2006-12-17 - 8:36 p.m.
Something needs to be done about the education of our pets…
Waiting for thin-set to dry. Which is just an excuse, I really just need to sit down for a while.
A long time ago someone handed me a CD. The picture on the front was a little boy sitting on a crocodile. No Artist info, no label info, no nothing just the picture.
It was a good album, about a third of the songs were kind of experimental-electro-punk-rock but the rest were solid Soul, R&B and Roots rock. (something I think of as Rock&Soul)
None of the songs ever made it on the radio, (except in Australia where they had a number one hit with “You Don’t Treat Me No Good No More”) and nobody I’d ever spoken to had any idea of who this band was.
This is like 1996, so while the internet was around, I certainly wasn’t really on it, and I don’t even know if google existed, it certainly wasn’t a verb yet. Today you can type in a couple lyrics to a song and get a couple hundred hits, photos and videos of the band, the band member’s mothers, their pet’s names… But back then… it wasn’t so easy.
So I’m in Saudi Arabia, it is very late at night and I’m watching the one channel Armed forces network on TV, there is a movie on “Nothing to Loose” with Martin Lawrence and Tim Robbins (The title of which I just found by googling the actors names) The movie sucks, but at one point I recognize one of the songs from the mystery album playing in a scene.
“Awesome” I think, I’ll just wait till the credits and then I’ll have the name of the band. So I sit through the rest of the movie, and when the credits roll up the station does one of those super fast credit rolls” the “The law says that we have to show the credits, but it doesn’t say we how slow we have to show them, so good luck” type things.
Damn it!! Now I just sat through a terrible movie and I still don’t know the name of the band, and for that matter I don’t even know what movie I just watched.
So back in the states I actually have to go find the movie, rent the movie, and finally see the name of the band in the credits.
The band is Sonia Dada by the way.
Anyway, I told that story to illustrate the “bad old days” Today I found several artists by googling little bits of info about them, without the Internet there is little chance that I would ever have found them. (Ever try asking a too-cool dude at a record store to help you find something?)
What did I find? Ahhhhh
First: “Hazmat Modine” http://www.hazmatmodine.com/home.html
A klezmeriffic blues band that blew me away with a song I heard on back porch music Friday night. As usually I forgot to listen to the announcer and missed the title of the song and the band. WUNC posts a list of what they play on Monday, but I always for get to look there too, and they don’t keep an archive.
I’m digging this band a lot, but unless you are all about experimental music, and happen to be a fan of Tuvan throat singing, be sure to listen to all the samples before rushing out to get this one.
Second: Eric Bibb http://www.ericbibb.com/frameset.html
I head his cover of Guy Clark’s “The Cape” sometime last year, wrote down the artist and album, lost the paper, and completely forgot about it till today when I remembered that I wanted to find that cd. This one was harder as a lot of people have covered that song, but between Amazon and google I was able to track him down, find him on napster, and I’m listening to him right now. That rocks. If you told me that I would be able to do that when I was 16 I would have said “sure, and I’ll have a flying car too right?”
The album is “Friends” by the way, and it is awesome. If you like traditional and contemporary blues ala Keb Mo you should own this album.
Third: (This is complicated) First I love the Aubrey Maturin Series by Patrick O’Brian If you saw ‘Master and Commander” in the theater with Russell Crow and Paul Betany liked it and like to read, this 21 book series is for you. Even better, if you dig audio books, get the entire series read by Patrick Tull. (Important note!! There is another version read by Simon Vance, who is a good reader, but his version is crap compared to Tull’s.)
Anyway, a running part of the series is the fact that Aubrey and Maturin like to play duets together, (cello and violin) and there are a couple pieces of music featured in each book. So.. I told you all that to tell you that there are two CD’s of music that are directly from the books called “Evening’s with the Captain 1 and 2” They are also something you cannot find in any record store that I have looked in. (got them from napster)
The CD’s are ok, as in they have all the music from the books, but they tend to be full arrangements of the music, where obviously in the books they are most often done by a violin and cello duet. (Sometimes they play with a larger group but still) I love violin and cello duets, so I was hoping that the CD’s would be just that. In fact there are only one or two duets on the CD’s
But! While searching for violin and cello duets I found this: http://magnatune.com/artists/albums/carrai-kummer/
It is a CD of cello duets, as in two cellos, and it is absolutely beautiful. So I found it by happy accident, something I never would have thought of, or have even known existed with out the internet.
So again, thank you Internet, you are my hero.
-Justus
