o The Wave dissipates around the seats, following a zagging single-file line before dying completely, more like a secret whispered from one fan to another than any kind of groupmind declaration.
o The ball is a pinprick in a massive field of controlled visual noise. It is like the key to a magic eye. Locating it against the crowd can sometimes be like looking at an Escher, the foreground and the background toppling over one another as one tries to pick up if it is fair or foul, high or low, or even which side of the diamond it’s heading towards. For a dizzying fraction of a second (at least far away) it is all of these places simultaneously. Then it is in the first baseman’s glove, and Damion Easley is heading back to the dugout.
o In extra innings, the PA runs into the deep cuts: The Doors’ “Break on Through,” with Ray Manzarek’s long organ solo to keep fans entertained in lieu of DiamondVision gimcracks. Also because, like, the Mets need to break on through & such. Later, the DJ (what would his title be?) whips out “We Will Rock You” — not just the introductory beat to get the crowd stomping, but the actual song, Freddie Mercury verse and all. As a dramatic cue, it really works.
o The booing of Barry Bonds is an amazing, overwhelming sound. Especially on Tuesday, when he doesn’t come in until a late inning pitch hit appearance, and the crowd finally releases their hatred (is that what it is?), it sounds like a jet going over Shea. Wednesday, a plane passed overhead while Bonds was up, and the sounds were indistinguishable.
o The debate over “performance enhancing drugs” rings a bit false, though, if only because science — especially as it relates to baseball — is almost always destined to prove itself mere folk knowledge. From (the recently late) David Halberstam’s Summer of ’49:
The strain of the heat on the pitchers was even more obvious. They kept a jug of orange juice mixed with honey to drink as a pick-me-up and also a bucket filled with ice and ammonia. Gus Mauch would dip a towel in the bucket and drape it over the pitcher’s neck between innings. “Florida water,” they called it. It was believed that water, any amount of it, would bloat you up, make you heavy, and slow you down. So none of the pitchers took even the smallest drink of water during the game. Allie Reynolds, as a special reward to himself if he made it to the seventh inning in the hot weather, would go over to the cooler, take a mouthful, wash it around in his mouth for a moment or two, then spit it out.
Sometimes, the players ate candybars (no water to wash it down) midgame. Other times, they just stuffed ice into their jocks to fight off fatigue.
“Mountains of the Moon” – the Grateful Dead (download) (buy)
recorded 1 March 1969, Fillmore West, San Francisco
(file expires June 6th)
As I’ve been saying all along, the Dead are hip and getting hipper. With the publication of The Fader‘s Jerry Garcia issue (download it fer free!), the circle is complete. It’s official: Jerry’s cool again. And it’s about fucking time.
It is interesting to see Garcia liberated from the thin, crammed pages of Relix and splashed gorgeously across the thick glossy sheets and high modern layouts of The Fader. The editors present a very specific version of Garcia that is far from the genial, bearded fat dude he was for his last 15 years, and who is often still celebrated by the jamband scene. Titled “Jerry Garcia: American Beauty,” only two of the nine photos of Garcia (including full-sized front & back cover shots) feature the iconic beard. Instead, we get the doe-eyed beatific boy from San Francisco.
Arranged as an oral history/appreciation, the spread features quotes from the usual suspects (Bob Weir, Mountain Girl, David Grisman), but also pontificatin’ from various hipster musicians, including Devendra Banhart, Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse, Craig Finn of the Hold Steady, duder from Animal Collective, and others. Though they missed a few good quotables (no Lee Ranaldo?), they all present alternative readings on how to listen to the Dead. Alternative to the Deadhead mainstream, that is.
What happens now that the Dead are seemingly back in the dialogue, I have no idea.
“Blue Bayou” – Roy Orbison (download) (buy)
from Mean Woman Blues 7-inch (1963)
released by Monument Records
(files expires June 5th)
Along with Depression-era standard “Big Rock Candy Mountain,” Roy Orbison’s “Blue Bayou” is a semi-secular utopia fantasia. It is a most pleasant subgenre, which also includes Bob Dylan’s “Beyond the Horizon” and countless others. Just as the opening shot of “Big Rock” is lit by “the jungle fires… burning” in a hobo shantytown, “Blue Bayou” begins under the spotlight of any ol’ C&W bar. “I’m so lonesome all the time,” Orbison croons over a plain kickdrum heartbeat before the cooing back-up singers, lazy harmonica, and an airy clavichord (?) transport the listener to a more pastoral scene, a place “where you sleep all day and the catfish play.” Who doesn’t like a good utopia now & again? It really works. Hope everyone got good and lost in their own blue bayous over the long weekend.
