Casual Observations of Life on Earth

2011-01-18T05:50:00.001-08:00

Mrs Craddock by W. Somerset Maugham

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Not my favorite Maugham novel, but still a very enjoyable read. Maugham is amazing with this novel, in that he makes Bertha Craddock both despicable and pitiable. Edward never really changes throughout the novel. He's the same goofy oaf from beginning to end. But the reader's conception of him changes as Bertha becomes more and more sympathetic through the novel. It's really kind of genius on Maugham's part. But the story itself...so-so.

View all my reviews

Fathers and Sons (and Daughters)

2009-02-28T21:29:00.000-08:00

Maybe after this week I'll give up trying to find quirky shit to post a mix. Right now I'm too tired to really care. So here's my post for the weak. It's pretty week, really. As I type this I'm listening to the Tim Buckley part of the mix, and thinking, "I couldn't come up with anything better than this?" Oh well, such is life.

Been bogged down lately by the minutae of education. Kind of pisses me off. So now I'm listening to the Jeff Buckley part of the mix, "Hallelujah," which is kind of cool. So it not a total waste of a week. There are profound moments in life. We just really have to look for them. (By the way, I've had a bottle plus of wine at this point, so fuckin' bear with me. I'm having a James Joyce, stream of consciousness moment here.)

So, okay, back to the seriousness of this post. Who is the son...or daughter who has best lived up to the expectation of being the offspring of his or her father? In case you haven't been paying attention that's what this post is about. Let's do away with the obvious "no fucking way" choices...Ziggy Marley and Jakob Dylan. Don't get me wrong...I love me some Wallflowers, but Jake is not living up to Bob...as if anyone could. And as for Zig...Stephen is much more of the Marley brother who got the reggae roots of mom and dad. Since I included both Marley brothers, it would have only been fair to include both Lennon brothers, but poor Julian...poor Julian. I mean Sean Lennon is just as weird and fucked up as you would expect a son of Yoko to be. But at least he's been jammin' with Cibo Matto. (Yeah, you know what I'm sayin'.) And then there's Jeff Buckley who did his best by drowning to death...not quite living up to the smack O.D. by dad, but you know. P.S.: sorry I put such a sad Tim Buckley cut here. And I have two daughters here. Roseanne Cash and Bebel Gilberto. I guess I should have put up Bebel Gilberto's dad and mom here, but sorry 'bout that Astrud.

1. "Maggie's Farm," Bob Dylan, Bringing It All Back Home

2. "Girl From Ipenema," Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto, Getz/Gilberto

3. "The Motorcycle Song," Arlo Guthrie, Arlo

4. "Dead Meat," Sean Lennon, Friendly Fire

5. "Rosie Strikes Back," Roseanne Cash, King's Record Shop

6. "Song for Janie," Tim Buckley, Tim Buckley

7. "Hallelujah," Jeff Buckley, Grace

8. "If You Never Got Sick," The Wallflowers, Red Letter Days

9. "Chase Dem," Stephen Marley, Mind Control

10. "Ballad of Ira Hayes," Johnny Cash, Bitter Tears

11. "Dust Bowl Refugee," Woody Guthrie, Dust Bowl Ballads

12. "School Days," Loudon Wainwright III, Album I

13. "Tomorrow People," Ziggy Marley, Dragonfly

14. "Samba da Benção" Bebel Gilberto, Tanta Tempo

15. "Punky Reggae Party," Bob Marley, Babylon by Bus

16. "God," John Lennon, Plastic Ono Band

Click on Bebel for the link to the mix.

For the full album I'm posting a little Ronny Wood. I've been listening to quite a bit of Small Faces latley, and have come to appreciate the true genius of Ronny. I really like this album, and who can beat the title. Hope you like all this. I'll try to be more regular about posting this week.

Tommy's Post

2009-02-20T18:55:00.000-08:00

I'm posting in a shitty state tonight. Not in a shitty mood...but more in a shit-ass drunk state. So you'll have to forgive both the typos, lack of writing skill, and the increased sentimentality (as if the last post was not soberly sentimental enough). I'm posting tonight for my friend Tom, who owns much of the credit for my musical pedigree. Tom introduced me to, among other things, the Stones, Neil Young, and Bob Dylan. In other words, Tommy introduced me to all things good in music. I really cannot say enough about what he showed me in music. I met Tom in Austin, Texas in 1991. I had moved back to Texas after a 2 year nightmare-stint in D.C., working in advertising (which I had misguidedly majored in at UT Austin). Tom was having a short lay-over in Austin in between semesters at USC. We met while waiting tables. I was trying to reestablish residency in Texas so I could get back into UT at the cheaper native-Texan rate. Tom was hanging out and getting high waiting tables, waiting to go back to L.A. to finish his degree. It was just one of those things. We clicked as friends. He went back to USC to finish his degree, but came back to Austin. I was still at the same restaurant when he got back, and we later became head-waiters together. We spent many an evening in his apartment, smoked out on cheap weed, making the month-long schedule for the waiters at the restaurant (saving the best shifts for ourselves). I later moved into a 3 bedroom house with Tom and our friend Mark. Both Tom and Mark were guitar players...Mark the more accomplished. Tom taught me the basics of guitar on the front porch of that house...my first lesson in the early morning hours after a late night of partying. Instead of teaching me finger style and blues scales, he taught me 3 major chords, a minor chord, and three songs to play with them, "Browneyed Girl, Wonderful Tonight, and something else I can't remember in my current inebriated state. What better way to learn to play an axe? At the time (and, really, to this day) he's the coolest guy I had ever met.

Tom taught me one essential thing in life. No matter what anyone else ever said, the coolest album ever recorded is Sticky Fingers...period. He also taught me that no matter how much you paid to see a concert, it was okay to fall asleep in the middle of it. He and I and our friend Johnny paid primo dollars (or it seemed so at the time) for good seats to see Neil up close and acoustic in Austin. By the third song, I looked over at Tommy and he was in classic pose...arms crossed, head to the side, sound asleep. (There was herbaliser involved.) Legend has it that Tommy fell asleep on the floor at a Guns-n-Roses concert. I wasn't there, but I totally believe it.

At the end of this mix I'm including "Powderfinger" from Rust Never Sleeps. Tom gave me this CD in 1998 right before we took off for a New Years Eve trip to New Orleans. Tom and I and our friend Joe took off for N.O. for the holiday, got shitty, smoked a bunch of dope, and did the Bourbon Street thang for the New Year. I remember me trying to sing "Shine a Light" a cappella in the middle of Bourbon Street, Tom telling me to shut the fuck up. (I tend towards the annoying when drunk and happy.)

The ironic part of this mix is that it is absolutely NOT rock-n-roll. This is the alt-co mix. While Tom may have introduced me to the greatest rock-n-roll band of all time, he also showed me the building blocks of the alternative country movement of the 90s. Neil Young is the basement floor of alt-co. Here are some of the artists that I have truly come to love in the last 20 years since those days of waiting tables at OTB. They are truly some of the fondest memories that I have.

Thanks Tom.

