Posted on April 13th, 2010 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Musicians, Comedy, Old Posts.
Debbi converted to Zoroastrianism and distributes leaflets in Fresno bus shelters. Vicki has returned to her first love, waitressing. Michael is a lobster fisher in the Maritimes. Susanna was carried off by a twister.
Posted on April 7th, 2010 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Music Criticism, Literary Criticism, Comedy, Old Posts.
While my opinion runs counter to the critical consensus, it has nothing to do with unusual bravery and insight on my part, or cowardice and conventionality on the part of my colleagues. I'm just a bit odd.
Posted on March 13th, 2010 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Words, Media, Comedy, Old Posts.
I am now the publisher of the Sonicnet front page every morning. So I figure I'm getting paid to not write my own headlines:
MTV IN PAYOLA SCANDAL
TOWER TO GIVE AWAY ALL MUSIC FOR FREE
ARISTA REPLACES CLIVE DAVIS WITH DRUNK STOAT
FRED DURST FLAYED
Posted on March 13th, 2010 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Words, Musicians, Old Posts.
From a No Doubt website:
"Fan site including +70 pics of Gwen, pics of EVERY band member including horns!"
Posted on March 13th, 2010 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Musicians, Old Posts.
Look, Oingo Boingo were pretty damn good, but put down XTC and I kill you. They disconnect my atoms and rearrange them; they reprogram my synapses and polish my dendrites; they save my life every two weeks. If that's pretentious, man, lock me in grad school and shower me with footnotes.
Posted on March 11th, 2010 by Scraps.
Categories: Songs, Words, Dance, Old Posts.
Last night I dreamed that I was skipping and running cheerfully along a colorful series of ledges, rails and ropes, with a partner, improvised yet perfectly synchronized, while around us "The Candy Man" by Sammy Davis Jr played, and it was the beats and chord changes of the song that we improvised our steps to. And it all. felt. perfectly. natural.
Posted on January 25th, 2010 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Musicians.
Frank J Oteri: And in terms of training before you got exposed to jazz? Did you train in classical music at all?
Carla Bley: No, I didn't. I never studied anything.
Frank J Oteri: So you're completely self-taught!
Carla Bley: No, my father taught me until I was four, or five maybe, and then my mother tried and I bit her. I bit my mother at the age of five and they gave up on me. That was it. I never learned anything else.
Posted on October 21st, 2009 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Words, Comedy, Oracles.
Yesterday a got a fortune cookie that said, "Come back later. I am sleeping. (Yes, fortune cookies need their sleep, too.)"
I love the first part. The second, parenthetical part, not so much. It's trying too hard, over-selling the joke.
But it's trying. It's fortune cookies like that that keep me reading them; one out of thirty, seems like these days.
Posted on October 12th, 2009 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs, Live Music.
I did not know that Johnny Cash and Joni Mitchell sang a duet of "Long Black Veil", in 1969, for the debut program of Johnny Cash's TV show.
from The Hits Just Keep On Comin'
Posted on July 17th, 2009 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs.
Michael Penn, "Long Way Down", directed by the Brothers Quay
This is my favorite music video, and it used to be lost (to me); never on youtube, and not on Brothers Quay compilations. But Velma found it on yahoo. Now I have to figure out how to download it.
Posted on June 17th, 2009 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs, Musicians.
Song Project #20
Did you know that reality tv went back to the seventies? And PBS started it. An American Family was shown in 1973, twelve episodes long, depicting an actual family, the Louds. And yes, the Loud Family got their band name from them (and no, not the Loud family on Saturday Night Live); but that's not what I'm writing about now.
Lance Loud, one of the sons, was gay, credited with being the first openly gay person in television history. Eventually he died of AIDS, in 2001. But first he led a critically-respected rock band, the Mumps, in New York City, part of the late-seventies CBGB's scene. A friend from high school, Kristian Hoffman, was the keyboardist.
Kristian Hoffman is not famous, but he should be; well, at least at the level of the new wave and no-wave bands that he played in. He played with Ann Magnuson and Lydia Lunch, and was in Klaus Nomi's band: he wrote "Total Eclipse", the most famous Nomi song. Eventually he arranged for Rufus Wainwright's band, and became a long-term keyboard player for Dave Davies's band. And he played around the Los Angeles scene in the eighties and nineties, becoming not famous, but known to musicians.
I didn't know who he was when I picked up a used cd in a pile of one-dollar cds, but the names made me curious. It was called &; in fact, it was an album of collaborations: fifteen of them, and all of them more famous than him. Rufus Wainwright, Russell Mael, Anna Waronker. Maria McKee. Ann Magnuson, Michael Quercio. Lydia Lunch! Stew! Van Dyke Parks! Paul Reubens?? Well, I bought it.
I didn't prepare myself for the barrage of hooks that came at me. From the first song to the last, one listen was enough to tell me this was a once-a-year find, one I'd play tomorrow and next day and twenty years from now; a top-five for the year. And fifteen songs in (out of 17), the song that blew me away:
That's Ann Magnuson and Kristian Hoffman, trading off. It starts with Magnuson, hushed, piano-driven; the first hook, the verse hook, on the words "boy, earthbound", then loud drums, dum, dum, pause, dum, dum, dum, dum, dumdumcrash. Then repeat the verse. Then the chorus, the drums now there throughout, with tambourine, and guitar, Hoffman singing lead and Magnuson wordless harmony. The main hook at the end of the chorus: "where do I sign?" with the jump up an octave. Then stop, and head back into the verse, again hushed, but added vocal by Hoffman, though distant, ethereal. Then repeat verse, with two added keyboards. Then the bridge, then verse, once through this time, then the chorus, twice.
