Hang Me Up To Dry

Have had this Cold War Kids song on repeat all day. Despite not caring much for this group generally, something about it is just grabbing me, randomly. I like the real simple riff, played emphatically, that carries the song all the way through. I like the weird "cat walking on a keyboard" piano that kicks in late in the song, which make me wonder if someone in the band was trying to engineer a Jonny Greenwood-esque destruction of it. I dig the lyrics, which you can make work for pretty much any situation you care to. I'm making 'em a soundtrack to a tough deadline. Careless in our summer clothes/splashing around in the muck and the mire.

In A Hurricane Without An Umbrella

Yesterday morning was supposed to be wet and windy, as Hurricane Hanna rolled through, but instead it was just overcast and oppressively humid. So with a friend, I made the trek into Manhattan to pick up some wine and some fancy groceries, keeping a wary eye on the sky, mindful of what a little rain can do to the New York subway.

Come 3 p.m.-ish, Hanna got serious. Pulled out the cheap-ass umbrella I bought at the subway the other day and within instants - not even minutes - it was blown inside-out and busted. Picked up another umbrella at Kmart, which either teleported itself to a Caribbean island without me noticing or wandered away from me while I was distracted by some boots at the Union Square DSW (they were nice boots). Rather than go for umbrella #3, I gave up, took the subway home, and walked the half-mile from the subway stop in nothing short of a torrential downpour. The paper grocery bags, ever more sodden, finally gave out right at my front door.

Inside, we shut the windows, made dinner, drank two bottles of wine, and blasted some blues music. The hurricane did whatever it did outdoors, but we didn't care none.

This here is what we played. A super cool cover of Ri-Ri. And an appropriate message for those who would venture out in a hurricane without an umbrella.

Corona!

I am at Brighton Beach with my friend AMP. It is a gorgeous August summer weekend. The perfect temperature. The ocean, a perfect shade of blue. The waves, not too wavey. The beach, not too packed.

Ahh, Brighton Beach. There is, behind me, a not-couple of gay man and not-gay woman drinking what would ultimately be five bottles of Sovetskoye Shampanskoye. Somewhere to the right, someone with a boom box playing, of all things, Russian accordion music - loudly. Several entrepreneurial types are plying the beach, selling water - "ice-cold water! Water that's almost TOO cold." - beer - "Ice-cold beer! Corona! Smirnoff Ice! Kholodnoye pivo!" - and solid advice - "All the pretty women, pay attention! Ladies - if your man beats you, leave him!" Seedy, yes, but somehow in a normal, non-threatening, "it's just Brooklyn" kinda way.

Eventually, surrounded by such temptation, we begin to want Coronas. We buy one apiece from one of our entrepreneurs. This one is lugging beer around the beach in black plastic bags, and having his two - daughters? - help him to make change and open the beers. We toast ourselves. We toast our befuddled champagne-drinking friends. We take pictures of our feet on the beach with the surprisingly cold Coronas and otherwise feel as if we have suddenly inhabited a beer commercial.

A watchful neighbor notices the beach police drawing near in their beach buggy. We hide our beers under clothes and in bags. The police take up residence 20 feet away from us, apparently hitting on a couple of women. The entire beach near us - all drunk, all - pretends to be asleep. My friend's phone rings, but she cannot answer it without taking the beer out of the bag. The police leave, undoubtedly knowing that they could bust every single one of us if they wanted to (the trash can nearby, filled to overflowing with empty Corona bottles, is a dead give-away).

A comic moment.

I know I just posted about Calexico, but I have to link to this. It is so perfect.

There on the beach.
I can see it in her eyes.
I only had a Corona.
Five cents deposit.

Miles Of Highway Poppies

Liking the new Calexico stuff that people are posting. Just like always, the mariachi trumpets and gee-tars send my mind down an empty shimmering highway in a Cadillac, windows down, on my unhurried way to a dusty sun-baked Mexican bar - and I have a very specific bar in my mind's eye. Where there will be an outdoor area without any shade, with mellowed-out drunks and maybe someone noodling on an acoustic guitar. And cheap Christmas tree lights at night.

The stars in their slowness took us by surprise. Thank you, whoever posted this picture.

Here.

"Which One's The One?"

My favorite stage banter of All Points West (liberties taken where memory fails):

Sia, to crowd: Well, hello there! How are you all? Can I get you anything? A cup of tea? No? Why, you're not very demanding, as crowds go...

