Re: Jackson Frank

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Embedding two pieces of audio like that means they'll both play at once, ogged. Tom will tell you how to do it all fancy-like; in the meantime, there's nothing wrong with uploading an mp3 to the server and then linking to it.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 05-27-07 9:08 PM
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That second song's really good, though.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 05-27-07 9:10 PM
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Your first sentence is false, as should be obvious to you by now. And linking is so 90s.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-27-07 9:10 PM
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That second song's really good, though.

Yeah, isn't it? I was blown away.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-27-07 9:11 PM
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Your first sentence is false, as should be obvious to you by now.

My first sentence may be false but you're still doing it wrong!


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 05-27-07 9:12 PM
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That much I've admitted, and now that you've admitted that you're no help, I'm reasonably happy.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-27-07 9:16 PM
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Upload the fucking mp3, dammit.


Posted by: bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-27-07 9:20 PM
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Ok, changed them to links, but only because the embedded files were loading every time the page was refreshed. Certainly not to make either of you happy.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-27-07 9:29 PM
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Oddeg is turning this place into a goodamn myspace alike. whats next, flashing pink glitter titles?


Posted by: yoyo | Link to this comment | 05-27-07 9:43 PM
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Thanks for those. Somehow I'd never come across him before either. What a heartbreaking life story.


Posted by: Jesus McQueen | Link to this comment | 05-27-07 10:14 PM
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Thanks, Ogged. XOXOXO.


Posted by: bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-27-07 10:22 PM
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I found the second song quite affecting, even though I couldn't make out much of the lyric - anyone here have more googling patience or skill than me and nothing better to do?


Posted by: rilkefan | Link to this comment | 05-27-07 10:33 PM
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This is what I typed out just now as I listened to it again. I think it's close, if not exactly right.

i seem to tumble in the wind
i wait for it to begin
when i look at you
i aint too proud to say
i once loved a girl this way
i bring trouble on my lonesome self
i see danger in each ? ?
times are hard
the money just won't come through
i would be alone if not for you
they brought my in on a flatcar
down from old hong kong
tried to tell me what i was doing
was absolutely wrong
tried to make me over
into a man of steel
but i knew i would have to kneel
from the plains of alberta
with its ? so wild and strong
i rode over the lokies?
till i came to saskatchewan
from a hardback in my satchel
i read the words quite clear
hurry home to your loved ones now
wintertime is near
i seem to stumble in the wind
i wait for it to begin
when i look at you
i ain't too proud to say
i once loved a girl this way


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-27-07 10:45 PM
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i see danger in each ? ?

Maybe "in each offer of help."


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-27-07 10:48 PM
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Wow. That is a beautiful song.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 05-27-07 10:51 PM
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with its ? so wild and strong

wheat, I think. The next line has me stumped.

Here's a blog post with links to Frank's 'Blues Run the Game' plus half a dozen covers, from Nick Drake to The Decemberists.


Posted by: Jesus McQueen | Link to this comment | 05-27-07 11:09 PM
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srry mr ogg i'm only grumpy b/c i'm at the parents place, and sobre, and can't listen to the tunes.


Posted by: yoyo | Link to this comment | 05-27-07 11:12 PM
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Great find, Jesus.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-27-07 11:13 PM
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In fact, reading about Nick Drake is how I came across Frank's name.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-27-07 11:14 PM
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I've got a four-album set of Drake, I thought that was all there was.

Thanks for the lyrics. I found "I rolled over the Northlands 'til I came to Saskatchewan" on wikipedia under Saskatchewan.


Posted by: rilkefan | Link to this comment | 05-27-07 11:28 PM
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Yeah, I have that same four album set, and I was surprised. But there's a bunch of songs on the album that's from that I haven't heard.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-27-07 11:33 PM
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Amazon didn't have it, but I just ordered it from ebay.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-27-07 11:40 PM
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Any idea why these play fine in IE7 but not in Firefox? They skip around like a scratched CD in FF.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 05-27-07 11:41 PM
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But you shouldn't order it! This has all those songs and a few more. Oops.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-27-07 11:44 PM
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They play ok for me, Stanley. If you're talking about the mp3s in the main post, of course you can just download them and play them however you want.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-27-07 11:46 PM
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25: Right. This happened on another site earlier tonight, and downloading was a quick fix there, too. I was wondering if Quicktime and FF don't get along. I haven't used FF that often, so I don't know it that well.

Also: can you supply examples of this:

contemporary male folk singers think their very sensitive and emotive singing is pleasing

Not trolling; genuinely curious whom you're talking about.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 05-27-07 11:53 PM
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I don't have names, since it's an impression based on bringing up songs on rhapsody and listening to all the covers, and the ones I don't like are quickly forgotten, but I generally mean the really hoky folky people that most of us probably haven't heard of, not the semi-popular folk music that gets close to mainstream. Think Peter Paul & Mary, but less catchy.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-27-07 11:57 PM
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Okay. Hm. How do you feel about Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah"? (Sorry; can't find a link to a good version of it.) It seems like it might be kind of o-earnest, but I dig it nonetheless.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 12:08 AM
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You have any idea how many folks songs I'm listening to now to find you a damn name? And of course none is exactly what I mean.

And I have a soft spot for Leonard Cohen.

Ok, off to bed. Find your own bad folk music! You know, Joan Baez, but male.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 12:12 AM
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off to bed

Slacker. You probably don't have to work tomorrow, unlike some of us. Seriously: get a guitar; write some schlocky folk songs; convert them to midi files; and serenade us all, everyday when we pull up unfogged.com.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 12:19 AM
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Rufus Wainwright's version of "Hallelujah" is great.


Posted by: rilkefan | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 12:26 AM
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31: Wow. Thanks. The Spanish text was great, too. Googling, I just learned that my first encounter with the song was in a West Wing episode, and done by Jeff Buckley.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 12:38 AM
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Most versions of Hallelujah seem to be covers of Jeff Buckley's version of Cohen's original.

All beautiful, but Lenny's will always be tops.

Thanks for these songs, Ogged. Indeed "(Tumble) In the Wind" is especially beautiful. I'm a sucker for roughly recorded versions of amazing songs. Feels like home.


Posted by: girl27 | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 1:29 AM
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I saw Buckley himself do his cover of Cohen's 'Hallelujah'. It was OK.

[This is another one of those 'Losing my edge' moments, I saw Buckley perform solo in the bar of the Art School in Glasgow*, and there were only about 8 people there. He was mostly 'OK' rather than outstanding. Lots of over-sung histrionics and scratchy guitar playing.]

* wikipedia tells me that must have been March '94.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 1:45 AM
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In the same vein perhaps as Nick Drake, I don't imagine Buckley's legacy will be his shows, but the songs.


Posted by: girl27 | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 1:50 AM
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John Cale does a good cover of Hallelujah.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 1:56 AM
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Bert Jansch (who's apparently covered "Blues Run the Game") is very good.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 1:57 AM
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35 - I think Drake's phrasing and delivery in general was stronger than his writing for the most part. For me his cover of The Blues Run The Game above is by far the best.


Posted by: rilkefan | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 2:22 AM
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hi girl27!


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 4:16 AM
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Nice find, Ogged.


Posted by: mrh | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 6:50 AM
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Drake was also an influential and interesting guitar player, irrespective of his singing style and delivery.

Jansch too, of course.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 7:21 AM
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I had no idea that song was originally by Leonard Cohen.

I just listened to the original (thank you, intertubes!). The covers do a better job of bringing out the inherent prettiness of the song. Since Cohen doesn't have a technically good singing voice, he instead uses speaking mannerisms to communicate tone. Sometimes it's an extremely striking technique: the contempt in "but you don't really like music, do you" comes across much better in the original than any of the covers.


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 7:35 AM
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the contempt in "but you don't really like music, do you" comes across much better in the original than any of the covers.

You know, you're right. I always sort of thought nobody else who sings that song seems to know why that line is in there.

My pick for singer who emotes too much is Richard Shindell. He seems like a friendly funny guy (despite the warning signs of having converted to Buddhism and moved to Buenos Aires), but I can't stand to hear him sing. Similarly, Pittsburgh's answer to Richard Shindell, the very talented Brad Yoder.


Posted by: Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 8:50 AM
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The thing about Richard Shindell is that he doesn't open his mouth. It's hard to sing well when your jaw is locked that tightly.

As far as Cohen, the contempt is like some of Dylan's more bitter songs, except that in his case there's generally a more forgiving undercurrent. I like Suzanne, of course, and also Dance Me to the End of Love.

He's like Tom Waits in that when you listen to him sing his own songs you tend to get something very different than, say, Madeleine Peyroux's cover.


Posted by: Witt | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 9:02 AM
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37: Ben, Jansch's 'Blues Run the Game' is among the covers linked to in 16. He's a terrific guitarist.


Posted by: Jesus McQueen | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 9:09 AM
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My pick for singer who emotes too much is Richard Shindell

Dammit, Ned. Of course you're right, but 1) I actually own a Richard Shindell Album and worse 2) I had a running disagreement with the ex in which I claimed that his emoting was tongue-in-cheek and she said that I was deluding myself so that I could listen to his overwhelmingly o-earnest singing. She was right, of course. Although I still think the first half of Transit is tongue in cheek.

This might also be the time to note that Cold Missouri Waters is a great song in search of a proper rendition. Now there's something Jackson Frank could have sung the shit out of.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 9:14 AM
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I claimed that his emoting was tongue-in-cheek

The problem with this is that not many of his lyrics are tongue-in-cheek. "Are You Happy Now", and I don't know what else.

This might also be the time to note that Cold Missouri Waters is a great song in search of a proper rendition.

Yes, definitely, that's my favorite song of his. I almost said "That and the song about the smoke jumpers", before remembering that that is the song about the smoke jumpers.


Posted by: Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 9:23 AM
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Nick Drake and Leonard Cohen are both on my list of singers I like a lot but don't listen to very often and I'm not sure why. (Well part of it is media -- all the Drake I own is on cassette tapes and all the Cohen on LP's.) I like the songs linked in this post. Interestingly, people who (expect to) like the album linked in 24 also like Neil Young Live at Massey Hall '71, according to the oracle.


Posted by: Clownaesthesiologist | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 9:24 AM
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that's my favorite song of his

Except that it's a cover of James Keelaghan's original.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 9:26 AM
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Well, then I have no favorite song of his. Now I can safely say that he is not all that great.


Posted by: Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 9:28 AM
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So this James Keelaghan fellow, how is he on the emoting? Over-, under-, just right? Never heard of him before.


Posted by: Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 9:29 AM
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Cohen is the most amazing pop artist ever. He was originally a highbrow poet, and his lit stuff is well worth a look. He has a pleasant, weak voice and a limited range and plays guitar (if that's him) minimally. He wrote depressing, negativistic non-rocking faux-folk songs right at the end of the folk era -- folk was often sad, but in a sweet way unlike his. He trimmed his songwriting and his themes to his severe musical limitations and amazingly, it worked.

It's hard to find a blog-length Cohen poem, but look up "Selected Poems: 1956--1968".

"The doctor held up Grandma's stomach
Cancer! Cancer! he cried out...."

".....The future seemed unnecessarily black and strong
as though it had received my casual mistakes
through a carbon sheet."

".....
Like jigsaw pieces married too early
in the puzzle we are pried apart
for every new experiment, as if simplicity
and good luck were not enough to build
a rainbow through gravity and mist".

".....
Like an empty telephone booth passed at night
and remembered
like mirrors in a movie palace lobby consulted
only on the way out
like a nymphomaniac who binds thousands
into a stranger brotherhood
I wait
for each one of you to confess."


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 9:32 AM
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I like the idea behind Abuelita, but not so much the execution. Actually, that's true of Transit too.


Posted by: Witt | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 9:32 AM
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Keelaghan has a great voice and over-emotes just a little, but his songs tend to lapse into monotony.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 9:34 AM
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I'm guessing that Ogged (and Labs and w-lfs-n) might prefer Cohen in the Conspiracy of Beards versions. Here are the Beards doing 'Sisters of Mercy.'


Posted by: Jesus McQueen | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 9:57 AM
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Cohen is great. As someone somewhere remarks about him, time has been much kinder to his work that anyone had any reason to expect: even though it was classified as late-night, depressive bedsit music, it turned out to have a lot more to it than that.

I should search around on YouTube for an old interview with Cohen from the mid-60s, on Canadian TV: Cohen gently mocks the questions asked by the woman interviewing him, and it's like she really can't decide whether to be annoyed or have sex with him right here.


Posted by: Gonerill | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 10:21 AM
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Er, there.


Posted by: Gonerill | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 10:22 AM
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27: I'm kind of baffled by this description, because you seem to be dividing "folk" up differently than I do, but I can't read your dividing lines. What's weird is that, like you, I'm coming at this very much from an "Anthology" POV. So to me, "less popular" folk - especially compared to PP&M - is the old, good stuff, and the newer stuff that captures the same Weird Old America flavor. But you seem to be using "less popular" to mean... cheesy coffeehouse stuff? Like, it's less popular because it's less good?

Reviewing my iTunes Library, I see that most of my "Folk" stuff is female, of the Gillian Welch/Iris Dement vein. Maybe I subconsciously have the same prejudice, and so I don't own many male "folk singers." I certainly like Jackson Frank, and am happy to have his stuff now (thanks, Jesus!).

Ogged, do you know much about Chris Whitley? After Living With the Law (in 1991), he veered wildly between noisy rock and raw, Delta-ish stuff. One of my absolute favorites. If you liked Living with the Law at all (even if you thought it was too polished, or pseudo-atmospheric), you might want to try some of his other stuff.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 10:25 AM
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cheesy coffeehouse stuff?

Yeah.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 10:30 AM
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More cheesy than Peter Paul and Mary? I'm not following.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 10:43 AM
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I've found Nick Drake revival of recent years to be utterly inexplicable. I remember being given a copy of the Hannibal boxed set as a gift some time around 1990 (evidently because Richard Thompson on it, so it seemed like the sort of thing I'd like.) It provided much hilarity for me and my friends until we finally tired of mocking him and his death and smashed the records. Wish I had kept the thing, actually; probably could sell it now if I had. An even worse decision, in retrospect, than not selling the old Fountains of Wayne cds I was given when their popularity peaked a couple of years ago. Now those things will be sitting on the shelf forever.


Posted by: JL | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 10:50 AM
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Thanks for the reminder about Chris Whitley, JRoth. I did quite like him when he first came out and had totally forgotten about him. And I confess I'm a sucker for anything Daniel Lanois produces, so the pseudo-atmospherics are ok by me.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 10:51 AM
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Nick Drake revival of recent years to be utterly inexplicable

Dude, dude, dude, the Pink Moon album is god's own music.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 10:53 AM
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Now that I've actually listened to "Yellow Walls", it isn't at all what I expected, it doesn't sound like either Shindell or Buckley or Cohen or Drake, it doesn't sound like any "pop-folk overemoters" that I'm aware of.

It sounds more like an ancestor of the "mannered indie-rock overemoter", Colin Meloy or Conor Oberst or Jeff Mangum.

Great song, too.


Posted by: Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 10:59 AM
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Glad to see everyone talking up Cohen, who's one of my absolute favorites. His Songs of Love and War is one of my absolute favorite albums: it's the perfect blend of Cohen, because his voice has gone gravelly but he's yet to embrace the synth. New Skin for the Old Ceremony comes in a close second, followed by the criminally underrated Death of a Ladies Man. (I mean, the Wall of Sound behind "Don't Go Home With Your Hard-On"? Brilliant.)

I'm surprised that no one's mentioned John Prine. "Illegal Smile" [.mp3] is one of the best anti-war songs, and has the virtue of not being embarrassingly cloy.


Posted by: SEK | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 11:01 AM
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Chris Whitley is dead? Damn.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 11:01 AM
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Dude, dude, dude, the Pink Moon album is god's own music.

Meh. Maudlin folky junk. The man had no rebop.


Posted by: JL | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 11:06 AM
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Sometimes I'm a little bummed that Chris never got back together with Lanois - I understand why he didn't (he felt - to varying degrees on different days - as if Lanois had created his Sound too much, and Whitley wanted to make his own sounds), but shit that was a good album.

Whitley in the (vaguely) Lanois vein:
Perfect Day (covers)
Dirt Floor
Weed
War Crime Blues
Live at Martyrs

Whitley being loud and/or electronic:
Din of Ecstasy
Terra Incognita
Rocket House

There's actually nothing he ever did (he died a couple years back) that I don't like. Hell, if you want, I could burn you a sampler.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 11:06 AM
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You are beyond help, JL, but you seem content there.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 11:07 AM
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66: I gotta type faster.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 11:07 AM
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Thanks, JRoth, but all his stuff seems to be on Rhapsody and I'm listening to Dirt Floor right now.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 11:07 AM
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I'll leave the JL-slagging to Ogged (maudlin folky junk, feh). Rufus Wainwright fans should check out Sondre Lerche if they haven't already. And it seems that John Fahey should make an appearance somewhere in this thread.


Posted by: Jesus McQueen | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 11:16 AM
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I've been thinking about the 60s folk music now, and intrigued by it for the first time, as it was sort of my business to make fun of my parents for having all these JoanBaez and Tom Rush and Joni Mitchell albums. Now that I'm taking it seriously, it seems like the records by male singers of that time have aged a lot better than the records by female singers - in terms of not sounding dated and odd to a 24-year-old, that is. I never understood why Joan Baez went in and out of that really high swooping bird-like voice, and now it seems like Sandy Denny did that all the time as well. That doesn't sound natural to me, it's hard to enjoy.


Posted by: Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 11:19 AM
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Richard and Linda Thompson rule, and so does Richard alone.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 11:21 AM
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71: That's right, I was pleased to see that.

Do you know about Jim White? Also on Rhapsody. Very atmospheric/Lanois-tinged. But much, much weirder. Try "Wrong-Eyed Jesus" first - it's all good, but pop elements entered after the 1st album, and may deceive.

I was going to say something about Prine, but it hardly seems fair to talk about him in the same thread with coffeehouse folkies. I mean, of course they're not that good. Who is?

I like Prine's liner notes to Iris Dement's 1st album, where he relates hearing her demo while frying up some pork chops, and when a tear drops into the skillet, he says the fat sizzled at him as if to say "I'll give you something to cry about." Eloquent and absurd.

Also, what about John Gorka and Dan whats-his-face, with the super-Dylan-ey voice?


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 11:21 AM
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super-Dylan-ey voice?

Dan Bern, the least earnest folk singer of all time. He's awesome.

Thanks for the hint, I'd never heard of John Gorka, I'll go look at him.

Also, I've never looked into Jim White, because I get him confused with Joe Henry, Jack Logan, and probably some other guy with a really generic name. Better to stay out of that whole hornet's nest.


Posted by: Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 11:24 AM
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73: I never have liked and I don't think ever will like Baez.

Can some music historians help me here? It seems to me that soprano voices were the norm for women in music for centuries, but now they sound utterly painful to modern ears. Is this just an artifact of electronic recording (like how pre-Bing Crosby tenors sound ridiculous to our ears, because they had to sing like that to make audible recordings)?


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 11:24 AM
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Ah yes, what I mean by "high sweeping bird-like voice" can better be described as "soprano". It sounds ridiculous. No women folk singers (that I'm aware of) sing like that anymore. Yet...if Dar Williams had been born 30 years earlier she would have done so, because everyone did. Right?


Posted by: Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 11:27 AM
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Apparently everyone here is ten times folkier than me. It's Grumpy Old Man Music no more.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 11:29 AM
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Jim White is one of the most unusual musicians going today, IMO. A British (?) filmmaker heard his first album and called him up to ask him to guide/narrate a tour of the weird, gothic South described on the album. I haven't seen the film, but it's supposed to be amazing. Also, dig the crazy, rambling interview conducted by David Byrne. It's a bit long, but kind of fun.

Last, go here and click on the weird video from the latest album. Song is "If Jesus Drove a Motorhome."


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 11:30 AM
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SORRY JOHN

"FOLKY" NO LONGER MEANS "GRIZZLED"

IT'S A STATE OF MIND ANYONE CAN ACHIEVE
IN A FEW SIMPLE STEPS`


Posted by: OPINIONATED GRANDMA | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 11:31 AM
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The quavery, breathy operatic soprano is what drives me up the wall. I always think of Margaret Dumont in "A Night at the Opera", but I run across that style in serious music too.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 11:32 AM
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Hmm. Something odd with that interview link. Here.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 11:32 AM
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Thanks, I'll look at it later.

weird, gothic South

What do you think of...um....that old guy...Johnny Dowd?


Posted by: Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 11:32 AM
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78: Dar Williams is an interesting one for the earnest/self-serious discussion. One of my friends brilliantly described her music as "too much Girl Scout singalong." Not in the sense of simplistic rounds, but in the sense of Relax, it's just your emotions. But she can be pretty funny and, possibly, silly. I haven't risked buying an entire album - I'd rather leave her in the category of "I've liked most of what I've heard."

Apparently I can't link that interview, but it's on the main Jim White page linked in 80.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 11:35 AM
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Johnny Dowd not ringing any bells.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 11:36 AM
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All of my musical connections are useless to me. I really don't like Meloy's quavery voice, or anyone's, so my Decemberists connection is wasted. I also don't really like old-timey music either, so my Foghorn Leghorn in New Guinea CD goes unplayed. I sorta like the Tin Hat trio and Three Leg Torso.

Same with politics. I used to be well-connected in rightwing and pariah circles, just not with anyone potentially successful.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 11:36 AM
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What, I wander into a music discussion thread and say, "that stuff sux" and no one is grateful? You can keep your fey little Nick Drake records--the Gore Gore Girls have a new cd coming out. Kick ass. Although, one of the two mp3s they have up, um, isn't much good.


Posted by: JL | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 11:37 AM
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"high sweeping bird-like voice"

Oh man, I hate that. Geddy Lee sounds less ridiculous. Early Joni Mitchell is like fingernails on a blackboard.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 11:44 AM
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That Jim White song reminded me of Johnny Dowd, actually, although somewhat smoother and less exaggerated. I'd never heard anything by Jim White, and you'd never heard anything by Johnny Dowd. But now that I look into Dowd again for the first time in a while, it seems that those two fellows collaborated on an album called "Hellwood" last year. Interesting.

All I have by him is a few random songs I downloaded from Napster five years ago.

Check out the clips here, including "Worried Mind", "Hell or High Water" and "On Shaky Ground We Stand".


Posted by: Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 11:47 AM
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77: JRoth, thanks for that formulation: soprano. I'd never quite figured out what I disliked.

85: Dar Williams is great. One doesn't have to like everything she does, obviously, but yeah, she's self-deprecatory often enough. Wry is good. If you wanted to risk an entire album, I'd suggest Mortal City. But of course your mileage may vary.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 11:54 AM
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90: RealPlayer is screwing with me, but I did like the full mp3 on there. Thanks.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 11:58 AM
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Do people here have the feeling that Dylan is full of himself? My feeling is that (during his best years) was perpetually hostile, disgruntled, or disappointed. The way a guy should be.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 12:01 PM
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Ah, Johnny Dowd. "No Woman's Flesh But Hers" deserves a listen, though the little clip at his website doesn't give the full sense of it. I've long thought Pictures from Life's Other Side to be a great album title, but I've never been able to get myself to actually buy the thing.


Posted by: JL | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 12:02 PM
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OK, Mortal City - but you'll pay if I dislike it.

I was always afraid of The Painfully Honest Room or whatever that one is called.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 12:03 PM
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93: I like Dylan quite a bit, but it's never been clear to me why he's viewed as a genius while any number of other funny-voiced singers with (arguably) nonsensical lyrics are dismissed.

Anyway, there was a YouTube clip (I assume from Don't Look Back) where he's mocking a Time interviewer, and comes off as the biggest prick on earth, largely because he can't actually sustain his critique. He's 22 or 24, and he simply is too young and dumb to back up his "You don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones" attitude.

