(RAY DAVIES IS) THE VILLAGE GREEN PRESERVATION SOCIETY
Early 1969. I’d read in Rolling Stone and Circus Magazine that a great album was soon going to be released. A yet untitled album by Crosby, Stills and Nash. Anxious to buy it, I headed to my local record shop at the mall to find it, to experience the new future of Rock. Unfortunately, the album was not yet released. Bummed out to the max, I strolled through the bins to find something else to buy with my few bucks. My eyes fell upon The Kinks, one of my fave bands during the British Invasion period. Very hip in those days. “You Really Got Me”. “All Day and All of the Night”. “A Well Respected Man”. My last record memory of them was an offbeat little single, “Sunny Afternoon”, a bawdy tune happening somewhere in an England that seemed like it was out of a Tennessee Williams’ play. “I got a big, fat mama trying to break me”. Ray Davies crooned as only he could. The bin held a Kinks Greatest Hits Album and one other. It wasn’t all hip looking like their Camaby Street days. But the title was interesting. “The Village Green Preservation Society”. Alright. I plunked down my cash, took it home and opened it up. In the middle of the album was a picture of The Kinks strolling through a lush English field of high grass. They were wearing casual clothes, not the styling duds they used to wear. But the words to the title song were printed on the back and they were brilliant poetry. I slapped it on my cruddy stereo and I’ve been playing it on vinyl or CD ever since.
What is its allure? Why does it call me back again and again? Quite simply because it’s a compelling album self-consciously desiring to Return to the Past. At that time, The Kinks were rejecting the Age of Aquarius and the “highly tuned vibes” that were supposed to set us free in the New Millennium about to dawn in the late Sixties. Now it speaks to the child in me that wants to get back to when I had no adult problems. It whispers to the adult in me who has been disappointed by the fortunes of life. It is so personal, a work with great powers of observation aimed at the changing world surrounding Ray Davies, a great songsmith too often overlooked, one of the Immortals who deserves to be mentioned with Dylan and Lennon/McCartney and Paul Simon and Joni Mitchell and ^____(please fill in the blank with a great one).
The title track really says it all. “We are the Village Green Preservation Society/ God save Donald Duck, vaudeville and Variety”. The village green, the heart of every traditional rural town, is the symbol of what is good and normal and human, not the sly, wicked, dehumanizing ways of the Big City. “We are the Skyscraper Condemnation Affiliate/ God save Tudor houses, antique tables and billiards”. But even Ray does not want a reactionary return to all aspects of the Good Old Days. “Preserving the old ways from being abused/ Protecting the new ways for me and for you/ What more can we do?” Ray enjoys aspects of the new freedoms creeping into English society, but at the same time he is damn scared that What is Good will be lost in the rush to a Brave New World.
Then there is “Walter”. The childhood friend who now lives a complacent, boring adult life. “Walter, remember when the world was young and all the girls knew Walter’s name? Walter, isn’t it a shame the way our little world has changed… I bet you’re fat and married and you’re always home in bed by half past ten.” This is Davies’ longing not for the societal past but for his personal past. the world of teen crushes and sneaking cigarettes and trying to stay out late for youthful adventure. The excitement of that phase has not been translated into an adult form in Walter’s life, but Ray observes with some consolation, “People often change/ But memories of people can remain”. A wonderful, spritely piano effortlessly carries the tune along.
The polar opposite of Walter is “Johnny Thunder”, a working class stiff who’s not lost his gift for living with some swagger, some “joie de vivre”. He’s the type to tell tall tales in the pub, holding a pint in one hand and a good cigar in the other. Johnny “feeds on lightning”, having no fear as to what adulthood means because he will, in some way, remain an eternal child, not a man to be dragged down by the conformist moralists in town. The broad strumming of the guitars is bold and exclamatory, nothing timid for good old Johnny. I always smile when 1 hear the song. I’ve known a few Johnny Thunders in my day.
But title album is not all about nostalgia. “Big Sky finds Ray examining religious issues. In a grand tune featuring tasty harpsichord licks, he lets himself wax philosophical about God and we puny humans down below. Davies’ deity is distant, not needing to get involved in the affairs of mortals. “Big Sky feels sad when he sees the children scream and cry/ But Big Sky’s too big to let it get him down… Big Sky’s too big to cry/ Big Sky’s too high to see/ People like you and me”. However, Ray has somewhat mixed feelings about Big Sky. “When I feel that the world’s too much for me/1 think of the Big Sky and nothing matters much to me”. Does the sense of grandeur and immensity of even an uninvolved deity give Ray some sense of peace? As with most great writers, he doesn’t really spell it out. He just rolls with his emotions and we roll along with him. He even speaks of a future where everyone will be happy, but is it a socialist Utopia or a spiritual community or just a shared state of mind (perhaps not needing Big Sky)? Again, we are left to figure it out for ourselves.
In “Starstruck” Davies is trying to wise up a girl \\ he’s “taken in by the lights” of fame and the social whirl and the evils of the Big City. He warns her that she’s even “Starstruck on me”. Don’t look too closely at me, he seems to say, or else I’ll just let you down like everybody else you’ve ever known. I read an article featuring Davies in the 1990’s where he stated that he disliked meeting diehard fans who were musicians because he had always been let down when he had met his own heroes. Did Chrissie Hynde really listen to “Starstruck” back in Ohio, years before she became a devotee of Ray’s and then his onetime lover? Probably not.
Davies also delves into the world of fantasy, much like the fantasia of children’s books. The “Phenomenal Cat” is practically out of Alice in Wonderland, a wise, fat feline who has traveled the world, “to Katmandu, the city in the Sahara too”. Once he had found the Secret of Life, he renounced his quest and vowed to peaceably eat fine foods into Eternity. The innocent mood of the tune comes across as a precursor to the playful music of Cat Stevens. The other fantasy is “Wicked Annabella”, the only song where the Kinks use “heavy” guitars and Mick Avory puts in a tasteful 1969ish drum solo. Remember those childhood fears about the ugly old lady who lived at the edge of town in a ramshackle house? The one who you and your friends thought might be a witch? That is Wicked Annabella, scary and humorous all at the same time. She haunts the sky and controls little demons in the forest who will drag naughty children away. Don’t disobey your parents or Annabella will get you, child.
“People Take Pictures of Each Other”, the fifteenth and final song, is to me the second most important song after the title track. Human memory can fail, it can fade, but photos trap that moment in reality forever. “People take pictures of each other/ Just to prove that they really existed”. In an unrelentingly catchy sing-along, Davies gives us a litany of pictures and people and events from the past, but then he sings a painful phrase, “Don’t show me no more, please”. To see the past can bring up many unpleasant feelings. Regret. Loss of loved ones. Loss of innocence. How the present is not all that happy. But also the slight twinge that maybe things in that Golden Past were not all that great either.
Wonderfully produced and played, one instrument stands out as the string that holds every track together – the voice of Ray Davies. In his idiosyncratic, iconic voice. Ray’s phrasing and emotions run the gamut. Wistful. Tongue-in-cheek humorous. Sad. Raucous. Rocking. Folkie. Optimistic. A bit bewildered. At times, he seems the epitome of the British music hall performer with his put-on delivery. But all of his moods reel me in to the song and its emotions. What more can a singer do?
Great album. Great band. But Ray Davies really is The Village Green Preservation Society all by his lonesome self.
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MY PICTURE BOOK
Gary K Nomeland, you sentimental old frog… you are absolutely right! Village Green Preservation Society is Ray Davies and the other way around. I keep coming back to why this album meant so much to me in 1968 and means more to me today. I think it comes down to the essence of all music; audience and authors need escape. Ray Davies wanted to escape from writing hits, and accomplished this quite well with this collection. Wonderboy was the failed single. I wonder is Animal Farm was not a better choice. But no matter. Davies was looking to write small and create a much more personal album. Bands hate that! But it was such an escape to all these little worlds: china shops, a backyard booze fest, churches, oak trees, and a bed and breakfast in sunny southend…
As a kid in our faceless Colton, California, I loved the English bands because they hailed from this exotic rock land that was England. When I first heard the album at Bob Kjorvestad’s house, I escaped to that countryside where “the sky was wide.” Davies was better than Lennon and McCartney at painting the small details for this world, and calling me in. Escape! The whole album called the listener to leave the humdrum modern life for the vibrant natural world:
It’s a quiet, quiet life
By a dirty old shack
That we called our home
I want to be back there
Among the cats and dogs
And the pigs and the goats
I am not sure why this was so appealing. I think it has to do with the transformation of the listener in song. If the song connects, the listener goes somewhere else. This is not elevator music that only distracts. It is meant to move you all round, like an elevator that left the building. As Bob and I listened to the album in numerous spins we dreamed about the England of the Beatles and Stones and soon to be the England of Cream, the England of Traffic. We dreamed of colors we didn’t have back home.
Yes people often change, but memories of people can remain.
This line from Do You Remember Walter? popped out to me at the time. I remember wondering about Bob and me in the future. Here we were as best buddies listening to the best music in the world, but what would keep this moment alive? I thought we would both grow up to be musicians. We did. But our pathways lead us separate ways and the music that was supposed to glue us together stopped for Bob five years ago. A train crossing through town killed him. Such are things that color our dreams. So I am here with those memories and the first chords Bob Kjorvestad left me, and the melodies, words and chords and images Ray Davies gave me so many years back. For me, Village Green Preservation Society is not about harkening back to early years and nostalgia, it was my chance to see past my gray hometown to the world of song. I could escape to Davies’ scenes and songs with the hope that I would learn one day to write a song of my own and
Since I am on a top secret ALA/ALSC book award committee, I haven’t been able to tell you about many of the books I’ve read over the past 12 months. (I also can’t say much about the books I review for School Library Journal.) After the winners are announced on January 18th, I will give you the full scoop.
In the meanwhile, here is an old post:
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince is one of those children’s books that’s really a grown-up book in disguise. I try to reread it every year or so just to make sure my life is on the right track.The Little Prince is the tale of a pilot who finds himself lost in the Sahara Desert. The pilot befriends a little prince who teaches him some important life lessons. The book is based on Saint-Exupéry’s real life experiences as an aviator, and as a fellow human being.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s masterpiece sounds prettier in French, but I have to admit that I understand it better in English.
Here are a few of my favorite quotes:
“One runs the risk of weeping a little, if one lets himself be tamed.”
“And
when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes all sorrows) you will be
content that you have known me. You will always be my friend.”
“Grown-ups
never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for
children to be always and forever explaining things to them.”
“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
To learn more about author/pilot Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and his most famous book, visit the following websites:
Today you’ll find new content from MORST, REBECCA (40 FOREVER), and bigDAVE, and lots of songs from our music family… really! Also check out the essays at DRIVE BYES (Kinks and Stones) and get in on Paul Adams next Listening Theme….
Well, Elvis has left the building (sorry, had to be said) and after a couple of weeks of The King it’s the time of Chris LeRoy! (a tough act to
follow Chris). Chris has been a champion of my Listening Themes from very early on and has accepted the job of being my second guest theme-setter and this one is a bit different. Let Chris explain
…
Listening Theme: THE WHITE ALBUM CHALLENGE
I love the Beatles White Album. I know Revolver and Rubber Soul garner more critical praise. I know Sgt. Pepper shook the world. But for me the disjointed double album has been the road most traveled. 30 songs, an hour and a half of brilliance and blind alleys, it is the most Beatle
music on any Beatle album. And it still thrills.
A very individualized set of songs, John Lennon once said there was no Beatles music on the White Album at all. It’s Paul and the band or John and the band or George and the band. But that is not true. There are moments here where the fractured unities come together.Throughout the album there are threads that hold on and make it a Beatles album. I suspect that those song moments are different for each of us. Some folks have room for Savoy Truffle, some do not.
So….your job for this Listening Theme is to create a single disc White Album. Choose 12 songs that have to stay on the record to define it essence. Please submit your version of the White Album and impassioned commentary if you feel the need.
Thanks, Paul Adams, for asking me to guest this Listening Theme, and for creating the Listening Theme.
—Chris LeRoy
MY WHITE ALBUM:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
There you go, simple – or is it? Looking forward to getting different versions of YOUR single-disc White Album.
Skinny Morst says….
Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker made their way east this year, in an unprecedented continuation of their annual holiday run. What normally is three or four shows on the west coast at the end of December, has extended into a two week long SNOW TOUR. The first night of the tour was a particularly cold one in St Louis Missouri, at the excellent Pageant Theatre. Constructed especially for rock music, the club is set up with great sight lines and a very nice built in sound system. The show on January 8th kicked off with CVB and then after a setbreak, Cracker. CVB started off the year as I will here, with one of their instrumentals, entitled Waka. During the two nights I saw, (which may possibly be featured here) Camper played a lot of instrumentals, and Cracker played a lot of songs where Johnny Hickman sang lead. My theory is that this is to let David Lowery rest his voice a little, so he can rock with both his bands, night after night. Works for me!!! http://www.archive.org/details/CVB2010-01-08.matrix
This week the songbook™ brings to you the Cracker duo! …As we get ready to kick off the spring duo tour with David and Johnny, Here is a little warmer upper for you, “I want everything” duo style!… Enjoy!! …… I have also included a little gem by “The Twisted Riddlers”
here is a cover of Cracker “Sweet Thistle Pie” ……….. have a safe and happy week and we’ll see you next time …… peace bigDAVE™
“I want everything”
“sweet thistle pie” a cracker cover by The Twisted Riddlers
Thanks for hanging out at the songbook! and have a great weekend, bigDAVE™
I’ve spent a fair bit of time listening to the Beatles lately so I thought it was about time I covered The Rolling Stones.
This will include Stones studio albums (I’ve always been more of a Beatles fan and have to admit that I’ll be listening to most of these albums for the first time!), live albums, solo or collaboration albums. When you come to think of it, there’s plenty to listen to here. I will also be including covers of Rolling Stones tracks by other artists.
So let’s have your recommendations as to what you think I should listen to over the next couple of weeks.
Today you’ll find new content from MORST, REBECCA (40 FOREVER), and bigDAVE, and lots of songs from our music family… really! Also check out the essays at DRIVE BYES (Kinks and Stones) and get in THE LAST WORD on Paul Adams Listening Theme: THE ROLLING STONES REVIEW
In the past, I didn’t like it when my mother-in-law would try to clean or redecorate our home. (During one of her visits, I came home from work to find the living room furniture all rearranged!) However, I have recently decided to change my ways and give her carte blanche to clean to her heart’s content. If she’s not too proud to let me empty her bedpan (after her hip replacement), or to bathe and dress her son after his recent triple bypass surgery), then I’m not going to be embarrassed by a little dust. I majored in Spanish not Home Economics, and it’s my theory that life’s too short to fold your underwear. So there.
This week we’re going to stick with a clear winner, the Belly Up recordings by James Bartoli down there in southern Cal. Last week was a Camper track, and this week, we’ll go with a Cracker tune, which would that be??
I’ve had Gimme One More Chance on my “prospective picks” list for a while now. Don’t even know how long. Shall we see how this one stacks up?
Tremendous, jamming. Molto maestoso there with Johnny’s guitar. This particular track has a long runout at the end, as it was the final song of Cracker’s set. When David says goodnight afterwards, I noticed that his voice seems hoarse. The fact that the final two songs of the night featured Johnny Hickman on the lead vocals surprises me not at all. Which brings us right back to the good ‘ol songbook. http://www.archive.org/details/cracker2009-12-29.matrix.flac16
SATISFACTION SATURDAY is a place to post lyrics from your favorite songs each week. Post, read, comment, and match rival words form the greatest songs in the world!!!
Here is a starter, GAROD and PAUL (ADAMS) have been thinking about the Rolling Stones quite a bit over the last couple months. So what is your favorite Stones lyric. It can just be a line but because The Stones are overlooked in the lyric wars, and because of that Susan Boyle phenomenon, let’s start with the full lyric for WILD HORSES.
(Mick Jagger/Keith Richards)
WILD HORSES
Childhood living is easy to do
The things you wanted I bought them for you
Graceless lady you know who I am
You know I can’t let you slide through my hands
Wild horses, couldn’t drag me away
Wild wild horses couldn’t drag me away
I watched you suffer a dull aching pain
Now you decided to show me the same
No sweeping exits or off stage lines
Could make me feel bitter or treat you unkind
Wild horses, couldn’t drag me away
Wild wild horses couldn’t drag me away
I know I’ve dreamed you a sin and a lie
I have my freedom but I don’t have much time
Faith has been broken tears must be cried
Let’s do some living after we die
Wild horses, couldn’t drag me away
Wild wild horses we’ll ride them someday
Wild horses, couldn’t drag me away
Wild wild horses we’ll ride them someday
This week the songbook brings to you our friend’s “gigglejuice” …. With the release of their new record “Driving around in circles” (available at www.gigglejuice.com) We have “you draw me in” from Erinstock, where they opened for Cracker and Then “There’s a new light to the day” from LoFistock, where they were one of five bands including such great names as, The Dangers, the Hoppers, Bucksworth, and the Bellrays …. so check out the juice, buy their record, and check out the handsome dude on the cover!! (me) He rocks too!! Thanks for stoppin by the songbook, and we’ll see you next week, bigDAVE™
After a most enjoyable couple of weeks listening to The Rolling Stones, I wanted a bit of a change for my next theme – 70’s Disco.
Instead of just listening to a compilation of disco hits, I’m particularly interested in albums (not just ‘Best Ofs) by artists that had those big disco hits (for instance, what else has Heatwave done apart from Boogie Nights?) I’m also on the look out for artists who jumped on the bandwagon and ‘turned disco’. One of my favourite bands ELO did with their Discovery album (Disco Very). Some of these artists pulled it off (The BeeGees for instance) and some didn’t.
So, let’s have your recommendations (don’t be embarrassed, you’re among friends here) and I’ll do my best to track them down.
This week in the brain of the Archive King, there is an artist who springs to the top as the one to feature. Miles Nielsen is a guitarist, bassist, vocalist, songwriter, and bandleader. In whatever order you want there. Also, he and his drummer brother Daxx have a famous guitar-player dad – Rick from Cheap Trick. Miles and Daxx have a band called Harmony Riley which has been around since approximately 1999. Harmony Riley doesn’t play regularly anymore, but they did perform a reunion show at the end of 2009, and Miles gave permission to archive.org to host shows from Harmony Riley and Miles’ solo work.
But the pick this week comes from a night that’s been the subject of a pick already, but that was Backyard Tire Fire with Tommy O’Donnell
sitting in. The pick iteself is Miles Nielsen with his band, and Ed Anderson of BTF sitting in. The song is called Lucy, and it features a really nice clarinet solo, which I dig.
SATISFACTION SATURDAY is a place to post lyrics from your favorite songs each week. Post, read, comment, and match rival words form the greatest songs in the world!!!
QUESTION?:
What fellow musician did Bob Dylan call “America’s greatest living poet”?
ANSWER? SMOKY ROBINSON
Fave Line: Outside I’m masquerading/Inside my hope is fading
Tracks Of My Tears- Smoky Robinson
People say I’m the life of the party
’cause I tell a joke or two
Although I might be laughing loud and hearty
Deep inside I’m blue
So take a good look at my face
You’ll see my smile looks out of place
If you look closer, it’s easy to trace
The tracks of my tears..
I need you, need you
Since you left me if you see me with another girl
Seeming like I’m having fun
Although she may be cute
She’s just a substitute
Because you’re the permanent one..
So take a good look at my face
You’ll see my smile looks out of place
If you look closer, it’s easy to trace
The tracks of my tears..
I need you, need you
Outside I’m masquerading
Inside my hope is fading
Just a clown oh yeah
Since you put me down
My smile is my make up
I wear since my break up with you..
So take a good look at my face
You’ll see my smile looks out of place
If you look closer, it’s easy to trace
The tracks of my tears
This week the songbook™ brings to you another rare triple treat for you. First we have for you the Backyard tire fire and their new song “Good to be” from their forthcoming record titled “Good to Be” out feb. 16th … Here is what the Tire Fire have to say about their new video —> “We’re excited to unveil our new video for “Good to Be”. It was created by our unofficial 4th member Scott Tipping and it features our unofficial 6th member, Charlie the Dummy. It also chronicles the simple pleasures of life on the road” the tire fire are long time friends of the crumb nation, and I hope you will like it…….
“Good to Be” by
Backyard tire fire
Next up, We have the sultry sexy cowgirl Lucinda Williams doing her new song (a tribute to Janis Joplin) “Difficult child” Lucinda Williams was invited to perform at the Janis Joplin Tribute show as part of the American Music Masters series presented by the Rock and Roll HOF. The show was held at Playhouse Square in Cleveland, OH. Lucinda wrote this song in memory of Janis Joplin, only finishing it up 10 minutes before she walked on stage, hence the initial pondering of the title of the song. I really dig Lucinda, I hope you do too!!….
“Difficult child”
(A tribute to Janis Joplin) by Lucinda Williams
Last but not least, In honor of St Valentines Day this Sunday, We have our good friend Ike Reilly and “Devils Valentine” check them all out and have a safe and happy weekend and we’ll see you next time ……
peace bigDAVE™
“Devils Valentine” by Ike Reilly
Thanks for hanging out at the songbook! and have a great
weekend, bigDAVE™
The Cracker Duo of David and Johnny is out touring the US, and they’ve brought out a couple of new (to them) cover songs. David has occasionally been singing “A Very Good Year” ala Frank Sinatra. In response, Johnny brought out a nice slow cover of a little tune made popular by a group of brothers who were well-known for their
high-pitched vocals. Barry, Maurice & Robin Gibb were best known as The Bee Gees, and they weren’t always cheesy. But Johnny does a nice job of de-cheesing their big disco hit – Stayin’ Alive!
Chris LeRoy and Johnny Hickman were The Dangers way back before Johnny went on to play guitar in The Unforgiven and then co-form Cracker, with whom he still performs today. The Dangers didn’t release albums back then, but Dedication saw some of those old (and some new) recordings finally released a couple of years ago. This new album, without Johnny except for one guest role, is more rocking and coherent than Dedication, and is
really more of a follow up to 2007’s ‘Life’s So Hard Make It Softer’ by Chris LeRoy’s other band Death Of Me. Both albums rock with a youthful rawness that belies the 30-year history of this band, sounding at times like the Stones – a band that seems to run through LeRoy’s veins.
To me Exile start rights here when it goes “over the wall”— Chris
RIP THIS JOINT (M. Jagger/K. Richards)
Mama says yes, Papa says no, Make up you mind ’cause I gotta go. I’m gonna raise hell at the Union Hall, Drive myself right over the wall.
Rip this joint, gonna save your soul, Round and round and round we go. Roll this joint, gonna get down low, Start my starter, gonna stop the show. Oh, yeah!
Mister President, Mister Immigration Man, Let me in, sweetie, to your fair land. I’m Tampa bound and Memphis too, Short Fat Fanny is on the loose. Dig that sound on the radio, Then slip it right across into Buffalo. Dick and Pat in ole D.C., Well they’re gonna hold some shit for me.
Ying yang, you’re my thing, Oh, now, baby, won’t you hear me sing. Flip Flop, fit to drop, Come on baby, won’t you let it rock?
Oh, yeah! Oh, yeah! From San Jose down to Santa Fe, Kiss me quick, baby, won’tcha make my day. Down to New Orleans with the Dixie Dean, ‘Cross to Dallas, Texas with the Butter Queen.
Rip this joint, gonna rip yours too, Some brand new steps and some weight to lose. Gonna roll this joint, gonna get down low, Round and round and round we’ll go.
Wham, Bham, Birmingham, Alabam’ don’t give a damn. Little Rock and I’m fit to top. Ah, let it rock.
Dahl, Roald, and Quentin Blake. The Vicar of
Nibbleswicke. London: Century, 1991.
The new vicar in town has a rare case of verbal dyslexia that makes him say words backwards without realizing it. Congregants don’t know what to think when he announces that they are not to “krap in front of the church.” He talks about “DOG” a lot, too. Dahl wrote this book to benefit the Dyslexia Institute in London (now Dyslexia Action).
Thomas, Rob.Rats
Saw God. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster Books for Young
Readers, 1996.
It’s been about 14 years since I read this very original coming of age story, so it’s probably a bit dated by now. What I remember most is that the main character smokes a lot of pot and he is part of his high school’s Dadaist
group, GOD . If you read the title of the book backwards, it spells “dog was star” which is a reference to the dog star constellation, Sirius. This is especially clever because the protagonist is the son of a famous astronaut.
Tolle, Eckhart, and Patrick McDonnell. Guardians
of Being. Novato, Calif: New World Library, 2009.
According to spiritual writer Eckhart Tolle, dogs are “Guardians of Being” because they remind us to live in the moment. What is special about this self-help picture book is that it actually makes you feel calmer as you are reading it. The ecru pages, sparse text, and even the type design have a very relaxing effect on the eyes. The illustrations by Patrick McDonnell (the creator of the comic strip MUTTS) are a mixture of comic strip art and Japanese woodblock printing. One of my favorite illustrations is of a man looking up at the evening sky and noting that the brightest star, Sirius the Dog Star, is always there to show us the way home.
The cover. Jesus lies dead in Mother Mary’s arms just hours after the Crucifixion. It is one of Western Civilization’s greatest and most enduring symbols of suffering in a just cause, in this case human salvation. Alright, so it’s not going to be a feel-good party album. The band name. No, it’s not from anything Goth or grisly. One night the band was sitting at Denny’s and writing down band names on a classy paper napkin. During the brainstorming, these great minds finally headed in the direction of song titles from “Exile on Main Street”, and then onto lyric lines. The last song of “Exile”, “Soul Survivor” has Jagger spouting angrily at his wife, “You’re gonna be the death of me”. Unanimous agreement. The title. “Life’s So Hard Make It Softer” is a line from the first song. It is a feeling that anyone who’s ever lived can relate to. It’s a prayer. It’s a mantra. It’s a plea up to the Big Blue Sky.
Now some track talk. “Please, Please, Please”, the first song was actually the first song the band put together. Mike had a one part song cobbled together from some of my lyrics and a refrain I’d sung for him one afternoon. He added some of his own words but couldn’t come up with anything else. Ready to scrap the whole damn song, he was. then he played it for Chris who dashed out the wonderful musical section that brings everything to life. It’s a song in the great folk tradition of asking for shelter from the storms of life, whether internal or external.
“Trees” is a big, fat rocker with a Dylanesque style, and I favor it over the other rocker on the album, “Saint and Sinner”. Though I love the drive and seemingly twenty guitars layered in by Chris, “Trees” has a bluesy looseness about it, some bitchen guitar sounds by Bob Vennum (BellRays man) and an intriguing story to go along with it. A latter-day Noah sits atop the mountains and watches as a Great Flood destroys the lower lands. He watches as various things float by (a smart dressed man with a silver cane, a beggar man with a cup of rain, an old pack mule) and he comes upon a crying angel. But this flood song has hope. The narrator and the angel shake off their grief and begin planting seeds after the flood has subsided.
“Let It Drown” (in both versions) has no such hope. It is an angry, sad song wishing God would put humanity down for the final count. There is no chance for a second chance. As the chorus goes “If the rain comes down/But the world just won’t cool down/Let the rain come down/Let it drown.” The quiet Randy Newman-like track is more wistful about the judgment and stresses the moroseness of the human race gone wrong.
“Heroes” has Mike’s best pop hook, not only the novel idea that “even the Devil has his own heroes”, but the melodic nature of it. Mike shied away from writing “pretty” music (those indie roots), but on “Heroes” he just sang it and it works. I asked Mike if he meant the Devil admired Hitler and Stalin and the rest, but he replied that he meant that hatred, cruelty and other evil traits are idols to the dark angel.
