345: “I Was Made To Love Her” (Stevie Wonder) by Meklit, Quinn Deveaux
February 2, 2016 Leave a comment
Time is long but life is short.
-Stevie Wonder
Time is long but life is short.
Song: I Was Made To Love Her
318: “Rust Belt” by Charlie Hunter and Scott Amendola
February 26, 2013 Leave a comment
Practice makes unconscious memory. Not perfection, but astounding results can certainly come with enough practice.
Charlie Hunter perfectly displays virtuosic talent, arrived at through copious amounts of brain conditioning (practice). Charlie’s most recent album, composed of duos with drummer Scott Amendola, showcases his ability to play bass and lead guitar simultaneously about as well as you could expect two separate professional musician brains to accomplish. The album is called Not Getting Behind Is The New Getting Ahead (2012). The Wizard uses a custom-built 8-string guitar, and the entire album was recorded with Charlie and Scott sitting in a room together, sans headphones. Check out “Rust Belt” to see what I mean about astounding results.
Other examples of the results of diligent practice include:
-Buddhist monks’ ability to regulate their body temperature with great control
-breathing Parkourists
-the ability to spin a pen around your fingers
-finding the slowest line at the grocery store
-getting your cat to poop in the toilet
-butter without crumbs on it
-men looking ladies in the eyes while talking to them
Remember to practice patience, love, and keeping the damn crumbs out of the butter. Enjoy.
Song: Rust Belt
Artist: Charlie Hunter and Scott Amendola
Album: Not Getting Behind Is The New Getting Ahead
Label: Charlie Hunter Music
Buy from: Amazon | iTunes
Listen: Rdio | Spotify | YouTube
308: “Simba” by Les Baxter
December 4, 2012 Leave a comment
The fox looks up at the grapes, so tantalizing, yet just out of reach.
He circles, eyes locked on the voluptuous grapes. He can almost taste them.
He leaps. Snaps. No grapes. Circles. Repeats.
He circles again and again, never taking his eyes off the grapes. Until some other fox comes along and says “Hey doofus, know what I did today? I ate some gophers. Good stuff. You should maybe look into it. Meat. Foxes eat it. Ya dip.” And he smirks, the way that only a fox with gopher blood on its muzzle can smirk.
But the original fox that I mentioned was circling the grapes because he is a vegan and very enthusiastically so. Thus, he disregards the other wolf’s comments and replies, “If I were a human who killed foxes and sheathed myself in their skins, I wouldn’t even want to wear you if it was negative 70 degrees out! You suck! You stink of gopher guts. At least I have my dignity.” And he goes right back to circling the grapes and advancing his nutritional degradation.
That is the tale of the fox and the grapes.
The moral of this tale is “Simba” by Les Baxter. Fans of the Beta Band might recognize it from the samples. It was well-chosen as a sample-base. This song is exotica at its best. “Simba” has a half dozen different lives, packed into less than 3 minutes. The song starts in the jungle, travels through space, and ends in a spicy cantina where the ladies know how to gyrate. Captain James Tiberius Kirk belongs in this paragraph, with an Andorian martini and a phaser in-hand.
Enjoy.
Song: Simba
Artist: Les Baxter
Album: One Thousand Lights
Label: Broken Audio
Buy from: Amazon | iTunes
Listen: MOG | Spotify
Watch: YouTube
306: “Express Yourself” by Labrinth
November 13, 2012 Leave a comment
I jumped through a wormhole…
︴︴
Uncle Funk presents… Simon Cowell presents… Labrinth, and “Express Yourself” (2012).
A very merry unbirthday to all of us. I was skeptical of deeply enjoying music Simon Cowell would choose for me, but then I remembered that America’s Funniest Videos is one of my favorite television shows, and that I would also milk a goat, under proper circumstances. Some people wouldn’t, but milking a goat doesn’t bother me.
I first heard the song on a Windows 8 commercial, and so I think I’ll invite Bill Gates over for brunch after all.
Labrinth has little discography to speak of at this point in history, but if this track is exemplary, I will put money in Simon Cowell’s big machine to keep the juice coming out.
Emkpu/
Song: Express Yourself
Artist: Labrinth
Album: Express Yourself (Single)
Label: Syco Music
Buy from: Amazon | iTunes
Listen: MOG | Spotify
Watch: YouTube
303: “Black Hole” by Shawn Lee
October 22, 2012 2 Comments
Consider the simplest of everyday actions. For instance, consider the act of opening the door to your dwelling, and setting down your things.
It is an orchestra of movement. Tendons, muscles, joints, anticipation, reaction, all unconscious and automatic. You don’t even consider it, as you contemplate greater affairs.
Your brain is the most complicated thing in the known universe. A multitude of voices within you, serving up millions of years of evolution in your every movement and reaction.
And somewhere within the chorus, is the still, small voice you call your self, making things we all call choices.
What do you do with it all? And what all is inside that incredible ultra-supercomputer riding atop your shoulders?*
Shawn Lee considers such things. Whilst he drinks tea and converses with wisefolk under magnificent trees more ancient than the ages of all the prophets added together.
They stare into the face of black holes and write funky songs.
Shawn Lee makes music for fun, for money, and because he has to, else his supercomputer brain would explode out of his face with the force of ten thousand sneezes.
Making life make sense, every day, here, for you… Am I.
From Synthesizers in Space (2012)… “Black Hole”…
Enjoy.
*If you enjoy considering such, read Incognito: Secret Lives of the Brain by David Eagleman.
