Sparklehorse//Piano Fire

I always enjoyed listening to Sparklehorse (AKA Mark Linkous) and I often vowed to listen to more. I remember reading an article about Linkous in Rolling Stone (haha) in high school, then downloading some tracks. Later, an ex who really liked his stuff put many songs on many mixes for me. They always stood out as highlights.

His songs could be slow and melancholy or distorted and noise-poppy. Always catchy and interestingly orchestrated with unlikely sounds, Linkous made music that sounded genuine and true to himself.

If you have music nerd friends and have logged into your social network of choice in the last day or so, you probably already know that Linkous committed suicide on Saturday. Sadly, some did not find it surprising. In 1995, he almost ODed on a combo of anti-depressants, valium, alcohol and heroin. The incident stopped his heart for several minutes and left him wheelchair-bound for months. Of course, regardless of the previous incident, this is a terrible loss.

Preceding his sad and premature death, Linkous had completed a new album with Danger Mouse called Dark Night of the Soul. The album, which features members of The Shins, The Flaming Lips, Grandaddy, The Strokes, The Pixies, The Cardigans, Neutral Milk Hotel and more (as well as a bunch of inevitably weird David Lynch photos), may never be released due to a dispute with EMI, but you can stream it here.

This song, one of my all time favorites, is from the Wonderful Life album, which featured Tom Waits, PJ Harvey, and Dave Fridmann, among others. I remember sitting in Angel Hall late one night trying to write a paper and listening to it on repeat, never getting sick of it. RIP ML.



Piano Fire.mp3

How do you feel?
How do you feel?
I can’t seem to breath with a rusted metal heart.
I can’t seem to see through solid marble eyes.

Patsy Cline//Walking After Midnight

I am such a sucker for a pedal steel. Honestly, I can feel so-so about a song...then add pedal steel--suddenly, I'm sold. I know, what a cheap date.

Let's face it though, this song would be incredible if Patsy Cline was just singing it a cappella. Cline's got this way of fully embodying romantic tragedy in her voice that few people can pull off.

As a late '50s/early '60s country singer who enjoyed a lot of crossover success, she's got plenty of hits. It's hard to choose just one of her songs to put up here. Although "Crazy," and "I Fall to Pieces" are two other predictable favorites, I've always had a special fondness for this song, even though Cline herself was never very into it. I think it's a very honest portrait of how love can kind of make you do ridiculous/rash/insane things.

Something truly interesting about Cline is that she broke through many barriers for women in country music and the entertainment business as a whole. From wikipedia:

She was so respected by men in the industry, that rather than being introduced to audiences as “Pretty Miss Patsy Cline” as her female contemporaries often were, she was given a more stately introduction such as that given by Johnny Cash on their 1962 tour together: “Ladies and gentlemen, the one and only Patsy Cline.” As an artist, she held her fan base in extremely high regard (many of whom became friends), staying for hours after concerts to chat and sign autographs.

Cline was not only the first woman in country music to perform at New York’s Carnegie Hall (which she did with fellow Opry members and disapproval from gossip columnist Dorothy Kilgallen—whom Cline fired back at) but also to headline the Hollywood Bowl with Johnny Cash and, later, in 1962, the first woman in country music to headline her own show in Las Vegas.

According to legend, Cline also predicted her own death, which came in a 1963 airplane crash. Creepy.



Walking After Midnight.mp3

I go out walking after midnight,
Out in the moonlight,
Just hoping you may be
Somewhere a-walking after midnight
Searching for me.

Ella Fitzgerald//How High the Moon

A few nights ago, A. and I were waiting for the G train to come in the Metro-Lorimer Station. There was a dude busking. He actually wasn't bad, except when he tried to play this song.

Official announcement! Listen everyone! Although it's a standard, no one can do this song as well as Ella did, so you should really just stop trying. Behold the seven minutes and six seconds of pure amazing delivered by Ella in this live (yes, it was LIVE!) recording. They don't make 'em like the used to anymore. Can you imagine anyone having to apply pitch correction to this?

For a little while, Katy was really into scat singing. She was not the best scat-er (love you, Katy). She thought scating was saying things like "Happy birthday irthday irthday." Ryan played her this song once to teach her about scat singing (note Ella's picture in the wiki entry) and it seemed like she understood for about 5 minutes. Then she went right back to scat-ing. Sometimes you just have to scat.



How High the Moon.mp3

They asked me how I knew my true love was true.

The Carter Family//Single Girl, Married Girl

Sorry for all the sadness of yesterday. Today is better. The sun is shining and the roots of American folk music is in the air! Ok, it’s not really in the air up here in the NYC tri-state area, but I can dream that I’m sliding down some slippery rocks in the a cold Appalachian river, right?

The Carter Family was a legendary early country band that recorded between 1927 and 1956. AP Carter made it his mission to collect all the folk songs in the mountains of his Southwestern Virginia area and record them with his wife and sister-in-law, Maybelle Carter (godmother of country, inventer of the Carter scratch and portrayed in a movie I bet you’ve seen, Walk the Line—Maybelle’s daughter is June Carter.).

Like a modern band, this band has plenty of drama--but in their case, it was all family drama. I won’t go into all the details, but there’s a great PBS documentary that will, if you’re interested.

My interest in The Carter Family was piqued by Wisconsin Death Trip, whose awesome soundtrack draws heavily from the Smithsonion Folk Anthology, which is a totally amazing collection. I highly recommend both the movie and the box set.

This song is about how much more fun it is to be single than to be married, especially in impoverished Appalacia. Also worth noting, many of us speculated that the lyrics were “single girl, single girl/she wears a skinny tie.” Too bad, they’re actually not.



Single Girl, Married Girl.mp3

Married girl, married girl. She rocks the cradle and cries.

I’m right there with you, sister.

Thao Nguyen and the Get Down Stay Down//Bag of Hammers

I have a feeling that Thao Nguyen and the Get Down Stay Down’s album, We Brave Bee Stings and All, is probably going to be my favorite album of the year. Every song is pretty much amazing. So amazing, in fact, that my first listen a few months ago prompted me to email all my closest friends and demand that they check it out. Key word: demand. This doesn’t happen everyday.



Bag of Hammers.mp3

Consider this my personal note to you on this band. They're a fun show and their album is flawless.