Housekeeping

No idea who or what that picture shows, but do a Google image search on "now's the time" and it's among the top returns. Sometimes context is overrated.

ITEM: Last night's edition of Now's the Time (the radio program) was supposed to be a whirlwind tour through whatever part of my brain stores memories related to the music I've been listening to recently, but technical difficulties overruled that. The program should air on February 19th. Check local listings.

ITEM: The Steinski career retrospective What Does it All Mean? is great headphone fodder while washing dishes, and paints a superior alternate universe where Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers never happened, but where that Steinski shit blew up large. History's full of what ifs.

ITEM: Good review of Mary Halvorson's Dragon's Head over at Bagatellen.

Music for Rain-Delayed World Series Games

Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails

(Thanks again, N+P)

Knocks Me Off My Feet

In the middle of the afternoon, I thought I might float away.

I'm in a new town now, and I'm still getting used to having a decent library nearby. I've been sampling liberally from the a/v collection, and the latest find is Stevie Wonder's meandering 1976 opus Songs in the Key of Life. It was always one of those albums I meant to pick up, when I thought about it, if ever the time was right, if I had the money in my pocket, if I found it on sale...

So this afternoon, washing some dishes, the sky low and heavy and the leaves, past their prime, coming down fast, I had Stevie on in the next room. Somewhere near the middle of disc 1, without warning, the voices suddenly became louder and more real than the music. It was as though a strange parade was making its way down my street and all my windows were open wide. Maybe there was a calliope on the back of a truck. Were there a dozen people, or a hundred? I put the dish towel down and stood, dumb.

It was a very strange and very exhilarating moment.

In Threes

I have been in a decidedly non-pop mood of late, opting instead to fill my ears with improvised and twentieth century classical music, but three records have coaxed me back into the guitars-and-drums fold.

The first is by Matthew Houck, who records under the name Phosphorescent. It seems to be an apt handle; his latest, Pride, is the sound of torch light on the cabin wall. It's twenty-first century backwoods gospel - reverent, haunting, yearning. This is Phosphorescent's third (plus an EP), but the first I've heard of him. A quick scan of his press yields scores of comparisons to Will Oldham, but Pride's got me thinking of an all-male Low. Whoever else it may sound like, the album's got a stillness at its core that I'm particularly drawn to right now.

Next, I've had a week now to live with Jukebox, Cat Power's latest, a sort of a thematic follow-up to The Covers Record, and a sonic sibling of her last, The Greatest. Flak will be dished because Jukebox's covers don't reinvent the originals the way The Covers Record did, and Cat, a.k.a. Chan Marshall seems to be getting comfortable in the skin of a palatable chanteuse, a skin she first donned on The Greatest. But here's the rub: it works. Call sellout if you must, but I'm at a point (age?) where I see it as a trade-off: we're losing a volatile and unpredictable artist, a cauldron of nervous energy and stylistic tics; but we're gaining a helluva soul singer. Maybe artists don't have to reinvent the wheel with every release. Maybe it's enough to cut a good set of songs.


And finally, nothing revelatory here, but after hearing an inter- view with Mick Jones on NPR earlier this week, I dug back into the Clash's catalog. Started with London Calling, then spent an afternoon with (Super) Black Market Clash. What's there to say? The Clash are peerless. The albums are cultural milestones, not frivolous pop artifacts.

There are few (non-jazz) artists I can return to with as much regularity as I do to the music of Joe, Topper, Paul and Mick and not feel that I am chasing my own youth or attempting to recapture some lost feeling of excitement. The Clash are still startlingly relevant, and I imagine they always will be.

That Nissan Commercial

At long last, the question burning a hole in my brain, keeping me up nights, making it so that I can't eat, can't concentrate on anything else - that question has been answered.

Ages ago, long before the snow fell, I asked in this post (see item IV) what the music was in a certain car commercial. I got no answer. Now I know.

The song is "Krusty" by Papa M. Yes, that Papa M: Dave Pajo, of Slint and Tortoise, etc. Makes perfect sense once you know, doesn't it? From the album Whatever, Mortal released waaaay back in '99 (does anyone even remember 1999?). All info on this website. There's a video, too, in the MEDIA section.

Now I can sleep at night.

[And thanks, CC, for doing the legwork, i.e. 30 seconds of googling.]

It Was a Strange Time in My Life **UPDATE

In the continuing vein of grab-bag (read: lazy) posts, presenting this week’s five most-accessed files on the TioM Sansa:

1) Jens Lekman, Night Falls Over Kortedala – New quirkpop longplayer from Swede who, I think, now scores Volvo commercials (isn’t that him singing “The Wheels on the Bus” in that commercial where the couple in the stationwagon pick up the hikers?**). You’ll be hearing him in Starbucks real soon, but don’t worry, you’ll like him. He’s good. Like Stephen Merritt, but straight, And, okay, not quite as brilliant as Stephen Merritt.

2)Beirut, The Flying Club Cup – I think I like Beirut for the same reason I like travel writing. Okay, yes, I can see getting tired of the schtick after a while. But not yet. So far it’s a love affair.

3)Archie Shepp and the New York Contemporary 5, s/t – Tunefully skronky. My wife hates this stuff.

4)Thelonious Monk, Live at Monterey 1964 – I’ve been listening to this in preparation for tomorrow night’s show (plug!) wherein several of us will play both Monk performances and others performing Monk compositions. To state the obvious: Monk’s own version of “Evidence” is vastly superior to the one by, say, Andy Summers.

