Pressure

7 Jun

I missed posting yesterday because I was just drowning.  I know this is an aside, but I read someone’s tweet the other day and it said, “Ever notice that lol looks like someone drowning?”  (That was a worthwhile digression, no?)  So I guess I should say I missed posting yesterday because I was just drowning, lol.

Years ago I lived with this guy who wore smaller sized jeans than I did and wouldn’t come into bed for the evening until after I woke up in the morning,  but on the plus side, he  did an amazing interpretation of David Bowie singing “Pressure.”

You know that initial “PRESSHHAH”?  That’s the part that he always sang.  Just that one word.  Try it.  Go on.  It’s really funny, right?

Anyway, “Pressure” by Queen & David Bowie is perhaps too well known a song for MV, but I’ve been under so much PRESSHHAH these days that it’s all I can think of.  Plus it makes me laugh.  Cut me some slack, ok?

I’ll be back tomorrow in human form.  I feel it.

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Nervous Breakdown

5 Jun

When I first decided to do a year of downloads, it was supposed to be about the music.  And of course it is, but increasingly I’m finding that it’s about me, my state of mind and my relationship to music vis-a-vis those things.

My state of mind has had better days.  I have some crazy shizz swirling around in there and it’s exhausting.  Last night I dreamed I dropped my keys in quicksand.  Thankfully, at the last minute, I was able to retrieve them.  Maybe there will be a light at the end of this tunnel.

In addition, two odd things happened today.  Well three if you count finding a small dead bird outside my front door.

I was in the center of a huge, super nasty and thoroughly ridiculous fight with my little beach community for suggesting we switch from an antiquated and annoying Yahoo Group page to a private Facebook Group page.  For those who felt outraged (and I do mean outraged) it was seriously as if I had suggested raping their significant others.  Which now I kind of want to do simply out of vengeance.

The other odd thing was nicer.  Weird, but nicer.  Someone told me they had waited nine years to kiss my cheek and that I didn’t have to be worried because once he did, he would never do it again.  He just wanted to make sure we’d be friends after the cheek kiss.

Suffice to say, today’s song is “Nervous Breakdown” by Eddie Cochran.

I’ll bring it back to talking about music.  I’m sure I will.  I should be discussing some rockabilly fact; this is the first rockabilly posted here.  But today…today I can’t …oh, just go and download.

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Shaddup Silly Woman!

4 Jun

I realized that yesterday’s posting of “Ode to Billie Joe” might have been the first story-telling song I’ve posted on Margauxville. I haven’t reviewed all my past entries to make sure I’m right, but I’m sure you faithful downloaders MUST be keeping track, no?  In any case, here is another story-telling gem, this time from the Northern Soul realm.

Northern Soul was a movement in the UK that started in the late ’60s, though it consists of American R&B songs. In other words, people were discovering and digging the funkier, more upbeat tempo and sound of Motown-type songs, but not the famous ones.  They liked the more unknown songs and also sounds from smaller, regional record labels.

Clubs started opening featuring this music and people would go and dance, dance,  dance – but these crazy, super athletic dancing.  Kinda like Break Dancing 1.0.   And a new club scene was born.  It didn’t hurt that aficionados looked cool, very mod-like.

“The Snake” by Al Wilson was one of the most popular Northern Soul songs.  Listen and you can see why.  I’m not a man-basher, but if I were, I could not think of a better song on that subject.  Just great!  It charted in the US too, of course, but certainly didn’t have the impact that his massive(non-Northern Soul) hit “Show and Tell” did five years later.

I like them both.  So you get them both.  Twofer Saturday, I guess.

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Up on Choctaw Ridge

3 Jun

It would be impossible for me to make a Top Ten List of the Greatest Songs Ever, but maybe, just maybe, “Ode to Billy Joe” would make it if I were to ever be so foolish.

It starts off “It was the 3rd of June, another sleepy, dusty, Delta day” and ends a year later with remorse, mystery and a couple of deaths.  Bobbie Gentry said she never had a backstory of why Billy Joe committed suicide.

I don’t believe her.

I saw the pretty awful movie that was made based on the song and I doubt it was the homosexual angle.  But I don’t buy the abortion thing either.  I’m not really sure what I think.  But I do think that being that today is the anniversary of Billy Joe’s death, we should commemorate it by at least one listen to this amazing song.

By the way, the original Talllahatchie Bridge collapsed in 1972.  Let’s give a little moment of silence for that fact too.

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Something’s Changed.

2 Jun

“Something Changed” by Pulp is one of those songs that I kinda love and I kinda hate.  When I’m down, the lyrics seem so profound and when I’m happy, it’s completely inane.  It’s just so earnest and I hate earnestness for the most part.

So why am I posting it, you might ask?  You’d ask that because you’re a very intelligent person.  Well, I would answer, there are several reasons:

•  I’m a little down.

•  I’m envious of the very earnestness I condemn.

•  I am obsessively thinking about fate and chance and decisions and change and so is Pulp!  (Of course this isn’t the first time I’ve spoken of change in these here parts.  Remember Neil Young?)

•  It’s really pretty catchy!

And in the short time it will take you to read this, download and listen, something’s already changed.  Just ponder that for a moment.

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@(#*!)*%&#@*!

1 Jun

Guess how I feel today?

One hint.  Today’s song is “Bad Mood” by Helmet.

‘Nuff said.

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RIOT!

31 May

Here in NY we’ve been having the most delicious summer weather.  I mean early summer, so no humidity and no smelly street garbage.  I can’t swear to it, but I’d bet that even Chinatown doesn’t have its summer stench yet.

In weather as lovely as this, it’s hard to imagine that shortly it will be riot season.  You know, where it gets so hot and tempers flare so much and the possibility of riots skyrockets.  Riots happen more often in summer.  It’s true, trust me.

The Violators, a mostly forgotten but incredible British punk band, has a great song about the UK riots of ’81 called, not surprisingly, “Summer of ’81.”  The beginning of the track gives me goosebumps every time I hear it.   I know I should wait till it gets more rioty out (August?) to post this, but I’ve always had an impatient streak.

And you should be glad I do.  It gives you two more months to enjoy it.

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Remembrance

30 May

Happy Memorial Day!

I just heard a report on the radio saying that 80% of Americans don’t know what Memorial Day commemorates. I froze.  Did I forget?  I assumed surely that they meant something specific – a certain battle or event.  I waited.  No, they just meant that people didn’t know it was to acknowledge and thank people who serve(d) in the military and remember those who died serving.

For real?  People don’t know this?

Honestly, how is it that people never learned that?  I realize that a lot of us probably don’t have a direct current connection with those in the military, but I’m still flabbergasted.  I love hot dogs (well, Not Dogs) and the beach and big sales as much as the next person, but I never thought that was the real purpose of the holiday.

I know those reading this know better.  But I bet even you are a little rusty on the entire history.  Here’s a pretty comprehensive write-up.  Study up.  I may test you later.

War is a popular subject matter for songs of course.  Here is one of my favorites:  The Pogues version of “The Band Played Waltzing Matilda.”  Shane McGowan is at his absolute best on this track.  Stellar.  But of course he is.  I would only ever give you the best.

Feel free to resume your holiday BBQ now.

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Dolphins, Dead and Otherwise

29 May

Today a dolphin came ashore and died.  I can’t help but think this is some cosmic answer to the question that Tim Buckley raised in his song “Dolphins.”  He sings “sometimes I wonder, do you ever think of me?”  There isn’t a more emphatic “NO!” than a dead dolphin, is there?

Of course it’s probably narcissistic to imagine that a dead dolphin was sent to deliver a message to me, but if you read my other blog, you already know I am huge into signs.  It’s not like I hide it or anything.

Of course it could be a sign of something more ominous than indifference.  Last week a dead whale washed up.  This week, a dead dolphin.  And for the third day in a row, we’ve experienced a sonic boom that literally has shaken every house here.  I’m usually not much of a conspiracy theorist, but it’s not hard to think these events may be related.

In any case, the poor dead dolphin put “Dolphins” in my head and anytime Tim Buckley is in my head is a good thing.  I’ve been resisting delving into the Buckley family because Jeff was a friend, but I guess that reluctance is silly.  Certainly Tim’s amazingness needs to be acknowledged and “Dolphins” is one of my favorites.  It was written by the insanely talented Fred Neil, who is best known for writing  “Everybody’s Talkin’.”  Yes, the  Harry Nilsson/Midnight Cowboy song.

It’s kind of mind-boggling to realize that TIm Buckley recorded nine studio albums before he died – at age 28.

Download “Dolphins” here.  Meanwhile I’m going to continue to try to interpret my dead dolphin, and whatever portent that might be.

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Happy Accident

28 May

By now I’m sure you’ve heard that Gil Scott-Heron died yesterday.  As you may remember, I love him.  I’ve been listening to him pretty much non-stop all morning and then all of a sudden, by mistake,  I hit the wrong button and Joe Jackson’s “I’m The Man” blared out of the speakers.

And so the Joe Jackson segment of May 28th commenced.  I realize you wouldn’t normally connect Gil Scott-Heron and Joe Jackson, but that’s the way things happen here in Margauxville.

Joe Jackson is one of those artists that I always appreciate and love but for some reason hardly ever actually listen to.  Yet every time I do, I wonder why there isn’t a mandatory Joe Jackson hour in every single one of my days.

There is, however, a mandated 4 minutes for him in your day, starting as soon as you download the song.  Go on, do it.

He’s the man.

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