Fair Use.

Here's an addendum to the previous post.

Tim Jarrett wrote this comment: "A 'who's who' of illegal audio sampling, including a version of Negativland U2 track that replaces the U2 samples with synths and kazoos, is available for download on the Illegal Art page. "

And he's right: that page is terrific, and there is one of the tracks. But then I got to thinking about another track I recalled from the original 1991 EP, so I went digging through my trove of cassettes, until I found one where I had copied things from the WXYC library. (I still have wet dreams about that library. . . .) Anyway, both tracks are called "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," and they are distinguished by their parenthetical markers: "(1991 a capella mix)" and "(Special Edit Radio Mix)." The track on the Illegal Art compilation is, as best as I can tell, the actual "(Special Edit Radio Mix)" as it appeared on the original EP. In other words, this track had the synths and kazoo originally. The things coming out of Casey Kasem's mouth rendered this track unplayable on the radio station, though I believe some DJs probably played it late at night. . . .

The other track, the "(1991 a capella mix)," also has Casey Kasem introducing U2 to a wider public: he keeps repeating "The letter U and the numeral 2." And then there is a guy with a dorky voice speaking and playing around with the lyrics to the song, and making them sound completely ridiculous. After a while, the whole thing gets very surreal, and transitions into more samples of Casey Kasem talking about what he can and cannot say on the radio.

That both of these tracks both discuss what can and cannot appear on the radio, and that we were not allowed to play them, and then that the whole EP was recalled were ironies not missed on us at the time.

Then, of course, the lawsuit became the basis of a lot of thinking and writing about sampling, fair use, intellectual property--and these issues are obviously still alive today.

Anyway, it turns out I was wrong when I said you could not hear these things anymore, because Negativland in 2001 released a new (legalized) album that includes both these tracks. Whereas the original EP was called "U2"--which was part of the problem as far as Island Records was concerned--the new one is called "These Guys Are from England and Who Gives a Shit," referring to one of the derisive comments Casey Kasem made about the Irish band now known round the world. And that new album is in surprisingly wide distribution.

So now will you excuse me? I need to go order my copy of the new CD.

Look at this cool thing I found.

A friend of mine, also an academic, and I like to joke about our shared tendency to have difficulty finding a thesis in our scholarship. Many stages of the work, therefore, rather than having a real argument, seem to rest on the claim: "Look at this cool thing I found." Or sometimes, two things.

If you have not already heard of Kutiman and his project Thru You, a remixing of YouTube videos to form a truly mashed-up global musical video extravaganza, go here. If that site is overwhelmed, go here. I know you might already know about this magic, because I do tend to be late to the party, but damn.

Watch them.

Me? I was mesmerized. I had to watch all of them at one sitting. I have long been a fan of remixes and mash-ups, and the way those things let you hear things in new ways. The guys at Negativland are geniuses, and back in the early 1990s they made a record combining samples from U2's The Joshua Tree and "off camera" samples of Casey Kasem into an amazing series of tracks that now you can't hear anymore because Island Records sued their asses and recalled their albums. (I have a couple tracks on a cassette, but I digress.) Then there are the likes of base58, The Evolution Control Committee, Girl Talk, and more--who know how to play with sound and similarities and listener expectations to make things that are fun, insightful, and, in many cases, worth listening to even once the novelty has worn off.

But Kutiman? Wow. He takes it, as my father would say, quoting Emeril, another notch. It's not just that he has taken crazy shit that people have posted on YouTube and combined it into excellent audio/video tracks--that also sound excellent. It's that these mash-ups somehow make you see YouTube itself in a new way.

Take Track 4, "Babylon Band," for instance. It starts out with this probably stoned dude whaling on the drums. In itself, probably the best response that video would hope for is a "Duuuuuuuuude" from someone who came across it, or maybe laughter from friends, or derision from people who think the world is going to hell. But in this track? Suddenly dude's drumline (and his hair) lead us into something more amazing than you would expect to find in your parents' basement. But even with the kid playing amazing riffs on his oud (or whatever that is) and then the darbuka that comes in with much advertisement (not false), this is not exoticized, because we also have a church organist, a horn quartet in a classroom, kids practicing the piano in their living rooms, and the guy stringing out the amazing vocals is in a lawn chair. Or the woman singing on track 5 is sitting on the floor of her living room with her baby in her lap and a playpen in the background. Some of the samples come from instructional videos and e-bay advertisements. People playing drum machines are also holding coffee cups. Musicians in pajamas with couches and dogs! So yeah, these remixes are remarkably global, but also surprisingly local, and that somehow is what makes them so amazing.

Stand up and say "Hey, just a second!": 2008 Rocks.

Another year, another year-ending celebratory mix disc. As I did last year, I made my mix of things I discovered this year--though not all were released this year. In this sense, it is a chronicle of my musical year, moreso than the musical year that was.

America Is Waiting
For My 2008 Mix.

Brian Eno and David Byrne, “America Is Waiting,” My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1981; Nonesuch, 2006).
How did I miss this re-release in 2006? So I start my compilation with an acknowledgement that I can be woefully behind the times. So it goes! This album still sounds as incredible as it did when I first heard it on the crappy cassette deck of my first car, and even then it was already almost 10 years old. Even if you have this album on some other format, it is worth buying the CD for the liner notes’ detailing of the working process that went into making some of the most innovative music of its era. NB: sampling, in those days, was a more intuitive and analogue process. Also note the excellent vintage photos of Eno and Byrne. Those were the days.

Kassin+2, “Ponto Final,” Futurismo (Luaka Bop, 2008).
This “Samba Supergroup,” as Rolling Stone describes them, is Moreno Veloso, Domenico Lancelotti, and Alexandre Kassin, and their sound is somewhat tropical, somewhat electronic, and altogether groovarific. This disc is part of a three-part “+2” series, each disc featuring one of the band members in the title role. Kassin has has produced records by singers like Marisa Monte and Bebel Gilberto and made an album from the bleeps of a Gameboy. About this song, Kassin says, “The song has a classical theme. The singer says, ‘I don’t want you. It’s over.’ At the same time he’s singing about how he wants to be smarter, and he wants to get in shape, and he wants to have a new life. It’s about wanting what you haven’t got.”

Nortec Collective Presents: Bostich + Fussible, “Norteña del Sur,” Tijuana Sound Machine (Nacional, 2008).
While we are thinking about genre, this album's MySpace page denotes this disc as "Psychedelic/Concrete/Electronica." I personally am not clear on where the boundaries of "Concrete" end and "Psychedelic" begin, but the sound here is cool, coming out of Tijuana's electronic scene. If you know Nortec Collective, then you might recognize Bostich and Fussible from their series of Tijuana Sessions albums. Bostich and Fussible are not exactly people or bands, but rather the noms de turntable of Pepe Mogt and Ramon Amezcua. What is there not to like about this album's blend of accordions, tubas, trumpets, norteño percussion, vocoders, drum machines and synthesizers? This song will make you wish you were driving around in the car on the album's cover, instead of whatever clunker you find yourself cranking the track in.

The Cat Empire, “Fishies,” So Many Nights (Velour, 2008).

The date on this disc is 2008, but Wikipedia tells me the album was released in the band's home country of Australia in September 2007. Whatever. Dig on the horns, the blasting piano, the funky Latin beat and the great lyrics. I dare you not to dance in your car. Or wherever you are. Tie me to the mast--I must believe!

Irakere, “Bacalao con Pan,” Sí, Para Usted: The Funky Beats of Revolutionary Cuba, Vol. 1 (Waxing Deep, 2006).

