Für Emily

Pithy music blurbs

I adore this CD. Miller inhabits a kind of middle ground between the rough-and-tumble country rock of the Drive By Truckers and the more polished hard-driven songcraft of Steve Earle. As instantly appealing as Peter Case or Gillian Welch's stuff, the songs on Citation sound like they've been around forever. And, there's a kick-ass Neil Young cover.



I was floored by LaMontagne's debut LP Trouble. Till the Sun Turns Black is just as soulfoul, but takes a Nietzschean turn toward the dark abyss. "You can bring me flowers/when I'm dead and gone"--such dark lyrics sung over a shaky blues jazz groove in that expressive gravelly voice? Delicious.



A roots music record narrated by a world-travelling cat who claims friendship with Hank Williams. Fuckin' a. This here is the shit.



This album can't be thirty years old. It still pushes boundaries. I think this is fantastic, but my neighbors won't let me play it loud. Adventurous fractured jams.

Nod to Seth for the recommendations.

Dr. May

Brian May is not merely a kick-ass guitarist with his own unique pure tone (from crafting his own guitars). He's also a physicist and mathematician about to achieve his PhD.

Apparently Mr. May stopped his doctoral thesis on the movement of space dust when his band Queen became a bit more successful than anticipated in the early '70s.

Queen was the shit, man. When I was nine years old my mom re-married and my new stepbrothers had the Queen LP A Night at the Opera. I listened to that stuff daily for a year, and used to get in fights with other neighborhood kids in Reisterstown who thought Kiss was better. Kiss sucked. In the Pantheon of rock gods Kiss wouldn't rate an altar niche, and any Kiss presence in the holy sanctuary would be based on costume and gimics more than their musical achievement. Queen, however, would merit their own tympanum. May's gorgeous slick guitar and Freddie Mercury's operatic voice moved me from tepid AM rock hits to more interesting material and I never looked back. I had all of Queen's LPs into my middle teens, but quickly moved on to other bands and kind of lost touch with them. I credit ambitious rock acts like Queen with my eventual interest in classical music.

The last few times I sang karaoke I did a little Freddie-channeling-Elvis number called "Crazy Little Thing Called Love." Awesome! And it has a clever little guitar solo by Dr. May to boot. Might be time to get a few of their LPs on CD and see how they hold up.

Package from Chicago

Package from Chicago, originally uploaded by Blog-Sothoth.

I sent a package of Willie Nelson CDs to Chicago a few weeks back. My unadorned, ghetto assortment of discs sans cases, liner notes, or cover art went USPS.

In return I got a lovely assortment. Via FedEx. Jamming to CAN now. Never heard them. Like Bitches Brew meets Ummagumma.

Thanks!

Today's Curriculum-Writing Tunes

Not sure about this one. Like The Dirty South and Blessing and a Curse much better. Perhaps a few more listens before I discard as a "loose, baggy monster."



Silenus hooked me up with this--he saw them in NYC I believe, and said they had five Telecasters going at once. Like it.



B&S are getting under my skin of late. Not sure how to categorize/respond to their stuff, but find their melodies in my head at odd times.



Awesome, awesome, awesome. Very evocative.



"It's later than it seems."



"For a minute there, I lost myself."

Verres militares

Pat Boone's terrible but strangely alluring album of heavy metal covers didn't include a song by Black Sabbath, but he came close, covering an Ozzy solo ditty and a Ronnie James Dio track. I couldn't have imagined any combination stranger than Pat Boone and heavy metal.

Until now: Seth alerts me to the existence of a Black Sabbath tribute album sung--in LATIN--by a medieval choir with period arrangements and instrumentals.



I need to own this:

Today's Work CDs

The RZA, the GhostFace Killah, Method Man, and Dirty Ol' Bastard are excellent motivational speakers when you're writing curricula all day.

Rob Thorworth

Sorry these vids are so dark but I was using a Kodak digital camera--not ideal for video capture. Rob and crew again blew the roof off the joint in Canton. They're playing the next two Thursdays at the Austin Grill, and if you like good song writing and/or quality guitar playing you should check them out.

Two covers by the Rob Thorworth Trio. John Lee Hooker and I believe Little Feat, respectively.





Nice to see a few butts in the seats last night. Ellen Cherry stopped by after the Move Like Seamus rehearsal and we talked The Wire. I think our table ate about six baskets of free chips and dip. Cha put one basket in her dinner doggie bag.