Music – Page 24 – Jarrett House North

Friday Random 5: coming out of the rain

It’s been a rainy week back in Massachusetts, and that’s contributing to a small sense of writer’s block for me this morning. So it is that I double-dip and write about music again today.

China Girl (David Bowie, Nothing Has Changed): to say that this song skirts the edge of offense today is probably an understatement, between the title and frequent invocation of “my little China girl” and the stereotypical “oriental” melody in the opening guitars, it’s kind of astonishing that it escapes the valley of offense. But it’s one of Bowie’s more interesting 1980s melodies, though the backing track, especially the bassline, is solidly 80s, and his unhinged second verse opening “I stumble into town/just like a sacred cow” is kind of brilliant.

Come the Meantimes (Elvis Costello, Wise Up Ghost): If EC is really leaving the world of albums behind, as he hints in his brilliant autobiography, he could have done worse with a parting shot than this album. The Roots seem like a counterintuitive backing band for Elvis, but then so did the Dirty Dozen Brass Band on Spike. The backing rap “you can’t beg” on the chorus makes this song feel a little like his early angry young man songs like “Goon Squad,” but the beat is a lot funkier.

This Ole House (Live) (The Statler Brothers on Johnny Cash, Live at Folsom Prison Legacy Edition): What a bass part!

Walk Alone (The Roots, How I Got Over): More Roots, but this is in their own wheelhouse. Lots of different directions in this track, unified by a great chorus sample.

Tempest (Bob Dylan, Tempest): A fourteen minute evocation of the sinking of the Titanic with fiddle band accompaniment? Sure, why not.

New mix: i’ve come all this way to hold your hand

This has been germinating for a while, and I had to drive to North Carolina and back to finish it. This was the mix of no rules, as you can tell by the length.

Baby, I’m In the Mood for You – Bob Dylan (The Bootleg Series, Vol. 9: The Witmark Demos: 1962-1964) A demo of Dylan’s raunchiest, most rural love song? Sure, why not.
Bring it On Down to My House – Warner Williams with Jay Summerour (Classic African American Songsters from Smithsonian Folkways) A raunchy blues song? Sure, why not.
Jake Leg Rag – Narmour & Smith (Lead Kindly Light) A fiddle tune? Sure, why not.
Where Shall I Go? – Sister Marie Knight (When the Moon Goes Down in the Valley of Time: African-American Gospel, 1939-51) A gospel tune that lifts off into the stratosphere? Sure, why not.
Little Island Walking (Peel Session) – Jim O’Rourke (Peel Session) Jim O’Rourke doing a straight-on John Fahey pastiche? Sure, why not.
We Would Be Building – Daniel Bachman (Orange Co. Serenade) Primitive guitar cover of a Methodist hymn? Sure, why not.
On The Banks Of The Owichita – John Fahey (The Dance Of Death & Other Plantation Favorites) A primitive guitar evocation of the slow river? Sure, why not.
I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free – Nina Simone (Nina Revisited… A Tribute to Nina Simone) A landmark Nina Simone tune? Sure, why not.
Peace And Love – Gary Bartz And NTU Troop (I’ve Known Rivers And Other Bodies). “We got a hand for the Bronx”? Sure, why not.
The Raven Speaks – Gary Burton & Keith Jarrett (Gary Burton & Keith Jarrett) A funk number with Keith Jarrett on the Fender and Burton on vibes? Sure, why not.
Brown-Baggin’ – 24-Carat Black (Ghetto: Misfortune’s Wealth) Straight ahead funk from a very strange concept album? Sure, why not.
Disrobe – Medeski, Martin & Wood (The End of Violence) A groove I’ve been sitting on for a very long time? Sure, why not.
Doing It to Death, Pt. 1 (Single) – The J.B.’s & Fred Wesley (Pass the Peas: The Best of the J.B.’s). “In order to get down, I got to get in D”? Sure, why not.
You Can’t Blame Me – Johnson, Hawkins, Tatum, & Durr (Eccentric Soul: The Capsoul Label) The world’s weirdest soul hook? Sure, why not.
Everybody Loves the Sunshine – Roy Ayers Ubiquity (The Best of Roy Ayers (The Best of Roy Ayers: Love Fantasy)) A blissed out fusion number? Sure, why not.
Blue Lines – Massive Attack (Blue Lines) A genre-creating Tricky rap? Sure, why not.
The Sad Punk – Pixies (Trompe Le Monde) Changing gears abruptly? Sure, why not.
Marrow (Live) – David Byrne & St. Vincent (Brass Tactics EP) St. Vincent backed by a freaking great horn section? Sure, why not.
What We Loved Was Not Enough – Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra (F*ck Off Get Free We Pour Light On Everything) Heartrending Canadians? Sure, why not.
Roked – Shye Ben Tzur, Jonny Greenwood & The Rajasthan Express (Junun) Israeli composer, Indian musicians, Radiohead guitarist? Sure, why not.
%%%%%%%%%% $$$$$$$$$ >>>>>>>> >> >> >> @@@@@@@ – The User (Symphony #2 For Dot Matrix Printers) Dot matrix printer music? Sure, why not.
Do the Dog – The Specials (The Specials) Do the dog, not the donkey? Sure, why not.
You Satellite – Wilco (Star Wars) Wilco does late period Sonic Youth? Sure, why not.
Nothing Clings Like Ivy – Elvis Costello & The Imposters (The Delivery Man) Plaintive country rock from a London kid? Sure, why not.
Just One Thing – My Morning Jacket (It Still Moves) Unabashed Southern rock? Sure, why not.
Are You Okay? – Dum Dum Girls (Too True) Can’t be flip about this track. The bridge kills me: “I’m reckless at night/I’m sorry for days.”
Shake It Off – Ryan Adams (1989) A dark rewrite of an infectious Taylor Swift original? Sure, why not.
One Sunday Morning (Song For Jane Smiley’s Boyfriend) – Wilco (The Whole Love) Eleven minutes of a murder mystery wrapped up in an NPR-friendly arrangement? Sure, why not.
Moonshine Blues [live 1962 10 at Gaslight Café, New York City] – Bob Dylan (The Gaslight Tapes [live 1962 10 at Gaslight Café, New York City]) A stark folk original and probably the most harrowing version ever recorded? Sure, why not.
Bladesteel – Daniel Lanois (Here Is What Is) Four minutes of slide guitar with New Orleans drums by Lanois? Sure why not.
Amy – Ryan Adams (Heartbreaker) A track that opens with Adams’ most annoying verse melody, but transitions into his most heartbreaking chorus melody? Sure why not.
Stanwell Perpetual – David Grubbs (The Spectrum Between) Three minutes of unresolved tension building with the horn section from Camoufleur? Sure, why not.
The Things I Say – Joanna Newsom (Divers) A straight folk track that resolves to an ascending backtracked vocal cliffhanger conclusion? Sure, why not.
Untitled – R.E.M. (Green) Michael Stipe’s paean to his parents? Sure, why not.
Sun Is Shining – The Fireman (Electric Arguments) Electronica by Paul McCartney and Youth? Sure, why not.

