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Saturday, November 17th, 2007
Janis gave me a copy of Before the Flood a while ago and I just recently spent some time really listening to it; and I gotta say I think it is not such a great album. That surprised me because I've been listening more and more to The Band lately and really loving their sound, and especially loving The Basement Tapes -- so I was expecting and hoping for that kind of sound. Instead this record sounds like weak Dylan. Guess they couldn't get it back together.
posted evening of November 17th, 2007: Respond
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Saturday, November 10th, 2007
Listening to The Basement Tapes today, I was thinking about how the opposition between immersing oneself in the experience of listening and retaining one's identity through analysis, is a good framework for thinking about art and the creative process. I've been listening to this record pretty frequently over the last couple of weeks and thinking about writing a blog post concerned with how it is different from Dylan's other music that I like, and similar to The Band's other music that I like, or along those lines -- but then there are moments (especially during "Bessie Smith") where I'm suddenly singing along and identifying with the music instead of thinking about it. I love those moments.
posted afternoon of November 10th, 2007: Respond
➳ More posts about The Last Waltz
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Wednesday, June 27th, 2007
There's something in music I like, a quality I can't identify, that gives me this rush of pleasure that is strongly associated with wanting to sing along. I've talked about this before in relation to Perspex Island, and this afternoon when I was mowing the lawn and listening to Nextdoorland it hit me -- Robyn sings "Can you make it rain,/ Can you make it rain tonight" and I can't help it, singing along is just an instinctual reaction to the pleasure I feel. And then, just now I was sitting and listening to the Band playing "Up on Cripple Creek" and the same thing happened to me when Levon sang "If there's anything she can do --"... (A few nights ago Ellen and I were watching The Last Waltz and together we sang along with the whole song when they were playing "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down", and that was a beautiful thing.) I want to know what this quality is.
posted evening of June 27th, 2007: Respond
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Saturday, June 23rd, 2007
Last time I watched The Last Waltz -- which must have been 15 years ago -- I did not appreciate it. I think I was watching it for the Dylan appearance, which is only a few songs at the end, and wasn't really paying attention to the greatness of every song in the movie (well except "Dry Your Eyes", I wouldn't count that as a great song, though I do think it might have some possibilities if someone besides Neil Diamond were singing it). Ellen and I watched the movie last night; what a wonderful thing it is.
posted morning of June 23rd, 2007: Respond
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Thursday, August 28th, 2003
Last night we made a bit of progress in our quest to get Sylvia listening to real music (as opposed to the weak, silly jingles on the "children's music" CD's people give us...) Sylvia asked to listen to one of these; but I sought to redirect her attention to the "Janis's band music" mix discs that Doug recorded for us. She was pretty interested by the fact that each disc had a different color box, and asked to listen to "the green one" (disc 4). So we listened to a couple of Animals tunes before she lost interest in that and asked for "the blue one" (disc 5) -- which is alright by me, it is my favorite of them. And wow! I popped it in the stereo, skipped past "Moondance" and "Wild Thing" and started right in with The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and Sylvia went wild! She started dancing right away, with a big grin. The mood lasted for nearly half an hour, about six songs or so. She started to fade on "The Wait", song #3, but Ellen brought her back by clapping to the rhythm, and then she heard the chorus -- "Take a load off, Annie" -- and started singing along. We all danced together in a circle for a couple of tunes, and then hit "Honky Tonk Hardwood Floor" which was the high point of the evening for jumping around and laughing. "Ugly and Slouchy", which came on next, was apparently a riding song; after a few bars Sylvia got on her rocking horse and stayed there through the song -- nice because it gave Mom and Dad an opportunity to retire to the armchair and rocking chair. By then it was about time for bed and Sylvia's energy level began to fade, so we headed upstairs for the night. I'm looking forward to playing that disc some more, and maybe find some more rockabilly to listen to together. We had some luck with Buddy Holly a few months ago until Sylvia lost interest -- I think if we have several records to listen to she will not get bored as fast though.
posted morning of August 28th, 2003: Respond
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