Saw/heard amazing Bill Kirchen show at the Southgate House last night. Kirchen is best known as the guitarist for Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen and the Titan of the Telecaster. I'll be downloading his new album, Word to the Wise, today.
The quality of the video is poor, but I was there and that's all I care about.
Friday, August 06, 2010
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Monday, June 04, 2007
Nice piece on Steve Earle in the New Yorker. Every time I read something about him it seems he's found yet another way to straighten out his life. God, he must have been a mess.
When the teen-age Steve Earle left San Antonio, Texas, where he was raised, for Greenwich Village, in 1974, he had an image in his mind: the cover of ?The Freewheelin? Bob Dylan,? showing Dylan and his girlfriend, Suze Rotolo, strolling through the West Village on a snowy day. That was where Earle wanted to be. He made it as far as Nashville. There he became a prot?g? of Townes Van Zandt, and developed his talents as a songwriter, a country singer, and a hard-strumming guitarist, all of which were on display in his fine first album, ?Guitar Town? (1986). By the end of the eighties, Earle seemed on the verge of becoming a troubadour to rank with Dylan and Springsteen. But he had also become an alcoholic and a heroin addict, and in 1994 he was sentenced to a year in prison on drug-related charges. After serving four months, he was released into a twelve-step program, and there, to his surprise, he said, ?I had a genuine spiritual experience.? His career recovered, and his most recent album, ?The Revolution Starts . . . Now,? won a Grammy in 2004.
Saturday, June 02, 2007
Hard to believe it was forty years ago.
Friday, January 12, 2007
A new book on the music in Hitchcock's films is reviewed in the Times.
Hitchcock, Thrilling the Ears as Well as the Eyes - New York Times
Everything about a Hitchcock film is wonderful. I may have to pick up a copy of this book. I'll certainly be returning to the films in the next few weeks, perhaps listening even more closely than before.For Hitchcock music was not merely an accompaniment. It was a focus. And it didn't just reveal something about the characters who sang the score's songs or moved under its canopy of sound; music could seem to be a character itself.
Hitchcock, Thrilling the Ears as Well as the Eyes - New York Times
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Spent the evening listening to the Beatles' Revolver, released forty years ago, in August of 1966, and reading a free online monograph on the background to and making of the album. I nice read and an amazing album, still.
Abracadabra: The Beatles: Revolver by Ray Newman
Abracadabra: The Beatles: Revolver by Ray Newman
Monday, May 09, 2005
Bright Eyes (Conor Oberst) has this wonderful song ridiculing the literal suggestion that W talks with God. I, like many others, deplore the practice of assigning the responsibility for controversial actions to the specific commands a personal God. I can excuse schizophrenics, but not world leaders (unless they are also schizophrenic), and especially not world leaders who claim such divine conversations to gain cheap political advantage. The song is getting plenty of attention, especially after he played it on the Leno show last week. It's rather Dylan-like in structure and mood, but, however clever, it lacks Dylan's sophisticated subtlety.
Lyrics from plyrics.com
The song is not available on any album, but it is a free download from iTunes."When The President Talks To God"
When the president talks to God
Are the conversations brief or long?
Does he ask to rape our women's rights
And send poor farm kids off to die?
Does God suggest an oil hike
When the president talks to God?
When the president talks to God
Are the consonants all hard or soft?
Is he resolute all down the line?
Is every issue black or white?
Does what God say ever change his mind
When the president talks to God?
When the president talks to God
Does he fake that drawl or merely nod?
Agree which convicts should be killed?
Where prisons should be built and filled?
Which voter fraud must be concealed
When the president talks to God?
When the president talks to God
I wonder which one plays the better cop
We should find some jobs. the ghetto's broke
No, they're lazy, George, I say we don't
Just give 'em more liquor stores and dirty coke
That's what God recommends
When the president talks to God
Do they drink near beer and go play golf
While they pick which countries to invade
Which Muslim souls still can be saved?
I guess god just calls a spade a spade
When the president talks to God
When the president talks to God
Does he ever think that maybe he's not?
That that voice is just inside his head
When he kneels next to the presidential bed
Does he ever smell his own bullshit
When the president talks to God?
I doubt it
I doubt it
Lyrics from plyrics.com
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