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Other Lives
So I’m sometimes convinced I should just turn this blog into an auto-re-posting feed of everything that comes into my podcast client: between KEXP‘s Music That Matters, Live Performances, and Video of the Week; KCRW‘s Morning Becomes Eclectic; and NPR Music‘s All Songs Considered, Tiny Desk Concerts, and Live in Concert, I’m never going to…
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The Civil Wars – Barton Hollow
Discovered this wonderful new duo via Morning Becomes Eclectic. Imagine The Swell Season if Glen Hansard was from Alabama rather than Ireland, Marketa Irglova from LA rather than the Czech Republic, and they’d met in Nashville rather than in Dublin. (They even have a song called “Falling” which reminded me a bit of the Swell…
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Tiny Desk Concert – The Decemberists
Great quick video from the Decemberists’ Tiny Desk Concert at NPR: “I was sort of always under the impression that these things were done while everybody was just trying to work,” The Decemberists’ Colin Meloy says a little ways into this Tiny Desk Concert in the NPR Music offices. “I kind of like the romance…
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Fourth of July Music – Gil Scott-Heron Live at the Bottom Line
Gil Scott-Heron (1949-2011) is most well known for “The Revolution Will Not be Televised” but this 1977 live gig with Brian Jackson will expose you to more of what Scott-Heron was about. You’ll find the original posting with much more info (from which I took this cover) on Never Enough Rhodes but it was also…
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Pokey LaFarge and the South City Three
Loving Pokey LaFarge and the South City Three, who I discovered via this Tiny Desk Concert from NPR (above).
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Think I can take Watson?
Screen shown just before taking the Jeopardy online test a few weeks back. I thought about trying to screen-shot some of the actual test questions but then that would interfere with my taking the test itself. 15 seconds sounds like enough time to enter an answer but it turns out you’re really running against the…
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More Moby: Be the One EP
(via Vegan.com) Moby has released a free EP in advance of his next album.
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Mary Gauthier and Tania Elizabeth at Me & Thee Coffeehouse
Friday Jo and I had the chance to see one of our favorite songwriters, Mary Gauthier, at the Me & Thee Coffeehouse in Marblehead (blurry iPhone foto above). The Me & Thee has been holding shows in the Unitarian Universalist Church on Mugford Street for 41 years, and is really a wonderful venue for seeing…
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Vegan French Bistro Comfort Mats
So I’m browsing the Ballard Designs catalog the other day and I stumbled upon these “French Bistro Comfort Mats,” which are described thusly: The fun design is based on a chalkboard menu we saw outside a Paris bistro Since I can’t resist an excuse to try out my French reading comprehension (which was never great…
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Songs for living
From the always masterful Ze Frank, a TED talk highlighting a number of his recent projects, starting with Ray (I’m about to whip somebody’s ass) and culminating in the Chillout Song. Somewhere between “I’m about to whip somebody’s ass” and “Hey, You’re Ok” is my new personal theme song. If I were a multi-millionaire I’d…
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Cee Lo Green’s F&#* You in French Sign Language
(via Stereogum and other places) comes this French Sign Language reading of Cee Lo Green’s recent hit. Love the enthusiasm and attitude throughout.
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Nuf Said?
in a symbolic move today, House members from both parties read the Constitution aloud on the House floor (NPR) Otto West: Apes don’t read philosophy. Wanda: Yes they do, Otto. They just don’t understand it. Further: NewSouth Books’ upcoming edition of Mark Twain’s seminal novel “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” will remove all instances of the…
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Strange Powers
(via NPR Music) Stephin Merritt of the Magentic Fields is the subject and star of a new documentary: Strange Powers. Apparently it was released on 10/27/10 and screened in Boston last April – but it won’t be available for the Netflix queue for a while.
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The Great Income Shift
(via Economist’s View) Some very interesting data from the Congressional Budget Office and analysis by Chuck Marr the Center on Budget Policy and Priorities describing the shift in income since 1979. The bars represent the difference between what actually happened (the real income distribution in 2007) against what would have happened had the income distribution…
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The .doc file of J. Alfred Prufrock
(via BoingBoing from back in September – yes, I’m that far behind) Excellent retelling/recasting of the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock into an even more modern idiom, by Copperbadge on LiveJournal: Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a laptop, put in sleep mode…
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God is a Concept – Tweedy Channels Lennon
(via Sterogum, via TwentyFourBit) comes this video of Jeff Tweedy fronting Autumn Defense (with John Stirratt and Pat Sansone also of Wilco) in a rendion of the classic Plastic Ono Band song “God”: “I Just Believe in Me . . . Wilco and me.” Nicely done, on 12/8/10.
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Pointless, Action-Free, and Totally Mesmerising
(via ze frank) – “pointless, action-free and totally mesmerising” (as described on b3ta) video shot with a high-speed camera from a fast-moving train in Bath. Every 7 seconds of video you watch represents 1 second of actuality. more info.
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Myq Kaplan on Late Late Show
Myq Kaplan, who you may remember as the vegan from the most recent series of Last Comic Standing, was on the Late Late Show. I especially like the bit about sets and subsets – what’s next, going out for rectangles or shapes?
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