genushaha

life is good...

2008-02-07T13:57:00.000-05:00

...because Erykah Badu is coming out with a new record, hooray! If I ever get through the A's I'll be raving about her soon, but for now whet your appetite for what I'm certain will be the greatest album of the 21st century with the link in in the title.

Another note: I am soooooo annoyed with google's new imposition of security garbage just so I can search election law or whatever that I am trying to boycott it, which mean I will be moving this blog soon.

I am a champion

2008-01-09T23:38:00.000-05:00

Another pastime which stirs my insanely focused passions is fantasy football. I joined a new league this year and am proud to report that after 17 grueling weeks the Durham Bullmastiffs has won the first title of the Tony Dorsett Division in the fantasy leagues hosted by No-Offseason. It's a little site but in the ever noisier world of fantasy football commentary it is nice to find some folks who actually know of what they speak. Although the one remark there that first caught my eye with which I most emphatically agreed turned out to be dead wrong. Anyway, I finished at 12-5 in a very competitive league - no one was mathematically eliminated from the Championship with four weeks to go - even though on paper I've got a middle of the pack team. I'd like to thank Tony Romo, Braylon Edwards, Anquan Boldin, Jerricho Cotchery and especially my linebacking corps of Patrick Willis, Nick Barnett and E.J. Henderson for this glorious victory. My LBs totally dominated.

This joy of finally winning an FF title is tempered by having the worst season ever for the team I share with Lee Wrights in our home league, the Carolina Huddle. 3-11. Ugh. But there is a silver lining, we get Darren McFadden next year. Which may not be a good thing. The Huddle is notorious for ruining players in the most spectacular ways. Players who ended their careers (figuratively if not literally) on the Huddle include Rae Carruth, Fred Lane, Jamaal Anderson, Priest Holmes and most recently, Michael Vick and Travis Henry. We can probably take the blame for Daunte Culpepper too. Which is too bad, I really liked Daunte. It happens in all the little things too. This year we picked up Anthony Gonzalez off the waiver wire, an excellent acquisition, but wouldn't you know it he broke his thumb on his very first play after we picked him up. I'm reduced to making trade offers for players I hate in hopes that they too will suffer. I mean, if we are stuck with this curse we might as well use the power for good.

If you want to hear the long glorious detailed history of how I built a winning dynasty team, I posted the legend under my sports message board moniker MahSoonerz here. I spend so much time studying fantasy football that I am getting it together to write regularly on it. I'm putting together my off-season IDP cheatsheets and team-by-team analysis and will be shopping them around soon.

Alien Project

2008-01-09T22:27:00.000-05:00

One of the first things I found when I ventured out into the torrent world was a 16.7 GB collection of psytrance from the first half of this decade. Hundreds of records, sad that I can't find it again now that demonoid is dead. Pam thought this was easily one of the most insane acts of my insane music collecting hobby. When she asked me what I was going to do with 16.7 GB of one kind of music, I answered that I only really wanted to get a flavor for the genre.

I loved a lot of the techno of the early 90s but really hadn't kept up with it, so I was happy to take a week to download this sucker. I only ended up keeping maybe a fifth of it. Most techno is just a mindless thump-thump-thump with maybe one boring hook dropped on top of that. God I hate that. I'm to the point where if any song starts with thump-thump-thump, I'm gone before the third thump.

But when the mindless techno thumping comes along with good melody, it will probably keep my interest. I find it fascinating that psytrance is very much not mainstream but thrives in odd corners of the world like Goa, Sao Paulo, Johannesburg and Tel Aviv. I found I gravitated towards the Israeli bands in the collection.

Although I only found a portion of that torrent worth keeping, there were a number of real gems in there. You'd think with a title like Don't Worry, Be Groovy! and the ghastly cheap anime cover, this album would be one of the first not to make the cut. But then I've been listening to Donovan for the last three days so I am fully prepared to defend groovy. This album is particularly melodic and happy. Happy is a requirement for me - who wants cynical dreary dance music? I mean, really. Don't worry and be groovy indeed.

Rahim AlHaj

2008-01-09T22:24:00.000-05:00

AlHaj is from Iraq and plays the oud. I like the oud. It is a very pleasant sound.