Song: Black Hole
Artist: Shawn Lee
Album: Synthesizers in Space
Label: ESL Music, Inc.
Buy from: Amazon | iTunes
Listen: MOG | Spotify
Watch: YouTube
301: “Lost In The Light” by Bahamas
October 2, 2012 Leave a comment
This one is gorgeous. And sad.
Nothing beautiful is perfect.
Bahamas is the moniker of Afie Jurvanen, a Canadian singer-songwriter, and his latest album is Barchords (2012). It contains some marvelously cracked jewels like “Lost in the Light.” And the picture to the right does not capture the illustrative depth of character and emotion rendered by Afie in the aforementioned tune. I just thought the moustache was 110% black angus solid beef-out style and ought to be shared.
In the same spirit, here is a beautiful and nearly perfect poem, from Braided Creek by Jim Harrison and Ted Kooser (Copper Canyon Press, 2003):
Straining on the toilet
we learn how
the lightning bug feels.
Don’t strain too hard. Just relax, and enjoy the light.
Song: Lost In The Light
Artist: Bahamas
Album: Barchords
Label: Brushfire Records/Universal
Buy from: Amazon | iTunes
Listen: MOG | Spotify
Watch: YouTube
300: “Nostalgia in Times Square / Angel Race” by Medeski, Martin & Wood
September 26, 2012 1 Comment
To celebrate #300, I’m posting a brand spanking new one from my all-time favorite law firm! Medeski, Martin & Wood fight insurance and drug companies in court with the same rigor and enthusiasm with which they tear through and assimilate musical genres.
(John Medeski – piano / Billy Martin – percussion / Chris Wood – bass)
MMW’s latest album, Free Magic (2012), is a selection of 5 lengthy live acoustic tracks from a tour in 2007. Watching them live is the ultimate way to experience their music. If you pay attention you can see them communicating with subtle glances and gestures, steering their heavily improvised musical creations with nearly telepathic coordination. Of course, they have been together since 1991, breathing each others’ emissions and syncing up their minstrel cycles.
The reactive chemistry and interplay of their music is something to behold. It’s very much like magic, an output greater than the sum of the inputs, and these guys can make it for free if you don’t count the 21 years of practice… and the fact that you pay to listen to them. Whatev. Enjoy.
Song: Nostalgia in Times Square / Angel Race
Artist: Medeski, Martin & Wood
Album: Free Magic
Label: Indirecto Records
Buy from: MusicToday | Amazon | iTunes
Listen: MOG | Spotify
Watch: YouTube
299: “Holland” by Brad Mehldau Trio
September 20, 2012 Leave a comment
Are you missing that special something keeping you from happiness?
Perhaps you see life as a dismal march toward oblivion? Perhaps you feel an emptiness wrapped around your center of gravity? Perhaps simply existing is a rodeo ride and your life is a universe-sized bull?
I have the answer to your problems, or I should say that you have the answer. Because the answer is inside you and it has been all along.
You are already free.
Shackled, worn, beaten, extorted, tortured, trodden upon, and yet still… you are free.
What I hold in the bottle in my hand is the key to discovering the freedom that lies within you. The liquid in this bottle can unlock the shackles in your mind preventing you from filling the emptiness that consumes you.
It’s pickle juice.
Really, I thought it would be a psychedelic or maybe even a thoroughly scientific breakthrough regarding brain function. It’s amazing, though. Pickle juice is what fills my emptiness. It’s the bee’s knees. Like, “Wow!”
I thought you guys would appreciate the tip.
And speaking of brimming spaces formerly empty, Brad Mehldau Trio make tunes that fill silence like sweet, sweet pickle juice for my ears. This one is “Holland,” a Sufjan Stevens cover, and it engages any vacuum it encounters.
Brad’s Trio (Brad + Larry Grenadier/Bass and Jeff Ballard/Drums) done gone and released two albums this year, Ode (2012) and Where Do You Start (2012). These three hate a vacuum as well. Go getcha some. Sit back, sip some pickle juice, and enjoy.
Song: Holland
Artist: Brad Mehldau Trio
Album: Where Do You Start
Label: Nonesuch
Buy from: Amazon | iTunes
Listen: MOG | Spotify
Watch: YouTube
297: “Who” by David Byrne & St. Vincent
September 12, 2012 Leave a comment
David Byrne never brings weak sauce. He brings sauce that is consistently robust, and he’s mixed it with St. Vincent as a protein this time.
This is music for people who suspect everyone else is a robot. If you’re not a robot, you will at least raise an eyebrow. It’s… robot test music.
I could tippity-type some more words about Love This Giant (2012), but it’s straw.
Enjoy.
Song: Who
Artist: David Byrne & St. Vincent
Album: Love This Giant
Label: 4AD
Buy from: Amazon | iTunes
Listen: MOG | Spotify
Watch: YouTube
292: “Offspring Are Blank” by Dirty Projectors
July 19, 2012 Leave a comment
This song affects me.
I usually type a lot of “original copy,” stuff my future grandkids won’t access with their Internet goggles, in the space that these words occupy.
But today, I’m cutting to the quick. Because… Dirty Projectors, I push play on this one, Swing Lo Magellan (2012), and I crap sideways.
Words are stupid. My doo-doo is sideways. Yet I can’t stop listening. Forget that you’re even reading this, and look away from me.
Enjoy the song before I stupid anymore. Grandkids, I love you. Make more of us.
Uncle Funk's Catalogue 