Go Here, Read This, Listen to That

Rare, Unavailable, and Hard to Find has video of World Party at a local Record Store Day event.

There are a couple of great Peter Yarrow (from Peter Paul & Mary) posts up at Echoes In the Wind (here and here).

And JB from The Hits Just Keep on Comin' eulogizes Donna Summer. As does Holly from The Song In My Head Today.

And finally, Barely Awake in Frog Pajamas talks indie record stores & mall girls.

Craigslist Ads And the New Wave Songs That Love Them #12

The World Makes Its Rotations

You were in Griffith Park, endlessly spinning around until you fell down.

I asked if you were okay an you smiled and said I should spin with you.

I couldn't because I was on medication.

But the medication is done. So I'm ready to spin.

Meet me in the same place. Sunday at noon.

East Side Story Squeezed Down

31 Years Ago

The original plan was for a sprawling double album that genre-hopped (in the same way the White Album had down 13 years earlier).

Each side would have a different producer: Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello, and Paul McCartney.

But the Edmunds and Lowe sessions each produced one track and Paul McCartney begged off to do his own album.

So Costello mostly produced the sprawling genre-hopping record that squoze down to the amazing single-record classic East Side Story.

Still, I can't help but wonder what might have happened if Squeeze and McCartney had actually gotten together -- especially since the press was tripping over itself to declare Difford & Tilbrook the new Lennon & McCartney.

Guess we'll never know.

So I'll have to be content with this:

The Late Great Mick Ronson

Some say Mick Ronson cowrote Bowie's best songs from his Ziggy Stardust heyday for some money and arrangement credits.

Here's Bowie with Ronson on Ronson's posthumous album Heaven or Hull:




Lots of people say Ian Hunter never could have hit the heights he hit without Ronson.

Here's Ronson and Hunter from 1975:



And here's Ronson from his 1975 album Play, Don't Worry:



Ronson also played on a John Cougar album and gave him the hook for "Jack and Diane."

But no one's perfect.

From the West Down To The East

Every Distance is Not Near

There's a steeple. It's hidden. She probably hasn't seen it.

But it's there. Up the hill. Behind the park.

Years ago there may have been a congregation. Weddings. Celebration.

Now, it's just a building. With a steeple.




The sun was blinding that day. She probably doesn't remember it.

But it was blinding.

And it reflected off the stained glass.

I saw it that day.




There was waiting.

In the lobby.

And there might have been tea.

And I didn't know why I was there.

There were other places to be. Other things to see.

And maybe in that way I was like the steeple.

Up the hill. With many other things going on. Maybe she didn't notice.

She may have been looking somewhere else. Or shielding her eyes from the sun.

Or drinking tea.




And the phone rang. Shrill. Interrupting.

There may have been flowers that day.

I don't quite remember.

I may have to go back up the hill. And ask the steeple.

You Were Standing with A Bootleg In Your Hand

What in the world is he on about anyway?

Here's the essential, existential problem with Paul McCartney:

He can be so effortlessly brilliant that it seems like he's not even trying.

Or he can be so annoyingly sloppy that he seems like the worst kind of hack (albeit a hack with the most amazing sense of melody you've ever encountered).

For example:

When I met you at the station, you were standing with a bootleg in your hand...

Maybe the problem isn't getting Hi-Hi-Hi, it's that you were already Hi-Hi-Hi when you wrote this.

Sweet Banana.




Or should I call you "My Salamander."

Which, incidentally, doesn't rhyme with "oh no, don't answer."



Just saying.

I Sing The Weirdo Electric

Nobody's Business But the Turks

Standing at the corner of Cool and Bizarre, waiting for a busload of hipsters.

The toned and the tony stand under a bus shelter. Not because it's raining. Not because it's hot.

But because it is there. And ultimately that might be the only reason anything gets done in this world. The rest is an excuse, an attempt to funnel irrational behavior in a bacon-rasher's worth of meaning.




But confronted with the truly random, we rebel.

We want order. Crave it. Pine for it.

So we tell ourselves. We shout to ourselves even when we're not listening:

There must be a reason.

When we find it, we'll be sure to report back to you.