Did you know that the revolution would come with funky son? I did not, and yet it did. But honestly, was I asleep at the wheel in 2006? Oh well--more to enjoy this year. This disc comes out of a radio program and podcast called Waxing Deep. This song, it turns out, is about cod sandwiches. Cod sandwiches--how'd you get so funky?

Amy Ray, “Cold Shoulder,” Didn’t It Feel Kinder (Daemon, 2008).

If you ever wished, while listening to the Indigo Girls, that Amy Ray would let loose with that voice and attitude of hers, then come here. Dang, but this is a perky song about how girls can treat you bad and the world can treat you worse. But that is a good combo ultimately, because you feel better after you sing along.

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, “Nobody’s Baby,” 100 Days, 100 Nights (Daptone, 2007).

This is one hot R&B album. Sharon Jones has a voice that will kick your ass, and Dap-Kings can bring the funk. She did some anonymous session work early on, and sang back-up for Lee Fields on a Desco release, and toured with the Soul Providers in the 1990s until Desco collapsed in 2000. A little reshuffling produced the Dap-Kings, and this is (I think) their third album. If you don't already have this album, you need the whole thing, really you do, but let this track suffice for the sake of my mix, for which America is waiting.

The Black Exotics, “Theme of Blackbyrds,” Carolina Funk: First in Funk, 1968-1977 (Jazzman, 2008).
This album may be my favorite find of 2008--a compilation of funk tracks recorded in North and South Carolina. This particular tune was laid down at United Music World Studios in West Columbia, SC in 1975. What remains of the Black Exotics is a single extremely rare 45, and both tracks are covers. The band actally came from Macon, Georgia, but a part of the West Columbia scene. But seriously folks, this entire disc is excellent.

Gnarls Barkley, “Charity Case,” The Odd Couple (Downtown/Atlantic, 2008).

I was conflicted about whether to include this song or the second track, which I like just as well, maybe better, but I decided I wanted the more upbeat sound here in the mix. But as for this track: opening with the sound of a film projector, bouncy beat, diverse percussion--can't beat it. Given that this album was up for 4 Grammys, I doubt I need to say much, but I will note that I love how Cee-Lo Green sounds like he has some serious sinus congestion--a condition with which I can always identify.

Elvis Costello and the Imposters, “Flutter and Wow,” Momofuku (Lost Highway/UMG, 2008).
Did you see Elvis when he was touring recently with Bob Dylan? Well, Bob Dylan is Bob Dylan, but really Elvis alone with his guitar stole the show before Dylan even made it to the stage. This disc, of course, is no solo venture, but this song is a great example of the beauty of his pop songs--a beauty that stands out whether he is fancilly produced or rough and solo on stage.

DeVotchka, “The Clockwise Witness,” A Mad and Faithful Telling (Anti, 2008).

Saw these folks at the Orange Peel, on a night when I was completely exhausted from my day at work, but Lands, Alive--what a show. I am sorry to say that this disc does not seem to feature the theremin, which Nick Urata played beautifully in concert, but his vocals do sometimes take on that eerie, otherworldly quality. The band's sound is very much here: starting out with the vibes, then Nick Urata's great vocals, and bowed and plucked strings. I see from wikipedia that they started out as a backing band for a burlesque show, early on touring with fetish model Dita von Teese--and that does somewhat explain the appearance during the show's encore of a magnificent aerial artist performing on two fabric sashes from the top of the stage. I wish I could somehow get her onto this disc.

Elmo Hope, “Hot Sauce,” Trio and Quintet (Blue Note, 1953, 1957/2005).
When I taught Allen Ginsberg's Howl recently, I did not quite believe it when one of my more straight-laced students said, "Could you give us a definition of 'hipster'?" I did my best, but I wish I could have had this album along. This disc is brings together three separate previous releases and a few tracks originally only on Blue Note compilations--and it is good news for us all. The track in question is from Elmo Hope Trio, which means Hope on the piano, Percy Heath on bass, and Philly Joe Jones on the drums.

Willie Nelson and Wynton Marsalis, “Stardust,” Two Men with the Blues (Blue Note, 2008).

I hope you don't mind my transitioning from the jumping "Hot Sauce" into Dan Nimmer's peaceful piano opening of "Stardust." I probably would not have thought to bring Wynton Marsalis and Willie Nelson together, but really, the result is pretty cool.

NoCrows, “Five 2 Six – El Trencaclosques,” Magpie (Crows, 2008).

I saw this band perform in Sligo, Ireland, and what a show. The foursome is Steve Wickham on the fiddle (you may know him from The Waterboys), Anna Houston alternating between cello and mandolin, Felip Carbonell on guitar, and Eddie Lee on the double bass. This track was written by Carbonell, a way of remembering the sounds of Spain (from where he hails) in Ireland. The second part of the title means "The Jigsaw Puzzle" in Catalan, and the first part refers to how the tune alternates between 5/8 and 6/8 time.

Siba, “Vale do Juca,” What’s Happening in Pernambuco: New Sounds of the Brazilian Northeast (Luaka Bop, 2008).

The sticker attached to this album's wrapping said, "If you only buy one disc this year of music from Northeaster Brazil, make it this one." It is a great compilation, with a great deal of range, as different traditions blend and stand out. Siba was a founding member of Mestre Ambrósio, who dug up the old traditions of the sertão to bring them into contemporary music. The valley of Juca, according to the footnote in the liner notes, "is an imaginary place symbolizing the space where our ancestors still live and breathe."

Once upon a path

Amost without footprints

Where leaves serenaded

so many sunrises.

Once upon a road

Many crooked turns

How many passages and doors

Were hiding there?

It was a row without beginning or end

And my grandparents planted

the flowers in this garden.

Vampire Weekend, “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa,” Vampire Weekend (XL, 2008).

By contrast, Vampire Weekend are American Indy pop, out of New York, and though Christian Lander might call them "the whitest band," they do cool things with the Afrobeat sound to ask, "Is the bed made?" Apparently Peter Gabriel has expressed interest in covering the song, but the jury is out over what he'll do with the lyric, "It feels so unnatural, Peter Gabriel too." Urban legend? Maybe. But it's a good story anyway.

Tinariwen, “Chatma,” Amassakoul (World Village, 2004).

This song comes from Tinariwen's second album, whose title means "Traveller." The members of this group are Tuareg people, the nomadic pastoralist inhabitants of the Saharan interior, and they play in the Tichumaren style--whose name comes from the French word chomeur, or "the unemployed"--meaning that the music centers around the sounds of the electric guitar. Historically, the style of music come into being at a time when long drought had forced many Tuareg people to seek other ways of life in urban centers, where their lack of education often left them unemployed. The call and response on this track is hypnotic, and it is tempting to read it in dialogue with African-American worksongs of the southeastern USA.

Galactic, f. Mr. Lif, “. . .And I’m Out,” From the Corner to the Block (Anti, 2007).

This disc came out the middle of 2007, but what can I say? I make up for lateness with enthusiasm. Galactic--originally Galactic Prophyllactic--come from New Orleans, and their sound is a dose of jazz and a lot of funk. This album has an array of alternative hip-hop MCs providing vocals. On this track we have Mr. Lif of solo and Perceptionists fame.

Juaneco y su Combo, “Linda Nena,” The Roots of Chicha (Barbès, 2007).

As its subtitle tells us, this album compiles "Psychedelic Cumbias from Peru," recorded between 1968 and 1978. Originally "chicha" is a corn drink made in the Andes for millennia, and though it is made from fermented maize, it exists in mildly alcoholic and non-alcoholic versions. But musically, cumbia is "a lower version of cumbia," "more popular with the lower social class." Translated? Cheap keyboards, low-end guitar effects, and surf music with the guitar replaced by accordion. The album's liner notes call Juaneco, formed in Pucallpa in 1966, "the most mythical of all Amazonia bands," as they claimed Shipibo Indian lineage, dressed in traditional costumes, and wrote songs about the clash of tradition and urbanization. In 1976, most of the band died in a plane crash, though their leader Juan Wong Paredes lived to 2004. Now the band still tours under the direction of his grandson, Mao Wong.

Ben Folds, “Free Coffee,” Way to Normal (Epic, 2008).

When I was in graduate school, my roommate was often confused by my eclectic mixes, and she would often ask, "What is the segue here?" Well, here it is thematic. Both the last song and this song deal with the ways that modern life can shock the hell out of us. Both are a little psychedelic though each of its historical moment and region of origin. Ben Folds is the king of break-up songs, hails from North Carolina, and usually plays the piano. Here you almost lose that keyboard under the other layers of synthetic hooha--but that's perfect given the singer's confusion, which is a lot like that described in "Once in a Lifetime," but overlaid with stardom:

Called in sick one day

Stepped out my front door

Squinted up at the sky

And strapped on my backpack

Got into a van

And when I returned I had

Ex-wives and children

Boxes of photographs

And they gave me some food

And they didn't charge me

And they gave me some coffee

But they didn't charge me

And when I was broke I needed more

But now that I'm rich they give me coffee

Kíla, “Ríl Rossa (5:30 a.m.),” Handel’s Fantasy (Kíla, 1992).

I discoveredDublin-based Kíla this summer in a pub near Trinity College, where I was staying. The pub in question had become my favorite rather quickly, as the food was good (and served at the dinner hour--not always true) and not too expensive (also a big deal for Dublin), the pints were well-pulled, and the atmosphere was small and cozy, though I never had a problem finding a place to sit. One night I was in there for my Guinness and stew, and the barman was playing Kíla. The table of Canadians next to me asked him to change it out for "some real Irish music." "But this is the best band in Ireland!" he replied, before agreeing to follow their request. I managed to track him down for some disc recommendations. Their sound is not as purely Celtic as this track would lead you to believe--indeed they fuseIrish and Eastern European sounds--and they have recently released an album recorded with Japanese singer Oki. This is only a small flute frenzy evoking the several albums of theirs that I came home with.

R.E.M., “I’m Gonna DJ,” Accelerate (Warner Brothers, 2008).

Did you see R.E.M. play on The Colbert Report? Had I not, I might not have gone out and bought this disc, but it has spent a lot of time riding around in my car stereo, and the more I have listened, the more it has grown on me. Besides, politically it was a great soundtrack for the last months of the Bush regime. A number of tracks on here have already made it onto my mixes in 2008, even though most of those have been themed, and centered around politics. Who knew that "Houston" would be so apt again this year? And all that? But this last track sums up some of my own ambitions--and what a way to end the mix.

That was 2008, y'all. Ready for 2009?

The McCain campaign stole this song from Heart. We're stealing it back.

HOT DAMN.

For once, the election interfered with my sleep in a GOOD way.

I admit it: I had a hard time staying awake through all the returns. So when I woke up and my friends told me that AP was calling Florida for Obama, and Virginia, and and and THE ELECTION? Well, I thought I might be dreaming. I rubbed my eyes a lot. John McCain's concession speech made me wonder if he had been body-unsnatched, as he sounded like the guy who I thought would be an OK president when he won the nomination, back before he chose Sarah Palin, and "suspended" his campaign and on and on.

When I was setting my alarm for the morning, I turned on the radio just in time to hear Barack Obama's acceptance speech--and cried. Can you believe this?

What a day this is. Everything looks different this morning.

Time for a new mix, and this one is about victory. Hot damn. But with a caveat: Track #18 hopes that voters in California, Arkansas, Florida, and Arizona won't always be haters.

I feel like taking all my clothes off, dancing to the Rite of Spring, and I wouldn't normally do this kind of thing. . . .

OH YEAH.
1. [the White House] by George Clinton
2. "Dancing in the Street" by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas
3. "Finally" by Ce Ce Peniston
4. "I Feel Better Than James Brown" by Was (Not Was)
5. "I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind of Thing" by the Pet Shop Boys
6. "New Feeling" by Talking Heads
7. "Funky Party Time" by the J.D.'s
8. "I'm So Happy (Tra-La-La-La-La-La)" by Lewis Lymon and the Teenchords
9. "Of Thee I Sing" by ??
10. "Living Well Is the Best Revenge" by R.E.M.
11. "IF you don't get it the first time, back up and try it again, Party" by Fred Wesley and the JBs
12. "Good Day, Sunshine" by the Beatles
13. "Good Times" by Chic
14. "Paragraph Persident" by Blackalicious, f. De La Soul
15. "Oh Yeah" by Yello
16. "I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide" by ZZ Topp
17. "If you want to sing out, sing out" by Cat Stevens
18. "Go West" by the Village People
19. "America the Beautiful" by Ray Charles

Come on, come on down, Sweet Virginia.

Oh hell. I thought that once this day arrived, everything would be fine. But now I am here to tell you that the time I had counted down to has arrived, I have voted, and I am still nervous as hell, despite estaminet's brilliant Lolbama.

And do you feel scared? I do, but I won't stop and falter.

I have been reading stories about voting, and my gosh what a sucker for them I am. I love to read about the lines, the voters, the witticisms, the new voters, the old voters, the amazing feeling so many of us have had to be voting this year.

The poll tax and Jim Crow and greed have got to go.

But still: it is about three hours before polls start closing here in the east, and then another four hours before the west coast closes.

We are hoping, yes and we're praying. . . .

Is there seriously enough whiskey in this world to calm my nerves?

I feel so extraordinary
Something's got a hold on me
I get this feeling I'm in motion
A sudden sense of liberty

So I am doing what I do when I cannot do anything else.

One step closer to knowing. . . .

No, I mean besides playing Word Twist on facebook. I have made a mix:

YOU FASCISTS ARE BOUND TO LOSE.
1. a clip from Parliament
2. "This Time" by INXS
3. "Things Can Only Get Better" by Howard Jones
4. "House of Hope" by Toni Childs
5. "Getting Better" by the Beatles
6. "Something's Coming" by the original cast of West Side Story
7. "Don't Worry About the Government" by Talking Heads
8. "True Faith" by New Order
9. "A Change Is Gonna Come" by Billy Bragg
10. "Hope" by Fat Freddy's Drop
11. "Message to Society" by Wally Coco
12. "Freedom" by Jurassic Five
13. a clip from Laurie Anderson
14. "High Time for a Detour" by k. d. lang and the Reclines
15. "Freedom for My People" by U2
16. "People Get Ready" by Eva Cassidy
17. "Super Good" by Dynamite Singletary
18. "Think" by Aretha Franklin
19. "Sweet Virginia" by the Rolling Stones
20. "One Step Closer" by U2
21. "All You Fascists" by Billy Bragg and Wilco

NOTE: This is not a victory mix. This is a hope mix.

When popular icons failed.

Ever have one of those days where, no matter how hard you try, it is just a little hard to concentrate? Where there is some nagging feeling back there in the background somewhere, and it just kind of interferes with everything? Where you think maybe you have suddenly developed hypertension? And you look around and wonder just how dramatically things could change--and how fast?

Yeah, me too.



So late this afternoon, when I could watch the Dow pretending it had an "n" affixed to the end of its name, I did what any person does when they are trying to hold onto their sanity.

I made a mix.

I sort of doubt I would get copies made in time for it to resonate for you the way it does for me (though I am happy to try if you like), so here it is:

"When popular icons failed (9/29/2008)"
1. Sting, "Jeremiah Blues, Pt. 2"
2. The Boomtown Rats, "Banana Republic"
3. R.E.M., "Houston"
4. Propellerheads f. Shirley Bassey, "History Repeating"
5. Blackalicious, "Sky Is Falling"
6. Billy Bragg & Wilco, "All You Fascists"
7. J.U.F., "Panic So Charming (What the Fuck Style)"
8. U2, "Bullet the Blue Sky"
9. They Might Be Giants, "Lie Still, Little Bottle"
10. Paul Simon, "Gumboots"
11. The Story, "When Two and Two Are Five"
12. Barenaked Ladies, "Who Needs Sleep?"
13. Midnight Oil, "When the Generals Talk"
14. Mr. Lif, "Home of the Brave"
15. Laurie Anderson, "Walking and Falling"
16. Ani DiFranco, "'Tis of Thee"
17. Judy Collins, "Brother Can You Spare a Dime"
18. Nick Lowe, "I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass"
19. The Rolling Stones, "19th Nervous Breakdown"
20. Paul Simon, "American Tune"
21. Billy Bragg, "Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards"

(I apologize for the duplication of Paul Simon and Billy Bragg, but hey: it is my mix.)

You don't really care for cowbell, do you?

Come on, people: can I not get any takers on my cowbell questions? No one is willing to help me with my mix?

Curses.

I got thinking about it again this morning during a spinning class, where the instructor really had a better than usual array of musical choices for my morning torment. To me, it is the music that really makes a spinning class. Too many instructors choose the a boringly typical array of musical choices. I remember back when I got certified to be a spinning instructor (certification has since lapsed), the teacher made a point of saying "Pick good music." She recommended variety, things with different levels of beats that participants could connect to, not just pop music but surprising choices.

I thought to myself, This is the job for me, because I could not only get paid for getting a workout but also apply my DJ'ing skills. Who could ask for more?

But the instructor today gave me an hour of listening pleasure. Granted, there were a few tracks in there I did not recognize, but mostly it was stuff I knew but did not expect to hear--some Ramones, the theme song to Mortal Kombat (test your might!), a medley of songs with "Jump" in the lyrics, some Shania Twayne, but then, she even included the song that I thought would be the best spinning song of all time.

Can you guess what it was?

"Sing Sing Sing" by Benny Goodman. (Luckily for us she had a shorter 6-minute version, so we did not have to spring for the full 12 minutes and 15 seconds. I have done that on my own, and it is no picnic.)

But back to the cowbell. I was trucking along, maintaining a decent cadence, enjoying the hell out of it, and when suddenly WHAMMO! I realized that Gene Krupa is a mad user of the cowbell!

Who would have guessed?

Well, really if you have ever heard the man whale on a drum set, you should have guessed. I should have guessed, because back in about 1987 I saw a film of the Benny Goodman Orchestra performing the song, and the image of him playing has not left my mind since. Let me tell you: no drummer in rock 'n' roll has anything on Gene Krupa.

The down side is that it might be tough to fit a song lasting 12:15 on my cowbell mix.

Now seriously, if you have any opinions about cowbell mixes, won't you please answer my questions?

Reflections: He laid that golden cowbell on the ground at Johnny's feet.

A while ago--uhm, yes, well, technically quite a while ago--I made mention of a long-time goal of mine: The Ultimate Cowbell Mix. At that time, I suggested that I had little to add to the world of cowbell mixes, because everything I could think of was on this list.

I take that back.

Now that I have truly set my mind to it, I have found many things not on that list, and also now I am not afraid to replicate some things that are there, too, because you know what? The world needs a decent cowbell CD.

You might be surprised by what a diverse array of cowbell music is out there, with more being produced every day! I have tried to limit myself to pretty mainstream stuff, because I figure most listeners are most interested in the cowbell music they most recognize.

There are hitches, however. I find myself listening to some tracks over and over--like "Whiskey You're the Devil" or "My Sharona"--trying to figure out: is that a cowbell? or a woodblock? or a drum rim? And although you might think "Devil's Haircut" has cowbell, it is really something more like a radiator that he is beating on. And what about "Tequila"? The sound in there may be a little too high-pitched to be cowbell, but it is not triangle--so what is it? (Personally I think that list could use some peer review: there are a number of things on it that do not really have the cowbell.)

And be warned: having ventured into the world of cowbell, you may leave with more questions than answers. For example:

* Do synthesized cowbells count?

* Why did Phil Collins not explore the world of cowbell?

* Is there something about the genre of country music that cannot tolerate the cowbell?

* Must guitar-virtuoso rock exclude cowbell? For instance, you might think Heart could get down with some cowbell, but NO, just snare and high hat.

* And what about all those tracks that you could swear have the cowbell--but then when you listen to them again with your eagle ears you find that no, that is just plain old drums or something. Like Outkast's "The Way You Move" or "I Need a Man" by the Eurythmics or "Private Eyes" by Hall and Oates. Damn, that's disappointing.

But Dear Readers, I have a few judgment calls for you. If you have opinions about cowbell mixes, would you be so kind as to leave your answers to the following questions in the comments?

1. Should my mix
a. only include the over-the-top blatant cowbell songs, like "Hey Ladies"? (FYI, I have an entire CD's worth that fits this category)
b. alternate between the blatant cowbell songs and more subtle ones, like "Owner of a Lonely Heart" where the cowbell is clearly present but not at the very forefront, or is perhaps muted?

2. When it comes to songs featuring synthesized cowbell sounds (e.g., "U Got the Look"), should I
a. include them?
b. exclude them?

3. When it comes to somewhat more out-there cowbellcentric songs, like Les Claypool's Whamola," should I
a. include one or two of them, just to show the vastness of the cowbell repertoire?
b. show no prejudice against them at all?
c. exclude them in favor of better-known cowbellery?

Anyone who votes will, if they provide me later with a mailing address, receive their very own copy of the mix.

Helping the economy.

Here is an economic stimulus program I can get behind!

Friday Random 2m42s: The cactus plants are tough on pants Edition.

Tim Jarrett has thrown down the gauntlet.

OK, I'll play.

Here's the scoop. Joshua Allen says the perfect pop song is two minutes and forty-two seconds long. The gist of the argument is "get in and get out." In our busy world, we don't have much time for recreation, and any second that a song is too long is a second wasted. But, alack, a song can be too short, too. So, he concludes, as much by example as by mathematics, 2:42 is the magic number.

I have a few questions, I must confess. For instance, Devo's "Whip It" sadly it lacks a second. But friends, can you honestly tell me that it is lacking anything else? And Aretha's "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" is, apparently, too long, as it lasts 2:43. But parentheses aside, what would you take away?

But I digress. The laws have been decreed, and I will go sit down.

Some people have already jumped on the mixtape bandwagon, starting, of course, with Allen himself. But there is more work to be done. So Tim asks, "Can you top his mix?"

