Behold, the perfect live recording. It's 1966 at the Roostertail in Detroit. The Motor City. The house is packed, the room is electric with anticipation. Same Old Song (Live) - The Four Tops, LIVE!, 1966 At their best, live albums manage to catch an act at their peak and at audience at their most adoring. The group sing-a-long in the last 30 seconds of this track is one of my favorite moments on the record. Baby, I need [...]
Louise, my Grandmother, died last week. She was a firecracker of a woman. A dynamic storyteller with a wonderful sense of humor. I'm so grateful for the time I spent with her. Drinking wine, sharing stories, cracking jokes and singing along to the radio. We weren't just related by blood, we were bonded by a lifetime of friendship. I'll miss you, Grandma. 1. "Wishing You Were Here" - Chicago, The Very Best of Chicago 2. "Dallas" (Cover) - Poco, Head [...]
We're settling in for Christmas in the mountains. The prediction is for three days of sleet and snow. Thankfully, we'll have plenty of turkey and ham to feed us and a giant puzzle to tackle before the weekend's over. Some songs are written for Christmas. Other songs have absolutely nothing to do with the holidays, but still strike me as seasonal and sentimental. "Blank Expression" - The Specials, The Specials LP "Georgia on my Mind" - Ray Charles "My Favorite Things" - The [...]
Today is the next day . The day after my college reunion. The morning before I drive down to Connecticut to be with my dying grandmother . To sit by her hospital bedside. Focusing on whether she's comfortable. What trays or tables I can adjust. What can I bring over to her. The small things that we can control. My grandmother, Louise, is one of my dearest friends. The day I graduated high school, my grandmother told me a story she'd never told her own children (or anyone else in her family). It [...]
I fell in love to this song nearly ten years ago this September. It was my first love. The kind that takes you over and spills you out into fields of tall grass. That sticks in your memory like a sun-bleached polaroid from a glorious summer day. (Nevermind the lyrics.) "Life on a Chain" - Pete Yorn, Music for the Morning After , 2001 Spent 5+ hours on a bus today. Thinking, thinking, thinking. Made a list on my iPhone notepad that reads: Watch, [...]
"It ain't your sign, it's your mind" - Roy Ayers Random thoughts tonight. On strength and power: "...Strength is the gift and the possession of every man in his isolation against all other men, power comes into being only if and when men join themselves together for the purpose of action, and it will disappear when, for whatever reason, they disperse and desert one another. Hence, binding and promising, combining and covenanting are the means by which power is kept in [...]
I don't know what Mi-Sex is supposed to mean, and I don't care. This little gem of an album demonstrates why everyone should visit the dollar bin at the record store. Apparently, this band was New Zealand's most promising new talent in 1979. Retro Universe has more on the history of Mi-Sex. Their description of the song you're about to sample: " Computer Games encapsulated inside of four minutes the ultimate gaming experience, paradoxically [...]
Three studies in joy. Case 1. The Bluegrass Alliance circa early 1970s. Founder and fiddler Lonnie Peerce joined with other musicians to record Tall Grass, one of their most successful albums at the time. 1. "What Am I Doing Hanging 'Round" - The Bluegrass Alliance, Tall Grass , LP, 1973 2. "Sounds of Silence" (Paul Simon) - The Bluegrass Alliance, Tall Grass Case 2. Dean Young. The capacity [...]
"High on a Mountain Top" - Loretta Lynn, Van Lear Rose , LP, 2004 For Valentine's Day, I prepared a women-only mix tape for Rebecca. I admit it wasn't the easiest exercise. 34 songs, all performed by women artists or bands with female leads. The mix coincided with R's favorite dance night in D.C. - an all-women-identified DJ night called She.Rex, where the DJs spin tracks by women artists. Not surprisingly, my mix included a hefty helping of new wave and punk tracks by bands like Romeo Void, X-Ray Spex and Siouxsie [...]
Fairly certain that someone is trying to destroy us. A good 40" of snow fell on Washington, DC in a six-day period, with predictions of more snow this coming Monday. Wind gusts up to 40mph are kicking up snow, damaging power lines, and frightening small children. The grocery stores are cleared out of produce and fresh milk. "Winter Ballad" - Dave Brubek, Jazz Impressions of New York , 1965 By the close of Monday, shortly before the second blizzard hit, the streets [...]
