only rock ’n roll
(an occasional series)
The great thing about rock ’n roll is you don’t have to understand
a single word for it to make perfect sense.
Hasil Adkins, “She Said”
Take 1: live
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
Take 2: recording (1964)
Vodpod videos no longer available.
More? Here.
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lagniappe
only rock ’n roll
(an occasional series)
Oneida, “The Adversary,” Ireland, 10/07
Vodpod videos no longer available.what’s new
(an occasional series)
James Blake, “The Wilhelm Scream,” Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, 7/14/11
Vodpod videos no longer available.*****
favorites
(an occasional series)
Hearing JB brought this MCOTD fave to mind (originally posted 11/23/09).
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”
*****
“You And Me Both”
*****
“This Is How We Walk on the Moon”
*****
“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.)
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[Russell’s] various distinctions—folkie, art-music songwriter and improviser, dance-club maven—seem incoherent until you hear several of his records. When musicians get angry about being categorized by critics, I usually feel frustrated: readers, after all, want to know what the record sounds like. With Russell, I take the musicians’ angle. Just listen to it and you’ll understand.
—Ben Ratliff, “The Many Faces, and Grooves, of Arthur Russell,” New York Times, 2/29/04
*****
For Arthur, there was no cachet to being eclectic. Rather, he played across genre because it would have required a colossal and entirely counterproductive effort on his part to stick to one sound. . . . Drifting into an ethereal, gravity-defying zone, Arthur had come to embody the interconnectivity of music.
—Tim Lawrence, Hold On To Your Dreams: Arthur Russell and the Downtown Music Scene, 1973-1992 (2009).
only rock ’n roll
(an occasional series)
13th Floor Elevators
TV broadcast, 1966
“You’re Gonna Miss Me” (Billboard Hot 100, #55)
*****
Live, San Francisco (Avalon Ballroom), 1966
“Gloria”
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
“You Really Got Me”
Vodpod videos no longer available.More of Roky Erickson? Here.
only rock ’n roll
(an occasional series)
Hasil Adkins with SCOTS (Southern Culture on the Skids), “Hubcap Hunch”
Live, Sleazefest, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1994
only rock ’n roll
(an occasional series)
The Dirtbombs, “Stop,” New Jersey (Asbury Lanes, Asbury Park), c. 2007
Vodpod videos no longer available.Anybody can play in tune.
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lagniappe
reading table
welcoming in loads
of new year’s rain . . .
trashy house—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827), trans. David G. Lanoue
serendipity
an occasional series
The other night, while I was listening to WFMU-FM, this jumped out.
Mikey Erg, “Key of C, Fix It, Fix It, Stop” (2011)
*****
lagniappe
more
“Pray For Rain”
Take 1
The Ergs! (2005)
***
Take 2
Mikey Erg, live, Fest 9 (Gainesville, Florida), 2010
Vodpod videos no longer available.Happy (61st) Birthday, Don!*
Bobby Rydell, “Swingin’ School” (Billboard Hot 100, #5)
Live (TV broadcast), 1960
Of musical memories there is no end.
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lagniappe
*****
reading table
You see what I am doing: there was an empty space left in the trunk which I am filling with hay; that’s how it is in our life’s baggage; no matter what we stuff it with it’s better than having empty space.
—Ivan Turgenev, Fathers and Sons (1862)
*my brother & oldest musical companion
flicks
(an occasional series)
Rosco Gordon & The Red Tops, “Chicken In The Rough”
Rock Baby, Rock It! (1957)
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lagniappe
radio
Lloyd Knibb Memorial Broadcast: Eastern Standard Time, WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University), 5/21/11 (archived).
Who else (besides, of course, Bob Dylan) has played so many different roles so brilliantly?
Miles Davis (with Robben Ford & guest Carlos Santana, guitars), “Burn”
Live, Giants Stadium, East Rutherford, New Jersey, 6/15/86
Listen to stuff long enough and it changes—or you do, anyway. Once I might have faulted this for being repetitive. But that’s a bit like faulting roast beef for being meat. Of course it’s repetitive. That’s part of what makes it soar.
More? Here.
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lagniappe
listening room: what’s playing
• Rashied Ali Quintet, Live In Europe (Survival Records)
• Paul Motian (with Chris Potter, Jason Moran), Lost In A Dream (ECM)
• Charlie Parker, The Complete Royal Roost Live Recordings on Savoy, Vol. 3 (Columbia Japan)
• Eric Dolphy At The Five Spot, Vol. 2 (with Booker Little, Mal Waldron, Richard Davis, Ed Blackwell; Prestige)
• Various Artists, Fire In My Bones: Raw + Rare + Other-Worldly African-American Gospel (1944-2007) (Tompkins Square)
• Reverend Charlie Jackson, God’s Got It: The Legendary Booker and Jackson Singles (CaseQuarter)
• Group Doueh, Guitar Music from the Western Sahara (Sublime Frequencies)
• Mozart: Piano Sonata No. 8 in A Minor, Helene Grimaud, Resonances (Deutsche Grammophon)
• Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 23 (“Appasionata”) and No. 29 (“Hammerklavier”), Solomon, The Master Pianist (EMI Classics)
• Anton Webern: String Quartet, Six Bagatelles for String Quartet, String Quartet Op. 28, LaSalle Quartet (Brilliant Classics)
• Arnold Schoenberg: String Quartet in D major, LaSalle Quartet (Brilliant Classics)
• Roger Sessions: String Quartet No. 2, Julliard String Quartet (Composers Recordings)
• Morton Feldman: For Bunita Marcus, John Tilbury, Morton Feldman, All Piano (London HALL)
• WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University)
—Bird Flight (Phil Schaap, jazz [Charlie Parker])
—Morning Classical (Various)
—Amazing Grace (Various)
• WFMU-FM
—Mudd Up! (DJ/Rupture, “new bass and beats”)
—Sinner’s Crossroads (Kevin Nutt, gospel)
—Give The Drummer Some (Doug Schulkind, sui generis)
—Fool’s Paradise (Rex, sui generis)
—Transpacific Sound Paradise (Rob Weisberg, “popular and unpopular music from around the world”)
music clip of the day 