SPLASH 1

Listen to SPLASH 1 by 13th Floor Elevators.

This week is OU-Texas week, which has made...no difference to my life this year. Last season, I was pretty good about following every game where possible. This year, well, you might accuse me of being a fair weather fan, because we've lost a couple of games and I haven't even seen any of them, except for the Tulsa game. There are a few extenuating circumstances -- I was at a wedding for our first loss, I had a dinner engagement for the Miami loss, we've not been on free TV a couple fo the weeks, but it is what it is. I half-jokingly said after the Florida game last year that I was boycotting the team for awhile, but it's turned out to be true.

Anyway, why are we discussing this? I have a song for you, by Austin's own 13th Floor Elevators, clearly the best thing to come out of that town ever. But my digression has used up all of my blogging energy, so you'll just have to be in the dark about the song. Roll on Saturday.

HERE'S WHERE YOU BELONG

Listen to HERE'S WHERE YOU BELONG by West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band.

Third selection of three from this group. It's Sunday night, so no requirement to be expansive about it. But, while I'm here, Happy Father's Day, Dad!

IN THE PINES

Listen to IN THE PINES by Link Wray.

Some sh*t-kickin' music for Thursday. Enjoy. The long weekend ain't far away!

OKLAHOMA HOME BREW

Listen to OKLAHOMA HOME BREW by Hank Thompson & His Brazos Valley Boys.

This week I thought I would go back through some of our past mixes just for fun. The mix we did in 2003 might be the best one and most popular. It was called "One More Round, Bartender...It's Christmas." Basically a collection of some of my favorite country music tunes, so it's heavy on the classics.

And it's also heavy on songs about Oklahoma (understandable if you know where I grow up). I started tracking down as many "Oklahoma" songs as I could a few years ago, basically as soon as I started going to allmusic.com. There, you can enter in song titles, or parts of song titles, so I would enter in "oklahoma" in the search function and just write down any tracks that looked interesting. I eventually found this CD at J&R music, I'm pretty sure in August 2003. As soon as I heard it, I knew I had the first track for the Christmas CD that year.

Photo: One More Round Bartender...It's Christmas!

Does anyone care about the FA Cup?

I care that we won our match today, but is that the same thing? If I was told that we were disqualified tomorrow on account of Eduardo blinking too many times per minute, I'm not sure it would make any difference to me at all. Maybe this is where being a British/local fan against being an overseas fan comes most into play. I don't have any romantic attachments to the cup; I don't have any feeling whatsoever for Burnley, I don't even know where Burnley is (though I suspect that IS something I have in common with plenty of North Londoners). At the moment, I think I care more about the Carling Cup than I do the F.A. Cup, because the former is an undiluted glimpse of our team's future. Our F.A. Cup teams have an odds and sods character to them.

Meanwhile I still defend the college bowl system (though less and less all the time) mainly for its nostalgia value...

More than a feeling

I don't read OU message boards but I can only imagine what they're saying today. What a debacle. In every way we embarrassed ourselves last night, and it's gotta be hurting the brand sooner or later. Bob's halo has well and truly slipped now, I'd have thought?

Here it comes again

Evening folks! Most of you won't be reading this tonight but a short short recap of the weekend's events is called for. Saturday morning followed the usual routine: a walk, then settle in on the couch for the soccer. Two nice things about our match: one, we won with some super stylish goals and pretty decent defending, two, at halftime we firmed up some arrangements on getting the ceiling finally put right. More on that a little later.

Amy and I spent some time Saturday cooking for a pot luck dinner at Helen & Oren's house to watch the OU game. Splendid stuff, though Maddox and I were both unusually downbeat at the end: depressed at how we managed to throw away a great chance to play for the national championship. Ah well, we'll be looking forward to buying all the preseason magazines next year listing us as the number one team in the country.

Today I visited Laura and Corbett to preview this year's Christmas CD for them and to hear some of the songs he's blogging this week. We're going on a five-songs-per-week schedule through Christmas at least: too much good material!

Before that Amy and I attended Luke's first birthday party. Luke's arrival on the scene was one of the very first posts on this blog. Speaking of, we wouldn't be doing ourselves justice if we didn't note that this weekend marks the one year anniversary of the public debut of this here blog! Happy birthday to us!

List of "Top 100" Oklahoma musicians

My Dad just sent me this list that OklahomaRock.com put together, of the Top 100 musicians from Oklahoma. Definitely worth checking out.

Just on first pass, Bob Wills (9!), Jimmy Webb (58), and Henson Cargill (71) are way too low (especially Bob Wills wtf?), but everybody is entitled to their opinion. I can't think of anyone off the top of my head they completely left out but I know there's one or two.

Interesting facts I just learned: Neal Schon from Journey (who my friend Chris memorably described as having a guitar tone "like a wet bar of soap") was born in Oklahoma City; Jerry Cantrell from Alice In Chains lives on a ranch outside Atoka; The Gap Band is from Tulsa, and their name was originally the "Greenwood, Archer, and Pine Street [i.e. Black Wall Street. Great book here if you're unfamiliar] Band;" and Spade Cooley brutally stomped his wife to death.

I may return to this list some week in the future!

Oklahoma pity party.

Phooey. Small consolation that I saw it coming...

Oklahoma birthday party.

The best part about yesterday is that Maddox called up and said he had tickets to the OU basketball game. The best part of that is that when we got there we found out that not only did we have tickets but they were in the second row courtside. And then when we got to our seats, someone was sitting in them, but the best part of that was that we just sat in the seats right in front of them! We did our best to have fun and not get kicked out (we were on our last warning with the security lady, and one of the Memphis players actually turned around during a free throw to tell Maddox to "shut the hell up") and just about managed it.

Then we went to a bar across the street, and the best part of that was that we saw Arizona beat Oregon.

But now I have a headache.

All mod cons

I know a few of you would like to play music directly over the internet without worrying about downloading and importing and all that. To that end I added a music player on the right-hand side of the blog. Just click on whatever song and it should stream directly, if you have Flash capability. If it works for people, we'll keep it!

I neglected to do this earlier, but I also wanted to point people to my friend Kendal's essay on Oklahoma's 100th birthday (tomorrow!). It's thoroughly readable and original and for my money it gets at something important about the Oklahoma character.

More like this please

With Arsenal not playing until tomorrow, I was allowed a rare weekend of non-soccer disruption (never to be repeated until... NEXT weekend), but I did watch a lot of college football, and it was, as Brian put it, an almost perfect day. Ohio State lost, Notre Dame got embarrassed again, OU won though Baylor was respectable, Kansas won, beating I'm-a-man-I'm-forty, Missouri won. We're now one more loss from having our destiny back in our hands--it's been a crazy college football year!

How easy could it be?

Last night we realized a little late that OU wouldn't be on regular TV, so we went up to Hill Country barbecue, where they say that they broadcast all of the Texas and A&M games. Not true. But a good meal anyway (and lots of UT fans having fun with Mike Gundy, so funny). We walked over to Duke's Bar & Grill in time for the second quarter. It was a walkover, which is fine with us!

Next week, if all goes to plan, Corbett will be blogging for you here. I am looking forward to what he has to play and what he has to say. Especially since he actually knows what he's talking about! Stay tuned.

TRANSPARENT DAY

TRANSPARENT DAY by The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band.

I've been looking forward to posting this song for a couple of days. Not because it's really good (although it is), but ever since I put up the Judee Sill song I've had it in my head. I'd sing it to myself. But not "Jesus Was a Crossmaker." Instead I'd sing "Jesus Was a Homewrecker" or "Jesus Was an Arm-Breaker" or "Jesus Was a Drug-Taker" or "Jesus Was a Handshaker" or something else. Try it! Once I started I couldn't stop.

