There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part, you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all. Mario Savio, 12/02/64
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
DJ Record Player's New Music 2008
These are my favorite songs of 2008. Not necessarily in this order.
1 IY, Candles 2 MGMT, Time to Pretend 3 Vampire Weekend, A-Punk 4 Michael Franti & Spearhead, Hey World 5 R.E.M., Hollow Man 6 Little Beirut, Love During Wartime 7 Brian Eno & David Byrne, Strange Overtones 8 Jenny Lewis, Acid Tongue 9 Dr. Dog, Army of Ancients 10 The Mumlers, Red River Hustle 11 The Black Crowes, Oh Josephine 12 Neil Diamond, Forgotten 13 She & Him, Sentimental Heart 14 The Sutras, One Million Criminals 15 The Presidents of the United States of America, Sharpen Up Those Fangs 16 Lucinda Williams, Real Love 17 Thousands of One, Revolution at Hand 18 Sheryl Crow, Out Of Our Heads 19 Old Crow Medicine Show, Lift Him Up 20 Weezer, Heart Songs
Yeah, it's overwhelming, but what else can we do? Get jobs in offices, and wake up for the morning commute?
December 15, 1995. Oakland, California. Here Are The Facts You Requested present Music From Inside a Snow Globe at the Stork Club. (The old Stork Club.) The Christmas season was not the reason that the Stork Club was adorned with lights, trees, ornaments, and other holiday decor. Well, maybe it was once, maybe in 1974. But no one ever put the Christmas trees away, or took the wreaths and bells from the walls. At the Stork Club, it was perpetually Christmas Eve, seventies-style.
So we prepared a set of originals to include references to Christmas songs, along with a few straight-up carols. We printed lyric sheets for the audience. The atmosphere was perfect. The crowd was into it. The gig was great. It was no surprise that a year later we looked to repeat the experience. This time we called it Generation Xmas.
But our second Stork Club Christmas gig sputtered and died almost as soon as it started. We took the stage, and we began to play, there among the Christmas trees and lights and tinsel. We were almost to the first chorus of "Sleigh Bells" when the power went out. Not in the bar, but on the stage. The sound man spent about 10 minutes trying to fix the problem, eventually replacing a fuse. We began anew, but didn't make it much further before the lights and amps went out again, leaving only Bill's drums and our warbling voices.
Again the problem was fixed, and again we resumed. But again the power failed. I don't recall how many more times this happened, but eventually we understood that Generation Xmas was not going to happen.
We're not really sure if it happened later that night, or some days later, but it was decided that we would perform the gig anyway, at Abandon Studios. We set up as if we were playing live, but since we were in the studio, we recorded everything. Unfortunately (or not), we still didn't get very far into the set before we were unable to continue. But this time it had nothing to do with electricity. We simply became unable to play our instruments due to, let's say, factors beyond our control. (More like faculties beyond our control.)
Every year I dig up these tracks and have a huge laugh listening to us getting more and more wasted with each song. Still, there's a whimsical charm to these recordings that makes me want to share them once -- and only once -- each year. Here are Akire, Eugene, LBill, Boomerang and myself, doing our best with "Sleigh Bells" and (God help us) "O Holy Night."
I advise you to pour a huge glass of red wine, drink it, pour another, then click "play."
P.S. Jeff took these amazing photos which Boomerang made into posters for the show.
