eclecticism

While there’s been some grousing about the accuracy of iTunes 8’s new Genius feature, I’m getting a kick out of playing with it. Sure, it’s not always spot-on (though Apple says that will change over time as their database grows and the matching AI improves), but that lends a certain entertainment value to the playlists it generates. When it works, though, it’s slick.

Here’s a playlist my iPod just put together (pulling only from songs that happened to be loaded at the time), seeding off of Tony Bennett’s take on “Steppin’ Out With My Baby”:

1. Tony Bennett, “Steppin’ Out With My Baby”
2. Frank Sinatra, “Nice ‘n’ Easy”
3. Bobby Darin, “More”
4. Johnny Mathis, “Chances Are”
5. Dean Martin, “You Belong to Me”
6. Fred Astaire, “The Way You Look Tonight”
7. The Andrews Sisters, “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy”
8. Marilyn Monroe, “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend”
9. Billie Holiday, “All of Me”
10. Perry Como, “Magic Moments”
11. Louis Armstrong, “West End Blues”
12. Louis Jordan, “Let the Good Times Roll”
13. Benny Goodman, “Swingtime in the Rockies”
14. Frank Sinatra, “Witchcraft”
15. The Glenn Miller Orchestra, “At Last”
16. Bobby Darin, “Hello, Dolly!”
17. Billie Holiday, “Spreadin’ Rhythm Around (Remix)”
18. Tony Bennett, “(I Left My Heart In) San Francisco”
19. Dean Martin, “That’s Amore”
20. Louis Armstrong, “Ain’t Misbehavin’”
21. Duke Ellington, “Take the A-Train”
22. Judy Garland, “The Man That Got Away”
23. The Andrews Sisters, “Rum and Coca-Cola”
24. Billie Holiday, “God Bless the Child”
25. Frank Sinatra, “You Make Me Feel So Young”

Not bad at all, I’d say.

(I also love that I just happened to have the songs on my iPod to build that kind of playlist. It’s semi-randomly loaded, so there’s often no real telling what might be on there at any given time. Hmmm…it may be about time to do another “here’s how I organize my music” post….)

Not bad for an ex-DJ, though I’ll admit that I did better than I thought I would…

Mix-Tape Master (109-144 points)

You are a music evangelist: the person in your network of friends who always has the coolest new song, the one whose iPod gets picked to DJ every party. You understand the art of the segue, how the key to the best mix-tape isn’t just the songs you pick, but how they interlock with each other. You also know who the up-and-coming acts are and are quick to recognise where their influences lie and whether they will make it big. You work hard at the pursuit of this knowledge, scouring music blogs, magazines and record stores. Most importantly, you are generous with your passion – and your friends should be very, very grateful. Still, it’s always good to get new inspiration for your latest mix.

(via Paul)

Joshua Allen (aka Fireland) uses Science! to determine the perfect song length: two minutes and forty-two seconds.

Just look at what clocks in between two and a half and three minutes: “Mr. Tambourine Man,” “We Got the Beat,” “Boys Don’t Cry,” “Hot Fun in the Summertime,” “Good Times Bad Times,” “I Would Die 4 U,” “Paranoid,” “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “Debaser,” “God Only Knows,” and “Fall on Me.” These are not only stone-cold classics but they also encapsulate all that is great about the band without wasting your goddamn time.

The scientists then dug up this song by a group that pretty much defines one-hit wonder: the La’s. The song is “There She Goes,” and is so flawless that it instantly made everything else the band did pointless. This ditty is two minutes and 42 seconds, and is all about songwriting economy.

I listened to it and said, in my rich and sonorous timbre, in my typically concise and absolutely-nailing-it fashion: “Here is a song that has everything I need and nothing I don’t.”

Out of curiosity (and amusement), I did a quick scan of my music collection to see what I had that clocked in at this magical time. Here’s a few that I noticed that deserve mention (though whether they prove or disprove his conclusions may well depend on your personal taste)…

• The Beastie Boys, “Lighten Up”
• Count Basie, “April in Paris”
• Mark Dinning, “Teen Angel”
• The Tokens, “The Lion Sleeps Tonight (Wimoweh)”
• Neil Diamond, “Red, Red Wine”
• The Mamas and the Papas, “California Dreamin’”
• Pearl Jam, “Oceans”
• Bow Wow Wow, “I Want Candy”
• The Violent Femmes, “Mother of a Girl”
• The Drifters, “Under the Boardwalk”
• Frank Sinatra, “Lover”
• Chuck Berry, “Johnny B. Goode”
• Danny and the Juniors, “At the Hop”
• Depeche Mode, “Enjoy the Slience (Harmonium Mix)”
• The Mouseketeers, “The Mickey Mouse Club March”
• The Andrews Sisters, “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy”

All in all, some good stuff in there. He just might be on to something…

Go here, plug in your birthday, and it’ll give you the #1 Billboard song for the day you were born.