Alexandroid

2008-01-09T22:00:00.000-05:00

A nifty little glitchy Russian electronic band. They have a couple other records than False Starts, but really I only love them for one song, "Rhodes Theme," which I first heard on the Datcha Studio 2 compilation. Three and a half minutes of a very pleasant floating electronic organ melody, and then at the very end a sample breaks in of the female voice mail voice saying, "You have 937 messages, all of which are marked Urgent." Cracks me up every time.

Arthur Alexander

2008-01-09T21:41:00.000-05:00

I have Rick Cornell at WXDU to thank for this one. I subbed a couple times for his show on Saturdays nights which was one hour of "Border Radio" followed by one called "Soul City." The latter concentrated on the old 60s soul sound, and probably due to his influence the station has a strong collection of early soul and funk from all the bands you never heard of, especially from North Carolina.

While I enjoyed doing these shows and found plenty of great material to fit the themes, this genre really doesn't do much for me. There's something missing to me from most very early soul or country music. I was talking with Sarah recently about the difference between Bob Wills and Milton Brown and posited that Brown was just too primitive a sound for my modern sensibilities. But that's not it, because I can listen to Charlie Patton's "Hang it on the Wall" all day and all night long and that's about as primitive as you can get. Haven't quite figured out what that is yet, and I'm not all that concerned.

Arthur Alexander is easily my favorite of that early 60's soul sound. Like a lot of southerners making soul records before Motown, there's a big dollop of country in there too. Just counted, I have precisely four albums of artists I would put in the same class. The other three are by Percy Sledge, Bettye Swann, and Archie Bell and the Drells. So yeah, cream of the crop, even haters like me love Rainbow Road.

Air

2008-01-09T21:22:00.000-05:00

I was reading the Wikipedia entry on Air to get a handle on the language to describe my mixed feelings about them. It says AIR to them is a French acronym meaning Love, Imagination, Dream, which is a platform I would vote for in a heartbeat and explains their appeal. The earlier albums are my favorites, especially their first Moon Safari. Just the dreamiest of dreampop. The Moog Cookbook remix of their "Kelly Watch the Stars" on the Splendour soundtrack is about the most fun three minutes of anyone's life. Basically the airier they are, the better. With each new album their sound gets progressively more mainstream and not in a good way. It's just like a band you love from another country until they start singing their songs in English and you realize just how incredibly trite they are. I found their latest, Pocket Symphony, totally wretched, as listenable as rancid raw chicken. Talkie Walkie is as far as I can go with them.

And then I saw two words in the part about their influences that explained everything to me: Pink Floyd. That's exactly it. There's a beautiful otherworldly quality to early Pink Floyd. But with both bands, the more their sound becomes of this earth, the uglier it gets. What if Pink Floyd loved people instead of hating them and had modern synthesizers - that's Air.

Aesop Rock

2008-01-09T21:18:00.000-05:00

I found most of his records annoying, but I kept two Bazooka Tooth and Daylight because they have some really good beats. I'm afraid if I listen to these two too closely, I will find them annoying as well.

Acid House Kings

2007-12-24T03:21:00.000-05:00

Backtracking a bit, I went and got some Acid House Kings records when I got to Club 8, since it's basically the same people. Club 8 is just the dreamiest. AHK is less so, but still amusing enough to keep around. It is just so gleefully yuppie. I mean, look at these guys. Tennis anyone? That is soooooo not rock and roll. I wish they had been around in the 80s because we really could have used them then.

Trace Adkins

2007-12-24T01:49:00.000-05:00

I have Pam to thank for this one. When we got together I thought one of the oddest things about this delightfully odd person was her love of mainstream country music. Not part of the whole Yankee new age artist profile. Until then I didn't care for it, but in hindsight that was when we were just emerging from the long national nightmare that was Garth Brooks. But now I understand.

Part of it is that country is about the only mainstream genre not churning out piles of steaming crap. One of the main reasons why the Holy Record Industry is failing is they forgot music is supposed to be something people enjoy hearing. Instead they focus on promoting stars, most of whom stink when it comes to actually singing interesting songs. I mean, did anyone really ever like 50 Cent, or was it just the tattoos? Isn't Beyonce urging Time Warner customers to upgrade their service her best work in years? Didn't anyone notice when Madonna transformed into a creepy old perv with no rhythm? Did anyone not working for Sony ever buy a Jennifer Lopez record? Doesn't it tell you something that a new Britney Spears record everyone mocks mercilessly is the best seller of the Christmas season? And then they wonder why we don't flock to pay $15 a pop for their product.

