Category: tunes

Music. Bands. Songs. Concerts.

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I deserve this weekend, I swear.

It’s Friday!  It’s Friday!

I can’t believe the week is over.  I deserve this weekend, I swear.

This evening, Sharaun and I had dinner with the elderly couple from church we occasionally bring dinner to (I didn’t know how to write that sentence without using the word “dinner” twice).  I always have a good time doing this, not just for feeling charitable, but for the company and getting to talk to folks with a full-life of experience on which to base their opinions.

I went back over the past five or six entries I’ve written tonight, doing a little touch-up editing.  I rarely ever do this, but after a quick review of the last few posts I’ve turned out (on the commode today, using the handy iPhone) I was shocked to see a string of horrible grammar, half-completed sentences, and word-reuse.  This kind of thing comes from writing too fast and not reviewing before posting, which, when you boil it down, is just laziness.  Hopefully, looking back through this thing sometime in the future, I’ll be able to have a bit more respect for myself.

Tonight (as you read this), I’m invited to a “soup and sweater” party.  This is a new kind of party concept for me.  But, it’s also something I think I can totally get on-board with.  I love soup… like, almost as much as I love potatoes kinda love.  And, I’m also partial to sweaters.  The theme (winter, or somesuch) is not lost on me, so there’s kitsch value too.  The twist, however, is that we’re supposed to wear obnoxious sweaters to the soup and sweater party.  Personally, I’ve got a real humdinger.  Wait… I’m writing this and… I’m realizing… just how old I am.  Not a foam party; not a toga party; a soup and sweater party!  Know what… I don’t care.  I’m gonna wear my ridiculous sweater and eat bowlful after bowlful of soup.  Sue me.

Saturday, I’m going to watch football all day… maybe drink beer… maybe eat bean-dip.  Then Sunday, we’re scheduled to get some “official” family photos done by our very talented pro-photog friend (and occasional sounds familiar commenter), Megan.  I’m quite excited about this – as we’ve never had any sort of “official” photos done of us… and, don’t think us horrible parents please, but we’ve never had professional portraits of Keaton done either (I know some people who do it monthly for their kids).  She usually shares some “sneak peek” photos on her blog(s) after a session, and I’ll link ’em here if and when she does for our go at it Sunday.

Busy weekend, but better than work.

And finally, as a quick follow-up to my autotune comments of yesterday, the message boards are coming down hard on Kanye too.  Here is a short roundup of some of my favorite comments about autotune on 808s & Heartbreak:

Ahahaha. This album is whack. Seriously, what is it that makes artists these days think that autotune is actually worth using?

… the sound of your voice contorted by autotone has made me projectile vomit on multiple occasions

… all of the vocals are singing with heavy autotune, no rapping (except by Young Jeezy on “Amazing”),  musically it isn’t even really hip-hop, and the production is innovative as usual.

I don’t like it. The autotune aspect continues to be overused to the point of irrelevance.

i really hate the autotune. These songs could be so much better if he had never discovered its existence. I don’t know if i can handle a whole album of it. GOD**** AUTOTUNE!

wow this album is going to be fucking terrible. he doesn’t even attempt to learn to sing…he breathes at incredibly awkward times and the autotuning is just fucking ridiculous. and ffs every song is literally the same instrumentation: drumline, synthesized dull piano beat, and maybe a horn or so.

Autotune is shit and he’s obviously too dumb/arrogant to realize it.

fuuuccckkk.  the autotune makes me want to go kill something.

I dunno, I think autotune is okay on a song or two, but if he uses it on the whole album it’s going to be fucking annoying.

Ahhh… vindication from other snobs… what every music nut craves.  Feels good to be right, though.

Goodnight.

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producers of the genre, please heed my call!!

I wrote a whole entry last night and scrapped it around 11:30pm.  Just wasn’t going anywhere.

