My phone isn’t actually dead, yet, but it’s not long for this world. It’s amazing how accustomed I have become to having the internet in my pocket and how I am no longer put off by the size of a smartphone. I actually want a bigger one. Let me clarify, thinner, but with a bigger screen. I’m having a really hard time deciding though and the more I look at online reviews, the less certain I am.
I still have a landline in the house. A real, mounted to the wall, no caller-id, has a curly cord, phone. I almost never use it but let me just say, the last two hurricanes that hit did a number on the power lines, damaged the cell towers, but that landline was still working both times. In advance of hurricane Sandy, I fruitlessly searched the area for a replacement battery for my cell phone but it seemed like everyone else, who had been without power for a week after Irene, had had the same idea.
For a long time I didn’t have a cell phone. I didn’t need one and I didn’t really want one. Even after my first child was born, it wasn’t until one day when my husband and I were both going to be out of our offices that it even occurred to me that we would be unreachable if daycare needed us in the case of an emergency. Now I hardly go anywhere without it.
I think I knew who Patti Smith was before going to college but only in the most cursory way, probably based on recognizing album covers and knowing maybe two songs. In short order though, I learned what a big influence she had been on so many bands I loved and even if I still didn’t know much of her music or much about her, I figured they knew what they were talking about.
I became addicted to this song* during college. Addicted, or some might say obsessed, pretty accurately describes a good 3/4 of my college years. Everything about this song just nails that mix of excitement, anger, longing, mystery, all the emotions the 20-year-old me would keep bottled up until I was alone in my dorm room or out on my bike. Then I’d blast the tunes and “spin so ceaselessly ‘til I lose my sense of gravity…”
About a year ago I went to an exhibit of Patti Smith’s photography. I’d read her book, Just Kids, and loved it and couldn’t wait to see her work for myself. The museum had an evening event where they had a dj playing music, food, drinks, and anyone wearing a concert t-shirt got in for free. I hauled my old shirts out of storage and proudly picked one to wear. The shirt says EVERYTHING on the front and IS COOL on the back. I stood there looking at Patti Smith’s photograph of Keats’ grave, wearing my Pylon t-shirt, while the dj played Bigmouth Strikes Again and Radio Free Europe. Everything is cool.
* Actually, the one on constant repeat was The Feelies cover of this song – I think it was a flexi-disc that came with The Bob or something, I didn’t have the Patti Smith album yet – with a slightly faster tempo. A slower, totally haunting version by the Swedish sisters who are First Aid Kit, sung last year when Patti Smith won the Polar Music Prize, just proves how universal and timeless this song is.
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.
It was all over the internet earlier this week that John Cusack came out on stage at Peter Gabriel’s concert at the Hollywood Bowl (the Back to Front tour in honor of the So 25th anniversary tour) to give him a boombox for his performance of “In Your Eyes.”
I didn’t see Peter Gabriel on the So tour, but I saw the Secret World tour a couple of times. I have to say, those shows really fit the definition of spectacular. It was big, lots of musicians, lots of sets, lots of instruments – some of which you couldn’t identify – with things and people popping up out of the stage floor, moving down conveyor belts, I’d never seen anything like it.
I’d seen Peter Gabriel before as part of the Amnesty International tour but that was different. That had been one of those massive affairs that were big in the 80s, held at stadiums that could hold 100,000 people and featured several big name acts. Peter Gabriel was the highlight of that show for me but when Bruce Springsteen is on the bill and the venue is in Philadelphia, the vast majority of people have come for only one reason.
On the Secret World tour, he had the space and time to do whatever he wanted. This video comes from the DVD release of the tour’s stop in Italy and is pretty much the same as the shows I saw. I might just have to rewatch the whole thing.
Yesterday I wore shorts and a sleeveless shirt. It was a little chilly in the shade or when the wind blew, I was definitely pushing it but in the house it felt fine. This evening I walked downtown around 6:30pm. Brisk. Sweater weather has arrived.
