Keith Richards.

Jessica Pallington West has a book out, What Would Keith Richards Do? Daily Affirmations From a Rock and Roll Survivor, from whence the title gem came.

Amazon info but no free reads inside the book. Alas.

Labels: books, music, people, quotation

   posted by Sal Towse at  6:12 PM|| |

... there's still something you can do. ...

Dave Carroll [Sons of Maxwell] - United Breaks Guitars



Update: Update

Labels: music, travel, video, web2.0

   posted by Sal Towse at  4:20 PM|| |

To those who purchased my CDs, my heartfelt thanks... I have decided to make my music available to everyone.

Billy Faier - The Five String Banjo

[via a tweet from @jessamyn, who adds BANJO!]

Labels: downloads, music

   posted by Sal Towse at  5:01 PM|| |

Susan Boyle aced Britain's Got Talent and the link to the video of her performance is flashing around the Web. The YouTube video was even mentioned in Jon Carroll's column this morning.

But can she really sing or was her rendition of I DREAMED A DREAM from Les Miserables a fluke?

Listen.





(Thanks, Annie Chernow!)

Update: ?? I guess! Guy Kawasaki Twitters about an analysis of Susan Boyle's viral video. http://adjix.com/c7ti

Holey moley!

Labels: life, music, video

   posted by Sal Towse at  12:04 PM|| |

I don't want to hear a love song. I got on this airplane just to fly.

Is there any wonder I love the Web? Muy muchas gracias, Tim Berners-Lee.

Labels: music, video

   posted by Sal Towse at  12:02 AM|| |

YouTube - Eartha Kitt - C'est Si Bon (Live Kaskad 1962)

RIP, Miss Eartha. You gave a ton of pleasure to a zillion folks. Here's hoping you wind up with the folks you would want to spend the rest of eternity with.

Labels: history, music, obit, people

   posted by Sal Towse at  8:35 PM|| |

I have a framed John Byrne Cooke photograph of Mimi Fariña on the wall to the right of the front door. She's standing at the top of the hill, at Union and Montgomery, goofing off with Debbie Green. I like the picture because it shows the waterfront behind them as it was back when the picture was taken, in 1966, and because it shows Mimi Fariña full of life.

It took me years after I first stumbled on the image on the Web to decide that his price was worth it and to contact Cooke and arrange to swop him $$$ for a print.

I'm still glad I did.

Depending on my mood, the photograph makes me smile, or tear up.

Same with DIAMONDS AND RUST.

The YouTube video is from 1975. Has it really been that long?

I guess it has.

yes I loved you dearly
and if you're offering me diamonds and rust
I've already paid

Labels: history, life, music, Telegraph Hill

   posted by Sal Towse at  10:37 PM|| |

I watched this whenever I felt like it was all an impossible quest.



Thank you, will.i.am.

Labels: election2008, music, video

   posted by Sal Towse at  9:16 AM|| |

MTV MUSIC - I Want My MTV

MTVmusic.com, a very clean, very simple, good looking site full of music videos and only music videos. Lots of older, classic stuff, too, like one of our favorites, Dire Straits' "Money For Nothing."

The site looks good and, in our limited testing, works great. And like Hulu, MTV also (smartly) lets you embed their videos on your blog, MySpace or Facebook profile, Tumblr, etc. (see below). It also has the requisite "social" functions like comments, rating up/down, etc.

[via Huffington Post]

Labels: music, video, web2.0

   posted by Sal Towse at  6:59 PM|| |

My American Prayer is a Web site to promote the pro-Obama Dave-Stewart-and-Seth-Dalton-directed video (with a cast of thousands, including Joan Baez, Whoopi Goldberg, and Barry Manilow) called My American Prayer.

Wandering away from there I found there's also the new "Yes We Can" video (a musical video with no connection to Will.i.am's classic) out from Maria Muldaur and Bonnie Raitt. Recorded at Studio D Recording in Sausalito.

