A Rubber Door

The music industry seems loathe to change. At least they seem loathe to change until they’re forced to. Kudos to the management of Gnarls Barkley and The Raconteurs for releasing their CDs much earlier than normal. Gnarls Barkley released their most recent CD in advance of an April release date last week. The Raconteurs did even better - they finished their CD earlier this month and released it today.

There is no reason for the long turns between recording and releasing a CD. The long lead times lead to bootlegging and lower sales. Record and release. Don’t even create CDs - or don’t wait for them to be ready.

As for the CDs: I can only comment on the Gnarls Barkley CD and it’s better than the last one. No break out hit like Crazy, but it’s more complete, complex and a better listen from beginning to end.

The Raconteurs ought to be good - Brendan Benson and Jack White makes for good music. I’ll owe you a review when I listen to it.

I don’t know how long this feature is for the world. It’s easy, but I’m realizing I just don’t like movies. The following trailer, is just a teaser trailer, but it’s of note because it’s about Tropic Thunder - a comedy starring Ben Stiller. You might have heard about this movie because it stars Robert Downey Jr. - playing a black man (actually he plays a white actor who plays a black actor). He’s in the middle in the picture to the left - better than C. Thomas Howell.

I’m pretty good about seeing my favorite bands in concert.  As reference take a look at this list (story to follow).

Here’s my top 10 artists from Last.FM:

1. Michael Penn
2. Elliott Smith
3. Aimee Mann
4. Radiohead
5. Wilco
6. Spoon
7. Foo Fighters
8. Fiona Apple
9. Sleater-Kinney
10. U2

Of this list the only one I haven’t seen is Spoon.  (Good thing I’ve seen Elliott Smith [dead] and Sleater-Kinney [broken up]).  Matter of fact, on this list Sleater-Kinney is the one I’ve seen less than twice.

Spoon is kind of a surprise, because I’ve never been fanatical about them - but every album they’ve released just kicks ass.  Their last three albums (Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, Gimme Fiction, and Kill the Moonlight) are among the best things released this past decade, but no one knows who they are.  Actually you probably do because their music is a staple of music, television, and commercials, and movies - but you still don’t know who they are.  (Funny - I started writing this and Kristen turned on the movie Stranger than Fiction where Britt Daniel, Spoon’s lead singer does the soundtrack - by the way - a friggin’ great movie).

Anyway (I start too many sentences that way when I write),  on April 10th, 2008 I will scratch Spoon from my not seen list; I can’t wait.  I’ve heard they are great in concert, and with that - my top 10 is complete.

By the way my top 20 is missing just Kanye West - which is not going to happen until he learns how to breath when he raps.

If I had had a blog on August 27, 1990, I probably would have written something at that time. There wasn’t even a real internet back then, so you’ll have to forgive the lateness of this post.

These days I mostly listen to rock music. I’m more likely to listen to indie acts like The Pixies or Spoon, but growing up listening mostly to 70’s and 80’s R&B - the road to listening to what I do now was a little circuitous. In the 80’s I had a few “gateway” artists that ambled me down this road: The Police, Peter Gabriel, Tears for Fears, and Crowded House to name a few; artists that would be acceptable to my more R&B focused ear, but that were definitely different. In the late 80’s while in college I discovered Stevie Ray Vaughan - and bought everything he had released in a two-month stretch. Probably started with “In Step” and then quickly got everything else, which wasn’t a lot. While I had heard Eric Clapton and Robert Cray, SRV was my first true blues artist. He hadn’t “crossed over”. Often cited as one of the all-time great guitarists, I had never heard anything like him.

To this day I remember hearing he had died by first hearing WMMR playing 2 or 3 of his songs in a row, and then Pierre Robert coming on the air with the horrible news. To this day if I hear an artist on the radio played for more than a couple songs in a row, I get chills. I had only been listening to SRV for 9 months at the time, and he had been a constant companion on the train to work and school, so it was insanely personal - the first celebrity I followed to pass away too soon; I’ve gotten too used to this now with both Elliott Smith and Jeff Buckley also passing away too soon. An alcoholic that had turned his life around (which he wrote about from both ends of the struggle), it seemed so unfair; I was crushed.

Over the years there have been far more SRV albums released after his death than during (only four studio CDs). I’ve purchased only three of these, and they’re all musts - In the Beginning (an early live recording), The Sky is Crying (must have collection of b-sides and rarities that has some of my favorite SRV songs on it), and Family Style (an album that he recorded with his brother Jimmie Vaughan that was released a month or so after his death). A man that toured all the time and that did a lot of guest work, there is a lot of stuff out there, most of it superfluous.

Stevie Ray has pretty much disappeared from my listening. iPods will do that to you - limiting you to what’s on your computer, I hadn’t ripped any of his CDs, and so they sat in my attic unloved until this week. Nissan recently did a commercial using one of his great songs “Pride & Joy” and I finally decided to rip those CDs. He’s as good as I remembered. Doesn’t really fit in with what I listen to now - but there is something so unassuming and straightforward about his work; it was satisfying to listen to everything while cleaning this past Friday (of course playing air guitar and singing along). If you’re interested, I put together an iMix of what I’ve listed as the best Stevie Ray Vaughan songs.

(The image below will open in iTunes. )

You know it really bothers me that Mike Huckabee did a better job of saying what I wanted to say in my last post; much more to the point.