5)Sam Cooke, Live at the Copa – An old standby that recently saw duty as background moodsetter to a Thanksgiving weekend brunch at the TioM HQ. Lovely.

(**UPDATE - It's not Lekman in that commercial; it's Stephen Merritt! I mistook the teacher for the student. How gauche.)

Miscellany: Four Items

Abstract:

The author will attempt to expunge from his mind, clearinghouse-style, a variety of topics which have been circulating but which, for reasons ranging from sloth to genuine time-consuming industry, he has yet to address in posts on this blog.

Topics:

i) Books on Tape
ii) Caribou, Andorra
iii) “Radio Nowhere”
iv) That Nissan Commercial

It is not expected that a coherent conclusion will be reached, but rather a series of observations leading inevitably to a sense of What was the point? being aroused in the reader. But the author will feel better for the effort.

i) Books on Tape

I suppose that without thinking much about it I had long harboured the belief that books on tape were the exclusive dominion of long-haul truck drivers and the elderly and poor-of-sight. My one shining moment of inclusiveness came a number of years ago when my local library had a well-loved copy of the audiocassette version of Don Delillo’s Underworld as read by estimable character actor Dennis Boutsikaris (you know him even if you don’t know you know him), and I fell into the pleasing routine of having Misters Delillo and Boutsikaris escort me to and from work (it was a 30 minute commute, but this being Underworld, the routine lasted several weeks). But that experience aside, I have tended to hew close to those original prejudices.

But a few weeks back, my wife discovered eAudioBooks made available through the website of that same library, and began to download some of her favourites. I was intrigued. And then an email arrived from eMusic. “We have audiobooks,” it said, “You should try them” (or words to that effect, with bright and flashing images to punch up the message). Unencumbered by a physical body, these digital readings are very appealing. Load them on the MP3 player and carry them everywhere. Perfect.

Mind you, I sampled a few before the appeal really took hold. I am wary of the experience in some cases because, for example, do I really want to hear Brad Pitt’s voice in my head every time I read Cormac McCarthy? The answer is no, no I don’t.

But Alan Cumming reading Michael Ondaatje? That I can get behind. And thus have I gone to bed for several days now with Anil’s Ghost in my ears.

ii) Caribou, Andorra

Caribou – formerly Manitoba, legally Dan Snaith – has made a great record. It’s a pop record, but pop with its prefixes (psych- and synth-) in perfect proportion. It’s like the first 25 seconds of “Caring is Creepy” crossbred with the Human League. Or the Zombies making eyes at Depeche Mode. Or the Strawberry Alarm Clock slipping something in Gary Numan’s drink. Give it the chance and it’ll provide the soundtrack to a childhood you never actually had, a perpetual Californian Saturday afternoon, the lawn pocked by warm shimmery bubbles of sunlight pouring through oak trees, your bike in perfect working order, Adidas shorts snug, hightops loosely laced, lying on your back and feeling the earth spin beneath you.

iii) “Radio Nowhere”

The former Miss Imperial describes Springsteen’s new single as “like Catherine Wheel, only, um, older,” and for that I blame Brendan O’Brien, whose production has made an unnecessarily crunchy and stringy mess of many of the Boss’s recent projects. Has he done the same for the as-yet unreleased Magic? Maybe so, but the song underlying the production is, in this case, prime third-act Bruce, catchy and solemn and yet life-affirming. Quick to remind you that, brother, it ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive.

iv) That Nissan commercial

Finally: I really love that Nissan commercial (inasmuch as any person can truly love a television commercial for a car) with the time lapse shot of the boy staring in the window of the Datsun, which morphs into a Nissan as the boy grows and the city around him grows and changes (alas, youtube and iFilm couldn't help me provide the video). I’m particularly drawn to the music (which is kind of Caribou-like, now that I think about it). Anybody who can help me out and tell me what it is will be hereafter and in perpetuity considered my fact-checking cuz.

In the Jingle-Jangle Morning

Magnet (“Real Music Alternatives”) magazine recently arrived via rural free delivery, featuring Spoon as cover boys, an article on the one of a kind Kramer, and one on jangle-pop legend Mitch Easter.

I love jangle, especially a couple of epochal albums produced by Easter, R.E.M.’s Murmur and Reckoning. I also love Magnet, and the Easter article is up to their usual high standards – informative, well-written, etc. But maybe the most entertaining part is the revelation of Easter’s first few, pre-Let’s Active bands’ names:

The Loyal Opposition

The Imperturbable Teutonic Gryphon

Sacred Irony

In reading those band names, I am reminded of a high school friend who played bass while wearing a crown of thorns, and who named his band Bramble Shreve. It should be noted that BS were anything but jangle.

My point is that, whether you play Swedish death metal, proggy jam stuff or pure jangle, there is perhaps a finite and dwindling supply of good band names.

Soundtracking

Four a.m. thunderstorms don’t require pop music soundtracks to render them dramatic or emotion-stirring. Music would be redundant. Nevertheless, and in that indomitable spirit of unnecessary redundancy which tends to inspire scenarios wherein significant life moments, missed the first time around, are reenacted for the camera, this morning’s exuberant sound and light show had me thinking: if this were an album, it would be this one...

The Internet Was Made For This

Thanks to modern technology, I can be addicted to a show I’ve never actually seen.

Mistaken Identity

I can't be the only one who, as a child, thought that Kim Carnes' "Bette Davis Eyes" was in fact sung by Rod Stewart. Can I?