Monday, October 31, 2005

Non-Stealth Nomination

Partisan Politics

Bush nominated Sam Alito for the Supreme Court.  Conservatives will be happy, as Alito is one of the elect - his name is on the consensus list of acceptable candidates for the court.  By nominating Scalito, Bush will bring the wandering sheep back into the fold.  We’ll have to see whether the Democrats flip their lid over this nomination.  Offhand, I don’t see how they can, as it seems pretty much everyone is in agreement that the man has the juice for the post.  Any opposition will likely be purely ideological.

For my part, I’m cool with this one.  From Jonathan Turley on MSNBC:

In addition, Alito has written a very controversial dissent in a case involving the ownership of machine guns, suggesting that a statute prohibiting such things might be unconstitutional.


Posted by Buckethead on 10/31/05 at 06:26 PM
Partisan Politics • Permalink

Right Poland

Crazy Foreigners

Conservatives have kicked the commies to the curb in Poland.  However, the two parties that together garnered a majority of the votes fell out over distribution of high-level posts in the new government.  But hey, at least the commies are out.


Posted by Buckethead on 10/31/05 at 06:23 PM
Crazy Foreigners • Permalink

Carnival of Music #19

Music Wonkery

Welcome to Carnival of Horror… No, Carnival of Gory Death… No, Carnival of Creep… No, Carnival of Music!  Yes, that’s it.  Welcome to the nineteenth edition of the Carnival of Music.  The Halloween edition, in fact. 

Let’s dive right in, shall we?

It’s All Hallow’s Eve

Wherein we learn about the use of music in film, and are subjected to butt-rock

This edition of the carnival hits the interweb on Halloween.  Therefore, it is only appropriate that we begin with some scary creepy stuff.  Mark at Kaedrin has spewed forth a disquisition on music in horror movies, one with quotes and everything.  People will start thinking he’s serious or something.  Along the same lines, but a bit outside the blog world is this survey of horror music by John Hübinette.

For all your horror music needs, one need go no further than right here.  Of course, we will.  Here is a collection, ripped straight from google, of low-rent horror metal bands.  I think most of this is what Minister Johno would refer to as, “Butt-Rock.” Suicide Solution, Dark Seclusion, The Others, Dark Autumn and of course, Rob Zombie.  Lot of Darkness there.  Not there’s anything wrong with that. 

Of course, the life of a horror metal band is not, of course, all sweetness and light.  For some, it is misery and destruction.  In this case, not self inflicted – everyone lend a hand to Antartica vs. the World, who lost all their gear in Hurricane Katrina.

The absolute best horror music link, I have saved for last.  It Will End In Pure Horror.  I have always been convinced that that is literally true.  But if ending in pure horror meant being surrounded by this:

Horror Cuties

I might be a little more comfortable with the concept.  I sent away for their free demo, Night of the Living Demo, and so should you.

Oh, and speaking of eldritch horror, what could be more soul-suckingly, achingly terrifying than cute thirteen year old singing Nazi twins?

Nazi Cuties

Among a great multitude, my pal Murdoc offers some coverage of the Aryan Olsen twins.

Cronyism

Wherein the Ministry thrives on nepotism, and throws a bone to the little people

Because the Ministry not only supports, but actually thrives on nepotism, this section contains links to us, and to people we know.  We’ll begin with me.  Mrs. Buckethead is one of three lead vocalists in a bluegrass/Americana/roots music/gospel/country blues band called Dead Men’s Hollow.  They recently released an album, which you canbuy.  It’s funny, but ten years ago if you had told me that in the middle of the first decade of the twenty-first century that all I’d be listening to was death metal and hundred year old country music, I’d have laughed at you.  Or hit you, depending on my mood.  Yet here I am.  Looking at the recently played list on my iPod, I see Doc Watson, Drowning Pool, Tool, Monster Magnet, Johnny Cash, the Kossoy Sisters (thanks, Johno) and “Oklahoma Stomp” from band called Spade Cooley and His Orchestra off a collection called Doughboys, Playboys and Cowboys that is mostly country swing from before WWII. 

Dead Men’s Hollow – well, let me let Johno do the music reviewing, because he’s a professional:

DMH splits the difference between the ethereal rubato of the old timey singers and the in-time clarity of classical and good rock singers. However you’re doing it, it’s really freaking cool...I’ll be putting it on my IPod immediately.