Alt-Co Mix:

1. "Elvis Presley Blues," Gillian Welch, Time (The Revelator)

2. "Nashville," Indigo Girls, Rites of Passage

3. "I Am a Cinematographer," Palace Brothers, Days in the Wake

4. "California Stars," Billy Bragg and Wilco, Mermaid Avenue

5. "Blue," Lucinda Williams, Live at the Fillmore East

6. "You Are Not Needed Now," Townes Van Zandt, High, Low and In Between

7. "In My Mind I Was Talkin' To Loretta," Pieta Brown, Remember the Sun

8. "A Thousand Miles from Nowhere," Dwight Yoakum, This Time

9. "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright," Ramblin' Jack Elliot, The Essential Ramblin' Jack Elliot

10. "Deep River Blues," Doc Watson, Doc Watson

11. "Our Town," Iris Dement, Infamous Angel

12. "I Ain't Marchin' Anymore," Phil Ochs, I Ain't Marchin' Anymore

13. "Baltimore," Lyle Lovett, Joshua Judges Ruth
14. "When You Walk On," Eliza Gilkyson, Paradise Hotel

15. "South Tacoma Way," Neko Case, Furnace Room Lullaby

16. "Powderfinger," Neil Young, Rust Never Sleeps

Click HERE for this mix

Full Album Post:

Neil Bootleg (trust me, this is some good shit):

Fuck Me Cause I'm Stoned (Disc One)

Fuck Me Cause I'm Stoned (Disc Two)

Happy Birthday Mom!!!!

2009-02-16T16:16:00.000-08:00

I'm going to switch things up a little bit for today's post. Normally I would post the mix first and then the full album. But today's post is dedicated to my mom's 65th birthday, and she will be less than impressed by the mix today, but I'm putting up the full album post just for her. The picture here to the right is me and my mom when we were living in Okinawa in 1970 or 71. That would have made me about 4 or 5 and mom about 26. I've often marvelled at the courage of my parents in those early years, willing to pack up the family and move away from the safety and normalcy of Baltimore to the vast unknown of Okinawa. For my father, not so much, since he had been in the Navy before all this and had been to "parts unknown," but for my mother to leave her home to follow my father and take us kids (hell, my sister was still in diapers when we got to Okinawa) to live such an isolated life. It took an awful lot of courage for her to do that...more than I think I would have had at 25 years old.

About 9 years ago I was with my mom on vacation in Bruges. We had just left Paris after a week, and we were hanging out in this little street cafe in Bruges listening to this oompah band that was gigging in the town square. Over a couple of beers my mom told me that she felt that she owed me some kind of apology for dragging me and my sister all over creation during our childhood, never really having a stable "home" until I got to high school in San Antonio. My father worked for National Security Agency, so we did a couple of years in Okinawa, then back to Baltimore for a few years, then off to Hawaii for a couple more years, then back to Baltimore, then finally moving to San Antonio where my parents decided to make a permanent home. Anyway, mom thought that she had robbed my sister and I of a normal childhood, which I can understand her thinking of it that way. I can't say that there weren't times that I wasn't jealous of all those kids who had friends that they had known since kindergarten. But I think that what I got in return was so much better. I learned that the world was a damned big place and there was a ton out there to see. And since then I've done whatever I could to see, hear, and read as much of it as I possibly could. I may not know everything in the world that there is to know, but one thing that I have understood is that everyone on this planet does not think about life in the same way that I do. Other people may think they understand that, but not until you have lived halfway across the world away from "home"...even if only as a small child...can you truly appreciate that. So in that spirit I'm posting this album by Cecilio and Kapono, a Hawaiian pop duo from the 70s. My father bought this album while we were in Hawaii, and I have since inherited this piece of vinyl. And it really is Hawaii in the 70s. I can't remember if I've burned this for my mom yet, but if I haven't I hope she'll download this for herself.

For the mix, I'm going to post something even more "geeked-out" then normal. In case nobody's noticed, I'm a HUGE Dylan fan. I've been contemplating how to attack Dylan's discography for the blog. I thought that I might put together a two or three disc "favorites" mix...and I still will probably do that eventually. But I had this kernel of an idea to do something far more involved and quirky. So the other day I searched for and found and online document of all of Dylan's recording sessions from 1961 to present with notations on which tracks from the recording sessions matched up with tracks on released material. So I've begun to compile a master list of Bob's released material in the order that it was actually recorded...as in which song from his first album did he actually record first and where do all those songs from the Bootleg Series fit in. Bob's recorded life in chronological order. Yes, I really am just that much of a geek. Which is why I'm titling the series "Geekin' on Bob." So here's the first volume which covers November, 1961 through July, 1962.

1. "You're No Good," Bob Dylan

2. "Fixin' to Die," Bob Dylan

3. "He Was a Friend of Mine," Bootleg Series, Vol. 1

4. "House of the Rising Sun," Bob Dylan

5. "Talkin' New York," Bob Dylan

6. "Song to Woody," Bob Dylan

7. "Baby, Let Me Follow You Down," Bob Dylan

8. "In My Time of Dying," Bob Dylan

9. "Man on the Street," Bootlegs Seriew, Vol. 1

10. "Man of Constant Sorrow," Bob Dylan

11. "Pretty Peggy-O," Bob Dylan

12. "See That My Grave's Kept Clean," Bob Dylan

13. "Gospel Plow," Bob Dylan

14. "Highway 51," Bob Dylan

15. "Freight Train Blues," Bob Dylan

16. "House Carpenter," Bootleg Series, Vol. 1

17. "Rambling, Gambling Willie," Bootleg Series, Vol. 1

18. "Let Me Die in My Footsteps," Bootleg Series, Vol. 1

19. "Talkin' Hava Negeilah Blues," Bootleg Series, Vol. 1

20. "Talkin' Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues, Bootleg Series, Vol. 1

21. "Baby, I'm in the Mood for You," Bootleg Series, Vol. 1

22. "Bob Dylan's Blues," Bootleg Series, Vol. 1

23. "Blowin' in the Wind," The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan

24. "Honey Just Allow Me One More Chance," The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan

A Love Poem with Some Hip-Hop

2009-02-15T09:32:00.001-08:00

Dear M.,

I was counting my freckles

The other day, and when I

Got a thousand, I started

Lisping which Mr. E.

says I do when I get tired

I love you, future wife

Love B.

In honor of me not posting for Valentine's Day...a calculated move, I assure you...I've decided to keep you guessing. The other day some students were discussing "Old Skool Hip-Hop," and I realized that they were talking about Jay-Z. Yes, that's right fellow-fogies, even if you're over 40 and still listening to hip-hop...or ever were...you're musical tastes are tres passe. According to more-than-a-few teenagers, if it was issued in the 20th century, it's totally unlistenable. Most of them know Dr. Dre, Tupac, NWA, etc, but a few years ago a few students got into my CD wallet and begged me to play The Chronic for them because they had never actually heard it.

So perhaps I'm posting this for them, not necessary my students, but any of you out there who might be under 30 and checking out my blog and need a quick, down-and-dirty education on the world of rap before 1995. I've kept this mix to the late 80s and early 90s. Most of this will be readily recognizable to those over 30 who have even a limited knowledge of hip-hop, but I've thrown in a few surprises along with the biggies...not Biggie. Keep in mind when listening that I am a middle-aged white man, self-educated in the world of hip-hop. My first rap album...actually on cassette...was UTFO's self-titled 1985 release (not included here, because god knows where I'd find that shit now). After that I kind of just picked what I could here and there. But nevertheless, I think this is a good smattering of the "Golden Days of Rap." Hope you like.

1. "Pied Piper," Run-DMC, Raising Hell

2. "Raising the Flag," X Clan, To the East, Blackwards

3. "Deeper," Boss, Boss Ganstarz

4. "Who Am I?" Snoop Doggy Dogg, Doggystyle

5. "You Played Yourself," Ice-T, Iceberg

6. "Microphone Fiend," Eric B. & Rakim, Follow the Leader

7. "The Bridge is Over," Boogie Down Productions, Criminal Minded

8. "Brand New Funk," DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince, He's the DJ, I'm the Rapper

9. "Tennessee," Arrested Development, 3 Years, 5 Months, and 2 Days in the Life of...

