I'm Trying To Learn New Uploading Techniques

And I wonder if Glycerin likes the singer of Feist.

Secret Heart

PS
(I like Jeff Buckley)
(and opened up for him in Austin)
(and had a conversation with him)

I've always loved Jeff Buckley

Some people just don't understand. But then, seemingly out of nowhere, others do...

31 Jon Brion Demos sitting in a tree

Fill yer boots

The Final List:

How cool is Joel anyway?
He has got to be the best Brother-in-Law ever.

I had the excellent fortune of hanging out with him for a while on Friday Night. He and his bride joined me, Sistra and Chewbekkah in a vigorous debate of the Bulletproof list. There were tremendous ideas exchanged. Final Verdict -- There really is a ton of great music from the 80's. But you already knew that.

Things got rally excited when we started talking about Rush and Van Halen. Joel remembers in great detail the Van Halen 1984 tour, which we both saw (The most visceral memory being David Lee Roth wearing a large foam Cowboy hat).

He's the Hair Metal Ying to Michy's Dead Or Alive Yang.


Goody Two Shoes Adam Ant
So Many Key Changes, So Good
This Is Radio Clash The Clash
Bekkah Likes This Police-ish Track
How Soon Is Now? The Smiths
Didn't Like Them Then, Love Them Now
Message Of Love The Pretenders
A Perfect Song In My Opinion
Gigantic Pixies
Sorry Francis, I'm Going With Kim
Pulling Mussels From A Shell
Glenn Tillbrook Is My New Squeeze
Genius Of Love Tom Tom Club
Thanks To Mariah Everyone Knows This Now
Just Like Heaven The Cure
I Would Say Bulletproof
Turn to You The Go-Go's
This One Is Maybe Not Bulletproof, But Belinda Sings Her Best Notes Ever After The Guitar Solo
I Got You Split Enz
This Was The Big Find Of The Night. I Would Love To See Neil Finn, Glenn Tillbrook and Joe Jackson Beat Up Elvis Costello
Dancing in the Street Van Halen
Can Jeff And Joel Be Wrong?
Run's House Run DMC
Rap To Represent The Whole Decade (and Addidas)
Tenderness General Public
Bulletproof (and very John Hughesy)
This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody) Talking Heads
A Second Representation Of Tina And Chris

introducing Lily Allen

Go Ye Now... rush... to http://www.lilyallenmusic.com/ and in the top right corner, IMMEDIATELY go to song #3 called Knock Em Out.

Love the great New Orleans feel, syncopated drum machine and funny lyrics spoken/sung in a fantastic accent. Top accent.

I especially love the way she says the word "nasty" in the first verse.

enjoy!

Ladies and Gentlemen, We are gathered Today

I just found out that my good friends Amy And Eli had a healthy baby girl named Paris Olivia.

In Paris' honor, with prescience of a future career as a Concert Violinst or Opera Conductor or Bass Player for Branford Marsalis II, I will post 2 tracks.

The first is Anyway, which is my all time Post-Fabu/Faboo Amy Atchley track. The first time I heard the recorded version I thought of Jon Brion which is my highest compliment.

Amy Atchley - Anyway

The second track is from Eli's recently rereleased album Kicks Are For Kids. It has some great playing. I am especially fond of Frederick Sanders' incredibly dynamic piano playing, which evident all over this track.

Eli Haslanger - History Book

When Eli and I aren't talkin' BASE-BALL we talk record production value. As I listen to Eli's 3rd record this morning I am very impressed with the production. I think that the proof is usually in the drum pudding. And the drums sound clear and natural on this record. So I tip my hat to momma Atchley and producer Elias Haslanger this Sunday morning!

In case you didn't have 600 bucks to spare...

Or weren't in the mood, or in New York, here is a pretty complete roundup of Rufus Wainwright's tribute to Judy Garland this week at Carnegie Hall:

http://rogerbourland.com/redblackwindow/

Here is the best song from the original:
The Man That Got Away

And Rufus Singing Judy:
Somewhere Over The Rainbow

Glycerin's Friend...

is profiled in the Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/18/magazine/18barkley.html

Chuck Klosterman writes it.

Bulletproof ( I wish I was)

I am creating a CD for a friend of mine who claims not to like 80's music.
This is a bit like saying that you don't like Italian food. But Bekkah and I have been devising a playlist we call bulletproof because we are trying to pick songs by familiar artists like Madonna and U2 that are so good they are "bulletproof".
We also have Message of Love by The Pretenders, Gigantic by The Pixies, How Soon Is Now by The Smiths and Black Coffee by Squeeze (or maybe Pulling Mussels from a Shell).
Any other ideas?

