It’s rare these days that someone can dredge up an artist who isn’t brand-spanking new that I a.) don’t recognize and b.) love. Most recently, Top Gear turned me on to the criminally under-recognized (in the US) Seasick Steve, whom I love.
But I’ve found myself listening to an ungodly amount of Serge Gainsbourg ever since April turned me on to him during a recent outing on the boat. Gainsbourg’s music is odd, but oddly compelling. It’s not the sot of thing I’d want to listen to intently while driving, but it’s perfect background summer music. Yes, even in French.
This version of “Devil” is slower than the speed-thrash original, meaning that a casual listener can actually hear the lyrics (and perhaps surmise my bad-neighborhood-populist-hopeful-doubter kinsip with the song). But thanks to backing band Great American Taxi, it retains the right energy.
I also mention it because, per an email from Todd’s site yesterday, he has a benefit single for his adopted hometown of Nashville. Dammned if I can find it anywhere on his site (or elsewhere for that matter).
Somehow this song always seems to find me when I’m thinking a lot about a friend or friend’s family in serious condition. That’s appropriate, given that it’s a track off of Warren Zevon’s final album, produced while he was dying of cancer.
It’s got a celebratory, whistling in the dark, thumbing your nose at the reaper vibe that I just love. Listened to it on repeat all the way in to work this morning.
I like that it’s clearly a rehearsal take that they decided to keep rough edges and all. And you can smell the smoke coming off Bruce Springsteen‘s guitar. (That’s him on the solos.)
Programming note: I’ve been posting mp3s with the Yahoo embed player, but I’ve decided to use Grooveshark for any widely available tracks in the unlikely case an overzealous copyright holder ever becomes a regular reader. I don’t like the UI as much as the Yahoo player, but best to be safe, methinks.
While working my way through the New Year’s week, I watched a lot of concerts I’d recorded on TV, including Lindsey Buckingham’s HDNET show at Bass Hall a couple of years ago. There was one tune that hadn’t made an impression on me at the time — nor in repeated listenings to the album version. But when I heard Lindsey’s preamble this time it struck a chord. Without the backstory, you might think the song a downer. But as Lindsey described it, it was about how when you have many dreams, they’re never all going to come to fruition. That’s something to deal with, but nothing to mourn — the burial of those dreams makes room for others. Sometimes you need to put “cast away dreams” to rest in a celebratory fashion, even by dancing upon them. That’s something I’ve been thinking about lately, especially as I’m contributing to some efforts to provide support and inspiration to entrepreneurs on the rougher side of the adventure. Not every mission is a success — and that’s a good thing to be celebrated. Let’s dance: Read the rest of this entry »
Now one day this world is gonna curl up and burst
It’s gonna choke on it’s own tongue and die of it’s own thirst
Until that day comes our roads will always be long
But he’s left signposts to guide us along
On overpass columns from Mexico to Maine
The color may vary but the message doesn’t change
He knows he’s not judged by his works, he does it just the same
And at the start of every day he would pray:
Lord, I’m only just one man
Lord, I’ve only got two hands
Lord, I’ll do the best I can…
The bad news is that my copy of the original, complete with honky-tonk piano and screaming guitars is all entwined with ITunes DRM so it won’t post. (But you can get it here.)
The good news is that the live bootleg version I posted includes the background story. The song stands on its own, but it’s even richer with the story. Plus it comes with a bonus version of “Sideshow Blues.”
The Drive-by Truckers’ new rarities album, The Fine Print , has instantly become my favorite DBT album, period. From the off-kilter lyrics of “George Jones Talkin’ Cell Phone Blues” to superlative covers of Tom Petty (“Rebels”), Warren Zevon (“Play It All Night Long”) and Bob Dylan (“Like a Rolling Stone) — the album has a loose, improvisational, but virtuoso feel. Sometimes I find DBT a little obtuse lyrically, but I’ve always loved them live — and this album has that “off the rails” feel of a late night club show.
