I bought every single one of the records pictured above from Goodwill. All at once. For just $34.
#features
YHT Book Club!
OK, so I didn’t finish reading The Night Train by Clyde Edgerton until Mrs. YHT and I had gotten back from vacation. But I’m counting it as my final sick vacation read.
YHT Book Club!
It was Tuesday. Hopes of a partly sunny afternoon broke down when a grey, cloudy blanket settled in over Corolla, NC. With the beach looking less than tempting and my head cold doing a fantastic job of ruining my favorite week of the year, I joined Mrs. YHT and her parents on a walk to a nearby cluster of stores. The sky opened up about an hour later, and we hurried into an Island Bookstore, hoping that a little literary browsing would chase the rain away. It didn’t. That was the bad news. The good news was that a book was waiting there, destined to be found and bought by a sick, cranky vacationer who’d been caught in the rain. And really, could This Will End in Tears: The Miserablist Guide to Music have found a better home?
YHT Book Club!
So I’m sick. On vacation. This is, as they say, a first world problem, so instead of whining about it, I’d like to tell you about how I’ve been spending my time (leaving out the tissue-box-monopolizing, ibuprofen- and pseudoephedrine-swilling parts, of course): I’ve been reading books! That’s right — the plural form of “book”! An ocean of quiet, peaceful reading time is a pretty fantastic substitute for being well enough to enjoy the actual ocean, and I’ve been taking full advantage.
First up was I Wear the Black Hat: Grappling with Villains (Real and Imagined), by a favorite writer of mine, Chuck Klosterman.
A Capellooza
So Mrs. YHT and I ummm… sorta… kinda… maybe… [looks around nervously] watchedPitchPerfectagain.
It’s not our fault! It was on HBO, we were bored, one thing led to another and yadda yadda yadda… another notch on the ol’ TV cabinet. Bing bang boom.
I don’t know what to say — it’s not like we were big into a cappella groups when we were in college. We certainly weren’t in any. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that — I think I’m safe in speaking for both of us when I say we wish we had that kind of talent…) Pitch Perfect is just such an all-around feel-good exercise, with outstanding one-liners, some solid vomit humor, a healthy sense of self-awareness and a dynamite final routine that raises goosebumps even when I’m consciously trying to suppress them.
Ditching Pitch for a moment, there is one type of a cappella performance I can enjoy without feeling the need to equivocate, but you won’t see a movie made about it anytime soon. I’m talking about isolated vocal tracks from classic songs. I love when these hit the interweb, as Marvin Gaye’s from “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” did earlier this week. They’re so revealing and personal. You can picture the dark-grey foam of the recording booth’s sound-proofed walls… you can hear the bleed from singers’ headphones, bringing you amazingly close to what it would have been like to stand next to them as they sang… It’s also fun to wonder whether they know, ya know? That they’ve made something special. That the take they just did was a keeper, destined to become a piece of history that will live on in people’s hearts years after they’re gone.
Vocals from newer songs don’t have the same effect on me (I think the portability of vocals in the remix/mashup era takes some of the thrill out of it), but give me the vox from a 30 or 40 year old hit that I’ve heard 30 or 40 times and I’m one happy camper. Just for fun, I thought I’d hold a mini A Cappellooza by sharing Gaye’s brilliant “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” vocals and two other isolated tracks that are definitely worth a listen.
In each case I’ve posted a YouTube video of the isolated vocals and the full version of the song below. Enjoy!
On Fridays, We Wear Pop Music
I don’t know about you, but things have been pretty heavy in my sector lately. (My sincerest apologies for the Vague Declaration of Distress. The VDoD is one of my least favorite Internet behaviors, but Internet whining ranks even lower, so I’ll stop at “things have been pretty heavy in my sector lately.”) In an effort to lift spirits and welcome this weekend with open arms, I’d like to share with y’all kind folks some of the poppy obnoxiousness that I’ve been (almost completely shamelessly) enjoying between moments of weightiness.
[Point of Parliamentary Procedure: The title of this post not does indicate that this will be an every-Friday thing. Like the .gif above (YHT’s first embedded .gif, I believe, which is shameful in its own right), it’s a reference to Mean Girls. If you do not know the script of Mean Girls well enough to derive meaning from this post’s title, please do the right thing and lock yourself in a room until you have the dialogue memorized like a civilized human being. Thanks.]
K’naan
[Editor’s Note: What follows is a poem I originally posted two years ago in anticipation of July 4th, though I’ve added a few lines and made some administrative updates. Happy 4th, everyone!]
‘Tis the Wednesday before the 4th of July
and all through my street flags are set out to fly.
We’ve done all the prepping that patriots do,
with Ryan’s fiesta well within view.
The pig has been ordered, the smoker tracked down,
on loan from the frat guys who live across town.
That porker’s on ice at the butcher, but soon
will make up a feast that lasts all afternoon.
The kegs have been scouted, the charcoal is bought,
the buns, plates and cups all successfully sought.
We’ve even located a table for pong
(hey — just ’cause we’re thirty, it don’t make it wrong).