Moving on... I've been wanting to hear The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band forever, mostly because every single review or interview of The Clientele I've ever read it's been "this band sounds like The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band" or Alisdair Maclean saying "I wish I had written Transparent Day by The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band" or something similar.

And it turns out that the first album is excellent all the way through. It's got a good amount of weirdness sprinkled through it; I can see why they only have a cult following. Transparent Day doesn't have any of that weirdness, though, just Byrdsiness, so don't worry! As always enjoy your weekend. If you're me this is a big sports weekend--Arsenal v. Man United tomorrow morning, OU v. A&M tomorrow night.

LISTEN.

Photo: Woodstock (3).

Barren Saturday

I'm down in the canyons of Wall Street this afternoon, putting my time in, and deciding when and where to go later on for the last day of CMJ. I was think of dropping by a couple of houses, and then seeing if I can get into Justice at the new Terminal 5. Amy and I (and Philip and Meredith (of Girl Robot fame) and John and lots of others) saw Ghostland Observatory at Webster Hall. I loved it. I have a write up ready (at least in my head!), but I can't post anything at the imeem site at the moment for reasons that are unclear to me. I did manage to put up some photos, and if the technical stuff sorts itself out, I'll have two nights of reports to file. I might just post them here, who knows. (You can at least see my photos here.)

In other news, Boring Liverpool were gifted a win at Everton, and Boring Bolton were gifted a loss at Arsenal. (Roll on next weekend, but I'll be watching on tape delay.) And Oklahoma is in the fourth quarter trying to beat the vaunted Iowa State Cyclones.

ONE OF THESE THINGS FIRST

ONE OF THESE THINGS FIRST by Nick Drake.

Thanks to Volkswagen almost everyone has heard of Nick Drake, but it wasn't always this way. On balance that's a good thing but I'm not sure I ever got a bigger thrill of discovery from any single artist . That was thanks to Corbett. I remember I got my own copy of "Way To Blue" at a Blockbuster Music on 23rd Street while I was up visiting my Grandpa (the same one who built the Myriad) the fall of 1995. What is it with these songs? Are they placid? Unsettling? You can't get to the bottom of them.

Of the three albums, "Bryter Layter" always struck me as the weakest. That's the purist in me talking. Even so, Corner Bistro has long had a copy of "Way To Blue" in its jukebox, and over the years I've listened to every track there, and in my opinion one song sounds the very best there: One Of These Things First. Here it is for you.

***

While I have your attention: Congratulations to our two teams for their wins this weekend, congratulations to Paul and Medina for their new baby girl, Anessa, and safe travels to Amy and the girls!

LISTEN.

Photo: Corner sign (1).

TIME FADES AWAY

TIME FADES AWAY by Neil Young.

Today's song is from the legendary album "Time Fades Away." I picked up this bootleg at Rocks In Your Head, the now-closed record store on Prince that I've discussed before. "Time Fades Away" is a live album culled mainly from Young's 1973 tour that has never been released on CD.

The title track is probably not my favorite track on the album, but it's probably the best advertisement for it (which is why I've posted it!). Don't Be Denied stands up with Neil's best work. The Bridge sounds like (and I think is) an outtake from "Harvest." Yonder Stands The Sinner is kind of a throwaway, but I like it. Love In Mind and Journey Through The Past have markedly better sound quality because they were recorded on an earlier tour; the latter tour was recorded on an early digital recording system, "Quad-8 CompuMix," that muddied the sound; the relatively poor sound quality as much as anything may explain why the album remains unreleased. It's certainly not bleaker than "On The Beach," which finally got released a couple of years ago. Is it better? This is a discussion Corbett and I started (between the two of us--you haven't missed anything) last week. I find "Time Fades Away" to be the more listenable of the two, but that may be because the passion and intensity are a little dissipated relative to "On The Beach."

