Friday Music Day

FMD: End of May

20 Comments

I found this interesting:

Even [ABBA's] happiest hits encompass more than a few blue notes. Strip away the euphoric strings and rhythms of "Dancing Queen" and their sole U.S. chart-topper would be a much sadder tune, but it's arranged to feel ecstatic: When the harmonies crescendo for that "Feel the beat of the tambourine, oh yeah" chorus section, the frisson between notes is disproportionate to the lyrics. And that's just as it should be; life is full of emotions far larger than their situations.

Can I get SBG into an FMD thread to reply?
If not, everyone just share your last random tens before summer starts in earnest.

20 thoughts on “FMD: End of May”

  1. Strip away all the stuff in the song that makes it feel happy and it becomes much sadder! Kind of like life itself. Strip out all the happiness and it becomes sad. How can you be truly happy with the Twins 1991 World Championship. After all, they were outscored in the seven games!

    Note that the author is saying that even their happiest songs have blue notes and the specifically mentions Dancing Queen, which apparently is an example of a happy song, their happiest song!

    I maintain that this is a happy song. A few bars in a minor key makes the melody interesting. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

    1. Look at the photo in this link. It is a print by Jaime Penuel entitled NORTH DAKOTA 87 EXITS.

      The artist started at the Montana border and drove across the state, photographing each exit off of I94. Back then, the exits were numbers sequentially from 1-87, and not tied to mile markers. That's since changed. The last exit in ND (in Fargo) was numbered 87.

      I took a photography class from Mr. Penuel and I asked him about this project and he talked about how the exits are very close to the same and how he wanted to show this in a collage. There was hardly any difference in the 87 exits. We had a discussion about this for a while. He seemed to be flattered that I wanted to talk with him about it. Then I asked: why did you name it NORTH DAKOTA 87 EXITS when there are very clearly 88 exits? He said, what do you mean? I said, look at the pictures, there are 88 pictures. He looked at it. 88 pictures -- there was an exit 83A. He smiled at me and said that that was something for the viewer of the picture to think about. (In other words, he miscounted.)

      In another episode, we had a nude model come into class for photography. I turned in my pictures and Penuel was talking to me about how I alone in the class captured this sadness in the model. I can tell you that if that actually happened, it was an accident. She had an extremely bubbly personality and came off as quite happy. I just happened to click pictures that caught her in a different light, I guess. And perhaps the whole thing was an act. Maybe she was profoundly sad. But. that wasn't what I was trying to project with my below average pictures that were poorly developed.

      I know that I had conversations in my job as an engineer where I said something and someone else misinterpreted what I was trying to say and I realized that their idea was better than mine, so I said nothing and went with it, because win. I put something out there and someone else interpreted it in a way that made the idea a whole lot better. And hey, maybe that's the whole point of the exercise. But, I clearly never intended the idea to go where it went and Jamie Penuel clearly never meant anything by miscounting the exits -- he didn't even know he did it.

      You can see what you want in art or life, I suppose. But, I get the feeling that digging too deep is nothing more than individuals projecting their own view onto something. And that's fine. But, there comes a point where we are in danger of descending into the same type of rabbit hole that Chuck K. has been living in since about 1985.

      3. It's not unusual for people to hear things in sermons that I never intended to say, and that I sometimes don't understand how they heard. But as long as it's not reinforcing something bad, well, that's okay, too.

      5. Speak of the devil, this popped up on Facebook in a #tbt from the local SBGville newspaper. There I am with my with my siblings in 1979 and there's pre-rabbit hole Chuck to the right.

  3. 1. Lou Reed - "The Bed" - Berlin
    2. Lauryn Hill - "Doo Wop (That Thing)" - The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
    3. The Jayhawks - "Dying on the Vine" - Sound of Lies
    4. Wilco - "You Are My Face" - Sky Blue Sky
    5. Jenny Lewis - "It Wasn't Me" - Rabbit Fur Coat

    6. Del Amitri - "Hammering Heart" - Del Amitri
    7. A.A. Bondy - "False River" - When The Devil's Loose
    8. Soundgarden - "Somewhere" - Badmotorfinger
    9. Lake Street Dive - "Rabid Animal" - Bad Self Portraits
    10. Elle King - "Good To Be A Man" - The Elle King EP

  4. 1. Common People -- William Shatner -- Has Been
    2. Tourist U.F.O. -- Boston Spaceships -- Let It Beard
    3. Broken Chairs -- Built To Spill -- Live
    4. Left Of The Dial -- The Replacements -- Tim
    5. Ex-Lion Tamer -- Wire -- Pink Flag
    6. Wormhole -- Guided By Voices -- Do The Collapse
    7. Pictures Of Me -- Elliott Smith -- Either/Or
    8. Spookin' The Horses -- Fred Eaglesmith -- Ralph's Last Show
    9. Don't Stand At The Stove -- Bobby Bare Jr. -- Undefeated
    10. Ventura -- Lucinda Williams -- World Without Tears

