A Record a Day.

[Horned Gramma]

Dec 16, 2010 12:23:45 GMT -8 bradberad12 said:

By the way, the Veda Hille stuff is good

Oh, good! I'm glad that worked for someone.

It gets kind of frustrating sometimes that I can't find the song that I'm wanting to tack onto the end of some of these reviews; there's a list of records that I really want to write about, but I've checked and there's just no trace of the music on the internet ANYWHERE.

Can anyone point me towards/vouch for a site where I can upload mp3s from my collection and have them be playable?

[Friendly Destroyer]

I can't help you with any computer stuff, but I would suggest you put the reviews out anyway. I am actually very excited to hear obscure recommendations from you. But it's your thing, and you seem to know what you're doing.

[Horned Gramma]

Oh, I'll get around to all of them eventually. I definitely feel like it helps to have a song handy to give the conversation a little focus, though.

[Horned Gramma]

Dec 16, 2010 15:10:53 GMT -8 Friendly Destroyer said:

I can't help you with any computer stuff, but I would suggest you put the reviews out anyway. I am actually very excited to hear obscure recommendations from you. But it's your thing, and you seem to know what you're doing.

'Obscure' is such a relative term. Especially with you, Friendly D. I'm pretty sure I've got some stuff you haven't heard of, though. Guess we'll find out, huh?

[know ID yuh]

Dec 15, 2010 10:09:15 GMT -8 Horned Gramma said:

12/15/10

Crash Test Dummies - A Worm's Life

When I was in eigth and ninth grade, for me it was the Beatles, Harry Connick Jr. and Crash Test Dummies. There is more shared spiritual DNA there than might seem apparent. And although in the intervening 15 or so years my tastes have matured and expanded my opinion of Crash Test Dummies remains unchanged. Theirs is a singular world view, and I borrow more than a little bit of my sense of humor from the ironic defeatism of songs like 'I'm Outlived By That Thing?', which points out that everything from paperweights to vicious lies have a longer shelf life than I do.

I enjoy some bands - Spacehog, some Our Lady Peace, Better Than Ezra - because of a sense of nostalgia and a pretty normal longing for simpler times. I enjoy Crash Test Dummies entirely on their own merit, and even though it reminds me of tromping around high school in a trench coat and a porkpie hat like I was on my way to Madison Avenue I still come back to their records often.

While I dig me some Our Lady Peace and Better Than Ezra, your mentioning of Harry Connick Jr. as one of your big three in middle school got me thinking. I generally agree with your take on most bands (Edward Sharpe notwithstanding), which is probably why I've liked almost everything you have turned me onto.

I guess you have to be 30, give or take a couple years, to have "grown up" with Harry Connick Jr., but he was the absolute king when I was in middle school. I owned every major release through Star Turtle, except Eleven, always thinking an album by a 20 year old prodigy would be infinitely better than an album by an eleven year old prodigy. I never reached double digits in albums owned with another musical entity until my college years with Frank Zappa. When I wasn't listening to Hip Hop or the radio, it was only Harry Connick Jr. I even watched When Harry Met Sally, solo, and that one movie where he played a serial killer, all six minutes of him.

When I started getting introduced to more non-radio music in college (can I get a hell yeah for Phish, anyone, at all, okay then), I was eager to spread the word of Harry Connick Jr.'s brilliance. To my surprise, everyone knew him as the pretty boy who married the Victoria Secret model. "Doesn't he, like, play the piano, or something?" This is a guy who can play any instrument, has recorded several songs in which he played every note, rock songs even, yet his claim to fame in most people's eyes was banging a model?

I had two video tracks I played to small crowds while getting wasted during parties. The first was "With Imagination," off the New York Big Band Concert DVD, the one where he joins Shannon Powell on the drums, leading to his own drum solo while Powell danced on stage with the horn section. Powell eventually rejoins Harry to produce a four stick drum solo, followed by the band joining the action for the finale. The second was the epic "Avalon," piano solo from his Swinging Out Live VHS, where he stomped his feet and pounded his hands on the wood of the piano to create a beat accompanying the piano. I still stand up to applaud when that song ends. You even needed a VCR to play that shit (settle down kids).

So there might be a not-so-hidden agenda here, since you do write an album review a day. However, if you write a review of the album Eleven, and say something like, "the most essential album any true Harry Connick Jr. fan owns," I will be convinced you are one of Steven Spielberg's aliens sent to this board to fuck with me.

[Horned Gramma]

Hell yeah for Phish. FUCK yeah for Phish.

'She' and 'Story of the Ghost'. Two essential records.

[know ID yuh]

YES!. I was curious which Harry album you might consider review worthy, and as a bonus, you like Phish? While I claim to know your taste in music, that one really throws me off. Nice!

And I won't hijack this thread anymore, but I found the two Harry videos I mentioned above on youtube. I don't think Gramms would be opposed to me posting them.

"Avalon" piano solo:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwPdsm2JBuI

"With Imagination" big band (with Harry drum solo)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9d2L799FKg

[Friendly Destroyer]

"Obscure" is very relative. Sometimes the best type of "obscure" is the obscure that hide in plain sight. I've never heard anything by Harry Connick Jr., unless it was dialog on Will and Grace. Is he "plain sight obscure"? Does any of the above make sense? Will and Grace?

