"Like dancing about architecture," huh? It's been a while. Can't really take a side.

Rant warning (Please don't take it the wrong way, erika. I'm going off on the message, not the messenger.)

I hate that saying. It's cute and clever and all but what the hell does it mean? Does it mean that writing about music is simply illegitimate? Or is it less judgmental, more descriptive: they are ultimately two different things and a description of one using the language of the other may tell us something about the one describing but not much about the one being described? Or is it something else altogether: it's a creative response to something totally different, each legitimate, each its own thing, inspiration notwithstanding? Or is it just a pissy response by Zappa or Elvis (or whoever really said it) to a bad review? If it was Zappa it's ironic because one of the crucial inspirations for his hero, Edgar Varese, was Busoni's Sketch for a New Esthetic of Music. And the line between a music theoretician and a music critic is pretty thin. Most popular music "criticism" has precious little analysis even when the critic has the tools to do so. To me the comment smacks of both intellectual hauteur (those who can make music do, those who can't are critics) AND anti-intellectualism (musical analysis? what kind of pointy-headed twaddle is that?). I'll admit my reaction is somewhat hostile.

Now that I got that off my chest... I agree with Corwood. Guralnick has every right to write about Sam Cooke or whomever he wants to. I just wish he'd write about people I don't dig so that I wouldn't be tempted to read it even though I know I'll find it unsatisfying. Also, it sounds like this book is less about Sam Cooke musician and more about Sam Cooke cultural figure -- which is worth a biography. Maybe that's what I find unsatisfying about Guralnick: he writes about musicians and not about music. Now that I think about it my favorite parts of his books are the discographies, where he actually talks about records and songs he loves. I think Guralnick is right (in the interview Jon linked to) about Cooke wanting, and having the ability to be, the next Berry Gordy. Sam Cooke's combination of talent, looks, ambition, savvy, vision, and historical positioning makes him a fascinating character, but I probably wouldn't care if I didn't find his voice to be pure magic. I go into a book about him wanting to know more about the music, but that's not what I get from Guralnick. So the problem is really my wants, not Guralnick's execution -- but I say that as someone who has read a bunch of his books and who should know better by now. Because he writes about musicians he gets publicized as one who writes about music -- but he writes about music only as a consequence of writing about musicians. Maybe that strikes you as splitting hairs. Sorry, I'm just trying to explain what leaves me cold about PG.

And speaking of unsatisfying I am not happy with this post, but I still have a bunch of work to do so I can't spend any more time trying to untangle my messy thoughts. Crud.

Corwood, thanks for the offer. Check your email.

It's okay with me, don't have a dog in the fight. I always thought it meant "like apples and oranges," but from the Greek for butthead. And I'm a big smartass who occasionally pretends to knowledge she doesn't have. And I'm not a music writer...I'm a writer who likes music so I like the writing about the iconography and social conditions and all that David Copperfield kind of crap.

Wow, "Take Me" by George Jones & Tammy Wynette is pretty fucking hot.

But I had been tempted to request "Ghosts in the Wind" since halfway through the show.

Aw, man. This is one of my all-time favourote RT songs. And I love Danny T. too (for The Pentangle and Solid Air and everything). Jealous now.

I'm uploading 2 Many DJs pt. 2 right now. I think I'll post a few of these mashups on Buffistarawk when I get a chance.

bon bon needs to hear the mash up of "Peter Gunn" by Emerson Lake and Palmer) v. "Where's Your Head At" - Basement Jaxx.

The mashup of "No Fun" by the Stooges with "Push It" by Salt N'Peppa is stupendous.

tina, do you have the new Silver Jews? I picked it up today.

Also got Mountain Goats' Tallahassee.

Okay, the mashups are up at Buffistarawk. Both are recommended.

The Stooges/Salt N Peppa is like a bolt of horndog hellfire.

ION, both the Silver Jews & Mountain Goats acquisitions are excellent.

A truly excellent album, Hec. They played "Game Shows Touch Our Lives," "See America Right," "Old College Try," "Oceanographer's Choice" and "No Children" off of it tonight -- introducing the first one listed, Darnielle talked about the couple at the heart of the album as being caught in a Choose Your Own Adventure story to which they'd lost the book, which I quite liked.

"Oceanographer's Choice," "See America Right," "Pet Politics" (the Silver Jews song) and "Against Pollution" from We Shall All Be Healed they did with The Prayers and Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers, who opened and are touring with Darnielle and Peter Hughes. TPATOADS* made the Goats into a six-man ensemble with keyboards, drums, and multiple guitars -- The Mountain Goats, which as Darnielle noted, used to just be him singing into a boombox, sounded like an honest-to-God rock band.

And with "Against Pollution," with which they closed out the main set, they just tore the roof off the joint. Darnielle put down his guitar and just rocked the mic, and his spaz charisma turns out to translate hellaciously well into rockstar. As one of the friendly local rock critics I was there with put it, "That's when the show went from good to AWESOME." It's the second time this year I've gotten to see a band I like transforming into something else on stage, pushing itself to another level, and it's just breathtaking. I'm sure they will do the same songs with TPATOADS on Monday, but let me tell you, I cannot wait.

* As Darnielle posted on the Mountain Goats site in re a previous joint tour, "We're proud to be bringing Durham heartthrobs The Prayers and Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers along with us for most of these dates, even as we, along with most of the NATO countries and several prominent religious leaders, lament their choice of a bandname."

ETA: Excellence cross-posting!

bon bon needs to hear the mash up of "Peter Gunn" by Emerson Lake and Palmer) v. "Where's Your Head At" - Basement Jaxx.

We were just listening to Basement Jaxx at home this afternoon, but not loving the newest album. Up now-- Bob Bob's friend's band "The Stereo Future" which I am kind of digging.

Stealing liberally from other, better Halloween mixes, I burned the following disc to play while broadcasting Murnau's Nosferatu through the front window to scare the kiddies.

1. Them! Main Theme
2. M83 – “Birds”
3. Beat Happening – “Black Candy”
4. The Meteors – “She’s A Zombie Now”
5. Boris Karloff – “The Haunted Strangler”
6. Gergiev/Kirov Orchestra – “La Sacre du Printemps, Part II, The Sacrifice: Ritual of the Ancestors
7. Roky Erickson – “Night of the Vampire”
8. Kip Tyler – “She’s My Witch”
9. Hella – “Magixburg”
10. Bela Lugosi/Ed Wood – “Beware”
11. Jandek – “Om”
12. Neu! – “Negativland”
13. Screamin’ Jay Hawkins – “Whistling Past the Graveyard”
14. Cramps – “TV Set”
15. Berzilla Wallin – “Conversation With Death” [N.B. a variant of “O Death”]
16. Can – “Aumgn”
17. King Tubby – “King Tubby’s Badness Dub”
18. [unknown Texas Prison Work Gang] – “Go Down Hannah”
19. Nick Cave & Kylie Minogue – “Where the Wild Roses Grow”
20. Dock Boggs – “Gloryland”

Black Widow's "Come to the Sabbat" originally made the cut (what with the chanted chorus of "Come to the Sabbat! Come to the Sabbat! Come to the Sabbat! Satan's there!"), but I decided that it was probably a bit too much for the religious-minded.

I love Gloryland. The one time I saw Dr Ralph Stanley play, he and his band did such an amazing version of it, the crowd went crazy, and they did an encore of the chorus for us. And this was in Manhattan.

Tonight's Mountain Goats show (what? shut up, I'm a completist) featured the band in costumes and of course a version of "The Best Ever Death Metal Band In Denton" -- you think they're gonna pass up the opportunity to get a room full of people to shout "Hail Satan!" on Halloween? But the verse that goes "The best ever death metal band out of Denton/ never settled on a name/ but the top three contenders/ after weeks of debate/Were Satan's Finger, and The Killers, and The Hospital Bombers" ended instead with "...Satan's Finger, and the Fleshy Friends of the Demon, and the Hospital Bombers." I have to admit, I laughed.