My team U.S.A. jersey’s hanging with care,
preparing to bare pasty arms and chest hair
with additional feelings of pride now that we’ve
convinced DOMA and Prop 8 to finally leave.
But something’s amiss … what can it be?
I know that I made sure to R.S.V.P.
Got my camouflage hat and tri-color balloons…
OH SNAP! The music! We need us some tunes!
I need to crank up the Ameri-swag quick,
but where should I turn? Toby Keith is a dick,
and Miley is partying, but who can tell why?
(OK, I’m obsessed with that song, I can’t lie.)
There has to be music that rings pure and true
when I think of the spirit of red, white and blue.
So I scour my iTunes collection, bar none,
leaving no stone unturned, and no song unspun.
And then in the very last place I would look —
the perfectest verse with perfectest hook!
But this just can’t be — a song for the 4th
that’s sung by K’naan, our friend from the north?!?
That’s right — he’s Canadian! Somalian too,
his formative days spent in Mogadishu.
But being a foreigner shouldn’t detract
from the fact that his song “Wavin’ Flag” is jam packed
with the message we’re coming together to send:
That freedom and justice will win in the end.
So raise up your bottles and barbecue tongs
to this most unlikely but fitting of songs
and the two-hundred-thirty-eighth time we can say
“Suck it!” to England! It’s Independence Day!
K’naan — “Wavin’ Flag” [Spotify/iTunes]
YHT Book Club!
According to the Kindle application on my phone, I’m 14% of the way through Mo’ Meta Blues, the new memoir from Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson. And while it would probably behoove me to wait until I’ve read, oh, I don’t know, at least a third of the Roots drummer’s book before I start sharing opinions about it, I can’t help jumping in with a quick reaction to Thompson’s relationship with record reviews.
You Watch That?!?
I spend a fair number of keystrokes chatting you fine people up about the virtues of vinyl, but I spent last Saturday night having a fling with a different physical medium — the ol’ Digital Video Disc (or “Digital Versatile Disc,” depending on who you ask). A coworker who has a great taste in/encyclopedic knowledge of music lent me a DVD of what is considered one of the greatest soul concerts of all time — Stax/Volt Revue: Live in Norway 1967. I managed to dig up YouTube clips of some of the Oslo show’s high points, and I thought I’d share a few thoughts, starting with the night’s first act, Booker T. & the M.G.’s.
The Sounds of NASCAR
Twice a year, when NASCAR comes to Richmond International Raceway, I get really excited and my Twitter feed gets really pissy.
Judging by the tweets I see on race days, a sizable portion of the people whose interests usually align with mine wouldn’t go near the track if you paid them. Phrases like “worst day in Richmond” get thrown around left and right, and blanket accusations of racism are routinely levied against the 90,000 strong who flock to RIR for the day-long tailgate and ensuing 400-lap race.
In fairness, NASCAR’s far from perfect. As an organization, they’ve lagged behind Formula One and Indy in taking steps to reduce carbon emissions. Certainly not ideal. There’s also the consumer culture it fosters. Large, sometimes predatory corporations set up elaborate hospitality tents just outside the track, offering swag and samples in exchange for contact information, and racing teams line up dozens of brightly colored trailers in rows, hawking the overpriced, driver-branded merchandise that a staggering percentage of the crowd buys and wears, yours truly very much included. Because of all this, attending isn’t exactly a guilt-free exercise. But racism? Of the dozen-ish Saturdays I’ve spent at the raceway complex, racism played a significant role in exactly zero of them. Are there racists at RIR? I’m sure there are, just as I’m sure you could find them at Richmond Flying Squirrels games, Innsbrook After Hours concerts, the Greek Festival, Shamrock The Block, or any other situation in which a large number of people is assembled in one place. But calling a stadium full of people racist without meeting or talking to them is blatantly prejudicial, and it does nothing to advance racial sensitivity in our community.
I see it as a classic baby-bathwater situation. Sure, you can decide to never, ever go to a NASCAR race and write off the whole thing as a herd of drunk rednecks watching a few dozen sober rednecks drive around in a circle. But you’d be missing out on some of the beautiful — yes, beautiful — things I saw two Saturdays ago. The middle aged couple seated near where I was, so in love that it seemed like they spent more time smiling at one another and giving each other pecks on the cheek than they did watching the race. The family just in front of them, three generations all in one place, together, enjoying the same crisp and cloudless spring night. (The decked-out dogs at the top of the post aren’t so bad, either.) That’s heartwarming, soul-replenishing stuff. If you’re willing to look past people’s tattoos and t-shirts, you can find these scenes of excitement and bonding everywhere.
There’s a hidden depth to the tailgate scene as well, especially when it comes to music. You’d expect to find a bunch of pickup trucks with their windows rolled down playing Kenny Chesney and Skynyrd (OK, so I may have played a little Skynyrd — it was the Drive-By Truckers version of “Gimme Three Steps” if that makes it any better), but once again, when you dig a little deeper, there’s so much more going on. I decided to take a few videos as my F-150 owning friend Keith and I walked around the lot so you fine folks could get a sample of the all the non-country than can be found at one of these shindigs…
You Hear That 