...the groundskeeper finds a new red shirt in the brush pile. And I bleed a little something extra into the trumpet, so to bring about a fury and then a dirge and then a song you can whistle. All things, circular. A spark in the darkness, a middle part, and then [and always] an ending. There is no creation without a breaking down, a molecular reconstituting. Something must be turned outward, and reimagined as something new. "The Man Who [...]
Upon Waking at the far edge of the earth, night is going away. another poem begins. slumped over the typewriter i must get this exactly, i want to make it clear this morning that your face, as it opens from its shadow, is more perfect than yesterday; and that the light, as it hesitates over the approach of your smile, has given this aching bed more than warmth, more than poems; someway a generous [...]
Study in picture boxes. A mix, of sorts. With love. Diamond Day - Vashti Bunyan Ngakula Ngakula - F. Kenya Your Heartache and Mine - Hari and Aino Sun Lips - Black Moth Super Rainbow Death in the Park [...]
Sunday morning coffee with a side of overcast. The scratching of unmet goals, forced-aside desire. (How I wish I had more courage.) "Angry Charlie " - Generationals, Con Law , LP, 2009. I think at a certain point, the mind makes it impossible to keep up appearances. The band has stretched too far. It breaks, and the self-discovery forces its way forward. "Let's Make This Precious" - [...]
This is an unusual August. Even during the election, August represented a quieter, slower month on the canvassing/phone-banking/direc t mail calendar. But not this year. This year, August is a hungry, hot tornado of health care babble in Washington, DC. "Twin of Myself" - Black Moth Super Rainbow Batshit crazy teaparty people, stammering politicians, stifling D.C. heat and my withering-on-the-vine vacation plans. I'm leaving the city this week for a wedding, and had planned to spend another week in Maine and Connecticut, bumming around and generally forgetting about the maelstrom [...]
Summertime. I'm now convinced that our body/mind/spirit is tethered to the changing of seasons and the small, 30-day-or-so monthly cycles that govern our thoroughly modern lives. Here's the pattern I see emerging: January - March: The most beige time of year (not to be confused with stagnation, which happpens later in the year). Work, sleep, play - but nothing too exciting, too challenging, or controversial. April - May: Predictably work-focused. Like a timed falling hammer. Work work work. June - July: Suddenly, a BRICK [...]
Is it 1931? From the Telegraph : Roosevelt took over a country where the economic machinery had completely broken down. The New York Stock Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade had closed. Thirty-two states had shut their banks. Texas had restricted withdrawals to $10 a day. Few states could borrow on the bond markets. Illinois and much of the South had stopped paying teachers. Schools closed for months. An army of 25,000 famished war veterans squatting in view of Congress had been charged by troopers of the 3rd US cavalry with naked sabres – [...]
Hello Sunshine. I hate this fucking week already. "Hello Sunshine" - Aretha Franklin, Aretha Now , 1968
Sometimes, it seems like the ambient noise around us reduces reality (reality, as in, cars driving down the street, cashiers scanning groceries, dogs barking) to pixels, beats and sensations. The crowded conditions of modern life abstracts anything imbued with meaning. Meaning (i.e. that which transmits value of some kind to the object) is diffused into style. At that point, what are we left with? Coolness. Hotness. Sexuality, I suppose. Sex can survive, as can hunger. The body reigns. Today, I discovered Loney, Dear's "I Got Lost" and listened to it 10 times, still wanting more. It recalls [...]
Headed to my fair city this weekend? If so, feel free to check out my hastily made Google Map. View Larger Map Enjoy being part of history in the making! "Bring on the Night" - The Police, Regatta de Blanc , 1979 "I Am Be" - De La Soul, Buhloone Mind State , 1993
Eggs for Becky
MVSCLES- Sweet n Sour
The National
Billboard Music Awards 2013: Taylor Swift Goes Blue
James Blake- A Case of You (Joni Mitchell cover)
Empire Of The Sun fans react to announcement of David Guetta remix
