Discography Year Two - Week 51

We're finishing out the penultimate week in the second year of our Discography music series.  I suspect this will probably be it for the Discography discussion and it's been a great two year run.  Last weekend I was just telling Jack how blessed I feel to have captured so much of GB on the blog, and sometimes I go back and reread his posts. This has been so much fun, and I can't thank all of you enough for participating.   I hope we have a great send-off next week.

Dave Wallace

Peter Gabriel - Sledgehammer

For someone who essentially is an art-rocker and a cult artist, it's hard to remember how big a hit So was for Peter Gabriel.  He had a handful of hits off of it, none bigger than lead single, Sledgehammer.  With a groundbreaking video to accompany it, the song was pretty much everywhere.  And with good reason, it's an awesome slice of faux soul music.

Dave Kelley

So I had originally planned to choose an Aretha Franklin song this week in honor of her passing.  I was going to select her cover of "The Weight" featuring amazing work from Duane Allman and The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section.  However, I went down in the YouTube rabbit hole listening to some of Duane's other session work and found.....

"Loan Me a Dime" by Box Scaggs

This was recorded in 1969 and is just jaw dropping fucking amazing IMHO.  Great vocals, blistering guitar work from Duane, and the most excellent Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section which included Patterson Hood's dad on bass.  Give this one a full listen.

Cindy Morgan

I have a crazy lady FB friend who lives in Connecticut and routinely gets in the faces of people wearing MAGA hats or with Trump stickers on their cars. After this week's Cohen/Manafort announcements she parked her car outside the house of a Trump signed property in her hometown and played Queen/Bowie "Under Pressure." I applaud her devotion the resistance. But it always strikes me as odd that people choose this song to try to capture that feeling of "we have to get it done, we're under pressure" and especially when it's used in sporting venues. The lyrics of the song are so NOT that, but I think we forget that this is really a song about the people that have been left on the margins of society: the homeless, the needy, the down-trodden and how we as a society need to to better. Maybe that's what crazy resistance lady wanted to convey--that this really is our last chance to love and do better. . .but I think I'm giving her too much credit. Plus: we need to be reminded of those artists we have lost. Plus plus: there is a new Queen movie coming out. Group trip?

"Can't we give ourselves one more chance
Why can't we give love that one more chance
Why can't we give love give love give love give love
Give love give love give love give love give love
'Cause love's such an old fashioned word
And love dares you to care for
The people on the (People on streets) edge of the night
And loves (People on streets) dares you to change our way of
Caring about ourselves
This is our last dance
This is our last dance
This is ourselves
Under pressure
Under pressure
Pressure"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoDh_gHDvkk

Phil Seiler

Regular contributor Alice Neiley posted a fun little meme to our blog host's wall on the book of face about rock and roll crayon colors. The original meme is pretty standard stuff (Yellow  = Yellow Submarine, Purple = Purple Haze, etc... (And why were brown, black, and purple each used twice?)) Anyway, it prompted me to mine my music library for my version which was certainly different (I also added some colors.). Alice did the same and in checking out her great selections, I fell down some rabbit holes of YouTube. She used "Pale Sun" for pale which I assumed is the beautiful Cowboy Junkies song but pale sun lead to all kinds of other results including a shoe gaze band i did not know of the same name and my selection this week:

Matthew and the Atlas

Pale Sun Rose

I don't know what struck me about this song when I first heard it but it connected to me on some, primordial level. In fact, I am amazed at how much I want to hear it again and again despite not loving his voice very much. Anyway, just a song of longing and the sea for a summer morn as the earth spins toward autumn.

Gary Scudder

Daughter, Youth

Here's another band that I discovered simply because of my odd fascination with the British series Skins.  Daughter is a British indie band, which was initially just Elena Tonra.  Eventually she was joined by guitarist Ignor Haefeli from Switzerland and drummer Remi Aguilella from France to form a true band.  It's sort of an EU wet dream, which hopefully won't be Brexited out of existence.  I think Youth is my favorite song of theirs, and it has popped up several times in movies and TV series (which, knowing my generally contrarian nature, should make me dislike it).  Anyway, it seemed like an appropriate song to kick off another school year.

Discography Year Two - Week 50

By the time the nano overlords release this week's Discography posting I will be somewhere in Miami with the esteemed Jack Schultz: my bets are either spread piecemeal among the bellies of several thankful alligators or trapped, ankle-deep in blood Dexter-like, in some abandoned metal container.  Doubtless, I will have earned either fate, but by then I will have had epic fun with JS and I won't care one way or another.

Me explaining my fears to Jack as we enter the swamp.