Kings of Leon frontman Caleb Followill: Hey ya'll. I hear they're not letting you get very drunk out there. (Disapproving boo from crowd.) Well, they didn't say anything to me, so I'm gonna have a drink.

Radiohead's Thom Yorke: This one's dedicated to Kings of Leon. If we were better-looking, we'd be friends with them.

Girl Talk's Gregg Willis (with abnormally high energy): I just got back from Norway - I played with these guys Mayhem - those guys just go on stage and kill each other and they don't even care. Let's party!

Thom (to Jonny, trying to figure out the down beat to "Videotape"): Which one's the one? Which one's the one? Jonny! Wake up! Which one's the one?

Jack Johnson (peering at odd large balloon/bamboo animal being held aloft in front of him by the crowd, during an impromptu bridge in his first song): That thing is very strange. What is it? It's phallic, yet oddly feminine. I think I like it.

Thom (to crowd, apropos of nothing): Cool beans.

All Points West - The Money Shot

Thom & Jonny on acoustic guitars.

Every picture I took before this one and most after were blurry messes. The Radiohead gods smiled upon me for one moment only.

Blackness

Whoooo boy. It's been a long time since a book has made me cry, and that's all I'll really say about that, except to add that were I the one doing the soundtrack for the movie version (which one has difficulty imagining will be anything but a mess compared to the perfection of the book), I would secure the rights to these songs, in no particular order, except for the first one, which is, well, first:

Nada Surf - The Fox. (Here.) I just happened to hear this just as I was getting sucked into this book, and I found it cropping up in my head as I got further and further in. The more I listened to it, the more it seemed that the band must have written the song while reading this book. It would be good for any number of stretches of text that find our father and son struggling across their post-apocalyptic world. We're in a different war, with ourselves and some of you, so many things that don't hold true. With the fear that dims all light.

Radiohead - The Gloaming. Genie Lantern light a fire, this is now the witching hour. What if it were always the witching hour?

Arvo Part - well, anything, really, but how about Fratres...redemptive and cleansing, but still a little ominous. For the closing credits.

The Frames - Dream Awake. For a flashback or two. (Here.)

Massive Attack - Inertia Creeps. For when it does.

El-P. Flyentology. Or Run the Numbers. Or both. For when there are bad guys.

Liars - The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack. For aloneness.

Peter Gabriel - We Do What We're Told. For your random general creepy scene.

Pela - Rooftops. For, I think, the closing scene.

Menomena - Running. For the long stretches without food. (Here.)

It's a little creepy, how different all these songs are if you imagine them from another point of view. Now, off to stock up on canned goods.

Hmmm.

I find this worrisome. Footloose as silly little movie about kids who just want to have fun in a small uptight town - yes. Footloose as tribute to deceased sibling? I dunno...

You can stream a wee bit from it here (scroll down) too.

My Perfect Driving Mix

When driving a lime green rental car to Cape May and back, the following CDs hit the spot.

Bloc Party - Silent Alarm. Perfect for getting the hell out of the Avis parking lot and then immediately getting stuck in traffic on the BQE.

Massive Attack - Mezzanine. Perfect for zoning out across vast swathes of the Garden State Parkway.

Lil Wayne - Tha Carter III. Perfect for feeling vaguely bad about blasting out your windows as you roll into bucolic little Cape May - until you realize that you just passed two other cars also blasting it out their windows.

The Ting Tings - We Started Nothing. Perfect for frantically trying to get to one last winery before it closes at 5 p.m. (We made it!)

The Kills - Midnight Boom. Perfect for driving along the beach at night to. Also good for replaying the first song over and over again at any random point along the drive.

The Hold Steady - Separation Sunday. Perfect for the bittersweet sensation of having to leave Cape May. Wahhhh!

Joe Turner Been Here And Gone

I'm reading this Studs Terkel book, "And They All Sang," which has to do with the musicians he interviewed on his Chicago radio show back in the day. And I'm considering that reading this book is a mistake, because I don't need any more stacks of CDs tottering precariously on the edge of my stereo, and I suspect that I'm about to acquire them.

Already, I am intrigued by a man called Big Bill Broonzy, and a song of his called "Joe Turner No. 2", which Terkel sets the stage for thusly:

This is the one. If ever there was a hush in the control room, the edge-of-the-chair anticipation, it is now. Bill is retuning his guitar. This one calls for extra-special tuning. "You guys can go for a drink while I'm doin' this." Now he's ready. We hear a guitar, but it's like no guitar we ever heard before. It's a human voice, not one but a whole ramshackle town...And now that chord - whang - only it isn't that - it's crying, everybody crying - a cry of salvation.

