I featured this 2:54 song recently in Friday Films , but it bears repeating: partly for its sublime stalkery-goth-trance feel, and partly because it makes me feel similarly to the below great poem by Rod McKuen , about a captured early-hours moment in a fragile relationship. Click here to view the embedded video. 'Stanyan Street' You lie bent up in embryo sleep below the painting of the blue fisherman without a pillow. The checkered [...]
As previously reported , Ween frontman Aaron Freeman (aka Gene Ween ) will follow up 25+ years of Ween-dom with his debut solo album, the Rod McKuen tribute Marvelous Clouds . After teasing us last month with "As I Love My Own" , Freeman is back today with "Love's Been Good To Me". Like a classic pop troubadour from the '60s, Freeman sings a song about a swell girl with a sly smile on his face, all to the beat of a strummy, overly saccharine acoustic guitar. Stream it now at Stereogum . [...]
That's right folks, it's Monday again... Sigh... Yes, already. So yeah, you could fight it, but it's so much easy to give up, isn't it? This could help keep you unmotivated: 1. Nick Drake: River Man ("Five Leaves Left," 1969) 2. Pink Floyd: If ("Atom Heart Mother," 1970) 3. Beck: Guess I'm Doing Fine ("Sea Change," 2002) 4. David Crosby: Orleans ("If I Could Only Remember My Name," 1971) 5. Simon & Garfunkel: April Come She Will ("The Concert In [...]
Aaron Freeman , AKA Gene Ween, is releasing his solo album Marvelous Clouds on May 8th on Partisan Records. Produced by Ben Vaughn, the album is a tribute to Rod McKuen , a singer-songwriter and poet who began his career in the mid-'50s as a newspaper columnist and poet. McKuen's most popular song was "Jean," which was originally performed by Oliver for the 1969 film The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie . Freeman covers "Jean" on the album. Below, watch a preview video for Marvelous Clouds and a video of "Jean" performed by [...]
There is this deeply personal texture to A Lifetime, a redemptive 10-track journey through love’s rocky terrain. French jazz-pop singer-songwriter Dawn Harden wrote or co-wrote, with pianist Patrick Pernet, all but one of the songs, giving the record a lasting resonance. She starts with “Traces,” a lovelorn tale of a lost passion presented in a trembling, almost confidential way. It’s
Today Rod McKuen, poet, composer, and sometime singer, turns 77 years old. Most people do not remember McKuen - at least nobody born after 1980 - but for one summer he was the strangest thing to c... Continue reading "Garage Sale Cowboy: Rod McKuen's The Sea" >
There probably will be no music at my real funeral. I’d rather prefer a reading of the last three pages of Pierre Drieu la Rochelle ’s Le feu follet . However, at my fictitious funeral this All Saints’ Monday, my future ghost will engulf in the kitsch grandeur of the English version of Le Moribond. Jacques Brel’s 1961 original is a bit too snappy for my tastes, and Terry Jacks’s 1974 smash hit adaptation – originally to be recorded by the Beach Boys (!) – well, let’s put a shroud over it. The ultimate version is [...]
"Hey, Heavy D, what you got for me today? Got some heavy boulders? Shake 'em and they sound like dice?" That was the chant Jimmy Oliver heard when he walked down South Washington Street in Lansing, Michigan. Heavy D was his nickname, after the fat rapper whose girth Jimmy shares. And the heavy boulders? Those were the rocks of crack riding in Jimmy's jeans. A few years ago, Jimmy was a rich young drug dealer who could blow $12,000 over a weekend -- partying with prostitutes and buying big dinners for a dozen of the false friends his money bought. [...]
Play it: A Jacques Brel Sampler Play it: Jacques Brel Covers With blogger tools back up today, I can finally deliver on my promise for some Jacque Brel love. Rhapsody only has a second rate greatest hits collection , but a few songs from the collection can illustrate Brel's magic. Brel is widely considered the greatest French-speaking songwriter of his era, and is one of Belgiums' greatest exports in [...]
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Stream: Disclosure – When A Fire Starts To Burn
You’ve GOT to Hear This: “Enemies”
Prince ensaya con “Even Flow” de Pearl Jam
