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Friday, April 4th, 2008
(Thinking some lines from "Only the Stones Remain" would be a good epigraph, then thinking better of it.)
I was a little irked by my posting earlier that "Shine a Light" is one of my favorite Stones tunes, without fuller qualification. I don't really know their music, and it surprises me that I should not, when I like so much of what I do know by them. I think I've only ever listened to two of their records very closely or repeatedly, namely Beggar's Banquet and Let it Bleed. I only know "Shine a Light" because Janis taught me to play it; I really ought to check out Exile on Main Street sometime.
posted evening of April 4th, 2008: Respond
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Wednesday evening I will go into the city to see Robyn Hitchcock! I'm so excited! It is now just about exactly a year since my interest in Hitchcock was reawoken by Ms. Irene Trudel. In that year (in the year since I last saw him play) I've been listening to his music really heavily -- you probably already know this if you read the blog much. This time I am going to have a much fuller notion of what I'm listening to. Can't wait, can't wait. Also on the bill (and indeed, actually at the top of the bill) is Nick Lowe, about whom I know almost nothing at all, but from what I've been reading it sounds like he'll be a lot of fun too.
posted evening of April 4th, 2008: Respond
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I just heard Martin Scorsese give an interview to NPR about his new movie -- I was interested to learn the title is "Shine a Light", since that's one of my favorite Stones songs (and gets fairly little play); but Ellen thinks it is a different song with "shine a light" in the chorus.* I'm looking forward to the movie -- it is probably as close as I will ever get to seeing the Stones live; but Scorsese was kind of grating on my nerves as he described it. You know whose concert films I love? Jonathan Demme's, is whose. The focus is on the music and you get this pretty elemental, raw passion of artistry -- whereas Scorsese was making it sound kind of like his focus was on making the film and on the personalities involved. Hopefully I am misreading the interview, because I'd really love to see a film crystallizing the Stones' music.
 *Update: No, looking at the track list of the soundtrack album now, and "Shine a Light" is indeed present, and is the closing track! Sweet.
posted morning of April 4th, 2008: Respond
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Wednesday, March 26th, 2008
I bought a record at Starbucks! I feel so dirty! But listen, it's a really good record: Bob Dylan, Music That Matters to Me -- a mix of tracks Bob has put together as representative of what he's listening to these days. (In the excellent liner notes, he says, "Some people have favorite songs, but I have songs of the minute -- songs that I'm listening to right now. And if you ask me about one of those songs a year from now, I might not even remember who did it, but at the moment it's everything to me.... I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.") The track list is just great. I think I've only ever heard 5 or fewer of the 16 tracks previously -- and many of the performers I had never heard of before today -- there is blues, country, reggae, Hawai'ian, jazz and more. And what really makes the record -- what makes me happy to have it and want to listen to it as a record, rather than as a collection of songs, is Dylan's commentary. The liner notes are a small booklet, with one long paragraph for each song, and they are frankly much better writing than I have oherwise seen from Dylan's pen. The way they are written gives you a sense you're listening to him speak, and he's in a really good, congenial mood, grinning and saying "Now listen to this one, it's gonna blow your mind!" Listening to the first song, "Do Unto Others", is funny because the opening riff is exactly the same as "Back in the USSR" -- Dylan says he thinks John Lennon probably heard the recording at a party sometime and forgot about it -- Ellen asked Sylvia if she knew what the lyric "they say, do unto others/ what you would have them do unto you" means; Sylvia nodded and said, in a bored-little-girl tone, "Yeah, what goes around comes around...." Full track listing below the fold, mainly because I could not find it online anywhere.
- Pee Wee Crayton, "Do Unto Others"
- Clancy Eccles, "Don't Brag, Don't Boast"
- Stanley Bros., "The Fields Have Turned Brown"
- Gus Viseur, "Flambée Montalbanaise"
- Red Prysock, "Hand Clappin'"
- Sol Ho'opi'i, "I Like You"
- Ray Price, "I'll Be There (If You Ever Want Me)"
- Stuff Smith, "I'se A Muggin' (Part 2)"
- Charley Jordan, "Keep It Clean"
- Junior Welles, "Little By Little (I'm Losing You)"
- Patty and the Emblems, "Mixed-Up, Shook-up Girl"
- Gétatchèw Kassa, "Tezeta (Fast)"
- Flaco Jiménez, "Victimas del Huracán Beulah"
- Wanda Jackson, "I Gotta Know"
- Billy Holiday, "I Hear Music"
- Junior Parker, "Pretty Baby"
↻...done
posted evening of March 26th, 2008: Respond
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I discovered, during my violin lesson today, that I am not moving my wrist at all when I pull and push the bow. This seems like something that will be pretty easy to fix now that I know about it, and should have a very beneficial effect on my sound.
posted evening of March 26th, 2008: Respond
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Tuesday, March 25th, 2008
I like to sing and to play violin; what I am aiming for is a style of playing where I can sing, play rhythm in between the lines of the verse, and play melody on breaks and between verses. I only have two songs where I can really do this, viz. "The Louisville Burglar" and "John Hardy was a Desperate Man"; I have mapped out how to do it for "The Ballad of Hollis Brown" and "Stagger Lee", and I think those two will come fairly quickly with practice; in Blues, I am close to knowing how to do it for "Sweet to Mama" and "Rising Sun Shine On". With this and a couple more songs, I would have a set -- but I need to find a partner, preferably either a guitarist or a banjo player. Jerry is not satisfied with the progress we've been making together and wants to play on his own. Hopefully I will be able to find somebody at one of the folk music jams around here.
posted evening of March 25th, 2008: Respond
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Listening this evening to MS John Hurt playing "Stagger Lee", and it hit me that his guitar part would translate really well to violin. Going to try it out when I go downstairs later on.
 ...Yep -- really fun.
posted evening of March 25th, 2008: Respond
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Friday, March 21st, 2008
The open mic went ok. We played three songs; I thought we did really well on the two songs that Jerry sang ("Bed on Your Floor" and "K.C. Moan"), but had trouble keeping in time together when I sang "John Hardy was a Desperate Man". Not sure exactly what to make of that -- I want to work more on that, it's one of my favorite songs. The space is nice and there was a decent crowd. A couple of really good guitarists. Too many poorly-done Beatles covers, alas. My favorite performance for utter weirdness, was the tightly-wound guy strumming guitar and singing "All Through the Night".
posted afternoon of March 21st, 2008: Respond
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Thursday, March 20th, 2008
We're playing tonight at Tierney's, in Montclair -- if you're in the neighborhood, come listen!
posted morning of March 20th, 2008: Respond
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Tuesday, March 18th, 2008
Listening to "Sweet to Mama" in the car today, and then replaying it in my head all day at my desk. And thinking, that's really a song I could play pretty well on my violin. I came up with a nice-sounding rhythm part consisting of an eigth-note rest followed by a triplet of sixteenths followed by eighths -- it sounds catchy and unusual. So when I got home I tried playing it on my violin -- and was a bit disappointed in the sound. Put it down, and an hour or so later I wanted to try it again, but only the viola was handy -- so I picked it up and was amazed by how natural it sounded. The key is G minor, which I think fits just as well to a violin as a viola; but something about the lower register is just fantastic for this song.
 Update: Well, tonight I tried it on the violin in D minor and it sounded just as good -- so it was a matter of finger positions rather than register. Unfortunately it seems pretty hard for me to sing it in either G or D, I'm going to need to work out fingerings for it in some other key.
posted evening of March 18th, 2008: 2 responses
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