October 15, 2006

Jen Spool

A few months ago I heard Jen Spool at an open mic at the Freight and Salvage. I thought she was good, in a Dar Williams-y sort of way. I went to her CD release concert and bought the album. I liked it. Check it out. Support local artists, and all that.

(Sorry if the new "music" department pulls up old posts. I'll finish the favorite songs series one of these days.)

Permalink | From the music department | Posted Sunday, October 15, 2006 at 11:55 am PDT

April 22, 2006

These are a few of my favorite songs (part 3)

Somehow I feel all is right with the world when I hear a banjo. I can't explain that. I wonder if I learned to play one whether I wouldn't just sit around my apartment all day, strumming the same notes obsessively.

Anyway, here are some favorite traditional (or traditional-sounding) folk songs.

"Well May The World Go" by Pete Seeger (the one I marked as my favorite is from the Together album with Arlo Guthrie)

"Gotta Travel On" from Weavers Classics (originally from the "Travelling On With The Weavers" LP)

Both these songs are about somebody saying goodbye -- the first, wishing the world well; the second, with a clear resentment at having stayed so long. I've felt that way about leaving things in my life. I was terrible at my first job, in the summer between junior and senior years, and they said either I had to do better or leave, and since I was doing my best, I left. When I got home I played Weavers albums to cheer myself up and when "Gotta Travel On" came on, I just felt so much better -- forget you, summer's almost gone! The song still resonates with me as a way of relieving myself of stress.

"Fifty Sail on Newburgh Bay" (from the album with this title) by Pete Seeger and Ed Renehan

This was one of the first Pete Seeger albums I ever heard; I checked it and one other out of the Sunset Branch Library in San Francisco when I was about ten or eleven. There's nothing that particularly important about this song other than that (besides being up-tempo) it was my introduction to folk music, over twenty-five years ago now. In high school (actually it was the very last weekend of high school before graduation) I bought this LP new from a record store; it was a tremendous find. I drove to Montréal from the New York City area in 1998 and this song and the other songs on this album (a collection of songs about the Hudson River, some like this one written by the historian William Gekle) were running through my head the whole time.

"We Shall Overcome" (my version is recorded from the album of the same title by Pete Seeger)

I don't think there's much I can say about this. It's the great anthem of the Civil Rights movement.

"Over The Hills" from Love Songs for Friends and Foes by Pete Seeger

This is another album I first found at the library, this time from the San Mateo library in high school. I like the melody on this piece, and I think it's romantic.

"The Fools of '49" from Gold Rush Songs by Pat Foster

Yes, this is another item from the San Mateo city library. Good luck finding it online... Two of the other songs from this album are available at eMusic but the whole album is not available and somehow I doubt it ever will be. (I ultimately found an old LP copy for myself through GEMM.) It's too bad because, although this might sound like it's just a compilation of songs of historical interest only, it's very melodic, especially this song. The song is about the various ways to get to San Francisco during the Gold Rush and harsh conditions in every type of trip (sailing to Panama or around the Horn, or coming overland). The chorus goes: "Then they thought of what they had been told / When they started after gold / That they never in this world would make a pile."

Permalink | From the music department | Posted Saturday, April 22, 2006 at 12:13 pm PDT

January 12, 2006

These are a few of my favorite songs (part 2)

More favorite songs. I like marches and upbeat classicaly stuff. I think most everybody has heard these. Many are by John Williams. If that makes me a musical lightweight, so be it.

The Imperial March (from The Empire Strikes Back)

Or, as I like to think of it, the Dick Cheney theme song.

Olympic Fanfare

Everybody knows this. I've never been very interested in athletics but you have to like the music.

March from 1941

"1941" was nobody's favorite movie, but John Williams' score is worth remembering. The weird triplets seem appropriate for a comedy.

1812 Overture

Another one everybody knows. We actually talked about this in English class in high school, and learned the sources of some of the various themes that make it up. Of course, I can't remember any of it now. To me what it calls up is the memory of traveling to Arizona from California when I was much younger. We had two 8-track tapes with us, the 1812 Overture/Polovetsian Dances and the Grand Canyon Suite, and we listened to them over and over.

Permalink | From the music department | Posted Thursday, January 12, 2006 at 7:20 pm PST

January 8, 2006

These are a few of my favorite songs (part 1)

One of the nice things about storing music on the computer is that you can compile lists of favorite songs pretty easily. I have 28 songs that I have marked with five stars in iTunes. I thought maybe what I had to say about them might be of some interest to somebody. Or at least as much as anything else on this blog.

"Pajarillo Barranqueño", from Ring Them Bells by Joan Baez (duet with Tish Hinojosa)

This is an old Mexican folksong about a pretty bird which "already has an owner." I don't know that I'd like this song all that much if anybody else sang it, but I find the harmony between Baez and Hinojosa blends well on this track.