In the spirit of the long-overdue Friday Random 10, and acknowledging that coming up with a decent-length mix of short songs requires quite a few of them, here is my mix(1):

1. "Folsom Prison Blues" by Johnny Cash (2)
2. "Contrary Mary" by Lightnin' Hopkins
3. "Baby Please Don't Go" by Van Morrison
4. "Leah" by Roy Orbison
5. "Forever Blue" by Chris Isaak
6. "Deep in the Heart of Texas" by Gene Autry
7. "Do What You Wanna" by Ramsey Lewis
8. "Christ for President" by Billy Bragg & Wilco
9. "(Sittin' on the) Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding
10. "Homeward Bound" by Simon & Garfunkel (live version)
11. "Do What" by Squirrel Nut Zippers
12. "Hold That Tiger" by Louis Armstrong (3)
13. "St. Louis Blues" by Django Reinhardt
14. "Gling Gló" by Björk Guðmundsdótti and Trió Guðmundar Ingólfssonar
15. "Rome Wasn't Built in a Day" by Nick Lowe (4)
16. "Tarantella Napoletana" by ????????
17. "Michelle" by The Beatles
18. "Saint Agnes and the Burning Train" by Sting
19. "That Teenage Feeling" by Neko Case
20. "Sheila Take a Bow" by The Smiths
21. "Delicius Demon" by The Sugarcubes (5)
22. "Goodnite Sweetheart, Goodnite" by The Spaniels

Note (1): Because figuring out how much extra space recordings have at the end of a song is also, as Allen would say, a goddamn waste of time, I am relying on my MediaSource jukebox's read of the song length. This means that technically my mix is at least as efficient as Allen's.

Note (2): I'm referring to the version of "Folsom Prison Blues" from the concert album recorded at Folsom Prison and San Quentin. Even with the prisoners cheering after he says "I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die," it comes in 10 seconds shorter than the studio version. What does this tell us about the value of time in prison?

Note (3): Could someone who teaches where I do really leave off "Hold That Tiger"?

Note (4): I am sorry I do not know who is performing the recording of "Tarantella Napoletana," but how could I resist it after the Nick Lowe song?

Note (5): Well, excuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse me for including a Björk song and a Sugarcubes song!

I'm burning my CD copy now. If you want one, lemme know.

World into world.

There is something surreal happening over at David Byrne's blog. Well, OK, it is technically not surreal in and of itself, but for me, reading it is.

This is one of those rare moments when one central piece of my cultural world is commenting on other central pieces. The writer, of course is Byrne, whose pop lyrics and music and even his rummaging around in the musical traditions of other places came to me at a crucial time in my discovery of the world. I know, that sounds melodramatic. But when I tried to write "in my discovery of music," that just did not encompass what I meant. I guess this is because "at that age," such simple things as music--as song lyrics or hooks or tunes--can bring a world with them. And did.

And one thing he is writing about is the concept of the standard, which he is exploring through songs from classic Disney movies and showtunes written by Cole Porter and George Gershwin. He explicitly talks about the Stay Awake compilation from 1988, the title of which I have been trying to think of since I re-encountered Tom Waits' version of "Heigh Ho" on Orphans. And although he does not specifically mention it, I cannot read his discussion without thinking of Red Hot + Blue, where, of course, Byrne contributed his own brilliant version of "Don't Fence Me In."

So, OK, strange enough.

But now he is planning to perform with Paul Simon at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Which led him to contemplate what it is about Paul Simon's music that makes it so compelling. And Paul Simon was another one of maybe four or five performers whose music dominated my teenage psyche. In the course of that discussion he talks about You're the One, a more recent album, of course, but one that immediate struck me because its lyrics seem to get what it means to grow up, to grow older. But here is what David Byrne said:

Like many others, I grew up listening to and learning the Simon & Garfunkel repertoire. However, it was one of his more recent records — You’re the One — that really knocked me out, even more than Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints, which one might expect me to identify with, since I was also collaborating with musicians from Africa and Brazil around the same time. The record didn’t sell that well, but to my ears, he had finally internalized all he’d learned from his earlier collaborations. He had made something that didn’t sound like any of his sources or inspirations, yet couldn’t have been made without them. We crossed paths somewhere and I told him how much I liked that record and maybe that helped break the ice.

Some months ago, we started meeting occasionally and we’d fall into talking about how we write and what the process is and where we get stuck and when it’s easy. I would sit, rapt, as I felt like I was hearing the words of a master songwriter, a kind of magician who was going to reveal to me, over lunch, some of his best tricks. Here was a more contemporary Gershwin or Cole Porter who was going to tell me a little of how it was done. Listen up.

Well, it didn’t happen exactly like that. Specific harmonic devices don’t always work for everyone in the same way, for example. At times, Paul and I might actually use very similar ways of writing words, but in the end, what we gravitate to — the lyrics we choose to be best and most suitable — is unique to each of us. So his tricks are essentially useless to me. I could, however, extrapolate, and find common ground in the decision-making process along the way. Our discussions yielded more about what might drive an artist to continue creating than they did songwriting advice. What does one do when confronted with a problem? And how can an artist remain passionate and interested in writing little songs?

Why I spend most of my disposable income on music.

Twice recently, I have, through music, found myself facing a confrontation between a younger me and the present me.

The first happened at a recent performance here by the National Symphony Orchestra, who were just completing a residency in South Carolina, which included concerts here and in several other cities in the Upstate. Among other pieces on their program was Ravel's orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. Had you been there for my childhood, you would know that this was a piece I loved, listening to it over and over again, studying descriptions of the paintings on which it was based, learning to place many parts of the original piano score, incorporating parts of it into the "soundtrack" for a slideshow, about Lucien Stryk's poem "Crow," that I made as a school project in middle school. My favorites were always the big bossy parts and the minor-key spooky parts--the little gnome, the big peasant cart, the section about Baba Yaga. My family had an LP recording of the orchestral version and at some point I bought an LP of the piano version.

(Apparently I was less interested in Mussorgsky by the time I was buying CDs, because I realized after the concert that I had neither version.)

As far as I can recall, this was the first time I have ever watched a performance of this piece, and I have little training in orchestral music. The result was that I knew what the piece was supposed to sound like, but I had not ever considered what instruments were making those sounds, which left me wholly unprepared for the giant bell during the Great Gates at Kiev--which the percussionist had to climb a stepladder to even reach.

More than anything, though, I was unprepared for the emotional encounter I would have with the piece, because there, sitting next to me in the balcony, or perhaps in my lap, was a much younger me, whose enthusiasm for this over the top intensity had not been tempered by years of sarcasm and irony. Instead, this person still delighted in the music--still remembering the progressions of the piece just before they happened, reveling in the wobbly rhythms of the ballet of the little unhatched chicks, feeling chills in her scalp when the percussion section went to work in final section.

When I was in high school, I fell in love with Shostakovich's 5th Sympony, and especially its enormous final movement. Or maybe just as much, with the anticipation in the third movement of what is to come in that final movement. So much of music is about time passing and time to come, and for music that you know well, the pleasure of anticipation is as powerful as the pleasure of the sounds themselves. In a symphonic performance, this anticipation can be even greater, as you watch the middle strings ready their bows, or the tuba player place the world's biggest mute in the bell of his horn, or you watch a percussionist raise the big clapper.

But I digress from my digression: One time during my first year of college I was riding with a classmate to an off-campus gathering. His car was convertible, it was a beautiful day, and he was blasting Shostakovich from his super-duper stereo. "I absolutely love this piece!" I said, thinking to myself how different college was from high school and how here there were people who thought like me. "I know," he said, "It is such magnificent kitsch!"

I was crest-fallen. I knew what kitsch was from reading the novels of Milan Kundera, who associated kitsch with everything that was aesthetically, intellectually, and ethically wrong with Soviet Russia. How could something that I loved so much, that I took so seriously, be kitsch?

The person who sat in my lap during the NSO concert had never heard of kitsch, and if this piece was on the program because it was so well known as to be unoffensive, well, that had never occurred to her either. And what an unadulterated thrill it was to hear that music through her ears!

The second such confrontation happened last night, when I went to see U2 3D. Had you lived in my house when I was in high school, you would remember that numerous large photographs of the members of this band adorned my walls, that I had all their albums (well, technically, their tapes...), and that, well, maybe I will not today confess to my fierce crush on Bono. That was about 20 years ago (oy), but did you know that even after 20 years' time, those feelings do not go away either?

Rock music is unbelievable that way, because there I was in the Hollywood 20 last night, wearing my 3D-glasses, reduced to the powerful feelings of a teenager. But not exactly: because I was still partly my present self, but also that earlier self, as I imagined myself in what seemed to be the world's largest soccer arena, watching this band that can still kick some serious ass with all the power that they did back in the day. Granted, Bono wasn't talking about the Troubles directly (and I wonder if most of the folks in the crowd in Buenos Aires, like my students, have no memory of that), or about Apartheid, but the songs were still there, now applicable to other horrors, and he still performs an unabashed disgust at these recent incarnations. The Edge and Adam Clayton and the only drummer I can think of who uses the appelation ", Jr." as a part of his name were still unbelievably excellent to watch. It took me back to the Hampton Coliseum and the Joshua Tree tour, when I was having my eardrums blasted away and straining to get as close to a band as a person could from the upper ring of seating. It reminded me of playing Rattle and Hum over and over and over, listening to a tape of it in the car with a friend who could never get the lyrics to "Desire" right. And of listening to "Hallelujah, Here She Comes" on my walkman as I walked to the music building in college.

So today I went out and bought a new CD recording of Pictures at an Exhibition, and the remastered Joshua Tree, and Zooropa, all of which I used to have, in some non-digital format. I am thrilled to hear them again, even though I know that in playing them again and again now, I am inadvertently exorcising the spirits that inhabit them.

Gone For Good: Music of 2007 in Review.

Just about everyone has his or her or its "Best of" list for music of 2007, and I cannot resist a bandwagon. But to put a personal twist on things, my list is not exclusively music released on 2007, but rather music I discovered in 2007. That means that there are some older things on there--many of which you probably already knew before this year. But so be it: sometimes I am behind the times.

ISIS'S'S'S TOP 12 NEW [to her] SONGS OF 2007
(listed in an order in which she could imagining listening to them)

1. David Byrne, "The Sound of Business," from Music for the Knee Plays (Nonesuch CD release, 2007).
Originally released in 1985, this stuff is finally on CD--and I did not have to resort to high-tech maneuvering to make it so! I remember a lot of the tracks from the cassette that I may still own but that probably no longer plays. The CD comes with a great insert explaining (for those of you who, like I, have long wondered) what a "knee play" is ("the 'joints' that hold together the larger scenes--even Shakespeare used them." Well, shame on my English-PhD ass) and giving schematics of the various acts. But with or without apparatus, "The Sound of Business" is a great track, in its mid-1980s minimalist horn-playing way.

They were driving south on the highway.
Their business was in another town,
Bigger than the town they were driving from.
Business took place during office hours in both towns.
This drive was considered business.
The feeling of passing other cars was also considered business:
The feeling of business being done.
The feeling of drifting slowly through a field of moving vehicles.
This was the real speed.
The speed of business, not the numbers on the spedometer.

I love it that his examples of oldies, "gone for good," includes one of his own songs.

2. Black Devil Disco Club, "The Devil in Us," from 28 After (Lo, 2006).
Your guess is as good as mine--and numerous other people's--as to whether this is the same band as Black Devil from 1978, whether these are new songs on this album, or whether they are some thirty-odd years old. The important thing is that there is something timelessly compelling about the beats, the synth, the groove.

3. LCD Soundsystem, "Daft Punk Is Playing At My House," from LCD Soundsystem (2005).
Who would not love the idea of your favorite band playing in your very own house? All the kids wanting to crowd in? Every kid for miles in your house? And the neighbors can't call the police?

4. The Dresden Dolls, "My Alcoholic Friends, from Yes, Virginia. . . (Roadrunner, 2006).
This album has made a significant contribution to getting me through the fear and anger of my Year of the Shoulder. Wow, I can almost remember back to a time when I thought there was no way I could possibly bear to have surgery. Ha! Two surgeries later, the saga continues. I'll be on my best behavior, taking shots for mother nature. . . .

5. Andrew Bird, "Imitosis," from Armchair Apocrypha (Fat Possum, 2007).
In some ways, this is yet another loneliness song, but what a cool twist--a reminder that a desire for closeness comes from nothing but micro-organisms. Add that to very layered music, featuring what seem to be strings, xylophone, and well, coolness: not too bad. How can gametes be so mean?

6. The Real Tuesday Weld, "The Day Before You Came," from Backspin: A Six Degrees 10 Year Anniversary Project (Six Degrees, 2007).
From a compilation where Six Degrees recording artists cover songs that influenced them, this is easily the most ass-kicking ABBA cover that you could ever imagine. Especially if your imagination leans towards songs of travellers and cabaret's darker underbelly.

7. Taraf de Haïdouks, "Asturias," from Maškaradă (Crammed, 2007).
What a cool concept for the latest album from the mack daddies of Romani gypsy music: performances of music written by such early twentieth-century composers as Béla Bartók, Aram Khachaturian, and Albert Ketèlbey--all of whom borrowed heavily from Roma music. Now the music is "re-gypsified" (isn't that a Police song, "Regypsify Yourself"?). My favorite track is "Asturias," written by Isaac Albéniz. Trust me: however much you liked this piece before (have you heard Christopher Parkening's recording of it?), it rocks so much harder now.

8. Mahala Raï Banda, "L'Homme Qui Boit (The Man Who Drinks)," from their self-titled album (Crammed, 2004).
It turns out that the reason I was rejected as artistic director for the Clemson U. marching band is that I wanted their entire half-time show to be built around the music of the horn section of this band: these guys are all army brass band veterans. Elsewhere on the CD you find some excellent Romanian violins and accordions, but this one is all about the brass. Huppah!

9. Luminescent Orchestrii, "Knockin'," from Too Hot To Sleep (2005).
Probably the most accessible track from this band, who can lay down hot folk fiddle and random electronic play equally comfortably. According to their intro when they performed here back in February, the song is about their neighborhood in Brooklyn: "I was watching your lips while we were walking, you were talking / I wasn't listening but watching your lips. / Down to the corner store and right back up the stairs."

10. Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint, "The River In Reverse" from The River in Reverse (Verve, 2006).
By now I'm sure everyone knows about the collaboration between Elvis Costello and New Orleans R&B legend Allen Toussaint. Many tracks from Toussaint's catalogue, but I think this one is written by EC. Wake me up with a slap or a kiss indeed.

11. Nick Lowe, "I Trained Her To Love Me," from At My Age (Yep Roc, 2007).
This is one of those strange pop songs, written by someone good at writing pop songs, that seems to take the pop genre apart at the same time it builds it up. It reminds me of Paul Simon's "You're the One" and and Billy Bragg's "Jane Allen," and Bob Dylan's "Summer Days": they are more about age than youth, and their look at love is a little more complicated that pop music usually allows. "Do you see the way she lights up when I walk in the room--that's good. / And a skip in her step when we're both out walking in the neighborhood. / This one's almost done, now to watch her fall apart. / I trained her to love me so I can go ahead and break her heart." Sure, revenge is not a particularly complicated notion, but I love the way the song starts out making you think it is sweet, and then it most certainly is not.

