Depression, even travelled and sang with Woody Guthrie. He also sang with Pete Seeger and The Almanac Singers. He sang of the people he met during his travels, of the downtrodden, the cowboys, miners, union activists, railroad workers and hobos. He sang the the songs we all first heard during the folk revival of the 1950s and '60s. He was one of those, like Guthrie and Seeger, who kept folk music alive, and he lived long enough before dying of cancer [...]
Any Major Dude With Half A Heart
»78s
Geezer Music Club
Cover Lay Down
Keep the Coffee Coming
Star Maker Machine
Ceci n'est pas un blog
Michael Jackson - Bad (Afrojack Remix) [Preview]
Mojo’s Free Yellow Submarine Covers Disk
Florence + The Machine - Spectrum (Calvin Harris Remix)
Sputnik Spring Break 2012 Livesets
The Can’t Tells: Nervous People