They’re playing all around the DC area, so check the website to see when you can see them.  And, in a few weeks, they’ll be headlining a big show at Ft. Riley, Kansas for troops heading out to Iraq.  I’ll have more on this later, or again, check their site.  And lastly, listen to this song.

Johno is the alpha music geek here at Perfidy.  In fact we created a category just for him – Music Wonkery.  Click that link to get access to hundreds of insightful, sage, and at times indelicate reviews.  A lot of the musicians Johno writes of so knowledgeably, I had never heard of.  Once I listened to their music, I wondered how I had ever missed them.  Johno has produced two new reviews just for this carnival, you can see them here and here.  Read them both.  I have already ordered a copy of Cast King’s album.  It won’t be the first album I’ve bought on Johno’s recommendation, and it certainly won’t be the last. 

One last Johno note: over here, Johno has offered hand-crafted mix discs to anyone who reaches a hand into their pocket and comes up with $15 for charity.  Johno’s suggesting hurricane or earthquake relief, but I’m sure he’d accept anything short of a donation for the Free Katie Foundation.

Next up is Phil Dennison, founder and CEO of the blog November Musings.  His band, the Fragments, is on a little hiatus thanks to their own personal stick in the eye to the zero population growth people.  The band has recently spawned two kids, and another is on the way.  So far, only Phil and bandmate Gene remain childless freaks.  The Fragments play a heady style of power pop, and are well worth a listen.  Phil, being the musician type guy that he is, has on occasion held forth on some musical topics. 

Here is Phil peeking behind the curtain of Trent Reznor’s musical past, complaining about the existence of Ashlee Simpson, and penning an encomium to fellow power-pop band, The Figgs.  As an added bonus, here is Phil’s Top Ten Underrated Guitar Solos List.

Phil also kindly recommends, for your reading pleasure, several music blogs, including Bob Mould’s blog, Copy, right?, Fluxblog, Lost Bands of the New Wave Era and Mystery and Misery.  Joe-Bob says check ‘em out.

Next on our list of cronies, yes-men and yeasayers is Ted of the excellent blog Rocket Jones.  Ted recommends the podcasts of the Simian Syndicate.  Especially this one.  Why?  They’ll tell you:

“We have a special treat in this show, something very unique, a recorded monologue by our buddy Stuart Swink. Stuart takes plenty of pictures for us and attends most of the Booze Monkey shows, he is a good friend. He created a monologue comprised entirely of Beatles song-titles. It is a very unique piece, and he graciously allowed us to share it, I hope you enjoy it.”

That just can’t go wrong.  Simian’s podcasts typically include music, typically of the bluesy nature.  That, plus split your sides funny, is a hell of bargain when you consider that it’s all free.  Added bonus: Ted also recommends the blog RetroBabe

Princess Cat has run across an inspirational ditty from Ryan Shupe and the Rubber Band.  A good band name, but not as good as my personal favorite band name ever, Special Ed and the Short Bus - who can be heard doing a great high speed cover of John Hardy over here.

Finally, another blogger with a band: Andrew Ian Dodge of the justly famous Dodgeblogium.  I emailed Andrew to see if he had anything for the carnival (and to complain that he got a better logo from blogs in space than I did) and he replied in his unique idiom, “What jolly good timing.  The band site has just had a face-lift (ala Joan Rivers) and the EP is finally f***ing finished!”

His band, Growing Old Disgracefully has only one snippet of music up, but hopefully we will soon be able to hear the EP, or even buy it from CD Baby.  CD Baby, btw, is my personal favorite online music-getting thingies.  Witness this email I received from CD Baby last time I ordered from them:

Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved ‘Bon Voyage!’ to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Tuesday, August 27th.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby.  We sure did.  Your picture is on our wall as ‘Customer of the Year’.  We’re all exhausted but can’t wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

[Wik] Returning as if from the dead, our own resident Canadian comes in with playlist a that has therapeutic overtones.

Carnival of Submissions

Wherein we gingerly dip our toe into the wider world of music blogging

Barbara of Trying to Catch Up sends us a reminiscence of her time as a flute player, triggered by her son’s taking up the saxophone. 