I’d like to address now my now more-than-obviously clear divergence from my previous posting frequency.  Wasn’t long ago I was hitting every single weekday without fail, day after day (or night after night, as my writing goes).  If you follow this page at all, you’ll know that posting has fallen way off from those days gone by.  On average now, I’d guess I miss two out of the five days I used to post.  I dunno… I still start out each day intending to write… I just don’t always get around to it.  Most of the time this isn’t a sin of omission but rather one of commission.  I choose not to write; usually, I have nothing to write about.  I don’t know if this is the new model or an extended phase.  But, I still have a desire to write… and I’ll continue to do so whenever I feel like I can.

Yesterday and today at work I had a measurably better days than my recent run of stinkers.  Mostly because I avoided thinking about and working on the one set of tasks that is giving me so much grief.  I know, you, being prudent, would dive headlong into those unsavory tasks until they were done – and I considered that too.  Ultimately, however, I found that delaying the inevitable difficulty for some temporary relief was my preferred avenue.  So, I worked on a bunch of smaller tasks that needed doing, and used my personal time well to take care of tasks outside the realm of work (can you tell that getting things done makes me feel happy?).  But, none of this is particularly interesting… so let’s move along.

Oh, the new Kanye leaked recently… and it makes me need to talk about the state of hip-hop and wanna-be hip-hop lately…

Producers of the genre, please heed my call!!  Stop it already with the mother-humpin’ autotune!

I’m not kidding, it was stale so many months ago, and it can only “fix” so much.  I understand you’re now using it as a stylistic element, like the quirky background sounds Timbaland’s production made ubiquitous years ago, or the No Limits sound, or the Neptunes sound, or the Mace sound, or the Nelly sound.  But, look, people, while everyone knows what’s hot in hip-hop is cyclical and the “in” sound typically follows and emulates one producer or a stable of artists  – the autotune abuse needs to stop.  If that means we lose T-Pain forever, so be it.

When every single song on your album (and I’m looking at you, Mr. 808s & Heartbreak West) is sung via autotune it truly grates on ones ears.  In fact, it becomes unlistenable.  When every single song on the radio is “enhanced” through autotune, it’s awful.  If I wanted to listen to a robot “sing” perfectly-keyed click-to-pitch ballads… well, let’s just say I would never want that.

Just stop it.  Stop it.  This has to end.

Goodnight.

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and all i can think about is the music

7:15am on Sunday morning.

Sharaun’s arrived safely in Florida last night, and I spent the day cleaning and recovering from the party.  People ended up coming over for football Saturday, despite most of them having just left the night/morning prior, and we grilled ribs in the rain (with a huge umbrella shielding the fire).  I steam-cleaned the carpet and did general pickup and tidying.  Place looks good for a guy left alone for a weekend, I must say.

Keaton’s in the kitchen eating her waffle and yogurt (one of her favorites – Sharaun had a stroke of brilliance substituting syrup for a yogurt “dip sauce” and it works great).  When she’s done I’ll get her down and jump in the shower to shave and get ready for church.  Don’t tell Sharaun, but I brought her into our bed last night to sleep with me; I mean, it just seemed like there was so much empty space there.  And plus, it’s just her and I this weekend – so I can do what I want.  (I was beaming proud inside of the ponytail I gave her the other day when people told me it was an exceptionally good “Daddy do.”)  Since I’m working remotely tomorrow with her, I think we’ll go on a picnic for lunch.

OK, what about Halloween?

Halloween went great this year.  And not just the props or the party, but the trick-or-treaters too.  We got quite a few more than in years past and all of them seemed to get a kick out of the setup.  A setup which, by the way, remained 100% functional all night – gremlin-free for the first time ever.  So, yeah, Halloween night was the single solitary rainy and windy day all month… but ain’t that always the case?  Just before dusk fell on the street I had two uprooted tombstones needing repair and one backwards-facing witch I had to tweak.  But, things totally came together in the end and the wind even died down enough for the fog chiller to do it’s business.

The party also went off swell, with a great turnout and honestly one of the best times we’ve had at a party we’re “in charge of.”  Several people mentioned that it was fun – so I’m happy.  And guys, one of the best moments of the whole night for me was when the second distinct person came up to me and praised my garage playlist.  One guy even said, paying his third or fourth compliment, “Where can I buy this playlist?!”  Well, he screamed that, actually – over the cacophony of Wreckless Eric’s “Whole Wide World.”  Being that it was a somewhat hasty and totally eclectic mix, I was worried.  Look, I’ve now written something like three paragraphs about the dang iPod playlist… sheesh.

