13 posts tagged “music”
And, continuing in my series on obscure sources of inspiration, this song began its life as my attempt to rewrite "Julie's Been Working for the Drug Squad" by the Clash -- go figure!
As always, if you don't want to listen on the site, you can download an mp3 here.
On our third wedding anniversary, May 31, 2007, Jill and I had the great privilege of seeing two of our favorite artists perform together at New York's Town Hall: Gillian Welch (one of Jill's faves) and Bright Eyes (one of mine).
Gillian Welch (and her guitarist David Rawlings) were wonderful. They played a quiet, subdued set that was really captivating. While I knew she was great, I was not aware of how good Rawlings was, and, even more importantly, how central his singing and playing is to the overall sound of Gillian Welch. Unfortunately, there aren't any videos posted on YouTube of their performance.
That, however, is not the case with Bright Eyes: there are videos galore! Bright Eyes is a huge band -- in addition to two guitarists, a bassist, and an organ/keyboard player, the outfit features TWO drummers playing simultaneously, a fiddle player, and a string quartet. I had never seen a band try to create such a big and complex sound on stage. While it could at times be messy, to me it was always exciting and captivating. And in addition to the sonic ambition, the band was visually stunning -- everyone wore all white, and an artist projected live, real-time collages and visual effects onto the band and the huge white screen behind them. It was really something to see.
This performance of "Hot Knives," one of the best tracks on their new album Cassadega, is a great example of the huge, dynamic sound the band created that night.
And here's another great song from Cassadega, and one of my favorites, "If the Brakeman Turns My Way." This is one of those songs that I love so much because I can't believe that I wasn't the one who wrote it!
The night for me was topped off by the performance of my absolute favorite Bright Eyes song, "First Day of My Life," from I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning. Joined by David Rawlings and Gillian Welch, the band turns this quiet acoustic ballad into a rollicking country ditty, which I totally loved!
On the subject of that song, the music video for it is worth checking out. To me, it's just about the sweetest and most beautiful three minutes I've ever seen. God, I could talk about this song all day!
Anyway, the night was looking like it might be a disappointment, however, because Gillian Welch hadn't played Jill's favorite song, "Look at Miss Ohio." Well, imagine our delight when she joined Bright Eyes for his encore and played that very song! It was so great to see Bright Eyes's huge band take Welch's subdued yet impassioned song and really expand upon it. There's no YouTube clip for our night, but I was able to find some footage of them doing on another night on this tour.
Well, I shouldn't say that the night wasn't without disappointments. The night before, Bright Eyes had been joined on stage by one of my all-time favorites, Lou Reed. I was really hoping that Lou would join him on stage once again, but it was not to be (Steve Earle was Bright Eyes's guest star -- OK, I guess, but no Lou). Well, again, thanks to the wonder of YouTube, I can at least enjoy what must have been an amazing performance. Here's them doing the great Velvet Underground track "Waiting for the Man."
OK, ok -- I'm on a ratings-sharing kick. Here's a list of my highest-rated iTunes tracks for the last few months. If you want to listen to clips or buy tracks, this is available as iMix on the iTunes Store here. Again, lots of Bo, but also a healthy array of Bob, Gillian, and Conor. Yes, I'm so predictable . . .
Song Name Artist
Intervention Arcade Fire
Mona (Single Version) Bo Diddley
Pills Bo Diddley
Chimes of Freedom Bob Dylan
Dark Eyes Bob Dylan
Mississippi Bob Dylan
Thunder On the Mountain Bob Dylan
Every Grain of Sand Bob Dylan
Delia Bob Dylan
If the Brakeman Turns My Way Bright Eyes
Arc of Time (Time Code) Bright Eyes
Waste of Paint Bright Eyes
Distortions Clinic
Crossroads (Live At Winterland) Cream
Bell Bottom Blues Derek & The Dominos
Look At Miss Ohio Gillian Welch
I Dream a Highway Gillian Welch
Anthem Leonard Cohen
Hallelujah Leonard Cohen
Tower of Song Leonard Cohen & U2
Roadrunner The Modern Lovers
Sleep Now in the Fire Rage Against the Machine
Remember (Walking In the Sand) The Shangri-Las
Family Affair Sly & The Family Stone
Black Swan Thom Yorke
Northern Lad Tori Amos
Bill Lee Warren Zevon
The Real Me The Who
The Rock The Who
Keep the Car Running Arcade Fire
It Could Have Been a Brilliant Career Belle & Sebastian
Sleep the Clock Around Belle & Sebastian
A Space Boy Dream Belle & Sebastian
The Boy with the Arab Strap Belle & Sebastian
Don't Leave the Light On, Baby Belle & Sebastian
Bo Diddley Bo Diddley
Who Do You Love (Single Version) Bo Diddley
Road Runner (Single Version) Bo Diddley
Sugar Baby Bob Dylan
Someday Baby Bob Dylan
Nettie Moore Bob Dylan
Ain't Talkin' Bob Dylan
Lenny Bruce Bob Dylan
The Groom's Still Waiting at the Altar Bob Dylan
In the Summertime Bob Dylan
Blood in My Eyes Bob Dylan
Hot Knives Bright Eyes
Classic Cars Bright Eyes
I Believe In Symmetry Bright Eyes
The Big Picture Bright Eyes
False Advertising Bright Eyes
You Will. You? Will. You? Will. You? Will. Bright Eyes
Make War Bright Eyes
Laura Laurent Bright Eyes
Chimes of Freedom The Byrds
My Back Pages The Byrds
I Feel Free Cream
Mystery Train (2004 Remaster) Elvis Presley
Five Long Years Eric Clapton
Motherless Child Eric Clapton
It Hurts Me Too Eric Clapton
Someday after a While Eric Clapton
Midnight Voyage Ghostland Observatory
My Morphine Gillian Welch
Honey Now Gillian Welch
Paper Wings Gillian Welch
Lowlands Gillian Welch
I Had a Real Good Mother and Father Gillian Welch
April the 14th Part 1 Gillian Welch
Elvis Presley Blues Gillian Welch
Bold As Love John Mayer
I'm Gonna Find Another You John Mayer
Father and Son Johnny Cash & Fiona Apple
I'm Your Man Leonard Cohen
Dance Me to the End of Love Leonard Cohen
World on a String Neil Young
Don't Go Away Oasis
Just Like a Baby Sly & The Family Stone
Raspberry Swirl Tori Amos
We Got a Hit The Who
Quadrophenia The Who
Here's a link to my highest-rated Rhapsody tracks so far. As you can see, I've developed an unhealthy obsession with Bo Diddley:
My Rhapsody PlaylistFor anyone who's talked to me about music recently, you know I've been on a huge Who kick. Well, I've finally got my hands on a reputable Who biography, Before I Get Old by Dave Marsh (Marsh also wrote the excellent Springsteen bio Born to Run).
