Tag: Music

Reading Around on February 20th

swanksalot2 Comments

Some additional reading February 20th from 19:14 to 20:35:

  • So How Many Calories Are In That Beer Anyway? – A Good Beer Blog – * Guinness (4.1%) – 2000 ml equals a little under 840 calories. * Blue Moon (5.4%) – 2000 ml is around 1026 calories. * Anchor Porter (5.7%) – 2000ml equals 1180 calories. * Dragon Stout (6.8%) – 2000 ml equals 1240 calories. You can see where I am going with this. I feel like I am breaking some sort of guy rule. Some sort of unwritten law of the beer men. But we have to walk in this world in awareness. So you will not cringe when I note that one McDonalds Angus burger and medium fries is 950 calories or that the same number of calories in raw chopped red cabbage is found takes over 30 cups …which is like 3 bushels, right? You can handle this information. Because you are strong. Because you really prefer a six of Anchor Porter to 46 cups of raw chopped red cabbage.

  • Did Last.fm Just Hand Over User Listening Data To the RIAA? – Last.FM might just be dead – I would stop using it

  • update: false! Good.

Godz I love the Pogues

Seth Anderson0 comment

Broke down and replaced my original five classic Pogues albums1 with the reissues put out by Rhino, circa 2004. Whoa, what a difference. The bonus tracks are nice, pleasant additions to the oeuvre, but the sound quality of the songs I know so well is the real notable difference. The original discs sound was quite muddy, the Rhino reissues are much, much brighter, and individual instruments are discernible. Whoo hoo! Thanks, Rhino.


“Red Roses for Me” (The Pogues)


“Rum Sodomy & the Lash” (The Pogues)


“If I Should Fall from Grace with God” (The Pogues)


“Peace and Love” (The Pogues)


“Hell’s Ditch” (The Pogues)

Awesome. The Pogues have been in my personal musical pantheon since I picked up a vinyl copy of If I Should Fall From Grace From God, and referred to it as, “If I Should Fall From God With Grace” in public, building that title into a poem, lost to the ages. Blame the inebriants. I turned out to have picked up on a wavelength that paralleled my own predilections: literate, punky folk with an Irish bent. This is not trad Irish, this is not Radio Clash, this is The Pogues. How can you go wrong with a band who originally titled themselves Pogue Mahone which translates from Gaelic to “Kiss my arse”…

In retrospect, If I Should Fall was The Pogues last great album, but there are good songs on both the releases that followed (Peace and Love and Hell’s Ditch). I wore the grooves out, playing these albums again and again, slurping beer, whiskey and wine.

Of their other great album, Rum, Sodomy & The Lash, I’m copping Mark Deming’s review because I’m feeling suddenly reticent:

“I saw my task… was to capture them in their delapidated glory before some more professional producer f—ked them up,” Elvis Costello wrote of his role behind the controls for the Pogues’ second album, Rum Sodomy & the Lash. One spin of the album proves that Costello accomplished his mission; this album captures all the sweat, fire, and angry joy that was lost in the thin, disembodied recording of the band’s debut, and the Pogues sound stronger and tighter without losing a bit of their edge in the process. Rum Sodomy & the Lash also found Shane MacGowan growing steadily as a songwriter; while the debut had its moments, the blazing and bitter roar of the opening track, “The Sick Bed Of Cuchulainn,” made it clear MacGowan had fused the intelligent anger of punk and the sly storytelling of Irish folk as no one had before, and the rent boys’ serenade of “The Old Main Drag” and the dazzling, drunken character sketch of “A Pair of Brown Eyes” proved there were plenty of directions where he could take his gifts. And like any good folk group, the Pogues also had a great ear for other people’s songs. Bassist Cait O’Riordan’s haunting performance of “I’m a Man You Don’t Meet Every Day” is simply superb (it must have especially impressed Costello, who would later marry her), and while Shane MacGowan may not have written “Dirty Old Town” or “And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda,” his wrought, emotionally compelling vocals made them his from then on. Rum Sodomy & the Lash falls just a bit short of being the Pogues best album, but was the first one to prove that they were a great band, and not just a great idea for a band.

