Okay, so music time, and I’m breaking my own rule for the Random Ten. Usually my rule is that the song we start with has to be IN my iTunes, therefore I hit “shuffle” off of that song, etc. This week, though, was the Kennedy Center Honors, and one of the people recognized was the great singer and actress Barbara Cook. The people they brought together to pay tribute to her were absolutely stunning, and this is one of the best eleven minutes of music I’ve seen and heard in ages. It’s all good, but let’s just say that Glenn Close is followed by Sutton Foster, who is followed by Patti LuPone, who is then followed by Audra McDonald. I have watched/listened to this about twelve times at this point and will likely listen many more times. So that, then shuffle on the iTunes, see where we are ten songs later, then Happy New Year and stuff. More videos after the jump!
1. Tori Amos – “Here. In My Head”
2. Tori Amos – “Sweet The Sting”
3. Carly Simon – “Coming Around Again/Itsy Bitsy Spider”
4. Messiaen: Catalogue d’oiseaux / Book 3 – 6. L’Alouette Lulu [performed by Pierre-Laurent Aimard]
5. The Beach Boys – “Sloop John B”
6. Asobi Seksu – “Thursday”
7. Rage Against The Machine – “Freedom”
8. Emiliana Torrini – “Sunny Road”
9. The Beatles – “Carry That Weight”
10. St. Vincent – “Cruel”
Hi, I know this is the Weekend Random Ten before Christmas, but if you came here for Christmas music, you know, sorry. Just not in the mood right now, and not for “bah, humbug!” reasons. I just want to listen to something else. I’ve featured my buddy Amy LaVere here before, and I found her newest record Stranger Me in one of the many weird nooks and crannies in my truck last night, so I’ve been listening to it today. It was in my player and on my iTunes non-stop this summer and she’s been touring the world with the record ever since. If you have not heard her yet, do give it a listen. We in Memphis are incredibly proud of our music. I was thrilled to see that American Songwriter included one of the songs from the record in their list of the Top 50 Songs of 2011. We’re not starting with that song, though. Rather, we’re going to kick things off with the closing track on the record, “Let Yourself Go (Come On),” because that’s the one I want to listen to and I make the rules for this post. Then we’ll hit shuffle on the old iTunes and see where we come up ten songs later, yadda yadda, listen to music, etc., and then you all have a wonderful weekend. If you’re celebrating Christmas, have yourself a merry little one. More videos after the jump!
1. R.L. Burnside – “Walkin’ Blues”
2. Brooke Waggoner – “Go Easy Little Doves, I’ll Be Fine”
3. White Hinterland – “Calliope”
4. Cold War Kids – “Hospital Beds”
5. Sam Bush – “Memphis In The Meantime” [John Hiatt cover]
6. Diamond Rings – “You Oughta Know”
7. Mavis Staples – “You Must Have That True Religion”
8. Robert Belfour – “Pushin’ My Luck”
9. Mike Bloomfield – “Cherry Red” [orig. by Big Joe Turner]
10. Brandi Carlile – “I Will”
Wow, a very Blues and a very Memphis shuffle right there! How incredibly appropriate. And ooh, that Brooke Waggoner song.
It’s almost the weekend, so music time! I’m sort of throwing this one together, and I really didn’t take much time to think what I’d start with this week, but here is a Tori Amos song that is really special to me. “Roosterspur Bridge.” Just something about it. Then we hit shuffle on the old iTunes, see where we are ten songs later, etc., etc., and then it’s time for the weekend. More videos after the jump!
1. Mates of State – “Change”
2. Bob Dylan – “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere”
3. Matt Morris – “Live Forever”
4. Tori Amos – “Liquid Diamonds”
5. The Beatles – “Because”
6. Brandi Carlile – “Us Again”
7. Christine Kane – “She Don’t Like Roses”
8. Red Hot Chili Peppers – “Breaking The Girl”
9. Lisa Hannigan – “An Ocean And A Rock”
10. Miles Kurosky – “The World Won’t Last The Night”
Okay, it’s almost the weekend, so music. I was thrilled to learn this week [maybe I just hadn't been paying attention] that Ani DiFranco is coming out with her first new record in about three years. If you have ever been an Ani DiFranco fan, you understand that she used to put out a couple records a year at times, so while I’m quite sure she very much deserved the break between 2008′s Red Letter Year and this new record ¿Which Side Are You On?, it was a bit strange going that long without new music from her. It’ll be released in January and there’s more info about the record here. For now, let’s listen to the title track, which I’ve seen her perform live before. It’s a reconfiguring of Pete Seeger’s labor protest song “¿Which Side Are You On?” which keeps the chorus intact, but updates the verses for our times. We need more protest songs and protest singers, really. I worry whether they’d even get noticed in our consumer-driven culture, though. Anyway, let’s listen to that, then hit shuffle on the old iTunes, see where we end up ten songs later, yadda yadda, etc.
