I've listened to the African CD (over and over, actually) -- I just LOVE it!

Kate - it's a Sloan song.

Oh, yay! I'm so glad you like it.

it's a Sloan song

Huh. Don't know where I've seen it before.

Dear lord, it took six or seven tries before I found a lyrics site that didn't try to install some annoying plug-in or virus.

Anyway, lyrics to "Penpals" by Sloan.

How happy am I that London Calling has been discussed two days in a row, thus ensuring my earworm? Very happy indeed.

In other music news, I saw an adaptation of Carmen this past weekend. "Adapted" because Don Jose was sung by a baritone, which I quite liked (it was also staged to feel like a drama with singing instead of capital "O" opera). I've not seen much opera, but I have listened to a lot and seen many musicals, and I thought the baritone worked much better in the part. It gave Don Jose an edge that most tenors seem to lack.

Juliana, that production of Carmen sounds way cool. ITA that Don Jose would work better as a baritone.

On a similar note, one of the best operas I ever saw staged was Don Giovanni, w/ Dwayne Croft in the title role. He's a baritone who was misidentified as a tenor in his earlier career. Ergo, you get the deeper and (IMO) sexier baritone voice but one that is produced with the brightness I normally associate with a tenor. Sexy, sexy stuff.

Ergo, you get the deeper and (IMO) sexier baritone voice but one that is produced with the brightness I normally associate with a tenor. Sexy, sexy stuff.

Whoa. And purrrrrrr.... ITA about baritones being sexier. It's the rumble.

The MN Opera is performing Carmen later in the year, and I'm tempted to go see it to compare.

Whoa. And purrrrrrr....

Well, alright! Let's see... start --> settings --> control panel --> keyboard --> transpose:baritone. There we go. Check one two. Check one two. Sounds right. Let's give it a whirl: How you doin', juliana?

Didn't he play on "Flying Home"

Yes. Joe Lovano was interviewed on Soundcheck last Friday and shared some of his memories of Illinois Jacquet.

Finally managed to listen to the "Sister Ray" cover (couldn't save it, but listened to the stream) and I still have mixed feelings about the whole enterprise. The Velvets aren't sacrosanct, and solemnity has rarely if ever done art any favors, but neither is White Light White Heat simply a big joke. There's more to Phizmiz than just that, but there's also a really irritating selfconsciousness to the humor, especially the vocals. I buy the music, but the vocals scream "Listen to me! I'm being funny! I'm too cool to sell that, but the distance is funny, too!" and I don't buy that. Maybe it won't strike you like that, and I'm sure Phizmiz would say my take is wrong, but I had a very visceral reaction to it. And that's sad because the music really grew on me as I listened to it, sometimes even to the point where I could forget the vocals.

I just heard some of a Badly Drawn Boy album on the radio. Never heard anything by him? it? them? before, but it sounded good. Thoughts?

His soundtrack to "About a Boy" is pretty good, in a Beatles-meets-Moby sort of way -- kind of acoustic techno-folk, if that makes any sense outside my head.