Filed under: mp3s, music | Tags: Allen Ginsberg, Jay Reatard, Mudhoney, N.W.A., The Black Lips, The Louvin Brothers
Well, my health insurance from the old job runs out soon, and I haven’t bought any new insurance yet. Here’s to hoping I don’t have any sickness headed my way.
Allen Ginsberg — “Sickness Blues”
Mudhoney — “Here Comes Sickness”
Jay Reatard — “Death Is Forming”
The Louvin Brothers — “Are You Afraid To Die?”
The Black Lips — “How Do You Tell A Child That Someone Has Died?”
N.W.A. — “Real Niggaz Don’t Die”
Filed under: cold blooded old times, mp3s, music | Tags: Magnolia Electric Co.
I was just thinking about the two times (or is it three?) that I’ve seen Jason Molina/Songs Ohia/Magnolia Electric Co. in concert here in Champaign. I know I saw Ohia at the upstairs of Mike ‘n’ Molly’s many years ago. I recall him standing on a small wooden box so he could be seen by more of the audience (Molina is a short dude, like Springsteen), and I know that Gabe was at that show with me. And then I saw Magnolia at Caffe Paradiso three or so years ago. As a full band they are the consumate “bar band,” and I mean that in the best of ways. They can bounce between rocking originals and Warren Zevon covers without losing a beat. I want to say that I’ve also seen Magnolia at The Highdive or Cowboy Monkey, too, but maybe I’m thinking of Will Oldham or Smog, both of whom I have seen at The Highdive. Or maybe I saw them in another city?
Anyway, I absolutely love the first Magnolia Electric Co. record, which is self-titled and sometimes referred to as the last Songs Ohia record. There is a song on the album called “Peoria Lunch Box Blues,” which I’m certain is titled in reference to Peoria, Illinois (despite never coming up in the lyrics). Then there is the stupendous “Farewell Transmission,” which for my buck is the best Neil Young song not authored by Neil Young. (How’s that for a teaser?) And there’s “I’ve Been Riding with The Ghost,” also a spectacular song best enjoyed in the wee hours.
I suppose I’m focusing on “night music” as of late because I’ve been staying up until 2 a.m. most nights. The old Doug wouldn’t have been able to hack this crap. But the new, unemployed Doug just can’t get to sleep at a decent hour. The older Doug used to lie in bed in the dark and listen to this record via headphones as he prepared to conk out. And this song, the album’s closer, was often the song that I skipped to when I realized I was fading fast.
Magnolia Electric Co. — “Hold On Magnolia”
Pick up this record, cause it’s fucking great.
If you haven’t invited Sam Cooke into your life yet, then you are being foolish. This is, in my humble opinion, his best album and a departure from the pop music he hitched his wagon to early in his recording career. Recorded over the course of three nights in February 1963, Night Beat is a return to Sam’s roots. It is also, not surprisingly, one of the best late-night albums available to mankind. Check out Sam’s version of this standard. When the piano comes in, I get weak in the knees.
Sam Cooke — “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen”
Filed under: stupid stuff, things at home | Tags: sophie the cat, squirrels
The past two mornings I’ve been awoken about 9:30 a.m. — isn’t unemployment awesome? — by a squirrel chomping on a nut right outside my open bedroom window. Of course, I have to wonder where Sophie the cat is in these instances, missing a front row seat on the action. We only have about 2,300 squirrels in the back yard at any given time, so it’s odd that these are the first two instances (that I can recall) that I’ve been awoken by a squirrel. At the old apartment, the problem was pigeons. At least squirrels are cuter.
Boing Boing posted a link to a 90-minute interview from 1980 with dead writer Lester Bangs, who was to rock criticism in the ’70s what Hunter S. Thompson was to political journalism. I haven’t enjoyed everything I’ve read of Bangs’ criticism, as some of it is so far off the deep end as to be ridiculous. But I do feel that his willingness to take absurd chances and be bold in his writing and interviews — for example, his famed, abrasive interviews with Lou Reed — sets him apart from his peers. While I don’t expect many of you will want to listen to the full interview — I’m about a third of the way through it as I type this, and it’s quite good — it’s worth listening to if you’ve ever wondered, like me, what his voice sounds like. And he speaks much different in the flesh than he reads in print.
Bit of trivia: for those of you who don’t know, I took my DJ name, “The Noiseboy,” in homage to Bangs and a few of his other peers, including Richard Meltzer and Nick Tosches, who collectively referred to themselves as “The Noise Boys.”
So, many of you have heard me blather on about my records room. I do love it, but there’s one records room that I’d rather be in just about any time of day — my good friend Jon’s. Many of you have also heard me talk incessantly about his records room, and now you can see why.
And, drum roll, please …
Interestingly, Jon tells me he’s about ready to slow down on record purchases. Still, “slow down” for Jon is equal to a pace about twice as frantic as me.
I visited him two days ago, and within the first hour I had recorded a mix after scanning just the few hundred records he had hanging around the stereo. The mix included former Action frontman Reg King, a Peruvian beat band called New Juggler Sound, the Kashmere Stage Band, The Delfonics, the Langley Schools Music Project, Curtis Mayfield, Francoise Hardy, Detroit soul-funk rockers Mer-da, and Peruvian hard rock band Tarkus.
I’m a little (okay a lotta) late to Bruce Springsteen’s new record, Magic, which came out a year ago. But better late than never. On first listen, I like it better than either of his last two studio records (excepting the Seeger album). It’s a mostly bright album and a nice hodgepodge of his career styles. In that sense, Magic reminds me of The River. I especially dig this tune, “Girls in Their Summer Clothes,” which on first listen struck me dumb: “Hey, this could be a Magnetic Fields song!” I suppose that’s as much Bruce dipping into the Phil Spector well as anything else, but it’s also the synthetic strings and the simple acoustic guitar coupled with reverbed electric, and most importantly Springsteen’s vocal melody on both the verse and chorus, which to me just oozes Stephin Merritt (different register, but same approach). Of course, Merritt would never go for the la-la-las at the close of the song, but still — good stuff.
Bruce Springsteen — “Girls in Their Summer Clothes”
Filed under: music, stupid stuff | Tags: album artwork, ORGANS!, STRINGS!, vinyl
Boing Boing oddly linked to a site I’ve enjoyed called LP Cover Lover. The site serves as an online warehouse for curious record covers, most of them several decades old. The stranger the subject, the greater the likelihood a record has been recorded in honor of it. Case in point: Music to Help Clean Up Stream Pollution By. Of course, I spend time on sites like this one, in part, because it gives me great cover options for my theme mixes, like ORGANS!. Here’s the cover BB posted about, as well as a few other good ones from the site.
I had the opportunity to pick up the following one at WILL’s Vintage Vinyl sale a few summers ago, but passed because it was $15 and in poor shape. The Makers spoofed this cover for a 7″ of the same name they released many moons ago.
Hmm, maybe I’ve found the cover for STRINGS! … ? How would my face look on this?
The Noiseboy Online 