Another item in which I make notes to myself, or make random short comments which don't seem to merit their own item. The previous incarnation of my item was item:music2,200 (music2 conference, item 200) This style of item was introduced to the conference by Mark Ziemba and I'd like a few more of the regulars to try running such an item themselves.124 responses total.
On Wednesday we were in Hoboken, just across the river from the skyscrapers of Manhattan. We were visiting Karen, a friend of Leslie's from her summer singing program in the Czech Republic. As we walked across Washington Street, Karen pointed out Maxwell's, which she said was the famous rock club where lots of bands had gotten started. She said in a previous apartment, on the same block as Maxwell's, she could hear the bass playing on some nights. I must be getting old; I'd dimly heard of Maxwell's but the only Hoboken band I can think of is Yo La Tengo.
I once lived in an apartment where I could hear the bass playing. After calling the cops every night at 1 AM for a few months, we moved.
The Feelies were another Hoboken, NJ, band. I know there are others that I could think of if I put my mind to it..
Hoboken? um... wasn't that where Sinatra was from?
Yes; we walked through Frank Sinatra Park, in fact. Though I understand that he didn't come back to his old home town much. Prairie Home Companion note: according to the webpage at http://www.prairiehome.org, the Sept. 22 and Sept. 29 broadcasts will be "vintage" shows from 1985. I haven't seen PHC dig so deeply into its archives for rebroadcasts in years.
RE #5 Perhaps the two 1985 episodes of APHC were chosen because both shows featured appearances by the late Chet Atkins, and are being repeated in his memory.
Could be, but there are a *lot* of PHC shows with Chet Atkins, he usually appeared a couple of times a year.
The news will be mostly lost in the news coverage of the attacks, so I'll mention it here. PJ Harvey took Britain's prestigious Mercury prize for popular music for her album "Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea." (Radiohead was the only other finalist I'd ever heard of.)
Folksinger Janis Ian wrote a con report about her worldcon trip, which was her first SF convention: http://www.janisian.com/news-oct2001wc.html (reposted from SF conference.)
Probably the most famous goshwow neo in fannish history.
So today, being nostalgic, I was playing Camper Van Beethoven's "Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart" and the Oyster Band's "Holy Bandits." Any more suggestions for rock bands with violins?
Not exactly a rock band with violins, but a hearty recommendation for Thomas Dolby's "Astronauts and Heretics", which features some Cajun violin on a few tunes.
Yes, the fiddling on "Astronauts & Heretix" is nice. I like Michael Doucet's (of Beausoleil) performance on "I Love You Goodbye"
I'm pretty sure that Kansas used violins on "Dust in the Wind"
*pukes*
Well, there's violins and then there's fiddles. Which are we going for here?
Chicago Shopping II: I put my overall impressions of the two big CD stores in the Loop in item:4. Tower had a lot of tempting things in the world music section, but I had to put back many of them, such as some solo CDs by former Kornog guitarist Soig Siberil and flutist Jean-Michel Veillon. (Actually the Veillon album with guitar accompaniment looked most tempting, I might have to get that on some future trip if it's still there.) Also passed up at Tower was an album by a Spanish pop-flamenco group called Ea, "Aguita." Mickey, you know anything about them? I settled for the most recent CD by Cape Breton Gaelic singer Mary Jane Lamond, who's a favorite of mine; this album has not been widely available in the States because Wicklow Records, the major-label world music imprint, was shut down as part of the dismantling of BMG's classical music operation. And, a cd by a young Breton band called Karma; the name sounds a little too new-agey, but the music was pretty good. We played the disc in the car on the drive home and now this morning I can't find it, argh. At Crow's Nest I limited myself to "Wake of the Dead," the new Danny Carnahan project which I just learned about this past week. Carnahan and other California Celtic players do Celtic-folk settings of classic Grateful Dead songs. Note to self: in the French bin at Crow's Nest was a possibly-interesting looking band calle Tekameli with an album titled "Ida Y Vuelta." Occitan, maybe? Look at their website http://www.tekameli.com. Curiously, the disc was released on Epic... Passed up at Crow's Nest: volumes 2 & 3 of Ashley Hutchings' series of trunk recordings "The Guv'nor;" and the Ian Dury tribute album with various artists recreating the "New Boots and Panties" album.
