Some Words

Portland has finally managed to live up to my preconceptions of it, with a couple of icky rain days washing away the snow that I missed (replaced by the snow in Iowa and Michigan, which was more significant anyway) when I was away.

I found myself listening to Famous Blue Raincoat by Leonard Cohen:

This in turn got me thinking of the Tori Amos cover of same. I hadn’t listened to Amos in a while, and so I checked it out on Youtube, and was surprised by how much she seemed to be mugging to the crowd as she played. I don’t recall interpreting it this way when I last saw her, which was years ago, and the video I was watching was from last year. Have I just grown up since last I saw her in concert? Quite possibly. I’ve never been sure just how much of the “shock” factor of her songs was a part of my fandom. I still like many of the songs, but I seem to have over listened to many of them, requiring my to step away for periods of time or risk having them get annoying. I was shocked when this happened to Jeff Buckley, who I had thought could never get stale. All of this and Rain Dogs never seems to suffer the same fate.

Also, a brief note bringing it back to Cohen. Looking at the Wikipedia entry on FBR, it appears to be getting more popular to cover it. I can’t say that’s what I would have expected. Roughly half of the covers appear to be post 2000.

One of things that I most wish about our culture was that we had a greater range of shared verbal reference. No, check that, let’s be more honest, I wish people shared my verbal references more. That’s about it. I remember studying the Tale of Genji in college and loving the way the characters could all refer to known poetry in order to express the similarities of situations.

As I was thinking about how the name of a song by Why? “these few presidents” would be a great one to be able to reference at certain times. That in turn got me thinking about the content of the song. I tend to pick up on different parts of his songs at different times, but this time I found myself thinking about the whole song, and how it was very similar in content to a Robert Browning poem, maybe most like “Porphyria’s Lover,” but Browning was hardly short of poems about murdering your significant other.

This is a band that I’ve sort of flirted on the edge of knowing for a while. I’d hear there music in various places and nod along for a bit and then move on. So, as usual, I’m late to the party. But they were on Morning Becomes Eclectic a little over a month ago and I was listening to the podcast, when this song grabbed me.

“Dorothy Parker Blue” by The Real Tuesday Weld

I may have to scrape a little grad school cash together on this one.

I don’t like to think that I’m so locked into my political views that I can’t switch parties if the Republican’s field someone compelling. In my eyes, that hasn’t happened this cycle. But just for fun, I found myself thinking, what would the man have to do to earn my vote?

The Republican National Convention is causing all sorts of havoc for friends of mine in the Twin Cities right now, and that means McCain will be in the Twin Cities too. In order to get my vote, I’ve decided he will need to do the following:

He must go to the C.C. Club, with minimal escort, and order a Premium Grainbelt. Beer in hand he must then go to the jukebox and select “Time” by Tom Waits. When the song comes up, he will then have the secret service clear out the two mobile tables near the jukebox, where he shall proceed to dance a sad little shuffle as the song plays. That will earn my vote. If he manages to mumble the lyrics in a plaintive and half heard sort of way, I’ll even like doing it. Also, as long as he’s there, he should get the jalapeno cheese burger, because it’s damned tasty.

If he were to go to The Bulldog kiddy corner to the C.C., I’ll donate another $50 to Obama. If he goes to Common Roots across the corner, and gets the organic bagel? Well, then we’ll know the end times are upon us.

Ah, to dream that it could happen.

Cross posted at

Waiting for law school to start up, and pottering around around getting moving stuff done, I’ve ended up watching a fair amount of History Detectives on PBS. The show is about people investigating artifacts from the past to see if they have any historical significance. You questions like, “Was this rifle owned by Herman Goering?”

The show, once you get into it, can be fun, but I don’t understand why they chose “Watching the Detectives” by Elvis Costello for the theme song. On the surface, sure, it makes sense. Yet, when you look at the lyrics of the song, you start to wonder. I’ll just grab a scrap.

They call it instant justice when it’s past the legal limit.
Someone’s scratching at the window. I wonder who is it?
The detectives come to check if you belong to the parents
who are ready to hear the worst about their daughter’s disappearance.
Though it nearly took a miracle to get you to stay,
it only took my little fingers to blow you away.

It seems a little dark. The show often borders on goofy. Even when the story is about something dark, they keep it light. Every time the heavily edited theme comes on, mangling one of my favorite Costello songs, I can’t help but laugh.

Slowly, slowly the email is catching up and the big project is getting finished. This is not at the rate that I hoped, but it is happening.

Shudder to Think is back on tour soon. This makes me unbelievably happy. I still remember staying up late one night in 1995, watching MTV, back when it seemed to have some semblance of relevance. (Isn’t it nice that it doesn’t anymore?) These weird guys came on the screen, there was jarring crunchy guitar, and I was hooked. The lead singer had this strange creepy voice and the video involved elevators and a weird basement scene. I was never able to explain to others what I loved, loved so much, about this band. Lacking the ability to attach any tangible explanation to it, I just assumed that they would take over the world eventually. Needless to say, that never happened. But I never stopped loving them. Pony Express Record remains one of my favorite albums, and one that is directly responsible for my love of rock.

Then the band broke up, and while I thought the stuff they did afterward as solo acts was ok, the big creepy magic and edge were gone. It felt a little too friendly, a little too bedroom or sitting at your breakfast table the next day over a cup of coffee. These guys had a video banned for “unnecessary cannibalism” and even their love songs were creepy. I missed that. I still got the new stuff, but I missed the band that thought re-envisioning the Atlanta Rhythm Section’s “So Into You” as a slow almost violent creeper was a good idea.

Later, STT became like a handshake for me. When someone started talking about 90s rock, we would sound each other out for a while, and then I would drop STT as a reference point. If they got a big grin on their face, I knew we would get along musically. Of course this didn’t happen very often, but STT fanhood always felt like being in on a very special secret, that came with decoder rings. You have a decoder ring, right?

And now I might be able to see them, which I never did get to do while they were together, living as I did in tiny town. What’s more, that video, the one that hypnotized me at the age of 14, is now on Youtube.

New album please guys and come to Portland. Please please please come to Portland.

Tomorrow I head to Portland, hopefully to find an apartment, and a place that sells Lemon Hart demerara rum. While there, I’m going to get to see Dosh and Anathallo at the Doug Fir Lounge. Dosh is on tour with Michael Lewis and from what my brother tells me, they’ve been turning in some awesome sets. Until Dosh, I had only really seen Lewis working with Happy Apple. Indeed, it had been long enough since I had seen Happy Apple that I had forgotten how amazing the man was. Watch him stretch his multi-instrumental chops:

Now, check them out if you get the chance.

And let’s have another Hot Chip video, shall we? Why not.

Looks like a little bit of data was lost from the DB, I’m reposting this one, but the post on the horrors of spoiled fish sauce will be consigned to oblivion, no one really needs that.

Why is it that Hot Chip is so much better live than on their albums. I mean, I expect people to be good live acts, but the mix is always better too. Maybe they’re a little more sloppy, but the album cuts are often just slightly… hollow sounding.

I mean, sure it makes me want to see the show, and I’m not nuts about the guitar solo, but come on… That’s a pretty big difference.

I have at times wondered what old pulp fiction would sound like if it was sung.

And in the very near future… less video posts.

While discussing acts to see at SXSW with my brother (who got to see Why? twice, the bum), this song came up. It has been stuck in my head since.

I don’t get out much, especially to First Avenue. When Andrew Bird came through town I thought, “He’s good, but I don’t know that I like him enough to go out and spend money for a live show.”

File another one under shows I wish I hadn’t missed. Parts of this remind me of Weather Report’s 8:30. And of course I wasn’t paying attention and he played the Triple Rock in late January.

Edit: There seems to be some sort of problem with my plugin for Youtube and this video. The others still seem to be working, but this one isn’t loading. I’m going to try to fix this, but it’s after 1 A.M. here.

The problem, as is so often the case, was user errror. That, and an extra pair of quotation marks.