“Following a River”, for me, is the magnum opus of the album, the best song and the best track. It has a grandeur about it. It is one of the five songs about death on the album. It draws us into the story of a man who is planning to jump into those dark waters to be carried out to the sea as a lifeless corpse, and as he plans his actions he contemplates a photo of his “dear one”. Who is the dear one? A daughter is my idea but it could be a wife or a lover. I here is a lovely, silvery lead Chris plays in the musical break that reinforces the aching heart inside of this broken man.
“Last Train” is a song very close to me because it is about my brother as a child and Chris’ best friend and also the manner in which he died, being struck by a train as he walked along the tracks at night. He was an angel of a child who was turned into a demon by drugs and alcohol, a victim of the inner wasteland of addiction. “Life is a good kid trying to be bad/Laughing out loud cause his heart is so sad/He could be the best friend you ever had”. How true. How devastatingly true. The song has a country feel with a lively acoustic riff and a movement about it that belies the final moments. Bobby indeed “cashed his ticket to the other side”.
Humor rears its wacky head with “Sue The Bible Study Girl”, a song done in an authentic country style a la Buck Owens I would say. It tells the story we’ve all seen – the good, churchgoing girl who has a crush on the bad boy at school, and vice versa. She wants to save his soul (and more) and he just wants to get close to her body, real close. In this version, all ends well. The boy gets saved and also gets Sue, while Sue gets the sexual passion she’s really wanted from him all along. Mike plays a crazy, funny slide guitar on it and sings it perfectly. Country music at its finest (tongue in cheek).
Mike wrote two songs about mortality also, “Resurrection Train” and “Demon Shoes”. “Resurrection Train” chugs along, building speed as it tells of a ghostly train on silver tracks that transports souls into the after-life. It doesn’t have the joy of Gospel music but the message is hopeful for a tired soul. A pair of shiny pumps becomes a metaphor for drug addiction in “Demon Shoes”, done in a “Lou Reed sings Sister Morphine” sort of style. The shoes won’t let the wearer ever rest from dancing until weariness takes hold, eventually leading to the ultimate weariness. Mike knew the never-ending dance personally.
Just a brief shout-out to the three more songs: “Don’t Whisper”, This Life” and “1 Don’t Even Know Myself. All three are interesting tracks ranging from a lover in a frozen relationship wishing his lover would scream “until the windows crack”, to a humorous early rock’n'roll tune about the dangers of a ne’er-do’ well returning home and no one wants him back, to the problem of figuring out life when we can’t even explain our inner lives to one another.
“Close Call,” about Mike’s death, is a great song, the next to the last tune. Here Chris puts himself in Mike’s head as he drifts off into the Big Sleep, not even realizing that he’s fading away. He thinks he just had a “close call” with the powder but he’s wrong. The song is beautiful and wistful and sad and sleepy, the way one imagines such a death would be like. *’A star doesn’t know when its dropped from the sky”. But Mike also had another close call. He almost, but not quite, made a long-lasting connection with friends who wished him well and lived sober lives, people who were grounded in the great reality of everyday life. ‘I kinda hung around/almost touched ground/I guess you could say I had a close call”.
Some final notes for those of you still awake. Mike’s wonderful contribution, all of it, was made m only five sessions. That’s right. Five. Most of the sounds you hear were patiently dubbed in by Chris in his garage on Pro tools. Guitars, vocals, keyboards, effects. Three tracks were written and four recorded after Mike’s death. A blended work but it came out so smooth. A band with a unique sound, many sounds. A work bounded by tragedy on one side and a great sense of humor about life on the other. Life is so hard. Somebody please make it softer.
This week the songbook™ brings to you another rare treat. That’s right, we have Johnny Hickman and David Lowery aka The Cracker “acoustic” duo doing a cover of the bee gee’s “Stayin’ Alive” at JamminJava in Vienna VA 2-11-2010. This video is from the “The Sudospy” collection over @ youtube.com. this was a dare from David to do this song, and Johnny took him up on it!! …. I have also included “Been around the world” from the same show……… check it out …….. Thanks for stopping by the songbook, and we’ll see ya next week …. peace, bigDAVE™
“Stayin’ Alive”
After a bit of fun last week with 70’s Disco here’s a more serious theme …
Listening Theme – The Piano Men (and Women!)
This is one of those themes that gets bigger the more you think about it – singer/songwiters that are primarily pianists. Elton John, Billy Joel, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Tori Amos, Alicia Keys – the list could be endless, covering many styles of music.
So let’s have some recommendations (not just names, I’d like specific albums to look out for).
RIVER
(Joni Mitchell)
It’s coming on Christmas
They’re cutting down trees
They’re putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
But it don’t snow here
It stays pretty green
I’m going to make a lot of money
Then I’m going to quit this crazy scene
I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I wish I had a river so long
I would teach my feet to fly
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I made my baby cry
He tried hard to help me
You know, he put me at ease
And he loved me so naughty
Made me weak in the knees
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I’m so hard to handle
I’m selfish and I’m sad
Now I’ve gone and lost the best baby
That I ever had
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I wish I had a river so long
I would teach my feet to fly
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I made my baby say goodbye
It’s coming on Christmas
They’re cutting down trees
They’re putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
The archive nut/king has been busy. With Cracker Duo on tour, we have more choices than usual for fresh picks. Personally, I attended and recorded the two Wisconsin shows (with a lot of assistance in Milwaukee from my friend Jason of Team Pickle. Which is to say that he actually did most of the
work.)
The Milwaukee show at Shank Hall had cocktail tables covering the floor area of the club, so it was a sit-down affair. During the encore break, I mentioned to Clint, Cracker’s tour manager and merch guy for the run, that I figured Madison would be a “more raging” crowd. Well I didn’t realize how right I was. The Madison show at the High Noon Saloon had only a few tables on the main floor, and all in the back half of the room.
The standing crowd up front was in a very wild mood, and so the sound of the recordings those two nights could hardly be more different. The Milwaukee crowd listened quietly and respectfully, and held their applause for between songs. The Madison crowd was drunk and obnoxious! How could this happen???
So for the pick. I like rowdy shows, but the fun atmosphere doesn’t always translate on the recordings. This time around, Milwaukee definitely beat Madison for good tapes. Just on the basis of intrusive crowd hollering! Madison is fine, but Milwaukee is kickass. The other nice thing about this week’s pick is that after playing the tune, Johnny asked David to clarify the story behind the song’s origin. David confirmed that Johnny’s version of the events was on-the-mark, and added a nice little tip to add a little mystery to some strangers’ day. Check it out – “Dr. Bernice, that’s no lady doctor!”
One day last week I saw an amazing video of John Hickman singing Another Song About the Rain, accompanied by David Lowery from their Cracker Duo tour last fall. Then I see a notice that Cracker is playing here in Dayton on May 15th. Next thing I know I’m on the line with Cracker’s PR folks and setting up an interview with John. World’s funny like that, and you have to pay close attention and go where it takes you.
John Hickman has beeen the lead guitarist and occasional singer for Cracker for about twenty years now, and his partnership with David Lowery has been amazingly fruitful. In a time of cancelled tours and disappointing records sales, Cracker is doing big business, selling out shows and moving units in an impressive fashion. Their latest long player, Sunrise In The Land of Milk and Honey is yet another fine record and it sounds as fresh as their debut Cracker Brand back in 1992. Lowery’s songwriting is always as fine as you’ll find, and Hickman is as fine a right hand man as there is in the business. His tasteful playing is as big a part of Cracker as Lowery’s distictive twang, and places him in the same league as Richards and Ronson as brilliant sidemen. In addition Hickman released his solo album Palmhenge a few years back with excellent results and reviews.
Normally, I like to write a feature around an interview, but John Hickman’s words are such that I though a verbatim transcript would best serve. A little less of me, a little more Cracker Soul.
John, my Facebook page lit up like crazy when news of a local Cracker show came across. With a tanked economy and in the throes of record store deaths, how’s the road treating you?
JH: Surprisingly well I’m happy to say. The new Cracker CD “Sunrise In The Land Of Milk And Honey” is still doing well after nearly a year and the shows have been selling out consistently both with the full band and with the David and Johnny duo shows. Cracker just competed a sold out tour of Spain which is like a second home to us now. It’s sad to see the record stores going under one by one. We sell most of our CDs online or at shows now.
I saw David Lowery and yourself on youtube in Sebastopol, CA – “Another Song About the Rain” – one of the best “rain” songs ever written, right alongside Fogerty and Lennon’s.
JH: You’re putting me in some heavy company. Thank you very much.
How much fun is it to sing and solo in a live setting over a really solid acoustic guitar underpinning? Lowery is really a solid rhythm player, no?
JH: It’s a sheer pleasure. Yes, in addition to being a great songwriter David is a highly underrated guitarist. He spent four years in Spain as a kid and I think it got into his blood. He can finger pick very well and the next moment be beating hell out his guitar like some Flamenco demon. For the duo shows we run his classical guitar through sub woofers and it sounds like a kick drum. We mesh very well together as a live duo. We know intuitively how to follow one another and so it frees us both to take chances and be adventurous on stage. We never use a set list so it’s always fresh and unpredictable. It’s a little different every night. We love that and so do the fans.
“Another Song About the Rain” How did you come to write this song? Song-craft, autobiography, or perhaps a bit of Both?
JH: I wrote the core of it alone in a cabin where I lived in the San Bernardino Mountains of California where I lived. I also wrote “Father Winter” up there which came out on my solo album “Palmhenge” years later. The original version of “Another Song About The Rain” was very long. I was listening to a lot of “Blood On The Tracks” era Bob Dylan when I wrote it and later my other co-writer and longtime friend Chris LeRoy edited the verses down, simplified it and shaped it into what you hear. Obviously it was a bad time in my life but that’s where some of the best music comes from. It’s the classic double edged sword. There is the cathartic purging of pain but yet you sort of give it eternal life if you write a song about it.
What was David Lowery’s reaction when he first heard it? Had you done a lot of writing prior to this?
JH: We were nearly finished with the first album when I brought it in. We had already written some pretty great songs together at this point so I think David was pretty open. If he didn’t like it I would have tossed it aside immediately. I mean, we’re talking about David Lowery, one of the best songwriters out there in my opinion. He and our producer Don Smith heard my demo and said “Let’s record it”. It was the last song to go on the record. Listening to the album version now I wished I had had time to do it better but that’s often the case. It is what it is. I think David and I play it much better now.
How was the Cracker/Camper tour? Any competition issues between the bands?
JH: Sure, I’d be full of shit if I said there wasn’t a little healthy competition between the two bands but we have also been brothers and friends, all of us for a very long time. Over the years we have had a lot of support for each other and share two band members. The tour was very successful. Most shows sold out pretty quickly.
Your tour blog shows you to be a pretty good and serious writer. Do you journal a lot, and what do you derive from it?
JH: Thanks. I’m pretty outgoing as a person and it’s just an extension of that I guess. It just comes naturally for me to comment on whatever riles me up, humors me or outrages me somehow. Also I was tired of reading other writers get things so wrong so often. It’s very satisfying when people tell me they were effected by one of my articles or blogs which happens all over the world now with the internet. Another reason I do it is because you have to be a hustler in the music business these days. It’s another way to stay connected with our fans. I wish I had more time to devote to it.
I know you’re big fans of analog tape, so how do you approach recording your guitar digitally?
JH: We record everything to tape, move to the digital realm for editing and then bounce it back to analog to warm it back up as they say. When I record guitars I sometimes try people’s patience because I set up a huge wall of very different sounding amps, going from one to another and combining them often. It gets loud as hell sometimes but that records well with certain amps. If I’m playing the same thing through two amps simultaneously I try to persuade the engineer or producer to give each amp it’s own mic and track even if it bleeds a little. You can be a lot more creative in mixing that way. I learned that trick from the brilliant producer Don Smith who sadly, just passed on while we were in Spain. He used that technique with the Stones, Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers and others before us. I’ve read that Jimmy Page did this a lot too.
What do you listen to for enjoyment?
JH: Everything from outlaw country to Middle Eastern music to electronica. I put my ipod on shuffle on the long drives on tour and it runs the gamut from classical to punk rock to Irish ballads. As a musician and songwriter I think it’s good to listen to current and ancient music and everything in between. It gets into your blood and challenges your sensibilities. It’s good medicine.
What is your favorite band, and your favorite album?
JH: I’d have to narrow it down from 20 or 30 bands and to about 100 albums. Off the top of my head I’d put The Rolling Stones “Beggars Banquet”, Bob Dylan’s “Blood On The Tracks” The Kinks “Muswell Hillbillies” and “The Harder They Fall” Soundtrack album right up there but I could never pick just one favorite. It changes daily. I’m anxiously awaiting the next Fleet Foxes album. I love Graham Coxon too.
With the demise of traditional record companies and record sales, is there any less recognition of newer material by fans on the road, or are they boned up on new stuff? Any noticeable differences?
JH: It’s an every changing playing field with regards to the business side of things but you just have to roll with it. Cracker fans are very devoted to say the least. They have pretty much embraced every album and know that every album is going to shift gears a little. They don’t really care whether it’s on the radio or not. This new album HAS gotten on the radio and garnered us many more fans I’m happy to report. There are lot of free thinkers in the Cracker fan base. I’ve met many thousands of them and they all came to the party from different albums over the years, the latest one or the first one. We never have a set list but we try to play something from every album live. Every night is a little different.
Are there any bands or musicians you’d like to play with?
JH: Hell yes. Bob Dylan or The Replacements would be at the top of that list but I love to collaborate, jam, record, play live. It’s all I do or ever want to do.
Your Les Paul….How long have you been playing it, how much work did you do or have done to it?
JH: It’s a 1977 Standard and I bought it new. I was living on my own at a young age and actually gave blood to make the payments several times in those lean days. I’ve turned it into a bit of a Frankenstein monster over many years. I use Seymour Duncan Jeff Beck pick ups in it and it has a Khaler locking tremolo system. They don’t even make those anymore. It’s an odd set up but it works very well for me. It’s ain’t broke so I ain’t fixing it as they say. I’ve also carved all over it, tattooed it, gouged it out and put a little piece of Muddy Water’s birthplace wood in it. I’ve also attached some polished stones to it.
Your tone is often nearly as pure as a Tele’s. Any pickup height, or pole piece adjustments worth noting?
JH: I played up around Bakersfield for a while just before I got together with David and all the old cowboy players would say “You can’t play country on no Gepson…get a FENDA boy!”. I just worked at it until I could get those sounds with my hands and picking style on the Paul. I have my bridge pick up raised up pretty high and use fairly heavy strings. I like a lot of deep twang as well as psychedelic noise and overtones and that set up does it for me.
What is the difference in your rigs for the acoustic shows vs. Cracker full band shows?
JH: Actually I play with the same set up for both. David plays an Ibanez nylon string acoustic for the Cracker duo shows and I play with my usual electric set up which is: My Les Paul through a Boss tuner into an MXR Carbon Copy delay pedal into a Boss Blues Driver and then into a Fender Supersonic. I run the Supersonic through a 4×12 Marshall cabinet on bigger stages. I also have a clamp on holder on my mic stand with anywhere from 2 to 5 Lee Oskar harps in it for both duo and full band gigs.
What’s your favorite guitar or road story. The must tell story?
My favorite guitar story is that I was once lucky enough to open a few weeks of shows for ZZ Top when they were at the top of their game in the 80s. I’m a big Billy G fan and would sound check with his licks before I had actually met him. One day I saw that beard poke around the corner and was afraid I’d pissed him off. I was wrong. He came to the dressing room and introduced himself with a grin. “heard ya playin my chops boy” Then he asked in that great Texas accent “Why’d you put a wiggle stick on a Les Paul?” I loved it. He was very cool to me on that tour which amazed the crew because he’s kind of mysterious. He let me sit behind the P.A. speakers on stage every night and watched him up close. I’ll never forget it.
David Lowery and John are currently on tour as Cracker Duo, and will commence full band touring in May co-headlining shows with The Reverand Horton Heat. This will be a tour to see, maybe the hottest I’ve come across this year.
Thanks to John Hickman and the gracious folks at Pavement PR.
Been Around The World is a jammer from any era Cracker. This pick form the BigDave FredRocksWilma’s YouTube Channel exemplifies how loose this band can be and still rock steady! Dig Johnny’s free range solo and miss the keyboards days…CL
Believe it or not, puppetry can be serious business. (The University of Connecticut’s School of Fine Arts even offers a BFA degree in
puppetry!) Here are some academic books about puppetry:
*Bryant, Jill, Catherine Heard, and Laura Watson. Making
Shadow Puppets.
Kids
can do it. Toronto: Kids Can Press, 2002.
Puppetry and children’s librarianship go hand in hand. Puppets are a great way to bring children’s literature to life, and they also help develop narrative skills in early learners. Here are some incredible puppeteers who have performed at our library:
And, of course, the award-winning Shermanettes!
Thanks to a generous grant from the Charles P. Ferro Foundation, tomorrow we are offering an amazing program for teenagers and adults:
“The images in DOG range from playful to emotionally powerful. This deceptively simple shadow puppet play leads us through reinterpretations of 10 great works of art, in a surreal, non-linear world.”
I can’t wait!
*The instructions in the book Making Shadow Puppets are excellent, but mine are even easier.
You
will need these supplies: *pencil *thin
cardboard *scissors *tape *desk
lamp or flashlight *cereal box *sheet of thin white paper *drinking straws
How to make puppets: * Draw or trace a puppet shape directly onto
the cardboard. * Cut the puppet
shape out of the cardboard. *
Tape a straw to the back of each puppet piece.
How to make a stage: *Cut a large rectangle out of the front and
back of a cereal box. (Don’t
throw out the rectangles. You can use them to make more puppets!) *Turn the box onto its side. *Tape the paper over the front side of the box. (This side will face your audience.) *Shine a light out from behind the stage.
Back in November, I posted a song from a Mother Hips show when they opened for Backyard Tire Fire at Schuba’s in Chicago. But there were two nights. That’s two shows. That’s two picks. Here comes another. What will it be? In the months between then and now, Mother Hips’ new album Pacific Dust has grown on me and is tied for my current favorite album with Ike Reilly’s Hard Luck Stories.
But this week’s pick is not from the most recent album, but the one before that. Kiss the Crystal Flake came out in 2007, and has some good ol’ California Soul all over it.
Time-Sick Son Of A Grizzly Bear is just the right amount of catchy. Even though it’s the state mascot, are there any Grizzlies left outside of zoos?
Another dark man Out in the jet stream Another great plan Another dark dream Just ask his cell phone Ask his advisers When it’s all over Who was the wiser? Another dark man
They’re coming over They have the car keys They have agendas They are the enemy Just ask his hangers on Ask his baptizers When its all over Who was the wiser? Another dark man
I barely knew him It didn’t take long He was a mystery Wrapped in a sad song Just ask the howlin’ wind The dust that rises When it’s all over baby No one’s the wiser Another dark man
There goes the dark man Out in the jet stream One soul is touching down Another leaving There goes a dark man There goes a dark man There goes a dark man Another dark man
Zoe dreams of being the next Vladimir Horowitz and playing Carnegie Hall. She has one major setback, though–she doesn’t own a piano.
López, Diana. Confetti
Girl. New York, NY: Little, Brown and Co, 2009.
Apolonia Flores is obsessed with socks; her father is obsessed with British literature; her best friend is obsessed with boys, and her best friend’smother is obsessed with making cascarones.
About this time last year (the exact date lost in the mists of time) I had my very first Listening Theme – 70’s Glam Rock. It lasted a few days and only resulted in a couple of recommendations. I thought I’d mark this 1st anniversary by revisiting the theme.
With more of you taking part now and with the themes also appearing on songbookhighway.com plus the fact that I’ve discovered more sites to listen to music online I thought I can delve a bit deeper and hear some albums that I might not have known about a year ago.
Third grade is an exciting time for readers. It’s the stage in which many children begin their foray into chapter books, or junior novels. Here are three great ones:
White, E. B., Garth Williams, and Edith GoodkindRosenwald. Charlotte’s
Web. New York: Harper, 1952.
Even arachnophobes can’t help but to fall in love with Charlotte the Spider.
Atwater, Richard, Atwater,
Florence, and Lawson, Robert. Mr.
Popper’s Penguins. Little, Brown, 1938.
Mr. Popper the House Painter dreams of visiting the polar regions. His life changeswhen he writes a fan letter to Admiral Drake the Explorer and receives a live penguin in return.
Dahl, Roald, and Quentin Blake. The
Twits. New York: Scholastic, 1980.
The twits are a miserable old married couple who play hilarious tricks on each other. They’re kind of like the Lockhorns, only funnier. Much of the humor is geared for adults, but kids love it, too.
Chris LeRoy and Johnny Hickman were The Dangers way back before Johnny went on to play guitar in The Unforgiven and then co-form Cracker, with whom he still performs today. The Dangers didn’t release albums back then, but Dedication saw some of those old (and some new) recordings finally released a couple of years ago. This new album, without Johnny except for one guest role, is more rocking and coherent than Dedication, and is really more of a follow up to 2007’s ‘Life’s So Hard Make It Softer’ by Chris LeRoy’s other band Death Of Me. Both albums rock with a youthful rawness that belies the 30-year history of this band, sounding at times like the Stones – a band that seems to run through LeRoy’s veins.
For the next week or so I’m going to concentrate on the Southern soul released on a record label that was the main rival to Motown (LT7) during the 60’s – Stax. Stax (with it’s partnership with Atlantic Records) released albums by Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Wilson Picket, Eddie Floyd, Rufus and Carla Thomas… the list goes on (http://en.wikipedia.org/wi..ki/Stax_Records) backed by the house band Booker T. & the M.G’s. I love the music but not that familiar with some of the lesser known acts.
I’d gladly lose me to find you
I’d gladly give up all I had
To find you I’d suffer anything and be glad
I’d pay any price just to get you
I’d work all my life and I will
To win you I’d stand naked, stoned and stabbed
I’d call that a bargain
The best I ever had
The best I ever had
I’d gladly lose me to find you
I’d gladly give up all I got
To catch you I’m gonna run and never stop
I’d pay any price just to win you
Surrender my good life for bad
To find you I’m gonna drown an unsung man
I’d call that a bargain
The best I ever had
The best I ever had
I sit looking ’round
I look at my face in the the mirror
I know I’m worth nothing without you
In life one and one don’t make two
One and one make one
And I’m looking for that free ride to me
I’m looking for you
I’d gladly lose me to find you
I’d gladly give up all I got
To catch you I’m gonna run and never stop
I’d pay any price just to win you
Surrender my good life for bad
To find you I’m gonna drown an unsung man
I’d call that a bargain
The best I ever had
The best I ever had
Alborough, Jez. Duck
in the Truck. [New York]: HarperCollins Publishers, 2000.
Even though there aren’t any actual human beings in this story, one reviewer criticized it for having a “white, Eurocentric world view.” I say it’s just a wonderful cumulative tale with lots of great rhymes and funny illustrations.
Shaw, Nancy, and Margot
Apple. Sheep in a Jeep. Middletown, CT: Weekly Reader Books, 1986.
These ovine sure know how to rhyme and have a good time. If you like Sheep in a Jeep, you will also enjoy Sheep on a Ship, Sheep Take a Hike, and my personal favorite, Sheep in a Shop.
Burningham, John. Mr Gumpy’s Motor Car. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:
Penguin, 1973.
When Mr. Gumpy’s car gets stuck in the mud, none of his passengers want to get out to help push. Pig has the best excuse: “I’ve got a bone in my trotter.”
And speaking of car trips .
Check out the latest Gigglejuice CD, Driving Around in Circles. You will like it!
Cracker Live as part of the Kessler House series put on By Janie & Steve Ruemmele. David Lowery and Johnny Hickman getting down in true style! Captured on FLIP by Duncan Alney, firebelly marketing
Something a bit different this week. Instead of the run of the mill ‘you give me your recommendations’ type of Listening Theme, I’m going to give YOU a recommendation for a change.
For several years I’ve been listening to (and loving) the mash-up albums of The Kleptones.
For those of you who are not familiar with mash-ups (including me until recently) it’s where DJs mix different parts of different tracks to create something new – vocals from one song, a bassline from another, guitar solo from another and so on. (I’m no expert and I’m sure DJ Eric Kleptone will put me right).
The latest Kleptones double album ‘Uptime/Downtime’ was released as a FREE download at Midnight (GMT) on 1st January 2010 making it the first album released in this NEW decade (in the UK at least). Uptime is a rocking party mix (featuring the Prodigy, Guns n Roses, Metallica, Nirvana among others) whereas Downtime is the relaxing chill-out part
(Scott Walker, Nick Drake, Neil Young) – great stuff.
Anyway, back to this theme – as I’ve been listening to this album since downloading it I thought I’d take time out to listen to some of the original tracks that Eric Kleptone has ‘borrowed’. There’s a Wikipedia page for the album, listing the samples that fans have spotted. Eric tells me there’s still plenty that hasn’t been spotted yet.
So why not download ‘Uptime/Downtime’ (it’s FREE) and give it a listen and maybe try to spot a sample that hasn’t been noted yet. Whilst you’re at it try some of the other Kleptones releases. I heartily recommend 24 Hrs and A Night at the Hip-Hopera (yep, Hip-Hop and Queen!)
By the way, Eric has been tagged in this note and I’m sure would welcome any comments. He has also accepted the challenge of being my third guest Listening Theme setter, his theme (wait for it!) will be announced in a week’s time.
Cheers,
On April 9th and 10th 2010, Matt and Kelly Lube opened their house up tothe crumb nation, and Lubestock was born!! Here some Video of the best damn family on the planet! The crumb nation lives!!
Anna Quindlen’s latest novel left me sobbing to the point of gasping for air. For an excellent summary without any spoilers, click here to read Maggie Scarf’s review in the New York Times.
Here’s what the other critics had to say:
“Anna Quindlen’s writing is like knitting; prose that wraps the reader in the warmth and familiarity of domestic life . . . Quindlen starts to pull at the world she has knitted, and lets it unravel across the pages.” –Nicole Brodeur, Seattle Times. “It’s a testament to Quindlen’s character development and plotting that by the time disaster hits . . . the catastrophic consequences of everyday actions are truly shocking.” –Nancy Robertson, Washington Post.
“Quindlen orchestrates her chorus of voices . . . with exquisite balance. She places the shocking event that changes everything — a moment that echoes the book’s title and is so stunning it made me gasp.” Jane Ciabattari, NPR.
After an enjoyable week of listening to tracks used by The Kleptones for their double mash-up album Uptime/Downtime it’s over to Eric Kleptone to become my next guest theme-setter (Thanks Eric). His theme, German music: “from Schlager to Krautrock to Techno – oh and The Scorpions “…
” Well the german stuff that really interests me is the Krautrock obv. Can, Neu!, Amon Duul II, Faust, La Dusseldorf, Cluster, Tangerine Dream, Ash Ra Tempel, the ubiquitous Kraftwerk etc… it’s quite a narrow range, but there’s some absolutely awesome music in there (alongside some real insanity). It’s also worth digging into german funk and disco (there’s a few great compilations of that stuff), soundtrack music (like Peter Thomas Orchestra), Punk, Metal, and of course the fine seam of quality German Techno (recommend the Tresor compilations as a good inroad of how things were back in 1992/3 – The second one completely changed the way I listened to electronic music when I first heard it!).”