(I visited the Tekameli web site and listened to some of the Real Audio samples. It's a gypsy pop band, if my fractured French is reading the site correctly, and the sound samples didn't compel any further interest.)
Danny Carnahan? Eeeek! New Danny Carnahan? Twila goes "oooooooh". Must restrain self.... (Twila has just seen that Garnet Rogers has a new CD out, Firefly, but has no other data on it.)
"Ida Y Vuelta" is honest-to-goodness Castillian Spanish. (Of course, the same words could crop up in Occitan or Catalan.) It means "round trip," more or less.
Wow, Ken. Sounds like a fun shopping excursion. :) Some thoughts: Dan's right about the translation of "ida y vuelta" of course. I read and listened to some samples on their website --- I cheated and read the English pages, though < http://www.tekameli.com/tekameli/principaluk.html > --- and they do appear to be Gypsies, from Perpignan. This is the region in the South of France, bordering Catalunya, where the Gypsy Kings are from, as well. "Tekameli" means "I Love You" in the Calo, the language of the Gypsies. I haven't heard anything more than the samples, but I liked what I heard. Of course, I have to admit enjoying the Gypsy Kings, as well, and the music from IDA Y VUELTA reminds me very much of that of their more well-known countrymen. I also think the addition of a flamenco dancer ---Sabrina Romero--- is a nice twist. Yes, I have heard some music from EA, but not the newest album. I have ORIPANDO, their first release from 1998. They are flamenco-based, but also fuse jazz and pop into their sound, with mixed results IMO. What makes the music shine for me are the strong vocals from Pilar "La Monica." She is an amazing vocalist. I appreciate the heads-up on this new CD, Ken. If you'd like to hear some more samples, amazon.com has some.
I need to pick Mike's brains here.... My sister is getting into reggae but so far has only listened to Bob Marley stuff. So, being in desperate need of ideas for Christmas presents: what else should I look for? (And what else is recorded in halfway decent sound quality? My recollection is that the Desmond Dekker recordings were pretty primitive.) (Hmm, not reggae but perhaps I should get her that (English) Beat collection I saw recently...)
I'm not actually much of a reggae fan. You'd think I would be because of my love for ska and appreciation of dub, but it wouldn't be a fair assumption -- my record collection is pretty weak in the reggae department.. The thing is, too, that there's all kinds of reggae. Just because she likes Bob Marley doesn't mean that she'll like modern dancehall or ragamuffin or any of the other subgenres that have developed. My biased recommendation, if she likes Bob, would be to go backwards in time and not forwards. Sound quality aside, it's hard to go wrong with Desmond Dekker. Or you could try Toots and the Maytals' "Funky Kingston", it's hard to imagine someone not liking Toots. For around the same period as peak Bob Marley, I like Peter Tosh, too. Or how about Linton Kwesi Johnson?
Gregory Isaacs is pretty good, although I don't know anything about recent stuff.
get her the import version of toots greatest hits. lot's of really good extra tracks.
Hmm, I went sniffing around the sample tracks on amazon.com, and maybe we will look for a good Toots & The Maytals collection, though I'm not sure I have the time to find an import version. Desmond Dekker, um, maybe, still not sure about those pesky sound quality issues. Might also look for THE ROUGH GUIDE TO REGGAE.
Oh yeah, I also came across a Jimmy Cliff collection we might try.
i like Desmond Dekker a lot. Is he considered reggae?
His earlier stuff is generally classified as ska but I'd say there's a fair amount of his work which really doesn't fit the classic ska beat structure. My opinion is that his later recordings are more reggae. Of course the same is true for Bob Marley -- "Simmer Down" and other early tracks are definitely ska, showing more of the classic ska rhythm than any Dekker tracks I can think of, but by the time Marley hit the peak of his career he was *defining* what reggae was..
Reviews I found on Allmusic and Amazon concur with happyboy's recommendation
of the import version of "The Very Best of Toots and the Maytals," on
the Music Club label, as the best available anthology. Unfortunately there
are no copies at Borders or Schoolkids-in-the-Basement, and no
copies at US online retailers. (In the old days Tower or the original
Schoolkids probably would have carried it, both stores carried lots of
the Music Club label releases.) It's plentiful and dirt cheap at
amazon.co.uk, but it's too late to get a copy delivered from the
UK for a Christmas present. Ah well, maybe I'll get one for myself
sometime. I settled for the US version of the same title ("Very Best Of...")
and Jimmy Cliff/"Ultimate Collection." If she likes those we'll pass
along some of the other suggestions.
i've seen the toot's disc at border's.
