My fingertips are still sore from that protracted Truckers recap I posted on Wednesday, but I wanted to sneak in a quick post about something I’ll be listening to over the weekend.
#nowplaying
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
I started writing YHT shortly after attending SXSW in 2011. Ironically, I wasn’t there for the music. I was part of a group of coworkers who attended the event’s Interactive wing, which wrapped up just as the music festival was getting ready to start in earnest. Boy, was walking through the AustināBergstrom International AirportĀ on our last day painful. While we were sauntering toward our departure gate, people holding guitar cases were walking in the other direction, bringing the “two ships passing” metaphor to life in an exceedingly unwelcome way. I wanted to be on their boat! I even tried taking mental snapshots of their faces, thinking (either optimistically or naively) that they’d soon be famous as a result of their SXSW performance(s), and I wanted to be able to say “I saw [him/her/them] at the airport at SXSW!”
I’m whining, but the truth is that the Interactive conference was incredible.
Audrey Hepburn
I’ve been on an accidental movie chanteuse binge lately. Within the span of a little more than a month, I’ve posted about Karen O’s Oscar-nominated (and unfortunately Oscar-denied) “The Moon Song,” dusted off my dad’s copy of Doris Day’s Listen to Day while working from home, listened twice in a row to Leslie Uggams’ What’s an Uggams? (damn good record, right there), and last but certainly not least, fallen head over heels for a familiar recording I’d never given much thought to — Audrey Hepburn’s version of “Moon River” from Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
Hurray for the Riff Raff
Quick addendum to Wednesday’s post:
When I wrote about KONGOS, I talked about how the combination of bass, accordion and guitar reminded me of South Africa and Paul Simon’s Graceland, a comparison that was helped along by the fact that I looked the Kongos brothers up on Wikipedia while I was listening to their album for the first time and saw that they had roots in South Africa. Meanwhile, sitting in my drafts folder were the beginnings of my Hurray for the Riff Raff post. I’d listened to Small Town Heroes all the way through (and have been enjoying it a great deal), but I’d forgotten/failed to notice that it employs that same combination of instruments on “End Of The Line.”
KONGOS
In a recent blog post, Mark Richardson described three different ways music can be processed by the listener:
Some music I hear with my body, I actually receive the sound partly with my body and want to move muscles when I hear it. Some music I hear more with my brain, like I turn over images and consider ideas and so on, itās a cerebral experience. And music… works in a third way, which is that it seems someone wired directly into my nervous system. When I hear it i donāt want to move and I donāt want to think, I want to sort of sit back and let it wash over me. It feels like an electrical current or something, a wavelength I tune into that makes me very happy.
I didn’t realize it right away, but I have experience with that third way.
The Streets
- Volunteered to paint the downstairs bathroom
- Found out at the last minute that painting a bathroom involves removing the tank from the toilet so you can paint behind it
- Silently observed that this type of oversight is the reason I’m not usually trusted with tasks like these
- Removed the tank from the toilet
- Painted the bathroom
- Went to Home Depot to get a kit containing parts you’re supposed to replace each time you remove the tank
- Reinstalled the tank
- Flushed the toilet
- Cleaned up the resulting flood
- Went to bed
- Woke up
- Went to Home Depot to get a different kit containing parts you’re supposed to replace each time you remove the tank
- Reinstalled the tank
- Broke something plastic
- Went back to Home Depot to replace the broken plastic thing
- Watched as the door was locked for the night
- Asked iPhone to find a Lowe’s that was open an extra hour
- Drove 20 minutes to Extra-Hour Lowe’s, only to learn that E-H Lowe’s was not, in fact, open an extra hour
- Questioned entire belief structure and will to live
- Went to bed
- Woke up
- Gave the broken plastic thing to Mrs. YHT, who could get to Home Depot before I could
- Retrieved an unbroken plastic thing from Mrs YHT
- Reinstalled the tank
- Flushed the toilet
- Waited
- Flushed the toilet again
- Waited
- Flushed the toilet a third time
- Waited, admiring the nice new color of the walls…
The Streets — “It Was Supposed To Be So Easy” [Spotify/iTunes]
Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr
Two people told me — in totally separate conversations — that yesterday felt like Thursday to them. The weird thing is that I felt the exact same way, and I felt it before either of those conversations happened.
My displacement probably has something to do with there being a highly anticipated college basketball game tonight, during which I’ll be ending a self-imposed and sickness-related alcohol prohibition. I’d guess that yesterday felt like Thursday to folks in Richmond because we’re supposed to get some relatively (emphasis on “relatively”) serious snow today. There’s the potential for work/school/life getting canceled tomorrow, so today gets to pretend to be Friday, which, given the weekday pecking order, is a solid upgrade for poor old Hump Day. (Don’t get me wrong — I’m sure Monday would still kill to be Wednesday, even if it had to endure being nicknamed something so undignified.)
I say we go with it. I’m declaring today an unofficial Friday, and I have the perfect musical accompaniment — Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr’s new mixtape.
Robert Ellis
I’m hunkering down to get a bunch of non-bloggy writing done this week, but I wanted to tell you about the A+ album I’ll be listening to while I’m working — Lights From the Chemical Plant by Robert Ellis. NPR’s doing a First Listen right now, which is how I heard about it, and I’d recommend checking it out.
Isaac Hayes
A quick epilogue to last week’s J. Clyde post:
I got to see his beat-making operation up close just before Christmas, including his killer record collection. Dude has a lot of records. Thousands. I was especially jealous of his soul collection, despite the fact that I hadn’t heard of half the groups represented. The more obscure something was, the more fun it was to see him walk over, put it on the turntable and drop the needle on the tiny snippet that was sampled in a rap song I’ve heard dozens of times.
He has these relationships tucked away in his brain, but while we listened he told me about an iPhone app that helps neophytes like me make those types of connections. It’s called WhoSampled, and it’s about as much fun as you can have for $2.99 (you can access the same database from your browser for free, FYI). I’ve been using the app more and more lately, and I thought I’d share a quick (unsolicited and unpaid) illustration.
Angel Olsen
I tend to avoid assigning genres to songs and albums. In fact, I almost always enjoy people crapping on the concept of genres. I reveled in the sizable chunk of Doug Nunnally’sĀ interview with The 1975 that dealt with the obsolescence of genre taxonomy, and I got a kick out of Bob Boilen’s recent Question of the Week: “Can you imagine a world without music genres?” NPR’s been on a roll, come to think of it — Ann Powers’ marathon interview with Bruce Springsteen included a nod to the Boss’ 2012 SXSW keynote, which, if you didn’t catch it, was punctuated by the longest and funniest list of genre names you’ll ever hear. (That speech is just plain good for you, I think. I’d recommend watching it at least once a year.)
But I’d like to play devil’s advocate for a second here, because genre-based thinking is key to why I’ve been enjoyingĀ Angel Olsen’s new tune “Hi-Five” so much.
You Hear That 