This’ll be interesting. I couldn’t name many German bands I have to admit, so I’m looking forward (as always) to hearing new stuff.
As usual, any suggestions as to what I should listen to would be greatly received.
Morst is resting right now so I pick a track from new gigglejuice album Driving Around In Circles. Kevin Day and Co. are a fun band with good vibe and better tunes. Here is a link to hear I Can See The Future on the SongBook Highway player…..
This week I’m going to listen to albums by the Rat Pack – Frank, Dean and Sammy. On top of that I’m in the mood for another music marathon…
In the way that I listened to 100 different recordings of White Christmas in December I’m going to attempt to listen to as many versions of My Way that I can. Not
sure I’ll make 100, but maybe 50? – what do you reckon? So what albums or tracks by these three (solo or collaborations) do you recommend? and can you think of any recordings of My Way that I might be interested in? (as with my White Christmas marathon I’m trying to stick with well known artists).
Also, how about joining me in this theme – for a day, half day or at the very least, one album. Who’s up for it? Just let us know what you’ve listened to.
New York Times reporter Jon Schwartz pokes holes through studies that claim that short people are disadvantaged, and in doing so, he teaches young readers how to
judge the validity of scientific studies.
Smith, Sherri L. Lucy
the Giant. New York, N.Y.: Delacorte Press, 2002.
Lucy the Giant is a teen novel about a big girl from a small Alaskan town who runs away to work as an adult on a crabbing boat. Even though I hate cold weather, I really like
to read about Alaska.
This novel for upper elementary school audiences is about the friendship between a really, really tall girl and a boy with dwarfism. The story gets interesting when the boy meets an Amish girl who also has dwarfism.
From Cracker Live at Bowery Ballroom on
2005-03-22, recorded by a stranger and documents Johnny’s intro about two thefts of Cracker equipment… Johnny puts out this LeRoy/Hickman tune as evidence that all is right with the world if you are lucky enough to play and love music…an honorable thought.
Genealogia de una bruja/ Genealogy of a witch Tomo I:
La Pequena Bruja & Tomo Ii: Libro De Brujas Y Hechizos/ Vol:i the
Little Witch & Vol:ii Book of Witch and Spells. Luis Vives
Editorial, 2009.
Although I don’t usually like tales of the supernatural, this book is too gorgeous to resist. Here’s a link to my review in this month’s issue of School Library Journal.
In 3 weeks time Nikki and I are going to see Bon Jovi at the O2 in London and I was going to have a hair metal listening theme around that time, but seeing as UK digital radio station Planet Rock are holding a ‘Greatest Hair Metal Band’ poll at the moment (with ‘The Final Countdown’ of the results this Saturday) I thought I’d bring it forward.
So let’s have your Hair Metal recommendations (album titles preferably).
To celebrate the 1 year anniversary of the latest Cracker Cd. A new video for “Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey”. More info www.crackersoul.com. Directed and Edited by Carlos Grasso.
Yesterday a woman came up to the reference desk with her 10 year old daughter, slammed down a copy of this book, and demanded, “Tell me who recommended this book to my daughter.” I shakily admitted that I was the culprit. She let out a deep breath and said,
“She LOVED it. Please pick us out some more.”
Rebecca Hickman submits this week’s video. Sez Rebecca…” More from the best backyard concert of the century. This song is from Cracker’s AWESOME album, Greenland.”
big DAVE elaborates…
FredRocksWilma — April 18, 2010 — On April 9th and 10th 2010, Matt and Kelly Lube opened their house up to the crumb nation, and Lubestock was born!! Here some Video of the best damn family on the planet! The crumb nation lives!!
MORST SHARES A PICK: Camper Van Beethoven Live at Northern Lights Theater on 2006-01-20
One of These Days had a timeless quality even in its original form. It remind me of the kind of phrasing and poetry David Lowery brought to songs from the very first cassettes he would pass around to music friends in Redlands back in the day. These were simple observations that meant more as the song grew on you… This 2006-01-20 a live version continues to grow on me… Chris
I am fading away
Last night as big as life
Growing faint in the day
Growing faint in the day
I left the window open
Is there a songbird near?
Pretty bird won’t you sing for me
Before we disappear? Before we disappear?
And you can be a stranger in your own land
You can be a stranger on your own
When television is hazy
They turn the rabbit ears
They throw the courthouse open wide
They take the souvenirs. They take the souvenirs
And you can be a stranger in your own land
You can be a stranger on your own
I went out to the city square
Amid the boos and cheers
Something wrong about what I said
You know it didn’t ring clear
Didn’t ring clear
And you can be a stranger in your own land
You can be a stranger on your own
It’s when the lights are shining
Cross the night of tears
The wind on the silent streets
Is music to my ears
It’s music to my ears
I leave the window open
Is there a songbird near?
Pretty bird won’t you sing for me
Before we disappear? Before we disappear?
And you can be a stranger in your own land
Someone told me long ago There’s a calm before the storm,
I know; It’s been comin’ for some time.
When it’s over, so they say, It’ll rain a sunny day,
I know; Shinin’ down like water.
CHORUS:
I want to know, Have you ever seen the rain?
I want to know, Have you ever seen the rain
Comin’ down on a sunny day?
Yesterday, and days before, Sun is cold and rain is hard,
I know; Been that way for all my time.
‘Til forever, on it goes Through the circle, fast and slow,
I know; It can’t stop, I wonder.
CHORUS:
I want to know, Have you ever seen the rain?
I want to know, Have you ever seen the rain
Comin’ down on a sunny day?
This show, and the acoustic set from the previous day were performed at a private party dubbed Lubestock. If it sounds like a small gig, recorded from up close to the band, then that would be accurate. The sound of the crowd is very present, hooting and hollering and at times, singing along in complete unison with every word! Yes, you would be hard-pressed to find a tent with a higher yield of hard-core Cracker fans than this.The song selection is really cool here. I suspect that the host of the event got to suggest some rarities, because we get some nice choices. Someday, Reasons To Quit, Hold Of Myself and Ain’t Gonna Suck Itself are pretty darned rare these days. And I would be glad to hear Sick Of Goodbyes, Sweet Magdalena Of My Misfortune or Shiner Song more often than I do!
Shiner Song, of course, depends on the presense of keyboardist Kenny Margolis and his stomach Steinway. Always great to hear Kenny on a recording – he adds a nice touch to everything, and there is some material that the band doesn’t play without him. Like this polka in the Czech language.
Here’s John Doe (singer-songwriter of X, Knitters, Pleasure Barons) performing another cool cover of a Replacements song “Here Comes A Regular.” The event was a Replacements tribute night at the 12 Galaxies nightclub in San Francisco on May 24, 2006.
Message to Paul Westerberg, Tommy Stinson and Chris Mars: Could you guys hurry up and do that damned reunion tour? We miss ya…
I’ve been feeling a bit feisty lately. The other day on Facebook I posted the question “Do you have a library card?” and almost instantly received 34 comments. One well-meaning friend wrote that he doesn’t use the library because he likes to support starving authors by
paying for their books. I responded with the following rampage:
*Most libraries buy or lease multiple copies of popular titles.
*Public libraries are all about serving everyone–not just people who can afford to buy books.
*Even if you never use your card, it’s still a good idea to get one. We need the statistics. Also, think of all the money you can save by borrowing our videos, books, and music CD’s.
The poor guy. He apologized and wrote that he was going to get a card the next day. He also explained that his wife and kids already have their own cards.
ps. Do you have a library card?
pps. Check
out the Save Libraries website to learn how you can help your local library.
..
Back from the shop, morst has a pick of the week!
The Mother Hips have been a favorite of mine for a long time, and so it’s great to be able to hear them play live. And I didn’t even have to fly to California to do it! Once again, back at Schuba’s in Chicago, they played a fun Saturday Night gig. The first track, Red Tandy, just sounds so rockin’ good. And then they keep turning up the heat! I already picked a track from the new album, but don’t let that stop you from picking up Pacific Dust, which came out last fall (2009.)
This week we have a live performance by Johnny Hickman from the studios of KUAR Public Radio, Little Rock, Arkansas 5-11-2010 posted by rbreeding59 — May 11, 2010 and carried on by our friends below….
Monday lunchtime and I haven’t set a new Listening Theme yet – shame on me!.
Here’s something that should keep me occupied this week and should throw up plenty of different music genres. Bands or solo artists (surnames) beginning with the letters X, Y or Z! There’s some obvious ones but what are the stand-out albums?. If you know of anything worth listening to that I might not know about let me know.
If you like David Sedaris, Augusten Burroughs, and Josh Kilmer-Purcell, you will really like this new book by filmmaker John Waters.You don’t have to be a fan of his movies to enjoy the book. Visit npr.com to learn more about it.
Waters, John. Role Models. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010. Print.
I slept and I dreamed of a time long ago
I saw an army of rebels, dancing on air
I dreamed as I slept, I could see the campfires,
A song of the battle, that was born in the flames,
and the rebels were waltzing on air.
I danced with a girl to the tune of a waltz
that was written to be danced on the battlefield
I danced to the tune of a voice of a girl
A voice that called “Stand till we fall
we stand till all the boys fall.”
As we danced came the news that the war was not won
5 armies were coming, with carrige and gun
Through the heart of the camp
swept the news from the front
A cloud crossed the moon, a child cried for food
We knew the war could not be won.
So we danced with a rifle, to the rhythm of the gun
in a glade through the trees i saw my only one
Then the earth seemed to rise hell hot as the sun
The soldiers were dying, there was tune to the sighing.
The song was an old rebel one.
As the smoke of our hopes rose high from the field
My eyes played tricks through the moon and the trees
I slept as I dreamed I saw the army rise
A voice began to call, stand till you fall
The tune was an old rebel one.
Thanks to Moira (via Rob) for this suggestion which I will start on Monday morning. So lets have your suggestions of Cuban music/musicians please.
“The Caribbean island of Cuba has developed a wide range of creolized musical styles, based on its cultural origins in Europe and Africa. Since the nineteenth century its music has been hugely popular and influential throughout the world. It has been perhaps the most popular form of world music since the introduction of recording technology” from
Wikipedia.
Washington, D.C: National Geographic Society.
June 2010, Vol. 217, No. 6.
There is a really interesting article about Greenland in this month’s issue of National Geographic. I’m embarrassed to admit
that I really didn’t know much about Greenland until I read the article. Here’s what I learned:
*Greenland wasn’t as cold in the Middle Ages.
*Many Greenlanders are excited about global warming.
*Erik the Red landed upon Greenland while he was on the lam for killing a man in Iceland.
*The term lam comes from the Old Norse word lemja.
*In the 1950’s and 1960’s the Danish government built ugly apartment buildings in the capital of Greenland and tried to force people from faraway villages to live in them.
*In 2009 a new charter went into effect that gives Greenland more independence from Denmark.
ppps. Jane Smiley wrote an epic novel entitled Greenlanders. Although I really like Smiley’s writing (she won the Pulitzer prize for the best seller, A Thousand Acres), I probably won’t read Greenlanders because I don’t like historical fiction.
-Lucinda Gallagher via Jesse Malin: From “Love it to Life”- officially my favorite CD of 2010. If you get the chance to see him live… GO!! You just have to love a guy that lists Martin Scorsese and The Uncle Floyd Show among his influences (not to mention The Ramones, Steve Earle, Bob Dylan, The Replacements and The Dead Kennedys)
“There was an old man with a nose,who said, ‘If you choose to suppose that my nose is too long, you are certainly wrong!’That remarkable man with a nose.”
-Edward Lear’s Nonsense Omnibus
This year’s annual American Library Association was absolutely wonderful. My committee’s programs went really well and I got to meet lots of great authors, illustrators, publishers, and librarians. Plus, I got to catch a free Natalie Merchant show!
Natalie Merchant’s latest album, Leave Your Sleep, is a collection of old children’s poems which she set to music. In between songs, Natalie showed slides of antique children’s book illustrations and discussed the history of each work. I was especially impressed when she thanked individual libraries for helping with her research.
Merchant, Natalie. Leave Your Sleep. New York:
Nonesuch, 2010. Sound recording.
To learn more, check out this link to the New York Times article, From Natalie Merchant, a Literary Tour: nytimes.com.
From Garod….This is kind of fun… one my favorite singers doing a Rolling Stones song… only it’s his lead guitarist singing… Simply astounding. Gruene Hall, July 2, 2010
Track 6 from Cracker’s 1993 album Keronsene Hat. Here is the story in the song. A cosmonaut Ivan Ivanovich is orbiting the earth in the Mir space station. While in orbit the USSR
breaks apart into all of it’s constituent nations. Ivanovich is stranded while the ground crew struggles to send a replacement ship and cosmonaut up to relieve him. Ivanovich is not in mortal danger. Mostly he is bored. He finds a book left behind by another cosmonaut. It is an history of the American Civil War. He reads it over and over again while waiting for his rescue ship. Hence his musings about General Stonewall Jackson’s amputated arm being “buried on some farm”
The first thing you should know about this song is that it is complete fiction. This may surprise some of you because there is a persistent urban myth that the Soviets stranded a cosmonaut in space when the USSR dissolved. In fact there are at least two* films with this exact plot. (This Cracker song predates both of these films, it
was written in october of 1992). I’m not sure what came first the films or the urban legend of the stranded cosmonaut. But one thing is well known there have long been myths of “lost” or “phantom cosmonauts” going back to the early 1960′s. It is these persistent rumors that inspired this song. here are two webpages detailing such myths:
Finally Ivan Ivanovich is like John Doe in English. Hence Ivan Ivanovich is the name given to a test flight dummy cosmonaut pictured
below.
PS. Stonewall Jackson’s arm was buried separately from his body. His arm was amputated due to his injuries. He died many days later in
Richmond VA. *There appears to be two movies. one called “kosmonaut” from norway. and one called “der letzte Kosmonaut” from germany. both have similar plot descriptions. perhaps they are the same source. or german release of the same film. One is from 1993 the other from 1994.
[C]-[Em]-[Am]-[F] [F]-[G]-[Am]-[G]-[F]-[Dm]-[G]
And here is Ivanovich
in his rocket ship
Spinning helplessly
up above the earth
While his heart is splintered
All the girls of winter
are buried in their coats anonymous
While winter girls are waiting
Ivanovich in high rotation
He is just another star
up in the sky
While the world was waiting
We’re overwhelmed by some sensation
of something long ago and far away
Like general Jackson’s arm
it’s buried on some farm
While the fever
pushes words from his lips
And by the drunken river
where the soldiers shiver
We rest beneath the shade of the trees.
While winter girls are saying
each of us a tiny nation
You’re just another star
but so am I.
While the world was waiting
We’re overwhelmed by some sensation
of something long ago and far away
To mark the 25th Anniversary of Live Aid (13th July 1985) I’m going to try to listen to an album by each performer at the London and Philadelphia
Live Aid concerts*
The only rule is the album must have been released BEFORE the bands Live Aid performance. For instance, U2 performed at Wembley but instead of listening to The Joshua Tree which wasn’t to be released for another couple of years after Live Aid, I could listen to The Unforgettable Fire (their current album at the time) or any album in their back catalogue
up to that date.
So what albums should I listen to by those artists? Was anyone there? What were your highlights?
* before Ben interjects by saying there was a concert in Sydney, Australia (and several others in Europe come to that) I’m going to stick to Wembley and JFK Stadiums only!
Also, before anyone suggests that I should start with the Band of the Coldstream Guards as they ‘officially’ were the first band to perform, I’ve looked on we7 and the only album there was released in 2009 (phew!). I’m starting with some Quo!
The Mennonite Church is kind of interesting. Here are some things I knew before reading Mennonite in a Little Black Dress:
*Mennonites and the Amish are not the same. The Amish broke with the Mennonite church because they thought it was too liberal.
*Mennonites oppose violence under any circumstance. During World War II, some were tarred and feathered for refusing to buy war bonds.
*They don’t watch television, listen to pop music, or dance.
*They don’t all live in Pennsylvania. In fact, there are Mennonite mission posts all over the world.
I picked up Rhoda Janzen’s memoir because I thought it might be fun to learn about what really goes on behind closed doors. Do Mennonite women wear sexy outfits and have lurid love affairs? Are the teens allowed to do drugs and have wild barn party raves like the Amish kids in the documentary, The Devil’s Playground? Do families shun those who dare to leave the religion?
Nope. (Or at least it’s highly unlikely.)
Although the author does leave home to pursue a career in mainstream academia, she never really goes off the deep end (or at least she doesn’t write about it). The book is mostly about her marriage, divorce, and remarriage to a non-Mennonite, mercurial egomaniac. She finally decides to leave him for good, so she moves back home with her family in order to sort things out and work on her dissertation. The only incident in the book that struck me as being slightly subversive is when her mother tries to set her up with a first cousin.
Acffh Morst
Twenty years ago this week, the Grateful Dead were on FIRE. Unfortunately, we came to find out that part of the fuel was ol’Brentski burning and not fading away. But the music! AHH!
This was the show when I spoke to Brent briefly during Drumz. What a second set. Short on song numbers, but IN-TENSE.
Tyler, Anne. Noah’s Compass: A Novel. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009. Print.
BORING
Shreve, Anita. A Change in Altitude: A Novel. New York: Little, Brown and Co, 2009. Print.
Last week I read Anita Shreve’s latest novel, A Change in Altitude. It’s a story about a woman who marries a man she barely knows and agrees to move to Kenya with him right after the wedding. Even though the book is filled with tragedy, political unrest, and betrayal, it bored me to tears. The characters are so one-dimensional, that I didn’t really care what happened to them. I kept thinking, “You dumb ass, what did you expect?” For the same reasons, I didn’t care for Shreve’s bestseller, The Pilot’s Wife, either.
Pulitzer Prize winner, Anne Tyler
(Photograph by Diana Walker)
This week I read Anne Tyler’s latest novel, Noah’s Compass. It’s a story about a 60 year old curmudgeon who loses his job and moves to a smaller apartment to save money.I found it to be absolutely riveting.
Since the book is rather short, I don’t want to give away much of the story. If you liked Accidental Tourist, you will love Noah’s Compass. If your library’s copy is checked out, it’s worth a trip to the bookstore. Just be aware that the list price is ($25.95–yikes!) and not all of the reviews were favorable. If you treat the book carefully while you read it, you can wrap it up and give it away as a Christmas gift.
I’m going on holiday tomorrow (yippee!!) and as I’ve no idea if I’ll get a chance to listen to any online music next week I thought I’d set this one and see what happens.
I simply want some suggestions for songs with ‘Summer’ or ‘Summertime’ in the title. There are some obvious ones but I particularly want some more obscure suggestions that I may not have heard before. So let’s have
some ideas and I’ll listen to what I can next week (and continue to get through the list when I get back).
So let’s have some ideas. Of course, tomorrow I’m going to have to start with Cliff’s “Summer Holiday”.
In all my picks, I’ve never gone ahead, and selected one of Cracker’s most iconic songs. Teen Angst is what I always call it, the official title is Teen Angst (What The World Needs Now).
First song off the first album, and it manages to find its way into ALMOST every cracker set. So I figured I didn’t need to pick it. Well. Fine. OK. No. It’s time to select a version which was just pure bonus. The band played a festival on the 4th of July in Crystal Lake Il, northwest of Chicago. At the festival it was announced that the guys in the first band, and members of Cracker would be playing at a restaurant in town after the fest closed down. Having been alerted to this a few days in advance by a keen-eyed newshound Crumb (Thanks Erin!!) I was prepared, and able to document the late set by the Cracker Duo.
Three songs. Starting with Teen Angst. A funny, hot crowded room. Frank and Sal hanging out enjoying the show, David & Johnny up on stage for a few minutes. Americal’s birthday. Fuck Yeah.
Reading Red Hook Road is like watching a train wreck (or in this case, a car wreck). You know something really bad is going to happen, but it’s hard to look away. The novel begins with a horrible tragedy, and the remaining 333 pages describe in detail how the victims’ families deal (and don’t deal) with the acute pain of losing a loved one. Unless you are desperate for something to keep you occupied during an airplane trip or a long wait at the doctor’s office, it’s not worth buying. Red Hook Road is depressing, but it probably won’t make you cry like a good tearjerker should. What it offers is more like a dull, long-lasting headache.
The Jewish High Holy Days are right around the corner.* Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, starts at sundown on September 8th. Here are three great children’s books about the holiday:
Author Eric Kimmel uses an old Ukranian drinking song to help retell a famous Yiddish short story about a rabbi who skips town every year right before the holidays.
This wonderful picture book about celebrating Rosh Hashanah in Los Angeles won the 2010 Sydney Taylor Book Award. I had the pleasure of sitting next to the author at an ALA function a couple of years ago. She was very bubbly.
*Literally–we live about 3 blocks away from a major Chabad center.
Get thee to the Cracker/CVB Campout this Sept 10 in Pioneertown CA.
Especially get thee to the filming of Johnny Hickman’s solo set at 11:15 followed by Johnny and Chris teaming for Dangers hits and introducing THE MIGHTY GRASSHOPPERS!!!!
For the sixth year, Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker are throwing a party in the desert at Pappy & Harriet’s. The Campout started as a birthday party for members of the bands, but has become a
festival for fans of both bands. Friday’s lineup includes Camper Van Beethoven, Joshua Tree’s Gram Rabbit, Jonathan Segel, Redlands-rooted Johnny Hickman and The Dangers
and David Immergluck and Coby Brown.
Saturday’s bill includes Cracker, Riverside’s punk soul preachers The BellRays, J. Roddy Walston and the Business, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Clint Maul and Miss Derringer.
7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Pappy & Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace,
53688 Pioneertown Road, Pioneertown, $27 per day or $52 for a weekend
pass, all ages.
Johnny Hickman and Chris LeRoy have written and performed together since 1979. At The SongBook we celebrate their creative relationship, and extensive musical community. Each week brings new songs, archive recordings, reviews and podcasts, even gems from their first band, The Dangers. —Johnny and Chris
SEPT 10, 2010 AT 11:15 ….. We rock!!!
Get thee to the Cracker/CVB Campout this Sept 10 in Pioneertown CA.
Especially get thee to the filming of Johnny Hickman’s solo set at 11:15 followed by Johnny and Chris teaming for Dangers hits and introducing THE MIGHTY GRASSHOPPERS!!!!
When I met Bono back in 1982, I was so starstruck that all I could
say to him was, “Gloria is my favorite song ever.” He asked why, and I
was too tongue-tied to elaborate.
by Paul Adams on Friday, September 17, 2010 at 5:19am
Hi all,
After a week of Brian Eno (thanks for your suggestions), it’s time to move on to my second artist/producer. As some of you may know I’m a bit of an ELO fan so this week it’s got to be the great Jeff Lynne.
As well as listening to some ELO, I will try to seek out albums by Lynne’s other bands (The Idle Race, The Move and of course The Travelling Wilburys) as well as albums or tracks by artists he has written for or produced. Many of these I haven’t heard before so it’ll be just like any other theme for me.
So, got any Jeff Lynne favourites? I’d be pleased to hear from you.
Like many teenage girls in the early 80’s, I adored The Go-Go’s and tried to dress like them. As they were the first all-female band to top the
Billboard charts and earn a double-platinum album, they were certainly worthy of our admiration. The Go-Go’s played their own instruments,
wrote their own songs, and had a female manager.
Back then, there weren’t all that many female musicians to look up to. I didn’t like Pat Benatar’s songs or her style. I hadn’t yet developed a
taste for Kate Bush’s operatic voice, and I didn’t like Stevie Nicks because I thought her Fleetwood Mac bandmate Christine McVie* was more deserving of stardom. I tried to sing like Chrissie Hynde, but I didn’t have the figure to dress like her. I loved Blondie and Bow Wow Wow’s music, but their female lead singers were a bit too beautiful.
The Go-Go’s were just right. Even a chubby girl like me could dress like a Go-Go!
Belinda Carlisle memoir Lips Unsealed is titled after the Go-Go’s hit song Our Lips Are Sealed. The first half of the book is lots of fun. She writes about touring with Madness, kissing Jim Hutchence, partying with John Belushi, and getting drunk with Tim Finn from Split Enz.
Like her solo career, the second half of Belinda Carlisle’s memoir isn’t very exciting at all. It’s mostly a confessional about her escalating addiction to cocaine. She is so brutally honest, that she comes across as being unlikeable. She admits to feeling undeserving of her fame, and
in doing so, she makes the reader agree with her. *Christine McVie takes the lead in this Fleetwood Mac performance:
Tonight down here in the valley
I’m lonesome and o how I feel
As I sit here alone in my cabin
I can see your mansion on the hill
Do you recall when we parted
The story to me you revealed
You said you could live without loving
In your loveless mansion on the hill
I’ve waited all through the years love
To give you a heart true and real
Cause I know you’re living in sorrow
In your loveless mansion on the hill
The light shine bright from yer window
The trees stand so silent and still
I know you’re alone with your pride dear
In your loveless mansion on the hill
Steig, William. Pete’s a Pizza. New York, N.Y.: HarperCollins Publishers, 1998.
Pete’s in a bad mood. Just when he’s about to go out and play ball with his friends, it decides to rain. Pete’s dad thinks it might cheer Pete up to be made into a pizza. This silly story of filial cannibalism was written and illustrated by Shrek! creator William Steig. The Weston Woods short film version is a hoot, too. Chevy Chase is the narrator.
With this Archive King Pick, I’d like to welcome Dawes to the LMA project. My first introduction to them was in PiTown, at Campout V in 2009, where they kicked off the outdoor stage on Saturday.
Now just a year later, I’ve seen ‘em 5 times, and can hardly wait ’til the next.
Peace In The Valley is this week’s pick, from their July 3rd show on the shore of Madison’s Lake Mendota, at the famous UW Memorial Union Terrace. Mixed by Dawes fan Scott D. Steger of Intellisound, this was Patrick Breiner’s third successive Madison appearance on tenor sax. They met when Dawes opened for Langhorne Slim last fall, and it’s a really good match. Also, Jonny Corndawg makes an appearance. . .
by Paul Adams on Sunday, October 3, 2010 at 1:44pm
Hi all,
I wasn’t going to set a Listening Theme this week (I thought about having a week off) but after just reading an interesting article in MOJO magazine about Elektra Records (currently celebrating 60 years) I’m feeling inspired to check out some albums released on that label.
For those wondering what genius guitarist/songwriter Tony Fate is up to after his departure from the BellRays (outside of making casual instrumental solo albums), here’s your answer. Fate hooked up with his singer/songwriter buddy Chris LeRoy to form the roots-rocking Mighty Grasshoppers. Working a sort of sweet spot located between Doug Sahm and Rockpile, the Grasshoppers eschew trendy production/arrangement tricks for simple, straightforward writing and performances. Moving between romantic travails like “Breakdown,” “Too Late Too Soon” and “Think About Me” and more philosophical rants like “Caravan,” “Big Pile O’ Rocks” and “Let It Drown,” the four-piece rocks, roll and rambles through 14tightly-written tunes without a shred of inefficiency or pretention. Why waste time with gimmicks or stylemongering when there’s good tunes to play? There isn’t an ounce of fat on The Mighty Grasshoppers, which leads to a most satisfying rock & roll experience.
by Paul Adams on Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 6:53am
Hi all,
For the next couple of weeks I’m going to concentrate on bands and artistes from Liverpool (or Merseyside at a stretch)
- I’m sure you can all think of at least one Liverpudlian band (hmm, who could that be?) but as I’m only going to listen to one album by each act I’ll need more suggestions. So let’s have some specific albums please from bands both familiar and obscure.
