Sloan have a new album coming out, 30 tracks!: [link]

Thirty tracks - I'll have to figure they all wrote on this one again.

When I did the bubblegum book I wound up listening to a lot of Townes Van Zandt and Miles Davis to clear my palate. As much as I love the perdurable pop song, it just got to be too much of one thing.

As I've been working on Tom Waits lately and listening to lots of Tom, my tonic has been Kate Bush.

But that just makes me notice the parallels. Both extremely quirky and out of sync with their eras. Both piano based songwriters with a gift for melody so profluent they spend half their careers running away from it. Both turning to more rhythmic influences in their songwriting as they get older. Both very theatrical, and also cinematic (particularly in their inspirations). Both starting as sui generis, and then becoming their own sort of genre that other artists draw from.

And when they're gone for a long time, their re-emergence inspires a lost longing for them. You miss the singularity of their voice and vision when they're not recording.

Kate duetting with Rowan Atkinson

For Jilli, a rare video of Kate's Efteling Gardens TV special in 1978 Video quality is wobbly but watchable. Etefling Gardens is sort of a gothy fairyland in The Netherlands.

There's some discussion that maybe the colour coding on this picture might mean who wrote each song.

[link]

This is one person's (I'm not sure how informed) take on it:

Red = Chris songs

Blue = Andrew

Yellow = Jay

Green = Patrick

If that's true, then there's only four Patrick songs. Verrry interesting.

For Jilli, a rare video of Kate's Efteling Gardens TV special in 1978 Video quality is wobbly but watchable. Etefling Gardens is sort of a gothy fairyland in The Netherlands.

Oooh. Marked to watch later, when I'm done with today's batch of very vexing editing work.

Rogue's Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs and Chanteys

A PotC tie-in, but out on Anti and pushed by Depp. Includes traditional pirate songs and chanteys as done by: Richard Thompson, Jarvis Cocker, Jolie Holland, Kate McGarrigle, Nick Cave, Pere Ubu's David Thomas, Lucinda Williams, Sting, Bono, Lou Reed, Rufus Wainwright, Teddy Thompson, Loudon Wainwright, Eliza Carthy, Martin Carthy and a cast of thousands more.

There's a whale-load of 43 cuts spread out over two discs in a handsome package. It's bound to lose money unless some uptight Amerikanskis get adventurous real quick and buy it to put on their iPods to play on their sailboats and yachts, or if NPR does a feature on it for the yups (that would make both Ishmael and Captain Ahab proud). There are many standouts here, but those that really shake up the decks are Eliza Carthy's "Rolling Sea," Bryan Ferry's two contributions -- the entirely creepy "The Cruel Ship's Captain" and his duet with Antony "Lowlands Low" -- Nick Cave's "Pinery Boy" and his hilariously evil "Fire Down Below," Gavin Friday's "Baltimore Whores," Richard Thompson's reverential and lonesome "Mingualy Boat Song," Martin Carthy and family's "Hog-Eye Man," O'Hara's stirring "The Cry of Man," Cocker's wondrously cannibalistic "A Drop of Nelson's Blood," and Mark Anthony Thompson's hunted "Haul Away Joe."

Robin Holcomb (whose reading of "Dead Horse" is one of the most beautiful and haunting things here);

Another rare Kate Bush video.

From her 1979 special, her duet with Peter Gabriel on the Roy Harper song Another Day. (Well known from the cover by This Mortal Coil, also.)

While I'm doing duets, Marianne Faithful in a bareback nun's outfit singing "I Got You Babe" with Ziggyfied Bowie from the 1980 Floor Show.

Bowie allegedly has the edit where you can see Marianne from behind in just her stockings and garters.

Hey we just had our Buffista baby shower and several of you music posters contributed to the car-seat and Baby Bjorn carrier. Thank you!

It was pretty much a snack fest with added champagne, topped off with cake.

[link]

After more than 20 years on the air, the city's only country music station, KZLA-FM, abruptly left the air Thursday and was seamlessly replaced with the rhythmic pop of "Movin' 93.9," which plays artists such as Beyonce, Janet Jackson and Jennifer Lopez.

KZLA's sudden and unannounced demise leaves America's two most populous cities, Los Angeles and New York, without country music stations.

That's weird. I always thought country music had a bigger niche in LA.

That's weird. I always thought country music had a bigger niche in LA.

Eh, mainstream, contemporary country hasn't done well there for years (probably because it largely sucks.) Los Angeles' country fixation tends to be a little retro.