Listening | Noticing | Getting Down
July 28, 2011 Leave a comment
Here’s a fun Dizzy Gillespie recording. It’s a live version of a song that shows off Dizzy’s sense of humor. Listen to the whole song.
From 1967’s Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. Enjoy sweet cheeks himself.
July 25, 2011 Leave a comment
An amazing range of sounds comes out of this NYC-based band, led by percussionist and founding father Adam Pierce. Mice Parade is an anagram of his name.
Caroline Lufkin is the beautiful Okinawan-American singer who prominently portrays the feminine on most of the tracks on Mice Parade’s latest album, What It Means To Be Left-Handed (2010). The album is diverse, delicately sculpted, and every track is a unique experience.
You have to listen closely to understand lyrics, and sometimes I wish they’d speak up, but I guess being partially legible is part of the color they’re painting.
This one, “Kupanda,” can be enjoyed without one word being understood, mama way.
July 21, 2011 Leave a comment
From Mosquitos‘ self-titled debut album in 2003, “Boombox” is hard not to enjoy. Portugese and English combine on the lovely lips of JuJu Stulbach.
West Nile virus can suck it.
Enjoy.
July 19, 2011 Leave a comment
17 when she recorded her debut album Song Up In Her Head (2009), Sarah Jarosz is young, and fresh as the dew on a newly blossomed lily, glistening in the enchanted moonlight of a sweetly-scented Texas mid-summer night… and so on.
Here’s the title track of that debut, from a live recording from the 2010 Americana Music Festival in Nashville.
Enjoy.
July 15, 2011 Leave a comment
Do you have a tenacious, love-scarred, and constantly-beating chunk of muscle in your chest cavity, keeping you alive by pumping oxygenated liquid to miraculously-orchestrated body parts that are consequently energized by the infusion of said oxygenated liquid?
Well, then I think you’ll like this song, inside and out.
By Rob Ickes, “The Old Rugged Cross” is something he’s been known to play alongside Blue Highway.
And if you fart every day, you would probably also like Rob’s version of the Blind Faith classic, “Can’t Find My Way Home.”
Enjoy.
July 13, 2011 Leave a comment
Interesting video backdrop and prelude to an interesting tune by existential guitarist Bill Frisell. Kenny Wolleson on drums, and Hal Willner making the other sounds.
Sounds like music that just couldn’t help but happen.
Enjoy it like mustard and cheese on ham.
July 11, 2011 Leave a comment
Speaking of your mom, why not get your face rocked by this song?
Doyle Bramhall II & Smokestack kicked it like stinky cheese down your boulevard, on Welcome (2001).
Solid, inspired, and funky… like your mom on a steamy, summer night.
Enjoy the tribute.
July 8, 2011 Leave a comment
I guess if you’d have told me when I was twelve that The Fresh Prince, my favorite rapper at the time, would become a huge TV and movie star, I might have been a little bit surprised. But how do kids today react when they hear Will Smith’s early rap songs? They’re dated, but oh so Will Smith. The dude was obviously born a star.
When DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince released And In This Corner... in 1989, I was sporting, at the ripe age of 14, a newly-received, bright yellow Sony cassette walkman, and I was so freaking cutting edge that your mom was already hitting on me.
I listened to this song repeatedly. I can still rap every line flawlessly and will do so if you just ask me.
Happy Friday. Enjoy.
July 5, 2011 Leave a comment
Your mom called. She told me dirty jokes that were so inappropriate, I skipped tears and just blew watery snot into a dirty towel.
She also said you should talk to her more often. And that she loves you. More snot in towel.
Listen to this one, by Tony Lucca, a track you can get for free right now on Amazon.
Enjoy.
Uncle Funk's Catalogue 