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The Calm at the Core of Disorder
[Lyrics] [Video: "Saints & Liars," by Pony Boy. See the note at the foot of this post for more information.] From whiskey river: There is tremendous power in unearthing, in recognizing distracted, scattered mind, the mind which would rather be anywhere but here, and spending some time there, with that mind. Rather than being an [...]
Midweek Music Break: Collins H. Driggs (on the Novachord), “Estudiantina,” and… Beer
[The Novachord, closed and open (click either photo for an enlargement); both photos per Wikipedia] When you grew up in the US during a certain window of time (and maybe in certain geographic areas, within certain socioeconomic strata), the culture you could absorb from the adult world was this weird amalgam of past and present. [...]
Midweek Music Break: The Essex, “Easier Said Than Done”
In 1961, a couple of US Marines stationed in Okinawa — Rodney Taylor and Walter Vickers – formed a vocal duo with the slightly odd name “The Essex.” Shortly thereafter, they were reassigned to Camp LeJeune in North Carolina; there, they added a couple of their fellow leathernecks, Billy Hill and Rudolph Johnson. They even encountered a [...]
Surprise, Surprise
[Video: high-speed footage (1000fps) of an "eagle owl" in flight. This film has apparently been around for a while, but I don't think I've seen it before this week. Chief virtue, for me: shows me something I couldn't have imagined on my own!] From whiskey river: I cannot help you understand. In the realm of [...]
Midweek Music Break: Louis Armstrong, “There’s a Boat Dat’s Leavin’ Soon for New York”
Louis Armstrong’s public persona so often seemed so happy-go-lucky, so ingratiating, that the song “There’s a Boat Dat’s Leavin’ Soon for New York” — from the Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess — seems to fit him like a glove. It comes across as a bouncy, jaunty tease. Without the context of the surrounding plot, here’s what we hear: [...]
Midweek Music Break: Jim James/The New Multitudes, “Talking Empty Bed Blues”
I posted a few months ago about a recent project, led by Bob Dylan, to record the “lost notebooks” of Hank Williams. It so happens that 2012 marks the centennial of the birth of another great songwriter (and Dylan hero), Woodie Guthrie; and a new album, The New Multitudes, has just been released, of Guthrie’s [...]
Midweek Music Break: The Playmates, “Beep Beep”
I’ve been thinking for a while of doing theme-type Midweek Music Breaks for a little variety, such as one on car music: songs about cars. As opposed to conventional “road trip” music, I mean, or songs by groups named after cars (like The Fleetwoods, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, and, uh, The Cars). I may still do [...]
Midweek Music Break: Ciara Sidine, “Take Me Down”
[Image: "Ciara and Conor [Brady], acoustic set, Shadow Road Shining launch at Sugar Club, Dublin, 13 May 2011″ (from her FB page)] The [mostly imaginary] scene: Dublin, Ireland, in the offices of a large publishing firm, sometime in the still young twenty-first century. An experienced, highly respected editor sits looking dreamily out a window of her [...]
Midweek Music Break: Hayes Carll, “Another Like You”
Thanks to all the new(ish) music I’ve been listening to over the last couple years, I’ve found myself a fan of a genre I didn’t even know existed. It’s sort of a loose super-genre, actually: Americana or “roots music,” incorporating elements of bluegrass, folk, country/western, blues, rock… The instrumentation and arrangement lean acoustic-wards, and often [...]
Answers in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear
[Image: xkcd #936, on password strength. Click image to enlarge; see xkcd itself for the full six panels and the punchline.] From whiskey river: This accidental meeting of possibilities calls itself I. I ask: what am I doing here? And, at once, this I becomes unreal. (Dag Hammarskjöld [source]) …and: Ch’ui the draftsman Could draw more [...]
