Monday, February 05, 2007:
I love the DIY attitude behind Darondo's music; the audio's a bit muddy; his singing is not highly trained; this song finds a groove and rides it for all it's worth. Still, there's something refreshing about gritty soul, or any music that's not overproduced and autotuned.
"Let My People Go" is a simmering political funk which I'd thought of posting on MLK day but decided not to (perhaps in a bit of unChristian judgment which would shame the reverend's memory--Darondo was a pimp. No, not metaphorically).
I first encountered Darondo on Soul Sides, then got a reminder on Said the Gramophone, both in posting "Didn't I," a plaintive lovelorn song with sour guitar. It's a fascinating song, but for me the star of the show is "Let My People Go."
[Let My People Go @ amazon or at emusic.com.]
Joe Bataan -- It's a Good Feeling (Riot)
Allmusic slams this song in its review of the Riot! and looks on it with a puzzled affection in its review of Mr. New York, but I'm not puzzled or ambivalent about it. It evokes a street party rather than a riot, yes, but I don't think that's any great failing. It makes more sense musically, and unless you're smashing things, riots aren't any great fun anyway.
I first encountered Joe Bataan with the terrific track "Subway Joe" posted on Tofu Hut; Soul Sides followed suit a year later.
[Riot! @ amazon or at emusic.com.]
Catching Up:
I've been catching up on CD purchases for tracks I heard on mp3blogs. Some exceedingly brief reviews:
Abner Jay: Rev. Frost posted the three best tracks, but damn is "I'm So Depressed" a great song, the Arnold Schwarzenegger of blues tunes (the Mr. Olympia Arnold, not the post-heart-surgery Arnold).
Mirah: posted at StG. Very nice, with some unexpected (and welcome) experimentation offsetting the sweetness of it.
Gomez: wow. This one's cheating, maybe, since Sean gave me their first two CDs directly, but Bring It On is just amazing work and Liquid Skin is good too. Their latest (How We Operate) is occasionally very good but is saddled with a couple of radio-pop wankfest emo tracks.
Bruce Springsteen (We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions): Rosswords posted the best track, and there's another knockout, but all the rest are solid and have grown on me with time.
Feist: Let It Die. Finally bought this one after loving the track posted at StG and at fluxblog for, oh, the last three years. Very very mellow, pleasant.
John Fahey: more on him later.
There are a lot of other albums I've bought because of various mp3blog postings, but these are the recent ones I can think of that I've bought that I didn't first hear somewhere else.
Bataan and Darondo, cake and ice cream
Darondo -- Let My People GoI love the DIY attitude behind Darondo's music; the audio's a bit muddy; his singing is not highly trained; this song finds a groove and rides it for all it's worth. Still, there's something refreshing about gritty soul, or any music that's not overproduced and autotuned.
"Let My People Go" is a simmering political funk which I'd thought of posting on MLK day but decided not to (perhaps in a bit of unChristian judgment which would shame the reverend's memory--Darondo was a pimp. No, not metaphorically).
I first encountered Darondo on Soul Sides, then got a reminder on Said the Gramophone, both in posting "Didn't I," a plaintive lovelorn song with sour guitar. It's a fascinating song, but for me the star of the show is "Let My People Go."
[Let My People Go @ amazon or at emusic.com.]
Joe Bataan -- It's a Good Feeling (Riot)
Allmusic slams this song in its review of the Riot! and looks on it with a puzzled affection in its review of Mr. New York, but I'm not puzzled or ambivalent about it. It evokes a street party rather than a riot, yes, but I don't think that's any great failing. It makes more sense musically, and unless you're smashing things, riots aren't any great fun anyway.
I first encountered Joe Bataan with the terrific track "Subway Joe" posted on Tofu Hut; Soul Sides followed suit a year later.
[Riot! @ amazon or at emusic.com.]
Catching Up:
I've been catching up on CD purchases for tracks I heard on mp3blogs. Some exceedingly brief reviews:
Abner Jay: Rev. Frost posted the three best tracks, but damn is "I'm So Depressed" a great song, the Arnold Schwarzenegger of blues tunes (the Mr. Olympia Arnold, not the post-heart-surgery Arnold).
