Pretzel Logic

 

Found a nice copy of this record a few days ago in the local used bookstore ..... Yes, bookstore. They've started dealing in used vinyl. Before putting it out for sale, a sticky note was attached that reads: "Hey; It's that album your weird uncle is always talking about."

I'm guessing that I'm the weird uncle. I had this record in my teenage years but didn't appreciate it enough and sold it in a garage sale. The song, Rikki Don't Lose That Number, has always reminded me of high school. Even though I don't think it was released until a month or two after graduation. But it has a feeling in it that brings back those memories of being 18 years old and hanging out with high school friends. And for whatever odd reason, it's always reminded me of a certain girl that I was too shy to talk to back then but had the pleasure of connecting with forty-five years later.

Steely Dan - Pretzel Logic from 1974. 

Another Approaching Birthday Blues Playlist

What I'm listening to on this damp and chilly Saturday evening. Comments added are mostly unrelated to the respective songs. .....

• Kris Delmhorst - Waiting Under the Waves ..... Another dreaded birthday coming up soon. Is there a way to avoid it?
• Matthew Mole - Same Parts, Same Heart ..... Several years ago my boss brought rice crispies cookies to work on my birthday. He understood the significance of extra marshmallow gooeyness. 
• Michael Doucet & Todd Duke - Everything I Do Gonna Be Funky
• North Mississippi Allstars - Jumpercable Blues ..... I think an extra 2% should be added to a senior discount for each birthday successfully reached and if a person makes it to 100 years old, everything is free. 
• Peter Mayer - The Birthday Party
• Peter Rowan Bluegrass Band - So Good
• Phil Ochs - There But for the Fortune / Cops of the World
• Radical Face - Ghost Towns ..... "I still dream of you ...."
• Red House Painters - Shadows ..... Listening with eyes closed. There's something about this song that's causing a flashback to attending Catholic folk masses in much younger days.
• Robert Earl Keen - I Gotta Go
• Rocket 3 - Never Again ..... The monthly bills all paid. Feeling of relief ensues.
• Si Kahn - Gone Gonna Rise Again

Thursday Evening

Done for the evening with watching basketball and dinner. Kicking off my shoes and socks. What I'm listening to. Probably listed these here before. Songs that I revisit regularly .....

• The Bats - Sir Queen
• Stereolab - Mountain
• Lou Barlow - Privatize
• Austin Lucas - Already Dead / Kith and Kin
• Chris Whitley - Accordingly / Poison Girl
• Willy Porter - Unconditional

Monday Night Playlist

Monday night and just clicking on random songs in my itunes library. Maybe the best way to construct a playlist ....

• Hiss Golden Messenger - Pittsboro Farewell (Two Monarchs) ..... A catchy, instrumental tune with fiddle, acoustic guitar and banjo. 🟊🟊🟊🟊🟊
• J. Paul Jr. & the Zydeco Nubreedz - Right Now / Stronger ..... Dancing along in the dark.
• John Hammond Sr. - Big Black Mariah
• John Prine - In Spite of Ourselves ..... Duet with Iris DeMent. Always causes me to smile and chuckle.
• Johnsmith - Kickin' This Stone ..... Singing along.
• Keith Frank & the Soileau Zydeco Band - Casanova
• Keane - Crystal Ball
• Keb' Mo' - My Baby's Tellin' Lies
• Kurt Vile - I'm an Outlaw ..... I recall hearing this for the first time in my local record store. I ran up to the counter to check out the 'Now Playing' display.
• Lake of Stew - Free Medicine ..... A front porch, Americana tune with several harmonizing voices.
• Leif Vollebekk - Elegy

Flashing Back Once Again

I tend to flashback. Twenty, thirty, .... heck fifty or sixty years. Long ago I was accused by a friend in the middle of a driveway basketball game of H.O.R.S.E. of being overly nostalgic. I guess it's true. And I suppose that's why songs become 'classic.' Anyway, here's just another flashing back playlist .....

• Wheat - Don't I Hold You .... I wonder if this qualifies for the list? Though it certainly causes me to reflect on a seemingly past life. Seems too recent though if I stopped to look up the year I'd likely discover it's been at least twenty years.
• Wheat - More Than You'll Ever Know ..... Appropriate for someone un-named, though very special to me.
• The Church - Under the Milky Way ..... I'd like to go outside at this moment and search the sky but it's too damn cold tonight and I'm too damn old to withstand it. But I suppose that's all in ones attitude.
• The Psychedelic Furs - The Ghost in You ..... Once upon a time, we'd stay up into the latest hours of the night watching music videos on television. 
• Kate Bush - Running Up That Hill
• Yes - Owner of a Lonely Heart
• Dire Straits - Down to the Waterline / Sultans of Swing ..... At least I'm flashing back in an orderly manner. 1990's, 80's, 70's, etc .... Getting closer to where I entered. 
• Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Even the Losers
• Jesse Colin Young - Four In the Morning
• The Youngbloods - Quicksand ..... One of those songs that I didn't truly appreciate, or stop and listen to, until fifty years later but it brings back the memories anyway.
• Ringo Starr - Photograph
• Rolling Stones - Angie ..... Heard this evening while fueling up at the gas station. Kids working the pumps listening to classic tunes.

