Do you want to look at a wobbly video of someone’s record player, someone who doesn’t know how to position the arm over the groove in between the songs before letting the needle fall to the LP? (Or barring that start the video later.) Yeah, well too bad suckers, because that’s the best video I could find for the best song ever this week month, The Mountain Goats’ “Dance Music.” (The song is more than ten years old; it’s just the best song ever to me this month.) You know, why am I harshing on the person who hooked me up with this video. Thanks random person, I owe you one. Also, new vinyl, woo! Most all of my records sound like someone is frying a pan of bacon on every track.
I find this whole album very relatable which is kind of a bummer in the larger sense because it’s sad. But this is real life that’s happening now, and right now this song makes me so happy I will run when I was exercising by walking before, and run with a smile on my face. No one looks happy when they run. Literally no one.
Joggers uniformly look like they are about to pass their last painful bowel movement before inevitable death by fire ants. Longtime joggers can be picked out easily because they also look shriveled-up, raisin-like, by the exigencies of their alleged fun hobby. I have run before BTDubs, ever, it’s just you hate it almost all the time. If you get to where you don’t hate it you run to where you’re miserable again. That’s how it works. I mean, you get some exulting in the power of your body moments at the beginning of a run when you’re young, but otherwise it’s steady misery. Right now I sprint and then walk. Way better. Except it’s hot as balls 100% humidity outside and the jungle is creepy. Winter in Arizona I’m like, 4 or 5 miles, cool. Singapore: 2.1 miles. Dying.
We joked that seeing a runner smiling might trigger the “if you see a suspicious person or article, notify the authorities” principle and some concerned Singaporean would call to say they had seen such a person. “This ang mo woman with blue hair was running and smiling. Very suspicious one.” “Maybe she is simply catching the bus?” “No, this one is jogging.” Police: “we’re coming now.”
The king of all happy sad songs is Neutral Milk Hotel’s Holland 1945, right?
Plain People of Crooked Timber: we’re not, you great idiot. We do ordinary things for up to fifteen minutes at a time and then suddenly the reality of the political situation comes rushing back to us and our forehead prickles with cold sweat and our heart bangs like Charlie Watts is going at it in a particularly vigorous live version of “Bitch,” or something. OK, no, you’ve got us, Belle Waring, it’s drinking.
Me: that’s nice for you probably sometimes but I picked the wrong life to stop drinking (apparently). Solange makes a lot of good suggestions in the following song, but starts with the obvious: “I tried to drink it away…”
This song is so good it will keep you sane for over four minutes.
Plain People of Crooked Timber: we love you but you have terrible taste in music, Belle Waring. Oh wait, damn, that song is great. We reserve the right to hate future songs, however, and we still have questions about your judgment.
Me: I don’t know that that’s so nice. What am I doing to stay sane, you didn’t particularly ask? Listening to music, that’s good, and hiking in the desert, and beading, and making a needlepoint of the opening screen of Super Mario Bros for Violet, and playing Animal Crossing, and having migraines. Can’t care about the body politic when you’ve got the old Boethius hat on, can you? However, I do not recommend this terrifying mighty distractive tool to anyone not currently serving in the Trump administration. That dead-eyed D-List-Goebbels/Pee Wee Herman guy, frex; he could be trying to puke out a headache right now and I’d feel fine with that. I had a nice neurologist inject my head with deadly botulin toxin on Monday afternoon and you must all do a save-Tinkerbell clapping thing for me whereby you wish very hard that this start to work soon. It very well shouldmight better! So, what are you, the Plain People of Crooked Timber, doing to stay sane slowly inch away from the precipice of panicked madness? It’s ok if you’re huffing paint; no hate.
UPDATE: other things, called to mind by ozma and the Solange song: playing with adorable children; going alternately in the insanely hot hot tub and then the cold pool; changing my hair, which has been pastel blue, and then lavender, with white in between (needed prep) about 6 times each.
Doilies! Glitter! Overpriced prix fixe menus! But there are songs too.
Is this the best soul song ever? Wait, no, the most beautiful? The way he makes his voice break on “please hear my cry” blows my mind every time.
I hope you all eat chocolate or enjoy the highest pleasure of souls entwined who, the modeling the other on Zeus, begin to grow wings because of their intense attraction to and vivid memory of the Forms, or whatever. But with less physical restraint? (The Phaedrus is not crystal clear on this point.) I’m going to finally see my honey at 10 pm on Monday!
Car Seat Headrest is a good band. Like, damn, so amazing. Maybe the acme of “anything could be a bandname” naming, but I don’t care. The album Teens of Denial is just crazy good, like a Pavement had sex with Guided by Voices album delivered from your dreams, but with Belle and Sebastian story songs?
Also the 2016 Bon Iver Album is great and I didn’t know (John and I haven’t lived in the same town since June or he would have told me, probably ;__; ).
So now you can go listen to good music, and let’s all celebrate MLK day by figuring out if we can get to the Women’s March nearest us on the 21st. I may be able to go to the one in DC, if my insurance company will agree to pay for a thing at the Mayo in time! Cross fingers for me. If not I can go here in Phoenix.
