Twilight Singers
July 31, 2007 | Filed Under Music | 1 Comment
Remember Greg Dulli and the Afghan Whigs? For a time they were one of the most exciting and frustrating bands around. When they were hot (like on Gentlemen or the beginning of 1965), no one could touch them. But there were also many misfires – songs that didn’t quite go anywhere. Half-baked material. Half-baked concerts. Then they were gone.
A brief Google search for Mr. Dulli found him fronting a band called the Twilight Singers and releasing their 2006 album “Powder Burns”. I have had this on my iPod for a while and it just gets better with every spin. This is a whole record – solid from start to finish. Notes on the website say it was started at the lowest ebb in his life and eventually saw Mr. Dulli turn himself around during the recording. The album was completed in the French Quarter soon after Katrina. That’s why a tinge of darkness – twilight, if you will – strokes all these songs. It is some of his best work and the band is phenomenal! Muscular guitars, propulsive rhythm section, a cushion of strings here, a flourish of sax there, and Dulli’s smoky vocals squeezing every ounce of drama from the lyrics. From the opening licks of “I’m Ready” to the blistering “Bonnie Brae” (featured on last season’s Rescue Me) to the gorgeous “The Conversation” and ending with “They Ride”. Mr. Dulli is on his game and THAT is cause for celebration. People – This is what rock albums USED to be like before everything became lame and whiny. Screw the Shins, Wilco and their ilk.
Buy it and hope they tour.
Added to iPod
July 29, 2007 | Filed Under Music | 8 Comments
On a lazy, rainy, hang around weekend - what’s there to do but watch horror movies and upload tunes?
Brian Eno & David Byrne - “My Life In The Bush of Ghosts”
Uncle tupelo - “Still Feel Gone”
John Coltrane - “A Retrospective” Three-disk set.
Versus - “Two Cents Plus Tax” Great pop from this NYC band.
Richard & Linda Thompson - “Shoot Out The Lights” A classic.
PIL - “The best of..So Far”
Now a very special addition. I spent my Saturday night (since no one else was home) recording old vinyl. These four were part of my life in the early ’80s in Boston. They are pretty much one offs because they all came out in 1980-81 and - hell, there was a LOT of good music coming out in that period. Each of these bands got lost - where never picked up or developed - and that is all she wrote. But I loved these records because of the time, the place and my life at that point.
Interview - “Snakes and Lovers” This album was just self-titled in the States. You all know “Adventurers”, right? “Hide And Seek”? The lead singer sounded a bit like Richard Butler of the Psych Furs.
Private Lightning Their only LP. Fun Boston band I saw open for the Boomtown Rats at the Orpheum. Big sounds, big songs and a beautiful woman playing violin. What could be bad?
The Vapors - “Magnets” Everyone knows the song “Turning Japanese”. Well, this was their second and much stronger LP. Songs of fear and paranoia with a new wave beat. The lead single was a bouncing little number about “Jimmie Jones”. The title track a fabulously dramatic take of the Kennedy assasination. What ever happened to these guys?
Original Mirrors Self-titled LP. Another Motown-meets-new wave enterprise (good cover of “Reflections”), but not nearly as mannered and self-conscious as some of that stuff got (remember the Style Council?). A bright, shiny sound with good crunchy guitars. Friday night in Boston under the Great God Citgo! Kenmore Square - here we come!
Jules
July 27, 2007 | Filed Under Main | No Comments
This is my dog – Jules. This picture was taken in 2004, probably right after a grooming. Jules was rescued from the ASPCA when my son was 5 and Jules was 1. Chris named him “Jules” (approximately) because of the diamond of white fur on his forehead. This is my first dog as an adult. My responsibility. My friend.
This is Jules now. Three years later at age thirteen. He got old. It started last year around this time. One night, I was at a concert – seeing Ringo Starr and His All Stars at PNC (a really fun show and I don’t blame Ringo at all). A storm rolled through while the concert was going on. I watched it from under the dome of the amphitheater. Saw massive lightning displays while Edgar Winter ripped through the song “Frankenstein”. The rain had stopped and the storm gone by the time I got back to the car and found three frantic messages from Kerry on my cell. She couldn’t get the dog in the house – which is not new. But she couldn’t get him to stand. He tried. But then he crumbled to the ground. And he couldn’t get up the front stairs. Eventually, a friend came by and they carried him in – fireman style – on a blanket. Jules never went up the front stairs again. He could go down them and then I would carry him into the house. Unfortunately, neither carry nor Chris can lift him, so I built a ramp for the back stairs (which, of course, he HATED for weeks).
He has aged quickly since then. Collies have notorious genetic problems with their hips. Running is pretty much out. He can only walk for a short period of time. He can’t get into the car without being carried nor can he stand for very long. This makes grooming nearly impossible at this point. Over the winter, Jules’ face became greyer and greyer every day. An astounding thing – Nature taking its toll so quickly.
But this is not a eulogy. Jules is still alive and kicking (well, maybe not kicking). He has a good appetite and still likes to play (he’s a Frisbee dog). He barks at motorcycles with relish – though his voice has become deep and hoarse. And he is still a hundred pound carnivore living in this small house. Still - Time is not his friend. But we are and we’ll keep him happy as long as he wants to hang around.
