Frank & Earthy blog
Busted, down on Classon Street. Quite possibly the end of an era.
I saw lots of other people with cameras. Anybody got any better pix? Or, y’know, information? (Some more info emerging in the BV comment section. Anything concrete would be appreciated.)
The NYPD hauling away the fun:
Le sigh.
“Thinking For Now” – Mark David & the Nightly Lights feat. Don Helms (download)
(file expires April 18th)
That Mark David‘s “Thinking For Now” is an uncommonly decent contemporary country tune — vintage without sounding overtly nostalgic, with a great bridge — is kind of beside the point, though its escape of nostalgia is remarkable, given the ghost that powers it. More than anything, Hank Williams’ lonesomeness found emotional form in the swelling steel guitar of Don Helms who — holy Moses — is still alive and recording in 2008, playing his original 1949 double neck Gibson Console Grand with Mark David and company, an Ohio concern. Helms’ voice is as clean and pure now as 60 years ago, cutting through its surroundings with a dignified mourn. More than any lost Hank tracks or flown-in ProTools duets (or even trios) between three generations of singing Williams, these are the true adventures of Hank Williams’ still blue, still lonesome heart in the 21st century.
These mostly fall on the latter side of the above equation. Definitely need to make some time soon to catch up on my links.
o Two pieces about what Murakami is up to.
o Cory Doctorow on multitasking and disruption.
o Recent semi-interview (circa, uh, last week) with Eye and Yoshimi from the Boredoms all about the new Super Roots disc. (Big ups, Whiney!)
o GQ begins to untangle JB’s wreckage.
o Alan Bishop on his Sun City Girls brother, the late Charles Gocher.
“All the Way Around and Back” – Charles Ives (download) (buy)
conducted by Leonard Bernstein
A Charles Ives piece from 1908 structurally mimics an archaic baseball rule from the composer’s childhood, via Timothy Johnson’s Baseball and the Music of Charles Ives: A Proving Ground:
The additive process aptly represents the gradual process of the runner. If the initial Db that begins each measure symbolizes first base, then each added note tracks the runner’s progress toward third. The skipped additions (moving directly from five to seven and from seven to eleven notes) seem to depict the runner’s increased speed as he builds up momentum heading for third. Finally, the complete pattern is repeated once more, running as fast as he can, before the whole process is reversed beginning with an extra two measures of the final undecatuplet, as the runner returns to first base in the same way that he traveled in the first place — rapidly at first, then easing up as the base is reached.
At first glance the symbolism of the baserunner, speeding up as he rounds the bases and then slowing down as he returns, seems to be lost in this palindromic reversal, since a runner presumably might easily trot back to first base after a foul ball. However, the rule that determined how quickly one must return to the base after a foul ball changed over the years. The rules of 1883 state that “a baserunner who fails to return to his base at a run following a foul ball is liable to be put out by being touched by the ball while off his base.”
(Thx, Jakebrah. Definitely need to read this.)
“Mountains of the Moon” – The Grateful Dead (download)
from Aoxomoxoa original mix (1969)
High on the list of Dead tunes likely to convert freak-folkers is Aoxomoxoa‘s “Mountains of the Moon.” With Tom Constanten’s swirling harpsichord and Robert Hunter’s oblique, mythical lyrics, it’s a bauble that didn’t sustain in the Dead’s repertoire, whose most tender songs required (for better or worse) a certain machismo to survive the ‘heads. While “Mountains” served as a perfect prelude to at least 11 “Dark Stars” in 1969, its modal (1) melody couldn’t even last long enough for the band’s abundant acoustic sets the following year. Drag.
I love how Hunter’s lyrics get down with the folk mythos — Tom Banjo, Electra, etc. — but also find a moment of psychedelic focus, the hallucinations parting for a brief second like ascending angels: “hey, the city in the rain.”
It is perhaps the aforementioned angels who hummm and ooooh behind the original 1969 version on Aoxomoxoa, removed by Jerry Garcia himself in a 1971 remix. On first listen, I wished there were more of them, but I think they’re in just the right proportion to last the duration of the track’s four minutes without grating. Like the Blood on the Tracks demo acetate, the Aoxomoxoa mix comes bundled with the vinyl warmth of its source. (Big ups to SeaOfSound for the music.)
(1) I think.
A very small bit of food for thought, via Eric Alterman’s New Yorker piece “Out of Print,” about the state of the American newspaper industry:
The news cultures of many European nations long ago embraced the notion of competing narratives for different political communities, with individual newspapers reflecting the views of each faction. It may not be entirely coincidental that these nations enjoy a level of political engagement that dwarfs that of the United States.
Episode 41: A Collection of Music Played on Opening Day by the Scoreboard Operator at Snugglebunny Park, the Shining New Home of the Bourgwick Snugglebunnies Imaginary Baseball Franchise. Sort of.
Listen here.
