Revisiting old favorites... The Streets

I'm having a love affair with lots of my favorite old music lately.  

So let's share!

Up first...  The Streets - Blinded By The Lights

This song takes me right back to 2004, when I didn't have any need to party or take drugs, because I could just listen to The Streets retell their debauchery and antics on "A Grand Don't Come For Free".  

While this album is not for everyone, and can get quite explicit- I really love Mike Skinner's voice, and how he's able to sound totally mellow, while delivering crazy lyrics; It's a great escape when life starts feeling a little too white bread. 

Music in the night...

This is a bit random... but it's late at night, and the house is quiet and I've been sucked into a youtube/wikipedia vortex.  And this... this is just so gorgeous.

Nerdy knowledge-drop, via wikipedia:

"I Can't Make You Love Me" is a 1991 popular song, written by Mike Reid and Allen Shamblin and recorded by Bonnie Raitt on her Luck of the Draw album from that year. In August 2000, Mojo magazine voted "I Can't Make You Love Me" #8 on its The 100 Greatest Songs Of All Time list.  The idea for the song came to Reid while reading an article about a man arrested for getting drunk and shooting at his girlfriend's car. The judge asked him if he had learned anything, to which he replied, "I learned, Your Honor, that you can't make a woman love you if she don't."  Reid and Shamblin were both country music songwriters, who according to some accounts originally wrote the song as a fast, bluegrassnumber. Upon slowing down the tempo considerably, they realized the song gained considerable power. It then made its way to Raitt.

Raitt recorded the vocal in just one take in the studio, later saying that it was so sad a song that she could not recapture the emotion: "We'd try to do it again and I just said, 'You know, this ain't going to happen.'"

How awesome is that little backstory?  I love it so much.  

The Bon Iver version is also really paired down and lovely.  Ahhh...  And now I'm ready for bed.
xo

Baby Activities Review... BOO BOO RECORDS

If you have a little person, and you haven't taken them to the morning music session at Boo Boo Records, you're missing out.  Elliott and I have tooootally been missing out.  For $2 (discount cards available too) we shimmied, sang, shook, and grooved out with a couple dozen other teensies and their mamas, to pre-school pop led by Miss Heidi (FYI, that woman is a ROCK STAR to the three and under set).  Like any good venue, the stage was where the magic happened, and Elliott wasted no time ditching me to work his way to the front.  We only experienced a few mishaps throughout the 30 minute show- like... when he stole someone else's Hot Wheels, when he took an involuntary stage-dive, and when he "accidentally" turned off the music smack dab in the middle of a big dance number.  But all in all, it was tremendous fun.  Great deal.  Ample stroller parking.  Awesome mini-socializing.  We will definitely be back.  Two (teensy) thumbs way up.

Kawehi Tom, One Woman Band...

If you follow Jeff, you know that he's been really into making and mixing music lately...  

When I came across these covers from Kawehi Tom, I thought he would looove them.  But she's too good for just a link in an email...  She's a one-woman band, and she's AMAZING!  

So here she is in all her Vimeo splendor...  I especially love her great back-beats.  How does she do it?!  And how does she make it look so easy?!  I love the sleepy doggies paying absolutely no attention in the Michael Jackson cover:

And yes, I'm partial to the sound of ukulele- but by the end of this GOTYE cover,
Elliott and I were totally rocking out and dancing around the house like maniacs:


I love this girl.  Check out more of her super fun videos here!

If a fanzine writer becomes a mom, does a tree fall in the forest?

Not gonna lie... Kinda obsessed with Dreamshow lately.

I think I've listened to The Girl's Out 50x in the last month.  Oop... no, iTunes says it's more like 88x.  Even better.  I'd love to say that I'm hip enough to source this sort of thing on my own through blogs, zines, hand-drawn show posters, and obscure venues in Honolulu, San Diego, and Austin- and years ago, that would have been true.  But I have 3 kids, an artist, and two businesses to wrangle; which means that nowadays I find my music through JCrew ads.  *hangs head in shame*

ANYWAAAY...

They've also got a suuuuper random tumblr full of gems like this: 

my band dreamshow has a show tonight at 168 delancy downstairs/ we’re playing material off the just-about-to-be released debut album Good Morning. This interior is my mind at the best moments.

this:

this:

and this:

Oh, you crazy music makers...

Download Dreamshow's latest album Good Morning for freebies right here, and their debut album Dreamshow here.  

You're welcome.  :)

I secretly wish...

I secretly wish today was August 14th.  Wanna know why? 

Fleetwood Mac tribute album, Just Tell Me That You Want Me is due out August 14th! 

First of all, here's something you should know about me... I love love love cover songs.  LOVE them.  Ask Jeffrey, it probably drives him crazy.  If there's an obscure cover to be found, I will seek it out.  Here's the thing... I kinda feel like cover songs are special because it's not just the original artist's experience we're hearing- it's an entirely separate person's reaction to that song as well.  And as any music lover can attest, songs are powerful- they resonate, posses, and attach themselves to people, places and events.  So many songs have become auditory memories in my life.  I feel like a truly great cover song conveys double the passion and experience of the original.  Granted those are few and far between, and most covers just fall flat- but when they're good, they're amazingly good and I'm a big fan.  I've got a good feeling about the covers on this album.  

For this compilation, I'm especially psyched about Karen Elson's gritty Gold Dust Woman, Lyyke Li's haunting Silver Springs, Storms by Matt Sweeney and Bonnie "Prince" BIlly, and Antony's Landslide.  I also really like the Best Coast rendition of Rhiannon, it sounds somehow lighter; a slightly bubbly version of the original.

While we're on the subject, can we just pause for a minute to appreciate the fabulousness that is Stevie Nicks?  

If this woman doesn't make you secretly yearn to be a rockstar, I don't even know...

Ugh! She makes me look like such a boho-wannabe, in all my Free People gear!

And is this ombre hair, or IS THIS OMBRE HAIR?

 

Seriously!!!  No wonder she caused so much scandal, she's a total hottie!  

Bring on the biopic, already!

♥

Hallelujah baby love...

Oh ladies...  WARNING: Pressing play on the above video may send ovaries into overdrive.  

old.

I had a painful realization tonight.

Rage Against The Machine came out of Jeff's laptop while I was making dinner, and I thought:

NOOOO!  This is the last thing I want to listen to right now! Is this how my parents felt?!

Oooold, people...  Old.