10. "The World is Yours," NaS, Illmatic

11. "MCs Act Like They Don't Know," KRS-One, KRS-One

12. "Ladies First," Queen Latifah, All Hail the Queen

13. "Check the Technique," Gang Starr, Step in the Arena

14. "Freaks of the Industry," Digital Underground, Sex Packets

15. "They Want EFX," Das EFX, Dead Serious

16. "Let Me Ride," Dr. Dre, The Chronic

Click on Nas for the link

Last week I was listening to this album by Ann Peebles, and it crossed my mind that it's utterly ridiculous that she's not more of a household name. I mean we all know Aretha...looking her age at the inauguration. But Ann Peebles has not had nearly the staying power of other female R&B artists of her era. And listening to this album, which is hardly not even her best, I don't quite understand why. At any rate I'm not going to go on and on about it, because my brain is not cooperating in this process today. I'll just let the music speak for itself

My Weekend: Hungarian Folk Music, Jack Daniels, and A Plate Full of Butter

2009-02-09T16:08:00.000-08:00

This past weekend my wife Michelle and I were running a small bed and breakfast at our house. My father-in-law has been here for a little over a week, because back home in Kentucky the ice and snow had knocked out power, gas, and water. I can feel his pain after Hurricane Ike in September, so I had no problem letting him come and use our amenities for a week or so. Then on Friday night my friend Stephen came down from Austin to hang out for the weekend. Well, not so much to hang out as it was to cruise the blogs looking for Hungarian folk-rock and then burn MP3s onto disc. For various reasons he's having problems unzipping the rar-files on his computer, so I was more than happy to oblige. Stephen and I have known each other since high school (my 25th year reunion being this year was one of the things we discussed) and we roomed together for a while in college.

Stephen actually introduced me to the concept that not everyone listened to pop, rock or country music. Even in high school he was listening to radio from all over the world on his shortwave, learning about folk, rock, jazz, etc in their many variations across the globe. In college we spent many an afternoon flipping through the vinyl at Sound Exchange on Guadalupe Street in Austin, searching for just the right Irish folk title. Stephen is blind, so I would go with him to read off the title of hundreds of albums of which I had no clue at first. So our conversations at Sound Exchange would consist of me reading album titles and Stephen saying, "No. No. No. No. Wait who's the accordion player on that one. Oh no, not that one. No. No. No. Yeah!!! Yeah!!! Get that one!!!" After weeks, months, years of browsing, buying, hearing all kinds of celtic folk, I began to gain an appreciation. Living in the dorm, we would occasionally throw Scottish bagpipe music on my turntable, crank it up to 10, and open the door to our dorm room. Bagpipe music bounces really well off the concrete dorm hallway walls.

Stephen has since moved on from Irish, English and Scottish folk...now amassing one of the most impressive Bossa, Samba, and MPB CD collections that I have seen. Okay, it's the only such collection that I've seen, but trust me, it's impressive. In turn, I have also garnered a more global view of music. So this weekend, while my wife and father-in-law cruised around the city running various errands during the day and watched T.V. at night, Stephen and I sat in my study, downloaded some gypsy folk-rock, talked about music, drank Jack Daniels for me and Irish whiskey for Steve, and watched old television ads from the 80s on YouTube. Ah, livin' the good life!!! We also walked to the Indian food buffet up the street from my house. Hence the "plate full of butter" in the title to this post.

So this week, for the mix disc, I wanted to give a collection of various musical styles that I have from around the world. In listening to this, it may seem a bit schizophrenic. At one point it goes from Zairean guitar ballad, to Mongolian throat singing, to Ananda Shankar doing "Jumping Jack Flash" on the sitar. I'm guessing that most people won't like all of this mix, but hopefully you might find something that you hadn't heard before and maybe you find something that you like enough to buy (or download) a whole disc of it.

1. "Sci-Fi Wasabi," Cibo Matto, Stereo Type A: I know Cibo Matto are actually out of New York, but they are Japanese-born, but it would be ridiculous to classify them as "American." Ever since my friend Alan introduce me to them, I have really dug this duo.

2. "Saukare," Ali Farka Toure, Niafunke: Just love the way he plays guitar. Something rather hypnotic about this track.

3. "Mora Na Filosofia," Caetano Veloso, Trans: No, not Trans the really bad Neil Young album. This is a little MPB from the seventies. And Caetano would be "the man" for that. A beautiful song here.

4. "En Melody," Serge Gainsborough, Histoire de Melody Nelson: For a French track, I was going to put a Jacques Brel tune, but I needed another upbeat tune, since this mix tends a little toward the "jelly." So here's a little Serge.

5. "Ma Jaiye Oni," King Sunny Ade, Juju Music: King Sunny, to me, is the second greatest Nigerian musician. Many would argue that. But we will get to the best in a minute.

6. "Pull Up the People," M.I.A., Arular: I saw an interview with M.I.A. (Mathangi Arulpragasam) on CNN International the other day about the politics of her music. I know it's REALLY poppie, but I really dig this song...and the whole album.

7. "Gentleman," Fela Kuti, Gentleman: Decided that this long cut (all Fela's cuts are long) would work really well smack-dab in the middle, as it were. A little Nigerian interlude. I have a very decent sized Fela collection, so you will be seeing more of him in the future on the blog.

8. "Crooked Jack," Dick Gaughan, Dick Gaughan: This one I owe to Stephen and all that record flipping back in college. Steve was a huge Dick Gaughan fan, and I quickly discovered why. There are other great Irish bards, but Dick Gaughan is king.

9. "Ernesto La Chiva," Conjunto Topo Chico, San Antonio's Conjuntos in the 1950's: A little music from the hometown scene. Growing up in S.A. you could help but be exposed to a lot of conjunto music, even if you were the sheltered white kid.

10. "Limbisa Ngai," Ngwalau Michel & Orch. African Fiesta, The Sound of Kinshasa: Guitar Classics from Zaire: I downloaded this collection on a lark, and was not disappointed. Very mellow.

11. "Haramgui," Egschiglen, Zazal: This would be that Mongolian throat singing I was mentioning before. I really love this stuff. Can't explain it. For me it like when I got into Gregorian chants in college. It's just a soothing sound.

12. "Jumping Jack Flash," Ananda Shankar, Ananda Shankar: This album came out in 1970. Anandar Shankar was much more interested in the whole American pop and psychedelic scene that his uncle Ravi, but he never really took off as his own man as it were. But this cut is kind of cool.

13. "Djam Leelii," Baaba Maal and Mansour Seck, Djam Leelii: Just in case you hadn't had enough, here's some more African guitar...this time from Senegal. I guess this is the way my tastes really runs in world music. I'm okay with that.

Click on Fela for the link.

This compilation released by Blue Note in 1992, and then again as a CD in 2001, makes a valiant attempt to gather together a fair sampling of jazz-funk of the 70s. There's some groovy stuff on this disc from Lou Donaldson, Bobby Hutcherson, Blue Mitchell and others. Grant Green gets most of the exposure here with three tracks to himself...as it freakin' should be. One of those tracks is Green's answer to Herbie Hancock's "Watermelon Man" entitled "Cantaloupe Woman." And then there's the cover of Sly Stone's "Family Affair." Awesome. Occasionally I will put this album on when I'm grading papers, and I find that I'm doing more pencil-tapping than I am grading. Like that's a crime. Hope you find this just as groovy as I do.

Just Some Rock n Roll

2009-02-06T14:09:00.000-08:00

I've noticed that The Boss has been getting quite a bit of face-time lately. Obama's inauguration with a choir doing "The Rising." Then that crappy little set at the Super Bowl. Do you think that some marketing guy got together a thousand 20-somethings, paid them to learn the lyrics to "Born to Run" and put them up by the stage? I do. I totally believe that!!! Just like when the Stones played the Super Bowl whenever that was. All those kids knowing the words to every song they played. PLEASE!!! Let's have a little dose of reality with the 40...or 50-something used-to-be MILF with her halter top and no-bra saggy boobs up by the stage singing along with the Boss. Springsteen had built up at least a little bit of "cred" in the last few year, moving on to become more of a roots rock icon, but all that just got blown at halftime. He went back to the washed-up wannabe rocker along with the Stones and the Who playing a bunch of 30 year old tunes in front of a bunch of teenagers who are saying, "Oh yeah, I know that song. It's in that commercial for Hummers." If Neil Young ever plays the Super Bowl, then I fuckin' quit!!!

Nevertheless....(deep breath)....I do love me some Boss. My senior year in high school and my freshman year in college I played the crap out of every single Springsteen album. While I may have followed the crowd on Born in the USA, I also quickly moved on to Welcome to Asbury Park, N.J...in my own defense. I hazily recall being drunk in some bar in Houston, singing all the words to "Thunder Road" with some girl. (It wasn't playing on the jukebox; we just decided to sing it.) Bruce is a significant part of my musical pedigree. So here's some Boss that doesn't suck. I stopped with Nebraska, because do any of us really need to ever hear ANYTHING from Born in the U.S.A ever again? I also left off "Born to Run," the song, not the whole album. Again, I think we've heard much too much of that particular song, and it really isn't that good to begin with. I've tried to put together a mix that honors Springsteen the poet more than Springsteen the rock star. He is quite the amazing lyricist, but sometimes all that gets lost in the mystique. As always, I hope you like this.

1. "She's the One," Born to Run
2. "Adam Raised a Cain," Darkness on the Edge of Town
3. "Independence Day," The River

4. "Johnny 99," Nebraska
5. "Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street?," Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.
6. "Rosalita," The Wild, the Innocent and the E-Street Shuffle

7. "Mary, Queen of Arkansas," Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J
8. "Lost in the Flood," Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.

9. "Jungleland," Born to Run

10. "State Trooper," Nebraska

11. "Something in the Night," Darkness on the Edge of Town

12. "Backstreets," Born to Run

13. "Nebraska," Nebraska

14. "The River," The River

Click on Bruce for link.

I figure its about time that I posted some Stones. The question was only what Stones to post? I mean Sticky Fingers or Some Girls or one of those would really be silly. You can find those on the internet without me. So I'm posting a boot that I've had for quite some time. Actually I think it may be the first boot I ever owned. I was never really into bootlegs, but about 10 years ago a guy I worked with handed my 3 discs that he had burned. Now this when "burning discs" was still a big deal, a fairly new technology. So they were probably also my first "burned" CDs. He knew that I was a huge Rolling Stones fan and gave me 3 Stones bootlegs. And this one is my favorite. The first half of it is a concert from Honolulu in 1966 and the second is some studio stuff from around the same time period. I think that the concert part is far more interesting than the studio part. This is not groundbreaking stuff, but it's a nice disc to have.

Music and the Movies

2009-01-24T09:08:00.000-08:00

I've been pondering this list, and how exactly to approach it, for a while. How does one best go about compiling a mix of songs from movie soundtracks? First I searched the net, looking for what various other people did...various "best" lists...some better than others...some that just didn't suit my purpose (Sound of Music may be a great soundtrack, but it's not really what I had in mind for this list). Alan suggested that I just stick to music that played over opening credits. I ran with that for a while, but it really became too limiting. I mean, there are a few that just automatically spring to mind, like "The End" at the beginning of Apocalypse Now. What a great use of irony in music! But after a while you really run out of solid ideas, and you're just putting up songs from the beginning of movies because there in the beginning of the film. So I went back to the drawing board. I finally decided that I was going to put together a list of songs that made something...anything...about a movie memorable to me. Perhaps when you see the song, it's reason for being on a movie soundtrack mix may not be readily apparent. But also, perhaps when I explain why I've put the song here, you might come back with an "Ahhhhhhhhhh, I get it."...or not. So instead of just showing the list, I thought I would include an explanation for why many of these are here.

1. "Closer," Nine Inch Nails, Se7en. This song is in fact over the opening credits of the movie. This song really does provide just such a great mood-setter to this movie. This song doesn't really have a creepy-feel to it, but its just so raw, matching up so well with the look and mood of film.

2. "Fisherman's Blues," The Waterboys, Waking Ned Devine and Good Will Hunting. Talk about symmetry! This song starts off Ned Devine and finishes off Good Will Hunting. Plus I just love this song. I have to admit that this is probably why I added it. Just a toe-tapper.

3. "Son of a Preacher Man," Dusty Springfield," Pulp Fiction. I don't think that this song coming from this movie is much of a surprise. I know this is Travolta and Uma Thurman back at her place. Does the OD scene happen to this song? Isn't that right?

4. "Across 110th Street," Bobby Womack, Jackie Brown. I believe this is another opening credit songs. Whenever I hear this song I can't get it out of my head for DAYS. I'm not exaggerating. I will be driving to work on Monday, and I guarantee that this song will be going through my mind. (By the way it's also in American Gangerster over the montage of heroine being shipped in from Vietnam. Which leads me to the next track.)

5. "Perfect Day," Lou Reed, Trainspotting. Most of the lists that I saw online that dealt with Trainspotting chose Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life." Opening credits I think. And it is a tempting choice. But I think this song at the scene in the film with Ewan McGregor kicking smack is such a better choice. Don't you?

6. "Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters," Elton John, Almost Famous. If I had said to you "Elton John song; Almost Famous. I'm sure you would have said "Tiny Dancer." Yeah the bus scene...nice warm and fuzzy. And I like that scene and the use of the song as well. But I really love the way Cameron Crowe uses this song in the film. This is when Penny runs out of the bar, and William chases her out and can't figure out which cab she's in and runs to the hotel to find her. BEFORE SHE O.D.s ON QUALUDES TO "MY CHERIE AMOUR." (Yeah, that's a great one too. Having your stomach pumped was never more sexy!!!) I just think this is a beautiful use of music in a very beautiful film.

7. "Banana Boat Song," Harry Belafonte, Beetlejuice. Okay, I'm messing with you a little bit here. I do like the song in the movie, but if you absolutely hate this, you've got a skip button on your CD player.

8. "Fight the Power," Public Enemy, Do the Right Thing. No doubt the first time I heard Public Enemy. Works so well with the film. I so wish Spike Lee would make more movies.

9. "Sunshine of Your Love," Cream, Goodfellas. Again, most lists online chose "Layla"'s piano solo for this movie. Yes, great use of music. I mean, it's Scorsese; would you expect less? The song right before that is this one. It's a slow moving, closing in shot on DeNiro as he's sitting there at the bar, cig in his hand, smoke swirling around, contemplating going on his whack-spree...which is where "Layla" comes in. I think it's equally as powerful.

10. "Hurricane," Bob Dylan, Dazed and Confused. No, not from The Hurricane. I chose this song because of a scene from Dazed and Confused. It's the pool hall scene. Another slow motion shot. Matthew McConaughey, et. al., are walking into the pool hall...got a strut going...and this song is playing. I just was always struck by the aesthetics of the scene.

11. "If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out," Cat Stevens. Okay, if you don't know why this song is on here, then get the fuck off my blog!!!

12. "Heart of Saturday Night," Tom Waits, A Perfect Storm. Just one of those scenes that stuck with me...don't know why. It's when they're all in the bar the night before the ship shove's off the next morning. Just like the song in that scene. Weird. I think that "Fisherman's Blues" is in this scene too.

13. "Moving In Stereo," The Cars, Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Phoebe Cates topless out of the pool. Judge Reinhold jacking off. How could I pick any other song from this movie?

14. "Walking on Sunshine," Katrina and the Waves," Shit, pick a movie. This one really has been in quite a few films. High Fidelity immediately springs to mind. Secret of My Success... remember that one with Michael J. Fox?

15. "Sound of Silence," Simon and Garfunkel, The Graduate. Figured this was a good one to end on. I know many would have chosen "Mrs. Robinson," but I think that the visual/song dichotomy is much more striking in the opening and other scenes with this song.

Click on Phoebe's boobs for the link.

I actually wanted to get this post up yesterday in honor of Jeanne Moreau's 80th birthday. Moreau is a French actress primarily from the 60s, probably most famous for her role in Jules et Jim in 1962. But I am posting this for her role in Ascenseur pour l'échafaud in 1958...for which Miles Davis did the soundtrack. In the sixties and seventies, many jazz musicians did movie soundtracks, both for artistic edification and for the cash. Best known is probably Herbie Hancock's soundtrack for Blow-Up. But Miles was quite the pioneer in doing so in 1958. Of course the soundtrack is very Miles. But in very short doses because he was only writing songs long enough for individual, mostly short scenes. So it really has that Birth of the Cool feel a little bit here. The film itself is very nice as well. Directed by Louis Malle, it was big deal for Moreau to get the part. She had done quite a few films before this one, but I'm sure being cast in a Louis Malle film in 1958 was a "cut-above" at the time. Well, enjoy the album.

Two Walls of Sound

2009-01-20T16:35:00.000-08:00

A few posts ago, I put togeth a little "off-the-beaten-trail" 80s mix. At the time, I commented that my list turned out to be a little more post punk than I had initially intended. The Minutemen, the Replacements, X, Social Distortion, Violent Femmes...all 80s bands that followed what '70s punk movement had started. But even in the 70s, there developed such a wide range of directions in which individual bands took punk music.

While 80s bands like the Police and Social Distortion may have taken up the punk flag and marched with it in their own way, it still seemed that much of the anger an nihilism of the Pistols, the Clash, and the Ramones...along with all of the bands which followed them in the late 70s had been lost by the mid-80s. Of course I'm generalizing. It didn't seem that the fire was regained until the hardcore bands of the late-80s and early 90s like Black Flag and Anthrax. And now of course we have all degree of band that seems to want to follow that path to "burn it all down."

A couple of months ago I threw together a mix of about 70 MP3s of punk and hardcore, labelled it "Music by Really Pissed-Off People" and handed it off to a buddy. My friend said that he really dug all the edgy stuff I had randomly selected, and at the time I was really rediscovering a lot of punk stuff that I had passingly heard through the years, and gave more of it a thoughtful listen. It occured (and occurs) to me that anger may be both the basest and the most honest of all human emotions. Love, friendship, kindness is often faked for a variety of reasons, but rarely can you say that about hate and anger. So when its expressed in music, there's a certain genuineness to it. This has always been the draw of punk. So I offer you this list as a celebration of that anger and with this sentiment from the end of Shakespeare's Hamlet. In the final scene of the play, Laertes says to Hamlet's attempt to make nice: "...I don receive your offered love like love, and will not wrong it." If you know the play, you know Laertes hardly means it, and goes on to kill Hamlet a couple of pages later. So I hope instead you will receive this offered anger like anger, and not wrong it. Instead, CRANK IT UP AND PISS OFF THE NEIGHBORS.

1. "Caught with Your Meat in Your Mouth," The Dead Boys, Young, Loud and Snotty

2. "Baby, Baby," The Vibrators, Pure Mania
3. "Psychobitches Outta Hell," The HorrorPops, Hell Yeah!

4. "Your Mangled Heart," The Gossip, Standing in the Way of Control
5. "Instant Hit," The Slits, Cut
6. "One Chord Wonders," The Adverts, Crossing the Red Sea With the Adverts
7. "You Gotta Move," Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Destiny Street
8. "I Don't Know What to Do With My Life," The Buzzcocks, A Different Kind of Tension

9. "When the Shit Hits the Fan," The Circle Jerks, Golden Shower of Hits
10. "New Rose," The Damned, Damned, Damned, Damned
11. "Nights in White Satin," The Dickies, Dawn of the Dickies
12. "Astro Zombies," The Misfits, Walk Among Us
13. "Junkie Man," Rancid, ...And Out Come the Wolves
14. "Sleeping Aides and Razor Blades," The Exploding Hearts, Guitar Romantic
15. "Living with Unemployment," The Oppressed, Music for Hooligans

16. "One Hundred Punks," Generation X, Generation X
17. "Tomorrow's Girls," UK Subs, Another Kind of Blues
18. "Uptown," The Stranglers, Aural Sculpture
19. "Suspect Device," Stiff Little Fingers, Inflammable Material

Punk-Ass Disc

For my full album post, here's something that's about as far away from punk as you can possibly get...well, maybe not as far as you can get, but pretty damned far. I downloaded Back to Mono, the collection of different Phil Spector produced stuff...mostly the girl group stuff from the Ronettes and the Crystals. For about two weeks I just kept listening. Then I was lucky enough to find this wonderful LP of just the Ronettes from 1964...produced by Spector with the unmistakable Wall of Sound. I just think that the sound is just so perfect. And it is the sound of my early childhood. When I was a kid, my father had a reel-to-reel deck, and he would just play Motown (although this isn't really Motown) and girl-groups over and over. So the sound has a certain nostalgic quality for me...and I'm sure that it does for many others. I hope that you enjoy this one. I really dig this album!

Not So Readily Recognizable

2009-01-18T18:02:00.000-08:00

The other night my wife and I were laying around reading and I had "Steamin' with the Miles Davis Quintet" playing and when it got to "Salt Peanuts" and the rather long drum solo, Michelle bitched about the randomness of drum solos. I considered whether or not I should argue the artistic value of drum solos in jazz, but realized that it was a futile effort and went back to my book. But in the back of my mind the seed was germinating over all of the jazz standard that we've come to appreciate, especially in the variety of interpretations of different artists. "Salt Peanuts" is great when it's done by Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, but Miles brings his own unique perspective on the song. Or Bill Evans playing Thelonious Monk's "Epistrophy."

At first I considered doing a play list with various versions of just a few songs. And since it's jazz, and different versions by different artists are so vastly...well...different...it would have probably worked okay. Instead though, I decided that I would collect 10 or 12 recognizable jazz standards, but with a less-than-recognizable version. In other words, when you think of "Autumn in New York," the tendency is to think about Billie Holiday. Instead I have posted Charlie Parker's version. I also tried to stay away from jazz interpretations of pop standards, like Coltrane's "My Funny Valentine" or Miles Davis' "Some Day My Prince Will Come." (Though it was very tempting to throw in Miles playing "Surrey with the Fringe on Top.") With that said I have begun and ended the playlist with two pop standards, "Autumn in New York" and "April in Paris," just because there was some a degree of symmetry to it.

As I was saying, I started this off with "Autumn in New York," one of Billie Holiday's more beautiful numbers, and of course nobody can do this song like Billie. But I really like this Charlie Parker version. He doesn't really "bop it out" too much. The song stays melodic throughout. And I just recently got this version from a box set of The Complete Verve Recordings of Charlie Parker that my wife's uncle gave me for Christmas. The followed that up with "Salt Peanuts," originally a Gillespie and Parker collaboration (I think...but might just be Dizzy), but here I have just Miles on the "Steamin'" album. Maybe one of these days I'll post a playlist of Miles songs just from that great foursome of the "Workin'," "Steamin'," "Relaxin'," and "Cookin'" albums, but that's for another day.

On the 3rd song, I love what Grant Green does with "Django on the guitar, which is most recognizable with the MJQ version Milt Jackson's vibes. I used to not be much of a fan of jazz guitar, but now I really enjoy Green along with Montgomery, Burrell and of course Django Reinhardt...which maybe why I've put "Django" here as a guitar number.

I also threw in Thelonious Monk's version of "Just a Gigolo." Probably more of a pop standard than a jazz standard...but the song from Monk makes me smile. And "Along Came Betty" is one of my favorite jazz standards. It's just so smooth. I'm not sure who originated the song, but I have Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers doing it here because that's the first place I heard the song.

Another one that I'm not really sure where the song first came from is "Lover Man." But this particular version really gets to me. This comes off of a collection of Charlie Parker songs from his recordings with Dial Records. The story goes that Parker got stuck in K.C., I think. He was originally from there, but was back in Kansas City for some reason, broke, and without any way to score heroine. So he just stayed drunk, like all the time. For this particular song, apparently he was so drunk that two guys had to hold him up to the microphone while he was playing. And you can just feel the pain oozing from his horn on this song. I absolutely love this version of "Lover Man." If I'm getting the story wrong I'm sure someone will correct me.

And I ended it all off with Ella and Satchmo doing "April in Paris." Like I said before, I thought that it gave some symmetry to the list with "Autumn in New York" beginning the set. Maybe if I was a stickler I would have started in April and ended in Autumn, but I think it works better like this.

1. "Autumn in New York," Charlie Parker
2. "Salt Peanuts," Miles Davis
3. "Django," Grant Green
4. "Epistrophy," Eric Dolphy
5. "Just a Gigolo," Thelonious Monk
6. "Along Came Betty," Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers
7. "A Night in Tunisia," Kenny Dorham
8. "Lover Man," Charlie Parker
9. "Take the 'A' Train," Clifford Brown and Max Roach
10. "On Green Dolphin Street," Bill Evans
11. "Basin Street Blues," Jimmy Smith
12. "April in Paris," Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong

Jazz Standards

About 15 years ago I yanked this little gem out of a bargain bin somewhere, and I'm so pleased with myself for grabbing this CD. I haven't seen it anywhere else, and had a bitch of a time finding the album artwork for my iTunes. The art I have below is not the cover off of the disc, but something I found on the web...maybe they've repackaged and rereleased this album. "Body and Soul" is a live Dizzy Gillespie performance from 1957. It's not a very long disk, but of course you get the full Dizzy showmanship here. AND it has 2 songs with Sarah Vaughan, really at a high point in her career. This is the same year she released the live album "At Mister Kelly's." The sound is not the best, but I thought it was well worth a post.

Tit-Deep in the Blues

2009-01-07T18:17:00.000-08:00

While I was at work a couple of days ago, I was cleaning my disaster area of a desk and uncovered a playlist that I started working on months ago. It really wasn't very good, but I notice that two of the songs where "Blues"-titled songs, AC/DC's "Down Payment Blues" and ZZ Top's "Blue Jean Blues." That set my mental cogs a-turnin'. Surely there were tons of songs released by non-blues bands that had "Blues" in the title. So I set to making a list. I came up with 8 pretty quickly, and then set Alan on the trail. Of course he came to work the next day with a very nice list of his own. That night I went home, search through my iTunes and came up with 10 or so more.

In whittling this list down, I tried to stay away from blues artists, even rock artists like the Allman Brothers Band who lean heavily toward the blues. Now, realize that rock is blues-based, so the line is fairly hazy on this. In other words, don't be too critical of my selections on this basis. I understand that some of these bands do border on a "blues-rock" band. Nevertheless... I also tried to incorporate a number of different eras and styles. So this stretches from Pink Floyd's trippy little "Jugband Blues" from Saucer Full of Secrets, to Babyshambles recent "French Dog Blues" from Shotter's Nation. I also tried to stay away from the standards that would fill this category. So there's no "Subterranean Homesick Blues," no "Bell Bottom Blues," no "Roadhouse Blues." So here is a very, very eclectic take on the blues. Hope you like.

1. Social Distortion, "Ghost Town Blues," Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell
2. Bob Dylan, "Outlaw Blues," Bringing It All Back Home
3. Merle Haggard, "California Blues," Same Train, A Different Time
4. Ryan Adams, "Rescue Blues," Gold
5. Townes Van Zandt, "Sanitarium Blues," A Far Cry From Dead
6. The Eels, "Electro-Shock Blues," Electro-Shock Blues
7. The Black Crowes, "Struttin' Blues," Shake Your Money Maker
8. Babyshambles, "French Dog Blues," Shotter's Nation
9. The Big Boys, "Same Old Blues," The Fat Elvis
10. Tom Waits, "Tom Traubert's Blues," Small Change
11. Blondie, "Bermuda Triangle Blues (Flight 45)," Plastic Letters
12. AC/DC, "Down Payment Blues," Powerage
13. Rick Danko, "Java Blues," Rick Danko
14. Dennis Wilson, "Pacific Ocean Blues," Pacific Ocean Blue
15. Steve Earle, "John Walker Blues," Jerusalem
16. The Kinks, "Acute Schizophrenia Paranoid Blues," Muswell Hillbillies
17. T. Rex, "Lean Woman Blues," Electric Warrior
18. Pink Floyd, "Jugband Blues," Saucerful of Secrets
19. The Black Keys, "Aeroplane Blues," Rubber Factory
20. Neil Young, "Vampire Blues," On the Beach

Download Here

In looking at this playlist though, I feel I've been neglectful of the ladies of the blues. So for my full album post, I will rectify this travesty. I can think of no better way to do that than with Etta James' first album, At Last! (1961). While this album may be more "soulish" than "bluesy," I think we can overlook this for the Matriarch of the Blues. Besides, this album has my two favorite Etta James songs..."At Last" and "Sunday Kind of Love."

Album Cover is the Link.

More to the 80s Than Madonna and Michael Jackson

2008-12-27T01:20:00.000-08:00

In my first posting I gave some very superficial steps on how to download and listen to the music that I'm posting here. But I wanted to go back and maybe give some clearer directions on how to do that, because it may not be as simple as I originally made it sound.

1. First you'll need a winrar program. I'm including this link that should lead you to a freeware site that will allow you to download the software for free. I downloaded mine from what I thought was a freeware site, but after a 90 day trial period, every time I go to unzip something with my winrar, I get a dialogue box telling me to go to the site to pay for the program. Yeah right! I just click close and go about my business. But hopefully this one will allow you to avoid that particular annoyance. So download and install, and that should give you the tools you need to proceed.