• Dad (Sep. 15, 1946): “To Each His Own” by The Ink Spots
• Mom (Apr. 6, 1947): “Heartaches” by Ted Weems
• Me (May 3, 1973): “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree” by Tony Orlando and Dawn
• Royce (May 5, 1973): (The same as mine.)
• Kevin (May 4, 1976): “Welcome Back” by John Sebastian
• Prairie (Nov. 3, 1976): “Rock’n Me” by Steve Miller Band

What’s yours?

I’ve long been a fan of Pulp’s song ‘Common People’, and some time back I stumbled across the mini-comic of the song drawn by Tank Girl artist Jamie Hewlett, which was a great find. A couple days ago, comic reviewer Chris Sims, in an inspired bit of silliness, set the lyrics for ‘Common People’ to a bunch of altered Archie comic panels.

Continuing the silliness, I spent a little time tonight combining Chris’s strips with Pulp’s song…enjoy!

Interesting postscript: after I uploaded the video, I got an ominously titled e-mail from YouTube with the subject “Copyright Notice”.

Dear Member:

This is to notify you that your video Archie vs. Pulp: Common People has been identified as containing content that may be owned by someone else. The material identified in your video, the person claiming ownership of the material, and the policy they have designated for its use on YouTube are detailed below.

Material	Copyright Holder	Policy	Countries
Audio from PULP-COMMON PEOPLE	UMG	Allow	Everywhere

If the policy listed is “Allow,” you do not need to take action.

Neat — many thanks to UMG for being gracious enough to set an ‘Allow’ policy on this music. Nifty!

Stupid humor time, folks. Australian website Same Same, preparing for Sydney’s 30th Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, just ran a reader poll to determine the ‘50 Gayest Songs of All Time’.

…last month we asked you to vote for what songs out of the vast catalogue of musical history you think deserve to be called camp classics. We received thousands of votes, and now that they have all been counted and triple-checked, we’re proud to finally reveal exactly what songs have made it into the final list of the Gayest Songs of All Time.

I figured I’d run down the list and figure out just how many of these camp classics have made it into my music collection over the years. So, under the cut — does my music collection make the grade? How’s my collection of gay anthems?

Read the rest of this entry »

Just about everyone has their own favorite Christmas album. Prairie got a copy of her family’s traditional music and started playing it today — Peter, Paul and Mary’s ‘A Holiday Celebration’ — and it got me thinking about my own, long-lost personal favorite. For years, there was one particular album that I’d dig out every Christmas and put on the record player…however, it’s been ages since I’ve heard it, and while I would occasionally get snippets of the songs floating through my head, or brief flashes of the cover art, I haven’t been able to pull the actual title of the album out of my brain in years.

Chatting with Prairie tonight about it, though, the word ‘sunshine’ popped out of my head, which seemed to jibe with the hazy memory of a rising sun on the cover, so I tossed ‘sunshine christmas album’ at Google. I wasn’t really expecting to get a useful hit, but lo and behold, the third major link caught my eye — an (apparently unauthorized) bootleg of ‘Sunshine and Snowflakes: 40 Kids Singing at Christmas’. Bingo — the right title, the right cover art, and the titles of the songs looked right….

This was promising, but it still didn’t let me actually listen to the album. So, one more trip to Google, now that I actually had the official title…and once again, success! A 2004 weblog post by the Mad Philosopher had the entire album posted as .mp3 files, complete with cover art. Immediately I downloaded the files, tossed them into iTunes, and called Prairie into the room to listen.

Finally being able to hear this again is great. Prairie’s been enjoying it, and I’m amazed at just how much I’m remembering, almost as if it was just last Christmas that I was pulling the record out of its sleeve, putting it on dad’s record player, and carefully lowering the needle onto the vinyl. And while I’m sure there’s a lot of nostalgia wrapped up in this, the music is fun — a very, very 70’s funk/rock medley of traditional songs on side one, and five original tracks, three of which are nice and pretty, but two of which are the two that I really remember being fond of (“Wise Men Still Adore Him” and “Happy Birthday, Baby Jesus”).

