Glittery Ephemera: Elvis Costello To Release Live Orchestral Work

Paste Magazine reports:

"Elvis Costello will release My Flame Burns Blue, a live album with Metropole Orkest, a 52-piece jazz orchestra from The Netherlands, on Feb. 24, 2006 on Deutsche Grammophon. The album was recorded in concert at The Hague.

A bonus disc highlights a 45-minute suite from Costello’s first full-length, orchestral work: Il Sogno."

Schweet.

The passions of youth?

Listening to Cesaria Evora today, I thought back to my mad punk years. It struck me how different my relationship to music was then. Nowadays, I enjoy music.

Back then, I needed it constantly. I listened with my whole body. In many ways, I defined myself by a subculture centered on a type of music which had virtually died by the time I was out of elementary school. It was nothing to listen to the same Dead Kennedy's song for half an hour.

Friends are much the same. I can remember the kamikaze zeal with which I threw myself into friendships. It was easy to be dazzled by some new, strong personality. My life centered on my tribe, and any time not spent working was devoted to them.

Now, it's nothing like that. I have a few permanent friends, but the rest of my relationships are episodic in nature, the cast changing whenever the setting does.

Is this just because I'm married and my focus is on my home, or is this a function of maturation? As we age, do we inevitably lose the ability to submerge ourselves in things?

Somebody explain Miles Davis to me.

I just don't get him. I want to, really, but all his music sounds alike to me. A bit like Zydeco, except that Zydeco makes me want to stick meat thermometers in my ears.

Miles Davis is a bit like Marcel Proust -- I want to like them. The idea of Proust or Miles is great. But. We could add stinky cheese to the list as well. All three are huge in France, seem cool in concept, but just don't click for me.

What am I missing?

In the Mood

The transporting effect of music is wild -- the right song can bring back the sounds, sights and even smells of a place. Len's "You Steal My Sunshine" conjures up Monterey, CA. Anything by Phish is good for a bad memory of Massachussets.

A couple of days ago I heard Glen Miller's "In the Mood". Instantly I was back where I first heard it -- I was eleven, and it was during my two years with the Sailor's Circus. I can still smell the odor of big top mixed with stale popcorn, and see the band practicing in their white tuxedos. I can feel the heaviness of the grease paint on my face, and the bruise from where the seat of my unicycle had worn thin.

Hearing that song for the first time, I fell for Swing. After that, I started taking home dusty library records of The Henderson Band, Tommy Dorsey or Benny Goodman every chance I had.

tonight's blogging soundtrack

Hidaka Noriko - Yasashii,ii Ko Ni Narenai (The Baka Song)

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Red Right Hand

Supertramp - Bee in Your Bonnet

The Ramones - Needles and Pins

tonight's blogging soundtrack

1. Squirrel Nut Zippers -- Lover's Lane

2. Nochnie Snaiperi -- Chernoe Solntse

3. Roy Orbison -- Running Scared

4. Ilya -- Soleil Soleil

5. A Flock of Seagulls -- Wishing

The boys went to bed listening to "Jazz for Kids", which has Ella, Louis and others singing everything from Old McDonald to the Banana Song. I graduated them out of the "Baby Beluga" phase as fast as I could. . .

Speeding Lisa!

TulipGirl and I hit Art Club 44 tonight for the Speeding Lisa concert. It was madness. The crowd was half expat/half Ukrainian girl groupies. The music was great, though they've lost Jennifer, their former lead singer, to the lures of Canada.

They led off the concert tonight with the Orange Revolution anthem "Razom Nas Bahato."

Here's Nick and Mark. Ironically, the only Scot in the band is not one of the two be-kilted members.

There's Ewan, the lead singer. The guy in the red shirt is actually Castor Borealis, whom you see in the comments section here at Le Sabot. An awesome guitarist, and all around cool frood. Not only does he know all the best pop culture references, both his French and his Russian are better than mine. He had good news tonight -- the band is adding the Dead Kennedy's "Holiday in Cambodia" to the repertoire.

