Touching on some of my favorite music of the new year today. youtu.be/h2QQAvRjH… “Quiet Americans” - Shearwater First, from my favorite album of the year so far, this very mid–80s Bowie-like track from Shearwater. Shearwater is a band that has slowly grown on me over their career. They began as a side project for two members of Okkervil River, another band I’ve come to love over the years, taking a more art-rock tack than OR did.
And now the stretch run begins. After a weekend of play against SEC teams (more on that in a bit), the Big 12 season gets going again tonight. Every team has ten games to play before the conference tournament. And with six teams within a game of first place, at first glance the lead race seems wide open. I think that first glance is a bit deceptive. The title is Oklahoma’s to lose.
Some links as you waste time waiting for the weekend to begin. First, this terrific find. Jim Henson produced a series of brief TV commercials for the Wilkins Coffee company in the late 1950s and early 1960s. They were designed to run in 10-second windows for station IDs. The primaries are two creatures that resemble others we would become more familiar with 15–20 years down the road. The big difference between these commercials and the Muppets of the future is that these commercials are very dark.
youtu.be/mtTqR9oZX… “Black Metallic” - Catherine Wheel Catherine Wheel is one of those great, lost bands that seem to both define a certain time and still hold up well. Being British, with droney guitars as their dominant sound, they are generally considered part pf the shoegaze movement. But their sound transcended that genre. Of their five studio albums, two are fantastic (Ferment and Chrome) and they had a handful of minor hits on the alt rock charts through the mid–90s.
I like the ambiguity of that post title. Am I writing about the Big 12 basketball race? We’re only halfway through the season, but it is looking more likely than it has ever looked that KU’s 11-year title streak is going to end. Or am I going back a few years and writing about the machine that is Apple and how it seems to be, finally, slowing down a little bit?
Sunday Links As I mentioned, some of these go back over a month. They are worth sharing despite not being the freshest links in the world. First up, Complex did a visual representation of the best rapper alive, by year, from 1979 to the present. I disagree with a few of their choices (Chuck D. was never #1????), and I must admit my ability to critique their choices ends at about 1994.
I’ll share a traditional links post over the weekend, but I wanted to devote some focused words on one link in particular. Most of you have probably heard about the Star Wars toy controversy: that Rey is almost entirely absent from the new toys released with The Force Awakens. This article lays out much of the story. Where’s Rey? Some of the sources are anonymous, and thus I recognize that we may not have the whole picture.
youtu.be/i7nXvOTqy… “Bad Art & Weirdo Ideas” - Beach Slang This is the first great New Music Friday of 2016. The first two Fridays of the month were rather slow, lacking both a large number of new releases and a bunch of eagerly awaited albums. But this week there are three new albums I’ve been looking forward to. And based on the review aggregation sites, 4–5 more that I should give some attention to.
L. kicked off her basketball career a week ago. I wrote a lengthy accounting of her epic debut last Monday but didn’t get around to posting it before I had to leave town. Just because I didn’t share it with the world does not mean I’m not still on the hook for the resulting jinx. She is playing at the high school where she and her sisters are 90% likely to go to school.
December is always a big reading month for me. Each year I read Jean Shepherd’s A Christmas Story, which only takes a couple hours. I generally squeeze in at least one other quick Christmas read. And then the holiday break at the end of the month allows me to really finish the year strong. 2015 was no exception. I knocked out eight books this December! I think that’s even more impressive given the final book was a nearly 800-page beast that took over a week to get through the first quarter or so.
It has not been the best start to the New Year. As I would imagine most of you know at this point, my stepfather died a week ago today. I had mentioned his health issues, somewhat anonymously, in my final post of 2015 and my early posts for 2016. Unfortunately, his cancer had reached the point where there was just no beating it. As much as it hurts to lose him, I’m thankful that he is no longer suffering.
Among the various Breaking News bulletins on my phone when I woke this morning was the notification of David Bowie’s death. I think I’m like a lot of people of my generation: not a huge Bowie fan - I really didn’t know who he was until his 1983 album Let’s Dance, which was the poppiest, most mainstream of his career - but I certainly recognized the impact he had on music.
youtu.be/IBtlTHYRS… “Listen Like Thieves” - INXS Already Friday of the first full week of 2016. Hard to believe we have just 51 weeks left before 2017. Which means only 50 weeks of shopping until Christmas. Better get a move on! If my records are accurate, I’ve never shared an INXS track in the Friday Vids series. Which seems like a terrible oversight. As I’ve discussed with a few of you, I think INXS is a wildly underrated band.
I’m trying to get back into a routine after the holidays, and a few big sports stories demand some words. As I drove home Monday night, I was able to listen to the Kansas-Oklahoma game. When I pulled into my garage, OU had just gone up by 8 with around eight minutes to play in the second half. By the time I got my gear inside, said hello to S.
Another weird start to the New Year. Just like in 2015, this New Year’s Day I received a call that a close relative was experiencing some serious health issues. While last year I had a day to prepare to travel, this time it required me to pack a bag and get in the car immediately. I spent the weekend mostly sitting in hospital rooms with the relative, returning home late last night.
Last day of the year, so a few moments to reflect are in order. 2015 was a strange year. Many good things. A few not-so-good things. Some frustrations mixed in as well. The year got off to a bad start for me. As many of you know, a close relative was going through some serious health issues this time last year. In fact, on New Year’s Day we had a series of phone calls that were a pretty terrible way to kick off the year.
I think this is going to end up being two pieces. I had planned on writing about the Star Wars phenomena as a whole as an intro to my thoughts on The Force Awakens. But I really should have posted that first, as it seems like it could turn into a pretty long post. So, for now, just my reaction to seeing my first new Star Wars movie in a theater since 1983.
Christmas week always has odd effects on time and space. On one hand, it roars by, packed with activities and stress. It seems like you blink and you’ve gone from December 19 to the 26th in a flash. On the other, when I think back to picking folks up at the airport just over a week ago, it seems like a month ago with everything we’ve done in-between. So much to catch up on.
Just a few days into the Christmas break and already the stories are piling up. We ended the calendar school year Friday with L. playing one of the lead roles in the first grade living nativity program. She was one of the cows that were annoyed by all the animals and people who were crowding into their stable in Bethlehem. She did a fine job, not missing any lines and getting laughs when she was supposed to.
“Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” - Darlene Love With no more Late Night/Late Show with David Letterman, that means no more Ms. Love making her annual appearance to belt out the greatest Christmas song ever. So here’s a look back at her first appearance on his show in 1986, complete with a Spuds McKenzie commercial and a quick sit-down with Dave after, and then her final appearance last year. Funny how relatively spare the first version was compared to the huge spectacle it became over the years.