Music! Play music!

I am totally grooving on this song by Mumford and Sons these days. Here, give it a listen (trust me, you'll like it):



Not exactly sure what the whole "little lion man" thing means, but sentiment in the refrain is, well, I'm sure it's something every one of us has experienced at one time or another. From both sides.
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For more from the band, click here for its song The Cave.

Hope everyone's had a good week and is finally sobered up from the new year. 2011? Not bad...so far.

We meet again*

Well I woke up Sunday morning,
With no way to hold my head that didn't hurt.
And the beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad,
So I had one more for dessert.

- Sunday Morning Coming Down

You know what this here is, right?

This is the Black. This is the Black he wore it for the poor and beaten down. The one's living in the hopeless hungry side of town.

Tomorrow, Feb. 26, 2010, would have been Johnny Cash's 78th birthday. To celebrate, the sixth and last American Recordings album is going to be released. This, is what it looks like.

How 'bout that? A man who's been dead, but definitely not gone, for nigh on seven years is releasing a record tomorrow called "Ain't No Grave." (A collection titled "Unearthed" was also released two months after his death. Classic.) Can you think of anyone else who could do that? Warren Zevon, who died five days before Cash in 2003, maybe, and I actually think the Stones and The Who have been doing it for years. Let's see any of the pre-fab'd artists foisted on us by Simon and his ilk try that stunt. Well, they might try it, but they'll never get away with it.

If you've never listened to any of Cash's American Recordings, well, I don't know if I want to know you (but there's still time, trust me, they're all pretty amazing). If you have, well, you know what I'm talking about. I'm long past running out to buy an album at a midnight release, but there might be a trip to a store this weekend (yeah, I'm not going to download this one).

Anyway, the point of the big black square at the top is that to celebrate Cash's birthday and the release of Ain't No Grave, tomorrow is "Wear Black for Johnny Day." I'm really not making this up.

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So, when you're picking out your outfit for tomorrow, Friday, Feb. 26, 2010, try to wear a little bit of the black.

On the Sunday morning sidewalk,
Wishing, Lord, that I was stoned.
'Cos there's something in a Sunday,
Makes a body feel alone.

* We'll Meet Again was the last song on American IV: The Man Comes Around, the last album released while Cash was alive.

A Rob Fleming-Gordon inspired list

John Dillinger was killed behind that theater in a hale of FBI gunfire. And do you know who tipped them off? His fucking girlfriend. All he wanted to do was go to the movies. - Rob Gordon, High Fidelity

There is, apparently, a rash of inconsiderate break-ups going on across our fair land. OK, maybe not a rash, but at least two via text message, and that’s two too many. The other aggrieved party in a text break up was mndmazes who writes “It is what it is”.

She was cool enough to comment on my post and point out it wasn’t just the ladies doing text break-ups, since it’d recently happened to her. My condolences mnd. She’s right, guys are equally inconsiderate and stupid. I won’t even try to make any excuses for myself or the fellow members of my gender. Really, how could I?

From her comment I jumped over to her blog (which is pretty good so take a look) and I left a comment inspiring me to write what you're now reading. What I said there was “Actually caught myself ([Thursday] morning) considering “Hi-Fidelity” as this evening’s entertainment. Either that or a Rob-inspired blog post: “Top 5 songs to send the person who just ditched you via electronic medium”…or something like that.”

Well, that sounded like such good advice I actually did sit down to watch this fine film adaptation of a great book (hence the hierarchy of names in the title of this post). Even though both are actually called “High Fidelity” we won’t let that get in the way. And now I've written the post. So at least I know how to keep promises to myself.

We’re going to shorten the topic to “Top 5 break-up songs” for simplicity, since I don’t know of anyone singing about getting dumped via Facebook, twitter or, as in my case, by text. If you do, please pass them along. So, here we go...

Foggy’s top 5 break up songs
5. You Oughta Know by Alanis Morisette. I’ve always wanted to meet the man, be it Dave Coulier or whoever, who inspired this song and ask him “Dude (it was the 90s, we could still say “dude”), what the fuck did you do to this chick to have her write this song? Really, I wanna know so I can avoid the same mistake. That and take her to the movies. “Would she go down on you in a theater?”

4. Du hast by Rammstein. Once listened to this song in a black, Mustang Cobra while going 110 mph in the local lanes of I-270. That little nugget of a memory has nothing to do with a break-up, but it's still a good break-up song. And it's in German.

3. Why Don’t You Get a Job? by The Offspring. This song was on a continuous loop through my head most of Thursday.

2. Song for the Dumped by Ben Folds Five. “Gimme back my black T-shirt…” If I were to add up all the clothes I’ve lost in break-ups, I could probably start my own charity. The one that really hurt was a rugby jersey with the School House skull and crossbones logo.

1. The Heisman by Johnny Quest. A great song from the college years. OK, maybe pre-college years, but not by much.

Any deletions and additions? Tell me in the comments what your favorite break-up/getting dumped song is.

Danger: Do not watch the arch

I meant to write this a month or so ago (OK, two months), but it kept getting pushed to the bottom of the pile. Trust me, it’ll make sense in the end.

Back in April a friend responded to my hockey game invite, an event she said she probably wouldn’t have gone to on her own, with an invite of her own. The event was a concert I know I would never have gone to on my own. It never would have even registered on my radar.

The concert at GW’s Lisner Auditorium opened with Dobet Gnahoré, a wonderful and soulful singer from the Ivory Coast, and headlined with Habib Kotié and Bamada from Mali. Let me tell you, if you’ve never seen a West African rock band, you don’t know what you’re missing. They ROCKED! The only words I understood all night were the song and band introductions they did in English, and the one song my friend kindly, and softly, translated from French.

