Booyakisha! This week’s mix is about a season that seems to get very little love in the world of song. And before you run to the comment section and say: “Hey Ted, don’t you know that autumn started last month?” I should remind you that yours truly lives in the Golden State of California, and we get days that top out in the 90-100 degree range right up until the end of October. But sometimes the weather turns to autumn early (like it did last week) where the leaves fall, the air feels a bit different (in California it’s a very subtle difference), and the smell of fires burning in the fireplace is prevalent. Okay, are you in an autumn mood? Then let’s get going with this week’s mix!
Full disclosure: I have a tough time warming up to artists whose songs I used to play over and over when I was working in radio. Mullins’ “Lullaby” was one of those songs that never went away where I worked, and when I started hunting for autumn-themed songs, I was a bit leery about including this song — ’cause, you know, I’m kind of allergic to Shawn Mullins’ music. However, I got over my prejudices (and allergy) pretty quickly, and found that this tune to be quite the charmer. (more…)
Back in 1978, the Talking Heads were playing clubs that barely had functioning toilets and drew small crowds to hear their progressively styled poly rhythms. Flash forward to 2008, and the Talking Heads are no more, but David Byrne is, and the music he created with his band and producer Brian Eno has gone uptown. Byrne played at the swanky Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco to a sold-out crowd on Monday, and it was clear the moment he took the stage that he was expecting the audience to be a bit more sedate. However, the crowd was in no mood to politely sit in their seats — they gave Byrne a standing ovation at the outset, and then began to crowd the outer edges of the hall to dance feverishly for the next two hours.
The opening song, “Strange Overtones,” was a mid-tempo number from his new collaboration with Brian Eno, Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, and it got some heads nodding and bodies swaying in their seats. A couple of women in the front row did a kind of hippy-dippy/body and hands undulating dance — only to be told by an usher to sit down or move to the side of the hall. This was, after all, Davies Symphony Hall, and dancing in front of high-paying patrons was bad form. Ha! (more…)
My initial idea for taking in tonight’s town hall debate was to do so with headphones and without visuals. I’ll admit, over the past month or so, the visual component has played a heavier role in how I perceived the outcomes as opposed to what was being said. Ultimately I simply watched the CBS coverage in the standard way. So let’s put aside the vision part of the television, moderator Tom Brokaw’s incessant needling over time constraints, and focus on what was said.
Unlike the dynamic found during the primaries, Barack Obama is attempting to tie what he will do with how he will do it. John McCain relies on a long strand of “just vote for me” and “I know what needs to be done”– which simply drives me insane. First, if he actually knew how to accomplish these things, as he keeps saying with such certitude, why did he wait until he was running for president? If you have a solution and you withhold it until it is politically beneficial to you, what does that say about your decision-making ability or, more precisely, your opportunistic character?
Don’t get me wrong - all politicians are opportunistic. It’s in the red blood cells of the profession. But when it comes to thinking through the haze of a crisis, or a potential crisis, (The hunt for al Qaeda for, example), and focusing everything on that specific mandate, a left turn is taken at Albuquerque to wage war on an unrelated country on the basis of past grudges, Oedipal comeuppance, unverified intelligence and basically shining that sloppy free throw into a “slam dunk.” I need someone to convince me more than just saying: “Vote for me ’cause I know what to do.” I need much, much more convincing. (more…)
There’s a phrase made famous by Thomas Hobbes, used to great effect in Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism, and that is: Homo homini lupus. That Latin phrase roughly translates to “Man is a wolf to man,” and strikes the keynote to part of the powerful film War/Dance.
