Tuesday

IU / photo / Re-Listening / Tuesday — Comments Off on 1,000 words on music, and more
11
Oct 22

1,000 words on music, and more

Two trees, two species, two colors, one block. And this is peak autumn. Rain is coming on tomorrow and that means the leaves will go, the cold front behind it will settle in and blah, blah, blah.

It’ll be in the 50s next week. And soon after denial will give way to grim acceptance and the countdown to April will begin.

I need about two dozen different ways to say that, so I can return to this trope at least once a week between now and then.

My contribution to the cause today was this. Meetings. And preproduction meetings for videos I have to shoot this week. Also I spent some time on a quixotic search for a delivery that’s somewhere in the building, but nowhere in the building. The UPS note says “Desk.” Well, sir or ma’am, this is a school, and there are a lot of desks, and also offices. Each one of those have desks. I have checked them all, and the administrative desks, and unoccupied desks. And also the loading dock. Nothing.

We’re going to get caught up on the Re-Listening Project here. I’m filling space and time on the blog from an in-car project, where I’m working my way through all of my old CDs in chronological order. None of these are reviews, but sometimes there’s something fun, and at least the embedded music has potential. All of these discs (eventually) cross genres in a haphazard way and today is a slight example of that. There’s no larger theme here. It is, as I’ve been saying, a whimsy, as music should be. So fall back to the mid 1990s with me, won’t you.

I don’t understand the point of a sampler in the CD format. At this late date the process seems too slow. Loading a disc, playing that song or two, swapping it to something else if you don’t like the whole mix. And maybe that is informed by always preferring a full record.

Which makes me wonder why I have this, Loaded Volume 1. (I don’t think there was ever a Volume 2.) This is an EMI sampler, and I think I probably picked it up in a bunch, and likely for just one or two songs. But what an eclectic mix beyond the electronic, rock, pop and synth-pop.

I was never invested in this collection, so let’s explore the track by track listing.

EMF’s “Unbelievable.” Maybe I bought it for this song. I think I used this on a radio show for some reason in college. (Hey, it was 1996.)

D Generation’s “No Way Out.” I probably listened to this one more closely this week than I did back then.

It’s hard to imagine a time that Lenny Kravitz ever needed to have a single included on a sampler.

Radiohead’s “Creep” holds up remarkably well, even if they seldom play it live.

Here’s an interesting story about Jesus Jones and “The Devil You Know.” There is no interesting story about this song. I checked. This is a 1993 release, though, which is why it sounds like the perfect bridge between the 1980s and 1990s, from several decades removed.

Yeah, no idea why Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark is on this CD, especially in the all-important track six spot.

The song from Blur you knew before “Song 2.”

In 1993 Duran Duran did Unplugged and “The Wedding Album” which is as big a late-career comeback a pop band can ask for. And two years later, “Come Undone” was found here. There’s a lot of Duran Duran that is aging well, considering, and I am still wondering what’s going on at this point in this disc.

There’s a nice acoustic version of Tasmin Archer’s “Sleeping Satellite” up next. This was her 1992 debut, which went number one in the United Kingdom and Ireland and reached the top 20 in 13 other countries and peaked at number 32 on the US Billboard Hot 100.

Which sets us up nicely for Milla Jovovich’s “Gentleman Who Fell.” She looks 19 on her late night debut with Conan.

Then you get Sinead O’Connor’s “I Believe In You.” Say what you will, and heaven knows a lot has been said about O’Connor, but this song is amazing.

Then there’s … “Alleluia, Beatus Vir Qui Suffert” from The Benedictine Monks Of Santo Domingo De Silos.

Interesting story, this song was part of a series of recordings from the 1970s and 1980s. It didn’t sell. A different record label, an EMI imprint, re-released it in 1994. “Chant” became the best-selling album of Gregorian chant ever released. It peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200, and was double platinum, two million copies sold in the United States, four million worldwide.

Then comes Shara Nelson, “What Silence Knows.” This is the title track from her debut album. This song was never released as a single, but that album was a substantial hit in the UK in 1993-1994.

