Episode 34: Christmas in Bourgwick…
Listen here.
(Thanks to Boomy for many Holiday Sounds from the Way Out.)
1. “Silent Night” – Ween (from Merry Little Christmas compilation)
2. “A Very Special Christmas, part 2” – Wayne Butane
3. “Frow Show Theme” – MVB
4. “Christmas at Ground Zero” – Weird Al Yankovic (from Polka Party)
5. “In the Hot Sun of A Christmas Day” – Caetano Veloso (from Caetano Veloso (1971))
6. “Santa Claus Is Ska-Ing To Town” – Granville Williams Orchestra (from Trojan Christmas box set)
7. “Sugar Rum Cherry” – Duke Ellington (from Three Suites)
8. “It’s Christmas Time” – The Qualities (from Sun Ra: The Singles compilation)
9. “Reindeer Boogie” – Hank Snow
10. “Run Rudolph Run” – Keith Richards (from Run Rudolph Run single)
11. “Rock n Roll Santa” – Yo La Tengo (from Merry Christmas from… EP)
12. “12 Days of Christmas” – Twin Peaks cast (from KROQ Acoustic Christmas compilation)
13. “Christmas With William S.” – The Olivia Tremor Control (from Singles and Beyond compilation)
14. “The Priest, They Called Him” – William S. Burroughs and Kurt Cobain (from The Priest, They Called Him EP)
15. “Turkey Song” – Stephan Mathieu and Ekkehard Ehlers (from Heroin)
16. “Blue Christmas” – Ernest Tubb
The Frow Show will return tomorrow with a special Christmas in Bourgwick episode. For now, Steve Martin’s “The Bohemians,” from Cruel Shoes (1979). Kinda makes ya nostalgic for a simpler age, eh?
Were they rebels? Were they artists? Were they outcasts from society? They were all of these. They were The Bohemians.
These bohemians, Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Williams, and their seven children, Biff, Tina, Sparky, Louise, Tuffy, Mickey, and Biff Number Two, lived in a notorious artists’ colony and planned community.
Naturally, the bohemians’ existence thrived on creativity. Early in the morning, Mrs. Williams would rise and create breakfast. Then, Mr. Williams, inspired by his wife’s limitless energy, would rush off to a special room and create tiny hairs in a sink. The children would create things, too. But being temperamental artists, they would often flush them away without a second thought.
But the bohemians’ creativity didn’t stop there. Mr. Williams would then rush downtown and create reams and reams of papers with numbers on them and send them out to other bohemians who would create special checks to him with figures like $7.27 written on them.
At home, the children would be creating unusual music, using only their voices to combine in avant-garde, atonal melodies.
Yes, these were the bohemians. A seething hot-bed of rebellion — the artists, the creators of all things that lie between good and bad.
Ornette Coleman, quoted in Howard Mandel’s Miles, Ornette, and Cecil:
When you ask a question or make a statement it’s either that you know the subject that you’re talking about or you’re trying to express something without the persons you’re talking to changing their views of it. You try to make their view of it more clear to them so they can stay more natural, rather than to think that you’re just trying to get them to repeat something to make you feel more secure or something.
Coleman gets at the artificial casualness of the typical interview, where the interviewer has to figure out how to best ask a question without leading the witness, so to speak. Often, this involves some sort of carefully managed reduction of the questioner’s knowledge of his subject. Despite wanting an interview to flow like a natural conversation, the very relationship between interviewer and subject makes it virtually impossible.
“Mr. Tambourine Man” – Bob Dylan (download)
recorded 30 July 1999, Jones Beach Amphitheater, Wantagh, NY (download whole show)
(file expires December 24th)
(And… reentry complete.) A friend of mine once negatively characterized Bob Dylan’s live vocals as “UPdownUPdownUPdown.” And not inaccurately. But, Dylan’s too ornery to alternate so blandly (except when he is). It’s like Mike Gordon said — speaking of criticisms that the Grateful Dead just ran up and down scales together — you have to know when to go down and when to go up. Given Dylan’s gnarled voice — part affected, part acquired — even the up/downs sometimes get blurred, which is why I’m so frabjously psyched about this summer ’99 soundboard, in which Dylan cuts through completely.
In Chronicles, Dylan spins a probably bullshit yarn to describe his improvised vocal melodies, taught to him by Lonnie Johnson, involving “an odd- instead of an even-numbered system” and “a highly controlled system of playing [that] relates to the notes of a scale, how they combine numerically, how they form melodies out of triplets and are axiomatic to the rhythm and the chord changes.” Which is where the UPdownUPdown comes from. And the fastSLOWfastSLOW, and all the layered combinations.
At its best, though, it all congeals into melody, as it did during shows I saw in 1999 and 2000, when Dylan’s Larry Campbell-dominated band blew both Paul Simon and Phil Lesh’s genial revues off the summer shed stages. This “Mr. Tambourine Man” resists singalongs and stumbles, almost surprised at itself, around a new melody, with all the revelation that entails. Dylan never quite sings it directly — which is sort of the point, like an improvisation unresolved — but still delivers appropriate drama. This is what I love about live Dylan. It can be elusive, and I’m glad I finally have a solid example I can point to. If you don’t like it, well, there it is.
So, who’s got the awesome Never Ending Tour soundboards? Sendspace that shit up. (Thx to Ace Cowboy for digging this one up.)
