The 12th of March happens to be both the day jazz innovator Charlie Parker died (in ´55) and the day beat writer and Parker fan Jack Kerouac was born (in ´22). Now I could go on and on here about Parker´s pioneering work on the saxophone, or analyse the way Kerouac´s prose style was influenced by bop rhythms, but that´s all been done before. So here´s a a fitting fragment from Kerouac´s magnum opus On The Road for you instead, followed by some of my fave Parker tunes, Kerouac reading some great prose, and Tom Waits and Willie Alexander [...]
I have to admit I hesitated quite a while before buying Thurston Moore´s Trees Outside The Academy . I didn´t like his first solo outing Psychic Hearts (´95) much and my fave Sonic Youth albums ( Evol and Daydream Nation ) weren´t exactly made yesterday. But in the end, the idea of an acoustic Thurston Moore proved too interesting to give Trees Inside The Academy - released late last year on his own Ecstatic Peace! label - a miss. And I´m glad I didn´t, as it´s fun to hear the famed noiseguitar experimentalist mellow [...]
A mallard is both a species of duck and a make of steam locomotive. The short-lived band Mallard probably named itself after both, as there´s a flock of ducks flying over a train on the cover of their fine self-titled first album. Mallard started out as an offshoot of Captain Beefheart´s Magic Band. Unsatisfied - and rightly so - with the quality of the Beefheart-album Unconditionally Guaranteed , guitarist Bill Harkleroad (aka Zoot Horn Rollo) and bassist Mark Boston (aka Rockette Morton) decided to form their own ensemble. John French (aka Drumbo) joined as well, but went back to [...]
Time for another episode of grab bag. Every Friday you´ll get a mix of songs old and new that got me all excited during the past seven days. And that´s no mean feat I´ll tell you. This week´s batch includes the nearly forgotten folky Eric Von Schmidt, a fatal game of Russian roulette, some ´nederbeat´ from the Dutch Stones, and much much more. Enjoy the weekend! Let´s start with a song that matches the weather here at the moment. After a nice week of false spring it´s mighty cold [...]
Read a funny tidbit in the paper yesterday. A court in Iran ordered a man to give his lawful wedded wife the 124,000 roses that he promised in her dowry, after she filed a complaint to claim it. The woman said she was claiming the dowry because her ´very stingy husband´ would not even buy her a cup of coffee. The court has seized the man's flat until he produces all of the roses. Under Iranian law, a woman can claim her dowry, or mahr , at any time during a marriage or when getting divorced. The gift becomes the property of the [...]
A bands breaks up and its admirers are basically left with two questions. What happened? And: where are they now? Were there musical differences, or was it that they simply couldn´t stand each other any more after spending way too much time together in damp practice spaces and stinking hired vans with bald tires? Are they still making music, or have they given up on stoking the star-making machinery behind the popular song? Are they currently flipping burgers, selling insurance, workin´ for MCA or maybe even studying law? I was thinking about all this when listening to my Gravel albums this afternoon. I´ve [...]
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 [...]
Time to get your weekly fix of timeless tunes in Friday´s grab bag again. Here´s a healthy diet of songs that mattered to me over the past seven days, featuring some wild banjo stuff, some pure pop and a Dutch treat amongst others. Like Captain Beefheart said: "You can physically drown in paint, you can mentally drown in music..." Here´s your lifeline. Let´s kick off tonight´s proceedings with Palace, a former nom de plume of the great Will Oldham (aka Bonnie Prince Billy). Here he uses a song by southern rockers Lynyrd [...]
I never knew there was a pile of unfinished Hank Williams lyrics floating around, but it´s true apparently, and that´s great news. But wait, it gets even better. None other than Bob Dylan will head an undertaking to set the country legend´s words to music. "He came upon, somehow, 20 to 25 unfinished songs by Hank Williams: just the lyrics, no music," the White Stripes' Jack White recently told MTV News. Dylan has enlisted the help of various contemporary roots musicians, including White, for this project. "I think it might come out this year," White said. "It's a cool record." White recorded a song [...]
I once knew a radio dj who loved watching football, which presented a bit of a problem as he had a weekly slot between 9 and 11 in the evening. And as it happens a lot of European Cup games and international qualifiers get played exactly during that timespan. So he came up with a simple solution. Whenever an important match was on he put on some really long songs, so he could watch the telly in peace and root for his favorite team while still doing his job. The song he spun most often was Whipping Post from the [...]