Count down to November.

Joan Baez, Whoopi Goldberg, and Barry Manilow?!?!! Yipes!

Labels: music, politics, web2.0

   posted by Sal Towse at  12:11 PM|| |

His nibs is over at his desk across from me, rummaging through online stuff. Turns out the US Air Guitar Regional Finals @ The Independent tonight are sold out, alas.

But THE SQUIRREL NUT ZIPPERS will be there on my bday! What an AWESOME coinkidink.

We're there.

Labels: life, music, San Francisco

   posted by Sal Towse at  7:45 PM|| |

Retrieved a couple old Skyhooks cassettes this afternoon, including LIVING IN THE 70s.

I'll have to get CD versions if I want to listen to them at the computer or on the BO, I suppose. We don't have a cassette player here; I can only play the cassettes in the car.

Ego Is Not A Dirty Word

If I did not have an ego I would not be here tonight
If I did not have an ego I might not think that I was right
If you did not have an ego you might not care the way you dressed
If you did not have an ego you'd just be like the rest

Ego is not a dirty word
Ego is not a dirty word
Ego is not a dirty word
Don't you believe what you've seen or heard

If Jesus had an ego he'd still be alive today
And if Nixon had no ego he might not be in decay
If you did not have an ego you might not care too much who won
If I did not have an ego I might just use a gun

Ego is not a dirty word
Ego is not a dirty word
Ego is not a dirty word
Don't you believe what you've seen or heard

Some people keep their egos in a bottom drawer
A fridge full of Leonard Cohen
Have to get drunk just to walk out the door
Stay drunk to keep on goin'
So if you got an ego
You better keep it in good shape
Exercise it daily
And get it down on tape

[...]

If you've never heard Skyhooks, "Ego," "Horror Movie," and a couple other cuts are available at their MySpace page

I probably haven't listened to them for going on thirty years. Wish I could remember what made me decide I needed to rummage the cassettes out of the stash. Something that was going on online. ...

Labels: life, music

   posted by Sal Towse at  7:36 PM|| |

Vinyl Gallery: Vintage classical album cover graphics - a set on Flickr

[via Laughing Squid]

Labels: art, culture, graphics, music

   posted by Sal Towse at  7:01 PM|| |

I've always loved Jackson Browne's FOR A DANCER:

Into a dancer you have grown
From a seed somebody else has thrown
Go on ahead and throw some seeds of your own
And somewhere between the time you arrive
And the time you go
May lie a reason you were alive
But you'll never know

And for Skip I would've chosen Jackson Browne's A SONG FOR ADAM:

Though Adam was a friend of mine, I did not know him long
And when I stood myself beside him, I never though I was as strong
Still it seems he stopped his singing in the middle of his song
Well I'm not the one to say I know, but I'm hoping he was wrong

More Jackson Browne. Some Patsy Cline. Some Willie Nelson. Emmy Lou Harris. Sinatra. Ella. a bit of Jobim.

AGAINST THE WIND - Waylon & Johnny and Willie
LIFE'S RAILWAY TO HEAVEN - Patsy Cline or Johnny Cash
THIS OLD ROAD - Kristofferson
TEARS IN HEAVEN - Clapton
Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's SOMEWHERE OVER THE RAINBOW - WONDERFUL WORLD medley

I don't know. So many. Warren Zevon. Keb Mo. Cisco Houston. Tony Bennett.

Am I gathering songs for a memorial service or songs to encapsulate my life?

I'll have to think on this. I'd count in Baez' AMAZING GRACE if I didn't have the memories already associated with it.

I'll have to think on this. Easier to choose the music than write the obit, eh?

Labels: life, music

   posted by Sal Towse at  7:16 PM|| |

Louise Ure has a good blog post over at Murderati, the typepad blog that rotates posts by murder writers through the week.

Her post this Tuesday was about funeral music -- specifically, your funeral music. What music would you choose to play at your funeral?

