only rock ’n’ roll
Japandroids, “For the Love of Ivy”
Live, Austin (SXSW), 3/15/12
This is what rock ’n’ roll should sound like.
—my (24-year-old) son Alex, the other day, while playing their new album (Celebration Rock)
bread and circuses
This is my idea of good government.
A Summer Solstice Backyard Parade and Procession
Wednesday, June 20th, 2012, 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm
[Garfield Park, Chicago]Featuring Mucca Pazza, the Circus Punk Marching Band, Kaotic Drumline, Oper-a-matic, Food Trucks, and More!
Marching bands, both traditional and unique, will be lining up in our backyard space for a mid-summer’s night march. Chicago’s inspiring community drum corps Kaotic, as well as the fantastic punk rock marching band Mucca Pazza will be parading throughout our backyard spaces, in a non-traditional community parade. Instrument making stations will be stationed throughout the event. Come make your own parade.
*****
Mucca Pazza, live, Evanston (Ill.), 6/30/11
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Kaotic Drumline, 2009
Happy (Day After) Father’s Day
Nas (son) with Olu Dara (father), “Bridging the Gap” (2004)
(sampling Muddy Waters’ “Mannish Boy”)
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lagniappe
Here’s more from the old man.
David Murray Octet, “Dewey’s Circle” (DM, tenor saxophone; Olu Dara, trumpet; Butch Morris, cornet; George Lewis, trombone; Henry Threadgill, alto saxophone; Anthony Davis, piano; Wilber Morris, bass; Steve McCall, drums), Ming (Black Saint, 1980)
*****
Muddy Waters, “Mannish Boy” (Chess, 1955)
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lagniappe
reading table
People are mysterious, unfathomable—like divinities: natural objects for reverence. But our habits of thought turn the people around us into objects, the means for our self-protection.
—Lama John Makransky, “Family Practice,”
Tricycle, Summer 2001
Ken Vandermark (saxophone) & Paal Nilssen-Love (drums)
Live, Romania (Bucharest), 2010
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Last night, while I was listening to these guys at a little club on Chicago’s near northwest side (The Hideout), a thought kept running through my head: there’s nothing like live music; there’s nothing at all like live music; there’s nothing at all in this world even remotely like live music.
only rock ’n’ roll
Granted, there are no sure things in pop music; but how can a shaggy-red-haired sister-and-brother duo miss?
White Mystery, “Switch It Off,” live, New York, 2010
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lagniappe
reading table
World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural.—Louis MacNiece (1907-1963), “Snow” (excerpt)
Ever feel like wandering, aimlessly, in a fog?
The Velvet Underground and Nico, directed by Andy Warhol (shot at his NYC studio, The Factory), 1966
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lagniappe
reading table
More than twenty years west of Mount Yen . . .
when the moon lights the summit at night I sing—Stonehouse, The Zen Works of Stonehouse: Poems and Talks of a Fourteenth Century Chinese Hermit (translated from Chinese by Red Pine)
*****
Happy Birthday, Don!
Sixty-two?
I remember when you were twenty-six.
And six.
We met, as I recall, when you were two.
two takes
“Human Nature” (S. Porcaro & J. Bettis)
Vijay Iyer Trio (VI, piano; Stephan Crump, bass; Marcus Gilmore, drums), live (studio performance [KPLU-FM]), 2011
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Michael Jackson, recording (Thriller), 1982
music clip of the day 