Words can’t express how much I love the Shirley Bassey cover of Spinning Wheel. I couldn’t find it for ages; all my records in storage in Savannah, and no love from iTunes. In SF in the late 90s I used to go to a club night that was all…cheesy 60s music? But with a brilliant DJ who was good at reading the small crowd. This song was the barnburner. I was always resentful that my mom had once–but no longer–had thigh-high white patent leather go-go boots. (I also lacked the imagination as a teen when I first found out about these missing boots to see how you might just dance through/fatally stank up a thing like that). I only ever had knee-high white patent-leather go-go boots. Good enough when the piccolos attack this furious!
This year blew hairy goat balls. Like, Mickey Kaus learned lucid dreaming techniques and came up with these balls. I know this, you, The Plain People of Crooked Timber know this. Anyway, did DJ Earworm’s 2016 mix blow perforce? Nah. It’ll grow on you. I know y’all are all going to say “oh Belle Waring there were no good songs this year and this just reminds me how much I hated that “worth it” song which was like some stepped-on B-List Destiny’s Child knockoff bullshit, and also that Drake doesn’t rate and I should get with Rhianna, and stuff.” That’s as may be, Plain People of Crooked Timber, but basically Rhianna needs to date like a Rhianna clone or maybe Cara Delivigne or something, or else we’re all still going to be standing here saying, “this person? Seriously?” but this is a good mashup. It has an EDM-esque enough track in it, which is crucial for a good mix. Zoë thinks 2013 is best while Violet favors 2012. Both very solid choices. I have a lot of love for 2012, in part because I listen to it so much with Violet. This is so even though I find it brings up memories of a year that also blew hairy goat balls, but for me personally rather then the world at large. (John is experiencing the cold robbies as he reads the number 2012.)
If I never go that crazy again it’ll be too soon, I tell you what. And what did my Singaporean psychiatrists do? Prescribe every wrongest worse medication in the world, to where I got ordered an EKG an hour in on my first day here at the Mayo Clinic when they asked “so, they’re monitoring your heart carefully on this right?” Me: wat no. And now I have to titer down off all this scheisse and what does amitriptyline withdrawal give you? MIGRAINES HA HA HOW IRONIC. (Also plain old reg’lar headaches. Also I have 8 more weeks on the taper. Also some people have headaches for 8 weeks following total elimination. Those people are probably pussies who suck at withdrawing from drugs though, am I right?)
I like to listen to music loud on the good headphones when I’m miserable. When Violet pointed out the other day that this might be counter-productive I explained, rather lamely, that when I control the sounds I hear and I know what they will be I don’t find it disturbing in the same way that other loud noises are. Violet, with excessive emphases: “oh my favorite songs could never hurt me. They’re my favorites!!” Mmmmmm. Compelling. Also, the headphones just died lol fine. I’m going to go put my feet in the hot tub and pour icy water on my head which, put that way, makes this seem pretty baller. I mean, some people have real problems. I even have new anti-depressant/mood stabilizers that appear to make me be not depressed! I’m an ungrateful shit, really; I was actually depressed a month ago and had forgotten how vile it is, and also Zoë is doing great and now I’m all “I have a headache”/whine. In some ways 2017 can only be worse generally but for my family in particular I’m certain it’ll be way better (provided my mom is OK.) I’m fervently hoping the same is true for all the Plain People of Crooked Timber and their simple but honest families. OK, I have a soft spot for the complicated dishonest families; y’all stay safe too.
When I teach SF and Philosophy I include a short bit on SF in different media (before proceeding to devote the semester to short stories, for the most part.) So: SF and popular music. Seems like a thing. And a suitable challenge for the CT commentariat. I would be particular appreciative of intelligent periodization. But unclassifiable curiosities are also always welcome.
My post title come from Billy Lee Riley’s 1957 rockabilly hit. Ten years earlier, in 1947, you have a curious, country-gospel number, “When You See Those Flying Saucers”, from the Buchanan Brothers. Ten years later, in 1966, we’ve got the Byrds, “Mr. Spaceman”, the birth of a hippy-trippy sort of space rock – although folk-y “Spaceman” lacks the cosmic, synth-y atmospherics one associates with later progginess. Then, in 1969, we get “Space Oddity”, flipping the script from aliens to alienation, and corresponding to the work Kubrick does with 2001: A Space Odyssey, graduating out of the B-movie flying saucers era. (I just linked to the 1972 version. The song had sort of a slow roll-out, on its way to becoming a classic.) Glam and Ziggy Stardust. Elton John’s “Rocket Man” (1972) is the other early-70’s pop classic in this category. But let’s not forget Harry Nillson’s “Spaceman”, which was a Top-40 hit in 1972. “Bang Bang Shoot ’em up destineee!” And Genesis, “Watcher of the Skies” (1972). I feel Journey’s 1977 “Spaceman” bookends what the Byrds started a decade earlier. (By the by, Journey finally made it into the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame this year. Also, ELO.) After 1977 we are, for a time, in the Styx “Come Sail Away” era, at least when it comes to American SF-themed pop megahits. [click to continue…]
Years ago – don’t know why I remember – I posted about how some bands are loved, some bands are popular, even influential, without being heavily imitated. I put forth Steely Dan as a paradigm of a popular, influential band that isn’t imitated. I posited that it’s kind of hard to imitate them. (By contrast, The Velvet Underground is the band that sold a thousand records and started 10,000 bands.) That’s why I was interested when Apple Music offered, this afternoon, a playlist of “Inspired By Steely Dan” tracks. Further, the list promises to pass over “the yacht rock years” – so you can just put 10CC “I’m Not In Love” back where you found it!
