'Best of TBH Politoons'
Baron Dave Romm
Not In Stores
By Baron Dave Romm
Not every CD made winds up in the stores. Here are three that are worthy of the extra effort to obtain.
A common caveat: I've known Riverfolk for years, and can prove it with some great pictures of Chas & Becca, Andy Anda (sometimes spelled "&e &a") though while I've known Roady almost as long as I've known Andy I don't have a picture. Reviewing the work of friends is always a bit of a pickle: I want to promote my friends' work but I have to maintain journalistic integrity (such as it is these days) and I don't particularly want to say bad things about people I like. Fortunately, I get to say good things about Riverfolk today.
Meander is Riverfolk's first album, and it's excellent. In concert, Riverfolk is an amorphous group of 2 to 5 musician friends who play in a laid back folk atmosphere. They just love playing for friends. The CD captures a lot of the folksiness while emphasizing the vocals a live unmiked concert can't balance. The four main folk are joined by others on some cuts so the sound isn't the same on each song. Sometimes Andy plays fiddle, sometimes mandolin. Chas and Becca's harmonies are allowed to intertwine and counterpoint. The cover of the CD is a cutout of the four of them with a NASA photo of the Arkansas river as it goes Passing Through Tulsa, a Tom Paxton song that serves as the title cut. Like the river, Riverfolk meanders through the folk genre with a steady tug. Unlike the river, they sing of love and love lost; the folk don't expect a lot from life, but they know what makes a home.
As a fan of wordplay, my favorite song is A Member of the
Rabble by Kevin Brixius, sung by Chas with harmony by Becca and
Sally Heinz, violin by Andy, bass by Nate Bucklin (another friend
I've talked about before):
I am a member of the rabble
I put em-PHA-sys on the wrong sy-LA-ble.
I do not meet with the social elite
I do not speak well I babble.
Or perhaps my favorite cut is the bouncy Home, featuring the four Riverfolk, a love song about coming home. Chas and Becca alternate singing their verses then sing them in counterpoint. Just like home. Or even the Nancy Griffith Grammy-nominated song Love at the Five and Dime, about young lust which blooms to true love. Chas goes deep (but not gruff) in the Woody Guthrie/Billy Bragg song Way Over Yonder In The Minor Key with a nice mandolin break from Andy and harmonies from Becca and Sally. Or perhaps my favorite song is... well you get the idea. Still, I would be remiss in not mentioning the one song that works best live: Chas' love paean to his wife, Bonnie's Song, which generally requires Bonnie being around.
Meander is more than iPw (iPod worthy), it demonstrates that Riverfolk are larger than the sum of their parts, and are as good in the studio as they are live. Recommended.
Riverfolk's first album came to their doorstep less than forty-eight hours before I'm writing this, and I was their first sale. As yet, they don't have availability info on their web site. I asked, and they said to write them about getting the CD. Mention that you heard about it from Baron Dave.
And as long as I'm mentioning albums not available in stores, let me again briefly plug Roady's 1996 CD, Rich and Roady. A nice bunch of original folk tunes, including Minnesota-inspired The Wood-Tick Song. Definitely iPw.
Sometimes, my friends will pop up with a CD and I say, "can I have one of those?" Sometimes, CDs mysteriously appear in my KFAI mailbox saying "check this out!" A few weeks ago Songs That Will Never Win A Grammy by the (wait, let me get the capitalization right) primeTime sublime Community Orchestra or pTsCO. Their web site contains the kind of hype I strive to avoid, so you can read all their attempts to make what they do sound more than it is. And what it is is: fun.
pTsCO is an electronic group, with electronic vocals and topics that range from Nixon and Bush to sex. I don't know whether the electronic vocals are entirely created by computer, as is Reed Waller's Nellie and the Drummers or everyone gets pumped through a synthesizer. Still, the music is good -- highly orchestrated in a way that you can only do with lots of money OR a lot of computer time -- and the lyrics understandable. They try to be political and/or current, which mostly doesn't work as comment on the news but does keep them fresh. Songs include Curb Your God, about "G_d poop"; and It Will All Be Over Before You Know It, an electronic lounge song about living each day as if it were your last.
These songs will never win a Grammy because they don't deserve to. Still, they're off the beaten Top-40 path and if you like your music a bit out of the ordinary, Songs That Will Never Win A Grammy is iPw.
The Scandinavian Accordion Club of New York has been performing since 1987. A friend handed me their fifth CD, Have A Banana! from 2002, distributed in a paper CD holder. They play at SkandJam in New Jersey, which is a big Swedish gathering, and have played from Norway to South Dakota. Here in Minnesota, we have a lot of Scandahoovians (one of whom was the friend who gave me the CD) who are rightly proud of their heritage. They can be proud of the Scandinavian Accordion Club of New York.
The twenty-four cuts on Have A Banana! comprise twenty mostly instrumental waltzes and polkas plus four short cuts of Dan Knutson asking for a cup of coffee. Most people, I would imagine, associate accordion dance music with Lawrence Welk, who was really good and led a really good band. But where Welk was on tv and liked bubbles, the Scandinavian Accordion Club of New York just plays for folk. And they too are really good: danceable tunes played nicely. If you don't listen to anything but rap and hip-hop, this probably isn't for you. But these iPw cuts are going in the shuffle soon.
The CD insert says to order by e-mailing JWDragspel@aol.com but that was from 2002; on the website is the same e-mail plus another contact telephone #. Recommended for anyone making a dance mix or who just wants some sprightly music around the house.
Baron Dave Romm is a conceptual artist and a noble of Ladonia with a radio show, a very weird CD collection and an ever growing list of political links. Dave Romm reviews things at random for obscure web sites. You can read all his music recommendations from Bartcop-E , and you can hear the last two Shockwave broadcasts in Real Audio (scroll down to Shockwave). Thanks to everyone who has sent me music to play on the air.
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Recommended Reading
from Bruce
John Conyers, American Hero, Writes a Kick-Ass Letter
I write to express my profound disappointment with Dana Milbank's June 17 report, "Democrats Play House to Rally Against the War," which purports to describe a Democratic hearing I chaired in the Capitol yesterday. In sum, the piece cherry-picks some facts, manufactures others out of whole cloth, and does a disservice to some 30 members of Congress ...
MasterCard: 40 million accounts may be compromised (RAW STORY)
MasterCard International reported today that it is notifying its member financial institutions of a breach of payment card data, which potentially exposed more than 40 million cards of all brands to fraud, of which approximately 13.9 million are MasterCard-branded cards.
Jim Hightower: Food Marketing Trics (AlterNet)
It's time for another trip into the Far, Far, Far, Far-out World of Free Enterprise
Ben Bush: Chronicling Conflict (Bitch Magazine. Posted on Alternet)
Photographer Mimi Chakarova has traveled the world chronicling war, sex trafficking and assaults on human rights. But instead of shocking viewers, her images provoke important questions.
BOB GRIMM: Caped Comeback (tucsonweekly.com)
Reader Comment
Late SNL!
Marty-
They're doing a sketch that I haven't seen since it was first done--and it's one that has stuck with me for years!
The interview with a man (Bill Murray) who has written a new book. And as the interview proceeds, the interviewer (Jane Curtain) realizes that the author still suffers from the affliction called "quintalexia"--only being able to say 5 words, always the same 5 words. As it turns out, the author must say "That's true. You're absolutely right" to everything. Of course, she starts making him say "That's true. You're absolutely right" to some awful things--your mother wears Army boots, you still wet the bed, etc. Sure wish I had Tivo and could have captured that. It's such an excellent skit.
Linda >^..^<
Thanks, Linda!
Another Rant
Avery Ant
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Overcast til noon, then a mostly sunny, breezy day.
Had a lot of fun on the Erin Hart Show last night. Will be back in 2 weeks.
Got a nice note from Jorge -
his single, 'Girlfriend,' (from his album 'Possibly Now!') is being featured on 'Summerland' tonight. It was also heard on
'One Tree Hill' last year.
Drop by his site, Jorge's Music, and check it out!
Spin Magazine Picks As Best CD
Radiohead
Spin magazine named Radiohead's "OK Computer" the top album of the past 20 years, praising a futuristic sound that manages to feel alive "even when its words are spoken by a robot."
The British band's album edged out Public Enemy's "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back" and Nirvana's "Nevermind" on a list in Spin's 20th anniversary issue, currently on newsstands.
Sandwiched between Radiohead's straight-ahead rock disc "The Bends" and the more experimental, electronic "Kid A," "OK Computer" was the album that propelled Radiohead to worldwide, stadium-sized popularity. Though it never went higher than No. 21 on the Billboard charts, it won critical raves and a Grammy for best alternative music performance.