OK, I'll watch for it. Argh. I'm only running a week behind schedule on this Christmas shopping stuff. I hope the Bo Grumpus ragtime CD I ordered for my dad gets here on schedule.
I haven't heard their Maytals collection but the "Music Club" collections I've wound up with are quite well put together -- reasonably priced with good track selection.. I highly recommend their "Dub Chill Out" collection to anyone looking for an inexpensive introduction to classic Jamaican dub.
A stop at the Arborland Borders clarified a few things for me: clearly I
should have checked with them earlier instead of the downtown store.
I'm guessing Barry was recommending a collection called "Pressure Drop:
The Best Of..." which is Trojan CDTRL 171. That's the one which was
advertising ten extra tracks. I just don't feel this looks like a good
introductory compilation for my sister.
Borders had both the Island (2000) and Music Club versions of
"The Very Best of Toots and the Maytals." The two discs have about
nine tracks in common, which are the ones I've heard of, like "Funky
Kingston."
The tracks which are only on the Music Club selection are:
Take Me Home, Country Roads
Got To Be There
Louie, Louie
Redemption Song
Revolution
Sit Right Down
Having A Party
The tracks which are only on the Island (2000) compilation are:
Broadway Jungle
Bam Bam
54-46 That's My Number
(54-46 Was My Number appears on both discs)
In The Park
Reggae Got Soul
Never You Change
Living In The Ghetto
Never Get Weary
Dream to Remember
Spiritual Healing
Peace, Perfect Peace
I dunno, from here it seems like the only advantage of the Music Club
compilation is that it has three well-known standards (the first three tracks
I listed) done reggae style, and it seems like losing "Broadway Jungle"
and "Reggae Got Soul" are liabilities. My inclination is just to leave
things as they are, with a copy of the Island (2000) on its way from
amazon.com. Thanks for putting up with all this....
Note to self: David Wisdom (CBC) played a track "What The New World Teaches The Old" by a Vancouver rock musician called Phil Smith which, I dunno, maybe reminded me a little bit of Yo La Tengo, but mcnally shouldn't run out and buy it just because I said that. Some nice electric guitar stuff, tasty and melodic rather than pyrotechnical. That's the title track from his new album, says David Wisdom, and I found a reference to a band the guy was in called Corsage, but so far google-searching has mostly revealed that there are an awful log of Phil Smith's in the world. Mike, you know anything about this guy? I would guess that Vancouver rock musicians spill down into Seattle.
Haven't heard of him. I'll keep an eye out for a Seattle appearance but for some reason I find it much harder to keep track of who's playing in the Seattle area than I did in the Ann Arbor/Detroit area.. By and large I don't seem to hear about most of the shows I'd be interested in until after they've already happened..
ken, correct about the toots comp. it's on trojan.
I have always thought about doing a studio quality recording just for fun, but I don't think I'd ever have the $$$. Can't think of what I'd put on it, either. I've always wanted to do remakes of 10cc's "I'm Not In Love" and Mason William's "Classical Gas" (classical guitar arrangement, probably solo, no accompaniment) but lack of resources has always been a problem. just a little pipe dream, I suppose..
crack pipe dream!
re 38: Have you ever thought of doing a 'living room quality'
recording, just for fun? With a couple mics and direct into PC
you can at least come up with a demo type thing.
My trip to The Guitar Center shown me there is a whole new
arena of computer geekdoom in their. Toys! Toys! Toys!
Ditto on the direct-to-PC recording. With a couple of decent mics and a little mixer you can do a very nice recording on your own computer, and then burn to CD.
true, that.. I do have MIDI software to boot
Any high praise for Audiowerks sound cards?
I was a Jethro Tull fan when I was a wee sprout, so I'll pass this along. Whoever owns the Chrysalis label now (EMI?) has started a new reissue campaign for the Jethro Tull catalog. The good news is that the albums THIS WAS, STAND UP and BENEFIT have been (allegedly) cleaned up and (definitely) reissued. I haven't heard the new ones yet, but my old CD of BENEFIT was on the hissy side. (My LP -- well er um, it seemed to have one channel completely worn away by overuse last time I played it....) The bad news is that the album LIVING IN THE PAST has been withdrawn; some of its contents are being dispersed as bonus tracks on those reissue CDs.