N.C. Wyeth: George Washington and James Hoban. Smithsonian.
(After all his hard work, George Washington is the only president who didn’t get to live in the White House.)
In honor of the traveling exhibit James Hoban: Architect of the White House that will be at our library through the end of November, we are having lots of events to make the display more meaningful for children. Every week we host at least 2 school field trips to theexhibit, and this Sunday afternoon we are having an old-fashioned White House tea party for elementary school age children. Thanks to a generous donation from the Charles P. Ferro Foundation, next month the wonderful architect Margi Nothard Glavovic will present a building workshop for kids of all ages.
Tea at the Kennedy’s private home in Georgetown, 1960. (Tea parties aren’t just for girls.) AP photo/file.
There are lots of fun facts about White House history. President Taft was so big that he had to have a special bathtub installed. It could fit at least 4 normal-sized men. (Oh my!)
Installing the super-size bathtub in 1911. (It looks like there’s enough room for the 5th guy.) White House Museum
President Truman ordered an immediate renovation when the leg of his daughter’s
piano fell through the ceiling. (Nixon and Truman were both excellent pianists.)
Nixon accompanying Pearl Bailey in the East Room. National Archives.
The Secret Service uses code names for the First Family. Amy Carter’s name was Dynamo, Jackie Kennedy was Lace, and Ronald Reagan was Rawhide. President Obama is Renegade, Michelle Obama is Renaissance, Malia is Radiance, and Sasha is Rosebud. G.W. Bush had two different code names–Tumbler and Trailblazer.
Radiance takes Bo for a run. AP photo/file.
Horses have played a big role in the history of the White House. In addition to lugging building supplies and providing transportation, they have served as wonderful pets. Theodore Roosevelt’s children once sneaked
their pony Algonquin upstairs in the elevator.
President Kennedy, John Jr., Caroline, and Macaroni. JFK Presidential Library.
I have enjoyed researching family life in the White House. Here is where I found most of my information:
Non-fiction books:
Roberts, Cokie. Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation. New York: William Morrow, 2004.
Without women, there would be no great presidents.
This hilarious history book is one of the few non-fiction titles to ever win the Caldecott Medal.
Roosevelt, Curtis. Too Close to the Sun: Growing Up in the Shadow of My Grandparents, Franklin and Eleanor. New York: PublicAffairs, 2008. See last week’s post.
Franzen, Jonathan.Freedom. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010.
This is the best book I’ve read since John Irving’s Last Night in Twisted River. Since there is probably a long waiting list for it at your library, I recommend that you buy your own copy and then donate it to your local library. New York Times critic Stan Tanenhaus calls it a masterpiece of American fiction and compares Franzen to Updike, Dickens, Tolstoy, Bellow, and Mann. I like him better.
My husband and I recently celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary. Five years ago today, we were honeymooning in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico as the town was getting ready for the día de los muertos/Day of the Dead holiday. Marc and I were in a cab headed to a nearby beach, when we passed by a beautiful cemetery all decked out in marigolds and other traditional Day of the Dead decorations.
Then we saw something very startling . . .
A young woman was crossing the street carrying a human head under her arm. Luckily, it turned out to be just a mannequin head. She was on her way to the neighborhood beauty school. Like the mannequin head, the Day of the Dead holiday isn’t half as scary as it seems at first glance. It is simply a time to remember and honor loved ones who have passed away. There is even a sense of whimsy to the holiday, almost like our Halloween. One of the most popular symbols of the holiday is the calavera, or skull.
And speaking of The Day of the Dead . . .
Here are some great children’s books that celebrate the fun side of the Mexican holiday:
FROM JOHNNY—From one year ago…..
On to my other reason for blogging: I want to thank Chris and Maria for the wonderful podcast regarding the history of my song “Harvest Queen”. A big thank you to Morst too. Well done! I feel compelled to fill in a few blanks though…..the music for the song goes back years…all the way to “Big Dirty Yellow” (The house David and I shared when we first moved to Richmond together pre Cracker). I awoke one morning with the guitar riff and melodies in my head and worked them out right then and there. I showed it to David at one point and he called my then instrumental “Harvest Queen”. It felt like a great title but we were in the middle of working on many, many other songs and I put it on the back burner. Cut to 1999, around the time I moved back to Redlands and rekindled my friendship with Chris LeRoy.
We showed each other what we had been working on and instantly began collaborating again which always feels natural to us. He came up with a new title and lyrics for the song (Haunted) which I felt where great, but I still liked David’s original title idea. We recorded the track with Chris on an old, beat up, upside down bass , Chad Villareal on drums and Maria at the board and it was just spontaneously magical on the first take. It’s true as Maria says, I showed it to several session players and they never matched that original track!
One night I fell asleep thinking about David’s title idea “Harvest Queen”. As Chris says in the podcast he had burned me a CD of several scary old songs by other people. One night I dreamt I was one of 3 or 4 young migrant farm workers in a vast green field in California somewhere. In the dream there was a beautiful, naked witch flying over us. She was slowly changing from a woman to a raven, a ball of fire and back into this temptress / goddess …then she vanished. She appeared again after dark and was trying to coax these young men into an old 1940s looking car for something…sex? comfort? protection? To steal our souls? I didn’t know but I saw it all…the monkey’s paw, the straw…all of it. Scared the hell out of me.
I woke with a start and wrote the whole thing down before I could forget it. The dream became the final version of the song after that. Strange story huh? Even though I wrote the lyrics and music, the song would never have gotten finished without the input of Chris and David. I had played a rough sketch for David Immerglück one night (in the back of a car) and he actually DEMANDED that he play on the track with me. How could I refuse the amazing Immy?
I was honored. One night he came down to Lo-Fi from Los Angeles and had brought along Cracker’s original bassist Davey Farragher. They sang those great “AAAAAA” backing vocals and Immy and I did this sword fight of guitar solos at the end of the song which completed the long journey. I recently had the opportunity to play the song live at Roger Clyne’s Mexico festival a few weeks ago. It was their suggestion. Roger and the Peacemakers just said “Hey let’s do Harvest Queen…yeah we know it”. They did and played the hell out of it with me. Yet another of those wonderful “Man I have a cool job” moments. Johnny….over and out.
FROM CHRIS: Two years ago…..
Halloween SongBook Podcast Up Now
The SongBook Series Podcast covers the wide musical spectrum of Johnny Hickman and Chris LeRoy (& Friends)
SongBook Series Podcast 2 compares HARVEST QUEEN with its original demo, HAUNTED. MORST taped the interview with studio engineer Maria Baglien at Lo-Fi Studios 9/9/07 one day after the Cracker/ Camper Campout III in Pioneertown CA. Chris LeRoy discusses both songs.
This Halloween special will be of interest to those Cracker fans who want to see a bit behind the songwriting and song morphing of Johnny Hickman and Chris LeRoy. In fact, to this point, Harvest Queen is the only song co-written by LeRoy, Hickman and David Lowery.
MORST THE ARCHIVE KING:JJ’s dream comes true – an archive king pick
As Archive King, it is my formal duty to bear the news of a fantastic new entry to the online Camper Van Beethoven listening community.
Recently, a fan of Camper Van Beethoven had his dream come true, when CVB played a show at his bar in Racine, Wisconsin. They arrived from Chicago, where they had just played a private engagement at some sort of esoteric intellectual conference called the TEDx Midwest convention. Now JJ McAuliffe runs a great little bar, where Cracker played in August 2007 and debuted the full-album treatment of their 1993 album Kerosene Hat. At that time, JJ expressed his dream to David Lowery, and David said he’d work on putting that together.
Saturday October 16, 2010. A good day in sports for Badgers fans, as the UW football team defeated Ohio. Music fans in Racine that day would wait until the sports fans were finished with their game, if not satisfied by the outcome. And they would be rewarded for their wait with a 34-song Camper Van Beethoven show featuring a full two sets, theramin solos, rare songs, and one very excited and elated club
owner.
To select one highlight will be difficult, but that makes up for when as the wise Mel Brooks said “Sometimes it’s good to be the king.” The set started strong, with this year’s seeming opener of choice – Waka and then on to Matchstick Men. A very strong first set filled with popular songs of great enduring strength and beauty, ending with Lottery and the South American folk song – L’aguardiente, a setcloser in three parts. No, those are not my choices, I’m just givin’ ya the rundown.
Second set started out on a trip with a theramin-laced ZZ Top Goes To Egypt proving that Jonathan Segel doesn’t need frets to make music, or for that matter, a fingerboard! Then to the Box ‘ o’ Laffs classic Flowers and a bunch more songs of great enduring strength and beauty. Perhaps not as many widely popular songs in the second set, I found the choices to be remarkably strong, very much to my liking, and proving what a deep catalog CVB has.
But the king grows long in his doteage and his jester is not able to easily access his tome of previous picks. At the risk of repeating myself, of course, everyone loves a ripping Intersteller Overdrive, but the medley was a little different from the way it’s been in recent years. After a very raucous The Day Lassie Went To The Moon with some heated vocals from David, the band stopped. Like, ended the song instead of going right into Club Med Sucks like “usual.” And lo, another Popular Song Of Great Enduring Strength And Beauty was to be heard, for the first time in recent memory. Opi was heard to ride
again, as the band played the classic intro section to Club Med Sucks then after Club Med, things got Pink. As in Floyd. We call it Intersteller, but there are some other classic Floydian themes floating around in there. And theramined around too.
And after Lassie, David sang not, and the rest sang not, and three encores were played, including a damn fine Cattle (Reversed) and JJ was happy because his dream had come true. Morst was happy that the soundboard recording came out just fine, after caveats from Bob the house soundman that it might not even work at all, and the next day, DigitalistOne showed morst a thing or two about audio editing on the
way to preparing the soundboard-audience mix version you can listen to
here:
So to be clear and non-linear, Abundance was particulary strong and possessed endearing beauty, but the Lassie, Opi > Club Med > Intersteller has to be the pick this round.
I am a horror wimp. I avoid gore. However, I get out all my “scary” movies every Halloween and relive my childhood. Here are five that stand out for me this season…. Chris LeRoy
1. (1935) Bride of Frankenstein: Director James Whale’s masterpiece is the Frankenstein franchise peak. Brimming with creative energy, it is also the best of the Universal monster movies. Ernest Thesiger’s Doctor Pretorius is the quirky centerpiece and embodies the renegade spirit of the director. Karloff plays The Monster for empathy; he is hunted and misunderstood. You don’t fear him. You lament his tragic fate. If you become a Whale fan, track down his much less known, The Old Dark House.
2. (1939) The Cat and The Canary: From the stage play and 1927 silent film, Bob Hope teams with Paulette Goddard for night in a haunted mansion with a greedy group of relatives and a crazy cat-like killer. Funny,and spooky, it abounds in secret passages and great chemistry. It is the precursor to the other great Hope/Goddard comedy chiller set in Cuba, 1940’s The Ghost Breakers.
3. (1963) The Haunting: A year after West Side Story Director Robert Wise delivers the perfect adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s classic “The Haunting of Hill House.” This is the classic evil house film, a reminder that a great horror film does not need blood to do its job. Russ Tamblyn adds the humor but Julie Harris is transcendent as the sad romantic with supernatural powers and a pipeline to the dark secrets of Hill House.
4. (1966) It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown: As sure as Charlie Brown will miss that football I need to watch this timeless special to find the Halloween spirit. I marvel at its colors, its cheesy effects, its odd inclusion of Snoopy’s downed WWI flying ace shtick, and its moody flute sound track. Most of all, I keep coming back for Lines’ belief in The Great Pumpkin. His grand delusion is what is great about being a kid: you really believe. We keep coming back to watch every year to remember that we were kids who once believed.
5. (1922) Nosferatu: F.W. Murnau’s silent classic is based on the Dracula novel. The filmmaker sued by the Stoker family estate Nosferatu was to be destroyed. Thank goodness German law did not enforce the destruction because Max Schreck as Count Orlok embodies the cruelty and creepiness of the novel. As much as I enjoy Bella Lugosi, this is not your elegant, socialite vampire. Orlok is deadly and relentless in his pursuit of the young real estate agent’s wife. Her personal sacrifice to Orlok to save her husband carries a simple power that the more complex Dracula movies miss. This is real human sacrifice. Never mind that it is silent, the film moves like heavy steps the stairs of your subconscious.
Whenever I visitedNew York as a kid, I would try my hardest not to look up at the buildings. I didn’t want to be mistaken for a tourist. As if stepping out of Grand Central Station on a Saturday afternoon wasn’t a dead giveaway. It was really embarrassing to visit the city with my mom because she would unfold a map right in the middle of the sidewalk and ask street cops for directions!
Vila, Laura. Building Manhattan. New York: Viking, 2008. Print.
Now that I’m a middle-aged adult, I don’t even attempt to look cool, and I know that I would never pass as a New Yorker. When I finally did live in New York, my friends would tease that I was “soooooo Connecticut.”
Gerstein, Mordicai. The Man Who Walked between the Towers. Brookfield, Conn: Roaring Brook Press, 2003. Print.
A couple of years ago my mother and I spent a weekend together playing tourist in NYC, and it was one of the most wonderful experiences of my life. We even rode a double-decker bus and got a close up view of architecture that I’d never noticed before. (Did you know that in the old days, stores would dress up their 3rd floor windows to attract riders on the el?)
Fischer, Chuck. Christmas in New York: A Pop-Up Book. New York: Bulfinch Press, 2005. Print.
I wish I’d paid more attention to architecture when I was younger. Aside from learning about ionic, Doric, and Corinthian columns, it’s a subject that usually isn’t covered in school.(Or it’s entirely possible that I daydreamed straight through that lesson.)
Here are some more great books about architecture for kids:
Anno, Mitsumasa. Anno’s Spain. New York: Philomel Books, 2004. Print.
Simon, Seymour. Bridges. San Francisco: SeaStar Books, 2005. Print.
Macaulay, David. Cathedral: the Story of Its Construction. Boston: HoughtonMifflin, 1973. Print.
Levy, Janey. The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright: Understanding the Concepts of Parallel and Perpendicular. PowerMath. New York: PowerKids Press, 2005. Print.
Listening Theme 46 – The Greatest Debut Albums Of All Time
by Paul Adams on Tuesday, November 9, 2010 at 5:12am
Hi all,
Now here’s a theme that could have endless possibilities. Let’s face it, every band/artist has put out a debut album but not all can be called classics. I would like your recommendations for the Greatest Debut Albums Of All Time and as usual I will listen to as many as I can over the next couple of weeks.
Don’t just pick your favourite band – or your own Chris I want truly great debut albums. Think I’ll start with some ‘Leh-’Nérd ‘Skin-’Nérd
Another rise and fall
Another midnight call
Turn on your radio
We gotta ways to go, now
You know you made me real
You think it’s no big deal
Turn on your radio
I gotta to let you know
It hurts me so
It hurts me so
It tears my mind
It spills my soul
You want to leave
I can’t let go
It hurts my pride
It hurts me so
Everytime…
You meant a lot to me
But there’s no guarantee
When you’re torn inside
You got no place to hide
I’m trying to make you see
You are the heart of me, now
Turn up your radio
We gotta ways to go
CHORUS
Don’t want to bring you down
If I can’t bring you round
Can’t face another day
My heart is miles away
If you could see me through
See there’s a part of you
Music sad and slow
Turn up your radio
Turn up your radio
Richards, Keith, and James Fox.Life. New York: Little, Brown and Co, 2010. Print.
“Mr. Richards’s prose is like his guitar playing: intense, elemental, utterly distinctive and achingly, emotionally direct.”–Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times.
“It’s like being button-holed by a piratical ancient mariner with amazing tales to tell.”–Charles Spencer, The Telegraph.
“It’s funny, gossipy, profane and moving and by the time you finish it you feel like you’re friends with Keith Richards.” Will Dana, Rolling Stone.
“Delicious. I devoured it in one sitting.”–Jake, my dog.
Chris LeRoy (vocals, guitar, piano, organ); Tony Fate (guitar, vocals); Tim Loughlin (bass, vocals); Art Schindele (drums, vocals). CITIES OF ORIGIN:
Redlands, Los Angeles.
RECENT RELEASE:
The Mighty Grasshoppers (Vital Gesture Records). KINDRED SPIRITS:
A sampling of stuff LeRoy and Fate mention includes ’50s rock ‘n’ roll, ’60s rock, pop and soul, country and jazz, plus The Lovin‘ Spoonful, the MC5, the Ramones, Miles Davis, Discharge and Duke Ellington. (Note: There’s way more from where this list came.) WEBSITE:
“I remember ducking, leaning over to Tony and exclaiming, ‘This is rock and roll.’”
That’s Chris LeRoy, one-quarter of predominantly Redlands-based The Mighty Grasshoppers, recalling what he said to guitarist/vocalist Tony Fate during an unforgettable gig in 1979.
The band at the time was an early iteration of the current project, then known as The Mountain Valley Grasshoppers. The show was at Cal State San Bernardino and the LeRoy recalls that the pair were on the receiving end of constant requests to play songs by The Eagles.
“Ever the crowd pleaser, I said we only knew one and proceeded to play a half-hour version of Mahalia Jackson’s gospel slow burner, ‘In the Upper Room.’ Beer bottles started flying and general mayhem ensued, but we kept playing.”
Kept playing is right. Some 31 years later, Fate and LeRoy are still performing together. Since that pairing, Fate’s been in The Sins, The Grey Spikes, The Black Widows and The BellRays. Chris started The Dangers, formed Death of Me and reformed The Dangers. And last year, the two launched The Mighty Grasshoppers with drummer Art Schindele and Tim Loughlin on bass.
And they certainly live up to the new adjective in their name. A self-described “song and dance band,” the quartet concentrates on making their songs the priority. Spin some of their cuts and you’ll hear an act that fully understands what it takes to craft a terrific tune.
“Remember all the one-hit wonder bands from the ’50s [through the] ’70s?” LeRoy asks. “We want to be that band, song by song, over and over again, 12 times an album and 17 times a set.” You can hear the set as these Grasshoppers will play the Family Music Room this weekend, offering a teaser for their new album with LeRoy and Fate as an acoustic/electric Mighty Grasshopper duo. (LeRoy promises the full band will perform there in the future.)
Looking further down 2010 and into 2011 is left to Fate, who’s actually content with the present. “I think this interview is the ultimate achievement,” he says. “There’s nowhere else to go.”
Oh, as for another story about an unforgettable gig, there’s also Fate’s selection: “We got paid once.”
The Mighty Grasshoppers at the Family Music Room, 22445 Alessandro Blvd., Moreno Valley, (951) 653-3272; www.myspace.com/familymusicroom. Fri, 8PM, $5.
by Garod Wayman on Tuesday, November 16, 2010 at 9:37pm
The rules: Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen films you’ve seen that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes. Tag fifteen friends(or more), including me, because I’m interested in seeing what films my friends choose. (To do this, go to your Notes tab on your profile page, paste rules in a new note, cast your fifteen picks, and tag people in the note — in the ‘tag’ line.)
by Paul Adams on Saturday, November 27, 2010 at 12:25am
Hi all,
Ray Davies has a new album out (in the UK at least, I believe the US will have to wait until March – sorry). As the title suggests “See My Friends” is a collaborative album featuring reworkings of classic Kinks tracks by Davies and his Rock ‘n’ Roll chums (Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi & Ritchie Sambora, Metalica, Jackson Browne and the late Alex Chilton among others). Therefore, I thought I’d have a week or two listening to some Ray Davies and The Kinks (or tracks covered by other bands) so if you’ve got any recommendations please let me know and I’ll try to listen to as many I can.
Steinberg, Avi. Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian. New York: Nan A. Talese, 2010. Print.
“Inside [The Boston Public Library], I discovered a crowd that was somehow similar to me from prison and was suddenly struck by the universal culture of daytime libraries, both those in prison and in the free world: they are havens for all variety of loners and outcasts.” -Avi Steinberg
Fresh out of Harvard University, freelance writer Avi Steinberg stumbles upon a job opening for a late shift prison librarian and decides to give it a shot. (Although he never mentions it, I imagine that he was also looking for work that would give him good writing material.) The anecdotes he tells about the inmates and guards are intriguing, but the most riveting parts of the book are when he talks about his own life story as an ex-Yeshiva student.
At first I was a little offended that someone without a Master of Library Science degree would dare to call himself a librarian. However, Avi Steinberg quickly won me over because he shows such respect for the profession.
This is a quick, entertaining, and thought-provoking read.
Listening Theme 48 – Christmas Music Marathon 2010
by Paul Adams on Monday, December 6, 2010 at 8:48am
“Sleigh bells ring, are you listening,
In the lane, snow is glistening”
… well ‘slush is glistening‘
here in the UK as last weeks snow has almost disappeared. However, the landscape last week did give me the idea for this year’s music marathon – I’m going to try to listen to as many different recordings of “Winter Wonderland” I can in the run up to Christmas.
I’m sure you’ll recall my music marathon last Christmas, which resulted in me listening to 100 different recordings of the classic “White
Christmas”:
I’m sure I won’t make a hundred this year, but maybe 50 – what do you think? So if you can think of any that I can hear anywhere online let me know.
Oh, and Chris LeRoy set a precedent last year by recording his own version of White Christmas. Will he do the same this
year? or will anyone else be brave enough to step up to the plate and record a version of Winter Wonderland for us? You never know, we could end up with The Listening Theme All-Stars Christmas Album one year
You walked the garden wall with me
You walked the garden wall with me
I could have had eternity
And we came upon the secret tree
Turned us out eventually
We took the muddy Euphrates
There’s a river, sweet Virginia
Rolling out, it’s like a dream
Join me now, you have it in ya
We’ll come around
And east became Assyria
And east became Assyria
And trouble found me near to ya
You found it hard to hold my hand
You found it hard to hold my hand
We climbed the rocks across the sand
There’s a river, sweet Virginia
Rolling out, it’s like a dream
Join me now, you have it in ya
We’ll come around
It’s all been said and done before
It’s all been said and done before
We stayed until the waters pulled us through
I’m waiting for the time
And I am waiting for the time and
I’m prepared to wait a lifetime over you
Down the river, sweet Virginia
Rolling out, across a dream
Down the river, sweet Virginia
Rolling out, across a dream
Down the river, sweet Virginia
Rolling out, across a dream
Leave me now, you have it in ya
Sedaris, David. Holidays on Ice. New York [u.a.: Little, Brown, 1997. Print.
Yesterday afternoon a woman came to the desk looking for some good books for her daughters to read over Christmas vacation. Once we were all set with books for the girls, the mother confided that she wished she had time to read. I told her that she should treat herself and read Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris. It’s under 200 pages long. Holidays on Ice is a collection of hilarious true stories that you don’t have to read all at once. The best and most famous story in the book is The Santaland Diaries which is about the author’s experience working as an elf at Macy’s in New York.
Here are some more classic, quick reads about Christmas. Treat yourself.
If you are a singer-songwriter and you didn’t feel good about the singer part, you had to encounter Don Van Vliet. Like most I heard him first on Zappa’s HOT RATS and although he sang only on that track, his voice and persona colored the album as much as the day-glo purple that infused the front cover photo.
On Trout Mask Replica was the great divide. You were either dust blown in or dust blown out. But if you were in what a great carnival of sound and poetry would always be there! You became part of his wonderful wobbly artful world.
Like most I heard the Buddah, bluesy recordings later. Go find Diddy Wah Diddy, Abba Zabba, Zig Zag Wanderer, Drop Out Boogie, and come back to his world through his R&B roots.
You get infused with his spirit, and that was good for this singer-songwriter because even more than Dylan or Neil Young or Lou Reed, Don Van Vliet’s Captain Beefheart showed me that the singer had to be the song.
Last night when I read about his death I couldn’t find any of his CD’s in my shelves. My turntable is messed up and so I just looked at all the album covers. This morning I thought to look in my son Miles’ room. There where all the CDs: SHINY BEAST, TROUT MASK, SAFE AS MILK, DOC AT RADAR STATION, the Dust box set and others.
Hats off to The Dangers (Chris LeRoy, Bob Vennum, Brad Vaughn and Tim Loughlin) for putting out the best power pop record of 2010.
“A Little Bit of Light” is gem after gem — songs you can sing along to before each track ends. The music falls somewhere between The Replacements and the Velvet Underground with splashes of Big Star and Tom Petty.
Some of the key tracks include “Glitter Girl,” “Darkman” and “Comes the Morning.” Some local Dangers shows are in the works starting in February
2011, and the band in January starts recording its fourth album in as many years for a September 2011 release. “A Little Bit of Light” was produced by Vennum, who has another big release due out in 2011 when his band The BellRays releases “Black Lightning” stateside.
“Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home!” -Charles Dickens
I highly recommend Chuck Fischer’s pop-up edition of A Christmas Carol. Not only is the book visually stunning, but it also contains the entire text of the Dickens classic. Here’s a great article about Chuck and his latest creation: palmbeachdailynews.com.
PAUL ADAMS Listening Theme 50 : Track One, Side One
by Paul Adams on Saturday, January 1, 2011 at 9:14am
Happy
New Year everyone, hope you’re not suffering too much of a hangover this morning because I’m going to start the new year with a new Listening Theme and as usual I need your help.This is also a special theme because we’ve reached the magic number 50! An appropriate time to stop? Hell no! I’ve got plenty of ideas for the coming year As appropriate to the first day of a new year I’m looking for your recommendations for great opening tracks to albums.
“A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a
human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished
work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the why for
his existence, and will be able to bear almost any how.” -Viktor E. Frankl
Frankl, Viktor E. Man’s Search for Meaning. Boston: Beacon Press, 1956. Print.
Psychiatrist Dr. Viktor E. Frankl was a Holocaust survivor who used his time in concentration camp to study the reasons why some prisoners were miraculously able to maintain a glimmer of hope, while others (understandably) lost their will to live. In spite of the horrific subject matter, this book is strangely uplifting. It’s sort of a cross between Maus: A Survivor’s Tale and The Little Prince.
by Paul Adams on Saturday, January 15, 2011 at 3:18pm
Hello folks,
Time for another Listening Theme, and for the next couple of weeks I’ve decided to concentrate my listening on the works of David Bowie (solo,
collaborations, movie soundtracks, live albums and covers by other artistes) so if you’ve got any favourites, let me know and I’ll take a listen.
Shop Indie Bookstores Klise, Kate. Grounded. New York: Feiwel and Friends, 2010. Fiction. Grades 3-6. 196 pages.
Twelve-year-old Daralynn is alive because she was grounded. Her father, brother, and sister died in a plane crash. Daralynn wasn’t allowed to go on the trip because she was being punished for going fishing without permission. She and her remaining relatives have different reactions to the tragedy Her mother gets extra grumpy, her flamboyant aunt falls in love with a handsome stranger, and her already senile grandmother takes to playing with dolls.
This novel is an excellent portrayal of what it is like to deal with an unexpected death:
“I knew I should have cried, but I couldn’t. I didn’t feel sad. That’s
the other thing about funerals: Sometimes you don’t feel sad. You
don’t feel anything at all other than a sense of floating about
yourself and looking down on the scene, thinking: That’s not really me. That’s not really them.”
After the deaths, Daralynn’s mother gets a job fixing hair at the local funeral parlor. When a crematorium opens in town, she worries about losing customers. Daralynn and her mother drum up extra business by throwing fun “living funeral” parties at the funeral home for people who want to enjoy their funerals while they are still alive.