Now for the shuffle and ooh, it’s a bonus Random Twelve! Why? Because the second Brandi Carlile song is a hidden track that comes after the first one on the CD. That makes eleven. Then, the second Pete Yorn song is a hidden track that comes after “Simonize.” Two hidden tracks! So, Random Twelve!
1. Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros – “Black Water”
2. Jolie Holland – “Your Big Hands”
3. Glenn Gould – J.S. Bach: Goldberg Variations, BWV 988: Variatio 3 a 1 Clav. Canone All’Unisono
4. Solo Andata – “A Ballet Of Hands”
5. Brandi Carlile – “Hallelujah” [Leonard Cohen cover]
6. Brandi Carlile – “Forever Young” [Alphaville cover]
7. Duke Ellington – “Rhapsody In Blue” [Gershwin]
8. Counting Crows – “Up All Night (Frankie Miller Goes To Hollywood)”
9. Animal Collective – “My Girls”
10. Sigur Rós – “Untitled 4 (Njósnavélin)”
11. Pete Yorn – “Simonize”
12. Pete Yorn – “A Girl Like You”
I’m posting a ton from this mix, because it is that awesome. Really, now that I think of it, I’m giving Counting Crows the shaft, because gahhhh, but everything else gets posted. Click on the Counting Crows song if you really want to hear it, okay? I am not kidding when I say that this mix is worth listening to in full. The songs with lyrics really work together if you listen to them in the order that I’m posting them, and then there are all these lovely instrumental pieces!
This doesn’t have much to do with gays or gay rights, but it’s Sunday night [as I'm writing this] and I don’t care, because I’m too busy making fun of it:
If you’re a conservative or tea partier or libertarian or war veteran who lies awake at night wondering why there’s no band out there that really understands you, The Daily Caller has you covered.
Meet Madison Rising.
Must I? “If you’re a teabagger who lies awake at night wondering why very little of any artistic value has been contributed by conservatives over the course of human history, here, I have something mediocre to distract you for a while.”
Named for Founding Father James Madison, they’re a “libertarian … pro-American … pro-constitution” rock band. Where other bands sing about ex-girlfriends and drunken nights, Madison Rising sings about Occupy Wall Street, the Second Amendment and liberal media bias.
Yeah! Guns and hating protesters who thwart the corporatocracy and guns and stuff and, oh yeah, people make fun of Gretchen Carlson a lot!
RAWK!
As a songwriter, I am thrilled to hear more.
“There are a lot of country acts that are out there that’ll say they’re all about the USA, and then in the next song they’re talking about bar fights and drinking beer in a bar,” explained Bray in an interview with The Daily Caller. “We’re not against those things, but our album and our message is very strictly” on topic, he said.
“We’re not gifted enough songwriters to compose music on a variety of topics, and so instead simply choose to write crappy pablum for teabaggers for whom country songs about lost love are too gay.”
He wants kids, whose initial instincts might be to go out and do something unproductive “to hear his music and say, “I’m going to go and I’m going to do something a little bit more positive with my life. I’m not going stand around with a sign … I’m going to start a business.”
And if Wall Street runs their small businesses into the ground, they still won’t hold signs! Slurp, slurp.
Okay, enough making fun of the band [for a minute], let’s make fun of a few commenters at Tucker Faye Carlson’s Daily Choler:
Don’t forget Ted Nugent.
The ultimate in conservative cool. So cool that millions of wingnuts have his picture on the wall in their house. Wait, that’s not a picture of Ted Nugent? I’m so confused.
Quoting this one in its entirety, because it comes from someone with the highly intellectual name of “BUSTER BAWLZ,” and is so, so funny:
Many would be surprised to know that Aerosmith are long time conservatives. They just don’t yak about it in public. Most of their fans are kool-aid drinking morons who truly ‘just wouldn’t understand’. Each of them has a gun collection that is astounding. At least two of them, ( the Toxic Twins, Steve and Joe ) have their Class 3 (?) machine gun licenses. They also collect High End Switchblade Knives. ( VERY High End ).
