Steven Hyden on seeing Oasis in London.
Noel Gallagher is not a great or even cogent lyricist, and his melodies can sometimes seem a little samey. But when it comes to writing songs that large groups of individuals in various states of inebriation can sing in unison, perfectly, Bob Dylan and Beethoven have nothing on him. He is the absolute genius of that very specific art form. I Saw Oasis At Wembley And It Was The Greatest Stadium Show Of My Life This article annoys me for several reasons.
Some notes about things, some of which happened before the weekend began. But first…
A Blog Update Yes, I fucked around with how the site looks over the weekend. I believe I had used the same theme for six or seven years. That package had not been updated in ages, and while it has continued to work through Wordpress updates, I kept getting warnings that it may fail at some point.
Several repeats of artists I’ve played recently who have more solid, new music out.
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“Sleep All Summer” - Crooked Fingers Hey, our freshman-to-be’s theme song!
“Angelus” - The Berries Before we get to the repeats, here’s a new song from a new artist that is crazy good.
“Call You Back” - TTSSFU Even if you don’t listen to the words, just from the tone you can tell this song is about desperate, late night interactions when a relationship is doomed but one person hasn’t gotten the message yet.
The Happy Isles of Oceania - Paul Theroux The latest re-read - for the fifth, sixth time? - of my all time favorite, non-fiction book. I actually meant to take it when we traveled to Hawaii four years ago but couldn’t find it. It turned up a year or two later and has been sitting on my shelf, waiting for the right moment. I decided I will continue to read it once every ten years or so as long as I am able.
Chart Week: August 5, 1978 Song: “Love Will Find A Way” - Pablo Cruise Chart Position: #9, 10th week on the chart. Peaked at #6 the week of August 26.
There are many factors that go into determining my favorite musical years. Clearly the songs are the biggest factor. It is a huge bonus if most of the best tracks of a given year were hits during the summer months. And then there is the personal side: if a lot of important things happened during a calendar year, odds are its music will stand out a little more.
Movies, Shows, etc Arrested Development, season one I figured “Why not watch this again?” the week of July 4th. Never disappoints. A
Long Way Home This is Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman’s fourth series about riding motorcycles long distances. I watched the first, 20 years ago, and then didn’t realize the others existed. Luckily this one landed on Apple TV+ and the visuals are fabulous, although the actual travel insights are often rather banal.
A very busy weekend, at least the front half.
A Wedding Friday evening we all went to the wedding of O, the oldest daughter of our neighbors at our old house. M was a bridesmaid, her first of many I’m sure, so it was an extra big deal for her. It was a very nice ceremony and reception; the bride and groom seemed to be having an awesome time which is most important.
Another big, eclectic mix of music this week. [open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/50aIgpY3rbMCVTaKnjpU0V?si=3f8a7e3addea46c2)
“Summer Drive” - Dragon Turtle For those moody, nighttime drives when summer’s hold begins to slip.
“mangetout” - Wet Leg It took a minute, but a song from the new WL album finally jumped out at me. This track has all the cheek of their first album - so many sly lyrics! - with a slight edge that, to my ear, recalls the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
Too late to implement this idea for the summer of ’25, but something for parents to keep in mind for next year.
Just like the 1890s and the 2020s, they’ll play with the unvaccinated kids down the street and drink raw milk until dark. Then at daybreak, I’ll hand my children their metal lunch pails, button their fifty-button shoes, and they’ll shuffle off to their factory jobs, because in the Gilded Age, and southern states in the 2020s, no snowflake child labor laws exist.
I probably should have included this in my Weekend Notes post, but was also debating how deep to go on the latest health scare for KU coach Bill Self. Without knowing much about what actually happened, I didn’t want to turn it into 3000 words about the future of the program. That’s always a possibility when I start writing about KU hoops, though.
What we know for sure is that Self suffered “concerning symptoms” while playing golf last week, was taken by ambulance to a hospital in Lawrence, and received two stents.
