Friday, April 13, 2007

friday musings and a picture in the rain of a smile on the cusp


I wanted to post about my favourite television show, Friday Night Lights, which wrapped up its season Wednesday Night. However, I had too many muddled thoughts to get out without a clear head to do so. We'll save that post for a later date.

Instead lets talk about my week. My friend Miranda is getting married at the end of the month. Early on she asked me to be the emcee and I was more than delighted and honoured to do so. Soon after she followed that up with a request for me to DJ the reception also. I was even more delighted and agreed, despite the fact I've never done so and am completely unfamiliar with the equipment I'll be running things off of. Since then I've been mentally cataloguing song after song and as the wedding nears trying to organize my music, come up with some playlists, and generally fretting that no one is going to like my music selections. It is a wedding after all and it gives me no great pleasure acknowledging that YMCA is probably a necessary evil and will delight the party infinitely more than any Deadly Snakes song I would want playing at my wedding. It's been a battle of toning down some of my tastes, knowing my audience, and finding appropriate music that I won't cringe at when playing. Luckily I've been on a big soul and R&B kick this past year so I've been going old school in preparation. Otis Redding can inspire even the toughest of dance holdouts to pick up a rhythm.

My musical week was concentrated on two artists: One a long-time favourite, the other a person whose work I was initially cold to but have warmed to considerably in the past year. Both were reflected in this week's posts. As mentioned Tuesday, the White Stripes have a new album in the can and will be sharing it in the near future (June 19th to be precise). This news inspired an epic Tuesday where I sat down and listened to their five albums end to end as i heartily made a dent in the beer fridge. By the last note of I'm Lonely (But I Ain't That Lonely Yet) I was googling photo's of Jack White during his pervy mustache phase.
Wednesday was dedicated to all things Paul Westerberg as I ran through Let It Be atleast twice (and as I write as it stands) then chased this with a couple more Replacements album and the 1oooth or so playing of Waiting For Somebody in the past 72 hours.

And that leads us to a few tracks. Both happen to be album enders and I've always appreciated a good closer.

The Stripes' I'm Lonely (But I Ain't That Lonely Yet) off Get Behind Me Satan and Answering Machine off The Replacement's Let It Be both deal with loneliness at their core and how distance plays a part in estranging people and fueling this loneliness. They are both beautiful in their own right (I'm Lonely's aching piano, Westerberg's ravaged vocals on Answering Machine), not as dour as my description would have you believe, and find both artists at songwriting peaks.

The White Stripes - I'm Lonely (But I Ain't That Lonely Yet)
mp3
The Replacements - Answering Machine mp3

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

hey hawker, was listening to my yahoo music player and an excellent cover of 'satisfaction' performed by Otis Redding came on. You should definitely check it out.

Pinball said...

good version. unfortunately it is on my work's playlist and I hear it 2 times a shift, certainly has taken the sting out of it

Anonymous said...

cant forget Boney.M's Rasputin either.