Added to iPod
July 27, 2007 | Filed Under Music | No Comments
a little of this… a touch of that…
First off - my new Global Rhythm disk from the magazine of the same name. Nice mix of different things. For techno, we have a cut from Joi off their new album and a duet between Anoushka Shankar & Karsh Kale. There’s a new tune from Zap Mama and Dee Dee Bridgewater. Also, the Skatalites and that new band out of China - the 12 Girls Band (which really has 13 girls). Then:
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young Just a collection of singles from CSNY. CN, CSN and just S.
Jacqueline Du Pre & Daniel Barenboim - “Five Cello Sonatas” Talk about a storybook couple… The bad thing about this live recording is that you can hear constant coughing! I mean - I would have shot the guy from the stage! Does this happen on a lot of live classical CDs?
Martha Argerich - “Live from the Concertgebouw” Great pianist!
Various Artists - “The Soundtrack to Desert Blue” Very indie soundtrack. Never saw nor heard of the movie before, but it carries two cool and otherwise unavailable Rilo Kiley tunes: “The Frug” and “85″. New album out soon…
New Links
July 19, 2007 | Filed Under Main | No Comments
I have added a couple of new links.
The Daily Kos because it’s a good political blog and it seems to bother Bill Orally.
Dooce is this woman’s blog about her life and family and being a parent. I think it is some of the best, funniest and most honest stuff I have read on the Internets.
The Vignelli site. Mr. & Mrs. Vignelli are brilliant designers and wonderful, warm people. I have worked for them for over ten years and am very happy to now consider them my friends. You see their work - especially if you live in NYC - every day of your life. They still design. Still work. And there is SO much more stuff than you see here on this website. It’s kind of infuriating how little of their body of work they put out there - even in their monographs. But they find promoting themselves distasteful. Can you imagine?
TGIF
July 19, 2007 | Filed Under Main | No Comments
Tomorrow is FINALLY Friday. Start of some fun. On Friday, Kerry and I are seeing the New York Dolls at the Stone Pony. Sponsored by Viagra (kidding) And Saturday, my brother and I are going to the Yankee game. We’re seeing the nighttime half of a double header. Since they have been playing at home all week, my guess is Joe Torre will put in the ground crew.
Sunday? After brunch - the beach!
It’s good to be king…
Sleepovers
July 19, 2007 | Filed Under Main, Politics | No Comments
Speaking as a former elected official - I once famously stood in front of a political gathering and told everyone that politics were stupid and childish. (I also announced at a Council meeting one night that I could fly. But that’s a story for another time…)
And there could be no greater validation of that statement than the Democratic Campout Gymboree in DC the other night! Oh, what an evening! How better to move a nation and stir its conscience than to show that you can talk for hours and hours inanely – knowing full well you can’t accomplish ANYTHING!!! Those old Democratic geezers are soooo brave. You can’t help but follow them… nowhere. Hey guys! I have an idea. Since polls say the public is behind your way of thinking and YOUR point of view is winning, why not surprise us and actually DO something! Huh? Make something happen! Come on – I dare ya…
Hell’s Bells – they made such a show of all the cots being brought in and you know damn well most of them sleep through regular sessions anyway.
Added to iPod
July 19, 2007 | Filed Under Music | 2 Comments
The computer is fixed and I am free! Here is the group that pushed me over 7,000.
Tangerine Dream – “Soundtrack to Sorcerer” A very tense film. Check it out.
Steely Dan – “Aja”
Violent Femmes – The classic first album.
Various Artists – “Soundtrack to Diner” One of the best coming of age movies ever. The playlist has always been one of my favorites – from Bobby Darin’s “Beyond The Sea” to Jimmy Reed’s “Take Out Some Insurance” to Clarence “Frogman” Henry’s “Ain’t Got A Home”.
Finally – a four disk set of jazz called “The Verve Story: 1944-1994”. Now, I like jazz but I’m not a huge fan. I have some Miles Davis, Chet Baker, Medeski Martin & Wood and others. But this set fills in the blanks nicely. The songs are classic and so are the performances. Everyone is here: Charlie Parker, Illinois Jacquet, Billie Holiday, Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Stan Getz, etc etc. An excellent collection.
Oh – I also added Falco’s “Rock Me, Amadeus”. In German, of course.
Added to iPod
July 16, 2007 | Filed Under Music | 1 Comment
My computer got fried during the thunder storm last week, so I have not been able to upload more of the collection. But I did add a few things:
Ambrosia - First album. The only good one. Progressive and pop with good lyrics and time structures.
John McLaughlin & the Mahavishnu Orchestra - “The Inner Mounting Flame” McLaughlin is one of my favorite guitarists and this is a seminal album from 1971. HOWEVER - anyone into his work or early jazz fusion in general should look for his solo LP a year before called “Devotion”. Very psychedelic - extended jams and lots of distortion. But the interplay between McLaughlin, Buddy Miles, Larry Young and Bill Rich are amazing.