Part of me thinks that his entire career has been an in-joke, with him as the only one in on it.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 12:07 PM
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Okay, the first two songs I played from "Drill A Hole In Whatever" were both ones that I've heard a dozen times on the local NPR station, and liked, but never knew who they were by. I'm going to buy that album.


Posted by: Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 12:08 PM
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95: If you don't like Mortal City, I cannot accept responsibility. I have only one other Dar Williams, The Green World, which I never listen to for whatever reason.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 12:12 PM
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97: W00t! He's also a LOT of fun live - I saw him a few years back at Club Cafe in the South Side, and his little band just has a hell of a lot of fun (re)producing this wierd music.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 12:17 PM
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96: I once watched a (PBS, no doubt) documentary on Joni Mitchell in which she explained that Dylan's genius, in her view, was in the writing of lyrics that tell a developing story. Narrative. Apparently something not particularly done prior. And that she'd adopted the same approach. The interview/documentary illustrated this with various Dylan and Joni Mitchell clips, and I saw the point.

I'm afraid I can't remember the documentary, nor the particular Dylan cited.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 12:19 PM
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77: I think that the general shift has to do with trained vs. untrained voices. Lack of training (of the kind involved in art music/opera/musical theater) is inherent to folk and folk-inspired music, and the lower tessitura is just more natural for most people. That fails to account, of course, for birdlike folkie sopranos, but that kind of singing is largely a thing of the past.


Posted by: Jesus McQueen | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 12:26 PM
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72 -- Thanks. I was just thinking, Why don't I say "John Fahey" and see if anybody responds. "Poor Boy A Long Ways From Home" has a lot in commong with "Prodigal Son". Though obviously Mick and Keith are together not half the musician Fahey is, nor Fahey half the performer they are. (Obligatory: "Prodigal Son" is not a Stones song, it is by the Reverend Robert Wilkins. The Stones' cover is much better known and pretty similar in sound to Wilkins' original.)


Posted by: Clownaesthesiologist | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 12:28 PM
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Speaking of contemporary folkies, does anyone here listen to Gordon Bok?

I go back and forth between loving his music, and getting frustrated at his new england emotional reticence.

But I grew up hearing Peter Kagen and the Wind as a bedtime story/song, so I'm prejudiced.


Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 12:31 PM
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80: It is a good film containing great music, and with some weird racial stuff in it. We discussed it some at AWB's blog last year, I will try and dig up a link.


Posted by: Clownaesthesiologist | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 12:32 PM
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Gordan Bok?


Posted by: Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 12:35 PM
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Here is the cached page. AWB switched over to Wordpress and her Blogger archives seem to have gone away.


Posted by: Clownaesthesiologist | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 12:35 PM
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100: One can only presume that the developing story Joni was thinking of was something like:

The cloak and dagger dangles
Madams light the candles
In ceremonies of the horsemen
Even the pawn must hold a grudge
Statues made of match sticks
Crumble into one another


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 12:37 PM
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Yeah, you couldn't get that horrible Dumont sound naturally.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 12:38 PM
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No women folk singers (that I'm aware of) sing like that anymore

Except those who are going for a british folk revival sound, like Meg Baird of Espers and solo fame. (She also has a trio album with Helena Espvall and Sharron Krauss—lots of birdlike singing!)

Johnny Dowd is in the movie Jim White made (as are Handsome Family and maybe 16 Horsepower), and he actually made an album with White as Hellwood (it's called Chainsaw of Life) which I thought mostly sucked except for the lead track, "Thank You Lord".


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 12:39 PM
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Now that I think of it, whoever the dude singer in Espers is sounds kind of like Bert Jansch.

Espers are really good! People should pick up their ep The Weed Tree.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 12:42 PM
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The Handsome Family was one of my favorite things about that movie. I keep meaning to listen to more of their music but have not gotten around to it yet. (This huge Robyn Hitchcock mania sort of hit me over the head the spring and has colonized most of my consciousness that would be available for finding out about music.)


Posted by: Clownaesthesiologist | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 12:42 PM
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106: Thanks, although now I'll have that thought in mind before I start watching. Oh well.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 12:44 PM
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I think that what Mitchell meant was that the old folk songs were static, reiterated elaborations or variations on a type situation, whereas with Dylan, Stanza One didn't give you much clue as to what Stanza Two would be.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 12:44 PM
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The contrast in this videos is painful to hear.


Posted by: Jake | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 12:53 PM
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Why does everyone start cheering when Dylan starts singing? Does Willie Nelson get no love?


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 12:56 PM
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Gordan Bok?

Gordon Bok not to be confused with Gordondon Wainwright

("this song has a prop. this was lifted/removed from Tower records...its my own section..so hard to see...unfortunately they've mispelled my name LOUDEN..that's tame.. I was playing in this club in NY and in the paper...they said appearing..May 8th... Gordondon Wainwright 111...that's not a misspelling...that's just a different name..it's a fine celtic name....anyway...)

Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 1:02 PM
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Espers covering Nico's "Afraid". Fern Knight (also good! formerly a member of Alec Redfearn's band The Eyesores) doing something live with members of Espers. Espers live.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 1:02 PM
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Actually that live link for the espers isn't that great.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 1:03 PM
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Willie is clearly the better singer -- and what hair!


Posted by: Jesus McQueen | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 1:05 PM
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There's a great Gillian Welch version of Pancho and Lefty. Willie does a fine job in that one. Dylan is his usual adenoidal sack o' shit.


Posted by: Nakku | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 1:09 PM
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Jesus, before he became famous (ca. 1956) Willie was a radio announcer and singer in Vancouver Washington.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 1:11 PM
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Willie in the 'couv? I had no idea.


Posted by: Jesus McQueen | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 1:14 PM
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The thread of thought that starts with "Gillian Welch" ends up eventually here; but don't ask how because I will not be able to answer.


Posted by: Clownaesthesiologist | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 1:17 PM
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I don't think Dumont sang in N@tO. That was Kitty Carlisle as the ingenue singer. Can't call her operatic. Just someone acting that way.


Posted by: md 20/400 | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 1:24 PM
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There's a great Gillian Welch version of Pancho and Lefty

I've always been partial to the Townes Van Zandt version.

I particularly like his wry humor on the very freudian lines

"Pancho was a bandit boys / His horse was fast as polished steel / Wore his gun outside his pants / For all the honest world to feel."

I've never been quite sure how much that song is serious, and how much it's intentional humor/parody (that line makes me think of the scene from Red River which is included in The Celluloid Closet ) but, it's clearly a great song and he sings it well.


Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 1:25 PM
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Can't be sure which movie, but it was Dumont I'm pretty sure.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 1:44 PM
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Contra the disparagement of breathy soprano, those who haven't should check out Loreena McKennitt.

Something called The Book of Secrets in particular. She has a celtic lilt. So shoot her, I dare you. If you can't smile ...


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 7:56 PM
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Parsimon, you are so cheesy.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 8:20 PM
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Cheese didn't stop you from propositioning me. Of course, that could have been the cancer talking.


Posted by: Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 8:36 PM
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ogged, so are you.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 8:39 PM
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Your outlandish claim is going to require a link, SB.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 8:40 PM
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Is it not my prerogative to make shit up? I believe it is.


Posted by: Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 8:40 PM
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ogged, so are you.

Nuh uh.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 8:41 PM
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The fact remains: I am cheesy ("nice", I think you called it) and at some point in the past you were my willing love monkey.


Posted by: Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 8:41 PM
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There's a big difference between nice, which is giving a hand up to the handicapped old man that you just tripped for a laugh, and cheesy, which is Loreena McKennitt and Peter Gabriel, which is Parsimon.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 8:43 PM
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It might have been "wholesome". My hoohole magic isn't working.


Posted by: Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 8:44 PM
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All Standpipe's claims are a ruse, whose margin fades for ever and for ever when I move.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 8:46 PM
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135: For what it's worth, musically speaking, Jeff Beck's last three albums (cd's, whatever) should, if you have any sense at all, blow your head wide open. No cheese.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 8:55 PM
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blow your head wide open

Cheesy.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 8:58 PM
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Racist.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 8:59 PM
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Anti-semite.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 8:59 PM
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Nadia.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 9:00 PM
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Mountebank.


Posted by: Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 9:02 PM
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Rapscallion.


Posted by: Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 9:02 PM
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And if you diss Jeff Beck, I will have your head.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 9:05 PM
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Huh, women really do go for bad boys.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 9:07 PM
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Ahem.


Posted by: eb | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 9:17 PM
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146: I don't know what that's a reference to.

As far as Jeff Beck's latest stuff goes, I consider it fucking brilliant.

Let's see: "Space for the Papa"

Look, I'm on dial-up, so I can't provide you with a link. I like guitar, and I'm probably old stylee about that.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 9:22 PM
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Jeff Beck is fine. Not exactly my cup of tea, but clearly very good.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 9:27 PM
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mmm. Those who speak of their cups of tea are full of cheese, babe. Admit it, get over it, enjoy.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 9:42 PM
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Fuck it late to this thread. Ogged the first 4 Drake albums are all you need, unless you want to hear his high school stuff.

I like Johnny Dowd. Ill just go thru my hd and see what is interesting. I mean, I am listening to a lot of Ralph McTell now, but I don't know if I would recommend him.

Bruce Cockburn, Robbie Basho, Davy Graham, Dory Previn, Judee Sill, Jimmie Spheeris. Nah

I don't want to do this.

Grant McLennon died recently. I love the solo albums


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 9:47 PM
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Rufus Wainwright doing Leonard Cohen's "Everybody Knows". Terrific. Dylan-at-Budokan-level terrific.