One part I find amusing is that country music always had the same songwriting ethic as rap. And that's where Trace Adkins appears in our story. "Songs About Me," that pretty much says it all. Singing or rapping in the first person about your own experience works when you like the singer or at least think they has something interesting to say, and Trace Adkins is a really cool guy.

There's a live and let live attitude in his music that as a Libertarian I find very appealing. Adkins loves people and loves life and it shines through. He stands for all the true, honest all-American values such as dressing your wife up in sexy lingerie or drinking heavily in bars or just good old fashioned girl watching. Though I do just have one problem with that video for "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk," in that none of the girls in it has a booty worthy of the title. So just close your eyes and imagine you're seeing "Baby Got Back" instead and it'll be ok.

But here I am going on about values and missing my own damn point. Which is that I really like the music. I don't have anything brilliant to say about it. It's just simple traditional country music done very well. Songs that talk to people in their everyday lives in a kind and understanding way. The themes may have changed from rambling songs to ones about arranging visitation, but the appeal is the same. He's got a great deep voice and surrounds himself with some fine musicians. Maybe that's another reason why country remains relatively vital in the sea of corporate bilge product - they always placed a high value on musicianship.

One odd soulseek note, Trace Adkins and Tegan and Sara are the two artists most likely to be downloaded by people who don't share. Why it's the two of them, I don't quite get it.

So thanks sweetie, without you I could never appall all my hip friends by posting about how Trace Adkins is the only decent popular artist today.

Hasil Adkins

2007-12-24T01:17:00.000-05:00

My Insane Project continues, even to this day. I'm in the middle of Devo now, almost a quarter of the way through. So I have a lot of catching up to do if I want to write about it all. Sarah suggests I just write about selected artists if I want to get this done, but that somehow feels like cheating.

So anyway, Hasil Adkins. The concept of writing about him fills me with ennui, took me a bit to figure out why. Adkins, dead now, was a one man band from the back hills of West Virginia. I tried to see him two or three times, but every time he canceled the show within 48 hours of the gig because he was too busy doing that reclusive stuff one man bands do in rural West Virginia. Whatever that is. I'm sure I don't want to know.

At first I thought I had a block writing about Hasil because I had nothing new to say about him. Knew that wasn't quite it. After a time I realized this sentiment implies that I wouldn't necessarily recommend him to anyone who hadn't heard him yet. Which isn't quite right either. I mean, as far as clinically insane one man band rock and roll freak outs go, Hasil remains the master. He's got the full blast runaway caboose with the wheels loose energy that reminds you why rock and roll ever meant anything. His frenetic version of "High School Confidential" still is the most amazing thing this side of Jerry Lee Lewis' original. And even though a lot of Adkins' appeal is his humor, unlike most comedy or novelty records it still brings a smile to my face. Hard not to love someone who is having so much damn fun.

But then it hit me. One of the oddly moralistic aspects of aging is that cutting some poor girl's head off and hanging it on your wall just isn't quite as funny any more. Even if it is so she won't eat no more hot dogs, which is about as just a cause for murder as any I could name.

why I am so tolerant

2007-10-15T05:56:00.000-05:00

Coming back to the state where I grew up is fascinating. I have only been to Tulsa once since moving away in 1979. It almost got to the point recently where I felt so unattached to the town I grew up in that I considered telling everyone I'm from Tucson instead, since that's where I was born and where the family roots remain. Mostly though I just tell folks I'm from Durham since I've been there almost 20 years and hope to stay at least 20 more.

Just breathing the Oklahoma air again is enlightening. One thing I quickly realized is why I am such a naturally tolerant person. It's because so many people here are so incredibly slow and stupid, and this I was raised to consider normal.

OK, that's a little unfair. Okies are only slow and stupid when they are behind the wheel of a car. One of my favorite sayings is that Sartre got it almost but not quite right when he said "Hell is other people," while the precise truth is Hell is other drivers. Now I know why I think this is so witty.

By no means are Oklahoma drivers the worst in the country. Maryland, Florida, Nashville and Houston all have far more annoyingly rude and dangerous drivers. Okies are just the slowest.

