Jockey Full of Bourbon

music for a new year's day

John Holt - Ali Baba (trilogy dub)

John Holt - Police In Helicopter

John Holt - Sister Big Stuff

Burning Spear - 02 - Slavery Days

 

 

Christmas music

the best Christmas album this year, Annie Lennox's A Christmas Cornucopia

02 - God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

07 - The Holly And The Ivy

01 - Angels From The Realms Of Glory

04 - Il Est Ne Le Divin Enfant

 

an exquisite, stunning album.  cannot recommend it enough  - A Christmas Cornucopia

somewhere

I love american musicals, and close to the top of the list is West Side Story - an innovative score by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by the greatest american composer Stephen Sondheim, groundbreaking choreography...

most of the wongs in West Side Story have become standards, performed by many of the best and best-known singers;  yet the best cover of any West Side Story song has to be this quiet little duet by the late, lamented, much missed Vic Chesnutt and Liz Durrett

Somewherevic

I stood 20 feet from Ralph Stanley...

...sang O Death if that doesn't put me a bit closer to heaven, I don't know what would. a transcendent experience.

some pics from the show: Ralph Stanley and His Clinch Mountain Boys @Oktoberfest, Christ the King Church

 

more pics at flickr

 

because music posts need music, here's a totally unrelated song.  funniest bluegrass song ever <u>and</u> shoutouts to Ralph and to Bill Monroe. 

09-The Bluegrass Widow

Dan Savage' itgetsbetter project in YT

updated 20100924@15:40 - what this post needs is a theme song.  take it away,  Ms. Jill

 

 

Dan Savage has done many good things (remember Santorum?) and spearheaded many worthy causes, but the itgetsbetterproject is likely to be his crowning achievement. take a bow, Dan. in memory of Billy Lucas, the many more suffering today, and of all of us who made it out alive. *

* I'm not LGBT, notthatthere'sanythingwrongwiththat, but I can't help thinking that the itgetsbetterproject also applies to the nerds, the weirdos, the outsiders, the do-not-fits, all of us great unwashed who look back on our high school years as far from "the best times of our lives"

If you're gay or lesbian or bi or trans, and you've ever read about a kid like Billy Lucas and thought, "Fuck, I wish I could've told him that it gets better," this is your chance. We can't help Billy, but there are lots of other Billys out there—other despairing LGBT kids who are being bullied and harassed, kids who don't think they have a future—and we can help them....READ MORE about the It Gets Better Project, in Savage Love, here: http://bit.ly/bYtxBd

via YouTube - itgetsbetterproject's Channel.

[this is sad] Justin Townes Earle Heading To Rehab

via www.americansongwriter.com

"If you’ve been following the saga of singer-songwriter Justin Townes Earle, you know that he was arrested for battery, public intoxication, and resisting arrest last week, following a show at Radio Radio in Indianapolis.

Earle, who was released on bail, announced today that he will be suspending the remainder of his current tour dates, and will be checking into a rehab facility."

so sad to hear;  JTE just released his best album to date, Harlem River Blues.

 

 

01 - Harlem River Blues

 

 

05 - Wanderin'

 

 

what is the time? it is grinding time~

Grinderman 2 is here.  on the first few listens, it comes across a bit milder than Grinderman - not as dissonant and electrified.  more melodic and a bit tender.   the influence of NC & The Bad Seeds is noticeable, same as Grinderman had a marked influence on Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!

 

funny song.   yes, it is about what you thought it was about

02 - Worm Tamer

this one is kinda sweet - I hate the "eeevil" chorus

 

 

06 - Evil!

 

Grinderman 2 - almost here

Mickey Mouse And The Goodbye Man by Grinderman.

 

the entire album Grinderman 2: Enter the Wolfman is streaming in Grinderman myspace this week in advance of the album release next week, Monday September 13 in the UK and Tuesday September 14 in the US. w00t!

"Bats have no bankers and they do not drink and cannot be arrested and pay no tax and, in general, bats have it made."

Bukowski was a jerk! Berryman was best!
He wrote like wet papier mache,
went the Hemingway
weirdly on wings and with maximum pain
We call upon the author to explain

as Nick is prone to, he namechecks poets in several songs. in We Call Upon the Author, who is this Berryman? understand he'd been a suicide went the Hemingway, but what about weirdly on wings and with maximum pain ?

it didn't take long to find out: when poet John Berryman decided to discard his mortal coil by jumping on the Mississippi river from Minneapolis' Washington avenue bridge one freezing January morning, he missed the river, hitting first the concrete pier and ending in the mud where he suffocated. I get the maximum pain. I do.

three more songs that reference Berryman:   Stuck Between Stations, Mama Won't You Keep Them Castles in the Air Burning?, and most striking, John Allyn Smith Sails by Okkervil River, a biography of Berryman that by its end is intertwinned with Sloop John B.

The devil and John Berryman Took a walk together.
They ended up on Washington Talking to the river.
He said I've surrounded myself with doctors And deep thinkers.
But big heads with soft bodies Make for lousy lovers.
There was that night that we thought John Berryman could fly.
But he didn't So he died.
She said You're pretty good with words But words won't save your life.

And they didn't. So he died.
He was drunk and exhausted but he was critically acclaimed and respected.
He loved the Golden Gophers but he hated all the drawn out winters.
He likes the warm feeling but he's tired of all the dehydration
Most nights were kind of fuzzy But that last night he had total retention.

But I came softly, slowly
Banging me metal drum
Like Berryman
Bed-wet poet fears
That better man drink taller beers

By the second verse, dear friends My head will burst, my life will end
So, I'd like to start this one off by saying "Live and love"
I was young and at home in bed And I was hanging on the words some poem said
In thirty-one I was impressionable I was upsettable
I tried to make my breathing stop, my heart beat slow
So, when my mom and John came in, I would be cold
From a bridge on Washington Avenue, the year of 1972
Broke my bones and skull and it was memorable
It was half a second and I was halfway down
Do you think I wanted to turn back around and teach a class
Where you kiss the ass that I've exposed to you
And at the funeral, the University cried at three poems they'd present in place of a broken me
I was breaking in a case of suds
At the brass rail, a fall-down drunk with his tongue torn out and his balls removed
And I knew that my last lines were gone while stupidly I lingered on,
other wise men know when it's time to go
And so I should, too
And so I fly into the brightest winter sun
Of this frozen town, I'm stripped down to move on
Dear friends, I'm gone
Well, I hear my father fall
And I hear my mother call
And I hear the others all whisper, "Come home"
I'm sorry to go
I loved you all so
But this is the worst trip I've ever been on
So, hoist up the John B. sail (Hoist up the John B. sail)
See how the main sail sets (See how the main sail sets)
I've folded my heart in my head and I wanna go home
With a book in my hand
In the way I had planned
Well, this is the worst trip I've ever been on

I'm starting to read Berryman's Dream Songs.

here is Berryman reading from them

the title of this post is from Berryman's Dream Song 63

Bats have no bankers and they do not drink
and cannot be arrested and pay no tax
and, in general, bats have it made.
Henry for joining the human race is bats,
known to be so, by few them who think,
out of the cave.

Instead of the cave! ah lovely-chilly, dark,
ur-moist his cousins hang in hundreds or swerve
with personal radar,
crisisless, kid. Instead of the cave? I serve,
inside, my blind term. Filthy four-foot lights
reflect on the whites of our eyes.

He then salutes for sixty years of it
just now a one of valor and insights,
a theatrical man,
O scholar & Legionnaire who as quickly might
have killed as cast you. Stormed with years
he tranquil commands and appears.