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Category Archives: music
insomniac’s music news roundup
I think my brain can’t decide which time zone I’m in.
- Pitchfork Media lets us know the tour dates for the newly reunited original lineup of Dinosaur Jr. No, I won’t be living anywhere they’re playing. Very inconsiderate of them, if you ask me. If you live in D.C./Atlanta and do not plan on going to see them at the 9:30 Club/Variety Playhouse, then you’re a damn fool. Unless you don’t like your ears bleeding. Then I understand.
- PFM also reports that the White Stripes are coming to the Starlight Theater in KC on August 23. Two thoughts:
- I will be living somewhere other than Kansas City on August 23.
- The Starlight Theater does not sound like a place I want to go to see a band.
- Oh wait! Ryan Adams and the Cardinals will be playing in Manchester on June 29! … Sold out?
- Dammit!
- Then again, if I want to see someone get drunk and fall down on stage, there’s always Shane MacGowan.
- Hmm, Television on the 23rd of June. Saw them last year, and don’t have a burning desire to see them again.
- Holy crap! There’s an amazing series called Patti Smith’s Meltdown taking place in London this week:
- Patti Smith, Chan Marshall (Cat Power), and Kevin Shields (My Bloody Valentine) performing together this Wednesday right here in London!
- And she’s performing with John Cale (Velvet Underground) on Satuday.
- An homage to William Blake in the form of a tribute to Jimi Hendrix…that sounds a little flakey.
- Looks like they’re all sold out.
- Dammit!
- Well, there’s also a tribute to Bertolt Brecht featuring Marc Almond, The Finn Brothers, Antony & The Johnsons, Martha Wainwright, Dresden Dolls, Sparks, London Sinfonietta, The Tiger Lillies, and Patti Smith. Hmm, could be interesting. Sinfonietta collaborated with Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood recently. I dig the Dresden Dolls. And who doesn’t love Soft Cell’s Marc Almond? A damn fool. That’s who.
Oh, Morpheus. Why must you taunt me so?
busy few days
Friday and Saturday were awesome research days at the British Library. I found some really juicy stuff that’s going to be very useful. I was there yesterday from 9:30 until closing at 5:00 yesterday, and I was so excited by what I was finding that I didn’t want to leave.
My time has not been filled only with work, however. Friday night I saw a very good production of Henry IV Part 1 with Laurie and her friend Jessica at the National Theatre. Tuesday night we’ll catch the second part. Jessica totally kicks ass for landing tickets to supposedly sold-out shows.
Last night my friend Nancy and I headed out to the hip joint of the moment, which goes by the name of the Boogaloo. It’s supposed to be the place to see and be seen, but it seemed just like any other pub I’ve been to in London. Well, there was one difference: the beer was about twice as expensive. Still, it was fun to hang out there, and the way the juke box works is pretty cool. The rumor is that Coldplay went there once to take in (or contribute to) the vibe and got angry when no one recognized them.
Today was an eighteenth-century geek’s idea of paradise. Nancy and I shared a delicious lunch at a Thai restaurant, then visited Dennis Severs’ House (see photo below), which is one part living history site and two parts happening.
Subsequently, we walked up City Road to John Wesley’s chapel, built in the 1760s, and to Bunhill Fields, the Nonconformists’ cemetery right across the street.
The Museum of London was our next stop, and coincidentally enough, there is a sculpture next to the entrance that marks the site of John Wesley’s conversion experience; Wesley described feeling a “strange warming of the heart” while walking along Aldersgate Street. Not exactly the most dramatic of descriptions given that some of Wesley’s evangelical peers were passing out and speaking in tongues.
The Museum of London is a well-done presentation of the history of the city, with artifacts from the last several hundred years. We each bought a reproduction of a 1745 London map, and then headed straight for the Restoration and eighteenth-century sections, which has an exhibit on the Great Fire of 1666, and then several other exhibits organized thematically around themes like “printing” or “prison.” Perhaps I’m making it sound too dry, but it really is well done. I especially like this “sermon glass”.
Next on the agenda: more walking! We ended up at a pub for a couple of pints of John Courage (produced by a brewery founded in 1787), and capped off the day with dinner at an Indian restaurant of my favorite kind.
Now I’m going to bed…
serendipity
I’m sitting in a London coffee shop and Internet cafe on Judd Street, waiting for the BL to open, and the radio is playing “Kansas City Here I Come,” by Big Joe Turner.
“dark”: a not-so-random 10
- “The Dark,” by My Morning Jacket, from The Tennessee Fire
- “Dark Center of the Universe,” by Modest Mouse, from The Moon and Antartica
- “In My Hour of Darkness,” by the Rolling Creekdippers, from Return of the Grievous Angel: A Tribute to Gram Parsons
- “In My Hour of Darkness,” by Gram Parsons, from G.P. / Grievous Angel
- Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Long After Dark
- “Let the Darkness Fall,” by Mazzacane, Langille, Burnes, Daniell, Let the Darkness Fall
- “I See a Darkness,” by Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, from I See a Darkness
- “I See a Darkness,” by Johnny Cash, from American III: Solitary Man
- “A Spindle, A Darkness, A Fever, and a Necklace,” by Bright Eyes, from Fever and Mirrors
- “Can Light Be Found in the Darkness?” by Gustavo Santaolalla, from the 21 Grams soundtrack
Other “dark” lists here and here.