Mirah: posted at StG. Very nice, with some unexpected (and welcome) experimentation offsetting the sweetness of it.
Gomez: wow. This one's cheating, maybe, since Sean gave me their first two CDs directly, but Bring It On is just amazing work and Liquid Skin is good too. Their latest (How We Operate) is occasionally very good but is saddled with a couple of radio-pop wankfest emo tracks.
Bruce Springsteen (We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions): Rosswords posted the best track, and there's another knockout, but all the rest are solid and have grown on me with time.
Feist: Let It Die. Finally bought this one after loving the track posted at StG and at fluxblog for, oh, the last three years. Very very mellow, pleasant.
John Fahey: more on him later.
There are a lot of other albums I've bought because of various mp3blog postings, but these are the recent ones I can think of that I've bought that I didn't first hear somewhere else.
posted by Tuwa @
11:21 | permalink |
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Wednesday, July 13, 2005:
Long-term readers should know that I have a genuine fondness for cheesy music. I hope it's only occasional, but ... who knows. Um. I like today's track very much, in spite of every atom of my superego whispering "this is horribly cheesy." Here's a short story about the music: I first heard it in 1996, sold most of my CDs in early 2000 when I was low on cash, and still thought of the song off and on for five years after. There was something about the cartoonish feel to it that stuck with me: the pizzicato harps on the left, then the muted trumpets on the right, the violin on the left, the woodwind on the right, all to sort of a languid guitar, and then the men's choir comes in, sounding like a late night in a centuries-old Catholic church, candles casting flickering shadows on stone walls. It was all very vivid and it nagged at me. Finally last month I tracked down the song and bought the album.
The song's lyrics take an unabashedly romantic approach, describing the fishermen and their nets in the moon-lit night: waves and shadows forcing the man to sing.
You can read more about Chapala here and here, but it's not required to dig the music. What's required for that is probably just to send your superego off to the store to pick up some health food. Then you turn off the lights, turn up the volume, lay back awhile, and let your mind drift.
[Amazon.com]
lunas de noche en Chapala
Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán -- ChapalaLong-term readers should know that I have a genuine fondness for cheesy music. I hope it's only occasional, but ... who knows. Um. I like today's track very much, in spite of every atom of my superego whispering "this is horribly cheesy." Here's a short story about the music: I first heard it in 1996, sold most of my CDs in early 2000 when I was low on cash, and still thought of the song off and on for five years after. There was something about the cartoonish feel to it that stuck with me: the pizzicato harps on the left, then the muted trumpets on the right, the violin on the left, the woodwind on the right, all to sort of a languid guitar, and then the men's choir comes in, sounding like a late night in a centuries-old Catholic church, candles casting flickering shadows on stone walls. It was all very vivid and it nagged at me. Finally last month I tracked down the song and bought the album.
The song's lyrics take an unabashedly romantic approach, describing the fishermen and their nets in the moon-lit night: waves and shadows forcing the man to sing.
You can read more about Chapala here and here, but it's not required to dig the music. What's required for that is probably just to send your superego off to the store to pick up some health food. Then you turn off the lights, turn up the volume, lay back awhile, and let your mind drift.
[Amazon.com]
posted by Tuwa @
09:28 | permalink |
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Saturday, October 16, 2004:
Anyone see Jon Stewart on Crossfire? Tucker and Carlson expected him to come on and talk a bit about his book, make a few jokes, do a little song and dance, and leave. Instead he played along very briefly then started pressing the point that they were failing at their job of improving democratic discourse in the U.S.. It was very impressive. "Must see TV," indeed--or, if you're like me, and try to avoid TV whenever possible--must-see downloading.
STEWART: You know, the interesting thing I have is, you have a responsibility to the public discourse, and you fail miserably.
CARLSON: You need to get a job at a journalism school, I think.
STEWART: You need to go to one.
The thing that I want to say is, when you have people on for just knee-jerk, reactionary talk...
CARLSON: Wait. I thought you were going to be funny. Come on. Be funny.
STEWART: No. No. I'm not going to be your monkey.
Now he's in a bit of a strange position, because his show is political but he's trying to say it's "only" comedy. Well, it's only comedy about very serious stuff, but as long as people can laugh it off his show doesn't get canceled, so he's toeing a line. I'm happy to see him do it as long as it keeps his show on the air, though I know it's uncomfortable and--honestly--the Kerry interview was Not Good. Not deep or thought-provoking and, yes, the questions were generally weak. But this Crossfire appearance was awesome. I wanted to send the man a telegram reading "RAWK!!! \o/"
...
Cafe Tacuba are a Mexican rock/metal/ska/jazz/hip-hop band started in 1989. The singer & lead guitarist "Anónimo" isn't entirely anonymous, though he is ... what? multi-pseudonymous? (... Suddenly I feel like a Coen bros. character--"Jesus, Tom, I was just speculatin' about a hypothesis.") Dude changes his name a lot, I mean. Two brothers, Joselo and Queque Rangel, on guitar and bass; Emmanuel Del Real on keyboards & guitar.
"Metamorfosis" seems appropriate enough today--not for the lyrics; they're about a woman that the singer met who used to be down to earth and became a snob--but for the jaunty happiness of it. Whistling down the street twirling a cane. It's a cover song, like everything else on Avalancha de Éxitos and, like everything else on that album, I've never heard the original. I'm guessing it's a lot different.
Will Stewart's appearance change anything on Crossfire? I doubt it. Will it change his own life? Maybe. Maybe the format of his show, or maybe whether he works on it. But what had me so excited about it was not the sincerity or the persistence of it, but the audience reaction. At first they were taken aback--this isn't what I ordered--and then they were applauding.
bittorrent -- Jon Stewart on Crossfire
[Amazon.com]
You are partisan, what do you call it, hacks
Café Tacuba -- MetamorfosisAnyone see Jon Stewart on Crossfire? Tucker and Carlson expected him to come on and talk a bit about his book, make a few jokes, do a little song and dance, and leave. Instead he played along very briefly then started pressing the point that they were failing at their job of improving democratic discourse in the U.S.. It was very impressive. "Must see TV," indeed--or, if you're like me, and try to avoid TV whenever possible--must-see downloading.
STEWART: You know, the interesting thing I have is, you have a responsibility to the public discourse, and you fail miserably.
CARLSON: You need to get a job at a journalism school, I think.
STEWART: You need to go to one.
The thing that I want to say is, when you have people on for just knee-jerk, reactionary talk...
CARLSON: Wait. I thought you were going to be funny. Come on. Be funny.
STEWART: No. No. I'm not going to be your monkey.
Now he's in a bit of a strange position, because his show is political but he's trying to say it's "only" comedy. Well, it's only comedy about very serious stuff, but as long as people can laugh it off his show doesn't get canceled, so he's toeing a line. I'm happy to see him do it as long as it keeps his show on the air, though I know it's uncomfortable and--honestly--the Kerry interview was Not Good. Not deep or thought-provoking and, yes, the questions were generally weak. But this Crossfire appearance was awesome. I wanted to send the man a telegram reading "RAWK!!! \o/"
...
Cafe Tacuba are a Mexican rock/metal/ska/jazz/hip-hop band started in 1989. The singer & lead guitarist "Anónimo" isn't entirely anonymous, though he is ... what? multi-pseudonymous? (... Suddenly I feel like a Coen bros. character--"Jesus, Tom, I was just speculatin' about a hypothesis.") Dude changes his name a lot, I mean. Two brothers, Joselo and Queque Rangel, on guitar and bass; Emmanuel Del Real on keyboards & guitar.
"Metamorfosis" seems appropriate enough today--not for the lyrics; they're about a woman that the singer met who used to be down to earth and became a snob--but for the jaunty happiness of it. Whistling down the street twirling a cane. It's a cover song, like everything else on Avalancha de Éxitos and, like everything else on that album, I've never heard the original. I'm guessing it's a lot different.
Will Stewart's appearance change anything on Crossfire? I doubt it. Will it change his own life? Maybe. Maybe the format of his show, or maybe whether he works on it. But what had me so excited about it was not the sincerity or the persistence of it, but the audience reaction. At first they were taken aback--this isn't what I ordered--and then they were applauding.
bittorrent -- Jon Stewart on Crossfire
[Amazon.com]
posted by Tuwa @
14:51 | permalink |
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