Another oldie but a goodie. A great beginning tune for old time banjo or guitar players.
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Something to cheer you up on a chilly Friday
Yes, they’re touring this year. No, no US dates.
Baltek throwback
My friends and I have significant memories tied up in nights like these.
Miley Cyrus continues to confound me.
So she entered this short film in the NYC Porn Film Festival.
It’s actually kind of interesting, soundtracked by Alt-J’s “Fitzpleasure” and chock full of bondage imagery. But despite the hype about it being “explicit,” YouTube hasn’t banned it yet, so it’s not really explicit. And it’s certainly not porn. But it’s really good to see her doing something creative and interesting with her almost-nakedness.
Murder Ballad of the Week, 2/9/15: The Rake’s Song
This one is another nasty murder ballad. This protagonist kills his three innocent children. Best heard in context of the entire Hazards of Love album by the extraordinarily talented Decemberists.
Another throwback… Perfect Scrambled Eggs
Dream: An intimate evening with Jerry Orbach and S. Epatha Merkerson
No, not that kind of intimate. SINGING.
We stopped into a small place for dinner, the family, all four of us, and we picked a table and were looking at menus casually, when the music started. There were two blonde girls playing impressive piano, and we pointed it out to our girls.
After a bit, the singer came out, and it was S. Epatha Merkerson, singing sultry while walking around the restaurant. Eventually she settled on me, and was trying to get my jacket off of me.
Next number, Jerry Orbach came out and sang a tune. I woke up thinking, “what’s his name? Lenny Bruce?” No. Lenny Briscoe.
Who’s up for some mind-warping Krautrock?
A good friend had this album on clear vinyl, with a clear sleeve and clear lyric sheet. It was stored in my place for a period while he was travelling. After a while, I no longer needed to listen to it; just holding up the album and staring at it had the same effect.
Murder Ballad of the Week: 2/2/15: The Curse of Millhaven
This isn’t my favorite Nick Cave murder ballad, but it’s a damned good one, and since he released a whole album of them, I feel like it deserves the spotlight. I am especially fond of murder ballads sung in the first person, and especially grateful to those who continue the age-old tradition. I may spotlight another modern murder ballad slinger next week, then perhaps I’ll dig back into the past again.
Ukulele: A Synapse in the Matrix
I believe I have stumbled upon a Cosmic Coincidence. Although I know now that there are no coincidences. Make of this what you will.
A few years ago, Amanda Fucking Palmer put this joyous piece of propaganda into the world — the Ukulele Anthem. It is compelling, it is infectious, it is humorous, political, and even sad.
This year, I participated in the great Reddit Secret Santa exchange, in which 212,000 people signed up to be secret santas for one another, and send each other surprise gifts.
Much joy could be had even for lurkers, spectators, because part of the fun of the game was posting photos of your received gifts on the exchange page. You can browse for hours, oohing and aahing, laughing and cringing vacariously with the recipients of strange, exotic, and sometimes plain awful gifts.
One thing I noticed this year was a preponderance of ukuleles given as gifts. Strange, because outside of various musical subcultures, one probably does not encounter ukuleles frequently in everyday life. Like accordions, they seem to appear at strange intervals in life, signaling a crossroads of sorts. The warning is clear to all but the booze-muddled and the heroin-soaked: Do not choose the path of the accordion, or you will be doomed.
I submit to you that Amanda Fucking Palmer’s glorious and well-orchestrated propaganda campaign for the ukulele is having its desired effect of spreading temptation globally. Gift-givers, not content on the destruction of their own souls, are sharing their evil payload with innocent Redditors, to ensure that none of them will go down alone.
I wonder what the shipping charge on a uke is, anyway…