Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

A Senator Walker would also be an insult to reason, rationality, and decency.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

You are here: Home / Music / Monday Morning Open Thread

Monday Morning Open Thread

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Happy birthday to faithful commentor Raven, and many more happy trips!

Musical news, possibly of interest to some readers, from the NYTimes:

One evening last fall, Teddy Thompson stepped onto the stage at the Purple Crayon, a cultural center in Hastings-on-Hudson, not far from New York City. The venue regularly attracts established pop-folk singers, the kind embraced by the public-radio-listening, Subaru-driving locals; Thompson loosely falls into that category, although he has the louche glamour of a heartbreaker, as well as the reputation (“I haven’t been invited on the Lilith tour,” he once dryly pointed out in an interview). Tall, fair, lean and British, he sang that night, with what one admiring critic has called his “keening tenor,” a series of songs about failed relationships in which Thompson, single at 38, was usually the bad actor: “I was born with a love disease/It’s known as chronic hard-to-please.”…

As he neared the end of the show, Thompson announced, “This is a song I wrote for my mother.”

The audience immediately hushed. Some might have even been there because they were fans of his mother, the singer Linda Thompson, and his father, the legendary guitarist and songwriter Richard Thompson, who began their musical collaboration in 1974 with “I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight,” an album considered a folk-rock masterpiece. Eight years later, in 1982, they released the album “Shoot Out the Lights,” which Rolling Stone deemed one of the 10 best of the decade. On it, Richard plays guitar with an exquisitely controlled rage, and Linda, with her clear alto, sings spare, timeless lyrics that catalog the implosions of their dying marriage. The couple separated that same year, when Teddy was almost 7….

Over the past 15 years, Teddy Thompson has sung and written songs about love, about sloth, about partying, about murder. On Nov. 18, his latest project will be released, a collaborative effort called “Family,” which both directly engages that topic and tries to engineer, through harmonies and technology and talent, a kind of musical reunion. His mother and father each contribute songs and music, as does his nephew, Zak Hobbs; his sister Kami Thompson; her husband, James Walbourne; and Richard’s son from his second marriage, Jack Thompson. “At first I just thought it would be something fun and easy,” said Teddy, who eventually realized his motivations were more complicated: “I definitely was trying to repair some kind of damage.”

Or possibly inflict some, Kami, also a songwriter, later suggested. “The whole album,” she said, “is like a family songwriting competition — it’s a bloody nightmare. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?”…

Four tracks from the album at the link, if you care to listen.
***********
What else is on the agenda, as we start a fresh week?

Reader Interactions

42Comments

  2. 2.

    raven

    Yikes, a front page shout out! Thanks ya’ll. As soon as the lady wakes up we’re going to load up the pups and drive up through the mountains to Chattanooga to see the sites!

  6. 6.

    TheMIghtyTrowel

    Suffering through my annual bout of end-of-academic-year immune system collapse. The sinus infection portion is clearing up, but my throat still hurts like hell. Only 8 essays left to mark then it’s SUMMER!!!!

  15. 15.

    evap

    One of the musical highlights of my life was standing a few feet from Richard Thompson while he played/sang A Poisoned Heart and a Twisted Memory. I hear Teddy inherited talents from both parents, I would love to see him someday.

  17. 17.

    JGabriel

    With Fear of Being Sidelined, Tea Party Sees the Republican Rise as New Threat

    WASHINGTON — As most Republicans were taking a victory lap the morning after the elections, a group of conservatives huddled anxiously in a conference room not far from Capitol Hill and agreed that now is the time for confrontation, not compromise and conciliation. …

    Is there ever a time when Conservatives don’t agree that now is the time confrontation?

    Edited to Add:

    “I think the members of the leadership need to decide what they’re willing to shut down the government over,” Mr. Fitton [president of Judicial Watch] said.

    Translation: We WANT to shut down the government, we just need to find a reason.

  18. 18.

    Tommy

    @raven: That is just the best. Something I used to do more of. Just drive around someplace and enjoy the area. I need to start doing it again. Pull over to read Historical Markers. Stop at that no name place for a meal.

  21. 21.

    Tommy

    @JGabriel: All the “smart” people are telling me that now the Republicans are going to be “sane” and “govern.” I don’t think that will happen for a second. The tea party doesn’t want to govern. They dislike (insert hate) the very concept of government. I believe we’ll see us default on our debt limit. That to raise it they will ask for such massive changes not even Boehner can stomach it.

  22. 22.

    Elizabelle

    Happy Birthday, raven! Enjoy your road tripping birthday. Sounds like a great way to spend a day.

  26. 26.

    Tommy

    @Baud: A little bit ago I watched the Young Turks show from Friday. They featured James Lankford. The new Senator from OK. He said he’d take a biblical approach to the debt (and you can watch it here):

    I look at Nehemiah and how he handled things when he stepped into Jerusalem. It was that the people were in disgrace and the wall was broken down, but the two things that he focused in on was the constructive side of things and the debt. Half of the Book of Nehemiah is just getting the people out of debt, so they could actually take on the other things.”

    We can’t handle national defense right now, we can’t handle a lot of things that we need to and that need to be driven by the states because we have so much debt… We have proved that our nation really is slave to the lender.

    When you take this kind of approach, this world view I don’t see any wiggle room on their end. It is their way or the highway. If they have to zero out the EPA or the Department of Eduaction in the process they won’t care.

    I mean WTF.

  27. 27.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @Tommy: I think people hear politicians say loony things all the time and then nothing bad happens, so people think it doesn’t matter. But it doesn’t matter only so long as you don’t elect enough loonies to put them in control, as Kansas, NC, and Wisconsin found out.

    Hm. Maybe I have to rethink that, because Kansas, NC, and Wisc reelected the loonies, so maybe they want the horrible things to happen.

    Yeah. WTF?

  30. 30.

    debbie

    @raven:

    Maybe I’m prone to moroseness, but this is my favorite:

    This old house is falling down around my ears
    I’m drowning in the river of my tears
    When all my will is gone you hold me sway
    I need you at the dimming of the day

    You pulled me like the moon pulls on the tide
    You know just where I keep my better side

    What days have come to keep us far apart
    A broken promise or a broken heart
    Now all the bonny birds have wheeled away
    I need you at the dimming of the day

    Come the night you’re only what I want
    Come the night you could be my confidant

    I see you on the street in company
    Why don’t you come and ease your mind with me
    I’m living for the night we steal away
    I need you at the dimming of the day
    I need you at the dimming of the day

    Happy birthday!

  31. 31.

    GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)

    The real question why is EVERYBODY so gago over Loretta Lynch? Some obsculre fucknut on the internet said something ambivalent about her. Is he wrong?

  34. 34.

    kdaug

    A) Congrats on the orbit, Raven

    B) A buddy wrote a book, it’s a free download tomorrow. Here. Check it out, spread the word, standard drill.

    ETA: Free. And new. New and free.

  36. 36.

    forked tongue

    @evap: I have seen and heard Teddy Thompson a few times and I’m afraid they did not convince me that talent on that order is genetically transmissible.

  41. 41.

    d58826

    Sometimes something happens that makes you think there might be a god after all. At the Garth Brooks concert last night in Minneaoplis. from Huffington

    Shaw, who has reportedly been battling stage 3 breast cancer since June, attended a Garth Brooks concert with her daughter on Friday. The longtime fan brought a sign to hold up at the show that read: “Chemo this morning, Garth tonight, enjoying ‘The Dance,’” referencing one of the country star’s hits. “That’s one of my favorite songs of his,” Shaw told WCCO-TV.So when Brooks started singing “The Dance” at the Target Center in Minneapolis that night, Shaw wanted very much to get closer to the stage. “The next thing I knew, another usher was coming up to me and were like, ‘Follow us,'” the 46-year-old mom of three told KARE-11. “And they took me to the very front, right in front of [Brooks].” About a minute into the song, the camera caught Shaw’s sign, prompting cheers from the crowd. A minute later, Brooks walked to the edge of the stage, sat down right in front of an awestruck Shaw and began serenading her. Moments later, he took her hand and gave her his guitar. “To give away something like that is just remarkable, and now if I ever have a bad day, I can always go look at his guitar and get inspiration,” Shaw told ARE-11. As the song ended, Brooks and Shaw embraced, and the singer planted a kiss atop her head. He then stood, Shaw’s sign in his hand and exclaimed: “God just stuck his hand out and wrote this … You have all my strength, you have everybody’s strength

  42. 42.

    julia

    Happy Birthday, Raven! I have seen Richard Thompson twice on a music cruise I go on every year (Cayamo), and will be excited to see him back on the boat in January 2015! I didn’t think much of Teddy after reading in the article that he had trouble remembering lyrics and also couldn’t get a guitar chord right…seemed to spend a fair amount of time apologizing to the crowd. Couldn’t be a starker contrast to his dad’s shows, with virtuoso musical skills (voice, guitar playing, songwriter) displayed at the highest levels.

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