In mulling that yesterday, I realized how often I prefer bands’ cast-off odds-and-sods discs. To whit: Read the rest of this entry »
Candid, unposed photography generally makes for the best covers.
Time prohibits this being as fleshed out as my last Guilty Pleasures post, but a Twitter debate with my pal Houston last night compels me to make a brief case for this album as a horrible, wonderful gem.
The album, actually called Two the Hard Way, is billed to “Allman and Woman,” ie: Greg Allman and Cher, during their brief marriage. It was a critical and commercial flop.
But it had an wonderfully terrible airbrushed cover. Allman looks like a intellectually challenged dog who caught a car and doesn’t know what to do with it. Cher looks like, well, Cher.Read the rest of this entry »
Partly because of my company’s new lease on life, I’m in a creative mode for the first time in, well, too long. I was making my way to work this morning, amping with coffee and good tunes and was reminded of how much I love songs where a band — usually a band that is generally technically precise — goes off the rails into a cacophony that is both sloppy and skillful. The resulting sound is loose and fun, but also suggests that it is born from an attempt to go just beyond the range of their high level of skill.
I recently got a mailer inviting me to subscribe again, which briefly pissed me off: I was certain I was owed some back issues from my subscription to the last incarnation, but I later realized they had been fulfilled with a few issues of Paste. Worse, I’d apparently missed a year of the magazine.
But, the offer included starting with OA‘s tenth annual music issue, which always comes with an AMAZING CD — This year it was a double-disc with one of artists previously unvisited, and another of artists (but not songs) from previous editions. Read the rest of this entry »
This is the first in an occasional series of posts on “The Great Songs.” These are songs that have stood some reasonable test of time; been performed by multiple artists; and stand up to virtually any arrangement.
This may well be one of my top ten favorite songs, but I always seem to forget about it until it manifests itself in shuffle at an opportune time. Beauty and apocalypse mix with a Browne vocal so real you can hear him chuckle at the irony in one of the verses — and I generally find him stilted. I’d love for Ben Folds to cover this.
Although I’d heard it before, it first stuck with me when it popped into my shuffle as I was taking a long walk to clear my head during the confusion of September 12, 2001.
I like to think that I have impeccable, yet Catholic musical tastes. But there’s always been a certain collection of songs that I know violate every rule of good music. They do so without any pretension at subtlety, play on the cheapest human emotions and contain the cheapest of single entendres and bad puns. Treacle and bombast can. and do, coexist.
As a youth, I didn’t know that these songs had anything in common, although I should have: Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve noticed an uptick lately in the number and quality of what I’d call LP blogs — sites primarily dedicated to posting audio and cover images from long out-of-print vinyl records.
This is an invaluable service, spreading around good, great and sometimes intentionally awful music that would otherwise be lost to the ages. And even the most jaded RIAA-lovin’ copyright fanatic can’t reasonably object to the dissemination of these mostly obscure out-of-circulation albums without a discernible commercial market…
In Music, PopCult on November 18, 2008 at 11:31 pm
I do loves me some Elvis Costello, particularly when he stretches himself by mixing genres, going symphonic or starting a talk show that looks to be much more in-depth and interesting than your average gabfest. I may have to bump the DirecTV subscription a level on the basis of this show alone. And the upcoming episode with Lou Reed may well make my head explode with fanboy glee.
To be clear, I’ve never worked for Virgin Records. Nor have I ever stolen a master tape of Sticky Fingers. But somehow this Cracker tune summed up my mood on the drive home tonight:
Seeing as I’ve found Ben’s new album and his gig in Dallas this week to be a bit disappointing, nice to see MySpace release the video of the recent BFF reunion to perform The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner: Read the rest of this entry »
And I got plans and dreams and hopeful schemes, enough to make you cry. I’m just waiting for that single perfect point in time to give ‘em all a try… — Slobberbone
Seeing as I’ve found Ben’s new album and his gig in Dallas this week to be a bit disappointing, nice to see MySpace release the video of the recent BFF reunion to perform The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner: