Local Natives, Brooklyn NY 10.23.09 (photo via brooklynvegan) Brooklyn Vegan finally posted some pics from our CMJ Showcase two weekends ago. Wonderful comments and amazing band reactions are included in the dozens and dozens of pictures on the site (linked to the photo above). Thanks to BV for helping plan an amazing night.
Terry Callier, “Trance On Sedgewick Street,” from Occasional Rain (1972)
The Grave of Furry Lewis, Hollywood Cemetery. Memphis, TN. 08.03.06
“He began that year (1903) sleeping in a firehouse in Camden, New Jersey, and ended it tending bar in a saloon in Wheeling, West Virginia. In between those events he won 22 games for the Philadelphia Athletics, played left end for the Business Men’s Rugby Football Club of Grand Rapids, Michigan, toured the nation in a melodrama called The Stain of Guilt, courted, married and became separated from May Wynne Skinner of Lynn, Massachusetts, saved a woman from drowning, accidentally shot a friend through the hand, and was bitten by a lion.”
-Lee Allen, on Hall of Fame pitcher “Rube” Waddell (1876-1914)
in our time by Ernest Hemingway. Paris, 1924.
Only 170 numbered copies were printed. You can buy #28, the one that belonged to his sister, for $60,000. You can buy Bertram Hartman’s copy (his paintings hang in the Brooklyn Museum), which includes the handwritten note, “with love, Ernest Hemingway”) for $140,000. Either way, it’s 32 pages long.
J. Geils Band, “The Usual Place,” from The Morning After (1971)
It’s not a classic. Not by a long shot.
But if you’re driving in a car, and everything you pass is a reminder of how fucking late it is, and the windows are down, and the streetlights have come on and gone off, and you’ve got a decent voice worth dusting off, and you know all the words, then I’ve got to level with you: this record is a damn gem.
Because the Cubs (the Cubs! who used to win pennants! all the time!) had 7 right-handed hitters in their lineup, A’s manager Connie Mack benched his left-handed starting pitchers for the 1929 World Series. This included his two aces, one of whom was future H.O.F.er Lefty Grove. Grove led the league in several pitching stats during 1929, and would notch 2 saves rescuing over-the-hill pitchers in the series, but didn’t get a start.
His ghost was somewhere on the mound last night.
Happy 80th.
The Philadelphia Athletics, World Series Champions of 1929.
Happy 80th.
“Black Tuesday,” October 29, 1929.
When it comes to vocabulary, my student Lola (age 13) is kind of a rock star.
Other reviewers have done a wonderful job of describing this music and its enormous influence on indy rock. However, some have repeated the rather pernicious myth about the commercial failure of the listener-friendly #1 RECORD: that radio programmers didn’t like it, that the record’s sound was somehow wrong for its time.
There are folks at BILLBOARD and CASHBOX magazines who were paid well to listen to new releases and report on their commercial potential. Here’s what BILLBOARD said on 9/9/72: ‘Each and every cut on this album has the inherent potential to become a blockbuster single. The ramifications are positively awesome.’ Boy, hedging their bet, huh? Here’s CASHBOX a week later: ‘An important album that should go to the top with proper handling.’
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