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Music
I've had a pretty complex relationship with music over the years... ought to write about that sometime. Anyways: I listen to a lot of it, in genres like "rock" and "pop" and "folk", and play some of it, primarily in the genres "old-time" and "classical".
It's worth pointing out just how great the bonus tracks on the CD of Black Snake Dîamond Röle are. I wrote a couple of months ago about how much I like "All I Wanna Do is Fall in Love" -- "A Skull, a Suitcase, and a Long Red Bottle of Wine" and "It Was the Night" are similarly great (although "It Was the Night" seems like a lousy title to me). And there's much more! The take #2 of "I Watch the Cars" (take #1 is maybe my favorite song on the original record) is not so good however.
I was just looking at the jacket of While Thatcher Mauled Britain and noticed a cartoon of Hitchcock's. A little bit hilarious in the context of these past few days.
Hmm, so I was walking along today and realized there's only one track out of 24 on my mix tape that's by a female artist, and two more with female backup musicians. That seems kind of improperly balanced, I ought to make an effort to listen to more women musicians.
posted evening of January 13th, 2008: Respond ➳ More posts about Mix tapes
Just thinking about this song. Quick and simple to write, the theme allows for a huge amount of improvisation. It is written out with a straight, even rhythm but is should be slightly "swung", assuming you can do that with waltz-beat music and that it means what I am thinking it does by extension from the meaning of "swing" applied to four-beat music.
ABAC structure seems to work pretty well for me, and not to be as limiting as I was thinking it might. (Not sure why the B line always ends on Re -- the C line of course ends on Do and the A lines usually also end on Do.)
Update: There is a lot of room for variation in rhythm when playing this song. Keeping the same time signature you can play it very straight, very "swung" (with above caveat), or in between, and put the accent on various beats. Change what is legato and staccato a-and etc.
posted afternoon of January 13th, 2008: Respond ➳ More posts about Songs
So I put together a mix tape of some of the music I particularly like. If you'd be interested I could make you a copy (assuming I'm calculating correctly that not a whole lot of people will be interested) -- just drop me a line and let me know where to send it. Track list and notes available on request; it's a mix of old-time blues and country, and music by Robyn Hitchcock. They go together better than you might expect.
"Welcome to the 21st Century": On-stage patter from Robyn
Hitchcock's Hallowe'en 2003 concert at The Bottom Line, NYC
"Ragged and Dirty", Bob Dylan, World Gone Wrong, 1993
I like this album a lot, indeed it's one of my very favorite Dylan
records. Old music; this is an old tune by Sleepy John Estes, a
bluesman from Tennessee.
"Black Cat Rag", the Famous Hokum Boys (Big Bill Broonzy's first
band), April 1930
from Big Bill Broonzy: All the Classic Sides 1928-1937.
"Pancakes", Leadbelly, 1941 radio broadcast
from Lifting the Veil: the First Bluesmen. Hilarious.
"Full Moon in my Soul", Robyn Hitchcock, Spooked, 2004 (with
Gillian Welch and David Rawlings)
I just love Hitchcock and this song has all of my favorite Hitchcocky qualities.
"Sweetest Love", the Stanley Bros., April 1952
from Selected Sides 1949-1953.
"Go 'Long Mule", the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra
from A Study in Frustration: the Fletcher Henderson Story. I don't
know jazz very well but I know what I like and damn, do I like
Henderson. Early big-band jazz from New Orleans.
"Heartaches", Patsy Cline, February 1962
from The Definitive Collection.
"Pig Meat Strut", the Famous Hokum Boys, April 1930
"C.C. Rider", Mississippi John Hurt, The Best of Mississippi John
Hurt (actually a concert tape, not a best-of – Oberlin College campus,
1965).
"Pig Meat Blues", Whistler and his Jug Band, April 1927
from Violin, Sing the Blues to Me: African-American Fiddlers 1926-1949.
"Mr. Kennedy", the Soft Boys, Nextdoorland, 2002.
The Soft Boys' reunion record. Robyn wrote this song about a concert
tour he had been doing in 1999 with Sebadoh – Mr. Kennedy drove the
tour van.
