Buffybot ,'Dirty Girls'
There's a lady plays her fav'rite records/On the jukebox ev'ry day/All day long she plays the same old songs/And she believes the things that they say/She sings along with all the saddest songs/And she believes the stories are real/She lets the music dictate the way that she feels.
New Fiery Furnaces song done acoustic: [link]
I'll pick 10 desert island discs offhand:
edited 'cause I wrote the same thing twice
hayden - how's that beautiful boy doing? sleeping any better?
Television, Marquee Moon
Finally gotten around to picking this up on CD (my vinyl copy is SHOT), and I really need to get around to listening to it. Mebee as crash music tonight.
Hey, msbelle! Yes, indeed, he's sleeping better and generally calming down significantly. Now that I have a computer at home again, I'm going to put pictures of my grinning Li'l Jandek up this weekend.
Frank: did you get the remastered one? 'Cause, DAMN.
Frank: did you get the remastered one? 'Cause, DAMN.
I'm pretty sure it is. That's the one with the bonus tracks, right? Looking forward to it, as the only version of "Little Johnny Jewel" I've heard is the Siouxsie cover.
Yep, that's the one.
And my desert island disk is and probably will always be Achtung Baby
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars. The only detriment to it is that it's fairly short by today's standards, but, truly, it is the perfect album.
Jon, I almost went to see One Ring Zero tonight when I learned that one of them plays the theremin. But I've got papers to write. I guess I'll have to wait for one of your legendary performances.
Speaking of which, A nice review of a performance I gave last week at a store a friend of mine just opened:
"The following night, I heard a very different encore of "Video Killed the Radio Star" at Honeyspot, a new JP boutique opened by Punk Rock Aerobics instructor and Count Me Outs guitarist Hilken Mancini and her friend Laura Dembski earlier that day. Perched on a platform behind the counter, Jon Bernhardt best known for his long stint as one of the hosts of WMBR’s Breakfast of Champions and as one of four theremin players in the Lothars played the song’s vocal melody on a theremin to a MIDI backing track playing from a nearby boombox. Bernhardt informed a packed house that the theremin was the first electronic instrument ever invented, and "through manipulation of the antennae, you can play beautiful melodies, like this." He then proceeded to play along to a MIDI version of "Smells like Teen Spirit." Other highlights included "Dancing Queen," "The Rainbow Connection," and "Blitzkrieg Bop" (complete with the theremin growling the heys and hos). The effect was hilarious and hypnotic Bernhardt concentrating on the subtle hand movements required to produce the familiar melodies over an eight-bit Nintendo-sounding accompaniment, as if this were primitive electronic karaoke. Mancini, dressed in a honeycomb sweater, and appearing a little frazzled from what was no doubt an intense day, directed people to a chest in the dressing room filled with ice and mini-beers and once those were gone offered plastic cups of whiskey. (There was also candy for the minors.)"
Great review, Jon!
Is a first edition paperback of the Greil Marcus-edited Stranded book of essays about critic's dester island disks worth anything?
I don't think it has a high resale value, but as a book it's worth a lot. The Nick Tosches piece is really funny and the Marcus discography gave me a good excuse to spend countless hours in used record stores in the 80s and 90s. I love Lester Bangs, and Astral Weeks is among my favorite albums, but I've always been underwhelmed by that essay; that could be unreasonably high expectations on my part, though, as I know some people who love it. The best writing in the book is Ed Ward's piece on the 5 Royales (when Greil Marcus was on Table Talk he seconded that opinion.) Read it even if you loathe fifties R&B and gospel.
Pretty much what Joe said. My favorite piece in Stranded is Ellen Willis' on the Velvet Underground. Ed Ward's piece is excellent. Like, Joe, I was a little disappointed by Lester's piece on Astral Weeks. And I love both the record and Mr. Bangs. But Lester just got a little too reverent and that essay didn't snap. The piece on the gospel collection was good too (Thomas Dorsey?). Love the Tosches also. And, like Joe, I spent hours and hours looking for Hackamore Brick (found!) and Savage Rose (found but didn't buy) after reading about them in the treasure chest in the back. It was also the first book to indicate to me that the Kinks and Beach Boys had critical constinuencies that went beyond their obvious hits.
In the pre-internet days I built my record collection around Stranded, Christgau's Record Guide for the 70s, and the Trouser Press Record Guide.