Joe Jackson, Kanye West, Phoenix. When Ian Dury and the Blockheads came on I almost laughed out loud.
Here’s the list. How do you rank them? Slickeriness is not necessarily next to Danliness. Just putting an ooze of lounge jazz sleaze in there is not sufficient either, is it? (But it’s kind of hard to say. It’s kind of like trying to be influenced by British music hall tunes from the 40’s without being influenced by the Beatles. Logically, it should be possible, but, in practice, is it?) [click to continue…]
I’ve been waiting for, like, 25 years for Les Claypool to do something I really like. He was put on this earth to amuse Les Claypool. I understand it was never a case of him setting out to please me, and failing. He’s a fabulous bass player, but somehow all that Primus nonsense never did it for me. (Those cowboy suits – and I do mean cowboy suits – are the apotheosis of mid 90’s MTV. But I only want to listen for, like, 30 seconds.)
And now he’s done it, by Jove! This collaboration with Sean Lennon is genius. The lemony lightness of Lennon’s vocals are just what was needed to cut through the straight Claypool mud. The Claypool Lennon Delirium is to Primus as The Dukes of Stratosphear was to XTC. Clear? And if you’ve ever said to yourself: I want to hear something like Ween’s “Transdermal Celebration”, but make it 7/4 time … well, now you’ve got “Boomerang Baby”. I think the best tracks are “The Cricket and the Genie” and “Mr Wright”, which is a slap-bass “Arnold Layne”. “Bubbles Burst” is about Lennon’s own experience hanging out with Michael Jackson as a kid. Weird.
Then listen to some Leonard Cohen. Then return to our previously scheduled post-election despair. Under the fold, Bowie’s cover of “See Emily Play”: [click to continue…]
My friend (and former student) Dave Nachmanoff, has just released a philosophy themed folk-concept album called Spinoza’s Dream. I love it. The concept is pretty cerebral I suppose — each song is inspired by some philosophical idea or theory — but, as usual, Dave’s songs are nevertheless affecting and often personal. And the musicianship is fantastic: Dave himself is one of those musicians who somehow manages to make a single guitar sound like a whole band, and he is joined by various Al Stewart personnel (Dave has been Al Stewart’s lead guitarist for many years; the cover is designed by Colin Elgie, who designed the cover for Year of the Cat!), and Al himself on supporting vocals on one track. Here’s the great title track:
Earworms are having a moment. As if they needed one. “All Songs Considered” served up a rewind of an old episode on “Worst Songs”. (I really can’t imagine hating Meatloaf, “Paradise By The Dashboard Light”. It’s just a blues cheese track that doesn’t take itself seriously, in a Rocky Horror way. What’s to hate? It isn’t even an earworm. Also “We were barely 17 and we were barely dressed” is great lyrics.)
But mostly it’s this GQ article getting linked around on FB: an ‘oral history’ of Starship’s “Built This City”. Here’s my favorite bit: [click to continue…]
I’ve always been of the ‘McCartney is tooooo sweet’ school, though I’m aware he has tried to recapture that “Helter Skelter” grit and growl periodically down the years. Well, I just discovered his 2008 Fireman album, Electric Arguments, which is a terrible name for an album, which got some critical attention at the time but I missed it. I think a few tracks are pretty darn great. Beefheart-y beefiness, even if Paul’s pipes were built to shine at the high end. He isn’t exactly Howlin’ Wolf. But the boy can sing. Track 1 [click to continue…]
I said to a student that the British were deciding whether to leave Europe and she said, with shocked puzzlement on her face, “But where will they go?” She’s quite funny.
Discuss away. Please be civil and polite to those you disagree with (and those you agree with, for that matter) — unless you are a Tory addressing another Tory, in which case I guess that bird has flown and you should just enjoy yourself.
. I love it. The concept is pretty cerebral I suppose — each song is inspired by some philosophical idea or theory — but, as usual, Dave’s songs are nevertheless affecting and often personal. And the musicianship is fantastic: Dave himself is one of those musicians who somehow manages to make a single guitar sound like a whole band, and he is joined by various Al Stewart personnel (Dave has been Al Stewart’s lead guitarist for many years; the cover is designed by Colin Elgie, who designed the cover for 
!), and Al himself on supporting vocals on one track. Here’s the great title track: