So, like everyone, I have a number of circles of friends. Some of them overlap, some of them don’t. Within each circle is a person or set of people that know me really well. And these people form their own special little subgroup – the sanctum sanctorum, if you will (or even if you won’t. This is my blog. Get you own, you crank). These are people I tell everything to, who let me be crass and laugh at my dumb jokes, and don’t wig out when it’s a Friday night and I all want to do is hang out with them in our PJ’s and enjoy some microwavable chicken pot stickers and crap $3 wine from Trader Joe’s and ask questions like, “how weird would it be if humans evolved to not need noses anymore?” People who would be down to join me if I said “I’d rather dance in ugly pants in the comfort of a lounge room in suburbia.” Parties are where your people are. So thank you, sanctum sanctorum. You know who you are, and man, “things don’t get no better – better like you and me.”
Joyful
Modernism Monday: “The Late Great Cassiopeia,” The Essex Green
StandardCertain songs make you want to dance. The smallest subset of those songs make you want to learn how to actually dance. Then there’s the rest of the set of songs that make you just want to jump up and down and flail your arms around like a spaz in a bouncy castle. This is such a song. (And I am such a dancer, no matter what’s playing, so I appreciate this song all the more.)
The Essex Green is a zippy little indie band from Brooklyn (from whence hail many other indie bands, and much of the “indie” scene in general, although according to most hipsters I know, Brooklyn is “over”) that I discovered back in 2005. They’ve been pretty consistently awesome since then, but this song always cheers me up. Note, however, that it’s really hard to not want to clap along with the song so you might not want to listen to it while taking public transit. Or, hey, do listen to it while taking public transit. The Tune-Up is a judgment-free zone.
Lyrics below:
I was born today, a northern constellation
A minor where a major wants to be
I stacked my words, manufactured legend
And walked along the water in my sleep
Till the news spun circles and there I saw you
Wrapped up in a New York magazine
Was that the page that tells how I was fallen?
Well maybe that part is not worth mentioning
Now…what will they say?
Now…what can they do anyway, anyway?
So let me down slow, let me down real easy
Even giants have to watch how they decline
I’d wheelie in the sky or anything else, I promise
I will until the day that I die
I will until the day that I die
What will they say?
What’s the world, gonna do anyway, anyway?
Salubrious Saturday: “Flowers In Your Hair,” The Lumineers
StandardYou probably know the Lumineers from their “Ho-Hey” song used in a commercial a few years ago. That’s a great song. This one is better. The lyrics are excellent (“It’s a long road to wisdom, but it’s a short one to being ignored”). The energy is so happy. And it’s short! Incredible! The shortest things always take the longest to perfect and a lot of modern music is appallingly self-indulgent. (Actually I might extend that critique to movies but I’d rather not start a comment war.) This is just a little amuse-bouche of a song, and I just love it. I highly recommend going out and grabbing everything else they’ve ever done.
Funk Friday: “Joyful Noise,” Breakestra
StandardFunk Friday in spring? With the funkiest band this side of California? Yes please.
I’m sending this groove-tastic track to all of you Tune-Up fans from around the world. Did you know you represent five continents? You all tune in from 18 different countries – from Brazil to Germany to Singapore and back again. That’s amazing. I am so happy, grateful, and excited to share music with you all. So crank it up! Let’s have ourselves an international dance party! Make a joyful noise and groove on, Tune-Up fans. Groove on.
REMIX WEEK! Salubrious Saturday: “Ain’t That Good News,” Sam Cooke meets Les Paul and Jeff Beck
StandardI absolutely like the original better than this version, but I have to testify to Paul’s and Beck’s smokin’ guitar work. (And as my baby is in fact coming home tomorrow, I really had no choice but to post this song). It gives an already rocking song a spicy southern, bluesy, rockabilly twang. It also has a nice build-up. But tinkering with Sam Cooke is the textbook example of gilding the lily. The original is pure uncomplicated happiness – probably because the instrumentation doesn’t rely on so many dominant seventh chords (not sure what that means? It’s the horn’s chord at 1:01 and 1:50, among other places. More on this here) but allows Sam to go there with his own voice. And those horns. I mean, come on. Without further ado, here is the man himself.
Throwback Thursday: “Ecco La Primavera,” Francesco Landini
StandardEVERYONE! Wonderful news! We made it! We made it through the winter! Today is the first day of spring! I don’t think I’ve so keenly anticipated the vernal equinox in my entire life. Imagine how the poor sods who lived through winters in the 14th century felt when it came time for spring. No wonder this piece is so happy.
Landini (c. 1325 – 1397) lived through some pretty monumental things. He survived the Black Death, initial and successive outbreaks of which killed about half the population of Europe. He survived the so-called Little Ice Age, which made warm summers unpredictable and caused so much rainfall that crops failed. He survived the Hundred Years War between England and France, lived through the near collapse of the Catholic church as an institution, and the rise of the Ming Dynasty and attendant isolation of China.
Somewhere in there, amidst all that unhappy uncertainty, he wrote this little tune about the return of spring. I can imagine it might have taken a little bit of faith.
—
Ecco la primavera,
Che’l cor fa rallegrare,
Temp’è d’annamorare
E star con lieta cera.
Noi vegiam l’aria e’l tempo
Che pur chiam’ allegria
In questo vago tempo
Ogni cosa vagheça.
L’erbe con gran frescheça
E fior’ coprono i prati,
E gli albori adornati
Sono in simil manera.
Ecco la primavera
Che’l cor fa rallegrare
Temp’è d’annamorare
E star con lieta cera.
Spring has come apace
To waken hearts to gladness;
Time for lovers’ madness
And to wear a happy face.
The elements together
Are beckoning to mirth;
In this delightful weather,
Delight pervades the earth.
The grass in fresh rebirth
Helps meadows come a-flower,
And every branch and bower,
Is decked with kindred grace.
Spring has come apace
To waken hearts to gladness;
Time for lovers’ madness
And to wear a happy face.
Worldly Wednesday: “Dark Moon, High Tide,” Afro-Celt Sound System
StandardI realize this morning, with great excitement, that soon it will be spring. Spring means warmth. Warmth means warmer water temperatures. Warmer water temperatures means your plucky heroine can get back out on the water in her trusty Peinert racing shell and row her little heart out. This was the song that ran through my head when I first learned to row, and the song that is going through my head these days as I think about getting back out on the water again. C’monnnn spring.
Salubrious Saturday: “Roadrunner,” Jonathan Richman and The Modern Lovers
StandardA Daily Tune-Up Haiku: “It’s 65 Degrees and Sunny So I’m Going For A Really Long Run”
The Modern Lovers
Wrote this song. …Ok, good talk.
It’sniceoutsidebye!
—
PS: To all my friends running the Rock n’ Roll Half Marathon today, including the inimitable K-Smash: crush some pavement!
Throwback Thursday: “Variations on a Theme by Haydn,” Johannes Brahms
StandardFirst of all, it’s important for my erudite international readership to know that one of my very best friends refers to Haydn as “H-Man.” This did play a small role in convincing me to post this piece today. Not an enormous role, mind you, but still. A small one. I’ve also been feeling relatively braced with life in general these days, and in these moments of rare contentment, I turn to this masterpiece by Brahms. It runs the gamut of emotions and starts out proud but not arrogant, and calm but not sedate. It is also important to recognize that Claudio Abbado is at the baton in this, my favorite recording.
Brahms, a native of Hamburg, Germany, lived from 1833 to 1897 and is one of the most important composers of the “classical” period. He composed during an interesting period during music history, when Western classical music was evolving away from the structure of Bach and Mozart towards the freer harmonic modernism championed by Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner. Brahms always sounds like he has a foot in both camps. His melodies and embellishments are as flowery and delightful as any of the true Romantic composers, but he doesn’t go on for six and a half hours. One of my favorite life quotes is actually from Brahms: “It is not hard to compose, but what is fabulously hard is to leave the superfluous notes under the table.” I think he left only the very best notes in this piece. By the end of it, you feel like you’ve run a marathon, graduated from medical school, completed astronaut training, and cleaned your kitchen. You know – done something really major.
Worldly Wednesday: “Wonderlust King,” Gogol Bordello
StandardThis is my all-time favorite Gogol Bordello song. There are others they wrote with lyrics that are more apropos to the current crisis, but I just can’t get enough of the energy of this one. It sounds so fantastically, bravely defiant.
Gogol Bordello was formed in 1999 in New York City by Eugene Hütz. “Gogol” references Ukrainian writer Nikolai Gogol who purportedly “smuggled” Ukrainian culture into Russia in the mid 19th century.
U.S. military troops are relatively close to Ukraine, and the U.S. government has pledged money and technical support. Russia is using equipment placed in Crimea to block the cell phones of Ukrainian politicians. Meanwhile, over at The Atlantic, there is a great piece that posits whether conflicts like this are going to be more common in a post-“war on terror” world.
Finally: hello to my readers in Georgia! Welcome to my blog! მოკითხვა ჩემს მკითხველს საქართველოში! მოგესალმებით ჩემს ბლოგზე!
—
Back in the day, as we learned,
A man was not considered to be
Considered to be fully grown
Has he not gone beyond the hills
Has he not crossed the seven seas
Yeah, seven seas at least!
Now all them jokers kept around
Just like the scarecrows in hometown
Yeah, scarecrows in hometown
From screen to screen they’re travelin’
But I’m a wonderlust king
I stay on the run
Let me out
Let me be gone
In the world’s beat up road sign
I saw new history of time…
New history of time!!!
Through Siberian woods
Breaking up their neck
Chinese moving in, building discotheques
Trans-Siberian sex toys and whatnot
Yeah, and why not?
Well at least it’s something different
From what they got in every other airport
Я не еврей, но кое-что похоже
Соврать не даст ни Юра, ни Сережа!
Simple because I’m not a total gadjo
Да я шут, я трюкач, ну так что же?
I traveled the world
Looking for understanding
Of the times that we live in
Hunting and gathering first hand information
Challenging definitions of sin
I traveled the world
Looking for lovers
Of the ultimate beauty
But never settled in
I am a Wonderlust King!
I stay on the run
Let me out
Let me be gone
In the world’s beat up road sign
I saw new history of time…
New history of time!!!
And presidents
And billionaires
And generals
They’ll never know
They’ll never know
What I have owned!
What I have owned…
I am a Wonderlust King!
The Daily Tune-Up 