Here is Didier Wampas singing Eternellement, one of my favorites from Taisez Moi, while dressed as a vampire and playing a very special guitar.
PS/ETA: If you listen very carefully to the chorus, you can also hear Ryan Ross (The Young Veins, Panic[!] at the Disco] singing back-up!!
Hey y’all, guess who’s back?
They’ve come out of a nine-year hibernation with new music and a tour. There’s a sample track on bandcamp called PerfectSex. Check it:
Tour starts Washington, DC in early September! Be sure to check their listings and get out and see them if you can. It will definitely be a good show.
Another one I found while looking for something else: Melody Gardot, with Baby I’m a Fool from My One and Only Thrill (2009).
While I am not usually into jazz, Gardot has a stunning voice and I always love handsome men dancing in top hats and tails. The internet informs me she has just put a new record out, so if you listen to this and like it, be sure to follow up on that news.
The back-story: I recently found a labeled but track-list-less mix-tape in my tape box. I’ve listened to it, and I’ve been able to identify all of the songs on it except for one. I’ve dutifully Googled several of the more unusual lyrics, and found nothing relevant or useful. So now I’m bringing it here, in hopes we have a late ’90s Christian rock expert in the crowd who can help me identify this tune.
Clues, or, Things I Know For Sure:
1. The mix-tape was made in the Fall of 1996, probably in late September, so the song had to have been released by then.
2. The song is an up-tempo rock number with a mostly-folky flavor; there are two male voices. They also deploy a harmonica at key junctures. I made the assumption it is Christian rock because of both style and lyrical content.
3. That said, the lyrics also reflects that somebody was really into Moby Dick.
The lyrics of the first verse and chorus, transcribed by me, as best I could:
(spoken) Eagerly peering towards the horizon
you would have thought he was a prophet or a seer,
beholding, beholding, behold
(singing) Look up with a silent graceful movement whispers
Tonight on film I saw him there he was so big
Tonight I [something] myself from the hands of Jesus
Tonight the drank the deepest from the [something] spring
Tonight I took your rainbow by the tail, by the tail
You said my friend it’s the simple things
What a child trim the sails
Tonight it’s gone (tonight it’s gone)
The book of whales
Tonight it’s gone (tonight it’s gone)
To trim the sails
God is [dead?] to the mighty ones
God is [dead?] to the strong
those of us who have seen the book
search the sea the whole night long
So. Anyone recognize it?
A little something to get your blood moving on Monday morning: Head is a Stone by Mykki Blanco & the Mutant Angels, the creation/alter ego of poet and multi-media peformance artist Michael David Quattlebaum Jr. In addition to his musical endeavors he’s also just put out a book of poetry: From The Silence of Duchamp to the Noise of Boys.
I like this video / song because: those drums are relentless and there’s some excellent use of the rooftops of New York.
Director: Nick Hooker
Director of Photography: H. Spencer Young
Editor: Sloane Klevin
Additional Photography: Nelson Hancock
The Ballad of Lucy Jordan, by Marianne Faithfull, brought to you, in a roundabout way, by a labeled but track-list-less mixtape I found in my tape box this weekend. I had to listen to it to find out what was on it, and this song was both the end of Side A and, then, because it got cut off, the start of Side B.
The mixtape was made in the fall of 1996 by one of my professors, as part of a class project. The first time I listened to it was probably the first time I heard this song. I was 21, and 37 seemed very far away. I read it as a cautionary tale. A warning, left by others: watch out, danger, here be quicksand.
Now I am 37, and, while Lucy Jordan’s despair is definitely not mine, the weight of it feels different. Heavier, I think; more real. When the path diverged in the yellow wood, I took a different one, but I can see hers through the trees.
The bag is surplus to my requirements and I thought it should go and live with someone who will appreciate it. Comment here or on Facebook or tweet the link (ONCE, no points for multiple tweets!) with what you’ll be keeping in the bag if you win and I’ll pick a winner next Saturday.
nb: I don’t smoke but I do have cats, but it’s freshly washed; and I’ll ship it anywhere the US Postal service goes.
Because sometimes I just have to take a moment and be full of love for Green Day.
This is Oh Love, from ¡Uno!, due in late September. It reminds me, again, how Green Day is one of the bands that made the chords that remade the world for mall rats like me, who grew up in suburbia, planning for / dreaming of the day we were going to break free.
Because I always enjoy bluegrass fused to rock and roll and played at punk speed, and most especially so when the fiddle is good. And Tim Weed, who is playing the fiddle for Rose’s Pawn Shop, is very good.
The rest of the band is Paul Givant (lead vocals, acoustic guitar, banjo), John Kraus (banjo, electric guitar, vocals), Stephen Andrews (upright bass) and Christian Hogan (drums), they are from Los Angeles, CA, and this is a video for Dancing on the Gallows, the title song for their second record.
Here are Janelle Monáe and Big Boi with Tightrope, from her second record, The ArchAndroid. Favorite line: You can rock or you can leave.