I saw Yo La Tengo at the old Knitting Factory, back when it was a hole in the wall down on Houston St. with sweaters stapled to the ceiling. I had convinced one of my sisters and her friend to come along by playing Fakebook for them. It’s a great album but doesn’t really hint at their noisier side (like “Mushroom Cloud of Hiss” which they played that night). I ended up losing them in the crowd and found them seeking refuge at the bar later. I think that’s the last time I convinced my sister to see a show with me.
This video comes from the first single off of the album Love This Giant, the collaboration between David Byrne and St. Vincent. I love that David Byrne is still out there, being himself* (and looking more like David Lynch’s brother with that white hair), and they are taking the show on the road.
BrooklynVegan has been posting a tour diary from Kelly Pratt, who is one of the horn players on tour. It’s pretty interesting and not just because I like the album and am a long time Talking Heads fan. For instance, who knew that marching band experience could ever come in handy off the football field? Band geeks unite! And that nearly the entire band has taken bicycles with them on the road. Is that not the coolest thing ever?! Did you know David Byrne has designed bike racks before? I do think I read that somewhere once but have you seen what this company can do to a bike rack? So freaking awesome!! I want one!
(click the links, you will be rewarded with things like a video of Burning Down the House from the Minneapolis show this past Saturday night.)
I played the French horn in junior high and high school. I don’t think any of us ever thought our time sweating it out in our band uniforms would ever end in anything as cool as touring with David Byrne & St. Vincent. We were mostly thinking that it got us out of study skills or some other lame class no one wanted to take. Our band teacher in New York was adamant that the French horn could only be played properly if sitting down so we never marched with our French horns. We played the euphonium when we marched, which was nice since it was smaller and easier to carry.
The band teacher up in Maine, where we moved halfway through high school, was not so particular about our proper French horn posture so we marched with our horns. To make matters worse, we also had those Buckingham Palace guard style hats. Somewhere at my mother’s house there is a perfectly awful picture of me, in that band uniform, playing the French horn on the football field. I look about 20 pounds heavier too because I had three layers on underneath to try and keep from freezing. Marching band in Maine suuuucked. It sucks everywhere but November in Maine is already winter. You couldn’t be in band the rest of the year unless you did marching band in the fall. Although I did know these two kids who signed up for hunting lessons just because they conflicted with football games and they managed to get away with it. As a recently transplanted New Yorker, that struck me as being the ultimate sign that we were really in the boonies.
* Case in point, he has a new book out too, How Music Works.
It’s a Saturday night and I’m spending it at the hospital with my daughter. She seems to be doing much better now; after four days with a stomach bug she was getting dehydrated and looked just pitiful.
This song is my ringtone when my daughter calls me. She just started middle school in a different town with a long bus ride so getting her a phone seemed like a good idea. She mostly just texts though.
When you think about having kids, people talk about babies, the sleepless nights, diapers, feeding, maybe they go so far as to talk about vaccines. But no one says, holy hell, you are not going to believe how often they are sick and when it gets bad, you will never be more scared.
I was feeling a little low today and when that happens, I often try to make myself listen to the radio so I don’t fall into old habits and listen to songs I know will just allow me to feed that feeling. But the radio wouldn’t cooperate so I gave in and listened to a series of progressively sadder and sadder songs.
This evening Nancy posted a link to this interview with the author of a book called This Will End in Tears: The Miserabilist Guide to Music. Sounds like a book I might have written. The interviewer starts out by saying “Everyone has their favorite sad song, but have you ever thought about the sad song as a whole category of music?” Uh, have you never met a Smiths fan? I don’t have a favorite sad song, I have an extensive collection of sad songs. In college I made tapes with titles like “Morrissey’s Most Moaning Melodies” and “Anguish, Fear, Lamenting” or “Does the Body Rule the Mind or Does the Mind Rule the Body?” (subtitled, I Dunno!).
I made a conscious effort in my 20s to put some distance between myself and lots of those beloved sad songs in the interest of self preservation. And it more or less worked. I still love those songs. Many of them now, with the years that have passed helping to ease the sting, I can listen to and enjoy with a smile. “Oh I can smile about it now but at the time it was terrible.”
So after the talk of Mozzer, why the Billy Bragg song? Because no one can touch him when it comes to songs that pierce your heart. Just listen.
Noisy Cats 