The Avalanches Make Me Want to Visit Australia

MAGPIE TALE: Dropping and Freeing the Note

Another entry in the Magpie Tales.

Could it be, could it be, that all those notes are lost forever, freed from the confines of the lined page?
Whole notes were always far beyond Cousin Herschel's cornbread budget. He stole a few broken half notes and quarter notes that took him all the way to Winslow.
The women he left behind came together to write a lively foxtrot in tribute of his many raids of the hen house and the back porch where last night he loved them best of all.
The Evelyn Q. Sydeen Music Society was oblivious to such feral rhythms and even a ukulele was as scandalous as an exposed ankle, yet those new syncopation could not be suppressed.
Spring was finally breaking down the frost, and music was taking to the woods, the brooks and serenading the raccoons and robins.
Music was everywhere, little of it committed to the page or acetate. Could it embed itself in the elms, the bloodlines and the hairline thread to reach the next 50 generations?

It's Raining Glass in a Forgotten Part of Town

I was a bit bummed to miss both Yoko Ono and The Magnetic Fields/Mark Eitzel concerts this weekend at Noise Pop. However, I did get a chance to catch the world premier of Strange Powers, a full length documentary about Stephin Merritt and the Fields, and he, Claudia Gonson and the film-makers were on hand.

It's the best documentary about a musician I've seen since 30 Century Man about Scott Walker. Merritt is a dour, sometimes drunken middle aged gay man in his 40s who sits in a corner at Ty's and other Christopher Street bars writing 21st century tin pan alley songs while dreadful disco music pounds in the background. Gonson is by contrast bubbly and effervescent, and the film is an intriguing portrait of an unlikely creative marriage. The more official world premier is March 15 at South by Southwest in Austin.

We Got Nice Ass in San Francisco Now

My upstairs neighbor just introduced me to this record label, Nice Ass. The only thing I love more than keeping up on vinyl is knowing that there are folks out there still cutting acetate 78s.

Eine kleine Nachtmusik für Herr Sullivan

Grounds for Marriage

Happening this weekend is this event. As they put it:

SFMTS is a monthly event dedicated to the delicate art of the mixtape. Everyone and every medium is welcomed.
USB - OK
CD - Cool
Cassette - Marry Me

And to think it's all here. Here in San Francisco

Sweet Snow of January

Like many of us, I have tried to start the year off by being better organized on many fronts. Though the process has been going on for years now, I have set goals in the endless task of transferring favorite LPs from my library to MP3s and CDs. It's like having old friends you've not talked to in years right there on your iPod as you fly above the Rockies or down to the Andes.

Since it can be so daunting, I've set the goal of transferring the works of one artist over the course of a week or so depending on the size of their work that I have. This week, for no apparent reason other than the fact that I have only her first LPs, I took on the works of Phoebe Snow. I'm not sure why I stopped buying her work after her fourth album, but it certainly wasn't because I stopped liking her. I guess I just got distracted, and I must admit I've probably not listened to her work in at least 20 to 25 ears besides hearing it come onto the radio or over the sound system somewhere. Back in the 1980s it would break my heart to hear her distinctive voice in commercials, even though she could make the most banal little jingle sound lovely.

I remember knowing about her daughter Valerie and the devotion she poured onto her but never knew the full story until seeing the lovely clip below. The above image from her third album from 1976, "It Looks Like Phoebe Snow", touched and haunted me from the moment I first saw it. The image is even more moving today now that I know more about her story and her steadfast refusal to cave in to the "logic" of those who insisted that she institutionalize Valerie. It's good to know that Phoebe is still going at it and still has that remarkable voice. I suspect I'll be listening to her more again and hope she has more work to share with us in the years ahead.

What We're Listening to This Morning

Another Chapter In The Epic Process of Transfering All My Joni Mitchell LPs to MP3s

...almost there...

All Thoughts Are Prey to Some Beast

I think every adult should read at least one children's book a year. With each advancing decade, I'd add one more book a year. I've been pretty much on that course, but none have grabbed me much since 2007's The Invention of Hugo Cabret.

Last night Friendatella and I treated Jim of The Blue Elephant to a birthday dinner at Aperto up on Potrero Hill. Afterward, we strolled into Christopher's Books -- a really sweet or pretentious independent bookstore, depending on your mood or world view. (I fall into the former camp.) I've always grabbed a book or two when I walk in, sometimes wondering if I should have ordered it off Amazon and saved a few dollars, but I've never regretted a purchase there. Last night was no exception.

They were playing tunes by tunes by Bill Callahan/(SMOG) who could be defined as deeply moving or pretentious depending on your world view. (I fall into the former camp.) I'd noted on our way to dinner the book on the right, and hearing and feeling Bill's free form monotone drone and (I feared) the influence of two glasses of pinot grigio, I immediately purchased The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet by Reif Larsen. Unlike The Invention of Hugo Cabret, it's not really a graphic novel but has tons of graphic sidebars. It tells the tale of a 12-year-old prodigy from Divide, Montana, who hops the rails to accept a prestigious award from the Smithsonian and makes more than visceral discoveries on his journey. It's sort of a pre-teen On the Road and Candide as if furnished by Paxton Gate with a little influence from the ghost of Andrew Wyeth and then posted on Facebook.

After dinner, Jim took us on a tour of his old neighborhood, showing us a gorgeous house that has sat vacant for years, the scene of a murder where a wonderful, creative couple were tortured and then killed by an acquaintance from down the street. It was a disturbing coda to a pleasant night, and reason to take stock of treasures and loved ones needing protection and to be open but wary of strangers knocking at the door.

Stubborn as Garbage Bags That Time Can't Decay

Last night's trip under the bay and up Broadway to Oakland's art deco palace, the Paramount, to see Leonard Cohen did not disappoint, right down to the fourth encore when the show ended after three and a half hours. There may have been a handful of numbers I was disappointed weren't included ("There Is a War", "A Singer Must Die", "I Came So Far for Beauty"and "Take This Longing" all sadly absent), but every other masterpiece from the arc of his four and a half decades of s0ng writing was there.

To see a man pushing 75 able to just stand and deliver tunes would have been a feat itself, but seeing him prance onto the stage and often crouch, dance and jump was a wonder. Cohen falls into the category of singer-songwriters like Tom Waits, Mark Eitzel and even Dylan who are often revered for the performances despite the vocal limitations. For whatever limitations his voice may have had, every precious word of his poetry was crystal clear, and I had no regrets having spent the $200+ for a seat 12 rows back from the stage and with ushers who treated me like someone in first class not as if they were people pushers on the Tokyo Metro.

The show he put on is essentially identical to the recently released Live in London DVD from which the above clip -- part of the final encore -- comes from. This tune was a perfect, and somewhat unlikely, rousing anthem to end the night. Cohen's tunes are more typically associated with regrets, love affairs gone wrong, self loathing, feelings of unworthiness. But "Democracy" (Is Coming to the USA) ended the night on a note of qualified optimism.

Below is a little known but much beloved (by me) 1965 documentary that I've watched many times called Ladies and Gentlemen: Mr. Leonard Cohen, made when he was around 30 and still living primarily in Montreal. He was still billing himself as a poet/stand up comic and had yet to launch his musical career in earnest. It's shock to see his face without a line, feeling like a cross between Dustin Hoffman and Lenny Bruce. It's also a sign that while he's evolved so much over nearly half a century, many things are constant -- he still has the same impish humor, is still a dapper dresser (likely from coming from a long line of Montreal clothiers), and can weave back to deeper meaning of the simplest point.

This is clearly his legacy tour, and I hope he makes a few million to replenish the fortune lost by his previous manager. Among his last numbers was a spoken word version of "If It Be Your Will", delivered humbly as he removed his fedora and spoke softly as if some professor emeritus in the McGill philosphy department, followed by an angelic rendition of the same words by the "Webb Sister", one of whom accompanied herself on a harp.
"If It Be Your Will"

If it be your will
That I speak no more
And my voice be still
As it was before
I will speak no more
I shall abide until
I am spoken for
If it be your will
If it be your will
That a voice be true
From this broken hill
I will sing to you
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing

If it be your will
If there is a choice
Let the rivers fill
Let the hills rejoice
Let your mercy spill
On all these burning hearts in hell
If it be your will
To make us well

And draw us near
And bind us tight
All your children here
In their rags of light
In our rags of light
All dressed to kill
And end this night
If it be your will

If it be your will.