This is a shot of them singing my favorite song in their lineup -- a spin on a Sex Pistols classic -- "Anarchy in the Ukraine." You end up with lines like, "Is this the KGB, or is this the SBU, or is this the CIA? I thought it was the Ukraine!"

Today's blogging soundtrack. . .

Credence Clearwater Revival: Born on the Bayou

Panjabi MC: Jatt Ho Giya Sharabee

Don Johnson Big Band: One MC, One Delay

Stomy Bugsy: J'Suis Ne a Pigelle

Simple Minds: Hypnotised

Bono and the 3-Name Gunman Rule

Everyone knows that all the best gunmen have three names -- John Wayne Gacy, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Wilkes Booth. I'll bet the guy who shot Bobby actually had a third Sirhan lurking in there somewhere, but people thought it was too much of a good thing.

So anyway, I think there's a similar rule in music -- the "Insufferable One Name Rule". It refers to singers whose music ranks up there with red-hot knitting needles in my ears.

Nearly all of them have only one name: Sting, Hootie, Sade, Madonna, Prince, Pink, Beyonce, Cher, Moby, Eminem and Bono. Giving my wife How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb today was an act of love. And yes, Britney and Yoko get included -- their last names are totally optional.

Really, almost any singer worth listening to has two names, like a decent person. Nina Simone. Peter Murphy. Johnny Cash. Dean Martin. Elvis Costello. Jello Biafra. Think about it.

Kill me now.

I have Patrick Swayze in my head singing, "She's like the wind." Apparently, he only knows two lines of the song.

Can someone recommend something better? Can you imagine anything worse?

New Feature! Death of Western Civ Watch

We at Le Sabot try to see the lighter side of Western cultural suicide, so in the future we'll be highlighting some of the milestones on our collective trek to Decadence. This week: The return of Menudo!

Tryouts are ongoing through the summer. So if you're a Latin male between the ages of 14-16 with ambiguous sexual preferences, you could be the next Ricky Martin!

Beyond 99 Luftballons

I've always scorned Heavy Metal. This goes back to my punk days, when metalheads were the other alternative people. The ones with indifferent hygeine and bright futures as stockboys at the Piggly Wiggly. This basic distaste for the music has stayed with me, even while my spiked leather jacket and Black Flag CDs are long lost to a thrift store somewhere in California (my Doc Martens are still with me.) But I have to admit, one metal band has achieved an ugly sort of genius. Does anyone listen to Rammstein back in the States?

I can only say that Metal, that ugliest of musics, and German, the most unprepossessing of languages, were made for each other. There is something about the word nein being shouted over growling guitars that just isn't possible to capture in English.

With its ugly gutterality, German is also perfect for hip-hop (though Turkish is better.) Tic Tac Toe, though badly named, is a likable female hip-hop group. Check out the MP3s.

Where Do Pop Bands Come From?

This is something that's always puzzled me. Likely someone out there knows more about the industry than I do. Back before the day of the corporately-constructed Boy Band, where did pop groups come from? Looking back, I can't think of a single pop garage band in my town, with the exception of my friend Miles, who did Violent Femmes covers in coffee houses. On the other hand, I knew about 3 billion heavy metal and punk groups. With the exception of the Mousketeer Club, just where do people like Menudo, Bananarama and Jennifer Lopez get their start, anyway? And how can we stop them?

Pieces of Robert Smith

During my weekly walk through the fever-swamp of left-wing journalism, I came across a nice bio on Robert Smith and The Cure. He was the patron saint of every girl I dated in high school, and I'll admit to occasional bouts of nostalgia for angsty-80's music.

There you have it, I've linked to The Nation. Le Sabot is nothing if not fair and balanced.

BritPop in the USA?

My favorite female pop vocalist of the past year was Sophie Ellis Bextor (along with perennial fave, Shirley Manson of Garbage.) I'm curious, is she popular yet on the other side of the pond? She made her name in the British club scene, and now all of Europe has fallen for her. Rather than cloak her accent, as a lot of singers do, she sings with the most wonderfully posh voice. If you haven't all heard her in the States already, check her out.

I recommend Murder on the Dancefloor, Get Over You and The Universe is You, for the uninitiated.