"Rambler Gambler/Whispering Bells" from Speaking of Dreams '89 by Joan Baez (duet with Paul Simon)

This is a weird medley of an old doo-wop tune with an even older traditional ballad, produced by Paul Simon at about the same time as "Graceland," and it sounds like it. It is sung by Baez with backup vocals by Simon. I don't know why I like this song so much -- the upbeat tempo, just the right level of percussion, Simon's back-vocals -- but if I had to pick a favorite song, this would be it.

"Scarborough Fair/Canticle", "The 59th St. Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)," and "A Poem on the Underground Wall" from Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme" by Simon and Garfunkel

Three great songs from a great album -- in fact I've marked every song on this album with four or five stars, which makes it the highest rated album. "Scarborough Fair/Canticle" is just plain hauntingly beautiful, and I remember hearing it as a request on classical music station KKHI back when I was in high school (well, it sounds like a harpsichord to me). I first heard the whole album as a freshman in college, and to me "Feelin' Groovy" always brings back a particular memory of crossing Kresge Bridge at UCSC on a particularly sunny April day, the first week of Spring Quarter 1989. A gorgeous day to be out and about and a college student with, as yet, no worries about school or work. "A Poem on the Underground Wall" strikes me now as a bit less tightly crafted in its lyrics than some of the other songs -- and indeed, I'm wondering now if "Patterns" or "Flowers Never Bend With The Rainfall" (its lyric "I don't know what is real, I can't touch what I feel, and I hide behind the shield of my illusion" was perfect for someone taking Introduction to Philosophy) aren't better songs -- but the pure facetiousness of treating the four-letter graffito as a work of art appeals to me.

"Let it Be" from Let it Be and "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" from Rubber Soul, by The Beatles

I don't think I can say much about either song that hasn't been heard before. Although the electric guitar solo on "Let It Be" isn't very harsh by most people's standards, it was something that helped me appreciate that sound when I was, metaphorically, booing Dylan at Newport in 1965. "Norwegian Wood" is just an interesting song, with its sort of Indian rock and roll and its ambiguously romantic lyrics, and I like it.

Permalink | From the music department | Posted Sunday, January 8, 2006 at 5:00 pm PST

December 6, 2005

The Foremen on iTunes

Ten years ago or so, Roy Zimmerman put together a folk-rock parody group called The Foremen. Originally a folk spoof group, a bit like the groups from "A Mighty Wind," they quickly went into topical parodies, from a liberal perspective.

Their last album came out in 1996 and, as far as I was aware, didn't do that well, but I liked it and managed to get hold of their other three albums. To my surprise, their last album came out today on iTunes. "What's Left" is a sort of left-wing folk-rock album, with songs parodying the Byrds, Simon & Garfunkel, and Crosby Stills & Nash, with lyrics referencing the election and political issues from 1996. (The first cut features Sheila Kuehl as the emcee at a Republican get-together...)

Apple also put up a video of "Ain't No Liberal," a song from the previous album, "Folk Heroes."

I don't really know why this nine-year-old album and video parodying forty-year-old music have been released now, but however dated, they are very funny, and (to me anyway) the musicianship does a good job of evoking '60s groups.

Permalink | From the music department | Posted Tuesday, December 6, 2005 at 8:53 am PST

August 20, 2005

I ♥ eMusic

(That's supposed to be a heart. If it's not, your computer is heartless.)

Everybody knows about iTunes, but eMusic, another online music store, seems to be much less well known. Check it out: 25 cents a song or less, restriction-free MP3 files (play anywhere), tons of independent labels in all genres. There's no major labels but so what? I guess it's my folk-and-jazz bias, but I don't really miss not having whatever the hit of the week is with all this great stuff out there. And this month they added 138 albums from Smithsonian/Folkways, which may not be a major label to anybody else, but in the folk world it is. (Of course I already have a lot of those on CD, but not all by any means.)

And no, eMusic doesn't pay me for this. I just love it. And I want to make sure lots of other people pay them money so it doesn't go away.

Another small enterprise I'd like to support is the small natural food store on Jackson at 15th St. in Oakland, the name of which I can't remember. It just opened this year and I hope it survives, because they have fresh Grace Bakery bread every day and I enjoy having the good fresh sourdough bread within a close walk of my apartment (although I do prefer Semifreddi's bread). It's what a convenience store would look like in a world where all grocery stores were Whole Foods.

I hope they last, although I have my doubts since Jackson St. is not a thoroughfare and it's not really visible from 14th St., which is. And of course the real Whole Foods will open up soon on 27th and Harrison (in a historic building that was originally a cable car barn). That is going to be good for the city (although their labor relations could stand improvement), but I hope the little store on Jackson does enough business to survive.

Permalink | From the music department | Posted Saturday, August 20, 2005 at 10:46 pm PDT