Oh, and just in case you’re that guy… here… it’s just over six hours of music and it’s way better than Sharaun’s:

Grandaddy – A.M. 180
Nine Inch Nails – All The Love In The World
Cut off Your Hands – As Happy as Can Be
Ben Folds – Bitches Ain’t Shit
2 Bad Mice – Bombscare (Original version)
The Breeders – Cannonball
Kanye West – Celebration
The Cure – Close To Me [Closet Remix]
Shout Out Louds – The Comeback
Phoenix – Consolation Prizes
The Hold Steady – Constructive Summer
Led Zeppelin – D’yer Mak’er
Of Montreal – Eluardian Instance
Cut Copy – Feel the Love
Animal Collective – Fireworks
Band of Horses – The First Song
The Streets – Fit But You Know It
Modest Mouse – Float On
Modest Mouse – Florida
Black Moth Super Rainbow – Forever Heavy
Jimi Hendrix – Foxey Lady
The Chemical Brothers – Fuck Up Beats
Wailers – Good Good Rudie
Kanye West – Good Morning
Clor – Good Stuff
Led Zeppelin – Good Times Bad Times
Slade – Gudbuy T’Jane
The Helio Sequence – Harmonica Song
Cut Copy – Hearts On Fire
The Cloud Room – Hey Now Now
Explosions – Hip Drop
Black Kids – Hit The Heartbrakes
The Bravery – An Honest Mistake
Animals – The House Of The Rising Sun
T. Rex – I Love To Boogie
Of Montreal – Id Engager
Modest Mouse – Interstate
The Strokes – Is This It
Bob Marley & the Wailers – Jamming
The Go! Team – junior kickstart
The Go! Team – ladyflash
The Chemical Brothers – Leave Home
The George Baker Selection – Little Green Bag
Iggy Pop – Lust For Life
The Hold Steady – Massive Nights
Chuck Berry – Maybellene
Ohgr – Minus
The Cribs – Mirror Kissers
Led Zeppelin – Misty Mountain Hop
The Strokes – The Modern Age
Malajube – Montreal -40°C
Soul Brothers – Mr Kiss a Bang Bang
Johnny Osbourne – Murderer
Menomena – Muscle N’ Flo
Cloud Cult – No One Said It Would Be Easy
Animal Collective – Peacebone
The Most Serene Republic – Phages
Built to Spill – The Plan
Alexander Henry – Please Be True
Prodigy – Poison
Jay-Z – Public Service Announcement (Interlude) (Produced By Just Blaze)
Jimi Hendrix – Purple Haze
Prince – Purple Rain
Wolfmother – Pyramid
Nirvana – Radio Friendly Unit Shifter
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – Refugee
The Strokes – Reptilia
The Beatles – Revolution
The Rolling Stones – Rocks Off
Jason Collett – Roll On Oblivion
Beastie Boys – Root Down (Free Zone Mix)
Clash – Rudie Can’t Fail
Weezer – Say it ain’t so
Of Montreal – A Sentence Of Sorts In Kongsvinger
Beastie Boys – Shake Your Rump
Lily Allen – Smile
Beastie Boys – So What’cha Want
Wolf Parade – Soldier’s Grin
Ben Folds Five – Song for the Dumped
+/- – Steal the Blueprints
The Beatles – Strawberry Fields Forever
The Hold Steady – Stuck Between Stations
Postal Service – Such Great Heights
Prince Buster – Ten Commandments of Man
Kanye West – Touch The Sky (Feat. Lupe Fiasco)
The Arcade Fire – Wake Up
Vampire Weekend – Walcott
Lou Reed – Walk On The Wild Side
Eagles of Death Metal – Wannabe in L.A
Pixies – Where Is My Mind?
Wreckless Eric – Whole Wide World
Cloud Cult – The Will Of A Volcano
Jackie Opel – You’re Too Bad
Wolf Parade – You Are A Runner And I Am My Father’s Son
Spoon – You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb
The Faint – Your Retro Career Melted
The Strokes – 12:51
Jay-Z + DJ Danger Mouse – 99 Problems

Goodnight.