So for me, this is a perfect Christmas Eve present. I get to revisit part of my childhood with some good old music, Prairie’s enjoying hearing the songs (and watching me bounce around as I remember bits and pieces of them), and I get some more good Christmas music to add to our collection.

Now, off to bed. After all, if I don’t go to bed, Santa won’t stop by…and that would be a sad, sad thing indeed!

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Merry Solstice…pick your holiday, call it what you will, just have a good one!

Five years ago, in the Onion:

“It’s criminal,” RIAA president Hilary Rosen said. “Anyone at any time can simply turn on a radio and hear a copyrighted song. Making matters worse, these radio stations often play the best, catchiest song off the album over and over until people get sick of it. Where is the incentive for people to go out and buy the album?”

[…]

RIAA attorney Russell Frackman said the lawsuit is intended to protect the artists.

“If this radio trend continues, it will severely damage a musician’s ability to earn a living off his music,” Frackman said. “[Metallica drummer] Lars Ulrich stopped in the other day wondering why his last royalty check was so small, and I didn’t know what to say. How do you tell a man who’s devoted his whole life to his music that someone is able to just give it away for free? That pirates are taking away his right to support himself with his craft?”

Yesterday, in the Los Angeles Times:

With CD sales tumbling, record companies and musicians are looking at a new potential pot of money: royalties from broadcast radio stations.

For years, stations have paid royalties to composers and publishers when they played their songs. But they enjoy a federal exemption when paying the performers and record labels because, they argue, the airplay sells music.

Now, the Recording Industry Assn. of America and several artists’ groups are getting ready to push Congress to repeal the exemption, a move that could generate hundreds of millions of dollars annually in new royalties.

Mary Wilson, who with Diana Ross and Florence Ballard formed the original Supremes, said the exemption was unfair and forced older musicians to continue touring to pay their bills.

“After so many years of not being compensated, it would be nice now at this late date to at least start,” the 63-year-old Las Vegas resident said in Milwaukee, where she was performing at the Potawatomi Bingo Casino. “They’ve gotten 50-some years of free play. Now maybe it’s time to pay up.”

Rather sadly, the Onion is becoming the new Nostradamus — only a lot more accurate.

(via eukarya)

While Christina Aguilera generally isn’t one of my first choices when it comes to music, one of my co-workers just turned me on to her new single, “Candyman.” Heavily inspired (in a good way) by “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” it’s an incredibly infectious little 40’s swing-style pop tune, and it’s getting a lot of play around the apartment right now.

Apparently Back to Basics, the album that “Candyman” comes off of, has Christina experimenting with a lot of different vocal styles from the past, with Christina describing it as “a throwback to the 20s, 30s, and 40s-style jazz, blues, and feel-good soul music, but with a modern twist.” When I browsed through the album on iTunes, most of the snippets didn’t really grab me — they had a bit too much of a ‘modern’ (hip-hop) twist to them. However, along with “Candyman,” two others ended up finding their way into my collection: “Nasty Naughty Boy” and “I Got Trouble.”

All three songs are together in the second half of the album, and they all concentrate on a very 40’s sound — though each is from a very different musical style. Where “Candyman” draws on the big-band sound, “Nasty Naughty Boy” uses slow, sultry jazz styles (think Jessica Rabbit’s “Why Don’t You Do Right” in Who Framed Roger Rabbit with the vamp amped up — this one is just begging to be used in a burlesque routine), and “I Got Trouble” heads down to play with a very southern blues feel.

Of course, this being late 2000’s pop, and Christina being Christina, the lyrics have a tendency to slip over the line from innuendo into straight-out raunch. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it does make for a good laugh.

As I said above, the rest of Back to Basics didn’t grab me, but those three? I’d definitely say it’s worth spending the three bucks to snag ‘em off of iTunes. And don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone you’re listening to Christina Aguilera if you don’t want me to.

Wow.

See also: Peter and the Wolf, The Super Mario Brothers Theme (for the gamers), and for the kid in everyone, The Sesame Street Theme. This guy’s good.

Nifty randomness of the day: seeing Neil Gaiman quote and promote Jason Webley (by way of someone posting the video to Eleven Saints).

Nifty plan for the afternoon: three movies have been rented (Clerks 2, Scoop, and Slither), much warm finger food has been purchased, and the couch has been covered with an electric blanket so we’ve got a warm place to sit as we spend a quiet evening at home.

My new theme song, courtesy of Weird Al Yankovic:

Lyrics under the cut… Read the rest of this entry »

90’s rock group Soul Asylum gave a free show at the Pike Place market on Thursday morning, and Prairie and I headed down to see them. While we were waiting for the show to start I took a few random people shots around the gathering crowd. This shot is by far my favorite of the morning (the rest are here).

“Comfortably Numb (ATOC Extended Edit)” by Scissor Sisters from the album Comfortably Numb, Pts. 1 & 2 - Single (2003, 5:39).

My co-worker Nick got me hooked on the new single by the Scissor Sisters, ‘Don’t Feel Like Dancin’’. It’s incredibly infectious, catchy, and fun — feels like what the Bee Gees would be doing if they were making pop music today, and would fit perfectly coming over the soundtrack of a roller rink. So far, I can’t get enough of it (and Prairie’s getting a laugh out of watching me bounce around in my seat while it’s playing).

“I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’ (Radio Edit)” by Scissor Sisters from the album I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’ - Single (2006, 4:10).

Goofy idea that I don’t have the programming chops to create:

A plugin for iTunes (originally I was thinking of a separate program, but I think that this could probably all be done through Applescript) that, when activated, polls the weather services on the ‘net for the current temperature and then randomly selects a song from the year that matches the current temperature. A sunny summer day of 85° would produce synthpop from 1985, a cool fall afternoon of 63° would play the rock and roll of 1963.

Options that should be included:

• Some form of fahrenheit/celsius recognition.
  • Switch between the two systems (85°F/1985 is 29°C/1929).
  • Converting between the two (85°F plays 1929, 29°C plays 1985).
• Choosing songs from the decade, rather than the year (85° plays songs from 1980-1989, 72° plays from ‘70-‘79).
• Applying some alteration (plus or minus X, other transformations) to affect the temperature to year conversion (otherwise, most places would get a lot of songs from the 70’s through the summertime, and many people don’t have a huge collection of 20’s and 30’s tunes to listen to during the winter months).

It’s the kind of silly little one-trick pony that could only be released as freeware, and likely wouldn’t get a ton of usage. It amused me when the idea crossed my mind, however.

(Incidentally, the song I’m listening to at the moment — which will be noted at the bottom of this post — was released in 1979, because according to my ‘puter, it’s 79°F outside. At 11:20pm. Ick. Yes, I’m whining. Yes, Colorado, Arizona, and many other places are hotter than it is here in Seattle. I’m still whining. Candles shouldn’t melt when they’re not lit.)

“I Hope That Somethin’ Better Comes Along” by Kermit the Frog/Rolf the Dog from the album Muppet Movie, The (1979, 3:58).

I’ve been using last.fm for some time now to track what I’m listening to. I have no idea if anyone actually pays much attention to it, but it’s all handled for me in the background without my having to worry about it (as iTunes plays music, the last.fm client sends info on what I’m listening to to their servers), so I just let it go.

Now there’s a new upstart service looking to do much the same thing, in much the same way. Sign up for MOG, download a small application (on Mac OS X, it’s a system preference pane), and MOG will track what you listen to and link it to other people with similar tastes. Here’s my MOG page.

Right off the bat, I really can’t see what MOG offers that last.fm doesn’t already have…there really doesn’t seem to be much differentiation between the two services.

Save for one little thing.

Under a link called ‘Share my MOG’, you can spam notify all your friends of your new MOGspace. You can either write your own little note, or you can use the provided boilerplate text. All pretty standard — except that MOG’s boilerplate message made me cringe. Out loud.

what’s up?

thought i’d share my spankin’ new MOG page with you.

you can find it at: http://mog.com/djwudi

MOG automatically creates a page for me that lets you see what’s in my music collection and what i’m playing (and does a whole lot more). There are serious music freaks hanging at MOG. see you in the MOG-O-SPHERE. later.

Out of seven sentences (well, six plus a farewell), not a single one is actually well written. Grammarians more versed than I would be more able to point out all the problems (and probably see some that I don’t identify right off), but…yeesh. Capitalization is nearly nonexistent, dropped subjects left and right, missing punctuation, and a general disrespect for the English language.