Too bad I never saw them perform live in their glory, the one time I had tickets (at the late, lamented Liberty Lunch in Austin), I got too drunk on Bushmills, and slept past the festivities.

The liner notes of the reissues contain poems and essays by friends of the band like Steve Earle and Tom Waits, and description of how Alex Cox, recent auteur of Repo Man, volunteered to make a music video of “A Pair of Brown Eyes“, seen here sans audio track due to “copyright complaint” or some such bullshit. A shame, as this is an excellent little film.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jxz15nGkzAA

Can you tell I’ve tippled?
Continue reading “Godz I love the Pogues”

Footnotes:
  1. triggered by a realization that the only version of a Pogues song played in the police wake in The Wire Season Three – Body of an American – in my music library was not an high quality MP3, but rather a Napster-era download. Talk about crappy sound… [↩]

Reading Around on February 20th

swanksalot0 comment

Some additional reading February 20th from 09:50 to 18:29:

  • Reviews: Companies Accuse Yelp Of Review Extortion, Yelp Says No Way – Some San Francisco companies have accused the review website Yelp of manipulating reviews, either in exchange for buying advertising or as punishment for refusing. Yelp flat out denies the charges. They say that the posting and removal of reviews are determined solely by an algorithm and that their sales staff has no access to the reviews. But in this detailed article published this week in the East Bay Express, several restaurants cite phone calls and emails that they say indicates otherwise.

  • 50 Greatest Guitar Albums – Guitar World – Highway 61 Revisited introduced Bloomfield…his next major recording, 1966’s East-West with the Butterfield Blues Band, … The tune “East-West,” a 13-minute exploratory fusion of blues and Indian modality that features Bloomfield’s and Bishop’s guitars, flipped the switch for long-form rock improvisation. His shimmering slide licks and shrieking, treble-toned lead on “Walking Shoes,” akin to Hubert Sumlin’s playing on Howlin’ Wolf classics like “Killing Floor,” are ghostly, needling, vicious and patently unforgettable. On the band’s showcase, “Work Song,” Bloomfield’s melodies climb through scales in a manner closer to free-jazz saxophonist John Coltrane than to B.B. King, balancing chromatic ascents and descents with radically slurred bends and off-the-beat accents. And Bloomfield’s linear single-note playing on “I Got a Mind to Give Up Living,” which acknowledges his debt to King with wrist-shaking vibrato, captures the soulful essence of simmering slow blues.
  • Media Matters – Austin American Stateman , unlike AP, others, notes Heartland Institute’s energy industry ties – Well, yesterday the Austin American Statesman came out with a story making reference to Heartland and what did they do?: He is “regarded with reverence,” said Dan Miller, a publisher at the Heartland Institute, which puts out a newsletter asserting no scientific consensus on global warming and gets money from energy corporations. […] Climate scientists, however, hold that carbon dioxide emissions have a significant effect on a changing climate. A 2007 climate change study by an international group of scientists found that “warming of the climate system is unequivocal” and said with “very high confidence” that the net impact of “human activities since 1750 has been one of warming.”Atmospheric and climate scientists at UT and Texas A&M University have said that temperatures will rise in Texas, coastal communities are at risk from rising sea levels in the Gulf, and weather conditions are likely to include more severe droughts and flooding.

Troubadour : K’naan

Seth Anderson1 Comment


“Troubadour” (K’naan)

Never heard of this artist, but sounds interesting enough to check out.

Barry Walters of Rolling Stone writes:

Somalia-raised, Toronto-based rapper K’naan thinks like Bob Marley, flows like Eminem and mixes African music with conscious hip-hop, unabashed pop and even metal. The results are usually catchy and interesting: On “ABC’s,” K’naan contrasts North American gangster fantasies with his war-torn childhood, trading verses with old-school MC Chubb Rock, and then rocks out with Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett on “If Rap Gets Jealous.” Over the timely upbeat funk of “Dreamer,” he sees the utopia of John Lennon’s “Imagine” through a hip-hop lens: Troubadour is K’naan’s unique vision made real.