This review in the Chronicle gives a brief accounting of the amazing band that surrounded his performances deftly and lovingly.

I was reminded of having had the privilege of seeing Nina Simone a couple of times late in her career, and this felt a bit bittersweet knowing that this was a sage for whom autumn is already a dim memory. Yet he has retained all of his faculties, and his words ring truer than ever, beautifully delivered in his tobacco and port burnished voice.

On My Way to See Leonard Cohen

More later. It was a three and a half hour show and it's a school night.

I'm Really Enjoying Mr. Scruff Lately

Juana Molina, Hoy Por la Noche

Can't. Hardly. Wait.

UPDATE: OMFG. I had high hopes for the show with Juana, but I now have a new #1 chanteuse. She is beyond description. Besides the fact that she sings most of her tunes in Spanish, there is little that is quintessentially Argentinian about her unless you recall that Buenos Aires has the highest per capita rate of folks going to shrinks of any major city in the world. More than Vienna. Repetitive, obsessive rhythms from an alien place. Ah how Freudian. How Southern Cone.

She opened with "Un Dia" (as seen below), and it was just a tight, cool show, every step of the way as she and the two other musicians seemed to make more sounds than most symphonic orchestras. Dressed in a classic little black dress, she belied the fact that she turns 47 this year.

My only complaint was that this glorious artist was at the Great American Music Hall. Yes, I love the look of the building, but the folks that go there! We're at a concert not the Super Bowl, people. There were a couple of times that I wanted to turn to the couple next to me -- who looked at the stage maybe 15 seconds the entire evening but babbled along to each other a pitch volume for two hours straght -- "Did you come to watch the show or perform your version of Love Letters." Or, more to the point, I wanted to say, "Why are you littering this otherwise perfect evening with the inane chatter of your tedious, pointless lives?"

I was probably the person who clapped the loudest about midway through the show when, as she looked out at the chattering crowd and said. "What are you talking about? " There were a couple of giggles and then the babbling continued. "I wasn't sure if you were talking about the show or something else." As a woman who grew up in two of the world's most cultured cities -- Paris and Buenos Aires -- I am sure this was a shock to her.

She soldiered on and gave an incredible show.

Interactive Monday: Name That Band!

Okay, I've really been thinking about taking it from being a joke to reality of finding a bandoneón teacher and start a band because they look and sound so cool. Oh, I guess that I should also actually buy a bandoneón, but first things first.

I would see our band also having an oboe, pedal steel guitar, tuba, banjo, glass armonica, at least three harps, timpani drums, Vietnamese unicord and charangos. We'd also have occasional guest tambourine players who don't need to have any particular sense of rhythm but need to be really cute and popular to attract the right crowds.

We'd need to have some cute uniforms too, and we'd play a mix of Wagner with a country twang, tango songs with a klezmer swing, hillbilly ditties with operatic flair, Barry White tunes in German with me playing my Jew's harp to augment the banjo and big harps plucking away, a disco version of "Feelings" but with a polka beat and Bacharach tunes as if sung by Sid Vicious.

So, now here's the biggest dilemma. What should we call this band? That's where the interactive part comes in. Chose from the list below and also let us know if you'd like to join the band and which instrument you'd like to play:
* The Dangling Participles
* Gregg and the Egg
* The Outside Agitators
* I Can't Believe It's a Girdle
* The Manic Monkey Operatic Operators and Taxidermy Tax Accountants
* Shirley Pimple and the Pus Cats
* Gravy on a Stick
* Band
* The Duke of Hairdo
* Suddenly Salad! Suddenly Susan! Suddenly Last Summer!
* Tell Me Where It Hurts
* The Patty Hearst Avengers
* Strom Thurmond and the Grave Robbers
* Oh No She Didn't!
* The Thing That Ate Sarah Palin's Brain
* Wholey Night, Bloody Night
* With Six You Get Empanadas
* East Dakota/West Dakota
* We've Fallen and Can't Get Up
* Ocean of Motion
* The Cannibal Sea Kittens
* Pork
* Nosehair
* The Glow Worms
* The Breasts of Burden