....even if he has to wrong someone

You Aint No Picasso has 2 songs from the upcoming M.Ward album -- just when I needed them. One is a new original, the other is a Daniel Johnston cover. Both have me convinced the followup to my #1 album of 2005 will not be a letdown. He is it at the moment as far as I'm concerned.

Album's out August 22nd and features a full band, plus cameos from Neko Case and Jim James (My Morning Jacket).

100 Greatest Living Songwriters...

According to Paste Magazine (thanks to i guess i'm floating )

1. Bob Dylan
2. Neil Young
3. Bruce Springsteen
4. Waits/Brennan
5. Paul McCartney
6. Leonard Cohen
7. Brian Wilson
8. Elvis Costello
9. Joni Mitchell
10. Prince
11. Randy Newman
12. Jagger/Richards
13. Paul Simon
14. Stevie Wonder
15. Willie Nelson
16. David Bowie
17. Holland/Dozier/Holland
18. U2
19. Patty Griffin
20. Van Morrison
21. Lou Reed
22. Lucinda Williams
23. John/Taupin
24. Jeff Tweedy
25. Chuck Berry
26. R.E.M.
27. Radiohead
28. Robbie Robertson
29. Tom Petty
30. John Prine
31. Carole King
32. Leiber/Stoller
33. Pete Townshend
34. John Fogerty
35. Steve Earle
36. Beck
37. Smokey Robinson
38. Kris Kristofferson
39. Led Zeppelin
40. Bacharach/David
41. Ray Davies
42. Loretta Lynn
43. Ryan Adams
44. Al Green
45. Jackson Browne
46. David Byrne
47. Sufjan Stevens
48. Welch/Rawlings
49. Cat Stevens
50. Public Enemy
51. Penn/Oldham
52. Paul Westerberg
53. James Taylor
54. Aimee Mann
55. Dolly Parton
56. James Brown
57. Morrissey
58. Sly Stone
59. Jack White
60. Jimmy Webb
61. John Hiatt
62. Sting
63. Richard Thompson
64. Andy Partridge
65. Bill Mallonee
66. Charles Thompson
67. Conor Oberst
68. Allen Toussaint
69. Merle Haggard
70. Alex Chilton
71. Vic Chesnutt
72. Michael Jackson
73. Julie Miller
74. Over the Rhine
75. Ron Sexsmith
76. Will Oldham
77. Bruce Cockburn
78. Robert Pollard
79. Stephen Malkmus
80. Pink Floyd
81. The Flaming Lips
82. John Darnielle
83. Fleetwood Mac
84. They Might Be Giants
85. David Bazan
86. Sam Beam
87. Lyle Lovett
88. Parliament
89. Victoria Williams
90. Nick Cave
91. Drive-By Truckers
92. Alejandro Escovedo
93. Joseph Arthur
94. Sam Phillips
95. Patti Smith
96. Jimmy Cliff
97. Josh Ritter
98. Jay Farrar
99. Outkast
100. T Bone Burnett

If I could change 1 thing it would be to take pastiche artist Beck off of the list (and who is David Bazan?).

Sonnet....

I have a new motto!

We went to see Mason Jennings tonight. Wow. He is a gifted songwriter and singer and guitar player. It is hard to ask for more from a show of music that you really don't know very well or at all. The only problem was that the crowd was ridiculous. It was full of beautiful women and well educated hipster dudes. And they were DRUNK! And TALL! And deliberately standing in front of us!
And taking too many pictures with their phones!
And we were bumped into several dozen times!!

Ugh!

But somehow they were listening to these sweet poetic song about perfect love and the mysteries of the universe.
And they loved it and knew every word.
So I am reminded that every annoying person probably has something redeeming about them:

Even Hitler loved his dog

Mason Jennings: If You Ain't Got Love

Happy Birthday To Lisa!

1970 is so fucking cool!

I like this song very much by Austinite Andrea Perry.

Bursting Through The Clouds

Lisa, You Like?

