May 28, 2005
Pass the Mic

Rory has kindly invited us to do our part for the survival of web memes, and as the Wombat is almost always out of the loop on these things, we're happy to be for once part of the communal generation of self-regard. So:

  1. The person (or persons) who passed the baton to you:
    Rory "Sibelius" Ewins

  2. Total volume of music files on your computer:
    It's up to nearly three thousand songs, which I think works out to a gallon (Imperial).

  3. The title and artist of the last CD you bought:
    A tie (since they were purchased in the same store at the same time): The Sunset Tree by The Mountain Goats and Volume 2 of The Complete Hot Fives and Hot Sevens Recordings by Louis Armstrong. The only reason I knew to go looking for the Mountain Goats was this article. Is there a more pathetically absolute sign of middle age than getting one's pop-music lowdown from the New Yorker?

  4. Song playing at the moment of writing:
    "Potato Head Blues" from the Louis Armstrong record above. The way the cornet and clarinet shake it in ecstatic parallel is pretty damn fine, right from the first bars.

  5. Five songs you have been listening to of late (or all-time favorites, or particularly personally meaningful songs):
    I'm going to address this one as Rory did, picking out some of-late obsessions/repeat plays/caught-in-the-head songs. Not all of them are for the ages, but they've been what's been bouncing around in the Wombat brain:

    1. "Rebellion (Lies)" by The Arcade Fire. It feels a little cheesy to pick out the most hookily rock'n'roll-type song from the amazing Funeral, a record full of grandly operatic moments and lyrics that deliver the emotionally wrenching, dreamlike visions that the term "surreal" was always supposed to invoke. But there it is: I find myself singing "People say that you'll die/faster than without water/Don't they know it's just a lie/Scare your son, scare your daughter" while I do the dishes.

    2. "Poulina" by Orchestre National De Barbes. We bought this CD (this song also titles the full album) during a trip to France and Spain back in 2000 -- we had been hearing some great Arabic pop in a couple of restaurants in France and the friend we were visiting took us to a record store and recommended one or two things. It more or less languished, unlistened-to, in our collection for some while. I don't really know why. I dug it out earlier this year and dumped the bunch in the iPod. Turns out the thing is a wonderfully groove-laden blend of reggae-influenced beats with solo/massed Arabic vocals. Perfect for smoothing out the rough edges on a morning commute. Head nods, feet tap, and of course I don't understand a word of it, but am borne along towards my destination like a bottle carried by a gentle but powerful wave.

    3. Beethoven, Cello Sonata No. 1 in F major, op. 5 no. 1 (Lynn Harrell, cello and Vladimir Ashkenazy, piano). My Beethoven listening has been kiddie-pool shallow -- outside of the well-known symphonies, I'm an ignoramus. I bought this because I had been listening repeatedly to Bach cello concertos and thought, well, why not some more cello? It was a good impulse, not least for the addition of the piano here -- these sonatas are brilliant balances of the troubled and the soothing, and parts of this one have insinuated themselves into my subconscious without my knowledge -- and my only regret is that by and large the subway is just too loud an environment for listening to this sort of music without big headphones that sonically exclude everything around.

    4. "Babee" by Suddenly, Tammy! I first heard Beth Sorrentino long after the breakup of Suddenly, Tammy!, in a live solo appearance on Irwin Chusid's show on the mighty WFMU. Mournful and arresting turnes that made me immediately want to find the apparently unavailable solo records she ought to be turning out. I don't know what the score is with her oughta-be solo career, but I went back in time to the the self-titled Suddenly, Tammy! record from 1995. It's a trio effort, drums and bass helping propel along her not-quite ballads to their destinies as big songs which take a tremendous amount in stride. "Babee" begins with a driven but clearly restrained piano figure, but switches gears with the chorus -- just when you think the song is about to explode, we move into a waltz with a vocal that wouldn't have sounded out of place on an early Roches album. Meanwhile the drums are creeping up on you, and by the time she's worked through a short instrumental bridge you're into a mighty, striding conclusion that opens itself like the sky you see as you climb up the stairs out of the subway.

