Yesterday, Mancunian band elbow announced their ninth studio album, Flying Dream 1. According to the announcement email from the band, the album was “written remotely in the band’s home studios before coming together at the empty Brighton Theatre Royal to perfect, perform, and record the songs.” And the teaser video captures some of that. The … Continue reading Elbow’s Forthcoming Ninth Album
Category: Music
I am of an age where, when I hear the name Stan Getz, the famous jazz saxophonist, I think immediately of the exchange in That Thing You Do! in which while the Wonders are interviewed at KJZZ, a jazz radio station in southern California, Skitch Patterson begins to talk excitedly about the music that really … Continue reading A Song That Feels Like Warm Summer Days
A cover of elbow’s “Starlings” on the ukulele. I have a uke. I bought it in the spring. I thought so might learn to play it… and then I never found — or made — the time.
I slept poorly last night. For some reason, I couldn’t get comfortable. I tossed. I turned. I had a headache; migraine or dehydration, I couldn’t tell. I yanked the sheets off the bed and, at one point, tossed off blankets, later having to recover them because I was cold. I know it’s a bad idea … Continue reading Hope Christmas Gets You To Me
No, the Beatles did not perform “Happy Xmas (War Is Over).” But this video by a French Beatles tribute band, the Rabeats, gives one an idea of what the song would have been like as a Beatles song. I like the idea of “Happy Xmas (War Is Over),” but two things about the song bug me. First, … Continue reading A Beatle-esque “Happy Xmas”
This week, a podcast I’ve listened to since (at least) 2008 drew to an end — Tuesday saw the release of the final episode of BBC Radio Scotland’s Scotland Introducing podcast. Every other week, deejay and writer Vic Galloway would play four tracks from unsigned Scottish bands. Some of the music was to my taste. … Continue reading A Favorite Podcast Ends
Carbon Leaf, the Richmond, Virginia based band I’ve been a fan of since my days at the University of Richmond in the 90s, is running a Kickstarter for their next album, their first “full-length album in 7 years,” and several other projects, including an EP, a live album, and a Blu-Ray of the live performance. … Continue reading Carbon Leaf’s New Project
In March. when the world was shutting down in the face of COVID-19, Elbow announced two things. First, they were postponing their upcoming live shows due to the pandemic. Sad, but not unexpected, and not something that affected me directly, as the band hadn’t announced an east coast tour. Second, they were releasing a new … Continue reading Finding Beauty in Sorrow
This week, Elbow released a new live album. Unfortunately, because of the COVID-19 outbreak, the band has cancelled their live dates for this spring and summer, so they’ve been posting videos on YouTube of the band, separately, playing some of their songs from home, the #elbowrooms sessions. These aren’t polished, there are occasional fluffs, but … Continue reading The #elbowrooms Sessions
Last week I received an email from The Who. Roger Daltrey is releasing an album next month, a symphonic version of The Who’s seminal album, Tommy, to mark the original album’s fiftieth anniversary. Confession time. I wouldn’t characterize myself as a huge fan of The Who. Yes, I have their entire studio discography, not to … Continue reading A New Symphonic Tommy
Vince Guaraldi’s “Linus and Lucy” is a staple of Christmas radio stations this time of year. It appears memorably in A Charlie Brown Christmas, but is it actually a Christmas song? A look at the evidence. Continue reading
Last Friday, I was in Lynchburg, Virginia. What brought me from the snowy wastes of Pennsylvania — we’d had a snowstorm on Wednesday that dumped fifteen-ish inches and closed the office — and took me to south-central Virginia? I went to see Carbon Leaf on their 25th-anniversary tour. I’d seen them six days earlier at … Continue reading Carbon Leaf, Live in Lynchburg