Is "Aqualung" currently available on CD reissues.
Don't know. Presumably a remastered AQUALUNG, Tull's 4th album, would be the next reissue to come out; the CDs I described in resp:44 were Tull's first three albums. In the past, the story has always been that a good-sounding AQUALUNG has been impossible to deliver because the master tapes, which were kept in Ian Anderson's personal custody, had deteriorated badly. Guess we'll see what comes next...
The new US quarter coin is.... a music quarter!!
Oh?
I haven't kept up with the quarter collection.. for which state is this, and what is the image?
Nobody else has gotten one of the new music quarters yet?
No.
Haven't seen one, but the US Mint had some groovy pictures. This is the Tennessee state quarter, correct? Louisiana will also have a minor musical theme.
I haven't gotten a new state quarter in about 4 months. :(
Yes, the Tennessee quarter is honoring country music, with a guitar and a fiddle. I've only seen that first one myself.
I had one of them a couple of weeks ago, butdidn't hold on to it.
I saw one of the Tennessee quarters a week or two ago. I was with some people who actually cared, so we spent a few minutes with a magnifying glass trying to figure out if the piece of sheet music on it was actual music, or just looked like it from a distance. We concluded that it wasn't, since the staves only had four lines that we could find.
So the fence on the Kentucky quarter is not really a stave (staff) with the tune "My Old Kentucky Home"??
Maybe the missing 5th line is the result of inbreeding? ;)
Most artistic evocations of printed music are unplayable. I've seen four-line staves, six-line staves, imaginary or nonexistent clefs, double-staves in which neither the number of beats in the bar nor even the bar-lines matched up, impossible key signatures, the lot.
Well poot. I had thought the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame show was going to be broadcast on VH1 on Thursday night. But it was Wednesday, and I missed it. I was really looking forward to the Talking Heads set, too. Did anyone see this?
Mickey's been enthusiastic about Patty Griffin; her new album "1000 Kisses" has been the subject of a couple of over-the-top raves by Dave Marsh. Thoughts?
Note for Twila: there is a new Baba Yaga CD! I'd been trying to figure out how I was going to get a copy of this, and today I learned that Cliff has it at cdroots.com. There is a bio of the band at http://www.cdroots.com/fono-baba.html which tells more than we ever knew about them before; it's been over a decade, I think, since their previous album. Irish and Hungarian rock instrumentalists and a small choir of Russian folk singers.
Can you get two?! I want one.
Ken, in re: resp:61 and Patty Griffin ... You might enjoy reading the (over-the-top?) article in this week's Austin Chronicle. Patty is the cover girl for this issue. http://www.auschron.com/issues/dispatch/2002-05-17/music_feature.html
Random greed whine/not to self: While shopping for Dad's birthday present at Barnes & Noble, I found the new album from Cape Breton fiddler Natalie MacMaster. It's a 2-CD live set and from the snippets one can hear on the "RedDotNet" preview system, it sounds VERY good.
Apparently Peter Gabriel has completed the album UP, just ten years after his last studio album. (Where I come from, we call that "retirement." :) ) rollingstone.com has a review of it (they didn't like it much) and amazon.com is taking orders for late September shipment.
I seem to have a particular knack for discovering musicians just as they pass their prime. Still, Peter Gabriel's been in pretty heavy rotation lately, and I may have to buy this one.
Sorry I haven't been holding up my end of the conference lately. I haven't been in much of a mood to write, except for Grex's party chat. I had an old-fashioned CD pigout at the used CD shop Encore today. I went to get a few inexpensive opera discs for a friend's child who is expressing interest, and I found a big pile of stuff which I might end up keeping instead of giving away. The chosen opera was AIDA sung by Tebaldi and Bergonzi with vonKarajan conducting, and we might end up keeping that; also there was an anthology from a BBC show called "Listen to the Band" which is all brass music, which Leslie thinks looks interesting. There's been a series of anthologies from this show, according to amazon.co.uk, and much of them are out of print. :/ Well, I still have some cheapie opera anthologies I can send along for the youngster. Background shopping music was first, an instrumental Sandy Nelson LP. Kind of kitschy fun; Allmusic.com cites Nelson's drumming as a significant influence on surf music and Keith Moon. I don't remember the title, it probably doesn't matter, though there were some nice 60s covers on that specific album -- "Time Won't Let Me" (originally by The Outsiders) was the one I remember. Second background album was a Stiff Little Fingers anthology. I have only the faintest recollection that such a band ever existed, but sadly I have reached the point where I'm now nostalgic for the 1980 punk sound. S.L.F. sounds a lot like second-rate Clash, so I bought the anthology out of the store's player.
