So of course, like any self-respecting music lover, i shrug my shoulders and say, "Why not?"
Here's what i got today.
DVD's:
This is The Boss live with the band he recorded his Pete Seeger cover record with. I don't know about you folks, but Springsteen hangs the moon for me, and he is one of two artists/bands that i would pay any amount to see live(the other being U2).
I saw the trailer for this a while ago...and the cinematography alone was the most beautiful thing i had seen in a long while. If you're shooting in the countryside of Iceland and you don't have amazing cinematography, you should probably not be in the film business. Anyway, take that cinematography and add in an hour and a half of music played by Sigur Ros...and you have a combination sure to make me weep really hard.
This is by far my favorite show on tv. My buddy Joe showed me the episode titled "Slapsgiving" from Season 2, which i loved, and caused me to track down every episode i could find and watch them, which took about a week to do. These haven't arrived yet, but i look forward to setting the hook deep into my friends regarding this show's amazingness. If i had to give a summary based on stuff that you might have seen before, i'd tell you that it's like Friends, but it's not all chick-y, and it's funnier than The Office, or at least more consistently funny.
CD's:
This is a greatest hits collection of sorts for the 1990's folk band The Vigilantes Of Love. All my friends keep telling me that i need to jump in to their catalogue, so this blessed $3.95 used pick up is step 2 of the process(I bought their record "Killing Floor" on itunes; it's not a collection of songs about using a jackhammer, as far as i can tell).
My coworkers(and friends) Nathan and Roger are both huge fans of Snider's particular flavor of honky-tonk. And with songs like "Beer Run" (b-double e-double r-u-n, beer run!), i think i am as well.
My aquaintance-that-i-only-see-once-a-year-yet-read-his-blog-and-listen-to-his-music-and-sometimes-randomly-send-money has "Romeo and Juliet" listed as one of his top 5 favorite songs. Thanks to the wonderfulness that is Pandora, i now agree.
Let's see here: You take Bob Dylan, who is probably the most famous songwriter of the 20th century(Irving Berlin, your work was simply too soon. Sorry.), and you pair him up with the producer of two of the biggest band on earth's best records(Daniel Lanois, for those who aren't keeping up with my line of logic), and you should probably get a pretty damn great record.
I always read these lists that proclaim this record to be one of the top 5 best records ever made in the history of rock 'n roll. I call that fairly high praise for any record. However, I've always been more of a fan of the contributions of the British Empire to rock 'n roll history(The Beatles, The Who, Cream, The Yardbirds, The Rolling Stones, Coldplay, Radiohead(thom yorke is screaming right now because i just placed his band behind Coldplay, but i don't care), and been rather inclined to ignore The Beach Boys simply on name alone. I don't know that this record will make me want to run out and purchase a Hammond B-3 and spend years obsessively working on a record, but learning the words to the songs should suffice.
I was patronizing my favorite restaurant downtown (Cafe4) for breakfast this past saturday, and my friend Rob was my server (you should go listen to his music, he's a great singer-songwriter (ha!)), and he had this record on in the background, and i liked it enough to download it off itunes using my aforementioned gift card. Don't let the strange moniker distract you(his real name is Will Oldham, and he apparently has quite an extensive discography, according to wikipedia), it's a great folk album.
This record came highly recommended to me by a couple of friends. Oddly enough, it was his impressive beard-growing ability that led me to buy the record. As a fellow bearded man, i gotta keep it in the brotherhood. As far as what exactly "it" is, i have no idea.
Books:
Speaking of men with impressive beard growing ability: this book by an editor/writer for Esquire Magazine chronicles his yearlong experiment to live the Bible as literally as possible. I'm about a quarter of the way through, so it remains to be seen whether it actually happens or not.
I've been chasing a used copy of this since 2004, when i first heard it spoken about in my religion classes at Carson-Newman. I finally found one for a reasonable price, so i bought it, and i'm eager to dig in, though i fear this becoming much like Celebration of Discipline(also by Foster), in that i carry the book around, intending to read it, but not doing so.
My best friend Adam often talks about how great a writer Wendell Berry is, and how rich and authentic his characters are written. That's fairly high praise from him, since he is quite an author himself(Adam. This is me reminding you to email me that chapter from your book), as well as an amazing singer-songwriter(with a new album called Old Skin Horse that he has about a thousand copies of that he would love to sell to you good people).
I got this for good measure. Poems are always good for me to take and chew around, and glean all the flavor. Small bites are recommended.
Alright…this ends the marathon of this second media post. I hope you made it through alright. Later this week(as this will likely have a publish date of Sunday), i'll conclude my catching you up on what happened with TGCSO'08(The Great Church Search Of '08), and continue the weekly song lyric series.
1 comment:
Berry is magical.
Also, I showed you "Slap Bet," not "Slapsgiving."
P.S. I miss you
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