Friday Random 5: recovery edition

A long, good week calls for a quick Random 5.

The Cure, In Between Days, The Head on the Door: I’ve heard this song as a country-western cover and as a dance remix, and I’m enough of a child of the 80s that I still prefer the original. For everyone who’s ever got so old they felt like they would die.

Flunk, Blue Monday, For Sleepyheads Only: This was among the first modern downtempo covers of a New Order song I heard back in the day. I no longer need to hear any more, thanks.

Miles Davis, Nefertiti, Nefertiti. The circularity of the main tune, the way the two horns drift in and out of time with each other, the way that the rhythm section led by Herbie Hancock continues to churn as the horns repeat the melody over and over. There’s so much about this tune I love, and it’s not even my favorite performance on this album.

My Morning Jacket, One Big Holiday, It Still Moves. This may be my favorite My Morning Jacket album. They had outgrown some of the rough edges of their journeyman albums—I love The Tennessee Fire and At Dawn, but they’re clearly products of a young band—and had just started to unironically embrace big southern rock sounds, no more so than on this track.

The Beach Boys, In the Parkin’ Lot, Surfer Girl/Shut Down, Vol. 2. You have to admire the early Beach Boys’ total dedication to their aesthetic. They produced a song about just about every aspect of high school and surfing life, including sitting in the car in the parking lot making out with your date, and brought the same tight stack of harmonies to it as they did to everything else. Not essential, but fun.

Integrating the Virginia Glee Club in 1961

1961-62 Glee Club in the 1962 Corks and Curls, page 159. Courtesy University of Virginia Library

On Saturday afternoon, we were wrapping up a tour of Virginia Glee Club archives in the Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia. I had just taken about 50 alums, friends, conductors and family through the items, which I knew quite well having reviewed all of them—and donated some of them myself. We had also just ceremonially donated former Glee Club director Donald Loach‘s collection of concert programs to the library, and I was feeling pretty good about myself as a historian.

Then an alum asked a question that stopped me in my tracks. “Do you know who the first African-American member of Club was?”

After a pause, I replied, “No, but we should.”

The Virginia Glee Club is part of the larger story of the University of Virginia, and that story includes discrimination against African-Americans. It wasn’t until 1950 that Gregory Swanson, a graduate of Howard Law School, applied to take graduate courses at the University of Virginia, was denied admission, sued and won, becoming the first black student at the University—only to drop out in the summer of 1951. The University’s president, Colgate Darden, said he “was not well prepared for the work.” In the early 1950s two other African Americans followed in Swanson’s footsteps, and Walter N. Ridley became the first black student not only to gain a degree at the University but also the first black student to receive a doctorate from any Southern university.

It took the undergraduate schools a few more years, but in September 1955, following on the heels of the 1954 Brown vs. Board decision, three black students matriculated in the engineering school. Theodore Thomas and George Harris dropped out by the following spring, but Robert Bland continued on and was the first African-American undergraduate to graduate from the University in 1959, nine full years after the struggle for integration started. Also at the end of the fifties, Edgar F. Shannon took over as University president, and that’s when things started to get rolling.