12. Tom Waits, "Young At Heart" from Orphans (Anti, 2006).
What could be better than a sleepy slide steel remake of this standard than a voice so distinctively not young at all? Nothing, that's what.

Don't give up on your trees, boy.

So I was just listening to the CD that came with the June/July issue of The Believer and working on the fourth piece of the PP's Christmas sweater, and something occurred to me.

(But first a digression: the fifth track on the CD is "The Painter" by I'm From Barcelona. The liner notes note: "There are twenty-nine people in I'm From Barcelona. They're from Sweden, not Spain. In Sweden, twenty-nine people may sometimes be considered a small town." Anyway, the song starts, "I'm just a painter, I do my crappy art, but I see what's in your eyes and I know what's in your heart." I thought it went "I'm just a painter, I do my crappy yard," and I thought, well, yeah, if you're a painter you don't pay for someone to mow your grass and it probably does look like hell. So then when the refrain came around, I thought it was "Don't give up on your trees, boy" [actual lyrics = replace "trees" with "dreams": I like my version better], and I ultimately think this was a subliminal message to me from I'm From Barcelona, because we have a beautiful old tree in our front yard that is slowly dying, and we are trying to decide whether to spend circa $800 to try to save it or just give up now and spend the $2000 to have it taken down. I think we're leaning toward keeping it around for a few more years, thanks to the "message" from the boys actually from Sweden.)

Anyway, as I was knitting and listening to "Everybody's Down" by No Age, described by the Believer folks as "one of three loud duos on this compilation," I thought to myself, "This is not the music I would have chosen for knitting, and yet I am enjoying myself immensely.

So this brings me (finally) to my point, which is actually a question for you, both of my readers: do you have particular tunes that you think go particularly well with particular activities? And what happens when you diverge from your preferred tendencies?

The ultimate haywire comes home to roost.

On Monday morning I went to meeting of a reading group, and I had to make the following excuse: "I did not do the reading, because this weekend, my house was overrun by a band of gypsies."

Sure, you are probably thinking. And your non-existent dog ate your homework.

Or maybe you are thinking, Honey, back away from the Bruno archives.

But I am not making this up.

You see, on Saturday night the PP and I and some friends went to see the Luminescent Orchestrii at the The Bohemian/Horizon Records, where they were giving a concert that was also a recording for WCNW's Tower of Song series. For those of you who, like me, have a bit of a thing for the Romanian gypsy sound, or klezmer, or tango nuevo, or all of the above, you should not pass up a chance to see Luminescent Orchestrii, as they are fantastic musicians and singers who bring together a wonderful hybrid sound that will launch you from your seat, whether you do or do not know how to dance to something in 11/7 time. Dance anyway. Life is short.

Anyway, mid-way through the second set, they noted between songs that they needed a place to stay, and the PP's head nearly spun around three times. What he was thinking, it turns out, is that we have two extra bedrooms plus a futon couch and that we should put these people up. Life is short.

So we did.

As our friends who we'd gone to the concert with were leaving, they said, "if you take the gypsies home, be sure not to take home the groupies." Luckily, we so succeeded. The band packed up their stuff, packed their instruments and gear into their mini-van (like a well-oiled packing machine, I might note), and off we all went to our house.

Over limoncello and herbal tea, my fantasy of talking about my current favorite kind of music with actual practitioners came true. When I noted that one of their songs sounded like Astor Piazzolla, they acknowledged his influence. They told us a little about trips to Romania and Hungary and various gypsy music festivals, and then everyone went off to respective bedrooms and crashed.

In the morning, the PP and one of the band member brought home pastries and we all feasted and chatted, and after a while everyone went off to do his or her own thing. It all seemed so normal, yet so not: at one point I realized that we had a fiddler playing on our front porch, a bassist listening to my CDs of Renaissance choral music back in the TV room, and the guitarist practicing riffs in my study. Later the bassist joined him in my study and they worked out a new song. I kept looking at the PP in disbelief, only to be greeted with a similar disbelieving look from him.

Then they left, and the house was silent, as if none of it had ever happened. But there is still, several days later, this great creative energy here in the study.

Friday Random 9: Radio Isis.

I was reading Ian Williams's blog the other day, and he talked (in service of a different point) about technology that lets you broadcast your iPod to cars around you on the highway, sometimes reaching them whether they want you to or not. I am interested in the possibilities of this technology for pirate radio, although perhaps with a very small range. I have always wanted to run such a station (I know, Pump Up the Volume at an impressionable age), but now this may be the way to do it on the cheap.

Or would it be more like k. d. lang on your trucker's CB?

Anyway, I am even more inspired after yesterday morning's random mix on my mp3 player, which freakin' rocked. If only all the poor souls traveling with me on highway 123 could have joined in the fun!

Here's the best I can reconstruct of what it looked like:
"She's Leaving Me Because She Really Wants To," Lyle Lovett (Joshua Judges Ruth)
"O Paalanhaare," Lata Mangeshkar, Udit Narayan, Chorus (Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India)
"Dancing Machine," Jackson 5
"Dodge the Dodo," Esbjörn Svensson Trio (Somewhere Else Before)
"O Caminho," Bebel Gilberto (Bebel Gilberto)
"Bella Simamaer" Björk Guđmundsdóttir (Gling-Gló)
"Junkie Song," The Be-Good Tanyas (Chinatown)
"Karsilama," Talip Ozkan (The Dark Fire)
"Ava (Space Dance Mix)," David Byrne (Forestry)

And as can sometimes happen in surprising ways, the segues were even nice.

She likes wearing lipstick.

When last we saw our Goddess, before she did that disappearing trick that she tends to pull when there are big time-consuming changes in the world such as a move of household, a laptop-free trip, or, oh, the beginning of a new semester, she was contemplating men. Not literally contemplating particular men, mind you, but men as a genre, a concept, a phenomenon. More specifically, she was focused on how the world of music might lead us to understand what exactly a man is.

Here is the one thing she can tell you from her explorations: the world of music has not made up its mind.

Who gets to define macho, by the way? Is it the Village People? Or the Rolling Stones? Or the Pogues? And is it better to be Handy or Sweet-Loving? Do we trust Tom Waits or John Brim more when it comes to Ice Cream Men? Are the categories designated by Soul Man, Zydeco Man, Kitchen Man, Television Man, and Magic Man useful for delineating the male gender, or do they function more like that Chinese encyclopedia that Borges mentions and Foucault loves?

And, we are sad to report, the Goddess's collection of pop contemplations of masculinity was not as comprehensive as it could have been, what with omissions of "Stand By Your Man," "Man Out of Time," and other versions of "I'm Your Man"--only to name those left in comments here and on The Art of the Mix. Further exploration of her own archive has led to wonder why she had also left out "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)" or Antibalas' "Big Man," not to mention "Cuchy Frito Man" or "What's a Man to Do" or "Love Me Like a Man."

But now is not the time for a wide survey--no no no that boat has come and gone.

Today we need to talk about ZZ Top.



Because that, friends, is an interesting place to think about men. I do not really mean here that very many men who I have encountered are much like ZZ Top, because there is simply not that much facial hair in our world. But as I was listening to the I'm Your Man mix, I came to "Sharp Dressed Man," and it stirred up something old, as though there were something primal about that kind of guitar and that kind of simple drum line and deep voices--something that says: MAN.

