June 21, 2008

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What radio is all aboot

June 21, 2008 in Art | 2 comments

I discovered JazzFM91 on a recent trip to Toronto, and keep going back. It’s sooo good. Right now Danny Marks is talking to … who is it? dunno, just tuned in. (Later… it’s Terry Gilespie.) But the subject is John Lee Hooker.

The music that follows reminds me of the time John Lee gave one of the best live performances I’ve ever seen. It was in St. Joseph’s Church in Durham, I’d guess around 1980. I was in front pew on the right. John Lee walked in with an orange suit and his guitar, said “Stand up!” to the audience, and all obeyed. There was no way to sit for the rest of the service. It was just amazing. Just remembered I wrote about this, and a funny JLH story, back in ’01.

Here’s JazzFM91′s stream.

Solving the “brand” thing

June 21, 2008 in Blogging | Comments closed

If I still had a Santa Barbarian blogroll, I’d be quick to add Uncle Saul’s infoChachkie to it. Cool to read in his latest post another piece of the “branding” derivation puzzle:

  The word “brand” is derived from the Old English word baernan, which means “to burn.” For thousands of years, ranchers have branded their livestock to indelibly mark them and thereby communicate to the world their ownership. A marketing brand serves a similar purpose. It declares to the world the underlying ownership (and associated responsibility) to deliver on the brand’s promised value proposition.

I’ve always taken it as a given that the practice of “branding” involved the burning of ownership symbols onto the hides of cattle. But I now see via wikipedia, “When shipping their items, the factories would literally brand their logo or insignia on the barrels used, which is where the term comes from.” If I were a Wikipedian, I’d want to add a little “citation needed” there, but I suspect it’s true.

Lasting

June 21, 2008 in Future, Health | 4 comments

I still have three of these, my MRI says. So, for the first time, I’m watching The Last Lecture, with absolute intentions not to give my own Last Anything for another few decades. Highly recommended, by the way.

Hallelujah

June 21, 2008 in Art, Blogging, problems | 21 comments

There’s a light at the end of the digestive tunnel. (Sorry, can’t resist.) Four bowls of broth, two teas, a bit of jello, four glasses of water and an Italian ice have all made it past my pancreas, now once again the cooperative beast it was for close to 61 years before it revolted a week ago, dropping me into a trough of pain and inconvenience.

In the morning I get my first solid food, then start careful eating habits for the duration. If my pancreas agrees, I’m outa here by noon.

Which brings me to this comment by my buddy Chip, pointing to Leonard Cohen performing his song Hallelujah on German television, I’d guess in the mid-80s. (Cohen wrote the song in ’84.) It blew my mind. Cohen is a transcendant poet and songwriter, but also a performer of such unusual calm and grace that I’m stunned by how well his schtick works, even in a hokey TV stage setting.

And these lyrics just give me chills:

  There’s a blaze of light in every word.
It doesn’t matter which you heard.
The holy or the broken Hallelujah.

  I did my best, it wasn’t much.
I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch.
I told the truth. I didn’t come to fool ya.
And even though it all went wrong,
I’ll stand before the lord of song
with nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah.

“Hallelujah” has been covered out the wazoo. It’s the Pachelbel Canon of poetic ballads. On YouTube alone, you’ll find outstanding covers by the quartet of Kurt Nilsen, Espen Lind, Askil Holm and Alejandro Fuentes, the Shrek soundtrack, Allison Crowe, Sheryl Crowe, Damien Lieth, Rufus Wainwright, Bon Jovi, Amanda Jenssen, k.d. lang, k.d. lang (again), The OC, Jeff Buckley (many from him) John Cale…

I’ve listened to all of them, some several times, and still I like Cohen’s the best, maybe because his is the only one with the lines I quoted above.

Among my resolutions for life after Liberation is to sustain my love of music, rekindled here in the hospital. It’s not hard, that love. We all have it. Maybe that’s why I like the opening stanza of “Hallelujah”, as everybody sings it. Dig.

Bonus song. Another.

Quote du jour

June 21, 2008 in Ideas | 4 comments

Mike Taht: Some level of realism regarding our energy requirements is called for. I’m not expecting any until we are reduced to watching television by candlelight. Nice back and forth in the post and comments about a Subject That Matters.

Getting down before getting out

June 21, 2008 in Art, Past | 2 comments

Bear with me while I rehabilitate with radio. If that doesn’t do it for ya, tune out now. It’s cool.

Gotta say that I’ve been learning to love WMBR/88.1, MIT’s student station, on Saturday mornings. Been listening for the last half hour or so to Doug Gesler’s excellent “Lost Highway”: Country music for folks without boots, a hat or a lasso… Doug just did a nice job reviewing the last set, while talking over two of the best instrumentals ever recorded, without identifying those, mostly because he uses it as is background fill. But it gives me an excuse to fill in the blanks. Both were from Mike Auldridge, who plays the loveliest dobro you’ll ever hear. The first tune was “This Aint Grass”, and the second was “8 more miles to Louisville” from his amazing Blues & Bluegrass album, now available as part of a 2-album compilation called Dobro.

I’d guess it was in ’74 or ’75 that I was sitting with my neighbor and buddy John Curry, listening to WDBS, the station I worked for at the time, when a song called “Bottom Dollar” came on, and stopped both John and I cold. I called the station, found out it was by Mike Auldridge, the dobro player with the Seldom Scene, a great DC-area bluegrass band. So we both went out and bought a copy of the album. I’ve loved his music ever since.

Great to catch up on his website, too. The style is pure gray-background 1995, and has html an amateur can actually read. More importantly, it has a wonderful sampling of .mp3s from various highly worthy albums. Plus introductions to Mike’s nothing-else-like-it Resophonic guitars. Beautiful things. Check it out. Take your time.

Still no food, by the way. It’s past 9am. Isn’t that a little late for a hospital to be delivering breakfast? Anyway, the listening continues.

Rise & Boogie

June 21, 2008 in Art | 3 comments

Two of the greatest songs ever recorded are both called “Pride & Joy”. Marvin Gaye did the first. Stevie Ray Vaughan did the second. That’s what I’m listening to right now on Radio Paradise.

Wish the “food” would come. I’m so ready to boogie outa here. (Not really, but that’s how I feel.)

Can’t sleep, so…

June 21, 2008 in VRM | 3 comments

I’m watching myself on TV. Actually, on the Web, at the site, where they’ve done a remarkable job of cross cutting between the screen and my balding self.

It’s about making each of us a platform. And, of course, .

Bonus vink on why I don’t like web analytics. For me, anyway. Like judging somebody’s creativity by their shoe size.