Oklahoma is the only state where minimum speeds are posted on the highways, because if they weren't posted and enforced then surely more people would drive down the highway at 35 mph. When people turn off a major street, they often come to a complete stop before beginning their turn. It's the only place I know where people signal for exit ramps, which is actually a good thing because as soon as they turn their signal on you know they are going to slow waaaay down before taking their exit. And wouldn't you know it, after only three days I fell right back into the habit of signaling for my exit. At least folks do use their turn signals here.

Like most cities, the highways in OKC have bad traffic. People here say that they were poorly designed, which is true I guess once you realize that federal highway planners did not take into account how already slow Okies will slow down even more to rubberneck every single car on the side of the road. Like 15 mph slow, slow enough to try to figure out why exactly that car is broken down. Hey, if they slow down enough, maybe they can read the orange sticker on the side mirror to see just how long it has been sitting there. Or maybe they are inspecting the vehicle because they are considering trading in their current ride.

A few nights ago I went down to Norman to see some old friends. I called when I was supposed to arrive to let them know I had forgotten to account for traffic and would be running late. At that point I had been in 0-30 mph stop-and-go traffic for several miles, and I joked to my friend Leigh about how it must be just because some car had an orange sticker in the breakdown lane. She accused me of unfairly exaggerating, and I admitted I probably was. But sure enough, about five miles and 20 minutes later that's exactly what it was. The hood was bent back onto the windshield, which is kinda unusual, sure, but not really. And wouldn't you know it, the moment we got past this sight traffic went right back up to speed.

OKC restaurants stink

2007-10-15T05:07:00.001-05:00

Here is my quick restaurant guide to Oklahoma City: they all suck.

Well, OK, I guess that's probably not true. Maybe only 98% of them suck. There do seem to be a number of interesting places in Little Saigon I haven't tried yet. Yes, Oklahoma City has a rather sizable Little Saigon neighborhood. Back in 1975 when we took in all those Vietnamese refugees, one of the three internment camps, uh, I mean, resettlement centers, was at Ft. Smith, Arkansas, just across the Oklahoma border. So naturally once released many Vietnamese settled in the closest cities, Tulsa and OKC. It was wondrous back then as a teenager in Tulsa. In the late 70s we still thought of Italian food as daringly ethnic. Maybe there were some bad Chinese restaurants in most cities by that point, although I don't recall any growing up in Tulsa. And then all of a sudden - pho everywhere. It was amazing.

But I digress. The two dinners I've had where I didn't pick the spot were at crappy Chinese buffets. It didn't make it taste any better to listen to everyone else at the table tell me how great they thought the place was. Just the opposite, it helped convince me that these poor people had been deprived of quality cuisine for so long that they couldn't even recognize it any longer. Ah, the sadness of permanently diminished expectations.

More evidence for this conclusion comes whenever I ask anyone here where good restaurants are in town, which I do every time I encounter natives not in another restaurant. No one knows any. They always start listing chains or pizza places. Indeed the first name out of everyone's mouths in Chili's. I am beginning to think they are right, Chili's is the best place in town. It's enough to make the Baby Jesus weep.

Whenever I have tried a local place, it has been horrible. I am beginning to doubt one of those little abilities I take big pride in, to pick out good restaurants at a glance. Maybe my problem is that I am assuming there are any good restaurants here. I tried a Mexican place called San Marcos, which is in what looks like an old Der Weinerschnitzel. Usually restaurants that were converted from older chains or gas stations are a good bet, but not this one. Ugh.

I am beginning to figure out the code though. Most restaurants that look decent at first blush turn out upon a slightly deeper inspection to be seedy bars and pool halls only pretending to be restaurants. There are a lot of those running amok here. The code is they generally have some identifying word in the name, like Grill or Club. All the other local looking restaurants that might have been good are shuttered up, long abandoned. Another really bad sign.

