Speaking of one named musicians, I recently got I Am A Bird Now by Antony and the Johnsons.

Anybody else heard it yet? I've heard Antony compared to both Jeff Buckley and Nina Simone. Mostly I'm hearing the Nina Simone stylings, if she was a gay white boy with a great voice.

Anybody else heard it yet?

I got it off emusic a couple of weeks ago. It is like the second highest rated CD of the year at metacrtic right now. I enjoyed it but I haven't felt the urge to listen to it over and over.

In constant rotation with me at the moment is the new Bright Eyes, the Wrens (who are possibly playing this summer in Chicago), and Archer Prewitt Wilderness.

I wish I liked the new Brendan Benson more, too. I ordered it after re-discovering his second album and the new one is pretty good but I prefer Lapalco.

In other news, I am seeing Iron and Wine next week and am very excited because his new EP is very good. Oh, and did you Mountain Goats fans know that John Darnielle has a blog? It's purty good stuff.

The song by Anthony I am finding most affecting is "For Today I Am A Boy" which I hear in the context of the included postcard from a child hermaphrodite to his parents at a sexual reassignment clinic, from 1966. (Which I presume is real.) It's such a vulnerable, naked song.

One little girl is called Jane Marie
Another little girl is called Felicity
The third little girl is called Sally Joy
The other is me and I'm a boy
My name is Bill and I'm a headcase...

Which is from 1966. Townshend was pretty awesome before he started taking himself too seriously.

Heh. I love that song. I started a tape with "I'm A Boy", "20th Century Boy" and "Nancy Boy." I could definitely add Anthony's "For Today I Am A Boy."

I also enjoyed Antony's career aspiration from this review at Guardian Unlimited:

Born in London, Antony was relocated to California at the age of 10, before settling in New York as a young man in 1990, with an ambition to become 'a transvestite chanteuse at 3am nightclubs bathed in blue light, like Isabella Rossellini in Blue Velvet', and this is as helpful an archetype as any; perhaps also Scott Walker, or Nina Simone, or Bryan Ferry or mid-Seventies Bowie, or Sam Cooke or Jimmy Scott or a medieval chorister, because Antony sounds like all of the above, but always himself.

It is his vibrato and multi-octave voice (often double-tracked) that stuns you from the first few bars on in, putting the washing-up on permanent hold. He is obviously the most original vocalist we've heard since Bjork, and never less than wholly affecting as he goes about eclipsing the impressive contributions of his guests.

The mood is predominantly mournful, but in its dulcet softness, luxuriously so. Cellos, violins, violas and flutes are used to frame Antony's voice and piano, and torch songs such as 'My Lady Story' feel exquisitely sad. Even then, it's only after several listens that attention is directed to the words, which in this instance seem to tell of transsexual woe: 'My lady's story is one of annihilation,' it begins. 'My lady's story is one of breast -amputation.'

But there's also an uplifting quality to what might be the highlight of the album, 'For Today I Am a Boy', which has much in common with black gospel music, both in style and in its sense of a quest for redemption. 'One day I'll grow up and be a beautiful woman...,' Antony sings with assured and powerful conviction, 'but for today I am a child, for today I am a boy.

'One day I'll grow up and feel the power within me, one day I'll grow up, of this I'm sure.'

I love that song.

Me, too. And the line "My name is Bill and I'm a headcase" comes in handy a lot. Speaking of the Who, how's the Petra Haden now that you've had some time w/ it? (You bought it, right? Somebody picked it up & it's gotta be you or Hayden.)

I have an emusic account so I'll check out Antony tomorrow. Now it's time to go home. Bon soir, tout!

I never post in here, but I'm hoping the musical hivemind can help me.

I'm trying to find a song that I have only heard on the radio and in TV commercials. I think the main instrument is a ukelele and there are no words (at least in the portions I've heard). It's all a woman humming, or maybe saying "ooo" I heard it once in a car commercial a few years ago. More recently, it's been used again in a commercial with kids (maybe for financial services or something). I also heard it played on a Hawaii radio station in a memorial for a bunch of soldiers (stationed in Hawaii) who died in a bombing.

Ring any bells?

Speaking of the Who, how's the Petra Haden now that you've had some time w/ it?

I did like it a lot on first listen. I'm wondering how much I'll go back to it though. I expect I'll start nibbling off bits for mixes and see how they hold up in that context. I do love radically reinterpreted covers if they're well done and this one achieves the primary goal of such a project: it makes me listen to the music in a different way.

I'm trying to find a song that I have only heard on the radio and in TV commercials.

It doesn't ring any bells offhand, but I know there's a website that deals just with this question ("I heard a song in a commercial...". Hold on a sec...

What's That Called?

also...

Music From TV Commercials...

Thanks, Hec. What a cool website.

(Is Edge the Edge's last name, and The a first name? I have never seen Edge Evans. I guess it's easier to be mononamed if you're a guitarist.)

What does the New York Times call him? Mr. Edge? Mr. The Edge?

The Petra Haden hasn't held up so well with me. I still appreciate the craftmanship, but I don't think I'll be listening to it much more.