'Imagine you're in hell and you want out'

I thought this was appropriate for Halloween, a downright eerie composition that seems to be an examination of what sounds can be coaxed from the modern keyboard. A fascinating piece by a 20th century master well-played by Mr. Anderson, damn some of that cross-handed action is kooky. Even the camera work and editing are intriguing, if a little cheesy and heavy-handed. Still an all-around interesting piece of work here. Enjoy.

Greg Anderson -- Ligeti's Etude #13: 'The Devil's Staircase'

Rainbows and waterfalls run through my mind

The music editor was listening to Shuggie the other day--not a lot of output but all of his stuff is classic--and he had to put some up on the blog. Unfortunately there's nothing approaching a real video out there just a coupla homemade jobs. This one is hackneyed but ambitious, so it’s the winner. (Did you know Shuggie played bass on Frank Zappa's 'Peaches en Regalia'? Oh yeah, he was like 16 at the time--born a stone cold badass!)

Shuggie Otis -- 'Strawberry Letter 23'

Put some fuzz on it

I believe this, the opening track off his latest album, is the first Keller Williams song I've ever heard that had drums on it or a wah solo--both courtesy of a collaboration with Jeff Covert. Still got the telltale frenetic bass lick and goofball sense of humor to go with the electric git action. I like it. Even self-made badasses can expand their horizons.

Keller Williams -- 'Play This'

Makes me wanna cry

Along with 'Crazy Train' and, of course, 'Stairway to Heaven', this was one of those tunes that every idiot with long hair wanted to play back in the day. I couldn't play any of those songs and I still can't...'cause I'm smart? Yeah! Take that, guitar gods! I was hoping to find 'Die With Your Boots On', to me the quintessential Maiden song, but this classic is good enough for now.

Iron Maiden -- 'Wasted Years'

I brought a little of everything

The 12-string guitar in the hands of confident player sounds like a wall of fury. Hart brings the frenzy but plays with such touch and has the soulful voice as well. Frankly it ain't fair how badass this guy is and this clip courtesy of the Fog Network is just a taste. (I lived in the Bay Area for 6 years and while I was a big fan of Hart, an Oaktown native, I never heard of the Fog Network, my loss)

Alvin Youngblood Hart -- 'Gallows Pole'

Watch TV and have a coupla brews

The latter day (roided out) Henry Rollins is absolutely humorless about the subject of drug use but in his youth he used to advocate drinking and sloth. We assume he hasn't lost his enthusiasm for beanbag chillin' but now he's more into the artsy, not the fartsy. Perhaps we should've seen that coming: he was way ahead of the curve on Hill Street Blues.

Black Flag -- 'TV Party'

Ever wonder why the caged bird sings?

The music editor caught a film the other day called Same Old Song directed by Alain Resnais, from a play by the great writing team of Jean-Pierre Bacri and Agnes Jaoui. It was a good flick, a fairly ordinary tale of the romantic entanglements of upwardly mobile Parisians with one extraordinary twist: the dialogue is often punctuated with bursts of song. Not original songs like a musical, but pop songs lip-synced by the actors. Strange in that (like Stewie on Family Guy) you can never tell if the other characters understand the song being sung--it seems like sometimes they do and sometimes they don't--but it definitely livens up the atmosphere.

Anyway, the songs were all French pop songs that I didn't know. But I did recognize some Charles Aznavour, Edith Piaf and Josephine Baker, it put the music editor in an old timey mood. Here's the great Josephine belting out a number from the 1934 film Zouzou. (I haven't seen the film so I'm not sure if this is the only musical number in the film or if this is a proper musical, I look forward to getting to the bottom of this mystery) Her creative bikini top almost makes this a NSFW item but I don't think anyone will be emotionally scarred by this. Man, she's got some pipes on her and the set and costume designs are curious.

Josephine Baker -- 'Haiti' (from the film Zouzou)

Deep deep sleep

Here's a clip of Radiohead from way back in the day. (You've got Radiohead's new free album, right?) In my youth I was what might be called an 'early adopter' of music, I was generally ahead of the trends. But in my later college days, I lost interest in keeping up the financial wherewithal to be an early adopter and so gradually drifted away from whatever it was the kids were digging on. At any rate, Radiohead hit the big time right around the time I was withdrawing from the popular world, so it took me many years to catch on to these guys. I vaguely remember the song 'Creep' but I don't remember hearing that record or even much about them back in the day. But I'm glad I did finally catch on to them, they fucking rock, man. Thom Yorke, obnoxious punkass that he is, is quite a badass and I'm sure I'd be a dick too if I were kicking as much ass as he does. Now they're giving away product--a no-no when Microsoft does it but the cat's meow when it comes from these guys--and I say bravo. As a guy no longer willing to keep up with the joneses, I'll take all the free shit I can carry.

Radiohead -- 'Airbag'

Her bedroom eye starts to twitch

You might've forgotten just how old the Beastie Boys are, well check this out. First off, the music is basically naked vocals over spare beats (with a hint of a thrashy guitar, which became the Beastie trademark), what we might call the 'early Brooklyn style', DJ Herc-type stuff, long before the rap style hits maturity. And the video itself is one of those static-camera, MC's standing around, chicks in bikinis affairs that almost makes you appreciate how much 'better' videos are now. And, the capper, check out the Rick Rubin cameo--he looks like a little kid! The Beastie Boys were there in the early days of MTV, back when MTV used to play music all day--man that seems like ages ago!--and they've survived. Pretty impressive.

The Beastie Boys -- 'She's On It'

You're a winner!