By chance, one happens to be able to hear this song in its entirety online at the moment, thanks to this fabulous replay of this fabulous Americana show that aired July 3. It's the third song in.

PS. Fast forward through the drugged-out DJ's vacant ramblings.

Adam Yauch Is My BFF

According to a recent "My New York" column in the NY Post, Adam Yauch is my doppelganger.

Consider:

*"I actually find Brooklyn much more interesting than Manhattan at this point," he tells the paper. Well, duh. He also loves Prospect Park.

*He likes the fish cake and green papaya salad at Sri Pra Phai. I'm more a fan of the fried salad myself, but I would totally order the papaya salad for kicks.

*He says Regal Battery Park Stadium is his favorite big cineplex in NY for the same reasons I like it: "There will be like 25 people in a stadium that's made to hold 300 people." He also says he and fellow Beastie Boy Mike Diamond battle over whose personal theater is. Sorry guys: it's MY personal theater.

I'm totally going to also check out the Manhattan Special Coffee Soda he talks about: "It's this crazy, weird, nasty soda that they used to have commercials for when I was a kid."

I recently saw Yauch's movie "Gunnin' For That Number One Spot" with him in attendance to answer audience questions. Afterwards, as my friends and I walked to the subway, we were right behind him. He's like the anti-P. Diddy: just this normal guy that you wouldn't know was a rap superstar. Nobody recognized him. Given all the above, I wonder how many times I've walked by him and not even known it.

Just Somethin' About Sittin' On A Stoop

Back in the days when I had a stoop, I used to do a lot of sittin' on it. There just aren't many better ways to spend a lazy summer evening. My Puerto Rican Social Club neighbors undoubtedly thought it was weird that I sat on it with a glass of wine rather than a 40, but damn, what's the point of a stoop if you can't do what you want while you're sittin'?

So when I first heard this frolicking Little Jackie song "The Stoop" no more than five minutes ago, it immediately took up residence on my soul's stoop. It encapsulates the whole experience. So frickin' good. I seriously need me some stoop sittin' time now, so I'm gonna go hunting for somebody else's to sit on. (Go here to get it.)

Sittin on the stoop in Bed Stuy
Always say hi when the brothers walk by
Just for the etiquette sittin on the top step
With a bag of chips sit back relax enjoy the bricks
We got a heavenly philosophy
I don't mess with you you don't mess with me
It is what it is it ain't all hard
Up in the hood sittin on the front stoop
It's all good.

No Longer Eating My Heart Out

I confess to some jealousy of those bloggers who are eternally moaning about all the free review copies of music they get that they don't have time to listen to...but NO LONGER! I have just received my first review copy of a CD.

After I wrote briefly about Robin Danar's Altered States CD here, the nice folks over at Elemental Consulting/Shanachie were nice enough to contact me and I ask me if I'd like a copy. That was an easy enough question to answer. So now I have one!

This is mostly an album of covers, but I think my favorite is an original track by Jessca Hoop, which you can hear over here...

What's With...

Blogs that when you land on them, start playing music at you without you doing anything? Grumble...

Although, I must confess that the last time this happened, I liked what I was hearing well enough to fumble around the Web page until I figured out what it was. And it has tilted me from being in the "I dunno about Santogold" camp into the "Alright, I'm digging Santogold" camp. Twas this, in less invasive format:

You'll Find A Way

Reasons #242 and #243 Why Lil Wayne Rules

#242.

The lyrics!

Man I got summer hatin on me cuz I'm hotter than the sun
I got spring hatin on me cuz I ain't never sprung
Win-ter hating on me cuz I'm colder than yall
And I would never I would never I would never fall
I'm being hated by the seasons
So f--- yall for hatin with no reason

#243.

Wherein Lil Wayne thanks all the fans for buying his history book and gives a shout out to the book drive. Eh?

Not Duke Ellington's A Train

Another stolen photo...

Gosh, I didn't know toting around a boom box was back in style. It is in the outer outer boroughs, at least, where not one, but two boom boxes were going on the shuttle back to the A Train after my trip to Rockaway Beach. Along with a guy drinking a Corona on the train, two barefoot kids (eek!) and several people eating chicken and rice out of styrofoam containers.

Sadly, neither one of our boom box entertainers had put much thought into their playlists: one was playing an abominable, abysmal, asphyxiating slow jam, and the other, more boppable but somewhat irksome gangsta rap.

If I were lugging a boom box on the A train and drinking a Corona at this very moment (and I kind of wish I were!), this would be what I would be playing.

Beastie Boys - An Open Letter to NYC (duh)
Bryan Adams - Summer of '69
Notorious B.I.G. - Anything. Everything
The Ting Tings - Great DJ
Def Leppard - Pour Some Sugar On Me
Lil Wayne - Lollipop
Smashing Pumpkins - 1979
Flo-Rida - Low
Ludacris - The Potion
The Replacements - Kiss Me On The Bus. Or maybe Bastards of Young
Foghat - Slow Ride
Santogold - L.E.S. Artistes
Billy Idol - White Wedding
M83 - Highway of Endless Dreams
Jurassic 5 - Quality Control
Dead Prez- Hip-Hop
The Raconteurs - Salute Your Solution
Nas - Made You Look
M.I.A. - Galang
Soul Coughing - True Dreams of Wichita
And of course, The Ramones - Rockaway Beach

Hot In The City Tonight

Two small NY vignettes.

1. I am running in Prospect Park on Sunday. It is 7:45ish p.m. but it is still blazing hot. It is Puerto Rican Day, and the park is CROWD-ed and festive. I look to my left, see a guy lying face down in the grass in a very chalk outline-esque way. All around him, people partying, wandering, sitting, and this dude, face planted in the dirt. I ponder what to do. A half mile or so ahead there's an African drumming group that's always there on Sundays, and there's usually cops there to quell the drummers, should they, I dunno, start throwing drumsticks viciously. So I run along and find me a slightly pudgy cop, stop, and say, "there's a guy lying face down in the grass back there." He looks at me and goes: "drunk." I stare at him. "Maybe," I say. "Or, he could be dead..." Says he: "How far back is he?" I explain. He looks sad, and hot, and makes general noises about how he's going to check it out. I sure hope he did...

2. I am exiting the PATH train at the WTC station. There are two people at the turnstile next to mine, an unruly-looking guy coming in and a fierce-looking woman going out, who have reached an impasse. He has put his money in. She is halfway through the turnstile. Finally, she backs down and out, but he has already lost his money. "I lost my money!" he says, and as she breezes through the turnstile next to him, he slaps her in the back of the head. She hauls off and punches him. A flurry of half-hearted slapping ensues, as I stand frozen in the turnstile next to them, with my jaw on the floor. Two PATH employees are nearby, and they're like, "WTF?" And the guy is like, "I lost my money!" And they're like, "Dude, you just hit a woman because you lost your money???"

In the summer, in the city.

Like Being In Hell With A Cool Soundtrack

(I had to link to this picture. Click here for the original post by its original author.)

Saturday I went to a music festival down near Atlantic City at a place called Appel Farm. It would have been awesome had it not been 250 million degrees in the shade. Oh wait, there was no shade. The last time I completely sweat through every piece of clothing I was wearing was at the Mermaid Parade a couple of years ago, and I had totally forgotten what a disgusting feeling it was.

Anyhow, I think Enter the Haggis was pretty good, but I was so hot I couldn't pay attention. By the time Suzanne Vega came on, I had resigned myself, and managed to enjoy her stage banter quite a bit ("Do I look like Alice Cooper up here? Maybe not the best idea to outline my eyes in black ink before coming out here...and now, we're going to play a song in a major key!")

She ended her set with "Tom's Diner". Now, when I was growing up I absolutely hated that song, mostly because local radio overplayed the crap out of it. But compared to what radio plays today - well, I'll take it. And the live version she did was surprisingly rock 'n' roll...lots of bass, lots of drums.

Then there was They Might Be Giants, who were enjoyable simply because they were clearly having a good time, and because, as they say, they might be the only band on the planet that employs a full-time confetti artist. And maybe because, by that point, the sun had retreated at least five feet away from my head.

My friend advanced a theory that with They Might Be Giants, you can totally date someone by what songs they're a fan of. In my case, it's "Istanbul Not Constantinople" and "Particle Man", but there were some people in the audience grooving to "Fingertips," which I found to be an incomprehensible mess. So what TMBG era do you hail from?

Yay!

New Calexico album

Parental Apocalypse

Spied outside my building in Brooklyn the other night: a small child, perhaps six or seven years old, skipping down the sidewalk singing about lollipops. Bucolic childhood scene? Maybe, if it weren't Lil Wayne's song about lollipops. Disturbing, seeing a child utterly absorbed in singing "She lick me like a l-l-l-l-lollipop."