"Cincinnati Flow Rag", Gary Davis
from Blues & Ragtime (which has no info about dates)
"Drivin' Nails in my Coffin", Ernie Tubb, September 1946
from Early Hits of the Texas Troubador
"Little Birdie", the Stanley Bros., 1952 radio broadcast
"Risin' Sun Shine On", Big Bill Broonzy and the Cool Tones, July 1935
A bit later in his career, when Broonzy had got a lot smoother
sounding and better production.
"Polk Salad Annie", Sleepy LaBeef, Tomorrow Never Comes, 2000
Song is by Tony Joe White, also covered (not well) by Elvis. Here is
fantastic video of White: http://readin.com/blog/?id=1041
"Memphis Blues", the Mobile Strugglers, July 1949
from Violin, Sing the Blues for Me – this song is total Americana, by
W.C. Handy.
"I Love Lucy", the Soft Boys, Nextdoorland
"Walkin' the Floor Over You", Ernie Tubb, April 1941
"The Yip Song", Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians, Spectre
(promotional pressing of Respect with interviews), 1993
If you dig this song you need to rent the DVD of Storefront Hitchcock.
"Two Soldiers", Bob Dylan, World Gone Wrong
I respond more emotionally to this song than to any other song Dylan sings.
"Crown Junction Breakdown", the Scottsville Squirrel Barkers, 1962
from String Theory –WFMU dj Jeffrey Davison gave this compilation as a
pledge premium in 2004.
I was just looking at Wikipædia's article on accidentals in music, to resolve a question I had in mind, when I came upon the section entitled History of notation of accidentals. Go take a read if that kind of thing interests you -- it seemed pretty far out* to me, who am pretty well completely ignorant of musical history (this kind of stuff anyways).
*(i.e. not meaning that it seems incredible to me but rather fascinating)
Here are Jerry and me playing at the Maplewood open mic:
(YouTube is being a little unresponsive today; if one or both of the videos do not show, try again later.)
Weary Day
The Louisville Burglar
Thanks to Vinnie Video for taping the show, and to my co-worker Rob for helping me figure out how to get clips on YouTube. (The process: Handbrake to convert DVD to AVI, and AVITrimmer to extract clips.)
posted afternoon of January 10th, 2008: Respond ➳ More posts about Fiddling
It is starting to sound to me like an actual song. (See a couple of posts down for the fiddle part.) -- like just now I was mulling over what the lyrics to it might sound like, if they were written and I were singing them. I think the genre is probably rock or rockabilly.
...A song about memory, I think -- with lots of references to Modesto and to the Central Valley if I can swing it. Mostly because those Valley city and town names have got the exact right cadence for this melody -- Sacra-ment-o, e.g. -- the line in my head is "Driving up the high-way, north to Sacra-ment-o," possibly followed by "Don't know what I'll do there" or "Haven't seen my ba-by" or, not sure. Memory and being bored -- these two are tangled together pretty inextricably in my world view.
I think I am not going to do any more Songs posts until I buy a microphone and an audio processor. I have been planning to do this sometime soon -- I think I will feel much better about the music I am posting if the audio quality is a little better. What I have been doing up till now counts as a sort of a proof of concept -- the concept is pretty well proven.
If any of you have got advice about what sort of mics and audio converter I ought to buy, please leave them in comments, or e-mail me if you prefer. I will be most grateful.
This afternoon I thought of a short tune. Played around with it on my violin and I came to realize that it integrates really well with "After Midnight".
I came up with guitar chords to accompany "Creepy Charlie" -- I am looking forward to recording the piece with viola and guitar, and maybe to writing a "b" part as well. (In the recording I posted the other day, there is something that sounds like it might be a "b" part but I think it is actually just a second voice on the "a" part. This is something I don't know how to figure out.)
Update: bullet two is no longer operative; I have ordered an Edirol E-MU EM8740 audio interface (which I will call "emu") and a pair of Behringer C2 microphones.
posted evening of January 7th, 2008: Respond ➳ More posts about Guitar
Don't believe the lack of hype: Shanghai Love Motel is going straight to the top (of?). Listen to some great music for free at their MySpace page, go listen to them on Saturday in Brooklyn (Jalopy, 315 Columbia St. between Hamilton Ave. and Woodhull St., 10 pm), anticipate their forthcoming first record. Anticipate!