The chorus is amazing. It occurs four times, and each occurrence has a different musical lead-in to the title ("that's what is costs to buy a note so pure and high and so divine") and after the title ("the bottom line"), and that's gravy: the hook can stand by itself. And the words: it's about castrati, and the longing for the singer ("where do I sign?"), perfectly captured by the hook. That's a perfect pop song: words and music working together.
Posted on June 16th, 2009 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Musicians.
On the Well, another "selling out" conversation has broken out. The Sex Pistols' "Filthy Lucre" tour has been cited as selling out; another reader has pointed out "but the Pistols were pretty much meta from the git-go."
Right; and they're a test case. They were selling out from the beginning. Yet Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols was not only a terrific album: it has lasted. The motivation was fake, but the feeling was real. Probably the single cause of it was Johnny Rotten, who delivered one of the most frightening, visceral vocal performances in history. An act, maybe; well, then, a really good act. Sometimes selling out is done with such consummate skill, it becomes art.
Posted on June 14th, 2009 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs.
A very good video for "Roll Up Your Sleeves" by We Were Promised Jetpacks, on Pitchfork TV.
Posted on April 16th, 2009 by Scraps.
Categories: Music.
M83 - Saturdays = Youth
Mediocre. Yet another shoegaze thing; I forget every song once another song's started.
Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
Every song is catchy, but every song, once you pay attention, is not that much. Still, every song is catchy; maybe every song is better one at a time.
TV on the Radio - Dear Science
Still not getting it, though it continues to interest me.
No Age - Nouns
First time. Hmm. Noisy.
Deerhunter - Weird Era Cont.
Ahhhhh. That's it. Lovely and weird, first time. The flip side, as it were, of Microcastle (which I already fell in love with); when Microcastle leaked, Deerhunter came up with another disc, two-for-one. And it's awesome, too.
Lindstrom - Where You Go I Go Too
Cut Copy - In Ghost Colours
First time. Sounds really good. Thick sound, but still has hooks. "So Haunted" is Pixies verse and the Sound chorus.
Posted on April 15th, 2009 by Scraps.
Categories: Music.
Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
An album of normal-length songs -- so was Strawberry Jam. Otherwise, it's the same thing, only more compact. Lovely. Still remind me very much of Incredible String Band, and I'm baffled by others not seeing the same parallel.
Flight of the Conchords - Flight of the Conchords
One the many hilarious jokes of this band is the way that they parody Prince like no one since Ween.
DJ/rupture - Uproot
Cool. Very cool. I can't describe it. Techno with afrodub. One of many many sounds that I can't describe, more each day. But exciting.
Hercules and Love Affair - Hercules and Love Affair
Pleasant disco, but not adventurous or in really expert hands. But pleasant!
The Hold Steady - Stay Positive
"All our songs are sing along songs." They're growing on me, fast. The sound kinda like the late Replacements, except they're clean.
Posted on April 15th, 2009 by Scraps.
Categories: Music.
Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings – 100 Days, 100 Nights
Again 70s style funk, made today. Very very good.
Lil Wayne – Tha Carter III
Erasure – Pop!
20 songs, almost all of them British hits. Dated – mostly from the 80s, and it shows – but I like it. Vincent Clark has a way with a hook, and Andy Bell has a heavenly voice.
Posted on April 15th, 2009 by Scraps.
Categories: Music.
Bat for Lashes – Two Suns
Quiet, contemplative, female vocals, with backing vocals.
Vivian Girls – Vivian Girls
Noisy punk with hooks. Three girls. Kinda like Cub.
Air France – No Way Down
Airy pop.
Air France – On Trade Winds
Another.
Erykah Badu – New Amerykah Part One: 4th World War
I love it. By my count, this is her third classic.
Lindstrom – Where You Go I Go Too
Remiscent of “Equinox” and “Oxygene”, but modern.
Lil Wayne – Tha Carter III
First listen. A amusing vocal delivery, for sure.
Posted on April 15th, 2009 by Scraps.
Categories: Music.
The Walkmen – You & I
The Mae Shi – Hlllyh
Fucked Up – The Chemistry of Common Life
Posted on April 15th, 2009 by Scraps.
Categories: Music.
Travis Morrison Hellfighters – All Y’all
Pretty good. No skippable tracks. As usual, talkative lyrics, as though present in a good conversation.
“you make me feel like a freak”
Marnie Stern – This Is It and I Am It…
Man oh man. Killer guitar, fast fast fast. Not boringly fast, but fascinating, unpredictable. A bit like Heavy Vegetable.
“prime”
Hot Chip – Made in the Dark
Pleasant. Synth-pop, synth-drums. No skippable tracks.
Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings – Naturally
Love it. 70s funk, except thirty years later.
“my man is a mean man”
Santogold – Santogold
Kanye West – 808s & Heartbreak
Fuck Buttons – Street Horrrsing
Noisy, but cool.
Posted on April 8th, 2009 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Musicians.
I am learning 2007 and 2008, because, well, I got time. So I got around to Girl Talk, which I gather has generated controversy. And I certainly hear what pisses others off: it really absolutely rips off other artists, twenty times per song.
But I love it. He has The Ears.