In spite of the subject matter, this is a joy to read because of all the eccentric townspeople. It’s a really quick read–I recommend it to anyone who has to do a book report in a short amount of time. Klise’s most famous novel, Regarding the Fountain, is even faster because it is written in letters.
Shop Indie Bookstores Klise, Kate, and M S. Klise. Regarding the Fountain: A Tale, in Letters, of Liars and Leaks. New York: Avon Books, 1998.Fiction. Grades 3-5. 138 pages.
If you like Grounded, you will also like:
Shop Indie Bookstores Bartek, Mary. Funerals & Fly Fishing. New York: Henry Holt, 2004. Fiction. Grades 4-7. 148 pages.
And speaking of funerals . . .
I hope I don’t offend my family, but here are couple of my own funeral stories:
At my great aunt Louise’s funeral, my great grandmother’s hearing aid was giving her problems because it was buzzing in her ear. Great Grandma got frustrated, took out her hearing aid and loudly said to it, “Oh, shut up.” And the priest did.
At a summer funeral in Southeast Texas, I got locked in the limo at the burial site. It was blazing hot, and I couldn’t get the windows or the door to open. I kept knocking on the window trying to get someone’s attention, but no one noticed me for about five minutes. When I asked people later why no one opened the door, I was told that they thought I needed a moment alone. Likely story.
At a burial ceremony in Louisiana, we couldn’t find a shovel to put dirt on the coffin. We ended up just sprinkling dirt that we’d dug up with our bare hands. When someone finally located a shovel, a four-year-old child got a hold of it and had so much fun dumping the dirt that he got carried away and did three or four big shovelfuls before an adult noticed and made him stop.
Happy Birthday to A.A. Milne, the creator of Winnie the Pooh
If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you.
–A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh.
A.A. Milne and the real Christopher Robin
Who doesn’t love Winnie the Pooh? Well, when I was about 5 years old, I thought Disney’s Winnie the Pooh character was a bit too babyish. I had a 4 year old friend who always talked about “Pooh Bear this” and “Pooh Bear that” and I would think to myself, “Oh, grow up already!” A few years later, however, I changed my tune when I discovered the philosophical novels of A.A. Milne with delicately drawn “decorations” by Ernest H. Shepard.
Yasgur, Abigail, Joseph Lipner, and Barbara Mendes. Max Said Yes!: The Woodstock Story. Los Angeles, Calif: Change the Universe Press, 2009. Shop Indie Bookstores
“This book lets the light of Woodstock shine on to a new generation. Every home should have a copy of Max Said Yes! The Woodstock Story.” –Richie Havens, folk singer, guitarist, performed at Woodstock 1969.
As you probably already know, Richie Havens was the opening performer at the Woodstock Festival in the summer of 1969. Many years later, my mom and I bumped into the legendary musician while we were strolling around the Guilford Green one summer afternoon. I said “hi” and he gave us a HUGE smileand said “hello” back. It was awesome.
By JOSEPH WHITE, Associated Press Joseph White, Associated Press – Wed Jan 19, 9:11 am ET
BALTIMORE –
Telltale hearts beat with anticipation during a rainy, midnight dreary and beyond, hoping the mysterious visitor to Edgar Allan Poe’s grave would return after a one-year absence.
But once again, the unknown person who for decades has left three roses and a half-empty bottle of cognac at Poe’s grave on the anniversary of the writer’s birth failed to appear Wednesday, fueling speculation that he may have died.
Four impostors came and went overnight. The real one never showed. Around 5 a.m., the dozen Poe fans who were left began to wonder if the eerie ritual is indeed nevermore, so they walked to Poe’s tombstone and performed their own tribute by leaving roses and drinking a cognac toast.
A fascinating tradition that ran for some 60 years and was never fully explained appears to have ended at the downtown Westminster Hall and Burying Ground.
“I think we can safely say it’s not car trouble, and he’s not sick,” said Jeff Jerome, curator of the Poe House and Museum. “This doesn’t look good.”
It would be an ending befitting of the legacy of Poe, the American literary master of the macabre who was known for haunting poems such as “The Raven” and grisly short stories including “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “The Pit and the Pendulum.” He is also credited with writing the first modern detective story, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” He died in 1849 in Baltimore at age 40 after collapsing in a tavern.
Sometime in the 1940s, it seems, an anonymous man began the annual tribute at Poe’s grave. It was first referenced in print in 1949 by The Evening Sun of Baltimore.
Those who have glimpsed the “Poe toaster” always saw him dressed in black, wearing a white scarf with a wide-brimmed hat. Jerome has kept watch over the vigil since 1978, watching from inside the Presbyterian church while Poe fans peered through the locked gates of the cemetery.
After last year’s no-show, Jerome this year was expecting Poe toaster wannabes imitating the real thing, and they showed up in brazen style. One emerged from a white stretch limo shortly after midnight. Two others appeared to be women. The fourth was an older man. All walked in clear sight of the Poe fans, contrary to the secretive nature of the real Poe toaster. All wore black hats and left roses and cognac, and two left notes, but none of the four gave the secret signal that only Jerome knows, and none of the four arranged the roses in the unique pattern established by the Poe toaster over the decades.
The “faux Toasters” provided excitement for the Poe fans who braved rain and near-freezing temperatures through the night. One couple traveled from France, another from Chicago. Two friends came from New York. A mother from Cleveland brought her 19-year-old son because it’s on his bucket list. Raven See, who was named after the Poe poem, took time off from her studies at Elmira College in New York to make her sixth appearance at the vigil. Some sang “Happy Birthday” at midnight and read aloud from Poe’s writings.
“There’s so many conspiracy theories,” See said. “Like it ended in ‘98 and now the church does it. Or maybe in ‘09 they wanted to end it because it was the bicentennial. It just adds to the mystery. The best part of it is meeting people.”
In 1993, the visitor began leaving notes, starting with one that read: “The torch will be passed.” A note in 1998 indicated the originator of the tradition had died and passed it on to his two sons.
The sons didn’t seem to take the duty as seriously as the father. One left a note in 2001 referencing the Super Bowl and another in 2004 implying criticism of France over its objections to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, upsetting many of the traditionalists. When the Poe toaster didn’t show last year, Jerome theorized that the 200th anniversary of Poe’s birth in 2009 might have been considered the appropriate stopping point.
Or, it was thought at the time, perhaps the toaster just had a flat tire on the way to the cemetery.
But that’s the sort of happenstance unlikely to happen two years in a row. Jerome says he’ll return one more year. If the visitor fails to show in 2012, he’ll considered the tradition over and done.
“It’s sort of like a marriage that ends,” Jerome said. “Part of you still wants the warmth that was part of it, and you go looking for the same woman. No, it’s over with. And if it’s over with, it’s over with. If people want to continue the tradition, it’s going to be without me.”
It appears at least some sort of Poe tradition will indeed continue every Jan. 19. Most who attended this year said they plan to return next year, and maybe beyond. Cynthia Pelayo, who traveled from Chicago with her husband for the second straight year, handed out roses after the gates were open shortly before 5 a.m., and those were the flowers that were presented — one by one — at Poe’s grave.
Pelayo also left a note.
“Dear, Edgar,” it said. “You are what all us macabre writers only hope to be. Thank you. ‘Til next year.”
Woof! Michael Wertz’s newest book hits the shelves tomorrow morning–just in time for Virginia Woolf’s birthday!
Shop Indie Bookstores Franco, Betsy and Michael Wertz. A Dazzling Display of Dogs. Berkeley, CA: Tricycle Press, 2011.
The critics say it’s doggone terrific!
Starred review, School Library Journal, January 1, 2011: “This follow up to A Curious Collection of Cats (Tricycle, 2009) is dazzling indeed … a delight for kids, their adults, and maybe even their beloved canine companions.”
Review, Horn Book Magazine, January/February 2011: “The combination of the funny poems and the goofy dogs will make this a great gift book and a sneaky way to inject a little poetry into someone’s life.”
Review, Publishers Weekly, November 29, 2010:
“Franco and Wertz persuasively convey canine behavior … as well as the trials and treasured moments familiar to many owners. Dog lovers won’t want to miss this clever, jubilant gem.”
Review, Roxxy and Jake, my dogs:
“Best dog book of the year!”
ps. Virginia Woolf was a British writer who was born on January 25, 1882. Most of her books are above my reading level.
by Paul Adams on Thursday, February 3, 2011 at 12:01pm
Hello Folks,
It’s my 45th birthday next week and I feel as though I ought to mark the occasion somehow and I can’t think of a better way than to hold a special Listening Theme (yes you’re right, I CAN think of a better way and I may well have a beer or two) Where was I?, oh yes, the special Listening Theme …
I’ve decided that for the next couple of weeks I’m going to listen to albums which (like me) came out in 1966.
Here’s a link to some suitable candidates, so take a look and let me know if you see anything worthy of a listen (or maybe you know of some others).
(Vital Gesture)
Grasshoppers, Asshoppers, or cashhoppers – nobody rides for free. And
the real price to pay for riding along with this band is having to
listen to the underdash 8-track blasting the kind of 60s/70s style rock
‘n’ roll that’s never been considered the coolest by the punk kids —
Dave Edmonds, Creedence, the least bluesy British Invaders, even some
early Tom Petty. And baby, it’s worth it!
Aronson, Virginia. The History of Motown. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2000.
It’s fun to read about what rock stars were like back in their younger years. Stevie Wonder was a prankster and master mimic. Marvin Gaye was painfully shy, and Martha Reeves got her foot in the door by working as a
secretary at the Motown office.
Shop Indie Bookstores Troupe, Quincy, and Lisa Cohen. Little Stevie Wonder. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005.
ps. I named this blog after a Motown compilation album, 40 Forever.
“If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves.“ -Thomas Alva Edison
Thomas Alva Edison earned 1,093 U.S. patents for his inventions which included the light bulb, the phonograph, and moving pictures.
Here are three great books about the American hero:
Shop Indie Bookstores Brown, Don. A Wizard from the Start: The Incredible Boyhood & Amazing Inventions of Thomas Edison. Boston: Houghton Mifflin , 2010.
Shop Indie Bookstores Venezia, Mike. Thomas Edison: Inventor with a Lot of Bright Ideas. New York: Children’s Press, 2009.
Shop Indie Bookstores St, George J, and David Small. So You Want to Be an Inventor?New York, NY: Philomel Books, 2002.
Here are three great websites about Edison:
Thomas Edison National Historical Park for Kids: nps.gov
Very entertaining and easy to read.
Smithsonian: Edison Invents! si.edu
Includes science experiments for kids.
Rutgers University: The Thomas Edison Papers: rutgers.edu
Written in real language–no academic mumbo jumbo–with excellent illustrations.
Shop Indie Bookstores Sís, Peter. Starry
Messenger: A Book Depicting the Life of a Famous Scientist,
Mathematician, Astronomer, Philosopher, Physicist, Galileo Galilei. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1996.
Peter Sís
is a bit of a Renaissance man himself. In addition to writing and painting, he is also a set designer and an award-winning filmmaker. He built a stage set for the famous Joffrey Ballet Company, and he even made a music video for Bob Dylan!
Kinks (Musical group), and Ray Davies. One for the road. New York, N.Y.: Konk Records, 1999.
Who (Musical group). My Generation. London: IBC Studios, 1965
And talking about my generation . . .
Here’s my karaoke version of the Cracker hit, I Hate My Generation:
And here’s the real deal:
Now why would anyone want to die before getting old?
by Paul Adams on Saturday, February 26, 2011 at 1:24pm
Hi all,
Let’s start a new Listening Theme shall we?
I’ve decided that it’s about time I started going back to check out some
sub-genres of the types of music I’ve already covered. One of the ‘big
ones’ was Jazz which I did early on (getting on for two years now). Too
big to do justice in a couple of weeks, but with your help I tried to
listen to as many different styles as I could. Now I’m going back to
concentrate on one particular area – BeBop.
So, it’s
Saturday night, I’ve got an unopened bottle of Jack Daniel’s by my side
(which won’t stay unopened for long) and Spotify fired up ready for the
first suggestion – what shall I listen to?
Harness, Cheryl. Remember the Ladies: 100 Great American Women. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2001.
Rossi, Ann. Created Equal: Women Campaign for the Right to Vote, 1840-1920. Washington, D.C: National Geographic, 2005.
Shop Indie Bookstores Stone, Tanya L, and Rebecca Gibbon. Elizabeth Leads the Way: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the Right to Vote. New York: Henry Holt and Co, 2008.
by Paul Adams on Tuesday, March 15, 2011 at 6:23am
Hi all,
This week I’ve been listening to a new album by a couple of French DJs who perform under the name of The Shoes, a great album called Crack My Bones (a bit dancey, not normally into dance music but I like this). Anyway, it reminded me of some other French acts I also like (Air, Daft Punk) and I realised that that was about it as far as my knowledge of French music goes.
So I need your help with suggestions of other acts from France (any genre, solo or bands) so that I fill the void in my musical knowledge. Can you recommend any particular albums I should check out?. As always, looking forward to hearing your suggestions.
Fitzhugh, Louise. Harriet, the Spy. New York: Harper & Row, 1964.
Kathleen T. Hornig wrote a fascinating (and brave!) essay about the impact Louise Fitzhugh’s classic novel had on her life, On Spies and Purple Socks. Kathleen also wrote From Cover to Cover which is the definitive book on reviewing children’s literature. I follow her excellent guidelines when I write reviews for School Library Journal, but I’m a bit lazy in my blog entries.
Growing up isn’t easy, but then neither is being a grown-up. (It’s an endless battle of the hormones. Once the cramps go away, in march the hot
flashes. I don’t even want to know what’s going to happen a decade from now.) If you want a laugh, read Chelsea Handler’s memoir Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea.
Dahl, Roald, and Quentin Blake. Matilda. New York, N.Y: Viking Kestrel, 1988.
The movie is pretty good, but the book is AWESOME! (See what I mean about being lazy?)
Moments before he is about to break his wife’s heart by telling her he wants a divorce, Sandy Portman gets hit by a car and turns into a dog. His widow Emily, a smart young woman in the publishing industry, is left with nothing because he had already written her out of his will without her knowledge. In the form of a dog, Sandy must help Emily get her life back on track before he is allowed to enter heaven.
This book is loaded with stock characters and it will probably be made into a Lifetime movie. If I were director I’d cast Reese Witherspoon as Emily the young widow, Rob Lowe as Sandy the heartbreaker, Meryl Streep as
Emily’s mean boss, Jane Fonda as Emily’s snobby mother-in-law, Adrian Grenier as the bachelor next door, and Jake as the dog.
Here’s a nice little theme suggested to me by Miss Trixie Martha. She contacted me a week or so back to suggest I listened to songs about (or bands from) LAS VEGAS. A quick Google led to quite a few eligible tracks – more than I expected, and from a wide range of artistes. So, do you know of any Vegas tracks or bands I should try (particularly bands as I can only think of The Killers)?. I’m looking for obscure album tracks so don’t all shout out “Viva Las Vegas”! (although I will be listening to the various versions of that track). Let’s see how long a list we can come up with in a week.
Thanks Trixie, and if anyone else has got an idea for a possible future Listening Theme get in touch – all suggestions will be considered.
A Nest for Celeste
by Henry Cole is one of my all-time favorite chapter books forchildren. It’s the story of a sweet-natured, courageous mouse named Celeste who befriends a teenage apprentice to the legendary bird artist, John James Audubon. Even without illustrations, this novel would be outstanding. The beautifully detailed pencil drawings make it a masterpiece.
ps. Visit HenryCole.net to see a beautiful video preview of A Nest for Celeste.
pps. The Guster song, All the Way Up to Heaven (All the Way Back Home), makes me think of Celeste. If you listen carefully to the studio version, you can even hear fluttering in the background.
Guess what? The official artist of the National Audubon Society, David Sibley, went to my high school! Back in the early 80’s he painted a beautiful mural in our school library. It’s probably worth at least a gazillion dollars now. David is a scientist as well as an artist, and is considered to be the ultimate authority on bird watching and conservation. He has written and illustrated numerous reference books for bird watchers. Almost every public library in the world owns a copy of his most famous work, The Sibley Guide to Birds.
by Paul Adams on Saturday, April 9, 2011 at 3:34pm
Hi all,
For the next couple of weeks I’m going to focus on the Woodstock Festival of 1969. The idea being to go through the list of acts (in performance order – starting with Richie Havens and finishing with Hendrix) and listen to two or three albums from each.
There are a few acts there that I’ve not heard of before so I’m looking forward to this one. As with my Live Aid theme last year I’m going to try to stick with albums that were already released at the time (although that may not be possible, I’ll see how I go). So let’s begin with Richie Havens (someone I’ve only recently started listening to) and his ‘67 album ‘Mixed Bag’. Let me know if you’ve got any other recommendations.
Cheers,
Paul
the small print:
If you’re new to this little project of mine it’s basically an opportunity for me to listen to and discover music and artists I wouldn’t normally listen to by asking my Facebook friends to give me their recommendations (albums and artists that influenced them maybe). I choose a particular music genre or theme or artiste and listen to just that for a week or two. I’ve discovered some great music over the past couple of years (see my previous notes and you’ll get the idea) and I value any contributions you can make.
If you’ve been tagged, you are under no obligation to take part but if you can spare a couple of minutes to recommend some great albums I’ll be most grateful and if you’re reading this and not been tagged (nothing personal) please feel free to participate anyway, the more recommendations the better.
The Beauty Killer series takes place in Portland, Oregon where the elusive serial killer Gretchen Lowell has become a celebrity, mostly because of her good looks. Archie Sheridan is a middle-aged police detective who is
head of the task force to catch her. In spite of his public marital problems and brief stint in a psychiatric ward, he is a well-respected local hero. An ambitious yet lovable young reporter named Susan Ward tags along after Archie and serves as his sidekick. Susan dresses like Cyndi Lauper, changes her hair color on a daily basis, and is always in trouble with her newspaper editor.
Here’s proof that you don’t need to read series books in order. I started with Evil at Heart which is #3 in the series. It was a little too gory for my taste, but I liked Detective Sheridan and Reporter Susan Ward so much that I
wanted to spend more time with them. I was all set to venture upstairs to the stacks to find the earlier books in the series, but then I spotted The Night Season in the bestseller section and I couldn’t resist the shiny, new cover. I ended up liking The Night Season better because it doesn’t focus as much on Gretchen Lowell the Beauty Killer. (The series was in danger of jumping the shark when the local amusement park added a Beauty Killer themed ride.) It’s also not as gruesome.
The Beauty Killer books are the first detective novels that I’ve ever fully enjoyed. (I like true crime books, but most mysteries either remind me of boring cop shows, or they’re too corny like Rita Mae Brown’s Mrs. Murphy series* about a cat lady and her sleuthing pets.) Since I don’t usually like fictional detectives, I never would have picked up these books if there had been a sticker of Sherlock Holmes on the spine. Even though the book trailer makes it seem scary, it’s really more of a comedy than a horror story. If I were a movie director, I’d cast Paul Giamatti (Sideways, John Adams) as Detective Archie Sheridan,
Amanda Bynes (Hairspray, The Amanda Show) as his adoring young sidekick,
When you think of the times that were living in
And you think of the minds that have given in
Run like a child
Wild Thing, you gonna break
And you’re not gonna say but you know its true
Someone’s taken the rug out from under you
Too late, don’t wait, holding back a big mistake.
Sixteen candles
We were hard to handle then
You want to live again?
Set an example follow the street signs
You got these people trampled in a straight line
Running out of time
Drinking down the ice-nine
If you were paying attention the time before
You would have ducked the convention
And hit the door
Run like a child
Wild Thing, you want it more?
Sixteen candles
I was hard to handle then
You want to live again?
I need a long distance answer
Might be a lover but I’m not a dancer
Gimme gimme gimme more chance
Now I’m out in the box seat I’m in denial
Time to pull up the white sheet it’s been a while
Listen flower child
Grew up ’stead of growing wild
And when you think of the times that you’re living in
And you think of the minds that have given in
Run like a child
Wild Thing, it’s been a while
Sixteen candles
Set a good example
Vandals to the handles
We were hard to handle then
Want to live again?
(I’m gonna add some baritone,
That’s a bear with a just one eye)
I want to live again….
by Paul Adams on Thursday, April 28, 2011 at 5:03am
Hi all,
I’m sure it hasn’t escaped your notice but it’s the ‘Big Day’ tomorrow and seeing as the media is going wedding crazy I thought I might as well jump on the bandwagon and have a special Royal Wedding Listening Theme to mark the occasion.
Now, as far as I know, HRH Prince William and Kate Middleton haven’t recorded an album yet but that won’t stop me, I’ll have to listen to other Williams* (Wills, Billys and Bills etc.) and Kates (Katherines etc.) instead – get the idea? Perhaps also some suggestions for appropriate song titles would be fun.
This is a special Listening Theme just for this extended bank holiday weekend, then back to more serious stuff.
Brown, Marcia, and Robert L. Egolf. Stone Soup: An Old Tale. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1947.
A couple of weeks ago I read and told folktales to a group of visiting kindergartners. The children really surprised me with their reactions. I started with one of my childhood favorites Stone Soupabout three hungry French soldiers who visit a town in search of a bite to eat. I asked the kids how they could tell it was an old story. I was expecting them to mention that the villagers didn’t keep their food in a refrigerator, or that the streets were made of stones instead of cement, or that they cooked over a fire instead of an oven. Instead, one of the children shouted out “because there were Nazis!” Next I told the class a story from Ghana about Anansi the Spider, and they thought I said “Nazi” the Spider.
It turned out that the children (kindergartners!) had recently learned about the Holocaust. I decided to switch my lesson plans around a bit and told the story of The Three Little Pigs. Afterward, we discussed who was meaner–Anansi the trickster or the Big Bad Wolf. (I left Hitler out of it.)
Time for another Listening Theme and seeing as I’ve covered British punk a year or two back I thought it’s about time I took a look at the US punk scene. Let’s have some suggestions as to which albums I should check out.
Cheers,
Paul
PS – regarding my earlier teaser video of Camper Van Beethoven performing Wasted back in 1987, well here’s the original by Black Flag: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU7xIqB47vw
Boxing is one of the few sports that I like enough to watch on TV. I think it’s because I grew up without cable. After Saturday morning cartoons were over, the only show left to watch was ABC’s Wide World of Sports which featured the great comedy team of Howard Cosell and Muhammad Ali. I liked Muhammad Ali so much that I sent him a birthday card when I was about 9 years old.
Okay, for all those of you that have been wondering why I haven’t had a Bob Dylan Listening Theme yet – relax, here it is!
The reason for the delay was that my main source of online music (we7.com) only had 30 second previews of Bob’s back catalogue, however now I’ve discovered mflow.com with it’s full length tracks there’s no stopping me. Besides, it’s Bob’s 70th birthday on Tuesday so now seems a good a time as any.
You know the deal by now, let’s have your favourite Bob Dylan albums (solo or collaborations) or any notable Dylan cover versions by other artists and I’ll try to listen to as much as I can over the next couple of weeks.
Lerner, Sharon, Susan Jeffers, and Anna Sewell. Black Beauty. New York: Random House, 2009.
Thanks to my wonderful husband, I have a new hobby–horseback riding! Marc wisely figured that since I care so much about the horse rescue organizations Animal Recovery Mission (ARM) and the South Florida SPCA, I would probably enjoy actually spending time with the animals. He was right.
My teacher Missy Johnson is the best. She is patient and kind which is important because I have absolutely no natural talent for the sport. I’ve been going for lessons a couple of nights a week, and since I’m the last lesson of the day, I get to hang out and chat while she feeds and puts out the horses. It’s weird, but I really love the smell of the barn.
In honor of my new hobby, here are some classic children’s books about horses:
Sewell, Anna. Black Beauty. London: Jarrold and Sons, 1877.
Farley, Walter, and Keith Ward. The Black Stallion. New York: Random House, 1941.
Psychologist Dr. Ruth Westheimer is a brave woman. She grew up in a Swiss orphanage after her parents were taken by the Nazis in Germany. At age 17 she moved to Jerusalem and fought in the Israeli War of Independence. (And she’s only 4 foot six inches tall!) After the war she moved to Paris to study psychology at the Sorbonne University. After graduating, she moved to New York City, received her doctorate at Columbia, and became the most famous sex therapist alive today.
Here are just a few of the books she has written:
Westheimer, Ruth K, and Groat D. De. Dr. Ruth Talks to Kids: Where You Came From, How Your Body Changes, and What Sex Is All About. New York: Aladdin, 1993. Print.
After a bit of a break it’s time to get back to my Listening Themes – I haven’t forgotten.
I’ve been thinking about Birmingham and the West Midlands a bit lately. Firstly I’ve been really busy producing some maps of the area and also because I’m heading up to Birmingham on Sunday for the big athletics meeting – for those who don’t know me, I’m not competing, just spectating I thought I should listen to some of the music that has come out of the Black Country. So, got any ideas of albums by bands/artistes from Birmingham* and the West Midlands?
Cheers, Paul
* that’s Birmingham in the UK not Alabama – so no Emmylou Harris!
“Perrotta has delivered a troubling disquisition on how ordinary people react to extraordinary and inexplicable events, the power of family to hurt and to heal, and the unobtrusive ease with which faith can slide into fanaticism.” — Stephen King
Perrotta, Tom. The Leftovers. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2011. Print.
Tom Perrotta’s latest novel is about how the residents of a small suburban town carry on with their lives after the Rapture has taken away many of their loved ones without warning. For a longer description of the storyline, read this review from the New York Times: nytimes.com.
SPOILER ALERT:
I was disappointed by the book’s ending. Like the Rapture itself (or the last episode of The Sopranos), it happened abruptly without tying up any loose ends. I had grown attached to the characters and wanted to spend more time with them. If this had been a John Irving book, it would have gone on for another 500 pages and I still wouldn’t have wanted it to end. The main characters would have adopted (or shot) a bear and run away to New Hampshire or Austria (or both). The Leftovers could have been a great American classic, had it not ended so soon.
by Paul Adams on Thursday, September 8, 2011 at 5:46am
Hi all,
To mark the passing of Jerry Leiber a couple of weeks ago, I’ll be dedicating my next Listening Theme to the music of Leiber & Stoller.
http://leiberstoller.com/Discography.html
Using this comprehensive discography as my guide (and with your suggestions as usual) I’ll be listening to anything penned (or produced) by Leiber & Stoller – not just the well known recordings by Elvis, The Coasters, The Drifters etc. So lets have some recommendations.
And if that wasn’t enough, I think I’ll attempt one of my music marathons (haven’t had one for a while). I’ll try to listen to as many different recordings of Hound Dog as I can. According to the list there are pleanty of recordings of it around
CRACKER family singer-songwriter, CHRIS LEROY, debuts ten brave tunes that rattle through rock, pop, and folk territory teaming with devils, angels, cads, and peaceniks, even Eva Braun and John Lennon. Harmonies with (Bucksworth) Lisa Nemetz bring it home.
Chris LeRoy Interview with questions provided by morst
The first thing I notice about your new album is that it’s the first one you’ve released under your own name. Will this be your “Hot Rats?”
Hey! I love HOT RATS. Best album cover ever, and did consolidate Zappa as compose and player. I love my music collaborators, and they have helped produce all my stuff. But when you bring a song to a band the band shapes the song. Usually changes for the better, but change all the same.Folks who have heard my early versions of songs that became Cracker, or Dangers or Mighty Grasshopper recordings noted there is something special about those recordings. So I started from those first tracks and produced the album solo.The songs are “ragged but right.”
