Open Thread
by Sarah, Proud and Tall| 71 Comments
This post is in: Music, Open Threads
by Sarah, Proud and Tall| 71 Comments
This post is in: Music, Open Threads
This post is in: Because of wow., Music, Open Threads
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Via LGF, where Mr. Johnson transcribes the lyrics and explains the title.
This post is in: Music, Open Threads
Time for a musical break.
What follows is long — the video runs about an hour — but one of its many pleasures is hearing Knopfler talk. A beautiful sample of his conversation comes early on — right after the first song, at about 7:15. Thoughts about the guitar, giving songs what they want, and nurturing the connection between the music and the listener. Juicy stuff.
The post title, by the way, comes from another one of those breaks — you’ll get the context at about 31:10.
<div align=”center”><iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/tGlGBIzN2ls” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
If you stick it out to the end (or skip ahead) you’ll get a lovely, quiet performance of the song that knocks me out every time I hear it: “Brothers in Arms.”
And with that, open thread time…in which we may be nicer to each other than I hope Team Obama will be to Team Romney. ;)
This post is in: Music, Open Threads, Sports
(h/t commentor Dead Existentialist)
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It’s an Age of Austerity “human scale” Olympics, according to the Washington Post:
LONDON — Remember the 2,008 exquisitely synchronized drummers at the opening of the Beijing Games? In London, look for a flock of sheep, three cows, two goats and 10 waddling ducks. Where there were choreographed Chinese philosophers reenacting the invention of the printing press, expect James Bond in a helicopter. And where dragons lurked in the Bird’s Nest stadium, watch out for a Voldemort-vs.-Mary Poppins smackdown inside the glistening new Olympic Park….
As a global audience prepares for nearly three weeks of competition set against the backdrop of one of the world’s most recognizable cities, it speaks to the wholly different mission of the London Games: to bring the ponderous, politicized and outsize Olympics back down to Earth.
“I think there is a bit of a responsibility on us to bring these Games down to size and return them to a game for athletes, to hand them on in such a condition that other countries elsewhere around the world who have not had the Games thus far feel like they can be comfortable bidding for them,” said Hugh Robertson, Britain’s minister for sports and the Olympics. “I don’t feel they should be exclusively the reserve of global superpowers.”…
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Besides ogling extremely fit people doing amazing things with their bodies, what’s on the agenda for the end of the work week?
(Any bets on some kind of hideously botched Romney tax-form “Friday document drop” in hopes that the Olympics will draw attention away?)
Early Morning Open Thread: Olympic FeverPost + Comments (79)
by Sarah, Proud and Tall| 21 Comments
This post is in: Music, Open Threads
I’m trying to write something coherent about guns, and a nice shiny new book thread for you, but I’m finding it quite hard.
I keep thinking of those poor people in that cinema, and the terror of their last moments, and the sheer fucking stupidity of it all, none of which is conducive to much besides going back to bed with the dog and a quart of gin. In lieu of those posts for now, then, I offer you some music.
First, the Doves with There Goes the Fear. A few years ago, a young friend of mine died of ovarian cancer. It was horribly quick, and it wasn’t very pleasant for all concerned.
Kathleen was a bright burning spark of a woman, yet she was possessed always of a serenity, a calm inner spirit that soothed anyone who came into contact with her. She had an odd, gentle beauty coupled together with … how shall I put it? … a ribald huskiness and a brazen-cool-50s-brunette languor. She drives me even now to hyperbole.
She loved to dance – usually in dark rooms with bright lights – and it was a moment of joy to catch her eye across a crowded dancefloor as she danced with entirely unconscious grace. At 10am on the morning after the night before, when spirits were starting to flag and someone was on the phone trying to rustle up more drugs, Kath would emerge from the kitchen bearing a tray of breakfast cocktails that would put everyone on their arse smiling like an idiot until the coke turned up.
After her chemotherapy had robbed her of her hair, she strode around the office like Ripley in pursuit of a particularly bothersome facehugger. She fought her cancer every day and cracked jokes all the while. She had many days and moments of pure happiness in that last year, not least at her wedding – a bittersweet day if ever there were one.
And yet she died, as so many do, and I still miss her every day.
This song was played at her funeral, one last smiling “fuck you” to the pain and the terror. It makes me feel a little better on days like this.
Second, The Aikiu with Pieces of Gold. Possibly NSFW for graphically implied sexual content, but it would have made Kath laugh like a drain, and the song is very pretty.
Finally, because Kath would be angry if I didn’t pop this one on on a Friday night, The Return with New Day.
That, my dears, may be all I have for you tonight. I’m off to discover what a gimlet made with grapefruit gin tastes like, so I may be some time, but let me know if you have anything I should be listening to.
[Edited slightly for clarity after posting.]This post is in: Absent Friends, Music
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From August Brown, at the LATimes music blog:
Jon Lord, the keyboardist who gave the British classic rock band Deep Purple its depth and heavy sonics, died Monday at the London Clinic after a battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 71…
Rock musicians including Yes’ Rick Wakeman, Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello and members of Deep Purple-influenced bands such as Anthrax and Iron Maiden all lamented Lord’s passing, with Morello tweeting: “RIP the great Jon Lord, Deep Purple’s cornerstone/keyboardist. So many great great songs and that incredible SOUND of his! Thankyou.”
And very few people here will remember Kitty Wells — she was a golden oldie even when I was young — but she made her mark on popular music, per Randall Roberts, also at the LATImes:
Kitty Wells, who died Monday at age 92, was born in Nashville to a family of country musicians, and within that simple truth lies a fascinating narrative. Her story spans nearly a century, and its central plot points involve not only busting apart notions of a female singer’s place on the radio but also Wells becoming a reasoned foil to the male-dominated singers occupying the charts…
In hip-hop parlance, you can call “Honky Tonk Angels” a dis track: it’s a musical confrontation with another singer and another song — specifically, Hank Thompson’s “The Wild Side of Life.” Thompson’s song was 1952’s version of Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know,” , spending 15 weeks at No. 1 from May through mid-August of that year. During those three-plus months, fans memorized the words to “Wild Side,” an indictment of a former girlfriend who gives up marriage for the allures of the “wild side of life,” and in the process becomes a woman destined to be “anybody’s baby.” During Thompson’s reign at the top, Wells, through songwriter J.D. “Jay” Miller, crafted a response.
Countering the accusation at the center of “Wild Side” as though she’s listening to her ex from across the table, Wells sings of sitting near a jukebox that’s playing Thompson’s song. She hears him blame her for their breakup, indict her for nights spent in “the places where the wine and liquor flow,” but she isn’t having any of it…
But to reduce Wells to a single song is to risk diminishing both her craft, her artistry and her influence on the evolution of American music. Even before hitting with “Angels,” Wells had been a founding member of the “Louisiana Hayride,” the influential Shreveport, La., radio show that showcased some of country music’s biggest stars, and which in 1954 provided the first national exposure for a young Presley. In 1956, her “Kitty Wells’ Hit Parade” was the first full-length album released by a female country singer. Her hits stretched throughout the 1950s and 1960s, and she confirmed for formerly wary label executives that female country singers could hit hard with a good song and do it on a consistent basis. In her music, as in her life, she helped transform the no at the heart of “Honky Tonk Angels” into a proud affirmation of the possible.
If Charon is still running that ferry, tonight’s passengers must’ve had an interesting ride…
by DougJ| 80 Comments
This post is in: Music, Open Threads
Kind of an annoying video, but I love this song.
Talk about whatever.