Dave Wallace

U2 - Bad 

Not sure how I've made it this far in the blog without including a U2 song.  It's interesting how they've become almost a "love 'em or hate 'em" band, but I'm definitely in the "love 'em" category.  They have an incredibly deep catalogue with a ton of terrific songs.  Bad is one of my favorites.

So the death of Aretha Franklin compels me to add a bonus song for this week:

Aretha Franklin - Old Landmark 

I'd already submitted my blog song for the week, but the passing of Aretha Franklin compels me to send something else along remembering the Queen of Soul.  Clearly the greatest female soul singer ever, and likely the greatest soul singer, regardless of gender, Franklin was a force of nature, and her run of essential songs and albums from the 60's is extraordinary.   While I love all of her classic soul material, Franklin, like many of her contemporaries, started singing in the church, and she was an incredible gospel singer.  One of my favorite Franklin albums is Amazing Grace, a gospel album that she recorded at the peak of her artistic and commercial success.  The whole thing is great, and Old Landmark rocks as hard as anything that you'll ever hear.

Phil Seiler

Aretha Franklin

Misty

Some idiot angry baseball head on twitter wrote the obituary for Aretha for National Review and in it declared her second best as a vocalist to Kelly Clarkson so I happily return to my comfortable position that conservative opinions about everything are trash. RIP Aretha.

Dave Kelley

Amanda Shires. "Eve's Daughter"

I totally agree with all of DW's comments about the new Amanda Shires release.  A really damn fine record.  I could have selected several songs off it but will go with this one.  Some fine guitar work from Mr. Shires.

Gary Scudder

Patty Griffin, Florida

I've been thinking about talking about this song for some time now, so it's not just a celebration of my long-overdue trip to visit the esteemed Jack Schultz in Miami. I've become a huge Patty Griffin fan, and I curse the times I know she passed through Burlington before I knew who she was. One of the things I appreciate most about her song-writing is her beautiful use of imagery. The song is about two young women escaping to Florida.  She gives the night an identity so real its almost tangible: "The night wants to kiss you deep/ and be on his way/ pretend he don't know you the very next day." The song is off the album Impossible Dream, which is highly recommended.

Necropants

I mean, seriously, what does one even sway about necropants? They're the star attraction at the Museum of Sorcery and Witchcraft in Holmavik, although, sadly/happily/thankfully, they're just a copy.  According to Thorunn, our inside source at the museum, the brave soul who volunteered in their re-creation, lost a lot of leg hair in the process.  He didn't lose any skin, however, and when you're talking about necropants it means that you're way ahead of the game.

Unfortunately they didn't have my size, which I definitely need to get serious about this diet.

Hotel Laugarholl

I've slowly been catching up on posts from my amazing trip with my son to Iceland a year and a half ago.  What a trip it was, and, truthfully, it may have been my all-time favorite overseas adventure.  Not only is Iceland extraordinary, but, as I've discussed in the past, it very rare that you get an entire uninterrupted week with your adult child. Gary and I were waiting for the road to clear so that we could travel a little further; essentially, waiting for the designation to change from Closed to Dangerous. As part of the planned adventure our friend at the Museum of Witchcraft and Sorcery, Thorunn, told us about a hotel where we could go for a swim, and since it was on the way we figured that's where we would start the day. Getting there proved to be quite the adventure because as it turns out they were working on the road, or were working on the road during the summer, because the road was terrible, and I'm not quite certain that we weren't actually off the road for a while (and I wasn't driving my Subaru).  We finally arrived at the Hotel Laugarholl, which was, naturally enough, closed for the season, but the hotpot and the spring-fed pool was open year-round.  And that included the changing room.  The Icelanders took the logical approach of simply saying, "Look, be careful and don't drown your fool selves," which we appreciated.  It's neat to think that any time in the winter you could just decide to head over to the closed hotel to grab a swim or a soak.  It was so desolate, and staggeringly beautiful, and we were the only souls for miles.  It was only a small sliver of the best day that the Boy and I have spent together since he was a kid.

The road to the Hotel Laugarholl, and this was by far the best part. Like I said, for a while I think we were actually off the road, or were on the abandoned road, or the road under construction. It was a little unnerving considering that it was early January and we were operating with around six hours of daylight.  Guess we could have soaked in the hotpot all night.

The entrance to the Hotel Laugarholl, closed up tight for the winter, with only the slightest feel of The Shining.

The view of the hotel.  You can see the pool, open year-round, and the desolate rocky hills in the distance.

The sign to the spring that fed the hotpot and the pool, with an appropriately unpronounceable Icelandic name.