I knew that the first black Glee Club member had to have joined sometime after 1959. I knew the story of David L. Temple, Jr., class of 1969, who was a member of Club from 1967 to 1969 and desegregated the fraternity system at the University, but I believed the first African-American member of Glee Club came earlier.

My second thought was that he would have joined during Don Loach’s first season as conductor, 1964-65. There’s a story in our archives that the Glee Club went on tour that fall, only to have their bus refused service in a truck stop on Route 29. After the tour, Loach raised the issue with President Shannon, and subsequently the truck stops got integrated. It’s a great story, and I assumed that this young man (whose name I’m still working on identifying; I have a bunch more candidates to work through with yearbook pictures) was the first student. (Update: I was closer than I thought. See below.) But as I was flipping through the 1965 yearbook, I found a picture of one of the graduating students of the Class of 1965 and knew we had found our candidate.

In 1961-1962, the group picture of the Glee Club for the first time has a black face. (That’s the picture up above.) The young man standing on the second row to the left side of the stage of Old Cabell Hall is Edwin S. Williams, of Smithfield. He stayed in the Glee Club for two seasons—as did most members, since it could only be taken as a graded course for two years—and completed his BA in chemistry, graduating with the class of 1965. And I believe, based on the evidence I have so far, that he was the first African-American member of the Virginia Glee Club.

There’s certainly more of his story to be told, and I will continue to look for more information. But one of my first questions is: if the truck stops on Rt 29 were first integrated in 1964-65, what did Williams do when the Glee Club got on a bus in 1961-62? I think we have a lot more to learn, but I’m glad we’ve taken the first step.

Update April 28: Donald Loach filled in the missing pieces by confirming that Edwin S. Williams was still in Glee Club in 1964-1965—was the baritone section leader, in fact—and was the Club man not served at the truck stop. So the stories are connected! And we need to fix our roster information.

The Glee Club Army at 145

I’m still coming down off the high of last weekend. What an amazing 145th anniversary celebration for the Virginia Glee Club. And yet it was comfortable and relaxed in a way that I didn’t think it could possibly have been. We had friends and family there, and alums from the early 1950s all the way up through last year in attendance.

Things that were surprisingly great: having older fossils (and Glee Club honorary grandmother Bonnie Ford!) in the Glee Club House on Friday night, and not having the house fall down under her; in fact, the house didn’t even smell bad. Showing up as alums for the party with a keg and a dozen College Inn pizzas. Watching the eyes of the older alums light up as they experienced the magic of “songs on the bar.”

Getting up early on Saturday morning and watching the Lawn wake up, then watching all the alums spontaneously appear. Don Loach showing real fire as he led us briskly through “Hark, all ye lovely saints” and two numbers from “Summer Songs.” Singing the first movement of Testament of Freedom with alums from seven decades. Watching John Liepold absorb what Club tradition had done to “Winter Song,” which he introduced into active repertoire almost 25 years ago, then conveying everything he wanted done with rubato and dynamic without saying a single word. Singing the James Erb “Shenandoah” facing the back of the hall and hearing John’s occasional finger snaps clarifying the beat as we listened closely to each other. Singing the Shaw/Parker “What Shall We Do With the Drunken Sailor” at maximum velocity and finding it lay ready for me, more than 20 years after we toured it. Hearing the conductors trade stories about having sung with Shaw. And doing the Biebl with over a hundred current Glee Club members and alums.

Marching a crowd of alums over to the Small Special Collections Library and watching them absorb a small portion of the treasures from the Glee Club’s archives there. Seeing Tyler along with a crowd of 1990s alums at the Biltmore. Choking up during Don Webb’s toast at the banquet. Watching the current Virginia Gentlemen sing “Perfidia” with three alums from the 1950s, including two of the original eight members. Jumping up with them and the current Club to perform “Shenandoah” as an entire Glee Club army.

I’ll post more but wanted to get a few thoughts out today. And the great thing is that we get to do it again in five years!

Friday random 10: Prince esta muerto

I break the normal rules of the Friday Random 5 once again, this time for the obvious reason. I wasn’t as completely shocked by Prince’s death as I was by Bowie’s, but that’s partly because Bowie had just dropped an incredibly compelling new album that in retrospect clearly laid out what was happening to him. With Prince’s death, I’m still a little numbed by the suddenness of it. So I turn to his music.

Mom warning ahead: Prince wrote about sex so I will too.

Just 4 the Tears in Your Eyes: I still can’t believe that this song was only a b-side. I heard it for the first time 22 years ago when I picked up his first, and best, career retrospective, the three-disc monster Hits/B-sides compilation. It’s an appropriately somber note on which to start this retrospective and a useful reminder that Prince had spirituality as well as sensuality working for him.

