The Music Chamber

Let Me Roll It

2008-12-11T08:56:00.002-05:00

Practically screaming this song in the car line at my boy's private Christian school. I'm sure I looked crazy. But I like to think I look crazy in a better way than some of the other moms do. I do love Paul McCartney. I'm one of the charismatics.

I Know One Thing...

2008-11-12T09:44:00.003-05:00

I think some of the best love songs are the simple sweet ones. This one by Michael Franti makes me happy. My favorite lyric: "My mama told me don't lose you, because the best thing I ever had was you..." Aw.

This is another simple love song that makes me melt. He makes "rude twitchy autistic savant" into endearing qualities and I love him for that. And you know what? When they're on the right meds, they're actually very cuddly.

Grammar Rock

2008-11-12T09:07:00.005-05:00

I was driving down the Pike yesterday, listening to an oldie by the Clash and actually paid attention to the lyrics. I wonder if these guys were private school punkers, because I heard something that pleased the grammar-phile in me: the correct use of the word "whom" used in a phrase where "whom" is commonly misused.

("Whom" is the proper word to use when "him" would be the answer.)

Darling you gotta let me know
Should I stay or should I go?
If you say that you are mine
Ill be here til the end of time
So you got to let know
Should I stay or should I go?

Always tease tease tease
Siempre - coqetiando y enganyando
Youre happy when Im on my knees
Me arrodilla y estas feliz
One day is fine, next is black
Un dias bien el otro negro
So if you want me off your back
Al rededar en tu espalda
Well come on and let me know
Me tienes que desir
Should I stay or should I go?
Me debo ir o que darme

Should I stay or should I go now?
Should I stay or should I go now?
If I go there will be trouble
An if I stay it will be double
So come on and let me know

This indecisions bugging me
Esta undecision me molesta
If you dont want me, set me free
Si no me quieres, librame
Exactly whom I'm supposed to be
Diga me que tengo ser
Dont you know which clothes even fit me?
saves que robas me querda?
Come on and let me know
Me tienes que desir
Should I cool it or should I blow?
me debo ir o quedarme?

Should I stay or should I go now?
yo me frio o lo sophlo?
If I go there will be trouble
Si me voi - va ver peligro
And if I stay it will be double
Si me quedo es doble
So you gotta let me know
Me tienes que decir
Should I stay or should I go?
yo me frio o lo sophlo?

Here's the vid for those who don't give a shit about diction and just want to jump around the office for a bit.

Funny side story. I was playing guitar for my friend's kids (girls 10 and 8), and going through all the typical kiddie songs seeing which ones they knew the lyrics to. While I was attempting to get some vocal accompaniment on "How Much is that Doggie in the Window", they began whispering to each other behind the mic. I expected some Hanna Montana or something but then they launched into their own rendition of London Calling.

I don't know how to play that I said. You girls are too cool for me.

Perhaps you noticed that I ended a sentence with a preposition in the paragraph above. I have no problem with breaking that rule, and I think I heard on the Today Show that the rule has been abolished. Here is a funny little post my vicious alter ego wrote about the practice of ending sentences with prepositions.

Proposing a Sentence for My Best Beloved...
My Best Beloved thinks he can correct me on my grammar, and more specifically my practice of ending sentences with prepositions.

Here are a few sentences that end with prepositions:

What is the story about?

That is a sentence that ends with a preposition and I do not know how to turn it around.

Wait! Unintended coincidence:

"Around" is a preposition too!

This stipulation about the proper placement of a preposition is a stupid rule of grammar. I shall disregard it, from now on.

(Yes, my dear, "on" is a preposition.)

One more correction and his head comes off.

Thus, his sentence would be one that ends with a preposition! Hah!

I do not believe I have ever had such fun with language before.

Into the Deep

2008-10-23T10:08:00.006-04:00

A good review of C.db.sn's Into The Deep.

"a thoroughly energizing and immersing album."

(We all know him here as ChaseD.) I must agree. I have listened to it while drawing a portrait, and doing a decorative painting on one of my walls. Strangely therapeutic. He may need to consult the Hemi-Sync scientists, because I got lost in a sort of alpha sleep and both the portrait and the painting seemed to take shape without a lot of work.

Chase and I share a fascination with the brain, I wonder if his mission with this collection was to have some subconscious affect on the listener's neurology. The reviewer's idea that this album is supposed to create in the listener's mind images of deep sea life seems a bit simplistic. I think ChaseD is being a bit more...um...Rorschachian with this album. Yes. That's a word. Well, now it's a word.