So it’s not The Dangers, and it’s not The Hoppers. Who is playing with you on this album? I heard you have at least one track with Lisa Nemetz on vocals?
It is a little like Traffic’s John Barleycorn album. Like Winwood I intended to play everything. But then wisely sought out friends for variety!Drummers Brad Vaughn (Dangers), Chad Villareal and Art Schindele (Hoppers) were essential. Tony Fate (Hoppers) and Bob Vennum (Dangers) appear on one guitar track each, as does Tim Loughlin with his stomper bass.
It was still a very solo album until Lisa Nemetz came in to sing.I was looking for female backing vocals but instead had a woman’s perspective and take on my material.It changed the record because first I love her voice and second she informed the female characters in the songs. Lisa inhabited the angel in HAPPY MAN, Eva Braun in THE OTHER SIDE, and the Spirit in YEARS.She made great suggestions and infiltrated the record in a very positive manner.
And our voices flow just right.So that is correct, morst, Lisa on vocals.
——–
And you sing and play guitar and bass on this?
Minus the drums I play everything, lots of Hammond B-3, maybe too much.All together I am a very grungy band! But I must note Tony Fate’s beautiful jazz toned solo on RIVER RISE ABOVE. He is a soulful cat.
Tell me about the title, is “The Spirit That Brings Us Here” a song on the album, or a phrase from a song like “this could be the death of me?”
It is a line from the song YEARS. Lo-Fi Maria Baglien picked it. The song YEARS is from the 1990’s when I almost stopped playing music because it had become so hard for me to write songs. I missed my music friends and that songwriting gift. One afternoon I dug my guitar out a closet because this melody hung round me. The song became YEARS, which celebrated getting back that elusive power.(Garod Wayman is a cool fan who encouraged me to record it and get on with a solo album in general. I read my email! Thanks, sir).
It is the spirit of music that pulls us, artist and audience, together. It is a theme that runs through many of my songs, from RADIO CITY to GET HIGH… I believe we are connected through music in powerful ways. The Crumbs understand this well. “Do you believe in Rock and Roll?”
Any notes about the artwork that I’ve seen for The Spirit That Brings Us Here? You take the photo yourself?
The cover is a sculpture, a kind of inverted lamp. It is by a cool friend from San Francisco Brian R. Mathis, a talented actor, stage director, and educator. The 2003 piece is called “ Mary in the Sky with Diamonds” A couple weeks ago he was showing me some his artwork on his ipad and I locked into this photo of Mary. A beautiful and mysterious work that has already caught on with fans. Mary is pain and peace, both are themes in the new album.
The Campout 7 gig poster shows The Dangers performing in Pioneertown for the annual Cracker-Camper Van Beethoven event. Will any of these new songs be included in The Dangers’ set?
I am happy to get The Dangers back out to the campout.Last year I had to switch bands when Bob Vennum picked up a conflicting BellRays gig.As much fun as was had with THE MIGHTY GRASSHOPPERS, I wanted to play new stuff from The Danger’s A LITTLE BIT OF LIGHT album.This year we can and yes there will be a few new solo album songs debuted too, along with Lisa Nemetz up there to sing too!
This year, the post-campout Fi-Stock studio party will be held at a new location in Redlands. Did you record this album at the new studio? Does the studio have a name yet, and have you still got Maria Baglien behind the board for this project?
All hail the new Lo-Fi studio. I think on paper it is called STUDIO, but, morst, you and I know it will always be Lo-Fi, with Maria at the helm.The new album is the first project from the new place, and appears to have a great drum sound.I just heard the mastered version last night and the late night vibe is intact!
How does your geographic location influence your songwriting? Would these songs be different if you lived in Buffalo, NY instead of the IE?
As my songs are mostly internal struggles I don’t know how much location would influence the craft.Like Randy Newman, a deep influence, my songs this time abound with characters.The first track, HAPPY MAN, is an update from The Book of Job, This time devil negotiates with a “jukebox angel” to do Job wrong and send him down river.THE OTHER SIDE has Eva Braun rethinking her relationship with Adolph Hitler, in her last days in a bunker. If you listen hard you will find Osama Bin Ladin too. Also there are unnamed cads (COME TO ME) and semi-villains throughout the album, even a fantasy scene with Mark David Chapman, and John Lennon in PEACE BREAKS OUT.
I don’t the IE had anything to do with it. It is all in my head!I do want to hear from folks about the new set of songs. I think there is a bit of a breakthrough with the last song, RIVER RISE ABOVE.Another good friend, Robert Daeley, has me working on a poetry book of my songs. I made a direct effort to approach this song as a poem first. It has a very reductive language, and cadence:
As king Dylan-head I remember being thrilled with the first massive Dylan lyric book came out. I sat for hours with my guitar and played along. But without a guitar, and divorced from melody, many many songs don’t translate as poetry smoothly. You need to hear the poetry of his phrasing, that is the magic.
RIVER RISE ABOVE tries, and I mean tries, to sit as poetry. So maybe I have one for the book!
What’s next? Are you planning to start any more bands? Maybe a punk/thrash outfit?
I do seem to be a bit of a moving target. Someone thinks SO GOOD from the new album is a punk song.SIDE NOTE: One thing about that track is that there are only acoustic guitars. No electric guitars were harmed in the making of SO GOOD. Mastering guru, Bob Lanzner from TECHNOVOICE couldn’t believe it. It was my Street Fighting Man challenge!
Back to your question, what’s next? I mark steps in albums. This is my sixth album and I see an album up ahead from THE MIGHTY GRASSHOPPERS. We have a batch of good new songs. THE DANGERS got started on new stuff but Bob V had a lot of BELLRAYS work (GO BellRays!) and we planned to take a year and make an album in stages.I think that will happen too.Still, there are very few HOPPERS shows and light years between DANGERS events so I do need to figure how to promote THE SPIRIT THAT BRINGS US HERE.Stage one is an acoustic duo with LISA NEMETZ. We are debuting at Campout 7 and Fi-Stock. We both know some of these tunes need a band so… Now if I did go the punk/thrash route I have a couple of potential names: Iron Thing, Scab Calloway, Davy and Goliath Want To Eat Your Children, and my favorite, Christian Bubbly Death.
Do you have any plans to press vinyl or release The Spirit That Brings Us Here as high-definition digital audio? I’m no longer satisfied with CD’s. (How ya gonna keep em down on the farm, after they’ve heard 24-bit?) No, I won’t settle for an 8-track, though if you release one I’d probably buy it for the novelty aspect.
Vinyl is intriguing. morst, have all your friends buy one Spirit CD so I can spring for the vinyl….
You sure write & record a lot of music – will you be able to tour the USA playing music any time soon? Please?
Well, since you said please, I can guarantee that I will triple my shows this year and attempt to get to you as a duo, or band in the near future. I get asked a whole bunch!! And you all said please!
Last question – did I forget anything? Anything you’d like to add? Any new tattoos?
You never forget anything, and I am afraid of tattoos…. But I would like to add my heartfelt thanks to the Crumbs and Crumbettes out there who have been so enthusiastic about my music, buying the CD’s, championing me as a songwriter, singing along to GET HIGH (including hand motions), and pushing me forward. David and Johnny opened doors for me but you guys pushed me through.You folks continue to make this not just possible but inevitable.GO DANGERS! GO HOPPERS! GO LISA AND CHRIS!
My favorite song from David Lowery’s solo album is a dreamy waltz called I Sold the Arabs the Moon. What I like so much is that the words sound like the scenes they are describing–even if you just say them aloud. For example, the phrase “English the sea” sounds like a soft wave crashing onto the seashore of Lyme Regis.
The afternoon showers it brought during tea -David Lowery
It goes a lot deeper than that. In his blog 300 Songs Lowery explains that the song was inspired by a phrase in a book by Gabriel García Márquez, and a helicopter flight over Iraq.
I like the song because it sounds pretty. I also like that it has the same story structure as a lot of children’s books. Like The House that Jack Built, There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly, and Drummer Hoff, I Sold the Arabs the Moon features a list of actions that builds and repeats. In the first verse he sells the Arabs the moon, next the English the sea, and finally the Yankees the sky.
Emberley, Barbara, and Ed Emberley. Drummer Hoff. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall, 1967.
David Lowery has a blog called 300 Songs where he explains the stories behind the hundreds of songs he has written. Even if you aren’t familiar with his music, you will like reading his blog. It’s full of great stories and insights.
To hear “I Sold the Arabs the Moon” played live, come to CampOut 7. It will be the music festival of a lifetime.
You cannot find a more heartfelt and emotionally direct song from Davies than Oklahoma USA. As I am going over a couple cover songs for my new music with Lisa Nemetz as BLUE * WAGON, I look to Davies (always) to steer me to real, vulnerable characters. The sad wistful woman in OKLAHOMA USA carries the same wanderlust we are trying to portray in our set and new album. It is the emotional center of Muswell Hillbillies, which, in turn, is a heck of a template for a new album. Please listen to as many Kinks songs a day as is necessary… Chris
OKLAHOMA USA
(RAY DAVIES)
All life we work but work is bore,
If life’s for livin’ what’s livin’ for,
She lives in a house that’s near decay,
Built for the industrial revolution,
But in her dreams she is far away,
In Oklahoma U.S.A.
With Shirley Jones and Gordon McRea,
As she buys her paper at the corner shop,
She’s walkin’ on the surrey with the fringe on top,
Cos in her dreams she is far away,
In Oklahoma U.S.A.,
She walks to work but she’s still in a daze,
She’s Rita Hayworth or Doris Day,
And Errol Flynn’s gonna take her away,
To Oklahoma U.S.A.,
All life we work but work is a bore,
If life’s for livin’ then what’s livin’ for.
And if you want to buy a great Kinks album start here…
Ever since I fell in love
A feeling that I don’t belong
Ever since that push came shove
A feeling that I can’t hold on
You said “it’s no big deal
To beg and borrow and steal,” for real!
You said I’d never crawl again
Someday I’m walking out on you
You said I’d never crawl again
Ever since I fell away
I close the door on everything
Ever since the break of day
I don’t care what tomorrow brings
You said that “Time and tide
just took me for a ride,” Why?
You said I’d never crawl again
Someday I’m walking out on you
You said I’d never crawl again
Rise up almost good as new
You said I’d never crawl again
Underneath the watchful moon
Underneath the stars that shine
Kept a careful watch on you
And carefully you slipped my mind
You said a once blue moon
Will always leave the room, and soon!
You said I’d never crawl again
Someday I’m walking out on you
You said I’d never crawl again
Rise up almost good as new
You said I’d never crawl again
Promises are meant forever
You said I’d never crawl again
Never, never, never
Crawl again
I’ll never crawl again
I’ll never crawl again
Listening Theme (Songbook Highway EXCLUSIVE!) – The Power Ballad
Here you go, a Listening Theme just for Songbook Highway visitors. My Listening Theme project usually appears on my Facebook page (and duplicated here) but this time my Facebook friends and regular Listening Theme participants will have to come over to here for a change.
Anyway, here’s how it works (if you didn’t already know), I choose a random theme/music genre and ask my Facebook and Songbook Highway friends to recommend tracks or albums to me to listen to. I’ll listen to as many as I can for a week or two, hopefully discovering some new music I hadn’t heard before, then move on to another theme – simple.
This time it’s the turn of the ‘Power Ballad’. What I would like from you is your suggestions of some great Power Ballads, not just the usual ones (I wouldn’t be discovering much if you all said Foreigner ‘I Want To Know What Love Is’ – even though it is a great track).
If I were to tide you over with a fresh Cracker pick, it would have to be something from the Music and Maritime Festival in Duluth MN this past July 15th. http://www.archive.org/details/Cracker2011-07-15
01. intro 02. Movie Star 03. Teen Angst 04. The Riverside 05. Gimme One More Chance 06. I See The Light 07. Sweet Potato 08. This Is Crackersoul 09. Eurotrash…
Langton, Jerry. Showdown: How the Outlaws, Hell Angels and Cops Fought for Control of the Streets. Mississauga, Ont: Wiley, 2010. Print.
The Outlaws Motorcycle Club is one of the oldest and largest riding organizations in the world. It is also one of the most widely feared. “God forgives, Outlaws don’t” is the official motto. Members of this “one percenter” club are so scary and have such a strong code of silence that very few people have written about them for fear of retaliation.
When I was in my early twenties, I had a brief encounter with a member of this legendary organization.
We were on a family car trip to Vermont when I spotted a real Outlaw riding behind us on the highway. Like an idiot, I pointed at him and loudly announced to everyone in the car, “Hey! Take a look at this guy! He’s a REAL biker not one of those Harley Davidson Weekend Warriors posers.”I continued to rudely stare at him as if he was a shark in an aquarium tank.
Two whole months later I was at a Ramones show in Toad’s Place when the same guy came up to me and said, “Hey–were you pointing at me in Vermont?”
And speaking of motorcycles . . .
Here are three outstanding novels for kids who like motorcycles:
Bawden, Nina. Granny the Pag. New York: Clarion Books, 1996. Print.
Cleary, Beverly, and Louis Darling. Runaway Ralph. New York: Morrow, 1970. Print.
Before THE SPIRIT THAT BRINGS US HERE was a sleepy hotel version of this song. Lisa Nemetz (BLUE WAGON) brings it up to day… great feel and template for the debut BLUE*WAGON album.
COME TO ME
I was just a young thing
Had no understanding
Used to lose my head and heart but…
Got up on the wrong day
Right up in the wrong way
Lose my way from the very start but…
I’ve grown up enough to tear that picture apart
Come To Me
Whatever you have heard
I’ve never used that word before, oh I
Come To Me
Whatever kind of lie
I never used to try before, oh I
Come to Me
Come into the right line
Move in the direction
Maybe you can be that someone but..
I could never hold you
Fast to your affections
Maybe I could hold you one day
I’ve grown up enough to feel the sun, but why?
Come To Me
Don’t ever breathe a word
I’ve never been what you have heard, oh I…
Come To Me
Before you think I lie
I’d never try make you cry, oh my
Come to Me
Come into the right line
Move in the direction
Maybe you can be that someone but.
I could never hold you
Fast to your affections
Maybe I could hold you one day
I’ve grown up enough to feel the sun, but why?
ROLL AWAY THE STONE: LEON and MOTT
Of all the biblical imagery that dots our pop tones, “roll away the stone” has rock flair. Two masterful rock songs, Leon Russell’s and Mott The Hoople’s ROLL AWAY THE STONE, both live up to the solid promise the iconography provides.
Penned by Ian Hunter, Mott’s version portrays the stone as his obstacle to love. He announces from the get go: Baby if you just say you still care
Follow you most anywhere
Roll away the stone, roll away the stone.
The partner in question need only roll away the cold shoulder, say she cares, and let Mr. Hunter offer the chance to fall in love once again. Of course, we don’t trust him for a second. Ian is always the cad, but also a chum, someone to sing along with at the dancehall. So you can’t get too offended. It is that same lowbrow charm that gives ALL THE YOUNG DUDES its emotional core. You always dig hanging with dudes like this.
Once this idea is established he can let down his guard: There’s a rockabilly party on Saturday night
Are you gonna be there
(Well I got my invite)
Gonna bring your records
(Oh, will do)
Mission accomplished. He’s got the “bird” and the records too. He calls out in triumph… Made it!
Leon Russell is also looking for a connection but this classic track from his classic debut album clings more desperately. He is the jilted lover in the tale:
Well it’s such a strange world that I’m living in
She was my woman and he was my friend
But I was wrong again
Great lyric economy here, but the point is that Leon understands he has lost, that he just couldn’t see the strange changes she put him through. It is a song from the other side. Still, what I really like about this song is his image of redemption. He asks her to..
Roll away the stone
Don’t leave me here alone
Resurrect me and protect me
Don’t leave me laying here
What will they do in 2000 years?
He hopeless and hapless, pining for her brief return, and figures it will take a couple millennia. This twisted sentiment lays over one of the best rocking tracks ever put down with both Eric Clapton and George Harrison riffing it home. The Stones would do well to reference it if they attempt that last album.
Both tracks are essential rock. I appreciate how Hunter and Russell found ways to incorporate the same religious image, and move it into the profane with no qualms. In Ian Hunter’s case religion is not the point. After the party and the girl and the records he will be found out and the stone rolled back. But what about old Leon?
What can this poor boy do?
His is a bit of a mystery, which is why I favor it. The stone remains. Makes me want to roll my own…
Listen and enjoy the masters!!!! ~ Chris LeRoy
ROLL AWAY THE STONE
(Ian Hunter)
Baby if you just say you still care
Follow you most anywhere
Roll away the stone, roll away the stone.
And, in the darkest night,
I’ll keep you safe and all right
Roll away the stone, roll away the stone
Won’t you roll away the stone
Why be cold and so alone?
Won’t you roll away the stone
Don’t you let it die
No matter if fools say we can’t win
I know I’ll fall in love again
Roll away the stone, roll away the stone
So sing, we still got a chance
Baby in love and sweet romance
Roll away the stone, roll away the stone
Won’t you roll away the stone
Why be cold and so alone?
Won’t you roll away the stone
Don’t you let it lie
There’s a rockabilly party on Saturday night
Are you gonna be there
(Well I got my invite)
Gonna bring your records
(Oh, will do)
Made it!
Won’t you roll away the stone
Why be cold and so alone?
Won’t you roll away the stone
Don’t you let it die
Come on roll
Come on roll, yeah
Come on roll
I want you to roll
Come on, yeah
Come on roll
If you ever wondered who creates those vibrant Cracker/ CVB CAMPOUT posters, or that trippy the cover of David Lowery’s The Palace Guards, or Johnathan Segels’ Honey, well that would be Michael Wertz.
This wonderful commercial artist has a whimsical vibe and an instantly recognizable touch… Our group, Blue-Wagon, met him at the most recent (and best) CAMPOUT in Pioneertown. Michael did a quick photo shoot for us and his feel comes right through the lens! Check out his portfolio and buy a cool shirt. Dig Michael Wertz!
Taylor, Theodore. The Cay. Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday, 1969. Print.
Here’s what the critics had to say about Cara Haycak’s unique coming of age story set in an exotic island off the coast of Ecuador: “Readers will be enchanted by the exotic, magical qualities of this coming-of-age story. Unique and beautifully written.” –Kirkus Reviews.
“Haycak serves up a rich literary stew, like a chef who throws all her ingredients into the pot at once.” –Voice of Youth Advocates.
“Haycak writes a captivating, insightful story, and the vividly evoked setting, cultural specifics, and strong characterizations distinguish this inventive, ambitious effort from a talented new author.” –Gillian Engberg, Booklist.
By the way, Cara the Author is really fun. I had the pleasure of sitting next to the author at my friend Dib Ziade’s 50th birthday party.Cara named a character in Red Palms after Señor Ziade!
PEACE BREAKS OUT
Janie had a gun
Now she don’t have one
When she woke up she just didn’t need it
Frankie had a knife
Used it all his life
But he tossed it and did not retrieve it
Larry used his fist
But he turned his wrist
He hails a waitress at the coffee counter
Suzie’s in a gang
But she turned and ran
Now she’s a model to the friends around her
Peace breaks out on the Saturday sun
And now it’s three o’clock in the morning
Thousands in the street
Beat a soft retreat
They left their cars and they just started walking
Nothing is real
Cross to Strawberry Fields
They sat down and they started talking
Peace breaks out in the Saturday sun
And now it’s three o’clock in the morning
Janie had a gun
But she don’t need one…
Frankie had a knife
Used it all his life…
Glaze in his eye
Catcher in The Rye
Goes from Central Park to The Dakota
No one says why, but he walks on by
John Lennon smiles from his Toyota, yeah!
“The magic was in the way Campbell, his family, and the crowd, many of whom had grown up with the singer, respected the muse despite its decaying state. How they defiantly, beautifully kept that conduit to the sublime open wide enough to deliver a clear, honest message about both the important and unimportant things, about how one becomes another as time passes.”
—Randall Roberts
When Johnny Hickman first met Jim Dalton, he could have guessed they’d become sentence-finishing friends and mind-reading bandmates.
A friend of Hickman’s had told him to see Dalton’s Denver-based country band, the Railbenders. As half of alt-rock band Cracker, Hickman had moved to Loveland to raise a family with his wife — and seeing Dalton front the Railbenders was just another step in getting to know the music community of which he was now a part….
My Five Essential Halloween Films I am a horror wimp. I avoid gore. However, I get out all my “scary” movies every Halloween and relive my childhood. Here are five that stand out for me this season…. Chris LeRoy
1. (1935) Bride of Frankenstein: Director James Whale’s masterpiece is the Frankenstein franchise peak. Brimming with creative energy, it is also the best of the Universal monster movies. Ernest Thesiger’s Doctor Pretorius is the quirky centerpiece and embodies the renegade spirit of the director. Karloff plays The Monster for empathy; he is hunted and misunderstood. You don’t fear him. You lament his tragic fate. If you become a Whale fan, track down his much less known, The Old Dark House.
2. (1939) The Cat and The Canary: From the stage play and 1927 silent film, Bob Hope teams with Paulette Goddard for night in a haunted mansion with a greedy group of relatives and a crazy cat-like killer. Funny,and spooky, it abounds in secret passages and great chemistry. It is the precursor to the other great Hope/Goddard comedy chiller set in Cuba, 1940’s The Ghost Breakers.
3. (1963) The Haunting: A year after West Side Story Director Robert Wise delivers the perfect adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s classic “The Haunting of Hill House.” This is the classic evil house film, a reminder that a great horror film does not need blood to do its job. Russ Tamblyn adds the humor but Julie Harris is transcendent as the sad romantic with supernatural powers and a pipeline to the dark secrets of Hill House.
4. (1966) It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown: As sure as Charlie Brown will miss that football I need to watch this timeless special to find the Halloween spirit. I marvel at its colors, its cheesy effects, its odd inclusion of Snoopy’s downed WWI flying ace shtick, and its moody flute sound track. Most of all, I keep coming back for Linus’ belief in The Great Pumpkin. His grand delusion is what is great about being a kid: you really believe. We keep coming back to watch every year to remember that we were kids who once believed.
5. (1922) Nosferatu: F.W. Murnau’s silent classic is based on the Dracula novel. The filmmaker sued by the Stoker family estate Nosferatu was to be destroyed. Thank goodness German law did not enforce the destruction because Max Schreck as Count Orlok embodies the cruelty and creepiness of the novel. As much as I enjoy Bella Lugosi, this is not your elegant, socialite vampire. Orlok is deadly and relentless in his pursuit of the young real estate agent’s wife. Her personal sacrifice to Orlok to save her husband carries a simple power that the more complex Dracula movies miss. This is real human sacrifice. Never mind that it is silent, the film moves like heavy steps up the stairs of your subconscious.
Susan Orlean’s book about Hollywood’s most celebrated rescue dog is not your ordinary dog story. It’s about the impact of moving pictures (There were more canine roles during the silent film era), the use of dogs in the military, the social history of dog ownership (obedience classes are a fairly new concept), and much more. Learn more about this great tale and listen to an interview (with the author, not the dog) on npr.com.
ps. October is Adopt a Shelter Dog Month. Visit your local Humane Society and adopt a friend for life.
pps. Patti Page recently rerecorded “Doggie in the Window” to “Doggie in the Shelter.” 59 years later, she still sounds amazing.
Why Do We Bob for Apples on Halloween?
Halloween History & Customs
By David Emery, About.com Guide http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/halloween/a/Bobbing-For-Apples-On-Halloween.htm
SOME SAY the custom of bobbing for apples dates all the way back to pre-Christian Ireland and the festival of Samhain, though there’s little documentary evidence to support this. Apple bobbing also been popularly associated with Pomona, the ancient Roman goddess of fruits, trees, and gardens in whose honor a festival was supposedly held each year on November first. But that, too, stands on shaky historical ground, apparently, as some question whether such a festival ever actually existed.
We can say with more certainty that the game of apple bobbing goes back at least a few hundred years, that it originated in the British Isles (Ireland and Scotland in particular), and that it originally had something to do with fortune telling. British author W. H. Davenport Adams, who attributed belief in the prognosticative power of apples to “old Celtic fairy lore,” described the game as follows in his 1902 book, Curiosities of Superstition:
[The apples] are thrown into a tub of water, and you endeavour to catch one in your mouth as they bob round and round in provoking fashion. When you have caught one, you peel it carefully, and pass the long strip of peel thrice, sunwise, round your head; after which you throw it over your shoulder, and it falls to the ground in the shape of the initial letter of your true love’s name.
Other Halloween divination games traditionally played in various parts of Great Britain included “snap apple” — similar to bobbing for apples except the fruit is hung from the ceiling on strings — and naming nutshells after prospective love interests and placing them near a fire to see which would burn steadily — indicating true love — and which would crack or pop and fly off the hearth — revealing a passing fancy. Accordingly, Halloween used to be known as “Snap-Apple Night” or “Nutcrack Night” in places where these customs were observed.
Some folks quibble about who wrote what song, but Chuck Berry is the supreme word and deed in rock and roll. The Rolling Stones knew it, as did The Beatles and Elvis understood it too. Only Jerry Lee Lewis could match the intensity at times, but oh those exquisite lines and full throttled solos! Chuck is still alive years after making it to the promised land… Celebrate that! ~CL
…Los Angeles give me Norfolk Virginia,
Tidewater four ten O nine
Tell the folks back home this is the promised land callin’
And the poor boy’s on the line.
“David Small evokes the mad scientific world of the 1950s beautifully, a time when everyone believed that science could fix everything . . . Capturing body language and facial expressions subtly, Stitches becomes in Small’s skillful hands a powerful story, an emotionally charged autobiography.” –R. Crumb
“Small, in a style of dry menace, draws us a boy’s life that you wouldn’t want to live but you can’t put down. From its first line four pages in, ‘Mama had her little cough’, we know that we are in the hands of a master.” –Jules Feiffer
Judging by the bright, cheerful children’s book illustrations David Small is most famous for, you would never guess that his own childhood was so dark. All families are a bit dysfunctional, but David Small’s family was criminally insane. His grandmother, who used to discipline him with scalding hot water, was institutionalized after she locked her husband in the basement, set the house on fire, and celebrated by dancing around naked in the front yard. David Small’s father, a radiologist, used extremely high levels of radiation on his son in an attempt to come up with a cure for sinusitis. These experimental treatments were likely the cause of the cancerous growth that appeared on David’s neck. The growth grew and grew, and David’s mother put off taking him to a pediatrician for years because she didn’t want to throw away good money. Years later, when David’s growth finally became too big to ignore, he was operated on, and awoke to discover that one of his vocal chords had been removed along with the growth. He could no longer speak above a whisper.
Thankfully, David and his brother developed creative ways to escape the abuse. David turned to art and became an award-winning children’s author. His brother turned to music and became a professional classical percussionist. This is the most compelling graphic novel/memoir I’ve read since Art Spiegelman‘s Breakdowns.
Virginians have always enjoyed their liquor, and for much of the 18th century, their preferred drink was rum. But when war and tariffs made imported rum hard to come by, George Washington saw an opportunity. Why not make liquor out of grains he was growing on his farms…..?
by Paul Adams on Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 5:26am
Hi all,
The next few Listening Themes will concentrate on some of our greatest songwriters – first off is Leonard Cohen. I’ll be listening to his recordings and covers of his songs by other artists. As usual, I’d be grateful of any recommendations you can give.
Yep Roc Records shared the following link and had this to say about it: A great article and three videos from Nick Lowe’s visit to The GRAMMY Museum, including some cool stories about first meeting Elvis Costello. http://www.grammy.com/news/the-high-points-of-nick-lowe#ooid Pioneering rock musician/producer Nick Lowe was the featured guest for a … check it out!