Shy: Depending on how I feel at the time, this is either a monstrously underrated track from the underrated The Gold Experience, or it’s an arch piece of songwriting. I figure, the way life is, it’s probably both. But I love the way he builds the track off the footsteps of the protagonist, adding just a lead guitar, then building the track out on top of the rhythm guitar pattern that falls in behind the verse.

Adore: The slow jam that closes out Sign o’ the Times, complete with horn section and falsetto for days. An endlessly fascinating love song. This is definitely the song that Beck was listening to when he wrote “Debra.”

One of Your Tears: From the in-retrospect seriously interesting Crystal Ball rarities collection. I understand why this track remained a rarity; when your song has the narrator’s estranged girlfriend sending him a used condom in the first verse, it’s kind of amazing that it can actually recover. But the stacked harmony that fills out the chorus has insinuated itself into my brain.

Come: Okay, now shuffle is just playing with me. The salacious horn-driven title track from another underrated Prince album from the early 1990s and probably the most explicit paean to cunnilingus ever written. It appears that this song was a last minute addition to Come (the album), but it doesn’t sound like it. I hope Heaven has a horn section this funky.

Scarlet Pussy: Another early b-side, I think of this as the early flip side to “P. Control.” While it’s unusual in early Prince songs for having a female protagonist, the song doesn’t escape reducing her to her sexuality. But it’s got a George Clintonesque narrator, an electrofunk backbone, and an unforgettable chorus. So there’s that.

I Would Die 4 U: What does it say about this song that it’s probably the least memorable of the hit singles from Purple Rain? Only that Purple Rain is an album so full of win that it couldn’t have been written by anyone else. The beats and the one-note verse and the minimal arrangement (synths, handclaps, synth bass) all add up to something a lot more than the parts.

Interactive: Another Crystal Ball number, this is a rock number that featured in Prince’s Interactive video game CD. (Has a more early-90s sentence ever been written?) I don’t think the rock that Prince was writing in the early 90s was his best stuff, but this track is pretty good, particularly the guitar work.

P Control: The remix version of the lead-off track from The Gold Experience, this is another track on Crystal Ball. This version adds scratching and backing vocals and plays around with the instrumentation on the bass track, but it’s otherwise the same great song. I’ve always loved this song because it plays gleefully with the dirty words and paints a portrait of the most independent of his female musical protagonists, in which the only way the narrator wins a chance with her is by acknowledging and respecting her strength. That’s a long way from “Scarlet Pussy.”

Hide the Bone: Yeah, OK, shuffle, we get it. I should listen to Crystal Ball more often.

Bonus: Cloreen Bacon Skin. After “Hide the Bone,” I listened to about another hour of miscellaneous Prince stuff before this track came on. Another treasure from Crystal Ball, a fifteen minute funk jam with just Prince on bass and Morris Day on drums, featuring Prince doing an impression of an elderly James Brown via George Clinton and … really, I don’t know what else to say because if you weren’t already looking up the song on Youtube by the end of that sentence, I don’t know what’s wrong with you.

Composition note: I dictated this via speech to text while driving to Charlottesville, only to lose it when the WordPress app hiccupped, so had to rewrite it from scratch.

The Glee Club on Founders Day, 1943-1993

13002345_10102653046829696_1055916147325180702_o — The Virginia Glee Club meeting Bill and Hillary Clinton at the Jefferson Memorial, Founders Day, 1993 (Thomas Jefferson’s 250th birthday)

The Virginia Glee Club has a long history with the celebration of Founder’s Day, the anniversary of the birth of Thomas Jefferson, founder of the University of Virginia. While the Glee Club does not dress up in purple robes for dawn rituals (at least, not that we’re aware of), the group has been associated with the holiday for decades, and some of the Club’s most significant moments date to Founder’s Day celebrations. A few examples are below.

1943: The Testament of Freedom

Concert program from the 1943 premiere of Randall Thompson's Testament of Freedom — Concert program from the 1943 premiere of Randall Thompson’s *Testament of Freedom*

The 1943 Founder’s Day concert was one of the Glee Club’s earliest Founder’s Day triumphs. The Club’s 1930s impresario, Harry Rogers Pratt, had resigned as director in 1942 to contribute to the war effort, and Randall Thompson, the head of the music department, had stepped in. He also brought along one of his young professors, Stephen Tuttle, who would become the permanent director of the Glee Club in 1943. Thompson was approached by the president of the University, John Lloyd Newcomb, to write a work for the celebration of Jefferson’s birthday. He responded with The Testament of Freedom, which set passages of Jefferson’s writing to music for men’s chorus and orchestra, and dedicated it to the Virginia Glee Club.

The first performance was recorded by CBS for nationwide broadcast, since the work’s text provided an uplifting message of patriotism and resolve, and it was subsequently transmitted over shortwave to Allied servicemen stationed in Europe.

1976: Founder’s Day Bicentennial

Bicentennial Founder's Day concert program — Bicentennial Founder’s Day concert program

The Testament continued to be an important part of the Glee Club’s repertoire—it appears on 1972’s A Shadow’s on the Sundial—and reappeared with some frequency at Founder’s Day concerts. One such occurrence was in 1976, when Club performed the work at the University on the Bicentennial Founder’s Day alongside Elliott Carter’s “Emblems.” This wasn’t the first time the group performed the work; they had previously sung it with the Norfolk Symphony and at the Kennedy Center.