The film, exquisitely shot by Sean Fine and directed by Andrea Nix Fine, tells the story of a group of Ugandan children who live in a government camp that offers 60,000 refugees a semi-safe haven from 20-year war between the Ugandan government and the Christian terrorist group known as the Lord’s Resistance Army. The leader of the LRA is Joseph Kony, and his overt aims are to build a Christian theocracy in the northern region of Uganda — which is home to the Acholi tribe. However, what the LRA is really doing is abducting children (who often have to kill their own parents) and forcing them to fill many roles (i.e., soldiers, sex slaves, and torturers) as the LRA attempts to build their utopia. Kony claims to be creating a society based on the Ten Commandments, but, as it’s been pointed out by many human rights organizations, the LRA routinely violates many of the commandments they claim to uphold (the first, obviously, is not to kill.)
In this war-torn environment, we meet three children (Rose, Dominic and Nancy) who live in the camp and have had to witness horrors no one should. Nancy’s father and mother were abducted by the LRA one day while working in the fields, and Nancy and her siblings had to hide for three days in the bush before fleeing to the safety of the government camp. Nancy’s mother eventually escaped from her captors and was able to briefly stay with the kids before moving to another city to find work. Nancy’s father didn’t survive. He was killed almost immediately upon capture (hacked into pieces by a group of kids wielding machetes) and his wife was ordered to pick up the pieces of her dead spouse and bury him.
Rose’s parents were also killed by the LRA and their bodies were displayed in a gruesome way. She recounted a harrowing story of a time when she was brought to the place where rows of pots were boiling with human remains, and shown the head of her mother. Throughout much of the film, there’s an emotionless shield Rose and Nancy use to protect themselves, but it certainly cracks when the girls recount their tragic loss and the alienation they feel. (more…)
Hiya, kids! Welcome back to another week of mixing fun. Sometime around 2000/2001, I was talking to a friend of mine who worked with me in radio, and we were daydreaming about radio formats we’d like to hear. I blurted out “Classic rap and new soul,” to which he said, “I like the classic rap part, but new soul? Why?” I told him the crossover was good because it would grab a larger audience who would like the melodic sounds of soul but still love the classic rap songs — some of which had very short shelf lives. Well, we were inexperienced, broke, and lacked contacts, so we never got face time with anyone who could make that format happen. But there are a number of stations now who do what we were thinking about all those years ago. Ah well, another million-dollar idea that made someone else millions of dollars. So, in honor of that, I’ll do half a mix of our dream format. Enjoy!
“Mama Said Knock You Out (Live),” L.L. Cool J (Download)
Damn! When I saw this performance on MTV Unplugged in 1991, I was just blown away. I mean, I’m not the biggest rap fan out there (indeed, my knowledge of the genre is pretty, pretty, pretty, slim), but no one can deny the sheer power of this version with a full band. I gotta say, it was tough to find this. I searched for an mp3 version but couldn’t find one. But after searching for the right software to do so, I was able to capture the audio from the video MTV streams on their site, and then clean it up with some audio software I use. It’s not the best quality, but it’s not bad. I just wish MTV would release this as a CD or download, ’cause I would pay to have a professionally mastered version of this performance. (more…)
Jon Cummings: My junior year at college I took a creative writing class in which all the students received copies of each other’s short stories and offered critiques in a roundtable format. Almost all the students were earnest, ambitious types practicing to write the Great American Novel, and most of the mistakes we made were problems of overreach – of attempting to go from zero to William Faulkner in 8 seconds. One young man, however, submitted a sweet little story that seemed to be written for – and by – an eighth grader. Its plot was simplistic, its characters were cute but vapid, its message was utterly immature – yet the whole thing was rendered successfully, as far as it went. My classmates and I sat around the table and had no idea what to say to this guy; we didn’t know for sure whether he’d really tried to write a children’s story, or whether this effort represented the full firing of his intellectual circuitry. So we gingerly danced around our critiques, piling on the patronizing praise for what he was “able to accomplish” with the “type of story he wrote.” And then, after we’d made the author feel like a winner, we dug into the next story with the kind of analytical intensity each of us would want applied to our own work.
That story pretty much sums up my feelings about tonight’s festivities. It’s a 200-word substitute for “Joe Biden was playing chess, and Sarah Palin was playing Candyland.” She announced at the outset that she wouldn’t really be participating in a debate – “I may not answer the questions the way you want me to, or the way the moderator does …” – and she proceeded to instead offer up a manic, 90-minute imitation of Dolly Parton hosting Hee-Haw, replete with winks and nose-scrunches and “darns” and “you betchas” and rambling soliloquies so full of shit the highlights in her hair faded to brown.
Neither Gwen Ifill nor Biden chose at any point to remind Palin that there were actual questions she was supposed to be answering, actual policies she was meant to be discussing. Palin’s answers were brain dumps interspersed with folksy witticisms aimed directly at the type of folks who are predisposed to want a know-nothing hockey mom rather than a dedicated public servant living in the Naval Observatory. Ifill and Biden didn’t seem to know what to make of this adorable bumpkin, so they carried on as though they were still taking part in something serious and Palin was merely the comic relief. (more…)
3rd Rail has been around for about 10 years and, according to their MySpace page, were named “Best Unsigned Band in California” at the California Music Awards. Having been in the music business for over a decade has advantages and disadvantages; for 3rd Rail, the obvious disadvantage is not having a record deal and the support of a major label to get their music heard by a larger audience, and the advantage — while not paying dividends in a monetary sense — is having reached a level of accomplishment in terms of musicianship. In 3rd Rail’s style of music (a mix of metal and hard rock), it’s tempting for bands to be louder, harder, and faster. However, while 3rd Rail is certainly loud and has a hard edge, they play as a band but don’t overplay their instruments in order to dazzle listeners with fast and furious chops. Don’t get me wrong, though — these guys certainly have the chops, and you’ll quickly discover how good they are on their new CD, Between Eleven.
Mark Mrdeza’s vocals often alternate between a metal scream and actual singing throughout the album, but it’s the rhythm section of Jorge DeBasso (bass) and Breen Reichick (drums) that adds an impressively thick and heavy underbelly to their songs. DeBasso and Reichick certainly pepper the tunes with tasty doses of spice where needed, and guitarists Mullin and Ed May add both crunchy and atmospheric textures that elevate the band’s sound in powerful ways. 3rd Rail’s style is reminiscent of Deftones on “And I You,” but the standout track on the album (for me, at least) is “Roses & Champagne” — which has some nicely layered vocals that adds an effective growl to Mrdeza’s more melodic voice.
What impresses me most about 3rd Rail is their maturity and a level of playing that creates the right amount of space to really hear the songs. For a band with this kind of talent, it’s just astonishing that they don’t have a record deal … yet. My sense is their “unsigned” status will quickly change as more and more people get to know this Bay Area powerhouse. Samples of their music are available on their MySpace page, and of course right here, but you can download Between Eleven at the iTunes store.
My political/economic socialization came during the heady days of free market zealotry. 1984 was a year when it seemed like many of my friends — who never cared for politics or economics in high school — found a new religion at college: free market economics. Fueled by the Reagan-era drumbeat that the free market can take care of itself, I had to suffer through endless panegyrics about how government regulation was snuffing the life out of a potentially vibrant economy that, if left to its own devices, would shower down the goodies of jobs, better pay, more products, and better services to the masses. The joy with which they talked about this new utopia had the conviction of an Amway convert in search of willing salespeople to join in on the pyramid scheme.
In the political realm, deregulation and lower taxation take the form of a V, where those at the top of the income bracket paid the least amount in taxes, creating favorable conditions for a surge in economic growth. It all seemed to be going as planned — even through recessions, and um, Bill Clinton’s tax increase (Shhhh!). The prescription for a good economy was to continually reward those at the top with a “less is more” approach. In good times, lower taxes. In bad times, lower taxes — and if you do, we’ll all get more in terms of a vibrant economy. One problem is that while people love the sound of lower taxes, they don’t really like it when their government benefits get cut — unless those benefits are framed in such a way as to evoke a negative response. Case in point, the term “Welfare.” I once explained to friend who was enjoying his free market high that I was on welfare (I’m such a buzzkill sometimes).