    5. "I Wanna Destroy You" by The Soft Boys. There's pretty much always some Robyn Hitchcock on the mental playlist, and this one in heavy rotation these days.

    Pretty arbitrary list -- I could have listed anything off of Joanna Newsome's The Milk-Eyed Mender, Talking Heads Fear of Music, Tom Waits ca. Frank's Wild Years or (and I've blathered on about them at length elsewhere, so I'll spare you the repeat) my ever-beloved XTC, about whom I am starting to become the sort of person who doesn't mind owning several versions of the same song. And I'm getting an education in the basic recordings of Bill Evans from friends who know what's what, so also Waltz for Debby plays in our house a lot these days. I still don't know jack about jazz, but this is a record even my unlearned ears can hear beauty in.

  6. The five people to whom you will "pass the musical baton":
    Kathleen, because I know I'll buy something she names; Gavin, because his five-CD shuffle choices frequently rise to the level of the poetic ; Scott, because I owe him as he really did win our argument about textual indeterminacy in "Pink Thing" and I never told him so (Scott should take this as the perfect opportunity to start his own weblog, but if he refuses to do so, he should use the comments here to speak his piece); the all-knowing-but-not-posting-enough Pato; and Mike because his students need this vital information, dammit -- and because he once made me the finest soul-funk mixtape ever committed to a TDK90 cassette.

Posted by BT at May 28, 2005 03:12 PM
Comments

Amazon.com has been Recommending that I buy Funeral for the past six months. I've heard "Power Out", which seemed very Split Enz-ish (my comparison of choice these days, but it's true), so maybe I'll go the extra mile now that you've mentioned it.

That Arabic stuff sounds intriguing. And I'll have to check out some of those phat Beethoven beats - haven't heard his cello works yet. His piano sonatas are pretty essential, too.

Posted by: Rory on June 1, 2005 05:00 AM

The second Suddenly, Tammy! album is worth tracking down, too.

If Gavin hasn't already told you, John Darnielle (Mr. Mountain Goats) has an excellent music weblog.

Posted by: Scraps on June 1, 2005 10:06 AM

Whoops, hot links get stripped, eh? Okay, it's:

http://www.lastplanetojakarta.com/index.php

Posted by: Scraps on June 1, 2005 10:08 AM

That's Mr Mountain Goats? His review of Radiohead's Amnesiac completely changed my opinion of it. Now I'll HAVE to check his band out.

Posted by: Rory on June 1, 2005 12:00 PM

Thanks for the blog link, Scraps. I'll be visiting regularly (and I vaguely remember the breakdown of Amnesiac there).

By the way, when Irwin had Beth Sorrentino on his show I sent him an e-mail saying how great I thought it had been and he replied to the effect of "Yeah, she really needs a good agent!"

Posted by: BT on June 1, 2005 11:50 PM

As long as I'm adding things down here in commentland, let me also say: Iron and Wine (the entire Our Many Numbered Days CD); Ike & Tina Turner, "You Got What You Wanted"; Squeeze, "Cupid's Toy," New Pornographers "Chump Change" (playing in our very own Prospect Park Bandshell for FREE on the 25th! Rory, if you can score a plane ticket you can sleep on the couch...); Elvis Costello "Tiny Steps."

Posted by: BT on June 2, 2005 12:04 AM

1. The person (or persons) who passed the baton to you:
Bill Tipper at www.wombatfile.com threw down the gauntlet, challenging me not only to respond but to start a blog with my response. Not a blog yet, but I didn' want to delay further in responding.

2. Total volume of music files on your computer:

4767 songs. Yikes.

3. The title and artist of the last CD you bought:

I took a gift card to the hole yesterday and came away with "The Woods," Sleater-Kinney's latest, and "Gimme Fiction," the new one by Spoon. Neither has gotten a real fair hearing yet, though what I've heard of the S-K makes me sad I'll miss their swing through town in a couple of weeks.