1981: Seven Society award and donation

Letter from the Seven Society announcing a donation to the Glee Club tour fund

By 1981, the Glee Club had undertaken three international tours in less than a decade and was starting to see the necessity of establishing a fund to support members who could not afford to pay their own way. In the late 1970s the Glee Club endowment had been established to support touring activities, and it received a boost in 1981 when the Seven Society, following their award of the James E. Sargeant Award to the Glee Club (given for organizations who made outstanding contributions to the University), made a donation to the fund of $777.77.

1993: Thomas Jefferson’s 250th Birthday

Probably the most spectacular Founder’s Day (other than 1943) was the 1993 celebration of Thomas Jefferson’s 250th Birthday. On that day the Glee Club rolled out of bed early, put on our orange and blue ties, khakis and blue blazers, and took a bus up the mountain to Monticello to join a live broadcast of the Today Show. There we stood on risers in the pre-dawn moonlight with Jefferson’s home in the background and sang several numbers from Neely Bruce’s “Young T.J.,” commissioned for the day.

There was a certain amount of standing around and waiting, and at one point several of us had to make a trip to the restroom, where we found ourselves standing next to Willard Scott making awkward small talk. A few guys had an encounter with another Today Show personality when they met UVA alumna Katie Couric after the taping and gave her a VMHLB hat.

After Monticello, everyone piled into the bus (and an overflow car) and drove like crazy. We only had two hours to get to DC and the Jefferson Memorial, where we were to sing for the President. Traffic mostly cooperated and we arrived later than planned but in time to sing in the ceremony. I’ve written about that part of the day before.

We closed the day with a bus ride to Richmond, where we sang for a group of UVA donors at the Jefferson Hotel, somehow changing into our tuxedoes somewhere along the way.

Friday Random 5: Spring es gesprungen edition

The daffodils survived being covered with six inches of snow, the rabbits and peepers are out, and I hear the owl at night: spring is definitely here.

Temptation – Elvis Costello (Costello and Nieve: Live at the Troubador: Los Angeles)
Typical Situation – Dave Matthews Band (Under the Table and Dreaming)
Stone Cold Bush – Red Hot Chili Peppers (Mother’s Milk)
The Candy Man – Cibo Matto (Viva! La Woman)
Night Flight – Jeff Buckley (Night Flight single)

Temptation: Not the New Order song. I’ve loved this song, in this arrangement, for a long time, really ever since I had Tower Records order the Costello and Nieve set for me back in the 90s. It’s literate without being arch, musically witty without being precious, and it’s got the right amount of irony and true emotion. And one of Elvis’s finest lines: “I wrote this song in Nashville, 1978. I was watching a very famous singer on stage, and I said, ‘That’ll never be me. I’ll never be trapped by fame…’ Well, that part was true.”

Typical Situation: I don’t listen to Dave Matthews much any more (and was never part of the crowd that saw him live). And this song isn’t the one that comes to mind when I think of him—the lyrics are a little overstated and pompous without actually meaning anything. But the arrangement is great and it’s really well engineered; unlike some later DMB tracks it’s actually a pleasure to listen to. And fantastic flute work from the late LeRoi Moore.

Stone Cold Bush: Never one of my favorite tracks from RHCP lyrically, the combination of John Frusciante, Flea and Chad Smith is nevertheless fantastic here.

The Candy Man: If you’re looking for proof that music in the 1990s was a different time, look no further than this album. Two women, Japanese expats in New York, make a trip-hop album about food. Tchad Blake’s contribution as producer and engineer is evident, but the supreme weirdness of the lyrics make it unforgettable.

Night Flight: I’ve written about this, a single released in advance of the issue of the complete Live at Sin-é, before—almost 13 years ago! I was overly harsh on his melismas then, though I do think he spent too much time in the upper tessitura. And the guitar work is pretty solid on this rendition too.

Singing with a new voice

As busy as the past few days have been with the Veracode Hackathon, it hasn’t been the only thing happening. Our town of Lexington puts on a choral festival every year, in which choirs from all the local churches get up and sing a few songs, finishing with a mass sing. This year there were over two hundred singers, making me wish we had some Beethoven instead of Rutter to finish with.

But it was interesting for another reason. Our church choir director has been slowly introducing other musical traditions to the fairly staid United Church of Christ (aka Congregational) choir in which I’ve sung for the last few years. The year before I joined they performed a bluegrass mass. He’s made a specialty of shape-note music with us—only appropriate since New England is the home of a lot of the early shape-note hymns.

And he’s introduced us to the gospel tradition. Not just “classic” gospel but full-on modern gospel, with rhythm section, riffing, repeating as long as the spirit moves you, and everything else. We sang a set at our church’s contemplative evening worship that brought the house down, and we brought one of those songs to the choral festival this past Sunday. I never thought I’d be doing gospel riffs in church, but it’s fun.