When my cousin died, the family and her friends gathered at Pfeiffer Beach down in Big Sur. The music that played while her dad waded out into the surf to sprinkle ashes was Joan Baez singing Amazing Grace, a capella.

When Elizabeth died, her granddaughter sang Bette Midler's Wind Beneath My Wings, a capella:



Did you ever know that you're my hero,
and everything I would like to be?
I can fly higher than an eagle,
'cause you are the wind beneath my wings.

It might have appeared to go unnoticed,
but I've got it all here in my heart.
I want you to know I know the truth, of course I know it.
I would be nothing without you.

One of the songs Ure mentions is this one, Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's medley of Somewhere Over the Rainbow and What a Wonderful World.



What is the music of your life, your soundtrack?

My answer later. We're off (on this friggin' hot afternoon -- up over 93dF upstairs) to the Waterfront Restaurant down by Pier 5 the Ferry Building for a Spanish wine tasting.

Later.

Labels: life, music, people, video

   posted by Sal Towse at  2:24 PM|| |

Amazing what's available on YouTube.

I'm a huge fan of Orbison. I will probably bounce from YouTube to YouTube to YouTube to ... until (not long from now) I decide I'm about ready to crash.

Claudette. Pretty Woman. Running Scared.



Blue Bayou




from Orbison to Patsy Cline


to Hank Williams



to ... well ... oddly enough there's nothing much on YouTube from Cisco Houston.

Joan Baez, however. ...



I bought a photograph of Mimi and Debbie Green, taken while Mimi lived on Alta. The two are goofing off at the corner of Union and Montgomery, with the piers and Bay as backdrop.

Thank you, John Cooke.

Cooke sold me a piece of his life. Man, I love the Web and the John Cookes of the world.

Labels: music, people, Telegraph Hill, video

   posted by Sal Towse at  11:21 PM|| |

Talking with an old friend, well, exchanging e-mails and mentioned that I was feeling old.

His nibs and I'd had dinner a week or so ago with a friend who'd turned eighty in August. Eighty-year-old friend is looking good and, really, looks not that much different than he did when I met him thirty-two years ago. He's involved with crafting little technology whizbang solutions for folks at the VA hospital. He's a Maker. He hasn't slowed down much if any at all. He's just pretty darn cool.

I wrote to the e-mail friend, "I'm seven years older than he was when I first met him. Yikes, I'm feeling old."

Then I found this test: Are you a hippy?

which gave these stats on the folks who had taken the test:

54% of test takers are Male, while 46% are Female.
93% of test takers are under the age of forty, while 7% are over forty.
78% of test takers have hair shorter than 6", while 22% have hair that is longer.
7% of test takers were at Woodstock in 1969, while 93% were not.
[That in itself is astounding when you consider only 15% of the test takers were even =alive= in the 1960s. That means that ~50% of the people taking the test who were alive in the 1960s were at Woodstock. Is that even remotely possible?]
54% of test takers prefer John over George at 12% as their favorite Beatle.
15% of test takers were alive in the 1960's, while 85% were not.
21% of test takers are vegetarians, while 79% are not.
11% of test takers have lived in a commune, while 89% have not.
10% of test takers voted for Ronald Reagan, while 90% did not.
[They forgot to ask how many had even had an opportunity to vote for Ronald Reagan.]

The questions hit me with pangs of nostalgia: "Do you smell like patchouli?" "Do you own an incense burner?" "Do you have a brownie recipe with ingredients you can't find at the A&P?" "Do you think Bob Dylan has a good voice?"

Do you feel old?

Update> and the doorbell rings. By the time I get there, the doorbell ringer is gone, but there's an Amazon package under the doormat. "Thank you!" I call. "You're welcome," comes the reply from down the path. The package contained a couple books and Kristofferson's latest.

Earlier this month we'd been at the Fillmore for an AIM benefit. I was reminded again how much I like his words and his voice. A few days ago I put an order in and here it was. I put my new purchase into the CD player. First song was the title song, This Old Road.

