We put a link to this on our UK music community blog and peoplke are impressed
http://thespillblog.co.uk/2012/01/13/before-he-got-into-pictures-dorian-grey-got-his-start-doing-album-covers/#comments
It’s a playlist sparked by a challenge at thespillblog to keep either your favorite artist’s discography OR your favorite song of theirs. i.e. Would you choose Poker Face or every other Lady Gaga song? (I’d push her off a clifff, me, but that’s a different game). I gave up trying to make a definitive 10 and went the playlist route. Hats off to barbryn for a great convo starter.
Al Green – How Can You Mend A Broken Heart, Joe Bonamassa – Bird on a Wire,Dave Van Ronk – The Old Man, Jeff Buckley – Satisfied Mind, Etta James – I’d Rather Go Blind, Ella Fitzgerald – They Can’T Take That Away, Kate Wolf – Back Roads, Guy Clark – Maybe I Can Paint Over That, Steve Earle – Nothing But A Child, Aretha Franklin – Never Gonna Break My Heart (with Mary J Blige)
New Tincanland blog
Tincanland is slowly replacing this one
..and the law won
A British police officer has been accused of inserting song titles into evidence he gave during an inquest. It is alleged that, while giving evidence under oath to the inquest on 27 September 2010, officer AZ8 deliberately inserted song titles into his verbal testimony.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Bonnie Dobson is a musical footnote from the hippie era who(m?) Robert Plant has given a second 15 minutes of fame by covering her Morning Dew. I’ll not type here what you can wiki, but I was recently asked to review her work and I’m glad to share my thoughts:
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To appreciate her, you need to be able to block out the stuff on her albums that shouldn’t be there; like some Townes Van Zandt records, the over-done arrangements are entirely incongruous with the material. If you can cancel out that extraneous noise, what you’ll hear is someone we should have heard more.
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Say what you will about Dobson as a recording artist, there’s no disputing she would have excelled as a talent spotter. The folkie field was a crowded one in her day, and she chose to cover then-unfamous, now-national-treasures Ian Tyson, Ralph McTell and Jackson C Frank. She might well even have made it as a singer-songwriter if she had delivered her own compositions with the confidence she saved for her covers.
Tech: Facebook privacy made simple
Humans don’t understand risk very well. We’re terrified of big things that probably won’t happen, and do nothing about little things which probably will.
It is almost 100% certain that someone will see something on your Facebook that you’d rather they didn’t. That might lead to identity theft, your boss finding out you don’t have a cold, or your girlfriend finding out you know she farts. Big deal/little deal.
Yeah, you say, but my animals need feeding.
Here’s a simple and fast way to tighten up your Facebook privacy from Nilay Patel, managing editor of tech blog engadget. He created three lists, each with a different level of access, and put people on the appropriate list. There’s step-by-step instructions and screen shots and it’ll take you 10 minutes. Go do it or I’ll break in and do it for you.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
2006
Lupe Fiasco - Kick Push
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MY TAKE: Thematically it is Neil Young’s Helpless – a boyhood search for identity and independence in a small town/’hood. Musically it is hip hop for people who think they don’t like hip hop.
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This was my submission this week to Earworms on The Spill blog. It’s a bit highbrow on Earworms this week: Ravishing Beauties, Admiral Fallow, Gibson Kente, Family, Hamid Baroudi
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2010
Perfume Genius - Mr. Peterson
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MY TAKE: Bedroom as confessional is a hazard of modern recording technology. Teenagers have so much to say and so little skill to say it that the interwebs are cluttered with self-indulgent music and video, making it hard to spot the real artists who otherwise fit the profile. Perfume Genius (Seattle’s Mike Hadreas) is just such a young man. His debut, Learning, raises the bar for lo-fi teen confessionals so high, very very few will ever reach it. He may not again, even. It’s sparse, it’s dark and it pulls no punches.
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In Mr. Peterson, a defining track, he introduces us to the teacher who seduced him and then killed himself. There’s nowhere to hide in a song like that for either the singer or the listener. It could go so wrong in any number of ways for even the most veteran of artists, yet Mr. Genius gets the tone perfect with apparent effortless ease. If he has enough stories, he’ll be around for awhile.
Space tunes: Take your protein pills and log in
NASA invites us to pick the wake-up songs they’ll use on the next space shuttle mission, scheduled for Nov. 1 launch. You have to pick from a mostly lame list … hey, it’s NASA; you expected indie?
I picked Cake - The Distance but was tempted by the idea of forcing captive adults to listen to Aaron Tippen (I liked to pull the wings off flies when I was a child - does it show?). I’d tell you what is leading but you are supposed to vote first. Plus its too lame to type out.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Nirvana’s Where Did You Sleep Last Night is not a Leadbelly cover, contrary to popular belief. Not technically, although it is in spirit.
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This came up today in Readers Recommend, an interactive music blog at the Guaradian (UK) newspaper. Every Friday a moderator names a topic and readers suggest songs that fit. This week’s theme is uncertainty, and Where Did You Sleep qualifies as a southern whodunnit.
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Where Did You Sleep is a traditional southern U.S. (Georgia; hence the pines) folk song that underpins everything we listen to today in roots music and much rock. It has most often been recorded as In The Pines, and can also legitimately be called (The) Black Girl. Leadbelly recorded it by all three titles, which leads to some confusion.
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By whatever name, it morphed into folk, blues, country and bluegrass versions, with all kinds of lyrical variations. Some versions have entirely new lyrics, other than the ”in the pines, in the pines” chorus. One major evolution from the tragic murder mystery theme was as a fairly pleasant train/travelling song.
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Its real beauty lies not in its interest to musicologists with their scratchy old acetates, but in its huge listenablility. I have a couple dozen versions covering all genres, and the newer ones are as good as the old. Thats rarely true of 100-year-old songs. And it sounds like it belongs in each of those genres; in fact folk, blues and bluegrass all count it as their birthright.
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As a sampler set, you’ll not go wrong with Gene Vincent, Long John Baldry, Dave Van Ronk, Baird Sisters, Smog (bloody sublime!), Kentucky Colonels, Link Wray and Charlie Feathers. But for me, that Leadbelly stands above ‘em all. I love the way his recrafting of the old folk song shows his influence on modern music, eerily foreshadowing Kurt Cobain’s angst-ridden delivery.
