Saturday, January 24th
what’s new
Shabazz Palaces, “Forerunner Foray” (video by Chad VanGaalen), 1/9/15
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lagniappe
passings
Ernie Banks, Chicago Cubs infielder (SS, 1B), January 31, 1931-January 23, 2015
music clip of the day
jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more
Category: hip-hop
2015
2014
Tuesday, September 16th
passings
Joe Sample, keyboard player, composer, February 1, 1939-September 12, 2014
Digable Planets with guests Lester Bowie (trumpet), Melvin “Wah Wah Watson” Ragin (guitar), Joe Sample (keyboards), “Flyin’ High in the Brooklyn Sky,” live, New York, 1990s
As much as I love Lester, a MCOTD Hall-of-Famer, this performance could get along without him. Same with Wah Wah Watson. Not Joe—he makes everybody sound better.
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lagniappe
random thoughts
Life doesn’t end; it stops.
2014
Friday, August 8th
summer in the city
Outkast, live, Chicago (Lollapalooza), 8/2/14
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lagniappe
found words
These rules will be strictly enforced. Please ensure your adherence and remain within these guidelines so as to avoid any misunderstanding or an uncomfortable situation.
—FCI Coleman Low (federal prison), visitors’ waiting room, sign
2014
Friday, August 1st
Nas, “Daughters,” 2012
My sons, now in their twenties, I love to pieces. But loving my guys doesn’t keep me from wishing I had a daughter, too.
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lagniappe
reading table
The funeral director opened the coffin
And there he was alone
From the waist upI peered down into his face
And for a moment I was taken aback
Because it was not GabrielIt was just some poor kid
Whose face looked like a room
That had been vacated.—Edward Hirsch (1950-), opening lines of “Gabriel,” a forthcoming book-length elegy for his son, who died in 2011 at the age of 22 (quoted in Alec Wilkinson, “Finding the Words,” New Yorker, 8/4/14)
2014
Tuesday, July 1st
sounds of Chile
Ana Tijoux, “Vengo,” live (studio performance), Santa Monica, 2014
Listening to a language I know not at all—pure sound.
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lagniappe
art beat
Bruce Davidson (1933-), New York, 1980s
2014
Monday, February 3rd
yesterday
Snowy fields, bare trees, big sky: as my son Luke, now twenty-two, drives us from a family gathering in Nebraska to his place in Kansas City, these are some of the sounds that fill the car.
Pusha T, “40 Acres” (feat. The Dream), 2013
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J. Cole, “Killers,” 2011
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Lil Wayne, “I Miss My Dawgs,” 2011
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taking a break
Back in a while.
2013
Friday, October 25th
sounds of Chicago
King Louie, “My Niggaz” (2012-13)
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lagniappe
found words
From this week’s Chicago Reader music section:
. . . spastic, fuzzed-out bubblegum punk.
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Local seapunk originator . . .
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. . . like folk-shouter Odetta going through a goth/drone phase.
2013
Saturday, September 7th
My son Luke, now twenty-two and living in Kansas City, checks in:
Just got done with an assessment and had some time to listen to some music. Really digging this song lately—thought you might.
Wale (featuring Sam Drew), “LoveHate Thing,” 2013
2013
Friday, August 9th
summer in the city
Pitchfork Music Festival, Chicago (Union Park), July 19-21
Run The Jewels (El-P & Killer Mike), “36” Chain”
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Swans, “Oxygen”
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Savages, “She Will”
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lagniappe
found words
More are surviving crash landings
—front page headline, USA Today, 8/9/13
2013
Monday, May 13th
Today, celebrating his twenty-second birthday, we revisit a few of the many posts inspired by my son Luke.
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It’s impossible, sometimes, to separate our experience of music, especially pop music, from the surrounding circumstances. The other day, for instance, I was taking my son Luke back to school in Bloomington, Indiana. He was playing dashboard DJ. As we rolled through the hills of southern Indiana, nearing our destination, this came on after a long stretch of hip-hop (Lil Wayne, Eminem, Young Jeezy, Tyga, et al.), and the electronic intro, the Björk-like voice—they lit up the highway.
Ellie Goulding, “Lights,” 2010
(Originally posted 8/22/12.)
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what you’d be listening to if you were 20*
Lupe Fiasco, “The End of the World” (sampling M83, “Midnight City”), 2011
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Adele, “Rolling in the Deep,” Jamie xx Remix, feat. Childish Gambino, 2011
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*Based on a sample of one—my son Luke. What a treat to have a pair of 20-year-old ears back in the house (and car) over the holidays.
(Originally posted 1/2/12.)
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what’s new
I’ve got some music for you . . .
—my (20-year-old) son Luke, in a hospital room, moments after returning from general anesthesia and foot surgery
“Made In America,” Kanye West & Jay-Z, with Frank Ocean (Watch the Throne), 2011
. . . it might be my favorite song on the whole album.
(Originally posted, with a different visual, 9/3/11.)
music clip of the day 