I love Phish. Bonnaroo 2009 basically formed out of my brain I think. Headliners were Phish (Friday night 4hrs), Bruce (Sat) and Phish again on Sun to close out the fest with another 4hr set.

[Horned Gramma]

Harry Connick Jr. is a really incredible musician and a fantastic songwriter. 'She' is really fun and full of remarkably odd music. You've never heard a piano make sounds like it does during his solo on 'Booker'. 'She' and 'Star Turtle' were rock albums, and not only does he have a feel for that kind of music (which you might not think of a classically trained jazz man), he also swings a pretty convincing rock persona. 'Star Turtle' is also a sci-fi themed concept album. 'Blue Light Red Light' is probably the best of his Big Band stuff, but right on down to his Christmas album you pretty much can't go wrong with anything he's done.

I saw Harry Connick Jr. and Dan Bern in one night once, in Salt Lake City. Harry was playing the huge arena and it let out early, and I ran two blocks over to a place called the Goat's Head or something where Dan was playing a solo acoustic set in a basement full of drunk firemen (still in uniform). Weird night, that one.

People confuse their opinion of Phish fans with their opinion of Phish's music. 'Story of the Ghost' is another record in my top ten (there's about seventeen records in my top ten), but you'd still be hard pressed to find a Phish album that is less than great. 'Hoist', 'Rift', 'Lawn Boy', 'Billy Breathes', 'Picture of Nectar'... I just listed six stellar albums without even having to think about it, and I'm sure there are at least six more. Even 'Round Room' has a place in my heart.

[Horned Gramma]

12/17/10

Harry Nilsson - The Point!



My mission statement for a A Record a Day indicated that my approach to writing about these records - records which in many cases I love like they are a part of me, like actual extensions of my brain - was going to be more emotional than critical. That makes writing about 'The Point!' incredibly difficult for me. This one goes all the way back for me. My feelings about 'The Point!' are all mixed in with memories of being rocked to sleep by my mother in a rocking chair she got from my Grandmother and of seeing my baby-fat face reflected in the plastic lid of my first turntable, watching what is now a decades-old slab of vinyl spin as it endlessly repeated the songs and stories included in this album.

I've been listening to 'The Point!' since before I was old enough to be keeping track of how old I was. This is my emotional Rosetta Stone, the foundation of my love for not just music in general but in particular the kind of music that I most love still. This is an absolutely perfect record.

I mentioned 'The Point!' when I was writing about 'A Journey to Happiness Island'. Mr. Gabriel Boyer loves this record at least as much as I do and it seems to have been his primary inspiration. Like 'Happiness Island', 'The Point!' is the story of a journey. In the Land of Point - where everything is pointed and nothing is pointless - a boy named Oblio is born one day without a point on the top of his head. To spare him the ridicule of his peers, his mother knits him a pointed cap to wear. News spreads quickly, though, and soon everyone is aware of Oblio's 'pointless condition'. They tolerate Oblio for a little while, until he beats the Evil Count's son at a game of Triangle Toss. The humiliation of being defeated by the pointless Oblio causes the Evil Count to remind the King that it is the law of the land that everything - all of the houses, trees, people, EVERYTHING - must have a point. The King, his hands tied, regrettably has no choice but to banish Oblio to the Pointless Forest.

Oblio and his best friend, a dog named Arrow, leave the Land of Point to wander aimlessly in the Pointless Forest, where they meet all manner of strange people like the Pointed Man (who insists that "A point in every direction is the same as... as no point at all!"), the Rock Man and the Leaf Man, a prehisotric pterodactyl... They are attacked by enormous killer bees and survive an 'incident' with a bottomless pit. But through the whole experience, they notice one thing: everything, even in the Pointless Forest, has a point.

Their travels eventually lead them all the way through the Pointless Forest and they suddenly find themselves back where they started. At the beginning. Back to the Land of Point. Everyone is so excited to see Oblio and Arrow return, and is so curious about the pointless horrors of the Pointless Forest, that there is a celebration. When Oblio begins to tell everyone about his experience, and how the Pointless Forest isn't pointless at all, the Evil Count flies into a rage and spitefully snatches the knitted cap from Oblio's head to reveal that he, at last, has a point.

That's the story. It's a simple little story, heavy on late 70's acid metaphors but extremely short on preachiness. It was written, performed and narrated by Harry Nilsson, whose music you should know and who you've certainly heard even if you don't know it. He was a contemporary of Randy Newman and Van d**e Parks; his bouncy piano melodies and his flawless tenor are unmistakable. You may know his music from Robert Altman's "Popeye" (the one with Robin Williams).

The songs and the story are of equal importance and they work perfectly together. The production is warm and immediate. A skipping keyboard rhythm underscores the narration and blossoms into melody at a moments notice. No song is a highlight, the whole album is the highlight: if I were to make a thousand mixtapes of incredible moments from the history of popular music and bury them in a mountain, they would be crushed and condensed into a diamond and that diamond would be 'The Point!'.

