Truth Like The Dark

Lyrics from this ad version of the Violent Femmes‘ classic “Blister in the Sun”:

When I’m a walkin’
I strut my stuff
And I’m so hung out
I fly like a kite
I just might
stop to check you out

That’s a freaking crime. I won’t be drinking a milliliter of Foster’s anytime soon, that’s for sure.

I’d move there. Seriously, she is a artistic genius, so beautiful inside and out. And look, she was beautiful even before she was Joni Mitchell:

Just finished Daniel J. Levitin’s This is Your Brain On Music. Strongly recommended for both music lovers and scientists (and particularly those interested in brains and AI). There are lots of things in the book I disagreed with, and I think it could have had a better ending, but the writing is great, and it’s pitched at a good level for a general audience. The frequent use of music references from many genres were particularly good. As the book articulated neurally: music is evocative, and tying these ideas to tunes you know really gives them impact.

I just stepped into Wolfgang’s Vault. It’s the truly amazing collection of rock poster’s, t-shirts, other art items, and most importantly, concert recordings, collected by the legendary Bill Graham productions of San Francisco. My god.

I heard about this on NPR, but here’s a Wall Street Journal article on how the new owner of this material bought the collection for a relative song ($5 million) from those mega-assholes Clear Channel, before either of them realized it contains what might be the most important audio archive of popular music history in existence.

Now Wolfgang’s Vault is on the web, and you can download the concert material. And as a bonus, the new owner is providing much better royalties to the original artists than their record companies give them. Makes up (a little) for how these artists were generally screwed by the music industry over the years.

Rock On, Wolfgang!

In a slightly less serious musical friend vein, check this:

I was consulted on the design of the vacuum cleaner based robot in said video. In the sense that Steve Aruni (whose real last name I know) called me and asked “how do I build a music playing robot”, and I told him “fuck if I know”.

Steve Aruni performs in London’s Tubular Transport venues with said robot. I like the boys new stuff. Check out “I never knew…” (NSFW) on his site.

James A. Floyd (the younger, largely-non-psychopathic one) is my oldest friend and former songwriting partner (listen to our marginal work of yesterday with Crop Circles). He’s re-used the name of one of our most ancient bands together for a fine new musical adventure.

The Billy Sunday Band (named for the baseball hero cum fire-and-brimstone preacher) has a new song “To Be Strong” that has appeared on old Neil Young’s Living With War Today website.

Give it a listen, especially if you fancy the sort of stuff I often post here.

Listen here.

Friday night:
1) Freud (gallery/bar in a grotty basement that makes fantastic cocktails)
2) Mon Plaseur (oldest existing French restaurant in London)
3) Saw the completely inexplicable Tiger Lillies:

4) Went to faux goth bar Garlic & Shots, and tormented others with, well, shots with garlic.

Great night out.

I’ve loved the song forever, but I just saw the fabulous video for the first time today:

Via: VideoSift

I don’t know what’s better about Leonard Cohen: how cool he is, or how cool he makes you feel for knowing about him.

This is an amazing bluegrass version of a great Richard Thompson song, rendered by Del McCoury and his sons. If you don’t like this, I don’t know what the hell to do with you.