What have I learned so far? Well, apparently Pete Townshend was inspired to write his own songs in earnest after hearing Bob Dylan's 1964 album Another Side of Bob Dylan. In particular, he was blown away by the song "All I Really Want to Do," because it wasn't teen pop, it wasn't folk, it wasn't blues -- it was something new, something distinctively modern.
I can't wait to continue reading -- where the heck did Tommy come from? Or Quadrophenia? Or the wacked-out ideas behing the Who's Next album, which started as Lifehouse, some communal living, mystical communication thing between the band and some select fans? And what's the deal with Pete Townshend's guru? (Yes, he has a guru.) These are all questions that need to be answered.
Well, Professor Waterman has recently posted an article on the The Great Whatsit blog about this very subject, and he was kind enough to give me a "shout out"! His article is great reading, tracing the connections between the Beats, Bob Dylan, the Velvet Underground, and up through the New York punk scene of Patti Smith, the Ramones, Blondie, and the Talking Heads. Of particular, interest, however, is this YouTube clip of Patti Smith performing "Horses" on the first season of SNL. I think it pretty much speaks for itself -- though as a musician, let me say this: I hope that one day I can achieve at least some small fraction of Patti's freedom, her wild abandon, her possession. She's the real deal.
Speaking of Patti Smith, a few years ago my buddy Dan was kind enough to buy me a book of Patti Smith lyrics AND get it signed by Patti Smith herself. It's one of my most treasured possessions -- and what he got her to write on the dedication page is pure Dan. Check it out below. Oh, and while you're clicking on things, please do check out Dan's excellent band, the Hate My Day Jobs. Thanks, Dan!
I've avoided the subscription music services for a long time, preferring to buy single tracks from iTunes or old-fashioned CDs. Recently, however, I've begun exploring Rhapsody, which, for a low monthly fee, gives you access to basically any song in the universe. The downside of this, of course, is that unless you take the next step of actually buying a track for 89 cents, you're essentially renting the music -- stop paying Rhapsody, and your library disappears (ah, the magic of digital-rights management . . .). As a freelance copyeditor, however, cooped up all day in my home office, I use the service essentially as on-demand streaming radio. Do I feel like listening to every Paul Simon song today? No problem! Radiohead? No problem! That new indie rock band I read about in Rolling Stone? No problem! Not sure? Well, Rhapsody's got great recommendation algorithms based on your listening history, and it's got tons of "radio" stations (my current favorite is a station playing nothing but Rolling Stone's top 500 songs of all time). For someone who loves music as much as I do, I'm a kid running wild in a candy store!
If you want to following what I've been listening to, you can subscribe to RSS feeds of my listening history: Recently Played Tracks, Recently Played Albums, and Recently Played Artists.
This is also my first recording using Apple's GarageBand program, which is really quite spectacular. When you have the right tool, your creative energies just flow. I can't wait to make more songs using this excellent application.
The final product here surprised me. I always thought this song was going to be a small, intimate folk song, but now it's a Neil Young/Gillian Welch-type rocker -- and I couldn't be happier! It's fascinating and wonderful what happens during the creative process. So long as you can go in with an open mind and let what happens happen, some special surprises await.
I just discovered a really neat feature of Vox, the blogging service I'm using for this site. Like any old blog, Vox creates an RSS feed so that you can subscribe to it and be automatically notified of new posts using a feed reader (such as Google Reader). While a podcast sounds like a complicated thing, it's basically just an RSS feed with an audio file attached to it. Instead of using a feed reader to monitor the feed, you use a podcast aggregator such as iTunes, which detects new content and downloads it to your computer.
Well, the Vox RSS feed does double duty.
If you plug the RSS feed URL for this site into a feed reader, it delivers all the posts: text only if there's no audio attached, or, if there is audio, it delivers text along with a link to where you can get the audio. It works well for text-based blogs, but it's not the best way to follow a site that's consistently posting music files.
If you plug that same URL into iTunes (Podcast section - Advanced - Subscribe to podcast - URL), it subscribes you to the "podcast" of this site. It is smart enough to understand which posts have audio files attached (which it will download into your iTunes as a podcast "episode"), and which do not (which it will ignore). It seems like a pretty easy and convenient way to download the audio files being posted on this blog.
I think that's pretty cool!
My "podcast"/blog feed URL: feed://nikotaylor.vox.com/library/posts/atom.xml
Jill's "podcast"/blog feed URL: http://jillianlubow.vox.com/library/posts/atom.xml
Just one more reason that Vox is a great platform . . .
