songs from the new OK Go album and the songs they more or less remind me of.

Poolside

For those of you who are looking for addicting reads that don't make you feel bad, here are two that I've just recommended to my friend Mike who's off to the Vegas poolside for the week.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. It's about a couple of kids in New York who make it big in comics in the mid-twentieth century. You've probably seen the bright and shiny, somewhat cheesy cover in the bookstores. I was actually turned off by the cover for a while, but glad I finally got over myself and took the plunge. The writing is great, the characters are well developed and fun, and the plot draws you right in.

Straight Man by Richard Russo is hands down the funniest book I have ever read. The opening scene is one of my all-time favorites. It's Russo at his best -- a bit of heartache and a lot of humor in a small, East Coast town.

A Count, A Dead Man, and Another Depressing Read

It's been a quite a while since I've posted last - a thousand apologies to you (Matt), my one reader. Although there have been many books I've read since the fabulous 'Gone with the Wind', I will report here on three:

The first, The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, totally rocked. The second, Epitaph of a Small Winner by Machado de Assis, was very funny. And the third, She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb, was devastatingly depressing.

'The Count' was a sweet, heart-breaking, engrossing adventure. It really doesn't get much better than this one if you're craving chocolate but don't want to experience acute nausea following ingestion.

'Epitaph' was another jewel recommended by Dozier. Its narrator is a hilarious, dead man. The first third of the book is a somewhat rambling series of vignettes on his early life. As the book progresses, though, a delicate love story develops. I'd never heard of de Assis - he's a Brazilian writer from the late 1800's ('Epitaph' was published in 1880). I found the book remarkably modern considering how early it was written - I would never have guessed it's from way back then. Not sure if I'm being overly influenced by the back of book (I curse the backs of books!) which makes this point, but the book's use of time, love stories, and characters bordering on the fabulous are reminiscent of Garcia Marquez and Borges.

And finally, 'She's Come Undone'. I sucked it down in less than a week, so clearly it was good in a sense. But the heroine of the book got knocked down again, and again, and again, and again, and.... thank the good lord that's over. I shed a tear at the (somewhat) upbeat ending.

CoverMania

Whew, it's been a little while.

Another covers post for ya, with a solid dose of Neil Young and a side order of Pixies. First off, one of my favorite Neil Young tunes, "Down By The River," covered by Buddy Miles (who was the drummer in Jimi Hendrix's Band of Gypsys). This is the version from his funktastic 1970 album Them Changes, which is only available today as a fairly expensive import CD, so this is a vinyl rip from the album I picked up for $6 recently. (vinyl lives! yeah right, what a pain.)

And for a more somnolent, nearly 10-minute take on the same song, we go next to a collaboration between Low and the Dirty Three, from their In the Fishtank session.

To continue the Neil Young thread, we go next to "Winterlong," a song I heard first as covered by the Pixies. It also appeared on Young's 1977 compilation Decade and was recorded by the Pixies for the 1989 Neil Young tribute album The Bridge.

That wouldn't be the last tribue album the Pixies contributed to. After their reunion in 2004, they recorded "Ain't That Pretty At All" for the Warren Zevon tribute album Enjoy Every Sandwich. If you know the name Warren Zevon at all (I didn't), it's probably as the man behind "Werewolves of London" (oddly enough, played by Adam Sandler on the tribute album). For the full story, see his Wikipedia page, but suffice it to say he was a highly gifted songwriter (with a fantastic dark sense of humor and a drug problem - song titles include "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner," and "Lawyers Guns and Money") and I highly recommend checking him out. "Ain't That Pretty At All" first appeared on the 1982 album The Envoy, but it's also included on the WZ compilation (I guess the term "greatest hits" wouldn't really apply) A Quiet Normal Life. Again, I highly recommend.

The Pixies have of course been around well long enough to be covered themselves, and this little gem recently came to my attention: TV On The Radio bravely covering "Mr. Grieves" a capella, on their Young Liars EP. The original of course appeared on the seminal Doolittle, and if you don't have that then I don't know, just... just go away and come back when you've had it on repeat for a week.

Well, that does it for this week. I close with "Hey Joe" because at least thematically, it brings us back around to "Down By The River," although it's not quite perfect since it's pre-Band of Gypsys and thus... no Buddy Miles! Oh well, next time we'll aim for a perfect circle of covers...

Clipped Moustache, Smouldering Eyes

Read Gone With the Wind over the holidays, on the beach. It had momements of greatness (yes, when Rhet and Scarlett went head to head); the raised relief cover was especially awesome; but, it was so sooo loooonggg - got a bit boring at times. It did, however, whet my appetite for historical novels/PBS shows about reconstruction, which I know horribly little about. Recommend/don't recommend? On balance, I say go for it.

Dark End of the Street

At the end of the bonus disc that comes with the extended version of the Elvis Costello album The Delivery Man, I was pleasantly surprised to find a short but sweet version of this classic ballad.

Elvis Costello and the Imposters - Dark End of the Street

Originally recorded by James Carr, Dark End of the Street has been covered many times, some better than others. In my humble opinion, the unusual phrasing of the chord progression that helps set this song apart is obscured by renditions that are too slow (e.g. Ry Cooder) or arrangements too ornate (Aretha). In contrast, the version I've been hooked on lately strips it down to what really makes it a classic: those chords, and of course the lyrics. And it helps that the subject matter works so well as a country song.

The Flying Burrito Brothers - Dark End of the Street

One more version I just happen to have on the hard drive.

Percy Sledge - Dark End of the Street

Off the top of my head, there aren't too many pop songs sung from the perspective of the adulterer. Your bonus mp3 for today is an old blues number of just that sort. Quite a bit more lighthearted, variously attributed as traditional or, frequently, to John Lee Hooker, and sung here by R.L. Burnside on his album Acoustic Stories.

R.L. Burnside - Meet Me in the Bottom

Protest music past and present

Only a few days left to follow through on this...

Impeach the President, 1973, by The Honeydrippers.

Impeach the President, 2006, from the DJ Green Lantern mix Alive on Arrival.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Graphic Novel & Mysteries

Read Watchmen for bookclub. It was ok. My first, and probably last, graphic novel. The illustrations were pretty cool and allowed (obviously) for more show and less tell. As a newbie with graphic novels, though, I found them almost distracting. The characters were uniformly unlikable. I can imagine how, within the genre of the graphic novel, this might be considered great - but I was dissapointed, and didn't enjoy the read. oh well.

Followed up Watchmen with my first Ruth Rendell, The Face of Trespass (but don't get it at Amazon, go to any used book store - you're bound to find millions of hers). It was totally solid. The writing was fine, the story was intriguing, one of those mysteries where the crime doesn't happen until the end. Very suspenseful. I just started another of hers (No More Dying Then), and it's all sun and roses so far. I love mysteries! Especially those by female Brits! Dorothy Sayers is one of my favorites...any recommendations? I've already read most of Agatha Christie, PD James, Elizabeth George, Conan Doyle, Dick Francis, Carl Hiassen. There must be more I'm not thinking of - tried spots of Jonathan Dickinson Carr, John le Carre, Georges Simenon, Raymond Chandler. One of my favorite mysteries of all time, although I don't even really put it in the mystery bucket when I think of it, is The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins. It was a recent discovery, and combines several exceedingly appealing (to me) elements: mystery, the exotic, the British back in the day, straightforward writing, plot, character development, and length. So so good.

Parts and Labor new album

Parts and Labor have a great new album out, Receivers, and I'm already hooked. Like 99.9% of all bands, they continue to mellow with age.* Of course, "mellow" is a relative term. When you start out where Parts and Labor did, it means there's still, thankfully, plenty here to scare the shit out of whichever overhyped and overbearded midwestern or Canadian neo-folkie you're currently digging.

You can stream the whole album from their website, and if you like it, pick up a cd/lp from Brah Records, or Jagjaguwar (home to some of the aforementioned bearded folkies).

On a related note, our friends (and P&L labelmates) Pterodactyl have a new album in the works as well. I'll be mentioning this again when it comes out in the spring, but in the meantime you can hear a sample on their website.

*a thesis I hope to expand on in a future post. in the meantime, I challenge anyone to show me a counter-example.

"H. M., an Unforgettable Amnesiac, Dies at 82 - Obituary - NYTimes.com"

Virtually anyone who has ever taken a course or read basic texts on neuroscience will have heard about H.M. and his profound amnesia. The historical timing of his tragic case, which this obit evokes so well, ensured that he would enter a small pantheon of case studies (Phineas Gage being his closest rival) whose symptoms provided essential insights in the progress of modern neuroscience.

On a side note, it’s hard to think of a field other than medicine in which non-practitioners can unwittingly become celebrated for the progress they enable. It’s not like Gallileo ever dropped stuff out the window in Pisa by accident.