Classic Country and the NPR Set, Part Deux

Our most conspicuously brilliant commenter here, pentamom, had this to say about the prospect of Latte Liberals embracing old Country music:

"But Hank Williams et al may simply be too rooted in old-style, implicit, unquestioning cultural Americanism (in its good and bad aspects)"

There's something to this. But once accepted, anything objectionable in a musical style is simply ignored. Political Correctness is only applied to things outside the liberals' own circle.

In the history of blues that I'm reading these days, for instance, a good third of the songs include wife beating. But blues are still cool with the Blue Staters. And the original Vagina Monologues included a 13-year-old girl being made drunk and then seduced by an adult woman, after which the girl calls the experience "good rape."

But the Monologues are all the rage these days. Can you imagine if it were a non-Lefty who had included a similar event or similar words in a creative project? The Feminists would burn his house down by flinging burning bras on the roof.

Morality and PC are whatever the Left decides they are. If they decide to like Classic Country, then it'll be acceptable and moral, no matter how 'troglodyte' its worldview.

Country Chic?

Now that the NASCAR dads have moved on to New Country, I wonder how long until the NPR crowd "discovers" Classic Country. Every other style of Southern musical expression -- blues, jazz, bluegrass, you name it, has been embraced by the Blue Staters with the exception of Country.

The Red Staters now listen to Shania Twain and the rest of the pseudo-country singers, so it's socially safe to like the old timers now. Johnny Cash is already beloved of the latte crowd, and Willie Nelson is writing protest songs. It seems only a matter of time until Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell, and Hank Thompson are no longer backwoods hicks, but rather musical visionaries with a raw, earthy authenticity.

Mickey 3D, Nina and Outkast

They've started showing MTV Europe in the evenings now, so my Pop Culture Maven credentials are on a firmer footing than they have been lately. The video for Outkast's Hey ya finally got over this way, and it's great! This is the first Outkast I've heard, but I liked the sound. Is the rest of the rest of the music anything like Hey ya?

Also, someone re-mixed Nina Simone's Sinnerman and put it to video. Normally this would offend my purist sensibilities, but the mix is subtle and doesn't interfere with her voice. That woman could sing.

Lastly, I have to add a third group to my list of non-auditorially-offensive French bands. Mickey 3D has a cool, minimalist sound, and no synthesized accordians. Their Reprise video, a piece of Eco-propaganda, was done artfully enough to make even me consider recycling. Check out a clip at their site.

The Devil's In The Beat!

It's the beat that's evil!

I came across a fascinating and troubling site featuring "testimonies" of young people who've been delivered from the scourge of Christian Rock. It shook me up, and made me want to campaign against a monstrous evil more than anything since Reefer Madness

"'Christian rock' has damaged my life in two ways. First, it ruined my Christian witness. The addictive beat and tempo were very hard for me to conquer. When I went to a friend's house, instead of being two friends together talking we would sit in his room and do nothing except allow the music to flow through us."

-A Sixteen-Year-Old Student From Michigan

"'Christian rock' was brought into my life earlier than my peers because of a weakness in my forefathers. I continually desired music that had a strong and fast beat. The music I started with was soft, slow, and contemporary, and it took over my life and I became dependent upon it . . .

-A Sixteen-Year-Old Student From Illinois

Brethren and Sistren, we must purify our land of this plague of Christian rock. An African tribal beat is the devil's plaything. It will be as Sodom and Gomorrah here very soon unless the hellish syncopated rhythm that is CCM is silenced. Stand up, Christian men! Be wild at heart!

Triumph of a Trivial Mind!

I did pretty well on the 80's Lyrics Quiz, though not so well as Tolle Blogge. Of course, I was working under a handicap -- I lived my entire childhood in blissful seclusion from Big Hair Metal.

The Liberal Media Comes to Kiev!

The Liberal Media is in town for a few days from Warsaw. Tonight he put me through a Kiev expat right-of-passage -- my first Speeding Lisa concert at Art Club 44. They're an expat landmark, a brilliant Anglophone melange comprised of a Scot, a Brit, a Canadian and an American. They sing all the songs we Gen Xers kind-of know the words to: pop-punk like Green Day and Offspring; a Nirvana tune or two; along with Classic rock and the Beatle's Back in the USSR. The lead singer is a Canadian girl with a strong, throaty voice that's perfect for L7, Joan Jett and 4NonBlonde covers. She even pulled off The Ramones' "I Wanna be Sedated".

The highlight of the evening was an inspired morphing of the old Pistols anthem into "Anarchy in the Ukraine." They wrapped up the set with a happy punk version of "White Christmas" that even got the handful of 50-something cardigan-wearers in the crowd to their feet.

Just to make the night absolutely perfect, Guinness was on tap.

An idea whose time has come...

If there was ever a group calling out for a tribute band, it's They Might Be Giants. We could call our group -- They Might Be They Might Be Giants. I know, it sounds crazy, but just let the idea marinade a bit.

Slav Pop

Most Russian music falls into two categories: either fading, ultra-cheese Soviet pop stars like Alla Pugacheva or derivative, Western-aping schlock like Ivanushki International. But occasionally you find the happy exception, a Discoteka Avaria (Disco Disaster) or Nochniye Snaiperi (Night Snipers.)

After months of searching I finally found the new Undervood release, and it was worth the wait. Vladimir Tkachenko's melancholy, understated vocals are beautiful, and the folk-rock style is both contemporary and authentically Slavic. Check out Gagarin, Ya vas Lubila (Gagarin, I loved you.) You can download the MP3 here. It's 8th from the bottom. They're the best thing Ukraine has sent to Russia since Gogol.

More Bhangra Goodness...

I finally got the new Panjabi MC disk! The single, Mundian To Bach Ke, has been out in Kiev for ages, but no one had the full disk. I've only had two listens, but my initial impressions are very good. I was surprised to see that Jay-Z is actually featured in a couple of the tracks. Although initially leery about this, I have to say it works.

For anyone whose impression of Indian music is Ravi Shankar or else some tinny Hindi film musical, check out Panjabi. His sound is a cool fusion of traditional Indian music with modern electronica. Here's the homepage. To listen to some samples, try here.

Few of the other cuts rise to the level of "Mundian", but almost all of them are solid, with a couple of exceptions that sound like something from a Bollywood romance. (Yes, I know Fire was a good film. But everything else Bollywood makes is horrid.)

As Ferris Bueller might say, "If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up."

History is replete with "what

History is replete with "what ifs." If Hitler had been a better painter, if Castro had been a better baseball player, if Charles Manson's audition with The Monkees had gone better...

While on a lower tier than these, one wonders how much healthier the inter-racial dialogue in this country might be if Louis Farrakhan were a better calypso singer. While reflecting on this, why not tune in to some of his old classics, such as "Don't Let Me Mama Know" and "Don't Touch Me Nylon."

Between Louis "The Charmer" Farrakhan and now Harry Belafonte's recent idiocies, will the FBI soon be adding the Organization of Calypso Performing Artistes to its list of subversive organizations?

California Uber Alles

While I think references to "health fascists" are a bit over the top, there is definitely an authoritarian strain in modern liberalism (which is generally cloaked in the language of civil rights.) Just as one of the few anti-abortion songs in history was sung by the Sex Pistols, the best song pointing up this authoritarian streak comes from a punk band--the Dead Kennedys.

Little Girl Blue

Nina Simone, the legendary Jazz vocalist, died yesterday at her home in the south of France. I'll always count it a loss that I never saw her in concert. Her voice was indescribable--a low, husky, melancholy instrument that had a unique, lonely beauty.

I have Nina to thank for one of my few moments of absolute existential perfection--smoking a hand-rolled Gauloise and sitting on the white sands of Siesta Key Beach while the sun set and Nina sang on the portable radio. Such times are far too rare.

If you haven't yet discovered her music, you're missing out. Here are a couple of links for Nina MP3s:

Christine Pilkington
MP3 Search Ukraine

Palast Orchester

If you like old jazz, Max Raabe and the Palast Orchester are definitely worth checking out. They perform modern pop tunes in a very cool Weimarish 20's style. Max's rendition of Britney Spear's "Oops I did it again" is by itself worthy of buying the CD.