And here’s a B-side from the critically important Jeffrey Gaines.

The last song is from The Specials, and I found myself wondering, while listening to “Ghost Town” the other day, if this was, in fact, the first ska song I ever heard.

Probably not, but maybe?

Anyway, should you buy this record? Do you like these songs? Will you be impressed to learn that the bonus track, not listed here, is the best song on the thing?

I’m not going to spoil that one, but if you think it is possible that, among the assembled great music above, the best song isn’t here, then maybe you should make a purchase. Here’s an incentive. The hidden track was 40 years old when this record was distributed. And it’s almost 30 years older even now.

There’s one more CD to discuss here, but it’s another one of those that was a cassette upgrade in my earliest days in the new medium. I found out about this band from some improbable late night live show. A few weeks later they were on SNL. And I’m not sure if it was days before that network appearance or in the days immediately after that I bought the debut record. It’s the first of four or six that will wind up in this project.

I was a high school freshman, listening to this too much. Way too much. Couldn’t wait to get home from school to put this on, too much. Started wondering what that meant, too much. Way too much. Nirvana didn’t interest me. I didn’t get Alice in Chains. Soundgarden and Stone Temple Pilots were coming my way soon. Pearl Jam was where all of it started. It meant a lot.

It meant adolescence and grunge music happened at about the same time, a ridiculous combination, and it means I’m mentally prepared if flannel and Doc Martens make a comeback. (Maybe they shouldn’t?)

“Ten,” for a 30-year-old debut, in a then-still developing genre, holds up remarkably well as a complete album. It was later that Pearl Jam would become something like The Doors.

collarbone / IU / memories / music / photo / Re-Listening / Tuesday / Twitter — Comments Off on I’m catching up on sleep, thanks
4
Oct 22

I’m catching up on sleep, thanks

This, the Twitter thread below, is an extremely true story. I took a nap this evening and have basically gotten back to the point of feeling like normal again. Can’t imagine how she feels, but she’s got the medication! And she can take naps if she feels like it.

I’d say she’s lucky, but I’ve seen the X-rays. I know exactly how lucky she is.

Spent most of yesterday at the office telling people about it, I think. Word gets around. Maybe in a day or two I’ll be back up to full speed, and feeling like it, too!

Let’s wrap up the Poplars Building talk. You’ll remember it was a hotel, and then dorms, and finally some administrative space. The whole building is gone now. They torn down the first half during late August and September. They took the other half last week. But the remnants are still there.

Eventually this will become a green space. I take that to mean they don’t know, yet, what they want to go in that space, but some plan will come along one day.

We should catch up on the Re-Listening Project. If that sounds official, it isn’t. I am working through all of my old CDs in the car. Easy content and, sometimes, good music. These aren’t reviews, mostly just the memories that mark the time.

This is strictly chronological, which is to say the order in which I bought all of these things. My discs cross genres and periods in a haphazard way and there’s no large theme. It is, a whimsy as music should be.

“Deluxe” was Better Than Ezra’s major label debut, and I bought this first as a cassette. “Good,” which they still do on stage as “The one you remember” was released in February of 1995, and I bought it sometime around there. Obviously I thought enough about it to purchase it a second time, as a CD.

I remember playing the tape version almost continuously on a three-hour solo road trip to see a friend.

First of all, no one remembers that Salma Hayek was in the video for the third single off this record.

Her career, in American media anyway, was just about to take off. This was sublimely timed casting that wouldn’t have been possible even a few months later.

Secondly, I have this weird flash of a memory of listening to this record in an Arby’s drive thru. Maybe that was the beginning of that road trip.

It’s a deep cut, but Summerhouse still holds up.

This, along with Rosealia, was one of my favorite songs of the record.

A few years later I was shooting pool in a restaurant — that no longer exists — when a friend came out of the closet to me and the guy playing his guitar in the corner was covering that song. I was the first person she told, she said. She figured I was from the big city, and that I’d understand. But I knew already. And whole, larger story, is an incredibly sharp memory.