Swamp Dogg... I think the man should be famous, but as it stands he´s just one of many obscure southern soul singers. He´s got a great voice, he writes great songs, but hardly anyone knows about it. Is it because Jerry Williams (his real name) was never your average soul man, with his leftist views and often absurd sense of humor? Because he changed record labels so often? Or is it because he´s not what you´d call a modest guy maybe? In his own words: "I was born in Portsmouth, Virginia , July 12, 1942 and was fortunate enough to [...]
Friday means grab bag time in this neck of the woods. So here we go again with six great songs that caught my ear this week. Got some early punk, some pubrock, and some neo-country from Nashville. Also there´s room for roots reggae, an oldie from the Mountain Goats and for Mr. Johnny Cash... What else could you possibly need? Let´s start with Richard Hell & The Voidoids. Hell was one of the visionaries of New York´s CBGB´s scene. He played in the first line-ups of the Heartbreakers and Television, invented the [...]
Just a quick post tonight as it´s my daughter´s seventh birthday tomorrow and we still have to inflate tons of balloons, get streamers and decorations up, bake the cake and finetune the party. As my daughter´s name just happens to be Joni, tonight´s theme is easy though. Let´s start with Sonic Youth and Hey Joni , from their classic Daydream Nation (´88). Guitars all over the place. "Tune out the past and just say yes." Lee Ranaldo once remarked the song "was some wry take on Hendrix´s Hey Joe , but I was definitely listening to [...]
Read a review today in a Dutch newspaper (I can read that language pretty well, happens to be my mother tongue) of Neil Young´s first concert of three in Amsterdam. It was extremely positive, which didn´t surprise me really as Neil is one of the few dinosaurs who still delivers the goods, live as well as on album. But I was kind of shocked about an observation the reviewer made in this article. He noticed that although Young (´62) is one of the few old rockers who potentially doesn´t only attract his own generation but also an audience much younger [...]
It´s Friday, so time for another musical grab bag. Want to know what songs caught my attention over the last week for one reason or other? Please read on. Got some new stuff, some oldies and two flamingos. In a fruit fight. Let´s start off with Blitzen Trapper, a band I´ve praised in these pages before. They hail from Portland, Oregon and mix country, pop and Pavement-style indierock like no other. Currently Sub Pop recording artists, the country flavoured Texaco comes from the self-titled debut album on their own Lidkercow [...]
The tireless performer that is Bob Dylan will soon take off on yet another tour. At 66, he´s still averaging a hundred concerts a year. And what´s more, he does so with a dignity and style that fits his age, unlike so many older rockers still strutting their stuff out there. Warming up on 21 February with three shows in a row in the tiny House Of The Blues in Dallas, Texas, the Dylan entourage will subsequently move south, with gigs scheduled in Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. These warm-up shows in Dallas make you wonder if there´s been a [...]
I´ve always been an admirer of Nick Drake. Dead way too young at age 26 after a long bout with chronic depression, he left behind only three albums that never got much recognition during his lifetime. Nowadays Five Leaves Left (´69), Bryter Layter (´70) and Pink Moon (´72) are widely regarded as classics however. It´s a small oeuvre, so I was very happy when Island Records finally released Family Tree last year, a cd collecting Drake´s home recordings from the days before he had a proper recording contract. This is Nick Drake finding his [...]
Now I don´t know about you, but I always like to read about my favorite albums. And that´s exactly where the 33 1/3 series comes in. A few years ago Continuum Books started to publish these small, handsome books about classic albums, and until now they´ve released the staggering amount of 55 different tomes. No mean feat. I haven´t collected all of them yet, but I guess I´ll end up buying the lot (ok, except for the Abba, Celine Dion and Guns & Roses ones). Which probably means the publisher and I have slightly different opinions [...]
If the good Lord´s willin´and the creek don´t rise, every Friday night will be grab bag night here from now on. A selection of songs that caught my fancy over the last week for one reason or another. Old, new, borrowed, blue: everything goes. First up is Tyler Ramsey, who´s better known as the bearded guy in Band Of Horses. No One Goes Out is a song from his brand new solo album A Long Dream About Swimming Across The Sea ( Echo Mountain records ). Beautiful melancholia. It reminds me of a certain Neil Young [...]
I Was Checkin' Out, She Was Checkin' In is one of the most bitterly funny soul songs I know. A classic tale of double adultery: he´s checking out of the Hideaway Motel ("I was with my other woman...") and who does he see but his lawful wife, who just drove up there to check in "beside another dude". What a shock. After all, she was supposed to be at home, minding the kids. And the desk clerk even gives her the same room. What a terrible blow indeed. The way he sings "Lord!" is worth the price of admission [...]
For The Sake Of The Song
[LISTEN] Gotye (Passion Pit Remix)
Big Boi & Theophilus London (feat. TRE LUCE) - 'She Said OK'