Then of course, on Monday during lunch at the office, the Appsec Mountain Ramblers, Veracode’s own bluegrass band, played. Fronted by our CFO on banjo, we had a talented line-up of instrumentalists, so I just had to bring harmony vocals. It’s harder than I thought to sing high harmony, but so rewarding when you get it right.

Friday Random 5: Hackathon IX edition

I’m bending the rules of Random 5 to bring you this hackathon themed random 5. Pray I don’t bend them again.

Be Thankful for What You’ve Got – Massive Attack (Blue Lines)
Rabbit In Your Headlights – UNKLE (Psyence Fiction)
Roads – Portishead (Dummy)
Górecki – Lamb (I Still Know What You Did)
Breathe – Telepopmusik (Genetic World)

Be Thankful for What You’ve Got: I love this version, but I feel like I’m harming my cred just a little bit to admit that I like the Yo La Tengo version even more.

Rabbit In Your Headlights: Featuring a Thom Yorke vocal and dialog samples from one of the most tortured early 90s movies ever, this shouldn’t work as well as it does. But it totally does. Something about the rhythm section, and the fact that this was before Yorke wrecked his cords.

Roads: I want to like this album more than I do. But I love the electric piano intro to this.

Górecki: There’s no better way to confuse me than to reference this song, because I’m never sure if we’re talking about the Polish composer, or the Lamb track that samples piano chords from the second movement of the Third Symphony. Still a great song, though I’ve always preferred the edit that appeared on the CD2 single back in the day.

Breathe – This is really the tail end of the time period, but I’ve always considered the 90s lasted until September 11, 2001 anyway. Great song, regardless of its use in a Mitsubishi commercial.

Funkin’ for Bernie

David Byrne: Keep On Funkin’. Speaking of David Byrne and Bernie Worrell…

I was saddened to hear back in January that Worrell, who I’ve loved since falling upon his collaborations with George Clinton in Parliament, had been diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. Byrne participated in a fundraiser concert on Monday to raise money to help pay Bernie’s medical bills (aside: with Bootsy Collins, George Clinton, Living Colour, Jonathan Demme, Meryl Streep, Rick Springfield, Maceo Parker, Steve Scales, Bill Laswell, Mudbone, Fred Schneider, Bernard Fowler, Leo Nocentelli, Ronny Drayton, Melvin Gibbs, Jerry Harrison, Screaming Headless Torsos, The Woo Warriors, Nona Hendryx, Sarah Dash, Nelson George, Marc Ribler, Paul Shaffer, and the Black Rock Coalition Orchestra in the house, I’d have loved to have been there).

Yesterday Byrne offered up a pair of remixed tracks of a song he wrote and performed with Bernie a while back. Is “How Does the Brain Wave?” the equal of Byrne’s early 1980s collaborations with Worrell, which include The Catherine Wheel and Remain in Light? Well, no, but they’re funky, so donate already.

The Catherine Wheel

I fell behind this week—thank our surprising April snow. So this is being posted on Wednesday and I’ll catch up.

David Byrne’s The Catherine Wheel is one of those works that pulled me all the way into pop music. If I had heard of Byrne or the Talking Heads before, it was picking up Remain in Light or hearing “Once in a Lifetime” on the radio. Then my friend Catherine gave me a mix tape that had “Combat” on it. I had to find more.

I turned up a copy of the CD after some searching (this was the early 1990s) and was hooked. I put “Ade” on a mix tape myself. And then I kind of forgot about it.

I went back last week and started listening to the album with new ears. It’s still amazing after all these years. A lot of insane Adrian Belew guitar, yes, but also some really crazy Bernie Worrell keyboard, and those drums…

And then there’s the performance context. The Catherine Wheel was composed as a ballet score for Twyla Tharp, and the video above has the whole blessed thing. I don’t know enough about modern dance to know if this is any good, but it pushes a lot of the same buttons for me that Home of the Brave does, and that’s a good thing. So enjoy.

Friday Random 5: Catching Up Edition

Looks like, in my illness last week, I missed the Friday Random 5 and didn’t even remember it. Today I’m stuck at the car dealers again while they fix my air conditioning, so it’s time to write that catch-up post.

Handel Concerto No. 4 in F: I. Allegro – Virgil Fox (Virgil Fox Encores)
Born Again – Mark Sandman (Sandbox)
Listening Guide: Have You Seen the Bright Lily Grow – Sting (Songs from the Labyrinth)
Ghost Train – Straight No Chaser (Best of BOCA: The First 20 Years)
Lithium (Acoustic Version) – Nirvana (Lithium (Acoustic Version) – Single)

Handel Concerto No. 4 in F: Is there anything better than starting the morning off with organ music? No, I don’t think so either.

Born Again – Really just a one-liner, but what a one liner. “I hope I don’t get born again, ’cause one time was enough.”

Listening Guide – Have You Seen the Bright Lily Grow – while I appreciate the thought of providing audible liner notes, I really don’t like them cluttering up my iTunes library. I’m glad more albums don’t do this.

