By the way, I am in New Orleans

Hello.

Yes, I am in New Orleans for a work trip. Fortunately, my conference ended at 6:00. Kermit Ruffins started playing at Vaughan's at 8:00ish.

in some ways, I never travel alone

I was unable to round up anyone to go with me, and so I headed to Vaughan's where New Orleans musician Kermit Ruffins and his band play a regular Thursday night gig all on my lonesome.  I highly recommend you take it in, were you in The Crescent City.

Like most white people living in the suburbs outside of Louisiana, I first heard about Kermit Ruffins thanks to the power of HBO and their series Treme.*  And that was more or less who showed up for the Thursday night gig at Vaughan's, I'd hazard.  Me and a bunch of other 20-30something folks who wanted to see THE Kermit Ruffins.

Well, as it turns out, Kermit and Friends put on one of the best shows I've seen in years, and I had to leave at what I took to be the mid-point so I'd be in some condition to get to my conference tomorrow.

if you squint, that's Kermit there in the middle

I do not usually venture out from hotels while on work trips, but as it was a Thursday and I was in New Orleans, I figured nobody would forgive me if I didn't at least TRY to do something fun.  So I did.  And it worked out.

Now, I rest.

Have a good Friday, y'all.


*recommended

So, I went to a big, splashy Broadway musical (Wicked)

I don't remember not liking The Wizard of Oz.  The movie, anyway.  I've never read the book.  I don't know that we watched it every year when it came on TV as kids, but I've seen it often enough, including in film school and then several times afterward.  We've got it floating around on DVD here somewhere.

That said, I didn't make it through the Fairuza Balk starring Return to Oz, nor a recent SyFy Channel attempt at an update.  

And while I don't talk about it much, I more or less grew up going to the theater all the time, going to see musicals, drama, comedy, what-have-you, in venues from college campuses to community playhouses to the bigger venues in Houston (no, we didn't fly to New York to see shows).  In addition, I did a bit of my own "acting" back in high school, but wasn't actually any good.  In general, though, all that left me with a soft spot for live performance.  

Here's the deal:  going to see plays is @#$%ing expensive.  I tip my hat to my folks, because I only understood in the abstract what a big deal it was to include their stupid kid in outings to what had to have been pretty pricey shows.  Most of which I very much enjoyed, but, still.  Now that I'm paying for it, I better see a flying monkey or two for my dollar, and I'm not going to wind up going all that often.

I was a bit torn about going to see Wicked as I'm never really sure what I'm getting with a touring Broadway Show in the era where Lion King is a big draw (I am the one person in America who was sort of non-plussed with the magic of Julie Taymor's puppets when I saw the show in Arizona) and Spider-Man with a soundtrack by U2 seemed like a good way to fill seats.  Basically, I sort of think of musicals as a showy stage production more than I think of them as a particularly powerful way to communicate a narrative.  There's a hell of a lot of difference between a revival of The Music Man and By the Skin of Our Teeth.  But it can work.

Movie Watch 2012: Annie Get Your Gun

As biography, the splashy Irving Berlin musical Annie Get Your Gun is, charitably, less than accurate.  But that's not really the point of Annie Get Your Gun, so if that's what you were looking for, you may want to move on.

To be honest, I thought I'd seen this movie as a kid, but I now believe what I was watching was Calamity Jane featuring Doris Day, so that's going to be somewhere in my queue.

The movie is a bright, colorful MGM spectacular from 1950.  Annie is played by Betty Hutton, in her defining role as the Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show sharpshooter of legendary skill.  Howard Keel, in an early part, plays Frank Butler (he'd show up a few years later in Calamity Jane as Buffalo Bill, just to add confusion), a fellow sharpshooter and the man of Annie's dreams.  The performances are hokey and broad, but this isn't exactly A Streetcar Named Desire, so much as a sweet story in service of big show tunes.  The "Get Your Gun" of the title is, of course, not literal, and drives the feather-light story.

Who was your New Years' Kiss?

A little Casiotone for the Painfully Alone to get you started on 2012.

SW Advent Calendar December 22

and now, in what's becoming a Christmas tradition, I think, here's my annual posting of The Pogues and Kirsty McColl's "Fairytale of New York"

SW Advent Calendar December 21

The most rockin' Christmas song of the past 15 years.



Which, of course, was really this:



Which, of course, is trumped by this:

Happy Birthday, JimD

edit.  Oh, hell.  Apparently tomorrow is Jim's birthday.  Just consider this an early present on Jim's B-Day Eve

we don't do birthdays around here much anymore.  But it's Jim D's B-Day, and I remembered.

Kickstarter Project - Folk Documentary

Hey!  I've known Hilary since the 4th grade, and now she's one of the subjects of an upcoming documentary on the hard-traveling heroes of Americana/ Folk Music.

Hilary and Stuart are The Flyin' A's (who I went to go see just last night).  I've known a lot of musicians at this point, and some have been successful, some less so, but I haven't seen anyone who has worked as hard at keeping their music going as these two.  And they're actually very good, too.*

A while back Stuart and Hilary were noticed by a documentary crew and were approached to take part in the film.  You can see Hil (not really the shyest of daffodils) gets a lot of coverage.

1.  You can see a trailer for their documentary here.



2.  You can help fund the documentary by contributing to the Kickstarter at this link.

They only have a couple of weeks left, so if you can kick in a few bucks, it would get the documentary a really long way and get Hilary and Stuart in front of more eyes and ears than a summer's worth of touring.


*I think we've all known that band or musician we really didn't want to encourage

SW Advent Calendar December 16

Provided by our own AmyD.

This was my response to her email:

I doubt you guys listen to much Magic 95.5 for their magical month of Christmas, but I think they play this song every hour on the hour.  Its insane.

Sometimes...  this is the song that gets stuck in my head, and even a power drill and a tire iron cannot get it out.

And now I share with you. Merry Christmas.

SW Advent Calendar December 15

Every year, right around Christmas, Ms. Darlene Love appears on the Late Show with David Letterman to perform "Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)", not just the best modern era Christmas song (in my opinion), but one of Phil Spector's best, no matter what Holiday or day we're talking about.

SW Advent Calendar December 7

For Randy, who (as discussed) is like my personal Shatner.

Happy Nigel Tufnel Day, people

Today it's 11/11/11

gggnnngghhhhhh.... The "I'm Not Feeling Like A Real Post" Itemized Round-Up

This is sort of how I'm feeling at the moment.  I'm doing all right, but, man...  hordes of pinheads, why are you so many, and why do you keep coming?  Even when I keep swinging my axe into your squishy selves?

Its just been a sort of irritating two days, and I'm hoping tomorrow goes better.  Even when I know Friday is going to be a mess of scheduling conflicts.

Item - I finally finished DC's Brightest Day with Volume 3.

What a mess that thing was...  It had some good elements but...  by and large, I see no reason why I'd tell anyone else to read that thing.  I find it sad that the only DC event book that felt driven more by character than "putting a hat on a hat" plot contrivances was the controversial Identity Crisis.  And the only plot-driven one I felt worked as a story was Final Crisis, but only if you read the Superman tie-in.  Go figure.

Item - if you're in Austin on Friday night, go see Jason's band "The Mono Ensemble" at the Carousel Lounge.  Its from 9:00 - 10:30.  There might be a cover, but the rockin' comes free with the seat.

If you're wondering what sort of music Jason plays - its sort of like this.  Only with a lot more dinking around between songs.

Item - I'm in Dallas for the evening and very tired.  I slept pretty badly last night.  Probably why I'm cranky with humanity today, and why its okay if I'm holed up in a rather nice hotel room by myself for the evening.

Item - After enjoying both first seasons, I haven't made time for either Boardwalk Empire or The Walking Dead this year.  I just can't seem to be motivated by TV at the moment.

Well, I am still making time for almost ten shows I can think of, and that seems like plenty, really. And considering I can't find time to read or catch up on my Noir viewing - where the heck is my time going?

Item - Be kind to your fellow humans.  And animals.  Your daily reminder.

Item - Jamie and I will be attending the UT/  Texas Tech game on Saturday.  If you see it televised, I'll be the one in the orange shirt.

Item - Grapes of Wrath is a really, really long book.

Item - Be cool and buy my friends' album.  I can't guarantee you'll like it, but you'll make some very nice boys in Seattle just happy as clams.

In which I talk about why I hate talking about music

So, about five years ago, I started really hating talking about music.  Not just online, but in person.  I have used the analogy "we might as well be arguing over which color we should like best", and I kind of stick to that.

I suppose I sort of used to talk about music here and at League of Melbotis, but talking about music in person is often an oddball conversation wherein you're both talking about driving, but one of you is talking about driving sports cars on empty stretches of road, and someone else is talking about NASCAR, and someone else is talking about playing SpyHunter at Chuck E. Cheese in 1987.

On the internet, however, there's no difference between a somewhat apathetic or agnostic stance and finding that your "meh" attitude just outright offends someone.

Concrete Example: If I could barely muster a shrug that REM finally hung it up after not finding a place in my record collection since Out of Time, released almost 20 years ago, I'm sorry.  It doesn't mean I think you're an idiot for praising Monster or Automatic for the People.  I haven't paid any attention to the band since my Junior year of high school.*

I just don't care.  And its not that I don't care that much about YOU as a person (and I know you take your music seriously), but I can't do anything with the fact that we have different ideas about the rock and roll.

Blondie = No Post Friday

Went with SimonUK to see Blondie.  I'm afraid there's no post for Friday.  Or, at least, anything on comics.

That show was AWESOME.  If Blondie is coming to your town, I can't recommend enough that you go.

Debbie Harry is an amazing frontman/lady and it was this great all-ages crowd who all knew all the words.

Ms. Deborah Harry still has it

I will say a few things about Debbie Harry:

1)  she is such a weird/ bad dancer, that it kind of circles back and becomes awesome again.
2)  her voice hasn't changed at all.  She sounded phenomenal.
3)  she seemed to warm up to the crowd as the show went on and was having fun by the end.  And she kept pointing to the 40-something guy in my row who was freaking out completely at seeing Blondie.

The band is full of amazing musicians

I've seen a lot of bands, but its rare I see a bands and walk away thinking "those guys are remarkable musicians".  That's something I think the 3-chords and an attitude approach to rock has really eliminated from live shows, but these guys still totally do that.

Simon and I were en route to my car and saw a crowd waiting behind the building near the buses and decided to humor ourselves.

SimonUk poses with guitarist Tommy Kessler (he is awesome)

No, I have no idea who these girls are in the picture below, but they wanted to be in the shot.  I am sad Simon apparently had a seizure while taking the picture.  It makes this a bit of a Bigfoot moment.

I granted Mr. Kessler a photo-op

Ms. Harry did not exit through our door, or at least while I was standing there, and I doubted she'd want to pose with me if she DID show up, so Si and I moved on.

So, anyway, yes, the show rocked.  And Blondie went straight from "Rapture" into The Beastie Boys' "Fight For Your Right (To Party)".  It was hilarious.

But I was more or less satisfied when "Atomic" made the playlist on the 3rd song.

Once Upon a Time in America

An Italian conducting an orchestra (I believe in Poland) performing a song written for a movie about early 20th Century American Jews shot partially in Rome (for that vintage look). That's America, people.



I'm a big fan of the movie Once Upon a Time In America, but a very big fan of the score.

Happy 4th of July, cont'd (America at its finest, video #2)

Just in case the previous post didn't say enough about why I love America, I would remind you: we made James Brown AND Rocky.

It's that time of year...

Show Me The Way To Go Home - Jaws from Thomas Kelly on Vimeo.

When Pre-Schoolers compose songs about Superman and Flash

An old chum of mine now lives in Seattle.  Apparently he's putting the words of Pre-Schoolers to music and performing them. 

This song is about the time Superman and Flash ran into a couple of large mammals in a cave.

Scroll to the bottom of the linked page to hear the song (its about 1:30).

Talking Heads

The video for Burning Down the House was probably the poppiest moment the band Talking Heads ever achieved.  The video got regular play on MTV, became the band's only Top 10 hit, and was where I remember first hearing their music.  The video hit in 1983, which would have made me about 8, and still very excited about whatever showed up on MTV, be it Tina Turner, Billy Idol or the J. Geils Band.

However, I really liked that tune.  Its a pretty darn good rock song, and I don't know if I parse the video now any better than I did 28 years ago, but I did like that there seemed to be something to figure out and I suspected it had something to do with the band members wrestling some inner-something.

We ALSO project David Byrne's face onto the side of our house

But, as a kid I didn't care so much about what the art was trying to say so much as the fact that I liked these people who all dressed in white suits, apparently weren't too worried about glamour or attitude and had a kick-ass blonde on bass.  Even then I thought that was unusual and nifty.