Saturday, November 2nd
only rock ’n’ roll
MC5, “Kick Out The Jams,” “Ramblin’ Rose,” “Motor City’s Burning,” “Tonight,” “Black To Comm #2,” live (TV studio), Germany (Bremen), 1972
**********
lagniappe
art beat
Danny Lyon (1942-), Chicago, 1960s
music clip of the day
jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more
Category: guitar
2013
Friday, November 1st
only rock ’n’ roll
Richard Hell and the Voidoids (with Robert Quine [1942-2004], guitar, et al.), “Blank Generation,” live, New York (CBGB’s), Blank Generation, 1980
**********
lagniappe
art beat
Danny Lyon (1942-), Chicago, 1965
2013
Monday, October 28th
passings
Lou Reed, singer, songwriter, guitarist, March 2, 1942-October 27, 2013
Live (with Robert Quine [1942-2004], guitar; Fernando Saunders, bass; Fred Maher, drums), New York (Bottom Line), 1983
**********
lagniappe
musical thoughts
All great rock comes from a particular place. Take Lou Reed. Could he have emerged from Detroit? Nah—too self-conscious, too arty. San Francisco? Unh-uh—way too abrasive. He could only have come from one place, the city where, as the joke has it, a tourist goes up to someone and asks: “Can you tell me the way to the Empire State Building—or should I just go fuck myself?”
*****
taking a break
I’m taking some time off—back in a while.
2013
Sunday, October 27th
sounds of Chicago
They sounded so good last week—let’s hear some more.
The Staple Singers, “Are You Sure,” live, 1971
**********
lagniappe
art beat
William Eggleston (1939-)
2013
Monday, October 21st
sounds of Chicago
Art Ensemble of Chicago (Roscoe Mitchell, saxophones, percussion; Joseph Jarman, saxophones, percussion, electric guitar; Lester Bowie [MCOTD Hall of Famer], trumpet, percussion; Malachi Favors, bass, percussion; Don Moye, drums, percussion [first clip])
Live, Chicago (Jazz Showcase), 1981
***
Recording (“Rock Out”), 1969
2013
Sunday, October 20th
sounds of Chicago
The Staple Singers, “Sit Down Servant,” live (TV show), 1963
**********
lagniappe
art beat
Helen Levitt (1913-2009), New York, c. 1940
2013
Friday, October 12th
only rock ’n’ roll
Mitch Ryder (with Jimmy McCarty, guitar; Don Was, bass, et al.), “Little Latin Lupe Lu,” live, Detroit, 2011
**********
lagniappe
reading table
Alice Munro, yesterday, on winning the Nobel Prize in Literature:
2013
Sunday, October 6th
two takes
Bobby McFerrin, “Joshua,” live (studio performances), 2013
WNYC-FM, New York
*****
WFUV-FM, New York
**********
lagniappe
reading table
Novelist Philip Roth on death, getting older, etc.:
‘You think, That’s the end of it when your parents die. After that, you’re done. Nobody’s supposed to die anymore, right?’
—Claudia Roth Pierpont, “The Book of Laughter: Philip Roth and His Friends,” New Yorker, 10/7/13
*****
‘Seventy-five; how sudden.’
***
‘Time runs out at a terrifying speed. It seems that it was just 1943.’
—Patricia Cohen, “Philip Roth, Provacateur, Is Celebrated at 75,” New York Times, 4/12/08
2013
Wednesday, October 2nd
love it or hate it
Anthony Braxton 12+1tet, Composition 355, live, Italy (Venice), 2012
*****
Anthony, a MacArthur “genius” award winner (1994) and professor at Wesleyan University, talks about this and that:
**********
lagniappe
musical thoughts
Music can take us places we’ve never been before, if we’re willing to listen to sounds we’ve never heard before.
2013
Thursday, September 26th
sounds of Chicago
This is a track I coproduced. It was the last thing recorded that night, an afterthought. The lights had just been turned down. The room was nearly dark.
Carey Bell’s Blues Harp Band,* “Woman In Trouble” (Living Chicago Blues, Vol. 1; Grammy Nominee), Alligator, 1978
*CB, vocals, harmonica; Lurrie Bell, guitar; Bob Riedy, piano; Aron Burton, bass; Odie Payne, Jr., drums.
music clip of the day 