Also in the top 10, in order, are Pavement's "Slanted and Enchanted," The Smiths' "The Queen is Dead," Pixies' "Surfer Rosa," De La Soul's "3 Feet High and Rising," Prince's "Sign `o' the Times," PJ Harvey's "Rid of Me" and N.W.A.'s "Straight Outta Compton."
Radiohead
Wins at Imagen Awards
'Motorcycle Diaries'
"The Motorcycle Diaries," the tale of revolutionary Che Guevara's life-changing 1950s journey across Latin America, swept top honors at the Imagen Awards, including best picture, director and supporting actor.
The film, based on Guevara's diaries of his 1952 trip with Alberto Granado, also garnered Jose Rivera the Norman Lear Writer's Award.
The show Friday honored contributions by and about Latinos and Latino culture.
'Motorcycle Diaries'
Human Rights Campaign
Janet Jackson
Janet Jackson was in no mood for jokes when she got a cheeky introduction from actor Alan Cumming as she received a humanitarian award from a gay rights group.
After Cumming joked that she was never one for controversy, Jackson apologized for her own lack of humor in her first public appearance since brother Michael Jackson's acquittal on child molestation charges.
"My family and I have just gone through the least humorous chapter of our lives," she explained in accepting the award Saturday night from the Human Rights Campaign. "I'm going to leave the jokes to the late-night (comics), if that's OK."
Jackson told the crowd, "Acceptance is right. Kindness is right. Love is right. I pray, right now, that we're moving into a kinder time when prejudice is overcome by understanding; when narrow-mindedness, and narrow-minded bigotry is overwhelmed by open-hearted empathy; when the pain of judgmentalism is replaced by the purity of love."
Janet Jackson
Weeps at Dad's Painting Exhibit
Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro got choked up at an exhibit of paintings by his father in northeastern France.
"This is a magnificent exhibit," said De Niro, whose father, Robert De Niro Sr., passed away more than a decade ago.
"I'm sad that my father is not here," De Niro said Saturday, dabbing his eyes.
The 56-painting exhibit, in the recently opened La Piscine Museum in the town of Roubaix, is the first European retrospective of the elder De Niro's paintings. Hundreds gathered outside the museum, housed in a renovated Art Deco poolhouse, hoping to spot the actor.
Robert De Niro
Censored A-Bomb Stories Published
George Weller
An American journalist who sneaked into Nagasaki soon after the Japanese city was leveled by a U.S. atomic bomb found a "wasteland of war" and victims moaning from the pain of radiation burns in downtown hospitals.
Censored 60 years ago by the U.S. military, George Weller's stories from the atom bombed-city surfaced this month in a series of reports in the national Mainichi newspaper.
By hiring a Japanese rowboat, catching trains and later posing as a U.S. Army colonel, Weller, an award-winning reporter for the now-defunct Chicago Daily News, slipped into Nagasaki in early September 1945, Mainichi said - about a month after the Aug. 9 bombing that killed 70,000 people.
Weller, who died in 2002, was the first foreign journalist to set foot in the devastated city, which Gen. Douglas MacArthur, head of the U.S. occupation in Japan, had designated off-limits to reporters, the newspaper said.
George Weller
Mainichi newspaper
No Date
Miss America
In any other year, Miss Delaware Becky Bledsoe would be making her travel plans. The folks at Fischer Florists would know when they have to deliver all the corsages and bouquets. Boardwalk Hall would have a two-week period blocked out for pageant rehearsals, preliminary competitions and the crowning of the new Miss America.
But this is not any other year. Miss America doesn't have a date, and the uncertainty has her world in a tizzy.
With three months to go before its traditional start, the beauty pageant is still without a TV contract and has yet to establish a date for the crowning, which traditionally is held in early September.
Dropped by ABC last fall because of record-low viewership, the Miss America pageant has been searching for a new television outlet to carry the 84-year-old pageant.
Miss America
NBC/Universal to Launch Teaser
King Kong
NBC Universal will present an unprecedented motion picture preview "roadblock" as all nine of its networks simultaneously telecast the world premiere of the first trailer for Universal Pictures' King Kong, the dramatic adventure helmed by Oscar®-winning director Peter Jackson, on Monday, June 27, from 8:59:30-9:02 PM ET.