BradRubenstein of Odd Quanta shamelessly plugs his own music festival.  If you’re in New York on Dec 4, check it the New York Festival of Song.  Not music related, but he also links to a really cool idea for positional, rather than temporal, alarms.  This can’t be far, and whoever invents the killer app for this sort of thing will be rich, rich, rich.

The award for best blog name goes to Assimilated Negro.  It’s retro.  It’s PM.  It’s likely offensive to many.  I dig it.  Assimilated Negro blog is just over a month old, but he’s already working the carnivals to get linkage.  He’s more assimilated than I am, as I just figured this out after two and a half years. 

I will leave it again to Johno to provide the theoretical underpinnings and academic apparatus surrounding this.  (Scroll to the bottom and press play.  After you read the rest of the post, of course.) But hey, it was perhaps inevitable that blogs and hip hop were fated to collide.

Next week’s host, Elisa Camahort, throws in a post regarding her iTunes music purchases.  But it’s not just a simple list, she provides us with reviews of the music, too.  Check her other posts, too, she’s got lots of links to cool music, like this one.

Michelle of A Small Victory has given up the blog.  We’ll miss her music lists, though we can still follow her fiction, and the always amusing 100 Words or Less Nessman.

The Well-Tempered Blog (I just discovered what, exactly, well-tempered means just a month ago.  From TV!) reports on an interesting thing:  the Extensible Toy Piano.

And don’t forget that Strongbad can sing.

Brian Sacawa has some thoughts on the effect of the web on music, especially of the classical variety. 

Has anyone seen a trailer for the new Johnny Cash movie?  I’m hopeful, and afraid.

Earlier, I mentioned that I recently learned what well-tempered means.  I learned it from this series.  Saw it on the Ovation cable network, they might show it again.  Very well done series, and even my music education trained wife was impressed.

If you want to really get going on the music blog reading, go to the bottom of Carnival of Music #7.  There’s a big list that I am far too lazy to recreate. 

Musical Perceptions has some interesting stuff on Singing Neanderthals, and trying to hear Bolero.

Here’s an Online Mandolin Museum, courtesy of Lynn at A Sweet, Familiar Dissonance.

This guy maybe likes Batman too much.

And finally, if you really want to you know, delve, into the music blogging thing – go here.

The End

Wherein we blame the innocent, free the culpable, and frame the unwary

Thanks (from us) and blame (from you) should be directed to John of Texas Best Grok for allowing Perfidy to host this, the 19th Carnival of Music.  Admiration and plaudits should go to previous hosts of the carnival, for we only see so far because we stand on the shoulders of giants.  They can be found here, along with other needful and pertinent information regarding the Carnival of Music.  Postdated thanks should also be directed to Elisa, who will host the next CoM. 

I am turning on trackbacks for this post, so if you have a music related post, just do that thing, and I’ll integrate it into the post.  If it starts getting closer to next week, send submissions to Elisa via so she has some material to work with.


Posted by Buckethead on 10/31/05 at 04:00 PM
Music Wonkery • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

The Past Is Always Present, Thank You Very Much

Music Wonkery

Everyone who knows me (and who doesn’t know me? I’m the cat with a bazillion friends!) knows that I really dig emanations from what Greil Marcus called “the old, weird America.” Whether it’s the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, the half-fried blues stylings of the late R.L. Burnside, or video footage of the great Bobby Rush taming the wild booty ooty ooty.

Cast King, a 79 year old native of Old Sand Mountain, Alabama - a place too small and remote to show up on maps readily available on the newfangled interweb - has been making music on his own for sixty-five years now. He toured extensively in the 1940s and 1950s with his band, “Cast King and the Country Drifters” and even recorded a few sides for Sam Phillips at the Sun studios in Memphis. But nothing really came of those sessions and King settled down to life on Old Sand Mountain, writing songs for the benefit of himself and those around him.

He was rediscovered, according to the presskit I have, when a musician named Matt Downer began making field recordings of local musicians in and around Old Sand Mountain, and on the recommendation of practically every other musician around tracked down Cast King and his “sackful of songs.” Downer eventually persuaded King to sit down and record some of these in a shed next to his house, and the result is now an album, Saw Mill Man.