Myers, Christopher. Black Cat. New York: Scholastic Press, 1999. Print.
Lots of parents come to the library this time of year searching for books to match their children’s costumes. Here are a few of my favorite pairings: For the Egyptian princess:
There is a place for The Brothers Grimm in our Halloween experience.
Fairy tales have spawn some of our most haunted, chilling images, in our minds when we were young. In “The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales” Psychologist Bruno Bettelheim explores the symbolic importance of fairy tales and how they shape emotions in youth.
How do you deal with death and abandonment as a kid? These dark tales give us a blueprint.
The book is divided into two sections. “A Pocketful of Magic,” outlines Bettelheim’s thoughts on the value of fairy tales for children, and the second “In Fairy Land,” presents psychoanalytical readings of popular fairy tales, such as Hansel and Gretel, Snow White and my fave, Little Red Riding Hood….
My husband and I recently celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary. Six years ago today, we were honeymooning in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico as the town was getting ready for the día de los muertos/Day of the Dead holiday. Marc and I were in a cab headed to a nearby beach, when we passed by a beautiful cemetery all decked out in marigolds and other traditional Day of the Dead decorations.
Then we saw something strange . . .
A young woman was crossing the street carrying a human head under her arm.
Luckily, it turned out to be just a mannequin head. She was on her way to the neighborhood beauty school.
Like the mannequin head, the Day of the Dead holiday isn’t half as scary as it seems at first glance. It is simply a time to remember and honor loved ones who have passed away. There is even a sense of whimsy to the holiday, almost like our Halloween. One of the most popular symbols of the holiday is the calavera, or skull.
And speaking of The Day of the Dead . . .
Here are some great children’s books that celebrate the fun side of the Mexican holiday:
A new exhibit at the Smithsonian showcases magisterial images of stars and planets light years away from our own…
When Jonathan McDowell first got interested in space when he was a kid, growing up in the United States and England during the space race. “It’s always been a bit of a philosophical thing for me,” he said, “the questions of where do we come from, and the awe and majesty of the scales involved.” Now, a few decades and one eponymous asteroid later, an exhibit he helped curate at the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum is, he hopes, giving more people that same curiosity about the world that inspired his career as a scientist at the Smithsonian’s Astrophysical Observatory….
One fun way to help the economy is to shop locally. A hand-wrapped holiday gift from a local boutique (sent via US Mail to support your local letter carrier) is much more meaningful than something bought online from a huge corporation. It’s also good for your community.
Here are some great picture books about shops and shopping:
Rylant, Cynthia. The Bookshop Dog. New York: Blue Sky Press/Scholastic, 1996. Print.
Wells, Rosemary. Bunny Money. New York: Dial Books for Young Readers, 1997. Print.
Dodds, Dayle A, and Jill McElmurry. The Kettles Get New Clothes. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press, 2002. Print.
Lewin, Ted. Market!New York: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books, 1996. Print.
Lobel, Anita, and Arnold Lobel. On Market Street. New York: Greenwillow Books, 1981. Print.
Shaw, Nancy, and Margot Apple. Sheep in a Shop. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991. Print.
A corn dog is a hot dog sausage coated in a thick layer of cornmeal batter and deep fried in oil, although some are baked. Almost all corn dogs are served on wooden sticks, though some early versions had no stick.HistoryThere is some debate as to the exact origins of the corn dog; they appeared in some ways in the US by the 1920s, and were popularized nationally in the 1940s. A US patent filed in 1927, granted in 1929, for a Combined Dipping, Cooking, and Article Holding Apparatus, describes corn dogs, among other fried food impaled on a stick; it reads in part:In 300 Years of Kitchen Collectibles, author Linda Campbell Franklin states that a “Krusty Korn Dog baker” machine appeared in the 1929 Albert Pick-L. Barth wholesale catalog of hotel and restaurant supplies. The ‘korn dogs’ were baked in a corn batter and resembled ears of corn when cooked.An article in The New York Times made reference to “corn dog” stands as early as 1947. A number of current corn dog vendors lay claim that credit for the invention and/or popularization of the corn dog. Carl and Neil Fletcher lay such a claim, having introduced their “Corny Dogs” at the Texas State Fair sometime between 1938 and 1942. The Pronto Pup vendors at the Minnesota State Fair claim to have invented the corn dog in 1941. Cozy Dog Drive-in, in Springfield, Illinois, claims to have been the first to serve corn dogs on sticks, in 1946. Also in 1946, Dave Barham opened the first location of Hot Dog on a Stick at Muscle Beach, Santa Monica, California.
FANNY and ALEXANDER on Criterion Blu-Ray… one of the most sumptuous films ever http://bit.ly/u2eVKh
If you had only one Bergman film for your desert island cache (and you dropped The Seventh Seal overboard by accident), this is the film you would build your new world around. His most accessible work and the colors!!!! The Christmas scenes alone are worth it… CL
Ingmar Bergman’s visually ravishing family epic is back, in a new and improved higher-resolution scan, for our Blu-ray edition from Criterion….
If you imagine a world where the films of Bergman, Truffaut, Altman, Mike Leigh, and Woody Allen (among others) don’t yet exist, you can begin to understand the prodigious influence of this movie…
The critics absolutely loved the newest book by Pulitzer Prize winning author, Jeffrey Eugenides. Publisher’s Weekly put it at the top of their Best Books of 2011 list.
Eugenides, Jeffrey. The Marriage Plot. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011. Print.
If you went to college in the 1980’s, you will especially like this book. It brings back memories of all those silly comp lit discussions about semiotics, deconstruction, and “coming to voice.”
“Mr. Eugenides brings the period into bright detail—the brands of beer, the music, the affectations—and his send-ups of the pretensions of chic undergraduate subcultures are hilarious and charmingly rendered” –Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal
“No one’s more adept at channeling teenage angst than Jeffrey Eugenides. Not even J. D. Salinger . . . ” –MichikoKakutani, New York Times
Sid and Nancy and Gimme Shelter make Alec Baldwins’ list of top ten Criterion releases. Also if you have never seen his number six pick Kurosawa’s High and Low, you may miss what magic the grand Japanese director brought to contemporary tales. Nary a samurai here, but Toshiro Mifune is at is best. Below is Baldwin’s take. ~CL
“Akira Kurosawa made films covered in rich tapestries of Japanese history and charged with terrible violence and drama. Yet here, the contemporary and confined world of a rich industrialist (Toshiro Mifune) who is faced with an overwhelming decision is spare, cold, and objective in the extreme. Hideo Oguni, who worked on seven Kurosawa films, including Seven Samurai, wrote the screenplay based on an Ed McBain novel. Mifune, once again, shows why he is the Japanese Marlon Brando, Edward G. Robinson, and Gregory Peck rolled into one.”
Essential jazz drummer Paul Motian was a big reason I found my way back to rock music with a sense of purpose, all via the beautiful and driving music of the Keith Jarrett Trio, and then in free fall to the earlier even more seminal work of the Bill Evan Trio.
Tired of rock by the mid-70’s and just beginning to explore jazz, I bought Jarrett’s El Juicio and marveled at how a music could ride its own wave. That was Motian moving the leviathan. He continued to provide that motion up to his death a couple days ago. Right now I am listening to his I Have The Room Above Her featuring his moody parse compositions with Bill Frisell and Joe Lovano. I am celebrating to his rhythmic gift, his real voice, the one that told me long ago ‘Listen to your heart, forget categories, find your own music.’
FLOWERS and TREES
(for Lisa Carosa and Tim Sivils)
I took your picture when I left
I held it by my heart
I held it closer when I fell
A sacred work of art
I held your image in my mind
And I could hardly tell
When I was better heart and soul
We’d find each other well
The blooming of flowers and trees
But what of the days you’re far from me
Hope they never come
When you’ve been low it’s natural
To see the deeper side
I see the colors in this world
I see your brightest eyes
I hold this camera like a snare
To pull you to my side
Now I’m better heart and soul
Let’s watch the evening rise
The blooming of flowers and trees
What of the days you’re not with me
Hope they never come
I’m sorting out our pictures here
Like paper memories
I’m sorting out our moments here
Against the falling leaves
I’m sorry for the empty days
Before I held you near
I can’t be sorry anymore
The picture came so clear
Blooming of flowers and trees
What of the days you’re not with me
Hope they never come
Guitarist TV shared the following link and had this to say about it: A little bit of National Steel.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igxGkwz6qVA&feature=shareMark Knopfler on a BBC documentary discussing the song Romeo and Juliet. Part of the ‘Mark Knopfler: A Life in Songs’ Documetary.
Listening Theme – Christmas Music Marathon 2011
by Paul Adams on Friday, December 2, 2011 at 1:41pm
Seasons greetings one and all,
Well folks, it’s December so it’s that time of the year when sheer stupidity takes over and I undertake my annual Christmas Music Marathon.
It started 2 years ago when I set myself the daunting challenge of listening to 100 different recordings of Irving Berlin’s Holiday classic “White Christmas” (don’t ask why, it seemed a good idea at the time) and I did it – http://bit.ly/svJwPR Last year I chose “Winter Wonderland” and managed 60 versions – http://bit.ly/rpN5Uj
This years choice is Mel Torme’s “The Christmas Song” (Chestnuts roasting on an open fire… etc.). If you know of any notable recordings please let me know and I’ll listen to as many as I can between now and Christmas Day. I’m looking for established, well known artists, not just someone sitting at home in their bedroom with a guitar on YouTube.
Having said that, if YOU want to sit at home in your bedroom (or recording studio) with a guitar and record a version just for me, I’d be most grateful and I’ll include you amongst the likes of Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and Justin Beiber (damn!, I may have just put you off the idea). For the past two years Chris LeRoy has recorded special versions for us – will he take up the challenge this year? we’ll have to wait and see
This is my last day of work,” Michael Stipe says cheerfully, strolling through the Rolling Stone offices after giving one of his final interviews as the singer of R.E.M….
Sitting here, listening to this all the way through, to check it, and realizing that Chris LeRoy and Johnny Hickman wrote the closing number of Cracker’s “Cop Night” performance, so it must be that time again.
This was the 7th annual Cracker/ camper van beethoven family reunion campout at Pappy & Harriet’s, or as I like to call it – Crampout! The past couple years have included a costume aspect, and on Saturday of the 2011 weekend, the Cop theme was evident in the music. Cracker came screaming out of the station, sirens blaring, so to speak. Charged-up punk stuff gave way to some breathers in the middle of the 2-hour set, but the set was long and rockin’ and ended with Johnny belting out.
What can I say about this fabulous elixir? THE KING IS BACK!
And speaking of record covers . . . have you seen Alfra Martini’s reproductions of iconic album covers? The series is called The Kitten Covers. Take a look!
Simon, Paul, and Art Garfunkel. Bridge Over Troubled Water.
New York: Columbia, 1970. Sound recording.
It sounds like a Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson comedy: best friends decide to make a backyard ice hockey rink, end up stealing water from a school fire hydrant and get nabbed by cops. Only this isn’t some Hollywood production, it’s reality!
Pipeline Radio International
tommackenzie.podomatic.com
How cool can it be to have HAPPY MAN, LAST TRAIN, COMES A MORNING, MOCKINGBIRD, and even my cover of John Prine’s CHRISTMAS IN PRISON all on one radio show from across the pond? Thanks Diana Turner from Pipeline Radio!
London Rocks!!!
Hey Friends: Head over to GoChristmas123 for the season music of Cracker, Johnny Hickman, Chris LeRoy, The BellRays, Gigglejuice and more. Plus Reviews, Pics, Video and Stuff from Rebecca Hickman, Morst, BigDave, Trixie Martha and Paul Adams…
Number 5 – Top 5 CONCERTS of 2011 with 8 honorable mentions cause it’s
just not fair.
Feb 21, 2011 – Ike Reilly & Nightwatchman with Wayne Kramer & some
union-friendly guys from Beantown. Early gig was a noon rally in the
COLD at the state capitol, then the late gig was indoors at the
downtown Monona Terrace convention center. Wisconsin has been through
some intense political upheaval, and this was right at the start of
it.
March 13, 2011 – Middle Brother with Dawes & Deer Tick at The Majestic
Theatre in Madison. The young fellers in Dawes do not fail to put on a
sparkling good show, and Middle Brother was a rare and welcome treat,
perhaps not to be rekindled!?
September 24, 2011 – The Bottle Rockets open up acoustic and then back
up Marshall Crenshaw at the High Noon Saloon.
October 27, 2011 – Project Object plays the music of Frank Zappa at
Miramar Theatre, Milwaukee. Everyone is high on Herman Cain jokes. The
Hue opens with a solid set of instrumental prog. Original Zappa band
members Ike Willis & Ray White on lead vocals and guitar, backed by a
band capable of playing some of the most difficult music written for a
rock band.
November 6, 2011 – Ray Davies at Barrymore Theatre. Almost all Kinks
songs. The 88, a band from LA, backed Ray and opened up for him. I
don’t like audience singalongs, but Ray does, and the Barrymore crowd
really nailed it, I must say. Ray is great. This was not the Kinks but
I wish it was.
Honorable mentions (MORE Than 5!!):
Feb 15, 2011 Deerhoof at the High Noon Saloon. I am glad I recorded
it, maybe someday I’ll figure out what happened. I did enjoy it. I did
not recognize any of the music.
March 30, 2011 – Bottle Rockets & James McMurtry at High Noon Saloon
in Madison. Heck of a year when something like this ain’t top 5!
August 20, 2011 – Farmfest450, tried to see Tire Fire but they were
rained out by a doozy of a lightning storm. Miles Nielsen ended up
being the headliner as he finished before the storm!
August 24, 2011 Spacerock Invasion 2011 tour with Huw Lloyd-Langton,
Brainticket, & Nektar in Milwaukee. Abby Travis on bass for
Brainticket, duetted with Roye during Nektar’s set.
Sept 15-17 Campout 7 THE HICKMEN PLAYED and yet somehow this is not in
my top 5??? W^T^F? Cop Night from Cracker? CVB as Hippies!? The Indoor
Stage!?
Sept 18 FiStock V at STUDIO – lack of a street number didn’t stop it
from being the best Fi-Stock yet!
November 5, 2011 – Dawes in Milwaukee played a great sounding hot
show, and a couple got engaged on the stage dere. Also Blitzen Trapper
& Belle Brigade, but Dawes is the deal for me.
November 23, 2011 – Backyard Tire Fire’s final show before Hiatus in
St. Charles IL. Good show, a little long on covers, and I don’t think
they’ll stay away for too long, so I’m not sweating their “indefinite
hiatus” or overrating it based on that reason.
November 27, 2011 – Ugly Radio Rebellion at Club Garibaldi in
Milwaukee – More Zappa Music with Ike Willis and another hot band.
Looser this time but even more intimate in the friendly confines.
FIVE BOOKS I Need to Return to Smiley Library (before I am tossed in the pokey)
LIFE ITSELF: Roger Ebert- A memoir that catches his indomitable spirit
THE CROWS WERE LAUGHING IN THEIR TREES: Peter Connors – Dense prose poetry teaming with human animals. Connected to many of my new songs.
THE SHADOW OF A GREAT ROCK-A Literary Appreciation of the King James Bible: Harold Bloom- He is stuffy but we agree on the monumental poetry therein… always my best source material.
WHY JAZZ: Kevin Whitehead- The Elements of Style of Jazz primers. Asks all the best questions like, ‘What’s important about Thelonious Monk?’ You could spend the rest of your life answering.
THE BELLS: Iris Murdoch- I forgot I have this because I give my copies away. Lives by the Yeats’ tenet ‘Wisdom is a butterfly and not a gloomy bird of prey.’ Dora’s wild, unfulfilled wandering is much like art itself.
Here is my top 5 list, namely Julie’s Top 5 Roadtrips of 2011:
1. Phoenix and Tucson, AZ
2. Pioneertown and Redlands, CA
3. Crockett and Corte Madera, CA
4. Hilton Head Island, SC
5. Jekyll Island, GA
Honorable mention:
1. New York, NY (So nice, I went there twice!)
2. San Diego, CA (Ditto; a work location for me, but usually a good opportunity to see much of Crumb Nation. Had the dubious honor of being there for the blackout in September.)
Number 3- Top 5 NEW SONGS of 2011 – so cruel to leave out the rest, but here are the survivors of my vigorous vetting process.
#5 – Crawl – Chris LeRoy – The Spirit That Brings Us Here
#4 – She’s A Peach – Jonathan Segel – All Attractions
#3 – You Got A ProblemHickman-Dalton Gang – Vol. II
#2 – Kit Kat Clock – The Bottle Rockets – Not So Loud: An Acoustic Evening With The Bottle Rockets
#1- Submarine – David Lowery – The Palace Guards
hon mention, for the timing of their innovative April 20th giveaway…
Let’s Toke The Whole Day Off – Hickman-Dalton Gang – Vol. II
And yes, I realize that my #2 is a previously published song, but it’s never been released as an acoustic track, and it really plays like a whole new song this way.
Hi Chris! My top five music venues for the Wilmington/Philly area are as follows: World Cafe’ “LIVE” at The Queen (Wilmington DE). TLA (Theatre Of Living Arts) in Philly, PA. World Cafe’ in Philly, PA. The Note in West Chester, PA and last, but not least, The Grand Opera House in Wilmington, DE!!!!
This solo album is packed with fine songs, but it could not exist without music friends Bob Vennum, Tony Fate, Brad Vaughn, Art Shindele, Tim Loughlin, Chad Villareal, Judy Davis and a whole lotta Lisa Nemetz. A tragic tune lovefest… Chris
Redlands’ Chris LeRoy is one of the areas hidden songwriting treasures. He’s a part of The Mighty Grasshoppers and The Dangers and so many other great music-making projects, but his latest solo effort holds its own with tracks such as “Crawl” and “Peace Breaks Out!”
Listening Theme 66: Drummers
by Paul Adams on Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at 5:58am
Hi, and a belated Happy New Year to you all.
I thought I’d start a new Listening Theme year with a bang and have a theme celebrating some of our great drummers, past and present, any genre – rock, jazz, you name it.
Just recommend your favourite drummers and some examples of their best work and I’ll add them to my playlist and listen to an album or two.
In 1961, I was 6 and remember being drawn to a new song with piano triplets on my transistor radio. This was Etta James, and she unhinged me with her first two climbing notes, “At laaaaaaaaaaaast.”
Those two notes were my invitation to the blues. Instantly, I was in love with that blue sound, and this powerful woman. Certainly those mysterious notes were seeds planted for a songwriting future. Surely to reduce her incredible career to two notes is a travesty, but has there ever been two words in music history that said so much? Thank you, Etta
You don’t have to be a history buff to get lost in this incredible story about the life of Olympic track star and World War II Veteran, Louis Zamperini. The History Channel bores me to death, but I was fascinated by this book and finished it in two long sittings. “Zamperini’s story — and Hillenbrand’s unforgettable new book — deserve pride of place alongside the best works of literature that chart the complications and the hard-won triumphs of so-called ordinary Americans and their extraordinary time.” –Maureen Corrigan, NPR.
Before I make it home
Traveling on a road
Before the rising moon explodes
Before that shooting star
Could tell me where you are
Or tell me where you go
And just before the dreaming
Before I close my eyes, my
Someday
My someday
My someday will shine
My mind is driving slow
I really want to know
The how we got so high then low
And though I’ve come this far
A windshield falling star
Won’t tell me where to go
I’m just before the dreaming
Before I close my eyes, my
Someday
My someday
My someday will shine
Someday
My someday
My someday this time
If your kitchen’s cold and dark
And no light where you are
Well you can watch the morning star
The same way as before
The key unlocks the door
Someday there you are
It was just before the morning
You opened up my eyes, my
Someday
My someday
My someday will shine
Chris LeRoy 2/13/2012
Published by New West Crash Music/ASCAP
One of my favorite collaborations with Mike Wilkerson. He did not live to hear his music on an album but was giddy about the idea of folks hearing this music… a unique, sad and precious voice. – Chris LeRoy
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
I am thirsty give me water
Life’s so hard make it softer
I am weary need sweet rest
Can I lay down on your mattress?
I am naked give me clothing
I need shelter rain is pouring
I am lonely, long forgotten
Can I lay down?
—
I am hungry I am starving
I’m a man with no country
I have traveled with the best
Can I sit down for a second?
We played our second show at My Place Or Yours. I don’t think we made it to the third show because the club was closing down. As per usual a landlord expected to be paid. Pay was old school.
We empathized with the young club entrepreneur, Bryan, and wondered how a place that had a good crowd and a real stage was already in debt, with the landlord ready to bar the door. We found out our next gig there was canceled the afternoon before the show, but Chris came to an odd conclusion. ‘It may be too late for this place but if we had these chairs, we could start our own club’.
All afternoon and into the evening the band and Chris’ brother, Robert, raced through the club loading chairs high into the long bed of a faded yellow Toyota pickup. A week later this moveable punk feast hiked from a relative’s garage to a new punk nightclub, The Beat.
Conveniently located (if you wanted to be shot) on Highland Avenue in San Bernardino, the former blue-collar tavern The Robin’s Nest transmogrified into The Beat, our dream clubhouse, and a local joint that embraced new music. HEY DEVO!
The Beat was hot as hell, with sticky black floors, narrow checkerboard walls, a sound board just short of an electrical fire, girl fights, crooked fire marshals, parking lot uprisings, large wimpy bouncers, hallway fights where Kristie would jump three feet in the air to slap Bob K upside his head, late bills stuffed under overdue notices, the world’s most sincere Sixties soul and blues cover band, The Mondo Combo, even more crooked city inspectors and city managers, a solid but crooked stage, Tiny, the Alice Cooper impersonator who begged weekly for us to let him do his show, smoke bombs, 45 Grave, The Stepmothers, bullets ricocheting off the face of the building, death threats all the dang time and some spectacular rock and roll music from the LA scene, but most often from the house band, The Dangers. MACH SHOW!
At this point The Dangers had played some riotous house parties, including David Lowery’s 19th(?) backyard birthday bash in Redlands. UPTOWN! Still, we had had to build ourselves a nightclub to get that third official club gig. A long sweaty time was required to construct the stage and checkerboard bar, and to drag out the remnants of the old Robin’s Nest. The more we built the more trash accumulated in the center floor. The Dangers practiced afternoons in the middle of the room on top of that debris. Johnny could balance on a 2×4 and still tap foot and band into the next song. A very young and talented Bob Vennum played stylish bass and carried dry wall like a pro.
In the middle of these sawdust sessions a three-chord sequence got rolling, and Johnny happened on an irresistible riff. Randy Abraham pounded the floor tom and the snare in a jungle beat, and Chris started chanting “Radio City…Radio City.” We wound this music like a top and suddenly stopped because we knew we hit on our first genuinely catchy music, and had better write something down.
Racing the fading yellow Toyota to Chris’ girlfriend Kim’s apartment, REDLANDS! UPTOWN! Johnny and Chris sat cross-legged on the carpet and wrote in a blaze.
Johnny’s best line:
” We got girls and beers and cigarettes on the ground.”
Chris’ best line:
“You got to spend big money for fear of being alone.”
Nothing earth shattering here, but in about five minutes RADIO CITY was a done deal. Born on a scrap heap, RADIO CITY was rock with no pretensions and energy to burn. It burns still, this simple song about the power of music, the love of finding it and the dare to make it.
In 10 months our club was gone but the beat went on.
Back in the early 70’s, there weren’t many childcare options in my quaint New England town. Since my mother was a working single mom, I had to spend hours every day at a wretched place called The Happy Child Nursery School.
The owner was a morbidly obese, smelly woman who wore muumuus every day, even in the middle of winter. (She was so fat that she probably never felt the cold.) Miss Muumuu lived in a decrepit colonial house which probably hadn’t been painted since the turn of the 19th century. In addition to the nursery school, the house also featured a museum of antique dolls. We weren’t allowed to touch the dolls, but we didn’t want to anyway. The dolls were downright creepy. Many of the dolls were kid-size with metal braces holding them in posed play positions as if they were frozen for life in an eternal game of TV tag. Miss Muumuu also had two male boarders who lived in the upstairs of the house. One man had a twitch and walked with a limp. We called him Skippy.*
There were some happy moments at the Happy Child Nursery School. During playtime we’d go outside, roll over a log, and play with worms. Another highlight was nap time when Miss Muumuu would watch hours of television while the happy children rested on soiled army cots listening to Phil Donahue interview male hookers, Siamese twins, and other assorted human oddities. Consequently, the first sex question I asked my mother wasn’t “where do babies come from?” It was “what’s the difference between a transvestite and a transsexual?“ (They didn’t use the politically correct term transgendered back in the early 70’s.)**
Thankfully, daycare standards and early childhood education have improved drastically. (Believe it or not, Miss Muumuu held an advanced degree in Child Development from an ivy league college.) It’s a bit unrealistic, but The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children under the age of 2 experience no screen time (screen time includes computer, video, iPad, and TV screens), and that parents limit older children’s screen time as well. This is because it takes away from real-life creative play and social interaction.
Personally, I think a little screen time, maybe 20 minutes of a Sesame Street video (not a lurid talk show) before dinner is okay because it gives harried parents a much needed break. Some television shows really are educational. Thanks to Schoolhouse Rock, I can recite the Preamble of the Constitution. And not all screens are bad. For example, iPads and smart phones can help nonverbal children communicate and are being used as teaching tools for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Although it’s a little didactic, I got a kick out of the book Todd’s TV by James Proimos. It’s about a boy whose parents are too busy to pay attention to him, so he starts spending time with his TV instead. When the parents get jealous of the TV, they do what they should have done a long time ago. They turn it off.
Proimos, James. Todd’s Tv. New York: Katherine Tegen Books, 2010. Print.
*I also had a school bus driver with a limp. We called him Hoppy.(Gosh, I hope I’m not the one who came up with these nicknames.) My stop was the last on his route so I’d sing to him after the other kids got off the bus. At the time I knew all the words to all the songs in Fiddler on the Roof. He really liked Matchmaker, Matchmaker.
**Speaking of transgender issues, She’s Not There is one of the best memoirs I’ve ever read. It was written by Colby College professor, Jennifer Finney Boylan, who started her life as James Finney Boylan. I had the pleasure of sitting next to her at an ALA publishers breakfast event. I started chatting with her and asked where she worked. She said Colby College, and I said, “isn’t that where Jennifer Finney Boylan works? Wait–oh my gosh! You ARE Jennifer Finney Boylan! I love you. I feel like I already know you!” She said “well, you do know an awful lot about me.” We were instant conference buddies and I introduced her to all my favorite librarian and writer friends.
Boylan, Jennifer F. She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders. New York: Broadway Books, 2003. Print.
Jennifer Finney Boylan wrote another really great memoir entitled I’m Looking Through You: Growing Up Haunted. It describes her life growing up in a haunted house. What I really like about the book is that the ghosts aren’t really a big deal. They just happen to be there.Watch this video tour of Jennifer’s childhood home: jenniferboylan.net.It reminds me of Miss Muumuu’s place.
SHOW REVIEW — CRACKER DUO – CAMP-IN NIGHT ONE – 40 WATT CLUB – ATHENS, GA – MARCH 1, 2012
by Trixie Martha on Friday, March 2, 2012 at 7:44am ·
As the show was about to start, I had excellent placement on the rail in front of Mr. David, along with Miss Julie, Miss Loretta, and Miss Jan. Miss Julie announced that someone else was to keep track of the set list, as she was tired of getting dirty looks from Mr. David as she would use her FruitBerry to note the songs. So I said I would ward off the dirty looks and use my FruitBerry to track the list. Surpirsingly, Mr. David didn’t shoot me the evil eye or the bird (to the best of my knowledge).