30,801

I went to the new Apple store on 5th ave. last night. They are open 24 hours a day! How much different would our lives be if all businesses did this (Austin is kinda already like this)? The Paris Subway stops at midnight. How pathetic!

non sequitur

The piano player I mentioned before named Maurizio Pollini is always in heavy rotation in my music world. I have seen him perform over 10 times. I loved him the first time I heard him (Chopin's Preludes). I could say a lot about him, but I think after reading a weird profile of him in the Times a couple of weeks ago I have decided that he, quite simply, is a perfect balance between left and right brain aptitudes. Or to put a it a different way: he has the heart of a gypsy and the discipline of a soldier.

This is what the Times printed:

Such perfectionism is in keeping with the main criticism leveled at Mr. Pollini, that he is distant, perhaps even cold, in his performances.
Jeremy Siepmann, in ''Chopin: The Reluctant Romantic,'' writes of Mr. Pollini: ''His meticulous attention to every detail of the composer's text often results in the nearest thing to an aural photograph of the printed page. His virtuosity is untainted by any sense of ego, indeed there are many musicians who find his playing cold and impersonal.''

I have a feeling that there is no word more horrible to a virtuoso of Pollini's level than "cold".
Have a listen for yourself:

Etude Op. 25 No. 3

Cold?

Pollini is a master of Chopin's music. Very few other pianists living or dead compare in my mind. I did finally hear one that can match up however (playing Chopin). Alfred Cortot is really, really good.

Etude Op. 25 No. 3

I started to get excited about this and was wondering if anybody else had noticed a sort of bond between these two fellows. There were 30,800 articles posted on Google with both of their names. One thing I read that interested me is that Cortot would deliberately rewrite some notes in the pieces he played. You can hear it on the left hand of the first etude.

Etude Op. 10 No. 1

He was born in 1877, so he learned to play the piano before recordings. His only influence was what he heard growing up in his town. Players of his generation had a lot more "ego" as Mr. Siepmann would say and were not afraid to inject more of themselves into the music. Vladimir Horowitz is considered the last player of this type. Anyway here is the "Napoleonic" Pollini playing the same etude.

Etude Op. 10 No. 1

P.S. World: you can just listen without downloading now. I have finally gotten up to around the year 2000 in blogging technology.

from a much better writer than me....

Highlight of an article in the Age on Gnarls Barkley's new Album, St. Elsewhere,
written by Garry Mulholland, author of This Is Uncool: The 500 Greatest Singles Since Punk and Disco:

"...One of St Elsewhere's charms is its brevity. Another is its
enormous range. Like Demon Days it fizzes with ideas, from
cartoonish horror stomps to singalong '80s pop and a Violent
Femmes cover (Gone Daddy Gone). It sounds fresh, unprecious and
very post-Hey Ya, but taken as a whole - like so much else in the
Danger Mouse portfolio - it's notoriously hard to
categorise. OutKast meets UNKLE with shades of Stevie Wonder? A
Funkadelic salad with NERD croutons and a Massive Attack
vinaigrette?

"I call it industrial euro-soul," says Cee-Lo. "Some of them
beats are dirty, like a factory. They sound like he's on the
laptop with gloves on. The 'euro' is because industrial music is
more European like, you know, Kraftwerk or ... Aphex Twin or some
shit."

Danger Mouse licks his spoon. "I prefer 'psychedelic soul'," he
says. "Psychedelic music is pretty much all I listen to right
now. Really raw experimental stuff from the '60s and '70s, stuff
like the Churchills, the Electric Prunes. They would make music
knowing that they could have made it more sellable, but they
didn't. I love that. That's the spirit I wanted
here. Experimentation and melody."


his view on the single, Crazy:

"...Hailing Crazy as single of the year in May smacks of hyperbole, now doesn't it? Actually ... no. Its chart history and success is made all the more extraordinary by the kind of record it is. It's a soul record. Not R&B, nor hip-hop-soul, nor a Joss Stone-style pastiche, but an organic, modern soul record, relevant to its times and shorn of nostalgia. Add the fact that Gnarls Barkley are almost invisible, and you have one of those wonderful moments when the music-buying public rebels and votes for quality, depth and integrity.

Crazy is an outrageously simple record. A disco beat. A woody, staccato bassline. Discreet gospel harmonies. A few verses and some sampled strings on the chorus. And a voice. But this is a voice straight out of the church, containing all of soul's twinning of strength and vulnerability, and testifying, with a somewhat arty lyric, about a feeling that most of us feel in these alienating, bewildering days - that madness and death may be more comforting than living a life where you have to "think you're in control".

The song kicks straight in without intro fanfare, and ends when it runs out of words, very much like an unfinished demo. It's so simple it's weird."

Go listen for yourself. I'm sold.