Nostalgic for the 1980 punk sound? Yikes. I remember circa 1989 conversing with Brad Westervelt about the advancing crest of nostalgia, and predicting "In the Nineties, there will be disco nostalgia." Seemed hard to believe at the time, but lo, so it came to pass. So I shouldn't be surprised at punk nostalgia either, but ... punk seems to be the opposite of what one can be nostalgic for.
You'd be surprised. At my band's gigs people go nuts for the Dead Kennedys and Ramones tunes.
What do you call the band?
BLAMMO
resp:69 I'm still waiting for 80's nostalgia to catch on. True, disco nostalgia came along-- and it's bled over into the 00's. I think, really, that boy and girl band excess is part of that 70's nostalgia, although it has been an oft-repeated formula since the 50's. Hmmm.. punk nostalgia. Yes, that seems to be a contradiction in terms. Perhaps it might be useful to ask what punk is all about. As far as the Sex Pistols contribution, I remember Johnny Rotten being quoted as saying "America won't get what it's about," or something to that effect. And I think that was pretty accurate; if I understand it right, the rage was over the crushing poverty in northern England (Manchester, for example) as the industrialist economic structure basically collapsed, and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was basically indifferent.
I think you read Rotten too broadly. The Sex Pistols themselves, as well as the Clash, admit to being influenced heavily by the Ramones, who toured England early. The Sex Pistols were also influenced by the Stooges. Neither the Ramones or Stooges were very political, yet they form the basis for a large part of the punk sound. I believe Rotten was refering to America understanding what the *Sex Pistols* were all about, not punk in general. In any case, The Dead Kennedys were extrememly political, reacting to Thatcher's US alter-ego, Reagan. "Punk nostalgia" has more than one facet. Based on my experience playing the songs live, people respond to "Too Drunk to Fuck" and "Sheena is a Punk Rocker" primarily for nostalgic reasons. We also get a great response to songs like "Holiday Inn Cambodia" and Fear's "Let's Have a War" and I think at least one of the reasons is because those songs still have resonance in our current political climate.
Heh.. "Holiday Inn Cambodia" is one of the more suggestive typos I've seen lately. Conjures up a vivid image, anyway.. I can certainly understand punk nostalgia. I didn't become familiar with the music of the Clash, the Buzzcocks, the DKs, and other prominent bands of that era until years after their heyday but hearing the music of most of those acts brings back memories of my early college years and time spent in the company of friends who also enjoyed that music. For whatever reason, though, the nostalgia effect is greatly lessened in the case of the Clash. Perhaps it's just that I've listened to their stuff continuously enough (especially "London Calling") over the years to not identify it with a particular time period or perhaps it's due to some virtue of the music, but it doesn't induce specific time-and-place flashbacks the way the music of Black Flag or Fear does.
punk nostalgia is a contradiction in terms. i'm not nostaligic for punk because i don't feel that i ever STOPPED having the attitude. but then unplugging and playing banjo instead was even more punk than wearing my mohawk nobody i can think of is more punk than dock boggs. well...except maybe cyklone or something.
Hahaha!
/spills beer on your green chucks and sez a prayer for joe strummer
RIP
*berps*
I've more or less stopped buying CDs. This feels odd. So far this year I've just bought one used CD and one cutout CD, neither of which I've bothered to listen to. Usually in January I have a giant pigout catching up on all the stuff I deferred in November and December while I was allocating money for Christmas presents. More CD retail bankruptcies expected as a result. :/
Dang.. That really *is* dire news for the music industry.
After 16 months of being around the house a lot, I have listened to some CDs several times, but still have a lot that have only been heard once, some that I realized I have yet to get to.
I have CDs that I've owned for almost a year that I haven't heard even once. I've been trying to fix that lately.
Are you guys pseudonyms for Ken Josenhans, or is this just epidemic? <g>
It's not that we're pseudonyms of Ken. It's more that we're all different manifestations of the same ur-Music-Fan.
