Prick up your ears, installment 5

Ever wonder how to crack into so-called "World Music?" I have a hard time doing it because there are so many artists from so many countries, singing in so many languages. Some of it I just don't care for, and most of it I don't understand, but there is one artist I discovered many years ago, who just gets better and better: Youssou N'Dour from Senegal.

His newest album is just great! But also check out this album, which was the first of his that I bought. The track "Live Television" from this album is stunning, with him singing mostly in English.

Oh, and finally, check out this awesome video featuring Youssou and Neneh Cherry.

My dog, Spenser

Just in case you are wondering what my Border Terrier puppy looks like, here he is about a month ago. I know, I gotta take some more recent pictures, which I will do. Still you gotta admit he's pretty dang cute.

Prick up your ears, installment 4

Out today on a 3.5 mile walk by the San Francisco Bay with my dog. Killer views, mellow times. Listening to my Rhapsody player shuffling me a very nice deck as we walked -- old and new tunes. This killed me: Stevie Ray Vaughan -- "Life Without You." I was slow-bopping and groovin' and saluting the Monterey Pines, perhaps making bystanders (and my pup) think I was crazy, but Stevie Ray did that to me, and still does. May he rest in peace. Life is even better than good.

Ciao,

T.

Prick up your ears, installment 3

Unknown artist - "All I Ever Get for Christmas is Blue" -- I love it when I go to a small club or festival and hear a total "unknown" who kills me. It sort of happened here when I was surfing for new music and stumbled across this. Yeah, I realize I could go to "Over the Rhine" and find out who she really is and all the details, but I'd rather just take this girl home, with her exquisite bass man and piano guy, (if it's not her on the keyboard), as chaperons, and have her sing for me all night...

T.

Prick up your ears, installment 2

A couple of posts ago, I promised to pull your coats to the music I am discovering and loving as my life unfolds. I thought about a title to use to alert you to when I'm in that mode, so here it is: "Prick up your ears," will all due respect to Stephen Frears' great movie.

OK, here is installment #2:

Dion - "Son of Skip James" - A long, long, long way from the days with "The Belmonts." Please take the time read the entire allmusic.com review of this absolutely incredible blues set. Dion? Kill yourself if you don't dig this album.

T.

"Who's" Generation?

OK, my friend Dave Gilson forwarded this to me. Utterly charming. I'll be there all too soon on the front lines.

T.

There is no way I could have said this better...

Those who have been reading this blog know that I prize and admire good writing. Here is some of the best writing I have seen in a while on a subject that is of great concern to me. The writing is cogent, powerful, grammatically perfect, and impassioned. Please read it -- it's not that long. But here is a teaser:

Evangelical influence is all over the election of 2008. The debates are laden with questions about candidates' favorite Bible verses or how often and heartily they pray. The thought that a grown person -- the leader of the free world -- would actually sit down and hear voices to guide him in major decisions is blood-curdling mad. Listen to John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, or any of the other candidates and you'll hear a group of seemingly intelligent people sounding silly in order to placate lunacy. I'd like to hear a debate where the candidates are asked how quickly they are going to eliminate Bush's trash legislation called "the faith-based initiative.

"Placating lunacy" is my new watch phrase -- utterly brilliant.

~ tom of assisi

Religion -- Bah, Humbug!!

This blog from the Huffington Post is so "right on" I am going to pull you collective coats to it. I think the whole thing is just peachy, but this portion really caught my eye:

[W]atching Huckabee I thought of Aaron Altman, the great, perspiring fictional conscience of Broadcast News, when he proposed that the bland and warm and home spun-newscaster Bill Hurt was the devil. Altman, played gorgeously by Albert Brooks says, " What do you think the Devil is going to look like if he's around? Nobody is going to be taken in if he has a long, red, pointy tail. No. I'm semi-serious here. He will look attractive and he will be nice and helpful and he will get a job where he influences a great God-fearing nation and he will never do an evil thing... he will just bit by little bit lower standards where they are important."

This is why I love the Internet. I would never have remembered this from Broadcast News, but it's so obviously relevant that I must genuflect to Jon Robin Baitz. Oh, and by the way, this does not just apply to Huckabee -- all these presidential contenders, elephant and donkey alike, should just say [ala T0mmy Jefferson]: "What I believe about God is totally irrelevant to my being the the Prez. It's none of your bee's wax. Now if you'd like to hear what I think about: Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, France, England, Germany, Social Security, Global Warming, Education, The Deficit, The Housing Market Crisis, Abortion, Farm Policies, Taxes, or 'Birth of the Cool,' just fire away!"

Out,

~ tom

Dem backbone - a fiction

How did we get Harry Reid as Senate Majority Leader? I sure had nothing to do with it. I am a very forgiving person, but I am fed up with this guy. It's like a relationship that turns bad. You all know what I'm talking about. A week before the "turning point" you can forgive or ignore your significant other's faults and foibles, but at some point a bright line is crossed and from then on everything becomes unforgivable.

I'm spoiling for a fight. The kind of fight where you go up against a guy who you know is gonna kick your ass and bloody your face, but it's a fight you NEED to fight to keep your self-respect and dignity. Harry slinks away from such a fight. Aside from having the personality and charisma of a sea slug, Reid has the same backbone as a sea slug -- none! I can't remember exactly what event it was, but a while back, Senator Jim Webb gave a rebuttal to some horse shit the the Prez put out in an address to us masses, and the dude just blew me away. He was oozing charisma, putting down unassailable arguments, but most importantly, he was righteously pissed, and it showed! I was fervently murmering, "replace Reid with this dude, ASAP." Or, I think of what would be happening if LBJ was majority leader now (forget his presidency), as he was for many years in the past -- there would be hell to pay.

Oh, and by the way... I'm not that pleased with Nancy Pelosi's performance in the house either.

~ tom

A new thang...

Today, I'm beginning a new, probably sporadic service: referring you to music that I think you may enjoy. I have had a Rhapsody subscription from way back, which allows me to listen to pretty much everything I want to, immediately and on demand. Lately, on the advice of my son, I expanded that membership to allow me to download anything I want to my MP3 player. The increase in cost was from $12.00/mo to $15.00/mo, more than well worth it. I download stuff that is favorably review and listen to it while doing housework, walking my puppy, and so on.

I'm not going to try to review these recommendations, except for a line or two. However, in each case, I also will give you a link to the "allmusic" website, the best music site on the Net IMHO.

So here we go:

"Raising Sand" - Robert Plant and Alison Krauss - I'm a hopeless wreck when it comes to Alison, and hearing her paired up with Plant is just sublime. I once read an article about the Everly Brothers, which contended that their voices melded better than any duo ever -- well just listen to "Through the Morning, Through the Night" on Raising Sand for a close second, if not a tie.

"Back to Black" [Explicit version] - Amy Winehouse - Great stuff! About half way though I realized I was hearing traces of Dinah Washington, especially "What a Difference a Day Makes." But don't get me wrong, this is hard-edge contemporary stuff making its own statement, but paying it respects to the likes of Dinah.

Ciao

~ tom

Fly on the wall? Nah, crab in the sand!

From the current issue of Rolling Stone from an article about Ornette Coleman:

"When I used to go out to L.A. back then, there was something I could do you couldn't do today," says [Sonny] Rollins. "I'd drive my car out toward Malibu, park it on the side of the road, and go down to the beach to practice. I invited Ornette to come with me and we'd play, just the two of us standing in the sand, putting our sound out over the ocean. I really liked what he was doing. A lot of established musicians didn't like his playing, they were doing things like walking out on him, but I liked him."

~ tom