basement jukebox
three by Randy Newman
“I Don’t Want To Hear Anymore” (AKA “I Don’t Want To Hear It Anymore”), Jerry Butler, 1964
*****
“I’ve Been Wrong Before,” Cilla Black, 1965
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“Just One Smile,” Gene Pitney, 1966
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lagniappe
found words
Best of the Web: Celebs Who Are Older Than You Think
only rock ’n’ roll
Dolly Varden, “California Zephyr,” live, Chicago, 1999
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Last Saturday, with my wife Suzanne and son Alex, I heard these folks at Fitzgerald’s, a wonderful club in Berwyn (just outside Chicago) that I’ve been going to since long before Alex, now twenty-five, was born. Some people, if given the chance to be anywhere in the world on a Saturday night, might choose Paris. Others might take Rome. London would likely get some votes, New York too. For me, last Saturday anyway, there was nowhere I would rather have been than Berwyn.
only rock ’n’ roll
Savages, “City’s Full,” live, London, 2012
only rock ’n’ roll
Some bands I keep coming back to.
The Dirtbombs, “Ever Lovin’ Man,” San Francisco (Amoeba Music), 2008
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lagniappe
reading table
Odd, I have now a mania for shortness. Whenever I read my own or other people’s works it all seems to me not short enough.
—Anton Chekhov (1860-1904)
Who needs a game?
The Flaming Lips, Hyundai Super Bowl Commercial (“Epic Playdate”)
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
I’m not selling out, I’m buying in.
—Swamp Dogg
Saturday night, between trips to Northwestern’s Pick-Staiger Hall, I caught these folks at Chicago’s City Winery.
Dolly Varden, “Forgiven Now,” live, Chicago area (SPACE, Evanston), 2011
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Here they talk about, and play songs from, their new album (For A While).
two takes
Dolly Varden, “Surrounded By The Sound”
Live, Chicago, 2008
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Recording (Forgiven Now), 2002
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A lot of stuff like this, at least on the surface, I can’t stand. This I love. Why? Well, for starters, there’s the way the voices interweave. Then there’s the way the words sound. Take the hook, for instance: “I want to be surrounded by the sound.” And, too, there’s the presentation, disarmingly modest. Nothing’s oversold.
This I could listen to all day.
Neneh Cherry & The Thing (Mats Gustafsson, baritone saxophone; Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, bass; Paal Nilssen-Love, drums), “Dream Baby Dream,” live, Spain (San Sebastian), 2012
My heart’s on fire . . .
Nona Hendryx (with Ronny Drayton, guitar), Philadelphia, 2012
“Temple of Heaven”
*****
“Rock This House”
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lagniappe
reading table
Her life, she said, was an out-of-tune piano played with passion.
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This evening I sat listening to five presidential candidates offering their imaginary solutions for a country that doesn’t exist.
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“Imaginary maladies are much worse than the real ones, because they’re incurable,” an old friend who walks with difficulty was telling me.
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Much of what our eyes see and our ears hear is lost in translation.
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“An alarm clock with no hands, ticking on the town dump,” is how he described himself.
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They gave the nice old gentleman I met at the bake sale several medals for the misery he caused in some country that no one could find any longer on the map.
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I bet all our elected representatives in Washington spend a great deal of time in front of mirrors admiring themselves. They lift their noses and chins, stare straight ahead without moving an eyebrow or a muscle, then nod their heads gravely and smile to themselves as they go out to meet the people.
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He sat on a bench in Washington Square Park whispering something extremely confidential to his dog, who sat before him with ears perked, wagging his tail cautiously from time to time.
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The crosses all men and women must carry through life are even more visible on this dark and rainy November evening.
—Charles Simic, “A Year in Fragments” (excerpts), New York Review Blog, 12/31/12
only rock ’n’ roll
There are only a few bands I come back to often.
One of them is The National.
—my (25-year-old) son Alex, talking music the other day
The National, “Fake Empire,” live, New York, 2011
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More?
Live, Netherlands, 2011*
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Here’s Bryan Ferry talking about his new album (featured yesterday):
*****
*Here’s the set list (courtesy of a YouTube comment):
00:00 runaway. 06:30 anyone’s ghost. 09:45 bloodbuzz ohio. 14:40 afraid of everyone. 19:00 conversation 16. 23:20 lemonworld. 27:04 apartment story. 30:50 sorrow. 35:50 england. 42:10 fake empire. 45:45 encore break. 48:05 mr november. 53:13 terrible love.
music clip of the day 