Melanie in Miami

It's hard for me to picture her in a tropical setting since everything about her made me think of Scotland. It was also hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that she grew up in Astoria, Queens, since everything about her voice also made me think of Scotland. Maybe she listened to a lot of Donovan which convinced her to use the singular moniker. Back then I went by just "Junk" and wore a lot of shepherd garb. I still have about six of her original LPs, including her Carnegie Hall concert. That must have been a thrill for a little girl from Queens.

Supplies Are Limited

The Best of Times, the Worst of Times

Are you thankful this Thanksgiving? Yes, I am, with the positives far outweighing the negatives. The inventory of the negatives can sound overwhelming: horrible weekend in Mumbai and Bangkok, sustained economic paranoia, anger over Proposition 8, those spooky "Thank you Governor Palin ads, a number of friends and family members not here that were here last year and even more that I've lost over the past five years.

Yet this year, for the first time in years, i can say that I feel optimistic not hopeful. Optimism, I believe, is grounded in reality but also sees that positive change can and is happening.

When I started this blog more than two years ago, much of it focused on fairly cynical, fey, nonsensical or bitterly ironic humor. There seems to have been a slowly emerging shift as this blog as turned more personal and "serious" with great support and connection with absolute strangers -- from the great circle I met in Manhattan to the new basenji friends, most of whom I've never met, who have supported me through my fostering journey.

Like many people I sometimes I worry that I have put too much hope on the new regime coming to Washington. The high of election night may seem to have faded, but every day I feel a bit more optimistic, even knowing there will be enormous setbacks and challenges, simply from the process of seeing democracy truly happen.



About four years ago, shortly after losing my mother, seeing a second Bush administration on its way, facing my father's Alzheimer's, my cats' health declining, my aunt's suicidal plans becoming evident, I gravitated to the song below "People Who Used to Dream About the Future"by the phenomenal A Girl Called Eddy. it's one of the most wistfully touching and sad songs I've ever heard. (I featured the song in this video wrapping up my life in 2006). I always tear up when she sings "...when did we stop taking pictures?" That line was one of the things that prompted me to start a blog in the first place without any real clarity of where it would go. I knew that I had become a person who had stopped taking pictures because there was not much in my life that I felt merited documenting or cherishing.

This year, I feel cautiously optimistic on many fronts, having taken thousands of pictures over the past couple of years and sensing life is on a new route. After a great weekend of getting with friends, working on household projects and bonding with my gorgeous basenji girl.

This morning I realized that I may have become a person who takes pictures again but I don't cook the way I used to. With bloggers like Mouse, Kusala, Joy, Jill and others that are such marvelous cooks, I have been inspired to do more of that and did a heap over the holiday weekend. No traditional turkey, but I've been revisiting the Angelica Kitchen cookbook. I'm already anxious to make anothe visit back to Manhattan and make a pilgrimage to that wonderful restaurant. Anyone up for a spring blogger meet up there?

Live From the Rodeo Bar

Early into my four days in Manhattan, I headed down from the Upper East Side to the Rodeo Bar with the vivacious Miss Joy of I've Got a Crush on...Me! to catch the cool band Comic Tales of Tragic Heartbreak. Joy somehow managed to slip out into the night wearing lead singer Robert's white pinstriped blazer. It was a great welcome and a very memorable way to celebrate my birthday. All I have to say is that I've got a crush on...Joy!

Coming to iTunes and Music Stores on Tuesday

Wedged between the two conventions, the hugely anticipated next CD from Junk Thief is already getting heavy airplay. The hope is that it will have a huge impact on those independent swing voters. The first single, a surprise foray into country, is "Cain't Do It! Cain't Do It!" a duet with Pamella Cash-Roper. Expect to hear it in heavy rotation over the next 72 days.