Ditto for the Stones. Peel back the layers on the Glimmer Twins and you will find a couple of guys who have raised some of the most ‘straight arrow’ kids you’ll ever see. Jagger’s youngest, a son, (sorry, can’t remember his name) would absolutely shock you to learn who his dad is. A handsome young man with a prep school background that is the antithesis of the rock star kid. Mick has been a very shrewd investor in stocks and bonds since the ’70′s.
I think that in the very near future, many, many rock stars and Hollywood types are going to come out of the conservative closet. The Left Wing in America is finished. We have seen where their ideas have led. Conservatism is ascendant.
Oh, Buster, you just keep waitin’! Do some wheelies in your Hoveround if you get bored while you’re waitin’!
I almost forgot to say, that Ted Nugent is EXACTLY what I want to see in my rock stars. 100%+ on gun rights, hates liberal socialist politicians, supports the troops, has a moral message against homosexuals, and isn’t afraid of the mainstream establishment when he goes out and stumps for Conservative candidates for office.
All the best rock stars hate fags.
Anyway, here are these nerds on Fox & Friends:
And here is the band showing you that yes, inexplicably, it is somehow possible to suck more than Nickelback.
What’s really sad about that song above is that it attempts [poorly] to tell a story about military families dealing with separation and loss, but the thing is that that’s not an experience limited to wingnut families. Indeed, it’s something that crosses all ideological boundaries, so considering the band’s beliefs that they’re telling a “conservative” story, it’s actually sort of offensive to this liberal writer who watched his liberal brother go off on tour after tour of duty for this country.
Also, they really, really, really suck.
Here is the band talking about how awesome they are and how “everyone” can enjoy their music.
Oh, wingnuts. When you’re not being the greatest threat to the American way of life ever seen, you sure as hell are [unintentionally] funny.
If you want to find out more about the band, click here. You can read lyrics like this jaunty chorus!
In The Days That Reagan Ruled
In The Days That Reagan Ruled
In The Days That Reagan Ruled
He was the Gipper, he had the knack
He took a bullet and he still came back
In The Days That Reagan Ruled!
In The Days That Reagan Ruled!
He was an honest man with a simple dream
A dream we should hold true
It’s almost the weekend, which means music time! I’ve started the Random Ten with this song before, but I don’t care. It just keeps coming up in my life and is working its way into becoming one of my favorite songs of all time. It’s “Challengers” by The New Pornographers [prominently featuring Neko Case], and aside from the song being incredible, the video is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. So we’ll start with that, hit shuffle on the old iTunes, see where things are ten songs later, listen to music, yadda yadda, the end. More videos after the jump!
1. Spoon – “I Could See The Dude”
2. Coldplay – “God Put A Smile Upon Your Face”
3. She & Him – “Thieves”
4. Jethro Tull – “Bourée” [J.S. Bach]
5. U2 – “’40′”
6. Edie Brickell & The New Bohemians – “Love Like We Do”
7. Trisha Yearwood – “Little Hercules”
8. Lucero – “All Sewn Up”
9. Micah P. Hinson and the Red Empire Orchestra – “I Keep Havin’ These Dreams”
10. David Wilcox – “Johnny’s Camaro”
So, um, WOW, first of all, great shuffle. But I have to admit that there are tons of songs on my iTunes that I’ve downloaded because they sound interesting but have never gotten around to listening to, and that’s the case with the Micah P. Hinson song. May I just say, “WOW”?! Amazing new discovery.
Short week, therefore Friday music shuffle comes on Wednesday afternoon. Last week I started the Random Ten with one of the songs another singer, Lee Taylor, and I played this weekend at our first gig together, John Legend’s “Ordinary People,” which, if you haven’t heard it, is incredible, so go back and check it out. This week I was planning to start with another incredibly beautiful, magical song by My Brightest Diamond, called “Inside A Boy,” which has been a favorite of mine since it came out, and I still am going to start with that. But I realized that it was a perfect pairing, like a perfect wine, with another song that Lee and I play — indeed, it’s the first song that came together almost immediately the first time we rehearsed it, and may end up being our recurring set closer, at least for a while — and that’s “Nature Boy,” one of the finest songs ever written. I’ve chosen the Sarah Vaughan version, because I like it. So My Brightest Diamond, Sarah Vaughan, then we hit shuffle on the old iTunes jukebox and see where things end up ten songs later, listen to music, yadda yadda, then gobble gobble. More videos after the jump!
1. Pink Floyd – “On The Turning Away”
2. Ricardo Villalobos – “Easy Lee”
3. Junkyardmen ft. Mose Vinson – “What Is Your Life”
4. Pat Green – “Southbound 35″
5. Tori Amos – “Hey Jupiter”
6. The Seldom Scene – “Take Him In”
7. Kaki King – “So Much For So Little”
8. Daddy Mack Blues Band ft. Billy Gibson – “You Really Got Me” [The Kinks cover]
9. Green Day -“Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)”
10. OK Go – “I Want You So Bad I Can’t Breathe”
It’s just about that time, the end of the day on Friday, and that means it’s time for music. So this week for the Random Ten, I’ve chosen to start with John Legend’s “Ordinary People.” If you don’t know the song, it’s just fantastic and meaningful and beautiful. Also, a very talented friend and I start playing live together tomorrow night, and this is one of my favorite songs that we’re doing. So anyway, a little John Legend, then we hit the shuffle on the old iTunes, see where we are ten songs later, listen to some music, the end. More videos after the jump!
1. Ben Sollee & Daniel Martin Moore – “My Wealth Comes To Me”
2. Drew Holcomb – “Sweetness”
3. White Rabbits – “Percussion Gun”
4. The Black Angels – “True Believers”
5. Trick Pony – “I’m Not Thinking Straight Anymore”
6. Led Zeppelin – “Stairway To Heaven”
7. Vinicius de Moraes & Quarteto em Cy – “Soneto Do Amor Total/Samba Em Preludio”
8. Emma Pollock – “Acid Test”
9. Incubus – “Deep Inside”
10. Eric Clapton – “Blue Eyes Blue”
It’s time for music, and as usual, I had no idea what song/s I was going to start with until just now. I’m in the middle of preparing setlists for, um, ten days from now when I start playing live in anticipation of releasing my own first record in the spring, and I’m not unveiling my own work until that time gets closer, so I’ve been focusing on well-chosen covers — songs that I love, but more than that, songs that I feel like I can get inside and actually do something with, outside that whole piano-bar mentality of “if I know the chords, I can sing it!” So, to get my head into the mental space of interpretation — I’ve been in composing mode for a long time — I’ve been listening to a lot of cover songs and their originals. One that I love lately is Neil Young’s “Only Love Can Break Your Heart,” and Saint Etienne’s very, very different cover of that same song, which I just adore. So let’s start with those, hit shuffle on the iTunes machine, see where we are ten songs later, listen to some music, yadda yadda, etc. More videos after the jump!
1. Kristin Hersh – “Juno” [orig. by Throwing Muses]
2. Tori Amos – “Sister Janet”
3. Trick Pony – “A Boy Like You”
4. John Doe – “Don’t Forget How Much I Love You”
5. Casiotone for the Painfully Alone – “Optimist vs. The Silent Alarm (When The Saints Go Marching In)”
6. Lightspeed Champion – “Dry Lips”
7. Ricky Martin ft. Meja – “Private Emotion”
8. Princeton – “Stunner Shades In Heaven”
9. Jonny Lang – “Angel of Mercy”
10. Martha Wainwright – “Dis, Quand Reviendras-tu?” [Barbara cover]
Shut up about the Ricky Martin song, I like it. This is really a good mix, actually. Click on the ones I don’t post, too, especially the Princeton song.
[Warning: There is some, ahem, language in this piece.]
This was making the rounds yesterday and I didn’t get to it. There was a post on Daily Kos the other day about how refreshing, and how different in tone, pro-gay messages are when they come from straight guys. Rather than making long, well-thought out arguments about why marriage equality is right, etc., the messages from straight guys — and I know this to be true with my own straight male friends — tend to be more along the lines of “who cares? And go to hell if you don’t like it!” The Kos piece used Clint Eastwood’s message of support as a springboard — if you don’t remember, it went like this:
Okay, so music time, and I’m breaking my own rule for the Random Ten. Usually my rule is that the song we start with has to be IN my iTunes, therefore I hit “shuffle” off of that song, etc. This week, though, was the Kennedy Center Honors, and one of the people recognized was the great singer and actress Barbara Cook. The people they brought together to pay tribute to her were absolutely stunning, and this is one of the best eleven minutes of music I’ve seen and heard in ages. It’s all good, but let’s just say that Glenn Close is followed by Sutton Foster, who is followed by Patti LuPone, who is then followed by Audra McDonald. I have watched/listened to this about twelve times at this point and will likely listen many more times. So that, then shuffle on the iTunes, see where we are ten songs later, then Happy New Year and stuff. More videos after the jump!