[From Troubadour : K’naan : Review : Rolling Stone]

Amazon’s blurb:

The name alone conjures up images of unbridled destruction, merciless warlords and ruthless terror. A place where nobody–children, the elderly, religious figures–is safe from the atrocities of war, and where the idea of “childhood,” where 8-year olds handle AK-47s like toys, exists in chronological terms alone. When Forbes magazine recently unveiled their “Most Dangerous Destinations,” Somalia–above Iraq and Afghanistan–topped the list. But it’s also “The Nation of Poets,” where a poem can both inspire peace and end wars. Where every weekend, regardless of the climate, one can find a play or concert at a local theatre.

Growing up, it was both of these Somalias that informed musician/emcee K’naan Warsame, whose sophomore album, Troubadour, is released this February. The grandson of Haji Mohamed, one of Somalia’s most famous poets, and nephew of famed Somali singer Magool, the emcee is creating his own musical path through reggae, funk, pop, soul and, above all, hip-hop.

Recorded primarily in Kingston, Jamaica, at the legendary Tuff Gong studios and Bob Marley’s home studio, Troubadour is a hip-hop album like no other. With contributions by Damian Marley, Mos Def, Chubb Rock, Vernon Reid, and Adam Levine (Maroon 5), K’naan successfully blends samples and live instrumentation for a sound that’s rooted in both traditional African melodies and the classic hip-hop tradition.

It would be easy to brand K’naan with the “political rapper” tag. But that’d be both easy and disingenuous. K’naan’s lyrics lie in stark contrast to emcees that use their medium as a pulpit to promote their beliefs. “My job is to write just what I see / So a visual stenographer is who I be,” he rhymes in “I Come Prepared.” Doubtless, K’naan is not without his opinions, but songwriting always comes before sermons.

On Troubadour, events like these don’t need to be glorified or exaggerated for the sake of art. “I think there are some people that are struggling in ‘hoods [in Canada and America], but it is so much harder and so much more violent [in Somalia],” says K’naan. “If you want to be like, ‘I’m from the hood. We got it rough. We got gats,’ I think you should know the alternative exists. I’m speaking in the same language of hip-hop which decidedly speaks about rough neighborhoods. So if there is a place for rough neighborhoods, then here comes the Mother of Rough Neighborhoods.”

Troubadour represents the sum of these experiences and more. Having spent the better part of the last two years on the road, soaking in everything from Bob Dylan to Fela Kuti to Talib Kweli, K’naan here releases the sonic document of an artist who has a lot to share now, but clearly a lot more to come. For anyone who’s said that hip-hop has nothing left to say, Troubadour proves that it all depends on where you look.

Good stuff

Reading Around on February 10th

swanksalot0 comment

Some additional reading February 10th from 19:19 to 21:03:

  • Cursebird: What the f#@! is everyone swearing about? – real time twitter feed of curse words. Not everything shows up, but still amusing

  • Ukulelia: Your Passport to Four Stringed Paradise – Performance artists Roger Geenawalt and David Barratt recorded and performed all 185 Beatles songs with 185 guest artists…on ukulele, natch.

    The performance was then cast as a benefit for Warren Buffett. (Head about to explode. Must. Keep. Blogging.) And they’ve now just delivered the cash to him in person. (Following is the BEST interview with Warren Buffett evar.)

Reading Around on January 31st

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Some additional reading January 31st from 08:49 to 22:46:

  • When I was seventeen, it was a very good year – Cristgau usually has tastes similar to mine, 1984 was no exception (though at the time, there was a lot more thrash metal on my playlist; I hadn’t discovered mind-and-ear expanding drugs yet). Plus I only turned 17 in 1986.

  • Harper’s Index: A retrospective of the Bush era (Harper’s Magazine) – Percentage of the amendments in the Bill of Rights that are violated by the USA PATRIOT Act, according to the ACLU: 50

    Minimum number of laws that Bush signing statements have exempted his administration from following: 1,069
    …
    Number of vehicles in the motorcade that transports Bush to his regular bike ride in Maryland: 6

    Estimated total miles he has ridden his bike as president: 5,400

    Portion of his presidency he has spent at or en route to vacation spots: 1/3

Obama’s Secret Record Collection

Seth Anderson0 comment

mmmm, vintage 180 gram vinyl. Wonder what sort of amplifier the White House has? They should release some photos of the listening room…