The Rounders

 'Little Bitty Can of Worms' by The Rounders. From 2003. Americana with plenty of electric Blues influence and heavenly slide guitar moments with a Texas or southwest feel. A later album was released on Blind Pig Records ..... if that's any indication.

Not sure how I discovered this band. Most likely would have been while record store crate digging for cd's and coming across the colorful art on the album covers. I may have made one blind buy and returned for more. The more I ponder the question, the clearer the vague memory becomes.

Exploding Stars

On the turntable. From 2010. 'Stars Have Shapes' by Exploding Star Orchestra. Avante-Garde jazz. A group led by trumpeter, Rob Mazurek. 

Diving deeper into the abstract and further out into space as I move deeper into my senior years.

This may just lead me to giving another chance to the final two or three John Coltrane albums. Maybe I can better understand and appreciate.

In the Moment

It's plenty cold outside tonight. Inside though, relaxing with 'In the Moment' by jazz drummer, Makaya McCraven. A 2015 release. Live improvised performances taking my imagination to different and unknown places. One of the records that sparked my search for different jazz sounds.  

Evening of Jazz

A different kind of Jazz playlist. Not a lot of household names here. No jazz standards here. That doesn't mean it can't be enjoyable. Maybe at this point in my development, even preferable .....

• Signal Quartet - Endless Runner
• Naomi Moon Siegel - Electric Flower
• Isotope 217 - Kryptonite Smokes the Red Line
• Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble - Maxville to Vanport
• The Bureau of Fiction - Remember the Maine
• Fire Orchestra - I See Your Eye (Part One)
• Chris Lee - Green In Grey
• Eric Nachtrab - St. John's Bridge
• Colin Vallon - Brin
• Chicago Underground Quartet - Strange Wing

Dusty Shoebox Playlist

Going through old shoeboxes tucked away in the furthest corner regions of my closet ..... shoeboxes full of cassette tapes, both commercially made tapes and assorted mixtapes from years long past. If the mixtapes were once made with a specific person in mind, the recipient and intention has been forgotten.   

There was a time when these received frequent listens around my place. Though it's been a while for most. It's enjoyable getting reacquainted.

• Counting Crows - A Long December
• Toad the Wet Sprocket - Crazy Life
• Duncan Shiek - Barely Breathing
• Indigo Girls - Power of Two
• Warren Zevon - Sentimental Hygiene ..... I can't imagine a radio station DJ following 'Power of Two' with this, unless it was me.
• Tom Waits - Better Off Without a Wife .... My college roommates introduced me to this in 1978. (I can't mention 'college' without saying: Go Beavs!! (Oregon State University)
• Duncan Shiek - Wishful Thinking .... Never hear of his music anymore but he was getting much recognition back in the 1990's. 
• Jackson Browne - The Barricades of Heaven / I'm Alive
• Peter Himmelman - Closer ..... Sending a message.
• Sarah McLachlan - Building a Mystery
• Little Feat - Under the Radar ..... "My heart is a mountain, I'd walk on fire to get to you."
• John Hiatt - Cry Love ..... I love the mandolin.
• John Hiatt - Shredding the Documents

Drone On

I get to celebrate the 'Black Friday' version of 'Record Store Day' tomorrow. 

If I choose to that is.

Don't have to work so I'm semi-excited about the chance to attend on the same day.

Not that I'm planning to be standing in line at 8:00am when the doors open.

I've never been the stand-in-line type personality.

But I'll swoop in after the crowds have died down and pick from what remains. 

That works for me. 

On the turntable today .....

7-inch vinyl from 1991.

Found in the punk section of the record store. Picked up a week ago. I laughed at punk when it exploded in the late 1970's. Beginning to appreciate it in my senior years. In small doses that is. I can't sit and listen to it for long periods. Hence, I have a small but growing collection of 7-inch punk records. Seems like the perfect format for the genre.

Sam's Place

I had no idea. A total surprise to discover a new Little Feat album. Released this year on their Hot Tomato record label.

I've been a huge fan since their late 1980's reformation. 

This one with all lead vocals by their percussionist and occasional (until now) lead vocalist, Sam Clayton. There's also a duet with Bonnie Raitt. Great blues sounds. 

Little Feat always reminds me of my old friend Mitch. (R.I.P.). He was a huge fan of their 1970's music and the vocals of Lowell George. He would refuse, despite all my efforts and offers to make mix-tapes and cd's, to listen to anything the band recorded after Lowell George's passing in the late 1970's which is about the time that I began paying attention to their sounds through a Jackson Browne bootleg album containing the song, "Long Distance Love."