Wednesday, September 19, 2007
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Currently Listening
Speak No Evil
By Wayne Shorter
see relatedupdate your bookmarks & feedreaders
never sleep has a new home. I'm still working out a few of the kinks, but let me know what you think in the comments section over there.
NEVER SLEEP V 3.0: THE LEGEND CONTINUES
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Currently Listening
Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely
By Frank Sinatra
see relateddat realness
"The swing shift, also known as "second shift", is an employment schedule during the afternoon and evening, such as 4 p.m. to midnight or 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. According to John Frehse of the labor management firm Core Practice Partners, this swing shift is the least desirable of all three possibilities. As a matter of fact, graveyard is preferred twice as much as swing."
^ preach, wikipedia. preach.
Monday, September 17, 2007
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Currently Listening
The Velvet Underground
By The Velvet Underground
see relatedbye bye blackwater
The Iraqi government announced Monday it was ordering Blackwater USA, the security firm that protects U.S. diplomats, to leave the country after what it said was the fatal shooting of eight Iraqi civilians following a car bomb attack against a State Department convoy.
MSNBC -
Currently Listening
Rawkus Records: Best of Decade I 1995-2005
By Various Artists
see relatedunwelcome visitors
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Currently Listening
Time Out of Mind
By Bob Dylan
see relatedon dylan at acl fest
Bob Dylan has never allowed anyone to dictate who he is as an artist. He has willfully confounded his own audience at every turn: giving Newport an electrified "Maggie's Farm," getting introspective as soon as he's saddled with the tag of "voice of a generation," and, in concert, regularly transubstantiating his biggest hits to fit the persona he's adopted at a given point. Witness "Like A Rolling Stone" transformed into a massive gospel number during the 80s, "Times They Are A-Changin'" turned into a cynical spit-at-the-ground during the 90s, and so on.
Everyone comes to a Dylan show expecting their own personal BOB DYLAN to show up: the socially conscious troubador for some, the romantic poet for others, and the wily bluesman for still others. He has recognized this since the beginning and has worked at every opportunity to break out of the boxes into which audiences would put him.
Last night, in his typical fashion, BOB DYLAN resolutely refused to make an appearance. Instead we got Bob. A guy who, at the moment, feels like playing some blues tunes (isn't that all he's ever really done anyway?).
Everybody's waiting on Bob to turn into a doddering old nostalgia act and just play his Greatest Hits Vols 1, 2 and 3 until he dies, but he hasn't and won't do so. We give him praise and call him cool because he fought to maintain his mercurial visions in the face of audiences that didn't get it. He didn't cater to them, and we love him for it. It's unfair and hypocritical to expect him to cater to us.
Put another way, we showed up expecting this:
We got this:
Old Bobby Zimmerman is still a punk rocker after all.
who dat is
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I'm a writer, record collector and ersatz critic. This blog features my thoughts on hip-hop, politics and pop culture. I practice Zen Buddhism, and that sometimes filters into what I write. I've got an idea for a book called "99 Problems (But the Self Ain't One): Buddhism, Hip-Hop & the Universe." I may or may not actually write it one day.