Watched Boogie Nights the other night, hadn't seen it a while, great flick. I couldn't help myself, had to check out the original version of Dirk Diggler's brutally awful single. I wasn't a Transformers fan in my youth so I didn't know it was a real song. I was floored when I found out because it is such a quintessentially crappy '80s song that it feels like a nostalgic construction rather than an original artifact--does that make sense? In defense of the song, the vocals are much stronger than Dirk musters and the drums are different (and slightly) better than the Boogie Nights version. But, man, this still sucks. So was Stan Bush a porn star? I remember when Samantha Fox made the jump from page 6 to top o' the pops and Madonna (and Vanna White) showing up in Playboy, but I don't recall any other porn stars crossing over. 'You've been put to the test/But its never enough'--what the hell does that mean?

Stan Bush -- 'You Got the Touch'

Let me know

Lucky Peterson is a blues player of the Chicago school, a style that loves ripping leads but also lends itself well to throat-y vocals. This clip is labeled as a 'private concert' and that's what it feels like, there's clearly an audience but my man is sitting on a couch, it all feels pretty informal. But once the vocals come in--I don't know her but she is bringing it--you know it's on. The camera starts sidewise but it moves all around from beginning to end.

Lucky Peterson in a private Paris throwdown

I'm gonna have to bust you in your lips

I dig Missy Elliott. Her albums (like old AC/DC records) are good for about 2 or 3 really cool songs if nothing else. As for her videos, I'm fascinated by the bizarre imagery she goes for. I don't understand any of it at all but it's all so stark and unique it's hard to look away, almost a Brothers Quay quality but with live humans instead of personified sundry items. And for anyone that's ever worked with video, you know hours and hours of work goes into getting 12 seconds worth of usable footage, so, man, she must work on those things around the clock! I don't even know this song but its got a good beat.

Missy Elliott -- 'She's a Bitch'

Open the pod bay doors, Hal

Its Columbus Day, which to the cultured American mind means 'no mail today'. But in the sense of exploration I wanted to go with something visually and aurally challenging. I looked up 2001: A Space Oddysey in You Tube hoping to find some classical clips, you know Schubert or something. Instead there was a ton of other clips from the film, a bunch of mash-ups (the Goodfellas/2001 was pretty funny as was the Goodfellas/Brokeback Mountain), and a bunch of other music set to the same visuals. Okay, no Schubert today, but Orbital works for me. (2001 is a kooky picture: the 2 times I've seen it on the big screen, I thought it was as engrossing and exciting as any film I've ever seen; the 2 times I've tried to watch it on my TV, I thought it was turgid and dull. I'm hard-pressed to think of any other film of which I've felt so sharply divided on venue)

Orbital -- 'Transient' (set to scenes from 2001: A Space Oddysey)

Like a thousand tiny little piranha fish

I'm a huge Lily Tomlin fan. Her '70s records in particular are wildly underrated ('I'm a rubber freak'). And her range as an actress has never really been exploited. There's not a heck of a lot of vid of Lily over at You Tube (and predictably the vast majority of those are David O. Russell's legendary tirade) and that's too bad. Here she is as one of her most enduring characters shilling for laundry detergent.

Lily Tomlin for Grrrrr Laundry Detergent

And if you ever wanted to know more about Lily Tomlin, here's a few web extras that let you know about her darker side.

'The Good, the Bad, the Tomlin'
Lily Tomlin has the bowels of a 90 year old man!
'The Good, the Bad, the Tomlin, part 2'
Lily Tomlin cheats at Monopoly!

No Leonard Pinth-Garnell here

Back in the day I worked at a record store where the sales reps pounded with us with free CDs. Everybody fought over the latest cool stuff while I snagged boxes of classical, world music and jazz. Along the way I picked up a Ryo Kawasaki disk or two and was generally quite impressed. (He's the guitarist, by the way) He's got chops galore and he's definitely partial to driving runs and churning beats. Artsy-fartsy guitar jazz ain't for everybody but if you feel like getting into some, Kawasaki is a good place to start.

As for this piece specifically, the sound is a little screwy early on (the pounding percussion overwhelms) but it quickly evens out and sounds pretty good. The composition is fun, the drummers are flying, everybody gets to solo (as always in gentlemanly jazz) and you just don't hear enough horn sections these days. And the ballet…well, honestly of all the art forms out there ballet is the one that makes no sense to me: I understand trying to physicalize music, trying to physically express the innate joy and energy, I just don't understand any of the actual movements. And with this massive stage it seems like it would've been better on ice. At any rate, enjoy.

Ryo Kawasaki -- composition for jazz ballet

Turn it up while you're gone

I wasn't a big fan of the album this song came from, but I dig the Queens. They pick up where Megadeth stumbled back in the day, creating driving metal hooks that don't rely on sonic overkill or Metalocalypse-style ridiculous persona (though I can definitely see the Queens going for a swim in 'Blood Ocean'). At their best the Queens can really kick some ass.

Queens of the Stone Age -- 'In My Head'

Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles

I've been listening to Coltrane all day today. All day and I haven't even come close to exhausting the disks--ah, the magic of box sets! Here he is from 1965 tearing up one of his signature tunes. McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison and Elvin (not Philly Joe) Jones in the mix with him. A furious performance and the tight camera work really brings out the intensity.

John Coltrane -- 'My Favorite Things'

When she kisses me

Not sure what made me think of these guys, haven't heard them in eons. I remember really digging them back in the day and never getting anyone else to like them and then they just faded out. I used to have a vinyl copy of one of their records but I'm not sure what happened to it, it's gone now. I seem to recall they had a version of 'Train from Kansas City', anyone back me up on that? I don't remember this song but this is a flavor of what I recall.

Scruffy the Cat -- 'My Baby, She's Alright'