PodRunner: A Beat for Feet that Run

From the "How Cool is That?!" department on the internet: I downloaded a couple one hour long music mixes targeted for running from PodRunner. Tried it out on the treadmill this morning (it's a rainy Saturday). Pretty nifty stuff. Steven Boyett, DJ and author, posts these techno-music compilations with targeted BPM to pace your run or workout. There's a bunch of them and they keep coming, technically free, though there is a tip jar or merchandise to help support your habit. An easy way to keep yourself in fresh music; put your energy into the burn.

The Best Songs and EPs per David Rawson, Vintage 1995

Two half dozens and one year ago, my friend, in an effort to improve my musical taste, mailed to me, a list containing 40 of the best albums, 100 of the best songs, and 5 of the best EPs, from nineteen-hundred-and-ninety-five. Years ago I posted the list of albums, today I finally finished scanning, OCR'ing and posting the songs and EPs, here, on my website.

Go on, get yourself some culture.

Drivin' on Dylan Time

New review of Bob Dylan autobiography wherein I am seen to say "his hipster-speak is not self-conscious and the prose is packed with metaphor".

Rawson Reviews Music for 2007

As in recent years, I recognize some of the artists but not many of the songs or albums, but my friend David performs a painstaking process to distill down the 40 best albums and 100 most worthy songs for 2007. See his fresh lists here.

John Sayles into Alabama, Honeydripping

Friday night I attended, along with about 300 of the more eclectic denizens of Huntsville and its surrounds, the Huntsville Premiere and Party for John Sayles' new film, Honeydripper. Filmed in small towns in Alabama like Greenville, Georgiana and Midway they didn't need to do a lot to make these towns fit into the 1950's movie: clear some modern cars off the streets and swap out some of the merchandise in the store front windows. Standing around in the theater lobby with some of us before the showing, Maggie Renzi, the producer, told us that they are organizing a number of these film co-op parties around the country because they just don't have the 20 million dollars to mount a commercial marketing campaign.

John Sayles was also mingling before the show and at the party afterwards at the new location of the Flying Monkey Arts Center. He is very personable and loves to talk about his craft. I was introduced to Sayles' filmmaking in the early 80's at college by my housemates who were taking film classes. We saw The Brother from Another Planet (1984) and Return of the Secaucus Seven (1980). Maggie Renzi is in both these earlier films. Sayles has Writer and song writing credits to go with his directing credit on Honeydripper.

And this film is really about the music, although we have to build to it through some great dialog and a bit of slow moving slice-of-tough-life drama. None of the big star actors came to our premiere (not Danny Glover, Charles S. Dutton, Vondie Curtis-Hall, etc.). But a couple of the musicians came to the party and sat in with Microwave Dave and the Nukes. Henderson Huggins only plays Danny Glovers' hands at the piano in the film, but he can sing and go to town on the keyboard. Eddie Shaw is the other cast member who sat in. I'm not a sax nut but this transported you to the best of another era and culture. After an hour or so I started to feel bad for Microwave Dave's regular saxist who was standing around the edges of the audience with his instrument dangling at his side, just in case Shaw got tired. That wasn't happening.

It was a powerful evening and a worthy film. Mr. Sayles asked us to ask our friends to see it. Simple enough. Go. Enjoy.

D'You Know Juno? And the Sound of August Rush?

I don't remember buying a "soundtrack album" since Pretty in Pink, until recently that is, and I've bought two in the last couple months. The music opens up Juno and I caught myself thinking thinking that it's going to be a loooonnng movie if we have to listen to this low rent folk for 2 hours, but even that first tune (All I Want Is You by Barry Louis Polisar) quickly grows on you as you realize that it gloves the movie.

Back to the first soundtrack, which was August Rush, I got it for my wife for Christmas. (I wrote about the film here.) Van Morrison's "Moondance" is the classic here but it's the interplay of the music and the world and the world of the film that makes this one special. It's rich and symphonic and Irish rock and experimental; ethereal then cathartic.

Juno's got The Kinks, Mott the Hoople and The Velvet Underground providing classics (and Sonic Youth's cover of The Carpenters' "Superstar" which I hadn't heard before and it's pretty devo). But it's The Moldy Peaches and Kimya Dawson that rule the film and set the tone. The simple arrangements and acoustics sucked me in to the characters. Not that I identify with Juno herself much, at least not with her predicament (Uh, teen, pregnant). I didn't feel any parallels with Bleeker either (Hmm. What'd'ya think, Cindy?). Maybe high school was just too long ago. I did empathize with Juno's dad (J.K. Simmons); and with the Would-Be-Adoptive-Father-Wishes-He-Still-Rock-n-Rolled (Jason Bateman).

And the Juno soundtrack has Liner Notes! They're written by the Director, Jason Reitman and provide nice insights, just like Liner Notes of old!

Come to think of it, my son did buy the soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou? when it was fresh (2000) and these are in that same vein.

(I only see one soundtrack album on David Rawson's top album lists (1996's Trainspotting came it at #72 and he usually only takes the top 40), but there are more individual songs scattered among his top 100 songs lists so maybe there's something here to his liking....)

Elf Power Follow-up

Apparently Elf Power is an old Favorite for some folks .
It's actually not too surprising that my good friend and former WHRW DJ David Rawson was already well aware of the band. The embarassing part is that my own web site has had an Elf Power song listed on it for years. I host David's top music lists for each year, and you have to go all the way back to 1999 to find Elf Power's, "Will My Feet Still Carry Me Home", as his number six song in his Top 100 Songs of 1999.

Elf Power Discovered at Kohl's Department Store

While shopping the post-Christmas sales at Kohl's I noticed they were playing a better brand of muzak on the in-store sound system. The one song that I captured into my memory enough to look up on the web is a nice sing-songy chant-a-long called "All the World is Waiting" by a band I'd never heard of: Elf Power. They're one of these new-fangled lo-fi indie bands, this time from the hallowed alternative haven of Athens, Ga. The video is here on YouTube, it's composed mostly of a "long tracking shot" (that's film-speak) of the singer and his guitar walking through a party (directed by Nick Canada & Tim Nackashi). It's not exactly the Ray Liotta / Lorraine Bracco Copacabana entrance in Good Fellas (Martin Scorsese, director), but it's pretty swell for lo-fi/indie. Check it out.

DR's Best Music of 2006

While not as prolific writing about music since leaving WHRW as Will Hermes, my good friend David Rawson has been making lists of the best songs each year for over 20 years, and I've posted the latest lists of the top 40 albums, top 100 songs and top 10 EPs of 2006.

As usual, many of the entries are unfamiliar to me (read: I never heard of the artist, much less the song or album), but others are better known. In any case there's quite a mix, but usually heavier on the guitars and male vocals than my primary tastes. Besides, I'm mostly exposed to middle-America radio so I have to make an effort to hear anything farther afield than "Hips Don't Lie" or "How to Save a Life"; I do come across the odd-ball cover occassionally, like "Smells Like Teen Spirit" as a lounge song by Ragnar Bjarnason.