Happy Birthday, Hec!! (And happy belated birthday to your lovely wife.) May your year be full of finished books, excited editors and indicators of excellent sales!

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And a selfish request for some bigassraise-ma sent toward Chicago. I have my two-year review today and I am looking for some big money or I have to look for a new job (booo!).

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Music-wise my two obsessions of the moment are Parts & Labor - kinda hardcore but skronkier band from NYC. Both albums, Stay Afraid (older) and Mapmaker (newer) are excellent and available on emusic.

And - emusic peeps - go RIGHT NOW and download "Sirens" from the new Dizzee Rascal album. It is a certified Jam to End All Jams. You heard it hear first (maybe, well, probably not).

Happy birthday, David! I'm glad tina posted that because it prompted me finally to get around to sending you something I've intended to send for a while: a 1970 Van Morrison bootleg called "Spring in Berkeley 1970". I uploaded it to... not yousendme, some other place whose name I can't remember. Anyway, I encourage you & any other Van fans to go to B'rawk2, grab the link, & then grab the album. "Caravan" and "Cyprus Avenue" are especially killer. Love the carnivalesque organ as he goes walking down by the railroad in the latter. Also, the "tongue gets tied" shtick hadn't hardened into a tired gimmick yet; it's really effective here.

Long time, no write (but a bit of lurking). The short version: overworked followed by under the weather. Work has calmed down a little, although that won't last long, and I'm definitely healthier (knock on wood), so I'll try to be less of a stranger.

Quick hits:

1) Went to see Television in Central Park & Richard Thompson in Prospect Park and got rained on both times - drenched at the RT show. Richard Lloyd was not at the former so it remains to be seen if there will be another "final" TV show. He's a bit of a wacko so I took his "this is the last one" with a grain of salt. Ollabelle opened for RT, which I found interesting because they were the opener the time I saw Linda.

2) I can't stop listening to Tinariwen. Heard them on All Songs Considered, was struck by their sound, and decided to give the album a shot when my emusic downloads reloaded. And I'm so knocked out that I think I'll buy the CD, partly to support them & partly because I really want a lyric sheet/translation. I also hope it will give more details about who plays what. Allmusic was no help. Wikipedia lists basically everyone as a guitarist except the percussionist and the woman singing. Corwood & other guitar fans MUST check this out.

So while toodling around the iTunes store last night, I discovered the Vitamin Strings Quartet tribute to My Chemical Romance.

blink blink

Being morbidly curious, I listened to some samples. And then I bought the album. I am shocked at how well the songs work as orchestral arrangements for a string quartet. I bought it as kind of a novelty, but I suspect I'm going to end up listening to it a lot.

Happy belated, David!

Hi, Joe! I heard Richard Lloyd was in the hospital as of about a month ago.

Thanks for the birthday wishes! Good to see you, Joe.

I'm buried deep working on the book, making a push to finish.

But I offer for your entertainment and education...

Tom Waits As Inspiration On YouTube

No, not just Waits clips, but other people covering him, and making little movies based on his stuff. This is especially useful for those of you who could never get past Tom's voice because there are some gorgeous melodies here as well.

For example, Nine year old boy playing a lovely piano instrumental of "Johnsburg, Illinois

Another instrumental, "Time" arranged for classical guitar.

It's one of Tom's many beautiful melodies (maladies?). Check out Tori Amos' cover of "Time."

How about Frank Black covering "Black Rider".

Here's a young Irish guy with a fine tenor, busking his way through a huge pile of songs, including much Tom Waits. Here he does a fantastic version of "Dirt in the Ground."

His name is Dara Sheahan and I really like his cover of "Chocolate Jesus" too. (He's got excellent taste in songwriters and also covers Leonard Cohen and the Pogues.)

Somebody did a cool vid of King Kong set to Tom's cover of Daniel Johnston's "King Kong". Really cool.

Also very cool, this stop motion animation set to "Table Top Joe."

Several people did animations of Tom's "Children's Story" off Orphans. I liked this one best.

I think I posted this one before, but I still like this fan vid set to "Circus" using archival footage.

Here's a montage from the Tom Waits Peepshow which I somehow managed to miss.

You can't beat a high school musical doing "Jockey Full of Bourbon".

A wobbly video (but with great sound) of Nanci Griffith singing "Grapefruit Moon"

A high school film project set to "Alice"

Tom's "How's it Going to End" covered on guitar and ukelele for a cool/creepy animation

See, now lots of people say somebody's "an inspiration" but Tom really is the well spring that keeps giving.

Also, I've always loved Tom's thoroughly Weimar/Cabaret video for "Blow Wind Blow"

Those are awesome videos, David.

Your links led me to these interesting tangents I think we can all appreciate:

David Bowie and Frank Black doing Fashion Frank (with funky beard) almost looks like just some local guy who won a radio contest to sing onstage with Bowie, or something.

Frank Black joins Placebo onstage to do Where Is My Mind?

Oooh, excellent finds, Sean. That Placebo cover is especially grand. Big Rock And Roll Fun.

Sweet! Oxford American is letting me write about Dan Hicks.

Plus, they pay money.

Professional writing career, oh how you toy with me.

That's awesome David. You know OA is one of my favorites.

Saw The New Pornographers down in Battery Park this afternoon. For a bunch of Canadians they do a darned good job of celebrating the Fourth. They did a lot of stuff from the new album, and I stuck around until it started raining enough to be uncomfortable. It was cool to see Neko and AC again.

Neko is from Chicago.