Also: Dan Reeder, "Clean Elvis". The future looks like shit: "When I say Vietnam, it sounds just like Coca-Cola." I think y'all will like this one.

Nice find, Ogged.


Posted by: Wrongshore | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 10:00 PM
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Love that Wainwright cover.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 10:14 PM
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That was pretty goofy. The thing about "Everybody Knows" is that the whole song is about sexual jealousy, and the way that it makes the whole world feel wrong. The earlier versus are a feint before the real complaint emerges in the last verse. Is it intentional? Did Cohen consciously write the song with that in mind, or did it just emerge?


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 10:28 PM
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Fuck Fuck Fuck. Got distracted by this thread and missed the Sundance special on the Ballet Russe.
Archival footage. Fuck.

I blame ogged, and b, b because I had to google up Faludi.

Emerson, while I was preparing for two hours of ecstasy I noticed your guy Satie did 8 days in jail for "cultural anarchy" for the score to "Parade". Parade had Picasso's first sets and costumes, some in cardboard and the dancers couldn't move. Satie was pissed when Jean Cocteau (during weekends off from the front) added typewriters and milk bottles to his score.

Now there is a movie I would pay to see.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 11:00 PM
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Hey, I can't help it that you didn't read Backlash when it came out.


Posted by: bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 11:09 PM
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Just to say, I am definitely going to looks up a bunch of the music that is mentioned in this thread that I haven't heard.

Continuing to think about folkies and singer/songwriters I find myself thinking of Ferron again. She's inconsistant, but she's written a number of songs that I absolutely love.

She is at her best writing about the experience of processing strong emotions. Many of her songs are about looking back at the way in which some experience or emotion can shape years of one's life.

(for example, I will look up the Yeats quote that she uses as the organizing theme for the album Shadows on a Dime).

I particularly like Testimony and Driver from two very different parts of her career.

I recommend being aware of her work. It's worth knowing about.


Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 11:19 PM
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b because I had to google up Faludi.

Hey, I was the one who brought up Faludi, and I was reminded of her in part by parsimon's arguments.


Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 11:21 PM
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Bob, I don't know why, but it's "Ballets Russes."


Posted by: Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 11:27 PM
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Bob's blaming me because he's sexist.


Posted by: bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 11:27 PM
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156:Hey, I can't help it that you didn't read Backlash when it came out.

Well, I always saw it as:"Hey, the Patriarchy struck back, and here's the data to prove it!" Duh.

I am also an economic reductionist, thinking that allowing women into the work force while forcing the middle and upper-middle to have two wage-earners to maintain a lifestyle, thereby creating conflicts within and between, covers more of the story.

And I read "The Total Woman". Does that count?


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 11:36 PM
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Yeah, I kinda think that the "you gals wanna work? Cool, lower wages for everyone" thing was on purpose, too. Fuckers.


Posted by: bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 11:41 PM
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153: Heard it live the first time he performed it in 2003 at the Cohen tribute concert in Brooklyn. It was excruciatingly cool.


Posted by: A White Bear | Link to this comment | 05-28-07 11:41 PM
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All I caught was the final montage of the Ballets Russe thing, with Firebird all swelling while Nijinsky is waving this scarf-on-a-stick thing like an Olympic event. And then the credits, and I says Yvonne Craig? Batgirl in the Ballets Russe?

Patty Griffin keeps growing on me. Guy Clark. Saw Cat Power was on Austin City Limits, but turned her off after 5 minutes. Picked up Brandi Carlisle and Watermelon Slim and a bunch of Albert King.

Zweistein has such a rep, but it wasn't so bad at all.
I wonder if Ben would have to look that up. The Spring outakes. Coupla Prog (that's a group), Electric Sandwich, Pinguin, Highdelburg, Talix.

Fuck it there's just too much.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 05-29-07 12:19 AM
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re: Jeff Beck -- he's the only one of the 60s guitar 'heros' still making consistently interesting work. Also, listening back to some of his 70s stuff -- something like "'Cause we've ended as lovers" -- it still sounds pretty astonishing now whereas when I hear Clapton or Page from the same period, I think, 'any one of a thousand pub guitarists can do that'.

re: the high bird like soprano -- it's ironic that lots of actual operatic sopranos don't sound anything like that. Joan Baez, or early Joni Mitchell == fingernails on a blackboard; Cecilia Bartoli (e.g. on her Opera Proibita album) == really not.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 05-29-07 12:25 AM
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Clapton has not aged well. I really like the Bloomfield / Bishop "East-West" guitar duet (with Paul Butterfield). I have Jeff Beck with Jan Hammer where he does the talking guitar thing and I like that too.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 05-29-07 5:04 AM
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Trivia: the competition for the Ballets Russes was the Royal Swedish Ballet. They do sound like the Washington Generals of ballet. Apparently the first centers of ballet were Paris, Copenhagen, St. Petersburg, and Stockholm in that order.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 05-29-07 5:09 AM
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