“Tuileries,” the Coen brothers’ contribution to Paris, Je T’aime, might as well be a silent short titled “Donnie Goes to Paris.” To my ugly American ears, the French dialogue is just part of the soundtrack — and, either way, is totally unnecessary to understand the story, which is conveyed via pantomime. Not a significant work by any stretch, it’s still an entertaining exercise in how to retain one’s own voice while working inside a genre. For the Coens, that means abusing the shit out of Steve Buscemi in some new way. (Thanks, MVB.)
Only in print:
June Relix (Jeff Tweedy cover): feature on Europe ’72, album reviews of Wilco, Billy Martin and John Medeski, Soul Sides, and Michael Barry; book review of John Peel. Paste #32 (Parker Posey cover): feature interview with Haruki Murakami; film review of Crazy Love.
1. “Bob Dylan’s 49th Beard” – Jeff Tweedy (from 3/5/2005 Vic Theater
2. “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” – Bob Dylan (from 10/16/1992 Madison Square Garden)
3. “Frow Show Theme” – MVB
4. “On A Rainy Afternoon” – Bob Dylan & the Band (from Complete Basement Tapes)
5. “See You Later, Allen Ginsberg” – Bob Dylan & the Band (from Complete Basement Tapes)
6. “I’m Not Here 1956” – Bob Dylan & the Band (from Complete Basement Tapes
7. “Santa Fe” – Bob Dylan & the Band (from Complete Basement Tapes)
8. “Winterlude” – Bob Dylan (from New Morning)
9. “You’re A Big Girl Now” – Bob Dylan (from Blood on the Tracks acetate)
10. “Up To Me” – Bob Dylan (from Blood on the Tracks acetate)
11. “Every Grain of Sand” – Bob Dylan (from Shot of Love)
12. “A Couple More Years” – Bob Dylan (from Hearts of Fire film)
13. “John Hardy” – Bob Dylan & the Grateful Dead (from Dylan & the Dead rehearsals)
14. “One Too Many Mornings” – Bob Dylan (from 11/1993 Supper Club)
15. “Tomorrow Night” – Bob Dylan (from Good As I Been To You)
16. “Moonlight” – Bob Dylan (from “Love & Theft”)
Wow, the Man came crashing down swiftly on occasional Mets prospect Lastings Milledge for his participation in Soul-Ja Boi Records & Manny D’s “Bend Ya Knees” single, huh? There’s a nice multi-faceted discussion over at MetsBlog. Mostly, I’m just curious to hear the damn song — it seems to have been deleted from the Soul-Ja Boi website, their MySpace page has apparently been disappeared, and when I emailed their info@ addy, I got a big, fat “delivery to the following recipient failed permanently” bounceback. WTF? Anybody got an mp3?
“Wave Backwards to Massachusetts” – Hallelujah the Hills (download) (buy)
from Collective Psychosis Begone (2007)
released by Misra
(file expires May 24th)
It was the song titles — “It’s All Been Downhill Since the Talkies Started To Sing,” “To All My Scientist Colleagues I Bid You Farewell” — that got me to listen to Hallelujah the Hills. Historical accuracies aside (the first talkie, Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer, sure sung) I’m glad I did, because the music is every bit as original. I love the first 30 seconds of “Wave Backwards to Massachusetts,” and like the rest a great deal. In some ways, it sounds like smart, vintage ’90s power pop as arranged by Neutral Milk Hotel, or some other ragged-but-right indie outfit. That is, pretty much every instrumental part here could be played by some combination of clean & dirty electric guitars, carefully layered. Instead, we get acoustic, trumpet, cello, and distorted vocal. It’s all oversaturated emotion, that particular trait of turn-of-the-century indie rock, and it’s really enjoyable. Besides having a trumpet player and a cellist (and who doesn’t these days?), Hallelujah the Hills don’t seem to have a particular gimmick. And that’s awesome. They’re just a really good band. I’m not sure if that really flies anymore, but maybe the existence of their Collective Psychosis Begone debut, out next month on Misra, is gimmick enough.
o It feels kind of, er, un-American to sing “God Bless America” during the 7th Inning Stretch. It feels hypocritical that it is only done on Sundays. I’ll stand for “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” though.
o Mama’s of Corona is easily the best food I’ve found at Shea. It is buried on the field level, accessible to Upper Deck groundlings, via a back hallway at gate B3 (though this article says there’s one in the mezzanine, too.) (Thx, Gary.)
o Much more on Michael Lewis’s Moneyball as it sinks in. An odd side effect of the Bill James/Billy Beane school of general managership: though it rewards deep, impersonal stats, on the playing field itself, it often emphasizes classically idiosyncratic baseball characters, such as Chad Bradford, the sidewinding Alabama Baptist, or Scott Hatteberg, the pitch-count-racking catcher-turned-first-basemen. (I’m only four years late to the party on this one.)
o During the last homestand, Shea’s grass was cut in criss-crossed diamond patterns. This time out, it radiates outwards from homeplate like sunbeams, growing wider and bolder as they reach the outfield, each a miniature replication of a baseball field’s implied infiniteness.
