Music

Guardian story here.

Very sorry I haven’t kept up my Descartes blogging. Been dead busy and, somehow, blogging about hylomorphism, you never feel the Sisyphusian (Sisyfuscian?) pressures of the news cycle. Will try to get back on that dead horse. But here’s something new. My 5-year old daughter is shaping up to be a Peter Cook/Dudley Moore fan. She likes Superthunderstingcar even better than the original Thunderbirds, even better than cat videos! (Also, she would like to report that she wewwy had “Bad Wowmance” wunning thwew hew head. But that’s another kettle of fish. I haven’t let her watch the video for that one, but she was singing it for a while. And the 8-year old called her ‘Baby Gaga’, but it didn’t stick, so she’s back to being Mei-Mei.)

So I’ve been watching a spot of “Not Only … But Also” YouTube videos. Very funny stuff. I had never watched it until recently. (Which gives the lie to the whole ‘dead busy’ excuse. I know.) Here’s my question to you. The “L.S. Bumblebee” sketch, which is a hoot and a half – love the shirtless gong player and his sheet music; and which concludes with a hilarious appearance by John Lennon as “Dan”; is a dead-on “Lucy In The Sky” roast. Yet “L.S.” was, apparently, released as a single in February 1967. But Sgt. Pepper itself was only released in June, 1967. It seems that “Lucy in the Sky” was perfectly pre-parodied, months in advance. I’ve Googled around a bit and found quotes from Moore, from the 1970’s (by which time “L.S.” was apparently erroneously popping up on Beatles bootlegs) suggesting that the song was supposed to parody the Beach Boys more than the Beatles, which doesn’t really seem right. (Maybe the Monkees?) Also suggesting it was a response to the whole “Lucy” craze, which doesn’t seem to fit with the dating. Anyway, what is most surprising to me is the thought that, by the start of 1967, Sgt. Pepper-style psychedelia was the stuff of parody to the point where the frame joke of the sketch is that it is fodder for a documentary for Idaho television. Could it really be that Sgt. Peppers was that old hat by the end of 1966, before it even existed? I’m confused? I always thought the Beatles were pretty cool.

Via David Friedman, a cool interactive music video.

Okay, so he’s 65 and perhaps his voice isn’t what it once was – actually, I’m not sure his voice was ever what it once was – I haven’t seen him play live for probably 25 years, so I can’t really remember too well. But oh, those songs! He’s touring in support of a new cd called “The Kinks Choral Collection”. Some of his gigs have been with chorus, but I saw him the other day without – around 45 minutes of just him and the incredible Bill Shanley on guitar, followed by a full-on band blow-out. Amazing stuff from throughout his career – early and late Kinks along with his recent solo albums. He certainly was in fine spirits – he kept cracking himself up with lots of funny stories and interaction with the audience – and did I mention that the songs just don’t quit, although, no, he didn’t play “Thanksgiving Day.” Looks like he’s headed back across the Atlantic next month – Cambridge, Birmingham, Glasgow, Manchester, and London. Definitely worth seeing.

Here.
Enjoy. It’s Sunday after all.

Following up this post, here’s the way to do the scan-and-OCR thing (if you are a mac user). [click to continue…]

Amazon is giving away a whole Philip Glass album: The Orange Mountain Music Vol.I. I’m really, really enjoying it. On the other hand, I’m using it as background music for scanning and doing itsby bitsy Photoshop stuff. It goes up and down and up and down and my hand goes up and down and up and down, and etc., and we seem to be getting on together. When I was in college I hated Philip Glass. I paid a lot for a ticket to a concert, without knowing what I was in for. I was bitterly disappointed. What do you think of the man? Give the album a try, if you are a skeptic.

Mercedes Sosa died today at age 74. An amazing voice, wonderful songs, and an important symbol of resistance against the Argentinean dictatorship. She will be missed, not just by Latin-Americans.

I was kind of surprised to see that the wonderful Tom Russell has a long essay on some new blog called The Rumpus, all about Juarez, El Paso, drug wars, borderlands, corruption, et cetera. I love his music, and I like his writing too, so I’m always pleased to see some more of it. The content, though, the content is shocking.

bq. I turned that page in section B where there was a short item about two El Pasoans slain yesterday in a Juarez bar shooting. Back page stuff. Hidden near the end of the story was the astounding body count: _nearly 2900 people, including more than 160 this month alone, have been killed in Juarez since a war between drug traffickers erupted January 2008_ . John Wesley Hardin wouldn’t stand a chance.

Jesus. You’re probably safer in Kandahar.

I think I sort-of knew many of the facts that Elijah Wald recounts in this piece in the Financial Times . Still, knowing and putting-together are two different things. You couldn’t listen to 78s as “background music” because even with an auto-changer, you’d have to get up every 15 minutes – hence the importance of radio if you wanted a soundtrack to other activities. Why did jazz singers such as Billie Holiday record such a wide repertoire of “standards”? They were packaging the hit songs of their day for a particular audience (with other singers styling for other market segments). Wald’s account also makes sense of other matters that seem incomprehensible to modern music fans. Wald doesn’t discuss this, but we are often surprised that great singers of the past died in poverty and obscurity and are buried in unmarked graves (Bessie Smith, for example). But Wald’s emphasis on the contemporary importance of the song rather than the singer helps to explain how this could have happened. We might prize the iconic performances of the time, but back then there were lots of jobbing singers churning out multiple versions. Interesting enough to make me order a copy of Wald’s new book, _How the Beatles Destroyed Rock ’n’ Roll_.

Dead at 94.

A year ago I was going through a Les Paul phase and posted a nice round-up of YouTube items. It’s fantastic stuff. I suggest you take 10 minutes to remember the father of rock and roll – well, he sort of was. There’s a whole documentary you can watch. I love the idea of idea of this guy with the future of music planted in his head, touring around as Rhubard Red. I love all that corny old stuff with Mary Ford. Corny and elegant and kinda nerd-brainy, and beloved by geniuses for what he let them do. Les Paul. Not a bad life.

Loudon Wainwright III on Paul Krugman.

I think the new Coconut Records album, Davy, is Beatlesesque (but less utterly brilliant), Elliott Smithish (but less pained), Weezerlike (but less New Wave ironic-astringent) – and several other things I can’t quite put my finger on – power pop jingle-jangly loud-soft goodness and wholesomeness and not excessive smartypantsness. It’s somewhat better than the new Bishop Allen album Grrrr (just for comparison purposes to something obscure in the general vicinity.) Coconut Records is a solo project by Jason “you saw him first in Rushmore” Schwartzman, formerly of the band Phantom Planet. I mention all this because Amazon has <em>Davy</em> on sale for $1.99 for the next several hours or so. [UPDATE: sale’s over. Sorry.] (Here’s the myspace page.)

Davy is assisting me in the performance of various repetitive tasks today, by letting my mind clack happy through the CD racks of memory, trying to pin down all the little influences. And it’s well produced.

I also like the new Bishop Allen album Grrr pretty well. I mention that because I feel they have been unfairly abused by Pitchfork, which has gotta hurt. Grrr definitely deserves better than a pitiful 3.5. I give it a 7. “The Ancient Commonsense Of Things” is damn catchy. (Myspace page here.)