Ghost Train – I like this album for some of the tracks that provide an innovative approach to a cappella. This one is much more straightforward but very effective.

Lithium (Acoustic Version) – The lead single off the With the Lights Out box set, this is solo Kurt Cobain. Great track.

Concerts I have seen

Inspired by the Reverend Fiesta, here’s the list of all the (non-classical) concerts I’ve gone to, as far as I can remember. I thought I had written down this list once before, but am not finding it, so here we go. Links go to set lists if the Internet has them, or to blog posts by me if not. In many cases I was at these shows with people who I can’t remember; mea culpa. In fact, I’m also sure that I’m forgetting some shows I went to, so this will be a live page.

Sting, Nothing Like the Sun tour, William and Mary Hall, January 29, 1988. My very first show. I remember very little from the performances, just how amazing it was to be there.

10,000 Maniacs (Lone Justice opening), William and Mary Hall, 1989. The “Blind Man’s Buff” tour, I went to this with my sister and with Unchu Ko.

Branford Marsalis, Waterside, Norfolk, August 18, 1989. Honestly, all I remember about this performance is how hot it was, how interesting the jazz was, and how quiet the crowd was.

Paul McCartney, Flowers in the Dirt tour, RFK Stadium, 1990. With my sister and Christina, a long long drive in a non-air-conditioned 1970s Cutlass Supreme. But “Live and Let Die” in that stadium was incredible.

Don Henley, End of the Innocence tour, Virginia Beach, 1990. With my sister and Pam, I think. And I remember Don Henley sitting down at the drums for “Hotel California.”

Wynton Marsalis, Albemarle High School, 1990. Mostly what I remember about this show is mutes: how many Wynton brought, how much he used them. There was very little about his sound with this band that didn’t rely on mutes in some fashion or other.

Sting, The Soul Cages tour, Hampton Coliseum, 1991. On a bus from the University of Virginia. I remember he played a cover of “Purple Haze,” but not much of the rest of the show.

Hall and Oates, Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport, July 4, 1991. A special festival to welcome returning Gulf War I troops.

Paul Simon, Rhythm of the Saints tour, Hersheypark, 1991. A fun show, with my sister, and, I think, my aunt.

UVA Jazzfest, 1992: Max Roach, Jackie McLean Quartet, Jack DeJohnette’s New Directions with Lester Bowie, Mingus Dynasty. Yeah, it was an amazing, amazing weekend.

Tori Amos, Little Earthquakes tour, Old Cabell Hall, University of Virginia, September 7, 1992. I wandered into the hall for Glee Club rehearsal one night and there was a ticket sales desk. I had heard the show was happening but assumed it would be sold out. I got a ticket and went to the show after rehearsal. It was amazing. So intense. There’s more to the story of the show; another time…

The Village People, Yellow Journal Disco Ball, Memorial Gym, University of Virginia, 1992. There is no documentary evidence of this performance and I had almost forgotten about it, but the experience of watching the aging disco superstars open their set with a cover of “Gimme Some Lovin’,” complete with pelvic thrusts, and then completely slaying the crowd with the rest of their set is something I will never again forget.

Sting, Summoner’s Tales tour, May 30, 1993, Richmond (Dada opening). With my sister, Christina and Jeremy. In which we sat close enough to the front that we were able to make the band do double takes with our ability to head-bob in 7/4 time.

They Might Be Giants at Trax, Charlottesville, VA, September 24, 1993. The TMBWiki says that Pere Ubu opened for them. I don’t remember that, but I do remember my sister and Derek Ramsey being there with me.

UVA Jazzfest, 1993:Elvin Jones Jazz Machine with Ravi Coltrane, Roy Haynes. There were other bands but I split the tickets with Bernie Fallon and so never got to see Archie Shepp. But Roy Haynes was a great show, and Elvin was amazing.

UVA Jazzfest, 1994: Milt Hinton, Dave Holland, Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra.

Tori Amos, Under the Pink tour, Richmond, July 24, 1994. A less intimate and more upbeat show than the OCH one, but that’s to be expected given that the first show was in an 800 person venue. Much of the show was still in the acoustic vibe, though, which made the sudden transitions to full band on songs like “God” and “Cornflake Girl” kind of jarring.

Love Spit Love, free show, Washington DC, 1994. Just Richard Butler and a guitarist, and the crowd was completely quiet except for one hippie dancer, who only danced during the radio single “Am I Wrong.”

Shannon Worrell, summer 1994, Charlottesville. I’m not sure exactly when I saw this show, at an outdoor front porch venue with Matt Vanderzalm, but I’m pretty sure it was after the release of her first album, and I had already seen her play a couple of sets at various Corner venues with Kristin Asbury.

Cracker, Waterside, Norfolk, VA, 1996. Free show; attended with Jon Finn.

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, late 1996 (I think?), Washington DC.

Sonic Youth, A Thousand Leaves tour, 9:30 Club, May 6, 1998. With Craig Pfeifer. I was so not ready for how brilliant this show was.

