Videos

Everything in Its Right Place

Radiohead – Everything in Its Right Place

Sometime during this never-ending quarantine life we find ourselves in, my son got really into music. He had been expanding what he listened to over the past year, as one tends to do when you enter high school, but something about not being able to go out and do other things, or maybe it was burnout from too much screen time, kicked it up a level. One day he told me that he’d begun listening to whole albums, start to finish. Previously he’d just listen to songs in a playlist on shuffle.

While he certainly knew that I would go to see bands fairly often, I didn’t play a lot of music around the house. I would usually listen to my music during my commute because once I got home there was dinner to fix and eat, things to oversee that the kids were doing, picking kids up from this or that activity, etc. Generally not the kind of atmosphere that I like for listening to music. I do like having music on in the background while I’m doing things, but what I don’t like, really don’t like, is having my listening be interrupted. I don’t want to be asked a lot of questions, I don’t want to miss a chunk of a song because I have to use some noisy appliance, I want to listen (and maybe dance/sing along).

So I think it came as a real surprise to my son one day when he proudly announced, “I found an album that’s an hour and a half long and it’s only got four songs!” and I replied, “oh, is it by Godspeed You! Black Emperor?” His mouth fell open and he got a look on his face of shock and confusion. It was, in fact, their album, “Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven” and he sure did not expect that his mother would know anything about it. It was a door creaking open in his mind to a view of his mother that he hadn’t really seen before.

We got him a Walkman for his birthday in the summer, something he’d been asking about since he came across a box of my cassettes when helping his sister look for some things she wanted to take back to college with her. The Guardians of the Galaxy movie had put the idea in his head, though he had expressed an interest in making tapes all the way back when I first got a used car that had a tape deck. I took him down to our local record store and he bought his first album. He found my stereo setup to be too uncomfortable so he took the money he received from his grandparents for his birthday and got a turntable he could have in his bedroom. Now he has about eight or nine records, plus I dug out my old CD Walkman and let him have that as well so he can listen to music in any format.

We get into the chats about bands he is excited about. I suggest some others he might like to check out, he gets jealous when I say, yeah, I saw them last year. He now understands that I am someone who will get this newly found importance of music in his life. The other day he asked me about Radiohead. He’d heard of them, knew they had this reputation for being a hugely influential band, but wasn’t sure where to start. Ah, my son, I have just the thing for you. Remember when I did that make-a-CD-of-this-band-like-your-house-was-on-fire challenge from a friend? I did one for Radiohead and I thought this would be the perfect introduction for him, rather than just listening to one of the Spotify playlists with all the big hits. It took me a few days to find it and today he got to listen to it. Here’s the playlist:

Radiohead – House on Fire CD

Stop Whispering – Pablo Honey
High and Dry – The Bends
Street Spirit (Fade Out) – The Bends
Airbag – OK Computer
Paranoid Android – OK Computer
Subterranean Homesick Alien – OK Computer
Let Down – OK Computer
Everything in Its Right Place – Kid A
The National Anthem – Kid A
Pyramid Song – Amnesiac
Knives Out – Amnesiac
2+2=5 – Hail to the Thief
Where I End and You – Begin Hail to the Thief
Bodysnatchers In Rainbows
Reckoner – In Rainbows
Morning Mr. Magpie – King of Limbs
Codex – King of Limbs

(this was made before Moon Shaped Pool came out)

He’s definitely going to do a deep dive into their discography now, like binge-watching a show on Netflix. Based on the CD I made, he thinks Kid A is going to be his favorite but I said, you can’t start with Kid A! You have to have some base knowledge of the band first. I allowed as how he could circle back to Pablo Honey some other time, so he started in on The Bends. He’s really looking forward to Kid A though, and I have to say, this is a great first track to get it started.

Turntables

Janelle Monáe – Turntables

Finally, they’ve declared Joe Biden the winner in Georgia. Congratulations to all the organizers and activists who made it happen! Now seal the deal and send Warnock and Ossoff to the Senate. We’re behind you all the way!

Private Lives

Low Cut Connie – Private Lives

I have a soft spot for Philadelphia venues, even those I’ve never been to. There’s a couple of people I know, through Instagram mostly, who live in the Philadelphia area and they used to post pictures from shows there, in our pre-pandemic lives. A lot of those pictures were taken at a club called Boot & Saddle, which you can see in this video. One of these Instagram friends had said it was her favorite venue. Yesterday, they announced they were closing, for good.

What used to prevent me from going to shows as often as I’d like was the distance from where I live to the club. It’s the part of living in a city that I miss the most. Especially small clubs like Boot & Saddle, where the ticket prices are never that high and you can be up close to the band. Maybe I’ve just been lucky but the small venues tend to have fewer assholes too. It’s that intimate atmosphere that we love which is just impossible right now. If you have been following Save our Stages you’ve heard the venue owners say, we were the first to close and we’ll be the last to open. I’m really hoping that once we get the Toddler in Chief out of the White House they can get a number of stimulus bills passed to help keep the venues, and primarily the people who work in them, from going belly up.

The main concert promoter responsible for many of the shows I’ve been to over the past couple of years managed to host concerts out on a farm from late August through this past weekend. There were a few I was tempted to attend but they were out of my budget and even farther away. You would purchase a grid that was something like 10 feet square and could accommodate two people traveling together, each grid was spaced 10 feet from the next one, like a checkerboard, everyone had to fill in a health questionnaire and wear a mask the whole time. It wasn’t like being in a small club but it worked and they were able to employ something like 77 people to work 45 shows. But they were all bands that could bring in a big crowd. Small bands need small venues. Streaming shows from your apartment can keep musicians and their fans connected but it won’t pay their bills and the energy just isn’t the same.