In my case, I just took advantage of the Harmony House sale and bought way too much for awhile. Now that I have a job where I can listen to Cds for hours, I try to catch up to all the old ones I've accumulated. Like Ken, I've barely bought any CDs so far this year. I think I picked up 2 soundtracks last month.
I never encountered the variety of ur-music fan who accumulates records but doesn't listen to them until I met Ken. This was his distinctive trait in ALPS, the music apa to which we belonged.
Re: myself in #87: Since that last posting, I bought 10 more CDs, thanks to the $1 sale at Borders.
$1 sale?
I fondled a few CDs at Borders tonight, though I put them all back; I still have yet to buy a new CD this year. One disk in a playstation probably would have grabbed my wallet, if it hadn't been out of stock. I really liked the guitar sound on the new James McMurtry album "Saint Mary of the Woods." I've gone hot and cold with McMurtry in the past. I absolutely loved "Where'd You Hide The Body," which I think was his third album. But the followup "Too Long In The Wasteland" left me cold, and so did one of his earlier albums, so I haven't thought about him much recently.
Thanks for putting them back.
Re #90: Unfortunately, I caught the sale at the very end.
OK, I finally broke down and bought some new CDs:
Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros, GLOBAL A GO-GO (inspired by the
March "FRoots Radio" show, which I have been playing
obsessively)
Neko Case, BLACKLISTED (in-store play at Encore)
I have one mail order on the way for Terry Woods' new album (for
St. Patrick's Day) and Croft No. 5 (another of the Scottish folk-techno
pack), and one mail order pending for Luigi Cinque and the Tarantula
Hypertext Orchestra, and the Progmatics.
Sigh.
Ooops, I forgot to give a heads-up to warn anyone who might care that Elvis Costello was the guest host on Letterman's show on Wednesday night. (Letterman is out with an attack of shingles.) Costello did a great job, probably the best of the guest hosts I've seen in the last half-dozen shows. I haven't listened to Costello much for 20 years -- I adored his first three albums but was disillusioned by his subsequent incarnations as a country singer and a sensitive crooner. But Schoolkids was playing some relatively recent Costello item in the store last weekend and I sort of liked it -- but now I don't remember what it was. (Looking at allmusic.com: maybe it was "King of America"?)
Speaking of singers' reincarnations, here's an interview with Claudia Schmidt in which she expresses her dismay at venues who say "Hey, oh, I don't know, we hear you're a jazz singer now." As a dyed folkie who at most only tolerated her occasional jazz bent, I'm of the opinion that she has no-one to blame but herself for this impression, but so it goes. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi? file=/gate/archive/2003/03/13/derk.DTL&type=printable Also available, at least at the moment, at the simpler address: http://www.sfgate.com/columnists/derk/
Both of Costello's 1986 releases, "King of America" and "Blood and Chocolate" are excellent albums..
folkies who can't stand jazz? hmm, the nerve.. =P
It would be inaccurate to say I can't stand jazz. I merely dislike it. However, I am a folkie who absolutely detests country. I realize they're adjoining territories of music. But for me there's a clear line between them, and I rebel as soon as it's crossed.
How do you feel about the alt.country thing? (Buddy and Julie Miller, um, Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer_)? I really find that I like that part of country music, and I *hate* country music, grew up having to listen to it.
I'm puzzled that western has now been shuffled back into folk. My understanding was that country, originally, was an old division of folk-- the Appalachian tradition, right? Western was the trail songs of the cattlemen, to my understanding. What is now called "country" was a merging of the old country genre with western-- I don't think it was that long ago that some were still calling it country & western. But I guess it's just as well that moniker was dropped, as it has traded a lot of licks with rock n roll, the genre spawned from rhythm and blues and race music.
Part of what seems to separate C&W from folk is the 'glam' Country artists. The Rhinestones, frilled shirts, beads, instruments with intricate inlays, fake hair, high hair, highly decorated cowboy hats, etc.
alt.country is a bullshit label.
hmm, that 'glam' image seems to have changed, then, because it's supposedly hip and bubblegummy now. The guys still honky-tonk, I think, but the women seem to work very hard to look very fashionable and romantic.
Twila, I've never heard of these "alt.country" folk you mention. But my reaction is simple: if it twangs, I hate it.
