Changing Way

There is no current shortage of female singer/songwriters. My current favorite among the crowd is Basia Bulat. If I had to categorize her music, it would be as folk, although Rhapsody describes it as Alternative/Punk, and Basia’s MySpace page as “Pop/Folk/Melodramatic Popular Song.”

Her band includes her brother on enthusiastic percussion (and photography, an example of which you see in this post) and Holly the blogging ukulelist. Basia herself switches between guitar and autoharp. You can see her clutching the latter and she and her entourage bop through the woods in the “In the Night” video.

Basia has an album, Oh, My Darling, out, and is due to go back in to the studio this summer to record a second. Her Session at Radio K includes a new song, which I presume will be on the new album. It also includes a full-length version of “Before I Knew,” a short version of which opens the current album.

She also did a Session at Daytrotter, from which this cover of Daniel Johnston’s “True Love Will Find You In The End” comes.

Any other Boston area bloggers thinking of going to see Basia on Sunday? She and Devotchka are playing the Paradise.

I was getting out of a rather grumpy mood until I became aware that Crosby Loggins covered “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding” and, like a dumb teenager in a horror movie, had to investigate. Crosby Loggins is the son of Kenny.

Young Loggins (Twiggins, as I can’t help thinking of him) murdered the song in the first week of the MTV show Rock the Cradle. He went on to win, the other finalists being Jesse Money and A’Keiba Burrell-Hammer. Perhaps they should form a trio: Twiggins MoneyHammer.

Twiggins’ is the fourth-best version of the song I have heard. (You shouldn’t have to ask how many versions I have heard). Seek it out if you must. It is described on the show’s site as an “Elvis Costello tune.” Well, in a way it is, but surely someone should have pointed out that it was written by Nick Lowe.

For second place, it’s a close thing between Nick Lowe himself and Bill Murray’s karaoke in Lost in Translation. Bill’s version is dreadful, and brilliantly so.

In first place is the great Elvis. In the video, he is such a desperate nerd that I wonder why I didn’t identify with him more closely at the time.

Thoughts on book reviews and rating got bumped out of a post yesterday. Two difficulties were on my mind.

The first concerns the ubiquitous 5-star rating system. I find it very hard to give a perfect score to any book. It’s not just books: I have the same difficulty with music, board games, etc. On the other hand, 3 stars or below seems harsh in these days of grade inflation, sensitivity training, etc. So I tend to give a lot of 4-star ratings.

The second difficulty relates to how thoroughly the reviewer read the book. Some books I don’t finish, usually because I don’t like them. Is it fair to give a low review (e.g, 1-star) to a book on the basis of an incomplete read?

Then there are books that aren’t intended to be “read” in the start-to-finish sense. Reference books fall into this category. I was recently reminded of a less central member of the category: Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure.

Perhaps there should be some symbol accompanying a star rating to indicate how the reviewer has read the book: thoroughly start-to-end, dipped in to, etc.

The 6-word memoir meme has spread to Johnny Bunko, the career guide in manga form (previously). Or rather, it’s spread to the Bunko blog, via the personal blog of author Dan Pink.

It’ll soon be time for Bunko haikus (Bunkus?). Here are a couple, the first of which is merely a compression of the six Bunko lessons into 17 syllables.

Do not plan. Think strengths.
It’s not about you. Persist.
Make great mistakes. Leave mark.

Chopsticks snap at dusk
Hastening a new morning
For Johnny’s career.

Elvis Costello has received a high proportion of my musical attention so far this year. One of the ensuing posts has accounted for a high proportion of this blog’s recent traffic.

I’ve read a couple of books on Costello. This post is about them, and about writing about music, and about writing about books. The first book is Elvis Costello - God’s Comic: A Critical Companion To His Lyrics & Music by David Gouldstone. It’s an update of the same author’s A Man Out of Time. The main difference is that God’s Comic has a chapter on the 1989 album Spike.

Although I enjoyed the extra chapter, and agree with Gouldstone that Spike is among Costello’s best albums, I think that A Man Out of Time is a more coherent book, focusing as it does on Costello’s first decade. The inclusion of good material that reduces the coherence of the whole is appropriate in a book about Costello, especially when the material relates to the sprawl that is Spike.

Writing about music is notoriously difficult. The music blog Dancing About Architecture quotes Costello himself as stating that: “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture… it’s a really stupid thing to want to do.” Let’s not get into tracing the history of that quote, otherwise we’ll never get back to the books.

I think that Gouldstone does a pretty good job in giving his take on Costello’s music and, especially, lyrics, without claiming that his are the last words or the only right words. The writing in God’s Comic is analytical without being heavy.

In that, it contrasts with the writing of the second book: Elvis Costello, Joni Mitchell, and the Torch Song Tradition. Consider the following sentence.

He [Costello] readily models existing musical, literary, or cinematic techniques in service of his songs, and in so doing, enhances his lifework’s sonic diversity.

I couldn’t get through even the part of the book on Costello, let alone the rest of it (even though Joni Mitchell also interests me).

At this point, I think that I should bump the thoughts on reviewing books into its own post, and close by remarking that I have high hopes for another book on Costello. It’s Graeme Thomson’s Complicated Shadows: The Life and Music of Elvis Costello, which will probably be part of my next Amazon order.

Scrabble is a couples’ game. By this, I don’t just mean that it’s best as a 2-player game. I mean the sort of thing that 7-how-7 / steve was getting at when he made these scrabble magnets for Valentines day.

It was silly of me to be surprised when I read about how Scrabble games can go on Facebook. I got the tile-trembling truth from an article by Will Doig. It was shared with me by Matthew Gray, who I know from other, more innocent, board-gaming experiences.

Scrabulous, the Facebook application that allows users to play Scrabble against each other online, has turned Hasbro’s slow, stodgy board game for vocabulary enthusiasts into one of the internet’s sleazier pickup joints

It reminded me to nudge my wife to tell her that it’s her turn on the Scrabulous game we started recently. It is so far my only Scrabulous game. But if you would like some good clean scrabbly fun, let me know.

Finally, here’s a scrabbly quote from Kelly Link’s wonderful story, The Faery Handbag.

Zofia and I played Scrabble all the time. Zofia always won, even though her English wasn’t all that great, because we’d decided that she was allowed to use Baldeziwurleki vocabulary. Baldeziwurlekistan is where Zofia was born, over two hundred years ago… Baldeziwurlekistan is also an incredibly valuable word in Scrabble points, even though it doesn’t exactly fit on the board. Zofia put it down the first time we played…

Zofia kept rearranging her letters on her tray. Then she looked over at me, as if daring me to stop her, and put down “eziwurlekistan”, after “bald.” She used “delicious,” “zippery,” “wishes,” “kismet”, and “needle,” and made “to” into “toe”. “Baldeziwurlekistan” went all the way across the board and then trailed off down the righthand side…

“I used up all my letters,” Zofia said. She licked her pencil and started adding up points.

“That’s not a word,” I said. “Baldeziwurlekistan is not a word. Besides, you can’t do that. You can’t put an eighteen letter word on a board that’s fifteen squares across.”

“Why not? It’s a country,” Zofia said. “It’s where I was born, little darling.”

“Challenge,” I said. I went and got the dictionary and looked it up. “There’s no such place”…

“They call it something else now,” Zofia said. “But I think it’s important to remember where we come from. I think it’s only fair that I get to use Baldeziwurleki words. Your English is so much better than me. Promise me something, mouthful of dumpling, a small, small thing. You’ll remember its real name. Baldeziwurlekistan. Now when I add it up, I get three hundred and sixty-eight points. Could that be right?”

Yes, it’s Momofuku day for those Elvis Costello fans who don’t own a turntable. By the way, I suspect that many of us in that category wish we still did own a turntable.

