I say Levon Helm. Well groomed without looking fussed over. Variegated tones. The beard’s best feature may be its fantastic mustache-to-beard definition. Unlike some of the fine, gimmick-free beards that Eric Clapton, for example, has sported, Helm’s beard did not filter or otherwise aid or interfere with his singing.
Next, a look at Levon’s beard in its prime – in action! – getting a run for its money from Richard Manuel‘s pre-hobo beard.
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This Saturday, April 19, is Record Store Day. What better way to cure iPod fatigue than to take a trip to your local indie record store and buy some stuff you can get your hands on? Although Rock Town Hall supports the mighty iTunes empire, eMusic, and the practice of occasionally downloading tunes posted on blogs run by fellow music lovers, nothing beats getting to fondle a new record, be it on beloved vinyl or even that cold fish of a format, CD. It’s YOUR music. This Saturday, support YOUR local record store. Chat up a clerk. Steal a glance at the one woman browsing the racks. Bring home a bundle of new music, and report back to us over the weekend with your new conquests!
Cameron Crowe: “The record store. Where true fandom begins. It’s the soul of discovery, and the place where you can always return for that mighty buzz. The posters. The imports. The magazines. The discerning clerks, paid in vinyl, professors of the groove. Long live that first step inside, when the music envelopes you and you can’t help it. You walk up to the counter and ask the question that begins the journey–“what is that you’re playing?” Long live the record store, and the guys and girls who turn the key, and unlock those dreams, every day.”
Yes! YouTube comes through with the next best thing to my #1 behind-the-scenes peek, which would be the making of XTC‘s English Settlement. Here’s the band in the first of a 10-part series of YouTubes on the making of “Towers of London”, or as I’ve read, the re-making of “Towers of London”, the released version of which had already been recorded. Nevertheless, I invite XTC and studio nerds to unite!
You know you want more!
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This one goes out to all us workin’ folk! And all us benefitting from the revenues us workin’ folk generate! And especially all us workin’ to help us workin’ folk meet The Taxman‘s yearly call. I’ll tell you what, Townsman Hrrundivbakshi, more than anyone, this one’s for you!
Tim Armstrong’s recent snub of our own beloved Mr. Moderator got me to thinking about how much I dislike Rancid. I don’t like the Rancid for lots of reasons but their blatant SoCal Clash routine is reason number one. I explored Rancid one afternoon while bemoaning that there would never be any new Clash music. I knew that they got compared to The Clash and figured that some B-Rate band heavily influenced by The Clash might be better than nothing. I downloaded Out Come the Wolves from eMusic.
What I found was not a band influenced but a band obsessed: Pupkin-Clash. Disturbing. It was as if they were hoping The Clash would break a leg so they could take the stage.
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Just wait, kid. Next week you’ll hate it!
I heard something the other day about poor Generation iPod that kind of cracked me up. Until the mega gig iPods came out, most people I knew had what I would consider a handful of CDs or LPs and that was their music collection. Truth be told, they watch a lot more TV these days, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But now they’re trying to understand this new phenomenon that people with even 50 GB of music are somehow getting bored with their music.
I’d just laugh and figure that the music/media industry hasn’t known what listeners want for 20 years or more anyway usually, but then I ran into this exchange. I don’t think I actually own 25,000 songs. That used to require a truly dedicated music nerd many years to accomplish. But in these days of bittorrent it makes a situation like the first response to actually happen.
Here are a few details of my playlists that have helped me better enjoy my large collection:
1. 100 random songs than have been added in last 120 days that I’ve never played.
2. 100 songs that I’ve never played yet.
Why would anyone do such a thing? That’s like buying 9 or 10 albums and not even being interested in them enough to listen to in 4 months! I realize that this stuff was probably stolen, but why steal what you don’t even want or won’t even use?
I’ve filled another cabinet!
Most of all, I think we’re winning. Sort of. If the geeky afflicion of not having enough music (c’mon – if you’v got a spouse they’ve probably asked at least once, “When will you have enough music?”) actually creeps out into the public at large we may actually see radio station playlists change. Right?
They could change, right?
As some of you may recall, sometime last sunmer I discovered a series available through eMusic called Ethiopiques, covering Ethiopian pop and folk music from the ’60s through the mid-70s. Or some timeframe like that. I’m not good with dates and remembering the historical events within which this collection was framed. What’s important to me is how quickly I took to large swaths of whatever I downloaded from this 20-plus-CD set. I’m usually not that apt to dig “world music,” but this Ethiopian stuff had a lot going for it. Despite the fact that I couldn’t understand a word of any of the singers I’d been sampling, the recordings spoke to me. It was refreshing. I felt unusually open minded while, at the same time, I felt like I’d been listening to a sound that my soul had been calling for since I was a boy trying to float beyond all the crap and confusion of my world.
Shortly after stumbling across this stuff I was reminded that this was some of the music Jeffrey Wright‘s character in Broken Flowers would play Bill Murray‘s character. Early in the film, if memory serves, these Ethiopian tunes created a cool, hip, slightly familiar, slightly exotic vibe. As I continued downloading this stuff, I felt the presence of Wright’s character as well as the presence of so many real-life friends over the years who’d turned me onto something new yet surprisingly familiar.
As I began digging deeper into these new sounds I started trying to place names with my favorite songs. It’s a difficult task. The Ethiopian language frequently does not order letters in ways English speakers are accustomed to seeing. Luckily the artist whose music first grabbed my attention had perhaps the easiest name to remember: Mahmoud Ahmed. You may recall the following song, from my first post on my Ethiopian journey.
Mahmoud Ahmed, “Almaz Men Eda New”
Man, this Mahmoud Ahmed gets me jumping! I love the repetition and the tumbling percussion. I love the organ drones, like something out of “Tomorrow Never Knows”. I love the horn parts, the way they stagger in and out of the songs. I love Ahmed’s urgent, insistent vocal delivery, a delivery that, refreshingly, avoids any of the threatening, boasting, or otherwise macho aspects of the great James Brown or Chuck D. Ahmed’s sound is joyous, playful, obsessive, and ultimately peaceful.
More tracks after the jump!
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