( Eigengeist )

When we first got our cats (almost a year ago now), they were initially fascinated any time I got out my guitar and played it: they'd stare intently at me and sometimes approach me warily as if torn between curiosity and fear. The novelty wore off soon enough, though, and now they either ignore it, or they leave the room, which is hopefully more ( Read more... )

How could I forget the literal English surname of "Finch", as in Carl Finch, founder of Brave Combo? This weekend we watched the odd but charming movie True Stories, which was sort of a mockumentary from the Eighties by The Talking Heads about a town in Texas. Now, only a few months ago, I'd read in Carl Finch's monthly newsletter that he'd hung ( Read more... )

On our way to work this morning, Kendell and I stopped at a Kinko's-like shop to scan some documents. The store's owner was an outgoing older guy with a '70s copstash, who was listening to '70s music and singing along from time to time. A song came on that sounded to me really groovy yet contemporary -- black guy on acoustic guitar -- and I asked ( Read more... )

Saw this randomly on PBS the other night. It's like "We Are the World", but for MLK Day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGKW3O6EpMo

I'd be lying if I said I recognized all, or even most, of the old-school folks in this video. But I enjoyed the haircuts.

Why is it that TV stations always air The Sound of Music during Christmastide? What, exactly, is so Christmassy about the movie? As far as I recall, nothing in the movie takes place during Christmas ( Read more... )

As a postscript to this entry, I'll add another solecism from the Swedes that should have occurred to me before: "Dancing Queen" has the clunky lyric of "Night is young and the music's high ( Read more... )

The weekend before last, I went to my friend Jason's bachelor party, which happened to be in his hometown of Swanzey, NH. Highlights included hiking up nearby Mount Monadnock and petting the goats at his family farm ( Read more... )

Some of the coolest buskers I've seen in New York are the swing revival groups, one such being The Blue Vipers of Brooklyn (mentioned here and here). A little while ago, I saw a similar group in Union Square: a singer/guitarist, a clarinetist, a trumpeter, and a trombonist ( Read more... )

Once, when I was 16 or so, and my only device for playing music was still a Walkman, I had just gotten into The Beatles, starting with Sgt. Pepper, and had just moved on to Abbey RoadI came home with the newly purchased cassette, popped it in, and listened all the way through Side One, only to find "She's So Heavy" ended abruptly in the middle of ( Read more... )