But you know what? None of that mattered. Music is a universal language and through their music, particularly Kotié and Bamada’s, I got the gist of what they were trying to get across. Along with the expected instruments I heard many other unique voices telling their stories in the music including a fiddle, a blues guitar, a steel guitar and a flute. Add to this an amazing drummer whose hands moved so fast they weren’t even a blur, and you had some pretty powerful music.

Fans were dancing in the aisles and waving their hands and throwing money on the stage (an African custom, I’m told). It was a long way from the experience of this white boy.

It was an amazing experience both musically and personally and I’m thankful I got the chance to hear these artists. But that’s the kind of thing friends do: They challenge you to grow beyond yourself.

Anyway, the concert was wonderful in almost all respects.

“But Foggy, you said it was a great show, what could possibly have made it less than wonderful?”

I’ll tell you what could do it: the jackass sitting three or four rows in front of me and my friend in the darkened hall. The jackass with the camera. The jackass with the camera who insisted on taking flash pictures of himself and his friends in the darkened hall.

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Leaving aside the great big sign outside the hall that said: Do Not Take Pictures! (or something to that effect), this is a serious douche move.

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I don’t know if anyone reading this has ever welded, but the first thing you’re taught is to never look at the arc. E-ver. Looking at a welding arc is like looking at the sun, it leaves a really big hole in your vision. (Just to explain the he picture above: It comes from my friend MB’s theater scene shop down in Dallas. It used to say “Do not look at the arc” right up to the point where some moron applied for a job and listed on his resume “Skilled at arch welding.” They never bothered to find out if it was a typo or if he was, in fact, skilled at welding arches since he didn’t get a call-back. But the sign was changed in memoriam.)

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It’s kinda the same effect you get when some idiot decides to take a flash picture in a darkened auditorium. When a little point-and-shoot camera is used in a really dark room it throws out as much light as it can to try and brighten up the place. On the receiving end, your eyes are already dilated because of the dark so your optic nerve gets the full-strength blast of light.

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Not fun, and just plain rude to boot.

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So the next time you’re at some show or club or whatever and you think now’s just the perfect time to pull out your camera and record the event for posterity, don’t. The camera you save may be your own.

Music, play music

My nephew turned 11 last week, so in addition to the required card with a Jackson inside, I made him an additional offer: to increase his music collection. I told him if there was any music he wanted that I have I'd be happy burn it and send it along. And, since he said he only has "about 43 songs on my iPod" how could I pass up the chance to profoundly influence (read: corrupt) the musical tastes of the next generation of Dews?

Actually, when I was looking through his Touch at New Years, I was kinda impressed with some of the stuff he already had on there, namely The Stones. I was less than awed though, by the fact that virtually the next "artist" in the list was Taco and his "Putting on the Ritz." That song was fine in the 80s, but it's just wrong now.

He also kinda whispered into the phone, to show me how cool he is (and he is, he's gonna get all the girls in about a couple of years), "I already have two songs with the F-word in them."

So my question is this: do I expand on my 11-year-old nephew's collection of songs with "bad" words in them? I'm personally of the opinion there is no such thing. My sister, on the other hand, might not be so quick to agree.

He's asked for some AC/DC, Green Day, rap and, warming my heart to no end, some jazz to "help me mellow out." I can do all of this, but do I send him Union Underground, System of A Down and Marilyn Manson? (I've already decided to include Barenaked Ladies and Ben Folds.) Or, like with the set of miniature steel drums I so desperately wanted to send him for Christmas when he was 4 or 5, do I hold back? (This decision last was easy in retrospect, my sister would have someday, when I have children, repaid this debt with full interest and a little extra thrown in for good measure.)

It's not like I'm going to send him the Ghetto Boys (this'd be funny, but there are some lines even I won't cross), but what's wrong with a little Ice-T or Snoop?

Video Killed the Radio Star

Just yesterday I found myself doing something in my car I hadn't done in a very long while. And not only did I do it, I did it twice within an hour or so.

The first time was in the parking lot of the Teeter in Ballston. I was just about ready to get out and face the walk across the parking lot in the rain when the urge hit me. I couldn't help myself, I just had to stay in my car for another couple of minutes.

And listen to The Police's "Don't Stand So Close To Me" all the way through. Yeah, that's right, I was listening to a song, what'd you think I was going to say?

Stewart Copeland on drums, Andy Summers on guitar and Sting on bass. Cool personified. Buried in a drawer somewhere at my dad's house is a worn out cassette copy of Zenyatta Mondatta. I used to listen to the hell out of that thing.

The urge overcame me again when I got home with my trunk filled with groceries. Just as I was about to turn the key a familiar guitar riff vibrated through my speakers and I was again stuck in the driver's seat bobbing to the sounds of Stealers Wheel's "Stuck in the Middle with You."

This song also brings back memories, memories of Mr. Blonde dancing toward a tied up Marvin Nash with a smile on his face and a straight razor in his hand. It's also kinda catchy when you get right down to it.

I can't remember the last time I did this: sat in my car just listening to a song.

Perhaps The Buggles are right, maybe video really has killed the radio star. With CDs, iPods and satellite radio, we can listen to whatever we want whenever we want. Maybe I'm alone here, but the randomness of the radio is something I still find charming. When a song you like comes up on the radio, it's like a visit from an old friend.

What old friends would get you dancing in your car while passersby stared?