Hemi sync (the classical collection) made my son burst into tears, so we don't do it anymore. I'll see what happens when he listens to Chase's album and give you a review.

Regina Spektor

2008-10-23T09:58:00.002-04:00

And Ben Folds (this isn't the official video, but I like it much better. Much less distracting than the one with the cross-dresser in Sammy Hagar pants.I get the point, but the song stands for itself.)

Authentic

2008-10-23T09:37:00.002-04:00

Corrine Bailey Rae

So sick of our current musical industry obsessed with hot over the top girls who can sing and shake their ass, trying to create the next Madonna. I'm refreshed to hear a natural vocalist, songwriter and musician. She's also pretty in the same natural way. (I do wonder what would happen to music if we turned off the cameras entirely. I bet it would be a musical renaissance.)

John Frusciante How High

2008-10-15T20:35:00.003-04:00

I told Brian from SixMeatBuffet that my speaking voice sounds like Snow White on heroin, then he directed me to this tube. Funny, he must know what my singing voice sounds like right now too.

It hurts me.

The Puppini Sisters

2008-10-12T18:55:00.006-04:00

I would love to just put on a cute little red dress and high heels and sing these sing-y type songs with a jazzy-type band.

The Puppini Sisters are quite talented. If you didn't know these songs were modern, you would be totally fooled, especially if you heard them on some kind of short wave radio. I wonder if they've done a USO tour?

Wuthering Heights (Kate Bush's song, also covered by Pat Benatar, but never quite this way)

Heart of Glass (wow. Sounds so authentically 40's)

Bugs Bunny enjoys I Will Survive, followed by their version of Jingle Bells, then a bit of Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy (with cartoon characters' blackface blurred out).

Walk Like an Egyptian

Katie Melua

2008-10-12T17:38:00.004-04:00

I'm currently obsessed with playing a couple of these songs. But my voice isn't what it used to be. I hurts to say that.

Shy Boy

Just Like Heaven

I Cried For You

Piece by Piece
(Watch the guys' expressions. They're totally impressed by her in that very chilled European way.)

Ray LaMontagne

2008-10-11T00:08:00.001-04:00

One of my new faves.

Googling Folks I Know

2008-10-09T20:59:00.003-04:00

Here's another blast from my past. Richie Owens who produced albums for the Georgia Satellites, R.E.M., and his lovely aunt Dolly (at least that's what the shiny platinum albums framed on his studio wall said). He did a good thing when he spent a lot of time making my band sound less crappy about the time CDs came out. And he said I had a purty voice, so that made me happy. What a baby I was.

Here he is with his band the Farm Bureau.

Back On With the Music! So Many Jolenes.

2008-10-09T20:09:00.004-04:00

Dolly (of course)

Ray LaMontagne (One of my new favorite artists. Not the same song. Just the same name.)

The White Stripes

Mindy Smith (fellow Knoxvillian who was so shy but who blew me away so much I was ashamed to sing)

Dolly and Mindy

If this blog were a monkey, then....

2008-07-06T07:48:00.001-04:00

This Monkey has gone to Heaven....

It's Rainy-ish Here

2008-06-20T15:54:00.004-04:00

But it seems that it's the first day of summer. From a friend of a friend. BTW How can you tell in San Diego? Does it go from 73.1 to 73.2?

Some Summer tubes:

Untogether by Belly

2008-06-18T17:04:00.007-04:00

My husband likes sweet women. He is secretly in love with Little Debbie and Sara Lee. I never would have known if he didn't tell me, because so far they haven't made him fat. He also loves Tanya Donelly more than just a little bit. So I learned this song to make him happy. I like it too, especially the lyrics. I've known all the "unfixable" characters in this song. The untrustworthy girlfriend who's a bit too familiar, the emotional vampire boyfriend who waits until you're in a low place to pounce, the one you escape when you feel better, the friend that exhausted you with her parties and drinking until you only knew each other through the haze of some elicit substance and seems like a total stranger in the light of day. Maida, have you got my spleen, or those brain cells I should have dedicated to a higher purpose?

Well, that's how I read the lyrics. Through the magnifying glass of my own experiences. Maybe you read them differently.

Here's my version.

Untogether

I was friendly with this girl who insisted on touching my face

She told outrageous stories, I believed them

til the endings were changing from endings before

She's not touching me anymore...