    B1. I Am A Scientist -- Guided By Voices -- Bee Thousand
    B2. Surfin' Bird -- The Trashmen -- Big Hits Of Mid-America - The Soma Records Story

    Notes
    1. I love this song, Shatner just brings it
    3. 19 minutes of pure guitar bliss

  5. 01. Carcass - "Embodiment", Heartwork
    02. Blind Guardian - "Born in a Mourning Hall", Imaginations From the Other Side
    03. Iron Maiden - "Remember Tomorrow", Iron Maiden
    04. Candlemass - "At Gallows End", Nightfall
    05. Iron Maiden - "Public Enema Number One", No Prayer for the Dying
    06. Running Wild - "Poisoned Blood", Black Hand Inn
    07. Grave Digger - "Dolphin's Cry", Heart of Darkness
    08. The Sword - "The Chronomancer II: Nemesis", Warp Riders
    09. Crimson Glory - "Valhalla", Crimson Glory
    10. Carcass - "No Love Lost", Heartwork

    That all seems pretty happy to me.

  6.     a. Eastern Wood-Pewee “Twilight Song” (Cornell Master Set)
    1. Zola Jesus “Ego” Taiga
    2. A Winged Victory for the Sullen “Minuet for a Cheap Piano Number One” Atomos VII
    3. Eric Copeland “Muckaluk” Limbo
    4. Vauvauvau (Black Ships in Their Harbour) “Current 93” Black Ships Ate the Sky
        b. Purple Martin “Male Song” (Cornell Master Set)
    5. Johnny Cash “The Beast in Me” American Recordings

        c. Great Crested Flycatcher “Various Angry Calls” (Cornell Master Set)
        d. Great Crested Flycatcher “'Whee-eep', Twittering, and 'Breep' Calls” (Cornell Master Set)
    6. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy “No Bad News” The Letting Go
    7. Current 93/Bonnie 'Prince' Billy “Idumea”* Black Ships Ate the Sky
        e. Pine Warbler “Song” (Cornell Master Set)
        f. Yellow-bellied Sapsucker “Drum on Metal”* (Cornell Master Set)
    8. Plastikman “Outbak” Musik
    9. Neneh Cherry “Move with Me” Homebrew*
    T. Nine Inch Nails “Closer to God” Closer to God

    *Notes:
    7. For this album, David Tibet asked several artists to record themselves singing an 18th-century Wesleyan hymn. In addition to Oldham and Tibet, there are versions of this song by Marc Almond, Baby Dee, Antony, Clodagh Simonds, Pantaleimon, and Shirley Collins.
    f. Sorry, Cheaptoy, not your sort of thing.
    9. Sorry, Cheaptoy, still not your sort of thing.


  7. Huh, three Dylan covers. In honor of their upcoming appearance at Rock the Garden, I'll opt for Lucius doing something from Empire Burlesque.
    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYOfLLhuZJI

  8. * Colours Move - Fuck Buttons - Street Horrrsing
    * Aneurysm - Nirvana - With the Lights Out
    * Johnny Guitar - Frederic D. Oberland & Alice Lewis - Un Diable Sur Le Tympan - Live at St. Merry Church
    * Coda - EMA - Past Life Martyred Saints
    * From the Invisible to the Visible - Nadia Sirota - Baroque (S. Worden)
    * Song of Sarin, The Brave - The Body - All the Waters of the Earth Turn to Blood
    * Asilos Magdalena - The Mars Volta - Amputechture
    * Magic Medicine - Incubus - S.C.I.E.N.C.E.
    * Dvrk Wvrld - Speedy Ortiz - Foil Deer
    * Planting Seeds - Dredg - Catch Without Arms

  9. cc: Zack, Nibbish
    Have you guys listened to the new A$AP Rocky album? It's so good. There's a couple duds and a surprising amount of Danger Mouse production for the year 2015 but overall I think it's extremely [fire emoji]

    1. I listened this morning; I thought it was fine. I've been listening to To Pimp a Butterfly and Fishscale a lot lately, so my expectations are unrealistically high.

  10. Sebadoh at Triple Rock tomorrow. I'm also going to an event at Harriet Brewery a little earlier but I will be at Sebadoh in case anyone is interested.

    1. Dang, i thought that said Sabaton at Triple Rock tomorrow. Ah well, life AMR implied, not much is my sort of thing.

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