“Huh? What? Are you on food stamps?” He said.
“Nope,” I said, “I go to a state university and the good people of California pay taxes to maintain that system so I can get an education at a very discounted rate.”
“Well, that’s not welfare,” he snorted.
“Really? What would you call it, then? The free market?” I asked.
“Um no. I would call that an investment into the education of the citizenry,” He opined.
This weekend I was rummaging through my DVDs looking for a particular movie, and kept happening upon some music-related DVDs that I thought would make for an interesting mix. Um, I wish there was more to this story, but it’s as simple as that. So with that shallow intro, let’s get going, shall we?
It’s amazing how well this movie has held up — it really is like a fine wine that needs to be savored for all the little things that make it great. One of my favorite memories of This is Spinal Tap when it premiered on the big screen. The year was 1984, and the city I lived in had a large number of stoners who loved their hard rock without irony and humor. Anyway, my friend and I are in the theater laughing it up, when a stoner dude turns around in the seat in front of us and says: “Hey man, I don’t know why you’re laughing, this is a documentary. It’s not a comedy.” You can’t buy those moments — although it could be argued that I did, since I bought a ticket to the movie. (more…)
This is the first time Barack Obama and John McCain have faced each other as competitors rather than Senate colleagues, and it’s clear that the chumminess of that institution cast a long shadow over the early part of the debate. Both were cordial, often agreed with one another, and had trouble defining themselves as candidates with different ideas on addressing the problems of the country.
It wasn’t until moderator Jim Lehrer pushed the two of them to articulate their differences that we saw that chumminess start to evaporate. One of the overarching themes of Friday night’s debate was about resources and how best to allocate them. Money, jobs, energy, and even troops were the resources in question, and the politics centered on how much for whom. Tax breaks for oil companies and businesses, or tax breaks for families making $250,000 or less? Which was going to do its economic magic and help the economy recover? Trickle down or bottom up?
On energy, the two candidates were pretty much on the same page, and only differed on details of how much and when. What shocks me the most is Obama’s support for nuclear energy. Why, if he’s so keen on preventing nuclear “suitcase bombs” from going off in American cities, does he not see the danger of nuclear reactors as terrorist targets? Also, almost no attention is being paid to the huge costs to taxpayers in setting up nuclear reactors, and once they are set up, how do you deal with the nuclear waste? Yucca Mountain can’t hold it all. His pragmatism on oil drilling is understandable, but it overshadows his commitment to alternative energy — which, when McCain chimes in, makes it sound like both men don’t mean it.
Popdose represents the coming together of a veritable who's who of music bloggers and an ever-expanding roster of writers who've made it their mission to experience the best and worst in pop culture — from music to movies, TV, and books, with a dash of current events thrown in for good measure — so you don't have to. Popdose delivers coverage both in-depth (the all-encompassing Popdose Guides) and snarkily brief (the weekly Captain Video!), surveying releases both old and new. Visit often: the site publishes a minimum of twice a day.
That story pretty much sums up my feelings about tonight’s festivities. It’s a 200-word substitute for “Joe Biden was playing chess, and Sarah Palin was playing Candyland.” She announced at the outset that she wouldn’t really be participating in a debate – “I may not answer the questions the way you want me to, or the way the moderator does …” – and she proceeded to instead offer up a manic, 90-minute imitation of Dolly Parton hosting Hee-Haw, replete with winks and nose-scrunches and “darns” and “you betchas” and rambling soliloquies so full of shit the highlights in her hair faded to brown.
3rd Rail has been around for about 10 years and, according to their 
Popdose represents the coming together of a veritable who's who of music bloggers and an ever-expanding roster of writers who've made it their mission to experience the best and worst in pop culture — from music to movies, TV, and books, with a dash of current events thrown in for good measure — so you don't have to. Popdose delivers coverage both in-depth (the all-encompassing 