One more reason for posting the title track. Both Time Fades Away and L.A. were recorded at the Myriad in Oklahoma City. I can't put my finger on how Neil Young ended up there, but I think the tour came through (in 1973) pretty soon after the Myriad opened (in 1971 or 1972?). This is interesting to me because my great-grandfather was the construction superintendent on the Myriad project (it may be one of the main reasons he moved his family to Oklahoma City in the late 60s? I don't know). Anyway, the Myriad was a big, big job, of course, and just like Neil's recording system, the construction used some advanced techniques that caused some trouble. The arena was to be supported by these massive pre-stressed concrete trusses, but when they went to raise the first truss, it failed, disintegrated, fell apart. (I can only imagine the look on my grandpa's face at that moment.) Lengthy litigation later revealed a bad batch of concrete to be the culprit, and the Myriad got built without further hitches. Time Fades Away is a bit of evidence that everything worked out in the end.

LISTEN.

Photo: The Grove (November 2006).

ON THE WAY HOME

ON THE WAY HOME (Live from London, 1971) by Neil Young.

Short write-up today because I'm blogging on location with a demented mouse. I found this concert bootleg a year or two ago on the internet. It's from the same period as the Massey Hall concert you can buy at Starbucks. On The Way Home has long been a favorite--I put the official Buffalo Springfield recording at the front of a mix CD I made for Amy's birthday a while back (I'd post the link to that CD at this point, but again, I'm blogging on location and don't have my full repertoire.)

LISTEN.

Photo: The Grove (April 2006).

VILL DU LÅNA EN MAN

VILL DU LÅNA EN MAN by Anni-Frid Lyngstad.

More bonus blogging! This time it's bonus Saturday Swedish blogging, dedicated to Laura, in honor of Freddie Ljungberg for having his goal against us ruled out for offside (and then losing), and for any other ABBA and/or Charlie Rich (!) fans out there. Have a good Saturday, and come on Sooners!

...never mind that last bit. Better luck next year!

LISTEN.

"Let us be frank about it: most of our people have never had it so good"

I was going through the archives of the blog last night looking for something and noticed that I used to post a little bit more than just a song every Monday-Wednesday-Friday. I got away from it once I started wedding blogging, but I don't have an excuse now.

Sometimes I wrote a little bit about sports. During the first couple of months of this year, when Arsenal were playing really well, there were quite a few posts. Then Arsenal lost the Carling Cup final, Henry and Van Persie got hurt, the season petered out, so that stopped. But now, well, now we've never had it so good! Apart from winning a trophy, have we ever had such a good week? We crushed three teams, including Spurs, quite convincingly, and went top of the league for the first time since 2004. Cesc Fabregas has come of age much like Ronaldo did last year. We announced that we are now the "richest" club in England and have loads of money in the bank. Not to mention the oft-predicted and much-anticipated Chelsea implosion may have finally begun! Beauty!

Things change quickly, so the saying goes, and that's true, but who cares about tomorrow, let's enjoy it while it lasts, etc etc.

The other football team is ticking over nicely too, coping pretty well with a tricky Tulsa team and solidifying its place as the best of the "other" undefeated teams after USC and LSU. As a bonus, OSU's coach has made himself an international Youtube laughingstock by losing his cool over some stupid newspaper article. (Personally, I think "laughingstock" is a little generous. Yes, he looks completely ludicrous stalking the podium like he's Howard Beale. But it's no surprise, and a little creepy, that the target of his mad as hell grandstanding happens to be a childless woman. That'll show her, eh Mike?)

Anyway, another thing we were doing on the blog is noting births among our crew. As many of you know, Nick, a very-pregnant Kim, and Sabina were at the wedding last month, and now it's Nick, Kim, Sabina... and Ramona! Here's Ramona and her sister. Too cute!

I'm heading home for a little bit next week so I picked out the next series of tunes last night. I like them, but they aren't too hip. So enjoy this week's hipness while it lasts, don't worry about tomorrow, etc. etc.