The Gvendarlaug thermal spring that fed the hotpot and the pool.

Gary climbing into the hotpot, which was deliciously hot.  The only problem was climbing across the frozen tundra to get to that delicious warmth.

That little bump in the far end of the pool is Gary.  I love this picture.  It really gives us a sense of how we had the universe to ourselves, but seems quite busy and crowded by what we did later in the day, but that's another story.

Wow

I don't know why this picture amuses me so much, but it does.  On our trip to Iceland a year and a half ago my son and I flew on Wow Air, which had recently started flying out of Montreal. It's not like I hadn't flown on discount airlines before, but Wow was, well, especially discount. They were fine, really, although not really as expensive as they advertise (also typical, no one could be if they wanted to stay in business).  The biggest price jump related to their draconian baggage policy.  For every suitcase it was something like $85 a piece, which ran the price up pretty quickly. So, I guess the answer is to bring almost nothing, which was difficult with a CPAP machine and travelling in the middle of winter.  Like a lot of discount airlines you have to pay for everything on the flight; so no lovely meal alone the way.  I had the Yum Yum Noodles because who doesn't want to pay for ramen noodles on an international flight (and also because they remind me of graduate school, which I always romantically refer to as Ramen Noodle Years). Oh, and I also like ramen noodles.

Mmmmm, Yum Yum Noodles . . .

Air

In one of my favorite section from Cynthia Freeland's book Portraits & Persons she discusses the philosophical concept of "air."

   "What was captured in the image of my grandmother, that continuing contact that my mother and I responded to, has been given the helpful and non-technical label of the 'air' by philosopher Roland Barthes. His book about photography, Camera Lucida, is both a broad reflection on the medium and a moving personal essay which he was prompted to write in reflections on loss after his beloved mother's death.  Barthes mused over the ways in which photographs preserve the past, bringing us into the direct presence of people who are long dead.  Sadly, their deaths seems to be foretold in these images.  Barthes seeks the truth of the person he had loved as companion for so long in the pages of a photograph album. Suddenly he discovers her, 'the real her', in an image taken of her as a young girl.  He feels that he had finally found his mother authenticated in that image, which he calls the Winter Garden photograph. It captures what Barthes describes as her 'air'. A person's 'air' is unanalyzable, he says.  Clearly this is not the same as whatever is recorded of the outward appearance that shows someone's legal identity, as in a passport photo.  The air has more to do, Barthes says with 'the expression, the look."
   If pressed to describe my grandmother's 'air' as shown in that special photo of her, I would say that it had to do with the way in which she combined a witty and observant twinkle with a slight ducking of the head.  She seemed to be on the verge of giving way to a broad wink of humor to accompany a penetrating observation, but to be cutting it off out of politeness or decorum. Barthes says more to explain what he has in mind by his label the 'air':

The air is not a schematic, intellectual datum, the way a silhouette is.  Nor is the air a simple analogy - however extended - as in 'likeness.' No, the air is that exorbitant thing which induces from body to soul - animula, little individual soul, good in one person, bad in another.

Naturally, readers are curious to see the Winter Garden photograph, but Barthes does not publish it because he thinks it will only have resonance for him, the person who knew and loved his mother in a special way.  I am not sure he was right about this. Surely there is something in grate portraits from history that holds our attention just because we do seem to see in them a person's very essence, their 'air'."

And this bring me to a photograph that my nephew Garrett took of me seven years ago when I was living in Abu Dhabi and he and his mother came to visit.

I wonder if this photo captures my "air."  Sure, it's a fitting metaphor, and I'm sitting in the desert clearly pontificating on something.  He and I had gotten up freakishly early so that we could go out into the desert so that he could take pictures of the sun rising. I posted it on FB yesterday and it drew lots of comments and likes, which I attribute more to Garrett's talent as a photographer than my merits as a model.  Still, does it capture my "air"?  When I see it I'm struck by how content I seem, and, truthfully, I was very happy at that point of time in my life.

More Album Art

I've recovered a goodly number of Iceland photos, and the rest I'm not meant to have (and that's how you get around needing a grief counselor). Here's a picture that I definitely need to run off for my son.  During our week in Iceland we had stopped by the causeway (the one that we drove over the first time in the dark without any understanding of how amazing it was) on our way south from Holmavik to the Snaefellesnes Peninsula.  I've always referred to this one as the cover of Gary's first album.

Clearly, it would be Alt-Country.  Or maybe the opening credits of one of those incredibly dark Scandinavian crime dramas that I'm addicted to on NetFlix.