Yesterday I got lunch from the Classen Grill, right next to the hotel. It is obviously very popular and has received excellent reviews on the web. Let me tell you though, it was vile. Not just bad, vile. The hash browns were underdone and rubbery, the scrambled eggs seemed to be flavored with traces of industrial chemicals, and the chicken fried steak had a huge crust which did not adhere to a patty of what must have been the lowest quality meat sold for human consumption in the United States. It was a gristle burger, basically. I could only eat of few bites of each thing before I threw it all out. And if you know me at all, you know how very hard that is for me. I am obsessed with cleaning my plate and even when I'm full I still can't help grazing on any food left in front of me. Easily the worst dining experience ever on the road these last five years, and that includes the night Lee and I pulled into some town after everything had closed and all we could find were old microwavable industrial sausage biscuits. With no microwave.

Last night I finally found a delightful place, the Deep Fork Grill on Western. It's a bit pricey so I can't eat there every night, even on a $40 per diem. But it will be great when our glorious Chair comes to town next week to help out the effort here. I had the Rainbow Trout, served on a bed of mushroom risotto, with a side of crisp green beans with pimentos, washed down with a couple drafts of Spaten Optimizer. For dessert later I took home a slice key lime pie with a light mango sauce. Just delightful, that's the adjective I keep coming back to when thinking about it. I openly thanked God at the table for finally leading me to this place.

The dinner put me in the mood to fall asleep super early and I had a fitful rest, tossing and turning for about five hours until I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep. I'm hoping that's just because my body was so excited to finally eat something decent after so long.

on the road back home

2007-10-15T05:00:00.000-05:00

I've been in Oklahoma for the last 10 days or so and will probably be here awhile longer. Maybe two weeks, maybe three months, not sure yet. I got a huge promotion at work and am now Political Director for the national Libertarian Party. It's been so great for me to have full time work again, and especially this work. This is the job I have been working towards ever since I started trying to be a professional Libertarian.

I imagine I'll get back to the music collection reviews eventually. The Insane Project continues, or at least it will upon my return. I'm through Marshall Crenshaw, or about 20% done, as there's a disproportionate number of artists whose names start with A-C.

I didn't bring much reading with me on the theory that every hotel room in the US has a book I like to read in it already, thanks to the Gideons. But that still leaves time to write up some notes about the trip.

24 hours of Afrobeat

2007-07-30T13:41:00.000-05:00

Thursday August 2nd is our second 24 Hours of Afrobeat at WXDU. I'll be taking the first shift from midnight to 3am, which is really still Wednesday night for most civilized folk. Tune in to get your fix of K. Frimpong, Antibalas, Loketo, and of course plenty of Fela.

King Sunny Ade & his African Beats

2007-07-20T02:22:00.000-05:00

Awww, hells yeah! That juju music is some awesome stuff, I tell you what. King Sunny Ade played frequently in Boston when I was living there so I got to see him two or three times in his early 80s heyday. Boston has a large Nigerian population and they easily made up half the crowd, all decked out in their best Nigerian finery. Ade is known for jamming for six or eight hours without a break back home, so his three hour performances in America were amusing. All the white college kids were worn out and panting on the sidelines but the Nigerians felt like they were just getting started. Not needing to dance to prove my hipness, I could see both perspectives.

Juju is just such inherently happy music. There's a lot of great material out there but Ade's records from 1982-83 (Juju Music, Aura and Synchro System) are the cream of the crop, short of bootlegs of his Nigerian performances. But these albums for American consumption are unrepresentative since they break up his pieces into discrete songs. They are fantastic as songs, mind you, but he would've been better served by a Fela Kuti one-song-per-side approach. Juju is all about finding a groove and working it until all the demons are driven out and all have been healed.

Being from Oklahoma, one special treat among the African Beats is Demola Adepoju on the pedal steel. I will always remember that "holy crap!" feeling when I first heard Juju Music and realized that the best pedal steel player in the world was Nigerian and playing this music. That still ranks near the top of my "this world is a strange and beautiful place" moments.

Cannonball Adderley

2007-07-20T01:51:00.000-05:00

The Insane Project continues apace. Almost to the end of B, which means I am over 10% through. So many wonderful entries in the B's... but no spoilers today.

I got stuck on Cannonball Adderley because I thought I had little intelligent to say about him. Still don't, really. Blue Note jazz is one of those genres I always liked but never really delved into until the current tech. So I'm still wallowing in it all incoherently and loving it.

Adderley is a lot of fun without being campy, which is a blessing. As Wesley Willis might say, his bop is excellent. In fact, I just wrote a song about Cannonball Adderley using the Wesley Willis Song Generator (note, if you follow the link, the song generator is at the bottom of the page):

Cannonball Adderley
by Wesley Willis

You are the bop king.
You are the bop king.
Cannonball Adderley is excellent.
You really whoop the horse's ass.

CANNONBALL ADDERLEY!!!
CANNONBALL ADDERLEY!!!
CANNONBALL ADDERLEY!!!
CANNONBALL ADDERLEY!!!

Cannonball Adderley really whoops a donkey's ass.
You make the joyride music.
Right on brother.
Cannonball Adderley really whoops a camel's ass.

CANNONBALL ADDERLEY!!!
CANNONBALL ADDERLEY!!!
CANNONBALL ADDERLEY!!!
CANNONBALL ADDERLEY!!!

Cannonball Adderley is the best.
You can really rock it out.
I like you well.
Cannonball Adderley is the best.

Rock over London,
Rock on Chicago.

Wheaties - breakfast of champions.

But I finally figured out what it is about Cannonball Adderley that keeps me from unreserved immersion and thus having a strong opinion of him. Like a lot of jazz musicians, he is a college professor. So there's always this academic quality to his music. His awareness of all the music that came before him is stunning, but often I'm unable to let go of thinking about how he's teaching music history and just get down.

But that does not change the fact that his bop is excellent and that Cannonball Adderley is best in the long run.

RIP Cosmo

2007-07-20T01:33:00.000-05:00

Since I started posting at my political blog I should probably pick up where I left off here too. But first some sad news, last week we lost Cosmo, which means I can now talk about him in public. Of all my animal stealing stories, Cosmo's is easily the most blatant because it is the only one where I lied to the face of his former owner, who is crazy enough that I did not want to take the miniscule chance that she would find out by seeing his picture here. He was damn near dead when we took him in anyway, being a mostly white cat exiled outdoors in the heat of summer, suffering from what we later found out was megacolon, which is eventually what got him this time.

Cosmo was a totally cool cat, in the beatnik sense. I learned much about the joy of sloth from him. Where you see him in the photo was pretty much it. He never really worked his way into the household social structure and never made any enemies, but he wasn't an aloof loner either. Just a real nice, lazy guy. I'm glad he got three extra years with us.

The silver lining is that I am no longer officially crazy now that our cat population is back in single digits.

the insane project continues

2007-04-21T19:23:00.000-05:00

I've been keeping up with the insane project - almost through A! - I just haven't been in the mood to write about it lately. Partly I've been working on my lawsuit against the state, which has been going quite well. Partly I kinda got stuck because I have very little intelligent to say about Cannonball Adderley. I imagine I'll get caught up soon. Or not.

Also, it's not that's all the music I listen to. I do allow myself to cheat a little by skipping ahead - as much as I love ANTiSEEN, for example, I'm not always in the mood to listen to them for 6 hours straight. And of course I have to take time out for new music.

Such as the new Comas' release Spells, easily the best new album I've heard this year. Chock full of brilliant 70s pop hooks, fat fuzzed out guitars and those wacko dada lyrics I adore - I'm still trying to wrap my mind around her "telepathic aftertaste" - I have listened to this probably twice a day since it came out on Tuesday. No signs of stopping. Buy the Comas! Buy buy buy!

Adam and the Ants - Kings of the Wild Frontier

2007-04-04T02:24:00.000-05:00

You know they kept making art rock well into the 80s. They just called it New Romantic or somesuch bullshit. I loved the New Romantic movement, when everybody looked like they were wearing Scarlett O'Hara's drapes. This is so beyond arrogant, so beyond offensive that I just love it. If it rocked any less, if Adam Ant was any less charmingly self-absorbed, they would be, like, the worst band ever. Declaring your own movement is always a big plus. "A new royal family, a wild nobility," yeah yeah, whatever, but that double drum set action sure is boss. When they trotted out some Navajo stooge to say, "you know, we were skeptical at first, but they showed us that they are respectful of our traditions," blah blah blah, oh man that still cracks me up to this day. What a joke. Fortunately, this album remains a very funny joke, at least to me. Did I mention that it totally rocks?

