Check it out. On Monday, I'll have another installment of "20 Questions," this one with local cycling emcee and promoter Joe Jefferson. It's going to be good.
Meanwhile, here's a few tunes to liven up your Friday. First - a great cover of a Lou Reed song.
Cowboy Junkies: Sweet Jane
I love the Cowboy Junkies, particularly their early Caution Horses album, and the matchless Trinity Session. Wistful music, beautiful stuff, that doesn't really fit into a genre. It just is what it is.
Here's one of my all time favorite songs - the Talking Heads, having a little existential crisis. Why? How did I get here?
Talking Heads: Once in a Lifetime
And while we're on the subject, I've rediscovered the Talking Heads lately. I'm amazed how some bands seem to age well. The Velvet Underground is a great example of this - they don't sound dated. The sound holds up really well. So does David Byrne and the crew. Here's my other other favorite song from them:
Talking Heads: Life During Wartime
"I've got a van... loaded with weapons... packed up and ready to go..." "This ain't no party, this ain't no disco, this ain't no foolin' around..." Awesome lyrics, captures sweaty, bad-flavored head spinning paranoia, the zeitgeist of our unsteady times, in just a few brilliant lines. Plus David Byrne is really working out the Big Suit separates here. I wonder if he gets them heavily discounted on clearance from Men's Wearhouse or something.
Of course I couldn't find my other other favorite Heads song, "Stay Up Late" anywhere, so you'll just have to live with an external link to it. I think it's about getting stoned and keeping the baby up all night as a consequence.
6 comments:
Have you seen Byrne's foray into the art world? A few years ago, he decided to use Powerpoint to produce fine art. My students love picking them apart and discussing whether or not they have value... http://www.davidbyrne.com/art/eeei/index.php
Aside from the art, love 'em. He and Eno are two visionaries.
Thanks Anj. Hadn't seen that before. Those look interesting. I'd describe some of them as art, perhaps commercial grade art (an underrated branch of the field, IMAO) and others as pretentious sophomoric pastiche, not really art though. Hits, swings and misses.
I do like David Byrne. He's a freaky dude with a lot of ideas worth exploring. I liked Jerry Harrison's Casual Gods for a while too. Rhode Island School of Design, right?
Haven't heard much about Cowboy Junkies lately. Thanks for the reminder.
Jim...I'm a new follower to the site. From what little I've seen, I find it remarkable that your taste in music is almost parallel to mine. Both of those Talking Heads songs are on all of my cycling playlists. I've been a big fan of VU for awhile, but didn't know the Cowboy Junkies covered Sweet Jane.
Keep it up,
Brad
Our tastes are parallel?
I'd say we share good taste in music with a lot of people. I get a lot of that so I'm starting to think it's not me, it's that a lot of us are members at The Church of Widely Acknowledged Middlebrow Tastes.
I happen to like the notion of an inclusive middlebrow aesthetic, BTW.
Excellent choices...Middlebrow Tastes? Just where I want my tastes to be.
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