Seven-ball-with-a-weird-pant-scuff-in-the-right-side-pocket sharp.

This was the song for part of that fall, and parts of many subsequent autumns.

Better Than Ezra has seven more studio albums. At least the next five get better and better. They’ll all appear in this list, eventually.

adventures / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off on This is a recovery week – Tuesday
27
Sep 22

This is a recovery week – Tuesday

The Yankee is slowly on the mend. We’ve developed a fairly decent routine for each day, part of the short-term education process when you can’t use one arm or bear any weight in your good hand. But we’re making do. I’m fretting over her and have managed to avoid bumping her arm or otherwise giving her any extra pain. Ribs and a collarbone are bad enough without the help.

But there’s not much else going on right now.

The weather this week remains in the chamber of commerce category. (Maybe it’ll stay like this until next March!) Late in the afternoon we sat on the deck for a bit. Getting outside is a part of the recovery process.

So it is a light week, content-wise, as you can tell.

But don’t forget: Catober begins this weekend.

Instagram / IU / photo / Tuesday / video — Comments Off on And, most importantly, no one got hurt
20
Sep 22

And, most importantly, no one got hurt

Saw this car this morning. I believe it is as MG TD. I don’t know, but a cursory examination of the interwebz leads me to believe this may be a circa 1953 MG T-type.

I drove in this morning, parked near this car and figured I’d never see it again. But it was there when I left this evening, because I left earlier than I’d anticipated.

At a glance, you can tell that the owner is proud of this vehicle and, I assume, is happy to have people notice it. I wonder how often it sees the road. Perfect weather day for it today, but you surely pick your spots with a classic, right?

The MG people produced 30,000 TDs over three or four years in the UK. Some 23,000 of them were shipped to the US. You can buy one today ranging from $17,000 to $32,000.

And, yes, if you have a MG, you get an MG hat and you wear the MG hat.

But why did I leave earlier than I’d anticipated today? Excellent question.

After they closed the building for the day I worked elsewhere. And I got to go home at the regular time, rather than after watching the news — which they did outdoors this evening, which was impressive.

So we went to the lake, and floated on tubes into the early evening.

Fine way to spend a Tuesday.

cycling / photo / Tuesday / video — Comments Off on On the subject of light
13
Sep 22

On the subject of light

It’s a strange business to be in. The hours are irregular. The interactions vary. The media is occasionally multi-. Some days quiet. Some days hectic. And, somedays, you leave yourself messages like this.

But that’s for tomorrow. Hamster Blitz is a video game some students developed. And we’re using their teaser trailer for some promotional efforts and that was where I left off today. Tomorrow I will start with Hamster Blitz.

For what it’s worth, it looks like a fun game.

What a great way to keep things light, right? A helicopter hamster ball? That would be hysterical. A hamster ball with engines would be equal parts amusing and dangerous. Finally, the hamsters can get their payback.

Maybe this isn’t the sort of light fare we should consider. To a different kind of light, then!

I spent this evening in the studio, which meant a later bike ride home. Changed the views a bit. This is the IU Auditorium. Looks nice in the gloaming.

It looks nice at every time of day, the IU Auditorim. It’s just a lovely facility, but the lights at the top offer a nice bit of atmosphere. Come in here, get some culture. No time for the fine arts, though. I pedaled through quickly racing the darkness as I was.

I did not beat the darkness. But traffic is light at 8 p.m.! And I have a light on my bike! Finally had the chance to use it! It is very bright!

I bought this light in 2020, I think. First time I’ve used it. (I blame the pandemic and, also, life.) This light is still on it’s original charge, even. And the throw is perfect for a casual ride. Remember how you learned about outrunning headlights when you were taught to drive? Something about your reaction time, illumination, velocity and darkness? You could do that here, I think, but for an easy 14 or 15 miles per hour, this is great.

One80 Light is the official illumination provider of my night runs and, now, my night rides. They have a wonderful product, and I need to take more night rides.

I haven’t ridden a bike at night since I was a kid, for some reason, but no excuse for that now, other than, ya know, cars.

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