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see ya tonight

Happy Halloween folks.

We do our annual (but for last year) party tonight, and the latest pollsters are predicting record attendance.  As always, I’m both excited to have fun and leery of the logistics and cleanup.  I always fret over the same things: Will there be enough beer?  Will people have a good time?  How bad is the mess gonna be in the morning?  Ad-infintum.

This party is complicated by having the fear that Keaton won’t sleep well over at the babysitters (really the parents of friends of ours who’re doing us a favor) and the fact that Sharaun has to be at the airport for her flight to Florida around 10:30am the next day.

Sharaun and I are going through our iPods and music right now making the party playlists.  I’m in charge of the garage list, which tends to reflect my tastes more, and she’s in charge of the house mix, which, as you’d expect, reflects hers.  So, in the garage you’ll hear a mix of what I think are some of the more “accessible” tracks from my favorite discs this year, and in the house you’ll hear what Clear Channel decided they’d make people like so far this year (mixed with a good dose of classic party tracks that get people in a good move, such as the venerable “Bust A Move”).

We still have to move furniture, toys, clean up, re-arrange, decorate, pick up kegs, pick up ice, pick up this and that and the other thing… oh man… I’m freaking out.

There’s so much left to do… we’re gonna be up forever… I have to go.

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not retiring tomorrow

Tuesday night and the iPod has shuffled up some fine Grateful Dead, an extended jam on “Playin’ In the Band” from early ’73 in Nebraska.  The Dead sound good to me nearly all of the time, and only occasionally do I find myself out of the mood (if I can use that phrase) for some good ol’ noodling around.

And, in other music-related news, I saw this jarring headline on NME this evening: Led Zeppelin to tour with Robert Plant replacement!  Why oh why Zep?  Is this some ploy to get Plant to step in at the last minute despite his public statements he’s not interested?  Some kind of rock ‘n’ roll supergroup “bluff?”  I mean, with Sharaun going to her third New Kids on the Block show this weekend (and this one a world away on the other coast of the dang US), and our agreement that I could pay whatever the cost to see a reunited Zeppelin as turnabout for the money she burned reliving thirteen – you’d think I’d be happy.  But… no Plant?  Argh; just argh.

I didn’t write last night, or, rather, I wrote a bunch of unfinished and disjointed stuff that I just couldn’t massage into a viable post so I scrapped it altogether.  Tonight, I’m hoping for different results.  I’ve just put Keaton down to bed and Sharaun is at volleyball (man, it sure seems like I’ve been getting more than my share of evenings alone lately) – so I have the place to myself.  Although, I have to admit I didn’t use the time doing anything super exciting: washed the dishes from dinner, tidied the kitchen, played with Keaton, and listened to some tunes.  And that brings us to the present…

This past Saturday the college football crowd at the house for the games was a swollen one, one of the better Saturdays of the season thus far.  At some point, being that the majority of attendees are friends of mine from the sawmill, the discussion turned to all things finance and bailout.  Somehow, this led to a “401k-off” where each of us in turn logged onto our retirement portfolios online to look at our “yearly change” percents for 2008 so far.  The game being simple: whoever had lost the least this year wins.

There were seven people who participated, and, of those seven, the winner had lost 39%.  Yes folks, that was the winner; the guy who was only down 39% on the year.  Surprisingly, I took second place by only being off 42.6%.  The “loser” was down a future-mortgaging 48%.  To be perfectly clear, those are all negative numbers.  This, my friends, is what inspired the newest tombstone in our front-yard Halloween cemetery… whcih can be seen accompanying this post.  Good thing we’re not retiring tomorrow, eh?

Sorry for skippin’ so many of my normal dailies lately folks (if you can call them “normal” anymore).  Work is getting progressively busier, and will only get moreso as we move into 2009.  I’m not giving up on blogging by a long shot, I still enjoy it immensely… but if I had to bet I’d say this year brings down my overall frequency average a mite.  Bummer.

Stick with me, OK?  Goodnight.

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imposters!