It’s bad enough that a disturbingly high percentage of ‘net users have little to no critical writing skills (or even casual writing skills, for that matter) — do we really need to encourage this wholesale slaughter of the language?

Ick.

Yes, it’s high-falutin’, snobbish, and elitist. But damn if that isn’t enough to knock MOG several steps down in my estimation.

“00 No One Takes Your Freedom” by Beatles/Franklin, Aretha/Michael, George/Scissor Sisters from the album www.djearworm.com (2004, 5:15).

Okay…it’s finally time to take a few minutes break from math and play catch-up on this weekend.

Friday night was the concert for the release of Eleven Saints, Jason Webley’s latest release, written collaboratively with Jay Thompson.

I showed up at The Paradox about an hour early, as Jason’s big shows tend to get pretty full pretty quickly. Only a few people were there quite that early, though, so I started wandering around and taking a few shots. Only a few minutes later, a girl sitting against the building said, “I think I know who you are.” Turns out she’d recognized me from my prior Webley photos and from the forum on Jason’s site, so I plopped down and we chatted while waiting for the doors to open.

A bit after eight the doors opened, and we all (the line had grown to extend around the street corner by now) worked our way into the Paradox. Carrie (the girl I’d been chatting with) went on in to find a place to sit, while I wandered between the lobby and the auditorium watching people trickle in. chrismathewsjr brought along the Jason doll that he’d rescued after it floated away at the end of the 2003 Deathday show, which was fun to see again — I’m thrilled that that piece of Webley history didn’t end up disappearing into the Sound or some similar fate after we all sent it floating into the sky.

Eventually the hall started getting pretty full, so I figured it’d be a good time to find a place for myself. As I was heading in, an older gentleman caught my attention. “Excuse me,” he asked, “are you the guy who takes all those photos of Jason at the shows?” “Probably so,” I agreed — while I’m certainly not the only one to show up camera in hand (Josh, for instance, has photo archives dating back to 2001), I was lucky enough to have my Camp Tomato 2005 set mentioned in Jason’s e-mail alert about this weekend’s activities. “I just wanted to say thank you,” he said. “I’m Jason’s dad, and we love that you’re doing this.” Pretty cool, I thought.

Pretty soon, the show got started, with Alex Xavier the Eleventh (last seen getting pelted with tomatoes at the end of last year’s Halloween show after trying to kill Jason) taking the stage to perform the introductions — though he was soon brought to a halt by the four Goddesses rushing on stage and urging us all to boo Alex away. They were soon stopped by Jason, who came on stage to explain that over the winter, he and Alex had talked and come to an understanding: Alex could be a little bit more good…and Jason could be just a little bit more evil. And with that, Alex finished welcoming us all to the show, and Jason took the stage.

This was a fairly different show from previous springtime shows. As Jason has completed his death/rebirth cycle and isn’t releasing a full-length album this year, the show ended up a little more random. Jason started off with a couple songs (initially declaring that since he hadn’t really written anything new, he was just going to perform all of the Footloose soundtrack on accordion…and even did a few verses of three or four songs from the movie), then introduced Jeff Harms to do a short set. Many of Jeff’s songs are silly little short pieces about random objects, dolls he’s seen in a store, lemons that have gone bad, and so on. During the song about lemons, he brought a couple friends out who sat on stage, scratched the peel off of some lemons, then tossed them out to the crowd, introducing “the first scratch-and-sniff song.”

Once Jeff was done, Jason came back — though instead of more music, we were treated (after some amusing technical difficulties) to a couple of videos. The first was an amusingly maudlin short film by Andy Brodie that Jason had written the music for, as well as having a small part as a funeral home embalmer. After that came a fifteen minute documentary about Jason that had been filmed over the winter in London by Charlotte Ross while Jason was on tour.

Jason then announced that he had one more video to show us, but to break up the monotony, Jay Thompson was going to spend a few minutes reading us some of his poetry. Jay came on stage and spent about fifteen minutes reading a number of short pieces, one of which even included a mathematical formula — I don’t remember what it was anymore, but it was rather impressive that he was able to work that into a spoken word piece.