Cast King’s debut is a interesting document, literally a transmission from the old weird America I treasure, something that sounds like a lost fragment of the Harry Smith or Lomax brothers collections. At 79, King’s voice is soft and tremulous, which only adds to the fragility and plaintiveness of the songs he has written, every one of which is about drinking, death, heartbreak, or the futility of living on another day. (Now that’s entertainment!) His homegrown style of songwriting has a great deal in common with the folk-infused country that eventually catapulted Johnny Cash to fame - a sound that has long transcended fashion and cliche to become part of the DNA of the American songbook. Some of the songs feature Matt Downer helping out on his Stratocaster to provide some ornament, but mostly they float past one by one, bouyed by the quiet strum of King’s guitar and swaying lilt of his hoary voice.

Having developed over fifty years a unique conversational lyrical style, King has a knack for lining out a scene in a few well chosen words. Not every song is equally great, and some rely a little too much on cliche, but every so often an especially stark stanza reaches out of the speakers to smack you on the head. For example on “Numb,” King sings

I don’t care if your tears fall in my whiskey
I don’t care if he hurts you more and more
I don’t mind that drunken clown
Pushing that old man around
For I’m as numb as the knob on the door.

That’s about as succinct as country weepers get. The best songs on Saw Mill Man hit with this same soft punch, especially “Cheap Motel,” “Wino,” and the miserable hard-luck song “Saw Mill Man.” On “Long Time Now” and “Peggy,” King raises the ghost of authentic rockabilly, the half-crazy kind that got kicked off the radio (or co-opted) by the rise of rock and roll. It’s a hoot to hear a new recording in 2005 that could have come directly out of a Bobby Sisco session for Mar-Vel in 1955. Some, like the worst-party-ever vignette of “Wrong Time To Be Right” and the funereal murder ballad “Under The Snow” sound especially great in King’s weary baritone.

Overall, what seems at first blush to be a slightly muddy set of moderately interesting old-timey country songs reveals itself after repeated listenings to be a set of archetypal country songs sung by a man who, if life had been just a little different, might have had a real shot at being on the Opry stage next to Carl Perkins and Buck Owens. I don’t know if it’s something in the water or something in the whiskey, but Cast King of Old Sand Mountain has made a bleak and affecting debut album. I hope there’s more where this came from.

Cast King’s Saw Mill Man is available directly from Locust Music


Posted by Johno on 10/31/05 at 11:01 AM
Music Wonkery • Permalink

Don’t Fight The Feeling

Music Wonkery

In January 1963, energized by a recent tour of Europe with former labelmate Little Richard, Sam Cooke took the stage at the Harlem Square Club in Miami to turn in an electric, electrifying set of sweaty, sanctified, manic and masterful soul music. The night was recorded for a live album called One Night Stand!: Sam Cooke Live at the Harlem Square Club which sat on the shelf for twenty years until it was released in 1985. Sony Legacy has remastered the album for a new reissue this year, and it is now obvious that One Night Stand completely overturns everything you think you know about the smooth and urbane maker of sweet soul music.
Along with Ray Charles, Sam Cooke arguably invented soul music with his great crossover hits of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Everything that came after owes in some measure to his alchemic blending of gospel, R&B, pop and standards, his bravura performances that split the difference between agape and eros. In his brand-new and excellent biography of Sam Cooke, Peter Guralnick lovingly details Sam Cooke’s evolution from a young member of nationally-known gospel quartets to the urbane, good-looking, articulate, laid back and genial pop inferno that he became. Along the way, various personages from Atlantic Records’ Jerry Wexler to singing peers like Harry Belafonte, Bobby “Blue” Bland, and Elvis Presley check in to attest to their admiration for Cooke’s unbelievably facile voice.

And what a voice it was! Sam Cooke was blessed with a remarkable instrument, clear as a bell except when he wanted to make it gritty, high and proud and stunningly beautiful. His ability to use it to get right inside the most banal lyrics and project stark and affecting emotional content made him great, and once he figured out how to draw out the simplest words, “No-no-no-no,” “I-i-i-i-i-i,” in Coltranesque cascades of pure joy, nothing could stop him from killing an audience cold.


Posted by Johno on 10/31/05 at 11:00 AM
Music Wonkery • Permalink