When the lockdowns began back in March I still had a ticket to a show in June. That got postponed until next June. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be cancelled again, they just want to hold out until it gets closer. I swear, once it’s safe to go to shows I will never take them for granted again.

Politicians in My Eyes

Death – Politicians in My Eyes

My dad called on Sunday to catch up and generally share his relief that Biden had won. We both said how great it will be to have scientists back in various government agencies, how nice it is to have people who respect experts and experience, who won’t foment violence amongst white supremacists, etc. It’s such a low bar at this point that just having people who speak coherently seems like a dream.

Where I parted from my dad’s assessment was his hope, or maybe even expectation, that Mitch McConnell would see that he needs to work with Biden to get things done. What possible motivation would he have for doing that, I said. He just won reelection so he’s safe for six whole years and, given his age and blue hands, he’s unlikely to run again. His entire reason for living is to obstruct anything the Democrats try to do. Dad figured that now that McConnell had gotten (stolen) his SCOTUS seats and passed tax cuts for the wealthy, he didn’t need to keep stonewalling. Pshaw, I said, the man is the single worst politician in Washington and he will stop at nothing to poison the well.

So today I read that old Turtleface is backing the lame duck’s attempts to find fraud with the results and generally stall and sow chaos. Because of course he is. He’s Moscow Mitch. I really believe he’s just as dirty with Russian money as Trump is and, quite simply, a traitor. He has no charm or knack for inspiring a following so he has decided that his current seat is the most powerful to which he can ascend and he’s going to wield it ruthlessly. I have already made donations to the two Democrats in the Georgia Senate runoff elections but I’m not holding my breath for those.

It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

R.E.M. – It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

Oh. My. GOD. You guys. I didn’t want to be cheesy, or premature, in playing this song, but there was a LITERAL FUCKING EARTHQUAKE AT MY HOUSE THIS MORNING!!!!!!!

AN. EARTHQUAKE. Epicenter in southeastern Massachusetts. 4.0 on the Richter scale.

I am sorry, but I can NOT get over that. It was loud and rumbly, like a truck dropped a dumpster right outside our house, lasting a few seconds. It’s not like I live in California and can just overlook the symbolism here because this kind of thing happens every day. An earthquake at a place called Bliss Corner. I mean get the fuck out of here!!! There is some karma coming and I am here for it!!

I can’t wait. A woman whose parents were immigrants from India and Jamaica is going to be the Vice President after the virulently racist administration we’ve had to endure these past four years. What a giant slap in the face to Stephen Miller and all the other ghouls infecting the White House. I can’t wait to see the string of scientists and experts that are allowed to flood back into our government. A First Lady who is an educator with a PhD (and a master’s from my alma mater – we were there at the same time!). Kick that fucking Betsy DeVos to the curb, Jill! I can’t wait to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord, to undo everything Cheeto has done by executive order or departmental guidelines. To return to treating our allies like allies. I read that they rang the bells in Paris and had fireworks in London (handy leftovers from Guy Fawkes Day). The bully is on his way out and the world is relieved.

It is the end of the world as we know it, and I really do feel fine.

The best version of this song is from the show I went to in Providence, RI (where they most definitely felt the earthquake today) on Black Monday, October 19, 1987, and no one can ever change my mind. I got a usb cassette player for my birthday so I can digitize my bootlegs and had intended to do that before I would post this song but was pre-empted by an actual earthquake and my need to post this song immediately!

Stomp!

The Brothers Johnson – Stomp!

How much do I love the videos of people celebrating and dancing in the streets? SOOO MUCH!! It’s times like this I really miss living in a big city. That collective feeling of relief and joy and just wanting to share that with people.

I spent a couple of hours this morning helping to clean out the headquarters for our local Democrats and taking all of the stuff back to people’s houses. The numbers hadn’t changed from where they were the night before and we were all fairly quiet, but calm. It felt like things were headed our way. I dropped some stuff off at one place and headed to the store. While I was in the store my phone started buzzing and my kids and husband had all texted me the news that Biden had won Pennsylvania. I thought about all of those Election Defenders and people partying outside of the Convention Center in Philadelphia to bolster the poll workers inside and drown out the Trumpsters. They brought spirit and fun and movement, while the MAGA idiots just stood there trying to look menacing and failing in the face of people just expressing happiness.

I made one more stop to drop off some signs, then headed home, got cleaned up, and changed into the most Philly t-shirt I have. I got it at a bike shop back in the 80s when I was going into the city as often as I could from my college campus out on the Main Line. It’s bright yellow and has Ben Franklin riding a bike and a Liberty Bell. I proudly put it on as a thank you to Philadelphia and those out there guarding the vote count, for getting us over the all important electoral college tipping point. As a nice little wink to them, the address of the former bike shop (now a ramen bar) is about a block away from where they were holding the outdoor dance party.

I harbor no illusions about Joe Biden being a visionary president, and we still have to fight for the two Georgia Senate seats and deal with the hated trio of McConnell, Collins, and Graham for six whole more years. We lost seats in the House. But we grabbed our nation by the scruff of its neck and yanked it back from the fascists and their ignorant, racist, bigoted supporters. We are not in the clear, those people are not going anywhere, plus there’s still the lame duck to get through. And let us not breeze past the significance of Kamala Harris. A woman, a woman of color, a daughter of immigrants, an HBCU graduate, is going to be the Vice President. This is a major slap in the face to the white supremacists that have been roaming the halls of the White House these last few years. Take that Stephen Miller!