Two Dishes But To One Table

Review: Matthew Sweet Show at City Winery

Meg bought tickets for us to see Matthew Sweet for my birthday. 

In the back of my mind I was thinking, poor Mr Sweet.  He has a whole new album of material and all of us will just be there to hear a few brief glimpses of his seminal 1992 'Girlfriend'.

Meg scanned the lineup after we bought our tickets and announced, "Don't get your hopes up, he's not playing his new album."
Oh? What's he doing, covers?
"It says Matthew Sweet will be playing his LP 'Girlfriend'.  In it's entirety. Is that okay?" 

"Um, yes; Girlf5riend is one of the 100 greatest rock LPs ever!"    Yipeee!

We showed up early and stayed late.  Meg noted I was apparently the fifth most enthusiastic patron in the whole audience.

Aside from the opening song, a languid, loping version of  Divine Intervention,  everything moved at an accelerated pace. 

Live I could see that the bass parts on the album are more demanding than I ever realized.  And the drum parts were boring and simple.  

After the first three songs Sweet warned "We're going into the deep cuts now."  His track by track running commentary noted that the original CD has a sound effect of a needle dropping onto an LP at the midpoint to connote the sound of an old vinyl record being flipped over for Side 2. 
"Here's the part where on the original CD we have a needle-in-the-groove sound effect, so imagine that and then we can play the next song."

None of the songs were played in any kind of stretched out  extend-o jam -- that's a good thing.

Sweet encored with Time Capsule and, finally, the very last song of the night, the only material post 2000: She Walks the Night from his current release.   Other than that, two songs from 100% Fun were the only non-Girlfriend Tracks.

The merchandise table had a nice $20 gray t-shirt that was just the album cover art from Girlfriend. 

I didn't know GF had an anti-war song.  Matthew said he wrote it at a time when nobody could have predicted that things were about to get much worse as far as the US jumping into wars cavalierly.  Under his breath he coughed "ahem...Bush!"

I didn't exactly catch the band members' names perfectly.  It sounded like  Paul Chagae was on the bass, Dennis Taylor on guitar (was he a Surf Punk?) and Rick Mink, consigned to the very boring drum parts.  With all the soloing on those songs it ould have sounded bad to have more musical solos.

I very much felt I got my money's worth.  

 

Recent iPod Stats Here

The Bad Plus is passing a few artists in my queue lately.  

Scrobbling by LastFM has counted this many artist plays since 2008 on my iPod.

What Do We In Detroit Know About Luxury?

I'm still enough choked up about last year's Chrysler Super Bowl Commercial that I made an MP3 file of it to listen to on my iPod.

The city in the commercial is not quite demographically right:  mostly white, a few Aftrican Americans, but in a pleasant nod to one group of people, an Arab seems to be in the background of an ice skating shot.

There are plenty of scenes in the commercial to put a lump in a Detroiter's throat.  For his part, the spokesman, Eminem, looks a little grizzled and overly hard in this still, getting out of the Chrysler, but in motion for the video it works fine.  The article in the business section of the New York Times made it sound like Em was a tough sell for the Chrysler CEO to propose to his board of directors so he didn't tell them until just a few days before shooting!

If you want to listen to the commercial, here is the MP3 file I made, free to you to stream or download and save:

 

Chrysler_eminem

Work for Cello: "Polish It"

If you need some sheet music for conch shells you might try looking around at the New York Public Library John Cage shrine:

Long Distance Runaround

The Bad Plus make their twice-a-year homestand, this time at The Blue Note.  Two shows a night for the week of April24 - 29. 

Last time through they had a vocalist in tow.   Wendy Lewis changed up the all-dude, no words aesthetic, providing many surprising, often languid, sometimes ironic, always respectful interpretations of FM rock staples, filtered through a stand up bass, capricious drums, and time shifting piano.  Highlights of that show were LOng Distance Runaround (a Yes cover) and Lithium (Kurt Cobain on half-speed). 

This time through it's back to just the guys.  I think Meg is good for coming to one show with me.  I'll try to find a friend for the other.  If you're reading this and going to be in New York that week drop me a line!

Last year around this time I came close to riding a bus to Toronto to catch TB+ so I am greatly relieved and taking advantage of one of my last chances to see them in New York before I move to Wisconsin.

If you don't know them and want to stream some Bad Plus at Last.fm , iTunes preview, or Grooveshark, try Physical Cities, Lithium, or Silence is the Reason!

