I woke up this morning with the inexplicable need to listen to Dio. "Holy Diver" is a pretty incredible song, but check out the video:
I woke up this morning with the inexplicable need to listen to Dio. "Holy Diver" is a pretty incredible song, but check out the video:
I'm trying to post more often on art is the new religion, so here's another roundup to catch you up through mid-March.
3/5: Drink To Good Times
Have I told you lately that I love PJ Harvey's Uh Huh Her?
3/6: That little girl is going to break that little boy's heart
In anticipation of seeing my dear friend David Poe at SXSW, I shared a live performance of one of my favorite songs of his.
Another longtime friend of mine, Chris in Ann Arbor, says he enjoys reading my blog but that I shouldn't point out when I'm writing about my friends. I think it would be weird to pretend I don't know someone I'm writing about. Hmm, thoughts?
3/12: car radio, i hardly knew ye
RIP car radio, 8/2007-3/2008.
3/13: SXSW: Motörhead at Stubb's
Lemmy's jeans appeared to have been painted onto his body. He is a fascinating character.
3/14: Bon Iver is breaking my heart
I somehow missed all of Bon Iver's many showcases at SXSW.
3/15: iPhone Hack
It was Case's idea. And it worked!
3/16: This is the room one afternoon I knew I could love you
I believe this is the first poll I've ever posted on AITNR. Please take a moment to vote.
I haven't done a roundup since February 4th. Here's what's I wrote about on my other blog, art is the new religion, during the rest of February*:
2/6: I found the simple life, ain't so simple
The genius of David Lee Roth.
2/11: A Not So Happy Birthday
Sharing music-related memories of my father, on what would have been his 74th birthday.
2/12: Dschinghis Khan & Diamond Dave
Amusing.
2/14: Louder Than Love
Thinking about my early crush on Soundgarden on Valentine's Day.
2/19: Where Is My Mind?
Yoav's cover of Pixies' "Where Is My Mind?" is intriguing, but unfortunately the rest of his music is not. Also, props to KGSR's Jody Denberg for playing it, and congrats to my friend Andy Langer on his new gig at the station.
My posting pace ground to a halt while I was in SF, but here's an update of what happened on AITNR in the second half of January.
First of all, huge thanks to one of my favorite human beings John who linked to AITNR on his MySpace and spiked my traffic for two crazy days. That was really exciting and flattering - truly a high compliment!
Also, thanks to vanity searches on Google I've gotten comments from some of the people I've written about, including nice words from a CBC Radio 3 Reporter/Producer, someone at My Damn Channel and the author of the Rahsaan Roland Kirk bio I mentioned. This is also really gratifying. My post about Wainy Days still ranks on the first page of Google search results - thanks TypePad!
And now for the roundup:
1/14: Record Shopping
My sad little boombox finally died, so I hooked up my portable record player and fell in love with my vinyl collection all over again. It also gave me an excuse to check out some record shops in Austin.
1/15: Wherefore Bill Withers?
Proving once again that you can never know what people are really going to respond to, this post about Bill Withers garnered the most comments I've gotten on AITNR - perhaps ever - ringing in at 9 comments so far. I think that sad little prawn threw everyone over the edge.
1/17: Speaking of Engelbert Humperdinck...
Another record I picked up on a whim during my record shopping excursion. You have to watch a few moments of the video I posted because it's simply unbelievable. Warning: you will not be able to un-see any of it.
1/18: Tonight's Showalter
I went to see Michaels Ian Black and Showalter at Mohawk in Austin on a night when it was 36 degrees out. It was an outdoor show. A big part of both of their acts was making fun of how poorly prepared the venue was for the weather and the turnout. Also, Michael Ian Black had a whole bit on Texas pride that was really spot on. He gets it. In this post I don't review the live performance I went to, I just link to Showalter's own internet interview show, specifically to the episode featuring Zack Galifianakis whose last name is harder to spell than my own (but only one letter longer).
1/21: Cut Copy
I know as a general rule that if I want to keep people coming back to read my blog, I should update about five times a week. But often I just work late and don't have time. This post is a half-hearted effort to post something anyway, and there's really no there there. Cut Copy has a new record coming out -- see, now you don't have to click through to read this post. I think I'm going to go back to the rule of thumb that if I'm not inspired and/or I don't have enough time then I just won't post. Which explains why I didn't post at all during my trip to SF.
1/31: Hallucinating to The Mars Volta
I have a ton of respect for this band, but they might have pushed past the point of no return for me.
