Post columnist Dave Sheinin thoroughly demolishes one of the worst
proposed baseball rule changes ever. (They will actually be trying this out in
the low minor leagues this year: what is Joe Torre thinking?)
Friday, February 10, 2017
Saturday, February 4, 2017
Tuesday, January 31, 2017
#136 The Edge Of The World – Sonia Dada (1992)
I bought
Sonia Dada’s self-titled debut CD (used, for $2.99) based on their catchy (if
ungrammatical) ditty “You Don’t Treat Me No Good”, which got quite a bit of
airplay on WHFS and was revived in 2010 by Jerrod Niemann. Retitled “Lover,
Lover”, the surprisingly faithful cover went to #1 on Billboard’s country
charts. The original actually hit #1 in Australia, where the band had
considerably more success than in the U.S.
“The Edge Of
The World” is even better, a fantastic soul ballad that really should be
revived, although I doubt that anyone else could come up with a version that’s
better than the original.
My copy of
the CD lists “Daniel Laszlo” as the songwriter for both tracks – he’s actually
the writer or co-writer of all 12 tracks – and as a member of the band. The
band’s Wikipedia page and official web site, however, list “Daniel Pritzker” as
the band’s co-founder and primary songwriter, with no reference to “Laszlo”. I
did track down a couple of websites that indicated that Pritzker used Laszlo as
an alias, at least at the beginning of the band’s career. None provided any
explanation, but my theory is that Pritzker felt that his status as an heir to
the Hyatt hotel chain might have damaged his rock cred. (As of the date of this
posting, Forbes listed his net worth at $2.1 billion.)
#135 Ain’t That Enough – Teenage Fanclub (1997)
For some
reason, I completely missed out on this band originally; I’m not sure whether
WHFS didn’t play their stuff, or whether it just went right
past me. Regardless, I didn’t become aware of them until I bought Nick Hornby’s
excellent essay collection Songbook,
which devotes one chapter to this song and another to the also-worthwhile “Your
Love Is The Place Where I Come From,” both of which are from their classic
album Songs From Northern Britain.
(Full disclosure: I couldn’t pass up the book after seeing that Chapter 2
featured “Thunder Road”.)
I couldn’t
possibly improve on Hornby’s description: “a three-minute blast of Byrdsian
pop, packed with sunshine and hooks and harmonies and goodwill.” In other
words, although the book came out over 13 years ago and the album is from 1997,
it’s a perfect ray of hope for the times we currently live in. (For more, pick
up the band’s fantastic album Here from
last year.)
Serendipity #66
Glad -- Traffic
This Is The Day – The The
Heard 1/30/2017 around 6:00pm, at Potbelly (downtown Rockville)
Saturday, January 28, 2017
Monday, January 23, 2017
Could Trump’s ‘alternative facts’ put lives at risk?
A sobering look at the possible consequences if we ever had a President who
was a pathological liar. Not that this could ever happen, of course.
Friday, January 20, 2017
Oddest musical note of 2017 (so far)
From a story in this morning’s Washington Post about Thursday’s
pre-inaugural events:
As Trump and his wife, Melania, descended the monument’s steps at
sunset, the president-elect saluted the marble statue of President Abraham
Lincoln, flashed a tight smile and pumped his fist in the air to the roar of
the crowd and the Rolling Stones’ “Heart of Stone” playing from the speakers.
Lyle Lovett & John Hiatt, Music Center at Strathmore, 1/19/2017
Orchestra Center, Row E, Seat 101 – great location, 5 rows back, on the
right-hand aisle
I see Lyle Lovett with his Large Band nearly every year at Wolf Trap. I’ve
also seen John Hiatt a few times, both with a band and solo, although not for
quite a few years. Seeing the two of them on stage together, with just their
guitars and Hiatt’s harmonica, swapping songs and stories for 2½ hours, was a
completely different experience, and definitely worth the cost of admission.
Hiatt’s setlist – the two of them alternated throughout the evening –
was heavy on geography, as his first three songs were “Drive South” (which
opened the show), “Adios To California”, and “Detroit Made”, and he addded “Memphis
In The Meantime” and “Tennessee Plates” later in the show. Lyle kept the feeling
going by starting with “North Dakota” and adding “Up In Indiana” later. While
Hiatt stuck strictly to his own compositions throughout, Lovett was a little
more eclectic, covering tunes by Eric Taylor, Guy Clark (the wonderful “Step
Inside This House”), and Michael Franks. The latter, “White Boy Lost In The
Blues”, was one of the show’s highlights, featuring Hiatt blowing a pretty mean
harmonica, and preceded by a discussion of blues greats like B.B. King and John
Lee Hooker whom one or the other of them had opened for over the years. Other
high points included Hiatt adding some guitar licks to Lovett’s “She’s No Lady”,
and the two of them trading verses on Hiatt’s “Thing Called Love” (followed by
a great story involving Lovett, Bonnie Raitt, and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott).
The encores were Hiatt’s heartfelt version of “Have A Little Faith In
Me” and the two of them performing Lyle’s “My Baby Don’t Tolerate”. Just before
that, the main set had ended with “If I Had A Boat” (my personal Lovett favorite), “Crossing Muddy Waters”, and a touching ballad by Lyle that I couldn’t
recall ever hearing before. I did remember enough of the lyrics to Google it
this morning, and discovered that “Simple Song” was from his Pontiac album, which I had owned for
years. Obviously I haven’t listened to the CD in far too long, a situation I
plan to fix later today.
Monday, January 9, 2017
Stop Saying Trump’s Win Had Nothing To Do With Economics
This is yet another article that should be of interest to those who
just can’t understand how anybody could possibly have voted for DJT. (Hint: it’s
less “economic hardship” and more “economic anxiety”.)
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