I also downloaded Friday night’s Dispatch concert to the iPod. Modern technology is fabulous!
Dispatch
July 14, 2007 | Filed Under Main, Music | No Comments
Last night, my son Chris and I saw Dispatch at Madison Square Garden on the first of their three night stand to benefit Zimbabwe. Dispatch is a jam band - part funk, part jazz, part rock, part reggae. All three shows are and have been sold out (though rumor has it you can still get tickets somewhere). Up until two years ago, I had never heard of them and I was not familiar with their music. But two of Chris’s friends turned him onto the band and they would learn some of the songs to play around the fire on some of our camping trips. So when I stumbled across the show one day in March, the friends told Chris they already had tickets to every night of the concert. Knowing there might be a ticket drop, I signed up to the bands website and won an auction for a pair of tickets. (Hey- it’s all for charity.) Needless to say, since Chris’s friends are also teenagers and teenagers are not to be trusted (or believed), they never did have tickets.
The show was excellent. This band had disbanded in 2004 after a free concert on the Esplanade in Boston that pulled over 100,000 people. My guess is they have never played this big a venue in NYC - let alone sell it out for three nights. AND there are only three of them! A jam band with three members! They switched instruments, they all sang in perfect harmony. The sound was amazing! Occasionally they brought out a horn section or another percussionist. But these three guys whipped-up a rabid teenage/college-age fan base without benefit of airplay, hit albums or even being around the past three years. And where did they get started? VERMONT!
Their connection to Zimbabwe is that some member lived there for a while and they have family and friends there. Thus the band was amazingly quiet on the real reasons for the current horrendous poverty and economic failure in this country. Current President Robert Mugabe was never mentioned and he alone has killed this nation. Another petty politician who won an election in 1987 and decided to crown himself King. In his attampt to divest the country of all white people - many of whom ran the farming industry that had this country known as the “bread basket” of Africa - he destroyed much of the nations farmland and turned the land over to people who could not sustain it. Now the country is literally starving. However, I’m sure fear of retribution and a hampering of Dispatch’s efforts to help have kept them from pointing fingers.
The Sporting Life
July 12, 2007 | Filed Under Main | 2 Comments
It’s Summer.
So once again it is the season for men middle-aged and beyond to threaten the health of their knees, biceps and backs by playing softball (or baseball). That is why baseball is our national sport. It can be played at any age (just look at the Yankees). I am on my employer’s team. So once a week, architectural firm is pitted against another architectural firm - side by side with magazine publishers, radio stations, Broadway show workers and others who take over the Central Park fields every summer to fight the battle of who sucks the least at this sport. The rules are sometimes Little League complex. There is no stealing. Only one base on an overthrow. Each team has to have two girls and both of them must play the field. The game is only seven innings and can be called early if one team is beating the crap out of the other (I think it’s a 10 run rule). The fields in the Park are beautiful but sometimes a bit too close. There
have been times where I have played outfield in someone else’s infield. You also have to avoid the occasional sunbather and try not to run over the Frisbee players while chasing down a fly.
Especially in 90 degree heat, this is a lot of fun.
THAT BEING SAID - I have played four games this years and am having the best season of my life! I’ve had five hits and three RBIs so far. That is better than ANY baseball or basketball season I have ever had in MY ENTIRE LIFE! And I have been playing since 5th grade. Badly.
Really, really badly. When I played during my first two years with the firm, I couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn. Couldn’t hit water if I fell out of a boat. (Come on! More cliches!) Now, with my sight slowly failing, I can finally see the ball. Now - when my self esteem ISN’T at stake - I can finally play the game.
God has some wicked sense of humor, eh?
Hot August Night
July 10, 2007 | Filed Under Theater, Writing | No Comments
Another short play under Written Works.
We were given a theme for a recent set of readings. A group of us were to write something based on the Kitty Genovese murder.
I like to think of this piece as being about two monsters…
Grace Potter
July 8, 2007 | Filed Under Music | 4 Comments
So you can keep your Joss Stones and your Amy Winehouses. I am in love with Grace Potter and her band the Nocturnals. I have been digging the album “Nothing But The Water” but I finally got to watch the DVD that came with the CD I purchased (in Vermont!) which has five cuts from a show they did in Burlington. What a good time that must have been! She really works the songs and the band (I especially dug when - at the end of “Joey” she breaks into Lucinda Williams’ “Joy”). Kerry hears a lot of Bonnie Raitt in her. I’ve checked her website (www.gracepotter.com) and the closest she will be to Jersey is the Central Park Summerstage in September.
You can bet - I will be there.
Posting
July 8, 2007 | Filed Under Main | 1 Comment
For the record, I do try to post more often then you see here.
But at home, other family members spend HOURS on the computer. Then when I get to it, my own website takes too long to load and I am a man of little patience (and just a bit of ADD) so I shut down and move on to other things. At work - the site just crashes (my computer is in its death-throes there) and then I have to go back to work. Worse is that everything I plan to say or write goes spiralling out of my head by the time I can get there and connect.
So - I am working on this situation. Please standby…
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