Not "man," like the kind of person you would like to have an interesting conversation with, or you would like to glance at while you read the paper and drink coffee on a Sunday morning, or you could spend the better part of an evening talking about why Seabiscuit is a movie you are afraid to go see.

No, instead, I realize that this is a vision of "man" that planted itself in the now solidified inner reaches of my teenage sense of gender identity--the same place where adolescent anxieties and social pressures give you a sense of what to wear and what not to, how to walk if you ever want to have a date, what hair is for and why make-up is important. And so there I was, driving down the road, listening to my mix, a reasonably mature adult person suddenly transformed into a wiggly teenager wondering about what a person of another sex is like.

And really: does every girl go crazy for a sharp-dressed man? and are cheap sunglasses the first thing you go get when you get up in the morning and the light is hurt your head? and does she like whips and chains, whether or not she is all he can manage? and that girl who lives on the hill, is it true her sister will?

It does not matter, because these are songs about innuendo, which felt sly when we all first heard them. Who could believe they were singing about tush, and pearl necklaces, and tube snake boogie on the radio? But they were! And they do. And they get major gigs doing it!

And the odd thing for this goddess, who tends to think of herself as different from that teenager who was mesmerized by these visions of adulthood, is how intensely compelling this music still is--how it can still hit that primal point and ignite something intense. And face it, people: you want to drive around with your speakers amped and your windows down when you listen to "La Grange," and you want to pretend that you can sing like that and play the guitar like that while you're waving your long long beard around. You want to be able to play a retro-looking guitar while wearing hat and gloves. You want to be that kind of man, to know how to live in the world of that kind of man. Even if it is just for a minute or two.

I'm your man.

Back before I lost all my playlist data, I had made a new mix, which entertained me while I decorated our Christmas tree, and which fortunately I saved on my mp3 player, so it survived the great erasure. It started out as a CD, but it quickly got too big, and it almost seemed there was nothing I could cut--not if I wanted it to have the expansiveness that I did want it to have.

So here it is. Please note that it extends beyond the 30 tracks allowed in a playlist by Art of the Mix.

It started with "I'm Your Man," by Leonard Cohen, which I've been listening to again after finishing season 1 of The L-Word, in whose last episode the song features prominently. Then I started wondering about men. And the mix is how music answered my questions.

Shimmy Shimmy, Ko-Ko Bop.

I thought I had a pretty good New Year's Eve party planned. There will be champagne with pomegranate seeds in it (for extra festivity). There will be a sit-down dinner, featuring a fabulous (if I may say so myself) Asian-inflected panko-topped baked salmon and some vegetables or other. There will be desserts brought by my guests. There will be plenty of wine for everyone. There will be an array of ridiculous hats that people can take turns wearing. There will be leftover Christmas crackers, with the dumb jokes, the little toys, and the hilarity-generating paper crowns. There will be "Dance for Our Evil Pleasure."

What? You have never played "Dance for Our Evil Pleasure"? The game started from a game I used to play at New Years with my friends from college. At that time it was called "Crazy Crazy Eights," and basically you play Crazy Eights but we made up a whole array of special "values" for each number. There would be a large poster on the wall, so that you would know what it meant to play any individual card to the person sitting next to you. Sure, there were things like "draw 4" or "change direction of play" like in Uno. But then there might be:

King = drink
Queen = remove an item of clothing
Jack = change direction
10 = wear something dorky on your head
8 = wild
6 = draw four
5 = drink some more

You get the idea. Then one year we added

7 = dance for our evil pleasure

Everyone else got to choose the music and you had to dance to it until we thought it was hilarious enough and then you could sit down.

So for our friends last year I decided that we were all drinking plenty, and probably no one was interested in undressing, and frankly everyone was already wearing hilarious hats. What was missing? Dancin'! So we assigned "dance for our evil pleasure" to several different numbers and away we went.

You should try it with your friends, but first you need to collect an array of appropriate music. Here are some tracks I can personally recommend:

"Another One Bites the Dust" by Queen
"Rock Lobster" by The B-52's
"Walk Like an Egyptian" by The Bangles
"Deep in the Heart of Texas" by Gene Autry
"Dancing Machine" by The Jackson 5
"The Ride of the Valkyries" by anyone at all
"Brick House" by The Commodores
"Hit Me with Your Best Shot" by Pat Benatar
"Axel F" by Harold Faltermeyer
"The James Bond Theme" by the Monty Norman Orchestra
"Land of 1000 Dances" by Wilson Pickett
"Honky Tonk Women" by The Rolling Stones
"I Wear My Sunglasses at Night" by Corey Hart
"Milkshake" by Kelis
"Jam on It" by Newcleus
"Arabski kjuchek" by Yuri Yunakov
"Soul Bossa Nova" by Quincy Jones
"Balkanization of Americanization" by J.U.F.
"Grazing in the Grass" by Hugh Masakela
"Middle of the Road" by The Pretenders

But really the possibilities are endless!

Well, anyway, I thought my New Year's Party plans were the very best of the best, until I came across this! Now, that would seriously rock.

I hope your New Year's Eve is fun and safe. What are your plans?

Saturday Random 10: What happened to Friday? Edition.

Oopsie. It appears that Friday kind of slip slid away. So it goes over holiday break, I guess.

Here's hoping everyone out there is enjoying the holidays, wherever they have taken you, and whatever new additions to your family you have around. I am happy for the time with my parents visiting and the opportunities for extra swimming, which is just what the body needs this time of year, if you know what I mean. And for a change, I seem to have my act mostly together--tree up and decorated, outdoor lights and garlands up, grocery shopping done, Christmas cards done, gifts wrapped, stockings hung by the chimney with care.

I have recently rebuilt my two Christmas music playlists, so in honor of that, here is a Random 10 taken entirely from one of them. Originally I had everything together, but Andy Williams singing "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" can be a rather abrupt transition from the Monks and Nuns of Prinknash & Stanbrook Abbeys. So now I have one big mix with the more classical stuff (easily the majority of what I have) and another little one with Sufjan Stevens and friends. This random 10 comes from the former. (I should note that the classical mix also has some music not specifically for Christmas (Hildegard von Bingen, Arvo Pärt, Erik Satie, etc.) that to my ear sounds wintery.):

1. "Angelus ad virginem," New York's Ensemble for Early Music (Nova: A Medieval Christmas)
2. "Greensleeves (alternate take 6)," Vince Guaraldi (A Charlie Brown Christmas, with bonus tracks)
3. "Evergreen," London Symphony Orchestra (Winterscapes)
4. "Let There Be Peace on Earth," Peter Kater (For Christmas)
5. "Vox clara, ecce, intonat," Anonymous 4 (On Yoolis Night)
6. "Motet: Singt, ihr lieben Christen all," Hazel Holt & Maureen Keetch (Sopranos); Roger Norrington/Heinrich Schütz Choir (A Baroque Christmas)
7. "Senher Dieus-Lux refulget," Boston Camerata, dir. Joel Cohen, Sharq Arabic Music Ensemble (A Mediterranean Christmas)
8. "Ego Humilitas," Sequentia (Hildegard von Bingen: Ordo Virtutum, disc 1 of 2)
9. "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people," London Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, Sir Adrian Bolt (Handel: Messiah Arias)
10. "Magnificat Antiphonen - II O Adonai," Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir / Tönu Kaljuste (dir.) (Pärt: Beatus, Choral Works)