Wild Flag, live, SXSW (Austin, Texas), 3/11
“Romance” (Mellow Johnny’s Bike Shop)
***
“Future Crimes” (IFC Crossroads House)
Someday an all-female band will seem no more remarkable than an
all-male one.
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lagniappe
radio
A live studio performance,* which I caught part of Saturday afternoon, can be heard here.
*The Cherry Blossom Clinic with Terre T (Sat., 3-6 p.m. [EST]), WFMU-FM
Slim and The Supreme Angels, “I Wanna Go”
Live, North Carolina (Branch Memorial Tabernacle, Goldsboro), c. 1996
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lagniappe
reading table
—“Never again, never again!”
—And yet there’s a contradiction: “never again” isn’t eternal, since you yourself will die one day.
“Never again” is the expression of an immortal.—Roland Barthes, Mourning Diary (trans. Richard Howard, 2010)
More of these handwritten diary entries, which were written after Barthes’ mother died, can be found here. (Thanks to Orange Crate Art for the tip.)
Herman E. Johnson, “She’s A-Looking For Me”*
Rec. 1961, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
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lagniappe
So my life was just that way, to keep out of trouble, drink my little whiskey, an’ go an’ do little ugly things like that, but in a QT way.
—Herman E. Johnson (August Kleinzahler, Red Sauce, Whiskey and Snow [1995], epigraph [I’ve changed “cue-tee” to “QT”])
*This is how this song is titled on the album Louisiana Country Blues (Arhoolie). To these ears a better rendering would be “She Out Looking For Me.”
clear, adj. bright, luminous, transparent. E.g., Wadada Leo Smith’s trumpet playing.
Wadada Leo Smith (trumpet), live, London (Cafe Oto), 9/5/11
A performance like this opens up, I’ve found, once you quit trying to find
a foothold.
It’s easy to forget, sometimes, just how great somebody could be.
B.B. King, “How Blue Can You Get?”
Live, Sing Sing Prison (Ossining, New York), 1972
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lagniappe
last night
W. S. Merwin, who just finished a term as U.S. Poet Laureate, gave a reading at Chicago’s downtown library, where he talked about this and that:
The English language is a great dump. Everything that has come into it has stayed there.
***
Poetry begins . . . with listening.
***
I wanted to be open . . . to anything that sounded like poetry.
***
To animals the meaning is the sound—and that’s pretty close to poetry.
***
Time is one of the great human fictions.
***
Many of the most important things we do are not calculated. They take us by surprise.
***
What the arts are made of is nothing but pure attention.
*****
radio
Happy (100th) Birthday, Papa Jo! WCKR-FM’s Centennial Festival, mentioned Monday, continues until noon tomorrow.
only rock ’n roll
The Ex, “Waiting,” live (studio performance), WFMU-FM, 2007
Vodpod videos no longer available.serendipity
The other day, while I was listening to the radio,* this popped out.
Derek Bailey (guitar) & Tony Oxley (percussion, electronics)
“Sheffield Phantoms,” The Advocate, Tzadik, 2007 (rec. 1975)
Rarely do you hear something that’s both this “out” and this intimate.
*Afternoon New Music, WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University), Mon.-Wed., 3-6 p.m. (EST)
Has anyone played blues harp more sweetly?
Johnny Shines (1915-1992), vocals, guitar; David “Honeyboy” Edwards (1915-2011), guitar; Big Walter Horton (1917-1981), harmonica; “For The Love of Mike,” live, 1978
Vodpod videos no longer available.More Big Walter? Here.
More Honeyboy? Here.
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lagniappe
A belated Happy Birthday to MCOTD Hall of Famer Von Freeman, who turned 88 yesterday. Want to send birthday wishes? You can email them to info@jazzinchicago.org (subject line: Birthday Wishes for Von Freeman). Or you can do it the old-fashioned way: Birthday Wishes for Von Freeman, c/o The Jazz Institute of Chicago, 410 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60605.
Charisma needs no translation.
Mahmoud Ahmed & Badume’s Band, live, France (Festival de Sete), 2008
“Belomi Benna”
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
“Atawurulegn Lela”
Vodpod videos no longer available.three takes
Blues guitarists—great ones, anyway—aren’t instrumentalists; they’re singers with two voices.
“Born Under A Bad Sign” (W. Bell, B.T. Jones)
Albert King, live, Sweden, 1980
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
Albert King, recording, 1967 (Stax)
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
Jimi Hendrix, recorded in 1969 (Blues, 1994)
Vodpod videos no longer available.What makes this last take effective? Part of it is the phrasing: Jimi, like Albert, doesn’t play anything that couldn’t be sung.
More Albert? Here.
music clip of the day 