eastowners

In an effort to be a more regular updater of written word in this
space, here’s some more stream-of-lunacy-flowing-from-my-mind. We
did another crazy evening of walking through the record & dvd place
throwing various things into a basket. We brought home a
collection of discs and DVD’s, including the Fraggle Rock DVD’s, just
recently released. Man… it’s been, well… 20 years that I’ve
seen that stuff. Clare is enthralled by Henson’s mid-80’s Muppet
re-incarnate, which is cool for me… I can watch in peace.

Also on the list of things that I had to pick up while there was a
recent release; Motown Remixed. The disc is a collection of
mixmasters re-interpreting Motown classics by using raw tracks from all
sorts of original Motown sessions, as well as modern “mix tools” to
re-create tunes in their entirety… suffice to say, it was done -very-
tastefully and a couple of the tracks are FAR funkier than their
original recordings were. This one goes on heavy rotation this
week.

In the world of funk, I picked up the new Black Eyed Peas album.
While over-produced (as expected), more of a “dance” album than hip-hop,
and missing much of the social commentary that the BEP of the 90’s
possessed, it carries one of the funkiest tunes recorded to the digital
medium in the past 20 years, “They Don’t Want Music”, MC’d by none
other than the godfather of soul himself. This track alone is
well worth plopping the cash down for the whole album.

Last bit… what I’m listening to right now… RL Burnside - A Ass
Pocket of Whiskey. RL is this ancient dude putting down
traditional Delta blues on top of various modern musical genres (this
album is hard rock… I have two that are hiphop/acid jazz). This
album is highly recommended to anyone who likes Jon Spencer Blues
Explosion (Jon Spencer appears on the album) or heavy psychedelic
blues/rock. Any and all RL Burnside is good stuff.

Adios ya’ll. It’s off to Pt Huron this weekend for a wedding…
maybe a trek down into the city (Detroit) for some music on
Saturday. I’ll let you know how it goes…

Hi! *waves at everyone*

Interesting disc… Matisyahu - Live at Stubb’s. It’s a dude
doing reggae, which in and of itself isn’t all that earth shattering or
revolutionary, but this particular dude happens to be a
dark-hat-wearing, thick-bearded, hasidic Jew. It’s quite a neat
disc and is certainly a recommended listen (even though I’m one of them
heathen-types). I’m always open to new sounds and this dude puts
down some cool one-beat and has an excellent voice.

In other news (and completely unrelated other than both are music),
Pink Martini has returned with a second disc (in a decade). At
this point, I’ve not had -that- much time to listen to it on the hi-fi,
so my impressions are based on listening through my cruddy Soundblaster
Audigy 2 into my Sennheiser headphones. Even at a subpar
listening experience, it’s a nice disc… with a friendly, comfortable
sound that takes you to 50’s bachelor-pad future-space land, but avoids
being tongue-in-cheek about it. Lyrics in several languages
(including Japanese!) is a nice touch (also a “feature” of their other
album, which has a track that was showcased in a VW commercial).
Basically, like other retro-lounge that’s too serious to take
seriously, I dig it.

Here’s my weird mention of the week; something Char can’t believe that
I like… I picked up Brian Wilson’s SMiLE on a lark and a
recommendation of a half-stoned coffee joint barista after a night of
heavy drinking at Billy’s (makes livers happy!). It’s actually a
fabulous disc. I had somewhat forgotten that sometime in junior
high (just before a late-60’s-Beatles obsession), I had really been
into the Beach Boys (especially the Pet Sounds album). I quickly
moved on to other things, boring of quasi-psychedelia thinly veiled in
surf rock; maybe i was looking for the real thing… later getting into
early Stones, Janis, and of course, the later Beatles recordings…
along with a brief stint on Iron Butterfly and Vanilla Fudge (I have no
idea what was going on in my head at that time… driving around in the
mid-90’s blaring some incomprehensible missive by IB out the car
window… maybe just some rebellion against the post-grunge drivel that
was being hawked at the time). How the hell did I miss Cream, you
ask? I dunno. Ask my dad. I knew they
existed but I never owned a Cream album until 2003.

So you’re probably wondering after all that what the hell I think of
SMiLE, but most likely you’ve given up reading my diatribe and gone and
found a beer (or other choice of beverage… diet coke… hi
dad). I’ll tell you anyway, just because I’m feeling full of
myself and writing (typing) gets things out of my head and on to
something else. I think the disc is beyond excellent. I
believe it’s one of those instant classics that, if it doesn’t, should
show up in record collections with the same ubiquity that the
soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever and The Best of Bread do.

Moving on… have kids between the age of 2 and 80? Give They
Might Be Giants’ Here Come the ABC’s a try. It’s one of the few
kids discs that you might actually find me listening to when my
two-year-old isn’t anywhere nearby… then again, probably not, but The
Alphabet of Nations is one neat track… the kings of dork rock are
definitely going to corrupt another generation.

So what am I listening to now? Ween - The Mollusk. There’s
not much to say about Ween… if you know and like Ween, you know their
genius… Dean and Gene must be the illegitimate children of the late
great Zappa. There’s nothing else that could explain it. If you
don’t know Ween, check out The Mollusk; though listen for the first
time with headphones so you know which tracks to skip (or turn the
volume up on) when guests arrive… If you hate Ween,
well… Spongebob digs Ween. You like Spongebob, don’t you?!?!

Well… the beer has worn off and needs to be returned to the
earth. cya’ll later and hope this book-of-a-blog-entry finds you
and yours well and healthy. peace.