“Morning Sickness” – Ralph White
from Trash Fish (2002)
released by Terminus Records (buy)
(file expires on January 30th)
I’m a straight-up sucker for any kind of melodic percussion, from vibraphone (mmmm, Ruth Underwood-era Zappa) to mbira, the African thumb piano. Ralph White, the co-founder of the late Texan hillbilly weirdoes Bad Livers, had the brilliant idea to combine the latter with mountain music. Throughout Trash Fish, it creates a warm bed that fills the rhythmic holes left by the rolling banjo and the swelling fiddle. It’s so unusual and gorgeous that it pushes the genre from its usual Appalachian evocations towards a place even more pastoral and dreamy. A great morning album for those who can deal with a little twang before noon. My, that sounds dirty. Happy Monday.
Recently, I remembered a Saturday Night Live ad parody from the ’80s for the New York Word Exchange. It starred the late (and sorely missed) Phil Hartman as spokesperson Don Bingham. He offered financial advice for those interested in the burgeoning word market. It was fantastical, and kinda reminded me of one of my favorite books when I was a kid, Crawford Killian’s Wonders, Inc, which is I think why it’s stuck with me.
Strange thing is, it fairly predicted the value of domain names when the cyberboom hit.
I wish I could quote the sketch itself, but I don’t have a copy and — besides an entry on an SNL fan site, which reveals that the bit aired on November 22, 1986 — there doesn’t seem to be any public, digital evidence of its existence: no clip, no transcript, no nothin’. That surprised me. Part of the reason I didn’t post about this sooner is because I figured the geeks woulda been all up on it a long time ago. At any rate, I’m happy to release the meme back into the blogospherical wild.
My good chum Spacefuzz plays in the blissfully weird Los Angeles band Kiss the Frog. They just finished their first album, called The Trojan Horse, which — they promise — is “a crystalline dub jazz concept album of cohesive disconnection” (among other things). So dig it, my hippie love children, ’cause it jamz a lot. I’m also proud to say I co-wrote lyrics to a few of the tunes, including the title track, which you can (and should) download here.
1. Waiting for the L-train, listening to “Madame George” by Van Morrison. “Get on the train,” Morrison croons, exactly as the subway’s headlight appears down the tunnel. “This is the train.” Sure is.
2. Pulling into Union Square, the delay pedal faux-ambience of “Birth Ritual,” Soundgarden’s contribution to Cameron Crowe’s Singles soundtrack, starts swirling. The doors open, and a bagpipe player on the platform contributes to the cacophony, building dissonantly until the exact moment the doors close and the band headbangs their way into the song.
3. On the F-train, somewhere near the Gowanus Canal, Brian Eno’s “Baby’s on Fire” comes on. “And after I felt this was going on too long,” says an interview subject in an essay about cell phone usage I’m reading, “I suddenly changed the topic.” “Rescuers row row,” Eno sings cheekily, “do your best to change the subject.”
Given enough inputs — the stimulus of urban life, a book to read, an iPod to listen to — coincidences are bound to occur. “Any sufficiently advanced technology,” Arthur C. Clarke declared, “is indistinguishable from magic,” and the shuffle mode’s particular magic seems to be its catalytic abilities: its way of seemingly organizing chaos into something neatly packaged. In a way, it is both artificial and disarming, but it is also a sleight-of-hand that rarely fails to dazzle.
I cannot recall the last time I saw a bagpipe player in the subway.
Three of my favorite bloggers went traveling lately.
David Byrne journied to the Philippines to research Here Lies Love, his forthcoming musical about Imelda Marcos. His travelogue is precise and analytical. (Likewise, he recently added permalinks to his blog. Wahoo!)
Mike Doughty went to Africa (start there and proceed), and is dispatching oodles of beautiful photographs in categories such as “kids,” “dudes!” “cars,” and “signs!” as well as some more descriptive postings.
John Perry Barlow, meanwhile, headed deep into his belly button, and came back with a fairly staggering bit of self-reckoning in this foul year of our Lord, 2006. Whether or not you’re interested in Barlow, he’s definitely in it for the long haul — whatever “it” is — and is one of the more elegantly articulate travelers I’ve come across.
“All Things Must Pass” – George Harrison
from All Things Must Pass (1970)
released by Apple Records (buy)
(file expires on January 18th)
I’ve long loved the White Album-era demo for this tune, included on Anthology (and even put it on my Hanukah mix), but — for some reason — had never really given much credence to the official version. Randomly, the same week, Ira from Yo La Tengo chose to put the album rendition on his Hanukah mix (right after the Tall Dwarfs’ “Meet the Beatle,” a hilarious account of an encounter with George Harrison himself, who denied that he was George Harrison). And, man, has it ever sunk in.
Beyond George’s beautiful and uplifting melody — and the fact that it’s a song exactly as slow as it should be — I love the Phil Spectorness of it all: the impossibly bright horns, the sunbeaming steel guitar, the angelic strings. For some reason, the music has just hit me absolutely over the past week. I’m not even particularly down right now. I’m doing quite well (dank you vedy much), so it’s not a particular comfort thing. It’s just pure pleasure. In Vegas and since, at the end of the day, I’ve wanted to do nothing more but listen to this song two or three times consecutively (as I’m doing right now). Happiness abounds.
Here is Larry Page’s keynote from the Consumer Electronics Show in mp3 form — part one and part two — courtesy of the San Francisco Chronicle’s podcasts. Page starts dropping science about interface standardization at around the 8:20 mark of part one. It’s a geniune and brilliant performance. (Robin Williams shows up around 27:50.)
HST: “…the essential old-mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody — or at least some force — is tending that Light at the end of the tunnel.”
Marshall McLuhan: “Light is pure information,”
What does it mean, then, when Google says they want to “organize the world’s information”?
After spending two eight-hour days at CES looking at every kind of gadget imaginable, most of which seemed totally useless, and seeing Yahoo roll out their Go! project to make the world fasterfasterfaster, I’m fully convinced that Google is truly and actually committed to moving the world forward (give or take the DRM-burdened Google Video).
Are they tending the light? You think I believe in that hippie bullshit? Well, why shouldn’t I? You got something better to believe in these days?
Back in Eastern Standard Time after a completely mindbending few days at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. There is, of course, much to report — and, when I get back to a high-speed connection — lots of shtuff to upload: cell phone pix (holy “Bob,” did my lo-fi camera love the Vegas lights!), maybe some field recordings (mmm, twinkling casino drones), and random notes.
The highlight of my weekend was easily Google co-founder Larry Page’s keynote address on Friday afternoon, which was positively inspiring. In addressing the consumer electronics industry and encouraging them to standardize their interfaces, Page spun a utopian sci-fi vision of the future. Then he rolled out a bunch of new Google products, and showed off a prototype of Nicholas Negroponte’s $100 laptop. And then Robin Williams came out and freestyled.
Except for Google Video, which seems like it’s gonna need some philosophical ironing-out before it jibes with the rest of the G-mission, pretty much everything was spot-on and made nearly every other product showcased at CES seem, well, pointless. I walked out of the keynote with the same dizzy sensation I have after amazing live gigs. Supposedly, the official CES website will have a transcript at some point. I’ll most definitely link to it.
Vegas was all kinds of fun and dazzling and bizarre. In the morning, I could look out the window and see flamingos and penguins cavorting in the garden below (though, sadly, not together), not to mention the beautiful view of the mountains and desert.
Yeeeeeaaaaaaaaah.