The Metaphor

I should learn to not look up the translation to foreign language songs.  They're ever disappointing, both for Google's unartfulness and for the banality of all pop song love poetry.   Here's the   60's French rock non-plus bachelor, Jacques Dutronc, comparing his love to drilling the earth, at least according to Google.  

La Metaphore

Si tu étais comme une herbe If you were like a weed
Je serais mauvaise herbe I would weed
Contre toi je viendrais I would come against you
Toute ma vie j'en vivrais All my life I'd live

Si tu étais comme la terre If you were like the earth
Je serais terre-à-terre I would be down-to-earth
Je t'ensemençerais I t'ensemençerais
Je te récolterais I'll reap

Laisse-moi encore rêver Let me dream again
J'ai besoin d'imaginer I need to imagine
Est-tu la fille, l'enfant du mouvement Are you the girl child movement
Viens je t'en prie mon âme est sur les dents I just pray my soul is on the teeth

Si tu étais comme une feuille If you were like a sheet
Je serais portefeuille I'd portfolio
Et je te serrerais And I hold you
Dans mon petit carnet In my notebook

Si tu étais comme le sable If you were like the sand
Je ramasserais tout le sable I picked up all the sand
Chez moi je l'emporterais I take with me in
Doucement le tamiserais Gently sieved

refrain refrain

Si tu étais comme un arbre If you were like a tree
Je m'en irais d'arbre en arbre I would go from tree to tree
J'irais enlacer tes hanches I would go hug your hips
Sous le couvert de tes branches Under the cover of your branches

Si tu étais comme une femme If you were like a woman
Je te ferais fleur fuie âme I'll make you flee flower soul
Je te ferais pierre de sable I'll make sandstone
Je te ferais mèche terre femme I'll let you drill earth woman

refrain refrain

Si tu étais comme une femme If you were like a woman
Plus jamais j'aurais de femme I never woman
Laisse-moi plutôt rêver Let me rather dream
J'ai besoin d'imaginer I need to imagine

----------------------------------------------------------------

If you are patient, I am putting a copy of  DuTronc's song

Download 09 La métaphore

so you can hear the nice melody.  I know no French, none, but find it incredibly entertaining to read along while he sings and marvel at how French and hear how French is pronounced.  

 

Paroles Send

Si tu étais comme une herbe If you were like a weed Je serais mauvaise herbe I would weed Contre toi je viendrais I would come against you Toute ma vie j'en vivrais All my life I'd live Si tu étais comme la terre If you were like the earth Je serais terre-à-terre I would be down-to-earth Je t'ensemençerais I t'ensemençerais Je te récolterais I'll reap Laisse-moi encore rêver Let me dream again J'ai besoin d'imaginer I need to imagine Est-tu la fille, l'enfant du mouvement Are you the girl child movement Viens je t'en prie mon âme est sur les dents I just pray my soul is on the teeth Si tu étais comme une feuille If you were like a sheet Je serais portefeuille I'd portfolio Et je te serrerais And I hold you Dans mon petit carnet In my notebook Si tu étais comme le sable If you were like the sand Je ramasserais tout le sable I picked up all the sand Chez moi je l'emporterais I take with me in Doucement le tamiserais Gently sieved refrain refrain Si tu étais comme un arbre If you were like a tree Je m'en irais d'arbre en arbre I would go from tree to tree J'irais enlacer tes hanches I would go hug your hips Sous le couvert de tes branches Under the cover of your branches Si tu étais comme une femme If you were like a woman Je te ferais fleur fuie âme I'll make you flee flower soul Je te ferais pierre de sable I'll make sandstone Je te ferais mèche terre femme I'll let you drill earth woman refrain refrain Si tu étais comme une femme If you were like a woman Plus jamais j'aurais de femme I never woman Laisse-moi plutôt rêver Let me rather dream J'ai besoin d'imaginer I need to imagine

Busking Review: Saxophones(2) and Drum

Ladies were loving the trio Hooch Dog the other day.  I was loving them but only because they were playing in the subway.   Their busking rate of dollar aquisition was 2 dollars per minute during the short time I observed them. They had about a dozen white female art school types enthralled it seemed on the Brooklyn-bound side of the L-Train platform at 6th Avenue.  Just to get a handle on how large their target demographic is at that station, consider this: that's the subway stop for Parsons, Pratt-Manhattan, The New School AND (sort of) NYU!