I’m on my second listen to the album right now. The first was via Rhapsody at work, through PC speakers. The current listen is at home, streaming from Lost Highway Records and coming out through semi-real speakers. On the basis of those listens, and some earlier listens to other versions of Momofuku tracks, I’m pleased.

I’m not sure how long the album will stream from the record label’s site. I thank Stereogum for telling me about the stream. By the way, it was at another post at the same site that I saw the wonderful quote from the wonderfully quotable Lou Reed: I can’t wear the sunglasses now because I’d fall over a cable.

If you’re suffering from Radiohead overload, skip ahead. I’m obviously not, since I’m leading with a portrait of Thom Yorke which, by the way, is by Joshua Gorchov.

The first show of the tour, in Florida, has just finished. I won’t be able to catch the Boston show (or indeed any other).

I haven’t even had time to watch all of the session from Nigel Goodrich’s basement, which is up at VH1. I will, though, since I was blown away by the preview/teaser: a great version of Reckoner.

Tomorrow sees the CD release of Elvis Costello’s Momofuku. My earlier post on the album has been way more popular, at least by the humble standards of this blog, than I expected.

Enough of this Brit rock. It’s Cinco de Mayo, and the song of the day at the Rhapsody blog is a rather wonderful cover version of “Mexican Radio” by Kinky.

Enough, for the moment, of this Brit pretending to be a music blogger. If you want to read a real music blog post, check out Heather Browne’s tremendous account of day 3 at Coachella. She’ll take you there.

Early-ish leaders in the “least appropriate album title of the year” stakes are The Last Shadow Puppets: Alex Turner (of the Arctic Monkeys) and Miles Kane. The album from those two 20somethings, The Age Of The Understatement, is anything but understated, with dramatic melodies and sweeping strings harking back to the 1960s.

The CD comes out on May 6, but Understatement is already out: legally, as well as through the channels you might be thinking about. It’s on Rhapsody early. While the CD format isn’t dead yet, it is steadily becoming less important. For further evidence, consider another album already out before its CD release…

My post about the new Elvis Costello album, Momofuku, is proving a lot more popular than I expected. This suggests to me that Elvis’ approach of recording the album stealthily, then getting it out in a format most people can’t use (vinyl) before it comes out in any digital form, has aroused curiosity.

Here’s a different kind of understatement from Elvis Costello: his version of “My Funny Valentine.” The version is older than either of the Shadow Puppets. The song is even older than Elvis.

Elvis Costello has a new record out, and I do mean record. Well, actually, I mean a double album, as in two black vinyl discs. That in spite of the fact that the album consists of 12 tracks, which is fewer than we usually get on an Elvis album.

Momofuku won’t be out on CD until May 6 (US). I hope that it’ll be available as an MP3 download, and for streaming from music subscription services, on the same date. Those who have the vinyl also have a code to download Momofuku.

I’m surprised that there don’t seem to be many reviews on the web yet. But there is a very good review by Allan Raible at ABC news blogs. It’s good in the sense that it captures the sheer vinyl specialness of the release.

Until yesterday, I hadn’t bought any new vinyl in probably 20 years… I’d forgotten how glorious records truly are. Sure, they are big and clunky, but as I first gazed at the immense “Momofuku” in all its purple-y goodness, I was awe-struck…

[Glowing review of side one]

Now it is time to take a breather and turn the record over. People used to have to do this all the time.

Talking of glowing, the review is also good in the sense that it’s highly favorable. “It’s a clear five star example of a legend adding to his stack of classics.”

I said goodbye to my turntable years ago, so I’ll have to wait for May 6. Or maybe May 1, when downloaded MP3s will start to appear. I’m surprised that I haven’t stumbled across MP3s created from the vinyl yet. I’m also surprised that I haven’t seen more comments on the release sequence: analog first, then digital, with CD not even being the first digital release.

By the way, May 6 is also the release date for The Last Shadow Puppets’ album. If there is an heir to Elvis Costello, it may turn out to be Alex Turner. But that’s a big if, so early in the career of someone who wasn’t even born when Elvis advised us to Get Happy.