Tuesday, April 8, 2008

If You Get Too Much...

A recent run-in with a someone who looks over here every so often prompted an interesting question: "What are you listening to?" How to answer? In the car we had the Walk Hard soundtrack. For the past few days we had been putting final touches on our semi-yearly mailout, and listening to it was a part of that biz. And stuck in our head was "Love is Like Oxygen," by The Sweet. (Don’t know why, just was.) But really, this is what's on the table:




She and Him, Volume OneWhen we first saw press on it, we wrote it off as "actor/actress gets to play rock star and get unwarranted attention." But then we saw where She (Zooey Deschanel) wrote the songs, and that several sources reported them as "good." Him (M. Ward) also has a rep as being a bit of a weirdo, but an folkie/country weirdo, so this would not be a dance record. What we got is old school production of some candy pop/country/folk songs. These will get you high:

You can’t miss if you rely on "darlin’," and mean it:




Took it hard, like you knew I would:




Now our favorite. Sounds like someone stayed up all night listening to Wilco’s Summerteeth and then wrote the lost track. Excellent!:

Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?





Black Keys, Attack and Release These guys have been banging out their brand of blooze for a few years now. They got together with producer Danger Mouse (not his real name, I don’t think) last year with the plan of writing some songs and backing Ike Turner on an album. Ike decided he would rather die than work with the Black Keys and Danger Mouse, and so some of the songs got rolled into this record. I’ve only heard a couple of tunes, but there’s melody hear that hasn’t been before:






Walk Hard SoundtrackDewey Cox walked hard from the day he was born. From a poor but proud rural life, unspeakable tragedy struck when Dewey was 10: Dewey cut his brother in half, and lost his sense of smell. Resented by his father, Dewey went his own way, knowing that climbing the mountain "may be a long hard walk, but I will WALK HARD."


In his decades spanning career Dewey reached the highest of highs, only to plummet to the lowest of lows, and then again reach the highest of highs.


All in about an hour and a half.

Sound familiar? It should. It’s the story arc for every bio-pic ever made.

This is real satire, really funny, and really recommended.

In my mind you're blowin' me........kisses:


Dewey was good when he was mad at the world:


And Dewey got really good when he got mad at "Mr. Old Guy" in the mid-sixties:

Dear Mr. President


Free At Last:

Ladies First

Dewey does Dylan (or Dylan does Dewey?):





Dewey sings the Shel Silverstein song that never existed:







P.S.: You may have seen some Nick Lowe posts up in here. Well, he’s going to roll into Antone’s next Friday, the 18th. Let’s just say that we guarantee that there are worse ways to spend $20 on a Friday night. See you there.