Yeah, feeling old. And that's okay. Kristofferson, after all, is only ten years younger than our eighty-year-old friend and he's still kickin'.

Labels: books, culture, music, timewaster

   posted by Sal Towse at  3:41 PM|| |

 

Lovely sailboat out on the Bay this afternoon.

We're off to the Fillmore in a shake to see Kristofferson and Kitaro, Taj Mahal, Floyd Red Crow Westerman, San Francisco Taiko Dojo, Peter Coyote and Charlie Hill for the Longest Walk II. Maybe Buffy Saint-Marie, another writeup shows her on the lineup too and not Kitaro. Well, remains to be seen. I'm there for Kristofferson.

Labels: life, music, photographs, San Francisco, SFOBayBridge

   posted by Sal Towse at  4:59 PM|| |

That can't be true, can it?

This article claims, "The Eagles Greatest Hits, 1971-1975 was released just four years after the band debuted. It has now sold more records than any album in history, including Thriller."

[via grapes2dot0, who was more interested in the story on Winslow, AZ, still cadging drinks thirty-five years later off their one brief bit of fame in 1972.]

Labels: factoid, music

   posted by Sal Towse at  5:03 PM|| |

Wandering from song to song in YouTube, I came across a couple anthems for a cowboy grandma and my second cousins who wear big buckles:


The Highwaymen: Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys

and


The Highwaymen: The Last Cowboy Song

'night.

Labels: music, video

   posted by Sal Towse at  11:40 PM|| |

I was reading someone's blog tonight and they mentioned Brian Hyland and Gypsy Woman.

Gypsy Woman? What? I knew Gypsy Woman, of course, but had never associated it with Hyland. Why would I? I knew Hyland because of his big hit in the summer of 1962, Sealed With A Kiss. I know it was 1962 because that was the summer after fifth grade, the school year when I'd swooned over Phil Johnston, whose sister Sheila was in my older sister's class. When school ended in June, Phil'd up and moved away. Sealed With A Kiss, was my anthem that summer as I mooned about. Sealed with a kiss, if only.

Same Brian Hyland? How many Brian Hyland's singing in that time frame could there be?

So, I popped /"brian hyland" "gypsy woman" "sealed with a kiss"/ into Google and found out Hyland wasn't a one hit wonder. He was indeed the same dude and, furthermore, his first and biggest hit (recorded in 1960 when he was a sophomore in high school) was Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka-Dot Bikini, written by Paul Vance and Lee Pockriss.

Who knew?

Last, but not least, my Web searching scored me a vid of Hyland lip-synching Sealed With A Kiss on some bandstand show, probably Dick Clark's.



Check out the dancers! There's a classic nerd with black rimmed glasses and plaid jacket and a girl doing what looks like the Frug. (No, not those on the stage behind him. Later in the video. Watch! The guy she's dancing with is dressed in a buttoned cardigan sweater. No lie!)

Nostalgia hits hard tonight.

Labels: life, music, people, video

   posted by Sal Towse at  10:46 PM|| |

Love Kristofferson's voice.

Video of a song from last year's album: In the News

Labels: music, people

   posted by Sal Towse at  6:13 PM|| |

I'm just like so bummed.

His nibs sez, "Hey. Look at this!"

Eric Burdon and the Animals are playing at the Chukchansi Gold Resort And Casino in Coarsegold, CA.

Oh.

[heart sinks]

Those were the days, my friend.

[/heart sinks]

Labels: history, life, music

   posted by Sal Towse at  9:39 PM|| |

... and so were we.




This video leaves me feeling ... almost a feeling of saudade except that you can't go home again. You can never go back.

For all you nostalgia freaks, myself included, which of the couples in this video are still a pair?

Or even would be if all the principals were still alive?


John and Yoko? John died.
Paul and Linda? Linda died.
George and Patti? Divorced. George married Olivia. Patti married Clapton. Patti divorced Clapton. George died.
Ringo and Maureen? Divorced. Maureen died.

sigh

Labels: music, video

   posted by Sal Towse at  4:27 PM|| |

KFOG KaBoom! 2007 Highlights

The video and soundtrack for the 2007 KFOG KaBoom! are up! Twenty minutes worth of fireworks with music.

Enjoy.

Labels: life, music, San Francisco, URL

   posted by Sal Towse at  11:22 AM|| |

This post is for the someone who came by this site earlier with a Yahoo! search for /2007 kfog kaboom, piers 30 & 32/

According to the Port Authority Web site (KFOG Kaboom "Hold for Event"), mark May 12th on the calendar for this year's Kaboom!

a link to the 2006 Kaboom! page with a click to video of the fireworks set to a rock music soundscript.

... and ditto for 2005.

[coinkadinkly: KFOG sent out an e-mail to Fogheads late yesterday telling us that the date this year for Kaboom! is May 12th! Hah.]

Labels: music, San Francisco, video

   posted by Sal Towse at  12:26 PM|| |

midomi

Oh, my. Whither next, Web 2.0?

"Our mission is to build the most comprehensive database of searchable music. You can contribute to the database by singing in midomi's online recording studio in any language or genre. The next time anyone searches for that song, your performance might be the top result!"

Oh, my.

[a nod, I suppose, is due the Tech Chronicles at sfgate.com.]

Thanks a lot, guys.

Really!

Labels: media, music, URL

   posted by Sal Towse at  10:26 PM|| |

We had some discussion about mash-ups a while back.

Came across a good example today: Jefferson Airplane mashed with Star Trek.

Feed your head.


[repurposed from a post earlier today at sfist]

Labels: media, music

   posted by Sal Towse at  3:19 PM|| |

We listened last night to Vienna Teng at the Independent, preceded by a delish dinner at NOPA.

VT's intro act was The Animators, well, Devon Copley and Alex Wong, a street-stripped-down version -- the essence -- of the band. Alex played some backup percussion and glockenspiel for VT. VT played some backup piano for the two. And a fun time was had by all. I liked them a lot. His nibs didn't much care for them. Oh. That's what makes God's little green-blue world, though.

VT was wonderful as always. Such a voice. His nibs much prefers her live performances to her CDs, which he thinks are over produced and layer too much production on top of her unique voice. I like her CDs. More differences of opinion. Both of us agree, though, that live, she is marvelous. She has her patter down and she's comfortable on stage. Hard to believe she is a reincarnated computer geek educated at Stanford, but there you have it.

She sang for over an hour, including CITY HALL and MISSION STREET, LULLABY FOR A STORMY NIGHT for her sister. She closed with an audience sing-along of SOON LOVE SOON and we all scattered out into the night with our souls intact.

She's playing again tonight. She'd sold enough of tonight's show that they added last night's show, and happy we were they did. The younger younger nib is arriving in from Boston tonight after 11p and we're picking him up at the airport. We couldn't have made a show tonight.

If VT's ever playing near you, get tickets.

We grabbed the 15 to Market Street and then the 21 Hayes up to Divisadero, getting there precisely at 6p (as was our plan) for a show with doors that opened at 8:30p for which we had will-call tickets. Why so early? Well, we'd been planning on dinner or at least something to eat beforehand. Last December, for a VT show at the I, we'd eaten at the Bean Bag Cafe, a small joint at the corner of Hayes and Divisadero.

This year, as we were poking around on the Web in the afternoon, we realized that there were several new restaurants in the neighborhood that hadn't been there last year.

A new restaurant NOPA, which has got some buzz, had opened in the empty building kitty-corner to the BBC, a building which had been vacant with windows covered with butcher paper last December when we were waiting for the bus home.

NOPA
560 Divisadero Street @ Hayes
San Francisco, CA 94117
Phone (415) 864-8643

Rather than make a reservation, we decided to show on their doorstep at 6p and see if we could get a table. If not, there were other places to try or the BBC.

NOPA's bar opens at 5p. Dining starts at 6p. NOPA has a communal dining table and bar dinner seating that are first-come, first-serve. If we couldn't grab a table, surely we could eat at the bar.

We showed at 6p and were told, yes, they had a table, but wouldn't be able to seat us for ten minutes or so. Fine. We watched while they set everyone up who had a 6p reservation and then around 6:15, they sat us mid-room at a table for 4. I'm not a mid-room sort of person, but a table for 4 means you aren't elbow to elbow with the person next to you so that was a plus.

Appetizers: (him) squash soup -- which turned out to be a beef-barley soup with bits of tasty squash rather than the ginger-squash whirl that so many do. Although it wasn't what we expected, it was tasty. (me) spinach salad with endive, slices of persimmon, walnuts, pomegranate seeds, a tasty bleu cheesy dressing. Delish.

Main: (him) pan roasted black cod on a lentil platform with chicory -- tasty (me) lamb, cooked medium rare. Sliced. Looked a bit like some restaurants' duck breast presentation. No bones. Drizzled with a mint/chopped garlic/onion/something sort of chimichurri sauce. Very tasty. Set on a bed of pureed celery root (cream and butter are such wondrous things). With a side of braised greens.

We had a bottle of pinot noir: ICI/LA-BAS pinot noir. 2002. Les Reveles. Ellee Valley.

Dessert: trio of sorbets: meyer lemon, blood orange, clementine. He was happy. I had a taste of each and a small glass of moscotel romano alicante (bodegas guitterez de la vega 2003) because they had no Bonny Doon vin glaciere. I like. Our charming waiter said he likes the moscatel but really likes the eiswein. Maybe next time.

See? Maybe next time already. Our meal was that good. Our wait staff was excellent. Always there. Happy to be there or a very good actor. Suggestions if you wanted. Not if you didn't.

The building is a transformed bank, with some other incarnations in between. High ceilings. Impressive support structures. We noticed the criss-cross beam bracing over the door for earthquake retrofit, which seemed appropriate after we felt the shake during the Vienna Teng performance.

The vibe is friendly. The food is good. The place got more and more packed as the evening wended on. We got out about 8p and walked across the street and up half a block to the Independent. I stood in the like ten people long line while his nibs picked up the tickets. Doors opened at 8:30p for a 9p show. By then the line was down the block and wrapped around the corner.

We got great seats at a club table for four. The couple sharing the table had been behind us in line. The club, which is "intimate," meaning small, filled up and then standing and then more standing. The mix was geezers like us and YUPs and gen-Xers and more Asians over the age of thirty than I'm used to seeing at a club. VT's brother and younger sister were in the audience, she said. I didn't see her mom and wouldn't've recognized the sister at all. According to VT, the younger sister's almost out of HS. When I knew her, she was probably four or five. Time moves on, doesn't it?

If you're headed to the Independent for a show and want a nice meal beforehand, showing up on NOPA's doorstep at 6p will get you to the show on time with absolutely no stress. If you decide to eat after the show, NOPA serves dinner until 1 a.m., and the place was hopping at midnight as we waited (far longer than the twenty minutes MUNI claims for that time of night, but hey...) for a 21 back downtown.

Caught a 30 back to Washington Square Park and then walked home. The driver was a bit of a poophead. His nibs had pulled the STOP cord as we turned from Stockton onto Columbus. He yanked it again/again when it was clear the driver wasn't stopping at the Park. The driver stopped mid street and said, "Next time, pull the cord sooner if you want me to stop."

Huh? His nibs had pulled the cord like two blocks thataway back there! The driver must've been tired or having a hard night. He couldn't damper my mood, though.

Nice, nice evening.

Labels: clubs, food, music

   posted by Sal Towse at  9:30 AM|| |