All posts by CarterHayes

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Nate Mercereau – Start With You (Duet with the Golden Gate Bridge)

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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.

3 votes, average: 8.00 out of 103 votes, average: 8.00 out of 103 votes, average: 8.00 out of 103 votes, average: 8.00 out of 103 votes, average: 8.00 out of 103 votes, average: 8.00 out of 103 votes, average: 8.00 out of 103 votes, average: 8.00 out of 103 votes, average: 8.00 out of 103 votes, average: 8.00 out of 10 (3 votes, average: 8.00 out of 10)
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Dhafer Youssef – Delightfully Odd

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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.

3 votes, average: 9.00 out of 103 votes, average: 9.00 out of 103 votes, average: 9.00 out of 103 votes, average: 9.00 out of 103 votes, average: 9.00 out of 103 votes, average: 9.00 out of 103 votes, average: 9.00 out of 103 votes, average: 9.00 out of 103 votes, average: 9.00 out of 103 votes, average: 9.00 out of 10 (3 votes, average: 9.00 out of 10)
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Chicago – Make Me Smile

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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.”

4 votes, average: 9.50 out of 104 votes, average: 9.50 out of 104 votes, average: 9.50 out of 104 votes, average: 9.50 out of 104 votes, average: 9.50 out of 104 votes, average: 9.50 out of 104 votes, average: 9.50 out of 104 votes, average: 9.50 out of 104 votes, average: 9.50 out of 104 votes, average: 9.50 out of 10 (4 votes, average: 9.50 out of 10)
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Khun Narin – Chackim

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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.

2 votes, average: 8.50 out of 102 votes, average: 8.50 out of 102 votes, average: 8.50 out of 102 votes, average: 8.50 out of 102 votes, average: 8.50 out of 102 votes, average: 8.50 out of 102 votes, average: 8.50 out of 102 votes, average: 8.50 out of 102 votes, average: 8.50 out of 102 votes, average: 8.50 out of 10 (2 votes, average: 8.50 out of 10)
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Minnesota Twins, MLB

2021–2022 Offseason Wishlist

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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:

MLB

2021 CBA Wishlist

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The Collective Bargaining Agreement that governs the relationship between Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association expires at 11:59 p.m. on 01 December 2021. If a new agreement is not in place, the thirty owners can break a labor peace that has existed since 1995 and lock out the players. MLB owners locking out the people most responsible for creating public demand for the league’s entertainment product would match recent trends in other North American pro sports leagues’ negotiations with player unions, including the 2012–13 NHL lockout, 2011 NBA lockout, 2011 NFL lockout, 2004-05 NHL lockout, and 1998-99 NBA lockout.

The consensus assessment of the 2016 CBA seems to be one that turned out heavily skewed in favor of the interests of owners, one in which the MLBPA was out-negotiated, due in part to untimely death of executive director Michael Weiner. Consequently, MLBPA has hired a new lead attorney, Bruce Meyer (formerly of the NHL Players’ Association), to assist Weiner’s successor Tony Clark and sweat the fine details. The owners are represented by a labor issues committee chaired by Dick Montfort, the Rockies’ owner who makes fans of his team yearn for competence rivaling the late Brezhnev/Andropov/Chernenko era Soviet leadership. Meanwhile, Commissioner of Baseball Rob Manfred has been at turns viewed by players (and fans) as adversarial, avaricious, dismissive, meddlesome, & neglectful. Manfred has been involved on MLB’s side of labor issues since the 1980s; his legal team is headed by MLB COO Dan Halem, lead negotiator of the 2016 CBA.

Let’s say you were the Baseball Ombuds — some hypothetical job with the distinct charge to do what you view is in the best interest of baseball. The CBA governs the sport’s economics, labor issues, and rules, including when and under what conditions new rules can be imposed. Of course, negotiations involve parties making concessions to reach an agreement that can be durable for a number of years, but let’s give ourselves the freedom to dream of a CBA that governs the 2022–2026 seasons.

What changes or additions would you like to see to the next CBA that balance the needs and interests of fans, players, and owners, and which create the conditions for an appealing on-field product with a sustainable business model? What needs fixing, and how do you propose fixing it?