Posted on May 9th, 2008 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Songs, Elsewhere.
My weekly Name That Tune game is up at Popdose. It's fun! It's challenging! It's educational! It's free! And it's 98.4% guaranteed!
Posted on March 17th, 2008 by Scraps.
Categories: Stuff, Elsewhere.
What a great idea: a slightly labor-intensive but fascinating method for generating faux indie rock album covers. The examples shown on Brainiac's page are excellent, but check out the entire archive, too.
When I get home, I'm going to make some of my own.
Posted on February 29th, 2008 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Elsewhere.
Name That Tune #8 goes up in fifteen minutes at Popdose.
Posted on February 22nd, 2008 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Elsewhere.
I keep forgetting to mention the new Name That Tune games on Fridays. Today, at 12:30 Eastern, I'll be running my Name That Tune game over at Popdose. Come over and play!
Posted on December 30th, 2006 by Scraps.
Categories: Music, Elsewhere.
Ed Ward has written an excellent piece on the closing of Village Music in Mill Valley, California that makes me nostalgic for a place (and era) I've never been.
It wasn't at all unusual to be shopping with Mike Bloomfield, Nick Gravenites, Marty Balin, Jerry Garcia, David Crosby, or Maria Muldaur. I'm still pissed off at Bloomfield, whom I met when we both reached for the same Barbara Lynn album at the same time. "I need this," he said. But I saw it first! "Well, I'm Mike Bloomfield and you're not and I need this." We eventually became friendly, but that was also the only copy of that album I ever had a chance to own. I still haven't heard it. And, just as with the live music, these people passed on the knowledge they got: one day I walked in on a warm spring day and the most beautiful acoustic guitar music was playing. I asked what it was and he said "Slack key. Ry Cooder found a bunch of it in Hawaii and brought some back for me. I don't have any for sale, but I've got some ordered. Want me to save you some when it comes in? It's expensive..." It was, but it was worth it.
[...]
There was a bar at the other end of town called the Sweetwater where a lot of the local musicians hung out and sometimes performed, and John started renting it twice a year for private invitation-only parties. [...] Christmas parties always featured Charles Brown, who, before Michael Jackson appeared on the scene, had the best-selling single by a black artist ever, "Merry Christmas, Baby," recorded in 1947, and selling seasonally every year thereafter. Mr. Brown hadn't been such a good businessman, and when he made his first Sweetwater appearance, he was eking out a living in Oakland teaching piano lessons. He, too, was amazed that this crowd knew him, and played one after another of his hits. Finally, he said "A very long time ago, we recorded a song that's been very good to us ever since. It's called 'Merry Christmas, Baby.' Would you like to hear it?" The crowd roared. Mr. Brown faked a double take. "Really? You do?"
[...]
There was always something good to drink there, but I swear I wasn't hallucinating when I saw Elvis Costello backed by Commander Cody, James Burton, Jerry Garcia, Sammy Hagar, Austin de Lone, "Teenage" Steve Douglas, and one or two others...
Damn!