Saturday, December 04, 2004:

see you on the flipside

Three songs today, the last.
Spooky Tooth: picture "I Am the Walrus" as a distraught bit of stoned blues rock. Audacious? Yes. But it's not a coy song in the first place. And that "expert texpert" part, holy shmoly that's good. (aside: I've long thought "Can't Buy Me Love" could work as an electric blues number. Might be wrong. I suck as a musician.)
Rotary Connection -- Life Could: psychedelic soul, with Minnie Riperton making use of all the octaves she can find.
Sayonara: Word. Bittersweet, cheesy and sincere, and somehow charming; and yes I genuinely like it.

The first two tracks are available on CD, but I just have the LPs.

[Spooky Tooth @ Amazon.com]:
[Aladdin/Dinner Music @ Amazon.com]:

...

I've been missing this Cannonball Adderley track, "Experience in E," off and on for nearly ten years, and heard it again today--they had the LP at the music library on campus and it turns out they let the public check out headphones (this was news to me). But no, you can't take the LP out of the building; you have to listen to it onsite. So I went and sat in the library listening to it. "Not bad," I was thinking, "not bad," then, a few minutes in, "wow"--the sax came in over that bass and my God it was just perfect; whatever part of me it is that intensely loves music was doing cartwheels and shouting to the heavens "yes! exactly! don't change a thing!"--silently; it was in a library--and then the excellent part was over and the song turned into a cacophonous mess: screeching horns and spastic drums and generally annoying shit for most of the rest of Side 1.

And I sat thinking "that was a two-minute pearl in a twenty-minute oyster." Wondering whether I'd rather have stuck with the memory. How much of this is typical? How often do you find something you remember fondly and it's as good as or better than you remember it? I'm curious what you (all) think.

...

Well, I'm done here. What have I learned?
1) I'm not as good a writer as I thought. Half the time there's some word or phrase I've left out that I shouldn't have.
2) My memory is not reliable; my understanding of any given thing isn't either.
3) My research skills aren't very good. And I'm intensely lazy, which leads to the misremembering/misunderstanding trouble above.
4) Which leads to alarming logical conclusions about my view of the world in general. ^_^
5) The political rants, while satisfying to write, are deeply dissatisfying to read.

There are tons of mp3 blogs around still, some of them really quite good; and more are springing up every day. Look through the sidebar on the Tofu Hut; you're certain to find something you like.

Tracks are staying up until the end of December, when Racknine cuts off the hosting. I'll be checking in on my favorite mp3 blogs (listed to the left), and if I find something great I won't hesitate to send it to whomever I think would be most interested in it (usually that's Sean at Said the Gramophone or John at The Tofu Hut).

Thank you, you've been very patient and very kind.

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Wednesday, December 01, 2004:

8 1/2 Souvenirs

8 1/2 Souvenirs -- After You've Gone
8 1/2 Souvenirs -- L'amour Toujours
8 1/2 Souvenirs took their name from the Federico Fellini film--his self-proclaimed eight-and-a-halfth film--about a film director who's suddenly become quite popular, is now directing a silly big-budget film, and is retreating into a fantasy world. Funny that; Fellini was in a similar situation after La Dolce Vita--at least in terms of popularity--so the film might be about Fellini filming his previous short, or it might be a film about Fellini filming 8 1/2. To prevent my head exploding from unescaped recursion, I'll just say that I think it's funny and odd and fascinating and sometimes disturbing but very cool, and then move on.

I think 8 1/2 Souvenirs picked a good namesake. Picture a European country-western jazz cabaret: classical violin, guitar reminiscent of Django Reinhardt, piano ranging from jazz breakdowns to ragtime to country, lyrics in French or English or Italian, albums covering rockabilly, swing, rock, and jazz standards.

The band has had a number of lineup additions and changes over the years, and I believe they called it quits after Twisted Desire: the one constant over all three albums was Olivier Giraud, and he's now playing with the Asylum Street Spankers (a group focusing mostly on old acoustic blues/folk/country tunes).
[Amazon.com]: Twisted Desire
[Amazon.com]: Happy Feet
And an Artist Direct writeup from 1997.

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