2. Choose one of the links below: Discs for Manual Manipulation, or Disc One for Dylan Bootleg Series or Disc Two, or something from the first posting. This link should take you to a Rapidshare page. Click on the Free User button. As a free user you are only allowed to download so many files at a time or in one day. But unless you want to just go hog-wild in downloading music, you really won't need to subscribe to Rapidshare for this. If later you decide you want to explore some other music blogs, then maybe it might be worthwhile. So you click on Free User, on the next page you then click on download, choose where you want to download it to on your computer, then hit save.

3. Now your file is downloading...should take 5-10 minutes. After it's done, go to the folder in which you saved the file from Rapidshare, and click on the winrar zipped file. The file will look like a stack of three colored books, green, blue and purple. When you click on the file it will pull up your winrar program with your downloaded file in a box. There should actually be two folders, the first one with two dots after it, then below a folder with the name of the file next to it. You want to double-click the one with the two dots next to it. Winrar will then ask where you want to unzip the file to. Again pick the location where you save your music. Click OK, and there you go. You have the file unzipped and can now listen to the music on your computer.

4. At this point you can burn a disc or put it in your iTunes or whatever. If you just want to burn a disc, open Nero or whatever disc burning program you have, and drop in the folder with the music files onto your tracklist box and burn your disc. If you're adding to iTunes, go to File, Add New Folder to Library, click on the file from whereever you saved in, and you're good!

Hopefully this is somewhat clearer than what I gave before. Now let's get back to the countdown.

In the last few months, I have made two separate 80s music discs: one for my wife, Michelle and one for my friend at work, Jessica. Neither of them were actually in high school before 1990, but Michelle asked me to make her an 80s disc to remind her of middle school days at the roller rink. (I did my best, but apparently I know nothing about the 80s.) And my friend Jessica has the most bizarre fixation for 80s music that I have seen. I really think she might give away one of her kids for Madonna tickets. Not that anyone would trade Madonna tickets for someone else's child, but you get my point. So I spent some time and effort making two discs of the standard 80s fare...Go-Gos, Eurythmics, Michael Jackson, the Police, etc. And the whole time I was thinking, if I was making this for anybody with actual TASTE (sorry Michelle and Jess), how different might this disc be. Because you know that there were more to the 80s than Thriller and Born in the U.S.A. No, really, there was.

I actually finished this list on Christmas Eve, burned it Christmas morning, and listened to it on my way to my sister's house for Christmas dinner. Then I gave the disc to my friend Tom. I've only decided to change one thing from that disc and that's the end. I had Lou Reed's "Strawman" as the last song on the disc originally, then went back and added 4 or 5 more songs. The last song I added was Nirvana's "Negative Creep," which I thought would be an excellent final track, metaphorically ending the list with a group who would really come to define the direction of music in the 90s and beyond. Yeah, that's all great, but it didn't sound quite right. So for the list I posted here, I switched the two, putting "Negative Creep" right before "Strawman."

But I still stayed chronological here. (Both Bleach and New York were released in 1989, and I still remember the record store in San Antonio at 410 and Bandera Road where I bought my cassette of New York.) So there is some sense of moving from the punk of X's Los Angeles and Social Distortion's Mommy's Little Monster to the post-punk sound of The Jesus and Mary Chain, Jane's Addiction, and Nirvana. There may be a few other styles mixed in here with Tom Waits and Michelle Shocked, but the flavor of this mix is distinctly one of punk, and where punk was going in the 80s.

The crossroads essentially comes at the middle of the decade. In 1985 REM releases Fables of the Reconstruction, their last great album before beginning the slide toward commercialism with Document. (Life's Rich Pageant would come out in between the two.) In the same year the Chili Peppers release Freaky Styley, moving in a completely different direction, integrating funk, rock and roll, and hip-hop into a more modern sound. The following year, The Violent Femmes released The Blind Leading the Naked, one of the last great gasps of the 70s punk movement that channeled through X, The Police, The Replacement, The Minutemen, and The Femmes in the 80s. Also in 1986 Yo Lo Tengo released its first album, Ride the Tiger, which probably caused little to no stir at the time. But the band seems very representative now of the indie scene that would come to life in the 90s. Then comes Jane's Addiction in 1987 with Nothing's Shocking and Nirvana with Bleach in 1989...AND IT'S ON. So here's the list.

1. X, "Nausea," Los Angeles
2. Tom Waits, "Jersey Girl," Heartattack and Vine
3. Brian Eno & David Byrne, "Regiment," My Life in the Bush of Ghosts
4. Bruce Springsteen, "State Trooper," Nebraska
5. Social Distortion, "Telling Them," Mommy's Little Monster
6. The Replacements, "Sixteen Blue," Let It Be
7. The Minutemen, "Glory of Man," Double Nickels on the Dime
8. The Jesus and Mary Chain, "Just Like Honey," Psychocandy
9. R.E.M., "Green Grow the Rushes," Fables of the Reconstruction
10. Violent Femmes, "No Killing," The Blind Leading the Naked
11. Yo Lo Tengo, "Did I Tell You," New Wave Hot Dogs
12. Jane's Addiction, "Pigs in Zen," Nothing's Shocking
13. Michelle Shocked, "When I Grow Up," Short Sharp Shocked
14. The Sugarcubes, "Deus," Life's Too Good
15. Nirvana, "Negative Creep," Bleach
16. Lou Reed, "Strawman," New York

A Little 80s Music

About 10 years ago a friend of mine saw a serious "hole" in my music, and attempted to introduce me to Tom Waits' music. How I got to the age of 32 or 33 without knowing Tom Waits, I'm not sure, but it is a little embarrassing to admit here. At any rate, the friend who lent me my first Tom Waits CD, I believe, made a serious miscalculation in which CD he lent me. I went home that night, fairly excited about listening to this album, because the friend in question liked many of the same things that I did musically. I slipped Rain Dogs into the CD player and almost immediately thought "what the fuck is this shit!!!" Because chances are, if it's your first exposure to Tom Waits' music, you're not quite ready for Rain Dogs. A few years later, I bought The Heart of Saturday Night on my own...and of course instantly fell in love with the sound. After months, maybe even years with The Heart of Saturday Night, Small Change, Closing Time, and then Heartattack and Vine and Nighthawks at the Diner, I tried Rain Dogs and Black Rider again...and of course I finally got it.

So at the risk of posting back-to-back Dylan albums, and then posting kind of a Dylanesque album, I'm still putting Closing Time here for this post. I think that this is simply a beautiful album, and should be anyone's introduction to Mr. Waits' music. And if you already like Tom Waits music, but don't own this album...well, you really, really should. So here's your chance. Click on the album cover.

More Bob, Along with a Little Piano for the Soul

2008-12-21T19:46:00.000-08:00

This post is for Stephen Jones. For years I couldn't understand how someone with Jones's ear for music never really liked jazz. I mean, it's Jones, so it's not like he couldn't speak relatively intelligently about most of the major players in jazz since...well, since jazz was invented. I'm sure he was listening to some jazz here and there on various radio stations. But he didn't own any, and really didn't listen to it on any kind of basis. So when I started listening to jazz in the early 15 years ago, this really puzzled me.

Anyway, about a year ago Jones calls me with this epiphany that he's had about music...that he started to actually listen to jazz. And not just any jazz but jazz piano. For most of us who do listen to a lot of jazz, piano seems like an odd place to start. Not that there aren't many great jazz pianists, but most of us started with maybe a trumpet player, but probably a sax player. For some reason sax is the most approachable instrument in jazz. I personally started out with Charlie Parker, but there are a lot of people who started with John Coltrane. 'Trane is very listenable, especially the early stuff.

And no, Jones doesn't start with Theolonious Monk or Herbie Hancock or maybe a Dave Brubeck. But with Oscar Peterson. Not necessarily that odd of a choice for piano...but...never mind. Just struck me as odd.

