Friday, March 11, 2005

 

Friday shuffle

Can't ... resist ... peer ... pressure. Must ... post ... random playlist on Fridays. Two reasons: I like music. You probably do, too. Maybe there's music you like that I would like, and vice versa. (Okay, that's more like three or four reasons, if you count technically.)

My MP3 player has two main folders: "Jazz" and "Not Jazz." (Is there anything else?) The latter is the only one my wife will listen to. (What can I say? Opposites attract.) So whether you get a jazz list or a non-jazz list will largely depend on whether she's home. (Of course for that reason I prefer the latter).

I'm adding my own emergent feature to this meme. At the bottom of the playlist, I might include some "Stream O' Consciousness" associations inspired by these songs. I associate music very intimately with periods of my life. Last week, I was reading through some of Ralph Waldo Emerson's journals and ran across this, from Journal O (1846): "I should say of the memorable moments of my life that I was in them & not they in me. I found myself by happy fortune in an illuminated portion or meteorous zone, & passed out of it again." I often feel that way about the songs that I have passed through. So, without further adieu ...

1. "Sinai to Canaan - Part I," by Chris Thile, from Not All Who Wander Are Lost
2. "There," by The Innocence Mission, from Glow
3. "Poor Places," by Wilco, from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
4. "Story of My Life," by Loretta Lynn, from Van Lear Rose
5. "Tangent," by Beth Orton, from Trailer Park
6. "He's Gone," by Leona Naess, from Leona Naess
7. "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart," by Wilco, from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
8. "Don't Panic," by Coldplay, from Parachutes
9. "Song We Used to Sing," by Edie Brickell, from Volcano
10. "Dirt Road Blues," by Bob Dylan, from Time Out of Mind

Stream O' Consciousness: Riding in the car through Montana at night. Driving to Houston about once a week during a summer in which my air-conditioning was broken; only one reason why I would do that. Hearing "Ballerina" on Late Night with Conan O'Brien and buying the CD the next day. Tutoring logic students at Coffee Station; coming home in the rain to the house on Haines.


Collective Improvisation:
So I guess your wife's at home, huh? Nice list, in any case. You know I'm a big Wilco fan already I think--you like Ghost is Born  too? Listen to any of Tweedy's solo projects or Minus 5? 

Posted by Scrivener

Posted by Anonymous Anonymous on 3/11/2005 06:30:00 PM : Permalink  

Have you checked out the 'secret' promotional album on the Wilco website ? The live version of Handshake Drugs is great (I love that song).

What's your opinion of Time out of Mind ? It grew on me. 

Posted by rob

Posted by Anonymous Anonymous on 3/12/2005 07:52:00 AM : Permalink  

Scrivener, yes, she was. :-) I'm ashamed to say I haven't bought Ghost is Born , although I've listened to it and plan to. I've been waiting for the price to come down at my local CD shop; sometimes Rounder discs are a little out of my grad-student range (at least for "non-jazz"!).

Haven't seen the "secret" album either, Rob. Thanks! Handshake Drugs gets good radio play on an indie station here in Baltimore, and I like it too.

Time Out of Mind grew on me too. I like Love and Theft better, I think; doesn't drag as much in the middle. But they're different kinds of album, and both great in their own ways. 

Posted by Caleb

Posted by Anonymous Anonymous on 3/12/2005 10:06:00 AM : Permalink  

Rob, thanks for the info on the downloads--5 extra songs for Ghost  and there's another bonus EP for download there too. Modem's humming with the music waves right now.

Caleb, send me an address and I'll burn a copy of Ghost for you. I know we've talked about fetishizing the album and the liner notes before, so maybe it'll just be a stopgap for you, but you shouldn't be waiting to hear it. Just let me know--happy to do it. 

Posted by Scrivener

Posted by Anonymous Anonymous on 3/12/2005 12:44:00 PM : Permalink  

Caleb: Hehe, oddly enough that is my exact  opinion of those albums. I think I said almost exactly the same words about 2 days ago to a friend. Love and Theft's slow/fast track alternation works surprisingly well.

S & C: If you get the Ghost with the cardboard wraparound, then the fetishism is just too good to miss, it has to be said. Although I bent mine unwrapping it, grr. 

Posted by rob

Posted by Anonymous Anonymous on 3/12/2005 02:22:00 PM : Permalink  

Scrivener, Wow, thanks for the offer! Actually, though, on the strength of your recommendation, I went out today and bought the album. I definitely wanted the packaging. Rounder discs may be a bit pricier, but the art production is worth the price. I think I remember seeing that this CD won the packaging Grammy this year. I'm listening right now to the first track. Is there anything like a good "speak softly and carry a big rock-out in the middle" rock song?

Rob, If you like Time Out of Mind , you might like Emmylous Harris' Red Dirt Girl, also produced by Daniel Lanois around the same time as the Dylan disk. It grows on you, too. 

Posted by Caleb

Posted by Anonymous Anonymous on 3/12/2005 05:41:00 PM : Permalink  

I saw somewhere that Jeff Tweedy said there's a track on Ghost  that 95% of Wilco fans are gonna hate. I assume he's referring to the third track, the almost 11 minute long "Spiders," but that's my favorite song on the album--well, that one and"Handshake Drugs" and "Late Greats." If this gives you any indication of my whacked-out musical taste though, the first time I listened to Ghost it was a copy a friend had burned from the website before the album was in stores. We were on a long road trip and "Spiders" was skipping, but I didn't know it. I had heard that the song was long, and there are a few pauses and it's repetitive, right? So that song kept having these 2 or 3 second pauses and then repeating sections and it went on for a good 30 minutes and I was totally loving it. My wife started complaining about it after a while and I eventually fast forwarded to the next track and it never repeated like that again. I think that was my favorite time through the track though. Weird huh?

I love Time Out of Mind and Love and Theft too, though I think I prefer the former. It is slow, but that's never bothered me much. Time brought me back around to listening to Dylan, after having dismissed him and all folk music for a stretch. 

Posted by Scrivener

Posted by Anonymous Anonymous on 3/12/2005 11:17:00 PM : Permalink  

I can see how you might not have noticed a skip in "Spiders," but I like it too. 

Posted by Caleb

Posted by Anonymous Anonymous on 3/13/2005 10:02:00 PM : Permalink  

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