Untogether. I couldn't help it, I got hard.

You can try your whole life, but you can't save the unsaveably

Untogether.

I was shipwrecked with this frog who was constantly testing my faith.

He made outrageous demands, I ignored him,

til I strapped on my bird feet and surfed into shore

He's not touching me anymore.

Untogether, I couldn't help him, I got hard.

You can try your whole life,

but you can't change the unchangeably

Untogether.

Now this bird nests on my back, keeps me turning and straining to see.

We threw outrageous parties, we were golden.

Now the bird keeps her distance, and I keep my spleen.

Sometimes there's no poison like a dream.

Untogether, I couldn't help it, it got hard.

You can dry your eyes,

but you can't hold the impossibly

Untogether.

Pretty Guitar and Lyrics

2008-05-27T12:58:00.010-04:00

Here are my picks.

This song is a religious one by a pre-Yusuf Islam Cat Stevens. ( I know. Powderkeg. And not so subtle subliminal message in the vid.) Just listen to the guitar and lyrics.

Jimmycity:

From Nigel

Explosions in the Sky

2008-05-23T21:11:00.004-04:00

If my flying dreams were musical, this is what would be playing.... (Your Hand in Mine)

What music plays in your dreamland?

Jimmycity's picks

It's a Conspiracy

2008-05-20T11:20:00.005-04:00

One of my favorite quotes from the X Files came in the first season on the show Squeeze featuring Tooms the liver eater. Mulder sticks his hand into Tooms' slimy cocoon and comes away with a mucosal surprise on his finger. Scully exclaims with wonder and disgust "I think it's bile", after which Mulder asks "Is there any way I can get this off my finger without betraying my cool exterior?" before flicking his hand around like a Tourette's patient off his meds.

Why am I talking about X-Files on a music blog? Because I have a theory, hypothesizing a government conspiracy involving the innocuous Nancy Reagan, a young larval stage Tipper Gore, and the zombie virus Solanum, dispensed to innocent american school children via the auditory brain worms created by the popular "rock" band Huey Lewis and the News. The virus is not contracted via the mucous membranes, touching hands, toilets or sexual contact, for those actions would betray it's purpose... which was to turn the people into mindless sexless malleable drones, free from the sins of dancing, fornication, and drug use.

I can see that look on your face. You do not believe. But tell me. What other rock band would have written the song "It's Hip to be Square?" Listen to the cadence of the lyric. It sounds like a drooling zombie mantra. Picture the children from Another Brick in the Wall, hands outstretched before them, somnambulistically strolling towards the meat grinder, mouthing over and over, here there and everywhere...hip...hip...so hip to be square. And what happened to the child who was immune to the infection? They sent them to the principal's office where he was strapped down to a chair, headphones placed on his head and "Sometimes Bad is Bad" was played in an eight hour loop until 2+2 equaled 5.

No. I do not like Huey Lewis and the News. But in this case, the poison is in the dosage. Before the music was "enriched" by the government and Solanum was added to the music via Lewis' harmonica, "The News" was called "Clover". They were the backup band on Elvis Costello's first album My Aim is True, which brought us all the lovely ballad Alison.

(Pointless digression: In college, I had a friend with whom I traveled and worked. She was a foreign exchange student from England and she spelled her name just that way, with one "L". Every time I was around her, the song was going through my head. I connect it with a week long trip we took to DC and a whole summer of painting over boogers on dorm room walls. I wonder if she was singing "Michelle"? Probably not. It was spelled with two "L's" so it wasn't really my name anyway.)

Here's the vid:

I do have a love/hate relationship with Costello. Oddly, my displeasure with him derives from his sparse use of repetition in his writing. Maybe he was naturally averse to brain worm dispensers like Huey Lewis and the News, who employ repetition to easily subvert the masses. So we're back to the idea of the poison being in the dosage and not in the ingredient itself. Huey didn't show up to the My Aim is True sessions. Which may explain why these songs are relatively benign.

Years later, after a few failed albums, Lewis was contacted by an unnamed official who made a deal with him. He entered the studio with a new harmonica, and the rest is classified.

Right now I'm looking into inpatient facilities that specialize in deprogramming. Nigel, there's one in California. All the famous people go there. There's no shame in it. Nicole Richie was a client when she went on a Debbie Gibson binge back in 2005. They have a 12 step Billy Ocean program as well.