Fashion report: Both Mr. David and Mr. Johnny had the appropriate scruffy facial hair. Not too much, not too little. Both wore spectacles. Mr. Johnny’s were sorta dark tinted. Mr. David’s were his silver rectangular ones, not the blue tinted ones that he likes to use. I was a little disappointed that Mr. David didn’t wear a sweater that Miss Velena purchased for him at TJ Maxx. However, he was sporting a very nice cream-colored cowboy shirt with fancy embroidery on the back. Mr. Johnny was the man in black, which he told me later was on purpose. Not the matching cowboy shirts, just that Mr. Johnny wanted to be all in black similar to Mr. Sal’s trademarked look.
Mr. Johnny played Lucky No. 7. I couldn’t figure out Mr. David’s geetar for the life of me. It had no distinguishing marks on the head stock, but did have a worn spot from strumming as it didn’t have a pick guard. It was a nice blond color electric acoustic. Later Mr. Johnny told me that it was an Ibanez custom, with a sub woofer in the body. So now I know. As the Dynamic Duo started, Miss Julie pointed out to me that there was a smoke machine in use. I thought it was the person near by me that smelled like the P-O-T, but couldn’t say that fo sho and don’t wanna implicate any persons in possibly criminal activity. I’m in Georgia and don’t know what Georgians consider criminal activity.
Setlist with Commentary:
Been Around The World – very awesome geetar face by Mr. Johnny.
St. Cajetan
Hey Bret (You Know What Time It Is) – first appearance of Mr. Johnny’s harp. Mr. David sang with his eyes reverantly closed most of the time. Sorta like the songs were prayers. Some nice soft lowing fills by Mr. Johnny. Lots of boot stomping by both players.
Sunrise In The Land of Milk and Honey – “. . . in boas and feathers . . .” Not boa snakes, which later had to be clarified to Mr. Matt, who was in a tizzy about my attire for Saturday night that includes a boa. Purple will be the color.
Miss Jessica was wished a special happy birthday by Mr. David and Mr. Johnny. It was very neato and she was right on the rail next to me. I do believe she was keeping a set list, too, but using a pen and paper. I don’t think that offends Mr. David as much as a cell phone or FruitBerry.
Sidi Infi – a special treat. Especially for Miss Jan!
A nice count off of 1, 2, 3, 4 leading into Dr. Bernice – I had to Facebook to Miss Christina then. Sorry Mr. David, but that’s her fav-o-rite song. Radio Shack Geek Boy brought me bourbon to quench my thirst. A fantabulous ending to the song.
Euro-Trash Girl – Miss Jan had moved near Mr. Jason to the side of the stage. I witnessed a romantic moment between them. Maybe it was the song that brought it out. Tee hee! After the song, the gal behind me had to yell “Sing the song about the whore!” That cracked me up, because they had just played it.
Friends – some fella yelled out for Been Around The World. He may have been outside smoking the P-O-T at the beginning of the set, so he had missed it. I’m surprised that Mr. David didn’t crack wise at him.
Wedding Day – a scathing, incendiary solo by Mr. Johnny.
Teen Angst (What The World Needs Now) – terrible clapper near me. No rhythm at all. At the part where Mr. David sang about being surly, Mr. Johnny played a very nice fill.
San Bernardino Boy – Mr. Johnny borrowed Mr. David’s capo. Some fella said he wondered if they only had one that they shared between the two of them. Mr. David played very good percussion on the body of his geetar, which is apparently the benefit of the internal sub woofer.
Low
Everybody Gets One For Free – Miss Jeny was really getting down to this one. I think from my notes that Mr. David sang “What the fuck do you know,” which was the only F-word I heard by the duo. What a potty mouth. Mr. David played a very excellent solo. Mr. Johnny made a “beep beep” sound wth his geetar during the part about driving a car filled with yams.
Encore:
Mr. Wrong – Miss Velena came up by the stage near Mr. David. Good harp solo by Mr. Johnny.
A fantabulous set and night of good friends. Met the person that I believe gets the prize for traveling the farthest. He was from Scotland! After the set Mr. Jonathan, Mr. Victor, Mr. Sal, and Mr. Frank arrived. Mr. Frank is sporting a lovely goatee.
Shoportunities: Lots of great t-shirts, stickers, and a Cracker hoodie! Bought my record album earrings right away as I knew from Miss Velena that there were only 20 pairs and that Miss Claire had bought up 7 already. (That hoarder!) By the end of the night most pairs were gone, but Miss Velena said there will be more available on Friday night. Get y’all’s NOW!
Comes the morning
On the highway
There’s a low cloud
Drifting our way
The hardest night together
The hardest line that ever
Made it down…
And the wind blows
Across the wasteland
Like the song goes
We got fooled again
And the hardest time’s
The time you leave behind
When your heart knows
Comes the morning
Comes a morning
Every time
You seem paler
Than the moonlight
You seem colder
Than the firelight
The hardest night together
Is the hardest line that I ever
Had to rhyme… CHORUS
In cold night
Late December
I held you
Like an ember
Now I flick this cigarette into the night
I remember
I let it fly… CHORUS
SHOW REVIEW – CRACKER, NIGHT 3 – CAMP-IN – ATHENS, GA – 40 WATT CLUB – MARCH 3, 2012
by Trixie Martha on Monday, March 12, 2012 at 12:51pm ·
Here it is finally — the wrap up for Camp-In and the Cracker show that capped off the fun doings in Athens from March 1 – 3. No hatin’ as they say on the streets, but I’m writing this beachside in the sun. Dagnab I need a sun screen for my laptop. This is gonna be lengthy, so hunker down!
Saturday, March 3, 2012, was jam-packed with goings-on and whatnot. I was celebrating my birthday a week early, so it took extra preparation for the day’s events. Miss Jan convinced me that I should not do my usual costume change for the evening, so I pranced around Athens in my low-cut dress, high hair, purple feather boa, and white go go boots all day long. I also was wearing my special Bare Escentuals Buxom Lipgloss in “Trixie.” I’m not being prideful, but I did look H-O-T!
Starting at 3:30 both Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker did signings and a meet and greet at Ted’s Most Best. Before that kicked off Miss Jan, Radio Shack Geek Boy, and I stood outside the 40 Watt Club and listened to a bit of the Cracker sound check. We heard Sweet Thistle Pie with Miss Ansley Stewart and wanted to bust in. Some youngins were there trying to buy tickets, and we told them to go ahead in and see if someone could help them. I got a big tee hee when they came out and declared that there was just a bunch of people jamming and nowhere to buy tickets. Youngins. What do they know?
We then meandered across the street and eventually found Mr. Jason, whose band Mr. Chris Compton and The Ruby Brunettes was gonna kick off the music for the afternoon over at Flicker Theatre and Bar next to the 40 Watt Club. I got to finally meet Mr. Chris (geetar and vocals – songwriter) and Miss Ashleigh (piano) from Mr. Jason’s band. Later I got to meet Miss Catherine (vocals and trombone – I know! – trombone!). It was a very festive atmosphere. It had to be — $1.00 PBRs! I sure got my money’s worth, er, Radio Shack Geek Boy got his money’s worth. I wasn’t payin’ for nothin’ as I was celebrating my birthday.
Meet and Greet Fashion Report: The talk of the event was Miss Claire and her handmade black dress with three edgings of white ribbon. On the ribbon was written lyrics to Cracker songs. She had “one-eyed Malibu” written over her bum. I tee heed over that. Miss Erin looked very chic in a knee-high black skirt with black sequins and nifty boots. Miss Loretta was wearing a very pretty peacock print blouse, and she informed me that peacocks were good luck in many cultures. I also kept admiring Mrs. Richard (Miss Sara), who was very striking and whatnot in her black Jackie O type sunglasses. I met Mr. Richard for the first time. He was sporting a beard and spectacles. Mr. Matt looked very smooth in his freshly pressed shirt, jeans, and black cowboy boots. Mr. G-Money wore his Cheap Trick In Color t-shirt just for me, which was a special honor. Miss Velena was in black (again – I’m gonna put her in some fuchsia pink sometime) and wearing a classy black knit cape. Miss Ashleigh was wearing some really cool rain boots that were black with white polka dots and ribbons along the top. Miss Robin, a/k/a Miss Best Dressed or Princess, looked lovely even before she did her costume change. She doesn’t let up. That title of Best Dressed ain’t gonna be taken by no one no how. Miss Jean Marie must be trying to compete with me for best hair. She has luscious light brunette hair curled very classy like. Not calling attention to myself, but I will, I was quite the hit in my garb. I felt pretty danged hot walking among the University of Georgia students down the street, knowing they were all getting’ a gander of my beauty (tee hee!). I got even more glamorous when Miss Claire gave me a special birthday glittery flower appliqué that I slapped onto my left boob such that it would show up near my purple boa. That Miss Claire and Miss Nancy really know how to dress up a boob.
Band Fashion Report: As for the band members’ fashion, we all done know that Mr. Victor takes the cake every time. Mr. David was very jovial, and I’m sure that he knew I was gonna point out and give props to his trendy black puffer coat. He accessorized it well with his fire engine red pick-em-up truck. (I wonder if he knows her name, but calls her Ginger?)Mr. Sal wore a sport coat. He was very dashing. He had on a polo-type shirt underneath that I believe was navy with thin colored stripes – kinda like the thin colored stripes of Mr. David’s favorite hoodie. Mr. Johnny wore a white long-sleeved shirt with some sorta writing on the left bottom side – probably in a foreign language as he’s very international and whatnot – with a black sorta military coat. I admired the pin on it, thinking it was similar to a pin that a pal of mine brought me back from Russia and wondered if Mr. Vlad gave it to him. Later I found out through the Facebook banter that it was shaped like a bat and that one of Mr. Johnny’s fans gave it to him. Mr. Greg was sorta somber and wore a white long-sleeved shirt. I figured out later that he really just needed a venti (that’s 20 in I-talian!) coffee from Starbucks when I saw him at Flicker later. Mr. Jonathan always is stylish with his cool hair. He looks like a crazed classical violinist that would really rock out in the times of Mozart. I confirmed that Mr. Frank was wearing a 40 Watt Club hat. He does look good in black. I would think he and Miss Velena shop at some sorta store that would be called “Black Out” or somethin’ similar, but I know for a gol darn fact that Forever 21 is Miss V’s fav-o-rite stop for fashion.
As for the rest of the meet and greet, the posters from the event were fantastical. I loved the orange and the lady with butterfly wings. Miss Julie reported to me on Sunday that the poster was inspired by an old postcard from Athens. I was very touched to have Mr. Victor write “To Trixie – The Most Best” on my poster. Mr. Jonathan drew a doodle that gave the lady on the side of the poster an eyeball. Mr. Johnny wrote “To the fabulous Miss T.” Wow! We all milled around afterward and complimented ourselves on how fashionable we were and talked about the Camper Van Beethoven show the night before and the shopping that all had done at the local stores. We then paraded across the street for the beginning of the evening’s music at Flicker.
Flicker Set Reviews: I didn’t take notes, but here is what I recall. I was very impressed by Mr. Chris Compton and The Ruby Brunettes (Mr. Chris, Mr. Jason, Miss Ashleigh, and Miss Catherine). Just because I know Mr. Jason very well doesn’t mean I’d give him a good review. I’m pretty critical. In fact, there are nights that Radio Shack Geek Boy plays geetar gigs and I tell him he stunk it up. (That’s not very often, though.) It was a great mix of electric (Mr. Jason) and acoustic geetar (Mr. Chris), trombone (Miss Catherine), and piano (Miss Ashleigh). I kept watching Miss Ashleigh’s hands as she played and could tell she was a real talented pianist from the curve of her hands and her attack on the keyboard. The harmonies of Mr. Chris and Miss Catherine were very beautiful, and I really liked the song choices. Mr. Jason wore a jaunty hat, the likes of which my sister Florence Jean and I call a “pancake hat.” The room was packed with Crumbs and others and very receptive to the music. Mr. Johnny came to see Mr. Jason play and told me he had to move because he couldn’t see over my high hair. What a compliment! I took it seriously as Mr. Johnny was, as he calls it, “in the business.” Next Mr. Handsome (I mean Mr. Victor) played a solo set with an electric geetar. It was really great, and I feel that I need to get more familiar with Mr. Victor’s solo songs. He told me all songs were originals except for a Mr. Woody Guthrie song. Mr. Johnny played two songs, Lucky and a brand-spankin’ new one from his next solo album called Catholic Girl. That was a special treat. For the topper of the Flicker sets, Mr. Jonathan, Mr. Victor, and Mr. Frank played an improvisational set. I think Mr. Jonathan played a song called “Little Blue Fish,” according to Miss Jeny, but I’m not sure. Mr. Frank really was enjoying himself getting into the improv and whatnot. Before that set I met a new pal Mr. Jason B. who told me Cracker’s Kerosene Hat changed his life. I told that to Mr. Johnny and he said, “It changed my life, too!” We both chuckled over that. I fluttered around the bar and made all the menfolk wear my purple feather boa. I believe that Mr. Matt had the honor of wearing it first. He was still afeared that a real snake was gonna jump outta it and bite or squeeze him to death. I got some good pictures of Mr. Splinter and Mr. G-Money wearing the boa. They are very confident manly men and don’t give a rat’s ass if they are seen in public wearing a purple feather boa. After cavorting with Mr. Mac Daddy and Mr. Lee and others at the bar, we all traipsed over to the 40 Watt for the big finale of Camp-In.
I did enjoy the opening acts, Mr. Clint Maul and Ms. Shonna Tucker. I have to admit I spent most of the time drinking bourbon on the back couch and canoodling with Miss Rebecca so I can’t give a review of their sets. Canoodling. Just checking if y’all menfolk are paying attention. Miss Rebecca and I met Miss Kyra and Miss Brenda on the couch and took a lot of pictures of our boots and hose. Radio Shack Geek Boy feel asleep on the other couch and then complained that he was hungry and left the womenfolk alone while he went out to eat. Apparently that was the trend that night as Mr. Glenn was out and about dining without us, too. We gals got a kick outta that as the men clearly are amateurs at concert festivals. Everybody knows that at Cracker / Camper shows y’all don’t eat unless it’s escarole and pesto at Mr. Matt’s impromptu kitchen. Shoot, the night of the Cracker duo show I ate three tortilla chips, a Cliff bar, and a shot of bourbon before getting to the club, and I was fine. In fact, I think that Mr. Jason and Radio Shack Geek Boy pulled the same “menfolk out to dinner” routine the night of the Camper show, leaving me and Miss Jan at the club while they went to some place everyone was raving about called The Grill (or maybe it was “The Grille” – Athens is pretty fancy and may add random e’s to the end of its places). Miss Rebecca and I wore CVB stickers on our boobs and later Miss Erin gave me another one so I had a matching set of CVB pasties. Actually, they were over our boobs stuck on our dresses. I don’t want any of all y’all to think I ran around Athens topless with CVB pasties on.
Show Review: Please don’t be disappointed, but I didn’t keep a set list or any notes during the show. I was celebrating! Miss Julie kept the set list, and I can make a few comments on that from my recollections and whatnot. What thrilled me was that I was totally awestruck from the moment that Cracker took the stage. It was like the first time I ever saw them play at Cat’s Cradle in Chapel Hill, NC, with Counting Crows. I couldn’t take my eyes and ears off the band. Such great music! I didn’t get my usual great placement next to Miss Julie on the rail in front of Mr. Johnny, but was three-deep behind her. Miss Jeny, Mr. Ben, Miss Claire, Mr. Splinter, Mr. G-Money and, I believe, Miss Loretta were all around me. I spent most of the show transfixed by Mr. David’s eyes as he took off his spectacles for some of the songs. He had changed shirts from the meet and greet, and I believe was wearing a checked shirt. I also spent a lot of time yelling “WOOOOOOOO!” into Miss Claire’s mobile phone during her concert calls. Sorry about the “Woo!” Miss Jennifer and Mr. Steve, but at least y’all felt like y’all were there. I totally missed the special moment of the playing of Happy Birthday To Me where Miss Julie and I always look at each other, sing “sometimes . . . I wish I were Catholic . . . I don’t know why,” and shrug our shoulders. Rats! At one point some fella yelled out “Satisfy You,” and wouldn’t y’all know Cracker done played it later in the set. Mr. G-Money spilled one of my fresh bourbons so Radio Shack Geek Boy got me another. Note to self: watch y’all’s drink when Mr. G-Money throws down on his air geetar.” At some point during the set Mr. Sal got so worked up that he had to remove his sport coat. Cracker played all of the songs from their debut album, with the exception of Dr. Bernice. I was thinking that the show was specially for them to play the entire debut album, to which Mr. Frank said something to the effect of “Are y’all kiddin’ me Miss Trixie?” except in New York City talk on Thursday night when I first saw him. I guess I had it all wrong. It did make for a spectacular show to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the band and its first record. The only thing that coulda made it more fun was a guest appearance by Mr. Davey wearing a dress. However, the appearance of my purple boa on Mr. Sal’s amp during the encore did make up for it. Plus it was sorta fun to see the boa wrapped around Mr. Sal’s mic stand as the band left the stage following the encore (which was dagnabbed great!). Mr. Sloan got some danged great recordings of this set, as well as others that are on Archive.
Set List with Limited Commentary [Set List Kept by Stenographer Miss Julie]:
One Fine Day – blistering geetar work by Mr. Johnny. Radio Shack Geek Boy commented on that on the way home.
Gimme One More Chance – fantastic work by the rhythm section Mr. Frank and Mr. Sal.
Seven Days (with Miss Ansley Stewart) – Miss Ansley’s first appearance. She really gets down with the tambourine. Much better than Miss Tracy Partridge.
I See the Light (with Miss Ansley Stewart)
Teen Angst (What The World Needs Now)
Don’t Fuck Me Up (With Peace and Love)
St. Cajetan – Mr. David asked for some water so he could “pour it on Frank,” which was particularly silly as the song is about wanting a drink of cool water.
Take Me Down to The Infirmary
Shake Some Action
Lonesome Johnny Blues
Euro Trash Girl – according to Mr. Jason the 40 Watt Club dancers were really shakin’ a tail feather to this one. (I’m talking about y’all Miss V and y’all’s cohorts.) It was at this point that I think Mr. Jason fell asleep on the couch by the merch table. I’m not completely sure as I didn’t witness it myself but did view photographic evidence of him slumped on the couch with his head down. Tee hee!
This is Cracker Soul (with Miss Ansley Stewart) – Mr. Johnny was a terrible tease and wouldn’t start the song right away. He did some noodling on the geetar.
Sweet Thistle Pie (with Miss Ansley Stewart)
Mr. Wrong
Happy Birthday to Me
Another Song About The Rain – my favorite from the night. Special thanks to Mr. Chris LeRoy and Mr. Johnny for that gem. Reminded me of the beautiful night at Pi-Town and Campout 7.
Low
Encore:
Been Around the World (with Mr. Jonathan Segel) – fun to see Mr. Jonathan play geetar with the boys.
Satisfy You
Can I Take My Gun up to Heaven?
Someday
Gear Report: Sorry, but nothing new except for Mr. David’s fine slate blue, subtle sparkle SG Gibson. I wonder if he was coerced into buying that at the Chicago Music Exchange?
Post-Show: Many goodbyes. Some people had to leave very early in the a.m. to catch flights. Radio Shack Geek Boy and I skipped the post-show events at y’all-know-whose condo to get back to where we were staying. I was so fantabulous looking that RSGB had me up against the truck and was kissing me and some fella drove by and yelled “Hey look! They’re makin’ out!” I got a huge tee hee outta that one. We arrived back at our condo and found it packed with rock stars. Mr. Chris Compton and the Ruby Brunettes were crashing at the place, so we had some chats and Miss Catherine wore my boa. The next morning Mr. Jason and Radio Shack Boy cooked breakfast, and we entertained our guest Miss Julie. She did attend the post-show doings and reported that Mr. Sal, Mr. Frank, and Mr. Johnny showed up. I done knew they couldn’t go without a bowl or two of Mr. Matt’s escarole. I heard tell that to the best of my source’s knowledge no one ended up in the emergency room or in jail, which my source told any potential jail-goers that if that happened they’d have to call Miss Trixie (“and y’all don’t wanna call Miss Trixie!”). That’s funny, cause y’all would wanna call me if y’all ended up in jail. I always have cash bail money on my person. Y’all can imagine where.
Big thank y’all’s to the bands, especially Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven, and to Miss Velena and the 40 Watt Club peeps. Athens was a great town, and we all felt very welcome. I left a trail of purple boa feathers all over town, especially at the 40 Watt. I sure hope that Camp-In does become an annual event. Otherwise the “Inaugural Camp-In” title was a hoax.
Your faithful (but tardy) concert reporter – Trixie Martha
Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven are my all-time favorite bands, of course, but I also really like Blues Traveler. John Popper is one of the best harmonica players in the whole world. He’s a Connecticut boy, too.
Back in 1991 my friend Barbara Shepard (from The Fabulous Who Who’s) and I were in a short film with him. It was called Mr. Personality and it was about a talk show host’s nightmare. I promised the director Tom E. Brown that I’d never post Mr. Personality online. (However, Tom is very proud of his film Das Clown which also starred Popper and was screened at Sundance.) John Popper played one of the talk show guests on Mr. Personality. Barb and I sang the show’s theme song “Simon Says” which was originally recorded by the 1910 Fruitgum Factory. We had some pretty slick dance moves, too.
Barbara Shepard started The Fabulous Who Who’s back in 1989, and they are still going strong. Barb is an amazing singer, songwriter, guitar player, and she’s also the funniest woman in New Haven. I sang back-up vocals with the Who Who’s for a couple of years while I was going to grad school. The wildly talented Kriss Santala was/is also a Who Who. She also performs as a solo artist. In 2007 she released her own album Lost Souls Road which is absolutely beautiful. Visitwww.independisc.com/krisssantala.htm and listen to “One Good Thing.”
My old friend Scott McDonald from Jellyshirts recently posted this newspaper ad from the beloved old New Haven venue, The Moon. If you look closely, you can see that The Fabulous Who Who’s (and Scott’s band Jellyshirts) are on the same page as Reverend Horton Heat, Smashing Pumpkins, and Miracle Legion. Somebody told me that Nirvana is listed, too, but I can’t find it. Can you?
Scott and I used to work at Cutler Records with Robin Andreoli, Dean Falcone and Al Lotto. Al now has his own record store called Exile On Main Street. It’s the coolest place–he even sells 45’s! Celebrate Record Store Day a month early and shop at Al’s store online: exileonmain.com. You will really like his website . . . and his store.
ps. Robin was a deejay for the University of New Haven radio station. It was (is?) the coolest station. It’s where townie kids like me learned about Madness, The English Beat, and The Specials long before there was any MTV.
pps. Kevin Day is another Connecticut musician I knew back in the good old days. (Actually, I knew his brother, but I’m sure we must have bumped into each other at some point.) Kevin Day is in the AWESOME band Gigglejuice. Gigglejuice are so great that they’ve even opened for Cracker! Check them out:
ppps. It was an old boyfriend and lifelong friend who first introduced me to Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven. We met when I waited on him at the record store.
pppps. As you probably guessed, the title of this post was inspired by
Barnett, Mac, and J Klassen. Extra Yarn. New York: Balzer + Bray, 2012. Print.
So far, this is my favorite picture book of the year because it makes me laugh. (The humor is a little off-kilter, which makes it even more fun.)
Extra Yarn is the story of a girl named Annabelle who brings some light into her cold, gloomy town by knitting everyone colorful sweaters. She even knits one for Little Louis! (There is no explanation as to why she would have left poor Louis out, except that he appears to be a half-size man with a full-size beard. Is he the village idiot?) She wants to knit a sweater for Mr. Crabtree who “never wore sweaters or even long pants” and is pictured wearing boxer shorts and a wife beater shirt. He declines her offer, so she makes him a hat instead. (Is he the village exhibitionist?)
One day an evil archduke sails into town on a mission to steal Annabelle’s yarn. He declares: “Little girl, I curse you with my family’s curse! You will never be happy again!” (For some reason, this cracks me up.)
Good wins out over evil, and in the end “it turned out that she was.” On the last page we see Annabelle perched comfortably on a yarn-covered tree branch accompanied by a few sweater-clad dogs and cats. This is her happy ending. (No handsome prince needed–just a couple of pets for good company.)
Moundlic, Charlotte, and Olivier Tallec. The Scar. Somerville, Mass: Candlewick Press, 2011. Print.
When I was little, my Uncle Brian (who was more like a big brother because he was only 8 years older than me and lived with us sometimes) was killed. When my mom and I stayed with my grandparents that summer, I slept in his old bedroom. I used to go into his closet and deeply breathe in his scent which still lingered on his clothes. (When I close my eyes and think back, I can still smell the inside of his favorite baseball cap and feel the soft, yet rough texture of his plaid flannel jacket.)
When he was dying in the hospital, I remember being very angry with my mother for leaving me behind in Connecticut. In fact, I am still ashamed of something I said to her on the phone. I thought that perhaps the whole thing was a farce and everyone was really having a party and just didn’t want to invite me. I said to my poor grieving mother, “I hope you’re having fun.” Even though I was only 10, I still find it hard to forgive myself for that nasty comment.
The Scar is the most accurate depiction of a grieving child that I have ever read. The main character of this outstanding picture book by Charlotte Moundlic and Olivier Tallec is a young boy has just lost his mother. Even though it’s hot and stuffy inside, he doesn’t want anyone to open the windows because he wants to keep his mother’s scent in the house. Unlike many children’s books about death, the story is not overly sweet or sentimental. For instance, the boy even yells at his father and grandmother. When the grandmother consoles him and says that his mother lives in his heart, the boy runs until he is out of breath so that he can feel his mother beating in his chest.
Although it’s about the loss of a mother, this book is for anyone who has ever lost a household member. It literally gives me goose bumps.
Another dark man
Out in the jet stream
Another great plan
Another dark dream
Just ask his cell phone
Ask his advisers
When it’s all over
Who was the wiser?
Another dark man
They’re coming over
They have the car keys
They have agendas
They are the enemy
Just ask his hangers on
And the survivors
When its all over
Who was the wiser?
Another dark man
I barely knew him
It didn’t take long
He was a mystery
Wrapped in a sad song
Just ask the howlin’ wind
The dust that rises
When it’s all over baby
No one’s the wiser
Another dark man
There goes the dark man
Out in the jet stream
One soul is touching down
Another leaving
There goes a dark man
There goes a dark man
There goes a dark man
Another dark man
Two weird and wonderful pop bands true to their sound. Both sported costumes, The Ramones almost creating the world they would inhabit and The Raiders never really fitting the moment but so much better for it. I could listen to KICKS and I WANT TO BE SEDATED back to back for the next month or two. I might do that! CL
I saw McCoy Tyner at the Jazz Bakery in Los Angeles maybe 25 years ago. And through the set, his steady chord based rhythms moved the music to great, great heights. And I thought – “these are the same chunks of keys that lifted Coltrane, from then to now, ring ring – ring, to a love supreme.” That night, on the stage was a true life lesson: This is how to play together as a band or as a people. Thank you for that night and for a supreme love, Mr. Tyner! – CL
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