This isn't exactly twang-y. What it is takes some of the folk roots of country and builds upon them, but in a way that doesn't hit my *aiee, it's country!* button. Interestingly enough, both Carter&Grammer and the Millers are very religious in imagery, which I like a lot (the Millers, at least Julie, are Christian, and Dave Carter was very interested in Buddhism, although his Texan fundamentalist roots show in some of the lyrics), and they're unabashed in sharing that.
Lesson for next year's Top of the Park: Google-search every band that you have not heard of after the schedule appears... For Wednesday's show, I made a point to catch Muruga's Global Village Ceremonial Band, but I blew off the opening band, Fubar. I arrived in time to catch the last two songs by Fubar and I was really impressed by what a good rock band they were. Tonight I went googling for references to them. Fubar's leader is George Bedard's bass player, and the woman vocalist is Sophia Hanifi, who I thought was so wonderful in the short-lived band Map of the World all those years ago. (I saw Map of the World open for 10,000 Maniacs at Rick's in East Lansing maybe 1985? Sophia and Khalid Hanafi's band did a much better show.) Yargh. Had I but known.... Sophia did tell me the band plays occasionally at the Del Rio.
George Bedard's bass player: Randy Tessier
If I hear any more wonderful music right now I shall quite certainly explode.
:)
resp:81 :: I'm back into what now looks like an annual winter music crash. (Thanks to Gelinas for reminding me that I'd done this in early 2003.) I picked up about a dozen CDs in December, including Christmas presents and a bit of a pigout at a closing used CD shop near Philadelphia, but all of it remains unplayed. I've also hardly listened to the BBC since the holidays. CDs aren't getting played at home or at work at all, though I do drag through a couple on the long commute to work. I just need a vacation, I guess.
Hey, Ken, I sent you an e-mail a while ago telling you about Mythcon in Ann Arbor this year. But as I didn't get a response I may have used the wrong address. I'd like to know: are you and Leslie planning on going? Because then Berni and I can see you there. Info is at www.mythsoc.org/mythcon35.html If you don't wish to reply here, I can be reached by email at dbratman@earthlink.net. Hey, and anybody else reading this who's interested in intelligent discussion of good fantasy, you're welcome too. Mythcon is a principal place for the intelligent appreciative (as opposed to the mindlessly gushing or the bashing) discussion of Tolkien. (Our reactions to the Jackson films vary from "They're great, but they sure aren't the books" to "Get those horrible things out of my sight.") As for more recent authors, our Guest of Honor this year is Neil Gaiman, so that should give you an idea what we like.
Eeep! A con in Ann Arbor? Cool!
lol
I'd enjoy meeting you too, Twila.
Mythcon is in late July, right? Our crystal ball doesn't see that far. I tend to doubt we'd actually get convention memberships but I hope we can manage to see David and Berni for dinner or something, assuming we're in town. (Leslie's been away the last five summers.) We're *really* out of SF fandom lately.
When your crystal ball clears, Ken, inform it that Berni and I will probably be arriving Wednesday July 28th, and staying at the North Campus Holiday Inn. Thursday or the following Monday would be the best time to meet.
OK! Will probably chat a bit more about this in mail especially as summer approaches.
IHB I'm earning enough money to treat myself to a Harry Chapin live DVD, it is not the same concert as was put on video tape back in the 80's. Also "Have you heard Jim Croce Live" DVD, from a bunch of shows. I should be watching them very soon. I got them thru amazon, but forget to go thru a charity link to amazon.
Not finding a better place to put it, I thought I might as well use
the "random meanderings" item to ask a question.
Has anyone heard Sufjan Stevens' album "Greetings from Michigan,
the Great Lakes State?" I came across mention of it on several
best-of-2003 music lists that I was browsing after reading some
best-of-2004 articles. It's the work of a musician from Holland, MI,
who's now living and playing in NYC if I understand the situation
correctly. I'm intrigued enough by what I've read and by the
intriguing song titles to think about giving it a try but I wouldn't
mind some first-hand opinions on it if anyone here has one to offer.
