Here’s one of the more intriguing, and inspiring, music videos I’ve ever seen.
Various Artists (Roger Ridley, Grandpa Elliott, Washboard Chaz, Clarence Bekker, Twin Eagle Drum Group, Francois Viguie, Cesar Pope, Dimitri Dolganov, Roberto Luti, Geraldo & Dionisio, Junior Kissangwa Mbouta, Pokei Klass, Django Degen, Sinamuva, Stefano Tomaselli, Vusi Mahlasela), “Stand By Me,” live, various locations
Something you like a lot, something you can’t stand: the difference between them isn’t always that great. Take this track, for instance. If, say, the musical backdrop were a bit sweeter, or the lyrics weren’t quite as spare, or the voice sounded a little less haggard, I’d probably hate it.
David Sylvian, “Darkest Dreaming” (1999)
When melody’s felt rhythmically, and rhythm melodically, you don’t need drums for the music to dance.
Oran Etkin’s Group Kelenia (Oran Etkin, clarinet; Makane Kouyate, percussion; Lionel Loueke, guitar; Joe Sanders, bass), live (radio recording session), New York, 2009
Want more? Here.
At his best, Lenny Bruce didn’t meet expectations—he confounded them.
Lenny Bruce, “All Alone,” live (TV broadcast [“The Steve Allen Show”]), 1959
With more music more readily available to more people in more places than ever before (in the, uh, entire history of humankind), is it any wonder that more and more stuff defies categorization?
Balkan Beat Box, “Hermetico,” live (various locations in the United States and Europe), 2007
Want more? Here.
Here’s Arthur Russell, the “seminal avant-garde composer, singer-songwriter, cellist, and disco producer” who died in 1992 at the age of 40 (of AIDS-related complications) and is the subject of both a recent documentary, Wild Combination, and a new book, Hold On To Your Dreams: Arthur Russell and the Downtown Music Scene, 1973-1992.
Arthur Russell
“Get Around To It”
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“You And Me Both”
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“This Is How We Walk on the Moon”
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“That’s Us/Wild Combination”
(Yeah, the fact that I’m posting four tracks by this guy shows how much his music, which I just encountered recently, has been getting under my skin.)
Some performances are so intimate and so strange that part of you feels as though you should avert your eyes. But another part knows that you can’t.
Nina Simone, “Feelings,” live, Switzerland (Montreux Jazz Festival), 1976
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lagniappe
reading table
Here Robert Creeley reads his poem “Please.”
music clip of the day 