Archive of May 2007
Wow, YouTube really does have everything!
I wish I thought of this sooner. Some of the most crazy cool musical things I’ve ever seen and heard were on the old “Night Music” program hosted by David Sanborn back in the late 80s. The show consistently got a lot of brilliant guests, and chose them with an impressive disregard for genre or style or anything except talent, really. (I believe I read somewhere that Hal Willner played a hand in the bookings, which should explain a lot.) So and but anyway the really brilliant part was that they got all these amazing people from all over the musical map, and then you would not only get these weird juxtapositions all through the show, as Conway Twitty followed the Residents (to give one real example), but also they ended the show by getting everybody onstage to jam together, usually on some sort of cover song. It was watching this show that I first heard the Pixies play “Monkey Gone to Heaven”. [UPDATE: Comprehensive list of guests by episode on the Wikipedia.]
So, as I say, all of this was years ago, and like many things this good on TV, the show didn’t manage to stay on the air nearly long enough. Over the years since, I have tried many times to find any available video or audio recording (legitimate or otherwise) of some of the performances I still remember watching, without any success. Until now. I really should’ve realized that YouTube would have it. YouTube has everything! And now I can say for sure, they really do!
Finally, today I was over at Making Light, where there was a sidebar link to John Cale, Shawn Colvin, and Richard Thompson doing Heartbreak Hotel on the program. This of course gave me some ideas, and with just a couple quick searches I turned up some stuff I’ve been dreaming about seeing again for years. It’s very exciting. I’m embedding my super favorite—Nick Cave doing “Hey Joe” with Charlie Hayden, Toots Thielemans, and the Night Music house band. (Mr. Cave also turned in an outstanding performance of “The Mercy Seat” on that same show, which has also been YouTubified, and is worth your while to check out.)
21:18 | 0 CommentsSometimes
… I can’t help thinking that the Wikipedia could be so much more awesome, if boring old accuracy didn’t have to get in the way.
UPDATE: Best. Discussion page. EVAR.
07:33 | 0 Comments“The story of Ernst Chocula should be told. If we don’t tell it, who will?”
Meme Overload
LOLTREK WINZ TEH HOLE INTERNETS!!!
In other, unrelated (well, mostly) news—-the new David Weinberger book? Wanty McWant-want!
21:08 | 0 Comments