I gave a buck too, not for the twin saxophones but for the great drumming.   Dude was definitely making the most of his one snare + one high-hat kit.   How does Hooch Dog sound?  In the subway they had the crowd on it's feet, rocking out with some simple, driving riffs.  On record (stream Hooch Dog here free or buy for a buck) they are more tuneful.   They compared well to my only reference point in this genre, is that other drum and sax trio, Bazooka, long gone.

Do You listen to any entire albums all the way through?

I wondered aloud on Facebook whether anyone still listens to music in the format of 'Album', that is, as a cluster of 12 songs by the same artist, intended to be heard sequentially and together.  Friends wrote back to list what things they still listen to the entire album of. Came these replies from various friends:

1. Einstein on the beach,
2. the xx
3. ()
4. Flobots
5. /Fight with Tools/.
6.  Grandaddy
7. The Sophtware Slump
8. Machine Gun Etiquette, The Black Album, and Strawberries by The Damned. And on occasion all three in a row
9. Beatles,
10. Sam Cooke,
11. Replacements,
12. Black Keys.
13. Queen- any -
14.  The Busboys- cuz ya can't get it any other way
15. Black Flag
16. "I have some yoga music I'll listen to all the way through."
17. Kanye West - Late Registraton;
18. Bob Marley - Legend;
19. the Smiths - Louder Than Bombs;
20. Abbey Road;
21. Trainspotting,
22. Hair ,
23. RENT,
24. Annie (no, seriously...)
25. The Rocky IV Soundtrack
26.  Dark side of the moon all the way through. (Benjamin can can play all of Time including the electric guitar solos perfectly.)
27. Astral Weeks.
28. Greendale by Neil Young.
29. OMD History of Modern!

Sibelius Hymn

We have just finished our second full week of classes.  I'm teaching chemistry and Regents chemistry this year.  Last Friday was our first lab, "Is a Candle Flame Matter?"  It is based on Michael Faraday's 1861 Christmas lectures for young people.  My favorite part of that one is taking a little scrap of window screen and placing it sideways in the middle of the flame.   It reveals the flame has the appearance of a hollow bubble:

If anyone wants to investigate a candle too here is what I typed up.  As usual, it's a first go; hopefully improve the instructions next time.  Download 08_lab_The_Candle

Saturday Meg and I used Google Earth to fly over to Madagascar.  I just started with GE at 12000 feet, pointed at my house, and spun the globe.  We flew (virtually) over featureless blue water for about two minutes noting the longitude.  When the latitude hit 50 degrees east with no landfall I knew I had mis-aimed.  We finally hit land amidst excellent coral reefs.  Stepping back to 20,000 feet we saw we were in an archipelago.  Finally, zooming way back we saw we had flown right beneath the Cape and had hit Indonesia!  We turned around and went back, finding S. Africa this time and from there setting out over the water to Madagascar.   The real hunting began then, as Meg had never considered what her daily routine among the dirt roads on her peninsula might look like from the air.   After 15 minutes we caught significant landmarks in the following order:  the beach, the market, the Catholic church, the much smaller Lutheran church.  Here is where Meg lived in the mid-nineties:

Finally on Sunday, I got all weepy at church.  The minister directly addressed the bigotry that is spreading about the Park 51 Muslim Center.  She tied our current situation in to the Old Testament lesson for the day, the one where Moses causes God to "change his mind" about the Israelites  and their golden calf.    The service closed with an excellent hymn to a Sibelius tune that I'd never heard before, from the chapter titled "National Songs".  It had the lines:

My country's skies are bluer than the ocean,
and sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine...

Complete hymn text at Prometheusli.

Are You Smarter than an Entertainer With a 4th Grade Education?

If you thought ICP were dumb before, just drop the needle on their ode to miracles and see them wearing their minimal education as a badge of honor for some reason.

I was struck that the song that criticizes scientists as liars then catalogs about two dozen things that are taught in elementary school science class,  describing them as "miracle" (e.g.  "Magnets -- how the f*** do they work?" ).

I then found satisfaction in a flood of online rebuttals to this Insane Clown Posse song, including one by Zinnia Jones where she notes that most of the lyrics describe things that are well understood even by the very young:

Jones describes the song as "not merely dumb but enthusiastically dumb, endorsing a ferocious breed of ignorance that can only be described as militant.  The entire song is practically a tribute to not knowing things."