Hope y’all are having a spiffy Valentine’s Day and have someone sweet to buy something sweet for. Here’s a sweet song to add into the mix — Warren Zevon’s “Mutineer” covered by the married duo of Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires. The performance above comes courtesy of WNRN in Charlottesville, but the pair just released a recorded version the other day (iTunes link below).
Much love from my corner of the interweb.
Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires — “Mutineer” (Warren Zevon cover) [YouTube/iTunes]
In a few hours, I’ll be heading home to Norfolk for Thanksgiving for the first time in a handful of years. Normally I’d post a YouTube video of someone lighting a driveway on fire while trying to fry a turkey, but recent events have brought the holiday’s shady origins a little too close to the front of my mind, and it just doesn’t seem funny this time around.
Instead, I’ll leave you with a song about going home that contains the following verse, which seems fitting both for the holiday and for this particular moment in history:
Gee, it’s great to be alive
Takes the skin right off my hide
To think I’ll have to give it all up someday
That’s where being truly thankful starts. Hope everyone reading this has a great Thanksgiving.
Daniel Johnston — “To Go Home” [Spotify/iTunes]
The list of Record Store Black Friday releases is available, and guess which deliciously ominous TV theme music is being pressed to vinyl?
DAAAH DAAAH DAHDAHDAH DAAAH DAHDAHDUMMMMMM
That’s right – they’re releasing the music from Season 1 of Game of Thrones, which includes the terrifying theme that plays over the opening credits. I love it – it’s so scary and fun and sets such a fitting mood for what follows. Violence. Deception. Plot developments I don’t remotely understand. Hot damn, I love Game of Thrones.
I thought I’d post the theme music today in case some of you out there were considering not voting in this midterm election.
Thing one: I just landed in Denver, en route to Boulder for a friend’s wedding.
Thing two: Big Head Todd and the Monsters, I just learned, formed at CU-Boulder.
Thing three: Big Head Todd and the Monsters, I just learned, recorded an entire album of Robert Johnson covers with the help of B.B. King and Charlie Musselwhite, among others.
So there you have it.
Big Head Todd and the Monsters (featuring Charlie Musselwhite) — “Come On In My Kitchen” (Robert Johnson cover) [Spotify/iTunes]
We’ve eaten spicy food, we’ve gone on many, many walks… this kid just refuses to leave the friendly confines of Mrs. YHT’s midsection. Well the adorable little squatter is in for quite a surprise this weekend, as our doc has decided it’s time to induce. Eviction party starts Saturday night. Wish us luck, y’all.
Darlings — “Eviction Party” [Spotify/iTunes]
Happy Mother’s Day to all you moms out there! Special shouts to my wife, who will be a mom in just a few short months, and my mom, who reads this blog and has always inspired me to be the best version of myself that I could be.
(Side note: Sound Opinions recently interviewed Family Stone members Oscar Songs and Lydia Loveless. Really interesting stuff. Listen here.)
Sly and the Family Stone — “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” [Spotify/iTunes]
Remember when the video above was on People.com? I do. I loved it. Even though I went to the University of Richmond, I love the Peppas. They do a killer job, whether they’re serenading NASCAR fans in the rain or ratcheting up the excitement at the Siegel Center, and the added touch of pumping Miley Cyrus’ voice in through the PA before blasting the chorus one more time is just outstanding. I get goosebumps when I watch that video — I really do.
Don’t get me wrong — I enjoy Richmond’s pep band. Just this past season, I had the chance to take my mom to her very first live basketball game, and I made sure to brag about how our pep band’s director is David Hood from No BS! Brass Band. I even pointed him out, like you would a local celebrity or athlete who is poised become a big deal out of town as well. Plus, the recent Robins Center renovations have them repositioned in the center of the student section (they used to be tucked away in a corner at court level) — an improvement that vastly increases the band’s atmospheric influence. Will that result in a “Wrecking Ball”-type video in the future? With Hood at the helm, I wouldn’t rule it out.
So why am I talking about pep bands? A couple days ago, UR’s athletics department sent me a survey asking about the experience I had at the games I attended last season, and while I was most excited to complain about the food, everything changed when I got to this question:
They didn’t ask for a blog post, but they’re gonna get one.
What do backup dancers do? Backup dancers make the frontperson look good. They spice things up, they inject energy, they may display incredible talents, but it’s all done in the service of the star. In the video above, Hamilton Leithauser is the star — he takes the stage with a group of gals behind him, someone offstage tosses him the microphone, and off he goes. Lookin’ good. The video goes even further than that, because the first half has Leithauser hanging out in the dressing room before the dancers have even had a chance to slip on their sparkly outfits. Lookin’ meta good!
Could some of this frontman fourth wall breaking have to do with Leithauser’s situation vis-a-vis The Walkmen? With striking out on his own? Is some existential fat being chewed here? Maybe. But there’s another level I just love, and that level is Rostam Batmanglij.
Heading to Siesta Key to visit some grandparents/get some sun/pray that we don’t come home to a flooded downstairs bathroom. There’s some really great stuff I can’t wait to share with you next week. Here’s a hint. Here’s another. Until then, some Booker T.
Booker T. & the M.G.s — “Sarasota Sunset” [Spotify/iTunes]
I’ve been in a funk lately. A writing funk, a general happiness funk… basically I’ve been a walking avatar for a certain James Brown song.
Duke’s Saturday overtime loss to Syracuse — a symphony of raised and dashed hopes — can be blamed for a portion of this malaise, but my blog block dates all the way back to Grammy night. It started with a simple mistake — following along on Twitter. What I saw was as disheartening as it was difficult to detach myself from, this strange and sad parade of cynicism that was chuckle-worthy one minute, homophobic the next, and mean all the way through. I can’t imagine last year was all smiles and kittens, and I enjoyed the jokes about Pharrell’s hat as much as anyone else, but something felt different this time.
One difference is clear — I had an emotional stake in one of the groups that drew the sharpest criticism. I’ve been a fan of Macklemore & Ryan Lewis since October of 2012, when I discovered “Thrift Shop” via Reddit. I loved it for all the reasons listed here. It was fun and clever, with a message that rang true for me (“$50 for a t-shirt…”). Then I heard “Same Love,” and my respect for the duo grew. I think people of the same sex should be able to marry one another, and I saw the group’s participation in the campaign to sway Washington’s referendum on marriage equality as admirable. Doing the right thing. The song never seemed perfect, but it felt profoundly good to me, in the way that certain people or actions strike you as a net positive in/to/for the world. As a result, I watched the duo’s rise in notoriety with glee, like I was watching close friends succeed at the thing they’re most passionate about. Now, I’m watching with despair as their names and music are maligned in all sorts of ways.
I’ve been trying to figure out how to write about this, because there’s a lot to say, and it’s not the easiest subject matter to wade through. Race. Sexual orientation. Cultural appropriation. This is swampy stuff, and I have to admit to feeling a little out of my depth. I don’t have advanced degrees in any related fields, and my familiarity with the term “cultural appropriation” dates only as far back as the release of Miley Cyrus’ “We Can’t Stop” video. I’m also biased in a way that I have to acknowledge and account for. Like Macklemore, I am white, male, straight and strongly in favor of marriage equality. Throw in a fervent love for crate digging at thrift shops and I may be the most biased person in this situation whose name isn’t Ben Haggerty or Ryan Lewis.
That said, there are a few things I have to say or I’ll be mad at myself for not saying them. You can decide how much weight they carry, based on the disclaimers I provided in the previous paragraph. I apologize in advance for how sanctimonious some of them are.
You Hear That 