Once Jay was done, it was time for one of the highlights of the evening: the premier of the video for ‘Eleven Saints’, the title track of the new EP. It’s a really fun video — it’s done in the same cutout stop-motion animation style of the pre-concert video at his 2004 Halloween Show, and hopefully it’ll be posted to the ‘net at some point in the near future (Jason alluded to such, it’s just a matter of watching for it to show up either on his site, his MySpace page, or perhaps other video sites), as trying to describe it just wouldn’t really do it justice.

Once the video was done, Jay came back onstage, and he and Jason did a couple more songs from the EP (and from its accompanying bonus CD), including ‘Big Old Spool’, which featured disco dancers onstage and the Tomato Goddess being rolled into the auditorium balancing on a big old spool. Jay then left, and Jason was joined for a few songs by Ellie, the granddaughter of Jason’s friend Joan, who is the inspiration for the song ‘Goodnight, Joan’. I must admit, I was quite taken by their slow, acoustic guitar and voice, ballad version of Def Leppard’s ‘Pour Some Sugar on Me’!

Once Ellie left the stage, the rest of Jason’s band came up along with Jay and the Goddesses to lead us in the Tomato Scout Oath and the Tomato Scout Anthem. Next came ‘Eleven Saints’, which got the crowd all riled up and set the tone for the rest of the evening — Jason’s usual blend of silliness, mayhem…and mess. Bags of bright red balloons were opened and tossed into the crowd, pillows were ripped open to send feathers flying, a boat was passed hand-over-hand over the crowd, and finally, tomatoes went flying through the air.

Jason and Jay donned sunglasses as they played the silly techno-ish song ‘Story of Boy’, then had the band lay down a disco-ish beat so that they could keep the dance club theme going as they segued into a club “remix” version of the ‘Drinking Song’! Soon they had the whole room spinning in circles, throwing their arms ‘round each others shoulders, and swaying back and forth to the final chorus.

And not much later, after a few last mentions of Saturday’s second annual Camp Tomato, the music wound down, Jason and the band left the stage, and we all filed back out into the evening air — many of us to gather again at Woodland Park the next day.

That, however, is another post entirely.

In the meantime, here’s my full photoset for the concert.

“Ramblin’ Blues” by Jason Webley with Jay Thompson from the album Eleven Saints (2006, 3:16).

Read the rest of this entry »

• The Ick has been beaten into submission, and I once again feel normal…or at least as normal as I tend to get.

• I just saw the Simpsons episode (“Deep Space Homer”) responsible for coining the “…and I, for one, welcome our new (FILL IN THE BLANK) overlords,” catchphrase.

  • Aside from the occasional random episode while at friends’ houses, I’ve never actually seen The Simpsons. Therefore, Prairie and I have been picking up the season sets on DVD from time to time. We’re up to season five, and all these episodes have been brand new to me. It’s been a lot of fun discovering the source of various catchwords and phrases that I’ve known for years after they seeped into the general public consciousness.

• I now own a white dress shirt, black bow tie, and black suit jacket. These will be worn tonight along with my mocker kilt and 14-eye Doc Marten boots while I’m photographing NSCC’s Career Link Academy Prom. I only wish the long-lost Tuxedo Utilikilt (seen here being worn by Dick Clark) would re-appear, as has been rumored for quite some time now. Still, the black Mocker will work for tonight.

• Prairie will be heading down to see her sister graduate with her Master’s Degree from college this weekend. My work schedule, unfortunately, prevented me from going along. However, both Prairie and I will be at Jason Webley’s Eleven Saints release party on Friday night, and I’ll be at Camp Tomato on Saturday.

  • A couple weeks ago, fellow Tomato Scout Laura Mulinski was kind enough to send me a package of bootleg Webley recordings to be added to my Jason Webley Bootlegs page. What I didn’t realize when she first asked me if I wanted these was how many she had to send, so I was quite surprised (though very happily so) to open the envelope to find 22 CDs that encompassed eleven shows recorded during 2005. I will eventually get all of these shows encoded to .mp3, tagged, and posted on the bootlegs page, but I haven’t even had a chance to get started on them yet…this will probably be a summertime project.

“Brandenburg Concerto #6 in B flat - Allegro” by I Musici from the album Bach for Book Lovers (1997, 6:01).

After a few days of grumbling and plotting devious ways of kicking my manager (severely, repeatedly, in the shin), my schedule has been reworked so that there are no more conflicts. Well, not true — I’m going to have to skip school for one day — but no major conflicts.

So.

Upcoming things where I will be wandering around, camera in hand:

• Saturday, May 27: Northwest Folklife Festival

  Prairie and I will be wandering around during the day, I’ll be shooting more or less randomly. No set schedule or plan.

• Saturday, May 27: The Scarlet F

  At the request of the lovely anzu, primarily for the fashion show and burlesque bits, but apparently I’ll be able to shoot the whole thing. Fun! Given that this is an “in your face celebration of queer femininity and femme identity”, I’m debating as to whether wearing my “I’m just here to get laid” t-shirt would provoke laughs or beatings (and not those of the enjoyable type).

• Thursday, June 1: NSCC Career Link Prom

  Prairie’s teaching for Career Link, a G.E.D. program for students 16-21 who aren’t in high school. One of the things they do for the kids is throwing them a Prom, and I’ve been asked to act as a ‘roving photographer’ — no formal posed against a backdrop shots (as I understand), just candids throughout the evening.

• Friday, June 2: Jason Webley’s Eleven Saints EP Release Party

  Jason’s the one local artist that I’ve become a huge fan of since I moved to Seattle (see my Webely photos on Flickr or Webley posts on Eclecticism, for example). This is the release concert for his latest album, ‘Eleven Saints’. Seriously — if you’re not doing anything that evening, you should think about attending.

• Saturday, June 3: Camp Tomato 2006

  Also a Jason Webley event, this is the sequel to last year’s inaugural Camp Tomato. Expect an afternoon of picnics, silliness, games, and tomatoes.

• Friday, June 16: NSCC Career Link Graduation

  Along with Prom, I’ve also been asked to act as photographer for the Career Link graduation ceremonies. Nifty!

And that covers pretty much everything planned over the next few weeks. I’m hoping to be able to make it to some of the Seattle Pride festivities on Pride Weekend (June 24th-25th), but that will depend on my work schedule.

(Speaking of…did you know that we get two Pride Parades this year? I really wonder how well that’s going to go over….)

“Oh L’Amour” by Erasure from the album Pop! The First 20 Hits (1992, 3:07).

I’ll be turning 33 in just a couple of weeks, on May 3rd. This year I only really had one thing on my birthday wish list, and that’s already arrived, thanks to my wonderful girl (doubly wonderful, as she’d already spoiled me once!). I’ve even received another early birthday present from Royce, in the form of another year’s membership to Flickr (keeping me at the ‘pro’ level until November of ‘07)!

I am incredibly spoiled.

However, I have had the occasional “so, what do you want for your birthday?” inquiry. At this point, I’m pretty much set, so kind wishes will do me just fine. But…if someone’s determined to spend a little money on me (okay, not terribly likely, but you never know), books and music are always appreciated. I’ve got a bunch of each saved in my Amazon Wish List, but there are three CDs that I’d like to call special attention to.

Back in March of ‘03, I stumbled across a series of discs from Sony called the ‘Soundtrack for a Century’, celebrating 100 years of music recordings and releases from the Sony family of record labels. Over time I’ve collected eight out of the eleven pieces of the series, and any (or all) of these last three would be greatly appreciated:

• R&B: From Doo Wop to Hip Hop
• Country: The American Tradition
• International Music: Sony Music Around the World

Other than that…(shrug)…as I said, I’m not too greedy. Well-wishes and kind words will work just fine.

“Atom Bomb” by Fluke from the album Risotto (1997, 5:45).

For those interested in mashups: The Kleptones (producers of two of my favorite mashup albums of the past few years, A Night at the Hip-Hopera and From Detroit to J.A., though Yoshimi Battles the Hip-Hop Robots just didn’t do it for me) have just released their fourth full-length album, the two-disc set 24hours. Torrents for split-track and full-mix versions are available, and there’s even a video for “0900 Daft Purple” to entertain you while you download.

“Stand and Deliver” by Society Burning from the album Shut Up Kitty (1993, 5:03).

> In the jungle,
> The mighty jungle,
> The lawyers sleep tonight…

Heh.

Back in July of ‘03 I pointed to an incredible in-depth look at the story of ‘Wimoweh’, the South African tune most popularly known as the melody for “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”.

A year later, in July of ‘04, came word that Disney was being sued by the heirs of ‘Wimoweh’ author Solomon Linda.

Finally, the case has been won by Linda’s family.

> No one is saying how many millions will go to the daughters of the late composer Solomon Linda, who died in poverty from a curable kidney disease in 1962 at age 53. > > But the family’s settlement with New York-based Abilene Music, which gives Linda’s heirs 25 percent of past and future royalties, has broad implications. > > […] In the 1950s, at a time when apartheid laws robbed blacks of negotiating rights, Linda sold worldwide copyright to Gallo Records of South Africa for 10 shillings — less than $1.70. > > Gallo also tried to sell the work in the United States, but American folk singer Pete Seeger had adapted a version that he called “Wimoweh.” > > […] It remains to be seen how the settlement with Abilene, which holds the copyright to the popular songs that grew from Linda’s composition, will affect his family. Abilene music could not immediately be reached for comment. > > Of his three surviving daughters, only the youngest has a job, as a nurse, and she still lives in the family home in Soweto, a satellite suburb set up for black workers under apartheid. > > Her sisters never reached high school. One runs a home-based grocers. The other recently lost her job cleaning a doctor’s office and supports a daughter who gets occasional work cleaning homes. > > Linda’s fourth daughter died of AIDS in her 30s in 2002 as the lawsuit dragged on, without money to buy drugs that could have saved her life.

Neat to see the story finally reach resolution. I highly recommend reading the 3rd Ear article that details the origins of the song and what happened to Linda and his family.

“Lion Sleeps Tonight, The (Wimoweh)” by Nylons from the album Best of the Nylons (1993, 3:12).

Neither Prairie nor I are big fans of country, but we both listen to a little bit. Last night I’d popped on a compilation I made a few years ago as background music while I was cleaning house, and still had it going when Prairie came home. It turned out that she knew every song on the CD as well, and we had fun listening to some of the songs and chatting about what got us started listening to country.

In my case, while dad had some small part in it (he’s not a big country listener either, but his LP collection is responsible for introducing me to Johnny Cash when I was a youngster), it can all be blamed attributed to some of my ex-girlfriends. They listened to some, I happened to be around, and I ended up discovering that there actually was some country music that I enjoyed listening to.

Prairie can also blame credit an ex for the songs that she found that she likes. In each case, though, one of the primary artists we found was Garth Brooks. I mentioned that I’d often noticed when talking to people that, if they had even a little bit of country in their collection, there was a pretty good chance that Garth would be in there somewhere, if not the sole representative.

Which led to the realization that Garth Brooks is a gateway drug.

So now you know, kids.

Don’t do Garth.

Herewith, then, is a selection of country music approved by me (and, in most cases, by Prairie, also). It’s pretty much entirely the fun, upbeat style of country…I just can’t get into the ballads.

1. Toby Keith, How Do You Like Me Now?
2. Jodee Messina, I’m Alright
3. Garth Brooks, Two Piña Coladas
4. Mary Chapin Carpenter, Down at the Twist and Shout
5. Clay Walker, Then What?
6. Dolly Parton, Why’d You Come In Here Lookin’ Like That?
7. Clint Black, Only On Days That End In ‘Y’
8. Reba McEntire, Fancy
9. Joe Diffe, Third Rock From the Sun
10. Shania Twain, Don’t Be Stupid (You Know I Love You)
11. Tim McGraw, Something Like That
12. Lee Ann Womack, I’ll Think of a Reason Later
13. John Michael Montgomery, Sold (The Grundy County Auction Incident)
14. Trisha Yearwood, She’s In Love With the Boy
15. Brad Paisley, Me Neither
16. Collin Raye, Little Red Rodeo
17. Reba McEntire, The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia
18. Rick Trevino, Bobby Ann Mason
19. John Michael Montgomery, Life’s a Dance
20. Trick Pony, Pour Me
21. Rodney Crowell with Johnny Cash, I Walk the Line (Revisited)
22. Dixie Chicks, Goodbye Earl

“I Walk the Line Revisited” by Crowell, Rodney with Cash, Johnny (2:43).

Just added to the Jason Webley Bootlegs collection: No Woman, No Fly (5.1Mb .mp3). The audio quality isn’t the greatest (with Jason’s penchant for going from soft to screaming in nanoseconds, the recording’s a bit overdriven in places), but it’s up.

Thanks to usernamenumber for posting the .mp3, and to RobTav63 for help with the lyrics.

Lyrics follow behind the cut. Read the rest of this entry »