Vinyl is the best

When Barack Obama moved into the White House on January 20th, he gained access to five chefs, a private bowling alley — and a killer collection of classic LPs. Stored in the basement of the executive mansion is the official White House Record Library: several hundred LPs that include landmark albums in rock (Led Zeppelin IV, the Rolling Stones’ Let It Bleed), punk (the Ramones’ Rocket to Russia, the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols), cult classics (Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica, the Flying Burrito Brothers’ The Gilded Palace of Sin) and disco. Not to mention records by Santana, Neil Young, Talking Heads, Isaac Hayes, Elton John, the Cars and Barry Manilow.

During the waning days of the Nixon administration, the RIAA, the record companies’ trade group, decided the library should include sound recordings as well as books. In 1973, the organization donated close to 2,000 LPs.

…

Paul Nelson, then Rolling Stone’s reviews editor — compiled a list to reflect “diversity in what was going on in popular music.” They picked the Kinks’ Arthur1 for its “theme of empire,” and Blumenthal snuck in favorites like David Bowie’s Hunky Dory.

…

But Obama may be pleased to learn that at least a few of his favorite albums — Bob Dylan’s


Blood on the Tracks

Bruce Springsteen’s


Born to Run

— are there if he wants them on pristine slabs of vinyl.

[From Obama’s Secret Record Collection : Rolling Stone]

 


“Trout Mask Replica” (Captain Beefheart)

There isn’t a full list of the albums anywhere, but Captain Beefheart? Really? I wonder if it was ever opened? or played more than once. Is there a CD player too? Did the Bush family leave behind any favorite George Jones albums?

Gram Parsons and Band

Footnotes:
  1. full title: Arthur (or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) [↩]

Philip Dickian Guitar relics

Seth Anderson0 comment

Dylan memorobilia Hard Rock
a vintage Bob Dylan guitar from his pre-electric days

Seems a bit gimmicky to me, and eerily familiar to multiple Philip K Dick plot points – creating fake industrial age artifacts for profit. Does spending an extra $12,000 on a beat-up guitar make it sound any better? No, not in the slightest. I could understand emulating custom electronics (changing the pickups, frets or whatever) to get a sound that a favorite guitarist might make, but mirroring Jimmy Page’s beat up guitar scars seems like a waste of money.

The Easy Way To Hard Rock: ‘Distressed’ Guitars – WSJ.com:
CORONA, Calif. — At the Fender guitar factory here recently, Mike Eldred carefully laid the freshly painted body of a baby blue Stratocaster on a workbench. He then proceeded to scar the new instrument’s delicate lacquer surface using a menacing leather strap adorned with belt buckles, nuts and other hardware.

Normally, even one of the resulting scratches or dings on a brand-new instrument would make a guitar enthusiast cringe. But in the hands of Mr. Eldred, they are the first steps in the process of creating a “relic” guitar — a brand new instrument that has been deliberately aged to simulate decades’ worth of rock-and-roll wear and tear.
… “I always use the pre-faded blue jean analogy,” says Tom Murphy, whose Guitar Preservation Inc. does antiquing work for Fender’s main competitor, the Gibson Guitar Corp. “We know what that’s all about: Why wait? Just buy ’em like that.”

Some relics are so painstakingly aged that the end result is scratch-for-scratch copies of legendary guitars owned by real rock stars. This even appeals to the rock stars themselves, who have put in decades of sweat equity to create the real thing. As their prized vintage instruments have become increasingly valuable and fragile, some have begun using replicas of their famous guitars, especially on long tours.

Mr. Murphy, a former professional musician who in the early ’80s played guitar in Marie Osmond’s touring band, has built replicas now played by Led Zeppelin’s legendary guitarist Jimmy Page and Aerosmith’s Joe Perry, among others.

In a few instances, guitar makers have sold limited runs of replicas, with every nick, scratch and stain duplicated on new instruments made to look and feel like those made famous by Eric Clapton, Mr. Page and the Clash’s Joe Strummer. Fender is producing copies of Police guitarist Andy Summers’s 1961 Telecaster — which he bought used in 1972 for $200 — which are authentic right down to the broken bridge and quirky custom electronics. The 250 replicas are being offered at $15,000 each; dealers have already sold most of them, sight unseen, according to Fender and dealers.