John Abercrombie

2007-04-02T02:21:00.000-05:00

There was a time growing up when I felt I could pick up any record on ECM and be happy. It was only recently I learned that what I really meant was I like every record that has Jan Garbarek playing on it. But since Garbarek played on damn near every single ECM record, it's ok.

I've listened to all 24 John Abercrombie records I have and frankly I can't tell you much more about him than he's your typical ECM jazz artist, infected with the Norwegian production virus that has shaped his sound ever since. I like that. He's got a kind of Willie Nelson vocal esthethic to his playing, hitting the note a touch early or a touch late and yet in a rather tasteful and interesting spot. He's stayed interesting to me even on his most recent stuff, and he seems to be churning out 2-3 records a year at this point.

He also passes the Sweetie's Sunday afternoon background music standard. My review is terrible because I do that too. I don't listen to him so much as his playing simply makes the rest of life more pleasant.

There are some Abercrombie records I don't care for, all depending on who is playing with him. I've pretty much come to the conclusion that Bob Mintzer ruins everything he touches, and Abercrombie made a lot of records with him. I'm beginning to think that John Surman has this suckifying effect in every quartet or trio he darkens.

There's this one particular style of combo that I just can't stand, the serial noodlers. You get three or four guys together and there's about 45 seconds of song, then the guitar goes noodle noodle noodle, then the piano goes noodle noodle noodle, then the bass goes noodle noodle noodle, then there's the drum solo. God I hate drum solos. The only jazz drum solo I like is the one on A Love Supreme, and the only reason why I like that one is that it's on A Love Supreme.

But enough about what I don't like in jazz. John Abercrombie's guitar is a lot of what I do like in jazz. Enough to have two dozen of his records and want more.

die abba die

2007-04-02T02:20:00.000-05:00

I knew there was a reason why I skipped Abba. I don't like Abba. I kept 3 songs and trashed the rest.

Paula Abdul - Forever Your Girl

2007-03-31T01:47:00.000-05:00

Paula Abdul is like a big ol' slobber dog to me. She's just a big silly dope who knows nothin' but lovin', and thus is cute no matter how much she drools. I have lost all possible cynicism in the face of such a sweet and loving person, and I consider that a good thing. I'm glad to see her on the biggest TV show in the history of TV shows or whatever (they tell me it is extremely popular), because frankly TV needs a hell of a lot more nice people like her.

There is no defense for loving this record as much as I do, nor do I care to make one.

Abdias Dos 8 Baixos

2007-03-31T01:18:00.000-05:00

A long long time ago I happened across a compilation called Brazil: Forro - Music for Maids and Taxi Drivers. It's the hillbilly music of northeastern Brasil, fat with accordion and totally rockin'. I found myself spoiled when I later discovered the more famous forro stars such as Jackson do Pandeiro and Dominguinhos and they did nothing for me. The comp is several songs each by four acts: Toinho de Alagoas, Duda de Passira, Jose Orlando, and Heleno dos Oito Baixos. I've been searching for more from any of these people ever since. Finally I got a hit on the word "Baixos," but it wasn't Heleno, it was Abdias dos Oito Baixos. I snagged three of their albums a couple weeks ago, Segura o pe de Bode (1967), 8 Baixos pra Frente (1971), and Forro do pe Rapado (1971). It is the real deal. I have not been able to find any information on this band at all. I have no idea what they are singing about. It don't matter. All I need to know is that this is the raw scorching pure white hot forro sound I obviously craved ever since before I was born.

Come to think of it, I'm sure they are singing about drinking, pretty girls and how working in the mine sucks. Country music is country music wherever you go.

Added 4/2/07: In my quest to add links to the performer or fan sites for these recent posts, I found that this blog is the third hit for this band and the only one in English. Which I guess makes me America's foremost authority on this band already, haha.

ABC - The Lexicon of Love

2007-03-31T00:48:00.000-05:00

I've lived long enough that I have gone through a lot of phases with all kind of performers. But my love for this record has remained constant since it first came out. It's everything Rick Astley or Spandau Ballet ever wanted to be. Or Bryan Ferry for that matter. If you're white English boys trying to make a Philadelphia soul record with string sections and the whole nine yards, then you have got to be bold. This is easily bold enough. Unlike all their later records, which all stink. Amazing, isn't it? Every song on this one is great, and every other song they ever did fills me with disgust over its weakness. Just play this and be happy.