This is from the conservative, baptist minister and former Presidential candidate:

And one other thing I think we’ve gotta remember. As easy as it is for those of us who are white, to look back and say “That’s a terrible statement!”…I grew up in a very segregated south. And I think that you have to cut some slack — and I’m gonna be probably the only Conservative in America who’s gonna say something like this, but I’m just tellin’ you — we’ve gotta cut some slack to people who grew up being called names, being told “you have to sit in the balcony when you go to the movie. You have to go to the back door to go into the restaurant. And you can’t sit out there with everyone else. There’s a separate waiting room in the doctor’s office. Here’s where you sit on the bus…” And you know what? Sometimes people do have a chip on their shoulder and resentment. And you have to just say, I probably would too. I probably would too. In fact, I may have had more of a chip on my shoulder had it been me.

WTF is Fuckabee doing? It’s making me re-think my position since I agree with him; not really. He’s right, and that’s really what my point was in my last post.

The whole Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy has been a tough one to watch, and it’s taken me a long time to respond because what he has said, at least what I’ve heard of it, didn’t offend me greatly. I disagree with a lot of it - but I’m not about to go protest. It’s a sign of the differences that define us, how we view things. I understand that the America that Wright talks about is the America that hung a noose in Jena; it’s the America that forgot about it’s citizens at the Superdome. It’s easy to label him a crackpot, but I think to do so doesn’t take into account the experience that Black Americans have in this country and our often uncomfortable existence here. I know most White Americans want to put that behind them, but it’s hard to do that for Black Americans.

How can I not immediately repudiate the comments of Wright? Easy, I know where they come from and their root; I don’t agree with Wright’s conclusions, but I do agree with the issues. I’ll give specific examples:

Wright made he comment that AIDS was sent by the government to destroy us. I don’t agree with this. I do believe though that the government’s response to AIDS was tempered by the fact that it seemingly affected only gays, druggies, and blacks. If AIDS affected a different demographic, the response would have been much more quick and forceful. Think about the Reagan administration’s shameful stance on AIDS, the fact that it took Reagan six-years to directly address AIDS. Need recent proof of this? Look at the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina. If that had struck Manhattan, I believe the response would have been different.

In Wright’s infamous “Goddamn America” quote, if you listen to the content of what he’s saying, it’s about the fact that United States has never made it easy to be black in this country, and yet expects blacks to be the stereotypical Toby Keith American. We defended this country in the first two World Wars with distinction but without recognition. Today the Iraq war is being fought primarily by the poor and what do they come back to? Walter Reed.

The comment that Wright made about blacks have to be twice as good as their white counterparts is something black Americans have accepted as part of our reality. Racism is a personal experience for most blacks, it’s not something that you’re on the sideline for; not getting a cab or being followed in a store. Even the benign - saying Colin Powell “is so well spoken”, that a well spoken black - doesn’t “sound black”, as if 50 Cent and the NFL defines what a black person should sound like; if you really think about those comments, you realize how offensive they are.

Every black person has to make the choice as to how they view their experience in his country. I believe that we can work together to improve a country that needs improving. I don’t believe America is perfect - but it is the best country in history. The choice blacks make is a familiar one - it’s Martin Luther King or Malcolm X; it’s Jesse Jackson or Louis Farrakhan; it’s Black Panthers or the NAACP, and you make the choice knowing you can’t fully repudiate the other. If you can’t understand, you can’t, but in the end try and judge the man for who he is.

OK - that’s what I think. I decided to not open this post up for comments because it’s insanely personal, and I know it’s potential fodder for the whackjobs like Michelle.

If You don’t agree with me, you don’t agree - that’s what’s great about this country.

What an amazing speech today by Barack Obama. Even though his competitors are blanketing the web with divisive vitriol, Obama chose to spoke of unity. He took the comments of Reverend Wright on headfirst, and spoke of a reality that most politicians are afraid to discuss.

Tonight I got a comment from someone who obviously had an ax to grind. She chooses to believe in hate. I won’t. Here’s my response to this woman:

Barack Obama doesn’t represent the entire black experience. He will know people that he doesn’t agree with. He will be close to people who are racist and not agree with them. Here’s the thing - what people need to realize is that many black people inherently distrust the government and by extension white people. Every black person, no matter how caring and open-minded, will know people like Rev. Wright. Just like every white person probably knows some one that is racist - doesn’t mean that they are racist. Hillary Clinton grew up in Chicago with a father from Scranton - let me tell you, she knew (knows) some people with racist tendencies. Bill Clinton grew up in Arkansas - need I say more?

What Obama effectively did today was distance himself from the words of another, while recognizing that the disenfranchisement from which it is born is real and justifiable. While Wright chooses to deal in a world where there is no improvement possible, Obama spoke of unity.

One more thing - just because Obama is black, doesn’t mean he speaks for all black people. Why do people think that Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and now Barack Obama need to speak for the entire community?

Obama speaks for the United States. People like you speak (and not very well - it’s called a 7th grade education, look into one) for isolationism.

As for your ridiculous comments about the anthem and the pin - they are just that, ridiculous. You said it yourself, they are code - and you do it because you’re suppose to. That diminishes the meaning of the symbol. The same for placing you hand over your heart.

You should read the text of the Obama speech today. It was a game changing speech. I’m sure HRC supporters didn’t want this kind of response. If you want to know if the man can handle pressure, today he showed he could. Today’s speech didn’t help HRC at all.

Thanks to my friend Melissa who sent this to me. It’s a documentary about the closing of small-businesses as big-box stores take over and what that does to the community. It’s not at the theater - you have to order a DVD - but it seems like an interesting watch. The DVD is $16.95 and is available at the movie’s site.

The movie is called Twilight Becomes Night. The filmaker is Virginie-Alvine Perrette.