This is a bumper sticker, but I doubt that we are expected to use it - there’s no brand name, for one thing.
Is this a metonymical advertisement?
Suzanne Vega recently has been writing some good articles for a New York Times blog. This one is about her song, “Tom’s Diner”, and it’s travels through culture and technology. By accident of history, it was a popular, a cappella, rhythmically interesting but simple song at the time when remixing and the audio compression (ie mp3) were first becoming broadly useful to society.
I’m on my way to listen to Tom’s Album now, an album Vega put together from the first batch of remixes.
The Grateful Dead - Live in Buffalo, June 6, 1992
I found audio of my first Dead show on archive.org. It’s great to hear it, because my primary memories of the show were:
a) being kept even more awake than I already was by someone in a tent five feet away from mine, playing the Pogues’ “Christmas in New York” over and over again at Two O’clock in the morning.
b) at Niagara Falls the next day, playing with a fountain which made a single unbroken inch-thick arc of water. I found I could cut the flow with my hands and watch little water cylinders follow their intended path. That was pure joy, making little rhythmic patterns.
The music was good, too. I had this song, “He’s Gone”, stuck in my head for the rest of the trip, and listening back, it is still my favorite.
I never before realized how similar Will Oldham’s singing is to Jerry Garcia’s.
The Weakerthans - Reunion Tour (hear “Virtute the Cat Explains Her Departure”)
A song like “Virtute…” succeeds by thinly veiling heartbroken sentiments - really just deadly thoughts - behind patient obfuscation and understatements.
Too much of the album over-obfuscates while just barely missing sentiment, but you have to credit The Weakerthans for trying to write about interesting things, like an old biggest band in the world’s smelly reunion tour, or a bigfoot-obsessed burger-flipper somewhere past the arctic circle.
Can I draft-dodge to Canada without there actually being a draft? My impression is that in Canada people listen to this kind of stuff all the time.
This is a great compilation which lala recommended to me based on my interest in The Books. At times it seems the compilers, at Spanish label foehn records, have hit an iceberg of Bookish music (for example, Youdee) - but then there are a number of spare folky tracks. There’s also some borderline generic electronica.
It’s a good listen with only a couple of echh tracks and more than a few huh! tracks. Click through to listen, as the lala flash widget is only offering disc one anyway.
Times New Viking - Live at Modified in Phoenix 29 November 2008
Times New Viking is my new favorite band. They wallop such enormous ass it’s like they are friends with the class clown in a school for fat kids. “Kick me” signs printed on Kinko’s’s full assortment of paper colors pour out of their amplifiers like rainbows of blood. Don’t worry, it’s actually ketchup, made from heirloom tomatoes and sea salt.
The band is completely in the moment but executing very well prepared ideas. They come out of chaos on a dime and switch gears at will. They have real songs, and can play their instruments.
The crowd was super-excited. Right in front of me, a few cool kids straight out of the cool-kid catalog (hair scragged, goofy smiles, talking full of ideas) were ready to mosh, but only ironically. They waited a couple of songs, then began jostling each other. Then they “moshed”, disappearing briefly into a mess of bodies - then they were just standing again, having referred to a known quantity to a satisfying degree while staying far enough removed for coolth.
Modified exemplifies what I look for in a venue. There’s nothing precious about it, there’s plenty of places to be, and it’s easy to get in and out of. You can escape in two directions, because the main area is shaped like a donut - the bathroom is in the middle, which is a little smelly, but whatever it’s ***k rock. I suspect this shape, combined with the plywood floor, is what leads to the decent acoustics.
In a rare case of actually having my head in the right place at the right time, I recorded this show. Here is a .zip with mp3s all nicely edited for you. Use it wisely.
http://www.mediafire.com/?wxjhjnzkmzk
Deerhunter also played. It felt like watching the Beatles and Pink Floyd play back to back, or Sonic Youth and Joy Division. Deerhunter was way too loud, though.
The Talking Heads - “Listening Wind”
Everything is in it’s right place in this one.
Talking Heads - Remain in Light
This album essentially consists of repeated grooves without harmonic or structural progression. Even the texture of each song stays relatively stable. The occasional guitar solo and the generally alternating vocal melody fragments are the only things really dividing each song into recognizable parts.
It’s not just a typical dance album approach. Dance music tends to depend on structural elements to give revelers the feeling that the night is continuously getting more awesome. Here, the Talking Heads just turn on the awesomeness and let it roll. Words, melodies, bits and pieces are all just so many pine needles floating on the water.
In the player presented here you can hear some sort of studio jam session on the theme of “Once in a Lifetime”. It succeeds completely. The trappings of popular music on the album proper are entirely unnecessary, musically speaking.
So what do the lyrics, melodies, and guitar solos do? They place the music in its culture. They say, “hey you, lovers of Pop, of Frank Zappa and DNA, of punk and apple pie, check this out.”
(bennyfreeds and Emily sent me this way)
ps I love the legend that they tried to make a Joy Division style tune for the last track, but having never heard Joy Division.
Bonnie “Prince” Billy - Daytrotter Session
B”P”B does me best in small portions.
And here is Richard Brautigan’s “I Cannot Answer You Tonight in Small Portions”.
I cannot answer you tonight in small portions.
Torn apart by stormy loves gate, I float
like a phantom facedown in a well where
the cold dark water reflects vague half-built
stars
and trades all our affection, touching, sleeping
together for tribunal distance standing like
a drowned train just beyond a pile of Eskimo
skeletons.
