<B>Regina Spektor: <I>Far</I></B><BR>
Sire 519396-2 (CD). 2009. Mike Elizondo, Jeff Lynne, Jacknife Lee, David Kahne, prods.; Adam Hawkins, Marc Mann, Steve Jay, Tom McFall, engs. AAD? TT: 47:21<BR>
Performance ****<BR>
Sonics ****½
Show me a music writer who has no guilty pleasures and I’ll show you someone you don’t need to waste time reading. Anyone with passion for music, which is what drives you to try to put what you hear into words, has a brain studded with funny little weaknesses. Many is the music writer who has a Bobby Sherman record stashed somewhere. I have a friend, a blues nut extraordinaire, who one dark night admitted to me under the influence of single malt that he “had a few Beatles albums” hidden away under his bed like girly magazines. And then of course there’s always the issue of hipness overload. No one can be cutting edge all the time. There are times when you just want to hear Hall & Oates or Karen Carpenter’s dusky tones and you don’t care who knows. I like Grizzly Bear fine for example, but sometimes you just gotta give in, shed that uber skin and dive headlong into some accessible–as–hell Whiz.
<B>Willie Nelson: <I>American Classic</I></B><BR>
Blue Note 5099926719726 (CD). 2009. Tommy LiPuma, prod.; Al Schmitt, Steve Genewick, engs. AAD? TT: 45:33<BR>
Performance ****½<BR>
Sonics ****
So the big day, September 9, Beatles Day, has come and gone and after being away on a brief trip, I returned this morning to a number of voicemails that began, “Are the Beatles reissues worth the money?”
<B>Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse: <I>Dark Night of the Soul</I></B><BR>
With: Frank Black, Julian Casablancas, Vic Chesnutt, Wayne Coyne, Flaming Lips, David Lynch, Jason Lytle, James Mercer, Iggy Pop, Gruff Rhys, Suzanne Vega.<BR>
CD/download. 2009. Danger Mouse, Sparklehorse, prods., engs. AAD? TT: 43:16<BR>
Performance ****<BR>
Sonics ****
I know that every time someone dies, it’s now customary to intone about what a hero they were, how much they were always had a smile for everyone, how they were great family men, husbands, fathers, etc. etc. etc. Speak no ill of the dead, I get it.
They were quite a couple. Like a pair of Octopi in heat. First, he was grabbing her ass. Then he had his hands up the back of her shirt. Then, up the front. Then he had his hands down the back of her pants. Then, down the front. Both hands and about half of his forearms. Her only reaction was to smile, swoon and stick her tongue in his mouth. I'm damned impressed that she was able to keep her clothes on during this determined assault upon her New Jersey virtue. Best of all, during this entire spectacle, they were simultaneously kissing and falling down at the same time. Groping does not begin to get what was happening in my section on Thursday night at the Beacon Theatre.
New York’s outdoor concert season is in full swing and I happened to catch a couple pretty wonderful shows, one free and just the opposite the other night.
You know there are days and then there are DAYS. Yesterday I had one of the latter, but music in the end was what saved me.
If you like freak shows, then the current travails of the Republican Party are incredibly sweet. Marc Sanford’s <I>“I’m gonna try and fall back in love with my wife”</I> nonsense [need dental work? try repeating that one to your wife?], Palin’s rambling, basketball–and–dead fish–laden resignation speech, and now the pride of Long Island, U. S. Rep. Peter King, calling Michael Jackson names on the day before he is buried. “Lowlife,” “pedophile,” “child molester,” oh yeah, King hit `em all. The run of bad news on Jackson is about to begin again—his toxicology report is gonna cause a circus, not to mention the end of several medical careers—so I’m thinking King coulda waited a day or two before giving us another dose of some righteous Republican extolling the heroism of firefighters, cops and soldiers. The fact that all three of those professions are paying gigs—no one is being drafted lately—is clearly beside the point for King. And okay, we all know Jackson had some unhealthy sides to his life, but couldn’t King have waited a day or so before becoming a new hero to the haters in the Republican Party. The appetites for hating and hypocrisy in the GOP are apparently insatiable. I loved it when one of King's colleagues questioned whether this outburst would help or hurt King by saying that it might help if has a lot of racists in his district.