2/1: Bright Moments (In the Key of W)
The Mars Volta got me to thinking about Rahsaan Roland Kirk and why I love him so much. The fact that we can watch videos of Kirk on demand makes up for a lot of the meaningless crap on YouTube. Bonus: the author of the Kirk bio that I linked to commented! So I'm promoting John Kruth's book here too.
This song was magically stuck in my head this morning, and I want it to be stuck in your head too. Feel free to clap along:
Anyone care to translate what rolls across the screen in the beginning?
Over on my other blog...
12/28: Feliz Navidad Part 2: Jose Feliciano Concert Review
This is the follow up to the cliffhanger of Feliz Navidad, Part 1, featuring grizzled keyboard players, blue humor, no love for the five string bass, and much love for Jose's languid vibrato.
1/2: Show Review: Kathleen Edwards & Davíd Garza
Good times and old friends at the Continental Club, and a slightly embarrassing shout-out from the stage.
1/3: Slice of Austin Life: Dale Watson at Ginny's Little Longhorn Saloon
I dragged my friend Elise to Ginny's for some of Dale Watson's crooning, but I didn't make her watch the chicken&$^@ bingo. Bonus: two quick videos from my digital camera.
1/4: Celine Dion is _____.
If you haven't already seen this video, I give you this chance to laugh.
1/7: The Diving Bell and The Butterfly
I read the short book in anticipation of seeing the film. Whether or not you see the film, I tell you exactly why you owe it to yourself to read Jean-Dominique Bauby's story in his own words.
1/8: Wainy Days
David Wain from The State and Wet Hot American Summer is up to some more shenanigans.
1/10: CBC Radio 3: A Trip To The Great White North
Are you still reading? This is a good radio station from Canada.
1/11: Meet The New Steve Perry
I still love the old Steve Perry, but this new guy's got an amazing story, thanks to the miracle of YouTube. Bonus: I make my case for Sam Cooke's influence on Perry's vocal stylings.
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AITNR is on a light holiday posting schedule, but I have do have a few updates for this roundup.
First of all I want to give a huge thanks to my Vox peeps who heeded all my fishing for comments to my other blog. You guys are true friends! In other commenting news, last week brought my first few comments from strangers since the redesign! Rome wasn't built in a day.
Here's what happened on art is the new religion last week:
12/18 - "What if I don't become famous posthumously?"
Arab Strap's Malcolm Middleton gets drunk and existential in a Santa suit. Was this song intended to be a Christmas single, or is it just a brilliant marketing scheme? Doesn't really matter to me, as it's now in my list of top 10 favorite holiday songs.
12/20 - BEAT IT, Fergie
Fergie + bad, unnecessary covers = fury.
12/27 - Tacks, the boy disaster
My roommate finally got the organ he's been wishing for (the instrument, not, like, a kidney) and I finally had no excuse not to listen to a great band that I keep hearing about. Bonus: this post features the third video I've ever uploaded to YouTube! Aw, what the heck -- I'll post it here too:
Thank you for reading!!
There sure is a lot of love bubbling up amongst my friends, whether they're dressing up as spouses, matchmaking their infants or trading secret love messages across the internets. It's lovely to have all this love flying around.
This one* goes out to all the lovers:
"Stop Draggin My Heart Around" is one of my favorite songs of all time, and I think it should be one of yours too (if it's not already). Let's take a few moments to watch the genius of Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty together in this video.
While we're on the subject of duets by Stevie and Tom, a much more obscure but still gorgeous one is "Insider" from his excellent album Hard Promises. Some of the harmonies and lyrics in this song make me want to cry, in the best possible way.
They're like peanut butter and chocolate, these two.
Russ and I have been having another conversation about The Cardigans, via posts (mine, his) and comments in each other's blogs. In my latest comment to him, I asked if he'd heard Nina Persson's cover of "The Bluest Eyes In Texas" and his response was that he wasn't aware it was a cover and could I share the original with him?
Oh, yes I can.
In fact I will share it with all of you because of how very awesome it is. Restless Heart was one of the country bands whose music seeped into my bloodstream by nature of growing up in Texas in the '80s. They're totally slick and inoffensive which can often be boring or artless, but a few of their big hits were really great songs.
Here's the original version of "The Bluest Eyes In Texas" by Restless Heart. This video is chock full of amazing men's fashion (watch for yellow short shorts, extremely tight jeans and general bedazzlement), blow-dried mullets and bad acting.
Here's the cover by Nina Persson and Nathan Larson which was originally released on the Boys Don't Cry soundtrack and later on the A Camp album.