As part of the ambitious, multi-pronged effort, the two-minute, 30-second teaser trailer will be broadcast at the same time on NBC, SCI FI, USA Network, Bravo, MSNBC, CNBC, Telemundo, Mun2 and Universal HD. The trailer will be offered in high-definition on NBC and Universal HD. The estimated potential audience of the combined networks would exceed 109 million viewers, surpassing the total distribution of any previous promotional broadcast.
The specific schedule for the airing of the teaser trailer on each of the NBC networks is as follows:
NBC -- immediately following Fear Factor
USA Network -- immediately following Law & Order: SVU
SCI FI Channel -- immediately following Stargate-SG1
Bravo -- immediately following West Wing
Universal HD -- immediately following Airport '77
MSNBC -- immediately following Countdown with Keith Olberman
CNBC -- immediately following Cover to Cover
Telemundo -- immediately following La Mujer en el Espejo
Mun2 -- teaser trailer will premiere during the two-hour block of The Roof
King Kong
Sets 100 Meter Record
Kozo Haraguchi
A 95-year-old Japanese man shattered the 100 metres world record in the 95-99 age group at a seniors athletics meeting on Sunday, organisers said.
Kozo Haraguchi splashed through the rain to clock 22.04 seconds in Miyazaki, southern Japan, slicing almost two seconds off the previous world record of 24.01.
After being informed of his achievement, Haraguchi beamed: "Oh dear, really? Thank you very much."
Five years ago, Haraguchi set a world record for the 90-94 age bracket with a time of 18.08.
Kozo Haraguchi
Mandatory Reading
Conyers vs. The Post
There is painful irony in the fact that, during the same month that the confirmation of "Deep Throat's" identity has allowed the Washington Post to relive its Watergate-era glory days, that newspaper is blowing the dramatically more significant story of the "fixed" intelligence the Bush Administration used to scam Congress and US allies into supporting the disasterous invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Last week, when the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Michigan Democrat John Conyers, chaired an extraordinary hearing on what has come to be known as the "Downing Street Memo"--details of pre-war meetings where aides to British Prime Minister Tony Blair discussed the fact that, while the case for war was "thin," the Bush Administration was busy making sure that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy"--the Post ridiculed Conyers and the dozens of other members of Congress who are trying to get to the bottom of a scandal that former White House counsel John Dean has correctly identified as "worse than Watergate."
Post writer Dana Milbank penned a snarky little piece that, like similar articles in the New York Times and other "newspapers of record," displayed all the skepticism regarding Bush Administration misdeeds that one might expect to find in a White House press release.
To his credit, Conyers hit back.
In a letter addressed to the Post's national editor, the newspaper's ombudsman and Milbank, the veteran House member was blunt.
For the rest, Conyers vs. The Post
In Memory
Lorna Thayer
Actress Lorna Thayer, the waitress who memorably refused to let Jack Nicholson order toast in the 1970 movie "Five Easy Pieces," died June 4 at the Motion Picture and Television Fund retirement home after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease. She was 85.
Her career spanned 40 years during which she appeared in more than 40 motion pictures and had dozens of guest roles on television shows. Most of her work, however, consisted of bit parts. She often was cast in movies credited only as "flower vendor," "warden" or "suntan lady," although she co-starred in the 1956 horror cult favorite "The Beast With a Million Eyes."
Lorna Thayer
In Memory
Georgie Woods
Legendary radio broadcaster Georgie Woods, who introduced Philadelphia to the sounds of Stevie Wonder and the Temptations and took part in the 1960s civil-rights movement, died Saturday in Boynton Beach, Fla., likely of a heart attack, according to his longtime companion, Doris Harris. He was 78.
Woods came to Philadelphia from New York in 1953 and went on to use the airwaves of WDAS-AM and WHAT-AM to bring the city emerging talents such as the Temptations, Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson. Known on the radio as "the guy with the goods," Woods also brought James Brown, Aretha Franklin and other acts to shows at the city's landmark Uptown Theater.
Woods marched in Selma, Ala., with Martin Luther King Jr. and helped charter 21 buses to bring Philadelphians to King's historic 1963 march on Washington.
Woods was planning to travel to Philadelphia in November to be inducted into the Broadcast Pioneers Hall of Fame.
Georgie Woods
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