1. “Threats to Herb, no. 3 – WLOK (from WFMU Radio Archival Oddities)
2. “Frow Show Theme” – MVB
3. “Water Curses” – Animal Collective (from Water Curses EP)
4. “Walderez Walderia” – Flavio Kurt (from Obsession compilation)
5. “He Shoot the Sun” – Kahimi Karie and Jim O’Rourke (from Nunki)
6. “Clouds and Snow” – Ben Kamen (from Dreams EP)
7. “Shoulder Full of You” – Blitzen Trapper (from EP3 EP)
8. “P.O.V. Waltz” – Harry Nilsson (from The Point)
9. “Launderette” – Vivien Goldman (from Disco Not Disco compilation)
10. “Albuquerque” – Neil Young (from Tonight’s The Night)
11. “The Upside of Good-Bye” – Michael Nesmith (from And the Hits Just Keep On Comin’)
12. “Track 2” – Negativland (from Negativland)
13. “Noh-Miso 6” – Kunihara Ayama (from Obscure Tape Music of Japan compilation)
14. “Side A” – Thurston Moore, Jim O’Rourke, Lee Ranaldo, and Steve Shelley (from Melbourne Direct)
15. “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” – Doc Watson (from Black Mountain Rag)
Trippy ’60s filmmaking #1, Arthur Lipsett, via Digaman:
A Goofy Music reedited into David Lynchisms, via SoS:
Near-psychedelic bluegrass, via Deadwood:
Ween jam (a little bit of) “Dark Star”:
’cause it’s still funny:
Many wonderful passages in Nabokov’s Bend Sinister, but this one — about the nature of literary translation, in the midst of a complex Rosetta Stone explaining the language of the novel’s dystopia — stuck out this evening.
It was as if someone, having seen a certain oak tree (further called Individual T) growing in a certain land casting its own unique shadow on the green and brown ground, had proceeded to erect in his garden a prodigiously intricate piece of machinery which in itself was as unlike that or any other tree as the translator’s inspiration and language were unlike those of the original author, but which, by means of ingenious combinations of parts, light effects, breeze-engendering engines, would, when completed, cast a show exactly similar to that of Individual T — the same outline, changing in the same manner, with the same double and single spots of sun rippling in the same position, at the same hour of the day.
Essays/articles/features:
Fun, Money, Dolphins, profile of Jake Szufnarowksi (Village Voice)
Glossed in Translation, interview with Michel Gondry (Paste)
Metaphors, memories, and miscellany from South by Southwest (Indy Week)
The Heady /Poetry/ *Of* Paul Siegell (Paste)
Getting A Head On At Umass, on a conference of Deadhead scholars (Relix)
Live:
Akron/Family at Maxwell’s, 5 March 2008 (Village Voice blog)
The Mountain Goats at Webster Hall, 18 March 2008 (Village Voice blog)
Rutlemania at the Gramercy, 27 March 2008 (Village Voice blog)
Albums:
Consolers of the Lonely – The Raconteurs (Paste)
Heretic Pride – The Mountain Goats (Paste)
Exercises in Futility – Marc Ribot (JamBands.com)
Invisible Baby – Marco Benevento (JamBands.com)
Indie Weirdo Round-Up, featuring: Animal Collective, Blitzen Trapper, Yamataka Eye, Sun City Girls, Disco Not Disco (JamBands.com)
Indie Weirdo Round-Up, featuring: Eugene Chadbourne/Jimmy Carl Black/Pat Thomas, Cornelius, Jeffrey Lewis, Megafaun, Pete Seeger (JamBands.com)
Songs:
“Anagram” – Ecstatic Sunshine (PaperThinWalls.com)
“Drops in the River” – Fleet Foxes (PaperThinWalls.com)
“Deception Island Optimists Club” – Laura Barrett (PaperThinWalls.com)
“Hold in the Light” – The Weird Weeds (PaperThinWalls.com)
Movie:
Great World of Sound (Paste)
Columns & misc.:
Georgie in the Sky, fiction (False)
BRAIN TUBA: These Guys Are From England and Who Gives A Shit? (JamBands.com)
BRAIN TUBA: Three Thoughts on Love and Hate (JamBands.com)
BRAIN TUBA: War on War, parts 14-15 (JamBands.com)
Print:
o Paste #40 (Michael Jackson’s Glove cover): charticle on Why?/Lyrics Born; album reviews of the Mountain Goats and Jim White, DVD reviews of Pete Seeger, the Holy Modal Rounders, Great World of Sound; book review of Jumbo
o Paste #41 (Gnarls Barkley cover): features on Jon Hurwitz & Hayden Schlossberg, Paul Siegell; album reviews of Tapes ‘n’ Tapes, the Black Keys, Lee “Scratch” Perry; Cuts and Paste singles column; movie review of Shine A Light
o April/May Relix (Eric Clapton & Steve Winwood cover): album reviews of Howlin Rain, Man Man, DeVotchKa, Colin Meloy; DVD reviews of The Trips Festival, Super High Me; book reviews of Downbeat’s Miles Davis Reader, Howard Mandel’s Miles, Ornette, and Cecil, and John Darnielle’s Master of Reality.
o January/February Hear/Say (Amy Winehouse cover): album reviews of Vampire Weekend and the Steve Reid Ensemble.
o March Hear/Say (Avril Lavigne cover): album reviews of Why? and Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks
o Signal To Noise #49 (Diamanda Galás cover): album reviews of Phish and Beck