Ridiculous

Seth and guitar 1971
a now-vintage fake Gibson, circa 1971. I think my uncle Phil has it now

New Friend
probably partially why I bought a sunburst guitar recently (albeit a Yamaha)

Continue reading “Philip Dickian Guitar relics”

Reading Around on January 23rd

swanksalot0 comment

Some additional reading January 23rd from 09:12 to 09:14:

  • The Allmusic Blog » Binge Listening: Solage – “The best known of Solage’s works is the rondeau for three voices, Fumeux fume par fumée, a staple of music history courses and a favorite among the Allmusic classical editors. This intensely chromatic and modally meandering piece may be about dreaming, smoke, or drug use — no one is quite sure what to make of it! But it is one of the oddest examples of early music extant”

  • David Bowie, 1973-76 – “Geoff MacCormack toured with Bowie during his glam-rock heyday, and has these (rather wonderful) snaps to prove it”

Them Never Love Poor Marcus

Seth Anderson0 comment


“Right Time” (The Mighty Diamonds)

I always wonder what my subconscious is attempting to inform me of when I wake up singing a song. This morning the song ringing through my mind was the Mighty Diamonds classic 1976 cut: Them Never Love Poor Marcus.

Here’s a version.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DAJI8dpNIE


Them never love, never love, never love poor Marcus-they
Never love him, oh no
Them never love, never love, never love poor Marcus

Till they betray him
Him own brethren sell him fe rice ‘n’ peas
They didn’t know there would be days like this
Now do you man waste in such a squeeze, yeah

Them never love, never love, never love poor Marcus-they
Never love him, oh no
Them never love, never love, never love poor Marcus

Men like Bag O’ Wire should burn in fire
the betrayer of Marcus Garvey

Them never love, never love, never love poor Marcus-they
Never love him, oh no
Them never love, never love, never love poor Marcus

Till the betray, one bredren sell him for rice and peas
They didn’t know there would be days like these
Now the human race in such a squeeze, mmm Yeah

Them never love, never love, never love poor Marcus-they
Never love him, oh no
Them never love, never love, never love poor Marcus

Men like Bag O’ Wire should burn in fire fire fire, Lord
Betrayer.
[repeat chorus]

Black man come together, unity is forever

Such a great song, and a great album, but I’m not sure exactly the point I was making to myself. Hope it isn’t the obvious point, of betrayal and politics…

Ralph Heibutzki of Allmusic writes:

Few reggae bands evoked their audience’s suffering as viscerally as the Mighty Diamonds, not least because of lead vocalist Donald “Tabby” Shaw. Although overshadowed by stars likeBunny Wailer, Shaw’s aching lilt remains a compelling signature of the roots-oriented ’70s era. His graceful yet forceful presence on songs like “I Need a Roof” — which laments lack of housing — is exactly what the music needs. A strong moralistic undertone runs throughout the album. “Right Time” warns of an impending breakdown in social order, and “Why Me Black Brother Why” decries the rampant lawlessness afflicting the island nation. “Them Never Love Poor Marcus” scornfully denounces the people who betrayed the black nationalist leader (Marcus Garvey) for “rice and peas.” “Gnashing of Teeth” takes up the Biblical imperative of Judgment Day, in which “only good works shall see you through.” Some strategic departures help to leaven the band’s approach, most notably the love song “Shame and Pride.” Lloyd Ferguson steps out of his backup vocalist role on “Go Seek Your Rights,” which reminds people to respect their differences while striving for social change, and “Africa” is a wistful tribute to the continent that Rastafarian believers consider their final home. The playing is first-rate, bolstered by unobtrusive contributions from session aces like bassist Robbie Shakespeare and drummer Sly Dunbar. No student of the genre should miss this landmark roots album.

while Robert Christgau gives Right Time an A-

On the purely aural, preverbal evidence–the sweet, precise harmonies and arrangements, the intent beat–you’d figure they were singing songs of love, or at least sexual mastery. Ditto from their foolish stage act. But in fact there are no broken hearts in these lyrics, only broken bodies, and the exultation is the exultation of oppression defied. In other words, this follows reggae conventions as Americans know it, and on a few cuts conventional is how it sounds. Usually, though, lead singer Donald Sharpe sounds as if he’s learned all this more recently than the Bob Marley of Rastaman Vibration.

