Radical Transparency

Jon just asked me to put together a dance mix featuring Bruce Springsteen and The Grateful Dead.

Half the people at the party are going to be screaming for R Kelly the whole time.

Maybe I start with Al Green and see where he takes me?

Click here to download:

Tired Of Being Alone.mp3 (3293 KB)

Chris Weingarten is a freelance music journalist.

He doesn't like Phish, Fleet Foxes, or the way people talk about music on Twitter.

He misses the because of professional music criticism.

He worries about crowdsourcing...

If you let the people decide, then nothing truly adventurous ever gets out.

And I think the talk he gave at the 140 Characters Conference a couple of weeks ago is worth watching.

Because I want truly adventurous things to get out.

Thank you, Stacey Monk, for writing one blog post that inspired me to write two.

This doesn't work. FYI.

But maybe a blog post will...

I'm looking for a song. With lots of do do do dos.

A woman sings it, a singer to whom I remember my mother listening sometimes. Not as much as she listened to Tracy Chapman or Cat Stevens or Sam Cooke. But sometimes, which is kind of a lot.

The song doesn't have many rhymes. Maybe no rhymes at all, actually. That might be its thing: no rhymes. Which, if you happen to be writing a song for me, is probably a thing to avoid. I like rhymes.

Another one of the song's things is that the singer kinda talks it as much as she sings it. Which is an ok thing by me. Much better, in general, than the no rhymes thing.

The song also connects in my mind to In Liverpool. Maybe because Suzanne Vega sings them both. But maybe not.

Also, through In Liverpool, the song lives in a box in my memory with Fee and No Woman, No Cry. All three were on the first mixtape anyone ever gave me.  The do do do do song was not on that mixtape. Nor is this information relevant. I'm taking notes at this point. Notes about that first mixtape...

Fee, I liked immediately and still adore.

No Woman, No Cry I did not like, and that fact STILL blows my mind. It's still embarrassing. And it makes me sad. For myself at age 10 or however old I was. And for everyone else in the world that doesn't love No Woman, No Cry. I was missing out; so are those people.

The mixtape had two sides, each with different labels. One was called Like It's My Job. The other was called Like There's No Tomorrow. Both of those titles referred to peeing. I have to pee like it's my job. I have to pee like there's no tomorrow. Sanna, the babysitter that made me the mix, said those things, and I thought they were hilarious.

I think 10 is embarrassingly old to be answering to a babysitter. I'm pretty sure I thought that at the time too. But I also don't think I was the reason Sanna was around. My sister and cousins are all younger, and she was certainly in more charge of them than me. I think.

Anyway, it's time to wrap this up and post No Woman, No Cry. It's track 5 on Live! And it led off one of the two sides of that mixtape.

Click here to download:

No Woman, No Cry.mp3 (6573 KB)

I saw Martin Sexton live for the first time tonight.

When he finished singing this song, it didn't stop playing in my head, so I didn't stop dancing.

The Beast In Me is track 1 on disc 1 of a recording from Burlington, VT in 2005. I couldn't find the album on the internets or at the concert. Apparently Lauren, who burned me the CD, has some very sweet hookups.

Click here to download:

The Beast In Me.mp3 (5924 KB)

Max: [pauses, tastes, thinks, swallows] Hmmm. Not bad.
Danny: Max, don't pretend you know anything about beer.
Jon: There's a pretty awesome documentary called Beer Wars...
Zeeko: WHALE WARS!?!?!?

Apparently Whale Wars is a real thing. Which is very cool for whales. But which makes that moment of misunderstanding less awesome than if Zeeko's ears and imagination had transformed the words Beer Wars into a world combo / concept he'd never before that moment considered.

Overhearing the conversation (and never having heard of Whale Wars), I assumed the full awesomeness, smiled big, and quickly typed the dialogue into my phone.

And I post it anyway, even given my overassumption and overjournalistic reaction, because, if nothing else, it demonstrates the speed and unpredictability with which conversations turn.