Tuesday night and I’m stuck here again, right around that part where I begin everything with something like, “XXXday night and here I am again.”  I guess I could just say something like: “Hey Tuesday folks,” or maybe, “One day closer to hump day, one hump day closer to the weekend.”  Something like that.

Ween is on the iPod (Sharaun is at her volleyball game, so I get another TV-free all-tunes evening), I saw these guys when I was around fifteen in some small hole-in-the-wall club in Melbourne, Florida.  Myself and a crew of about six guys got dropped off by someone’s folks, and proceeded to hang out in front of the gas station asking random sketchy-looking dudes if they’d buy us beer.  After striking out, we entered the club empty-handed – no beer, no dope, no nothing.  For fourteen year old punks, the prospects were slim.  But we still had the show.

We regarded Ween as mostly a joke, as we were listening to the Pure Guava album at the time and songs like “Push the Lil’ Daisies” didn’t do much to bolster any “serious musician” cred.  But, at the show, Ween was amazing (I’ve looked and looked and looked online for a bootleg of that particular show, would be amazing to hear it again all these years later… and Ween has a fanatic fanbase of live show collectors, so I assume it’ll show up eventually).  They played a blistering million-minute cover of Prince’s “Purple Rain,” which proved they could play… so why all the crap on the records?

We begged them for “Big Jilm,” which had become a running joke amongst the group as maybe the most retarded song ever made (sorry retarded people).  They replied that the tape loop for that song was busted, and this had us howling almost as much as when they launched into tracks like “Hey Fat Boy, Asshole,” and, “Flies On My Dick,” which they dedicated to their grandparents – who were actually in the audience.  What an amazing night for some kids…

Oh gosh look, I wrote about it before, and seem to remember there being dope.  Who knows…

OK, let’s move on to the meat.

I am not now, nor have I ever been, a “social networking” kinda guy.  Not on MySpace, not on Facebook, not on Bebo or LinkedIn or any of those other all-the-rage sites.  Never will be either, I just don’t cotton to the canned nature of the pages and the stupid back-and-forth banter.  So, that’s something you now know about me.

My brother, however, has a MySpace profile.  Now, I know I don’t write about my brother much here on the bloggy-blog-blog, but he’s a good guy and I like him a lot.  I don’t deride him for having a MySpace thingy – I know plenty of people who have ’em, it’s totally cool.  In fact, I used to visit his page occasionally just to see what he had posted or what his buddies (or whatever MySpace dubs them) were talking about.

Some time ago (been a long while now), my bro set his MySpace page to private.  I think this means only people he knows or has “friended” or whatever can see his stuffs.  I still have the link bookmarked though, and occasionally I’ll go there to see if maybe he’s un-privated the thing.  I never have any luck, the thing’s always still private – but I can at least see his little picture, his “current mood,” and his little tagline/motto thing.

But, what I noticed tonight, and what I wanted to write about, is the bottom of the page.  Down there after MySpace tells you the profile is “private,” it offers you a consolation prize by following up with, “Here are some public profiles you may find interesting.”  I can only assume the logic behind what I may find interesting is MySpace looking at the details behind my brother’s private profile, comparing them to the millions of other profiles on MySpace, and serving up those with some degree of commonality.  I imagine they look at age, interests, school and professional history, taste in music, links, comments, etc., etc., etc.

So, what worries me is the rank-and-file losers it pitches me as “public” stand-ins for my “private” brother.  MySpace, how dare you boil down my bro to this douchebag parade?!

Actually, I don’t know any of these guys… so I guess it’s kinda mean to assume they are, or label them as, “losers.”  Sorry guys.

For all I know, SHoRtYRoC is a Rhodes scholar.  Matt and Brian appear to share hats – so that shows kindness; and S.A.G. appears to be a real gangsta so I better reserve comment on him.  Randy and Scooter… oh Randy, oh Scooter… guys…  And I could go either way on Patrick.  But, just looking at them in aggregate, I don’t think they have much bearing on tho “who” of my little bro.

So, who is my brother?  I wrote this about him a few years ago:

Frank is my brother. His real name is John. When I was in the 4th grade (I think), I was of the opinion that the name “Frank” was one of the dumbest names a human could have (my apologies to all the Franks out there who are offended by that, but I was young). I started calling my brother Frank to be funny, or mean, or a little of both. Incredibly, the name stuck. Stuck hard. So hard, in fact, that by the time he was in high school, that’s all anyone knew him by. He even got “Frank” sewn on his Little League jacket.

Unfortunately, Frank endured many years of torture at my hands – both physical and psychological. I threw the cat in the bathtub with him; I brainwashed him into admitting guilt for things I’d done; I used to punch him as hard as I could every time I died playing Nintendo; he always had to be Luigi. When we were young, we were the best of friends. I remember playing Star Wars in the back yard, we used a shovel to dig the Sarlacc’s pit that Han got flung into (much to my mom’s chagrin). I remember tying ropes around the necks of our stuffed animals, and swinging them around in giant circles, pretending they were on some ride at the carnival. We were best buds.

I don’t know when that ended, but now we’re more like old friends who are flirting with the idea of having a brotherly relationship. My bro dropped out of high school in his junior year. We weren’t very close during those times, but I imagine he had a lot of the same experiences I did at his age… and he, too, lived through them (apparently the family mettle is strong). I hope Frank and I can get back to the days of Sarlacc pits and stuffed animal abuse one day, at least in spirit.

I wrote that sometime in 2000.  I’m happy to say that the sad-sounding ending isn’t really applicable anymore, and my brother and I have a fairly normal relationship at this point.  So, suck it MySpace.

Not comprehensive, but not bad.  Goodnight folks.

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hide and seek

Happy Friday-minus-one my fellow internet lurkers.  I talk music and politics today, although I think I weave the taboo topics in smartly enough that you’ll enjoy the narrative wrapped around them.  So, give it a try, wouldja?  Thanks.

I’m happy to share that I seem to be on the mend from my brief battle with a hit-and-run stomach sickness earlier this week.  And, even if it did force the cancellation of a long-planned trip to Oregon for some important (no, seriously, I missed something important) work-business and some even more-important family-business, I’m glad to share that I am once again comfortable enough to willfully pass gas without first heading to the bathroom.

Being at home today, and feeling much better than yesterday (and worlds better than Monday), I had some idle time on my hands.  I decided to try something I’ve been considering for a long time: Importing all my music into iTunes so that I can actually sync my Apple devices (iPod and iPhone) as they are designed.  So, I undertook that Herculean effort.  And, I’ll stop talking about it here now because I’ve broken off the detailed tech-heavy explanation into it’s very own blog entry you can read below (unless you’re an uber-nerd though, I don’t really recommend it).

Guys, guys, guys.  There are only a few unsolved musical mysteries left for me to ponder.  And, tonight, I totally solved one of the longest-running ones.  While I was sitting here typing, my iPod happened to shuffle up a live performance by Van Morrison (hey, it’s a 1-in-42,000 shot, them’s some odds!).  Now, this isn’t just any live performance, this is an incredible, amazing, vibrantly “alive” live vetting of Van’s “Summertime In England.  And, it’s a recording that I’ve been obsessed with for years.  Let’s tell the story, shall we?

Back in middle and high school, my best buddy Kyle was my musical sage, muse, encyclopedia, and conduit.  For a time, I got everything through Kyle, who himself got it all from his father by way of dubbed cassette tapes in the mail.  In a previous longwinded entry, I wrote about my “Kyle connection” thusly:

When I met Kyle after we moved to Florida, things exploded. With the influence his dad had on his extremely-mature-for-his-age and varied musical tastes, and the mainline connection to his dad’s collection in Texas (via dubbed cassettes again, but of course), my horde of lovingly hand-labeled 90min Maxells flourished.

Ahh… still as delicate a prose as the day I penned it, and just as accurate too.

Anyway, one of those recordings scored via a dubbed cassette from Kyle’s dad was a live version of a Van Morrison song before then unknown to me.  All I knew was that when I put on that tape and listened to that eleven minute orgy of musical and lyrical genius, I was transported.  Smiles creased my face unbidden, and the tune seemed to mate perfectly with the Fall weather of the season in which I first heard it. I was smitten from the moment I heard it, not even knowing the name of the tune.

I can remember vividly driving to Sharaun’s house early one Saturday morning in my little Red Nissan (perhaps it was still my parents’ litte Red Nissan at the time, actually).  I had the windows down and the cool Florida air (a welcome rarity for the few months we get it) streamed in as I listened to the tape.  The saxophones swelled as I crossed US-1 towards the river.  I remember we were headed to a pancake breakfast at McDonalds, I think to raise money for her soccer, or volleyball, or maybe it was softball team (Sharaun is the jock in our family).

The point being, that song was indelibly inked into my mind in that moment.

Somewhere along the road, as things transitioned from tape to CD, I put that well-worn cassette away.  And, eventually, somewhere in my college-years moves from apartment to apartment, I lost it altogether.  I never forgot that song though…

Several years later, after marrying Sharaun and moving to California, I decided I wanted to hear that song again.  Over the years, I’d done a fair job collecting a bunch of bootlegs – and I’d always been keen to pick up a new illicit Van Morrison recording in hopes my fabled song would be included.  Although I never did find the song, I had long before been able to identify the name of the track as “Summertime in England.”  Unfortunately, the song is a staple of many live Van performances – and trying to find a particular version based on vague memories of between-band banter just wasn’t that easy.

Believe me, I tried.  I e-mailed die-heard Van collectors every detail of the show I could recall.  I mentioned that he thanked the members of the band by name, and that he did this echoed lyrical interplay with another vocalist during the performance, where one guy copied the other guy almost at the same instant he sung his line.  They did the same thing with the guitar, I noted.  Not a bad level of detail from a then musty memory, but I had zero luck in locating the actual performance I was after.  Don’t get me wrong, I did manage to acquire ten or so other fantastic live versions of the song which kind collectors guessed might be the one I was after… but no paydirt despite my hunt.

Then, finally, out of frustration, I decided to cut to the chase.  Sometime in 2004 or so I decided to e-mail Kyle’s dad directly and just ask him about the performance.  I wondered, in my e-mail, if he recalled where in the world he got the tape… or did he even know what performance I was referring to?  I figured going to the source was my best option.  Turns out Kyle’s dad knew instantly exactly which song I was referring to (of course he would, he’s the same as me in that way).  However, he said he “thought” he recalled dubbing his cassette off an old VHS he’d recorded from a television broadcast, but could remember nothing more than that.

He did, however, still have that dub and promptly offered to send me a CD-R copy.  I supplied my address, the CD came, I thanked him profusely and dutifully ripped the now legendary-to-me performance onto my iPod… which brings us back full-circle to it being shuffled up tonight.

As my face beamed listening to the song again, I began wondering about typing some exact phrases from the band banter into Google… just fishing.  Turns out I got a single hit on the phrase “Mr. Morrison” “Mr. Hospitality.”  It led me to a message board where it mentioned a “Beacon ’89” show.  A few Google searches later and I’d landed on a YouTube clip of Van Morrison and his band playing “Summertime In England” live at the Beacon Thearer in New York City in November 1989 (too bad it’s clipped at the beginning).  And, wouldn’t you know it… it was the song.  That’s right, the version I’d been looking for forever (and, I suppose, had actually “found” a few years back – although still not fully knowing all the background).

And, with a little more digging I’d turned up the fact that a two-disc soundboard quality bootleg of the show exists under the title Inspired Evenings.  Minutes after that, that very bootleg was streaming it’s way, via a series of bits and bytes, onto my hard drive – from the very nether regions of the internet.  And now it’s done, one great mystery solved.  Next – the unidentifiable mixtape of 1992… I swear I’m gonna crack that case one day… I just know it.

OK, end music stuff.

Before I go, I wanted to remind everyone (even if you voted in a recent primary) to go ahead and double-check your registered voter status.  With deadlines looming in nearly every state, it’s in your best interest to confirm your registered status so you have no surprises at your polling place come November.  And yes, I mean this regardless of whom you intend to vote for 🙂

To check your status in your state, use the this handy website (quite a few states have quick and painless online status checking).  Happy democracying!

G’nite.