Instant Amnesia

Yang to the Yin

There's something about this song.

It always seemed half-finished to me -- incredibly catchy, but not quite coherent. Not quite all there.

Like the difference between a great song and a classic song.

And whenever I find myself thinking things like this, I wonder if I'm asking too much.

If this song came from anyone else, I'd be thrilled. I'd remember it fondly and tell you a story about a girl who loved the song.

But the bar is higher for some musicians.

And that's not fair -- I know that.

We shouldn't judge someone harshly because they caught lightning in a bottle more than once and created true classics that will last for generations.

Maybe we should just concentrate on the feeling and try to capture the zen essence of things, letting the rest of it just blow away.



And yes, if you've been watching, there has been a new post up on this blog every single day in May -- plus a bonus of 2 posts on the 21st. There's no particular reason for this -- I just wanted to post more frequently this month and gave myself a challenge of putting up a new post every day.

Thanks for hanging out.

Yep Roc

Lots of cool things happening in Yep Roc land

Yep Roc, one of the coolest record labels that still exists, is throwing itself a 15th anniversary party with concerts and special events October 11-13 in Carrboro, NC.

Concerts will be held over three nights at the Cat's Cradle featuring Yep Roc artists like Robyn Hitchcock, Fountains of Wayne, Dave Alvin, John Doe, Nick Lowe, the Sadies, and John Wesley Harding.

In addition, the label is giving away free unreleased music from its vaults every month between now and October.

How cool is that?

For more info, click here.


The first free Yep Roc giveaway is from Robyn Hitchcock, a beautiful song called "There Goes the Ice" that you can download for free here.



Robyn's description of the track:

"There Goes The Ice" was written in October 2008 off the coast of Greenland on board the Grigor Mikheev, the Russian ship chartered by Cape Farewell to take a collection of artists and scientists up to Disko Bay where we visited a region of the imperilled Arctic. The photographer Chris Wainwright, had just filmed me spelling out Here Comes The Sun in semaphore, silhouetted on deck against the sunset. Surrounded as we were by icebergs 'calved' from the rapidly melting Arctic ice-cap, I found myself writing There Goes The Ice as a mournful echo of George Harrison's song.

I took the song fresh to KT Tunstall and her husband Luke Bullen in the cabin next door: KT obligingly sang harmony and Luke recorded us. Back in England the following June, Luke recorded KT and I performing this version, in their tent. KT also plays guitar on this and appears here courtesy of EMI/Virgin records.

Run Run Run Run Away

Because, really, what's more punk rock than a tuba?

Presented for your approval, as they used to say in the Twilight Zone, via "Pittsburgh's finest ukulele/tuba band. With dancers, too. And an accordion. And a saxophone. And a banjo."

Live from Triceratops Park

Cult Figures

Sometimes you discover a band or a singer that just speaks to you.

And that singer or band has a strong cult following.

But seems on the verge of breaking through.

And you think for years it's about to happen.

Meanwhile, if you're lucky, the singer or band, releases a shit-ton of amazing music. (And if you're unlucky, the singer or band flames out.)

Robyn Hitchcock should be a superstar.

He's been putting out fantastic records for more than 30 years.

For a lot of that time, it seemed like he was weeks (months at most) from being a superstar.

But it hasn't happened. Not yet anyway.

And at this point it seems unlikely.

Which sucks. But at least we have 30-plus years of great music. And, in this universe, that might have to be enough.


Robyn Hitchcock from the unaired Jon Brion Show pilot:




And Robyn Hitchcock & Grant Lee Phillips covering "Across the Universe" (audio only):

Sallright

Don't Need a Watch To Waste Your Time

This is the beauty of the internet.

Just when you think you've seen everything -- or at least you've seen everything from 35-plus years ago, you stumble across something old/new.

So here's a video (which I'd never seen before today) that animates some John Lennon drawings (yes, including the copulating rabbits) to his 1974 single "Whatever Gets You Through the Night" (with the fantastic saxophone work of the great Bobby Keys):



By the way, is it just me or does the theme from Saturday Night Live want to be this song (or at least the sax parts of this song) when it grows up?


And speaking of "official" videos I'd never seen before today, here's one for "Slippin' and Sliding" from the Rock 'n' Roll album, which came out in 1975:

I Believe I'm Gonna Rain

Haven't Done A Bloody Thing All Day

The sleepy/druggy music fits in well with the sleepy/druggy video, which gives up about halfway through in favor of a bunch of still pictures.

This is kind of like the little brother of the Abbey Road medley -- great on its own, but always worried it's just a shadow of what might have been.

Gotta Keep My Head Down Low

My foolish error was to care too much...

The delusional girl made a record.

Years ago, that would have been amazing. It would have required hundreds of thousands of dollars, hiring studios, paying musicians.

Now, you can do it with a laptop. And a few hundred bucks of hardware and software.

These days, essentially, anyone can make a record.

So she did.

But then she thought the world owed her something. Even though her songs sucked. Even though her singing was horrible.

But she looked good.

And she'd seen the shows on TV. And she thought that she was better than some of the people on those shows. (Not even better than all of them, just better than some.)

No one would listen.

So she signed up for something online. Paid a lot of money. Got someone allegedly in the music industry to listen to what she'd recorded.

And they sent back word to her: Can you even hear how bad this record is? Because it's just horrible. Erase it from your hard drive. Destroy all copies.

She blamed them. They couldn't hear her genius.

So she stalked the people who'd listened. She threatened them. She pulled a knife.

And one of them laughed. "Go ahead and stab me," he said. "Your music still sucks."

Shocked, she dropped the knife. And started to cry.

And ran away.