04.17.07
Posted in music at 23:00 by Toby Petzold
One of the best aspects of The Sopranos is the soundtrack of each episode. This past week’s episode ended with this sort of rapid-fire, Mancunian-accented rap-hop track called —I now know— “Evidently Chicken Town.”
I knew I had heard something very like this song before, but couldn’t quite place it. But as soon as I googled up the lyrics to it and saw a picture of their author —John Cooper Clarke— I remembered that he is the guy walking around in the intro to the 1979 Joy Division video “Transmission.”
Check it out. It’s great stuff.
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12.27.06
Posted in America, History, music at 12:24 by Toby Petzold
I like this bit from Jody Rosen’s obituary of James Brown at Slate:
Listen closely, with a good pair of headphones, and the thousand pointillist details of Brown’s genius open up to you: the shifting accents and registers, the variations in dynamics and attack, the disconcerting spaces and silences, the beats piled atop beats. But, of course, that genius is never more apparent than when the headphones come off and you lose yourself in the steamy blur of a packed dance floor.
I have always been fascinated by James Brown. Either because I enjoyed his music or because his personal life was so damned weird. But, like all truly great American artists, Brown’ s contribution to his culture is beyond question. His music is beautiful (dig the cavernous sounds of “It’s a Man’s World”) and fun (”Sex Machine” is actually infectious). Sometimes, you’ve got to —as the once-great Eddie Murphy knew— jump back and kiss yourself.
The incoherent poet. The Mercury on rims, flinging sparks, rubber, and mad grooves. The outsized motor and the overboard man of passion, motion, and funk. Thank you for making the engagement, James Brown, and so to make the bridge.
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09.23.06
Posted in America, music at 23:51 by Toby Petzold
I can’t believe that Dr Pepper is using “Turning Japanese” by The Vapours in its latest TV ad. Is it so old a song that, not only is it new again, but is exempt from the charge of both vulgarity and racism?
I think that’s a good thing —and am sorry that there would be a reason why I should ever have thought otherwise.
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07.27.06
Posted in beauty, music at 19:16 by Toby Petzold
As is well known, my personal discovery of any popular piece of art officially marks the beginning of its demise and relegation to unhipness, but I still must say that I am absolutely smitten with the song “Catastrophe” by the group Rainer Maria. I only know new music through the medium of the recently-introduced music video channel we have here on Austin cable, and that is how I found this song (as I also found Gnarls Barkley’s song “Crazy” not too long ago).
“Catastrophe” is a wonderful moment of songwriting genius. I don’t know if the two dark-haired girls in the video are just actresses playing out the lyrics, but the singer of the song is a beautiful young woman with a very rich and feminine voice.
I hope she is the writer of the song, too.
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07.11.06
Posted in beauty, music at 18:00 by Toby Petzold
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06.19.06
Posted in music at 00:45 by Toby Petzold
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06.07.06
Posted in beauty, music at 03:05 by Toby Petzold
I park my Pontiac
Down the hill out in back,
Late every afternoon
With a Coke and a cigarette.
And all of the neighbors there
They see a nice old man.
And the girl there across the street,
She sits on her front porch swing.
She never realized
What I told her with my eyes
How back in the second war
I killed twenty German boys
With my own bare hands.
And the woman inside my house,
She won’t stop talking.
She never says a thing;
She just keeps talking.
And I might just leave her still
After the sun goes down.
And I smoke this cigarette…
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Posted in History, Texas, music at 00:40 by Toby Petzold
I was saddened today to hear of the death of Billy Preston. A native of Houston, Texas, Billy was at the heart of some of the greatest music of his generation. Which is to say, of all generations.
He played with the Beatles, the Stones, Bob Dylan, and dozens of other great artists. But Billy Preston was himself a great artist —and a good man.
Thanks for the music, sir. You will be remembered.
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04.28.06
Posted in music, personal at 23:10 by Toby Petzold
I’m taking off May Day to show my solidarity with my peops.
(Actually, I just want a three-day weekend.)
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04.15.06
Posted in Austin, music at 04:54 by Toby Petzold
There’s a couple of pixies on the local access channel (Channel 10) being weird and playing cool videos —one of which is this animated thing by a group called UNKLE. Fucking fantastic! “An Eye for an Eye” is the title of the track. And the song is as brilliant as the video. Excellent stuff.
I didn’t know that chicks like Samantha and Alexandria had such good taste, although I’ve always hoped it was so.
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