While no one’s paying attention, I’ll slip in another elitist post. I went to see this ensemble last night, and it was a smoker of a performance of Schubert, Bartok, and Beethoven Op. 131. I think these groups relax and take more risks when playing in backwater towns like Memphis, and the results are often tremendous. The cellist might look like an assistant night manager at Kroger, but musically he’s a badass; he was pushing them all to the brink in the Beethoven. Here they are in 2nd mvmt. of Beethoven Op.135. I’ve said it here before, and I’ll say it again: the late Beethoven string quartets and piano sonatas, at 200 years old, are still ahead of the times.
Broadcast
Any of you bastards heard of them? Someone put me onto them last night. They were active from late 90’s to around 2011, when their singer passed away after catching H1N1 on tour. This song’s from their first album, The Noise Made By People, which is good. If you took Forever Changes, removed the Hispanic influence, added some delightfully creepy synths, and brought in a fifteen-year-old Nico to sing, then you might have something like this album. Or not.
Update from the rabbit hole: this one, from second album, sounds like Silver Apples, but with a far better singer.
George & Martha
Something reminded me of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf, which in turn reminded me of this parody. Benny Hill’s Richard Burton is spot-on.
Speaking o’ Memphis
Here’s a radio show of some 60’s-70’s rarities. I love the ones by the Breakers and Flash and the Memphis Casuals. I bet they kicked ass live (I’m not old enough to have seen them, although I did see about half of the others on this list). Unlisted after the Tommy Hoehn song is a pretty terrible cover of “I Walk the Line” by a band called Hot Dogs, who had some good songs; why on earth was that chosen? I find Chris Bell’s acoustic version of “I Am The Cosmos” too slow, sludgy, and depressing–which I guess makes sense, as he was chronically depressed. It’s the sound of Quaalude abuse. The official single version moves along better, although there’s still about as much sludge as I can endure.
Magical Mystery Chord
Harmonics doesn’t get more fun than this chord. I think someone’s posted an analysis here before, but I’d forgotten the details. Randy Bachman got to listen to the individual tracks at Abbey Road; here he is breaking it down. Truly a band firing on all cylinders during this time, the height of their early period.
Suckers Wanted
Julian Lennon will auction NFT’s of some of his prized memorabilia: John’s black cape from Help, a Les Paul ( I guess Yoko owns the Epiphone Casino), Paul’s handwritten notes for “Hey Jude,” and some other treasures. He’s keeping the originals. In Julian’s words,
I actually felt very bad about keeping all that stuff locked away, and I just felt that this was a unique way to continue dad’s legacy and show people the collections I have…
Aw, how nice. John’s legacy needs so much help these days. And I’m sorry he feels bad, but the money should help that.
You can’t have your cake and eat it, but with NFT’s you can have it and sell it!
There’s a sucker born every minute. –PT Barnum
Never give a sucker an even break. –WC Fields
Righteous Gemstones
Any of you bastards watching this? I’m through most of S1, and much of it is hilarious. Bogs down a little in a couple of middle episodes involving flashbacks and a ho-hum subplot, but it picks up again and looks like it’s heading for a strong finish. I’m hearing S2 is good.
I Got A Rocket In My Pocket…
…and the fuse is lit. The Q cutting up as only they could.
Born Fighter
Not his greatest song, but it has one of the funniest first verses I’ve ever heard and a Dave Edmunds solo (2:00) that curls what’s left of my hair. When I searched YouTube for this song, I ran across a ’79 documentary of the same name. Here is a clip where Lowe and Edmunds talk a bit about Phil Spector, then work on takes of that same solo. I haven’t watched past where the solo recording ends at 15:00, so I don’t know if the rest is worth watching. Nick Lowe seems rather, um, “relaxed.”