Well, OK. It's Monday.
Five, describe.
Look alive.
Here we go!
- Gastr Del Sol - Mouth Canyon. Mmmm meandering...
- Beethoven - String Quartet #15 In A Minor. Hard to get into at this time of day.
- Unrest - Firecracker. Two delay pedals repeating, for three minutes.
- Jimi Hendrix - Catfish Blues. Sections of straightforward blues separated by long electric freakouts. Almost 8 minutes.
- Q-Tip - Move. OK, finally! A tune I like, on a Monday AM.
What you got?
Back to Portland, OR in May. Probably.
1. Rachel Stevens – Some Girls. Poptastic!
2. Wolfmother – Dimension. Rocktastic!
3. Portishead – Biscuit. Triptastic!
4. Gorillaz – Sound Check (Gravity). Dubtastic!
5. Dionne Warwick – Walk On By. Soultastic!
What a mix!
I bought a new album today! A+E by Graham Coxon. It’s rather good – if you like distorted guitars.
1. Twenty-five hours of love in the life of “Happy the Golden Prince” rides again, by Robyn Hitchcock. Wow, this is promising — I have not listened to this little bit of bizarre for years. 7 minutes of balls-out weirdness. He unscrewed his head, and the toothpaste gushed out — “So that’s who I am!” he cried… I felt strongly tempted to request this song last time I saw Robyn but I refrained from doing so.
2. “Good Morning Little Schoolgirl”, the Grateful Dead. This is going to be a long shuffle…
3. “Cannonball Rag”, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. OK, well, this takes the average duration of a song in this shuffle down a good deal. Welcome dose of brightness and energy after “GMLS”.
4. “Soldier’s Joy”, the Holy Modal Rounders. Hey, I was just working on a version of this tune the other day…
5. “Alabama Waltz”, Charles Long
Two songs over 6:30 and two under 1:30. It all averages out in the end…
O hai, it’s Tuesday already.
1. Otis Redding – Keep your Arms Around Me
An early one, in his then-standard mold of 6/8 slow ballads, but so easy to listen to because of, well, everything. Otis would have been great under any circumstances, but the Stax house band elevated his work to godlike.
2. The Beatles – Happiness is a Warm Gun
I’ve always loved the episodic nature of this one. Anthology teaches us that this, like a lot of Lennon’s late-period work, started as kind of a scattered mess, but I’ll say it again: George Martin polished it to a diamond.
3. Ramin Djawadi – A Bird Without Feathers (Game of Thrones soundtrack)
Moody, atmospheric. I’m not sure what the plucked instrument is starting at 1:14, but I love its texture.
4. The Beatles – Tell Me What You See
Probably nobody’s favorite, yet there’s something really unique about this.
5. Rabbi Mark Zimmerman – Echad Mi Yodea
My wife and kids are Jewish, so every spring I brush up on my seder songs. So I have this on the iPod. But this guy’s melody is different than the one we use, and therefore is wrong.