Heaven – Los Lonely Boys
Heard 8/10/2017 around 5:45 at Habit Burger (Rockville)
Friday, August 11, 2017
Wednesday, August 9, 2017
Glen Campbell
The once-ubiquitous Glen Campbell may not have been the hippest musical
figure of his time, but he did do some really good stuff, particularly his take
on Jimmy Webb tunes.
Favorite songs:
Wichita Lineman
By The Time I Get To Phoenix
Galveston
Southern Nights (OK, basically because it’s in Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2)
The Congressional Map Has A Record-Setting Bias Against Democrats
WARNING: Contents may cause severe depression among committed
Democrats.
Who’s worse for the nation — Trump or Pence?
Richard Cohen’s take. A partial excerpt: “Trump is a child — undisciplined, capricious
and self-involved. Pence is none of those things. Trump knows nothing. Pence
knows better.”
Wednesday, August 2, 2017
Serendipity #69
Holding On For Life – Broken Bells
Heard 8/2/2017 around 5:30 at Chipotle (Fallsgrove)
2017 XPoNential Music Festival, July 28-30, Wiggins Park (Camden NJ)
General – skipped Friday for a variety of reasons (absence of anyone I
really wanted to see, ominous weather forecast that caused the organizers to
completely abandon the River Stage, etc.) … Saturday was mostly cloudy and
cool, but wound up with only a few minutes of light rain around 3:00 … Sunday
was sunny and much warmer, but with some breeze … Cosmic was there as usual
with wraps, as was the BBQ place that had jambalaya … parking was billed as “extremely
limited”: didn’t have the big lots just south of the bridge, but lots on
Federal Street were actually closer and had plenty of spaces when I arrived at
10:30, an hour before the gates opened
Saturday highlights
Preservation Hall Jazz Band – with no thunderstorm to cut things short
this year, the band put on an amazing show, featuring the Latin-flavored self-written
tracks “Santiago” and “La Malanga”
Rhiannon Giddens – hard to put her in a box; shows up most prominently
on Amazon under “Traditional Folk”, but with plenty of spiritual, blues, and
Creole thrown in … best songs were “We Could Fly”, “Get It Right The First Time”,
“Freedom Highway”
Sunday highlights
David Bromberg Quintet – I didn’t know exactly what to expect from 70s
icon David Bromberg and his 5 bandmates, but they did a great set; the crowd in
front of the stage refused to leave until they came back from an encore.
Folk-tinged blues (or maybe blues-tinged folk?) with exceptional musicianship
and a lot of hilarity throughout – their performance of “Sharon” was one or two
orders of magnitude beter than the studio recording, which is worth listening
to in and of itself.
The Record Company – No one around today rocks any harder than these
three guys, which they proved for the second year in a row. Guitarist and lead
vocalist Chris Vos first tossed his guitar pick into the standees (I wasn’t
quite quick enough to snag it), and followed up later by tossing one of his
harmonicas to a 7-year-old (?) kid wearing a red Record Company T-shirt, but
the music was more than enough to satisfy, starting with “Broken” (their latest
single), with other highlights being “Rita Mae Young” and “Off The Ground”. As
with Bromberg, the crowd demanded (and got) an encore.
Also worth mentioning – opening two sets by local favorites No Good Sister (country) and Hardwork Movement (hip-hop), Sweet Spirit (really rocked,
although I’m still not a big fan of “The Power”), Marina Stage set by Joseph
Friday, July 28, 2017
July 26, 2017 – Nats 8, Brewers 5 – Nationals Park
Attendance: 35,296
Game Time: 2:58
Weather: 84 degrees, partly cloudy
Wind: 8 mph
Umpires: Home Plate - Chris Segal, First Base - Mike Everitt, Second
Base - Jordan Baker, Third Base - Bruce Dreckman
Notes – Brewers jumped on top in the first on a monster HR by Domingo
Santana and a second run when Travis Shaw doubled, stole third with no
resistance and scored when Wieters couldn’t corral a third strike … Gio blanked
Milwaukee for the next 6 innings, fanning 8 and allowing only 3 more hits and 1
walk … after being shut out Tuesday night, the Nats continued their offensive
futility for most of the game against Jimmy Nelson, who fanned 10 … Murphy
finally broke the spell with a seventh-inning homer … Nelson was pulled after
walking Wieters to lead off the 8th, and the Nats tied things up on
a Goodwin double and Difo single … with 2 outs, Zimmerman gave the Nats the
lead on a 2-run double, although Difo fell on the way home and barely managed
to get there safely … after an intentional walk to Murphy, Nats extended their
lead on run-scoring hits by Rendon, Lind, and Pedro Severino … in the middle of
everything, Harper struck out, threw a temper tantrum and was ejected for the
10th time in his career and the 4th in the past two
seasons … Brewers made things a little interesting in the 9th, as
Doolittle yielded a walk, homer, single, and double before finally getting the
final two outs
Other – another long, slow drive to the park (about an hour and
three-quarters), with a circuitous route to our usual parking area as the
southern section of Half Street SW is now closed due to construction work on
the new stadium for DC United
Monday, July 24, 2017
#154 Girlfriend – Matthew Sweet (1991)
The quote
from the CD packaging – “Don’t be afraid to play it loud!” – couldn’t be more
appropriate, at least when applied to the title track from Sweet’s 1991 album.
The song itself and Sweet’s vocals are great, but what really makes the track
is the searing guitar work by the late (and largely unknown) Robert Quine. If
you ever feel like entering an air-guitar competition, you couldn’t go wrong
with this.
#153 Dark Necessities – Red Hot Chili Peppers (2016)
Intro that
gradually builds for 40 seconds. That bass line. Ominous lyrics. Best song in
the Chili Peppers’ 30+ year career.
Yes, despite
rumors to the contrary, rock and roll is still alive and well.
#152 Train In The Distance – Paul Simon (1983)
In
commercial terms, 1983’s Hearts and Bones
album is one of Simon’s least successful, both in terms of its own sales and
its failure to produce a Top 40 single. It did produce my two favorite Paul
Simon songs of all time: the title cut and “Train in the Distance”. I avoided
choosing between them for a long time, and even then it was basically a coin
flip. Simon apparently liked them as well, as he included both in his 1988
collection Negotiations and Love Songs
(whose title is taken from the lyrics of “Train in the Distance”).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)