The strange thing about jazz pianists is that there's not "the guy" for that instrument. You know how with all of the other instruments in jazz there's one person you can point to as being the definitive master for that instrument...well, most of them (I mean I'm sure there's a flugelhorn "the guy," but I sure don't know who the hell he is). For bass, it's Charles Mingus. Vibes...Milt Jackson. For trumpet, it's Miles Davis. And no, for all of you who are foaming at the mouth, it's not Louis Armstrong, IT'S MILES FREAKIN' DAVIS. For sax it could go two ways. My personal "the guy" for saxophone is Charlie Parker, but you could definitely make a valid point for John Coltrane. Anyway, for piano there's no "the guy." Or maybe there are just lots of the "the guy"s. Thelonious Monk, Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett. McCoy Tyner was good enough to be "the guy" for John Coltrane all those years, so you have to give him some consideration.

So here's a disc's worth of some of "the guys" (and gal) of keyboard jazz. I tried to spread it out a little bit among eras, and even added a little bit of Hammond organ and electronic
sythesizer. I realize that there's no Duke Ellington or Count Basie here. I'm not really a big band fan, so maybe that's why they got left at the curb. But also probably because I see them more as band leaders than as pianists.

1. Keith Jarrett, "My Song," My Song
2. Ahmad Jamal, "A Foggy Day," Chamber Music of the New Jazz
3. Jimmy Smith, "Motorin' Along," Home Cookin'
4. Bill Evans, "My Man's Gone Now," Sunday at the Village Vanguard
5. Oscar Peterson, "Night Train," Night Train
6. Herbie Hancock, "Chameleon," Headhunters
7. Carla Bley, "Ups and Downs," Fleur Carnivore
8. Chick Corea, "Matrix," Now He Sings, Now He Sobs
9. McCoy Tyner, "Blues on the Corner," The Real McCoy
10. Thelonious Monk, "Blue Bolivar Blues," Monk's Dream
11. Dave Brubeck, "Blue Rondo A La Turk," Time Out

Disc of Manual Manipulation

For my full album post, I'm sending out the latest Bob Dylan Bootleg Series, Vol. 8 that my sister-in-law was nice enough to give me for Christmas. While I don't like the idea of posting newly released music, because that's the thing that gets you in trouble with the music-police, I felt that I would make an exception for symmetry's sake. I posted the first Dylan album last week, so I'll post the last one today. I've only listened to the first disc so far. It's good. Not Blood on the Tracks by any means, but still better than Bigger Better Bang. For those of you lucky enough to not know what that is, it's the last Stones studio album. Freakin' horrid!!! Bob style has obviously changed yet again in the last 5 or 1o years...back to folksy, but in a different way.

Besides, I can't think of a better Christmas present than to give everyone a little Bob.

Disc One

Disc Two

The Dawn of a New Blogtastic Day

2008-12-20T21:21:00.000-08:00

For quite some time I have been contemplating what the hell to do with this blog. Using it as a tool to write wasn't working all that well. It was supposed to be a low key way of writing for the two or three people who would actually read the mindless rambling that I was sticking on this thing, but trying to be interesting on even a weekly basis proved difficult. It didn't help that I am lazy by nature. So I abandoned it.

Then about a year and half ago, Stephen Jones introduced me to music blogs, rapidshare, Winrar files and a whole new world. So I've toyed with the idea of sharing some of the music that I've always loved and some of the stuff that I've found in the last few years. And after a few months of mulling it over in what left of the brain that my 9th graders have left me with, I think I've come up with a plan. I decided that not only did I want to include whole albums that I love so much, but also to create some interesting playlists. Actually Tom Hamilton convinced me of that idea when I burned him a few discs for his 40th birthday, and he called me back to tell me how much he liked them. It meant a lot to me, and so i decided that maybe I could do that here for more of my friends if they were interested. So if these playlists suck...you can all blame Tom.

For those of you who are not familiar with downloading music from blogs, it's relatively simple. All you need is a winrar program, which you can download for free at a number of sites. You click on the link that I provide, download it to your computer, then unzip it with the winrar file to somewhere to store it, then add it to your ITunes, or whatever music storage program you are using. If you're not...get with it!!!

I'm going to try to be interesting here, and maybe...I stress maybe...I'll try to start writing here again.

So let me get started. I actually created this list a few months ago. I was listening to Bob Dylan's first self-titled album, which was the 2nd Dylan album I ever owned, and I was thinking, "If I was 22 or 23 in 1963 when this album came out and I happened to buy it and put it on the turntable, would I know just how cool it was in 1963? Would I realize that I was listening to something that would so vastly change the landscape of music? Probably not, because I'm just not that cool. So I put together the first track of first album from a number of artists from the last 45 years...from Bob Dylan to Radiohead. I didn't include anyone who you would have heard before with another group. For instance, I didn't include Lennon's "Mother" because you would have known Lennon before this. Get it? Yeah well anyway here's my tracklist and the link follows. It's chronological, and I know you will probably find things that you think should be here that are not. Such is the dilemma and part of the fun in making such lists. Hope you like.

1. Bob Dylan, "You're No Good," Bob Dylan
2. The Beatles, "I Saw Her Standing There," Please Please Me
3. The Rolling Stones, "Not Fade Away," England's Newest Hit Makers
4. The Who, "Out in the Street," The Who Sing My Generation
5. Jimi Hendrix, "Purple Haze," Are You Experienced
6. Cream, "I Feel Free," Fresh Cream
7. Pink Floyd, "Astronomy Domine," Piper at the Gates of Dawn
8. The Velvet Underground, "Sunday Morning," The Velvet Underground & Nico
9. Led Zeppelin, "Good Times, Bad Times," Led Zeppelin
10. Santana, "Waiting," Santana
11. ZZ Top, "(Somebody Else Been) Shakin' Your Tree," ZZ Top's First Album
12. Tom Waits, "Ol' 55," Closing Time
13. Bruce Springsteen, "Blinded by the Light," Welcome to Asbury Park, N.J
14. The Ramones, "Blitzkrieg Bop," The Ramones
15. Talking Heads, "Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town," Talking Heads 77
16. The Clash, "Janie Jones," The Clash"
17. Van Halen, "Running with the Devil," Van Halen
18. REM, "Radio Free Europe," Murmur
19. The Beastie Boys, "Rhymin' and Stealin'," Licensed to Ill
20. N.W.A., "Boyz-In-Da-Hood," NWA and the Posse
21. Nirvana, "Blew," Bleach
22. 2Pac, "Young Black Male," 2Pacalypse
23. Radiohead, "You," Pablo Honey

First Song Collection

I'm posting as my first full album, Bob Dylan's self-titled first release. Most people are unfamiliar with this, and I think that's a shame. As you might expect, this is far more "folky" then anything Dylan released afterwards...even more so than the 4 groundbreaking albums that he released after this, before releasing Highway 61 Revisited. Dylan's version of "House of the Rising Sun" is haunting...so much superior to The Animals version that succeeded it. "Man of Constant Sorrow," though done by other artists exceptionally well, seems a naturally Dylanesque tune. And "In My Time of Dying" is also equally evocative and powerful.

My most favorite memory of this album was playing it and then hopping in the shower and hearing my dog Ophie howling to Dylan's harmonica. This was how I discovered that Ophie loved to sing along with the harmonica. I'd play this album in the car with Ophie riding along in the front seat and the windows rolled down and once Bob would come in with that harp, Ophie would always chime right in.

Bob Dylan (1962)