Think it's DK's turn, but whatever. Let's turn back the clock a little and shake you out of your Memorial Day hangover.
20 May 2018
(3 votes, average: 8.67 out of 10)
Loading... At least four guys from my unit are gone. The youngest two were killed in Iraq. The older two died after getting out of the Marines, but are casualties of our generation's war nonetheless; I don't think they ever found their ways home. They were good Marines, which means they weren't angels. They had tough times reconciling their experiences in the war with their lives after the war. The first, my one-time squad leader, was beaten to death in a parking lot by four men for saying something he shouldn't have said while intoxicated at a party. He left behind a young son. The second, a guy from my section, died alone & without benefits. Some of us made sure he was put to rest with dignity.
Neither of them will be counted in the war's official death toll, or have their name carved in stone for the ages. Every war creates its lost ones. We need to bring them all home.
(5 votes, average: 10.00 out of 10)Loading... At 88 years old, Staton's voice was even more perfect for this tune than when he sung it for Paris, Texas in 1984. The look on Harper Simon's face in the last couple bars gets me every time.
If you haven't picked up Partly Fiction, Stanton's 2014 album, you should. His covers of "She Thinks I Still Care" and "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" will blow you away. He doesn't steal them from George or Willie, but wears them like cracked old leather jacket he can't bear to part with.
(4 votes, average: 8.75 out of 10)Loading... Hiromi is one heckuva pianist, with a long playing & recording career yet ahead of her. That's MFSB alum & legendary session man Anthony Jackson on the six-string contrabass (his invention) and ex-Judas Priest drummer Simon Phillips on the skins.
(2 votes, average: 8.50 out of 10)Loading... A prolific group (established in 1970, still recording & touring) that I'm surprised hasn't been featured here before. This was recorded in late 2007.
Move your feet!
(2 votes, average: 10.00 out of 10)Loading... I somehow had overlooked Eick until he released Midwest, a meditation on Norwegian immigration to America, in 2015. Eick's visit to the upper Midwest inspired him to create a "road" album that begins in his home village, Hem, and travels to North Dakota, carrying Norwegian cultural sensibilities into an interplay with the American landscape. It was one of my favorite albums of the year.
This tune's from his album previous to Midwest.
(2 votes, average: 9.00 out of 10)Loading... Bombino, perhaps the Hendrix of the new century, recording in a van down meat's way.
(2 votes, average: 8.50 out of 10)Loading... Never mind the plumber crack, I want to swim inside Lanois' PA while he's playing this. I can't believe it, but I think this is his WGOM debut.
(3 votes, average: 9.00 out of 10)Loading... I keep my eyes on Shabaka Hutchings' many collaborations. In addition to this band, he also currently records & performs with his "Afro-Futurist" band Shabaka & the Ancestors, Afro-Carribean jazz supergroup Sons of Kemet, and the jazz-punk sextet Melt Yourself Down. Oh, and he's also recorded with Mulatu Astatke and the Sun Ra Arkestra. This video's misnamed; the track is actually "Journey Through the Asteroid Belt."
(3 votes, average: 8.67 out of 10)Loading...
1981
(5 votes, average: 8.60 out of 10)Loading...