Van Morrison’s Piss Off You Wankers album

Seth Anderson5 Comments

Happened to listen to the Bang Records Contratual Obligation Sessions today. What a hoot.1

Van Morrison records one of the first punk albums: every song on here is less than 2 minutes long, and many contain enough vitriol for Johnny Rotten to surf on.

WFMU’s Beware of the Blog: Van Morrison’s Contractual Obligation Album
…And then there is Van Morrison’s Bang Records Sessions.

In order to fulfill his obligation to his early solo label Bang Records,Van Morrison sat down in 1967 or so and cranked out 31 songs on the spot, on topics ranging from ringworm to wanting a danish, to hating his record label and a guy named George. Make sure you get past the first few tunes – it takes him a few to get cooking.

Some very funny titles included here

Music here

Oh, and the lyrics are here, worth another giggle.

Unfortunately, WFMU had to take down the tracks. If you are looking for a copy, contact me privately or leave a comment, I might know where to direct you.

Jump And Thump – 1:09
Shake And Roll – 0:59
Stomp And Scream-1:14
Scream And Holler-1:16
Ring Worm-1:33
Drivin Wheel-1:14
Just Ball-1:00
Shake It Mable-1:14
Hold On George-1:31
The Big Royalty Check-1:37
Savoy Hollywood-1:01
Freaky If You Got This Far-1:06
Up Your Mind-1:14
Thirty Two-1:00
All The Bits-0:55
Twist And Shake-1:17
You Say France And I Whistle-0:55
Blow In Your Nose-1:26
Nose In Your Blow-1:03
La Mambo-0:53
Go For Yourself-1:21
Want A Danish-1:05
Here Comes Dumb George-0:57
Chickee Coo-1:11
Do It-1:01
Hang On Groovy-0:58
Goodbye George-1:18
Dum Dum George-1:27


“Complete Bang Sessions” (Van Morrison)

Apparently, these 30 tracks have since been actually released on CD. Wow, not sure I’d pay actual money for these songs, most are best heard infrequently. Funny to hear once a year, more than that, not so much.

Stephen Erlewine of Allmusic writes:

The Bang Sessions, as most fans of Van the Man know, present Morrison when he is very good and when he is absolutely wretched. The good, of course, is his first solo album, Blowin’ Your Mind, an engaging set of ambitious folk-rock which borrows equally from R&B and jazz, winding up with songs as ebullient as “Brown Eyed Girl” and as haunting as “T.B. Sheets,” with a lot of ground covered in between. The bad is the songs that he wrote and recorded in a bid to get out of his contract with Bang — obstinate, stream-of-conscious ditties and nonsense that he wrote on the spot; it’s interesting in theory, but nearly unlistenable in practise.

Footnotes:
  1. reposted from a 2005 entry [↩]

The Scottish Origin of Rap

Seth Anderson0 comment

Alex Boese of the Weird Universe blog adds a counterpoint to the Scottish origin of rap theory we ridiculed a few weeks ago:

The more conventional theory is that the roots of rap music trace back to ancient West African poets called “griots”. From Wikipedia:

the griots of West Africa were delivering stories rhythmically, over drums and sparse instrumentation. Because of the time that has passed since the griots of old, the connections between rap and the African griots are widely established, but not clear-cut. However, such connections have been acknowledged by rappers, modern day “griots”, spoken word artists, mainstream news sources, and academics.

Actually, given the big gap in time between these two possible origins and the emergence of rap in the 1970s, both theories sound a little iffy to me.

[From Weird Theory: The Scottish Origin of Rap]

Straight Outta Glasgow

Seth Anderson1 Comment


“Straight Outta Compton” (N.W.A)

This amuses me, probably for the mental image (rappers in kilts, haggis studded with bling, yadda yadda)

A professor has theorized that rap music, by way of the dozens, originated in medieval Scottish pubs…

Professor Ferenc Szasz argued that so-called rap battles, where two or more performers trade elaborate insults, derive from the ancient Caledonian art of “flyting“.