Liz Phair, whitechocolatespaceegg tour, 9:30 Club, October 7, 1998. I remember very little about this show except that Liz seemed like she was in complete control and enjoying the hell out of herself.el

Bob Dylan and Paul Simon, Nissan Pavilion, July 16, 1999. How weird that I remember so little of this show, except for the superb version of “Tangled Up in Blue” that I could have sworn was the opening number but the set list says was 4th. They dueted on “The Sound of Silence.”

Parliament/Funkadelic All Stars, 9:30 Club, November 13, 1999. With Craig Pfeifer. I’m pretty sure it was this show I saw and not one of their two shows at the 9:30 Club in 1998. What an amazing performance, and I couldn’t even stay for the whole thing.

Beck with Beth Orton, Patriot Hall, George Mason University, February 19, 2000. Can I get with you and your sister? I think her name’s Debra. And Beth Orton’s brutally cute penguin joke (“Why do penguins walk softly?”). With Craig Pfeifer.

Twinemen, Mr. Airplane Man, Mark Sandman Tribute, Cambridge, August 2000. An interesting afternoon of local musicians paying tribute to the recently deceased frontman of Morphine, at an outdoor venue near the Middle East club in Central Square.

Spain with Miranda Lee Richards, the Crocodile Club, June 15, 2001. With Arvind and Kim.

Radiohead, Amnesiac tour, The Gorge, Washington, June 23 2001. With Lisa.

Isaac Hayes, Blind Boys of Alabama, Youssou N’Dour, Kathryn Tickell, DJ Peretz, the Neville Brothers, Peter Gabriel, Afro Celt Sound System; WOMAD, August 2001. I wrote extensively about this show back in the day.

Ani DiFranco, Bumbershoot, August 31, 2002. Does being in the same outdoor performance venue as the performance count? I only caught a few songs of this one.

Sonic Youth with Modest Mouse, Bumbershoot, September 1, 2002.

Pernice Brothers with Jose Ayerve, Sparrow, and Warren Zanes, the Tractor, July 11, 2003.

New Pornographers, Bumbershoot, September 1, 2003.

Wilco, Bumbershoot, September 1, 2003.

R.E.M., Bumbershoot, September 1, 2003.

Lou Reed, Moore Theater, June 29, 2003. This is essentially the show that was presented on the Lou Reed: Animal Serenade live album.

Elvis Costello, Benaroya Hall, March 8, 2004. I had completely forgotten about this show.

Sonic Youth, Showbox, July 19, 2004.

PJ Harvey, Avalon, October 9, 2004.

Pixies and Mission of Burma, Tsongas Center, December 2, 2004.

Justin Rosolino, Club Passim, December 13, 2004.

Sonny Rollins, Tanglewood, September 5, 2005, with Lisa.

Neko Case, Willard Theatre, April 5, 2006.

Elvis Costello with Marian McPartland and Diana Krall, Tanglewood Jazz Festival, September 2, 2006, with Lisa. I went to this show and never wrote about it, which is a shame because it’s the last non-classical performance I went to for almost nine years.

Bruce Hornsby, Cary Memorial Hall, October 17, 2015, with Lisa.

The Chieftains, Chevalier Theatre, Medford, March 1, 2017, with Lisa.

Branford Marsalis Quartet with Kurt Elling, Cary Memorial Hall, April 28, 2017, with Lisa.

Pixies, House of Blues, Boston, May 20, 2017. With Cymbals Eat Guitars.

Mavis Staples, Cary Memorial Hall, June 2, 2017, with Lisa.

Cécile McLorin Salvant and Aaron Diehl, Jordan Hall, February 7, 2020, with Lisa.

Genesis, TD Garden, December 16, 2021.

Cowboy Junkies, Cary Memorial Hall, April 14, 2022.

Tears for Fears with Garbage, Leader Bank Pavilion, June 22, 2022, with The Girl.

Branford Marsalis Quartet, Berklee Performance Center, January 28, 2023, with The Girl.

The Cure with The Twilight Sad, Xfinity Center, June 18, 2023, with Joy.

Herbie Hancock, The Cabot (Beverly, MA), June 21, 2023, with Lisa.

Lyle Lovett and Leo Kottke, Cary Memorial Hall, October 19, 2023, with Lisa.

Cécile McLorin Salvant, Sanders Theatre, February 2, 2024, with Lisa.

Alan Cumming, Sanders Theatre, March 15, 2024, with Lisa.

It’s about Sorry

I’ve been making more of an effort to write about music and recently accepted a challenge to post an 80s song a day on Facebook. This post (which I’m posting a day late, but which was actually written on the 23rd) comes from that effort.

I was listening to this track with The Boy today. He asked, “What’s this song about?”

I replied, “Well, I’m not sure. He sings about waiting for a call, and about choices, and says he’s sorry. But he lets us make up our own minds about what the song is about.”

The Boy said firmly, “It’s about Sorry.”

I said, “Yes, it’s about Sorry.”

And then we talked about apologies, and what it means to accept an apology.

Thanks for that, Michael Stipe.