Whitty

This is ummm... long, but I do a big write-up every year for my own "best-of" picks. Enjoy!

Ratatat - LP3

Let's call it SNES rock, shall we? Mike Stroud and Evan Mast have been tweaking synths and coaxing all manner of chirping, buzzing, glitchy riffage out of guitars for several albums now, but LP3 is probably the most tuneful effort yet from the instrumental duo. Latin flavors season the rhythms on tracks like "Mirando" and "Mi Viejo" while Jamaican dubbiness gets a playful makeover on "Flynn" and the irresistible "Brule

Popmatters has a very detailed week-long retrospective on the White Album this week...

Yeah, I was -11 years old when it came out It definitely doesn't mean that twenty-somethings can't find some connection though.

"Long, Long, Long" might be the most underrated Beatles track of all time.

It's a disappointing overall effort for me too, but with a few solid keepers to be salvaged. "Suffering Jukebox" has some of the carefree, jangly charm that makes me love Tanglewood Numbers and American Water so much. "Party Barge" and "San Francisco B.C." are good fun, but there's nothing on the album with the emotional heft of "There Is A Place" or with quite the unbridled keenness of "Random Rules" or "The Frontier Index".

I've only started to appreciate Elvis Costello quite recently. This Year's Model has been getting a lot of play- love the bass work of Bruce Thomas on that disc. I Don't Want to Go to Chelsea is simply top-shelf badass pop/funk/ska somethin' or other.

I think Costello's lyrical approach and meticulous melodies work better as the listener gets older...

I have been having a blast strummin' and singin' the title track, Furr, off the new one.

My pick for song of the year. It's immediately and effortlessly likable- sounds like a song people have been singing around campfires for forty years. Great little story in those verses.

Hooray for lycanthropy parables!

To hear Frisell really connect with horns, I suggest listening to "What Do We Do?" off of Blues Dream. Absolutely majestic playing.

Gone, Just Like a Train is an excellent starting point for his repertoire- gentle (not to be confused with sappy) acoustic numbers mixed in with some wilder freakouts like "Blues for Los Angeles" and "Lookout for Hope". Ghost Town is suitable music for chilly, grey Autumn days like the one I'm experiencing here in VA today.

I'm always in the mood for Bill Frisell. A guitar god who smashes pre-conceptions of jazz based around the instrument. He's got more Thurston Moore, Willie Nelson, and Jerry Garcia in him than he does any "traditionalist" blazing through sixteenth-note dominant scale runs.

The title track of Blitzen Trapper's Furr is so good I can hardly stand it.

I find great poetry an inspiration. Read some of the greats (my favorites include Walt Whitman, ee cummings, and William Carlos Williams among many others) and bask in reflected syntactical glory.

And if I find myself frustrated with my own compositions, play some of your favorite songs by other artists. Strumming along to "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" can be inspiring in and of itself.

I guess my basic advice here is to surround yourself with creative greatness.

Keep at it. I'm sure you already know that you've got to write stuff you hate in order to sort out the gems that really fire up your passion.

Almost all mentioned already, but absolutely worth a repeat:

And you, you took me in,

You loved me then

You didn't waste time.

And I, I never took much,

I never asked for your crutch.

Now don't ask for mine.

***

You've been with the professors

And they've all liked your looks

With great lawyers you have

Discussed lepers and crooks

You've been through all of

F. Scott Fitzgerald's books

You're very well read

It's well known

***

Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial

Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while

But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues

You can tell by the way she smiles

***

It's not always easy kicking someone out

Gotta wait a while - it can be an unpleasant task

Sometimes somebody wants you to give something up

And tears or not, it's too much to ask

***

People tell me it's a sin

To know and feel too much within.

I still believe she was my twin, but I lost the ring.

She was born in spring, but I was born too late

Blame it on a simple twist of fate.

Is there a better use of Internet bandwidth than the lyrics section on bobdylan.com?

:dancing

Jay Cutler you magnificent slovenly bastard, you.

James Brown - "Funky President"

Country, do you know

Just what I meant

We just changed, we got

A brand new funky President

Both of my QBs had a bye week this week. Considering how poorly Garrard played yesterday, I probably would've been better off picking up a free agent, but I had to do something.

You do know Rivers is #1 among QB's in fantasy points and Garrard is #19, right?

Trade you Devery Henderson for Tomlinson

I call shenanigans on the Rivers-for-Garrard trade...

Surprised no one's mentioned Dylan during the Rolling Thunder era yet. Desire and The Bootleg Series Vol. 5 should do the trick.

The live "Isis" =

Edit: Scarlet Rivera is obviously the violinist in question.

Here's a bombshell: I'm anosmic. I have no sense of smell, I've never smelt anything in my life.

Then we must assume you've never dealt it.

Never heard em but they'd have to be beyond stellar for me to get behind anything called Slobberbone.

If you dig any band with Jay Farrar, you'd like 'em.

Coffee of course.

Fresh chopped ginger.

Potting soil.

Freshly showered girl

http://cdbaby.com/cd/burningdirty3

If you can't pimp yourself, then really, who can you pimp?

Stephane Grappelli and Vassar Clements are two of my favorites, though probably a bit intimidating for a novice violinist. Might as well listen to the greats for inspiration though, right?

Get a good Django Reinhardt compilation and one of the Old & In the Way discs to hear those two at their best.

Everything You Thought Was Right Was Wrong Today is one of my favorite hidden gem albums. Slobberbone is no more, but their tales of depressing barroom haziness, dead-end employment, and the fleeting pleasures of restless small-town souls live on and make for a good listen. They certainly aren't novel themes for rock and roll, but there's a keen observer's eye to the stories that neither over-romanticizes nor talks down to the subjects of the songs. Slobberbone reminds me of good, unflinching blue-collar Southern Lit in that way- someone like Larry Brown.

And every version of me I tried so hard to retain

Gets swallowed and sweat out and pissed on down the drain

There's just no easy way to say

That everything you thought was right was wrong today

Move along, 'cause you can't stay

Any other fans?

Old rich guy with young

new mate. Careful- it got you

a trollop last time.

Yay! A wide receiver joke!

Lions jokes write themselves if you just work in a "drafting a receiver" gag or mention Wayne Fontes.

Lions: Lost

Cowboys: Lost

 

Both are good for the Lions draft! Yay!

Looks like the Lions will probably have a need at wide receiver now that Williams is gone....

That sounds like David, based on my brief encounters with him (we have some mutual friends) and all the interviews I've ever seen.

He makes a compelling case that mirrors many of my own Radiohead criticisms- their austere coldness, their singularity of mood, and well... the fact that they'll never make anything nearly as good as OK Computer again, to be honest. There is a sense that Radiohead isn't quite as deep as some of their more fervent fans would have you believe. Four feet of misery can drown you the same as a thousand feet, right?

I like both bands, but the Jews are certainly the one that will leave your feet tapping after the music is over and savoring one of Berman's fantastic aphorisms. Hard to think of two bands coming from more opposite ends of the rock spectrum, though...

I'll will continue to rock out to the opening riff from "Airbag" and the ending refrain to "Punks in the Beerlight" with heartfelt love for both.