According to the theory, Scottish slave owners took the tradition with them to the United States, where it was adopted and developed by slaves, emerging many years later as rap.

Professor Szasz is convinced there is a clear link between this tradition for settling scores in Scotland and rap battles, which were famously portrayed in Eminem’s 2002 movie 8 Mile.

He said: “The Scots have a lengthy tradition of flyting – intense verbal jousting, often laced with vulgarity, that is similar to the dozens that one finds among contemporary inner-city African-American youth.

“Both cultures accord high marks to satire. The skilled use of satire takes this verbal jousting to its ultimate level – one step short of a fist fight.”

[Click to read more Rap music originated in medieval Scottish pubs, claims American professor – Telegraph]

and to fulfill any lingering grad student impulses:

The most famous surviving example of flyting comes from a 16th-century piece in which two rival poets hurl increasingly obscene rhyming insults at one another before the Court of King James IV.

Titled the Flyting Of Dunbar And Kennedy, it has been described by academics as “just over 500 lines of filth”.

Right? So just imagine lines like these being recited over a phat beat of knives clanging on a bottle of single malt whisky:


Into the Katryne thou maid a foule cahute,
For thow bedrate hir doune fra starn to stere;
Apon hir sydis was sene thou coud schute,
Thy dirt clevis till hir towis this twenty yere:
The firmament na firth was nevir cler,
Quhill thou, Deulbere, devillis birth, was on the see,
The saulis had sonkin throu the syn of the,
War not the peple maid sa grete prayere.



Quhen that the schip was saynit, and undir saile,
Foul brow in holl thow preposit for to pas,
Thou schot, and was not sekir of thy tayle,
Beschate the stere, the compas, and the glas;
The skippar bad ger land the at the Bas:
Thow spewit, and kest out mony a lathly lomp,
Fastar than all the marynaris coud pomp;
And now thy wame is wers than evir it was.

Hmmm. Maybe not.

When Fats Waller Met Al Capone

swanksalot0 comment


“The Very Best of Fats Waller” (Fats Waller)

Kottke pointed out this great incident in Jazz history.

One evening Fats felt a revolver poked into his paunchy stomach. He found himself bullied into a black limousine, heard the driver ordered to East Cicero. Sweat pouring down his body, Fats foresaw a premature end to his career, but on arrival at a fancy saloon, he was merely pushed toward a piano and told to play. He played. Loudest in applause was a beefy man with an unmistakable scar: Al Capone was having a birthday, and he, Fats, was a present from “the boys”.

The party lasted three days. Fats exhausted himself and his repertoire, but with every request bills were stuffed into his pockets. He and Capone consumed vast quantities of food and drink. By the time the black limousine headed back to the Sherman, Fats had acquired severeal thousand dollars in cash and a decided taste for vintage champagne

[From First encounters: When Fats Waller met Al Capone | Independent, The (London) ]

I’ve always had an affection for Fats Waller (and in fact, we have a song of his that is ‘penciled in‘ to our screenplay), now I love him even more. What a cool cat.

By the way, you could purchase a home previously owned by Al Capone (seen here getting an autographed baseball at Comiskey Park1 ), if you were so inclined:

Want to own a notorious piece of Chicago history?



The modest, red-brick home once owned by Al Capone is expected to hit the market this spring for an estimated $450,000, marking a new chapter for the infamous South Side landmark that has had just two owners since the death of Capone’s mother in 1952.



“I think there’s some value in the home’s history,” said Barbara Hogsette, 71, who has lived in the house since 1963

…

For more than a century, the two-flat home with large bay windows has stood near the corner of 72nd Street and South Prairie Avenue in the working-class Park Manor neighborhood. Cook County records show the Capones bought the home for $5,500 in August 1923, part of a wave of first- and second-generation European immigrants who moved to that part of the city in the Prohibition era.

Footnotes:
  1. Gangster Al Capone and his son having baseball autographed by player Gabby Hartnett aka Charles Leo Hartnett from Capone’s front row seat [↩]