4. Song playing at the moment of writing:

"Wailing Wall" by Vic Thrill, as I'm doing yet one more test listen of a Spring mix I hope to perfect (perfect!?!) and send around to enrich the lives of some friends, whom I hope will do the same for me.

5. Five songs you have been listening to of late (or all-time favorites, or particularly personally meaningful songs):

This will mostly be from the above-mentioned mix, especially since I was away on a vacation where I didn't carry music along, and I haven't gotten into a listening groove since I've been back, except in the everlasting tweakage of the mix:

1. "Measuring Cups" by Andrew Bird. "Get out your measuring cups/and we'll play a new game/come to the front of the class/and we'll measure your brain/we'll give you a complex/and we'll give it a name" I suppose it's "Another Brick in the Wall" twisted through his quiet, inwardly-twisted sense of humor. It was hard to pick a song of this CD for the mix that would stand up out of context of an album that is best allowed to just wash over, with bits of lyrics nipping you out of the flow like epigrammatic piranhas.

2. "Miracle Drug" by AC Newman. I had an intense fling with this song last summer, and as the weather warms up, I'm right back to it. Though I haven't actually heard anything else by him alone or by the New Pornographers that has moved me. I think you can get a free download of this one on his site.

3. Segue from "Love me Til the Sun Shines" by the Kinks into "Sunshine" by Mos Def. The shuffle on my iPod threw this change-up at me about a month ago and I'm still in awe. It didn't fit the current mix, but I may have to use it as the germ of the next mix. I think that there is some sneaky algorithm in the shuffle that pairs songs based on key words. Though if I'm willing to believe that randomness brought us all things, including Shakespeare, soccer, and the iPod itself, I don't know why I need to call on intelligent design for this beautiful collision.

4. "Massive Cure" by Smoosh. A band of sisters, ages 9 and 11 when they recorded this slab of perfect rock. I think this one is a free download on their site.

5. "In the Aeroplane over the Sea" by Neutral Milk Hotel. I was really late in finding NMH, here we are, and this one never fails to make me feel both uplifted and weepy.


6. The five people to whom you will "pass the musical baton":

Mark B, who I'm sure will be quick to respond, interestingly. Natalie, Doug, and Ann, with all of whom I'm in regular musical conversation. Jessica the tiny dj, who isn't a real reliable correspondent, but she is a dj, one who helped get Richmond Independent Radio off the ground.

You know, I think the mix might now be just about as good as it is going to get.

Posted by: Scott on June 2, 2005 10:01 AM

A free NP gig is a mighty tempting temptation, Bill, but I'll be fresh back from a week away at that point, so I don't think I can rustle up the readies to pop over so soon after. Still, I'll take a rain-check on the couch!

Posted by: Rory on June 3, 2005 08:58 AM

I'll get to it, but we have to wait while the You Cee plugs an embarrassing security problem with its web server. Student records showing up on the server for no reason, permissions wildly out of whack, such that everyone could read said records that weren't supposed to be there anyway. We've been locked out for a couple of weeks now.

Your supposition about ze students' NTK my listening habits is quite accurate. I had a gaggle of 'em over this weekend -- graduation party -- and it was suggested that it was just too hard to imagine me listening to anything remotely cool. No, not suggested. Stated. Sigh. So, I might as well confirm it.

Posted by: Dr. G on June 6, 2005 09:48 PM

You might want to consider investing in Shure or Etymotics earbuds. They do an excellent job of sound isolation, without the bulk of the noise-cancelling earphones. (I love my Etymotics, which are wonderful on airplanes.)

Posted by: Liz on June 8, 2005 07:45 PM

{post-Google}

Hmmm....I'm not entirely sure I can justify a new set of $90 headphones just now. But damn, they do sound nice. Of course, I wouldn't hear the conductor telling us to evacuate the train due to the Airborne Toxic Event. But the wonderful bass response would be a consolation in my last moments.

Posted by: BT on June 8, 2005 09:50 PM