Today at 2 p.m., WNYC's Soundcheck is doing a show on "The Beatles and Black America." The website's description: The early sound of the Beatles was shaped by African American musicians like Chuck Berry and Little Richard. Today, guest hostElliott Forrest looks at how The Fab Four influenced - and were influenced by - the music of black America.
Recently, reader Michael posted a comment that linked to a recent paper/story he wrote at Brown, done in the voice of John Lennon. The next day I happened to come across a story called "Later," from Lynne Tillman's new collection, Someday This Will Be Funny. (You can read the story (and the rest of the book) at innovative publisher Red Lemonade's site.) It imagines a meeting in 1979 between Lennon and...Marvin Gaye!
(Via the Boston Globe.) http://youtu.be/3Z2vU8M6CYI
The title of John Luther Adams's concerto Four Thousand Holes, and Alex Ross's praise of it, make me curious...Some description here: In spite of this skepticism, Four Thousand Holes is my own effort to re-appropriate and reclaim for myself something of my own musical past. For the first time since my days as a rocker, I’ve chosen to restrict myself to major and minor triads—those most basic elements of Western music (both pop and classical). But I’ve tried to assimilate them fully into my own musical world. Approaching these simple chords as found objects, I’ve superimposed them in multiple streams of tempo, [...]
(Via Deface Value)
I was fascinated by this letter from (in lieu of interview with) the singer Cass McCombs, which led me to this song, "County Line," well worth a listen, not least for some surprising/familiar/great Lennonish inflections.From the letter:The greatest art of any era comes from anonymous sources. The Folk who sacrifice themselves by passing on what has been taught to them so that it will live. In this sense, the future is Folk. We must not sell out our Past, but teach the Future. This is how I relate to influences, that Bob Marley, Kurt Cobain, Jerry Garcia, John Lennon, Darby Crash, Merle [...]
The Beatles, live at the Indiana State Fair in Indianapolis, Sept. 3, 1964, at Heavy Sugar Radio.
What do you think? I could listen to Priscilla Ahn sing the phone book. (I like her cover of VU's "Afterhours," found about 5:30 into this vlog post.)(And remember her cover of "Julia"?)
Thinking about "Paperback Writer" — it's a thousand pages, give or take a few?!Heard this one with fresh ears recently and began thinking about 1,000-page debut novels (paperback or no): Are there any?Not sure. But then I thought about that scene in Wonder Boys (the film based on the Michael Chabon novel), in which novelist Grady Tripp (Michael Douglas) is typing a number on a page of his manuscript...and then adds a fourth digit.Wonder Boys the novel was inspired in part by Chabon's experience writing and abandoning a novel called Fountain City. (More info here; an excerpt, with annotations, has just been [...]