In 1981, British rock Elvis Costello went to Nashville to record a country covers album called Almost Blue . I blogged about it in an earlier post . I recently picked up a copy of George Jones' 1965 album Trouble In Mind , which contains the original version of Brown To Blue , which Elvis later covered on Almost Blue . That gave me the idea to put together all of the other "original" versions of the songs that inspired Costello. In some cases, the versions below are not truly the "original" versions [...]
I have some time now I guess to get a post-sxsw post together since I just quit my job. My hours at work have been forged and falsely reported, a lot, and I was able to make copies of the proof today while we had a temporary manager from out of town while mine went on vacation. I showed the temp manager what I'd found. The look on his face was priceless. He tried to assure me that not only was he relieving my manager while he was on vacation, he was there to make some organizational changes as well [...]
Yesterday's post on For The Sake Of The Song , told the unfortunate story of a man under a court order to buy 124,000 roses for his wife. After reading the post I was surprised to find 47 different rose songs on my i-pod. No other flower comes close, not even "flower" itself. Flower = 24 Daisy = 5 Lily = 4 Blossom = 4 Orchid = 3 Tulip = 1 Dandelion = 1 Violet = 1 Obviously the rose is a popular symbol--especially in country songs. Maybe it has something to do [...]
Read an amazing news article yesterday. A recent study said that one in every 100 Americans are currently in jail. There are 230 million adults living in the Land of the Free, and 2.32 million of them are behind bars. For some groups this percentage is even higher: every one in 36 adults with a Hispanic background is doing time, and one in 15 black adults. Even worse: one in 9 black men between the ages of 20 and 34 are locked up as we speak. Staggering figures, right? Makes you think. But don´t worry, as a European I´m not going [...]
Photo by Ted Barron (who also has a heck of a blog). Laura Cantrell is one of the most interesting country performers to come along in recent years. As I noted in a previous post , she sings a lot like Kitty Wells , but her music is innovative enough to have won high praise from the late great John Peel . Cantrell is a student of music history. For years she has been the "proprietess" of a great New York radio show called The [...]
Here it is Valentine's Day and I'm finding myself single. On the plus side, there's no candy, flowers, or jewelry I have to buy. No cards or waiting for a table at a restaurant because I forgot to make reservations. Instead, it's a Thursday like any other Thursday here in Apt. 104. On the downside, there's always the crying in your beer over loves lost. Sloppy on a wobbly stool in a bar named Pretty Pat's, philosophizing with the bartender who might look good enough to try to take home after you have a few more. The [...]
2007 ne fut pas une année exceptionnellement excitante pour la musique country. Et sans le retour en force de quelques piliers et vieilles légendes du genre, elle aurait presque été insignifiante. Donc ci-dessous une petite sélection - rapidement effectuée et forcément précaire - des disques country qui m'auront marqué cette année. Gardez en tête que certains artistes country absents sur cette
If all of country music were distilled down into one song, what would it be? I'm not talking about the "best" song or your personal favorite, but about a representative piece. In other words, the most country country song, or, as David Allen Coe might say, "the perfect country song." According to Coe, the key ingredients to the "perfect" country song are "mama, trains, trucks, prison, and gettin' drunk." Check it out here: David Allen Coe - You Never Even Call Me By [...]
A Century in Jumps (Slight Return) 1977 Millie Jackson, If You're Not Back In Love By Monday. Merle Haggard, A Working Man Can't Get Nowhere Today. The Users, I'm In Love With Today. Etoile de Dakar, Thiely. Rose Royce, Do Your Dance. John Cale, Memphis. Philip Glass, Victor's Lament. Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Perrine Était Servante. Anti Social, Traffic Lights. Fox, Livin' Out My Fantasies.
The racket made by a fuzztone guitar has been described as the sound of two bees fighting inside of a tin can. Ask your friends to give you an example of this crazy menacing sound and they're likely to name Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones. Or maybe they'll refer you to Jimi Hendrix, The Yardbirds, or even Davie Allan & The Arrows, who recorded tons of fuzzy guitar instrumentals for biker movie soundtracks. Given the rock and roll reputation of the fuzztone sound, those are all pretty understandable responses. [...]
I just got back from Hawaii where I hunted rats. When you are hunting rats you need to get into their little pea-sized brains. You need to think like the rat and become the rat. I went deep man. I stripped off my clothes and covered my body in camo. I buried myself in the jungle and was silent. My breathing blended into the sounds of the night. Pretty soon I could feel the rat without even opening my eyes. [...]
There are certain definites in my life. I am gonna throw something at some point during football season, I am gonna look up some form of porn this week, and if the wife and I go out this Saturday night and get too drunk, we will eat Cracker Barrel on Sunday morning. For us, there is nothing like fried foods and gravy to help you get over the hangover hump. Inevitably, if you go to Cracker Barrel you are gonna have to wait for a table, and during that wait you'll probably walk around the general store waiting [...]
"The odds growing smaller with each getaway. With the end growing closer the harder they fought. With blood on their hands they were bound to get caught." Merle Haggard ~ The Legend of Bonnie and Clyde from Down Every Road by Merle Haggard Kylie Minogue ~ Sensitized from [...]
Will Oldham . You can snap up Philip K. Dick's seminal time-travel journey here . If you're looking for a beach read, look no further. It's the best $10.38 you'll ever spend. Top Tracks of a Half-Year While Recognizing That All Time Is Relative by Will Hubbard 1, panda bear: take pills ( mp3 ) (wholesome lyrics are usually boring and stupid but not here, I don't like my woman taking pills either) TMS had this in her half-year review . 2. [...]
Happy Mother's Day. "The world moves on a woman's hips." - Talking Heads I'll Always Love My Mama - The Intruders Dear Mama - 2Pac Mama Tried - Merle Haggard Music MP3 music
Today we're proud to present you with the Merle Haggard portion of The Big Rock Candy Mountain Top 100 Drinking Songs. In my very humble estimation, Haggard, the working man's poet, may be one of the most important artists of the last 50 years. Hag could veer with ease from a hard "fuck you" persona to a troubadour of heartbreak, often in the same song. Beloved by punks and honkytonk purists
Backstory: I like stickers. I guess it is a throwback to my childhood as a skateboarder. I put stickers on everything I own. Well, a couple of weeks ago I was looking at the back of my laptop and it occurred to me that a ninebullets.net sticker back there would pretty much kick ass. So, I asked a friend ( featured here ) to do some artwork for me and I let my wife (outside of her, I have shit for taste) pick the best of his offerings. A little poking around led me to Contagious graphics [...]
I'm driving down into LA this weekend for a quick jaunt in & out Friday & Saturday... Hope I miss the rain that's supposedly coming & hopefully going before I get there... Snoop Dogg ft The Doors - Riders On The Storm I've got a nutty pal whose also trying to get me to go see The Who in Fresno on Sunday. All I know is that would be way to much time spent driving around out there... in the, gulp, Central Valley. [...]
Setting The Woods On Fire
Ingrained Refrains
Funeral Pudding
For The Sake Of The Song
Licorice Pizza
There's Always Someone Cooler Than You
Locust St.
WFMU's Beware of the Blog
Robots and Wrestlers
Nine Bullets
Lessons From Things
This Recording
Some Velvet Blog
bigrockcandymountain
Lil Mike's Last Known Thoughts & Random Revelations
Music Singles Chart #109
I’ll Just Leave This Here #161
TheNext2Shine.com present #Discovery Part 2: R&B Sampler Mixtape
REMIX SUNDAYS- May 27th, 2012