Song titles, for the curious:
1. Flint (For the Unemployed and Underpaid)
2. All Good Naysayers, Speak Up! Or Forever Hold Your Peace!
3. For the Widows in Paradise, For the Fatherless in Ypsilanti
4. Say Yes! To Michigan!
5. The Upper Peninsula
6. Tahquamenon Falls
7. Holland
8. Detroit, Lift Up Your Weary Head! (Rebuild! Restore! Reconsider!)
9. Romulus
10. Alanson, Crooked River
11. Sleeping Bear, Sault Saint Marie
12. They Also Mourn Who Do Not Wear Black (For the Homeless in Muskegon)
13. Oh God, Where Are You Now? (In Pickeral Lake? Pigeon? Marquette?
Mackin 14. Redford (For Yia-Yia & Pappou) 15. Vito's Ordination Song
Although I haven't heard the entire album/CD, I have heard a couple of tracks played on the BBC Radio Wales programme, "Celtic Heartbeat". I recorded "Sleeping Bear, Sault Saint Marie" off of that show, and I catch myself wanting to hear it quite a bit. The music is minimalistic, at least on this track, and the vocals are a bit quiet and airy in spots. Frank Hennessy, the host of the Radio Wales show, has mentioned that he doesn't know what to make of Sufjan Stevens --- at times, he said, it feels like Stevens is just noodling around (paraphrase, mine). Hennessy has also said that Stevens' "Greetings from Michigan..." is the first of 50 albums planned, one for each of the states in the USA. One of Sufjan Stevens' other songs, called "In the Devil's Territory" was played on the Celtic Heartbeat currently in the BBC replay system. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/radiowales_aod.shtml?celticheartbeat for the curious (and Realplayer-enabled). I would probably buy this disc based on what I've heard, if it were in my budget.
Vague notes from this afternoon's ramble through the wreckage of CD retail in downtown Ann Arbor: I found the used copy of Lhasa's new album THE LIVING ROAD. I'd seen this in the intake pile at Encore three or so weeks ago, but today it took a bit of time to figure out where they would have filed it, as Lhasa is Mexican-Canadian and sort of folky. I finally found the disc in the Rock section, where no one but a FRoots magazine reader would ever have had the persistence to look for it. Lhasa's album was one of the four finalists in FRoots/BBC Radio3 Critic's Poll for Album of the Year. At Schoolkids-in-the-Basement, there was a new Matt Watroba CD, with one of their handwritten notes reporting that Katie Geddes was the perfect singing partner for Watroba. The title is JUKEBOX FOLK. Katie, if you read this: how many tracks do you sing on? Martha Wainwright, brother of Rufus, has a 5-song EP out, but the store had sold out of it. There is a new French-language release from Kate & Anna McGarrigle; a bit pricey at $21 but on the other hand the Canadian dollar has rallied quite a bit so it might not be *that* overpriced. I did pick up the new DVD "Richard Thompson Band Live in Providence" for $13 ($6 less than the new UK issues of the classic 1970s Thompson albums, which have some bonus tracks I'm whining over) and The Ditty Bops. The new Current magazine is out, the local entertainment tabloid with a folk music column from Twila/anderyn. There's a gig listing for the Joe Summers Gypsy Jazz Trio: Crazy Wisdom, Saturday Feb. 12. This looks like a reconfiguration of Summers Delaney and Sharp, the local trio which played Django Reinhardt-style jazz a few years back. I saw them around three times at Borders and Crazy Wisdom, and they were always a delight. Dave Sharp also has his own Quartet with a gig at Goodnight Gracie. I have no idea what became of Delaney. The old Summers Delaney Sharp website is gone.
Brian Delaney's band is the Royal Garden Trio; gypsy style music with Brian on guitar, Mike (sombody or other) playing the fiddle parts on cello, and I forget his name on clarinet and tenor guitar. The first disk came out a few years ago, and has gotten a bit of air on WDET. Last I heard, the newest was due out very soon, or is out now!
We were mentioning the Joe Summers Gypsy Jazz Trio above; they have a Top of the Park free show near the end of June. As Michelle Shocked has an Ark show coming up on July 1, I took a peek at her website. She's been busy with her own record company, Mighty Sound. She's completed the project of reissuing all her Mercury-label albums with bonus tracks. She's also reissued two of the three limited-edition CDs she sold at gigs while she was trying to break free of Mercury: alas, these are pricey at $20 each. She's releasing three albums of new material in mid-June -- available separately, or in a combo pack for a discounted price. One album is billed as straight rock/folk/blues; one is a Texas and Hispanic project; the third is a collection of Walt Disney movie songs. Everything (?) from her catalog is available for lo-fi streaming (21K Real Audio) and she's selling MP3s at a discount to the CDs. http://www.michelleshocked.com
You have several choices: