Interesting interview with Gillian Welch.
I'm always interested in long fallow periods in an artist's career, and she talks a lot about the eight year gap between albums.
Dylan wrote about that a lot in Chronicles too, and that was some of my favorite stuff. But it's also something I've thought about in relation to the writer Fritz Leiber and the poet Rilke and Joseph Heller. What must it be like to achieve great things and then have it desert you or thwart you for half a decade or more? And then to find that groove again?
I do have to confess, since I brought it up, that I was so out of the music scene in the 1990's that I did not realize "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was the same sone as the "Here we are now, entertain us." song until I had the Moulin Rouge soundtrack!
ETA: The electric cellos were pretty awesome
An appreciation of Tori Amos' album From the Choirgirl Hotel.
I love that album. "Rasberry Swirl" is still one of my favorite songs to dance to.
Going to see the Decemberists tonight for the first time. I have to admit, I came late to them--I like their earlier CDs, but I LOVE their latest, more folk-tinged one. It's always a little odd going to a concert when you are not a diehard fan, but I can't imagine it will be anything but wonderful.
How were they, Scrappy? My first real date with FAQWife was a Decemberists show, so they've had a special place in my heart.
From an NYT article about song rights:
The provision also permits songwriters to reclaim ownership of qualifying songs. Bob Dylan has already filed to regain some of his compositions, as have other rock, pop and country performers like Tom Petty, Bryan Adams, Loretta Lynn, Kris Kristofferson, Tom Waits and Charlie Daniels, according to records on file at the United States Copyright Office.
Tom Petty, Bryan Adams and Tom Waits are country artists? Really??