The clock is starting to run out on academic summer. There are actually a couple public districts around here that started last week. The one we live in starts this Thursday. L returns on August 7. It goes by fast. Some notes from one of the last weekends before we start worrying about school schedules again.
A Big Birthday M turned 21 on Friday. She’s all growns up! She had a bash with friends in Cincinnati that night.
Back to extra-stuffed this week. So stuffed that I’ll only include one summer song. And apologies to Chuck Mangione, but there’s no room to honor his passing with more than these words.
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“Summer Nights” - Van Halen Perfect late July song.
“Touch Myself” - The Beaches Not a remake of that song, but definitely about the same subject. And a strong Song of the Summer contender.
“Cowbella” - bar italia I’m not sure if they were going for this, but every time I hear this song I think of Elastica.
A belated review of my fitness activity in April-through-June. You can read about the first quarter of the year (and L’s ED visit) here. I exercised 73% of the days in those three months, which I was hoping to beat in Q2.
Which I did. Barely. Officially I was at 73.3% in Q1. This past quarter I was at 73.6%. May was my best month of the year, but then a couple travel weekends, pool issues, and a heat wave in June made that my worst month of the year.
Celebrity deaths that are somehow connected to your childhood always hit a little harder. But, man, the news that Malcom-Jamal Warner drowned while on vacation in Costa Rica had an extra big wallop to it.
Part of it was the circumstances. Pretty much every person who reads this has been on a vacation with a loved one and gone for a swim. Thus while incredibly tragic, Warner’s death had an everyday quality to it.
Once again this weekend notes piece will involve more than what went on from Friday to Sunday. I’ll start with a focus on the actual weekend, though.
WNBA All Star Game The best players in the league were all in Indy over the weekend for Saturday’s All Star Game. While that was exciting, it was tempered a bit by Caitlin Clark getting injured again Tuesday and not participating in either the 3-point contest Friday or playing in the All Star Game Saturday.
This week’s playlist is dominated by the ladies. [open.spotify.com/playlist/...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5SzWq3O8UnsqRly0vDE73x?si=a65c0e29779d40ac)
“Pool Hopping” - illuminati hotties Yeah, pool hopping sounds great and all, until every pool you jump into is 95°.
“Jealous Boy” - The Bug Club A suggestion from brother-in-music E$. I’ve been trying to figure out who this group sounds like for a couple weeks but can’t quite pin it down. So I stopped worrying about it and focus on enjoying the song.
This week has gone a little off the rails. We are expecting a contractor at the house shortly, which was planned. Had another very much unplanned visit on Tuesday that ended up costing us the equivalent of a nice vacation. More about those next week, probably. I had planned on saving my latest RN post for after I finish my current book. I’ll go ahead and post what I have to get some content up for my loyal readers.
Bruce Springsteen’s Tracks II set came out a few weeks ago. I’m not a big enough fan to wade through all the songs, but I did sample the ones highlighted in the various articles that dropped at the same time. Naturally, Steven Hyden had the best of the bunch.
Another Side of Bruce Springsteen
At some point I lost touch with Joe Posnanski, I believe it was when he took all his posts behind a paywall and stopped writing regularly for any commercial sites.
We had a great weekend highlighted by some visitors, both local and from KC, and lots of basketball. But first we need to jump back and review C’s trip to Bloomington for orientation.
Orientation We got up bright and early to make check-in at 9:00 AM last Monday. Thank goodness the I–69 extension is finally complete after a decade of work. Once you get out of the Indy construction it is a breeze to get to B-town.
Between the holiday weekend and me spending mornings watching the Tour de France, I’ve been a little slower on getting through the music this week. I think I can still come up with a few decent ones to share with y’all.
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“Summertime” - The Sundays Pure pop genius.
“Paint A Picture” - The Hives Yes, it is those Hives, back for more nonsense.
“Stay Out Of Place” - Idlewild Speaking of bands that first broke out in the early part of the new millennium, these Scots are also back with new music.