AxMe covers bluegrass and oldtimey music, with streamer suggestions. Aaaah.
the big C
Skot just lost a friend after losing touch and is unhappy. Bring a hanky; it’s sad, and moving.
Jingle Rock Bell
PinkStainlessTail notes he “drives his wife nuts” with a neo-oulipian version of a well-known holiday song. Moments later, a recording of the song is released: may Jingle Rock Bell warm ev’ry holiday cockle.
Frosty
Jason Zada’s Very Rare Holiday Album includes the long-sought “Frosty the Snowman,” by the Cocteau Twins.
[via MoFi.]
Damn, now all I need to do is dig through some old CDs for that El Vez masterpiece, Merry Mexmas.
Here come the Retail Jets
Studies have conclusively shown that shipping infinite quantities of consumer goods is an experience which is best enhanced with the music of Brian Eno’s pre-ambient rock gem, Here Come the Warm Jets.
For futher information, enoweb is a handy starting place. Here’s another person’s view.
I keep imagining Jerry Cornelius is gonna turn up.
Not Rudolph
A Singular Christmas. Xmas music from the Eigenradio.
Neko
Last night we went to see Neko Case at Neumo’s.
Click the pic for more blurry pix. I shot a fair amount of video, too. I’ll link to the clips here; they are all in quicktime format.
The show opened with the out-of-place on the bill Dexter Romweber, a true southern madman, who was in fine form. Despite this, his appearance befuddled the crowd, who were not expecting a guitar assault of such intensity. Romweber’s best known project is the Flat Duo Jets, and here is an interview with him about his career.
Here’s a 25-second clip (2.3mb).
The second band (and Neko’s backing band) was Canada’s alt-country brother act, The Sadies. They are technically polished, but the difference in aesthetic between Romweber and their approach was too great, for me, and in Romweber’s favor. The cool precision of the brothers’ vocal harmonies and dual-lead sound is deeply rooted in rock acts of the early seventies.
Here is 47 seconds of a Sadies song (4.4mb).
I shot a lot more video of Neko than of the other bands. We were right up front for the whole show, and it was lovely. I should note that the polish of the Sadies is an appropriate setting for Neko’s towering, transcendant voice.
Here are the clips:
A false start (4.6mb, 48 seconds).
The opening song (22.2mb, 3m54).
Third clip (12.3mb, 2m10).
Fourth clip (.6mb, 7 sec).
Fifth clip (3mb, 32 sec).
First encore (21.5mb, 3m46 ).
Second encore (12.8mb, 2m15).
I haven’t taken the time to track these down by song title, sorry. It took long enough to rotate them and color correct them in Final Cut Express. If one of you lovely interauts wants to, I’ll happily edit the post to add the info.
Say, I should probably look into BlogTorrent for this stuff, eh?
Custard Bottles
So, this year, This American Life has run a fascinating show recorded largely in occupied Iraq, titled I’m From the Private Sector, and I’m Here to Help.
As I type this, I just now realize that the title is a snark aimed at the hilarious – and offensive, to me – ad that ran back in the Clinton era in which a litte old lady cowers in her apartment, peering through her peephole at a menacing horde of MIBs, there to reform her health care. The ad’s tagline, “We’re from the government, and we’re here to help!” is a masterpiece of American conservative propaganda. Why has it taken me so lingh to recognize this little joke?
Well, largely because the original show is not particularly expressive of a political viewpoint – it’s a personal show, about the lives of civilian contractors in Iraq. The strongest opinion expressed in the show comes partway through the second segment, when the young-sounding female reporter, Nancy, is following around a guy named Hank. Hank is trying to impose order on the chaotic operations of a security firm named Custer Battles (after the names of its’ founders).
Hank (who speaks in a flat, authoritative military twang) explains to the reporter how he is trying to train his male Iraqi employees to stop holding hands in public, which clearly really bothers him. His voice thickens as he describes the despicable act. Nancy (whom the listener imagines to be a birdlike recent graduate of the University of Chicago weighing 98 pounds and standing four feet, seven inches) flies off the handle, exclaiming, “Jesus Christ! Leave ’em alone! What’s wrong with you?”
She browbeats the surprised Hank in mid-sentence, emphatically exclaiming “No, I don’t think it’s wrong!” Hanks is utterly taken aback; clearly he’s never considered that there might be a possibility that a) male hand-holding is not a terrible crime against nature and b) someone of his own culture might be as offended by his attempts to correct the beknighted ways of the Iraqis as he is by those beknighted ways.
It sums up our current political condition; hell, it can practically substitute for the election.
The company the piece is about is described as having a poor track record in Iraq, including a memorable incident in which employees of the company engaged in a shootout with one another in front of an Iraqi hotel.
Why do I mention this today? The first news I heard on the radio this morning concerned Custer Battles, which is accused of engaging in a pattern of fraudulent billing practices. Those who know me will be unsurprised to hear that I found this to be incredibly funny. I literally cannot stop chuckling about it.
I wonder who owns the movie rights?
Zounds! Sounds!
Dan points out that I might be interested in this antique audio AskMe thread, and verily, he is correct. MeFite tenseone points out a bevy of sites for the gettin’ of the olden-style sound files.
An update.
Tenseone’s wonderful and mysterious site is highly, highly recommended; it appears to be blog-as-dada, and exhbits the kind of internal, anachronist consistency seen in the poster’s enjoyably mannered posting language. I have stuff to do tonight, and good thing, or I’d be spending the eve poking about over there.
A Further Update.
You are commanded to click here. Proceed to consume bandwidth. Ah!