“I Wanna Be Your Partner” – Bob Dylan (download)
from Dimestore Medicine bootleg, c. 1966
“Fourth Time Around” – Yo La Tengo (download) (buy)
from I’m Not There OST
(files expire December 21st)
(Re-entry continues…) Yo La Tengo’s two Bob Dylan covers on the soundtrack to Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There — “I Wanna Be Your Lover” and “Fourth Time Around” — constitute a tiny sub-category in Dylan’s work: response songs to the Beatles. The former lifts its chorus from Lennon/McCartney so-cast-off-they-let-Ringo-sing “I Wanna Be Your Man” (supplanting Dylan’s earlier draft, the proto-PC “I Wanna Be Your Partner”). “Fourth Time Around,” meanwhile, is Dylan’s rewrite of “Norwegian Wood,” with a similar plot (cheekily oblique conversation about an affair) set to a similar melody in a similar mood. Dylan’s version is way more sly, of course, with its wry put-downs (“your words are not clear, you better spit out your gum”) and the snotty/Britty crutch/crotch double entendre at its end (“I didn’t ask for your crutch, now don’t ask for mine”). Intentional choice on YLT’s part to mirror Haynes’ meta-textual orgy? Only the nose knows for sure. The nose being Ringo.
“I’ll Keep It With Mine” – Yo La Tengo (download)
recorded 30 December 2005, Maxwell’s, Hoboken, NJ
(file expires December 20th)
Sleep. Soon. In the meantime, to aid in the ever-so-gradual reentry, the Georgia-sung “I’ll Keep It With Mine” from the stunning sleeper show the night before New Year’s, 2005. Purdy Nico arrangement (superior to Dylan’s clunkier demo, oddly), aided by Rolling Thunder/sessionman stringdude David Mansfield. Sleep. Now. But first, maybe headphones. (Thx to Neil & Brandon for the tunes.)
(My now-complete Maxwell’s reports: part 1, part 2.)
Yo La Tengo at Maxwell’s
11 December 2007
*(Hanukah, night 8)*
Times New Viking and David Cross opened.
Mix disc by Ira.
Night Falls on Hoboken
Eight Day Weekend (Gary “U.S.” Bonds)
Double Dare
Cone of Silence
Shadows
The Weakest Part
Mr. Tough
Paul Is Dead
Stockholm Syndrome
I Should Have Known Better
Autumn Sweater (organless version)
Watch Out For Me, Ronnie
Blue Line Swinger
Love Power (Herb Hartic/Norman Blaoman) (with Hanukah shout-outs)
*(encore)* with Howard Kaylan of the Turtles/Flo & Eddie
Hungry Heart (Bruce Springsteen) (with Beth Murphy of Times New Viking on keyboards)
You Baby (P.F. Sloan/Steve Barri)
One Potato, Two Potato (The Crossfires)
Love Songs in the Night (Michael Brown)
Metal Guru (T-Rex)
She’d Rather Be With Me (The Turtles)
(Please post all corrections, etc., in comments.)
Yo La Tengo at Maxwell’s
10 December 2007
*(Hanukah, night 7)*
The New Pornographers and Andy Blitz opened.
Mix disc by Yoshitomo Nara.
TV Party (Black Flag) (sung as “Dreidel Party”)
Everyday
From A Motel 6
The Room Got Heavy
False Alarm
Beanbag Chair
Mr. Tough
Magnet (NRBQ) (with Jon Wurster of Superchunk on drums)
Saturday (with JW)
Sugarcube
The Story of Jazz
We’re An American Band
Mushroom Cloud of Hiss
You Can Have It All (George McCrea) (all on drums)
*(encore)* with Roy Loney of the Flamin’ Groovies on vocals and Bruce Bennett on guitar
Have You Seen My Baby (Randy Newman)
High Flyin’ Baby (Flamin’ Groovies)
Teenage Head (Flamin’ Groovies)
Slow Death (Flamin’ Groovies)
(Please post all corrections, etc., in comments.)
(also: my reviews so far.)
Yo La Tengo at Maxwell’s
9 December 2007
*(Hanukah, night 6)*
Redd Kross and Heather Lawless opened.
Mix disc by Eye.
Eight Days A Week (The Beatles)
I Should Have Known Better
Autumn Sweater
Pass the Hatchet, I Think I’m Goodkind >
Last Days of Disco
Today is the Day (fast)
Sometimes I Don’t Get You
The Weakest Part
Demons
Out the Window
Drug Test
Tom Courtenay
I Heard You Looking (with Joe Puleo on organ)
Our Way To Fall
*(encore)*
September Gurls (Alex Chilton) (with Redd Kross)
Bus Stop (The Hollies) (with Redd Kross)
Who Loves the Sun (Velvet Underground) (with Redd Kross)
Calling Dr. Love (KISS) (with Redd Kross)
My Little Corner of the World (Bob Hilliard/Lee Pockriss) (with Ira’s mom)
(Please post all corrections, etc., in comments.)
Yo La Tengo at Maxwell’s
8 December 2007
*(Hanukah, night 5)*
Dew-Claw, Sarah Vowell, and Amy Poehler opened.
Mix disc by Georgia.
Barnaby, Hardly Working
Shaker
Stockholm Syndrome
Tears Are In Your Eyes
Season of the Shark
Don’t Say A Word (Hot Chicken #2)
Song For Mahlia
The River of Water (with Dave Rick of Dew-Claw/ex-YLT on guitar)
Sometime In The Morning (Carole King/Gerry Goffin) (with DR and Stephen Hunking on vocals/guitar)
E.T.I. (Blue Oyster Cult) (with DR and SH)
Mr. Tough
Big Day Coming
Watch Out For Me, Ronnie
The Story of Yo La Tango
*(encore)* with Alex Chilton on guitar and vocals
I’ve Had It (The Bell-Notes)
The Oogum Boogum Song (Brenton Wood)
Let Me Get Close To You (Carole King/Gerry Goffin)
Femme Fatale (Velvet Underground)
Baby Strange (T-Rex)
Hey Little Child (Alex Chilton)
Government Center (Modern Lovers)
(Please post all corrections, etc., in comments.)