It's not a children's record, it's a fable. It meant something to me as a child, it meant something else to me when I was in my teens, it meant something entirely different to me five years ago than it does now. Anyone who has ever wondered what they were doing with their life, anyone who ever felt pointless, can project themselves onto Oblio and when his moment of realization comes, even if yours hasn't you can sense it somewhere down the line.

Nilsson narrates the story, and he plays it like he is sitting next to your bed reading you a story. He even says goodnight. There is no condescension, and there's no explanation: it's just the story he's telling and you can take it to mean whatever you want it to. The swirling calliope melodies break apart and reform, encasing your head in a brief psychedelic daydream.

It's incredibly difficult to describe because there is NOTHING like 'The Point!'. The only comparison is 'Happiness Island' because it is a direct descendant, but even that is nowhere close. On some days, pulling out that beaten old LP and putting it on is as good as a hug from my mother. Revisiting that old story that I've heard hundreds if not literally thousands of times makes me feel like Oblio trudging out of the Pointless Forest and marching through the pointed hills and valleys into the Land of Point for a hero's welcome and a long-awaited moment of understanding.

An animated film was made, produced by the people responsible for Schoolhouse Rock and narrated by Ringo Starr; I don't recommend it, it's too talky and loses some of the magic. The album is immaculate, perfect in every possible way, which is something I only say about one other album in existence.

It is impossible for me to hear this music without the ears of a five-year-old, a sixteen-year-old, a twenty-three-year-old and a thirty-year-old all at once. At the same time that I envy anyone who has never had the experience, I treasure all the years I've spent with it. The opening chords tear a hole in reality and I can see all the way back to before I was born, to my mother in her late teens buying the LP that I still possess today. Taking it home and listening to it and wondering about the little boy she'll raise with the wisdom of the Pointed Man. The boy who will smash his life and fix it a thousand times before some Evil Count steals his hat and he realizes he has a point after all.

1000 posts. Think about your troubles.

[bradberad12]

Dec 17, 2010 7:41:04 GMT -8 Horned Gramma said:

People confuse their opinion of Phish fans with their opinion of Phish's music. 'Story of the Ghost' is another record in my top ten (there's about seventeen records in my top ten), but you'd still be hard pressed to find a Phish album that is less than great. 'Hoist', 'Rift', 'Lawn Boy', 'Billy Breathes', 'Picture of Nectar'... I just listed six stellar albums without even having to think about it, and I'm sure there are at least six more. Even 'Round Room' has a place in my heart.

Never listened to Harry Connick jr. - will have to.

My introduction to Phish was Billy Breathes. It is still my favorite album by them, and probably the most accessible (arguably Farmhouse as well). 'Free' and 'Theme From the Bottom' are two of my favorites all time.

Phish is probably the band I invested the most time into learning to appreciate. I think of it as time well spent. However, I may be one of the few fans that would rather listen to their studio recordings then a live show, because live they seem to drag on too much.

[bradberad12]

Here I am on Youtube listening to Harry Nilsson, and come across this song:



Was this Cee-low's inspiration?

[Horned Gramma]

Haha. Nothing new under the sun.

[Horned Gramma]

Oh, and Gunther: eleven-year-old Harry did a solid 'Sweet Georgia Brown'.

[know ID yuh]

Dec 17, 2010 13:01:21 GMT -8 Horned Gramma said:

Oh, and Gunther: eleven-year-old Harry did a solid 'Sweet Georgia Brown'.

Eleven is on the Zune Pass. I'll give it a listen. Of his first eleven albums, it's the only one I haven't heard. And wow, I guess I'm about fourteen albums behind. I quit buying his music in the mid 90s. You mentioned his xmas album, and although I'm slightly biased, it's one of the best holiday albums created in the last twenty years. Some of his originals are classics.

Agreed completely with your Phish/fan comment. It's rare for a fan of good music to identify with Phish for what it is, good music. Picture of Nectar is one of those albums I come back to every other month. "Mango Song," damn. I know so many Phish-heads, and a nearly equal amount who will never give them a chance because of the fan stereotype.

Nice 1,000th post by the way. I can tell you were saving that one.

[Horned Gramma]

For Christmas this year my wife and I are getting a surprise visit from our landlord, who is trying to refinance the property we live in and is bringing appraisers in to sniff around. I've got cleaning and bong hiding to do this morning, so I'm going to have to try to make time to hammer out today's submission to A Record a Day later this afternoon. Thanks for your patience everyone.

[Friendly Destroyer]

Godspeed, and depending on your volume of paraphenalia you may want to make a map, or keep it all in one place.

[Horned Gramma]

I have a small museum of pipes, bongs, bubblers, chubblers, steamrollers, hookahs and bats. Even so, it's the ferrets I'm most concerned with finding a good hiding place for.

At this point I'm procrastinating. I'm outta here.

[topspin]

Did you try telling them that this is a private residence, Man.

[Horned Gramma]

Hate to say it gang, but I'm gonna have to miss a day. Do come back tomorrow.