Now did I shake that vile Huey Lewis off my blog without "betraying my cool exterior?" I hope so, because next time this blog gets poisoned I'm going to have to do an "Annoy-a-Thon". It's like chemo for bad music. You kill like with like. All Annoy-a-Thon's begin with Dead or Alive. This particular song will cleanse the brain by introducing a more potent worm, which causes temporary seizures, but it destroys the first worm.

Yes, sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.

Busy, busy, bee!

2008-05-19T12:36:00.003-04:00

I have a potentially cool topic coming up for this weekend (think movies). But I (like Me-shell) have been busy...busy...busy...

So here's this topic...songs about being busy (or not):

I went with the live version here because I've seen the other video so many times. I feel an upcoming post about the Go Gos and the Talk Show album...one of my favorites because if you really listen to the entire thing, you can feel the tension that was covering the band while they were recording that album.

Found this gem...Huey Lewis and Garth Brooks:

Not busy? This is obvious, but I still love this song:

It's Spring (Among Other Things)

2008-05-12T19:58:00.013-04:00

Which could explain my long absences, and my sporadic commenting. I'm a girl who likes to keep busy with lots of projects. This little baby blog was birthed in the winter. I get antsy in the winter because I really hate the cold, and my mind "goes to 11" (thanks Nigel), when there is only so much housework and child-rearing a girl can do before she goes crazy and needs something of her own. I took to writing, playing guitar, and recording when it was cold outside. I had three blogs this winter, and made a couple of good online friends that kept me sane, now I can hardly sit down at the computer. I'm sure my friends will forgive me. When the temp hits the 90's, I'll probably start posting again.

But you have to see all the things that have been going on while I've been away from this nostalgic roller coaster of a blog.

First I did a portrait of this little girl. I drew her big sister a couple of years ago and referred to her as "Little Debbie Snack Cakes" because she was the spitting image. I called this one "Twinkie". I really don't remember their proper names.

Then I purchased some great curriculum for my kids. We're doing World History, Science, Math, and a reading curriculum which I love. The American History text is a historically accurate, but politically incorrect text, which is a bit heavy on the evangelism and fundamentalism, so I'm picking and choosing.

This here is a terrarium. It's part of a science project. Today we captured Rocko the lizard and fed him a housefly.

Here's my koi pond that I built last year (all by myself!) It got really full of algae, which sent me running to the store. Last night was so windy that the tulip poplar next door was shredded and most of its leaves found their way into the water. I spend a lot of time puttering around this pond.

Here's my blackberry bush.

And my gooseberry bush.

and my rhododendrons that I surrounded with eight bales of pine straw today.

Here are my irises in galvanized buckets.

Here's my very first vegetable garden ever. I have peas, zucchini, squash, tomatoes, radishes, carrots, green beans and corn. I also learned how to make a box out of wood, and make an ideal soil mix. Maybe next year I'll get chickens and have fresh eggs.

So that's where I've been. This song (Bright as Yellow) by Innocence Mission, pretty much expresses how I feel:

Found...a long lost tune

2008-05-12T12:48:00.002-04:00

Watched The Queen over the weekend. Anytime I see anything about Princess Diana, I remember this GREAT tune by Bryan Adams:

I own this on a foreign-produced EP, but I cannot find a CD or other digital recording of it. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Two Things Never to Hold Over My Head....

2008-05-09T16:19:00.001-04:00

My misspent youth, and a baby with reflux.

Enjoy.

I saw her today...

2008-05-09T00:43:00.002-04:00

...perhaps my future wife.

Yeah, right. That love at first sight thing never works, but we'll see:

Thanks for the good wishes, Jimmycity. However, Jim Morrison certainly had it easier than I do:

What is this wet stuff?

2008-05-06T09:43:00.004-04:00

Woke up to a drizzle this morning...AND, this song came on my laptop jukebox (I have it set on "random play").

So I gotta post it. A common lament...remember when "R&B" meant that the artists actually had Rhythm and sang Blues?

Just sayin':

If you've got 9 minutes, Jimmycity suggests this live song by Cracker:

Feliz Cinco de Mayo!

2008-05-05T12:51:00.002-04:00

Raising a figurative margarita to Mexico's greatest rocker:

And to all my Spanish Harlem Mona Lisa's out there:

Jimmycity suggests Los Lobos...another fine choice for Cinco de Mayo. In my opinion, I think this is their best tune...thanks Jimmy!: