Devo – Working in a Coal Mine
I’ve been so busy at work lately that I was often doing work in the evenings or, as the lyrics say, “when my work day is over, I’m too tired for having fun” and that includes the old blog.
I’m also pretty behind in keeping up on all the things I usually follow. Lots of articles to read, art to see, and music to listen to.
Guster – Keep It Together
Hang on, Boston.
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis – Same Love
Do the right thing, Supreme Court.
French Horn Rebellion – Cold Enough (ft. Jody Watley)
Just when all the snow from the blizzard had finally disappeared from the yard, another snow storm is headed our way. Sigh.
I know the snow won’t stick around long but we were beginning to see signs of spring here and there. A witch hazel bush in bloom, a handful of brave crocuses, fat buds on the trees, it’s lighter later and in just a few days we set the clocks ahead, We’re nearly there. But I sure wish it wasn’t going to be cold enough for it to snow. I’ll take raw, cold rain over snow every time. I know, it’s not pretty, but you also don’t have to shovel it.
The brothers of French Horn Rebellion crack me up and as a former French Horn player myself, I appreciate the name. I can just picture a frustrated dance party aficionado stuck playing the horn in the symphony. It reminds me of that scene in Dazed and Confused when they’re in the car and Mike is telling his friends he doesn’t want to go to law school. When they ask him what he does want to do, he says, “I wanna dance!” If you’ve never seen the movie, you should definitely watch it, especially if you’re old enough to remember the 70s. Or maybe, especially if you’re not old enough.
Neutral Milk Hotel – Snow Song, pt. 1
Instead of watching Jeff Mangum perform this song tonight, like originally planned, I’m listening to a blizzard roar outside. Show’s been rescheduled, I leave you with this.
Trashcan Sinatras – All the Dark Horses
Frank Reader on a bicycle? Well, stop right there! The man has a voice that just melts me. Then there’s that incredibly adorable Scottish accent. Riding a bicycle no less. Sigh.
I was thinking about a different song of theirs, January’s Little Joke, which I often do as the new year gets underway, but I got sucked into that YouTube vortex and stumbled across this one instead. In these cold, dark winter months, I’ll take a sunny reminder like this any day of the week.
Poi Dog Pondering – Keep the Faith
“The pain is too strong, it’s too hard. The hole in my heart is too big.”
The Karl Hendricks Trio – The Men’s Room at the Airport
I was going to reminisce about where I was 25 years ago tonight and then I decided instead to mention where I’m not today. Not in New York City, which is crammed with bands for the annual CMJ Music Marathon, in addition to your average Friday night concerts in New York, like New Order, say.
I had hoped to be there to see the Karl Hendricks Trio so I could put some real life faces to some of the monkeys I hang around with online but it will have to be another time. Even though I’ve been known to complain about how “kids these days” don’t ever listen to music like we did, they just stream stuff online, never owning anything you can hold in your hand, no understanding of what an album is, I do love the internet. Without it I’d be oblivious to lots of new music and music that I missed here and there over the sleep-deprived years of parenting.
Radiohead – Bodysnatchers
Still marveling at the Radiohead show last night. So, so, great. There are videos from the show but they’re jumpy and the quality is mixed so I’m posting the album version. However, when they busted this out in the second encore, it was fucking amazing. Just as blistering as I always imagined it to be.
For a minute there, I lost myself, I lost myself.
It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness of pain: of strength and freedom. The beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature and everlasting beauty of monotony.
Benjamin Britten
Noisy Cats 