In progress: Royce Lewis makes his major league debut.
All posts by CarterHayes
Nate Mercereau – Start With You (Duet with the Golden Gate Bridge)
Nate Mercereau has played sessions with Jay-Z, but I think this one-ups his list of famous collaborators.
The sounds Bay Area residents have described as nuisance noise equivalent to sonic torture are produced by the a new set of railing slats installed on the Golden Gate to retrofit it to withstand sustained winds above 70 mph. The sounds struck Mercereau differently, as Nature itself playing “the largest wind instrument in the world.” Adding an interesting natural wrinkle to a musical controversy, the Golden Gate often sounds an A440 (Hz) concert pitch.
Armed with field recorders, Mercereau & a couple friends captured the sounds from the Marin Highlands, which make up the other half of his album Duets | Golden Gate Bridge. The song performed in this video is a track from Mercereau’s other 2021 album, Sundays.
In response to complaints, the Golden Gate Bridge District is developing engineering adjustments to silence the bridge.
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Loading... Dhafer Youssef – Delightfully Odd
Youssef’s grandfather was a muezzin in his native Tunisia, and that influence is a strong draw for me. For a couple of months, once upon a time, I would end my twelve hour night watches with one last Sumer, savored as the muezzin announced the adhan for Fajr about 75 meters away. Those were some of the most peaceful moments I’ve known.
Youssef’s vocals are incredible — the finesse of his phrasing, the extreme upper falsetto and how cleanly he accesses it, the warmth of his lower range.
Here he’s joined by a knockout trio of future legends — Matt Brewer on bass, Ferenc Nemeth on the kit, & Aaron Parks on the keys.
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Loading... Ibrahim Maalouf – Una Rosa Blanca
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Loading... Dizzy Gillespie – Salt Peanuts
https://youtu.be/TvIXzeDLpMw
I’ve been introducing the Poissonnière to the greats. This is one of her favorite videos.
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Loading... Yissy García & Bandancha – Arollando
I first learned of Yissy García while reading Nate Chinen’s excellent Playing Changes: Jazz for the New Century, and after an initial listen it was immediately clear I had some catching up to do. Her drumming is incredible.
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Loading... Chicago – Make Me Smile
Jimi Hendrix allegedly told Chicago sax player Walter Parazaider, “Your guitar player is better than me.” In addition to being one of Jimi’s favorites, Terry Kath could sing a little bit, too. This video appears to be from the band’s performance at Tanglewood ‘70.
Kath is a figure in a bit of local lore: On 10 December 1967, Otis Redding was set to play a show in the People’s Republic, at a downtown venue called The Factory. He never made it. Out on the Far East Side, a band formerly called “The Big Thing” was booked at a nightclub. Concertgoers who had intended to see Otis & the Bar-Kays instead turned up to hear this band, which had recently renamed itself “Chicago Transit Authority.”
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Loading... Khun Narin – Chackim
I first encountered Khun Narin in 2016, when I somehow happened upon their just-released second album. They haven’t released anything in the US market since, which is a shame. Maybe it’s because they’re a live act (both albums were recorded at outdoor performances), maybe they prefer to play for their national audience, or maybe it’s because they are pigeonholed by the music industry’s expectations & marketing.
If you haven’t dipped into Thai rock before, you’re missing out on some funky, hooky, psychedelic tunes. As with the desert blues blowing out of Northern Africa, some of today’s best rock music is made with a blend of folk traditions & instruments, sung in languages other than English, for multi-ethnic national audiences. It’d be fun to do an international rock week sometime.
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2021–2022 Offseason Wishlist
The World Series is over. Teams have extended qualifying offers to their upcoming free agents, who must determine whether to accept a one-year, $18.4 million contract and remain with their most recent club, or to decline and seek other opportunities on the open market. The deadline for those decisions is Wednesday, 17 November.
The Twins have a lot of work to do to turn around a disastrous year in which they plummeted down the elevator shaft from roof to basement, traded away key players, and Let (Some of) the Kids Play (Until Some of the Kids Got Hurt). Rather than celebrating the 30th anniversary of the 1991 World Series Champions with a deep run into the postseason, the Twins are in the position to ponder the success of the Twins’ front office over the 1990–1991 offseason. Will the current front office attempt a similar worst-to-first turnaround, or do they see a return to sustainable contention taking a season (or more) to develop? The futures of several key Twins regulars are up in the air until their approach becomes clear.
We’ll know their answer in due time. For now, we can posit our own.
A few handy, non-paywalled reference materials:
- Twins Depth Chart [FanGraphs]
- Twins Payroll [FanGraphs]
- How Can The Twins Rebound From A Disastrous 2021 Season? [MLB Trade Rumors]
- 2021–2022 MLB Free Agent List [MLB Trade Rumors]
- Top 50 Free Agents [FanGraphs]
- 2021–22 Top 50 Free Agents with Predictions [MLB Trade Rumors]
- Early Qualifying Offer Decisions [MLB Trade Rumors]
- Which Draft Picks Each Team Would Forfeit by Signing a Qualified Free Agent [MLB Trade Rumors]
- Free Agent Tracker [FanGraphs]
- Trade Simulator [Baseball Trade Values]
Rodrigo y Gabriela – Mettavolution
It seems like “shred” usually applies to performances on electric guitars, but I’m not sure there’s a better verb to describe the way these two draw music out of their acoustics.
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